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1 Corinthians 13:4-7 · Providence Baptist Church - Sermons

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  All right, our text for this morning is 1 Corinthians chapter 13 verses 4 through 7.
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  ! So if you'll turn with me there.
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  1 Corinthians 13 verses 4 through 7.
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  Now, while you're getting there, before we study this text, I want to remind you of one thing and inform you of another.
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  The reminder is that our teaching on Sundays has been working in concord with CFC's Bible reading plan.
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  Because we want you to see the connectivity of the text.
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  We are believing that the beauty of the scripture will come alive to you across the year.
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  And that you will have a greater grasp of its narrative arc.
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  And we want you to read your Bible.
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  We want you to fill in the gaps in between the teaching you are receiving.
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  We want you to be hungry for this.
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  You can read the entirety of your Bible this year for 10 to 15 minutes of effort each day.
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  It doesn't take much time to do this.
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  And I would encourage you to be in your Bible even more than 10 or 15 minutes each day.
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  And if you're not already doing so, we hope that you'll consider doing so.
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  Secondly, to inform you that the teaching this morning will be brief by design.
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  So that you can take time with the discussion questions already posted on Slack for you.
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  Also, as some of us are gathered in this larger group, we do not want anyone to watch children.
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  We just thought that would be so sad if we had to have some child care.
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  So for the sake of the children, too, we're also keeping comments short this morning.
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  So 1 Corinthians chapter 13, beginning in verse 4.
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  Love is patient and kind.
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  Love does not envy or boast.
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  It is not arrogant or rude.
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  It does not insist on its own way.
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  It is not irritable or resentful.
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  It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
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  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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  We find ourselves living in days of such turmoil.
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  If it's one thing, it's another.
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  The troubles just seem to be compounding on top of each other.
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  Confusion and uncertainty seems to reign right now.
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  At every turn, we are faced with animosity of all varieties.
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  And I expect this will get worse and not better.
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  There will be for American Christians a growing discomfort in the coming years.
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  We will likely experience this even in the coming months.
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  None of this should be of any surprise to us.
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  We have labored here to help you develop a robust theology of suffering.
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  If you have been with us for very long, you have heard references to passages like John chapter 15, verses 18 and 19, where Jesus says,
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  If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
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  If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own.
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  But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
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  Or 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 12, where Paul wrote,
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  Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
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  It is not the abnormal experience of a Christian to be treated with hostility, but rather the normative.
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  And we should be found rejoicing at this.
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  Paul wrote in Colossians chapter 1 and verse 24,
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  Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.
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  Paul was pleased that he had been given opportunity to suffer,
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  so that the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ would be displayed in him for the sake of the church.
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  Now you may be wondering what this has to do with today's text, and that is a fair question so far.
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  I've been thinking a lot these past weeks about how I and we ought to be acting in a time such as this,
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  and in a time I anticipate is coming our way.
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  And my mind was drawn to Jesus' words in John chapter 13 and verse 35.
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  He said,
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  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
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  Well, I think that the trouble of our day and the future affliction I anticipate we will experience has and will afford us opportunity to declare who we belong to through the way that we love one another.
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  It's a chance for us to make much of Christ, and this is a thing to rejoice in.
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  So let's take some time to think about what that love should look like.
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  What characterizes our pursuit of Jesus as we love one another?
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  This text is a beautiful text to read at a wedding, but its exhortations extend beyond marriage to every relationship within the church.
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  It's not just a marriage text.
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  May we be a people who are unmistakably disciples of Jesus Christ because we love the way he loved.
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  We love by giving of ourselves for the sake of others.
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  We love sacrificially.
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  So in these four verses, Paul describes sacrificial love 15 different ways.
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  And so, yes, this is a 15-point sermon, but we'll move really quickly through each of them.
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  So number one, and they'll all follow this format, sacrificial love is patient.
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  Sacrificial love is patient.
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  The Greek word here, rendered patient, comes from two words meaning long-tempered.
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  If you're patient, you're slow to anger.
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  You endure personal wrongs without retaliating.
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  You bear with others imperfections, faults, and differences.
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  You give them time to change, room to make mistakes without coming down hard on them.
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  Do you do that, men, with your wife and your children?
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  During the late 1500s, Dr. Thomas Cooper edited a dictionary with the addition of 33,000 words and many other improvements.
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  It's a big work.
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  He had already been collecting materials for eight years when his wife, a rather difficult woman, went into a study one day while he was gone and burned all of his notes under the pretense of fearing that he would kill himself with study.
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  Eight years of work.
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  Up in smoke.
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  Dr. Cooper came home, saw the destruction, and asked who had done it.
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  His wife told him boldly that she had done it.
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  The patient man heaved a deep sigh and said,
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  Oh, Dinah, Dinah, thou hast given a world of trouble.
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  And he quietly sat down to another eight years of hard labor to replace the notes which she had destroyed.
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  Sacrificial love is a patient love.
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  It bears with people for their good.
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  Second, sacrificial love is kind.
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  Kindness is sort of patience in action.
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  The Greek word comes from a word meaning useful.
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  A kind person is disposed to be helpful.
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  He seeks out needs and looks for opportunities to meet those needs without repayment.
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  He is tender and forgiving when wronged.
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  The word was used in Greek of mellow wine and suggests a person who is gentle, who has an ability to soothe hurt feelings, to calm an upset person, to help quietly in practical ways.
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  Note that it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance.
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  Romans chapter 2 and verse 4.
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  So sacrificial love is kind.
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  Third, sacrificial love does not envy.
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  The word means to eagerly desire and it is used both positively and negatively in the Bible.
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  Envy or jealousy in the negative sense is related to greed and selfishness.
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  The jealous person wants what others have.
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  He wants things for himself.
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  He does not want to give of what he has or of himself for the sake of others.
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  Right?
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  It's self-seeking, self-serving.
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  And this is not love.
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  Sacrificial love does not envy.
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  Fourth and fifth, sacrificial love does not boast and is not arrogant.
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  These two ugly twins are related.
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  They both stem from selfishness and are the flip side of jealousy or envy.
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  John MacArthur in his commentary on this text said,
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  Jealousy is wanting what someone else has.
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  Bragging is trying to make others jealous of what we have.
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  Jealousy puts others down.
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  Bragging builds us up.
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  So boasting is an outward manifestation of pride.
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  The bragger tries to impress others of his great accomplishments in order to make himself look good.
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  But love isn't trying to build up me.
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  Love is trying to build up the other.
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  Love is humble.
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  The humble, loving person is aware that everything he has is an undeserved gift from God.
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  See 1 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 7.
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  So he doesn't boast, but thankfully uses what God has given him to serve others.
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  Sacrificial love does not boast and is not arrogant.
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  Sixth, sacrificial love is not rude.
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  Love does not needlessly offend.
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  At times the truth is offensive, but love is not needlessly offensive.
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  Love has good manners.
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  It is courteous, polite, sensitive to the feelings of others, and always uses tact.
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  The reason we are not courteous when we are not courteous is that we are thinking only of ourselves and not of others.
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  Sacrificial love is not rude.
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  Seventh, sacrificial love does not insist on its own way.
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  It is not selfish, does not demand its rights.
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  Selfishness is the root problem of the human race.
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  It is the antithesis of love, which is self-sacrificing.
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  Elizabeth Elliott was once speaking on the subject to an audience that included some young children who were sitting right in front of her.
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  As she spoke, she wondered how she could make this plain to them so that they could apply it.
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  Later, she got a letter from one of those children, a six-year-old boy who wrote,
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  That little boy was learning the importance of sacrificial love.
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  Aren't you glad that Jesus didn't insist on his own rights?
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  He would have stayed in heaven.
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  He would not have come to serve you and I by suffering in our place for our sin.
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  Jesus, after all, was God.
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  He did not have to do this thing.
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  Just as Jesus laid down his life for us, we are to lay down our lives for one another.
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  He is our supreme example.
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  Sacrificial love.
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  Sacrificial love does not insist on its own way.
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  Eighth, sacrificial love is not irritable.
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  The Greek word here, rendered irritable, means to sharpen, stimulate, rouse to anger.
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  It is not touchy.
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  Love does not have a hair-trigger temper.
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  Some people make everyone around them walk on eggshells.
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  They're easily offended and they use their temper to intimidate and to punish.
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  When you're angry, you are usually not loving, right?
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  There are some occasions for righteous anger.
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  But most often, when we're angry, we are not being loving.
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  Sacrificial love is not irritable.
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  Ninth, sacrificial love is not resentful.
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  Love does not keep a tally of wrongs and bear a grudge until everyone is paid for.
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  It doesn't try to gain the upper hand by reminding the other person of past wrongs.
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  One married man said to a friend,
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  You know, every time my wife and I get into a conflict, she gets historical.
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  His friend said, Historical?
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  Don't you mean hysterical?
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  And he said, No, I mean historical.
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  She rehearses everything I've ever done wrong in the whole history of our marriage, right?
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  That's keeping score.
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  That's not love.
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  Love forgives.
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  Sacrificial love is not resentful.
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  Number 10 and 11.
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  Sacrificial love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
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  These qualities are the flip side of one another.
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  To rejoice in the truth means to be glad about behavior in accordance with the truth of God's word.
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  If someone you don't like falls into sin, you don't gloat.
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  You grieve because God is grieved over sin.
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  If they repent, you rejoice.
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  There's a fine balance to love.
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  Although love is kind and overlooks the faults of others,
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  it does not compromise the truth or take a soft view of sin.
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  To allow another person to go on in sin, whether it is known sin or a blind spot in their life,
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  is not seeking his or her best and therefore is not love, right?
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  Sometimes we must confront people and sometimes we can't do it with the measure of kindness we would like.
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  Love will, when possible, sensitively confront and correct precisely because it cares deeply and knows that sin destroys.
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  Love rejoices with the truth.
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  Love gets excited when it hears of growth in people's life.
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  It seeks after that very thing.
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  Love encourages by expressing joy over little evidences of growth, right?
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  Valuing the good that God is working in people as you minimize those things they still need working on.
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  The Apostle John wrote in 3 John verse 4,
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  Sacrificial love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
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  Twelfth.
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  I don't say that often, do I?
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  Sacrificial love bears all things.
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  The word can mean either to bear up under or to protect by covering.
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  If it has the first meaning, then it would be the same as endures all things.
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  I, for a long time, have wondered, how is bearing and enduring different?
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  I prefer the second meaning for this reason, that Paul's trying to communicate something different here.
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  That is, to protect by covering.
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  Love doesn't broadcast the problems of others.
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  Love doesn't run down others with jokes, sarcasm, put-downs.
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  Love defends the character of the other person as much as possible within the limits of truth.
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  Love won't lie about weaknesses, but neither will it deliberately expose and emphasize them.
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  Love protects.
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  You can think of it in those terms.
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  Sacrificial love bears all things.
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  Thirteenth.
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  Sacrificial love believes all things.
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  Love trusts.
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  This does not mean gullibility.
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  It does not mean that love is not suspicious and doubting of the other person's character and motives without good reason,
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  even if his actions offended you.
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  If trust has been broken, then it needs to be earned again, step by step.
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  But love believes the other person is innocent until proven guilty.
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  Not guilty until proven...
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  That doesn't make sense.
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  That's a nonsensical sentence I wrote.
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  Love believes the other person is innocent until proven guilty.
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  Period.
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  If there's a problem, love doesn't jump immediately to blame the other person.
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  Love assumes the best of a person instead of assuming the worst.
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  Fourteenth.
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  Sacrificial love hopes all things.
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  Love is not pessimistic.
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  This little phrase in this chapter I have to go over again and again in my head because I am a born pessimist.
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  Love is not pessimistic.
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  It does not expect the one loved to fail, but to succeed.
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  Love refuses to take failure as final.
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  It exudes a godly optimism which says,
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  I know you can do it because God in you is able to do it.
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  It does not ignore reality.
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  It does not close its eyes to problems, but it rests on the promises of God.
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  That he is working all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to purpose.
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  Right?
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  It is confident that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ.
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  Sacrificial love hopes all things.
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  Fifteenth.
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  And finally.
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  Sacrificial love endures all things.
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  The word endures is a military word in the Greek, meaning to sustain the assault of an enemy.
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  It has the idea of holding up under trial, of perseverance in spite of difficulties.
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  It means that love hangs in there, right?
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  It hangs on.
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  It's not just a passive stoic attitude.
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  It's a positive triumphant spirit that sticks it out.
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  There's an epidemic among Christians of bailing out of tough situations.
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  People get a bit uncomfortable and they run.
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  All areas of life this happens.
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  Love hangs in and love gets to work.
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  Sacrificial love endures all things.
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  That's how love acts, right?
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  Such an opportunity.
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  And always have had, to be clear.
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  But we have such an opportunity today and a day out ahead of us to be characterized differently as God's people.
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  This is love.
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  It is sacrificial.
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  Wholly directed to building up others for the glory of Christ.
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  Of course, nobody can love like this on their own, right?
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  God is love.
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  But put Christ in verses 4 through 7 instead of love and you have a description of him.
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  Jesus Christ is patient and kind.
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  He does not envy or boast.
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  He is not arrogant or rude.
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  He does not insist on his own way.
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  He is not irritable or resentful.
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  He does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
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  Jesus Christ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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  If we are to love one another sacrificially as we ought, we must focus on his perfect love for us and walk in a spirit who produces his love in us.
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  Let's pray together.