VALENTINES DAY-2007 by George Crumbly
Humphrey UMC 02/11/2007
I CORINTIANS 13: 1-3
TURN TO I CORINTHIANS 13
Wednesday is Valentines Day. It is a day that symbolizes LOVE. Love is the foundation of the Christian. Love is the KEY to our Christianity.
A good friend of mine I worked with years ago is pasturing a church in another denomination than the one he started in. The church he left had been giving him a hard time over Sanctification.
(Wesley taught Sanctification from his aldersgate experience emphasizing the church was experiencing God’s Grace to the fullest)
Over the years I’ve seen folks that aren’t satisfied financially (wanting more money), not satisfied physically (wanting to look & feel better), yet why are they ALL satisfied Spiritually?
Sanctification is when we are filled with God’s Holy Spirit, filled, cleansed & empowered to go out into the world and live like God wants us to live!!
Romans 5:5 “….because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us”.
This love comes from God. I don’t love folks because God say’s I have to or the bible say’s I have to…I love folks because of what God has done in my heart!!
I CORINTHIANS 13: verses 1-3
1If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If 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. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.
Without love, what are we? Nothing.
The part of Sanctification my friend is having is over the legalistic part. Man when I first got in the ministry in 1984 I was one legalistic person!! I believed the stricter you were, the harder you were, the more things you were against, the more Holy you were.
(I was against this & against that, the KJV was the ONLY bible-NONE others, only the KJV, women should wear dresses never pants, men shouldn’t wear short britches or have a mustache or listen to Ray Boltz or any contemporary music)
When I heard Ray Boltz sing “Thank You” I was sold on Ray Boltz. I could have been the poster child for legalism.
I learned it’s not so much what we are against rather what we are for!! I learned the evidence of the Holy Spirit is to bear the fruit: Love, Joy, Peace, Longsuffering, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness and Temperance!!! Wesley said that Love is the root and the rest of the fruit are the branches.
I was involved in the prison ministries back in the 90’s and saw different churches stress “their belief’s”, trying to make folks like them rather than leading them to Jesus. You could find a group of people that believed like you and then start a bible study to teach them to be like you.
I heard a preacher preach a long time ago someone asked Billy Graham why he didn’t preach his doctrine to all those he had the opportunity to preach to, he told them if you want to teach them doctrine teach it in YOUR church as his main goal was to lead the lost to Jesus.
READ THE TEXT
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
Paul is explaining the kind of love God gives us. It is Kind, it is Patient. (are you kind? Patient?).
If not, you don’t have this love of God. Some of the meanness folks I’ve met over the years were in the church.
(I lived in the world nearly 9 years before I got saved. I drank & honky tonked but never was hurt in a bar or by a drunk like I was in a church I pastored a few years ago)
Love is not self-centered or selfish. There are so many out there today that are 100% about themselves. Trying to out do someone else materialistically, wrapped up completely in themselves.
This love does not hold grudges. How many people do you know that hold grudges? Sad, I’ve seen folks that had words with their families and years later unable to talk on birthdays or get together during the holidays because they are still fuming over something silly.
This love does not have hard feelings. I’ve seen folks quit the church over something someone said. If we had moved every time someone hurt my feelings we would have had to live in a camper trailer!!
This love will not end. Everything you see with your eyes or feel with your hands or smell with your nose will end one day, but not this love God gives us.
Verse 13
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
The greatest of these 3? Love…..
Do you have this love? Have you experienced this love? Open your heart & let go & let God fill & empower you!! We need this power.
