| The Biggest Big Idea of All |
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I. A Most Unlikely Love Poet Read I Corinthians 13…This a such a familiar passage of Scripture. It is read at almost every wedding we attend. It is printed on posters and plaques we buy in the Christian bookstore. Next to the Sermon on the Mount or John 3;16, or perhaps the 23rd Psalm, This must be one of the most well known passages in the Bible. And with good reason. It is beautiful. It is eloquent. It’s poetry in the form of prose. It speaks of that which is most important to all of us. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, we care more about than love. It is the cry of every human heart to be loved—and to love. But have you ever stopped to consider how odd, how surprising it is that Paul is the author of this ode to love? I mean, Paul was a theologian. Peter once described him as writing things that are hard to understand— Hard for normal people like us, with normal levels of human intelligence. Just read portions of Romans or Ephesians or Corinthians. They are so full of thick, complicated ideas that sometimes you have to read them over and over again to get your mind around them. Often, you have to turn to some expert, and have it explained. But then occasionally you come upon a passage like this. A passage with an almost a song like quality and simplicity—and I am surprised. I am also surprised because Paul, at least the early Paul, is one of the last people in the world I would expect to be writing about love. Paul was a Pharisee. A man devoted to righteousness, to the obedience of God’s law. He was a man with a consuming zeal for the purity of God’s people. He was so passionate about that purity he was willing to persecute people to preserve it. But then something happened. Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus. In the midst of a blinding light he heard Jesus say, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? I imagine Paul, in that moment, thinking of Stephen, falling to his knees, stones crushing his skull as he prayed, Lord, don’t hold this sin against them. On that road to Damascus Paul came face to face with a Jesus who didn’t hold his sin against him. A Jesus who loved Paul and had mercy on him, the chief of sinners. And Paul never, never got over it—God’s love, that is. So I guess I Corinthians 13 is not so surprising after all. Who could understand better than Paul what it means to be a clanging cymbal— a man full of religious knowledge & passion & devotion without love? Who could understand better than Paul how completely life-changing love can be? II. Jesus Creed All last Fall we studied the Big Ideas of the Apostle Paul. Big ideas like our freedom from the law thru the gospel of grace. Big ideas like being baptized into Christ and filled with His Spirit so that his life flows in us and through us. Big Ideas like God’s kingdom coming & Jesus reigning over all the world. Really Big Ideas. But I have saved one big idea until today, the big idea of I Corinthians chapter 13. It just may be the biggest idea of all. At least if Jesus is allowed to be the judge. Remember that time when a teacher of the law came to Jesus and asked him, Rabbi, of all God’s commandment which is the greatest? Do you remember what Jesus said? The greatest is this: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all mind and all your strength. What Jesus does in this answer is take this expert in the law back to his childhood. Jesus reminds him of the first passage of Scripture he probably ever memorized. A passage of Scripture that he would have recited out loud every day of his life, A portion of Scripture he probably had tied, at that very moment, to his wrist in a little box—or maybe on his forehead. In response to the question “What is the greatest of God’s commandments?” Jesus recited the Shema. Shema y’Israel—Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and will all your soul and with all your mind and all your strength. These commandments I am giving you today, impress them upon your children. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. These word were spoken by Moses in his farewell sermon to the people of Israel—in Deuteronomy chapter 6. In that passage Moses tells the people to impress this commandment on their children. To teach them these words when they get up in the morning and when they go to bed at night; to talk about them as they walk along the way. To even wear them on their hands or forehead. That is exactly what they did. So in answering this question this way Jesus was saying nothing new. He was saying exactly what every good Jew would expect him to say, What every good Jew was taught from childhood to say. Words they had memorized—but words so many had failed to understand. This saying—the Shema—is really quite amazing. It reveals what I call the Genius of Moses. God had given the people of Israel through Moses hundreds of Laws. In his final message to God’s people, Moses takes them to the heart of the matter. He says, Let me tell you the one thing above all other things you need to remember. The one thing you need to impress upon you children. The one thing you must do above all else. Love the Lord your God with everything that is in you. Because the commands of God make sense only in the context of love. God rescued the people of Israel from 400 years of slavery in Egypt. He saved them—and He brought them to Himself @ the foot of Mt. Sinai. He said to them, I will be your God; and you will be my people. I will care for you. I will provide for you. I will bring you into a land flowing with milk and honey; and I will bless you. In other words, I have loved you and I will continue to love you. But this is what I expect of you: to love me in return. To believe me and trust me, to honor and obey me when I teach you the way you should go. All of God’s commandments, if correctly understood, are words of love. Words spoken in love to guide the people God loves into paths of divine blessing. That’s the genius of the Shema. That is why the Shema is the Greatest Commandment— Because it reveals the heart of God— And the heart of the Commandments of God. God loves you and He calls you to love Him in return— His commandments are expressions of love and your obedience is a response of love. But Jesus didn’t stop with the Shema, did he? No. He said to that expert in the law, There is more. There is a 2nd great commandment; and it is this: You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself. Now, you have to understand: no Jewish Rabbi in Jesus day would have considered this commandment one of the greatest commandments. It is in the Torah. In Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 18. But it’s just one little command in the context of a long list of other commands. It is not in the Shema. It is not a command the Jews placed in little boxes on their wrists and recited day after day. It is not even one of the Ten Commandments. Yet Jesus lifted this commandment from its obscure location and placed it right alongside the Shema and said, this is the 2nd greatest commandment. In fact, on another occasion, when asked a similar question, Jesus even said that the entire revelation of God—the Law and the Prophets—hung on these two commandments. As if they were the sum and the substance of all God had said. As if, if you get this right, you would get everything right. And if you got this wrong, you could get nothing else right. Which is really what Paul is saying in I Corinthians chapter 13. You can speak with the tongues of men and angels— With unparalleled eloquence and even supernatural power. But if you are not speaking the truth in love it is as empty as a clanging cymbal. You can understand everything, even the deepest mysteries of God; You can have enough faith to move mountains; You can even sell everything you have and give it to the poor, Or give your body as a martyr to be burned; But if you are not moved by love, it will mean absolutely nothing. Love—love for God and love for others—is the heart and center, the sum and substance of Christian faith. In fact, it is the heart and center, sum and substance of human life. Without love both life and faith have no meaning. God’s creation has no meaning if it is not an expression of God’s love. Jesus death and resurrection have no meaning if they are not acts of divine love. Our response—in gratitude and worship, in service and sacrifice— Is nothing if it in not a response of love. And not just love for God. Please don’t miss this. We must love God and we must love our neighbor as we love ourselves. One of Jesus dearest disciples, the one who called himself “a disciple Jesus loved”, put it this way: Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. And everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. Whoever loves God must also love his brother. Do you understand what is being said here? It is so important I need to say it as clearly as possible. God is love. At the heart of God is the love revealed in Jesus. He is the word of God to us. If you and I really come to know God through His word; If we truly receive and experience his grace and his mercy, his forgiveness and compassion in Jesus—we will be changed. That’s what it means to be born again. When we are born again, we receive God’s Spirit, which is a Spirit of love. If we receive this Spirit of love, then we must love. We almost can’t help it—because we have been so impacted by God’s love ourselves; and because we are now filled with the spirit of his love. If we are not, then something is wrong. III. All My Failures are Failures of Love Which brings me back to my encounter this summer with God. I know I shared it before, but please bear with me as I try to share it again. Maybe there are people here who have not yet heard my story. Maybe it will do the rest of you good to hear it again. I think it will do me good to say it. I was up on a Colorado mountain this summer, 12000 feet above sea level, looking out at some of the most breathtaking scenery you will ever see. I was alone with God—for five hours. During that time I found myself drawn by God’s Spirit to a passage of Scripture, To Revelation chapter 2, the letter from Jesus to the church in Ephesus. I began to read it out loud, so I could hear it with my own ears. As soon as I heard the words, I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance, I began to cry. To weep actually. Now I know, after what I shared last week, it sounds like I weep all the time. But that is not the case. In fact, it is so rare that my tears mark the deep moments in my life. In that moment I felt like Jesus had spoken those words to me. I felt like He was there beside me. Until that moment I didn’t realize how bone tired and soul weary I actually was. I didn’t realize how much I needed someone to say, I understand what you are going through. I know what it cost you. I thought I was doing just fine. But Jesus knew better. He knew what I needed. He was so… loving, so kind, so caring. But Jesus wasn’t finished with me yet. Eventually I dried my tears and read on in Revelation chapter 2. I heard Jesus say these words to me: I have this against you: you have forsaken your first love. Now, He didn’t say—at least didn’t hear him say—You bad boy, How could you have fallen so far from me after all I have done for you?! No. He said it more like this, Phil, I miss you. I miss the times we shared— Like that morning a few day ago we had down on the river— When you were singing for joy and your heart was so tender, so open. By the way—that’s what love is: being open in the depth of your soul to another. And treated them with the affection, the care, the concern that you treat yourself, Or at least that you want to be treated with. What happened to me up on that mountain is that Jesus loved me. He came to me and touched the deepest need in my soul—and then he held me as I wept—as the tears washed my pain away and his presence healed me. Then Jesus loved me enough to correct me. He corrected me by inviting me back into His heart. Jesus showed me that I had allowed other things—good things— to slip into the center of my life. Things like preaching inspiring sermons or teaching the truth. Things like building a good church or creating effective ministries. Things like trying to speak with the tongues of men and angels or moving Mountains by faith. But there is only one thing needful—one thing that belongs at the center of life; and that is love—Love for God and love for the people God loves. I remember writing in my journal that day: My failures are failures of love. Since returning home this past August I have been working on that— Or asking God to work on it; and asking others for help. I have asked a spiritual guide to help me. I have asked a counselor to help me. I have asked the elders and the staff to help me. Most important of all, I have asked my wife to help me. With their help I have been making changes. I have taken more time to be with God— more time than I have taken in a long time— And our relationship is being renewed. We are communicating and communing more deeply. I have also taken time to be with my wife— And talk about and work on things that need to be worked on. I have taken time to be with my grandchildren—time off work, Just to be with them and love them— And learn to love like a little child again. There is something really important here. Love comes more naturally to children. They just open their hearts and give themselves away. But over time we get too busy. We build up walls—walls to protect ourselves. We don’t go down as easily to the level of love. We live life ‘up here’—on the surface—where everything moves fast and nothing hurts. But nothing really satisfies very deeply either. I have also changed the way we do staff meetings. Instead of jumping right into work, we take 30 to 60 minutes to share what God has been saying to us in our personal devotional life— not our ministry lives, our personal lives. One staff meeting it led to a 3 hour discussion; we just set everything else aside. You can ask the staff how different that is. I’ve also started a new ministry with the staff. I call Walk and Talk. For an hour and half I walk around the church with a staff member and we talk— About whatever is on his or her heart and mind. We can talk about ministry—but we don’t have to. We can talk about anything they want to—like friends do. It has been rich—for me if not for them. Now I am still not where I need to be, where I hope I will someday be. But this Big Idea from Paul, and from Jesus before him, is becoming the Biggest Idea in my life: Love God. Love People. Because nothing matters more than that. If we get this right, then everything will be all right. If we get it wrong, nothing else will ever be right. I Corinthians 13… If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 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. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, But have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. |
