by admin | Mar 3, 2020 | Relationship Goals, Sermon Audio and Notes
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
1 Corinthians 13:4-6
This week in Relationship Goals, we hear from Zack Brady, who along with being one of our Core Team leaders at Flood Blantyre is on the Young Life staff team in Blantyre ministering specifically to our international high schools.
In this sermon, Zack takes us through 1 Corinthians 13:6, “[Love] does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth,” and calls us to recognize that this one is not quite as easy as it sounds at first listen. To plumb the depths of what it means to not rejoice in “iniquity,” we go back to the Gospel of Matthew and are reminded that Jesus raised the bar on what sin can be–its not just acting on your lust and committing adultery that is the sin, its the actual looking at someone with lust; its not just acting on your anger and murdering your neighor that is the sin, but the being angry itself. Its not just the actions that we take that are iniquity–it is what is going on inside our heads and hearts as well. This sin, the iniquity inside us, is easily hidden and we love to keep it secret.
But that secret keeping, Zack explains, leads to loneliness and shame, shame that is reflective of the shame felt by Adam and Eve in the garden. Listen in as we unpack Genesis 3 in the context of 1 Corinthians 13:6 and learn how to rejoice in the truth of what God says to us rather than sitting in the lies that have been offered to us by our enemy, who, after all, is only out to steal, kill, and destroy anyone who is called a child of God.
Our next steps for this week
Next Steps:
- Where are you?
- Who will you invite into your secrets? (Who are you going to invite in to help you dismantle the power that your secret sins have over your life?)
- What are you going to put down?
- What are you going to pick up? (And if you don’t know the answer to this one right away, that’s okay! Ask the Lord as you come to him with empty hands after having laid down what you needed to from question 3.)
- Attend Ash Wednesday Service (6-7pm @ Flood Blantyre on Wednesday, 26 February)
- Join in on our 40 Day Lent devotional
The reality of life is there is no life apart from relationships. Your relationships might be with stuff, not people, but your life is relating itself to STUFF. So our heart and our goal in this series is to just be at a place where we ask the hard questions, we get into the space of trying to understand what is love really like. Now when you get into scripture, scripture has a lot of stuff to say about love. So we are are looking at some few amazing things that God has said in his word in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 of what love is.
Catch up on earlier Relationship Goals sermons: Week 1 , Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 7
by admin | Feb 19, 2020 | Relationship Goals, Sermon Audio and Notes
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
1 Corinthians 13:4-5
In this the 7th installment of our Relationship Goals series, Pastor Yami tackles the final statement of vs. 5: “[Love] is not irritable or resentful.” Our human reality is that irritation and resentment are constant parts of our lives; the question we need to ask is not “Are you resentful about anything?” but “What are you resentful about right now?”
Now, we don’t get resentful for no reason. Injustice–whether on a large societal scale, a personal unfairness scale, or a divine “God how could you?” scale–is the most common cause of our undealt with resentments. And we SHOULD be angry about injustice; in fact, Pastor Yami reminds us, our anger about injustice can be the motivating force for righting injustice and creating change. However, when we exagerrate the injustice that makes us angry, add wildly to the pain, and stew on the injuries or simply shove them down so that they fester inside of us, instead of being a powerful force for good, our anger becomes resentment and quickly turns to poinson within us. Resentment unacknowledged, especially when it is resentment with God, can turn us into reckless, people-pleasing, destructive bullies. In this sermon, Pastor Yami challenges us to recognize and name our bitter spots and resentful feelings as the necessary first step to being able to grow through them and love well even when we are confronted with injustice, betrayal, or pain.
Our next steps for this week
Next Steps:
- What hurt is defining you?
- What struggle have you made your identity?
- Where do you need to see God’s kindness towards you?
The reality of life is there is no life apart from relationships. Your relationships might be with stuff, not people, but your life is relating itself to STUFF. So our heart and our goal in this series is to just be at a place where we ask the hard questions, we get into the space of trying to understand what is love really like. Now when you get into scripture, scripture has a lot of stuff to say about love. So we are are looking at some few amazing things that God has said in his word in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 of what love is.
Catch up on earlier Relationship Goals sermons: Week 1 , Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5
by admin | Feb 4, 2020 | Relationship Goals, Sermon Audio and Notes
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
1 Corinthians 13:4-5
This week, our 1 Corinthians 13 conversation continues with the second part of “Love does not insist on its own way.” Last week, Pastor Yami drew our attention to the way that we often approach love in a self-seeking manner, actually using love as an excuse to get our own way. This week, he challenged us on this further, even confessing how much we in the church have used this concept that God loves us unconditionally as a weapon against another, twisting the meaning of unconditional love to ask others never to want us to change or grow. Fortunately, we didn’t stay in the land of hard challenges this week though. In our desire to learn to love in God’s way, rather than our own way, we look at the relationship between the Father and the Son which is the ultimate expression of love in human history. This exchange reveals a love that is affectionate, gives itself away, exalts the other, and, to our surprise, obedient. How Jesus loved the Father, lived out that love, and talks about the way the Father loves him, are beautiful guides to us as we continue to learn to love like them.
Our next steps for this week:
- How are you loving others?
- Where do you need to commit as a sign of your love?
- Commit to a relationships this week in line with what God is inviting you to.
The reality of life is there is no life apart from relationships. Your relationships might be with stuff, not people, but your life is relating itself to STUFF. So our heart and our goal in this series is to just be at a place where we ask the hard questions, we get into the space of trying to understand what is love really like. Now when you get into scripture, scripture has a lot of stuff to say about love. So we are are looking at some few amazing things that God has said in his word in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 of what love is.
Catch up on earlier Relationship Goals sermons: Week 1 , Week 2, Week 3, Week 4
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