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Nov 26, 2023

What’s It All About?

What’s It All About?

Passage: 1 Corinthians 12:26

Speaker: Craig Lotz

Series: That’s the Spirit: Learning to keep in step with Him who indwells

Keywords: love, gifts, spirit, aim, fruit, roles

We have looked at the fruit of the Spirit and explored the impetus, variety, and the collective purpose of our gifts. We now summarize this mini series (within the Spirit series) as we look at our roles, aim and the Source to keep in step.

Readings & Scriptures

PRE SERVICE TEXT: I Corinthians 12:31
31 Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. Love is indispensable. And yet I will show you the most excellent way.

PREPARATION: Colossians 3:14-17
LEADER: And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

ALL: 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

NT READING: 1 John 4:7-12,16,19
LEADER: 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 19 We love because he first loved us.

CENTRAL TEXT: I Corinthians 12:27-13:8
27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 28 And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? 31 Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. Love is indispensable. And yet I will show you the most excellent way.
13 1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.

CONFESSION OF SIN: Adapted from The Worship Sourcebook
LEADER: God of everlasting love,
we confess that we have been unfaithful
to our covenant with you and with one another.

ALL: We have had disordered loves.
We have worshiped other gods: money, power, pleasure, and convenience.
We have served our own self-interest instead of loving you most of all.
We have not loved our neighbor as you have commanded,
nor have we rightly loved ourselves.
We have gotten out of step with your Spirit.
Forgive us, gracious God,
and bring us back into the fullness
of our covenant with you and one another.
Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

ABSOLUTION OF PARDON: Romans 5:8-9, NIV
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!

BENEDICTION: 2 Corinthians 5:14-15
LEADER: 14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
ALL: 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

POST SERVICE: I John 4:10-11
10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

  • Romans 8:37-39
  • Ephesians 3:16-19 
  • 2 Corinthians 5:14-15
  • 1 John 4:7-12,16,19

ILLUSTRATIONS:

QUOTES: 

  • “The only way to break the hold of a beautiful object on the soul is to show it an object even more beautiful.”  - Thomas Chalmers 
  • “Love people. Use things. The opposite never works.” - Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan
  • “I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” - Vincent Van Gogh