Talk
BRO. AUDEE VILLARAZA:
Thank you, Bro. Bo.
For now, at this moment, I want you to lift your hands as we honor and give reverence to the reading of God’s Word.
Let’s all sing:
Thy Word is a Lamp unto my feet and a Light unto my path…
We are on the fourth installment– we’re almost wrapping up our series Messy Saints. We’ve been talking about the different problems that the people of Corinth had been experiencing.
Let me give you the fourth one: about how the people of Corinth were gifted but they had divisive members.
And I pray that the Lord minister to you.
So, we’re taking a page from the Book of Corinthians– Corinthians 1:13. Chances are, if you’ve ever sat through a wedding– either you got married or somebody you know got married, you would be very familiar with this piece of Scripture. Paul said:
And he said the most beautiful words:
Preach that to yourself: Love is my highest goal.
Lord, this is Your Word. And today it will unleash wisdom, and information, and change will happen in the life of your people. This is what we’re declaring in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
One more time, Everybody:
Thy Word is a Lamp unto my feet and a Light unto my path… Let Love be your highest goal.
I want to take you through a timeline of how social media has evolved in this world. What is the trendiest social media platform nowadays?
It’s TikTok.
But before TikTok, there was Snapchat. Before Snapchat, there was Twitter.
Before Twitter, there was Facebook.
Before Facebook, there was Multiply.
Some of you probably sold some stuff in Multiply.
Before Multiply, there was Myspace.
Before Myspace, there was Friendster – this revolutionized social media.
But before Friendster, there was ICQ. The young people don’t know the struggle.
ICQ was a chatroom where you could enter and chat with anybody. That was the first time in history where you could chat with any person around the world, and you wouldn’t know who they were.
This is where the ASL term was invented. It stands for Age, Sex, and Location. When somebody says ASL, you would tell them how old you are, your gender, and your location.
Some of you don’t know the struggle because back in the day, you had to dial up to get an Internet connection. Once connected, you get disconnected every 30 minutes. Why? Because you ran out of load. You would need another scratch card.
The second reason you would get disconnected is that somebody lifted the landline. Young people today are so blessed because of WiFi.
But before ICQ, what was the thing that you used so you could get to know someone? It was called the Slam Book — a notebook that had random questions that would be answered by your friend so you could get to know him or her.
Questions like, “What is your favorite color?” “What is your motto in life?”
The most favorite question was, “Who is your crush?” For me, the hardest question that the Slam Book always had was, “What is love?”
Your young mind wouldn’t know the answer so you would just copy what others wrote.
Love has many definitions.
But when it comes to love, I believe that there is nobody other than St. Paul who best described it. To me, that’s the love that really depicts the kind of love that only God can give.
Paul was really the one who got so close to love. The Greeks have four ways to define love:
- Storge: love within family;
- Filia: love between friends;
- Eros: love that is erotic or sensual
- Agape: love that only God can give.
But one common mistake that people make whenever they read Corinthians 1:13, they think it’s romantic love because it’s always used in weddings or relationships.
But is that the reason Paul wrote it in the first place?
Let me give you the answer. It’s not about romantic love. Paul was not giving advice to boyfriends and girlfriends. Paul was saying that he was talking about spiritual gifts:
Different Gifts
If you’re new to the Charismatic Renewal Movement,
some of these words might be alien to you. But if you’ve been part of the Charismatic Movement for a while, you would know all these spiritual gifts: the gift of prophecy, the gift of healing, the gift of faith, and the most famous gift of all – speaking in tongues.
What Paul was saying was that these people from Corinth had all the spiritual gifts. They were a gifted nation. But that became the problem– because they focused too much on their gifting and they didn’t celebrate anything else.
For instance, at that time, if you were somebody who had all or some of the spiritual gifts, people celebrated you. But sadly, if you were not gifted with any spiritual gift, you were put down.
This still happens in society today. Sometimes, we celebrate those who are truly gifted, and we put down those who aren’t.
Picture this incident with me. A father is complaining about his two children.
He says, “I don’t understand it. My eldest daughter is smart but my son– he’s a good kid he’s dumb.”
Parents, you need to know this truth. Each of your children is bright. They are bright in different ways. Psychology says that there are nine kinds of intelligence. I’ll give you some of them:
- Naturalistic– the ability to identify, observe, categorize, understand, and manipulate natural elements like plants, animals, and the environment. People with naturalistic intelligence can make your dead plant come to life within a They are also known to be dog whisperers or cat whisperers.
- Musical– the ability to comprehend and produce musical skills such as rhythm, lyrics, and
- Logical-Mathematical– the ability to analyze situations or problems logically, identify solutions, conduct scientific research, and easily solve logical/mathematical
- Interpersonal– the ability to understand and interact effectively with
- Spatial– the concept of being able to successfully perceive and derive insight from visual data. People who have spatial intelligence normally become architects, designers, or map.
What am
I saying? No child in this world is plain dumb. It’s just that they are wise in a different way than you. Parents, please don’t ever compare your children with one another. Each of them is different. They are intelligent in their own way.
The most common mistake that parents make is that they would treat gifts as the highest goal. That’s wrong. Love should be your highest goal.
Have you ever heard somebody say, “I want to be as gifted as Jesus?”
No. When you look at Jesus the first thing you think is “I want to be as loving, as patient, as generous, and as merciful as Jesus.”
When Jesus came, He never thought about His gift. He preached about the love of God.
To Him, love is the highest goal.
Paul was saying that you can have all the spiritual gifts in your life. You can be the most talented person that walks in the room. You can be the most gifted singer here on stage. You can be the most award-winning athlete in the gym. But without love, all these gifts will be meaningless.
What’s amazing about that is if you look at it from the opposite spectrum, Paul said that if you don’t have any talent, but you have love, then you have everything because love is the highest goal. It’s no wonder why Jesus said three things will remain:
Why Is Love the Greatest?
- Love lasts forever. When you get to Heaven, you won’t need faith and hope anymore because you’re already face-to-face with your God. On the other hand, you will continue to love God and continue to grow in that love day by
- God is God doesn’t need to have faith because
He doesn’t need to trust outside of Himself. God doesn’t need to hope for anything because He knows the past, present, and future. God is personified by love.
I want to end this by telling you what love can do through the story of my Dad.
When I was young, I wasn’t very close to my Dad. I didn’t know his story.
When my Dad was one year old, he was accidentally shot in his right eye by his three-year-old cousin who was the son of a soldier.
He lived in Majayjay, Laguna. The cousin was toying around with a gun. He was in the adjacent room. He accidentally clicked the gun.
The bullet went through the room where my Dad was in. The bullet went through the back of his head to his eye.
All his life, my Dad had only one eye– the other eye was blind. Growing up, he had to wear sunglasses until he was old. He couldn’t do a lot of things that normal people like you and me could do.
But one of the normal things we enjoyed doing was driving. But my Dad couldn’t drive fast because his peripheral vision on the right side was blind.
When I was 13 years old, I didn’t understand why my friends would always ask me why my Dad was always wearing sunglasses even at night. I didn’t know until I was 13 years old when I walked in on him while he was by the dresser. It looked like he was brushing something. As I got closer, to my shock, I saw that he was washing a plastic eye. It was out of his socket.
From that moment on, I thought to myself, “Oh my gosh, my Dad is the Terminator.”
How Jesus Carried His Cross
Many years ago, we had a big family reunion.
There were a lot of relatives there that we didn’t know.
It was the usual party until I saw my Dad rise from his seat because he ran to a family that I didn’t know. He ran like it was his long-lost family. He started hugging the father, the wife, and the kids. He was so proud of who that family was that he went around introducing the father to everyone.
He said to me, “Audie, this is Tito Floro.”
When we were driving home, I asked him who was Tito Floro.
He said, “Oh, that was my cousin. He was the one who accidentally shot me.”
I was shocked. I said, “Why did you embrace him like he didn’t impair you for life?”
My Dad said, “I don’t want to add a burden to his life– simply because I know he’s been through so much. You don’t know the kind of life he has lived. By me forgiving him, it means the world to him.”
At that moment, I understood how it is to forgive somebody.
The truth that I need you to hear is this: “Hate is dead weight.” When we carry our crosses in this life, we’re carrying them like they are dead weight.
It’s hard to carry a cross– if you’re carrying it as a cross. You know how Jesus carried His Cross? Why He was able to carry that Cross towards Calvary?
He lifted that Cross because He loved you and me.
How To Carry Our Cross
You’ve got crosses that you’ve been bearing from situations, in the form of sin.
Sometimes, even in the form of a person. How do you lift that cross? I’m not telling you to love your cross.
I’m telling you that if you let your love lift your cross, you’ll be able to lift that cross all the way to the mountaintop– just like what Jesus did.
Love changes you. It lets you live this kind of life where you know that you can be just like Jesus.
When God created you, He created you to be just like Him.
But over time, we lose that identity because of sin. But that’s in the very DNA we all have within us.
St. Paul wasn’t simply talking about love– he was talking about God. So, when he said that love is kind, he meant God is kind. When he said that love is kind, he meant that God is not boastful.
Since you have been created in the image and likeness of God– I want us to do this together: If you can bear with me, I want you to replace the word “Love” with your name, and let’s read together:
That’s who you are. That’s how God created you to be. God is love and He is here. But you cannot be love to others without first receiving love from God.
Let’s receive the love of Jesus who came down and demonstrated a love like no other.
A love that knows no bounds. A love that traverses past, present, and future. A love that does not keep a record of wrongs. This is the kind of love that the Lord can give, and our responsibility is to just receive it.
With an open heart, say this with me:
“Lord, I receive Your love, I receive Your mercy. I receive Your Love and I let it change me right now. Thank You, Jesus, for this Love. Hallelujah!
Commitment
BRO. BO SANCHEZ:
You were singing a song that says, “Lord, I give my all.
I give my life. Lord, take control.”
I’m going to ask you this question: Are you ready to do that? All means your past, your present, and your future.
All means your regrets, the hurts of the past, the troubles you’d gone through, and also the uncertainties, and the fears of the future.
Are you really giving your all, and are you really saying, “Lord, take control?”
Take control means “Your will be done– not mine anymore. I’m going to follow You.
I’m not going to follow what I feel, my moods, even my own beliefs. I really want to follow You, Jesus.”
If you’re ready to do that, then let’s say a prayer together. It’s going to be a renewal of your baptismal vows. Maybe for some of you, it’s the first you’re going to say this radical prayer. Whoever you are, pray this prayer with me:
Jesus, I give my all to You. Lord, take control. I am following You for the rest of my life.
You’re my King. I will serve You forever. Amen.
