DNA: God Is Holy

Love does not take delight in evil. Sunday pas­tor Bart defined evil as, “any­thing that breaks down a rela­tion­ship.” It isn’t just the mur­derer, the big nasty things that are evil. It can be lit­tle things, any­thing that breaks down a rela­tion­ship, even to the point of look­ing for ways not to do the sim­ple good. It is yet another thing to take delight in evil. What is that?

It is reject­ing the truth. It is believ­ing a lie. When we begin to believe in the lies that are around us, we begin to delight in the evil that is around us as well… Ok, let me stop here.… Pastor Bart preached well and it is an impor­tant mes­sage we all need to hear. Go to Flatland Church’s web­site and lis­ten to it if you haven’t heard it (and if you have heard it, lis­ten to it again).

I am rather side tracked by my own thoughts regard­ing 1 Corinthians 13 [show]1 Corinthians 13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clang­ing cym­bal. [2]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. [3]If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain noth­ing. [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; [6]it does not rejoice at wrong­do­ing, but rejoices with the truth. [7]Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. [8]Love never ends. As for prophe­cies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowl­edge, it will pass away. [9]For we know in part and we proph­esy in part, [10]but when the per­fect comes, the par­tial will pass away. [11]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. [12]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. [13]So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the great­est of these is love. (ESV)
. I kept wait­ing for our pas­tors to hit the main point of the chap­ter but that really wasn’t their focus and truth­fully, that is OK. God led them down the path that He wanted us to hear. But I have to get this off my chest.

1 Corinthians 13 [show]1 Corinthians 13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clang­ing cym­bal. [2]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. [3]If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain noth­ing. [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; [6]it does not rejoice at wrong­do­ing, but rejoices with the truth. [7]Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. [8]Love never ends. As for prophe­cies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowl­edge, it will pass away. [9]For we know in part and we proph­esy in part, [10]but when the per­fect comes, the par­tial will pass away. [11]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. [12]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. [13]So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the great­est of these is love. (ESV)
is smack in the mid­dle of a dis­ser­ta­tion on the gifts of the Spirit and their use in the Body of Christ, espe­cially dur­ing times when we gather together in His Name. The church in Corinth was appar­ently hav­ing rather dis­or­derly ser­vices, with mis­use and even abuse of the gifts of the Spirit. Paul begins teach­ing the Corinthians and in turn us all about the gifts of the Spirit and the proper use of them dur­ing our cor­po­rate meet­ings. And then, as if Paul sud­denly smacks him­self up along the side of the head and says “Duh!” he switches gears for a sec­ond and starts talk­ing about love.

Now you could say, “whaaa?” What does love have to do with the gifts of the Spirt? Well, it has to do with God’s DNA (bring­ing it back to the ser­mon series). God’s love should become fully and wholly a part of us. When we take on that love, when we gather together in His Name, our church ser­vices will be “right.”

I can’t but think that their were some in the church at Corinth that were belit­tling oth­ers in the church with regards to their “spir­i­tual defi­cian­cies” and boast­ing about their own “spir­i­tual great­ness.” This pride lead to mis­use, abuse, and dis­rup­tive behav­iour in the church. Paul has to cor­rect this.

I imag­ine Paul sit­ting there dic­tat­ing this let­ter. In the back of his mind he is think­ing, “Why in the world do I have to be teach­ing these guys the same things over and over again?” And sud­denly it hits him. Love! They just don’t have the proper love for one another. And so it inter­rupts his thought, gives them a def­i­n­i­tion of love (and shows us God’s DNA), tells them if they don’t have love for one another then the gifts of the Spirit are for naught, and finally con­tin­ues on with his teach­ings regard­ing the gifts of the Spir

Something just hit me. If we don’t have the gifts of the Spirit active in our gath­er­ings, we also will have trou­bles exhibit­ing love. Pastor Bart said some­thing like that in his ser­mon. He talked about a pro­tein called ATM that when it encoun­ters some DNA that is break­ing down, it fixes it. He likened that to the Holy Spirit who changes our hearts and restores our spir­i­tual DNA.

Maybe Paul didn’t inter­rupt him­self after all. The gifts of the Spirit and our love for one another are intrin­si­cally inter­min­gled. Without love, the gifts of the Spirit are for naught. Without the gifts of the Spirit, we will stug­gle in our love for one another. Let us rely on the Spirit to empower us to use those gifts He has given us that we may love one another. Let us take on God’s DNA and love one another ful­fill­ing our call­ing to exer­cise the gifts of the Spirit as He would among the Body.