Sermon:
January 27, 2002
Sunday Night Alive!  

Scripture:
I Corinthians 13

By the time I realized the announcement would need to be made about our move to Kentucky, I had already turned in the sermon title and scripture. While I have changed the sermon title, I’m clinging to this scripture. I know it’s read at most every wedding that any of us has been to, whether the bride and groom may or may not have known how to pronounce (let alone look up the word) "Corinthians." But for me, sometime in high school, this verse became a defining verse for my life. Probably it was after hearing it read at my brother’s and sister’s weddings. (Those were two separate weddings, by the way. Just because we’re heading south for a year, don’t get any ideas!) It has sort of been a life-verse. Do you have a life-verse? A verse that means something extra special to you? Have you made an effort to write out your favorite verse from the scriptures? Have you put to memory any special verses? Different verses speak to me at different times, and for me to recall them, I need to read them and write them down.

Now I don’t want to sound like I have verses streaming through my head all the day long, but how strange it would feel to have a void in the back of my mind, let alone in the front, where God’s Word ought to be! (I know some of you are wondering about the close association between the word "void" and "Matt Hook’s mind," so stop it!) For many of us there comes a point in our lives where we stop defining the scriptures and we allow scriptures to define us. The scriptures open us up to the presence of God. The presence of God in Jesus Christ is not to be experienced only occasionally. The indwelling Christ is to become the shaping power of our lives.

Leigh and I believe that, as difficult as this decision has been for us, it is God’s timing for us to experience the Beeson Pastor’s Program beginning this summer. Do we like to think about it? Heck, no. This is our home. Bill Ritter has been our pastor. You are our family. You are our church. We love it. You have been our friends. You have been our community. You have honored us. You have loved us. But though there are many reasons to stay where we are, it doesn’t mean we should close our mind to change. (And I’m not just talking about a physical move.) We are grateful to God for this time. And how much more grateful we are for every day over the next five months! We want to take advantage of each day and claim each day for Christ. We want to enjoy this time with each of you.

In a way, these next five months for Leigh and me will be a microcosm of what it is to live the Christian life. In the scope of eternity, 90 years is a dot on the line. The fact that God ordained for us to be in this room together, that God planned for each of us to be here in the same place at the same time, is a mystery and a marvel of God. Our job now is to find out what to do about it. The entire Bible, from Genesis through Revelation, is a missionary book about a missionary God whose will and purpose it is to call and create a missionary people. God has called us as believers to take to heart the teachings of Jesus Christ. He has called us to be known by our love.

On June 4 of 2000, I had a defining dream that woke me from sleep at 5-something a.m. I won’t explain the strange parts of the dream, like how Mike Gorman and I were looking at 65-pound dumbbells at the rummage sale, or the cubed chicken dish they were serving, or the part about my old fraternity or the stage version of "Mary Poppins." But after I awoke, I went downstairs and began typing…

Here’s the main thing: God is crazy about you. He wants you to have the best, most fulfilling life possible. God loves you so much, he doesn’t force himself on you. He only becomes part of your life (on the inside) when you allow him in. He forgives your sin. He makes you better than you once were, not better than anyone else. He wants you to know you belong. He will always take care of you, in his way. Stay committed to letting God change your life. He’ll make you better and better. He can change the world through you. He changes the lives of those around you.

The first letter to the Corinthians that Paul wrote was written to the church in Corinth. That church was a mess. The church had many problems: divisions, incest, extra-marital relations, classism, distortions of the Lord’s Supper, lawsuits between the members, out-of-control worship, and more. Throughout the book, Paul was addressing item by item each of these issues. Our passage wasn’t written for a wedding, though nothing could be more perfect.

Just before this chapter, Paul was talking about the many gifts that God gives the church. The problem was some people in the Corinthian church were putting others’ gifts down, and elevating their own gifts. Paul admonishes them, telling them that each gift is important. But, he goes on to say, let me tell you of the most important thing of all. There is a better way. He points the believers to love. Love is not a gift of the Spirit, it is considered a fruit of the Spirit. In other words, a natural result of having the Holy Spirit, the mind of Christ, in your life. Having Christ in you.

Love is superior to every other gift. Love is indispensable. Love is invaluable. Love is infallible. Paul goes on to explain. Love’s values far outreach every other value. Paul doesn’t put the other values down, but simply points to the futility of the other gifts apart from love. Without it, I say nothing, even with gifts of tongues or beautiful speech. Without it, I am nothing, even with knowledge and faith. Without it, I gain nothing, even though I make the utmost sacrifice. Those things may lead to a brilliant life, but love is absent. The noisy gong and clanging cymbal refer to the other ritualistic religions, empty in their worship and meaningless in their impact to this life.

How do we understand love? Love is wanting the best for the other person. Love is a choice. Agape is the Greek word for love, meaning unconditional love. Unmerited favor. The kind of love that Jesus came to show you and me. Paul gives us the essential character of love (13:4-7). Paul shows how love is evidenced with force and beauty.

Paul says "Love is patient. Love is kind." There are two sermons in there. Patience is being forgiven. In the King James Bible, it means "long-suffering." This is not the "what we want, when we want it" mentality. I often tell people: "Don’t pray for patience, because God is going to put someone in your life who will require a lot of patience." But we really should pray for it. Think of a farmer. The farmer sows the seed, and tends the soil. But then the farmer has to be patient. He allows God to do the growing. We idolize heroes today who are quick on the draw, but we forget the hours of patience it takes to get there.

Kindness is underrated. It is having a sense of something greater than just living for this moment and doing what you want to do. It seems tied to the spiritual fruit of self-control. When I think of kindness, I think of Pauline Hoard, a woman at my last church in Memphis. President Bush awarded her one of the "Thousand Points of Light" awards. She is a retired schoolteacher who, every Tuesday, would go to the state prison in Mississippi. She would teach those prisoners to read. President Bush was coming to Memphis to visit the recipients of the "Thousand Points of Light" awards. But President Bush picked a Tuesday to come, and thus he missed out on meeting Pauline. No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. But don’t just go for the small ones.

Love is not jealous. Imagine what the world would be like if jealousy were gone. Think of what people put themselves through because of the green monster. Think of the evil people put others through simply because of jealousy. Love does not brag. I think of talk shows and book deals when I think of bragging. In Philippians 3:18-19, Paul writes: "For many people walk,… whose glory is in their shame." Where do you point people, when you have their attention? To yourself, or to someone greater? It is so easy to brag in a self-belittling way. We need to avoid that as well.

Love is not arrogant. That’s attitude. Arrogance is anything but gracious. It is anything but the attitude of gratitude. Where do you give credit? Love is not rude. Any idiot can put people down. I tell the youth on trips there are no put-downs. It takes real courage to build others up. Be creative. People have made entire careers out of being rude. Love is not selfish. Look out for others. I tell the youth on our trips, if there are 35 of us, and if everyone will look out for everyone else, then each person will have 34 people looking out for them, as opposed to everyone being selfish and each person only having one person looking out for themselves.

Love is not easily angered. That ties in with patience and being reactive. We need to confess anger, and we need to hand it over to God. Anger is an emotion. That means it doesn’t have a sense of time. Every time somebody trips your trigger, you come at them with all the emotion and all the hurt you’ve ever experienced over time. Let go of that. Don’t be easily angered. Love keeps no count of wrongs. Boy, am I guilty of this when I do the dishes! Everybody’s off doing stuff, and I’m stuck. It is so easy to feel unappreciated. There are a lot of under-appreciated people in the world, but why is it so easy to recall everything you do for everybody else, and then get caught up in only that? All it does is lead to sin and frustration.

Love does not rejoice in the wrong, but it rejoices in the truth. It’s interesting as I look at my life over the last several years, and I have a long way to go, but my sense of humor has shifted dramatically. I know there are those of you saying, "What sense of humor?" But whereas I used to laugh at other people’s expenses and have some pretty good put-downs, I have realized that’s just wrong, and I don’t want to rejoice in that! I don’t want to take part when people are rejoicing in the wrong stuff. I want to rejoice in the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Interesting how practical this definition of love is. The Corinthian church had many members who had been wronged. The lawsuits, the victims, and the poor who were left out of communion because they couldn’t get off of work early. The response of love would be to display kindness and goodness. Envy and boasting seemed to be a huge part of the church in Corinth. They would say: "We follow Paul. We follow Apollos. We follow Cephas. We follow Christ." (1: 12) Paul says there’s no room for that in love. Drop the envy. Drop the boasting. People boast about different gifts. Even when they do it in their own minds, it shows.

There were problems with people getting disorderly in worship. Paul says: "Love is not rude. Love does not seek its own. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in the evil. It rejoices in the truth. It hopes, it trusts, it perseveres."

One of the reasons why love will outlast the spiritual gifts, is that the gifts were given to the church in the meantime, to edify and serve the church, until the glorious appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. God has given us gifts to build up his body here on earth. Gifts to support one another. Gifts to share the truth of God with the people around us. When Christ comes again, those gifts will fade. We won’t need them, because then we will see face to face. Everything will be made clear. The one thing that will continue is love.

You could substitute Jesus’ name for the word love. Jesus is patient and kind, not jealous or boastful, arrogant or rude. Jesus was not self-seeking. He was not easily angered. Jesus kept no record of wrongs. He did not delight in evil, but rejoiced with the truth. He bore all things, believed all things, hoped all things, endured all things, for you and for me.

It is my prayer for each of us that at the end of the day, we could look back on our day and substitute our own names for the word love. We could ask, "Have I been patient? Have I been kind? Not jealous or boastful, arrogant or rude? Have I been selfish, or angered easily? Have I been counting the wrongs? Have I been rejoicing in the bad stuff, or in the truth?" It is my prayer, that at the end of each day, we would be able to answer "Yes" more often than not. Amen.