The Church's Greatest Need

The reason I'm thankful is that you are my church, and I belong to you, and you belong to me. And this morning, we are looking at the concept of the church. We started last week on this series called "The Church: Perfectly Imperfect". And this morning, we're going to continue that series. You might remember last week we began by looking at the constitution of the church.

What has brought us together? What end purpose do we have? We looked at the question, what has caused the church to come into existence and for what end? And we saw from Ephesians 2 that God sent Jesus Christ to preach to people who were near and far to Him. In the context of Paul, the Jews and the Gentiles, and that God offered through Jesus Christ the message of peace.

And Paul says, having given the church peace with God, they were now called to live together in peace. That God had, through Christ, killed the hostility between fellow believers. And Paul in one sweeping paragraph identifies the church as a human body, one single organism, a kingdom with citizens, a household with family members, and a temple with worshippers indwelt by God. In other words, we saw we exist as Christians to be in the church. We exist as Christians to be in the church.

In fact, we cannot be separated from one another because we live one life together. Having looked at the constitution of that church, we today want to start looking at what this body does, how it functions. And we're going to explore those areas by asking the very important question, what does the church need most? Or what does the church need to do most? In order to answer that question of what the church needs most, we're going to look at a passage where the apostle Paul continues in another letter to talk about, firstly, what the church does not need.

Let's turn to First Corinthians 13 this morning. First Corinthians 13, the great chapter on love. And we begin this morning by looking at verse one. Paul writes to the church in Corinth, "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. This is the word of the Lord. We find Paul having to address the Corinthian church presumably on a question that they had asked him.

The church in Corinth had asked Paul to explain some of the certain amazing gifts that God had given to them as the church. If you flick to the chapter before, chapter 13, and if you look at the chapter after this one in chapter 14, either side of this passage, Paul is talking about the spiritual gifts. Supernatural gifts given by the Holy Spirit, Paul says, to help edify, to help build up the church. But to the question of what these spiritual gifts meant, to the question of what the most important gifts were to the church, Paul throws a curveball. To the issue of what the Corinthians needed answered most, Paul highlights three different possible answers that they may have answered.

The first question he poses, hypothetically, is, does the church need eloquent preachers? Paul begins chapter 13 by imagining a particularly gifted individual who has been blessed with the most abundant outpouring of the speaking gift of tongues. Verse one, he says, "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 one of the most eloquent Christians you could ever find. Just as the Holy Spirit poured out supernatural ability to the apostles to proclaim the gospel to the various cultures and languages on the day of Pentecost, Paul is imagining someone even more gifted than that.

This is someone not only able to speak every language on earth, but also the language of heaven. Gifted to proclaim the truth of God to every culture literally under heaven and in heaven. In chapter 12, Paul had been addressing the issue of speaking in tongues. The reason why Paul had to address it was because it was the gift that the Corinthians desired most. Why?

Because the Corinthians, as good Greeks, valued speech. They loved both the supernatural and good communicators. The stars of their day weren't musicians or actors, they were public speakers. And Paul, imagine someone with a supernatural gift of tongues having received that to an unheard of measure, not only speaking persuasively to every nationality on earth, but also the language of angelic messengers of legend. This person is the epitome of eloquent.

Can you imagine what a preacher of the gospel this person would be? What an effective missionary this person could be? To have the ability to speak in a language that all understands, to speak to the heart of every individual they meet. To express the gospel to the Jew or the Greek, to the Afrikaner or the Australian, to the Afghani, the Chinese or the Venezuelan, the plans and the purposes of God that have been centred on Jesus Christ, how effective would this person not be in the kingdom of God? And yet, astoundingly, Paul says that you could have this gift to the extent that no one has ever had it before.

And if you don't have love, their message would be as effective as trying to hear a sermon from a crashing cymbal. What Paul is saying is that without love, a gift of unparalleled eloquence is empty and devoid of any meaning. And so to the question of what is the church's greatest need, is the greatest need good preachers? Paul says preaching without love is an empty noise. But then Paul imagines another person with another gift much admired by the Corinthians, and the second question he poses is, does the church need knowledgeable teachers?

Verse two reads, "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 could come along to this church and explain every single word of scripture with perfect clarity, if some person did not hold a single shred of doubt or disobedience to the words they spoke because as they spoke, they spoke directly from the mouth of God himself. This person would not only teach all the mysteries of God, but they would have a corresponding faith that could move mountains because they were so sure that what they heard were the very words of God. If you found someone like this coming to our church, you'd probably sack the pastor, sack all the elders, and make him do all the teaching. This guy has all the knowledge.

So what a leader of the church this person would be. He knows everything. He handles the mysteries of God like an adult doing primary school maths. And yet Paul says, you can have all of that and not have love, and you are useless to the church and therefore useless to God. Is our church's need teachers who understand all the mysteries of God?

And Paul says, understanding without love is an ignorant pursuit. And Paul gives a final example in verse three. And he asks, do we need the most disciplined followers of Christ? After debunking the Corinthians' obsession with preaching and knowledge, he really leaves them reeling because Paul moves on to an example of the very best Christians. Someone, he says, who lives single-mindedly in commitment to the gospel.

"If I give away all that I have, if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love," Paul says, "I have gained nothing." Here's an individual who is living to a T the radical life of discipleship. This is a person concerned for the poor, concerned for those who are struggling in need. He or she lives to give away all that they have. Their house has been sold.

Their furniture is on Facebook Marketplace. Their cars have been swapped for bikes, and every piece of expensive jewellery has been sold or given away. Their bank account is open to anyone who has a need. Not only do they have an incredible commitment to the needy, they are a person of incredible commitment to God. They surrender their bodies to the flames for the sake of the gospel.

They have such commitment to the faith that they laugh in the face of death. They are, in other words, loyalty personified. What is the church's greatest need? Is it to have the most disciplined Christian? Wouldn't Open House be a strong and impressive church if it was filled with these types of people?

And Paul says, even if I was to give my entire life as a sacrifice to Christ, to die for the faith that rests in God's love, but to have no love myself, to go and stand before the throne of God as a martyr of the faith, expecting the crown of life, as Revelation says, to be given to me. Paul says, I will receive nothing from God. Is the church's greatest need eloquent preachers, knowledgeable teachers, or the most disciplined Christians? Don't get me wrong, these are great things to have in the church. But of all the things that matter, Paul says, it is love that matters the most.

Strictly, Paul finishes this passage in verse 13 saying there are only three things that matter eternally. Faith, hope, and love. And you see, the Corinthians may have loved the church because of the spectacular gifts that one could find there, but that is not loving the church. They could love what the church could give them through the amazing gifts that they received through the apostles and through the messengers that God had sent to the church, but that is not loving the church. In fact, it is entirely possible to love the concept of church and yet not to love God.

Paul says here, you cannot love God without loving the church. The things that matter aren't the outcomes of the church, but faith, hope and love lived out in the church community and the greatest of those three is love. Christians, I was convicted this week thinking about these words. I was convicted particularly about those friends and family members that we have who have walked away from the physical church. They aren't people in a holding pattern until they find a good church.

They're actually in peril because it's not possible to love God and hate His church. It's not possible to love God and hate His church. And Paul wants us to understand, to show that we love God by loving His church. If we don't love, Paul says, we are nothing. We have gained nothing in the gospel.

We will receive nothing on that final day. What it means is that the church doesn't owe it to anyone to be more entertaining, to have more like-minded people here to talk to, to have a tidier worship service. The church doesn't owe those types of things to you as a Christian. You, however, owe the church your love. So I'm convicted that we need to reach out to our friends and our family members and beg for them to be grafted back into the church because by their inaction, their complacency and their dereliction, they show that they are not neutral towards God.

Through their lovelessness, they show that they are nothing towards God. They are clanging cymbals at best, noisy gongs, eternally empty, eternally bankrupt. That is what Paul is saying here if you read this text carefully. And so it raises the very important question, what does this love for the church look like? What is this thing called love?

Well, Paul defines love by what it does, not what it says. Our definition and the famous one at that comes from verse four through to seven. 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. There are some things that the dictionary just cannot define.

How do you define a sunset? The dictionary will say that it is a time in the evening when the sun disappears over the horizon. That's not a sunset though. How do you define love? Paul doesn't give us a one-line definition, does he?

Neither does he attempt to give us an abstract explanation. Paul defines love by what it does. It's so important for us to see that the Bible gives us a definition of love, not as some vague notion of goodwill towards others. Love isn't a warm feeling here. Neither is this love a twenty-first century idea of tolerance towards everyone's quirkiness or bad behaviour. We are told explicitly love does not rejoice at wrongdoing.

It rejoices, however, in the truth. Love is therefore objectively expressed as it is tied with the revealed will of God. Love rejoices at God's truth. Love is not a subjective thing at all. But ultimately, we see from these words that love is defined in the Bible not by how it feels, but by how it behaves.

And therefore, the love of God, the love that God wants in the church is primarily an act of the will. Love is a mindset. Love is a series of choices. Love is a set of actions, behaviours, which put another person's interests above my own. It seeks the other person's highest good.

Now, don't be mistaken. Love needs to come from the heart as well. Jesus famously talked about those hypocritical Pharisees who seemingly did the right thing, but their hearts were very far from God and people. And from these verses, verses four through to seven, we could spend half a year studying each of those actions that Paul uses to define love, but what it comes down to is that love is the opposite of self-centredness. Love is the opposite of self-centredness.

It is the position of the heart where I put another person's interest above my own. And so love, you can say, is the supreme ethic of the church. And hear that well. Love is the supreme ethic of the church. That is an important lesson for our church to know because as Reformed Christians, we could think that knowledge is the supreme ethic.

We could think the more knowledgeable we are, the better we are with God. Love is the supreme ethic. We know in part, Paul says, now. Christ is coming soon, and only then will we know fully. Why is love so important in the church?

Because love is revolutionary. Even when it feels so weak, when it feels like love can be trampled on by anyone, it's actually then that love is at its most powerful. Kingdoms that have been built on blood and gold come and go. The kingdom of Jesus Christ will never be destroyed. It continues, in fact, to grow against opposition because it conquers the world through love.

It's conquered my heart through love. The reason we read First Corinthians 13 this morning and we feel deep in our hearts the desire, "Oh Lord, I want to love like that. Is it even possible for me to reach these definitions of love?" Brothers and sisters, the reason we have this impulse is because we have a Saviour who has loved us like this first. You have been conquered by His love first.

And so actually, when we look at this list, we see the face of Jesus Christ. Was His love not patient with us? Was His love not unimaginably kind? It wasn't self-seeking, was it? Otherwise, He would never have left His throne.

He wasn't easily angered, otherwise, we wouldn't be here. We'd be destroyed. Instead, His love protects. His love trusts. His love hopes.

His love perseveres. In fact, we know that His love perseveres because it persevered all the way to the cross. This is part of God's wisdom in giving us the church. He uses relationships like church membership, relationships like marriage, like parenting, to expose our hearts to us. God uses the church to expose the thoughts, the attitudes, the desires of my heart that I deny are there because I overvalue myself.

And God gives me the church to highlight the impatience that still lingers. The irritation that bubbles up so quickly. The lack of gentleness that I have for my people. God gives me the church to show me how far I still fall from His standard and how much I still need His transforming grace in my life. Here's the humbling reason that God in His grace gives us the church: to show me that I am more like my sinful brother and sister than unlike them.

I am more like them in their frailty that I am irritated by than I am different to them. The truth is there are a few struggles in the lives of fellow church members that aren't in my life as well. Wanting things my own way, materialism, love of comfort, subtle idolatries. We are being told that instead of approaching Christians of this church with self-righteous outrage, we need to move closer to them as one sinner in need of grace, needing to comfort another sinner in need of grace. And God's magnificent plan in the church is to make His invisible grace visible.

So what is the church's greatest need? It's not our gifts. It's not our ability. It's not even your discipline. The church needs you first of all to love her, to love her people.

The church needs your time. It needs your attention. Where there is frustration, you and I are being told to persevere. Where there is unmet expectation, we are told to hope for better days. Where there is disappointment of all the things that are still lacking, we have to trust that inside that other person's heart is the same God who will complete the good work that He has started in all of us.

What is required of us then is to say no to resentment, to say no to bitterness, and to rejoice with each other when we get it right, to graciously offer better advice when we get it wrong. Our church needs you and I to love each other as of first importance because through that love, we show what God's grace has really done for us. Will you take up that challenge with me to love this church as God calls us to love her? Let's pray. Lord, this is an incredible vision of the priority that You give us as Christians.

We are not called to be anything more than this. Forgive us, Lord, when we get confused and distracted by the gifts of the church. Forgive us, Lord, when we get frustrated with the disappointment of things that just seemingly don't impress us anymore. Forgive us Lord when we so quickly get upset with one another, disappointed by one another, where we feel betrayed and embittered by others because we have such high expectations of them and very little for ourselves. Help us to see ourselves rightly today, to see how much we've needed Your love first, and to understand those three core values that faith, hope and love are the things that are worth pursuing.

Help us not to be rude in this church. Help us to be quick to forgive. Help us to be patient with one another. Help us not to think that staying quiet or complacent is even loving because it's not. We don't rejoice in bad behaviour.

Help us to rejoice with what is true and right. And so to go the extra mile, to be uncomfortable, to stick out our neck, and to talk and pray with our brother or sister. Lord, we thank You that in Your wisdom, You have given us the church. And so we pray, Lord, that as we come to terms more and more with what it means to be a part of this body, with what it means to truly commit ourselves to the local and physical expression of Your church, to not see it as something we get, but something that we owe to. We pray, Lord, that You will give us the commitment, the maturity, the love that we need to flourish in this context and to make it a wonderful, beautiful display of Your amazing grace.

In Your power, we need to pray it, Lord Jesus. Amen.