Order, Words, & Voices
05.05.24, The Greatest, I Cor 13
Order
Pre Worship Music – Spotify – Open and Close
Songs Father of Love Billy/Team
10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)
Participatory Reading and Prayer Dona
Songs Who You Say I Am Billy/Team
Draw Me Close
Passage I Corinthians 13 Renee
Message The Greatest Rick
Music 10,000 Reasons Billy/Team
Community/Benediction Rick
Closing Peace Rick
Closing Music Who You Say I Am Billy/Team
Post Worship Music – Spotify – Open and Close
Music (Slides) Billy/Team
Father of Love CCLI Song # 818174
Verse
Father of love
Lord of all creation
I will bless Your name
Forever and ever
I will declare
Your grace and Your mercy
And tell of Your unfailing love
Chorus
Your lovingkindness
Is good to all
Your wings of mercy
Lift me when I fall
Your lovingkindness
Meets my ev’ry need
You cleanse me from unrighteousness
And You give new life to me
10,000 Reasons # 6016351
Chorus
Bless the Lord O my soul O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before O my soul
I’ll worship Your holy name
Verse 1
The sun comes up it’s a new day dawning
It’s time to sing Your song again
Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes
Verse 2
You’re rich in love
and You’re slow to anger
Your name is great
and Your heart is kind
For all Your goodness
I will keep on singing
Ten thousand reasons
for my heart to find
Verse 3
And on that day
when my strength is failing
The end draws near
and my time has come
Still my soul will sing
Your praise unending
Ten thousand years
and then forevermore
Tag
Worship Your holy name
Lord I’ll worship Your holy name
Ending
Sing like never before O my soul
I’ll worship Your holy name
Worship Your holy name (x2)
Response (Slides) Dona
Leader: We humans we are often impatient and unkind. Envy of that which we do not have is in constant readiness mode and finding subtle ways to boast of what we do have is our specialty. We carry with us at all time the ability to be rude, lifting ourselves up as we put others down.
Response: You are the God who is love, teach us to love.
Leader: We are quickly angered and equally quick to keep records of how often, and by whom, we’ve been wronged. There are even times we celebrate the misfortune of others.
Response: You are the God who is love, teach us to love.
Leader: We put ourselves first. We’re reluctant to give and we are slow to sacrifice. There are even times we are hesitant to protect.
Response: You are the God who is love, teach us to love.
Leader: When we are conditioned to judge, to expect the least of others, to presume the worst of those different than us.
Response: You are the God who is love, teach us to love.
Leader: May love renew our pursuit of truth, my God’s love be our light as we seek to walk on the path of Jesus.
Response: You are the God who is love, teach us to love.
Leader: Join us in the prayer of Jesus,
Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our trespasses, while we forgive those who trespass against us.
And, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
Music (Slides) Billy/Team
Who You Say I Am Song # 7102401
Verse 1
Who am I that the highest King
Would welcome me
I was lost but He brought me in
Oh His love for me
Oh His love for me
Chorus 1
Who the Son sets free
Oh is free indeed
I’m a child of God
Yes I am
Verse 2
Free at last
He has ransomed me
His grace runs deep
While I was a slave to sin
Jesus died for me
Yes He died for me
Chorus 2
In my Father’s house
There’s a place for me
I’m a child of God
Yes I am
Draw Me Close CCLI Song # 1459484
Verse
Draw me close to You never let me go
I lay it all down again
To hear You say that I’m Your friend
You are my desire no one else will do
‘Cause nothing else could take Your place
To feel the warmth of Your embrace
Help me find the way bring me back to You
Chorus
You’re all I want
You’re all I’ve ever needed
You’re all I want
Help me know You are near
Ending
Help me know You are here
Passage (Slides) Renee
If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and knowledge and if I have 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; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
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 and 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 only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. I know only in part but then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
Now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.
I Corinthians 13
Message Rick
[start without screen share until first slide]
Ann Lamott – “One thing is certain, Love is our only hope. Love springs from new life, love springs from death. Love acts like Ghandi and our pets and Jesus and Mr. Bean and Mr. Rogers. Love just won’t be pinned down. Love is the warmth we feel in the presence of a favorite aunt, the kindness of a waitress, and the warmth of the hand that pulls us back to our feet when the loss of love has all but destroyed us. It is the stuff, which any kid, and most poets, will tell you we experience in our hearts.’ (Ann Lamott, Somehow)
- Overview of Paul’s comments to Faith Community up to chapter 12 where he begins to comment on their institutional organization.
- Boasting of ‘gifts’ even though they had become messy and forgot their greatest accomplishment which was their diversity reflecting their community
- Paul remains firm that this diversity is nonnegotiable.
- ‘Gifts’ – introduction to historical presentation/interpretations of ‘gifts’ – Corinthians abuse of ‘gift positions/influence/power’.
- Then Paul confronts the believers by reminding them of what is truly important.
This is a faith community that has Spirit gifted people to fill any need (administration, teachers, hospitality, prophesy, etc). They are a well oiled and operating machine. But all of that is for nothing if they do not love each other and their larger ‘secular’ community. Ultimately, Paul is telling the believers in Corinth that even their giftedness is not enough to sustain their purpose, their calling. Their connections within are on self destruct and their reputational credibility outside of the faith community is on its last leg.
[Slide – leave screen share up until noted otherwise]
‘But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.’ (I Corinthians 12:31)
[Slide – ‘ode to love’ or ‘call to action’?- leave up to next slide]
Classic chapter of Love. Paul’s “poetic ode to love” was not written to celebrate a unifying love already accomplished in the Corinthian community. It was a call to action. Paul was not boasting about the hearts of the believers, this was not a fluff piece to hang on a wall – it was actually an intervention to instruct on what had been, or was never there. Pauls point was to make the followers uncomfortable. Paul’s goal was to make it be glaringly obvious to the church that their title of ‘Jesus followers’ was at odds with their hearts and minds. They had lost their love for each other and for others. Self, position, power, and recognition were all factores in love being pushed out the doors. Paul’s writing of chapter 13 is meant to motivate the believers towards a new action plan – a plan that came from love.
Paul is writing that love is the only life line the Corinthian faith community has left. This is the only path and, and it is not a mystical magical path, it is a rocky and rugged path that is going to take work, it is going to be a constant struggle and will be persistently at war with their own human instincts and impulses. Patience and Kindness; to not be envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude; to not insist on your own way; it does not rejoice in doing what is wrong but instead it rejoices in truth. It bears all things, it believes all things, it hopes all things, it endures all things. These are all concrete actions, they are choices then they are a struggle to make them a consistent reality. It is hard to live out the definition of love that Paul is giving. You don’t fall into love, you make the life choice to do the work and make the sacrifice to love. Paul says to the Thesslonians, Love is laborious.
[Slide] “Paul presents this passage as a way to introduce into the community an ethic that is necessary if they are to survive the muddy waters of difference and disagreement produced in interpersonal relationships. The Corinthian Church was not a homogenous body.
Its members were not all of the same kind and ilk. This was not a comfortable gathering where people fell into step with each other because they shared fundamentally similar lives, values, and experiences. Quite the contrary… In his love poem, Paul makes a decisive shift, diminishing the allure of spiritual gifts and functions.
Tongues, prophesy, knowledge, miracles, servanthood to the point of death are important, but they still do not qualify as the “more excellent way”. Love is the key”
(Shively Smith, Assistant Professor of New Testament, Boston University School of Theology, Boston, Massachusetts)
[Slide] ‘In terms of what love is not, “Paul says it is not self-seeking, short-tempered, and offensive. In other words, love does not hurt people. It does not damage prospects for authentic community. Love does not impede affirmation of another’s humanity.”
“Love is the only means by which believers have a chance to live fully in the knowledge and fellowship of God. All other spiritual gifts and human achievements provide limited access to that reality.” (1 Corinthians 13:8-12).
[Slide] ‘The love Paul is talking about here is not passive and fluffy. This kind of love is an up at dawn, feet on the ground, tools in hand, working kind of love. It builds communities. It nurtures positive social interactions, on screen and off screen. Paul’s declaration unifies all involved.”
“Love is the way by which we talk to each other, eat with one another, fellowship together, and affirm all peoples. Love transcends our self-imposed caste systems and personal biases. It forms whole and holistic people, who are anchored in the well-being of others. Love will not let us down if we genuinely live in it together”. (Shively Smith, Boston University)
[Slide] “faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.” (I Corinthians 13:13)
Listen how Paul says these three essential of our faith,
[Slide] “We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.”
(I Thessalonians 1:2-3)
[Slide] This is the Triad of the Christian journey, the legs that hold us up and secure our walk are faith, hope and love which we first saw in Thessalonica. The order is different depending on who Paul is speaking to, and the need of that particular community.
‘faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is always love.’ (I Corinthians 13:13b)
[Slide] “My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person of Christ. Christ teaches that God is love. What does that mean? What it means for me: a study of the life of Christ. Love here describes itself as a child born in straw poverty, the most vulnerable situation of all, without honor. I don’t let my religious world get too complicated.”
“I just kind of go: Well, I think I know what God is. God is love, and as much as I respond [sighs] in allowing myself to be transformed by that love and acting in that love, that’s my religion. Where things get complicated for me, is when I try to live this love. Now that’s not so easy.” (Bono, Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas, )
[Stop Screen Share]
Reb (Honorary Rabbi) Carl Viniar, after trip to Israel last January to assess the situation there, spoke of the hatred between the people groups as well as within the people Groups (Jew against Jew, Palestinian against Palestinian) and how he personally deals with it. “I declare that I accept the commandment of the creator, love your fellow person as yourself. What an amazing declaration! What a context to set for prayer. I suggest it is a context for our whole day. In fact, I have added it to my personal morning prayer, to remind me how to act in the coming day. When I am engaging about current events, or politics (or even religion), I try to remember that the person who is spouting some asinine points was created in Gods image. I have to return to love. Not love like I love my wife and children. But love like a possibility, like a possibility that I could learn something about another one of God’s creations, no matter how I feel about that jerk, or how I feel about God in that moment. All of the Abrahamic religions have some teaching of love such as that found in Leviticus 19:18, – loving your neighbor, is there for each person born into those religions. Instead, we teach children and each other to hate and fear, we drum it into little ears”. It would be great if we were teaching, and remembering the love found in Leviticus instead of how to hate all the people that our relatives, or others, hate. We as wise elders must not sit back, we must teach. Civility, tolerance and love. It is not too late. It is never too late.
(Reb Carl Viniar, Jewish Sacred Aging, adapted)
‘I Got You’ Story
Prayer
Music (Slide) Billy/Team
10,000 Reasons # 6016351
Chorus
Bless the Lord O my soul O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before O my soul
I’ll worship Your holy name
Verse 2
You’re rich in love
and You’re slow to anger
Your name is great
and Your heart is kind
For all Your goodness
I will keep on singing
Ten thousand reasons
for my heart to find
Verse 3
And on that day
when my strength is failing
The end draws near
and my time has come
Still my soul will sing
Your praise unending
Ten thousand years
and then forevermore
Chorus
Bless the Lord O my soul O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before O my soul
I’ll worship Your holy name
Community (Slides) Rick
- Next Sunday, 05.12.24, Switch – Guest speaker Jakob Topper, 1 Kings 19:9-18
- Summer Series ‘The Faces of My Faith, 05.26.24
- Dinner and Games night Thursday, May 23, 6:00pm
Closing Benediction (Slides)
[Slide] When we are tempted to judge, to assume the worst,
may love remind us to trust
[Slide] When we are tempted to despair, to assume all is lost,
may love remind us to hope.
[Slide] When we are tempted to give up, thinking our circumstances will never change, may love remind us to persevere.
[Slide] May our Loving God teach us to love.
Closing Peace (Slides) Rick
[Slide] Leader: May the peace of the Lord go with you.
[Slide] Response: And also with you.
Closing Music Billy/Team
Who You Say I Am Song # 7102401
Verse 1
Who am I that the highest King
Would welcome me
I was lost but He brought me in
Oh His love for me
Oh His love for me
Chorus 1
Who the Son sets free
Oh is free indeed
I’m a child of God
Yes I am
Chorus 2
In my Father’s house
There’s a place for me
I’m a child of God
Yes I am
Order, Words, & Voices 