The Excellent Way #3

At the foot of Golgotha you will notice a tour bus that has been completely destroyed. Actually there were two of them with big holes in the tops of them. What a contradictory statement that is. Right at the foot of the place where a loving Savior was crucified and said "Father forgive them..." is evidence of hate and contempt.
That is real. Golgotha was a real place. Hate is real as evidenced by the destruction it causes in the lives of men. Love is just as real as is evidenced by the death of One who died for our sins.
The Corinthian church was real. It was comprised of real people. It was not a figment of Paul's imagination. It was no mystical body without flesh and blood.
Paul wrote to them as real people with real problems, real sins that caused disfellowship, disunity and division among the people of God.
What caused this? The real culprit was a lack of love, the same thing that destroyed those buses. The culprit was not that they were sinners. All men are sinners.(Ro. 3:23) All Christians sin.(I Jn. 1:8,10) Unity can be had among sinful Christians, but unity cannot be had without love. That may seem a little confusing. But that is a fact. Christians sin, but those sins should not separate them from one another, and the reason for that is simple--love.
The paradox of it all is that some are brash enough to set himself or themselves up as models for good human behavior rather than using Jesus as the model. And they compare themselves with one another and therefore think some fall short on the basis of comparison with themselves. Jesus is the model for all that and He is the model for that thing called Love. He is the author and finisher. He is the alpha and omega. He is the great I Am.
The pentitent sinner is a restored, reconciled sinner according to a loving Savior. And after one studies the positives and negatives Paul shows us with respect to love one notes that Jesus is the model of all these good qualities. For example He keeps no records. He forgets as far as the east is from the west. Unloving people keep records and hold grudges. And the converse viewpoint of all the qualities of love is the very thing that causes disunity.
If Jesus looked at men as men look at men then we would all be hopelessly lost. The difference is that Jesus looks at us from a loving heart. Men do not look at men that way in so many places and cases.
The word Paul uses for love in I Cor. 13 is agape. William Barclay describes this love as deliberate love of the will. He calls this love: a product of the Spirit(Gal. 5:22 "But the fruit of the Spirit if love...") an attribute of God(Jn. 3:16); our duty to God(Mt. 22:37 "...Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind."); the mark of the Christian life(I Cor. 16:14 "...Do everything in love..."); the way the church is built up(Eph. 4:16 "From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does it works."
This love is not self-seeking. It seeks the welfare of others.
Paul begins in I Cor. 13 by saying some surprising statements to some then and now. The orthodox and "right" would tend to take Paul to task on this if he were not an apostle. Paul said that if love were absent then activity and display mean nothing. One might speak with tongues of men and angels but the absence of love would tend to cause one to be something like a Mardi Gras noise maker. One might be a great teacher in the eyes of a number of folks and perceive very deep thoughts and be a virtual walking enclopedia of knowledge but in crunch time when it really counts for the welfare of another if love were absent all that means nothing. One might be an eleemosynary giant of a person and become some kind of seeming matyr but if love is absent nothing is gained from that.
Seems to me that I can gain the accolades of a number of people of my ilk, but if love is absent from me and them then we have our reward. I might pray long prayers and give eloquent speeches, do good works of all sorts and look great on the outside, but if a loving heart does not beat within my chest God knows.
I should know. But I may have confused myself with my correctness and greatness to the point that I have completely missed the whole point of love and what it means to love and the results of love. God forbid!
Paul does not leave me in doubt. I can know. For not only does he give the results of a life lived without love, but he defines it. He does not leave me in the dark about this attribute that if it is absent in my spiritual make-up I can be a divider, a spoiler of unity and destructive of concilatory relationships.
We need not wonder if we have this attribute or not. Paul specifically describes it and the Greek language defines it.
The apostle of love made a sobering statement: "...he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?"(I John 4:20)

The Excellent Way #2

When you boil it all down all churches have sin problems. And God has always provided answers to those problems, even from the beginning. The promise was that the wounded Savior would crush the devil's head. The damning effects of sin were to be erased by the loving God of us all.

The Samaritan woman of John 4 surely realized this. She told the people after her encounter with Jesus "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?"(Jn. 4:29) What a message of loving hope she had heard in this encounter with the Master! And what a perfect answer to her sin problems. "...whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to everlasting life."(Jn. 4:14) Who would give any hope to a woman like this? She was in trouble. She was sinful. She was dirty. She was about as errant as one could be.

Jesus told her "Go, call your husband and come back."(Jn. 4:16) She said "I have no husband..."(Jn. 4:17) Jesus said "You are right when you say you have no husband." "The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband."(Jn. 4:17-18) Yet Jesus said to her "...a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem."(Jn. 4:21) Then He said "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth..."(Jn. 4:23)

When one turns to I Cor. 13 and understands Biblical history one knows that Paul was speaking to the true worshippers of God who worshipped in spirit and in truth. Yet they, like that Samaritan woman, continued to need a solution to the problems of sin that remained in their lives and in the lives of their neighbors. And the solution, the theme, the answer "...the excellent way..." continued to be love....It was the theme that ran throughout and continues to run throughout God's dealings with men. It is the reaction of God to our imperfections. He loves us...all of us, even in our sinfulness and wrongness. But wait...what does he expect of us? He expects us to love him in return and love one another.

Paul could not help but give that advise to the Corinthians. He was only reiterating the sentiments of Jesus. Paul was a man filled with the Holy Spirit of God, preaching his heart out to the people of God. Jesus had already told the other apostles and this apostle come lately what was going to happen. "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what he hears..."(Jn. 16:13) "He will bring glory to Me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you."(Jn. 16:14)

The theme then was an everlasting, eternal, heavenly theme. It was the theme of God's relationship with his people and their expected relationships with one another. It was "the excellent way" the theme of love. If Paul had said any other thing than this then the conclusion would have had to be that the Holy Spirit of God was not with him.

Jesus did not look down his nose at people's weaknesses. He loved them and sought to help them. And that is what he expects of us.

Paul was taught by inspiration the lessons Jesus taught during His ministry. "A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."(Jn. 13:34) "All men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another."(Jn. 13:35) "This is my command: Love each other."(Jn. 15:17) "...honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself."(Mt. 19:19) "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'" "But I tell you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."(Mt. 5:43-44) "If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?"(Mt. 5:46) "I have revealed You to them, and will continue to make You known in order that the love You have for Me may be theirs and that I myself may be in them."(Jn. 17:26) "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." "No one has greater love than the one who lays down his life for his friends."(Jn. 15:12-13)

When Paul checked into the library of the Holy Spirit he found all the material needed to write about our loving one another. And this was true of all Spirit-filled men of inspiration. John would write "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers..."(I Jn. 3:14) "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers."(I Jn. 3:16) "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God."(I Jn. 4:7) Peter would say "Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, with all your hearts.'(I Pet. 1:22) "Show proper respect for everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king."(I Pet. 2:17) "Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble." (I Pet. 3:8)

I have been guilty in the past, perhaps hundreds of times, of using the account at Jacob's well to prove one thing. I was right and everybody else was wrong because I worshipped in "...spirit and truth..." That is I had everything in my life and worship perfectly figured out and my worship was the only correct worship around. I missed the whole point of the context of John 4...There was a poor sinner there who needed and encounter with the Savior. And you know he was so magnanimous in spirit that he did not even leave out that poor sinner of a woman. And there was a time when I would not have accepted her into my "worship" and fellowship. Perhaps I should have read I Cor. 13. rather than looking for a prooftext for my perfection.

The First Corinthian letter reveals a group of people who had many, many faults. Yet Paul said there was a solution, "...the excellent way..."

The punch line is to come. Not only does he talk about it, he describes and defines what love is, and that is where he gets down to the brass tacks of how we must treat one another if we are to follow in the steps of a loving Savior.

The Most Excellent Way

Recently I was asked by a friend to share some thoughts on I Cor. 13. This is the chapter of love. I could not talk about love without talking about Golgotha "the place of a skull." The golden text says "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life."(Jn. 3:16) Paul said "...I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."(Gal. 2:20) And he said "...because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved."(Eph. 2:4-5)
I cannot express to you the feeling I had when I stood and literally looked at the "place of a skull" Golgotha. It is here that true love was epitomized. The definition, the explanation, the true illustration is there. The mutilated and scarred body of the Saviour and the beautiful head bowed in death for our shortcomings and sins was the true expression of love.
I have heard it said that the Corinthian church was the most problematic church of any New Testament church. Of course when we compare ourselves with that church we can absolutely and confidently say "God I thank thee that I am not as other men are..."(Lk. 18:11) Yeah, right!
All churches have problems. They have problems because they are composed of problematic people. What makes a church a true Church is the way problems are handled. Jesus dealt with our problems with love. Paul calls that "...The Most Excellent Way..."(I Cor. 12:3)
Paul addressed Corinth about a number of problems and issues. They had preacheritus.(I Cor. 1:11-12) They sought wisdom and signs before Jesus Christ.(I Cor. 1:22-24) There were divisions among them. (I Cor. 1:10) They quarreled and were jealous of one another.(I Cor. 1:11; I Cor. 3:3) They were immature and worldly.(I Cor. 3:1) There was immorality among them.(I Cor. 5:1) Brothers were going to court with one another and getting the government involved in church affairs and business.(I Cor. 6:1) They violated the Lord's Supper.(I Cor. 11:27) The purposes of marriage were being overlooked and diminished and there was divorce.(I Cor. 7:2; 7:5) They were harsh in their judgements of one another.(I Cor. 8:12) Rather than practicing unity they were dis unified.(I Cor. 14:33) And there was more. What a menagerie of folks with a collection of problems. Yet there was a solution. Paul described to them "...The most excellent way..." And it continues to this day as a solution to mens' problems. Sad that it is not sought as the solution in so many cases.
I will look forward to discussing the characteristics of this solution in the future. For love is more than just a word. It is a way of life. It has character. It is displayed in living. It is the ultimate solution. And it does not happen by accident or chance. It is a thing of the will and it costs something. Hopefully, as we look at the characteristics of love depicted by Paul we will see that.

Father and Son

My next blog is going to be on love. As we were going through some pictures I found this one of me and my dad. I just wanted to share this with some of you. He was a very fine man and I loved him dearly.

Update on Scott

Scott came through his surgery just great and is resting at home now. I want to thank all of you that kept him in your prayers, they are greatly appreciated. I did appreciate your emails and comments regarding Scott. I was able to sit with Jennifer during his surgery and we had a good visit, Prayer is a powerful source, we should always covet one anothers prayers. Thank you ever so much from all of us.

Truly Special

Today Scott is going to have surgery. It is outpatient and therefore not major surgery. He is truly special to me. His smile displays the kind of person he is. He is certainly gentle, kind, and careful about the feelings of others. Scott captures the hearts of those he comes in contact with. Recently I introduced him to a relative of mine he had not seen for years. He did not know her. When he left she made a comment about him that makes him truly special in our day. This older lady said of him "he has such good manners." That is Scott. I love him. That is not hard to do. He loves me. I am so glad. Please pray for his complete recovery. Doctors say he will not be able to do vigorous exercise for 6 to 8 weeks. That will be hard for him to do. Did I mention he is my grandson and I am proud of him. Sorry I forgot...