Love in the Church - 1 Corinthians 13 - Origin Sermon - 19 February 2023

It is very encouraging to hear so many voices who have either

experienced or extended love this week.

That's a good thing. Whether you have been attending

to the church calendar or the secular calendar this week, can

I just say that this particular week in the calendar offers a

lot of space for sentimentality about love last Tuesday. if you

have any kids or A significant other you would know is

Valentine's and you might be like my little friend in grade 2

who wrote dear Oscar on so many of his Valentine's that his mama

was like we're about to run out of cards for your friends.

Now he loved himself and he wanted to make sure there was

going to be something in his box at school, so he kept writing

cards to himself and there were supposed to be for his friends.

There was also may be a treat attached to this car.

Cards. And if you write for to

yourself, you get four pieces of chocolate, it's not a bad thing.

Then tomorrow is Family Day and why don't you know?

You think we'll family. We could all go.

Hmm But we all have that cousin and you're probably at the age

some of you where you're trying really hard to differentiate

from your parents and that's not all smooth sailing.

And then we have friends who've lost somebody in the last year.

And so, family day is particularly brutal.

Craig and I have a friend and family day is the one-year

anniversary of when his wife decided to leave him and his

three children. And so, it's a bitter day.

And then Tuesday's a weird day in some places in the world

Carnival is celebrated and there's a whole lot of

Celebration and fun and then if you're from where I'm from, You

have to eat pancakes Tuesday night for Fat Tuesday, so it's

very decadent. You're having buttery bread with

syrup and chocolate chips and fruit and because come Wednesday

you're going to sacrifice for love.

Okay, so let's look at all the mental pictures of love.

We have syrupy relational, love with lots of red and pink.

And because we don't know how to do it.

Well, we have teenage girls at high school where I work going

around, and giving everybody flowers because they knew that

they weren't going to get any and they didn't want.

Anybody else to feel that loneliness, we have people who

want a day where everybody's going, oh, it's family day are

feeling bitter, pain and then in trying to remember the sacrifice

of Jesus and to walk with him in it.

At least where I'm from. You eat a lot of Rich gooey,

gooey pancakes right before cuz sacrifice his heart.

We have a lot of messed-up ideas about love and unfortunately

that comes into then are important relationships.

So I was like, Oh, Ellen, you're being a little bit hard on this

week so then I Googled best relationships.

Okay, I encourage you to do it. When you get it.

Well, the list there were some web TV things and I didn't know

mall. So I went of all time because I

wanted something that I could. Well, it started with Adam and

Eve. I've never thought about Adam

and Eve as a model relationship because it got messed up pretty

early and so my huh. And then it went through

relationship after relationship, that ended in self-harming,

castration. So joint suicide, I was like,

why does Me when our pictures of important relationships are like

in the top 50, I think it was like, 36 were dysfunctional like

profoundly dysfunctional. I was like, oh we are in

trouble. If this is what you put up and

say that's what love looks like. So we're going to go to a space

that you know. Well first Corinthians 13 to

think about love for a few minutes.

You can read along with me if I speak in the tongues of men or

of angels, but do not have love all 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, 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. Not have love I gain.

Nothing love is patient. Love is kind.

It does not envy. It does not boast.

It is not proud. It is not 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 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 when I

became a man. I put away the ways of childhood

behind, And 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 fully known.

And now these three remain faith, hope, and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

Now, have you ever heard that passage read or part of it at a

wedding? True story back in the day when

I had time for these kinds of things.

I actually cross stitched Verses 4 to 7 and gave it all fancy and

gussied up to a friend for a wedding gift because we want to

know that this expression of Love Can Happen somewhere, but I

think it's well, it's important with all passages, but for this

passage for us to look at what is the context because I hate to

break it to you but it is not romantic love.

It is Christian Community. It is set in the middle.

I bet you can count of chapter 12 and chapter 14.

They chapters 12 through 14 form a complete idea, and the

complete idea is, hey, you Corinthians.

You are not using all your gifts for building up the body.

But for your own, patting yourself on the back and

attention and guess what? You're a body that works

together and the way you work together for the common good and

to honor. Jesus.

Guess what is in the environment with the medium of love?

So when you get to worship and you're almost having a

competition of who's speaking in tongues and who's prophesying

louder, who's getting the more attention?

Is that the medium of love and is God honored.

So that's chapters 12 through 14 in a nutshell So when we read

chapter 13, I think we take the beautiful verses of 4 to 7 and

chapter 13 and we put it into romantic love because we're

like, whoo, these are tall orders and maybe maybe we can

live up to it with one other human.

But we are called to this kind of love in community, in

Christian Community, where there are people acted he's writing

this to people who are in conflict with each other who

were being proud and who were trying to show off what was

happening who weren't looking after the common good?

And that's where the call to love comes and, you know, that's

hard. And so, in the first three, four

verses he goes through. Kind of this.

Let me tell you, he takes some of the gifts he had referenced

in chapter 12. He says, with your speaking in

tongues, without love, what are you?

You are nothing. Okay, I want you to say it with

me if you're speaking in tongues, but without love, you

are. If you prophesy without love,

what's going to happen, If you have so much understanding and

knowledge, but you're communicating that knowledge

without love. What's going to result?

And if you have faith that moves mountains but you don't have

love what happens? Woo me, I don't understand this

one, but if you are generous you sell, all you have.

You might even cause it was in some people do this in this, his

day, sell yourself to be a slave, so that you can give more

to be generous, but you're not doing it with love.

What do you have? Wouldn't you think all those

good action should be enough for something?

We are very busy people. we are pursuing things that honor God,

we are pursuing better gifts, both in the world and in the

Christian kingdom, Sometimes at the expense of our hearts.

And all that effort and all that trying can be for nothing.

And sometimes we think, well, this is just a season, but the

problem with busy seasons is that they build habits and then

we have another season that's busy and it builds more habits.

And before you know, it We're in a lifestyle of busyness without

love, not because you are not, or I am not loving people,

because we're too busy to stop. And do this kind of work.

Now these Verses 4 through 7. There are 15 verbs in three

verses and so in English it's written in the passive tense.

But these are all present 10th action verbs.

Because you know what, at the end of the day we experientially

know this love is action. If I only tell my children, I

love you at night but I I never healed a skinned knee.

I never listened to a silly story.

I never read a book, I never gave a kiss.

I never nurtured them. When they were sick or went to

their school events. Would my I love you at night.

Have any any substance behind it?

No. Love is an action.

So let's look at what these actions are.

Okay, love is patient. The verb part of that is love is

long-suffering. Okay, we'll see.

This is why we only try it with one person because who amongst

us wants to suffer. I don't think any of us do.

We're rather quite avoidant of that.

Pain sucks and if you're going to love, you are going to have

some pain. Now.

The lovely thing is that we know the one who knows how to love

this way. If you go back, I hope you'll be

the chapter later. Exodus 34.

Children of Israel have gone and acted the fool.

Moses up God's. Let the LED them out of slavery.

There in the desert, Moses has gone up to talk to God, face to

face, to get the 10 commandments and what did they do?

They burned all their jewelry that they had just gotten from

the Egyptians and made a golden calf.

Now that calf hadn't been there to get them out, but what do

they do? They get all excited that they

need something. And so they created Moses comes

down, you know, the story. What did Moses do?

He had a fit. He was hot mad.

He broke the tablets. Did you know that anger can be

an expression of Love? Now what he God didn't like how

Moses handled it but he was like well y'all can do better, he

broke those tablets Moses is having to go back up.

And while he is meeting with the Lord, over new tablets being

made, I want you to hear what he says, God passes in front of

Moses, proclaiming the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and

gracious, God slow to anger abounding in love and

faithfulness. Maintaining love to thousands

and forgiving Whitney. Goodness, rebellion and sin yet.

He does not leave the guilty unpunished and he punishes the

children and their children for the sins of the parents, to the

third and fourth generation. The Lord is slow to anger.

So when we are called by Paul, I want you to hear The Echoes of

that verse that that is happening in First Corinthians

13 that love true. Love Suffers long, love acts

kindly. Now that part I think we know

kids know, we know, it does not envy.

They all that's just hard, that's hard and environment.

Like I thought about this, sometimes, when you look at

academic Journal articles and you want to get more people

reading your Journal article, I'm like y'all that she's grown

up Facebook. That is a same thing.

I need more like, so I can publish more so I can get hired

at this. And that's just, that's a

different form of social media. It doesn't mean that your ideas

weren't having and then I think oh I'm less than and so then

this temptation comes Now does not envy starts us off on a list

of negatives. It's what love isn't because

sometimes we Define things by what it is, sometimes we Define

what? It's not and in the middle.

There's a whole list of doesn't boast.

Isn't proud know what's the difference?

One is bragging and one is trying to puff up what you do.

Love doesn't dishonor others and it isn't self-seeking, if

there's any of these isn't. I think the self-seeking one is

the hardest one because frankly, if I didn't have any benefit as

much as I love Craig O'Brien, we wouldn't have been married for

30 years. If there wasn't some good things

in it for me. Lick frankly, I wouldn't have

gotten married like it's not like a divorce because I was so

there is a certain amount there is a mutuality in love and

people but that's not what this is.

It is when you start to use people for what you need and it

can look like putting cute or beautiful things on your social

media Pages. It can look like oh we're going

to do this together. Yeah we can do this together but

let's be clear. This is your goal and not mine

or ours self-seeking in the Christian Community can look

like we You say this is the vision for our Bible study

group, or this is the vision for our organization or this is the

vision for our church. Really it's about making a few

people look good. And so we need to ask what is

the motivation for things that we are doing?

This love is not easily angered, okay?

And this is another thing that's important and it's we're going

to get to it with the rejoices with the truth.

Does it say love never gets angry.

No. I know people I have been in

conversation with a very good friend at the time and she said,

if you do not agree with me, you cannot be, you cannot love me as

a friend. I like, but if I love you as a

friend and I see that you leaving, your husband is

actually hurtful, would I not be a worse friend to not ask you to

at least think twice. So when we say it's not easily

angered, it does it mean we never go against what our

friends are saying. It doesn't mean Christian

Community, where actually called.

Old to speak, truth to one another.

And that it is loving to not always agree.

There is a loving demeanor and how we do it.

Okay. Now y'all if we can conquer this

next, what love does you are on the road to emotional maturity.

It says it love being the, it keeps no record of wrongs.

This isn't a term for accounting.

Okay. Keeping a book of all the wrong

things and you're like well I don't manage my own finances.

So well I'm sure not doing that. Oh but have you do you have a

place and every time you go by that coffee shop, you think hmm.

That's where they said that. And then you walk and then look

at that. She has a new cross necklace but

you know, how she really treats people?

Hmm. Yeah.

Is Uncle Bob Uncle Bob Owen calls with family when he wants.

Hmm. That's keeping a record of

wrongs. I am not suggesting you don't

have boundaries, if Uncle Bob always shows up for money, you

don't need to give Uncle Bob money but you don't have to list

the 23 other times. He came to get school fees for

his kids, when your parents are trying to pay your own school

fees. Keeping a record of wrongs means

that that person's violation of you.

Is keeping you hostage, the term resentment.

If you just break it down, is re feeling now.

I would have told you, I'm not a bitter person in general, that's

true. Oh, but Lord, have mercy on me

and I say that in the truest of ways, we feel things and we feel

them and we feel, you know, why? Because people matter to me and

relationships really are important to me.

So when you hurt my heart, Heart.

I don't always know how to heal. And in community, when we choose

to refill, Andre feel Andre feel and keep a record of long

wrongs. Love is not going to flourish.

Hopefully, you all have not had to have this yet, but when you

go to the physiotherapist, and you say, oh man, my lower back

is killing me. Yeah, this is still drives me

crazy. I'm telling you I'm hurting here

and you're touching my foot and my back here.

And I'm like, why you do that? What hurts is here?

Fix it? I'm paying good money for this

to be fixed, but here's well Glory.

Here's what I learned, everything's dropping.

Here's what I've learned. When you go in with pain here,

it probably means you started moving differently because of

something somewhere else. And so where the pain shows up

is not the source and in love that it has been hurt.

It may show up and we may miss the source and that's where the

spirit of Jesus is going to have to sign in light.

But we have to acknowledge that maybe we're a little

self-seeking because we're hurt and we're try out of that or

we're a little bit angry. Or we sure have a list

internally of the recorded wrongs.

Now, here's another thing that loved the last - action verb,

love does not Delight in evil when you like, well, of course,

we're a Christian Community. Of course, we do not Delight in

evil, but you know what, have you not been in this

conversations? Well, if you love me, you'll

agree with me. I was talking.

Someone asked me a view about a moral issue and they didn't

agree. They said well, I have lots of

friends who fought I was like, well, I also have lots of

friends. It's not about who I love and

know it's about. You ask me, is that action?

A wise Godly action. And so, their assumption was

that in loving somebody who does that action, I have to love that

action. And this is saying I can love

you so much without loving those actions.

And then we come back to the positives.

Okay? Those of you that are like

structured nerds or English nerds, I want you to realize

these three verses have an A a BB and an A.

So we start off with a positive verbs and we're going to end

with the Positive verbs. What is what does love do it

rejoices with the truth. Now, this isn't just a little

bit, that's sweet. Oh, that's nice.

But it's like, yes, I love you so much.

So much that we're going to live in reality, that's where

Integrity starts. I come from a culture where you

better. You better show up pretty And I

don't mean just how your groom, but you show up with your good

attitude and you smile. Now, you may have just been in

the car fighting with your parents and your brother and

his, Hi, how are you? And it's not purposefully Fake

it? Well it is fake but it's more

that the culture is you show good.

I'm not talking about this here. It's rejoicing with the truth

and when the truth is hard, you're still rejoicing.

The ra truth that a friend might not pass a term.

A truth that a friend, just lost a baby there is that's not

pleasant. But the thing is, is that it is

the truth and that is the space we're going to share Now love

always protects that word protects his kind of cool.

Put your hands up like a little roof.

Okay, this part of Love. Is it gives you?

It's actually the word for roof. It's going to bear away the

snow, and the rain, and the hail, and it's going to put

something over and bear that stuff.

We can learn to do that, more and more for one another Then

love, always trusts. Now this was a tricky piece for

me. Still is in some ways by Nature,

I'm kind of trusting. I was also a volunteer chaplain

in a juvenile detention center, when I was younger and I really

loved those teams. I trusted them but I also

learned that when I was going to play dominoes I've had my back

at the wall so that if the dominoes game became emotional,

there wasn't a kid behind me that was in for for murder,

okay? So why do I tell you that?

And I'm like, I'm not exaggerating.

I trusted those kids. In that, they were very honest.

But I also trusted that they had habits and they had broken this.

That had not yet, been dealt with and so I had a to be in a

safe place while I trusted. How we play dominoes?

And so why do I tell you? That is I want you to trust here

that is that you're going to believe the best about people

but not at the expense of wisdom.

It's okay to sit in a space where you can see everything.

When, you know, the people that you are with, don't always know

what to do with strong emotion. And so trust is Hope seeing the

best, but it's not being gullible or denying reality.

Love always hopes. Now, why could I sit with these

kids? It was an 11 year old in, for

rape. Like this was these children,

had done, some rough stuff, but I knew a resurrected Jesus who

could affect change. So when somebody hopes up hurts

us, and we can lose hope especially when we're keeping

that accounting that record of wrongs we can give up And love.

Always hopes. Not because we can fix some of

the Brokenness in our friends lives.

Because we know a wide who is resurrected and he has got power

to resurrect wholeness and wellness and loving kindness.

And then love always perseveres. I want to give up on love and

some people sometimes. There are sometimes we're loving

somebody else costs a lot. It costs so much in energy.

So much in figuring out what's Discerning what's the right

level of trust that the persevering is just easier to

give up sometimes. But that's not what love does.

And here is the Peace. Love, Never Fails, it endures,

everything else, these other gifts that they people in

Corinthian, Corinth were so excited about the prophecies,

the tongues, the knowledge, that all of that was going to pass

away, And many, most of the things that we spend our day

hours going after will help other humans, but they're going

to pass away. But what last, when completeness

comes now, that verb is maturity.

It's also into X completeness, like Jesus, coming back.

This is like when it all comes together, what's going to be

there? Everything else passes away, but

love. Now if you've been around kids a

little bit kids, have this thing where baby talk is how they

talk, and then they, Outgrow baby talk, but when they want to

be cute or get their way they occasionally revert to baby

talk. Now, as a parent, you might be

fooled around the first time but a second kid, you're like if you

want it, use your words. It's just not cute anymore.

If you're a teacher with little kids, you're like, when you can

ask me in your usual voice, I'm happy to listen to your request.

Okay, but you know what else happens?

This happens. We have immature speech, we have

immature, thoughts, and we reason immaturely.

And if we just camp out there, we don't learn to love the way

God has loved us or called us to love and we stay juvenile.

I am not saying that Paul was calling the church in Corinth to

an easy. He life.

He was calling them to a wholesome, fulsome mature, love

and a mature way of relating to one another and he is calling

through the centuries to us. To accept and grow into that

completeness. Again, I come back to why is it

that we only seem to handle this passage for one-on-one

significant other relationships? I think verse 12 gives a little

insight. We can't see clearly.

What's going to happen when we learn to love this way?

And it's very hard work and it's very risky and we really crave

being known. And so we think if I can just

risk it with this person, I'll be known and I will know them.

But what Paul is saying is there's going to be a time where

we see the Lord face to face, there is going to be a time

where we are fully known but that's not now.

Even in the happiest. And frankly, most joyful of

marriages, I am delighted with Greg O'Brien.

There are things he does that. I do not understand.

And at this point, I think probably not going to ever I

love him. But I am not fully known or

fully know. And we need to seek the father's

face trusting. He fully knows us.

And if he's calling us or since he's calling us to this kind of

love, he's going to give us what we need to help grow into that.

And now these three remain faith, hope, and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

This triumphant is throughout the New Testament, New

Testament. If you want other verses with

it, let me know and I'll just send you the full list.

They think it was an early part of Christian liturgy.

I am speaking to Brothers and Sisters in Christ who are highly

competent in so many arenas. But our competencies will not

last. But the love of God will.

And so in the midst of trying to find a life partner and trying

to figure out how to be yourself and honor your parents and in

trying to understand the sacrificial Love Of Christ.

May you receive all of the love, he has for you. and then extend

that love and when it is hard to be long suffering and kind and

rejoicing in truth and protecting and trusting and

hoping and persevering in love, then put a pause on the busyness

and all these other important skills, you're developing and go

sit with the one who does fully know you.

And receive back from him. The love that he has.

Because you cannot extend what you have not received.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you have loved

us so well we do not understand your love.

We probably don't even have a full glimpse of how painfully we

have not loved you back at times.

I pray that we would be a people who would humbly confess to you

our sentimentality. And Lord, we want bad, chocolate

and red heart boxes, sometimes rather than deep relationships

that call us out to be forgiving and the call us out to be

truth-telling. You have protected us and you

have hope in us and you have persevered and loving us.

And so Jesus, we just say help us because we don't love that

way. But we would like to because we

understand that what's done in Love Last that this is the

medium of the Christian Life that this is the water we swim

in that this is the currency of your kingdom.

And so make us people who love broadly and as a community and

on this campus and in this city and in our places of origin, and

in this World, we want to be the hands and feet of Jesus but

Lord, we've gotten hurt and it makes it harder.

So fill us up with you and your loving spirit.

When Jesus name, amen. Let's stand in worship.

Let's stand in worship.