1 Corinthians 13:1-3. On the necessity of love..

1 Cor 13:1-3

1    If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

2    If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

3       If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. (NIV)

Many great things to have in life, but without love they are nothing.

Great achievement but he missed the point.

Even God's gifts to us must be controlled by love.

2 examples:

·         Herd instinct to help one another

·         Instinct to preserve our lives from danger.

Someone calls help.

·         Both God given instincts are working.

·         Which are we to use and which to subdue?

·         Herd: go and help.

·         Self-preservation: Stay away.

Both have the effect of preserving the species.

We choose by love.

What is love? Come back to that.

Tongues of men.

·         Language is a great gift from God.

·         BT Talking. Its good to talk.

·         Learn a language - sign of respect and care.

Humans only have languages.

·         Animals can communicate, but not teach anything new.

·         Infinite nature of human language.

·         We can understand sentences which we have never heard before.

·         Humans millions of years?

·         Written language only 5,500 years ago - time of Adam.

Great thing to be a linguist.

Acts 2:4-5, 7-8

4              All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

5              Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.

7              Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?

8              Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? (NIV)

·         Speaking is basic to being a person.

·         We are made as persons in the image of God.

·         Lonely person - person who has no-one to speak to.

·         Visit a lonely person

-          best thing is to let him talk about what is on his or her heart.

·         Tremendous relief.

·         Pour out our heart in words, and hear words from others.

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·         What would be most difficult  - blind or deaf?

·         Deaf person - it is more difficult to make that human relationship that comes from hearing and speaking.

More difficult but not impossible.

John 1 - Word of God to hear, and Light of God to see.

Word of God and Light of God - source of all life.

Yet even for someone both blind and deaf - the human spirit can still receive a Word - a language.

Helen Keller (blind and deaf but - of course - still had a sense of smell and touch)

Helen learned to speak by placing her fingers on Sullivan's larynx to "hear" the vibrations. Under Sullivan's constant teaching  Keller learned to read and write in Braille and became exceptionally proficient in the ordinary educational curriculum. She graduated with distinction (1904) from Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mass., where Sullivan had "spelled" the lectures into her hand.

She tells of the dramatic moment when Annie Sullivan first broke through her dark, silent world with the illumination of language by writing a word on her hand.      

"We walked down the path to the well house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered.  Some one was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout.  As the cool stream  gushed over one hand, she spelled into the other hand the  word water, first slowly, then rapidly.  I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers.  Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of  something forgotten  a thrill of returning thought;  and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me.

      I knew then that "water" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand.  That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free!"

God had deep in Him - a WORD.

Gen 1 God speaks a Word.

•           He said `Let there be light' and there was light.

•           `Let the earth bring forth living creatures' and it was so.

•           `Light and life to all He brings'

•           God spoke a Word from the depth of His heart.

•           All around us God is speaking from His heart.

•           The stars and wonders and majesty of universe

•           The wonder of life.

•          

Ps 19:14

1    The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

2    Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.

3    There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.

4    Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. (NIV)

So from the depths of His heart God has spoken His Word.

John 1:14

1    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2    He was with God in the beginning.

3    Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

4    In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

(NIV)

But language can be misused.

Hitler.

Your ability to communicate with others - can cause immense hurt and damage.

Tongue.

Tongues of Angels.

New language in heaven?

What no eye has seen ...

•           Speaking in tongues?

•           Even that can be misused.

•           1 Cor 14 - puffed up in pride.

Without love, the gift of speech is just a noise.

PROPHETIC POWERS.

•           Bring Word of God to bear on world.

•           Understanding of Bible and World and ability to make connection.

•           Great and needed gift - hope and meaning to world.

•           But it can be abused.

`Many will come to me in that day ... '

What is the motive to make a name for yourself, or for love for a troubled world?

UNDERSTAND ALL MYSTERIES.

•           Secret religious ceremonies and oaths.

•           The initiated.

•           What is the motive?

KNOWLEDGE.

•           Great desire to learn more.

•           Science. Desire to understand the world.

•           See what is round the next corner.

•           Space exploration.

•           Proverbs tells us to value and seek knowledge.

•           Ignorance is a great danger to society.

•           Media lulls us into ignorance.

Whoso neglects learning in his youth, Loses the past and is dead for the future. EURIPIDES (fragment)

For knowledge, too, is itself power. FRANCIS BACON,

Influence others.

Thus it can be misused.

`GIVE AWAY ALL MY POSSESSIONS'

How can that be done without love?

·         Asceticism.

GIVE MY BODY TO BE BURNED.

•           Religious fundamentalism.

•           Dying for God and killing in war can be glorified - as if God likes it.

All the above without love are nothing.

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But do we have that love?

Different words for love.

•           Romantic love.

•           Companionship.

•           Affection.

Agape.

•           The first three seek something in return.

•           (Nothing wrong with that).

GIVE EXAMPLES.

AGAPE:

There are people I musn't feel Eros toward, and people I can't feel Philia or Storge for; but I can practise Agape to God, Angels, Man and Beast, to the good and the bad, the old and the young, the far and the near.  You see Agape is all giving, not getting.

  It would be quite wrong to think that the way to become "loving" is to sit trying to manufacture affectionate feelings.

Some people are "cold" by temperament; that may be a misfortune for them, but it is no more a sin than having a bad digestion is sin; and it does not cut them off from the chance, or excuse them from the duty, of learning "love." 

The rule for us all is perfectly simple.  Do not waste time bothering whether you "love" your neighbor; act as if you did. 

As soon as we do this, we learn one of the great secrets.  When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love them. 

If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more.  If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less. 

There is however one exception.  If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of love, but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his "gratitude," you will probably be disappointed....

But whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made like us by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or, at least, to dislike it less.

All good sound advice and true from CSL.

This is love not that we loved God but that He love us and gave His Son to be a sacrifice for our sins.

John 3:16.

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