Time to Grow Up (2)
(Life after Pentecost XIII)
1 Corinthians 13:8-13
Only God’s Love AGAPE will
not fail. Everything else will end. Signs,
preaching, prophecy, all the spiritual gifts that the Corinthians were so excited about will go away. “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies,
they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is
knowledge, it will pass away” (8-9). Everything
will stop, not love.
Now Paul comes to the image of a mirror.
At that time history, mirrors were not made of glass like they are made today.
They were made of highly polished bronze. Imagine, you
cannot see very clearly with those mirrors. We live in a world that it is finite. Our vision is limited. Lately, I visited the
doctor to see how my eyes were doing. When he put some special glasses on my
eyes, I was so happy that I could see better. “For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection
comes, the imperfect disappears” (9-10).
Meanwhile, while we are
waiting for the coming of the Lord, grow up. Or in another word: TIME TO
GROW UP.
I love this part:
“When I was a child, I talked like a child,
I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me” (11).
I usually stress that unless
we are not like little children we do not have any place in the
Let us make things clear.
God wants us to be childlike,
not childish. There is a huge
difference between the two.
Paul talks about childish BEHAVIOR.
Here Paul is pointing to the way children talk, think, and reason.
1- Talk. How does a child speak?
Beside funny stuff, children
usually ask for things, things, things.
Children usually ask to buy or get this or that. “I need this new toy.” “I need
this video game.”
I have seen that in my home.
Many of you have experienced it, and you were one of them as I was. Paul is
challenging the Corinthians saying it is time to grow up. Time
to learn, to LOVE AGAPE, time to learn to give and not to take.
Instead of accumulating, time
to share what we have.
Instead of thinking about
ourselves, time to think about being not centered on your life. Centered on
Jesus Christ and his love which gives, shares, sacrifice… and so on.
I have seen people coming to
me and telling me that they do not find any joy in life. They do not find any
meaning in life. Many of those are financially well. They have everything, yet
they are not happy. I tell them, come with me and learn to give, learn
to share. I have seen joy coming back to people’s life when they learn that
they are not center of the world.
If you know how much I loved
collecting cassettes, you will understand what I am saying. I had 600
cassettes. I started in collecting them when I was 15. I invested thousands of
dollars and time in getting them. I knew exactly what tape what song had. Two
years ago, I learned to give them away. I gave it to people who love music and
who do not have money to buy CDs. I learned to give them away.
2- Thinking. How does a child think?
Do you remember when you used
to play football with friends? Then the ball went straight to a window and
broke it. “I didn’t do it”. Do you
remember no one took the responsibility for damaging the window? I know people
are like this even today when their bodies grew up but not their thinking. “I
didn’t do it.” Not taking responsibility for our lives is immaturity,
childishness.
Children think in small terms. Their horizon is only their toys, or room, or home.
They have short attention and they think small. I remember my children whenever
we started car journey, after five minutes they would ask, “Dad, are we there?”
Paul is challenging our
vision. We need to think “spiritually”.
I did not say thing big, I am saying thing spiritually. “Do not conform any
longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your
mind.” (Romans 12:1-2)
God does not call us to think
small, whatever is easy and comfortable. God is calling us to renew our
thinking so we can impact all kinds of people and places. Remember my sermon in
2005 when I just arrived to SF: Get out of the boat. Jesus taught Peter
to get out of his “secure” place. Paul is challenging the Corinthians and us
saying, “think like adults, become mature.”
3- Reasoning. How do I reason like a child?
Children think, “If I do
something wrong and if mom and dad do not find out, I can get away
with it. The only thing is that I should not get caught.” This is
childish reasoning and let me tell you many of us live with this reasoning. In
our secret places we hide things, we hide our sins, we
hide our “wrong” actions thinking no one knows about them. It is time to grow
up. God is in control. You love God and when you love someone you don’t hide
from him. God’s love helps us to change our reasoning.
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and
love. But the greatest of these is love.” Faith will end,
hope will end when we are face to face with our Lord. But love will continue in
us even when we are with the Lord.
Examine yourself this morning. Where am I
with God’s love? How far am I? How childish are my acts? When am I going to
learn to grow up?
We live in an urban environment. Expressing
God’s love is not easy in our society. Once there were construction workers
working next an hospital. While they were working they
found a young girl on the third floor with a note in her hand saying: “Hi, my
name is Lisa, what are your names?”
Next day the workers wrote a poster and hung
it on corner with their names written.
Everyday Lisa wrote a note and communicated
with these unknown workers.
One day the note stopped from Lisa’s side.
The workers visited the hospital and found out she was in a coma in the
intensive care. The workers collected money and sent nice flowers. After some
days one of the nurses wrote a poster saying, “Lisa passed away, thank you for
your love and care.”
Do you know how much love is needed in this
world? Do you know how lonely are many people? Solomon wrote about love:
“Many waters cannot
quench love;
rivers cannot wash it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of his house for love,
it would be utterly scorned.” (8:7)
Amen