30 Days of Community Verse 7

Love can do it

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 CSB

Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

So far in our 30 Days of Community we have seen that God is love. That we are talking about His love, His type of love. We have seen how love is directional and how it is looking to express itself in community.

We spoke about doing the hard work of attending to our wounds so we are not easily offended. We looked at how to avoid being selfish by prioritizing the Kingdom of God.

Last week we spoke about rejoicing with the truth and being people of the truth.

This week we come to the topic of love’s persistences. Another way to say it is, love can do it.

1 Corinthians 13:7 CSB

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love Carries the Burden

Galatians 6:2–5 CSB

Carry one another’s burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone considers himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Let each person examine his own work, and then he can take pride in himself alone, and not compare himself with someone else. For each person will have to carry his own load.

We are called to carry each other’s burdens. We cannot carry them for another person but we can carry them with another person.

There are times when a person cannot carry the load and we are called to step in. But often it is not a load you can carry for another person But with them.

Someone else cannot carry the load of a struggling marriage for you. But they can watch your kids so you can get away or pay for a hotel or spend time pouring into your life. They can stand in the gap for you in prayer.

Someone else cannot manage your finances for you. But they can help you get where you are going. They can give you a boost up. They can also just teach you how finances work.

Someone else can grieve for you but they can grieve with you. We can sit with someone in their grief.

Again there are times when we can step in other people and bless with something to make it easier. Times when out of love we can lighten the load.

Jesus did this but He doesn’t live our lives for us. Jesus took the penalty of sin and shame. He gave us peace and rest. There is nothing we need to do on that front except accept it. There is not a lack that we must now do but often what we must receive.

Jesus did not mostly save us, He saved completely.

Hebrews 7:25 CSB

Therefore, he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them.

He completely saved and then He makes a way and empowers us to live the life He calls us too. We are not robots or automatons but real people living real lives, empowered by the real Holy Spirit.

If someone buys me a house or something big like that. They did that. I just receive it but now live in it. I cannot make it anymore mine than it is.

Jesus did it, and now we live in it.

Love will motivate and guide you. Love from the Holy Spirit producing fruit in us will guide us.

We are called in love, by love, and empowered by God’s love to help carry the burdens of others. We cannot do it for everyone but we can do it for someone.

A little girl was walking up and down the beach one morning after a storm. She was picking up starfish and tossing them back in the ocean. An old man was watching her told her she can’t really make a difference. There are too many on the beach. The little girl calmly picked up another one and tossed it back in the water and said, “it made it difference to that one.”

We cannot do everything but we can do something.

because love carries the burden

Love Believes All the right Things

This is not believing anything but believing the right things. It is about first putting the right things in our minds and then thinking about the right things.

Philippians 4:8 CSB

Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy—dwell on these things.

We must learn the art of doubting our doubts.

This is so closely tied to assuming positive intent its insane.

To love in community is to love other people and believe the best about them.

If someone comes to you and says so and so said X, and it does not line up with what you know about that person we should if not instinctively at least eventually get to a place where we say, that does not sound like them.

If doubts start to creep in then doubt the doubt.

This is a common twist in movies or shows. One person is on a mission and then someone says something contrary to the mission and they start doubting. We are watching the movie and if you are like me you start asking, “why are you listening to them?”

So, why are we listening to them?

In general we question whether loving is worth it sometimes. We ask is forgiveness us worth it. We ask why bother? What starts to happen is that we then start questioning not just the community or relationship but love itself. Then we start to question ourselves.

Hebrews 10:24–25 CSB

And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

When we abandon community and loving in community we lose our connection to others who provoke us to love.

Community and loving in community can be hard, but it is worth it. I believe this, I know this, and when I am asking myself the question, why bother, the answer is because it is worth it.

The momentary frustration or discouragement is worth it in the end.

The word believe or belief in the Bible is pisteuō and it means not just to think something but to be so persuaded of it that it changes the way you move forward from that moment on. It is a belief that causes change.

Love Hopes all the right Things

This ties right back into Love Believes All Things.

If I believe God’s promises, that it is worth it, then I can put my hope in God and not the person or the community. I can trust that God is going to work it all out according to His plan.

If I have belief that causes a change in my action then I can hope that will work out.

Hope in the Bible is not well that would be nice, it is a confident expectation.

Loving others, loving in community means hoping for the right things and putting that hope in action.

In Mark 2 we see a story about a man who is paralyzed. His friends believe and have hope that Jesus can do something about this. They try to bring him to Jesus but cannot get through the crowd. They climb up on the house and remove a few panels and lower the man to Jesus.

Jesus heals the man but something amazing happens here.

Mark 2:5 CSB

Seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Jesus sees their faith, not the man’s faith, He sees the faith of the friends, this man’s community. He sees their faith and forgives and heals the man.

Who we surround ourselves with is important. Do I have people around me who put their hope in Jesus.

This is also an important point in prayer.

Sometimes it is our faith. And sometimes it is the faith of those around us. Do they believe the right things.

To be a community of love means we are joining together to hope the right things.

We need to be on the same page with what is important what we stand by and in.

Sometimes we need to the person in the community that has the right hope. We need to be the leader and lead others well. But we also need to have communities that like we said from Hebrews,

Hebrews 10:24 CSB

And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works,

We need people who can move on our behalf. 1 Cor 13:7

1 Corinthians 13:7 CSB

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love Can Endure All Things

Endure - hypomenō to stay under, to remain, to not be moved.

Love is able to stay under and remains under all the right things. Loving in community means we know what is right, it knows what is true, and then it can endure anything.

Love can do it. Love can support it.

When we set our minds on the right things, when we hope in the right things, when we put our action on the right things then we can endure anything because of it.

As I said in week one,

This does not mean you have to put yourself in bad situations but it could.

Are we willing to do hard things for love, for community, for others?

Now use wisdom here don’t do something just to get hurt. Ask God, pray, press into Him and see how He leads you.

We talk a lot about being the hands and feet of Jesus. We talk about being the body of Christ. But what happened to His hands and feet? What happened to His body?

Psalm 22:14–17 CSB

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed; my heart is like wax, melting within me. My strength is dried up like baked clay; my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You put me into the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me; a gang of evildoers has closed in on me; they pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people look and stare at me.

Endurance is about going through the hard things not about resting in abundance.

Endurance is only something we can have when we have given ourselves over to the things of God.

To be the hands and feet of Jesus might mean discomfort and pain for the sake of love.

Are we really willing to be the hands and feet of Jesus? Are we really willing to endure what might come because of a commitment to love?

Are we willing to give a full measure of love? Again use wisdom here be led by the Spirit. Don’t cast your pearls before swine. But sometimes the hardest people to love are the ones who need it the most. Maybe it requires a little space between you but are we willing to do endure for them?

For the joy set before Him, Jesus endured the cross. What was the joy before Him? You and I?

John 3:16 CSB

For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Love gave and love endured all things. Not just the easy things, but the hard things too. This was painful and for us to love that means sometimes it will be painful. Sometimes it will hurt. Sometimes it will be hard but it will be worth it.

The Bible does not say there will not be tears, it says endure.

James 1:2–4 CSB

Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.

Will we endure all things for love? Will we give ourselves for love in community not asking what do I get out of it but what can God do?

If required are we really willing to be the hands and feet of Jesus even if that means pain?