Tabor Baptist Church

Introduction

• How did the Christian faith grow from it's early beginning?
• Think of our modern society and how news travels
• Think of how it was then
• 20 years after Christ's death and resurrection:
• The apostle in Corinth
• Paul's life was changed
• The Jewish religion was coming to its fulfillment
• Paul started his ministry of the Christian faith
• From these humble beginnings, the Christian faith grew
• Paul was in Corinth for 18 months
• Moved on to Ephesus but problems in Corinth
• Paul addresses a major theme of the Christian Gospel: love
• "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three: but the greatest of these is love" (v13)

Faith

• "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" - Heb 11:1
• Real faith features a lot in Paul's writing
• Examples:
• Rom 4 - Abraham: The father of many nations (aged 95)
• What is our faith like?
• Luke 7:1-10 - The Centurion and his servant
• Do I have that faith?

Hope

• Difficult to differentiate from faith as the two are inter-twinned together
• Faith is the key of opening God's promises
• Hope is the tool by which we can taken hold of God's promises
• Quote from Ephesians
• Are you living without hope and with God?
• Personal example
• Some prayers are answered immediately, some many years later
• Are you waiting for the heavenly city?

Love

• Is the most important virtue
• What are our motives? - Is our motive love?
• It is impossible to love and not to act
• Christ loves us even though we are sinners
• Nothing we can do will ever make us right before God
• When accepting Christ as our Saviour we place all our hope in Him
• Our hope is based on the death and resurrection of Christ
• Love should be the centre of our Church and our lives
• Example
• The love for our family
• Christ loved us
• "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three: but the greatest of these is love" (v13)