Christian Fellowship (4) What is Love? (1)

In this part of the sermon: Martin provides a condensed overview of the church's 'Manifesto,' a series of 90 sermons articulating nine affirmations that define their life and ministry, occasioned by their…

Martin uses the analogy of a multi-day oriental feast to describe the challenge of condensing 90 previous sermons into a 15-minute overview for visitors, likening it to someone arriving late and only getting a 'smell and taste' of what transpired.

a multi-day oriental feast that went on for days and people had enjoyed the various courses day after day and on the last day of the feast someone showed up and said what's been going on here? Well, you could not go back and reconstruct the feast and re-establish every course and set it before them, but perhaps you could at least tell them what had gone on before and perhaps some leftovers that were there that they might smell or taste. And so for 50 minutes we're going to have a very quick smell and taste overview of where we have been so that as we come to the ministry of the Word of God you...

7:39 - 9:06 Read in full sermon

The point: Dare to bring your deeds to the touchstone of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 to be kept from self-deception on the critical issue of love.

He sarcastically contrasts Paul's declaration that those without love are 'nothing' with modern self-esteem teachings, highlighting the blunt truth of Scripture regarding love's supremacy.

children from ages probably 7 or 8 and onward would if properly questioned be able to see that there is a very natural three-fold division of 1 Corinthians 13. In the opening three verses Paul celebrates by the guidance of the Spirit the supremacy of love. He shows that love is supreme over all gifts of utterance all gifts of understanding all gifts of miraculous faith over all acts of benevolence and even acts of personal sacrifice unto martyrdom. He says supreme over all of these things is love. So that without love whatever a man may possess of any one of these things whatever he may do in ...

25:17 - 26:38 Read in full sermon

The point: Pray over 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 throughout the coming week, asking God to search your heart and reveal areas contrary to love.

Martin likens 1 Corinthians 13 to a sandwich, with the supremacy of love as the top slice, the permanence and priority of love as the bottom slice, and the practical manifestations of love (verses 4-7) as the 'stuff the filling in between.'

These three and the greatest of these is love. So if I may liken it without being irreverent to a sandwich 1 Corinthians 13 has as the top slice on the sandwich this statement on the supremacy of love. The bottom slice is the statement on the permanence and the priority of love. Well what forms the stuff the filling in between?

27:10 - 27:39 Read in full sermon

The point: Pray over 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 throughout the coming week, asking God to search your heart and reveal areas contrary to love.

He describes his experience studying 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 as living in 'a house of polished mirrors with intense light and all of them pointing upon the nerve centers of my own heart,' illustrating the convicting power of the passage.

If koinonia if shared life the shared life that begins with untrained unqualified acceptance of one another for that which God has made us impressed can only exist in a climate where there is genuine mutual love and brotherly affection we must know how does mutual love manifest itself? How does spirit wrought brotherly affection in concrete ways show its face its hands its feet and its heart? And that is precisely the issue that is addressed in verses 4 through 7. And I want you with me this morning to make these three simple introductory observations about these verses. And I hope they will w...

28:31 - 30:00 Read in full sermon

The point: Discern if you truly love one another by bringing your actions into the light of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, especially in areas like envy and self-seeking.

Martin provides a vivid example of envy, contrasting the joy one might feel for a brother's new home with the bitter envy that arises when a peer acquires a new car while one struggles with an old, broken-down vehicle, illustrating how love 'envies not' and 'seeks not its own.'

they read love envy's not and they are told if you give them thirty forty more thousand dollars for the down payment they get in a much nicer home than they had ever hoped to get into and you can go over and be the first one to weep with joy and put your arms around them and not have one thousandth of a gram stick in rebuilt transmission and even then with bubble gum and rubber bands you wonder if you're going to make it to church and just as you're turning in the driveway that fellow that started off his career at the same time yours did he drives in with that brand it doesn't end it doesn't ...

35:29 - 36:58 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The grace of love is set before us in these verses in an intensely realistic way of all the various ways in which love acts reacts which Paul could have chosen to describe there's a common context for each manifestation …

He uses the term 'feelometer' to mock the idea of assessing love based on subjective feelings, emphasizing that love is about actions, not emotions.

a feelometer at current and have the elders go around and check everyone with their feelometer to see if they love one another having extolled the supremacy of love we are then thrust into a crucible of verses in which the grace of love is set before us in an exclusively practical way but then secondly by way of overview I want you to notice I never saw this as clearly I've been seeing it along the way but it struck me with tremendous force in the preparation of these verses the grace of love is set before us in these verses in an intensely realistic way of all the various ways in which love a...

38:28 - 39:56 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The grace of love is set before us in these verses in an intensely realistic way of all the various ways in which love acts reacts which Paul could have chosen to describe there's a common context for each manifestation …

He refers to envy as the 'vicious, horrible, green-eyed monster' that can arise from within, illustrating the sin that love 'envies not.'

And if there were no tendency to that vicious, horrible, green-eyed monster to come up out of the depths of our own being and influence our spirits when God blesses our brothers or sisters with gifts or things or endowments that we wish we ourselves had or their enjoyment of which we cannot enter into why would God have to say love envies not? If we were not vulnerable to the wretched sin of envy it's easier to get someone to admit that he lusts after another man's wife than that he lusts after his brother's new car or new home. Who wants to admit to so churlish and foul a sin as envy?

43:41 - 44:26 Read in full sermon

The point: If you have questions about whether you are truly loving your brethren, come to this passage and assess if you are doing what love does and not doing what love does not do, in the strength of Christ and the grace of the …

He uses the vivid imagery of being 'coughed up as windbills and bags' to describe the state of being 'puffed up,' illustrating what love 'is not puffed up' means.

If you are not coughed up as windbills and bags. If you do not behave yourself unseemly in your interaction one with another. If you do not seek your own things as you relate to one another. If you are not easily provoked and touchy and quick to take offense in your interactions with one another.

50:36 - 51:01 Read in full sermon

The point: If you have questions about whether you are truly loving your brethren, come to this passage and assess if you are doing what love does and not doing what love does not do, in the strength of Christ and the grace of the …

He speaks of keeping 'no ledger book of the evils that others do to you,' illustrating how love 'takes not account of evil.'

If you keep no ledger book of the evils that others do to you. If you do not rejoice when unrighteousness is manifested in the life of another. But you rejoice when truth conquers the life and produces a life of holiness.

51:01 - 51:20 Read in full sermon