The More Excellent Way
October 29, 2008 4:21 pm 1 Corinthians, Sermon-Texts
This sermon works with 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:8 addressing the nature of love driven words, love driven knowledge, love driven faith, love driven hospitality, love driven death, and how the Bible defines love itself. This sermon was originally preached October 19th, 2008 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
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October 19th, 2008
Pastor Duane M. Smets
“The More Excellent Way”
1 Corinthians 12:31-138a
Introduction
Good morning. If you don’t know me my name is Duane and I get the pleasure of preaching God’s Word for us all most weeks here at The Resolved Church. Well, we’re about two-thirds the way through our fall sermon series, “Viva La Vida Christus.” In it we finished chapter 13 last week and I was faced with a dilemma this week for few reasons.
One, next week is Reformation Sunday. We are a church who considers ourselves part of the Reformed tradition of the Christian faith. We cherish and treasure our reformed history and convictions. On October 31st, 1517 Martin Luther nailed up his famous 95 theses upon the door of the Wittenberg church which sparked a reformation within Jesus’ church profoundly effecting it, causing a revival of the gospel in cities all over the world.
So next week, we’ll have five men from our church share for five minutes each…each one presenting one of the five solas, the marks of the Reformed tradition. It’s going to be good. I encourage you to be here and invite some people.
The other thing, is the next section in our series is chapter 14 of Romans, which kind of all goes together and will take a couple weeks to work through the chapter…so I didn’t want to start chapter 14, have Reformation Sunday and then come back to it.
So here’s what’s going on today…I’m preaching a sermon from the Bible on love. It seemed fitting because for one this whole series in many ways falls under the heading of love. We are learning together how to live in love…how to love God, love each other, and love those around us in our city. And the next section in our series in Romans 14 is specifically addressing some issues of how we love each other when it is difficult because of our personalities and preferences.
I spent a lot of time in prayer this week about what to do this Sunday and I came out of that having a strong conviction that we just need to learn more about what it really means to live in the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, what better passage of the Bible to preach from but the famous “love chapter” of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13. So let’s read it and pray over it.
1 Corinthians 12:31-13:8a - “31 I will show you a still more excellent way. 13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends.
God you are love. Would you teach us today much about love. Your love. The love of your Son Jesus. Teach us what love is and what love isn’t, how to love and love has to do with everything. Teach us how important love is and make us into a loving people. Please…transform us with your love I pray as we are taught through your word. Amen.
I took the title for today’s sermon directly from our text, “The More Excellent Way.” Many times we’ve discovered here that the Bible talks about life as a journey we are walking through. And in this journey there are many ways you can walk. Last week I read from, “The Pilgrim’s Progress” a whole book written upon this premise, comparing the Christian life to a person traveling from the “City of Destruction” to the “Celestial City” by the way of the “King’s Highway.” Or if you’re not familiar with that, maybe you’re familiar with the band “Journey” and the words to “Don’t Stop Believing”? “Just a small town girl, livin in a lonely world. She took the midnight train goin anywhere. Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit. He took the midnight train goin anywhere.”
Life is a journey. Jesus too said this. In Matthew 7 he talks about there being only two roads or two ways. The way to destruction and the way to life. In fact before Christians called themselves “Christians” they called themselves, “Followers of the Way (Acts 9:2).” Here in 1 Corinthians, Paul, the same author of the letter to the Romans we’ve been studying, says he will tell us about the “more or most excellent way.” This way is the way of life in love.
Paul defines love for us in the later half of this section but first he wants to address love particularly within the Christian community as “individual members” of “the body of Christ” (1 Cor 12:27). You would think that as Christians, people who align ourselves with Jesus Christ we would naturally be loving people. I mean Jesus is the one whose whole life was about love, he said all of life could be summed up as, “Loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and loving our neighbor as ourselves.”
The sad truth is we are often not very loving. Oddly enough, even with some of the most spiritual things about our life, there can be a great vacuum of love.
Let me tell you the brief story of a man named Robert Chapman. Mr. Chapman was a successful lawyer in London during the early 1800’s. After 6 years of attorney work Robert became a Christian and three years later he believed God had called him to be a preacher and he left his successful practice to become a pastor of a small church in a little corner of England called, “Barnstaple.”
When Robert Chapman got to Barnstaple, he discovered that this little church had more problems then he imagined. It had grown increasingly smaller and smaller the few years before he arrived and had gone through three pastor in just the year and half before he got there. The church was proud of it’s doctrinal distinctives and church polity. They prided themselves in their steadfastness in the faith, their intolerance of heresy, and their zeal for persecution…but it was dying because of lovelessness.
Pastor Chapman arrived believing God called him to love these people. When he got there he said, “My business is to love others and not to seek that others shall love me…There are many who preach Christ, but not so many who live Christ; my great aim will be to live Christ.”
Through much patience, love and faithful Bible learning the church turned around and it became one of the largest churches in the country, known throughout England for it’s love, it’s missionary outreach, ministry to the poor, commitment to the truth of the gospel, and love for the lost. It became known as the “University of Love.” This once constantly fighting and contentious church was transformed into radiating the love of Christ.
I can’t help but think of the story of the Barnstaple Baptist Church when I read these first three verses in 1 Corinthians 13 because they address five key elements of Christianity and Christian community which all amount to nothing without love. Let’s look at them.
Love Driven Words
Verse 1 of Chapter thirteen begins by talking about how we use our words. ” If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”
Words are one of the things which separate us from animals. Words enable us to communicate with one another. They can be both one of the chief tools for communicating love and truth and have an extremely helpful potential. They can also be one of the chief tools for communicating hatred and falsity and have extremely harmful potential.
The book of James in the Bible specifically addresses this powerful potential of the tongue. In chapter three it says, “The tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.
How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And (like it) the tongue is a fire…With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so (Js 3:5-10).
Our verses in Corinthians mentions not only human language but angelic language, possibly even referring to the gift of tongues or glossolalia mentioned in the previous chapter. Either way this is spiritual language and spiritual talk and we are warned here too that even such a talk as that can be ruined if not driven by the motive of love.
Paul gives us an illustration. He says if we are speaking anything to someone, even spiritual things in the tongue of angels and we have not love…then we are like a “noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” What’s that mean?
It means this… If I start making a bunch of noise and talking to you about God (start banging metal together). Saying we’ve got to have love for our God and for each other and if we don’t we’re in danger and we are going down a wrong road going the wrong way. If I say you shouldn’t be doing this or that because it is displeasing to God and doesn’t give him glory and that instead you should worship him with all of your life and everything you have… Can you hear anything? Are you enjoying this? Does it please you? Is this helping you and your spiritual life and your walk with Jesus? I am helping you grow in your faith and your love by doing this? Do you want me to keep doing this until the end of the sermon.
No. It’s annoying right? And you couldn’t hear or focus on anything I was saying could you? Scripture here tells us that this is what it is like when our words to one another are not driven by love. Ephesians 4:15 says we are to “speak the truth in love.”
So often I’m afraid that rather than having love driven words we just avoid situations. Either completely altogether or we just send those quick text messages or emails so we don’t really have to talk to someone. If we actually do talk to someone I’m afraid often speak we do not speak out of love but are only reacting out of our hurt, anger or frustration. When that happens we’re just a noisy piece of metal and even if deep down you do actually love the person you’re talking to…they won’t be able to hear anything.
Church family…we’ve got to be motivated by love in everything. When you see each other, whether it’s here on Sunday, or in the middle of the week at community group, or at some other gathering…do you see each other and have love for one another. When I get home from work I cannot wait to see my wife and my daughter because I love them and miss them so much. We need to have that kind of love for each other. If we have love for one another then we have a context for our words even when they are hard.
Love Driven Knowledge & Love Driven Faith
Let’s go on to the next two Christian virtues that must be driven by love, “Love Driven Knowledge” and “Love Driven Faith.” Verse 2 If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”
Two things here, knowledge and faith. First knowledge. Prophets in the Bible were writers of Scripture and were gifted with the revelation of God to record. They had great insights into mysteries of God and the unfolding of his plan throughout the ages. Only God knows all things and as time and history moved forward God progressively revealed increasing details of the secret things previously only known to him.
This happens today often among us as we grow in the knowledge of God’s revealed word and it’s soundness and it’s truth…it seems especially with those who subscribe as we do to the tenants of the reformed gospel. I’ve seen it in several men including myself.
You start to know and understand some things and then you start to think, “Hey, I’m pretty smart.” And “Hey, those people are pretty stupid.” And then when you try and talk to them and they don’t get it you find yourself getting mad and frustrated. 1 Corinthians 8:1 says this, “Knowledge puffs up but love build up.”
Here are some signs if you think you are getting puffed up with your knowledge:
1. You find yourself harsh, strident and not inclined towards patience with people and their level of understanding.
2. You like to let other people know about your theological superiority, whether it is using big words, referring to degrees or books you may have or have read.
3. You look down on others with less knowledge and giftedness sometimes to the point where you mock them and make fun of their views.
Sadly there have been even pastors who become overwhelmed with their sense of importance. They get an inflated ego and develop a spirit of contempt for those who disagree with them. There have been those who have pristine theology but they are cold as ice to any who may not be as mature as them.
Here, we’re informed that such knowledge. Even right and true knowledge, revealed in the Bible…can corrupt us if we are unloving with what we do with it. 2 Timothy 2:15 commands us to be those who have no reason to be ashamed before God but right handle his word. That has not only exegetical implications but I believe also ethical implications to how we use God’s word. Things like our motives in quoting it, our tone of voice, and most of all if the use of such knowledge is out of love.
Let me ask you. When you think of the Bible, the book of truth, and you think of those who don’t believe it or disagree with it…do you get angry at them or do you get heartbroken out of your love for them? Do you want to see God’s word forced into people or see people grow hungry for God’s word and where it becomes a sweet guide for their soul.
Well what about faith? Paul quotes Jesus here who said in Matthew 21:21 that if we have enough faith we could go say to Bear mountain to toss itself into the sea, out toward the channel islands and it would happen.
What we learn here is that there are varying degrees of faith in people. Some may have more faith than others. The idea here is if you had as much faith as you possibly could have, being perfectly in tune with God and his will and empowered by him to do insanely inconceivable things like miracles… without love it is worthless.
Knowledge and faith are both very spiritual things and yet amazingly we can seem to have them totally devoid of love. The last phrase of verse 3 is striking, if “I have not love I am nothing.” I am nothing. No one wants to be nothing. To be completely worthless. We long to be valued. But here we learn we are nothing without love. Knowledge and faith must be driven by love.
How is your faith? When you think of your beliefs and convictions is love the driving force behind them. Do you believe in Jesus because you love him? Or is there another motive at work? Like maybe you’re tying to get something out of Jesus? Does your belief in Jesus translate into a deep love and compassion for others?
Love Driven Hospitality & Love Driven Death
Now we move on to these last two Christian virtues that must be driven by love, “Love Driven Hospitality” and “Love Driven Death.” This is verse 3, “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
First let’s talk about giving away all we have. As we learned a few weeks ago when we were studying Romans 12, we learned that we are to “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality (Rom 12:13).” This is what real Christians do. They help each other out and they help strangers out. That is what the word hospitality means literally, inviting strangers into your home. Who have you helped out recently in a tangible way?
Most of the people from the community group I am a part of and then a few others from our church helped out some of the homeless people of San Diego last week by making and handing out hamburgers at Balboa park. We also lent a listening ear to hear their stories, to shake hands, and to give hugs. I love hearing stories of our community caring for one another. There are a couple families in our church who consistently have welcomed people into their home let people stay with them for a period of time. You have lent your vehicles to one another, helped each other out with rent at times, and a whole host of other things.
This is to be our mark as Christians in the city of San Diego. We take care of each other because we are family and not just each other but anyone else who we come in contact with. But here’s the deal…if that hospitality, that giving away of our time and resources, is not driven by love it is nothing. You gain nothing either for the person or for yourself. Hospitality in and of itself is worthless unless it is motivated by gospel love.
Think of this. Say you go out of your way to do something for someone…like say you hook them up with a job at your work, you pay their security deposit on an apartment, and you stock their fridge with a whole load of groceries and initially they are shocked and don’t know what to say. And imagine they ask you, why have you done this for me. What if your response was, “Well, it’s my duty as a Christian.” How would that make a person feel? Pretty bad I’m guessing.
C.S. Lewis said, “Duty is only a substitute for love, like a crutch which is a substitute for a leg.” Sacrificially serving others is meaningless if does not come from love…it gains nothing.
The last Christian virtue mentioned here is martyrdom…deliver up my body to be burned. I’ve told you before how the Roman Emperor Nero had Christian bound in oil, strung up in his garden, and then lit them on fire. The Bible as whole and Christian history has always looked upon martyrdom, making the ultimate sacrifice of your life, giving yourself to death for the sake of Christ and the gospel…as perhaps one of the most vivid and honorable ways of serving our Lord.
All of the apostles with the exception of John were died for their belief in Jesus. Peter, was so overwhelmed that he was going to be crucified for preaching the gospel, he said he was not worthy of such an honor to die in the same way as Jesus and so he asked to be crucified upside-down, and he was.
I mean think about it. If someone died for their faith in Jesus today here in our country. Wouldn’t you think, man that person must have really been a Christian? They must have really loved the Lord?
But here, Paul teach us that even such a great sacrifice can be done for the wrong reasons, it must be driven by love. Maybe the reasons are to be stubborn and defiant, or the want of being a hero, or maybe for some other motive. You see even the seemingly most high and holy things can be corrupted if they are not soaked first in love. They gain nothing either for you or for the sake of the gospel.
Well those are five intimately Christian things that can be tainted and spoiled if they have not love. I mean that is his main point here. This is Christian stuff. Have you known “Christians” that just seem to not have any love, people that bear the name of Christ but are as cold and hard as ice?
That is what this is talking about. It’s divine mathematics and it works differently than algebra. If I have all five of these things, words, knowledge, faith, hospitality, and sacrifice…but have not love, it equals zero. Five minus one is zero. We must have the love of Christ permeate our hearts or all of our efforts and achievements will amount to nothing.
Love Defined
But maybe you’re here and you wonder what then is love? If these are five things which amount to nothing without love, then how can I be sure to have love, what is it to love?
There are a lot of different ideas about love about in the world today.
Chuck Palahniuk, the author of the book “Choke” which just came out as a movie…he says, “Love is just another chemical imbalance.” Gandhi says, “Love is for the brave.” Ben Gibbard from the band “Death Cab for Cutie” says, “Love is watching someone die. Friedrich Nietzsche
said, “Love is madness.” Conor Oberst of “Bright Eyes” says, “Love’s an excuse to get hurt. And to hurt.” T.S. Elliot said, “Love is when the now ceases to matter.” And Matt Groening, creator of “The Simpsons” once said, “Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.”
Love. I’ve told you before that to the fault of English we only have one word for love but Greek has three different words for it, friend-love, erotic-love, and sacrificial love. Here we get perhaps the best and clearest definition of love anywhere. I mean if we’re honest, love, real love, is just beyond words. Leave it to the Bible to come as close as possible.
Here it is. “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
Let’s go through them quickly. Love is patient. It waits. It does not demand it get what it wants right now. The old King James said “suffereth long,” longsuffering. Especially when wronged. It does not immediately react and or retaliate out of anger. It does not make quick changes and decisions but slow ones. Love waits, and waits, and waits and waits and waits some more. Love is patient.
Love is kind. It has a general temperate of tenderness and goodness toward others. Kindness is to be gentle in tone and welcoming to others. Having a constant readiness to help another out. Love is kind.
Love does not envy. Envy is closely related to jealousy. It is the want for either a possession of another, either like a physical item or a position of status or respect. Envy can ruin relationships and can ruin church. To not have envy is to be content and satisfied with where you are and your current gifts from the Lord. Love does not envy.
Love does not boast. Boasting is a form of pride. It is a preoccupation with oneself. It’s when someone loves to talk more about themselves, their experiences, their achievements, their things…then they do to listen to others. Love does not boast.
Love is not arrogant. To be arrogant is to be puffed up or inflated. Like a balloon, when it has no air in it is actually a rather small thing…when you put air or helium into it, the balloon becomes quite large. Spiritual arrogance looks down on those who are not as mature as them. Arrogance is a form of self-deception because you treat others as though you are better than them and cannot learn anything from them, which is really quite immature. It is being unreachable and thinking you got it all together. Love is not like that. Love is not arrogant.
Love is not rude. This one is really about being sensitive to others. What is rude varies from person to person and from culture to culture. It means you are socially conscience of who you are talking to and not only that but how you sound and come across. Sometimes you may have good intentions but it comes out really mean and nasty. That’s not loving because love take into careful consideration how you sound when you say and do what you do. Love is not rude.
Love does not insist. Love is flexible. It not only listens and learns from others because it is not arrogant but it will gladly give way to others whenever possible. This is when you have a personal preference, maybe it is food, or maybe it is an opinion on what you think should happen regarding some issue. Love gives way to others as much as it can. Love does not insist.
Love is not irritable. Other translations say, not easily provoked. Living in this world and living with people means that there are going to be some irritating or inflaming things. Things which upset you and get on your nerves. Do you let that happen easily? Love is able to overlook offenses and just let them go. Love easily let’s things go because love is not irritable.
Love is not resentful. This is the idea of holding grudges. Love doesn’t keep a record or an account of wrongs and waits for the person to either make it up or for you to get back. Love does not allow bitterness inside you to form. Love lets go of all offenses toward others. Love is not resentful.
Love does not rejoice at wrong. If we were resentful then maybe we would be glad when something bad happened to another person. You might think, ah, karma…see, what goes around comes around. Love is not like that. It gets no joy out of wrong. It abhors what is evil and holds fast to what is good. Love does not rejoice at wrong.
Love rejoices with truth. The opposite of truth is falseness. It is often thought that love is just letting matters of truth slide, like it is loving to be morally indifferent. It is not loving to not deal with things…whether it is something going on in someone’s life that you’d rather just avoid and not talk to them about or whether it has to do with the objective nature of the gospel concerning who God is and what he has done for us in Jesus. Love rejoices with truth wherever it may be found.
Next, we get four things where the word “love” gets coupled to the phrase “all things.” Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. To bear, is to carry a heavy load. To believe is to have faith or trust, which is to bank on or rely on. To hope, is to have a secure confidence in the future. To endure is to lastingly hold out.
So to bear all things is to be wiling to take on a heavily load, whatever comes our way. To believe all things is to trust that God is working in all things for our good (8:28). To hope in all things, is to remember and rely on God’s promise as our security for the future. And to endure all things is to hold out and hold on until then.
The last phrase and definition of love we get is this, “love never ends.” There’s been fifteen things were told make love love. And now they all get an additional qualifier…they never end. There is never a time which will arrive where we’ve been patient enough and kind enough so that we don’t have to be so any more. We’ll never have rejoiced with truth so much that there is no joy left to be had. Love never ends. Longevity is the finest mark of love. It is pure faithfulness. Constancy. Continual commitment. Real, true love goes on and on and on and on. Love never ends.
Conclusion
Well let’s conclude this sermon. We’ve covered a lot. But there is one last thing I must say. All these things…everything we’ve talked about today, it is all impossible without Jesus. You can’t take this list and these guidelines and treat them either like poetry or an instruction booklet. These things do not come naturally. That’s why out of the list of fifteen things, only three of them are positive statement, the other twelve are negative definitions, defining love by what it is not.
These things do not come naturally because we are sinful people in need of a savior. What we didn’t have time to do because we are not studying through the book of 1 Corinthians like we are the book of Romans, is to see that having Jesus’ love put inside us is the only thing which makes this kind love described here even possible.
When Paul first started talking about all this stuff at the beginning of chapter 12, he said all the gifts, becoming a member of Jesus’ church, and using our gifts, only happens by God’s Holy Spirit enabling us to say, Jesus is Lord. In the book of Romans that we are studying, he says it this way, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5).” Our greatest need is for God to give us his love.
What that means is the gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of transformation. It changes is us. It takes us from being naturally unloving people to increasingly being more and more loving.
Here’s the thing. If you look at this instruction on love that we have spent the morning meditating on, if you look at just as though it were some nice poetry or as some nice doable instruction booklet here is what will happen. You will fail and fall short of it all. You will turn the gospel of love into a religion and you will miss the most important thing of all, the one who makes it all possible, Jesus.
There is one surefire way to make sure you and everything in your life is driven by love and is love…here it is: stay close to Jesus. Spend time with Jesus. Learn from Jesus. Talk to Jesus. Listen to Jesus. Look at Jesus. Mimic Jesus. Be changed by Jesus. Everything is about Jesus. It is that simple. Cling to him and you will become love.
My friends, you are my family, let us love one another and let us love our city. May our words, our knowledge, our faith, our hospitality, our sacrifice all be driven by love. May we be continually transformed by the gospel, the good news that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life be ever at work in us.
There are only two ways to live your life. For yourself or for God. If you live for God it will only happen through Jesus and it is the only way to true become a loving person. And Jesus’ love is the far more excellent way.
Let’s pray