Humble Service & Sacrificial Love
Greetings and may the love of God in Christ Jesus fill our lives and enliven our spirits on this great day.
With our transition to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, the apostle Paul shifts the focus from what has been negative in the church to what God desires among His people. In chapter 12 he dealt with the abuse of spiritual gifts, and arrogance on the part of some who believed that their spiritual gifts made them superior to other members of the church. He also dealt with position and status, pointing out that the body of Christ is made-up of many members, and we are not all the same. It is those whom the world would view as “less than” that Paul says are the greatest among us. The reason he can say this is that any position or calling bestowed upon an individual is not to exalt them, but that individual is to be humble in their own heart and focus on serving others.
Paul ended chapter 12 with the words, And I will show you an even better way. With this Paul launches us into one of the most well-known chapters of the New Testament, because 1 Corinthians 13 is the chapter of love.
Love is an amazing thing! People speak of falling in love, which is usually and extremely heightened emotion fueled by hormones. Sadly, the same people will speak of falling out of love. The world has seen much suffering because of this. We could even say this is the reason there are so many fatherless children and abandoned babies.
While love does have emotions tied to it, true love, the love which has its origin in the heart of God and is manifested in our lives when we come to know Jesus our Savior, is more than an emotion. Love is a choice! Love says I will love you when it is easy and fun, but I will also love you when it is painful and hard. I will love you when it brings me pleasure and I will love you when it brings me pain. It is with this true love that Jesus picked up the cross and walked to Calvary’s hill.
Paul has addressed the self-centeredness of the people in the church in Corinth, he now directs them to understand that their motivation and their focus is not to be upon themselves, but on those whom God has placed in their lives to love. Listen to his words.
If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
What Paul reveals in these opening words is hard for people to grasp. That is why so many people set aside the opening words of this chapter, and skip to the blessings of love which are used to speak of discipleship, marriage, and the joy we are to have in our lives. What most people do not do is take time to look at the introduction to see what Paul is saying. He mentions tongues, prophecy, understanding and knowledge, great faith, extreme generosity, and even martyrdom, and he says it all means nothing without love.
It is a sad truth that there are many people in the church who are motivated in their actions by selfish reasons. The focus is how is this going to benefit me, not how is God using me to bless others. We have seen this far too often with the health wealth Gospel preachers who live in multi-million dollar mansions built on the backs of poverty stricken members of their churches. We have seen it when the pastor or the leadership of a church is dictatorial, and it is his way or the highway. In this Paul has so aptly revealed, there are those in the church who look down on others as being beneath them.
Let me compare two different stories in the New Testament to show you what I mean. The end of Acts chapter 4 and the beginning of Acts chapter 5 reveal the first story I want to share. Stephen was a devout man of God who loved as he had been loved. The church was seeking to minister to everyone in any need they had, so he sold a piece of property he owned and gave the proceeds to the apostles to help others. His generous gift was viewed as something great, but Stephen simply did it out of love. Seeing how the people viewed Stephen when he had done this moved Ananias, with his wife Sapphira to do the same. The only difference is, they decided together to keep part of the money for themselves but tell the leadership of the church they were giving it all. They were accused of lying to the Holy Spirit, trying to pull a fast one over on God. It would not have been wrong for them to give only part of the money, but it was the lie that was the issue. Why did they lie? They pridefully were seeking to be elevated in the eyes of the people rather than to be motivated by love. For this they were struck dead immediately.
In Mark 12:40-41 we have the account of the elderly widow who gave the greatest gift. While there were many people giving large sums of money, Jesus said they gave out of their surplus and not sacrificially. Jesus watched this woman drop in two tiny coins, widow’s mites. If we were comparing dollar values, these two coins were worth almost nothing. But Jesus said that she gave all that she had, all the money she had to live on. We don't quite grasp what this is like for a widow in the New Testament age to do this. What could motivate a person to truly give sacrificially in service to God? Only love!
Paul says if you are preaching, teaching, giving, leading, even dying, but your motivation is your own pride it means nothing. Anything not done from a heart of love is worthless in the eyes of God. It is not the character of the work, but the character of the heart which God looks upon. It is this Paul seeks to help us understand as we travel through this chapter. By comparison, take a look at Luke chapter 18 where Jesus speaks of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector who were praying. This story reveals the same issue we are addressing.
I pray the next few weeks will take us deeper into the profound truths of love and all that God desires for our lives as His people.
Blessings,
Pastor Russ
With our transition to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, the apostle Paul shifts the focus from what has been negative in the church to what God desires among His people. In chapter 12 he dealt with the abuse of spiritual gifts, and arrogance on the part of some who believed that their spiritual gifts made them superior to other members of the church. He also dealt with position and status, pointing out that the body of Christ is made-up of many members, and we are not all the same. It is those whom the world would view as “less than” that Paul says are the greatest among us. The reason he can say this is that any position or calling bestowed upon an individual is not to exalt them, but that individual is to be humble in their own heart and focus on serving others.
Paul ended chapter 12 with the words, And I will show you an even better way. With this Paul launches us into one of the most well-known chapters of the New Testament, because 1 Corinthians 13 is the chapter of love.
Love is an amazing thing! People speak of falling in love, which is usually and extremely heightened emotion fueled by hormones. Sadly, the same people will speak of falling out of love. The world has seen much suffering because of this. We could even say this is the reason there are so many fatherless children and abandoned babies.
While love does have emotions tied to it, true love, the love which has its origin in the heart of God and is manifested in our lives when we come to know Jesus our Savior, is more than an emotion. Love is a choice! Love says I will love you when it is easy and fun, but I will also love you when it is painful and hard. I will love you when it brings me pleasure and I will love you when it brings me pain. It is with this true love that Jesus picked up the cross and walked to Calvary’s hill.
Paul has addressed the self-centeredness of the people in the church in Corinth, he now directs them to understand that their motivation and their focus is not to be upon themselves, but on those whom God has placed in their lives to love. Listen to his words.
If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
What Paul reveals in these opening words is hard for people to grasp. That is why so many people set aside the opening words of this chapter, and skip to the blessings of love which are used to speak of discipleship, marriage, and the joy we are to have in our lives. What most people do not do is take time to look at the introduction to see what Paul is saying. He mentions tongues, prophecy, understanding and knowledge, great faith, extreme generosity, and even martyrdom, and he says it all means nothing without love.
It is a sad truth that there are many people in the church who are motivated in their actions by selfish reasons. The focus is how is this going to benefit me, not how is God using me to bless others. We have seen this far too often with the health wealth Gospel preachers who live in multi-million dollar mansions built on the backs of poverty stricken members of their churches. We have seen it when the pastor or the leadership of a church is dictatorial, and it is his way or the highway. In this Paul has so aptly revealed, there are those in the church who look down on others as being beneath them.
Let me compare two different stories in the New Testament to show you what I mean. The end of Acts chapter 4 and the beginning of Acts chapter 5 reveal the first story I want to share. Stephen was a devout man of God who loved as he had been loved. The church was seeking to minister to everyone in any need they had, so he sold a piece of property he owned and gave the proceeds to the apostles to help others. His generous gift was viewed as something great, but Stephen simply did it out of love. Seeing how the people viewed Stephen when he had done this moved Ananias, with his wife Sapphira to do the same. The only difference is, they decided together to keep part of the money for themselves but tell the leadership of the church they were giving it all. They were accused of lying to the Holy Spirit, trying to pull a fast one over on God. It would not have been wrong for them to give only part of the money, but it was the lie that was the issue. Why did they lie? They pridefully were seeking to be elevated in the eyes of the people rather than to be motivated by love. For this they were struck dead immediately.
In Mark 12:40-41 we have the account of the elderly widow who gave the greatest gift. While there were many people giving large sums of money, Jesus said they gave out of their surplus and not sacrificially. Jesus watched this woman drop in two tiny coins, widow’s mites. If we were comparing dollar values, these two coins were worth almost nothing. But Jesus said that she gave all that she had, all the money she had to live on. We don't quite grasp what this is like for a widow in the New Testament age to do this. What could motivate a person to truly give sacrificially in service to God? Only love!
Paul says if you are preaching, teaching, giving, leading, even dying, but your motivation is your own pride it means nothing. Anything not done from a heart of love is worthless in the eyes of God. It is not the character of the work, but the character of the heart which God looks upon. It is this Paul seeks to help us understand as we travel through this chapter. By comparison, take a look at Luke chapter 18 where Jesus speaks of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector who were praying. This story reveals the same issue we are addressing.
I pray the next few weeks will take us deeper into the profound truths of love and all that God desires for our lives as His people.
Blessings,
Pastor Russ
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