Love is... (3)
The Church of Corinth; Struggling to be in the world but not of the world • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 45:34
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1-3 rebuke from Paul about the lack of love with elevation of spiritual gifts
4: first three aspects of love: love long suffers, long suffers with kindness and love is content
#4 Be Humble
#4 Be Humble
1 Corinthians 13:4–5 (NASB95)
4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,
This description of love encompass two statements from the apostle Paul. The first phrase is the outward action of the inward heart of a person who lacks love given by God. A heart that is arrogant or proud manifests itself in a braggadocios way. This arrogance is pride and this pride cannot dwell in a heart saturated by God’s love and desirous of showing God’s unconditional love towards others.
To be arrogant is to be full of pride in oneself and a heart of pride in oneself if full and there is no room for the Lord’s spirit to dwell. The sign reads: no vacancy, dwelling place occupied. This heart of pride is a result of proper view of oneself and and understanding of God. Pride denies a need for God because the inner man is assumed strong enough to which God is not needed. But this is a wrong view of self and wrong view of God.
Instead, the Scriptures teach us that as creator, God made and possesses all that he made. He is therefore Creator and King. As king, he rules over all his creation and his greatest desire is for his own glory. Man is a created being and therefore subjected to God’s rule. When sin entered the world in man’s rebellion, the greatest offense against God was the human pride- that man could be like God.
This is the gravest of errors of mankind. There is a great chasm that separates God and man. His power, his knowledge and wisdom, his eternality, his perfections and holiness. All of his attributes show mankind that we are nothing like him.
Therefore, before his great power and glory, man must be humbled. We must realize that majesty and glory of God and we must understand our dependance on him. He is the maker and giver of all things. Without him, we could do nothing.
1 In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. 2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.” 4 And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. 5 Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”
In Isaiah’s vision, he comes face to face with God’s great presence and he is humbled. He understands his great rebellion and sin against a holy God and he does not swell up in defensiveness or retaliation. He laments his sin and understands his condemnation because of it.
But God in his rich mercy provides a man for man to be humbled. When God saves a person, his eyes see differently. Instead of having a cutout of himself taped to his eyelids, where all he can see is his own self, God opens the heart and eyes of a man and now he sees God truly as King and Lord.
With that new vision, comes a new heart, a heart humbled by the weight of personal sin and the weight of God’s abundant grace to save wretches like me.
Charles Wesley
1 And can it be that I should gain
An int'rest in the Savior's blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain?
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me?
So divine love given to sinners saved by grace transforms a heart from prideful arrogance to a lowly and humble state. Jesus said that “if a man come after me, “let him deny himself” which summaries these characteristics of love today. To love God is to deny yourself and love for your own glory.
One character in history that stands in front of the line of those who were overcome with pride and arrogance is Muhammad Ali. This world famous contender and champion of the boxing world never seemed to relent from being a self-promoter.
“I'm the king of the world, I am the greatest, I'm Muhammed Ali, I shook up the world, I am the greatest, I'm king of the world, I'm pretty, I'm pretty, I'm a baaaad man, you heard me I'm a baaad man”- Muhammad Ali
I see in our culture today a digital platform to promote our selves like Muhammad Ali. To gather the praise of man, we post pictures, quotes, controversial political takes and we labor greatly to read all the comments that people make. Check your heart friend and see if these platforms are making us arrogant and glory-seeking fiends.
In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul has already warned the Corinthians that their quest for knowledge puffs them up. Now we see that gifts are inflating their egos even more. Paul warns again that a Spirit saturated person will love with a humble love. They will not be arrogant of mind nor will they brag about their greatness for the world to hear or read!
Gordon fee – “it is not possible to boast and love at the same time. The one action wants others to think highly of oneself, whether deserving or not; the other cares for none of that, but only for the good of the community as a whole “
24 but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.
14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
If we boast in anything, let us boast only in the Lord. For with this humble heart, we acknowledge the truth that we were low and he rose us up. We were dead and he gave us new life. We were separated from Him and he came to us. We were enslaved but he broke the chains and set us free.
#5 Be Tactful
#5 Be Tactful
5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,
The second point for us to look at again is in the realm of dying to self and it reads in the NASB, love does not act unbecomingly. In other words, those who love others with the love of God, are those who do not shame themselves or the ones who made them. Paul must have in mind the use of the spiritual gifts and the ways that they are being abused in shameful ways. These shameful ways might include arrogantly flaunting them while causing disorder in the worship gathering of the church in Corinth.
Paul used this term already when we spoke in 1 Cor 7 about those fathers who were not permitting their adult daughters to marry. He states that they were acting shamefully towards them or in other words, going against established norms of society. What this means is that when we are absent of Gods love, we care less about the established norms of life and we are apt to cross those lines of decency and respect.
I think the best way to state being tactful is to be sensitive to societies norms but not be a slave to it. This can be best illustrated from the well known grungy Seattle pastor Mark Driscoll. Mark made himself famous, not for the good theology he espoused or the faithful husband he strove to be. He got famous for being edgy in the church and in his sermons. He was made famous in evanglicalism for some of his sermons on intimacy in marriage, were he crossed tactful and decent lines in order to grab headlines. Instead of speaking generally about marital intimacy, he took things too far in the details and thus in my opinion, failed in being tactful.
Love requires us to consider others and deny ourselves, which includes the boundaries of decency and respect. But let me warn you that our culture today says respect my sin and this is not what Paul is commanding. We can respect persons as human beings and not support or respect their sin. Our culture says it offends if you don’t use personal pronouns as they now classify themselves to be. You can show kindness to these persons and still refuse to acknowledge these requests. For what they are asking is for you to deny God’s biological assignment and they are asking you to lie.
Rosaria Buttefield, former lesbian now regenerated beilever in Christ, writes,
The blood of Christ does not create an “ally” with the sin it crushes on the cross, for that stands in opposition to gospel hope. The world, the flesh, and the devil are not Christ’s friends. Trans identity and Jesus are not coterminous. It’s one or the other. Christians need to learn how to love their enemies, not pretend their enemies are their friends.
Christians who use the moral lens of LGBTQ+ personhood are not merely a “soft presence” in the enemy camp. Their malleability makes them pudding in the enemy’s hand. They make false converts to a counterfeit gospel that bends the knee to the fictional identity of LGBTQ+
Have you ever played UNO with someone and in the middle of the game, somehow the rules change and they change to their advantage. If the rules change, are we simply just supposed to go along out of diplomacy? Who gave them the authority to change what happens on a “DRAW 4”. Its called draw 4 for a reason.
What Paul states about love being tactful is to consider the culture and environment, to put on decency and graciousness, so as long as you don’t violate your conscience which is governed by the Lord and his word. This tactfulness comes in our words and actions towards other people.
#6 Be Selfless
#6 Be Selfless
1 Corinthians 13:5 (NASB95)
5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own
Paul has already stated something almost identical in his message on Christian Liberty
24 Let no one seek his own good, but that of his neighbor.
To seek the good of your neighbor is to not seek your own glory. This displays itself as.... Love is selfless. Love is selfless as it was displayed in Christ who did not consider the glory of heaven as something that kept him there. Instead his incarnation displays a love that was willing to sacrifice his own interests for the interests of others. He died upon the cross so that undeserving sinners could be freed from sin and death. In his death he took our sin upon himself as a substitute, bore the wrath of God reserved for us, and in return he gave us that righteousness so that in God’s eyes, He would see us as in right standing before him.
14 For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; 15 and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.
When we are transformed by the power of God sacrifice through Jesus, then our love is redirected for us to consider others.
We could say that selfless love is the love that leads to humility towards others, leads to tactfulness towards others and leads to graciousness towards others. This is the Spirit of God evident in us where we seek to give honor where honor is due. Christians then are always seeking to elevate others in their accomplishments and joys. Also the church seeks to seek out and care for those burdens of our brothers and sisters as well. This is the selfless love of God that is controlling us by God’s Spirit.
Matthew Henry makes a valid point worth mentioning about selfless love...
Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (1 Corinthians 13:4–7)
The apostle does not mean that charity destroys all regard to self; he does not mean that the charitable man should never challenge what is his own, but utterly neglect himself and all his interests. Charity must then root up that principle which is wrought into our nature. But charity never seeks its own to the hurt of others, or with the neglect of others. It often neglects its own for the sake of others; prefers their welfare, and satisfaction, and advantage, to its own; and it ever prefers the well being of the public, of the community, whether civil or ecclesiastical, to its private advantage.
Paul also remonstrates such love in his letter to the Thessalonians that he was focused on that gospel mission to deliver to them the message of the cross. But in order to bring that message to them, he offered something more than just words. He offered up his life regardless of whatever pain and difficulty he endured upon his own person, it was a selfless Christ-centered love.
7 But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. 8 Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.
He sacrificed greatly in order to make the gospel message clear. We must ask ourselves if we truly love with sacrificial love or just love that is convenient for us at the time. Selfless love is inconvenient love meaning that the love of God drives us out of our comforts and safe places to show love towards those that might be different or difficult. It also requires that we give up of ourselves so that we can serve others with that energy and purpose.
Years ago, while serving as a student pastor, we would participate in missions with a company called World Changers. We would typically reroof a house, build a wheel chair ramp for the elderly, etc. Countless times, I heard the grateful homeowner say, “these students paid to come and work at my house for free.” The act of love paved the way for teh gospel of Jesus’ love for sinners to be shared. It was always a beautiful moment.
We all know that parenting is sacrificial love. Parents give up of their time and resources for the duration of the lives of their children, putting their needs in the forefront. Sadly, this parental sacrifice has lead a new generation of young couples to avoid having children. Instead, they want to drive around in their custom vans, work remotely, and experience the world, free of the inconvenience of children.
While this is shocking to us, it has crept into the church as well. Parents are satisfied with shipping their kids off to others rooms in the church building so they can listen in church with peace (not talking about our babies). As you know, our goal at RCC is to reverse that trend for the sake of family worship. We are not trying to make parents suffer in worship but instead, we are trying to instill in our kids that worship matters and that should be done in the context of families worshipping together, no matter how challenging it may be. We all put on a little extra long suffering to make that point because we believe it brings glory to Christ.