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Make Love Your Aim
“If I speak in tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 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 have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (I Corinthians 13:1-3)
This is a favorite scripture for many of us. We hear it read at weddings. We see it on wall plaques – inspired words about love.
Of course, Paul didn’t sit down and decide to write a poem about love… “Wouldn’t it be nice to write a poem about love that people could hang on their walls, something suitable to be read at weddings.” No. These words poured out of him as he was dictating a letter to his problem church - the Corinthians.
The believers at Corinth had a lot going for them: - there was power in their worship - healings were taking place - there was enthusiasm, but beneath all these great signs of life, something was going on that disturbed Paul.
The people speaking in tongues felt superior to those who didn’t. Factions were forming over who had the most gifts of the Spirit. So Paul dictated this letter which we call “1 Corinthians”.
Paul is pacing the floor talking. Silas is writing it all down and here comes this long stretch of advice you can read in 1Corinthians 12 – 14. Advice about gifts of the Spirit, especially about speaking in tongues. And right in the middle of all the advice comes this eloquent passage about love, to show that, if you have the gifts of the Spirit without the fruit of the Spirit which is love, you have nothing.
You have the gift of tongues? Fine, but; “If I speak with tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal…”
You have the gift of prophecy? Good, but; “If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries…, but have not love, I am nothing.”
You have the gift of special faith? Excellent, but; Remember that that faith is useless without love.
If the gifts don’t produce fruit, they are wasted on me.
The thing the Spirit wants to produce in us is God’s mind, God’s nature… which is a special kind of love - agape love. Love that just gives. Here’s what it’s like:
“Love is patient and kind; love is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1Corinthians13:4-7)
And we say, “Whoa! That leaves me out! Patient, kind, not irritable, not resentful - I could never be like that!”
Those Corinthians were just like we are. They too considered it normal to be impatient, irritable, critical, suspicious. After all, we’re only human! As it says on the bumper sticker, “Christians aren’t perfect - just forgiven.” But if you are forgiven by the blood of the Lamb, my friend, and if the Spirit of God is actually at work in your life, you can’t go on living the way you used to live. You can’t. You’re going to change. The tree is going to be changed into a good tree so that it can produce good fruit.
That’s why God gives us his Spirit. To empower us to live like we could not live before. Specifically he gives us the power to love. God’s kind of love - agape love.
If you are a disciple of Jesus, this is not an option, this is a command! “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples,…” (John 13:34-35)
- not because you have spiritual gifts - not because you heal the sick - not because you speak in tongues or prophesy, but “because you have love for one another.”
When Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthians, there were no chapters or verses. Silas just kept stringing all those great words together. Centuries later, they divided it into chapters and verses.
Chapter 13 ends with, “So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Chapter 14 begins with, “Make love your aim,”
and that’s really the clincher.
“Make love you aim.” So you’re not perfect - make love your aim. Keep working on it. Now we’re going to take this love passage of Paul’s that’s hanging on the wall in a beautiful frame, we’re going to bring it down from the wall, and make it the rock on which we build our lives.
It’s a description of what we become as Christ is formed in us. It’s what we aim at in our daily lives:
“Love is patient and kind; love is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1Corinthians13:4-7) Why do we aim at this? Because it’s the only thing that works - the only thing that lasts.
“Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. (1Corinthians13:8)
Only love never fails. This isn’t a pretty little poem. It’s the doorway to life.
“Make love your aim.”
Four things we need to know about “making love our aim”.
1. There has to be a point at which you decide to do this. You decide from now on you’re going to make love your aim. It’s not going to come over you like a trance. At some point I have to decide, “Am I going to yield to God’s will in this matter or my own?” And I need to renew this decision every day. This is how I’m going to live now. I’m going to make love my aim - at home - at work because this is the life I’ve been called to by God.
2. Once you decide to make love your aim, open your heart and you will get supernatural help. It’s like a wind comes behind you on your journey. The love of God is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit.
- You find yourself accepting people you would not accept before.
- You begin to see some of the hard cases in a new light.
- You find yourself not insisting on your own way.
- You’re willing to yield, and it’s not so bad. It doesn’t have to go my way all the time.
3. Once you make love your aim, God will start sending some exercises your way in the form of people. In dealing with these people you are going to develop patience as you learn
- How to yield to them in love.
- How to rejoice in someone’s success instead of envying them.
- You’ll find yourself loving your wife, your husband, your child in a better way.
- People in the church that seemed hard to figure out will now be seen as brothers, sisters, co-workers.
These people who are sent into our lives are opportunities to learn how to love.
4. We’ll begin to see that learning to love (and we will make progress) is the best contribution we can make to the growth of our church. Just as you can walk into a home and feel the atmosphere, - Maybe it’s a war zone. - Maybe it’s cold and sterile. - Maybe it’s radiant with warmth and kindness. - Maybe it’s a house of peace.
You can feel it, so it is when you walk into a church. You either feel like you’ve come home or you’re out of place. If there’s an atmosphere of love, even if the worship is different and the music is unfamiliar, you still feel at home. This is the vestibule of heaven!
You can have a car with a 400 horsepower engine. It can climb any hill. It can maneuver any terrain. But that car will only go where you aim it. If you aim at the ditch, that mighty engine will get you there!
God sets us free from our old bondage and gives us his Spirit to empower us to live a new life. But we still do the steering. We go where we aim to go. If we make love our aim, that’s where we’ll go. We’ll get there, but only if that’s our aim.
So Paul’s advice to the Corinthians is the Spirit’s advice to us as well. “Go for the spiritual gifts”, he says, ”especially that you prophesy with a word from God. Ask God to give you power from on high - the power of the Spirit to live this new life, but make love your aim.” See the people who come bursting into your life, - whether it’s with kindness or harshness - whether it’s with encouragement or anger it’s just what you need, to learn how to manifest the Love of God because:
“Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect 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 understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. Make love your aim…” (1Corinthians13:8-14:1a)
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