July 1, Independence Sunday, Communion Sunday

Lesson: 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:12

Sermon Title: The Fullness of Love

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INTRODUCTION:

  1. Mirror, Mirror on the wall, "Who is the fairest one of all?"

    1. You recognize the source of this phrase?

    2. It comes from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

      1. It is the phrase that the wicked queen uses to verify that she is the fairest one of all.

      2. This works until Snow White grows up.

      3. Then she is the fairest one of all.

      4. The wicked queen cannot put up with this so Snow White must go.

  2. Now we see in a mirror dimly.

    1. Ancient mirrors were not made of glass with silvered backs.

      1. Ancient mirrors were mostly made of copper.

      2. The reflected image was faint.

    2. The reflected image was often distorted.

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MAIN BODY:

  1. This was a little like going to the Fun House at the local amusement park.

    1. You passed a series of mirrors in which your image did not resemble you at all.

      1. You could laugh at your image.

      2. If you use the mirror as a metaphor for life, it is sometimes no laughing matter.

  2. You pass the Distortion Mirror.

    1. Life is distorted.

    2. Life is based on distorted knowledge or opinion.

This guy was on the side of the road hitch- hiking on a very dark night and in the middle of a storm. The night was rolling and no car went by, the storm was so strong he could hardly see a few feet ahead of him.

Suddenly he saw a car coming toward him and stop. The guy without thinking about it got in the car closes the door just to realize there's nobody behind the wheel. The car starts slowly, the guy looks at the road and sees a curve coming his way, scared he starts to pray begging for his life. He hasn't come out of shock, when just before he hits the curve, a hand appears through the window and moves the wheel.

Paralyzed in terror, he watches the hand appear at every curve. Gathering his strength, he gets out of the car and runs to the nearest town. Wet and in shock, he staggers into a bar, asks for two shots of tequila, and starts telling everybody about the religious experience he went through. Silence fell as those in the bar realized he wasn't drunk.

About half an hour later two guys walked in the same cantina and one said to the other. "Hey Bert, there's that guy who got in the car while we were pushing it!"

    1. The life principles are not helpful in creating a sense of satisfaction.

Attributed to Soren Kierkegaard, source unknown.

I went into church and sat on the velvet pew. I watched as the sun came shining through the stained-glass windows. The minister, dressed in a velvet robe, opened the golden gilded Bible, marked it with a silk bookmark and said, "If any man will be my disciple, said Jesus, let him deny himself, take up his cross, sell what he has, give it to the poor, and follow me." And I looked around and nobody was laughing.

    1. The life principles are not helpful in creating a sense of contentment.

  1. You pass the Skinny Mirror.

    1. Let us use the Skinny Mirror to describe those who have a low belief and opinion of themselves.

Many years ago a famous cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Maxwell Maltz, wrote a best-selling book, New Faces -- New Futures, which was a collection of case histories of people for whom facial surgery had opened the door to a new life. However, as the years went by, Dr. Maltz began to learn far more not from his successes but from his failures. Patient after patient, who though made quite beautiful after facial surgery, did not change. They acquired new faces, but went on wearing the same old personalities. But worse than that, they became more angry than before. They would look in the mirror and angrily say to the doctor, I look the same as before. You didn't change a thing. This, in spite of the fact that to any objective viewer the before and after photographs were drastically different. And so in 1960 Dr. Maltz wrote a very different best seller, Psycho-Cybernetics. He was still trying to change people, not by correcting jawbones or smoothing scar tissue, but by helping people change the pictures they had of themselves. (1)

  1. No matter what happened the people with the cosmetic surgery did not see themselves differently.

    1. The mirror into which they looked reflected back the same image before the change.

    2. They could not see what they had become.

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  1. Let us use the Fat Mirror to describe those who think more highly of themselves than they ought to think.

    1. These are people who have come to believe that they ought to be better looking than they are.

Catherine M. Farnes, writes: "Is it time for a makeover?" (2)

You're standing in front of a mirror with a big event -- maybe your piano recital, first date or major family gathering -- looming in the near future. As you stare, all you notice is that your appearance lacks something.

Your hair is too long, too short, too curly, not wavy enough, dull, unstylish, the wrong color or fried. Your eyes look lifeless, probably because you lost sleep from worrying about what you're going to wear today. And then of course there are those minor imperfections of your complexion.

Your solution ... a makeover. Only with a change to your appearance will you arrive at your event feeling radiant, beautiful and accepted.

Girls are seldom satisfied with the way they look, and the world knows it. People build entire careers out of a woman's desire for improvement.

But what happens when the mirror you're looking at reflects your heart? What about the character imperfections -- things that are so woven into your personality that you can't even identify them individually? Does the beauty profile of your life lack something? Peace, maybe? Joy? Purpose? Contentment?

Then it's time for a real makeover. An internal makeover.

But where do you go for that?

God has made only one place in the universe for us to truly shed our sins -- and that's with his blood. If you're looking for a life makeover that doesn't have to be done again and again, this is the first step. Repent of your sins and ask Christ to forgive you.

    1. So you have to see beyond what's in the mirror.

A family was sightseeing in New York City and took the subway to Battery Park in lower Manhattan. They happened to be in the first car and the two boys peered in the mirror that separated them from the engineer's cabin. After a few moments, the older boy told his brother that he could see the tracks up ahead in the tunnel. The glass was a two-way mirror.

The 7-year-old, admiring his beautiful self in the mirror could see nothing but himself. "Where?" he asked. "I don't see anything."

His mother spoke up. "Spenser, look beyond yourself and you'll see it."

He did, and he did, just as we do when we look beyond ourselves: We catch a glimpse of the track ahead and the world around us.

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  1. If you choose, you can avoid the distorted, skinny and fat mirrors.

    1. You do this by looking at the one clear and truly reflective image in the mirror.

William Sloan Coffin in Letters to a Young Doubter. "Gradually the dazzling truth dawned on me I saw that Jesus was both a mirror to humanity and a window to divinity, the modest amount given to mortal eyes to see. God was not confined to Jesus but to Christians at least essentially defined by Jesus. When we see Jesus scorning the powerful, empowering the weak, healing the hurt, always returning good for evil, we are seeing transparently the power of God at work."

    1. You look into the perfect mirror, the image of Jesus Christ.

A nameless medieval monk announced he would be preaching next Sunday evening on "The Love of God."

As the shadows fell and the light ceased to come in through the cathedral windows, the congregation gathered. In the darkness of the altar, the monk lighted a candle and carried it to the crucifix. First of all, he illumined the crown of thorns, next, the two wounded hands, then the marks of the spear wound. In the hush that fell, he blew out the candle and left the chancel. (3)

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CONCLUSION

  1. Now I know only in part.

    1. Then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Dan Kimball in "Stained-glass reflections," observes: (4)

The sun came out from behind the clouds, shining through the stained-glass windows that were all around the tiny chapel. I was amazed I hadn't really noticed them before, but now the sun lit them up brilliantly ....

I sat and thought about how we're all God's pieces of art, his stained-glass poetry, each of us a panel on display to the heavenlies as we fulfill the purpose he created us in advance to do.

I looked closer at the stained-glass panels and realized the pieces themselves weren't beautiful, but the beauty was in the assembled pieces. Like the sin-stained human beings we are, God assembles broken pieces like us into beautiful images -- his workmanship -- used for his glory as his light shines through. What makes the stained glass beautiful isn't the glass itself, but the sunlight shining through it.

    1. Then, we will see face to face.

Face to Face With Christ My Savior

Words: Carrie E. Breck, Music: Grant C. Tuller

Face to face with Christ, my Savior,
Face to face--what will it be,
When with rapture I behold Him,
Jesus Christ Who died for me?

Refrain

Face to face I shall behold Him,
Far beyond the starry sky;
Face to face in all His glory,
I shall see Him by and by!

Only faintly now I see Him,
With the darkened veil between,
But a blessèd day is coming,
When His glory shall be seen.

Refrain

What rejoicing in His presence,
When are banished grief and pain;
When the crooked ways are straightened,
And the dark things shall be plain.

Refrain

Face to face--oh, blissful moment!
Face to face--to see and know;
Face to face with my Redeemer,
Jesus Christ Who loves me so.

Refrain

Amen

1.Source unknown.

2.Catherine M. Farnes, "Is it time for a makeover?" Brio, Briomag.com. Retrieved October 17, 2003.

3.  Source unknown.

4.Dan Kimball, "Stained-glass reflections," Rev., January-February 2003, 110. Reprinted by permission, Rev. Magazine copyright 2003, Group Publishing, Inc., Box 481, Loveland, CO 80539.

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