I was preaching on 1 Corinthians 13 on Sunday. It is a sermon I had preached before in my own church and had taken elsewhere. I edited it a bit, but barring the occasional bit that was specific to my church or inappropriate for the one I was in, it was essentially the same thing.

What is interesting when you preach the almost-but-not-quite-the-same sermon is just how bits of it strike you afresh. Maybe it is the slightly different emphases or the particular way you apply it, I don’t know. But I was struck particularly by the essence of our faith and the Christian life being rooted and grounded in love.

Of course, in 1 Corinthians 13, the point is painfully obvious. Without love, our gifts and service are valueless. In love, our gifts and service become useful. The measure of our maturity is the love we have for the brethren (this is a repeated theme throughout the New Testament). You can’t escape Paul’s emphasis on service that is driven by love. It is, indeed, Jesus’ own emphasis: love God and love people and you have fulfilled the whole of the law. All the law and the prophets hang on these two. He says elsewhere that people will know we are his disciples ‘if you have love one for one another’. At the heart of the Christian faith is love.

As I was preaching it, I got to thinking a little about the quiet revival stuff. I have spoken on this recently (see here, here, here and here). In essence, whilst people are looking at the church again, they are already beginning to recognise the fruit of the de facto secular humanism that prevails socially has been considerably less good than the old form Christianity. But I think we still need to do some work to display that the fruit of the gospel really is good day-to-day so that those inclined toward it will actually give it a hearing. This is where I think the apologetic value of love really comes in.

Certainly in the modern UK, relationships and community have increasingly disintegrated and disappeared. There are myriad reasons for that which I won’t get into here. But many are looking both for authentic connection and genuinely loving community. Most attempts to artificially create these things prove empty and dissatisfying in the end. The church (at least in theory) should be able to provide a space for authentic relationships to develop and for it not to be remotely artificial, but an evident outworking of the Holy Spirit at work among his people. The fruit of the gospel amongst the Spirit-empowered people of God should be a manifest and meaningful love for one another.

I have argued before that one of the key things we can do in our current cultural moment is make ourselves accessible and available. As people are looking toward the church, genuinely giving it a second thought, being available and accessible will allow people to find us. Many are doing exactly that. But I think we need to take that a step further. Not just letting them find us, but making sure the fruit of the gospel is on display when they come.

Let’s put it this way. Many people will seek to find a church because the promises of the secular revolution have failed to materialise. But just coming into a church won’t bring anybody into the kingdom or cause them to believe the gospel in and of itself. After all, centuries of Christendom puts paid to the theory that if they come “under the sound of the Word” they will necessarily believe. Nominal Christianity existed for a long time for a reason! Whilst we need to be accessible and available for those looking, we also need to display the fruit of the gospel when they come so that – before they hear – they see the gospel is a fundamentally good thing. When we have done that, we have done the preparatory work that may help some move from checking the church out, to seeing the gospel is essentially good, to giving it an actual hearing and then, subsequently, coming to believe it.

If all we get out of the so-called quiet revival is more people coming to church, that does not strike me as much of a revival at all. Moving unbelievers from outside the building to sitting in it with us at the same time is really not the mission of the church. Getting them inside might be part of the means we use to get to the desired end, but it is not the end itself. The goal is to make disciples. It is to see unbelievers engage with the gospel, come to believe it for themselves and becoming disciples. Unbelievers sitting in the same room as us might make us feel numerically significant, but it doesn’t do a great deal for the kingdom. Unbelievers sitting in the room and engaging with the gospel, however, might just lead them somewhere towards the Christ who can save and sanctify them.

But it seems to me the love for God’s people, the connection and community that is Spirit-empowered, is a key apologetic for the church. As people already inclined to come start to meet with us, what they find when they come will have an impact. It is not just about what they hear; it’s also about what they see. It’s not just about telling them the content of the gospel; it’s about them seeing the gospel visibly displayed. If the loss of community and a lack of authentic love are the drivers pushing people away from secular humanistic assumptions, authentic community and an evident love – even love for those secular society would tend to avoid – is a huge pull towards the church and the Christ who more fully and perfectly displays these things in abundance.

I don’t quite want to say the takeaway is that all you need is love. But I do think, apart from love, our apologetics will not be effective and – as attracted to the church as some might be – the gospel we proclaim might not be properly heard. You might need some other things beyond just a demonstration of love; but without love, whatever else you might do will be severely lacking.