True Love

1 Corinthians 13:5-6

I would like to open to the book of Dabo chapter 35 verse 31. And Dabo saith, “Let the light inside of you shine brighter than the light shining on you.”

Now for our real passage, I Corinthians 13:5-6:

[Love] is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

Paul isn’t saying that we need to follow these rules in order to complete the task of loving others. He’s just showing that the foundational reason for exercising spiritual gifts is to love others. Love is more difficult and less “shiny” than the brand new spiritual gifts that the Corinthian believers were experiencing. I don’t think the list in 1 Corinthians 13 is an exhaustive list of what love is. Paul is listing qualities of love that were in contrast to the way the church in Corinth was exercising their spiritual gifts. Apparently, they had been rude, self-seeking, easily angered, etc.

The Most Excellent Way

1 Corinthians 13:1-4

Welcome! Today we are beginning our series entitled Of First Importance which, over the next few months, takes us through I Corinthians 13-16. Viewed another way, this is the conclusion of our earlier series Broken but Indispensable which took us through the first 12 chapters; this series took place last year from May through early October. With the Christmas season approaching, we chose to do a shorter series on worship and then pick up I Corinthians this year so that we wouldn’t feel rushed through the incredibly rich and dense material that we see in the latter part of I Corinthians. We wanted to take our time so that the content would really sink in, so that we would have time to really explore the practical applications of the material.

Signs of Christian Maturity

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.—Ephesians 4:11-13 (NASB)

Today’s message is going to be centered on verse 13:

Until we all attain unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. 

More specifically, this message is going to focus on the signs and indicators that we can look at to determine if we are maturing spiritually.

Not Just Another Christmas

Merry Christmas and Welcome!  Today we will have something a little bit unusual (at least for Clemson Community Church).  We’re going to have a message which is not part of an ongoing series.  It’s not that this has never happened before, but I would say that it only occurs a couple of times a year at the most.

Today’s title for the message is “Not Just Another Christmas.”  On Thursday, Carl and I were joking around a little bit about how slight changes by omitting a word or varying your inflection when reading the title significantly changes its meaning.

Us: Die

Welcome! Today we come to the final message in our relatively short series on worship. I’m not sure what the people in the cars driving by the church all week thought about the message title – “Worship:  Die”. I want to get to the meaning of our title today, the subject of our message, in a roundabout way. I want to start by reading excerpts from one of my favorite stories, “The Golden Key” by George MacDonald. My great challenge is to not give up on the message altogether and just read you this story, to only tell the little parts that directly relate to this message. 

For those of you that haven’t heard of George MacDonald, he was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister who lived from 1824 to 1905. He is probably best known for his fantasy literature and for the fact that C.S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll both credit him as one of their most important influences. Indeed, if you read the Narnia books of Lewis and also read enough of MacDonald’s fantasies, you will see how Lewis was definitely inspired by MacDonald and even “borrowed” some of his imagery for his own works. Similarly, you can see MacDonald when you go down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass with Carroll.

Us: Bow

“Sing and Tremble.” I am very excited about this series on worship, so I’m sorry to have missed so many of the messages. Worship is such an important concept for us to understand and apply in our lives. Worship is actually fundamental to living as a Christian, because its purpose and practice go to the very heart of our relationship with God. We were created to worship – and that is what we as believers will be doing for eternity in heaven. One of the quotes that Carl put in his introduction to the series is from Don McMinn: “Our entire being is fashioned as an instrument of praise.” So worship is something that is built into us as human beings. Everyone worships something. Some of the most intense worship experiences I have seen since moving to Clemson have been at football games. It might sound a little crass, but many people here worship football.

Worship is usually defined in terms of a ritual or response associated with reverence and adoration – of something. There must be an object of worship. But worship is more than just expressing our love for something. It is more than just cheering at the football game or singing songs in church. Worship is defined by priority. The true worshipers of football are the ones who are out there cheering on the team, regardless of the weather, paying whatever it takes, going wherever they need to. To make something a priority means giving up other things. Therefore, worship implies sacrifice. You have to give up something to be a true worshiper. You choose to make the object of your worship more important than other things in your life.

Us: Gather

Ephesians 3:10-11 says, “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We, as Christians, are supposed to gather for worship.  For some things in our Christian walk it helps to understand the “why” before we do the “ought to”.  What I mean is that we “ought to” meet together to worship God.  But it’s good to know the “why” so that we can be motivated to meet together.

Us: Love

Good Morning!  We’re at the midpoint of our series on worship, and we’re about to turn a corner.  In our first four messages, we focused on God and His attributes, His character, and some of the ways He reveals Himself to us.  We looked at God as our Creator, our Savior, our Shepherd, and our Father.

In today’s message and for the remainder of this series, we’re going to look into different ways that we respond to God in worship.  Today, we will talk about responding to God in love.  In the coming week’s we will look at gathering in worship, bowing in worship, and laying down our lives in worship. 

In the series introduction and flyer, we talked about how we desired to explore worship not only intellectually but also emotionally, with our hearts.  Today’s topic as much as any of the themes is going to connect with our emotions, our hearts.  We are going to reflect on how we worship God in love.

God: Father

Welcome! Today we continue our series “Sing and Tremble” on worship. For the past several weeks we have focused on the object of our worship, on God. The reason we worship God is because He is worthy of worship. Over the past several weeks we have looked at God as Creator, as Savior, and as Shepherd; this week we will explore the role and nature of God as Father. In the coming weeks we will shift our focus to some of the different ways we can worship God – but I just want to say that, obviously, we are only scratching the surface when it comes to exploring who God is and why He is worthy of worship. We could spend a lifetime talking about this – and I expect that, in Heaven, we will – God’s accomplishments, and even more, His character, His vary nature, is beyond our ability to grasp. We understand less about God than a two-year old knows about quantum physics. And it is in part because of this that our series isn’t just entitled “Sing,” but “Sing and Tremble.” The goodness and greatness of God, in the little glimpse of understanding that we have, should overwhelm us with a sense of awe.

God: Shepherd

Welcome to week four in our nine-part series on worship.  The title of the series is Sing and Tremble.  Carl shared with us during the introduction these verses from I Chronicles which form the basis for our series:

Sing to the Lord, all the earth; proclaim His salvation day after day. Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous deeds among all peoples. For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before Him; strength and joy are in His dwelling place. Ascribe to the Lord, all you families of nations, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name; bring an offering and come before Him. Worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness. Tremble before Him, all the earth! The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved. Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let them say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!” –I Chronicles 16:23-31

The goal of this series is to explore worship together.  We not only want to increase our head-knowledge about worship, but also open wide our hearts in worship, experiencing depth and richness in our relationship to God.