1 Cor. 12:27-13:13: Love wins-10/12/14
To be a Christian motivated by the love that is spoken in this passage, it takes practice.
God’s love. We speak about it. We sing about it. Yet I think the deepest way of truly grasping it, is putting it into practice. Yet to really truly comprehend this, we have to understand the church in Corinth, and it was really all about.
The old saying is, “well no church is perfect”, and it is true, no church is, but if you wanted an example of a church that was really messed up, Corinth was your bet.
The problems? Church disunity, factionalism, civil lawsuits between believers, deep sexual problems, moral failure, greed, meat sacrificed to idols, robbery, showing up drunk at the Lord’s Supper. You name it, the Corinthians probably did it.
One commentator even said (and I am paraphrasing) “It had to be a miracle of God that church could even exist and survive in Corinth, the outside city was that corrupt”.
THRUST-Paul brings it to the one virtue of a believer that can bring healing to wounds, strength to the downtrodden, and unity/purpose to body of Christ.
Paul wants churches to succeed, to survive, to thrive in their communities, yet the Corinthians were letting their spiritual gifts make them prideful. They were saying to themselves, “look at me” instead of saying, “look at Christ.”
The most helpful gifts are those beneficial to the body of Christ, His church, to be used for His glory and service. Each one of our gifting were given to us for serving God and enhancing the spiritual growth of the body of believers.
As believers here, we are called to be honored together and rejoice together and do life together.
And every one of you gathered here (or in this case reading this blog) today has value.
The cross of Christ humbles us all, and it levels the playing field, keeping us from having too big of a head on our shoulders.
The Christians at Corinth made this mistake, they starting seeing their gifts as a way to puff themselves up rather than build one another up.
***Love is more important than all the spiritual gifts exercised in the church body. Great faith, acts of dedication or sacrifice, and miracle-working power have little effect without love.
Love makes our actions and gifts useful. Although people have different gifts, love is available to everyone. It is utterly unselfish. This kind of love goes against our natural inclinations, who we all once were before we came to Christ.
It is impossible to have this love unless God helps us set aside our own natural desires so that we can love and not expect anything in return. Thus, the more we become like Christ, the more love we will show to others, for love is absolutely essential to the Christian life.
If you let that kind of godly love be your motivation to do everything in your life, you cannot fail.
You may have setbacks, you will have struggles, but you cannot fail because God’s love is power, true power. Yet, you may say, “if I try to strive for that, I may have to give up everything” Yes, I may have to give up everything too, but it is worth it.
And yet here we stand, having access to that love through the One who has loved us, who has called us out of darkness and into His wonderful light. We have access to that love, even now, even here.
People today are looking for something deeper. Deeper than just entertainment. They want realness, authenticity; Love, a real God-given love that truly cares for people in their brokenness, a love that shows itself to others.
And ultimately the way to know and truly experience that love, is to put it into practice. Not only believe it, but to show it.
We may not all be teachers, administrators, servants, but if we have experienced God’s precious love, we are Christians.
Love involves unselfish service to others; to show it give evidence that you care.
Faith is the foundation and content of God’s message; hope is the attitude and focus; love is the action. All gifts will be gone, and faith, hope, and love will remain. Let us mirror heaven by practicing it here on earth as obedient disciples.
Love wins. Because God is love.
Full Message Here.1 Corinthians 12:27-13:13-“Love Wins”