Covenant: A People of Love and Hope

I Corinthians 13

First Baptist Church of Topeka

May 4, 2008

Joe Kutter

The church has always been populated by ordinary men and women who do rather ordinary things including some unattractive things and have been used by God in extraordinary ways to literally change the face of the earth. There is no exaggeration in that claim. God has used the church of Jesus Christ to make this world a better place and that happens because the church has been the community in which women and men have been made into better people.

There is an old church quip that goes something like this. I may not be much but I am a lot more than I would have been without Jesus. If I am not all that good, I am still better than I would have been without the presence of God in my life.

And why would I want this kind of change in my life? Why want to be better? Jesus called it “The abundant life.” We have experienced life in a better way than we would have without the presence of God’s Spirit in our lives. Sometimes, life is hard but it is better than it would be without God and some day, it is going to be very good, forever, with God.  That is the promise.

Let me tell you a story of a church whose members were very ordinary, very human. Now, I am going to share some of this congregation’s problems so let me remind you again, that this early church was a part of a movement that literally changed the face of the world. God used this church to help men and women experience life in a better way and to make women and men better people.

This church seemed to argue about everything:

Who was the better pastor?

The nature of pastoral authority?

Which church clique was spiritually superior? (And they had lots of cliques.)

What to believe about Jesus?

Who God loved the most?

Who was really the true believer?

How to dress for church?

How to worship?

What music to sing?

How they should do their church dinners?

How to do “The Lord’s Supper”?

The meaning of baptism?

The place of women in the church?

How to pray?

Should “speaking in tongues” be permitted?

Sexual morality; adultery, near-incest, homosexuality?

Who to marry, should believer marry non-believers?

How to relate to other religions?

Racial relationships?

When will Jesus come again?

They discussed and debated and argued about all of it and, I suspect, even more. Given the nature of their disagreements, it is amazing that the church survived at all – except for the presence and grace of God.

That church of many arguments was the church that the Apostle Paul started in the ancient city of Corinth. And the New Testament book that we call First Corinthians is Paul’s response to the questions and disagreements that was present in that little fellowship of believers. First Corinthians 13 is the pinnacle of his answer.

If I may paraphrase the first 12 chapters, he said something like this. Here are the best answers that I have. And in chapter 12 he talks about the nature of their relationships with one another and with Jesus. He says to them, to that little fellowship of ordinary men and women, “You are the body of Christ.” Like the organs of the human body, you are all interconnected and dependent upon one another. You must not dismiss each other because of your differences. 

And at the end of chapter 12, he says, Now, I am going to show you the way, a more excellent way. And the most excellent way is the way of love. He says, even when you cannot agree, you must love one another. 

A lot of First Corinthians is about the presence of the Holy Spirit of God. When the Holy Spirit of God is among us and within us, the way that we live and the way that we relate to one another changes. And the direction of that change is in the direction of love. We become more loving. And especially, we become more loving with the people with whom we disagree.

And how does that love look? Paul describes it in First Corinthians 13. So, what happens to me, when God lives within me and among us?  We become more loving and I become more loving  then…. (Let’s read this paraphrase together.)

If I speak in spiritual tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² 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. ³ 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.

⁴  If God’s love is in me, then I am patient; I am kind; I am not envious or boastful. I am not arrogant ⁵ or rude. I do not insist on my own way. I am not irritable or resentful; ⁶ I do not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoice in the truth. ⁷ I bear all things I believe all things. I hope in all things. I endure all things when I am shaped by God’s love. 

He goes on to say that we can never know all of God’s truth. And to think that we can know it all is a very childish way of thinking. Only the mature know that they don’t know. Only the mature can live in humility. Only the mature can love those with whom they disagree. Some day, we will understand everything but in the meantime there are only three things that are absolutely trustworthy; faith, hope and love and the greatest of them all is love.

Why? Because love is the closest that we can come to reflecting God’s character. To say that we were made in the image of God is to say that God made us to love; to love God with every ounce of our being and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Jesus said that!

Notice what he has done. Paul has moved from arguing about doctrine, about what we believe to talking about behavior. He is saying, even when you disagree about your beliefs, there is a way that must agree to behave towards one another. Look at the words;

Patience

Kindness

Not envious

Not boastful

Not arrogant

Not rude

Not insisting on getting one’s own way

Not irritable

Not resentful

Not rejoicing in the wrong

Rejoicing in the truth

Bearing all burdens

Hoping in all circumstances

Enduring every trial that comes

Those are the marks of love. That is the way that God invites us to love one another.

Paul would never say that what you believe is not important. Paul argued about belief on every page. But, as important as what we believe is, it is even more important that we love. Our behavior is even more important than our belief!

That is why Baptist churches have covenants rather than creeds. Here at First Baptist, we say that we take the New Testament as the source and authority for our belief and practice – that is our core belief and then we form a covenant as to how we will live together.  Our covenant is behavior focused. It says, this is how we are going to live together as a testimony to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

We are going to read it as a part of our communion service.

For now, let me conclude by saying this; if you want the best life possible, then invite the Spirit of God to teach you the way of love. Invite God to reform you in his own image. Invite God to make you a little more like Christ.

Invite the Spirit to grow patience and kindness in your soul.

Invite the Spirit to dilute the poisons of envy and arrogance.

Ask God to strip all rudeness from your habits.

Ask God to help you to consider the possibility that it may not be necessary for you to get your own way all of the time.

Ask God to ease your irritability and to remove your resentments.

Ask the Spirit to give you a new joy in the truth,

To help you bear your own burdens in life with grace and to help your neighbor bear hers or his.

Ask God to grow hope within you.

Ask God to give you’re the power to endure all.

As God to grow His own love within you.

It is the more excellent way,.

And the testimony of Jesus’ disciples for 2000 years now is this; God will grow you towards love. God will answer your prayers. You may never quite be perfect in this world but you’ll be better and your world will be a little better because you are better and you will find that the life of love is the very best life of all, now and forever more. As I understand it, God’s love is what heaven is all about and you can taste a bit of it now.

It is God’s own truth. You can believe it. With God’s help, you can live it.

Amen.