[Sermon summary]

Title: "Faith, Hope, and Love" (Discipleship 2)

A disciple of Jesus is to grow in his walk with Jesus by learning from him.

Faith, hope, and love are important characteristics of a disciple of Christ. A disciple needs to know how these three grow and operate.

When a believer faces a "dark night," he or she becomes disoriented, feeling that there is much failure and hardship in his or her life. A disoriented believer struggles to grow in faith.

When the dark night engulfs the believer's intellect, the believer understands faith as the answer to a problem or a means to an ethical goal. God wants to expand the believer's understanding and intellect so that the believer can receive the richer truth that God wants to give. What God wants is a relationship, not an "answer." We want you to have "faith and belief as a trusted relationship". God is the one who invites you into a relationship where He never abandons you and never leaves you alone.

Dark nights envelop the memory of the believer, leaving him or her confused about his or her identity. While many of us live with countless memories of ourselves and our neighbors, we must acknowledge that there are countless more that we cannot grasp or see for ourselves. God, who never leaves, is with us in our past, present, and future, a faithful witness to our identity. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was revered by many for his role in planning Hitler's assassination and was executed, confessed. "Who I am is in the hands of God."

Not in my memory, but in God's word and testimony, the believer's identity is restored so that he or she can have hope. Hope connects past, present, and future in a single relationship, which in turn sets the believer on a path of growing in faith with remarkable perseverance through the "confusion and anxiety of memory" because of the heavenly witness, the God who will not forsake us.

When the believer lives in faith and hope through a trusting relationship with God, the believer will discover and desire true love.

[Sermon Notes]

Title: "Faith, Hope, and Love" (Discipleship 2)

Text: 1 Corinthians 13:8-13

10. Faith: Understand "Faith as a trustworthy relationship."
20.Hope: Remember "hope as a trustworthy relationship."
30. Love: Choose "love as a trustworthy relationship."

(1 Corinthians 13:8-13, New Living Translation) [8] Love does not pass away; but prophecy passes away, tongues cease, and knowledge passes away.
[9] For we know in part, and prophesy in part.
[10] But when that which is complete comes, that which is partial will pass away.
[11] When I was a child, I was like a child in speech, like a child in understanding, and like a child in thinking; but when I became a man, I put away the things of a child.
[12] For now I do not see dimly, as in a mirror, as we see an image, but then I shall see face to face; now I know only in part, but then I shall know fully, as God knows me.
[13] Now faith, hope, love, these three abide always, but the greatest of these is love.

[Sermon manuscript]

Title: "Faith, Hope, and Love" (Discipleship)

1. A disciple is one who learns and grows.

St. John of the Cross, a 16th-century Spanish friar, said that believers face a "dark night". The "dark night" that the believer faces feels like failure and hardship, but because of the "zeal of God," it becomes a place where the believer "trains" and "practices," and the disciple becomes a step forward.

2. the three essential characteristics of living as a disciple of Christ

In today's passage, "faith, hope, and love" are the three essential characteristics of living as a disciple of Christ, but many believers don't understand how they work. They don't understand how they grow in the life of a believer.

3. Understanding, remembering, and wanting.

In the 16th century, theologians understood the human spirit to be an interaction of intellect, memory, and will: "The human spirit is made up of understanding, remembering, and wanting." John of the Cross wrote, "In the Christian life, faith arises from the intellect (understanding), hope arises from memory, and love arises from wanting." He goes on to say, "The most difficult thing for a Christian to do in growing in faith is to become disoriented." Yes, many times we see believers with an intellect that thinks they understand their faith correctly, but in fact they don't. They think they remember, but they live without hope in the midst of much confusion. They choose and live because they want something, but they want something empty.

4. James refers to such believers as "those who deceive themselves".

(James 1:22-25, NIV) "[22] Be doers of the word, not merely hearers, deceiving yourselves. "23" Anyone who hears the word and does not do it is like a person who looks into a mirror at his own face, just as it is. "24" This is the kind of person who sees his reflection and goes away and soon forgets what it is like. "25" But the one who keeps an eye on the perfect law, the law that sets you free, and who constantly lives by it, is not someone who hears the law and forgets about it, but someone who puts it into practice. This person will be blessed for what he does.

Now the believer must be renewed in his intellect, memory, and will to become what God truly wants him to be. He must be renewed in faith, hope, and love.

10. Faith: Understand "Faith as a Trusted Relationship."

11. A dark night envelops the intellect.

The dark night that hinders the believer's intellect is "the loss of the very idea of being receptive to the richer truths God has to offer."

Faith is not a comprehensive, systematic answer to all our problems, nor is it the answer to achieving our moral and ethical goals. We need to ask ourselves: what is true faith? What is most important to me in my faith? Is what I know the essence of faith? We need to ask ourselves these questions.

12. St. John of the Cross

St. John of the Cross says, "Faith in the true sense of the word grows out of recognizing the 'barriers' placed before our intellect and realizing the 'confusion and loss' that hinder our understanding." God wants to stretch our understanding, our minds, and our intellect to receive a richer truth, but we often don't even think we can receive a richer truth.

13. "Trusting relationship."

Faith and belief take the form of a "trusting relationship." Faith begins with the realization that there is a being (God, the eternal Other) who will never leave the believer alone. The believer embraces the many problems in his or her life with the assurance that he or she will not be "abandoned." The believer lives with the power and confidence to uncover what God is doing and to boldly share God's word with the world.

13-1. Faith as a trusting relationship

"Faith as a trusting relationship" is not faith in my ability to master the truth, but rather the conviction that the truth can master me and that it is possible for me to be captivated by it. It is knowing that when a faithful God, not I, connects and sustains my relationship with living truth, that relationship becomes trustworthy, and for this to happen, I give up trust in my own resources.

14. Building trustworthy relationships

Believers must recognize that it is not about building wise systems, but about building trustworthy relationships. In a time when a dark night has fallen over the intellect, we are called to restore a trusting relationship with God and, as disciples of Christ, to embody and share that relationship in the world.

15. Questions that examine our relationship with God (True or False Questions)

15-1.

( ) The most important thing in Christian life is having the right relationship with God and neighbors. (Matthew 22: 34-40)

( ) The most important thing in Christian life is having the right relationship with God and neighbors. (Matthew 22: 34-40)

15-2.

( ) Just because you don't have a good relationship with your neighbor doesn't mean you have a bad relationship with God. (Matthew 22:39)

( ) Just because you don't have a good relationship with your neighbor doesn't mean you have a bad relationship with God. (Matthew 22:39)

15-3.

(Matthew 22:39, New Living Translation) "The second commandment is the same: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"

16. summary/exhortation

-Realize that there is a God who will not leave you alone, and develop a relationship of trust with God (this involves letting go of the things you trust in yourself).

- Demonstrate in your life that you are in a trusting relationship with God. (Demonstrate faith as a trustworthy relationship to the weak, the marginalized, the suffering, and those on the margins.)

20. Hope: Remember "Hope as a trusted relationship."

21. Dark nights envelope our memories.

The dark night confuses our memories: "Who were we, who was I? Who are we now, who am I?"

21-1. confusion of self-identity

People, as well as our society, try to remember the past and examine the present. However, this society and individuals live with a confusion of self-identity because the continuity of memory is disrupted.

Many people try to build a future based on their memories of the past and present, and the future based on those memories, but they live in a state of anxiety and lost hope. Some people lose hope because they hear the sounds of despair from within themselves, and some because external voices speak to them about their despair.

22. My identity. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Who am I? / [Example, from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Apocalypse Now].

"Who am I? Others often say to me, how calm, cheerful, and steadfast I am when I come out of my cell, like a lord coming out of a castle."

There's a difference about identity. "How others see you vs. how you know you are inside"

- How others see you (confident, mature, rational, prayerful, faithful, courageous, etc.)
- The person you know yourself to be (weak, defeated, struggling with inner lamentations and fears)

So Bonhoeffer asks, "Which one, then, is me?"
- The me that others say I am, or the me that I know I am?

His honest and surprising answer gives believers some very important insight.

"I cannot know. God must answer. It is not for me to judge whether I am truly courageous or cowardly, confident or fearful, or both. Who I am is in God's hands."

23. There is a witness that informs identity.

The believer should know his or her identity in relationship with God (and, of course, in relationship with the neighbor) and enjoy the hope that springs from it.

Hope in relationship is hope in a relationship with a being who will not leave or forsake the believer, a hope in a relationship with a God who knows, understands, and holds us for who we were and who we are.

The believer has an identity not because he or she has invented it or has an immutable, solid self at the center of it. The believer has a witness that tells him or her who he or she is.

23-1, God, who has the eye of love, is that witness.

"The things that no individual can grasp or see on his or her own-the fragments of self that cannot be stitched together into a coherent and compelling story-are all caught in God's loving eye and tell us who we are."

That's why the believer doesn't have to take it upon himself to wrestle with the question of who he is and who he has been, or to try to determine it.

23-2. [Imagine] seeing through the eyes of the One who never leaves, everything about the believer, past or present, is still true: seemingly disconnected and disparate fragments suddenly come together in the touch of a divine observer, a holy witness.

24. Hope as a trusted relationship grows the believer in perseverance.

Hope connects the past, present, and future into a single relationship, resulting in a path of growing in faith with remarkable perseverance through the "confusion and anxiety of memory" because of the heavenly witness, the God who will not forsake us.

The believer who has hope in relationship perseveres through many circumstances. Real human beings surrounded by chaos and uncertainty.

24. Hope as a trustworthy relationship grows the believer in patience.

Hope connects the past, present, and future into a single relationship, resulting in a path of growing in faith with remarkable perseverance in the midst of "the confusion and anxiety of memory" because of the heavenly witness, the God who will not forsake us.

The believer who has hope in relationship perseveres through many circumstances. The believer who has hope in relationship perseveres in many circumstances: perseverance in the face of real human beings who are subject to chaos and uncertainty; perseverance in an environment in which many things are uncertain and in danger of disappearing; and perseverance in recognizing that it takes time for each of us to grow in Christ.

24-1. If it takes time for each of us to grow, it also takes time for the community of Christ to grow fully. Hope and patience are woven together. Only a church that has learned patience can effectively proclaim hope.`

25. Summary / Exhortation

As God's workmanship, believers are to live in hope that they will grow and be built up to live a life that honors God's glorious grace. To this end, I urge you to live patiently day by day.

(Eph 1:6, NIV11) "So that we might praise God for his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in his beloved Son." (Eph 1:6, NIV11) "To the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves."

(Eph 2:10, NIV) "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God created us to do, which God prepared in advance so that we would walk in them, doing good works."

(Eph 2:10, NIV11) "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

(Eph 2:10, MSG) "No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing."

30. Love: Choose "Love as a trusting relationship."

31. A dark night envelops our will (choice).

People of this age live with so many choices that they use their will and choice in a series of disconnected and fragmented choices. They have no will to choose the essential things they really want, and they live their lives choosing the superficial things they need.

32. What You Really Need to Choose

But what we really need to choose is "the deepest aspirations that allow me to be myself," "the calling that makes us who we are," "the currents that carry each of us toward our own goals," and so on.

33. [Next time].