I Corinthians 13:1-3   “The Real Thing: The Priority of Love”    9-18-11

 You may remember the Olympic marksman in 2004 who had just one shot to go win the gold medal, and who lined up his shot and hit the bull’s eye – but the bull’s eye he hit was on the wrong target!  He lost the gold medal, because although he hit what he was shooting at, he was aiming at the wrong target.  That marksman is representative of so many people today who are doing the same thing with their priorities.  Perhaps you are considered to be “successful” – by yourself, or by others.  But the truth is, as successful as you are considered to be, just like that Olympic marksman, you have hit the wrong target. 

     Last week we saw that there are many cheap substitutes for Biblical love.  But many of us have also substituted entirely different things for love – especially in the church.  Today, as we begin the exposition of I Corinthians 13, we will see that this is a huge mistake.  Nothing can take the place of love in your life; it is absolutely God’s highest priority for you!

 I.  The Superiority of Love

     These introductory verses (:1-3) to I Corinthians 13 are where the context of this chapter becomes important.  You remember last week we looked at how this chapter was written to the Church at Corinth, as part of this epistle, which addressed the many problems the church faced.  One of these was a conflict over spiritual gifts.  They had problems with speaking in tongues, and jealousy among those with different spiritual gifts as to which was most important.  Chapter 12 addressed the variety of spiritual gifts in the church, and Chapter 14 spoke to the issue of speaking in tongues in the church.  So sandwiched right in between those two chapters, you find I Corinthians 13, which says, in effect, if you think you are doing so well, because you have these great “spiritual gifts”, the truth is, if you do not have love, that gift is worthless.  Love is far superior.    

He gives several specific examples in the opening verses here:

—  In :1 he uses the example of tongues.  Tongues was one of the spiritual gifts that was causing controversy in the Corinthian church (just like it is in many churches today!)  He addresses tongues in some more detail in Chapter 14, putting some limits and restrictions on them (limits and restrictions which, by the way, if observed in churches today, would virtually eliminate the contemporary use of tongues!)  He says, you think your gift of tongues makes you more “spiritual”, more “important” than others who do not have that gift?  He says, “If I speak with tongues not only of MEN, but also of ANGELS” – but do not have love, I am a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal.”  He says, what some consider to be such a “superior” gift does not even compare with the importance of love. 

—  In :2 he moves to a second “tier” of gifts.  Some were saying that the gift of tongues was not as important as “prophesying” (preaching) or knowing the right doctrines, or having the gift of faith.  That sounds like something some of us Baptists would advocate!  (And I think there is scripture in I Corinthians 12 & 14 to back that up!)  BUT, he says, all of that does not compare to the importance of love.

— Then he takes it a step further in :3 “If I GIVE all my possessions to feed the poor”,  “And deliver my body to be burned”.  These might be seen by others as the ultimate acts of Christianity: selling all to give to the poor – just like Jesus commanded the Rich Young Ruler; dying for the faith – what could be greater than that?  And if these things were done in love, they might indeed be the pinnacle of Christian achievement.  But devoid of love, in and of themselves, he says these acts are nothing.  It is love which is superior.

     Jesus had given His church the command, as we saw last week, to love one another.  “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another, as I have loved you.  By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-34)  But the people at the church at Corinth had tried to substitute a number of other things for love as the most important thing: their spiritual gifts, their abilities, their work for the Lord.  Unfortunately, we in the contemporary church have been guilty of the same thing.  Let me give you an example:

     For the last generation of church ministers, one of the great emphases among church growth “gurus” has been on “excellence in the church.”  They have said, if you want to reach people; if you want to be great; if you want to be the church God wants you to be, then you need to do everything you with “excellence”!  That has meant professional quality singers and musicians, Hollywood-type lighting and sound equipment; artistic quality graphics and materials; a church plant that looks and runs as smoothly as Disney World – and on and on.  This “mantra” of excellence has become ingrained in many churches, and has actually become written into their ministry statements, that everything is to be done with excellence. 

     But I think that it is very instructive to us that at the end of I Corinthians 12, Paul writes: “and I will show you a more excellent way”.  And that “more excellent way” he shows us is I Corinthians 13 — the way of LOVE!  So according to scripture, a church or a ministry can be “excellent” in their preaching, excellence in their music, excellence in their graphics, in their facilities, in their child care, in their ushers and greeters – slick and professional in everything they do, so that they put Hollywood and Disney to shame — and totally miss real Biblical excellence – because the Bible says here that real excellence in the church is ministry done with LOVE!  I am not saying that we should not do the best we can in everything we do for the Lord – we should — but God’s message to the church today is, if you really want to be “excellent” in the church, then be excellent in LOVE!    LOVE is the great priority to God.

     This should speak to us regarding our witness to the world, which we mentioned last week.  Here we have spent a whole generation as churches, of trying to impress the world with our professionalism and excellence – but they have not been impressed!  They have not been impressed with the excellence of our presentations or our programs; they have not been impressed with the excellence of our brochures and handouts; they have not been impressed with the excellence of our buildings and grounds.  You know what would impress them; you know what would shock the world; what would really grab their attention?  If we were excellent in LOVE!  The world was not impressed with buildings or materials that the early church possessed — they had none such — but Tertullian reported that the world said of them, “Behold, how they love one another!”  The early church didn’t have much, all they possessed was excellence in love – the most important thing!  THIS is the superiority that we should strive for: to be excellent in love.

     And think about it: this should be comforting to all of us, because there is not a one of us, who, with God’s Holy Spirit, cannot be excellent in love!  To be excellent in music you need a great voice or great instrumental talent.  To be excellent in many fields of achievement, one must possess special gifts and abilities.  But not so with love!  You don’t have to possess extraordinary gifts to love.  You don’t need great physical abilities to love.  You don’t need a great intellect to love.  You don’t have to be able to translate Hebrew and Greek to love.  You don’t need a lot of money to love.  You don’t need a certain racial or ethnic background to love.  Whoever you are, if the Spirit of Jesus Christ is in you, you can excel in the single most important thing that God has called you to do: you can excel in love! 

     I remember when my baby sister Hope was a little preschooler, my dad would sit her on his lap, and love on her, and say, “What are you good for, anyway, Hopie?”  And she’d say, “I don’t know.”  One day, Dad put her on his lap, and was loving on her, and he asked again, “What are you good for, Hopie?”  And she said, “I’m good for love!” 

     Oh that that would be the desire of each of us in the church!  It is not as important that we have gifts or talents or abilities; the single most important thing that God has called you for in the church, is to be “good for love.”  It is absolutely superior to everything else in the church!   (The same thing is true in our marriages, families, at work, school – there is no substitute for love; it is the most important thing.)

II.  The Consequences of omitting love. 

     Paul also lists the consequences of exercising those gifts but not having love.  He says if he did it, he would be like “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal”; he says he would be “nothing”; and it would profit him “nothing”. These are basically 3 ways of saying the same thing: if you are not motivated by love, then no matter what you are doing or accomplishing in the church, you will have nothing for it.  What you do is of NO VALUE if you do not do it with love.  A.T. Robertson, the great Southern Baptist Greek scholar of a previous generation, wrote that the Greek here indicates that you get “an absolute zero” if you do not have love!  (Word Pictures, Vol. 4, p. 177)

     It’s like in one of those really complicated math problems, where if you put ONE wrong number down somewhere in the problem, you may multiply everything by it, divide everything by it, and do everything else in the equation right, but if you have that one wrong number, the whole problem is going to be wrong!  And in some classes it doesn’t matter if you did everything else right with the problem; they look at the bottom line: if the final answer is wrong, it doesn’t matter what all you did right – the answer was wrong, and you get a failing grade for it! 

     God is saying here that it is like that with what we do in the church.  You can perform all kinds of ministries in the church, but if you don’t do it with love, you don’t get 80% or 90% credit for it; you get NOTHING!  If love was not the motivation, God says you have missed the whole thing! 

–You may have the most beautiful voice, but if you don’t sing with love, you are an “annoying noise” to God!

–a preacher may preach a sermon that is exegeted from the original Greek & Hebrew text; that is well-illustrated; it is applied to the lives of people; alliterated and outlined; it may be the envy of all expositors – but if that preacher does not preach out of love of God and man, he no reward with the Father!

— you can work in the nursery every week, but if you don’t love those children, you have NOTHING with God

— you can work in the kitchen for every event, but if you don’t love the people you are serving there is NO reward with God for it

— you can teach Bible truths every week in Sunday School, and retire with a 50-year service pin, but if you didn’t LOVE your people, you have nothing with God for it! 

— you can go on a mission trip to a foreign field, but if you did it for the prestige of going, or to put a “feather in your ‘Acts 1:8’ cap”, and you don’t really love the people there, you have NOTHING for it with God!

–You may volunteer for every homeless shelter, crisis pregnancy center or disaster relief mission; you may go to a foreign field, die emaciated from hunger, and have your life chronicled for it like Lottie Moon did – but if you did not do it out of love, you have NO REWARD with God!

     Paul repeatedly emphasizes here, that if this ONE ingredient is missing, then no matter what “excellence” you display, or what greatness you achieve in what you do, it is NOTHING to God without love.  It is not that what you are doing it is 80% good without it; it is NOTHING without love! 

     It reminds me of the true story of the ministry student at New Orleans Seminary, who was in preaching lab a few years ago, and shared a marvelous, exegetical sermon for his class.  But when he got his grade, it was an “F”!  The student went to his professor, and he said, surely this is a mistake; I felt like I did a very good job on that sermon!  The professor said, Let me tell you a story.  He said, on my way to class today, I was behind someone who was driving, and a senior adult lady pulled in front of this guy in traffic, and he honked his horn, and yelled, and shouted ugly things at her for what she did – and then he proceeded to pull into the seminary and came to this preaching lab and preached the sermon you see on the paper there.  YOU are that driver!  And the professor said, you get an “F”, because you cannot separate your so-called “ministry” from your life! 

     This is exactly what God is saying to some of us.  You can preach the greatest sermon, teach the greatest class, perform the greatest ministry, do the greatest things; but if you do not do it in love, your grade from God is going to be an “F” – literally here He says it is ZERO if you don’t have love!   And it is the same in your marriage, in your family, in every sphere of life … without love you get a zero!

     Again, this is why we need the study of the qualities of I Corinthians 13:4-7.  If love is the most important thing, and nothing we do is of any value without it, then we had sure better know what love really is, and do everything we do in love.  So next week, we will begin to turn our attention to the meaning of love.  But before we do, we need to make sure we do not miss one more very important truth:

III.  The Personification of Love

“If I do not have love, I am nothing.”  “God is love.” 

     This passage definitely says that as a Christian, you will miss what God has for you if you do not do everything in love.  That speaks to where some of you are today.  But it may be telling others that the reason you will have nothing, is that you do not have Jesus in your life at all. 

     Last week we saw how one could only bear the Biblical fruit of love by the power of the Holy Spirit, who comes into your life when you ask Jesus to be your Savior.  We also talked about how you can substitute the name “Jesus” wherever you see the word “ love” in the list of the 15 characteristics of love in I Corinthians 13:4-7.  But think of the same thing in regard to the first couple of verses: “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have Jesus, I am a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal …”.  The reason that many will miss love, is because Jesus Himself is love – and they do not have HIM!  It is absolutely possible to be very “religious” and not really know Jesus as your Lord & Savior. 

     This is just what Jesus Himself declared at the end of Matthew 7, when He said that many will come to Him, saying, “’Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’  But I will declare to them: ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’” 

In that passage, Jesus predicted that what Paul suggests here in I Corinthians 13 might happen, would indeed take place:

–There WILL be those who speak with tongues of men and angels – but who do not have HIM – and all of their tongue-speaking will have been nothing more than noise. 

–There WILL be those who will prophesy, and even do miracles – but they will not have Jesus, and all they will have accomplished will have been NOTHING. 

–There WILL be those who performed great “religious deeds” – who gave all to the poor, or even “died for the faith” – but who will not have truly had Jesus – and all they did was in vain; it profited them NOTHING! 

     One of the thing this text is saying is that it is entirely possible for you to do “all the right things” outwardly, and still not know Jesus as your Savior.   Do not take solace in the religious works you have done: how often you go to church; how many classes you teach, or how many committees you serve on; or whether you have had some “ecstatic experience” or seen a miracle take place.  As we have seen today, NONE of those things are a substitute for true love – spell that “Jesus” – in your life.  You must have Him.  You must have repented of your sins, and trusted Jesus as your Savior, and had His Holy Spirit come into your heart.  If you have not had that happen, you do not have love, because you do not have Jesus.  And you have missed everything.  The important thing for you today is to make sure that you have true love – the Lord Jesus Himself – in your life.

CONCLUSION

     During the tornado that hit this year in Joplin, Missouri, a Baptist couple was trapped in their local Wal-Mart with scores of others, waiting for the tornado to hit at any minute.  They could hear the storm closing in on them.  Everyone in the store got down and covered their heads with their hands.  The wife suggested to her husband that they move up about 4 feet to another spot.  That little change of location saved their lives.  The place from which they had moved ended up being covered with rubble, but the couple survived.  They were both Christians, and they had been ready to meet the Lord; they had been praying the whole time the storm was moving over them.  But the wife later testified: “Even as I was waiting for the Lord to take me home, all I could think about was how I wished I had loved people more. I wished I had done more for them. And I do love people. But after this I will show them even more love.”

      At times like that, you realize what is most important.  That couple’s lives were spared, and now they have an opportunity to do what they realized was the most important thing: to love.  It’s something to think about: waiting for that tornado, that couple did not wish they had made more money, or had lived in a bigger house, or had a better position at the firm.  They just wished they had loved people more.   Like that Olympic marksman, they admitted that often they had been shooting at the wrong target.

     Some of you today you need to admit that you have been just like that.  You have been shooting at the wrong target!  Your target is not money; it is love.  Your target isn’t “excellence”; it is love!  The target isn’t numbers; it is love!  The target isn’t how great your gifts may be; it is love!  The target is not what you can buy your wife and kids, it is love!  And if you are missing that target, you don’t get anything.  That marksman in the Olympics not only missed the gold medal because he hit the wrong target; he didn’t get anything at all!  And that is just what is going to happen to you, if you don’t start shooting at the right target.  God is saying to some of you today, that He meant what He said in the last verse of this chapter, that “the greatest of these is love”, and before it’s too late; before you find yourself waiting for your last moment and wish you’d lived life differently, it is time to begin to live like love really is the most important thing.