SCRIPTURE: 1Corinthians 13:1-13
TEXT: THEME: Desire the very best for each other in Christ Jesus. INTRODUCTION Someone shared a Google article with me that said that Most successful CEO are sociopaths. So, I googled it for myself and found this: “Organizational psychopaths crave a god-like feeling of power and control over other people. They prefer to work at the very highest levels of their organizations, allowing them to control the greatest number of people.” These CEO use the power they have to use people to accomplish what they need for themselves, whether it is money, power, prestige, control or more money. We bring these attitudes of self into the church, but these systems of thinking get challenged with a paradigm based on love. SCRIPTURE Anything we do for ourselves is less excellent than what we are capable of doing. When we are insecure about ourselves, we have to draw the attention upon ourselves so others will notice how great we are. I was puttering around when I overheard a conversation about one of the last playoff games. This one guy proclaimed, “I predicted the fumble, with so many seconds left in the game. I predicted the fumble. It was as if he reached in, through the TV and lodged the ball free for his team to recover. Because he said it, and it happened, he was now taking credit for it. In the church, that would be equivalent to someone bragging about having the gift of prophecy, and then taking credit for what God was doing because they were able to speak of it, before it happened. They didn’t recover the fumble, they didn’t heal that person, or provide the money, or protect the vulnerable even though that was what they were thinking. They don’t deserve the attention for what the defensive tackle or God did. If our attitudes are not in the right place, even if we have gifts from the Holy Spirit, we could be in danger of being annoying, obnoxious, irritating, arrogant spirit filled Christians. There is a more excellent way, when we begin to desire what is best for others in Jesus Christ. The Gifts from the Holy Spirit are to help us participate in Jesus’ mission of release, recovery and restoration. The Good News releases those who have been captive. The Good News Recovers the sight to those who have become blind and the Good News Restores those who have been oppressed. As we are all different, there are a variety of ways we are loved. And as there are many members there are varieties of ways for us to love others, Love desires the very best for someone else in Christ Jesus and what is best for someone isn’t always the same. The more excellent way is not banging a gong as loud as we can to announce the presence of God or playing the cymbals with all of our might to praise God. Our giftedness is not the focus of a dish, but more like Ajinomoto that helps to Accent the other flavors of a dish. So just because we may have some insight to truth, if we are unable to share this in a loving manner, we should be silent in prayer until we discern how to do that. This is a more excellent way. I have been in situations where someone has had a word of knowledge for me and shared it with me without any regard for me, but because they believed it to be true, blurted out to show others what they knew. This kind of thoughtless act can derail and person’s life when not placed in the context of love for the other person. APPLICATION Paul mentions gifts from God being used through the members in the church of Corinth; a God given ability to speak in an intelligible language, healing, leadership, wisdom, knowing the will of God, faith. These are flavor enhancers towards the church’s engagement in Jesus’ mission of release, recovery and restoration. With the ministries God has engaged us in, how do we desire the very best for someone else, in Christ Jesus? The work of God is relational. This is why love is such a big part of what we do, Verse 4 of this passage, gives us a clue of how to pray for the ministries God has called us to. Pray to being loving. What does love look like? It looks like patience, kindness, happy, humble, mannered, concerned about others, flexible, good natured, appreciative, justice oriented and truth seeker. Love has a tremendous capacity to hope, to keep on going, to be optimistic and to have faith in us and in God. All in the context of Jesus’ ministry of release, recovery and restoration. I am going to pull back, because this certainly is the work that God enables us to participate in our relationships, with our spouse, our families, with our circle of relationships, but this is also how the varied, many members of us engage church work and treat each other and how we find ourselves engaged in varieties of services our community and in all the world, including all people, Jews and Gentiles. CONCLUSION We love uniquely, as God enables us to love, matching our own variety of who we are, as Ajinomoto to the world for God. (Others do the same for us, as they love us in their own unique way, and we give thanks for them). We have our own unique ministries as well as how we contribute as a member to the whole work of the church. I am going to use a football analogy from a couple of weeks ago at the Cowboy’s defeat at the hands of the 49ers. Neville Gallimore apologized for causing a penalty that set his team back and contributed to their loss. Yes, he used his hand illegally, but this was one incident in a series of events that contributed to their loss. His team had also committed 13 other penalties, with flat performances from quarterback Dan Prescott, running back Ezekiel Elliott, and receiver CeeDee Lamb, not to mention their offensive line that allowed Prescott to be sacked 5 times. It is commendable to take responsibility for how you contributed to the loss, but this was one incident in a series of errors at the hands of the 49ers by the Cowboys. The members of this team, corporately bare this responsibility for this loss. What’s this got to do with love? A sociopath CEO would look for blame instead taking personal responsibility and admitting to how they, had contributed to the loss. We all fall short of expectations at times. In the community of faith, we share the suffering as well as the rejoicing. There is love, patience, kindness, humility, appreciation, manners, the capacity to hope, keep on going, optimism and faith in looking forward to the next season of being the team. Did I say team I meant Church.
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