Thursday, January 10, 2013

These Three Things -a pre-Christmas message


What is the power of three words?  Three little words.  Words like, We are home.  Or, I love you.  Or, It is finished.  Or, God bless you.  There is power and depth in just three words.  On the other side, I hate you.  You are ugly.  He died instantly.  Three words can lift you up, calm you down, stir your heart, crumble your world. 

There are three words in scripture that are often repeated, sometimes all together, sometimes separately or in pairs.  But they are words that inspire, comfort, confront, lift, challenge, give purpose and meaning and value to us.  They are simple words, yet they carry so much.  They are words not just of language, but of heart and soul. They are words which define us and give us purpose.  They are words which describe something that is so needed in each of our lives and will last into eternity.

What are these words?  Well, some of you may already have guessed, others will know by the passage I am about to read.  But all of us deeply need in our lives.  Let me read for you I Corinthians 13:13; now these three things remain –faith, hope and love. 

These are deep and enduring needs that are in each of us.  The need to believe, the need to become, the need to belong.  Even deeper than the physiological needs of food, water, shelter, if we remove the ability or possibility of meeting these deep needs, we see that people will give up, despair, even giving up eating and drinking.  With no hope of rescue, people curl up and die.  With no input of love we see children perish.  With no living faith, we stumble, fall and quit. 

Faith hope and love are intimately entwined with God.  We put our faith in Jesus Christ.  Romans 3:22-26 (read).  Faith, trust, belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, in His finished work on the cross, in his perfect sacrifice, in his being our redeemer, our Savior is what gives us life here on earth and life in eternity.  We live by faith, we are justified by faith, we stand firm in faith, we have salvation through faith in Christ.  Hebrews 12:2 says, “Let us fix or eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of God.” And Jesus will continue to be the center of our faith long into eternity. 
Hope it tied with the Holy Spirit.  Hope looks to the future, to something we can strive for, cling to.  Ephesians 1:11-14 (read).  Hope is the absolute confidence that God will do what he said he will do!  When we put our faith in Jesus Christ the Spirit comes and marks us, seals us with a promise, a deposit, a guarantee of our inheritance!  And we continue to read in Ephesians 1:15-21 the power of the Spirit at work in us to have the eyes of our heart enlightened to know the hope to which he has called us.  AWESOME!

And of course, love is tied to the Father.  For God the Father so loved the world that he gave his only Son, Jesus…  God is love.  This is the defining description of God given in I John 4:8.  Let’s read that in context from I John 4, beginning at verse 7 (through 12) 

John goes on in chapter 4 and ties in all three of the Godhead. Continue to read 13-17.  Is it any wonder that Paul would write, and these three things remain –faith, hope and love?!  They are so intimately connected with the eternality of God! 

And this has strong implications for us today and for tomorrow.  For today, God can and will meet our deepest needs –to believe, to become and to belong.  By faith in Christ we can have that assurance of his complete works, that our sins are forgiven through the shedding of his blood, that we are given life and are the children of God.  Through the presence of the Spirit we can be confident in our future, in his working to make us into the image of the one he loves best the Son.  We can have confidence in the promises of God being fulfilled.  And through the love of the Father we can know we belong to someone who loves us with an unending, unconditional love.  We are going to come back to this on Christmas eve in our service offered here at 7:00 PM. 

These three things also continue to move us through each day.  Paul writes in I Thessalonians 1:3 “We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love and you endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Faith, hope and love are active words, active moving forces in our lives.  Notice the tie Paul gives to each of these three things –work produced by faith –labor prompted by love –endurance inspired by hope. 
The word for “work” that Paul uses here is a result of faith.  We do not work or gain our salvation by works, (Ephesians 2:1-10), but our works come from our faith.  This work is obedience to the commands of Jesus –love one another, forgive one another.  This work resulting from faith has a purpose of perfecting our faith (James 2:22-24).  This work resulting from faith will also be judged in heaven.  Romans 2:6.  These works are a part of our being the body of Christ and building the body up (Ephesians 4:12-13,16).  Faith produces works because of Christ, for Christ and his body.

The word Paul ties with love is labor.  It refers to the daily toil and labor, usually connected with working in the fields or harvesting.  It is a word that is often connected with the kingdom of God.  And it is a word that means working to the point of weariness.  It is love that keeps us going –the love of God working in and through us to do the work of the kingdom, to see that the harvest is brought in –that people are brought to Christ, encouraged in Christ, built up in Christ, growing in Christ.  Again the image of the body, the church, as every part does its work.  There is not sense of giving up until the job is done.  Paul, we read, labored to present every person complete in Christ before God (Colossians 1:28-29).  Jesus said, if you love me obey my commands, this is my command that you love one another.  Love is an action word which empowers us and moves us to build up the body, even to the point of weariness.

Hope is tied with the word endurance.  Just as our labor to the point of weariness is prompted by love, our hope gives us endurance.  We have a goal, we have a purpose, we have a future, we have a promise, we have an eternal home.  We are doing this all for something that is lasting, something forever.  Building up the body in love.  This word, endurance, or perseverance, is a quality that lives to please God   In our works we will be judged (Romans 2:6 quoted earlier) and in our endurance we will be rewarded (Romans 2:7).  We endure through suffering and trials, we are steadfast in our faith in the face of persecution.  We continue to grow in our character and faith through trials of many kinds.  The writer of Hebrews further encourages the church to continue with these words, Hebrews 12:2-3.

And these words carry into eternity.  Love we can understand because we will be in the presence of the Father and experience and express our love forever.  Faith in Jesus, well, he is the object of our faith and our eyes will always be on Him.  But the foreverness of hope?   Will we not have attained the hope, the prize, the goal or our faith?  Hope looks forward to the things yet to come.  And folks, just cause we get to heaven don’t mean God is finished showing us things!  Romans 8:18 and other texts carry the idea that God will show us more and more of his glory.  I just have one question about this, when will an infinite, forever, eternal God run out of things to show of himself?  Hope remains because God remains and is eternal!

Beloved in Christ, we have an incredible, awesome, forever, eternal God Who wants to have us with Him in eternity.  He offers to meet our deepest needs both now and forever more.  Because he loves us with an everlasting love and has given us the complete work of Christ in who we can have faith and through the promise and work of His Holy Spirit the hope of eternal life. We can experience come to know Him, grow in Him and show Him through our work produced by faith, our labor prompted by love and our endurance inspired by hope. We can believe in the Son who gave his life, we can become the children of God here and forever and we can belong to the Father who loves us with an everlasting love.  These three things remain –faith, hope and love.  They remains because God is eternal.

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