I could end there and it would run neatly into the song Roger has carefully prepared to follow the talk. However, I have only touched on one of the readings and I also want to add a few thoughts to help you draw on the extract from Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians.

Paul is someone who could lay claim to be the greatest of all the apostles. Even before he met Jesus and became a committed follower of our Lord, he was notably well educated in the Jewish scriptures and might have won a “best Pharisee” award several years in a row. After his dramatic conversion, he spent several years receiving further revelations and then blazed a course that founded numerous churches and gave us about a third of our New Testament, writings that still strengthen many of us on a daily basis. And what did Paul say about himself? “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” (1 Tim 1:15, KJV).

That is one of most remarkable things about an altogether remarkable man. When he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, the Lord pierced his heart with insight and killed Paul’s pride in himself. Personal glory no longer attracted him; he was content to pour himself out for the Lord and for others.

The Corinthian church he was writing to was dangerously exciting. Believers with a whole range of gifts, including clearly supernatural ones, jostled together and trampled on each other. Paul had helped establish the fellowship and reached out to them with parental care. He wanted them to stop seeking glory and fame for themselves and to come back to remembering that Jesus is the one who is worthy of all honour and glory and praise (Rev 5:12, NIVUK).

1 Corinthians looks like it was a difficult letter to write, although some of the final chapters are particularly rich. To my mind, 2 Corinthians suggests there had been an improvement in the church, although still a need for guidance. We don’t have a 3 Corinthians but perhaps that is a reminder to look back at ourselves? We are among those who carry the mantle forward from the early church, writing a new letter by our lives.

Do we let our passions run unbridled, seeking our own glory and fame? Perhaps we don’t think of ourselves as that exciting but just move from week to week, keeping things ticking along in a way that is comfortable to us and forgetting our call to serve others rather than judging and dismissing them? It is the example Jesus gives us and it is simply good for us. When I think of the people I know who are willing to pour themselves out for others, their lives seem full. Conversely, those who seem unwilling to pour themselves out for others often seem quite empty and troubled. I’m still pondering that line of thought, so don’t take it as gospel but it does make sense that, for best results, we follow the Maker’s instructions!

Let me end by giving you another reading from Paul’s letters, from the joyful book of Philippians and his portrait of Jesus that matches John’s memory of the Master girding himself with a towel and washing his disciples’ feet (Php 2:1-11, ESVUK).

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

May God bless the reading of his word to us and use it to shape us into people who show his truth to a needy world, as we stand and bring our lives as an offering of worship to the Servant King.