God's Greatest Gift

God's Greatest Gift
I Corinthians 13

The song Charity
This song was originally released on Jamie's "Laughter In Your Soul" album and was composed by Kenn Gulliksen

This song will be interspersed in conjunction with the various main points.


Introduction: We all know of gifts to be thankful for whether they be cultural or personal. It is through these gifts we know better how to love ourselves and others.
1. When I was young I remember the building of roads all around me that made it easier to play and visit places that were not as easy to go. In Jesus time it was the Roman roads that made the spreading of the gospel an easier task.
2. The personal gifts that we have known remind us of what we mean to others and about what others mean to us. I can recall the gifts or toys and books and to a lesser extent clothing when I was a lot younger, as much as I recall my own offerings of bibles and paintings that expressed my growing faith.

I. The greatest gift of God is love manifested in Joyful presence.

A. Although I speak in tongues of men and of angels, prophecy and understand all, I can not know joyous presence without love. Tongues was a way to say you were special spiritually in Paul's culture. There was a reminder that people were only a clanging cymbal who no one would want to listen to. I recently with my mother and wished I could have the right prophecy or understanding to help her. I could think only of shaking my fist at God. In the midst of these musings she pointed toward heaven with a big smile on her face. It was because of God she knew joy every day.
B. Although I have all faith, feed the poor and give up life, without love I can not know what it means to have joy despite all circumstance. Paul thought that he knew of God. He was persecuting Christians. He would later find out that it was merely his thoughts about who God was. It was in knowing God in a personal relationship that he could share what faith, charity and sacrifice meant to a hungry and waiting world.
I.
Although I speak with the tongues
Of men and of angels
Although I prophesy
And understand all
Although I have all faith
That mountains could be removed
Although I feed the poor
And give of my life
Chorus:
: If I have not charity
If love does not flow through me
I am nothing
Jesus reduce me to love
Jesus reduce me to love

II. The greatest gift of God is love expressed in caring presence

A. Love is patient and kind. In the Greek the word patience speaks about patience with all people even when we might think that certain people are going to drive us crazy. We can see this patience and kindness revealed in the way that Jesus dealt with the woman caught in adultery. Others would seek to kill her. Jesus showed how kindness could set the condemned free.
B. Love is completely trusting, hopeful, graceful and rejoices in truth. It is in the promise of God's Word that we can demonstrate the foundations of caring. Paul show how grace is perfected in weakness and rejoices in the way that truth can set free.
C. Love endures and Believes all things. In a more secular way we share that we can put up with others. I see this exhibited in the caregivers I have known who deal with terminal illness. One woman caregiver went through a stroke and her own bout with cancer and yet this did not keep her from find ways to care for her husband witnessing to how love could be a fortress in times of trouble.
D. Love is not inflated, seeks not it's own way and does not brag. Love knows how much we are dependent of God. We are more apt to say wow look at the person God has created me to be. From this understanding we able to share that we more apt to be responsible and refuse to say that we are entitled to something that others can only dream about.
E. Love does not envy, seek evil, express a bad temper or keep record of wrongs. I am no longer in a position of letting others know that I can make myself feel better because of their faults. I am no better than them. When I keep a record of wrongs I reveal that I am unable to forgive myself. In envying others I share that do not yet know the only God that can satisfy, leaving me bitter and alone.
II.
Love is patient and kind
And love is not envious
Not proud but gentle and meek
Seeks not its own way
Love sings when Jesus prevails
Believes and endures all things
Love hopes and bears every wrong
And love never fails
CHORUS


III. The greatest gift of love is revealed in joyous presence.
A. Love is supreme and lasts longer than anything or person we can know. I can recall many years ago going to New York City and seeing the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and going up in an elevator to the top of the World Trade Center. Some years later the trade center would turn to ashes because of terrorists. We learn that the supremacy of love is the only thing we can know for sure as we change from a child to an adult. Love casts out fear in knowing this we trust love will always prevail.
B. We look in a mirror dimly and then face to face. In the time of Paul a mirror was shiny metal that gave a vague sense of who a person was. We see in the glass face to face as we look forward being together. We look in the mirror of relationship and come to know more about who we are and the other as people created in the image of God.
C. Faith, Hope and Love abide, but the greatest of these is love. Hope is a cruel joke played on us if their is not love. We look forward to something and it never comes to pass. Faith without love is forever searching and never finding. Love holds everything together. We realize what it means to know God who is perfect love revealed.
III.
One season I was a child
I spake and thought as a child
But when I turned to a man
Such things put away
And now we see through a glass
But then we shall see face to face
Though now abide faith and hope
The greatest is love
CHORUS
Conclusion: When I think of God's greatest gift of love, I think of God's presence revealed in and through us and above all in Jesus Christ.
1. Jesus teaches us that in the face in of others who thought they had more faith, knowledge and charity than God, there is a greater truth. These same people cried out "Crucify Him" to the only one that could save them.
2. Jesus shares all the elements of a caring presence in his dealings with persons that were outcasts and thought by people of Jesus time unworthy of love. It is through Jesus caring that healing happens and even the dead are raised.
3. Jesus shares the power of resurrection. God raises people from the dead in the name of the loving presence that all of us can be. It is through this death we know the empowerment of the Holy Spirit in guiding us to raise up others to know the God of love that we are learning about together as the Body of Christ. As Paul says this as Jesus would, "Do this in remembrance of me.
Let us respond to Christ's invitation of love: