Love Defined Pt 2 of 2

Introduction

Turn, if you will, to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. It is a blessing to be here. How uplifting this worship service has been. Beautiful singing. Beautiful prayers. We had a wonderful Bible class. I hope that you are as uplifted as I am. Thankful to have all of you, thankful to have our visitors with us today. And I am honored to stand before you one final time before making my transition to the Palm Springs Drive Church of Christ and Altamont Springs. And as I’ve said many times, it has been a humbling experience. It has been a joy and an honor. I’ve never felt worthy of this position, and I’ve always been thankful for it.

In a peanuts cartoon. Lucy says to Linus, you a doctor? Ha! That’s a big laugh. You could never be a doctor. You know why? Because you don’t love mankind, that’s why. To which Linus replies, I love mankind. It’s people I can’t stand. You know, it might be easy for us to say, I love mankind. You know, I I’m a loving person. But when the rubber meets the road, the real test is do we show love and demonstrate love to the people in our lives around us that might be hard to deal with sometimes. You know, the Corinthians were having a hard time loving one another. And frankly, there were some of them that just couldn’t stand one another. And so Paul’s remedy for that problem was 1 Corinthians 13.

The chapter on love. That’s the way to solve church problems. And so we’re continuing and finishing this two-part series on love defined from 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4 through 7. Now there are 15 facets of love in that section. And I mentioned to you last time that one way to think of it is to think of a diamond and its 15 facets. So we’re looking at this diamond of love from 15 different angles. And these characteristics, these facets are all given in verbal form. They are action words. Every last one of them in the original Greek. So, last time we talked about the first seven that love is patient. Love is kind and is not jealous. Love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly.

1. Love Is Not Provoked

So I’m sorry to say, but there actually is a Bible verse that says we are not allowed to be irritable and touchy. It’s this one. It’s this facet of love that love is not provoked. We should not be easily offended. We should not be given to fiery emotional outbursts of anger. Yet we live in a world that is just like that. We live in a world where fenderbenders escalate to murder scenes. And so I would ask you, how do you react when you are wrongfully treated? Do you always demand justice? Or do you allow yourself to be wronged, as Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians the sixth chapter? How long is your fuse? Are you easily provoked by your friends, by your co-workers, by your boss, by your husband, by your wife, by your children, or children, by your parents, by your brethren?

Or are you patient with them? Are there people who feel that they need to handle you with kid gloves? Who are afraid to speak their mind because of how you might react? There should be nobody that feels that way about any one of us. We need to kind of the kind of reputation that Philippians 4 and verse 5 talks about. Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Gentleness, not anger, irritability, frustration. Yet we tend to be irritable people. And we tend to blame it on everyone else. I mean, if they would act right, we wouldn’t have to be so irritated all the time, would we? And let’s face it, some people are hard to be around. Jonathan Edwards, a Puritan preacher in the 1700s, had a daughter with a violent, very bad temper.

And a young man wanted to marry her and came to Edwards asking for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Edward said, She is not worthy of you. So the answer was no. The young man said, but isn’t she a Christian? To which Edwards replied, Yes, and I quote, but the grace of God can live with some people with whom no one else could ever live. I mean, let’s face it. There are some people that just about nobody can live with, that are hard to deal with. The uh, you know, the knuckleheads of life that we have to deal with and put up with. And sometimes we may feel justified when we’re provoked, because if it weren’t for people like that, we’d be nice all the time. That’s an excuse.

2. Love Keeps No Record of Wrongs

Brethren, that’s an excuse. And Jesus had every excuse he could have used to be provoked, but he wouldn’t make any excuses. And while being reviled, he did not revile in return. While suffering, he uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously. Our Lord was not provoked, and we, as his followers must not be provoked if we are to be people of love. Number nine, love keeps no record of wrongs. The King James renders this love thinketh no evil. But that doesn’t mean what it might sound like it means.

And spiritually speaking, someone has harmed you. Someone has offended you or sinned against you, and love is the choice to say, you know what? I know that that happened, but I’m not going to credit it against them. Recently I preached a sermon entitled, Must I Forgive and Forget? And I gave the illustration of Clara Barton, the founder of Red Cross. Someone asked her about an offense that was committed some years earlier, and they said, Don’t you remember that? Her response was, no, I distinctly remember forgetting that. And the point is, she didn’t literally forget it. She knew that it happened, but she purposed in her heart that she would not hold a grudge against that person. That she would not bitterly dwell on those offenses and always demand justice in every case.

3. Love Does Not Rejoice in Unrighteousness but Rejoices With Truth

You ever met someone that all they wanted to do was talk about all the wrongs that were done against them? Every bad thing that every last person has ever done against me, woe is me. It’s a victim mentality, and it’s not love, because love keeps no record of wrongs. Love is not focused on other people’s wrongdoings, but on our own faults. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Now, the next two facets of love, we see love described with a contrasting statement. And so we see that love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. So I’m going to split those into two separate facets. First the negative, then the positive. So, love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. The brethren at Corinth were far too celebratory of sin in other people’s lives.

Even to the point that they had a man in their midst in the church at Corinth that has slept with his father’s wife, and the congregation knew about it, and they were arrogant and puffed up about it and had not yet rather mourned instead. You see, when we have sin in our presence, when there is sin in someone’s life, it should grieve our hearts, not bring joy to our hearts. You know, it’s very ironic that people think it’s love to rejoice in someone’s unrighteousness because they’re being so tolerant towards that person and accepting garbage. That is garbage. That’s not love. You don’t love that person if you rejoice in their wickedness. There is a perversity in us which causes us to be intrigued by and even to enjoy sin in others.

If you don’t believe me, just watch the evening news. Why do they have that stuff on the evening news? Sin, sin, sin, sin, sin. Because that’s what sells. Because that’s what people like. That’s what attracts people. That’s why the magazine racks on the checkout lane as you’re exiting the grocery store are lined with magazines that advertise cheating, adultery, scandal, lies. Ooh, I want to learn more about all of that. That’s why the movies that we watch, you can’t almost, you can almost find no movies that are clean anymore. They’re just laced with language and immodesty and filth and garbage. And we flock to the theaters and pay our hard-earned money to sit in a theater and sin by rejoicing in unrighteousness. Shame on us. We ought to be lights in this world.

Amen. Amen. What kind of people do you look up to and celebrate? Miley Cyrus. Youngsters? Ben Affleck. Beyonce. Peyton Manning. Now there’s a man who professes to be a Christian. He’s been around in the, you know, in the world of football forever. He knows the right things to say. So when the when the Super Bowl is won, he knows to say, oh, I’m thankful to God. And then out of the next breath, he says, and I’m going to go drink a lot of Budweiser tonight. Is that the kind of person that we are to look up to? In the last verse of Romans chapter 1, we have a very parallel thought to this idea that love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. After this litany of sins, beginning in verse 18, where Paul is telling us and describing to us a society that is utterly depraved and has totally turned its back on God.

He says in verse 32, and although they know the ordinance of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. Let us not do that, brethren. Let us make sure not to rejoice in unrighteousness. Next, number 11, love rejoices with the truth. Phillips says, it does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails. When others obey God’s truth, love responds with overwhelming joy. In 3 John and verse 4. John says, I have no greater joy than this to hear of my children walking in the truth. And by my children he means his fellow brethren that he had, as it were, begotten in the faith.

Our biggest challenge in the 21st century, our biggest challenge in Orlando, Florida, our biggest challenge at the South Bumby Church of Christ, I am convinced, is complacency. And this speaks to some of what Brother Ralph Klein spoke about last Sunday in the congregational meeting after services. In a church of this size, it’s very easy for people to get lost in the crowd, to not be noticed. It’s very easy for us not to rejoice in every last one that is here. It’s easy to let somebody slip through the cracks. Maybe there isn’t enough rejoicing in this congregation about every last person that’s here. Maybe there’s not enough rejoicing about the new converts. Maybe there’s not enough reaching out to those new converts. Maybe there isn’t enough rejoicing over the spiritual growth of one another.

Maybe there isn’t enough rejoicing over the consistent contribution that so many make here in this church. And the 80 20 rule is true in most places, and I believe it’s true here that 20% of this church does 80% of the work. How do we hold up those 20%? Do we rejoice in what they’re doing? Do we encourage them? Because if it weren’t for them, then not a lot would get done. How do we feel about Bible authority? There may be some who would roll their eyes at the idea of command, example, and necessary inference and speaking where the Bible speaks and being silent where the Bible is silent. And oh, I wish we could just be like the churches all around and have all the fancy programs and the food and frolic and fun like everybody else does.

Why do we have to be so conservative? But you know what our attitude should be is we should be rejoicing that the truth is upheld, that we have elders who are going to stand up for the truth, that we have preachers who are going to preach the truth, that we have Bible teachers who are going to help this church to stay faithful to God in the truth of his word. Barnes says the church would be a different church if there were none in its bosom but those who rejoiced in the truth and in the efforts of humble and self-denying piety. The last four facets of love are four things that love always does in verse 7. Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

4. Love Bears All Things

So love bears all things. To bear something is to undergo some difficulty. My dad says, grin and bear it. And that’s true. We need to do that. In relation to our brethren, bearing all things in this context, I believe, means undergoing difficulty for the good of one another. The idea of Galatians 6 1, bear one another’s burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. Although it’s a different Greek word for bear in Galatians 6 1. It’s a word that means to carry. This word here means like to cover or to put under a roof. But this is speaking, I think, to the sacrificial element of love. And I was very impressed as I was reading through the bulletin at this story about this blind girl. There was a blind girl who hated herself because she was blind.

She hated everyone except her loving boyfriend. He was always there for her. She told her boyfriend, if I could only see the world, I would marry you. One day someone donated a pair of eyes to her. When the bandages came off, she was able to see everything, including her boyfriend. He asked her, Now that you can see the world, will you marry me? The girl looked at her boyfriend and saw that he was blind. The sight of his eyes closed. The sight of his eyes close, the sight of his closed eyelids shocked her. She hadn’t expected that. She thought of looking at them the rest of her life. And the thought of looking at them the rest of her life led her to refuse to marry him.

Her boyfriend left her in tears and days later wrote a note to her saying, Take good care of your eyes, my dear, for before they were yours, they were mine. And that struck me. Because love bears all things. The young man was willing to do that. But the lady was not willing to bear all things. She did not really understand love. I want to ask you, what have you given up for the good of someone else in this congregation? Because serving others is very inconvenient. It requires a lot. It’s not easy to deal with different personalities. It’s not easy to deal with people’s different opinions. And you’ve heard before that opinions are like noses. Everybody has one. And some of them are more obnoxious than others.

That’s very true. So we deal with that. We bear all things. I think one application of that is if something could cause a brother to stumble, love bears the burden of giving that thing up, even a thing that is within your rights. Last time I talked about that in 1 Corinthians 8, Paul talks there about the eating of meat that had been sacrificed to idols. He says there’s nothing wrong with doing that inherently, but there are some brethren who believe that doing so is wrong. And if you’re going to cause them to stumble, then don’t do it. And so look at what he says at verse 13 of that chapter. Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble.

I’d be willing to give up eating meat. In chapter 10, in chapter 9, rather, he talks about that he and Barnabas had given up the right to get paid as a preacher by the church at Corinth, because they knew that the immaturity there would lead people to have the wrong attitudes. It would be a hindrance to the gospel. And look at what he says in chapter 9 and verse 12. He says, If others share the right over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this right, but we endure all things, so that we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ. When he says, endure all things, in the Greek, it is virtually the same that we have here at this 12th virtue of love.

Love bears all things. He’s saying, I’m willing to bear all things and give up my rights for the sake of the congregation here. Even if that means I have to just scrape by on virtually nothing, I’ll do it. That’s love. Now I know a very sweet lady who is a faithful Christian who believes that it’s wrong to go to Disney. Not here, but in a different congregation where I was, because of the gay day or the gay week or whatever it is, and I’ve learned that Disney’s not behind that. They allow that, but they’re not behind it, but that’s not how this lady felt. And so she thought, we need to boycott Disney, and nobody needs to ever go there. She felt very strongly about that.

5. Love Believes All Things

Do you think it would have been wise for me as the preacher of that congregation to say, I appreciate what you’re saying, but I’m going to go anyway. Do you think that would have had the force of encouragement to her? No. So love is willing to give up things that actually are within our rights for the good of one another. Love bears all things. Number 13, love believes all things. Love is always eager to believe the best, to give the benefit of the doubt. Love eliminates unfounded suspicion and doesn’t judge another person’s motives. Love is exactly the opposite as Job’s three friends, who saw this poor suffering man and relentlessly accused him of some great sin he had caught he had done to cause all this suffering.

When it wasn’t that at all. That’s what somebody that is filled really with hatred would do, but not with love. William Barclay tells a story of a man named Thomas Arnold, who in 1828 became the headmaster of Rugby, a boarding school outside of London. The school had been ruled with an iron fist for many years, and so when Arnold became headmaster, he told the boys things are going to be different now.

And when your liberty is finally given you, as it must be someday, you will not know how to use it. Well, the boys were flabbergasted at this. And later, when they got back to their own, you know, their usual shenanigans and found themselves in trouble and coming before Arnold, they would give the same excuses as they had before Arnold was made headmaster, but Arnold would tell them, I believe you.

He always believes you. Now I give that illustration, not to make the point that we should be gullible, but I think that it speaks to this idea of fostering a community of mutual trust. And that’s what we need to have in the church. That we believe one another. We believe in one another. It’s the attitude that Paul expressed to Philemon in that short letter in verse 21. Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, since I know that you will do even more than what I say. When somebody tells you, I have confidence in you, I have a concern, yes, but I’m confident that you will do even more than what I’m imagining you will do. I think that you’re going to go far beyond what I’m saying and do even better than that.

You know what that tells you? It tells you that they love you. What is the habit of your heart in this regard? When you hear some bad news about a person, do you instinctively think the worst? Or do you instinctively think the best? Love. Instinctively thinks the best. Have you ever jumped to a conclusion about someone and later found out that you were dead wrong? There’s a story in the Bible about that. Eli. He was the priest. And he sees this woman. And there she is crying. And he sees her lips moving, but he doesn’t hear any words coming out. So he immediately assumes she’s drunk. I can imagine the thought process, perhaps was something like this. Things are really bad in Israel right now. There’s all kinds of wickedness out there, and it’s even right here.

6. Love Hopes All Things and Endures All Things

And he goes to her and he says, How long will you make yourself drunk? Put your wine away from you. Without any investigation. Jonathan Edwards said, How often on thorough examination have we found better things of others than we heard at first, and we’re ready to judge. Love believes all things. Number 14, love hopes all things. Failure is never final where love exists. When a brother or a sister falls on their face big time, they should know that you don’t think that they blew it for good. And this is how God loves.

And he hopes better for us. You think of the prodigal of the, I mean the parable of the prodigal son, and here’s this young man that has just left and forsaken his father and taken all of his inheritance and wasted it in a far country. And what does the father do? Every day, he stands looking on the horizon, waiting for his son to come back. That is the kind of love that we as Christians should have for one another. That we hope all things, even when things almost seem against hope. When it’s dark and you don’t think that there might be much of a chance. Love doesn’t give up. Are there any of your brothers or sisters who’ve begun to wonder from the faith that maybe you’ve given up on?

Don’t do it. My brethren, if anyone among you wonders from the truth, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. I know a story of, I know a lady who her son was a Christian, and she’s a Christian, very devout. But her son went off to a college, very expensive art school, and in the just one day he just decided to just leave. Right in the middle of one of the semesters, and didn’t communicate that to his parents who were footing the bill, and just left and moved away up north and moved in with a family of atheists. And they had convinced him through the communication of that young man with that family through the internet that there’s no such thing as God.

So, parents, don’t think that the internet is not dangerous for your children on multiple levels. Every time I talk to that young man’s mother, a little, she tells me of how she is writing her son, emailing her son, calling her son, praying for her son, crying for her son, visiting her son, even when he doesn’t want her anywhere around. You know why she does that? Because she loves him. And love hopes all things. Paul was hoping all things for these immature, selfish, worldly Christians at Corinth. He was hoping that they would grow up, that they would work out their problems. The very fact that we have the letter of 1 Corinthians and the chapter of 1 Corinthians 13 is evidence that Paul hoped all things. Next and finally, love endures all things.

My kids get confused when we drill this. I like my kids to memorize this whole passage, verses 4 through 7. And June was asking the other day what indoors all things means, you know, indoors, not outdoors. And so I had to explain. It’s kind of hard to explain to a four-year old what endures means anyway. But love always perseveres. As Phillips says, love knows no limit to its endurance. It is the idea that, like in our wedding vows, when husbands and wives vow to one another to love each other for better or for worse. It’s easy when things are better, but love is really tested when things are worse. And it’s the same in a congregation that we as a spiritual family of God need to have a love that is for better or for worse.

And we don’t cut out on each other when it’s worse. We stick it out. We believe in one another as we’ve been talking about. All these ideas are tied together. You know it’s not easy to work together as a church family. It’s not easy to grow together as a church family. It’s not easy to work out problems as a church family. It’s not easy to be patient with your church family. It’s not always easy to be kind to your church family. It’s not easy to be selfless with your church family. It’s not easy to bear all things for your church family. But it’s possible because love endures all things.

And that’s how Jesus loved his disciples and loves all of us. I want you to look, please, in John 13 and verse 1.

Conclusion

John 13 1. Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come, that he would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And that’s the kind of love that endures all things. The very love that we should have. So we’ve looked at the 15 facets of this diamond of love in the last two lessons. And I challenged us last time to ask could we replace the word love with our own names in that passage. Another way to think of it is could we insert South Bumbi Church of Christ in the place of love? The South Bumbi Church of Christ is patient. The South Bumbi Church is kind and is not jealous.

The South Bumbi Church does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Is that the character and the reputation of this local church? I believe that it is, but as always, we could always do better.

Now you can either think of that as the 16th facet of the diamond of love, even though I said there were only 15. Or you could think of that as the ring that the diamond of love is mounted upon permanently. Love never fails. And of course, in the last verse of chapter 13, but now faith, hope, love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love. You know, in heaven, there’s not going to be any more faith. Because faith is the evidence of things not seen. Once we see it, there’s no need for faith. Once we see God and see heaven. And in heaven, there won’t be any more hope, really, because hope is confident expectation of something yet to come. Once that hope is realized, there’s no more need for hope, no more possibility of it.

But love will continue for all eternity with God. Because love never fails. And the love of God will never fail for us. And our love for one another must never fail. And my love for each and every one of you will never fail. Would you bow your head with me in a word of prayer? Our Father, our God, we cannot even fathom that you would humble yourself to hear our prayers. We who are lowly, and we who deserve nothing except the fiery pits of hell. Yet by your love, you have extended grace to us in Jesus Christ. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We praise your name. And do not have the words to express our gratitude for what you have done and your Son Jesus Christ.

May you help us to emulate the love of Christ in our own lives and to grow up and to quit making excuses. Be with us as we continue along in our journeys. That our journeys may meet finally in the end as we get to spend an eternity with you in heaven. And through your Son Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. If you’re not a Christian, you have the wonderful blessing and privilege of doing that today. You’re still alive. And you still have the opportunity. Don’t waste it. In order to become a Christian, it involves belief, yes. But it also involves repentance from your sins. Luke 13, 3. Jesus said, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. It also involves confession that Jesus is the Christ, and it involves baptism.

In Acts 2 and verse 38, Peter said, Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins. If you’d like to become a Christian, that’s how you start your walk. We would love for you to come and to do that. And if we could pray for you at this time, we would be happy to do so. If you would please come as we stand and sing the song of invitation.