Love is...(5)
The Church of Corinth; Struggling to be in the world but not of the world • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 41:26
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We come now to the final statements, made by the apostle Paul, in regards to love. Verse seven of chapter 13 could be looked at as summary statements about love that encapsulate those things that we have previously stated. It is important to note that these statements are written in a Chaistic structure. Chiasm in the Hebrew language is found throughout the Bible, and it is a pattern where are the writer uses lists that build in emphasis and similarity. In our list today, there is correlation between bears and endures and believes and hopes. The pattern then is ABBA. This device simply is a way for the audience to see the commonality in what is being said.
10. We Face and Bear Up All Situations
10. We Face and Bear Up All Situations
This first verb has given commentators fits in the life of the church, because it is an obscure word used by the apostle Paul. In its purest form, the Greek word STEGO means to cover up, such as putting a roof on a building which covers and protects the building from the elements. But in the few uses of the apostle Paul, the word build upon that meaning. It is most helpful to look back to first Corinthians chapter 9 to see Paul's usage in other texts.
12 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.
In this passage in 1 Cor 9 Paul is talking about his authority as an apostle, and how he does not always exercise that authority so that he does not create an obstacle to sharing the gospel. Although Paul had such a Christian liberty to apply his authority, he “endured” or “put up with” the situation. In this context in 1 Cor 9, Paul then is not using STEGO in the sense of enduring persecution, but instead, a better interpretation may be to face and bear with the challenge before him.
Therefore what Paul is teaching regarding love has two components. First, this is love comes face to face with all challenges. Love leads us to courage and not fear. Secondly, Not only do we face the challenges, but we support and bear with those challenges with the aspect of support for others or ourselves. Let’s dive deep in these two aspects for a moment.
1. Christian love compels us to face the challenges after challenges in this life. Christians are courageous because we possess a strength in the Lord who saves us. Therefore to face a challenge as a believer is to not be fearful but to do hard things. We can accomplish hard things first and foremost because the Lord is our refuge and strength. He empowers us to accomplish that which we could not accomplish it in our own strength. Christians then are not sheepish in the sense of being afraid but rush into challenges knowing that the Lord is on our side.
The courage of young David to face a giant head on is rooted in the power and strength of the Lord guiding David in courage to do hard things.
2. But we also recognize that we face challenges and do not buckle under the weight of such things because the Lord ungirds us with his power and with his people. As we read “Love bears all things” we must see a scenario where we bear with the challenges of one another in the church. We are the support structure that is needed for great trials. We do not back down and we are not afraid to face them.
I was encouraged this week by many of you acknowledging the task presented before you in going to a sinning brother and pleading with him to repent. This is hard to do and yet you are seeking to be obedient and faithful to the Lord’s calling on your life as a fellow church member. You are seeking to help bear the load of this professing brother.
2 Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.
Calvin writes regarding the act of lovingly bearing others burdens,
As we are naturally too much devoted to self, this vice renders us morose and peevish. The effect is, that every one wishes that others should carry him upon their shoulders, but refuses for his part to assist others. The remedy for this disease is love, which makes us subject to our brethren, and teaches us to apply our shoulders to their burdens
John Calvin and John Pringle, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 424.
I am interested in visiting the Hoover Dam in Arizona. I am amazed by structures such as this that were built by humans to harness the power of water for hydroelectricity. I discovered upon reading about the dam that the structure itself is 726 feet high and the structure weighs 6.6 million tons. One of the things that fascinates me is the pressure of water that is contained behind that wall of concrete. It is estimated that there is 45,000 lbs of pressure per square foot being held back and contained behind that man made wall. It seems almost impossible but it was accomplished.
What also seems impossible to many of us are difficult situations that we face were we feel the pressure of the difficulty, maybe not 45,000 lbs of water pressure per sq inch, but we feel a heavy burden. The passage in Galatians reminds us that as believers, we bear that load and that weight in difficulty for ourselves and for others. We are not afraid and we are not going to crumble under its weight. We face and bear up under the challenges.
Why? Our great God has given us his strength. He doesn't need a man made dam to hold back the waters. He does it with the command of his Word. He told Moses to command the waters of the Red Sea to part and they did. He also told Joshua the same at the Jordan river. If He has shown us these things in his power, then when he tells us that love faces difficulties head on and weathers the storm without crumbling, then he will do bring it about for his glory. Do not be afraid. Do not give up. God undergirds us so that we won’t crumble and we can help othes not crumble as well.
11. We Overflow with Faith and Hope
11. We Overflow with Faith and Hope
The second statement that love believes and hopes all things is first rooted in our faith in the Lord and the work he has accomplished in this world. Because we trust in Christ, we have been transformed by the renewing of our minds. Before Christ, our mind was corrupted with lies and deceit. We hungered for deception and gladly applied it to circumstances as young children into adulthood. But when Christ changes us, our renewed mind goes from people of deception to people with truth, that truth is rooted in the person of Jesus Christ, to which we put our faith. So because of our faith in Christ, what Paul means in this statement is that our faith in Christ leads us to have faith and others as well.
To believe all things does not call us to be gullible Christians, who dispel any reason and logic but instead, it calls us to be wise and discerning. With wisdom and discernment that comes from God, the believer, then must live day by day, trusting in the providence of God, and the purposes of God, that are being carried out in this world.
Proverbs 14:15 warns against being simple minded
15 The naive believes everything, But the sensible man considers his steps.
Paul is not being contrary to Proverbs but instead is promoting a love that is overflowing with a faith, rooted in God. Christian love can and should be an optimistic love, not a cynical and pessimism. I hear some Christians speak as if they are Eyore from the Winnie the Pooh Cartoon. Eyore was always so gloomy and melancholy so much that a little rain cloud followed him around wherever he went.
Instead, believers in Christ should have a faith that leads them to joy and optimism. We have believe that God is at work and he is at work even among evil in the world. Therefore, we should be people who also see the best in others and live as people who think about what they know to be true instead of dwelling what they assume to be true.
8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
We can get caught up mentally in mind games of uncertainty and thinking about things that are unprofitable to the Christian’s joy. We can be overwhelmed with what could be that we fail to dwell on things that are certain in this world, certainty rooted in God. This mental cesspool leads us to pessimism about much of life instead of finding good and believing that God can powerfully affect all of this world.
Now I mention this story quite often in the gospels because it is just so powerful. Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue seeks out Jesus because his daughter is dying. When he finds Jesus to come and help his daughter, Jesus is sidetracked by the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. By the time Jesus helps her, words come to Jairus that his daughter died. The circumstances led to a gloomy and difficult report for Jairus.
In Mark’s account of the story, Jesus says to Jairus after this news, “DO NOT FEAR, ONLY BELIEVE.” In Luke’s account he adds more, “do not fear, only believe and she will be saved.”Then Jesus goes back to his home where the dead child was lying, and he raises the child from the dead. Now before she was raised, Jesus asks Jairus to think on things that are true. What was challenging for Jairus was to think that Jesus, who was obviously a powerful worker of miracles, could actually raise someone from the dead. It is actually easier for Christians today to have greater faith because we know Jesus raised himself from the dead. Jairus did not have that truth yet and so the Lord showed him.
Therefore, what we believe about the Lord Jesus and his display of power and truth will lead us to be loving optimists. This means that believing all things in Christ is also being one who Hopes in all things .
Hope in the Christian life is about the expectation of what is promised. Our hope is founded on the victory of Christ that was accomplished on the cross.
13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
We are called by the power of the Spirit to abound in hope which means our hope is in abundance, it is overflowing. This is rooted in our belief about all the Lord has accomplished, most importantly the victory that we have in Christ. The victory of the Lord ensures that we are also victors in this life, not just the life to come.
Romans 3. Among the Weak and the Strong (14:1–15:13)
the Christian life is God’s empowering presence in the midst of life’s uncertainties. It is not up to us to conjure up hope or any other spiritual quality. Our only access to empowerment is to believe. Then God steps in and does the rest. The Christian life is a supernatural life in the fullest sense of that term: “Christ in you, the hope of glory
Some people even blame our eschatology as being the reason Christians act so hopeless. If we are not careful, even our premillennial views can lead us to be hopeless in God’s work on the earth. For premillennialists, which I assume most of you are, you believe that before Christ returns, society will be progressively more evil. What we cannot do is fall into hopelessness and despair as if the Lord is still not working and bringing about change continually in this world.
Should the world sinking into greater depravity rob the church of our hope that not only will Christ come again and rescue His people, but that He is at work now on this earth. He is changing hearts now, he is saving marriages now, he is defeating the struggle with sin now. Our belief in the Lord Jesus leads us to be proponents of loving optimism.
This all connects to our love for others because it leads us to face challenges head on, to not buckle under their weight, but to press through hard relationships with grace, knowing that the Lord can change people by his power and grace.
12. We Overcome
12. We Overcome
The last statement that Paul makes is the love endures all things. The word HYPOMENO is the standard word for being steadfast and outlasting diffculty. It means that as Chrisitans who love, we do not give up but instead we finish the task set before us. This is regardless of the challenge. This power to overcome comes through the power of the Spirit in us and it is rooted in Christ.
2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Let us be reminded of the great steadfastness and endurance that the Lord Jesus displayed in overcoming social rejection and shame, physical violence and contempt, public torture, and finally facing the wrath of God upon the cross so that sinners can go free. He endured. He overcame.
Looking then again at this passage in Hebrews, look at how the author connects our belief and hope in Christ with the endurance that He displayed
1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Notice that because Christ endured, we also too challenged and equipped to also endure until the end. Because of the testimony of Christ powerful steadfastness, we do not lose heart and grow weary. We instead love long and we love fully until the end. We don’t give upon people who have given up on us. We remain steadfast in doing good towards them and we hope in Christ to change them and we show grace continually until their or our last dying breath. This is the love that endures to the end.
Christian love is a love that is so distinct in this world because as we have already seen, it dies to self. To endure in this life loving others as Christ loved us, we have to put to death our desires and wants. Our flesh will drive us to give up on others but the work and love of Christ will propel us forward to love until the end.
I used the word “Overcome” because it is a biblical word and encapsulates perseverance and hope through victory. It is a word John uses in his letters to the church and in the book of revelation. It means to endure and be steadfast until the end. But it contains the reason why....because are victors in Christ.
33 “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
The promise in John is that Jesus is the victor. He has overcome the evil and the obstacles of this world that separate us from a relationship with the Lord. John contines this thought in 1 John 5:4
4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.
Here is our belief and our hope wrapped up in our pressing forward in this life as believers with a love that is so foreign to anything this world produces. Its a love that is rooted in victory in Christ, confident he brings new life to dead souls and it leads us not to give up on people or circumstances.
Now finally look at the promises by John in revelation of those who overcome. They will
eat of the tree of life (Rev 2:7)
will not be hurt by the second death (Rev. 2:11)
they will be given a new name, given hidden manna (Rev. 2:17)
will be given authority over the nations (Rev. 2:26)
will be clothed in white and will not be erased from book of life(Rev 3:5)
will be made a pillar in the temple of God and will not dwell with God there (Rev. 3:12)
These promises move us to steadfast enduring and hope filled love. They drive us to love different than unbelievers love. It is impossible to love the same. We could call our love, alien love becuase it does not belong to this evil world. It is heavenly love that shines brightly through us by the work of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Review
Love suffers along with kindness
Love is content
Love is humble
Love is tactful
Love is selfless
Love is peaceable
Love is forgiving
Love champions holiness
Love faces and bears up challenges
Love overflows with faith and hope
Love overcomes