Faith Hope and Love?
May 13, 2012 Mothers’ Day 1 Cor 13:13
Intro:
Definitions matter. Do you know what these words mean?
ABDICATE: To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
ADULT: A person who has stopped growing at both ends and is now growing in the middle.
ANTIQUE: An item your grandparents bought, your parents got rid of, and you're buying again.
AVOIDABLE: What a bullfighter tries to do.
BALDERDASH: A rapidly receding hairline.
BATHROOM: A room used by the entire family, believed by all except Mom to be self-cleaning.
COFFEE: A person who is coughed upon.
DERANGE: Where de buffalo roam.
EYEDROPPER: A clumsy ophthalmologist.
EXPERIENCE: The name men give to their mistakes.
FEEDBACK: The inevitable result when the baby doesn't appreciate the strained carrots.
GROCERY LIST: What you spend half an hour writing, then forget to take with you to the store.
HINDSIGHT: What one experiences from changing too many diapers.
INDEPENDENT: How we want our children to be as long as they do everything we say.
MISTY: How golfers create divots.
OVERSTUFFED RECLINER: Mom's nickname for Dad.
OW: The first word spoken by children with older siblings.
POLYGON: A dead parrot.
RELIEF: What trees do in the spring.
SELFISH: What the owner of a seafood store does.
SHOW OFF: A child who is more talented than yours.
TOP BUNK: Where you should never put a child wearing Superman pajamas.
VEGETARIAN: Old Indian word for bad hunter.
1 Cor 13:13
Humor aside, definitions really do matter. A couple of different things got me thinking about that this week, getting to this point: who do we allow to define certain vitally important words for us?
Let me take you to 1 Cor 13. There are a lot of words here, words that really matter. I want to just look at the very last verse today, but let me read the whole chapter:
13 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10 But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
The passage closes with Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. It is beautiful, inspiring, and lofty. It is one of those verses in Scripture that should be written on our hearts, that should be an anchor we can cling to, that we can return to over and over as a tool with which to examine our lives. Faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.
Definitions: Faith
Great words. But this week I asked myself this question: who defines those for us? Of the voices around us telling what faith is, what hope is, what love is, which one do we listen to and believe?
Let’s take the first word. Faith. What is that? And who defines that for us? We can turn to our culture for a definition of faith: Faith is the title of George Michael’s 1988 hit album, one of the top 500 albums of all times, selling more than 20 million copies. The album cover sports all kinds of religious symbols. The song Faith was the longest running number 1 song in 1987. I bet a bunch of you could recite the lyrics and sing along, which we aren’t going to do, but here they are, and let’s ask the question: what does this tell us about the meaning of the word faith?
Well I guess it would be nice, If I could touch your body
I know not everybody Has got a body like you
But I've got to think twice Before I give my heart away
And I know all the games you play Because I play them too
Oh but I Need some time off from that emotion
Time to pick my heart up off the floor
And when that love comes down Without devotion
Well it takes a strong man baby But I'm showing you the door
'Cause I gotta have faith
What does our culture say faith is, according to George Michaels? It is something I gotta have, and it means that if we have it then someday we’ll get to have sex without playing games and getting hurt.
Do we want George Michaels to define faith for us? Maybe we should look to the news: when the newspapers or TV or internet broadcasters talk about faith, what are they reporting? Mostly, American politicians evoking it to get votes and grab power; or they talk about extremists who march with signs saying God hates fags, or who fly airplanes into buildings or bomb marketplaces full of innocent people because of their faith.
Paul says, three things will last forever, and the first one of those is faith. But who defines that? I reject our culture’s definitions and portrayals of faith. It is NOT about getting to have sex or about getting power or about ramming an extreme point of view down other people’s throats. That is not faith!
Instead, when I study Scripture and let God’s Word define faith, I get a definition that is about knowing, believing, and obeying. Knowing you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free; believing: believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved; obeying: those who love me will obey my commands. Those 3, together, are what the Bible calls faith. Now that makes sense as something that will last forever.
Definitions: Hope
The second thing on Paul’s list is hope. Who defines that for us? If we let our culture define hope, we hear phrases like I hope I win the lottery, or I hope they live happily ever after, or I hope that war and disease and evil all go away someday. I looked up a definition of hope:
1. the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.
2. a particular instance of this feeling: the hope of winning.
3. grounds for this feeling in a particular instance: There is little or no hope of his recovery.
Do we want to let our culture define hope for us? Then it is nothing more than a feeling that we can have what we want; and most likely it is so remote a possibility (eg: winning the lottery or having a perfect world on earth) that anyone who actually believes that for which they hope would be at best delusional and in denial, and at worst certifiably crazy.
Paul says, three things will last forever, and the second one of those is hope. But who defines that? I reject our culture’s definitions and portrayals of hope. It is NOT a vague feeling about getting what we want. That is not hope!
Instead, when I study Scripture and let God’s Word define hope, I get a definition that hope is a future certainty. It is not a vague wish – it is something that WILL happen, it just hasn’t yet, so we hold on to that hope. It is a sure and certain thing, an expectation, and it is rooted in Jesus. Jesus is our hope, we hold on to a hope of eternal life, a hope of heaven: none of those are vague uncertainties or feelings of something we want that may or may not happen: the promises of Scripture are WAY too strong for that!! They are certainties, truths, realities, that exist in tomorrow.
That is what the Bible calls hope. Now that makes sense as something that will last forever.
Definitions: Love
Paul says, the greatest of these is love.
Do I need to spend much time on how our culture defines love? Probably not, I think most of us would agree the messages are pretty messed up. Just consider how the word is used: falling in love; making love; finding love. We say, I love pizza, I saw a youtube video and loved it, I love your special mother’s day hat. If I were to sum it up, most of the messages we get from our culture about what love is either revolved around sex or they mean simply things we want a stronger word than like to describe how we feel about them. Most of the messages, but there is something more. Something deeper. When I listen closely, I also hear a craving for something deeper, something real, which even in our society goes by the word love but is confused. See, we also say I love you, three of the most powerful words to hear and to say. We also hear people crying out to be loved. We see, and celebrate, the purity of a mother’s love for her children even if her children are cruel to her in return.
So maybe even our culture is looking for a better definition. We have it. I read it a few moments ago, and it concluded with the words the greatest of these is love. He is not talking about sex or about things that make us feel really nice. I’m going to read that again in a moment.
Three Things Remain:
We need to learn to think Biblically, and let the Bible, rather than the culture, define the words that matter most. When we cling to verses like 1 Cor 13:13, with the words faith, hope, and love, we need to be clinging to those concepts as defined by God, not by the watered down, vague, poor imitations that our world suggests as the meanings. Faith is about knowing, believing, and obeying. Hope is a sure certainty of things yet to come. And love? Best defined simply by knowing and experiencing Jesus.
As I read 1 Cor 13 again to close, ask this question: does this describe how you love? How you love your mother, your children, your spouse, your friends, your church, your neighbor, and above all how you love your Lord? Does this define you?
13 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10 But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
13 Three things will last forever: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.
