I want us to think about the question...WHAT IF? When you hear that question, how does it make you feel? Yell it out! The question, “What if?” brings about fear in me…I hear stuff like… What if they don’t like me? What if they don’t think I’m good enough? What if I mess up? What if I don’t look like them? What if, what if, what if! • Gifts will pass away, and what we are left with is what God wants us to have most of…love. • See, if we have a church that is known for preaching, we have missed it. • If we are known for our singers, we’ve missed it. • If it’s our programs, we’ve missed it again. • If our church isn’t known for its love, we have missed what God created us for, and why the body of Christ exists in the first place. Love says I need you. Love says you’re worth the risk, the pain, and the discomfort. Love proves each piece matters.

1. Pieces Matter
Part 3
Intro summary:
In week one, we concluded that functioning as the body is a God thing, and it is only
accomplished by His spirit; He designed it, He ordained it, and He is the one that is going to
show us how to become one. Unless we are in Christ and He is in us, there will be no proper
functioning in His body.
Last week we discussed our need for one another and how unity impacts our ability to become
healthy. We also learned that we need to respect one another and identify with one another’s
strengths, weaknesses, and needs. We concluded that we are ALL Valuable, Beautiful, and
Necessary.
Today, I want us to look at two things truths 1) love frees us, and 2) love enhances us.
I want us to think about the question...WHAT IF? When you hear that question, how does
it make you feel? Yell it out!
The question, “What if?” brings about fear in me…I hear stuff like…
What if they don’t like me?
What if they don’t think I’m good enough?
What if I mess up?
What if I don’t look like them?
What if, what if, what if!
2 Timothy 1:7
7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
Love frees us…
1 John 4:18
18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with
punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
God revealed to me that if we inject “what if” with love, it sets the stage for love to free us
and enhance us.
Those statements sound and land different…in love, they sound like this…
What if they like me?
What if they think I’m good enough?
What if I do great?
What if they receive me as a brother or sister?
What if, what if, what if!

2. True love binds us, and yet it also sets us free. We are bound in love by Christ and set free
by the power of His love for us. Love heals the pains of our past and frees us from fear, and
enables us to love others. Our gifts, talents, and experience mean nothing without love, but
let’s take a look at what our big Paul says about this…
Let’s turn to…
1 Corinthians 13:1-8
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a
clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all
knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am
nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not
love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does
not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things.
*Love is patient. The word translated patient describes patience with people and not patience
with circumstances. It describes people who are slow to anger, in dealings with others, however
difficult and however unkind and hurting they are; we must exercise the same patience as God
exercises with us.1
*Love is kind. The third-century biblical scholar Origen had it that this means that love is sweet
to all. So much Christianity is good but unkind.
Love knows no envy. To truly envy is not just to wish you had, but to wish that others don’t have
at all.
*Love is not boastful. True love will always be far more impressed with its own unworthiness
than its own merit. Love is kept humble by the consciousness that it can never offer its loved one
a gift that is good enough.
Love is not arrogant: Love is not inflated with its own importance, it humbles itself.
Love does not behave gracelessly; it is not rude. It is a significant fact that in Greek the words
for grace and for charm are the same. There is a kind of Christianity which takes a delight in
being blunt and almost brutal. There is strength in it, but there is no grace or charm. There is a
graciousness in Christian love which never forgets that courtesy and tact, and politeness are
lovely things.
Love does not insist upon its rights, or its own way. There are types of people, those who are
always thinking of what life owes them and those who never forget what they owe to life.
1
William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians, 3rd ed., The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press,
2002), 140–141.

3. *Love never flies into a temper; it is not irritable. The real meaning of this is that Christian love
never becomes exasperated with people. Exasperation is always a sign of defeat. When we lose
our tempers, we lose everything. Those who can control their tempers can overcome anything.
*Love does not store up the memory of any wrong it has received; it is not resentful. Many
people nurse their anger to keep it simmering; they brood over their wrongs until it is impossible
to forget them. Christian love has learned the great lesson of forgetting.
Love finds no pleasure in anything that is wrong. Christian love takes no pleasure in hearing
unpleasant things about other people.
Love rejoices with the truth. Christian love has no wish to conceal the truth; it has nothing to
hide and so is glad when the truth wins through.
*Love can endure anything. This means that love can bear any insult, any injury, any
disappointment.
Love is completely trusting; it believes all things. It is often true that we make people what we
believe them to be. If we show that we do not trust people, we may make them untrustworthy. If
we show people that we trust them absolutely, we may make them trustworthy. Love can make
honorable even the dishonorable by believing the best.
Love never ceases to hope. Love believes no one is too far gone and is without hope.
Love bears everything with triumphant resilience. The word translated as to bear or to endure;
describes a spirit while bearing can change the affected persons very being and circumstances.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as
for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but
when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a
child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up
childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in
part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
 Gifts will pass away, and what we are left with is what God wants us to have most of…love.
 See, if we have a church that is known for preaching, we have missed it.
 If we are known for our singers, we’ve missed it.
 If it’s our programs, we’ve missed it again.
 If our church isn’t known for its love, we have missed what God created us for, and why the
body of Christ exists in the first place.
Love says I need you. Love says you’re worth the risk, the pain, and the discomfort. Love proves
each piece matters.
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