Church in the Wild
Week 12: 1 Corinthians 13
Pastor Svea Merry March 21-22, 2026
Note: This manuscript isn’t a transcript of the sermon, but a planning guide showing what the speaker intends to say.
I love being a pastor. I love to preach, I love encouraging people to grow in knowing and loving Jesus. I love to minister to people at funerals and celebrate with them at weddings. Weddings come with some unique challenges though. They are full of traditions and expectations and moments when everyone is watching to see if someone will perform in the expected way.
Many years ago, I attended the Catholic wedding of some friends of mine, and a shy guy in our friend group was the head usher. At the rehearsal, he’d been told that one of his responsibilities was to bring the plate of bread and chalice of wine down the aisle to the priest for the eucharist, but he wasn’t given any instructions on what to actually do. Now, this big-hearted northern Minnesotan, Lutheran farm-boy friend of ours had never been to a Catholic wedding, and not only was he nervous, I think he was a little intimidated by the commanding sight of the priest in his formal vestments, and after delivering the bread and wine, he began turning to return to his post at the back of the church.
But almost as if with a thought bubble over his head that we all could see, it was clear that he was processing in the moment, but awkwardly in slow motion, that maybe it would be disrespectful to turn his back on the priest, so he turned to face him again and gave a nervous bow. And then proceeded to walk backwards and bow his way all the way down the aisle. Suppressed laughter erupted throughout the echoey chapel and for the rest of the ceremony, you could hear stifled giggles. It was painful to watch and yet his intent was so pure.
At the reception, my sweet, embarrassed usher friend apologized to the bride and groom for the spectacle he’d caused, but they graciously said it was a highlight of their day because it was his heart on display. Everyone could see that what he did was motivated by a loving desire to show honor.
And through the embarrassingly funny memory of that day, along with the bride and groom’s gracious reaction to it, these friends gave us all an example that something done, even if done awkwardly, motivated by love is even better than something done perfectly but without love. And it ended up being an unintentionally great example of the Bible text read at more weddings than any other which is also our sermon text for today, 1 Corinthians 13. If you’ve been to a few weddings, you likely know this section.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails.
It’s easy to see why this passage is so often read at weddings—it’s a wonderful vision of love. And it’s a vision of love that isn’t rooted in attraction or feelings. It’s love that is not driven by emotion but expressed through action, regardless of how the other person makes us feel.
It’s a great passage to feature at a wedding because it paints a picture of the kind of self-sacrificing love that can have and to hold throughout the extremes of sickness and health, richer or poorer, good times and bad.
But when the Apostle Paul wrote this letter we’ve been studying to the Corinthian church, and he brought up these thoughts on love, weddings probably never entered his mind as an application for this passage. 1 Corinthians 13 has nothing to do with the love between a husband and a wife, nor about romantic love at all.
It may surprise you to realize that Paul intended this so-called “Love chapter” to land less like wedding poetry and more like a bomb. He wrote it to blow up the Corinthians’ misguided assumptions about what makes someone impressive and what it means to be spiritually mature. Because in God’s eyes, spiritual maturity isn’t about how talented you are, how much you know, or even what you do. It’s all about love.
This chapter is purposefully embedded between two chapters on spiritual gifts. Last weekend, Pastor Rick delivered a great message taking us through chapter 12. Maybe you were with us here for the service we recorded on Saturday night or more likely, you watched it in your jammies during the snowpocalypse. He explained that spiritual gifts are anything the Holy Spirit empowers to serve his purposes and his people. God unlocks certain talents in us that are intended to be used as an expression of His love with our human fingerprints on it. And what a joy and privilege it is to have the experience of getting to be an expression of God’s love to others.
Chapter 12 ended with a focus on the roles the Corinthians were most drawn to. The gifts they considered most impressive; and not surprisingly, they are the kinds of things that put people in the spotlight or in positions of influence. Paul doesn’t downplay their significance. He acknowledges their impact and encourages the church to “eagerly desire the greater gifts.”
Paul isn’t going to tell us not to pursue doing great, even impressive, things for the body of Christ, but he is going to pause the conversation about spiritual gifts for a moment to make sure we understand “the most excellent way” to use them.
As chapter 13 opens, Paul takes four very good things, an extraordinary ability to communicate, deep intelligence and theological insight, mountain-moving faith, and radical self-sacrifice, and delivers something unexpected: any of these things done without love is worthless.
“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”
2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Are you catching the point? It’s not that these good things are not as effective as they could be without love—they are pointless. These talents the Corinthians admired most, the things that drew attention, earned respect, and seemed to signal spiritual power—Paul says they are toxic without love. You can sound spiritual, think deeply, believe boldly, and even sacrifice greatly—and completely miss the mark. Because in the way of Jesus, love is not an optional upgrade to spiritually maturity; it is the measurable evidence of it.
We’re heading into week 5 of our Alpha Course. Alpha is a fantastic program that offers people a chance to explore big questions about God and faith over a meal and discussion. Each week, we watch a well-done video on a certain aspect of Christianity, and one of the fun segments in each video is when they take to the street and get answers from a bunch of people to a question about life or faith. The range of answers given is often hilarious, but always transparent and honest.
Before we move forward in this chapter, I want us to really think about our unquestioned assumptions about what makes someone spiritually mature today to drive this home. So, if I were to interview people on the street today, like in the Alpha Course, and ask them, “What makes someone a really good Christian?” What kind of answers would you expect to hear? I’d expect to hear things like “They really know their Bible” or “They are really active in their church” or “They care about others or support mission work locally and globally” or even “When they pray, God just seems to respond.”
But if you’re tracking with what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians, you know that all of these answers are incomplete, and there is only one answer to this question. In the First Century church and still in the church today, the measure of what makes someone “a good Christian”, a mature follower of Jesus, is one thing: love.
It’s possible to know what Jesus knew, to do what Jesus did, but without love, be nothing like him. You can have the most impressive talents, the most knowledgeable faith, the most sacrificial lifestyle, but if love isn’t what’s motivating what you do, don’t do it. You may be doing more harm than good to the body of Christ.
Love should be our goal and our fuel for all that we do. And this isn’t my good idea or even Paul’s. Jesus distilled all the commandments, not just the 10 but everything God told His people to do into two things: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. You are growing in your discipleship if, and only if, this is becoming truer of you.
So, what does this look like practically speaking? Well, let’s read again Paul’s familiar description of love.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails.
I once heard suggested that a great way for us to apply this passage is to substitute our own name for love and begin to work on that as our identity. So, Svea is kind. Svea is patient. Svea does not envy. Svea does not boast and so forth.
The idea is that this passage becomes a kind of mirror. A way to measure how well we’re doing as person of love. I liked this idea when I heard it. I wrote my name in my Bible in place of love, and for a while I tried it, I really tried it. But the more I tried, the more uncomfortable it made me. Because if I’m honest…
Svea is not always patient.
Svea is not always kind.
Svea can be arrogant.
Svea can get irritable and fail other people.
Just ask my family. Or even the staff here.
And every time I saw my name written into this text in my Bible, it just made me increasingly aware of my failure to live up to this standard. And just trying harder wasn’t working.
But God has made a way for us to become people of love that doesn’t require us to white-knuckle our way to it. There is a process that will transform us into people who are able to consistently love God and others in all that we do.
To show you this process, I want to share with you something that offers a lot of clarity for our spiritual journey. I’m going to take a few minutes to share a framework with you that shows how we can become people who do everything in 1 Corinthians 13 love. I think seeing this will bring insights to your experiences so far, and a map for future growth to come.
And let me give credit where credit is due. This framework is adapted from the research of Hagberg and Guelich and published under the title The Critical Journey. In their spiritual formation research, they studied thousands of Christians and mapped out 6 stages common to spiritual growth.
Stage 1: Discovering
We begin in the stage of discovering. In this first stage, we awaken to discovering that God is real. Maybe it happens through a powerful experience, maybe through a conversation, maybe through reading Scripture, maybe even through a crisis.
But at some point, we discover: God exists, and He is inviting us to be in relationship with Him. Faith begins here. If you recognize yourself in this stage, let today’s picture of love excite you with the potential that it has to take you into whole new way of experiencing God’s love and to inspire you love others in this way.
Stage 2: Learning
Then as we progress to the next stage in faith, we begin learning what it means to follow Jesus. We call this second stage, the learning stage.
We start reading the Bible. We pray. We go to church. We join classes and small groups. We also learn from watching other believers and we learn practically as we experience God at work in us. We learn the ways of the Christian life. In this stage, 1 Corinthians 13 offers us an exciting way to define and understand a love that is so much deeper than a feeling.
This stage is initially full of excitement because we’re uncovering insights that unlock new ways of understanding ourselves and the world. We may experience freedom from old ways and have a sponge-like enthusiasm for more and more of God.
As we settle into this stage, growth happens as we pursue greater depth in our understanding of God, his word, and how it all informs our life.
Now, we never master this stage. We never completely leave it behind. There’s always more to learn and new depth to discover about God and his word. But our growth will be stunted if we stop here and never build on this stage. A faith that is all knowledge-based without any evidence of living it out is the kind of “faith without works” that the book of James describes as being dead.
Being grounded in right beliefs is essential, but our beliefs alone will not transform us into a person of love. You can have the Bible memorized and not be very Jesus-like. For that kind of transformation, we need to keep building on these stages.
Stage 3: Doing
Maturing believers will also put their faith into action in what is known as the doing stage, stage 3. This is the stage where we become active in living out our faith. We gain intentionality about pursuing not just right beliefs, but also right actions.
We serve. We lead. We volunteer. We teach. We get things done for God. Churches run on people in Stage 3. God bless you!
Maybe you recognize your own discipleship background in these first three stages. It is estimated that 80% of Christians spend their whole lives in these three layers of discovering, learning, and doing. And one of the reasons for that is that they’re the stages of the spiritual life that are easiest for churches to program. We can provide Bible studies and classes and serving opportunities that will keep you active and learning and encountering the things of God for a lifetime.
And everything in the elements in these stages are necessary and good. We can’t develop without discovering a relationship with Jesus and then internalizing right beliefs and right actions. But the danger lies in getting stuck here and falling into the trap of thinking that simply having right beliefs and right actions is what makes us a mature Christian.
This is where the Corinthians had maxed out. They had discovered Jesus. They had knowledge. They were using their gifts. They were doing impressive things and things were happening in their church. But they weren’t very Jesus-like in how they were going about it.
And I think this is where I was when I was just trying and trying to live out Svea is patient, Svea is kind, and was growing weary of efforting my way to trying to become a person of love.
That weariness may be a symptom of hitting what is known as THE WALL.
At some point most believers will hit the wall. Progress stops. The things that once worked seem to have stopped working. The spiritual growth they experienced stalls out.
Or The Wall may be more significant than a plateau. Maybe some of you here are up against The Wall and haven’t had words to describe it. Maybe doubts in your faith or disillusionment with God has crept in and you’re questioning it all. Or maybe a crisis or tragedy has cracked or even shattered your faith. You thought you were pleasing God and you were doing all the right things for Him, but now it seems like He’s left you to struggle. The God you thought you knew just doesn’t seem real anymore, or He no longer makes sense.
If this is or ever was you, you are not broken. God has not left you, nor is He punishing you. You are experiencing something common to the journey.
Now, for some people, hitting the wall is what leads to deconstructing their faith, or even leaving faith altogether. For others, they may come to the conclusion that their church is the problem since what they once enjoyed there now feels empty and they’ll find a new church that “feeds” them so they can get back into the joy of discovery and find new ways of learning and doing.
But pushing through to get over the wall brings renewal and tremendous growth. Hitting the wall once, or even multiple times, is not a fun part of the spiritual journey, but it definitely can be part of it. Because what lies beyond it is what holds the key to how we eventually become transformed people of love. Getting over or through the wall will lead us to a place where transformation is waiting for us in stage 4.
Stage 4: Contemplating
Getting beyond the wall can lead us through a period of contemplating God and our faith and bring us to a place where Jesus can become more real to us than he’s ever been before. This contemplating stage comes with a high degree of inner work and requires honest acknowledgement of what’s going on in our soul. It can feel like a stripping away of previously unquestioned assumptions, of certainty, even identity—but it is an invitation to greater intimacy with God.
The focus in the stage shifts from doing things for God to truly being with God. It’s here that God exposes ideas we may have mistakenly internalized about how our right beliefs and right behaviors should lead to expected outcomes, and a more surrendered faith based on who God is rather than what God does begins to take root.
This contemplative inner work can feel incredibly uncomfortable… but it’s also deeply good. It’s a time when we really benefit from having good spiritual friends who can point us to Jesus as we process our life. As we seek to integrate Jesus into every aspect of our story, every aspect of our hopes for the future and our wounds from the past, this is where the Spirit can bring profound healing and transformation to deep parts of our soul. This is where we discover that God really is faithful to us through the storms of life, and we truly can depend on Him to meet us in our deepest needs.
In this stage, God shifts us from performing for Him to being formed by Him. We discover a love for Jesus that is based simply on who he is rather than what he can do for us. And though it is a long stage of hard work that not everyone is willing to do, it is where deeper layers of profound transformation really begin to take place.
Stage 5: Becoming
And as God reshapes our hearts, something new begins to emerge in stage 5, also known as the stage of becoming. In this stage, our priority is all about becoming more and more like Jesus.
We begin to live from a deeper, more settled place. Less self-focused. Less anxious about proving ourselves. Less concerned about recognition. More wanting to integrate Jesus into everything and be like him in all that we do, not because we’re efforting our to right actions, but because they flow out of us as a result of who we have become.
At this stage, we understand that what we’ve been aiming for is not just what we know or what we do, but who we are becoming. In this stage, we’re focused on our partnership with the Spirit in who we are becoming rather than on what we do. And more and more, love begins to flow naturally from us.
To people in this stage, 1 Corinthians 13 doesn’t read like a to-do list. It’s a description of what they want said about them in their obituary, because it’s who they are seeking to become.
Not because they’re trying harder…but because God is transforming their hearts and shaping them into people becoming more and more like Jesus.
Stage 6: Loving
And all that points us to the destination of our spiritual growth and maturity. This is when we arrive at truly exhibiting 1 Corinthians 13 love naturally in everything we do. These are the kind of people who bleed love for God and love for people. They are who you think of when you hear someone talk about the fruit of the Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
This side of heaven, even their love still won’t always be perfect love—but it will be increasingly authentic and sacrificial. Their love shows the length of their patience. Their kindness to all is evident. Pride has faded from them. Forgiveness comes quickly.
And they don’t get there because they’ve finally learned enough or mastered enough spiritual techniques…but because God has slowly transformed their hearts to a heart like His.
This takes decades of walking with Jesus to get here. I am not here yet. But this is where I want to be before I die. Not many Christians do make it here this side of heaven, but we can all take steps towards it.
So, as we return to 1 Corinthians 13, we begin to realize just how much more Paul is communicating here in this chapter. He’s not simply giving us a poetic vision of love or even a general guideline for how to treat one another—though it certainly shapes both. He’s revealing the very essence of a life formed into spiritual maturity. This is the kind of love that becomes the aim beneath everything we do as we walk with Jesus over a lifetime of being with him, becoming like him, and doing as he did.
I think that’s why Paul shifts into a reflection on his own growth in maturity, using the image of moving from childhood into adulthood. He writes in verse 11:
“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.
Maturity, Paul is affirming, is a process of moving through the stages. There’s nothing wrong with children thinking like children. They haven’t yet developed enough life experience to think any other way. And there’s nothing wrong with moving through the earlier stages of our spiritual growth. Similarly, development takes a lot of time and experience. But something goes wrong when an adult still reasons like a child and doesn’t mature into an adult. And something goes wrong in our spiritual growth if we stall out in earlier stages and don’t continue to make progress in becoming people who show Jesus-like love.
Paul continues:
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
Paul acknowledges that we’re all on this journey of becoming like Jesus squinting a little bit to see the destination as if we’re looking in an old, blurry mirror, but it won’t always be so. Someday we’ll see Jesus face-to-face and all the things we’re striving to become now will be fully realized when we’re with him, not just aiming to be like him, but fully with him, knowing him and being known.
Paul presses into this future even more. He recalls these spiritual gifts the Corinthians prized and shows how temporary they really are while contrasting them with love:
“Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.”
In other words, many of the gifts we use to help people see God—our insight, our words, even our explanations of God—are good but they aren’t the permanent things. They’re helping us make sense of the blurry reflection. We do well to respond to what we can see, but it’s incomplete. One day, though, we won’t be straining to see God from a distance. We will be with him—face to face. And when that day comes, these tools we’ve used to know and communicate about God will no longer be necessary.
But love is different. Love doesn’t belong to the temporary—it belongs to eternity. It won’t decrease when completeness comes. Even in the presence of God, maybe especially in the presence of God, love remains eternal. Which is why Paul concludes with these words:
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
So, how can we each take a step in this direction towards 1 Corinthians 13 love today? There’s one simple thing we can each do no matter what stage we’re in.
Focus on Jesus as our model of love. Rather than substituting your own name for love in this passage, substitute his. Because
“4 Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind. He does not envy, he does not boast, he is not proud. 5 Jesus does not dishonor others, he is not self-seeking, he is not easily angered, he keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Jesus does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 Jesus always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Jesus never fails.”
If you’re in stage 1 of exploring Jesus, discover the goodness and beauty in who he is as revealed here.
If you’re in stage 2 of learning the way of Jesus, use this picture of his love as a set of truths to anchor your understanding.
If you’ve grown to stage 3 of doing the things that faith does, here is your model for what to do as you seek to live in the way of Jesus-like love.
If you’re up against the wall or in a more contemplative phase of inner growth like in stage 4, spend some significant time processing this picture of love as who Jesus is. You might unlock something powerful in internalizing Jesus’s patience with you. Or maybe seeing Jesus as your protector will give you peace you’ve been needing. Or maybe it’s the relief of realizing that he keeps no record of wrongs and is always hoping for you to turn to him and receive his best that will break chains holding you back.
In stage 5, this exercise offers the very description of the person you are seeking to become. You will know you are growing in this stage when others notice that you are becoming more like 1 Corinthians 13 love simply because it is who you are rather than what you try to do.
And as we keep the stage 6’s life of love in view as our destination, this description of Jesus-like love is the picture on the puzzle box showing us what will be revealed when the Spirit transforms us and assembles all our pieces together in a way displaying God’s beautiful handiwork in us. Few of us will reach that stage this side of heaven, but for all of us who want to follow Jesus in sincerity and faithfulness, this is where following him will lead us.
So, here’s how I’d like to close. I’m going to read this description of love using Jesus’s name one last time, and I want you to latch onto what feels important or meaningful or significant to you right now. I invite you to close your eyes as I read and when I’m finished, I’m going to give us a brief space for some silence so that you can process what the Spirit may be offering you and to let you gather that gift before we move forward. And then I’ll pray.
Listen and let this form you.
“4 Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind. He does not envy, he does not boast, he is not proud. 5 Jesus does not dishonor others, he is not self-seeking, he is not easily angered, he keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Jesus does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 Jesus always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Jesus never fails.”
Take a moment to reflect on what you receive in this.