So thinking of the opportunity to grow, we have been working through 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 all summer long. And I’m not saying summer is over, but I’m saying this is the last Sunday of the series. Some of you are going, yes, that is the longest series I’ve ever endured in my life.
But we learned last week that love endures. So we can endure through that. But it’s just pretty core, pretty fundamental, pretty big to who we are as the church.
As we looked at 12 and 13, it’s the body of Christ. How do we live as the body of Christ? How do we move beyond ourselves? I mean, the biggest thing about being a church is that it’s not all about us, which is sometimes hard to grasp. But if you think about it, it’s kind of cool because we have one another.
Each one has different gifts. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re not all exactly the same. And that is a good thing, that God gives us all different gifts and different passions at different times and different ways to plug in with those gifts.
And we have the opportunity within the church to use those gifts to build up the kingdom of God, to build up the church, to bring that hope to others. And Paul walks through a lot of the spiritual gifts during 1 Corinthians 12. But I love the way he ends 1 Corinthians 12 by saying, and I will show you a more excellent way.
And then he starts talking about love. We opened, when we talked about 1 Corinthians 13, saying, love or nothing. Without love, it’s nothing.
I mean, Jesus said audacious things too. Like he said, you got to love me more than anybody in your family, any friend, or you’re not worthy of me. It’s tough teaching, but love is key to who we are.
And if we don’t have that love of God in us, we don’t have that love that Jesus had, that sacrificial love that gives it to us. No matter how good and how skilled and how gifted we are, if we don’t do that through love, Paul says here, I am nothing. I can give away everything.
I can even give my body up to be burned, which some of his listeners might have to do in the near future. But he said, without love, I gain nothing. Last week, we talked about the definition of love.
What is love? What isn’t love? And we could see a lot of people on TV and in the media and news and in the real world and us need to go over that definition of love. Today, we’re going to close this by talking about how love is eternal, and we need as much in our lives that is eternal. Because there are so many things that at one point Paul talks about in Corinthians, that things that are not of God will be burned off as if someone going through fire.
Isn’t that fun to know that whether you go to heaven or hell, you got fire to deal with? So the goal is to grow as much in love now so there’s more of us that is received into the pearly gates before burning that off and becoming more and more pure, like refined gold before God. So when we see God, he just looks at us and says, well done, good and faithful servant. We stand as you are able.
Our scripture today is 1 Corinthians 13, 8 through 13. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away.
As for tongues, they will cease. This just seems too quiet. Let’s do it like we did last week.
Let’s join our voices together. If there’s anything in God’s word that you need on your heart, it’s 1 Corinthians 13. Let’s start over.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease.
As for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when the perfect comes, the partial 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 mere dimly, but then to face. I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three. But the greatest of these is love. The word of God, inspired by God, for the people of God, thanks be to God.
Amen. You may be seated. There’s a lot packed into this end of 1 Corinthians 13 for us to build on to help us in our faith.
Now, Dana Vanscoy tells the story about her son who just graduated from the eighth grade and soon would be entering high school. It’s very personal to me for a reason that I, it’s probably hard to tell, but it’s in the room. She said this, she said, our son graduated from eighth grade and would soon be entering high school.
He was the first of our children to read, to reach this point in life. And I was a novice at giving parental tips concerning the pitfalls lurking in the new environment of higher education. Nevertheless, I sat down with him.
I discussed the experiences, the temptations, the things that would occur, and I made sure in that face-to-face conversation, this is what’s going to happen in September. And afterwards, she said, I hoped our session made an impression on him, and it had. I overheard him tell his father, well, I’m ready for high school, but I don’t think mom is.
So many times we toggle between, as we, as in parents, wanting our kids to grow up, stop acting like a child, and slowing them down, saying, no, not yet, no, you’re not ready for this, you’re not ready. But life comes whether or not we’re ready. One of the greatest jobs as a parent is to help your child be equipped to survive life on their own.
Does that make sense? Not just take care of them, not just give them whatever they want, not just make their life comfortable, but to prepare them to survive on their own. That’s a big part of growing up. Now, I have heard myself sometimes with my boys saying, hey, slow down, we don’t need to grow up yet, you know, just be a kid, enjoy it.
And sometimes I say the eloquent words, you grow up. Now my dad was a little more eloquent when he would talk to me. I mean, he would say, literally he would say, when I would do something childish, he would look at me and go, when I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child, but when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
And I said, no, I saw you hanging out with your buddies. Like, no, I didn’t. But in that, it talks about growing up, but Paul is connecting it to something that’s so much bigger than just saying, grow up and be mature, be a good citizen of our community.
Paul is saying, grow up as a follower of Jesus Christ, and more specifically, grow up in love. In fact, before he talks about being a child, he says, for we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. Another one of those tough teachings.
Jesus would say, be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Now the Greek word for that, that is here in 1 Corinthians 13, 11 or 10, is the Greek word is telos or telion in here, as it’s derived in this text. Telos, means the word that we interpret as perfect.
Now the way you explain telos is that it’s pretty, it’s pretty cool the way they talk about telos, that it says to set out for a definite point or a goal. Does anybody have a goal? Any goals? That’s good. You got to have goals in retirement, but we talked about that.
Do you have a goal? I mean, even as a Christian, I ask this question because I have seen so many churchgoers not have goals for their faith. If you don’t have a goal, are you just going to magically get there? The goal for our faith is to be perfected in love. Now Wesley talked about this a lot, that it is the important thing in our faith that if we are going to go on to perfection, that we are perfected in love, the whole sanctification thing and growing up in our faith and becoming more Christ-like is to come to that point to think, you know, there are faith reasons, there are hope reasons, but the love reasons are forever.
If you want to do kingdom things, if you want to do things that are going to endure into heaven, Paul is saying love endures. Love will never pass away. Love never ends.
Love is something that when you do something in love, which means you’ll do it to the best of your ability, which means you’ll do it for the glory of God, which means you’ll do it so somebody else can experience Jesus in their life, that that will never end. It is not in vain to love. Does that make sense? In no situation will you face in life is it in vain to love, even when it feels like something else is going to feel a lot better right here.
I’m going to give them what they deserve, but instead we love. Now remember, you have to go back and read chapter 13 verses 4 through 7 for the definition of what is love and what isn’t love, because if you take it from what you just gain through school and through life, you don’t understand the depth and the power of love. Let’s just look back at that definition for a minute.
Love is patient and kind, just like we always are perfect in patience and kindness, right? Let’s move on. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. Never.
What you do, how you move with love never ends. That’s what carries on with us through all eternity. That’s what makes the spiritual gifts valuable to the kingdom of God.
That’s what makes the body of Christ function as a true church, a true church that loves one another. And when I say that, I’m saying even you have to love Him and you have to love her. And when I say have to, that’s halfway joking.
If you have the love of God in you, then that’s what enables you to love one another as God has called us to love. And when the world can see that we love one another, that’s why we have phases of greeting time, Christian, so we can love each other more. The world can see that we love one another.
It changes everything in the world. I mean, we get to this point where we think of love as being this wishy-washy, squishy thing that comes and goes, however we feel and however we move. But love is powerful.
I mean, how powerful does something have to be to endure for all time? How powerful does it have to be to be one of the main attributes of the God we worship? Love never ends. Love grows in us. And when we let that love of Christ grow within us and we become more like Christ, then it’s easier to love when it seems like there is no room for love in a situation in life.
Romans 8.35 talks about this power of love. It says, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Do you guys know the answer before I go on? Who can separate us from the love of Christ? No one. That’s pretty powerful.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, or sword? No. As it is written, for His sake, for your sake, we are being killed all day long. We are being regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
Knowing all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Conquerors. I mean, love is something that conquers evil.
Instead of living into evil to fight evil, we fight evil with love. Does that make sense? Love doesn’t say anything goes. Love says God comes first.
For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, angels, nor rulers, nor present, nor things to come, nor anything in any height or depth, anything in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God and Jesus Christ. What else is that powerful? That we get that kind of love from God. That love that pushes through and overpowers anything.
James Briden says it like this, love does not die easily. It is a living thing. It thrives in the face of all life’s hazards, save one neglect.
Now, God’s love, nothing separates us from the love of God and Jesus Christ. Nothing. But our love can wane if we neglect it.
That’s why I mentioned in our Hope Builders groups, the main goal of that is to build one another up in love. Build one another up in love. We set a goal.
Set a goal today to be perfected in love. I mean, sometimes we say, well, it’s really simple. Church is about loving God and loving others.
Loving God, loving our neighbor. Loving God and loving people. But it’s not always that simple.
You need God within you to help you love the way God has called you to love. Thinking of love being neglected in us, Matthew 24, 11 through 13, when Jesus is talking about the end times, he says these words, and many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, let me say that again, because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
The lawlessness, separation from God, acting on our own behalf, forgetting about the kingdom, living into the culture or context, whether or not it is of God. And Jesus closes this by saying, but the one who endures to the end will be saved. What endures to the end? Love.
Every day we need to have a goal. I’m going to love today. Maybe in a certain situation, you take a deep breath and you say, God help me to love right now.
Help me to respond in love. Help me not to just think of myself and what I want to do right now. But how do I sacrificially think of others? How do I grow in that way? Ephesians 4, 14 through 16 says it in such a way that Paul ties this all together here.
He says, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every word of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. That’s one of the things with being mature is that we don’t believe everything that pops up on social media or on the TV. We don’t just, somebody says, hey, you need to change this or you need to get involved in this.
You know, we’re not peer pressured as easily. We are, life has a lot of waves that toss us back and forth. I mean, it’s probably not saying too much that all of us have been through something that’s tough, that we’ve faced storms.
He goes on to say, rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ. Love rejoices in the truth when we speak the truth to one another, when we let ourselves grow in God because the Holy Spirit is more and more prevalent within us. From whom all the whole body joined and held together by every joint which with which it is equipped.
When every part is working properly, what are the parts? What are the parts of the body of Christ? Okay, I’m going to make this easier. Who are the parts of the body of Christ? We are. We are the parts of the body of Christ.
Joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, even when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Now you guys are going to answer love forever. I’m going to trick you next week.
But you’re not going to be wrong if you answer love because love undergirds everything we are and everything we do as a church. Love is our telos. It is our end.
It is our goal. It is what we strive for. It is how we want to have the love of God in Jesus Christ in us so that as Jesus sacrificed everything for us so we can sacrifice for one another.
So we can sacrifice so the world can see through us that God is alive. That God is real. That the Holy Spirit can guide us in life.
That Jesus gave everything so that we could live and that we no longer have to feel alone and afraid and lost in this world because we have a God who loves us. Even when we might be a little unlovable. Even when we are focused on ourselves.
Yes, Jesus loves you. How do we know that? The Bible tells me so. Let’s pray.
Gracious God, thank you so much for this church. Thank you for enabling us to be the body of Christ. Thank you for giving us a love that endures.
A love that strengthens us. A love that lifts us up when we need you. Help us to grow in love.
Help us to have a goal to be perfected in love. Help us just to love like Jesus. Thank you God that you loved us so much that you sent your only son.
That you gave us grace that we can only imagine. And that grace breaks every bond that holds us. That grace in the love of Jesus Christ is more powerful than any sin or any shame or any hurt or anything within us.
Because you are so amazing. We pray this in your holy name. Amen.