Wednesday, June 7, 2006
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal' (1 Corinthians 13:1).
IDEA: Love makes an impact on those whose lives we touch.
PURPOSE: To help listeners realize they can make a difference in other people’s lives.
There’s an old adage that says, “Your actions speak so loudly that I can’t hear what you say.”
Is that always true?
What kinds of actions would get in the way of what we say?
I. Listen to what Paul says to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 13:1.
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal."
Do you think Paul might be saying that my actions are speaking so loudly that you can’t hear what I’m saying?
What do you think the loud gong and clanging cymbal mean?
In the experience of the church at Corinth, can you see how the Christians’ actions could have drowned out their witness? Can you see how that could happen today?
II. Without love, our efforts to communicate the Christian witness is as futile as trying to talk over a loud siren. The noise is deafening.
A woman said of her pastor, “When he is in the pulpit, we wish he’d never get out of it. But when he’s out of the pulpit, and we feel the coldness of his life, we wish he’d never enter it again.”
Almost 60 years ago, a professor at Johns Hopkins University gave a group of graduate students an assignment. They were to go into the slums of Baltimore and study 200 boys between the ages of 12 and 16. The students were to investigate each boy’s background and environment. Then they were to predict that chances of those boys for the future.
The graduate students consulted social statistics, talked with the boys, and compiled as much data as they could. They concluded that 90 percent of those young men would spend some time in prison.
Twenty-five years later, another group of graduate students was given the task of testing the earlier predictions. They went back into the slum area and tried to find those boys who were now middle-aged men. Some of the boys were still in the neighborhood. A few had died, and some had moved away. They were able to locate 180 of the original 200. Only four of the group had been sent to jail.
When they tried to discover why these men, who had lived in a breeding place of crime, had such a surprisingly good record, they were told again and again, “Well, there was a teacher . . .”
They pressed further and found that in about 75 percent of the cases, it was the same teacher, a woman. The researchers went to this teacher, now living in a home for retired teachers. They asked how she had exerted this remarkable influence over a group of slum children. Could she give them any reason why these boys should have remembered her?
According to one of the researchers who wrote up the report, the teacher had no explanation: “No, she insisted, “No, I can’t really explain the good results.” And then, thinking back over the years, she said musingly, more to herself that to the questioner, “I really loved those boys.”
Jonathan Edwards, one of the great intellectuals in American history, was described by professors at Yale University as one of the three greatest intellects America has produced. In spite of his brilliance, he determined that he would not prepare a sermon nor preach it unless he was motivated by love for those to whom he ministered.