“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:13
After extended teaching on spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 12) and a beautiful poem about love (ch. 13), Paul summarizes the key Christian virtues as “faith, hope and love,” with the priority clearly on love.
Through this season of seizures and the tumor we have been so blessed by the prayer and affection of our church family and our extended Christian family all over the world. It has struck me that a simultaneous triple miracle occurs every time someone prays, involving faith, hope and love.
- First, your faith grows as you acknowledge the existence of God and the need for His presence and power.
- Second, your hope grows as you sense God’s power and care for the situation in view as well as for your own struggles.
- Finally, your love grows as you call on the Lord for the needs of someone else.
Then, as you share your faith, hope and love with us, all three are multiplied again to us. Our faith grows, especially when you share the Scripture the Lord used to highlight His glory and will as you prayed. At the same time our hope grows as we sense God’s presence and care for us. And simultaneously our feeling of being loved by you and by God grows!
Many in our church family have also been bringing us meals, with a full dinner every night! It seems some have forgotten how Jesus multiplies resources when committed to Him. The feeding of the 5,000 with a young boy’s lunch shows at least a 1,000 fold multiplication and possibly more with all the leftovers. So the meals tend to extend to lunch the next day and sometimes beyond that, enhancing the feeling of love in very practical ways.
I opened this post with the theme song from Sports Camp this year, “King of Me,” by Rend Collective. I apologize for the inescapable ear worm this song becomes in your mind, but it brings you into the experience of all of us who helped lead Sports Camp this year with the focus on David. Clearly God wanted us thinking about God’s power over giants, armies, lions, sea monsters, seizures and tumors.
There is a powerful scene in Amazon’s House of David series in the finale of season one. When the young shepherd, David, finally gets to the battle lines with the Philistines and hears Goliath’s boast, he immediately offers to fight the great giant. His brothers and the other soldiers of Israel do all they can to talk him out of it, pointing our how huge the Philistine champion is and how he has prepared his whole life for battle like this.
But David immediately replies to these arguments, “It doesn’t matter.”
- It doesn’t matter how big the giant is who stands against us.
- It doesn’t matter how big the army is that lines up before us.
- It doesn’t matter how big the tumor is in your brain, or how serious the seizure events are you are experiencing.
All that matters is how big the God is that you serve. David asks his fellow Jews, “Don’t any of you remember the old stories?”
David’s mind is filled with God’s promises to Joshua in the original conquest of the land.
“Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. 4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. 5 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. 7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. 8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
Joshua 1:3-9
As the shepherd boy runs to face the giant Philistine, he quotes these verses to Himself and the Lord as a prayer, “Lord, give me this land, give me this step.” He believes God is with Him and that changes everything. God promised Israel this very land and Goliath was not just opposing the armies and soldiers of Israel, the Philistine was opposing God Himself and His purposes for His people.
45 Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47 and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.”
1 Samuel 17:45-47
This is a clear example of a BOAST in the Old Testament. Goliath had made his boast in his own power. But David made his boast in the power of his God. Paul addresses this issue directly earlier in 1 Corinthians.
“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”
1 Corinthians 1:27-31
Whatever giants, lions or sea monsters you are facing, where does your confidence come from? As you have shared with us your faith, hope and love, it has helped us to focus our confidence right where it belongs: in the love, presence and power of Christ alone.
This Sunday (7/6/2025) Pastor Mike Maggard will encourage us from Philippians 4 and this familiar, but not often applied passage.
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:4-7
The principles in verses 4-6 are what pave the way to the promise of verse 7. Peace is not automatic, but comes from fixing our joy, confidence and hope in the Lord alone. Thank you so much for helping us do this very thing over the past several weeks. We continue to be grateful for your prayer and encouragement in this time of recovery.
Our God is the king of all the giants, all the lions and all the creatures of the deep. And thankfully He is also the God of each of us as we walk with Him in faith, hope and love.