Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Always Christmas
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Always Christmas
1 Corinthians 13:8-13
December 23, 2018
Lord’s Day Worship
Sean Higgins
Download the bulletin.
Download the Kid’s Korner.
The sermon starts at 14:50 in the audio file.
Or, The Cardinal and Cosmic Greatness of Love
The sermon for this morning is a combination gift. It’s like getting socks for Christmas, but socks that you needed, even asked for. So you’re getting the next sermon from 1 Corinthians 13, but it is both practical for and pertinent to the holiday. The entire chapter is about love, all the way to the end. And while it isn’t directly connected to the incarnation, without the incarnation we wouldn’t know what love looked like in pants.
In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe the White Witch cast a spell so that it was “always winter, never Christmas.” “It is always winter in Narnia—always winter, but it never gets to Christmas.” The lament comes out seven times in the book, and we can feel their cold, stiff sorrow. But in our world, “a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world” (The Last Battle), and since that time, there is a sense in which winter is vanishing and it will be always Christmas. More than a day of celebration, the birth of Christ brought tidings of comfort and joy, of loving fellowship with the Father forever.
And the angel said to them [the shepherds], “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:10–11)
Because of Christmas the cold, dark, bitter winter cannot win.
The Christians in Corinth had gotten to a point where their priorities were at best upside down. Many of them had come to measure their spirituality and spiritual value according to the wrong standards. They elevated certain gifts, and the persons who exercised those gifts, over other spiritual gifts, not realizing either the reality that the Spirit gives all the gifts or that the persons are gifted variously for the whole body’s benefit. The source of the gifts is the same source, and the benefits of the gifts are reciprocal benefits. Elevating one above another, or putting distance between one another, is not right. There is a more excellent way.
That excellent way is the way of love. Paul began the chapter by showing that superlative supernatural gifts, exercised without love, amount to nothing (verses 1-3). Then he described love’s active nature, what it does and won’t do (verses 4-7). And now he’ll finish this focus by comparing love to good but temporary things (verses 8-13). Love is the greatest.
There are four parts to this final paragraph: the comparison (verse 8), the explanation (verses 9-10), the illustrations (verses 11-12), and the conclusion (verse 13).
The Permanent Comparison (verse 8)
Gifts, spiritual (and Christmas) gifts, do not last. Love does. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
The idea that love never ends is not new to the discussion, since Paul just wrote that love “endures all things” (verse 7). He also finishes this paragraph by declaring that love “abides,” it remains, it isn’t going anywhere. The Greek word in verse 8 for ends is more simply translated “fall.” The NASB has “love never fails,” so it never collapses, it never goes down, it isn’t ever ruined or finished.
That’s quite a statement, and it deserves more attention, including why is this the case? What is it about love that makes love permanent? For the moment, however, the point Paul wants to make is that not everything is permanent like love, especially the things that the Corinthians valued above love.
Paul refers to three of the gifts previously mentioned in chapter 12, gifts also repeated at the beginning of chapter 13. Prophecies and knowledg[...]
View all episodes
By Trinity Evangel Church1 Corinthians 13:8-13
December 23, 2018
Lord’s Day Worship
Sean Higgins
Download the bulletin.
Download the Kid’s Korner.
The sermon starts at 14:50 in the audio file.
Or, The Cardinal and Cosmic Greatness of Love
The sermon for this morning is a combination gift. It’s like getting socks for Christmas, but socks that you needed, even asked for. So you’re getting the next sermon from 1 Corinthians 13, but it is both practical for and pertinent to the holiday. The entire chapter is about love, all the way to the end. And while it isn’t directly connected to the incarnation, without the incarnation we wouldn’t know what love looked like in pants.
In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe the White Witch cast a spell so that it was “always winter, never Christmas.” “It is always winter in Narnia—always winter, but it never gets to Christmas.” The lament comes out seven times in the book, and we can feel their cold, stiff sorrow. But in our world, “a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world” (The Last Battle), and since that time, there is a sense in which winter is vanishing and it will be always Christmas. More than a day of celebration, the birth of Christ brought tidings of comfort and joy, of loving fellowship with the Father forever.
And the angel said to them [the shepherds], “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:10–11)
Because of Christmas the cold, dark, bitter winter cannot win.
The Christians in Corinth had gotten to a point where their priorities were at best upside down. Many of them had come to measure their spirituality and spiritual value according to the wrong standards. They elevated certain gifts, and the persons who exercised those gifts, over other spiritual gifts, not realizing either the reality that the Spirit gives all the gifts or that the persons are gifted variously for the whole body’s benefit. The source of the gifts is the same source, and the benefits of the gifts are reciprocal benefits. Elevating one above another, or putting distance between one another, is not right. There is a more excellent way.
That excellent way is the way of love. Paul began the chapter by showing that superlative supernatural gifts, exercised without love, amount to nothing (verses 1-3). Then he described love’s active nature, what it does and won’t do (verses 4-7). And now he’ll finish this focus by comparing love to good but temporary things (verses 8-13). Love is the greatest.
There are four parts to this final paragraph: the comparison (verse 8), the explanation (verses 9-10), the illustrations (verses 11-12), and the conclusion (verse 13).
The Permanent Comparison (verse 8)
Gifts, spiritual (and Christmas) gifts, do not last. Love does. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
The idea that love never ends is not new to the discussion, since Paul just wrote that love “endures all things” (verse 7). He also finishes this paragraph by declaring that love “abides,” it remains, it isn’t going anywhere. The Greek word in verse 8 for ends is more simply translated “fall.” The NASB has “love never fails,” so it never collapses, it never goes down, it isn’t ever ruined or finished.
That’s quite a statement, and it deserves more attention, including why is this the case? What is it about love that makes love permanent? For the moment, however, the point Paul wants to make is that not everything is permanent like love, especially the things that the Corinthians valued above love.
Paul refers to three of the gifts previously mentioned in chapter 12, gifts also repeated at the beginning of chapter 13. Prophecies and knowledg[...]