What is Love? Part 1

This week, we started a new series called “What is Love (Baby Don’t Hurt Me).” In this series, we will be examining the topic of love from God’s perspective. We are not capable of truly loving as God loves – except by the Spirit working through us. We will use the famous “love chapter” of 1 Corinthians 13 as our basis for this series.  In this first part, we looked at the very first verse. Paul states that we can be as spiritual as we want to be, but, unless we are doing so with love, we are just a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

 First, keep in mind the context of this chapter. It sits between the 12^th and 14^th chapters, which spend a great deal of time discussing the gifts of the Spirit. Sandwiched between them is this admonition on love. You see, the world has seen plenty of believers walking in spiritual gifts and doing a good job of being religious – without love.  The fact that Paul describes this as sounding like a clanging cymbal made me think of a band. If our spiritual walk is a lot of religion without love, we are a band that is just one clanging cymbal. We’re missing the rest of the band. Love brings the guitar, piano, bass, singers and the rest of the drum kit. So, religion and spiritual gifts are good and PART of the band. But without love, they are just annoying and irritating.   Also, a cymbal is made of brass (bronze or copper, with Tin mixed in, so that the sound is hollow and not as clear as that made by bronze or copper).  The word resounding means echo or reverberate.  The two words resounding gong together originally in Greek mean “endless beating of metal that produces a hollow, annoying, irritating echo that seems to eternally reverberate.”

In Corinth, there was a major Pagan contingency. Part of their worship ritual included clanging cymbals incessantly. So, Paul’s choice of imagery is double-edged. Not only is loveless religion irritating and pointless, but it is actually worse than what the Pagans did. At least the Pagan cymbals didn’t turn people AWAY from Christ as loveless Christians do.  The clanging cymbal also paints the image of how the Jews would go into battle clashing cymbals. This instructs us then on both sides of the image. We should try not to be the resounding gong, but we should also fight the urge to be driven to battle by the resounding gongs in life.  We must learn to look at everyone as God does, through the eyes of grace.  The two words together “clanging cymbal, mean “constant loud crashing of cymbals.”

 We also covered a sort of top ten list of signs that you might be a resounding gong or clanging cymbal. Here it is in summary:

 10. You see yourself as “more spiritual” than others

9. You judge those who don’t hold all the same standards as you

8. You are quick to find fault with others – and point out those faults to anyone who will listen

7. You have an unhealthy interest in arguing doctrine

6. Your feeling are easily hurt and you are easily offended (especially by those who are not accepting your “corrections”)

5. You put a great deal of effort into presenting an image of yourself that is far better than your reality

4. You can never admit being wrong

3. You make others feel like they can never measure up

2. You like to draw attention to all the rules that you keep (that others are not keeping) and get defensive if anyone points out that there are other rules you seem to be ignoring

1. FINALLY…. You thought of or pictured people you know for numbers 10 through 2 (ouch!)

In Luke 18:9-14, Jesus tells a parable directed at the “clanging cymbals” (or those self-righteous). He uses as an example a Pharisee, an expert in the law, who comes to the temple to pray and thanks God that he is not like all those heathens who aren’t keeping all the rules.  He also uses a tax collector as a counterexample.  Tax collectors were hated by the Jews of Jesus’ day even more than they are today. The tax collectors of that day were Jews who were hired by Rome to collect Caesar’s taxes. It was an unwritten rule that they were free to collect whatever they wanted on top of Rome’s tax for themselves.  The tax collector was seen as a traitor and a turncoat – utterly despised. In Jesus’ parable, the tax collector came to God and sought mercy – acknowledging his own shortcomings while the Pharisee exalted himself. Jesus said the tax collector will have found favor before God and not the Pharisee.

 We must learn to walk in grace toward all. This does not mean we cannot judge the fruit in someone’s life as a gauge for how close they can come to me , my family and my ministry. I can make that call by looking at fruit without judging a person’s salvation or their eternity based on a set of legalist rules. Only God can do that and we are NOT Him.

 

In Matthew 7 we are told not to judge, lest we be judged and that we should not point out the speck in the eye of another while we have a plank in our own eye. What does that mean? It means we will be qualified to judge others when we are perfect – so, pretty much never.

 

Let’s put love first and then religion and see if we don’t begin seeing better results in our goals of reaching the world with the Gospel.

 

 

 

 To listen to the entire sermon go to http://ahwatukeechurch.com/media.php.  To learn more about Living Word Ahwatukee, visit http://ahwatukeechurch.com/.