2021-2-7, The Meaning of Love: Love Is Patient, 1 Corinthians 4:4
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Intro?
February is the month which we celebrate love. So it is a good month for our church to talk about it, because as Christians, love is our thing.
1. No one in the world should be greater at showing love than Christians.
Love should be our defining feature; the first thing that people think of when they think of followers of Jesus.
35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
The idea Jesus has is that different peoples around the world will look at the magnitude of our love for each other and say, “Those must be Jesus followers!”
2. The love here is the greatest kind of love- Agape love. This means a strong affection for another person in which you really desire the best for that person. You desire God’s best for that person. This kind of love is especially characterized by a willing forfeiture of your own rights and privileges so the other person might receive God’s best.
It’s the sacrifice for another person kind of love. It is the foundation of every other kind of love, like that between couples, families, church families, and countrymen.
3. This true love comes from God. Like goodness, justice, power, and mercy, love originates from the heart of our infinite God.
4. As Christians, we have direct access to this love of God, because it is in the DNA of the gospel.
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
and
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
So, when we receive the gospel, we gain access to the most potent expression of love in all of creation.
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
5. When we are saved and adopted into God’s family, God’s love becomes a part of us.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
As new creations in Christ, His love is our essence. Just like biological children are chips off the old block, so God’s children start to carry the Father’s characteristic of love.
6. It is at the center of our relationship with God.
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment.
We deny yourself and serve the Lord for His glory.
7. It is to be at the center of our relationship with other human beings.
39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
We empty ourselves for the godly good of others.
8. Love is at the heart of our Great Commission from Christ.
Love is at the heart of our making disciples.
Love compels the love message of the cross forward. If you refuse to share the gospel, you are not loving your neighbor, because it is your neighbors greatest need.
9. Love is at the heart of our ministry in the Lord.
Love supports our preaching of the gospel to the world. It compels us to take care of lesser needs so that we can give the gospel.
17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?
So we feed the poor, heal the sick, stand up for the oppressed, support the weak, because these are all in the same key as the gospel message we preach. Ministry Center.
As I said, no one should be better at sacrificing what they have to give others God’s best than Christians.
32 Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. 33 And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. 34 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold 35 and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.
Christians love is our greatest opportunity, because no one but Christians can accurately reflect the love of God to the world. No one has as much to give because we receive our love to give from our eternal God.
10. Love completes our families and our church.
11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
When we look at the “love chapter” in Scripture, 1 Corinthians 13, Paul lays out that love is of greater importance than impressive spiritual gifts. It matters more than lofty knowledge and insight about the Word of God. It is more significant in the Christian’s life than mountain-moving faith. It is more important that suffering for the faith and it trumps charity.
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Do note what Paul is saying. He is not saying that love replaces all of these features of the Christian walk. Love is not something that is good to do in lieu of any of these. Rather, Paul is saying that each of these is made whole by love. If you take away love, then you really don’t have much at all. You’ve “nothing” he says.
But with love, well these all become quite powerful and effective for the Kingdom.
Without love they are weak. Take the Scribes and Pharisees. They are an example of people who show that something like knowledge of the Word of God is spoiled in the absence of love.
They knew the laws that said not to work on the Sabbath or to honor your parents, but their lack of love corrupted their knowledge of the Law. It made them do wicked things like take money. caused them to get mad when Jesus loved others- like healed people on the sabbath
Paul says that without love, the ethos of our witness as Christians is undercut. Without love, our church and our homes are incomplete and hollow.
One of the most important verses in Scripture is 1 Cor 13:13
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Paul explains in the preceding verses that of these three, only love can we see completely now- meaning we can seen love entirely in what Christ did on the cross of Calvary. Of faith and hope, we only can have a partial view in the present life.
So love is pre-eminent in the Christian life.
So we’ve defined it- sacrificing your rights and privileges for the good of another according to God’s standard of good. But, how do we do it? What does it look like in day to day life?
I’m not so sure Christians have a good grasp on the definition of love or how to practice it. Yeah, love is something which we easily talk about and it is assumed to be in our homes, churches, and communities, but it is too often absent in our actions.
So, the point of this series is to tutor us about love. Not only that we know what it is, but how it looks.
Thankfully, the Bible does a lot to define Agape love specifically. So, to begin with, let’s keep hanging with Paul in the love chapter.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
The first thing Paul does is point out that love as patient. The word Paul uses here means remaining even-tempered in the face of other people’s decisions and actions.
Patience means keeping cool and remaining gentle even when people annoy or provoke you.
You have to remember that even though this love chapter is used in weddings, it was first used in the context of a church family which was struggling to love God and love one another.
In the letters to the Corinthian church in Achaia you have Christians who are
arrogant about their eloquence and wisdom
criticizing the weakness of one others, especially Paul
fighting with one another
green with envy
Continuing to sin in grotesque ways even as they call Christ Lord.
They are suing each other
Puffed up in spiritual knowledge, spiritual gifts
This is a group that Paul had to be patient with and they have to learn to be patient with each other.
We struggle to be patient with one another in our marriages, our families, our workplaces, and our church.
When others say and do things, there is the constant temptation to react angrily with one another- to lash out. Do something.
But as justified as you may feel you may be in get mad, losing it is not love. Patience is. patience means keeping even-tempered. It means forfeiting your right to get angry for the sake of the good of the other person, so you may give them God’s best. Yeah, you may need to stand up for your pride, or prove that you are right, or something else for your own good which you think your reaction may accomplish, but these things down in in impatience are not Christian love.
Sometimes, our struggle to be patient is with God. We want to act out against God. The Lord may allow things to happen in our lives which make us uncomfortable and irritable. We may feel justified to lash out against God and to be angry with Him. But this is not loving God. Patience is. This means keeping even-tempered and trusting even in the face of trials. We give up our right to lash out so that we may glorify Him.
The patience of Job. God took everything away from him, but he waited for God to rollout his entire story.
So, what actions go along with being patient in our families, homes, and churches.
Patience means pausing, listening to, and praying about the words and actions of another person.
Many times patience may at times mean holding your tongue and doing nothing. However, patience does not always mean no response. If there is injustice. If there is sin. If there is a threat to others. Then there is a need to respond.
Nevertheless, Patience means a gracious, measured response.
The longer I live, the less I see any merit in an angry response.
19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
Diffuse the situation
I statements and reflective listening
Suspend judgment- not your job
Give the person the benefit of the doubt (golden rule)
You are responsible for you response.
Give a response which seeks God’s best that person.
The Holy Spirit will tell you what to say.
How will you manifest true love this week?
What right and privilege will you give up to give another person God’s best?
Your right to get angry?
Will you sacrifice your pride and business and make sure people hear the gospel from you this week?