One of my first summer jobs was in a packing company. A teacher from high school called me because he had heard that they needed to fill a few temporary positions. So a few friends and I accepted the invitation. Our job was to pack and ship Steven King novels. Yeah, I really felt like I was doing the Lord's work!
On our first day they gave us very little direction. They separated us from all the other workers, and put us off in the corner to work. We worked really hard but we weren't very efficient. After a few hours they called for a break, but I decided to work through the break in order to catch up on my quota. Then a bit later, I took a much shorter break, lasting just a few minutes, to run to the restroom and grab a soda. I sincerely didn't know any different. I was sixteen.
That night I got a phone call from the factory owner telling me not to come back to work the next day. The shift supervisor had fully debriefed him about me. It was like a zero grace, zero tolerance situation. One strike and I was out! I was pretty devastated, but the next day I went back to the factory and asked to meet the owner. The shift supervisor wasn't so impressed. I explained my misunderstanding, and the boss gave me a second chance. By the end of the summer he was giving me all sorts of special assignments because of my work ethic and abilities. He found that he could rely on me. That is when something clicked in my brain. Don't write people off. Give them more than a single chance! In time, people can really surprise you.
I wonder, have you ever had someone write you off? Have you ever had someone not believe in you and not trust your character or abilities? On "Undercover Boss" I always get emotional when bosses give employees who've really dropped the ball or had a wrong attitude that second chance. That's how all of us would want to be treated if we were in their circumstance. I've had countless people give me such chances. It's painful to imagine what my life would be like if people like my boss hadn't believed in me. How about you?
More than any corporation, the Church should be a place of second chances. But this isn't always the case. Sometimes when people come to the Church they aren't given a second chance. Instead, they get reminded of their past, written off, and put in a box!
The mantra in the Church these days is that we exist to make disciples. But sometimes we'd much rather inherit ready-made disciples than make them from scratch. Making disciples is infinitely more risky and messy than inheriting disciples.
For us to make disciples we have to wage war against our own cynicism and distrust. We have to give people a second, third, fourth, and fifth chance. In fact, when Peter asked how many chances a person should get, Jesus said in Matthew 18:22 (ESV), "... seventy-seven times (chances)". If you look through the Old Testament you will notice that God gave the nation of Israel at least that many chances. But that's a whole other sermon!
This past week a few of us were talking about 1 Corinthians 13. If you've ever attended a wedding, there is a good chance you have heard part of 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (ESV) says, "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends."
Aren't these verses so romantic!! The only trouble is that these words weren't written for romance. They were written to ordinary Christians instructing them about how, as a body of believers, we ought to love one another. In imitation of the way Christ loved us, we should love one another.
In the Church are we patient? Are we kind? Can we see others thrive without becoming envious? Can we ourselves thrive without being boastful? When other people fail, do we act arrogantly toward them, as if we've never failed, or as if we don't need the exact same grace they need? Do we treat them as if in time, grace cannot achieve in their lives what it has achieved in our lives?
In the Church are we rude? Do we insist on having our own way? Are we resentful when others are blessed differently then we're blessed? Do we silently celebrate other people's setbacks, as if someone's wrongdoing could ever bolster our own standing and self worth? Are we committed to speaking the truth to one another, knowing how invaluable it is for others to help us grow? Do we bear all things or do we have limits that are quickly reached? Do we believe all things, or are we cynical? Do we put our hope in and trust in God's power? Do we endure and persevere with people even when it's frustrating and costly?
You see, these verses have an entirely different connotation and application when we don't apply them romantically, but rather corporately, to the body of Christ. Love is to be the engine of the Church. Love is the most powerful force for change that you or I can unleash in someone's life. This kind of love looks like 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.
Now what's shocking about 1 Corinthians 13 is what Paul says in the opening verses. In 1 Corinthians 13:1 (ESV) Paul says, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." Translation. The essence of being a Christ-follower isn't getting caught up in spiritual experiences. It's learning to love.
In 1 Corinthians 13:2 (ESV) Paul continues, "And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." Translation. The essence of being a Christ-follower isn't just having faith or just filling your head with knowledge. If your knowledge or faith doesn't translate into love, it's worthless knowledge and worthless faith. Faith without love is nothing, just as faith without works is dead.
In 1 Corinthians 13:3 (ESV) Paul teaches, "If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." Translation. You could die for your faith. You could go and sell everything you have and give it to the poor. You could be the biggest giver in your church. But if you don't love, it's all in vain.
Isn't it funny how we overvalue everything else except love? But Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 (ESV), "Love never ends. As for prophesies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass way. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
What ever is Paul talking about? It's this. Right now, all of us have imperfect love. Our love falls short, and it's incomplete. Yet we're all learning how to grow in love. Some of us Christians act childish. Some act like mature men or women. We're inconsistent. But one day we will stand face to face with Christ himself. We will stand face to face beholding the perfect love of Christ. And all of this is in preparation to meet the most true, perfect, eternal love there is.
Let me end by reading a passage that runs parallel to everything we've been talking about these last few weeks in 1 Corinthians. It's Ephesians 4:1-16 (ESV). "I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit-- just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call-- one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all."
"But grace was given to each one of us according to the meaure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, 'When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.' (In saying, 'He ascended,' what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)"
"And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes."
"Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love."
Did you catch that last verse? When each part is working properly, it's building all the other parts up in love. And when all of us have that same goal, the fullness of Christ is made manifest in the Church, and that is what this is all about.