Gregory of Nazianzas who became patriarch of Constantinople, one of the celebrated
Capitodian fathers of the fourth century along with Basil the Great and Gregory of
Nisa was one of the most celebrated orators of the early church. He writes in regard to
this chapter on love that here we may read what Paul said about Paul. I submit brothers and sisters
that only a man in whose heart the Spirit of God has kindled a faith like Paul's could evidence a
love like Paul's and on the basis of his own experience of that love record its glories in
what may be called the New Testament Psalm of love. From the standpoint of literature this is one
of the most remarkable passages that ever came from the pin of man. It is characterized by poetic
beauty and scientific analysis. It seems almost irreverent to analyze it for it is full of beauty
and yet marvelous in technique. Paul's description of the action and behavior produced by love is
distinctly counter cultural. It speaks against the envy, pride and self-centeredness of the
Corinthian Christians and in so doing speaks clearly to our own generation as well. Brothers and
sisters in a society where so much is presented in terms of the self, self-awareness, self-esteem,
self-acceptance, self-image, self-realization, self-actualization, self-care, self-medicating to
present a way of existence in which a person lives for other people in a life of loving self
sacrifice is highly provocative for people who are concerned about themselves. Following the one
who gave his life as a ransom for us all will be humbling and undoubtedly costly in terms of human
recognition and progress in life as the world defines what love is. Paul is writing this letter
in response to a report from Chloe about problems in the Corinthian Church and he provides apostolic
guidance for dealing with those problems. In chapters 8 through 10, Paul addressed the issue
of eating food that had been sacrificed to idols. In chapter 11, he dealt with the issue of women
covering their heads and abuses of fighting around the Lord's Supper table. In chapters 12 through
14, Paul deals with the issue of spiritual gifts. Brothers and sisters, rather than celebrating one
another's gifts, the Corinthian Christians have become proud concerning their particular gifts
and dismissing the gifts of other believers. Therefore, spiritual gifts have become a divisive
influence in the body of Christ. There are three movements in chapter 13 on love. In verses 1
through verse number 3, Paul shows us the value of love. In verses 4 through 7, he shows us the
virtues of love and he ends with verses 8 through 13 revealing the victories of love. The whole idea
of these verses is that brothers and sisters, love is distinct from and superior to anything we can be
or do. Regardless of what we do, if it is not infused with and carried out through the love of
God, it is a colossal waste of time. Our love, your love for me, my love for you, our love must be
higher than the sensational, wider than the spectacular and deeper than the sacrificial. The
greatest gifts and the grandest deeds together with all their greatness and grandeur are nothing,
make us nothing and bring us nothing if love is absent. To love, to have or not have love is not
about emotions. Love is not about feelings, but about living and relating to other people in a way
that either does or does not reflect their great worth in God's eyes and if you don't see your
brothers and sisters through God's eyes, you'll never see them properly in your own eye. Hear
this because I worked on this line all week. You can put on a show of love without having it,
but you cannot have love without showing it. Somebody should have shouted right there. You
can put on a show of love without having it, but you cannot have love without showing it. The
English language has several variations of what love is. You can love someone sexually or you
can love someone familially or you can love someone affectionately as a friend or a co-worker or
you can love peach cobbler or you can love a catalan or you can love your shitsu or you can love
your cat. You can love your house. You can love being in a warm room with a nice book and a cup
of coffee. Those are variations of love, but the Greek has only three words for love. One is
eros, which is sexual love between a man and a woman. And then there's philas,
from which we get our word Philadelphia, which means brotherly love. But then there is agape.
Agape is the love of God. Agape is benevolent, well-intentioned towards another. You don't
have to feel anything to love like that. You've got to do something to love like that because love
is not about feeling, it's about doing. When you love your family, you don't always feel like going
to work. You just get up and go to work. My wife doesn't always feel like loving me. Your husband
doesn't always feel like loving you, but love is not about a feeling because feelings change.
Talk back to me if you can. You remember when you were in high school and you signed your
sweetheart's yearbook? Yours forever. Two years later, you forgot what they looked like. And when
you went to your 10-year class reunion, you said, thank you Jesus. Because feelings change. But love
when it is real is always looking out for the best interest of the one who is beloved. I love you.
Does not mean I always like you. I love you means I will not go out of my way to harm you and I
will do everything in my power to help you because love when it is real comes from God.
How can you love God whom you have never seen and hate, lie on, abuse, misuse, torture,
backbite your brothers and sisters who you see every day? You are not telling a lie, you are a lie.
And the truth is not in you. By this shall all men know that you are my disciple because you
have love one for another. Look with me again in verse number one. If I speak with the tongues of
men and of angels and have not love, charity, the King James says, I am a sounding brass and a
tinkling, clanging, noisy symbol. Paul says, no matter how great your oratory, no matter how beautiful
your speech or how brilliant your rhetoric without love, you are simply noise. Let me ask you,
have you ever been to a symbol concert? I mean, what the only instrument on the stage is a symbol? I
don't imagine you have because a symbol is nothing but noise. It crashes, it makes a noise that
there's no note in a symbol. It's impersonal. It's just noisy. There is no, there is no scale in a
symbol. It's just a lot of noise. And now in a concert, you need a symbol, but you need a flute.
You need a clarinet. You need an oboe. You need a violin. You need a percussion section. You need
a woodwind section because a symbol by itself is just noise, but with all the other instruments,
it becomes a symphony, which makes me to say to us this morning that in the church,
there is not a one person band because the whole church together is a symphony and anybody
operating outside symphonic sound is noise. And you can't listen to the noise and appreciate the
music. Somebody ought to help me talk here today. Sounding brass and a tinkling symbol. Listen to
me. Great oratory can move a person emotionally. Great rhetoric can move a person intellectually.
Great speech can move a person volitionally, but only great love can move a person spiritually.
Sounding brass and tinkling symbols were the same instruments used in the heathen worship.
Therefore, the person who exercises his tongue in a spiritual fashion yet does not do so with
the love of God in him is no better than a heathen worshiper. In fact, his worship is more
man centered than God centered. I'm trying to leave that point, brothers and sisters,
but there's a difference between gifted preaching and anointed preaching. Gifted preaching will
make you clap, but anointed preaching will make you shout. There's a difference between
gifted singing and anointed singing. Gifted singing will make you clap, but anointed singing
will make you cry because that's something God puts in the anointed that he does not give to
the gifted. I wish I had somebody to help me preach it. That was this banquet where a
renowned orator was invited to speak, and after he had spoken, he was asked by the audience
at the banquet for an encore. He stood and with perfect diction, with acute rhetoric,
with sweet elocution and erudition recited the 23rd song. People put their forks down
and clapped up roriously because of his diction and his elocution. An old preacher came from
the back of the room, got to the podium and recited the 23rd song. They picked up their
napkins and wiped their eyes. When he sat down, the man who had recited the song with
such elocution and diction asked somebody next to him, why? When I said it, they clapped,
but when he said it, they cried. And the preacher next to him told him, because you
knew the song, he knows the shepherd. And when you know who Jesus is and when you know
that the love of God has been shared abroad in your heart, there's something different
about being gifted and being anointed. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels
and don't love anybody, I'm a sounding breath or a tinkling symbol.
Verse number two, and if I have prophetic powers, if I understand all mysteries and all
knowledge and I have faith so that I could remove mountains, but I don't love anybody,
I'm nothing. That's strength of service in verse number one. But in verse number two
is energy of equipment. While prophecies and mysteries and knowledge in the service of
others is a good thing, people who use their gifts to establish their own superiority or
their own dominance over other people are not in accord with God's will. They will only
get an inflated opinion of themselves that will do nothing to help anybody else. A PhD
without some Geode makes you a smart devil. And the church is in danger of being destroyed
not by unlettered ignorance, but by unsanctified intelligence. That's intelligence that has
not been baptized in the grace of God. And when your intelligence has not been baptized
by grace, you think you're smarter than everybody in the room. And if you are the smartest person
in the room, you better hurry up and get out of there. If you are the only pebble on the
beach, if you are the wisest person in your circle, if nobody knows anything but you,
if you in a room by yourself, you in bad company, because God has spread out his gifts. And
a whole lot of folks want the exhibition gifts, gifts that people can see so you can stand
out above everybody else. You want the gifts of being a Sunday morning gifted person. But
we need some Monday morning gifted people. We need some folk who can cook. We need some
folk who can park and watch our cars. We need some people who clean the church. We need
some people who scrub the bathrooms. Those are spiritual gifts that are behind the scenes
that they never get any credit for. But if you do all of it to the glory of God, it does
not matter if men don't see it. I've been doing this long enough to know. I'm wise enough
to know that God can take some drunk off the street and stand him up in his pulpit to preach
circles around us. Because God uses whoever he chooses to you. As good as that choir got
through singing a minute ago, God could take every one of them out and get some girl dancing
on a pole. Put a choir robe on her. Sanctify and forgive her. And she'll run every last
one of us out of this church. Because what you do, if it's all about you, you get the
credit. But if it's all about God, God gets the glory. I'm trying to get through. You
didn't come here to hear me preach. You came here for a meeting. You got my email. I know
why you're here. You ain't fooling me. Thirdly, verse number three, if I give my body to be
burned, if I give away all my possessions and I don't have love, I gain nothing. We can
give away everything we own. Even our bodies to the altar of martyrdom. But if we do so
with our love in our hearts, it is all a spectacular waste of time. You may build great
cathedrals, large or small. You may build skyscrapers, grand and tall. You may conquer all the failures
of the past, but only what you do for Christ is going to last. You may seek earthly power
and great fame. The world may be impressed by your great name. Soon the glories of this
life will all be passed, but only what you do for Christ is going to last. Though your
songs and your prayers are heard and praised by men, they have no meaning unless you've
been born again. Center heed these words. Don't let this harvest pass. Only what you
do for Christ is going to last. Love when it is real expresses itself in action. Love
when it is true goes beyond what is expected to do whatever is necessary to reclaim the
beloved. When you love somebody, you have spiritual intelligence that moves you towards
a spiritual purpose. Spiritual intelligence means when you love somebody, you know everything
that's wrong with them. You know how crazy they are. You know how mean they can be. You
know their quirks, you know their idiosyncrasies, you know their hiccups, you know their foolishness,
you know everything about the person you love, but you love them enough to move them toward
becoming better. Can I help you with that? God commended his love towards us. Wow! We
were yet sin. Somebody ought to help me close here. God didn't wait for me to get my act
together. God didn't wait for me to understand the scriptures. God did not wait for me to
go to Sunday school or to have a Bible. God did not wait for me to get baptized. God did
not wait for me to get off drugs or to get off an alcohol. God did not wait for me to
get off the streets or to stop doing what I was doing. Wow! We were yet sin. Christ died
for us. I wish I had somebody to help me get happy here. I thank God for a love like that
because when I couldn't even love myself, He loved me. Even when I didn't know what
love was, He showed me. Even when I was incapable of expressing what was on my mind, He was
looking out for me. I wish I had one or two more witnesses here. My girlfriend died the
other day. My sweetheart Tina Turner went to wherever Buddhist people go. I almost said
went to be with the Lord but she went to wherever Buddhists go. I was in love with Tina because
she could shake that thing because she took a good job in the city, working for the man
every night and day. I never lost a minute of sleep. Just worried about the way the
things might have been. Big wheel keep on turning. Proud Mary keep on burning. Yeah,
you got it. There's some more Tina lovers in here today. But then Tina sang my other
song. What love got to do with it. I wish I could wake Tina up wherever she is right
now. I tell her what love got to do with it. Love was born in Bethlehem. Love was wrapped
in swaddling clothes. Love was laid in a manger. Love was presented to Simeon in the
temple. Love after some years was baptized by John in the Jordan River. Love stood there
in the Jordan when John baptized him. And the heavens opened and a dove descended. And
everybody heard God saying this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Love went around
healing the sick, turning water in the wine. Love made deaf men hear dumb men speak. Love
calmed a storm on the sea of Galilee. Love fed 5000 men not counting women and children.
Love healed a woman who had an issue of blood. Love went to Jairus' house and took his little
girl by the hand and she came back to life again. Love went to a cross one Friday. Love
died on a hill called Calvary. They hung him high. They stretched him wide. He hung his
head. For me he died. That's love. You're going to help me close this, won't you? That's
not how the story ends. Three days later. Three days later. Three days later. Three days later.
Three days later. Heroes again. That's love. Love is on the right hand of God with power.
And every time I sin, love stands up at the right hand of God and said, I know he's done
wrong but I paid for it on Calvary. I know he deserves to die but I took his place on
the cross. Is there anybody here know what love got to do with it? Is there anybody here
know Jesus loves you? Jesus loves you? Jesus loves me? This I know because the Bible tells
me so. I wish I had a witness here when you don't feel like loving. You just love anyhow
because he first loves you if the Lord saved you and you know God loves you. If God has
been good to you and you don't mind testifying. If the Lord has made a way for you and you
don't care who's looking at you. If the Lord brought you a mighty long way and you don't
mind being a witness. Why don't you tell somebody I know what love got to do with it. I know
what love got to do with it. I know what love got to do with it. He died, didn't he die?
He died Sunday morning. He got up from the grave and because he loves me I can shout
this moment because he loves me. I can face tomorrow because he loves me. I can love my
enemies because he loves me. I can pray for those who despitefully use me because he loves
me. I can go to sleep tonight, put my head on the pillar and say now under him. Now under
him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all you can ask a fake a calling to
the power does that work in you? Why don't you grab somebody tell him he loves you. He
loves you. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you. I know
he's all I know.
He loves me so much. I'm trying to let y'all go but he went back to heaven to prepare a
place for us. He said if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive
you under myself that where I am value will be also in my father's house. In my father's
house. In my father's house. In my father's house. In my father's house. There are many
matches. Thank you Jesus. I know he's all right.