Sunday
01/31/16 Freeville/Homer Avenue UMC’s
Sermon Title: “If I don’t have love, I’m nothing”
Old Testament
Lesson: Jeremiah 1:4-10
New Testament
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Gospel Lesson:
Luke 4:21-30
Welcome again my friends, brothers and sisters on this the
Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany. Four Sundays after those Wise Men or Magi
came from far away to receive the gift that is Jesus Christ. While they came
with gold, frankincense, and myrrh, they were the ones who received the gift.
For while they left their treasurers behind, they received the gift of Jesus
Christ. The gift of his love.
Last Sunday, I preached from the gospel
of Luke about the story of Jesus reading from the Prophet Isaiah scroll in the
synagogue. I explained how Jesus claimed that the Prophet Isaiah’s prophecy of
the coming messiah or savior, was fulfilled in him. Jesus told the synagogue that
he was the one in whom the Prophet Isaiah spoke of.
While our gospel reading for this week
tells us what happened to Jesus after he read from the prophet Isaiah scroll,
since I told you the end of this story last week, I am not going to preach from
the gospel of Luke this morning. As I just read from the gospel reading though,
after Jesus declared that he was the messiah, everyone tried to throw him off a
cliff and kill him, and Jesus got away.
Next Sunday is Transfiguration Sunday,
and this is the Sunday that Jesus will go up on a mountain, and will literally
and truly alter his psychical appearance. This means that some of his
disciples, the ones who came with him to the mountain, will see him in
different and a powerful way. The Wednesday following next Sunday,
Transfiguration Sunday, is Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is Wednesday February
10th, and this is the first day of the season of Lent. The Ash
Wednesday service this year, will be at the Freeville UMC at 7:00 pm.
Today though, while the prophet
Jeremiah does have a good word for us, I chose to focus on the Apostle Paul’s
letter to the church in Corinth, or the Corinthians. I chose this reading,
because as I have heard it put before, it “gets to the heart of the matter”.
This scripture “gets to the heart of the matter,” because the Apostle Paul is
talking about love. He is talking about a change of heart.
For example, what if we went to church
every single Sunday for our whole lives. What if we came into church, we tithed,
we helped the church, but what if we never accepted the love of Jesus Christ?
What if we gave and gave, but never truly believed in the Lord? If we never
knew Jesus Christ as our savior, would our good works be good enough? Or, is
our salvation, is our spiritual change something that must occur in our hearts?
This morning the Apostle Paul is
challenging the church that he founded in the city of Corinth to not “play
church”. By “playing church,” I mean going through the motions, without the
life changing love of Jesus Christ.
As your pastor, suppose that I showed
up every Sunday, and suppose that I didn’t greet you. Suppose that I never
smiled at you. Maybe I would just sit in this fancy chair until the service
starts, get up say my piece, and then shake your hands on the way out of the
church. Now I might preach the word well, but other than that, I wouldn’t think
that you would have any sense of love from me if I did that. More than just
doing some pastoral tasks, Jesus Christ has called me to love you and your
family.
Now I could give a great sermon every
Sunday. I could write good newsletter articles. I could do perfect reports.
What if I never showed concern for the sick, or visited them though? What if
what your family was going through didn’t seem important to me?
I have met people in churches before
that have said, “Paul, my pastor does their job fairly well, but I just don’t
think that he or she loves us”. The Apostle Paul says this morning, that if we
do everything perfect, but if we have no real or authentic love, then we have
done nothing.
I know for me, the power of the gospel
of Jesus Christ has so many times been revealed through the love of others. You
see, a pastor can preach it, but if the pastor or the lay people don’t live it,
then what we are showing the non-believer, is simply a list of truths. These
truths likely would not look as appealing if they were presented without love.
The change of our heart and our soul that we have through the love of Jesus
Christ, and sometimes connected through the love of his people, is the power of
the gospel. That moment when realize that we can no longer live the way that we
are living, that moment that we realize we need forgiveness. That moment that we
cry out to God, because we need a savior.
So many people have told me that after
that moment of their conversion, that God filled their hearts with love. We
have probably met so many Christians, not only here, but in many places that
have been changed God’s love. You always seem to know them right away when you
meet them. They have a peace about them, a joy, and love. This is the catalyst of conversion, love.
When the realization of who Jesus Christ is, and what he has done for us hits
our hearts, and we fall to our knees, it is because of his love.
The Apostle Paul is not condoning a
big church, a church with many programs, or dinners, or functions, but what he
is saying is this, do you have love? The Apostle Paul would say that if we
organize endless activities, but don’t have love, then we have nothing.
In 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 Paul says it
so well. He says:
“If I speak in tongues of human beings and of angels but I
don’t have love, I’m a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal. If I have the gift
of prophecy and I know all the mysteries and everything else, and if I have
such complete faith that I can move mountains but I don’t have love, I’m
nothing. If I give away everything I have and hand over my own body to feel
good about what I’ve done but I don’t have love, I receive no benefit
whatsoever” (1 Cor. 13:1-3, CEB).
So as I said in the beginning of
introducing this scripture from 1 Corinthians, it really “gets to the heart of
matter”. I say this, because if we were on trial in a courtroom for being a
Christian, I would think that our love for others would be strong evidence to
prove that we are guilty of loving Jesus Christ. This is why we have the song “They’ll
know we are Christians by our love”.
This means then, when we walk into a
Christian Church, that God’s people should greet us, and love us, because we
are called to love. The Apostle Paul then gets more specific into how our love
should look. He says in 13:4-7:
“Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t
brag, it isn’t arrogant, it isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it
isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints, it isn’t happy with
injustice, but it is happy with the truth. Love puts up with all things, trusts
in all things, hopes for all things, endures all thing” (1
Cor. 13:4-7, CEB).
I don’t know about you, but every time that I read that part
of scripture, I can think of ways that I need to love better. This I know
though, the power of the Christian gospel comes down to love. While I preached
in Advent and on Christmas Eve about having hope, and having faith, the Apostle
Paul says that greater than hope and faith, is love (1 Cor. 13:13, CEB).
The Apostle Paul then says in 13:8, “Love
never fails” (1 Cor. 13:8, CEB). Paul then even tells the church about how he
used to see things. He says in 13:11:
“When I was a child, I used to speak
like a child, reason like a child, think like a child. But now that I have
become a man, I’ve put an end to childish things”
(1 Cor. 13:11, CEB).
So if Jesus Christ came to earth as God in the flesh, which I
believe he did. If Jesus Christ came to earth to die for the sins of humanity,
so that we might be reconciled to God, which I think I he did. The question
then, is why did he do it? As I heard a pastor say once, “If the nails did not
hold Jesus Christ on the cross, then his love for us would have”.
The “Good News” of Jesus Christ, is “Good News,” because it
is the news of a love so great, that we can’t even imagine in. In the gospel of
John 15:12-13 Jesus Christ himself says:
“This is my
commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than
this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:12-13, NRSV).
I remember on a Sunday some years ago, I was out
of town. To tell you the truth, I can’t really remember much of the trip. Well,
as Saturday evening rolled around, I thought that it would good that I went to
church the next day. I can’t remember what the name of the church was, but I
will never forget the church.
I remember that I arrived about 10-minutes before
the service began. There was no one there to greet me at the door of the
church. Most folks were sitting in their pews, and quietly talking with one
another. As I paced around the back of the sanctuary to try to get oriented, no
one came and said hello to me. I finally found the table where the bulletins
were. I got a church bulletin, and then I sat down in church towards the back.
As I sat down, within about a second, an older person looked up glared at me.
This glare for me, was this person saying, “and what do you think you are doing
here”?
Well the service proceeded, and if I it remember
correctly, the minister had a half-way decent sermon. There was no greet your neighbor
time. Before, during, or after the church service. When the church service
ended. The pastor announced that there would be coffee hour in the next room.
Well when I walked into that room, I again received
another sharp look from someone else in the congregation. I then thought, “I
don’t care if I feel unloved here, I am getting some coffee”! I then got a cup
of coffee, sat at a table all by myself, and not one person from the church
spoke to me. I do remember the pastor introducing himself and saying hi, but
that was it.
I then went to get into my car, after having some
coffee of course. I drove out of the church parking lot. It was one of those
situations that I want to explode, but not in front of all those good church
folks. So I waited until my car was around corner from the church. I then shouted
inside of my car, about how cold, and unloving that church was.
Now brothers and sisters, I would have never
returned to that church the following Sunday. I mean why would I? According to
the Apostle Paul, according to our savior Jesus Christ, we are to love one another.
What was loving about my trip to the church that I just told you about?
Further, if the mission of the United Methodist
Church is “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the
world,” then that church missed a golden opportunity that Sunday. They had a
young kid, who was eager to know the Lord more. Sure he was loud, annoying, and
gregarious, but they showed him no love.
This morning the Apostle Paul says, “If I don’t
have love, I’m nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2b, CEB). People might say then, “well
Pastor Paul, how do we grow the church then?” Well there are variety of things
that a church can do to grow, but the best thing is be a loving family. Love
and care for each other.
Let me tell the version of the story of my church
visit that I wished had happened. This is what I hoped would have happened. I
get out of my car, and as I am walking to the church someone waves and smiles
at me, as they are walking in. When I get to the door, someone greets me, and
tells me that they are glad that I came. If I cannot find a bulletin, someone
shows me where they are. Then someone else in the church introduces themselves,
and after learning a little bit about me, they say, “you know Paul I would love
it if you came and sat with me and my family today”. At coffee hour, that same
family would ask me to join then, and they would tell me about their church.
They would tell me how much they loved their pastor, and their pastor would
introduce themselves to me to.
Perhaps they would say, “Paul, if you’re ever in
town again, we would love it if you came to worship with us again”. Brothers
and sisters, if I had that experience at that church, not only would I visit
again, but if I ever moved to that town, I would become a member of that
church.
This is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the hope of
the world. Jesus Christ calls us to have faith, to have hope, but the Apostle
Paul says this morning, “and the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13b,
CEB). Let us love each other boldly and abundantly, as the savior of the world
has not only shown us this love, but he also commands us to love each other.
Amen.
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