Brett Blair and Staff
In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul gives us his amazing analysis of love. He suggests that it is a progression. It is preceded by faith and hope. Without these two essential ingredients, you cannot have the zenith expression of love.
There is no place that we cannot go and escape the love of God. No matter how deep our shortcomings, frustrating our defeats, or difficult our failures, love is capable of carrying us through. With that in mind, I would like for us to examine what Paul saw as the three pillars of the Christian faith.
I
Now abide these three--faith. Christianity would not exist without it. By Faith Abraham was justified. By Faith, Moses demanded before the king, “Let my people Go.” By faith, Jesus said, we are able to move mountains. By faith, the Apostle Paul said, we are justified. By faith! There is no other way for us to come to God. We cannot reach him by our works. In that we have failed. By faith we come and then we learn of love. When we believe that God has loved us in Christ, it is then that we are free to love others. There can be no loving action in Christianity without at least a mustard seed size worth of faith.
True faith will produce real love. We must first ask ourselves: do we have faith? Ken Davis, a youth pastor, has a way of discovering whether someone actually does have faith. In his book “How To Speak To Youth” he tells of a college lesson he had to prepare for his speech class. He says, We were to be graded on our creativity and ability to drive home a point in a memorable way. The title of my talk, he says, was, "The Law of the Pendulum." I spent 20 minutes carefully teaching the physical principle that governs a swinging pendulum. The law of the pendulum is: A pendulum can never return to a point higher than the point from which it was released. Because of friction and gravity, when the pendulum returns, it will fall short of its original release point. Each time it swings it makes less and less of an arc, until finally it is at rest. This point of rest is called the state of equilibrium, where all forces acting on the pendulum are equal.
He then attached a 3-foot string to a child's toy top and secured it to the top of the blackboard with a thumbtack. He pulled the top to one side and made a mark on the blackboard where he let it go. Each time it swung back a new mark. It took less than a minute for the top to complete its swinging and come to rest. When he finished the demonstration, the markings on the blackboard had proved his thesis. He says, I then asked how many people in the room BELIEVED the law of the pendulum was true. All of my classmates raised their hands, so did the teacher. He started to walk to the front of the room thinking the class was over. In reality it had just begun. Hanging from the steel ceiling beams in the middle of the room he had fashioned a large, crude but functional pendulum (250 pounds of metal weights tied to four strands of 500-pound test parachute cord.).
He then invited the instructor to climb up on a table and sit in a chair with the back of his head against a cement wall. He brought the 250 pounds of metal up to his nose. Holding the huge pendulum just a fraction of an inch from his face. Once again he explained the law of the pendulum to the teacher who had applauded only moments before, "If the law of the pendulum is true, then when I release this mass of metal, it will swing across the room and return short of the release point. Your nose will be in no danger." After that final restatement of this law, he looked him in the eye and asked, "Sir, do you believe this law is true?" There was a long pause. Huge beads of sweat formed on the teacher’s upper lip and then weakly he nodded and whispered, "Yes." He released the pendulum. It made a swishing sound as it arced across the room. At the far end of its swing, it paused momentarily and started back. Ken Davis said he never saw a man move so fast in my life. He literally dived from the table. Deftly stepping around the still-swinging pendulum, Ken asked the class, "Does he believe in the law of the pendulum?"
The students resounding response was, "NO!"
Faith is Simon Peter stepping out on turbulent water. Faith is the centurion proclaiming: Lord, merely say the word and I know that he will be healed. Faith is Matthew turning his back on security and tossing his future to the wind to let Christ be his guide. All these dangers coming at us like a pendulum. Do we step out of the way, not facing them with our faith?
Faith is not more important than love, but faith is a pre-request to love. We will never love until we have a predisposition that convinces us that love will be worthwhile. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for , the conviction of things not seen.
II
Now, abide these three--faith, hope. Hope has received bad press over the years. I always think of that song by Mitzi Gainer in Rogers and Hamersteins South Pacific: I'm stuck like a dope on a thing called hope. That is how some people view it. Hope is for the silly minded. We relegate it to the same arena as wishful thinking. If you ask someone if they are going to be at a meeting so often the answer that you get is: I hope so. What they are saying is: don't count on me.
But hope is so much more fundamental that that. We could not possibly make it in life without hope. Look in the faces of the abject poor, look in the faces of hardcore gang members, and what you will see is hopelessness. Said the Psalmist centuries before the birth of our Savior: “For you O Lord are my hope, my confidence since the days of my youth."
Do you remember the story of Pandora's Box in Greek Mythology? The lovely Pandora was sent by Zeus to be the bride of Epimetheus. One of Pandora's more endearing charms was her curiosity, but that quality also proved to nearly be her undoing. One day Mercury, the messenger, sent a box to the young couple. It was meant for them to enjoy, but under no circumstances were they to open it. Well, of course, it is the old story of the forbidden fruit. Told that she could not do it, it became the thing that she desired to do the most. So one day she pried it open and peeked inside. Suddenly out flew swarms of insects that began attacking them. Both lovers were stung with the poison of suspicion, hatred, fear and malice. Now the once happy couple began to argue. Epimetheus became bitter and Pandora wept with a broken heart. But in the midst of the quarreling, they heard a tiny voice cry out: Let me out, to sooth your pain. Fearfully they opened the box again, and this time a beautiful butterfly flew out. It touched the couple and miraculously their pain was healed and they were happy again. The butterfly we are told was hope. It is hope that sustains us; it is hope that sooths our pain.
In my way of thinking, there is a big difference between a funeral and a Christian funeral. A funeral can be nothing more that a eulogy. The theme is the deceased. The theme in a Christian funeral is hope. We are God's Easter people. We have this wonderful hope that cannot be destroyed, even by the enemy of death.
When Noah floundered for days and days upon the endless waters, it appeared that all was lost. But then one day he released a dove and this dove returned with an olive branch. May I suggest to you that that bird represented hope. And it was hope that kept Noah and his family moving on.
III
Now abide these three—faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.
Many of you will recognize the name of Eli Wiesel, the renowned Jewish theologian and prolific author. In his book, All River Run To The Sea he tells of his family, living in Hungry during the dark days of the WWII. His family was waiting for their time to come, for the Nazis to arrive at their door and take the to labor camp.
He tells about a peasant woman by the name of Maria. Maria was almost like a member of the family. She was a Christian. During the early years of the war she continued to visit them, but eventually non-Jews were no longer allowed entrance to the ghettos. That did not deter Maria. She found her way through the barbed wire and she came anyway, bringing the Wiesels fruits, vegetables, and cheese.
One day she came knocking at their door. There was a cabin that she had up in the hills. She wanted to take the children, of which Eli was one, and hide them there before the SS came. They decided after much debate to stay together as a family, although they were deeply moved at this gesture. He writes of her:
Dear Maria. If other Christians had acted like her, the trains rolling toward the unknown would have been less crowded. If priests and pastors had raised their voices, if the Vatican had broken its silence, the enemy's hand would not have been so free. But most thought only of themselves. A Jewish home was barely emptied of its inhabitants before they descended like vultures.
I think of Maria often, with affection and gratitude, he writes, and with wonder as well. This simple, uneducated woman stood taller that the city's intellectuals, dignitaries and clergy. My father had many acquaintances and even friends in the Christian community, not one of them showed the strength of character of this peasant woman. Of what value was their faith, their education, their social position, if it did not arouse their love. It was a simple and devout Christian woman who saved the town's honor.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. If I have prophetic powers and a faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give everything I have to the poor, but have not love, I am nothing.
Friends, how often do we concentrate on the pedantic rather than the profound. If we do not go forth from worship to love people, to extend a helping hand, to show mercy, to offer compassion for those who are hurting, then what are we about? Take away love, and all you have left is just a big building.
In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul gives us his amazing analysis of love. He suggests that it is a progression. It is preceded by faith and hope. Without these two essential ingredients, you cannot have the zenith expression of love.
There is no place that we cannot go and escape the love of God. No matter how deep our shortcomings, frustrating our defeats, or difficult our failures, love is capable of carrying us through. With that in mind, I would like for us to examine what Paul saw as the three pillars of the Christian faith.
I
Now abide these three--faith. Christianity would not exist without it. By Faith Abraham was justified. By Faith, Moses demanded before the king, “Let my people Go.” By faith, Jesus said, we are able to move mountains. By faith, the Apostle Paul said, we are justified. By faith! There is no other way for us to come to God. We cannot reach him by our works. In that we have failed. By faith we come and then we learn of love. When we believe that God has loved us in Christ, it is then that we are free to love others. There can be no loving action in Christianity without at least a mustard seed size worth of faith.
True faith will produce real love. We must first ask ourselves: do we have faith? Ken Davis, a youth pastor, has a way of discovering whether someone actually does have faith. In his book “How To Speak To Youth” he tells of a college lesson he had to prepare for his speech class. He says, We were to be graded on our creativity and ability to drive home a point in a memorable way. The title of my talk, he says, was, "The Law of the Pendulum." I spent 20 minutes carefully teaching the physical principle that governs a swinging pendulum. The law of the pendulum is: A pendulum can never return to a point higher than the point from which it was released. Because of friction and gravity, when the pendulum returns, it will fall short of its original release point. Each time it swings it makes less and less of an arc, until finally it is at rest. This point of rest is called the state of equilibrium, where all forces acting on the pendulum are equal.
He then attached a 3-foot string to a child's toy top and secured it to the top of the blackboard with a thumbtack. He pulled the top to one side and made a mark on the blackboard where he let it go. Each time it swung back a new mark. It took less than a minute for the top to complete its swinging and come to rest. When he finished the demonstration, the markings on the blackboard had proved his thesis. He says, I then asked how many people in the room BELIEVED the law of the pendulum was true. All of my classmates raised their hands, so did the teacher. He started to walk to the front of the room thinking the class was over. In reality it had just begun. Hanging from the steel ceiling beams in the middle of the room he had fashioned a large, crude but functional pendulum (250 pounds of metal weights tied to four strands of 500-pound test parachute cord.).
He then invited the instructor to climb up on a table and sit in a chair with the back of his head against a cement wall. He brought the 250 pounds of metal up to his nose. Holding the huge pendulum just a fraction of an inch from his face. Once again he explained the law of the pendulum to the teacher who had applauded only moments before, "If the law of the pendulum is true, then when I release this mass of metal, it will swing across the room and return short of the release point. Your nose will be in no danger." After that final restatement of this law, he looked him in the eye and asked, "Sir, do you believe this law is true?" There was a long pause. Huge beads of sweat formed on the teacher’s upper lip and then weakly he nodded and whispered, "Yes." He released the pendulum. It made a swishing sound as it arced across the room. At the far end of its swing, it paused momentarily and started back. Ken Davis said he never saw a man move so fast in my life. He literally dived from the table. Deftly stepping around the still-swinging pendulum, Ken asked the class, "Does he believe in the law of the pendulum?"
The students resounding response was, "NO!"
Faith is Simon Peter stepping out on turbulent water. Faith is the centurion proclaiming: Lord, merely say the word and I know that he will be healed. Faith is Matthew turning his back on security and tossing his future to the wind to let Christ be his guide. All these dangers coming at us like a pendulum. Do we step out of the way, not facing them with our faith?
Faith is not more important than love, but faith is a pre-request to love. We will never love until we have a predisposition that convinces us that love will be worthwhile. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for , the conviction of things not seen.
II
Now, abide these three--faith, hope. Hope has received bad press over the years. I always think of that song by Mitzi Gainer in Rogers and Hamersteins South Pacific: I'm stuck like a dope on a thing called hope. That is how some people view it. Hope is for the silly minded. We relegate it to the same arena as wishful thinking. If you ask someone if they are going to be at a meeting so often the answer that you get is: I hope so. What they are saying is: don't count on me.
But hope is so much more fundamental that that. We could not possibly make it in life without hope. Look in the faces of the abject poor, look in the faces of hardcore gang members, and what you will see is hopelessness. Said the Psalmist centuries before the birth of our Savior: “For you O Lord are my hope, my confidence since the days of my youth."
Do you remember the story of Pandora's Box in Greek Mythology? The lovely Pandora was sent by Zeus to be the bride of Epimetheus. One of Pandora's more endearing charms was her curiosity, but that quality also proved to nearly be her undoing. One day Mercury, the messenger, sent a box to the young couple. It was meant for them to enjoy, but under no circumstances were they to open it. Well, of course, it is the old story of the forbidden fruit. Told that she could not do it, it became the thing that she desired to do the most. So one day she pried it open and peeked inside. Suddenly out flew swarms of insects that began attacking them. Both lovers were stung with the poison of suspicion, hatred, fear and malice. Now the once happy couple began to argue. Epimetheus became bitter and Pandora wept with a broken heart. But in the midst of the quarreling, they heard a tiny voice cry out: Let me out, to sooth your pain. Fearfully they opened the box again, and this time a beautiful butterfly flew out. It touched the couple and miraculously their pain was healed and they were happy again. The butterfly we are told was hope. It is hope that sustains us; it is hope that sooths our pain.
In my way of thinking, there is a big difference between a funeral and a Christian funeral. A funeral can be nothing more that a eulogy. The theme is the deceased. The theme in a Christian funeral is hope. We are God's Easter people. We have this wonderful hope that cannot be destroyed, even by the enemy of death.
When Noah floundered for days and days upon the endless waters, it appeared that all was lost. But then one day he released a dove and this dove returned with an olive branch. May I suggest to you that that bird represented hope. And it was hope that kept Noah and his family moving on.
III
Now abide these three—faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.
Many of you will recognize the name of Eli Wiesel, the renowned Jewish theologian and prolific author. In his book, All River Run To The Sea he tells of his family, living in Hungry during the dark days of the WWII. His family was waiting for their time to come, for the Nazis to arrive at their door and take the to labor camp.
He tells about a peasant woman by the name of Maria. Maria was almost like a member of the family. She was a Christian. During the early years of the war she continued to visit them, but eventually non-Jews were no longer allowed entrance to the ghettos. That did not deter Maria. She found her way through the barbed wire and she came anyway, bringing the Wiesels fruits, vegetables, and cheese.
One day she came knocking at their door. There was a cabin that she had up in the hills. She wanted to take the children, of which Eli was one, and hide them there before the SS came. They decided after much debate to stay together as a family, although they were deeply moved at this gesture. He writes of her:
Dear Maria. If other Christians had acted like her, the trains rolling toward the unknown would have been less crowded. If priests and pastors had raised their voices, if the Vatican had broken its silence, the enemy's hand would not have been so free. But most thought only of themselves. A Jewish home was barely emptied of its inhabitants before they descended like vultures.
I think of Maria often, with affection and gratitude, he writes, and with wonder as well. This simple, uneducated woman stood taller that the city's intellectuals, dignitaries and clergy. My father had many acquaintances and even friends in the Christian community, not one of them showed the strength of character of this peasant woman. Of what value was their faith, their education, their social position, if it did not arouse their love. It was a simple and devout Christian woman who saved the town's honor.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. If I have prophetic powers and a faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give everything I have to the poor, but have not love, I am nothing.
Friends, how often do we concentrate on the pedantic rather than the profound. If we do not go forth from worship to love people, to extend a helping hand, to show mercy, to offer compassion for those who are hurting, then what are we about? Take away love, and all you have left is just a big building.
