Kingdom Ethics: Love

So we're gonna turn this morning to Matthew chapter 5, where we're gonna read another part of Jesus' teaching on the ethics within the kingdom, Matthew chapter 5. And then it's a two-part reading this morning, because we'll also jump forward to 1 Corinthians 13, the great chapter on love. And that is the theme for this morning, the final in the series on the kingdom ethics. Next week, we'll be wrapping up this kingdom series with Jesus' final words for His disciples. But as we wrap up, let's read from Matthew 5:38-48.

Matthew 5 verse 38. Jesus said on the Sermon on the Mount, you have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.

And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Then we jump towards 1 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 1, Paul's great chapter on love. Paul writes, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind.

Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now, faith, hope and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love. So far our reading.

How many people find their involvement in church a meaningful and worthwhile part of their life? Perhaps you know of some people who have turned away from church because it lacked the passion that they were seeking. Perhaps there weren't enough activities or initiatives happening in the church. Perhaps they have been attending for many years even, but long ago checked out in their minds. Church has become for them nothing more than an event on a Sunday, something nice to come back to week after week for nostalgic purposes.

For some, the church is like an antique sewing machine that's on display in the living room. It's nice to look at, but it has no real purpose. Perhaps we dream of the experience of church to be different. We long for something more. We don't experience the dynamic power of God in His collective people as we'd like to hope.

We don't feel the surge of energy when we meet together. Like a little boy who was inquisitive about an old plaque that he saw in his old church. And he asked the pastor what it was for. The pastor replied that it was a plaque commemorating people who had died in service. The boy asked, the morning service or the evening service?

I wanna ask this question this morning. What is our church's greatest need? If we long for some of these things we've just mentioned, the dynamism, the power, the urgency. Some of us might say that the church needs greater preachers, individuals who will stand above the pandemonium and the confusion of our time and speak a true and clear word of God. Still others would say that our greatest need is for theologians who have studied the Bible and bring it accurately to bear on our lives.

And still others might feel that the deepest need of the church is for people to experience the power of the Holy Spirit working through the prayerful hands of those who have been touched by God. And all of these would be good suggestions for what the church needs. We do need good communicators. Millions of people are this morning having their daily walks, sitting in their comfortable cafes for brunches, relaxing in the face of an eternity away from God. We need individuals who can speak a clear and a compelling word to them.

We also need scholars and theologians in a time where Christian doctrine is a swear word and church is packaged as an experience of well-dressed preachers and church facilities that make the convention centre look humble. We do need people who clearly understand Christian theology with its simple, unwavering truths, which has gotten so lost in all the packaging. But in case we make the mistake also of thinking that our theology needs to simply be as clear as ice and twice as cold and clinical, we also need a generation of warm-hearted, God-fearing men and women who have come to rely on the Spirit's urgency to minister to the sick, to pray for the suffering and for the sad. So if you suggest that any of these things is the answer to the question, what is the church's greatest need? They would all be good suggestions.

But there was a church who had all of these people in it, and yet failed to be the church of God's calling. It was the church of Corinth in the old testament. A place of dynamic energy, zealous preaching, spiritual discipline that would put any of us to shame. Even as Paul begins his letter to them saying that they don't lag behind anyone in regards to their spiritual fervor. Paul will later tell them in that same letter that something is terribly wrong with them.

Paul commends them for their zeal. He spends two entire chapters, 1 Corinthians 12 and 14, explaining how they might use correctly these wonderful gifts that they've been blessed with. But something happens between chapter 12 and 14, and that's the passage that we read this morning. At the end of chapter 12, after Paul has addressed how the church should serve their community of faith, in verse 31, the very last verse, Paul transitions into chapter 13 with these words, and I will show you still a more excellent way. 1 Corinthians 13 is divided into three stanzas.

The first stanza, the first grouping is verses 1 through 3. Paul says that a person who has passion and ability is good, but they're worthless if they lack this one thing, which is love. He begins in verse 1. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. Paul is imagining someone who has the ability to speak every language on earth and in heaven even.

Like that moment of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell upon the apostles. In chapter 12, Paul has been addressing the issue of the use of tongues in the Corinthian context. It was the gift that the Corinthians valued most highly. It was the gift that they all desired. A spiritual supernatural ability to speak in languages from other cultures, perhaps even heavenly languages, this language of angels that Paul refers to.

And Paul holds out the picture of someone who has it all. Imagine what a preacher this person could be. Imagine this ability to speak in every language that anyone could understand, the heart language of every congregation member, every audience member listening to the gospel, whether Jew, whether Greek, whether Ethiopian, or Roman. What a missionary this man would make. Imagine who he could reach.

And yet, Paul is saying that if you have this gift, even as no one has had it before, but you don't have love, it is as pointless as hearing a sermon from a drowning gong or a crashing cymbal. There is no music in a gong or a cymbal. All it does is make a loud senseless noise. Now as a drummer, I would argue it's a helpful noise every now and then. But the point is, without love, our gift of eloquence, our gift of intercession is an empty noise, devoid of any meaning.

There's a story of a long-term member of a congregation that was once pastored by a well-known preacher years ago. And she caused a stir when she reflected one day. When he was in the pulpit and we listened to him preach, we wished that he'd never get out of it. But when he came out of that pulpit, and we felt and we saw the nature of his life, we wished he'd never go up there again. Eloquence without love is an empty noise. Paul then moves on to talk about another gift precious to the Corinthians.

Talks about it in verse 2. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If someone came along with these gifts and he asked to be in our church, we'd sign him up straight away. We'd sack the pastor if we could get him on staff. Why?

Because this man has all knowledge. You could add up all the elders of our church, every ministry leader, every congregation member, add up all their wisdom together, and it would not compare to the wisdom that this man has. He knows everything. He handles mysteries, the mysteries of the universe, like an adult putting together a five-year-old's nine-piece puzzle. What's more, he has the gift of prophecy, can speak right into the heart of every person listening.

Every message he gives makes sense and purpose to the person's heart. On top of that, he has faith that can move mountains. He knows exactly what God wants him to do. And when there are obstacles in his way, where difficulties may arise, he has faith to see his way through it, to endure through everything. And yet Paul says, you can be all that, but if you don't have love, you are nothing.

And Paul takes it one step further. Not only do incredible gifts of faith and ability without love accomplish nothing, Paul says in verse 3, even if I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Here's an individual who has become concerned for the poor, concerned for the injustice of those who are struggling. They give away all that they have. Their house is sold.

The furniture has been put on Gumtree. Two cars have been sold and swapped for bikes. Every bit of jewellery is given away. Every dollar down to the last cent in the bank account has been given to those who need it. Not only does this person love the poor, but they are a person of incredible commitment to God.

They surrender their body to the flame. Even if I was to give myself in sacrifice, not bending the knee to those who might seek to destroy the faith that I proclaim. Paul says, even if I was to die for the faith that rests in God's love, but have no love myself, when I stand before God on that day, I will have gained nothing. Of all the things we think matters, it's love that matters most. The late Haddon Robinson, a favourite preacher of mine, uses this powerful analogy to highlight the futility of life without love.

He says, take a pen, get a piece of paper out, and draw a row of zeros across that page. Then add them all up. It adds up to zero. Right? Now write another row of zeros across the next line.

Then multiply those lines by two or three or four. Continue drawing row after row of zeros all the way down the page. When you get to the bottom of the page, flip it to the other page and continue doing that for another page. Add all those zeros up. And what does it equal?

It adds up to nothing. But take the smallest number next after zero, and put a one in front of all those zeros, and what do you get? That's the meaning power of love. We conserve using our best, most refined gifts, but without love, it adds up to nothing. And yet, you can take the smallest gift, the least noble of these powerful gifts that Paul was talking about here, and you minister it in love, and that gift becomes revolutionary.

We put a great deal of emphasis on sincerity, on sacrifice, on service. We put a great deal in the church on an emphasis on giftedness and willingness to use those gifts. But the truth is that there can be a kind of service where all the love has been squeezed out of it. There can even be a kind of worship that is ultimately self-serving. God, I will bring to you and offer you my actions, my thoughts, if you do the right thing by me.

God, my love and my involvement in the lives of others is only acceptable until I don't find it acceptable anymore. Yet the Bible is saying that of all the things that matter, only love really matters. This is therefore the supreme ethic in the kingdom of Jesus. It is the thread that holds all things together. Paul is saying that what the church really needs most of all is the purpose-giving power of genuine love.

And so this raises a question, doesn't it? What is this thing called love? We can look around the world and we get a hundred thousand different definitions of love. But in verses 4 to 7, after Paul highlights the futility of impressive actions done without love, he goes on to describe not what love is, but how love acts.

Verses 4 through 7, love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. Love is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful.

It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Paul defines love by describing love. There are some things that the dictionary can never capture. How can you define music in a dictionary definition?

The definition in the Oxford dictionary would say that music is a series of tones formed into a cohesive whole. But that's not what music is, is it? It's so much more than that. How do we define love? Paul doesn't give some conceptual explanation of love.

He defines it according to what it does. And so we find here, perhaps one of the most important aspects of purpose-giving love, that love is more than an emotion. It is not less than an emotion, but it is much more as well. We know that there are many different kinds of love. In fact, the Bible itself uses three different words to talk about three different kinds of love.

It's a multifaceted and complex thing. A mother can love her baby. Two young people are said to be in love. A man can put his arm around a mate who's been struggling, and that is another kind of love completely. Those are all powerful experiences.

But the love God talks about here is not simply an emotion. The love He speaks about here is primarily an act of the will, a set of the mind, which puts another person's highest good before our own. Another person's interest before our interest. That's what you see if you spend time studying each characteristic of love that is mentioned in our passage. If you have a look at it, each one is radically geared at moving away from oneself and becoming generous toward someone else.

Let's take two examples. Paul says that love does not boast or love is not prideful. Boasting thrives on comparison. We may say someone is proud or boastful by thinking that they are smart or good looking. But that is not the complete truth, is it?

Boasting or pride comes from the comparison that someone makes over others. They are more wealthy than the rest. They are more intelligent than certain people. And so either openly or secretly, when I am boastful, there is a self-centredness that places me in competition with the next guy. In my heart, they become the object of my scorn and contempt because I want them to be used to stand on top of, so I can be higher.

It comes back to the obsession of the self, doesn't it? It's why it's the opposite of love, which would seek the highest good, which would celebrate the great aspect of these other people. Another example Paul describes is that love is not easily angered. I find that hard to accept myself because the reason I get irritable is always well founded. I get angry for someone driving slow on the highway.

Why? Because I have a schedule to keep. That's fair, isn't it? If someone behaves badly in my church community, I get irritated. I'm allowed to get irritated because I wouldn't dare to treat someone or speak to someone in that same way.

So I believe I have the right to be angry with them. But love is not easily angered. Love is not easily angered. The reason I get angry is because I have made myself the centre of this universe. As long as everyone revolves around my centre at just the right distance, intersecting with my life in just the right way.

Well, I'll be as nice as the next guy, even better. But interfere with my rhythm, upset my expectations, well, then I get easily angered. We could spend a half year studying each of these characteristics. But ultimately, what it comes down to, and it's something that we all really need to grab and take deep into our hearts and minds, love is the opposite of self-centredness. Love is the position of the heart where I put another person's interest above my own.

That is what love is. And so love is the supreme ethic of the kingdom. It is the golden thread that holds every good thing together. Over the past few weeks, we've talked about various ethics and I mean, we won't be able to go through all of them. There's just too many.

But we spoke about forgiveness. We spoke about wealth. Last week, we spoke about hell and how the choices we make in this life has eternal implications, has eternal weight. But all of these ethics, if you were to go and really look at them, are held together by this one thing, love. Love is the supreme ethic and that is the thing that we need in our churches.

Some of you may know that recently, the apologist Ravi Zacharias, apologist just means a person who defends the faith, passed away from cancer. Many times, he debated and gave talks about the power of the Christian message which is centred on love, on Jesus' teaching, particularly on love. And he argues that Christianity stands or falls on this very principle. At times, he admits that this idea of love is so hard to enforce. It is so hard to capture.

As he debated with people about these things over many years, there were many who would scoff at the idea that this peace-keeping, self-effacing thing can really accomplish very much in the world. Others would say things like justice, the pursuit of equality, those are the ethics that needed to be followed. Love. Interpersonal love. Love between one individual and another seems so weak when we want things to be so systematic.

Love looks so powerless because no one likes being the sucker who gets trampled on for being the nice guy. Yet love is the very thing that overturns the world. It is revolutionary. We're gonna watch a video clip of a talk that Mister Zacharias gave one day on the power of love and how it always triumphs over its direct enemy, which is hate. Even when hate seems so powerful to get things done, when hate seems so powerful to get its way.

Love is the supreme ethic because love is revolutionary. Even when it feels so weak, even when it feels like everyone can trample it, it's then that love is at its most powerful. Kingdoms built on steel and blood have come and gone. The kingdom of Jesus will never be destroyed because it conquers the heart through love and it overcomes and sets us free from the power of hatred. The reason we can therefore read 1 Corinthians 13, the reason why we can read Matthew 5 and say to ourselves, yes, I want to be that.

To say to God, oh Lord, please, I would love to love like that. The reason we can do and say these things is because we have had a Saviour who loved us like that first. If we were to look at this list again in 1 Corinthians 13, all you could see is Jesus in it. Love is patient. Was Jesus not patient with us?

Was His love not just so kind? His love was not self-seeking. Otherwise, He would never have left that throne. Jesus was not easily angered, lest He would have destroyed us all. Jesus' love always protects, it always trusts, it always hopes, it always perseveres.

His love always perseveres, and we saw it persevere all the way to the cross. What is the church's greatest need? It needs the purpose-giving power of genuine love. It's only because of the free love of God who has given us the choice of loving or hating that we really have love. Without that freedom, love is not love.

Yet love is always better than hate because love reflects our God. And so in the kingdom of God, His people will love. They will be patient. They will be kind. They will be slow to anger.

They will be trusting. They will be hopeful. They will always persevere with one another. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you with our request, Lord, that you will grow and develop this very tricky thing, the thing that is often so hard to hold consistently.

Actions and choices that are patient, hopeful, persevering. Lord, help us to come to such a point where our regard for ourselves, the desire to defend ourselves, the desire to gain revenge for actions taken against us, that those things may die in us. The feeling of anger at injustice, at actions that we would never do, that have been done to us. The feelings of self-righteousness and pride that compares our seeming holiness to the less godliness of others. Things that we hold as precious that other people don't.

All these things, Lord, cause us to stumble in this pursuit of love. Lord, help us to rekindle this generous decision, this generous act of the heart and mind to regard those in our lives as worthy, worthy of our love, worthy of our sacrifice, worthy of our consideration and respect. We ask, Lord, that this ethic, this outlook, this choice will profoundly influence our lives. That our church will be known as a church of love, of genuine, generous, open acceptance and warmth. That we will love one another and when we hurt each other, and when we struggle with one another, that we will persevere, that we will be patient, that we will not give up.

Bind us together, Lord, in this love. Bind us together with cords that cannot be broken. And we thank you, Lord, that we can do this and ask this because of the love of Jesus Christ, which we will now celebrate. In His name, we pray. Amen.