The way of love! – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
The way of love! – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
By Pastor Lee Hemen
February 18, 2018
What is love? It is a question that poets, prognosticators, and psychologists have tried to answer. Love’s theme fills hundreds of thousands of books, songs, and blogs. Tina Turner cynically sang, “Oh what's love got to do, got to do with it? What's love but a second hand emotion? What's love got to do, got to do with it? Who needs a heart, when a heart can be broken?” Most contemporary songs in today’s society have reduced love to either feelings or lust, whichever fits the needs of the moment. It reflects the shallow and sometimes cynical view folks have for the meaning of love for their lives. However, if we are to understand Scripture we have to answer the question, “What is love?”
The Bible does define for us what love is. It begins with God himself when we learn “God is love.” (1 John 4:8 NIV) Love’s definition is furthered clarified when he showed what his love is all about in sending his Son. (John 3:16-18) This love of God transforms the individual from the inside out to the extent that they are changed forever in their personal relationship with him, their personal attitudes and their interactions with others. “For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.” (2 Corinthians 5:14 NIV) and “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (1 John 4:12 NIV) The problem is what does the rest of the world see when it looks at the life of a believer? Does it see the love of God revealed in us? With all the misunderstanding, negativism, and cynicism concerning love in our day and age, the question we need to answer this morning is, “What is love?” More specifically, what are love’s attributes? Let’s find out the way of love for ourselves…
READ: 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
Since we are so close to Valentine’s Day and we are talking about love I made up the top ten things women may not want to hear on their first date:
10. I love the way the light shines on your nose…
9. I picked these up at the cemetery on the way here…
8. Don’t worry I tasted each piece of candy to make sure there were no nuts inside…
7. Your cooking is almost as good as my mother’s…
6. I take my mother’s ashes everywhere, why?
5. I have my own private apartment in the basement…
4. You’re way prettier than the last girl I dated…
3. Look, two tickets to the hog wrestling championships!
2. Momma always goes on my first date…
1. I am sure this ring won’t turn your finger green…
Love can be confusing but in these verses from Paul…
I. We discover what love is! (Vv. 13:4, 7-8a)
Love is patient, love is kind.… It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
1. Mariah Carey once sang: “I wanna know what love is..... I want you to show me.” We discover that all Mariah had to do was open her Bible in order to find the perfect example of love! Paul writes exactly what this kind of love is all about. We discover that love is patient, or as some translations state, “long suffering.” Yet the idea is not one of patiently putting up with something or someone, but rather that of steadfast devotion. There is a serene tolerance involved whereby the believer, as Paul admonishes is to “Be completely humble and gentle; [by being] patient, bearing with one another in love.” (Ephesians 4:2 NIV) Love is also kind, again as in being “kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32 NIV) Love always protects like a covering or a like a mama bird that shelters her young with her wing, and love always trusts in the one who gave us the example of love. However, we as believers are also to trust in one another as well because we are to be the embodiment of Jesus in the world! In other words, the love a Christians displays sees the best in a fellow believer. How in the world could love do that, are we to be like a Pollyanna and blindly see the good in everybody? Nope, we are to reflect Jesus’ love in that we are to always hope in him and what he can do with our lives: That we look to the bright side of life even in difficult circumstances. Love is able to do this because like Jesus it perseveres. It stays the course set out for it in life, it keeps on keeping on when others falter and persists when others only see failure. Love is all these wonderful things: kind, patient, protective, trusting, hopeful, and persistent! When it is, it never fails! This is what Godly love truly is!
EXAMPLE: In a morally corrupt world we see what the redefinition of love accomplishes. It focuses on self-gratification and reduces love to its basest instinct of emotional lust. Love becomes about selfish relationships and self-seeking, instead of the foundational truth it is supposed to be. Like the redefinition of marriage that ignores the familial outcome of emotional stability and the continuance of humanity. Contrary to the amoral selfish redefining of marriage, this is why God resoundingly condemns it. At its core godly love is sacrificial and is never based on what you get out of it, it is based on the change that has occurred in your sinful human nature that makes you love others in spite of yourself! This why the apostle John would bluntly write, “This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother. This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.” (1 John 3:10-11 NIV) This is what Godly love truly is!
For Paul, love was more than what you can gain it flows from what you have already obtained. We have found out what love is, we also have to learn what it is not. So, here in these verses…
II. We discover what love is not! (Vv. 13:4b-6)
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
1. The singer Jennifer Hudson sang: “If this isn’t love, tell me what it is!” Jennifer should know that love is more than losing weight in life! Paul related that God’s love “does not envy, it does not boast, and it is not proud.” Again, in other words, the love of Jesus does not stoop to petty jealousy or green-eyed behavior. Jealousy is just another word for insecurity and at its core it is selfish. God’s love does not care about what others have or obtained, but rather rejoices with another’s success in life, especially when it is obtained in a godly manner! Nor does the love of Jesus brag about itself to others, but rather it knows its place. God is to be glorified in al things. Therefore Jesus’ love does not puff itself up in the eyes of others, like a gangsta thug or short-term sports hero for its own gain. In a world where being crude and sarcastic has reached all time new lows, the love a Christian is too display is not to be rude or crass. Godly love therefore never seeks the lowest common denominator; it has the highest of standards. It does for others rather than for itself, never seeking its own desires first. In other words like Jesus it is sacrificial! Love keeps a lid on its anger and in so doing it does not keep track or a record of the wrongs others have done to it. And unlike the world, who knows “God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, [and] they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them”, (Romans 1:32 NIV) love “does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” of God! Notice anything about the picture painted here by Paul of what love is not? The love of God as expressed in the lives of believers is to be nothing like what the world offers. That’s why the world does not understand it nor does it understand Christ or Christianity. In Christ we discover what love is not.
EXAMPLE: I always laugh when the world tries to define what Christianity is supposed to be. Recently there has been a desperate redefining of what the world thinks a Christian’s faith should be like. We are to swallow and accept the attitudes and actions of others and never ever say anything that they might take as “bigoted” concerning their personal perversion. Contrary to what the media would try to persuade you to believe, Christianity is not based on what we feel about Jesus, it is based on what Jesus taught and at its core is the fact that a person can only claim being a Christian after they have confessed their sinful condition and placed their faith and trust in Jesus Christ himself. Like societies redefinition of love, the Christian faith is not based on selfish emotionalism. And this morning, we have learned from Paul what love is not.
Conclusion:
We have discovered what love is and we discovered what love is not!
---
This article is copyrighted © 2018 by Lee Hemen and is the sole property of Lee Hemen, and may not be used unless you quote the entire article and have my permission.
By Pastor Lee Hemen
February 18, 2018
What is love? It is a question that poets, prognosticators, and psychologists have tried to answer. Love’s theme fills hundreds of thousands of books, songs, and blogs. Tina Turner cynically sang, “Oh what's love got to do, got to do with it? What's love but a second hand emotion? What's love got to do, got to do with it? Who needs a heart, when a heart can be broken?” Most contemporary songs in today’s society have reduced love to either feelings or lust, whichever fits the needs of the moment. It reflects the shallow and sometimes cynical view folks have for the meaning of love for their lives. However, if we are to understand Scripture we have to answer the question, “What is love?”
The Bible does define for us what love is. It begins with God himself when we learn “God is love.” (1 John 4:8 NIV) Love’s definition is furthered clarified when he showed what his love is all about in sending his Son. (John 3:16-18) This love of God transforms the individual from the inside out to the extent that they are changed forever in their personal relationship with him, their personal attitudes and their interactions with others. “For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.” (2 Corinthians 5:14 NIV) and “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (1 John 4:12 NIV) The problem is what does the rest of the world see when it looks at the life of a believer? Does it see the love of God revealed in us? With all the misunderstanding, negativism, and cynicism concerning love in our day and age, the question we need to answer this morning is, “What is love?” More specifically, what are love’s attributes? Let’s find out the way of love for ourselves…
READ: 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
Since we are so close to Valentine’s Day and we are talking about love I made up the top ten things women may not want to hear on their first date:
10. I love the way the light shines on your nose…
9. I picked these up at the cemetery on the way here…
8. Don’t worry I tasted each piece of candy to make sure there were no nuts inside…
7. Your cooking is almost as good as my mother’s…
6. I take my mother’s ashes everywhere, why?
5. I have my own private apartment in the basement…
4. You’re way prettier than the last girl I dated…
3. Look, two tickets to the hog wrestling championships!
2. Momma always goes on my first date…
1. I am sure this ring won’t turn your finger green…
Love can be confusing but in these verses from Paul…
I. We discover what love is! (Vv. 13:4, 7-8a)
Love is patient, love is kind.… It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
1. Mariah Carey once sang: “I wanna know what love is..... I want you to show me.” We discover that all Mariah had to do was open her Bible in order to find the perfect example of love! Paul writes exactly what this kind of love is all about. We discover that love is patient, or as some translations state, “long suffering.” Yet the idea is not one of patiently putting up with something or someone, but rather that of steadfast devotion. There is a serene tolerance involved whereby the believer, as Paul admonishes is to “Be completely humble and gentle; [by being] patient, bearing with one another in love.” (Ephesians 4:2 NIV) Love is also kind, again as in being “kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32 NIV) Love always protects like a covering or a like a mama bird that shelters her young with her wing, and love always trusts in the one who gave us the example of love. However, we as believers are also to trust in one another as well because we are to be the embodiment of Jesus in the world! In other words, the love a Christians displays sees the best in a fellow believer. How in the world could love do that, are we to be like a Pollyanna and blindly see the good in everybody? Nope, we are to reflect Jesus’ love in that we are to always hope in him and what he can do with our lives: That we look to the bright side of life even in difficult circumstances. Love is able to do this because like Jesus it perseveres. It stays the course set out for it in life, it keeps on keeping on when others falter and persists when others only see failure. Love is all these wonderful things: kind, patient, protective, trusting, hopeful, and persistent! When it is, it never fails! This is what Godly love truly is!
EXAMPLE: In a morally corrupt world we see what the redefinition of love accomplishes. It focuses on self-gratification and reduces love to its basest instinct of emotional lust. Love becomes about selfish relationships and self-seeking, instead of the foundational truth it is supposed to be. Like the redefinition of marriage that ignores the familial outcome of emotional stability and the continuance of humanity. Contrary to the amoral selfish redefining of marriage, this is why God resoundingly condemns it. At its core godly love is sacrificial and is never based on what you get out of it, it is based on the change that has occurred in your sinful human nature that makes you love others in spite of yourself! This why the apostle John would bluntly write, “This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother. This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.” (1 John 3:10-11 NIV) This is what Godly love truly is!
For Paul, love was more than what you can gain it flows from what you have already obtained. We have found out what love is, we also have to learn what it is not. So, here in these verses…
II. We discover what love is not! (Vv. 13:4b-6)
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
1. The singer Jennifer Hudson sang: “If this isn’t love, tell me what it is!” Jennifer should know that love is more than losing weight in life! Paul related that God’s love “does not envy, it does not boast, and it is not proud.” Again, in other words, the love of Jesus does not stoop to petty jealousy or green-eyed behavior. Jealousy is just another word for insecurity and at its core it is selfish. God’s love does not care about what others have or obtained, but rather rejoices with another’s success in life, especially when it is obtained in a godly manner! Nor does the love of Jesus brag about itself to others, but rather it knows its place. God is to be glorified in al things. Therefore Jesus’ love does not puff itself up in the eyes of others, like a gangsta thug or short-term sports hero for its own gain. In a world where being crude and sarcastic has reached all time new lows, the love a Christian is too display is not to be rude or crass. Godly love therefore never seeks the lowest common denominator; it has the highest of standards. It does for others rather than for itself, never seeking its own desires first. In other words like Jesus it is sacrificial! Love keeps a lid on its anger and in so doing it does not keep track or a record of the wrongs others have done to it. And unlike the world, who knows “God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, [and] they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them”, (Romans 1:32 NIV) love “does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” of God! Notice anything about the picture painted here by Paul of what love is not? The love of God as expressed in the lives of believers is to be nothing like what the world offers. That’s why the world does not understand it nor does it understand Christ or Christianity. In Christ we discover what love is not.
EXAMPLE: I always laugh when the world tries to define what Christianity is supposed to be. Recently there has been a desperate redefining of what the world thinks a Christian’s faith should be like. We are to swallow and accept the attitudes and actions of others and never ever say anything that they might take as “bigoted” concerning their personal perversion. Contrary to what the media would try to persuade you to believe, Christianity is not based on what we feel about Jesus, it is based on what Jesus taught and at its core is the fact that a person can only claim being a Christian after they have confessed their sinful condition and placed their faith and trust in Jesus Christ himself. Like societies redefinition of love, the Christian faith is not based on selfish emotionalism. And this morning, we have learned from Paul what love is not.
Conclusion:
We have discovered what love is and we discovered what love is not!
---
This article is copyrighted © 2018 by Lee Hemen and is the sole property of Lee Hemen, and may not be used unless you quote the entire article and have my permission.
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