Love is the Greatest Gift!

Today, there are many options to help you determine your personality, strengths, weaknesses, parenting style, etc. One example might be a quiz that helps you determine why kind of bread you are. The results of the quiz might reveal you are sourdough because you are sour or a sweet roll because you are sweet, you might be banana bread because you are a little bananas or rye bread because you are dense and serious. I really should not talk about food right before lunch time. Forgive me if I upset you for talking about food just before we go over to the other building to enjoy our fellowship meal.

You may be upset when food is talked about in the sermon, but you are not as upset as the people were at Jesus when he visited his hometown. Last week we read the first half of the account in Luke 4 of Jesus visiting his hometown to preach in the synagogue. Today we heard the other half of the account. When the people heard Jesus’ message that they were guilty of seeing him only as a traveling teacher, rather than the promised Savior, and that he could not do many miracles in their town for their lack of faith, we read, 28 “All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.” The people of Jesus’ hometown wanted Jesus to perform miracles to prove who he was, but he was not a traveling performer, nor did he come to this world only to heal the physically ill. Jesus was the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David, who was prophesied by Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel and the other prophets. The people of his hometown rejected Scripture’s promise of the Savior; they had no faith, hope or love for Jesus.

Without love for Jesus, people are left with nothing. Without love for Jesus, the people of his hometown were only left with the frustrating memory of a man from their town; they had nothing in terms of forgiveness, eternal life or the love of God for their rejection of Jesus. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he also shared the truth that a lack of love leaves a person with nothing writing, 13:1 “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 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 do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” The Corinthians were filled with selfishness and pride because of their spiritual gifts. They were acting like the sinful, unbelieving world. They saw their gifts as better than others causing division and pride as they flaunted their superior over others. Paul spoke directly to their hearts confronting them with their sin. They had lost love, and so they had nothing. God’s purpose for giving the Corinthians and all believers spiritual gifts is to share his love. Without love for God and others, any gift used selfishly to benefit a person in the short term, in this life until they die is wasted, and is nothing.

You are also nothing without love. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul made it clear that the Holy Spirit is the one who brought you to faith in Jesus writing, 3 Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. God rescued you from the hopeless way of life that curses God and lives without any care or love for him. Paul went on to write that all of you as believers have spiritual gifts writing, 4 “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” God made you who you are and saved you, not just to have a trophy case of human figurines in heaven, to have statues without life or movement, that slowly accumulate dust. You are his living people, he calls you priests, servants, ministers, soldiers, living, speaking, thinking, loving children of God, citizens of heaven, called to continuous action. Faith in Jesus’ forgiveness and hope in eternal life in heaven, is always accompanied by love for God and others. If you only look to Jesus as your good luck charm to get into heaven but live your life without any love for him or others, you are nothing.

God’s love has changed you. The love God has for you is not playing favorites or remaining close to you as long as you are good, then abandoning you when you are bad, nor is God’s love bound up in the physical or superficial. God’s love for you is unconditional, active, meaningful, lasting, compassionate and gracious love. His love made you something when you were nothing and had nothing to give him. In Romans 1, we hear, 17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” The perfect, flawless goodness or righteousness God expects from you is impossible for you to achieve. So, God gave you his goodness or righteousness, so that you are now perfect in God’s eyes and a worthy citizen of heaven. God did this for you through Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection as we hear in, John 3, 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Again, this is the love of God, that he cared so much for you and wanted you to be safe, and his own forever, that he sacrificed his own son to save you. It is this love that has changed us from dead to alive as we hear in 2 Corinthians 5, 14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. We are filled with God’s love to live for good and fight against evil. When we do not live for good, God is there to forgive us. When we do good, we praise God because it is his love working in and through us as we read in 1 John 4, 19 We love because he first loved us.

When we are filled with God’s love, we use our spiritual gifts. God’s love acts without considering the return on investment of time, energy, money or the person being acted upon. It is selfless and only wants to give. This is your attitude regarding your spiritual gifts. Without this kind of love your spiritual gifts remain unused or they are used without the loving, spiritual benefit God wants for them. In 1 Corinthians 13, God describes love, 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. This is the love God has for you and fills you with to love others.

In the first chapter of the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, the prophet Jeremiah recorded the words God spoke to him when he was first called, 4 The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” God had plans for Jeremiah before he was born and he shared those plans with him so that he would know how to put his gifts to use for God and others.

God also has plans for you. He has given you spiritual gifts, and he has given you the direction and ability to carry them out in the Bible and by the power of the Holy Spirit living in you. At the end of 1 Corinthians 13, we read, 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. You have the gift of faith knowing you are forgiven through Jesus and hope in eternal life in heaven. You also have love. Love is the greatest gift because love is being like God. God calls himself love in 1 John 4, 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. To love, to be filled with the greatest gift, to grow in love, we must know and rely on God by growing in faith and hope in the Word of God.

Today, there are many options to help you determine your personality, strengths, weaknesses, parenting style, even bread type. Yesterday at the S.H.A.P.E.D. workshop many members of Divine Peace dove deep into Scripture to identify their spiritual gifts. This workshop will be offered again in the future so that all of you get to learn what spiritual gifts God has given you. These gifts are not to sit unused, but to be used in your life as a believer. God saved you from your sins, death and hell, to give you eternal life with him in heaven and to give you a new life now that serves him and others. You are part of the body of Christ, the church. God, the Holy Spirit, encourages, strengthens, grows and equips you through God’s Word. Being in God’s Word fills you with faith, hope and love. God gave you the greatest gift and you get to give it too using your unique spiritual gifts. Love is the greatest gift. Amen.