Faith, Hope & Love

Good morning, I’m Brandon Buchanan, an Associate Pastor here at Madisonville First United Methodist Church and I am so grateful to be worshiping with you in person and with all those joining us online as well.

Our Scripture lesson this morning comes From 1 Cor 13:8-13 NRSV,

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

This is the Word of God, For the People of God,

Thanks be to God.

Let us pray.

Gracious God, You who are love and who teach us how to love— open our hearts this morning to Your word. Let the Scripture we hear refine us, shape us, soften us, and draw us toward the love that never ends. Clear our minds of distraction, steady our spirits with Your peace, and let Your Spirit speak in ways deeper than words. Make us attentive to Your voice and receptive to Your grace. In the name of Jesus, Love made flesh, we pray. Amen.

Introduction — What Truly Lasts

Church, it is a holy thing to stand here with you today. This sanctuary, these pews, these faces—your faces—have held five years of my life.

You have carried me as I’ve grown from media director to pastor of online ministries to one of your associate pastors. You have welcomed my family,  teased me when my cables got tangled, prayed for me through seminary, and you have encouraged me when deadlines piled high.

Most importantly, you have shaped me. If you didn’t know, today is my final Sunday on staff.

So when I began praying about what final word I might offer you, after all the words we’ve shared—sermons, prayers, stories, Wednesday Night Alive meals, classes, hospital visits and online liturgies, a question came to my mind. There are seasons in our lives when the Spirit invites us to ask a sacred kind of question. A question we don’t ask often, but when we do, it settles deep into our bones:

What truly lasts?

We live in a world where so much changes. Roles shift. Families grow. We launch into new chapters. We say goodbye to seasons that shaped us. And we greet what lies ahead with faith, hope, and often a bit of trembling.

Today, as I stand here offering my final sermon among you, Paul’s words rise with a clarity I feel all the way in my chest:

“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

When I prayed about what Scripture to preach today, I didn’t choose this passage because it’s famous or poetic. I chose it because it echoes the story of what God has done in me through you, and what God continues to do in each of us. We are always in the process of growing. Always changing. Always being changed by God’s love.

Paul’s words remind us that in the midst all that movement and growth, something steady holds us:

Faith remains. Hope remains. And love—love remains most of all.

That is the center of this passage. And on a day of transition, it is the center of my heart.

The Corinthians and the Question Beneath the Surface

Paul wrote to a church full of gifted people. A church bursting with potential. A church doing its best to follow Christ in a complicated world. They had preachers, teachers, prophets, wise thinkers, passionate worshipers, and generous givers. Their gifts were extraordinary.

But gifts alone don’t build a community.

The Corinthians were wrestling with a question many of us know all too well:

“Is there enough love here for me?” “Do I really belong?” “Am I valued, or just useful?” “Does anyone see me for who I am, not just what I do?”

Paul steps right into the middle of those anxieties and says:

“Let me show you what truly matters.”

If I speak with the tongues of angels but have no love—I'm just noise. If I have faith to move mountains but no love—I am nothing. If I give everything away but have no love—it gains me nothing.

Paul isn’t belittling their gifts. He’s placing them in perspective.

Love is what makes any gift meaningful. Love is what makes any ministry Christlike. Love is the measure of our maturity.

The Corinthians weren’t struggling with belief; they were struggling with belonging. And Paul answers that struggle with the most beautiful vision of love Scripture gives us.

The Shape of Love

Paul does not describe love as a feeling. He doesn’t describe love as an inspiring idea.

He describes love as a way of living.

Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not boastful or arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way. Love is not irritable or resentful. Love rejoices in the truth.

Love bears all things. Believes all things. Hopes all things. Endures all things.

Love never ends.

Carla Swafford Works describes agapē—the word Paul uses—as a term the early church reshaped to carry the fullness of Christ’s self-giving love. She says agapē is “impractical,” love that does not seek its own benefit, a love that might even make the giver appear foolish.

A love that washes the feet of those who will scatter. A love that blesses those who curse. A love that forgives from a cross.

This is the love Paul holds before us, not as an unreachable ideal but as the path God is forming in us.

Seeing in a Mirror Dimly

Paul says, “Now we see in a mirror dimly.”

Corinth was famous for its bronze mirrors. They were beautifully made but always imperfect. The reflection was there, but it was cloudy, distorted, incomplete.

Paul isn’t criticizing them—he’s naming what it means to be human.

We all begin with a partial view—of God, of ourselves, of what life in community can be. Over time, by the Spirit’s steady hand, that vision grows clearer.

And one of the ways God clears our vision is through the people who form us.

As I reflect on my time in this community, I see how much clearer my own vision has become because of you. You have been one of the mirrors through which God has allowed me to see more of who I am and who I am becoming. From small groups in coffee shops at way to early in the morning to evning classes that helped form grace-filled rhythms in my life.

I came here in one season of my life, a season where I had given up on God’s call on my life, and I leave in another, as a confirmed candidate for ordained ministry. And through it all, God has used you to teach me, challenge me, encourage me, and shape me.

I am not the same person I was when I arrived—and that is grace.

What This Church Has Taught Me

This church has taught me about faith—not just belief in God, but trust in God’s steady presence through every season. That the pursuit of holiness, right living, isn’t meant to be lived alone, but to be lived with others. 

You have taught me about hope—the kind that doesn’t deny difficulty but rises within it like light. This past year our alpha course allowed a space for me to reconnect with the Holy Spirit in a way that I haven’t since my youth. 

You have taught me about love—the quiet kind, the patient kind, the kind that shows up in 4th of July picnics and hospital visits, text messages and weekend retreats, meals shared and burdens carried together.

You have taught me what it means to serve with humility, to listen deeply, and to stay rooted in Christ even when life is complex.

You are the first person to call me pastor, and boy, have you taught me how to be a pastor, from weekly one-on-one trainings with both of our pastors, to staff meetings and worship plannings.

And I hope, in some way, I have taught you something of Christ too. I hope we have grown together in the work of love.

Everything changes, but what remains is the love that formed us.

Right after Paul describes the endurance of love, he concludes:

“Faith, hope, and love abide… but the greatest of these is love.”

In a brief commentary on this verse, John Wesley said that everything else we cling to—our gifts, our knowledge, even the languages we speak—will one day “vanish like starlight in the noon-day sun,” but love remains because it already belongs to eternity.

Love remains because love is the life of God. Love remains because love is our future. Love remains because love is the one thing in us already touched by the world to come.

Being Sent in Love

I want to speak now from a very personal place.

There is something holy about the way God moves people in and out of our lives. Throughout Scripture, God shapes people within a community so that they may go and serve others. Not because something is wrong where they are, but because God is always writing a larger story.

Paul’s Prayer to the Philippians is something I’d love to echo to you today, he said: I thank my God for every remembrance of you, 4 always in every one of my prayers for all of you, praying with joy 5 for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” 

This community has shaped me. You have encouraged God’s call on my life. You have taught me how to love and serve with joy. You have helped me listen for the Spirit. You have been a place where God’s grace has worked on me, day by day, year by year.

And now I feel God sending me forward—not away from you, but deeper into the work God has been preparing me for all along. I am going because love continues its work.

And love follows us wherever we go.

The love that shaped me here will shape me elsewhere. The love we shared here will continue to bear fruit in ways we may never see. And the love this community has will continue to grow as it is sustained by God’s grace.

We are held together not by miles but by Christ.

Not by the work of our hands, but by the love in our hearts.

And love remains.

What Love Can Build Here

So what does it look like for a community to live as though love truly never ends?

Imagine with me:

A church where patience becomes the natural rhythm of life together. Where kindness guides conversations before conflict has a chance to take root. Where truth matters more than appearances. Where forgiveness is practiced freely and joyfully. Where burdens are carried together, not alone. Where disagreements become opportunities for growth rather than reasons to divide. Where every person—longtime member or first-time visitor—knows in their bones:

“I am loved here. I belong here.”

Imagine a church shaped not by anxiety, but by compassion. Not by productivity, but by faithfulness. Not by impressiveness, but by love.

That is the church Paul imagines. That is the church the Spirit empowers. That is the church I have seen forming in you.

And that is the church I believe you are.

My Gratitude, My Benediction

So let me say this simply, honestly, and from my heart:

Thank you.

Thank you for welcoming me.

Thank you for loving my family. Thank you for cheering me on as I studied, preached, grew, stumbled, learned, and kept learning. Thank you for shaping me through your faith, hope, and love. Thank you for being patient with me. Thank you for being kind. Thank you for letting me be one of your pastors.

I will carry the lessons you have taught me for the rest of my life.

As I go where God leads next, I do not go alone. I go with the love you have poured into me. And I leave behind the love God has poured into you through our time together.

Love is the thread that ties us together. Love is what will continue to shape this church. Love is what will carry you forward. Love is what will carry me too.

And love, my friends, never ends.

As the song we sang earlier said: This is amazing grace This is unfailing love. That You would take my place, That You would bear my cross. You laid down Your life. That I would be set free. Jesus I sing for all that You've done for me.

Jesus I sing for all of done for us. For this community of healing and commissioning.

Conclusion: Faith, Hope, and Love

Beloved church, as you continue to grow, as you welcome new people, as you embrace new seasons, as you build on the work God is doing in this place:

I hope and pray that you Hold fast to what remains.

Faith that grounds you. Hope that sustains you. Love that shapes you.

Faith, hope, and love abide. And the greatest of these is love.

May the love of Christ continue to grow in you, flow from you, and remain with you— today, tomorrow, and always.

For love never ends.

In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Let us pray:

God of unfailing love, we thank You for the word planted in us today. Let it take root— growing into patience, into kindness, into a love that bears and believes and hopes and endures. Send us from this moment steady in Your Spirit and alive to Your grace, so that the love You have shown us may flow freely through us. In the name of Jesus, Love made visible, we pray. Amen..

Benediction:

May the love of Christ lead you, the Spirit strengthen you, and God’s grace go before you. Go in peace radiate God’s love to world. Amen.