Faith in Focus #20
A reflection from Connection Church and other spiritual events from the week
Faith in Focus is a weekly reflection on what God has been teaching me throughout the week regarding my faith. Whether it’s personal interactions, reading, or the Sunday sermon, God speaks through it all, and I hope this helps you focus on His mission.
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Sermon Reflection: If It Isn’t Love, It’s Nothing
Based on the sermon by Traye LaMere, Connection Church Sioux Falls, March 22, 2026.
It’s one of the most familiar passages in all of Scripture. Recited at weddings, printed on décor, and often reduced to a sentimental ideal. But when Traye LaMere, one of our Deacons at Connection, stepped into the pulpit this week to walk through 1 Corinthians 13 (ESV), he pulled the chapter out of its comfortable cultural setting and returned it to its original, disruptive purpose.
Yes, it’s about love. But not the kind we casually reference in everyday life.
The title given this chapter is, “The Way of Love,” and in doing so, he reframes not just relationships, but the entire Christian life. This isn’t a side note to faith but the core of it. And if Paul is right, then everything we do without love, no matter how spiritual, impressive, or sacrificial, is ultimately empty.
The World Behind the Text
To understand the force of 1 Corinthians 13, you have to step back into the chaos of the Corinthian church. This was not a community lacking in spiritual activity. In fact, they had the opposite problem as they were overflowing with gifts, but starving for unity.
Paul’s letter up to this point addresses division, pride, misuse of spiritual gifts, and a general tendency toward self-exaltation. Chapter 12 celebrates the diversity of gifts within the body, but it ends with a pivot: “And I will show you a still more excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31, ESV).
That “more excellent way” is not a better gift. It’s love.
What follows in chapter 13 is not a poetic interruption but Paul’s correction. The Corinthians valued power, eloquence, and spiritual expression. Paul responds by saying that none of it matters without love.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1, ESV).
Even the most extraordinary spiritual experiences are reduced to empty noise if love is absent.
Walking the Passage
Paul begins with a sweeping dismantling of spiritual pride:
“If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge… but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2, ESV).
Not less than something. Not diminished. Nothing.
This is where interpretation becomes unavoidable. Paul is not saying these things are unimportant. Prophecy, knowledge, faith, and generosity all matter. But he is saying they are not ultimate. Love is.
It is possible to look spiritually mature while at the same time being spiritually hollow.
Then Paul turns to what may be the most recognizable section of the chapter in verses 4 through 7. Fifteen distinct attributes in four verses. Fifteen ways love expresses itself in real, lived relationships.
These verses often function as a mirror, reflecting where we fall short. But there’s another way to read them. One that Traye highlighted and that has circulated in Christian teaching for years. Replace the word “love” with “Jesus.”
Jesus is patient.
Jesus is kind.
Jesus does not envy or boast.
This isn’t a stretch but a theological alignment. According to Scripture, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, ESV). So to define love is, in a real sense, to describe the character of Christ. Paul is not offering an abstract definition of love. He is describing a person.
To love well is to live like Jesus.
This reframes everything. Love is no longer just a feeling or even an action but a reflection of Christ’s presence in us.
A Fair Counter-Reading
It’s worth noting that some scholars caution against overly allegorizing this passage. Replacing “love” with “Jesus” can be helpful devotionally, but Paul’s immediate concern is communal ethics or how believers treat one another within the church.
In this reading, the focus remains horizontal. Patience, kindness, humility, and truthfulness are essential for sustaining Christian community. This perspective is important because it grounds the passage in real-world relationships, not just theological abstraction.
But the two readings are not mutually exclusive. If Jesus is the embodiment of love, then Christlike character is exactly what sustains healthy community. The vertical (our relationship with Christ) fuels the horizontal (our relationships with others).
The Turn
Traye made a statement that cut through the familiarity of the passage regarding our culture useing the word “love” so often that it has lost much of its meaning.
We say we love everything. From people to pizza to playlists. But Paul’s definition refuses to bend to convenience or emotion.
“Love never ends” (1 Cor. 13:8, ESV).
That’s not how modern culture tends to understand love. Today, love is often conditional, transactional, or driven by feeling. When emotions fade, love is assumed to fade with them.
But biblical love is different.
It is relational as it moves toward others.
It is outward as it seeks the good of another over self.
It endures as it persists even when feelings fluctuate.
And crucially, it is rooted in truth.
Paul makes this explicit when he states that love “rejoices with the truth” (1 Cor. 13:6, ESV).
This is where the tension often lies. In a culture that separates love from truth, Scripture insists they cannot be divided. Love without truth becomes sentimentality. Truth without love becomes harshness.
The gospel holds them together.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16, ESV).
The cross is both the ultimate act of love and the ultimate declaration of truth about sin, justice, and grace.
Song of the week: Wait for Me - Zach Williams
Zach Williams’ “Wait for Me” reads as both a personal prayer and a broader reflection on the rhythms of faith, opening with the disarmingly simple line, “Hey God, it’s me.” That introduction sets the tone for a song grounded in honesty. One that mirrors the lived experience of believers navigating both spiritual highs and the opposite lows.
In recent weeks, that emotional range has felt especially pronounced. Moments of joy have been matched by equally sharp lows, and like Williams describes, those valleys can create a perceived distance from God. The line, “I been lost a little while,” resonates on a personal level, capturing the unease that comes with even a brief sense of spiritual drift. It’s a feeling marked by guilt and self-awareness. An acknowledgment of straying, however temporarily.
Yet the song doesn’t linger in that tension. Instead, its chorus pronounces the narrative with a sense of steady reassurance. “You wait for me. You keep on holdin’ on. But when I just can’t let go you wait for me.” Williams points to a consistent, unchanging presence of God. One that remains even when faith feels inconsistent. That message carries particular weight in moments when it’s easiest to forget it.
For me, “Wait for Me” functions as more than just a listening experience. It becomes a reset point. When the feeling of having “taken the long way home” sets in, the song serves as a reminder that God’s posture hasn’t changed. The persistence of that presence described here as patient and open offers a counterbalance to the internal sense of distance. In that way, Williams’ track bridges the gap between personal struggle and enduring assurance, grounding its message in both lived experience and faith.
Carry It Into the Week
As Easter approaches, the call of 1 Corinthians 13 becomes more than reflection, it becomes an invitation. Not to feel more loving. Not to appear more loving.
But to become people shaped by the love of Christ.
That kind of love doesn’t seek recognition. It doesn’t keep score. It doesn’t operate for personal gain or social standing.
It looks like patience when frustration would be easier.
It looks like truth spoken with grace.
It looks like choosing others when self would be more convenient.
And ultimately, it looks like Jesus. Because if Paul is right, then the standard is unavoidable:
“If I do anything, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor. 13:3, ESV).
Or, as this week’s message reframed it. If we do anything, but do not have Jesus, it is nothing.
Week in Reflection
What might have otherwise passed as an ordinary week took on a deeper significance through the lens of faith, revealing how meaningful the everyday can become when viewed with intention. The most notable moment came not from a structured Bible study, but from its absence. Instead of gathering in a formal setting, my Bible study shared a simple meal. Hamburgers and brats on the grill, complemented by side salads and homemade desserts.
It was a shift in format for sure, but in many ways, the informal setting created space for something equally important, and that’s connection. There are times when it’s easy to feel as though relationships within a Bible study remain confined to church-centered conversations. This gathering challenged that notion. Around the gathering, conversations moved beyond scripture and into shared interests and everyday life.
I found myself in conversations about cats and photography. Topics that might seem small on the surface, but carried a quiet significance. These moments offered a chance to better understand the people I regularly sit beside, whether by going deeper with those I know or simply beginning a conversation with someone I don’t often speak with. It was a reminder that community isn’t built solely through structured study, but also through the seemingly mundane interactions that help form genuine relationships.
That’s not to diminish the importance of connecting through faith as it remains central to a gospel community. But living in community, as we’re called to do, extends beyond the walls of a study or the bounds of a lesson. It’s found in shared meals, common interests, and the willingness to engage with one another in all aspects of life.
In the end, the evening served as a quiet but powerful reminder that God often works through the ordinary, placing the right people in our lives at the right time. And sometimes, it’s in those unstructured, everyday moments where the foundation of true community is most clearly built.
And remember, God loves you, and so do I.
Connection Church in Sioux Falls is a gospel-centered community committed to helping people follow Jesus through authentic relationships, biblical teaching, and everyday mission. Rooted in historic Christian belief and aligned with gospel renewal movements, the church exists to see lives transformed by Jesus. Learn more: https://siouxfallsconnection.com/who-we-are
