In this pre‑service devotional, music pastor Rick Lee James addresses his church’s praise team, arguing that the most essential characteristic God reveals in Christ is love, not holiness, power, or sovereignty. He emphasizes that love is an active verb, using the analogy of “Google” becoming a verb, and cites biblical passages (1 John 4:10, 1 Cor 13) and the insights of Brian Zahnn and Bishop William Willimon to support his point. James urges the team to embody love in worship, reminding them that without love, spiritual gifts are empty, and concludes with a blessing, encouraging them to bring love into the service.
Chapters
Good morning, I'm Rick Lee James. I'm the music pastor at First Church of the Nazarene in Springfield, Ohio. These are just some thoughts that I'm going to be sharing this morning with our praise team as we come together to practice again one final time before service today and prepare our hearts for worship. I've been thinking about today that the primary and most important characteristic of who God is in Christ is not his holiness. Sorry, we're Nazarenes, we hit on holiness, but that's not the most important thing about God. His power is not the most important thing. His righteousness is not. His sovereignty is not. His glory, his unchangeable nature, all of those things, they have merit. They're things that we need to look into, but the most important characteristic, the most primary thing that God chose to reveal about himself to us in Christ Jesus is his love. Uh, God's way to change the world, as I have heard it said by my friend Brian Zahnn, um, is not the battlefield but the table. That's the way that God changes the world. Um, as followers of Christ, No other characteristic should define us either. Christ has revealed his love to us. Love is a verb. Most of us, I think, if you're watching this video, I'm sure you know what Google is. When Google first came out, I think we all looked at it as a noun, as a thing, as a search engine that we use. But now Google has become a verb. It's something we do. Go Google something. I'm gonna Google this thing. We've turned it into an action word. Love is not a thing. Love is not just a noun. Love is an action word. I was performing— I wasn't performing a ceremony yesterday, I was playing music at a wedding ceremony yesterday, and it struck me, not because of this particular wedding, but just because of our culture and their understanding of love. We often think that love is this thing that we find, and almost as if it's an object, and now that we've got it, we've got love. It's there now, we have it. But love is something that we do. Love is a verb. Just as you would Google a topic, we are to love a person. We are to create those actions that are loving. We are to be loving. William Willimon, who is a bishop in the Methodist Church, one of my favorite pastoral theologians, he said, God could have chosen to be sovereign and in complete control, but God wanted to be love. And that is who God makes himself for us. That's the most primary important thing that God could show us about himself, and we see that in Christ. God could have chosen a number of things to be known as, but his primary revelation to us is the revelation that he is love. 1 John 4:10 says, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." 1 Corinthians 13 is how I would like to close this morning, saying, "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels but do not have love—" again, think of love as this action word— If I am not loving, 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 faith that can move mountains but do not have love— or maybe we should say a better translation, I do not give love— I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not Love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love 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. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a 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 known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. Let's remember today, love. It's not something that we have, as Clint Black once said in a song, but it's something that we do. It is the primary and most important characteristic of who God is, and it's the most important revelation of God to us about himself. The very most important thing is his love, and it is that love that will change the world. God be with you as you come to worship today. Let's leave all the other things outside the door but the love of Christ. God be with you. Blessing.
