Fellow-Redeemed in Christ Jesus our Savior,
Today’s sermon is about The Great Three: Faith, Hope, Love. Not those again. Will you roll your eyes or begin planning your coming week in your minds? Are you thinking, I have known those three things well since I was a child in Sunday school. Another sermon not relevant about any practical applications for the Christian life,
Why a sermon on the great three great Paul wrote about to the Corinthians? Pastor, you might as well tell us that we have to eat and drink, breath, and sleep to live.
Not so fast. Here is the most common view of faith. It doesn’t matter what you believe just so you believe sincerely. Here is the most common view of hope. There is no hope, or vague hope at best. Here is the most common view of love. Love is the feeling of acceptance and toleration for every idea and practice.
George Orwell famously said, “We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of the intelligent man.” Because the world around us has sunk to such a depth of misinterpretation and misunderstanding of those three great words, it is my duty to restate them even though they are familiar.
Paul’s words about faith, hope and love follow on the heels of his discussion of spiritual gifts and how the Christian uses them. God gives these gifts to each one of us for a time and for the common good. There is to be no jealousy about gifts, no false humility or pride about your gifts. Christians and our gifts are in it together. When one suffers, all suffer. When one rejoices, all rejoice with it; just like the parts of the body.
What is necessary for desiring gifts and using them properly is love. It is a unique love joined arm in arm with faith and hope. After all the gifts are gone, these great three things remain; faith, hope, love. The greatest of these is love. Since it is greatest, we will save it for last.
Faith is reliance on someone’s word and actions for my good. Faith is the Centurion telling Jesus, “Just say the word and my servant will be healed.” Jesus told his disciples, “Believe in God, believe also in me.” Faith is not positive thinking or optimism. True faith is calling only on the true God, the holy Trinity.
Faith in only as good as its object. Believing has no innate good qualities. It is not a meritorious work. When Paul wrote, “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith,” he did not mean we are saved for the sake of our faith. Faith saves only because it embraces Jesus Christ who already has saved us. That faith can be strong enough to move mountains, or it can be weak so that we cry out to Jesus with the man in Mark 9, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief.”
These are is not the common views today, as they were not in Paul’s day. A television pundit who says he is a Christian recently stated plainly that Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship the same god. We do not. Jesus said that whoever denies that he is God with the Father, denies the Father who sent him. Whoever denies Christ’s deity cannot believe that Jesus paid for all of our sins on the cross by which God declares us not guilty of our sins.
You can have sincere faith but if the object of your faith does not possess the powers you believe they have, your faith is worthless. Apart from the truth that Jesus is my Savior, our greatest joy is that by the Holy Spirit’s working through the gospel I know Jesus and believe him to be my Savior.
The second of the great three is hope. We have hope for today and for tomorrow under Jesus’ cross, next to his empty tomb, and on the hilltop of our homes as we wait for his return to redeem our bodies.
This is in contrast to those Paul describes to the Ephesians as “without hope and without God in the world.” Many unbelievers say, “I am not afraid to die.” That may be. The more important question is “Do you have any hope in death?” If they say no, we have our invitation to sow the seed of Christ.
They are building high fences along the George Washington Bridge between Ft. Lee, NJ and the upper west side of Manhattan. Nine people have committed suicide this year by jumping off the bridge. There is so much unnecessary hopelessness out there.
When troubles last and sorrows linger, hope sustains us. Now the sufferings, in God’s time the glory. A doctor may say that there is no hope. However, with the Lord there is hope because he can do abundantly more than we could ask or think. God has countless ways to help and a bottomless well of the means to either deliver us or strengthen us to stand. Moses gave Israel hope as he prepared to leave them in death, “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” [Deut. 33:27]
Along with faith and hope there is that unique love; agape. It is God’s love for the unlovable sinner, God’s love for you and for me. It also is our love for God because of his love for us. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his love for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” [1 John 3:16]
As spiritual gifts come and go, faith, hope and love remain. We will not need faith and hope in heaven. Luther said we will be purged and entirely free from all sin and evil desires. Our believing will be seeing, our hopes fully realized. However, our love will remain. We will continue to love God and one another forever in perfection. That is why love is the greatest of the three.
The great three are familiar to us but we never dare take them for granted. Therefore, daily call upon the Holy Spirit that through his Word and sacrament the great three: faith, hope, love continue to remain in your hearts. Amen. <SDG>