We have been talking about why we have joy for the past few months, this week I’d like to talk a little about what that joy looks like, or how it plays out in our lives. Paul might encourage us this way: “Become who you have been called to be”.
Eph 4:22-25
You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another.
Much like what we talked about on Sunday night, what we are going to talk about tonight, are not rules that we must follow to be Christians, rather we are asked to step into this type of life, to become what we have been called to be in response to the Joy that we have been given.
Throughout the New Testament, we are given examples and encouragement to become what we have been called to be within the community of Christian believers. The cross changes not only ourselves, but the way that we act within the community of believers
1 Pet 5:5
In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders. And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another
Philippians 2:1-4
If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.
In John
“Just as I have loved you, you should love one another”
There are many other texts in the New Testament that talk give encouragement to the readers to live in unity and love with one another, but we are going to focus in on 1 Corinthians 13
What was happening in
This text is often used at weddings as an encouragement for the bride and groom to live with one another in love, and while that is an acceptable application, its original intent and purpose was for the body of believers as they walked through life together.
Like most families, the Church family in
One of those problems the problem dealt with in chapter 13 was that there were people in the community who believed they were better than others because of the spiritual gifts that they had been blessed with. These people, had the ability to speak in tongues, and all of Chapters 12 through 14 deal with this problem that had arisen.
In Chapter 12 Paul reminds his readers that the community of God is like a body, and as such it has different parts that function, not only differently, but co-operatively. The body does not attack itself, but it works together so that the whole body may be strengthened.
Immediately following this, Paul launches into his discussion on community life, and how that life is characterized by love:
1 Cor 13
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
What is Paul Saying here?
Paul is careful to make sure that his readers understand that their gifts are secondary to the gift of love, and that the love for one another within the community is more important than their individual gifts.
What does this mean though?
Paul has quite a high view of love in this chapter, and it is more than what we often consider it to be. For Paul, love, especially within the community of God, is self-sacrificial, it is putting another’s needs before our own, and doing things that are in the other person’s, or the community’s best interest. It is a love that is characterized by the things that it does or does not do, it is an active love.
What does having an active love look like here at the CSC?
In the Corinthian context, Paul tells the church in Corinth that their gifts are not given to them simply so that the person with the gift is encouraged and edified, but instead -just like the parts of the body exist for the benefit not of themselves, but the body - so too the members of the community of God are given gifts to strengthen and encourage the whole body of believers.
Paul also wants his readers to know the importance of love and unity within the body of believers
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