Love is not Rude

Alright, this week we are continuing our series on / / What’s Love Got To Do With It by looking at a couple more things that love does NOT do.

Remember last week we looked at the fact that to do certain things we must learn to not do other things. I had a life coach many years ago tell me something that really stuck with me. She said, “/ / Everything you say yes to, you have to think about what that yes means and what you are in turn saying no to.”

And the reverse is also true, whatever you say no to, what are you saying yes to by saying that no?

If we say yes to the dessert, are we saying no to our health?

If we say yes to going out an extra time and spending money, are we saying no to saving or following our budget?

If we say yes to being envious or jealous or boasting, like we looked at last week, have we just said no to loving like Jesus loves?

It’s not fool proof, it doesn’t work with 100% of things we decide to do, but it’s a valuable question to ask, especially when it comes to these things we have been looking at in 1 Corinthians 13 that Paul says love does and does not do.

So, let’s read through this passage of scripture again, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and then let’s jump right in this morning:

/ / Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

And to remind us of the importance of this scripture, Paul says of it, first in chapter 12:31, / / …now let me show you a way of life that is best of all. chapter 13:13, / / Three things will last forever - faith, hope, and love - and the greatest of these is love. and in chapter 14:1, / / Let love be your highest goal.

It’s the way of life that is best of all. It’s the greatest thing that we should pursue and it should be our highest goal, to love and love well, and that our goal is to follow Jesus because of his emphasis in John 13:34-35, / / …I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.

See, these things we’re talking about, patience, kindness, not boasting, not being jealous - you realize that that’s not normal, right? These qualities that we are going through are things that need to be chosen and worked at. You have to want to do these things, or want to not do these things.

Patience, although it seems kind of standard, is something that is a constant challenge - for everybody.

Kindness, same thing, reminding ourselves of what kindness truly is AND living it - being kind - in every situation!

Not being jealous - not allowing ourselves to fall into the trap of envying what others have, do or experience.

Not being boastful - not falling into the equally dangerous trap of trying to prove ourselves by talking ourselves up - our accomplishments, our good qualities, what we have done or what we have or what we’ve experienced, so that people will look at us better.

These are things people struggle with, or maybe don’t struggle with, it’s just kind of normal life these days. Flex hard… #canthidemoney… make people jealous of your life… talk down to people…

And I’m not saying the world of void of good people. There are plenty of good people. What I’m saying is it doesn’t take much to see where these qualities are lacking. I don’t think I have a warped sense of reality here.

So, when it comes to Paul saying, “Guys, I’m going to show you the way of life that is best of all...” he’s not joking. This is of the utmost value. Living like this will set you apart, in a good way. These are qualities that shine. Because they make way for honor, integrity, honesty, forgiveness and grace. Those are things that people need, and as Jesus says, these are the things that show you’re different, that you’re a follower of Jesus.

You ever have that moment where you do something or say something and you’re like, “Oh, I did not display being a disciples of Jesus in that...” “oohhh..I could have done that differently!”

There’s grace, there’s forgiveness, there’s mercy, but these are just moments where we can look and say, not just I can do better, but I WANT to do better. Why? Because the goal is following Jesus, and if this is how Jesus loves, and he’s told us that we’re meant to love like him, then following Him is actually doing that, loving in the ways that He does. 1 John 2:6, which we read last week, / / Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.

Just the way it works. Our journey toward Christ should produce out of our lives a life like Christ - or at the very least, increasingly so. It doesn’t mean we’re perfect. Far from it - Paul even says in 1 Corinthians 11:1, / / ...you should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ. Most important part of that verse is “just as”, meaning, “Imitate me in the ways I imitate Christ, but in the other ways, let’s just leave that out of it, alright? Be kind like me, be patient like me, but in the area of boasting, don’t read what I wrote in my 2nd letter to the Corinthians in chapter 11, where I says, “/ / …don’t think I am a fool to talk like this. But even if you do, listen to me, as you would a foolish person, while I boast a little. Such boasting is not from the Lord, but I am acting like a fool. And since others boast about their human achievements, I will, too.

This is why we have the saying, / / Do as I say and not as I do, because sometimes our doing is catching up with our saying, right?

So, Paul is smart and says, / / Imitate me JUST AS I imitate Christ. If you look at the definition of that word it means / / just as, even as, in proportion as, in the degree that. So, what he’s really saying is - / / imitate me [to the degree that] I imitate Christ. And that’s solid advice right there.

Ok, so a few things to keep in mind as we’re going through this series:

4 questions to keep in the back of your thoughts.

/ / How does God love ME in this way?

How do I love GOD in this way?

How do I love MYSELF in this way?

How do I love OTHERS in this way?

The first question is the most important question - without understanding God’s love for us we’ll have a very hard time understanding how to love like He does. Oh sure, I can tell you about how God loves you and you can read about it, you can even read the bible about how God loves you, all of that is good, but / / hearing about God’s love pales in comparison to actually experiencing the love of God first hand.

Those moments where I realize I did NOT act like Jesus, but in that moment where I feel his grace and mercy and NOT condemnation, I have that recognition, “Wow, You are so patient with me...” Even when I feel corrected, I can remind myself of Hebrews 12:5-6 which says, / / “My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s discipline, and don’t give up when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those he loves...”

Very difficult to change if we can’t learn to accept correction. The word / / discipline means to educate, and remember what we’ve been talking about over the last few weeks - / / repent means to have a change of mind - And Romans 12:2 says, / / …let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

Being loved by God includes being educated, or disciplined, by God as we become open to his correction!

Even the word disciple means to be a student, a learner. When we decide to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, a follower of Jesus, we are saying, We want to learn and live by your way!

That’s why we’re doing this, to learn what it means to follow Jesus, so we can live our lives actively following Jesus. So, as we continue through 1 Corinthians 13, today we’re going to finish up vs 4, and get into the first part of vs 5, / / Love is not… arrogant or rude. Which is the ESV, or the NLT says, Love is not proud or rude.

Now, we looked at boasting last week, and although that is similar to being proud, or arrogant, there are some differences. And remember, we’re going through this pretty in depth because sometimes when we read scripture we gloss over these words and don’t actually take time to truly look at what it means, and in the meaning of these words is the direction for our life. And we can’t do better if we don’t know how to do better.

I was having this conversation with someone the other day, without the definition or boundaries of what we believe, when it comes to situations in our lives, we will flounder. If I don’t know what love does or how I’m meant to act in a loving way, or even if I do know but I haven’t made a commitment to live by that way and I’m presented with an opportunity to be patient, if I haven’t decided that’s how I live my life, I’m less likely to actually try to follow through with being patient.

James 1 says if you doubt your belief of God, if you doubt the things He has said, the wisdom that is from God, the word of God, then you are like a person who is tossed by the wind and waves of life - vs 8 says of that person, / / he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

We are meant to seek God’s wisdom and understanding and experience his love for us SO THAT we can make a firm decision, THIS is how I will live my life. And when the decision is already made then when you encounter a situation where you have the option, be rude or be kind, you choose to deny yourself and the opportunity to be rude, and you embrace the way of Jesus Christ and show kindness. Not because in that moment you want to, or because it makes the most sense, but because you’ve already decided to live your life by the way of Christ!

So, boasting would be really talking ourselves up, putting other people down so we can feel better about ourselves, “look what I did, it’s so good, it’s better than what this other person did.” or “Look what I have, look what I just bought.” #blessedlife

In a similar way, but without the stuff, arrogance takes a position that I am just better than you. The word is / / physioo, it means to blow up, or inflate puff up, make proud or haughty.

Envy, jealousy & boasting are more around what you have or don’t have, whether that is physical or not. I am envious of what you have or who you are, or I boast about what I have that you don’t have, trying to prove I’m better than you. Arrogance isn’t really about possessions, or skills or what we have, but more about how important or superior we think we are. It’s a sense of significance, of our own doing - thinking we are more than we are. Thinking I’m better than you, not for any reason even, just that I am.

It’s why we say things like, “Don’t get a big head...” “Don’t get puffed up now...” “Wow, that dude thinks way too much of himself...” We would call it a superiority complex.

Think of the way that Jesus talks about the Pharisees. Don’t pray like the Pharisees who stand on the street corner hoping to get noticed because of how religious they are, lording over people how great they think they are.

Romans 12:3, / / Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves...

Here’s the definition of / / arrogance - having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities

/ / proud - having or showing a high or excessively high opinion of oneself or one’s importance.

the ESV translation of Romans 12:3 says, / / …I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgement.

A lot of times in scripture when you see a but, it means there’s a turn around point. Paul is saying, “Don’t do this...” BUT “Do this instead”… We aren’t just being told what NOT to do, but also what to do. All of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 is this, right? The back and forth of what love is NOT vs what love IS.

So, he says in Romans 12:3, don’t be arrogant, thinking of yourself more than you should, or thinking you are better than you actually are, BUT, think of yourself with sober judgement, or be honest in your evaluation of yourself.

The key to not being arrogant is in the action of what we are meant TO DO, and that is to be humble. I would say that the opposite of Arrogance is Humility. If Arrogance is thinking more highly than you ought to, then Humility is thinking rightly of who you are.

See, I think we get humility wrong and go into false humility way often. Being humble is not talking yourself down, putting yourself down, taking a low position or stepping back or out. Humility is understand who you TRULY are. It is what Paul is saying in Romans, having an HONEST evaluation of yourself.

/ / If you want to win the battle against arrogance, you have to learn to BE humble. Trying NOT to be arrogant might work, but if you learn to BE humble, you won’t have to think about not being arrogant. 1 Peter 5:5-6 says, / / …dress yourselves in humility as you relate to one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor.

Jesus said in Luke 14:11, / / “…those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

I would say this is the most important thing you need to understand when it comes to arrogance vs. humility. / / Knowing who I am allows me to celebrate who YOU are.

The more I know who I am, and who God created me to be, and what the word of God says about me, it allows me to celebrate who you are because I’m comfortable and confident in my own skin. Humility is knowing who God created you to be and doing your best to live in that way. Humility is an honest evaluation. If you are amazing at finances, don’t shy away from that, own it, be great at it, and use the gift to serve the Lord and to serve people. If you have the spiritual gift of prophecy, you hear and see things from the Lord, don’t shy away from it, don’t hide in the background, allow God to speak through you to those around you.

Again, this always comes back to serving and working at loving like Jesus loves, doesn’t it?

Romans 12:3, which says don’t be arrogant but be humble, Paul continues to say in the next few sentences, in vs 6, / / In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.

The worst thing that can happen is to have a room full of people with incredible abilities and we’re all just sitting on our hands waiting for something to happen.

True humility is having an honest evaluation of who you are and living in it! And that is the greatest threat to arrogance there ever could be, because believing God made me good and worth while and wonderful allows me to believe the same of you. We read last week, Paul says, If everything is from God anyway, then what do we have to boast about? Exactly! So I can celebrate and encourage the gifts in you without the fear of being overlooked or not loved because someone else can do something great.

The most humble thing we can do is live the life that God called us to live 100%. nothing less, nothing more. Knowing we are a child of God, knowing our gifts, knowing our uniqueness and living in that, for the service of God and mankind who He created and loves!

So, love is not arrogant, or proud.

OK, next up, and this one is a bit of a doozy, so get ready for it / / Love is not rude.

Now this one, if we look at biblehub.com we actually see a wide variety of translations for this word. First, the greek word Paul wrote is / / aschemoneo, to be [or act] unbecoming; behave uncomely / unseemly, to act unbecomingly.

You’ll see a lot of these words if you read through various translations.

/ / …it does not dishonor others (NIV)

Doth not behave itself unseemly (KVJ)

does not behave rudely (NKJV)

It does not act disgracefully (NASB)

/ / does not act improperly (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

Love does not commit what is shameful (Aramaic Bible in Plain English)

love is not ill-mannered (Good News Translation)

does not behave itself inappropriately (New Heart English Bible)

/ / Doesn’t force itself on others (The Message)

Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect. (TPT)

So, you can see, there’s a real diverse display of words here, and for good reason. Patience is pretty straight forward. Kindness, a little more in depth, but not too hard to figure out. Boastful, jealous, arrogant, all somewhat self explanatory, to be honest, but rude. What’s rude? And rude defined by who? What you think is rude? What I think is rude?

Here’s some good phrases that describe what being rude is like...

/ / Lacking civility or good manners.

/ / Lacking refinement or grace.

/ / Socially incorrect in behavior.

When Kaylee was younger we used to ask her, “Was that kind, or was that rude?” And even she got it.

Ya know, sometimes when we read the bible we think in the grand, the big, the what seems really important. Even in this scripture - Patience, that’s a big thing. Kindness, of course. Not jealous or boastful or arrogant, I can get on board with that. But rude??? This is one of those areas where the Bible gets pretty specific and a little bit nit-picky in our pursuit of God and what it means to follow Jesus and rely on the Holy Spirit for the simple and small things - to be transformed by allowing God to change the way we think.

This is the relying on God to do what we can not, and asking for the courage and strength and determination to follow through on the things we can do. Right? Faith without works is what? Dead… so our faith, believing that God will do what He has said he will do, matched with our following what His word tells us to do!

So, let’s get into it. Let’s just face reality. There are things I do, things you do, things we all do that would be classified as rude, unseemly, unbecoming, and we probably don’t pay too much attention to it. Or we overlook it because it’s not all that bad, or it doesn’t feel like a sin… But we aren’t just called to live a life of not sinning. Jesus didn’t say people will recognize us by you not going around and stealing, killing or sleeping around… lots of people aren’t going around killing people. He said that they would know we are his followers by the way we love. Which means we aren’t known by what we don’t do, we’re known by what we DO DO...

That’ll preach. Do you hear that this morning? / / Our life as a follower of Jesus is not defined by what we are able to refrain from doing, “oh, I had a good day today, I didn’t sin...” that’s not it... / / Our life as a follower of Jesus is defined by what we DO that shows we follow Him…

Now, to ensure you don’t think I’m preaching redemption by works, because I’m not, we’ve already defined that loving others, which is what this is, following him means we love others, doesn’t start with us loving others, it starts by us learning to receive HIS love.

Our lives should exemplify what love DOES, because love has first done a work in us!

Galatians 5:13-14 says, / / For you have been called to live in freedom… But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Be free, but not free to do what you want, free to live as Christ has made you. Romans 12:10, / / Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. The ESV says, / / Outdo one another in showing honor.

So, how bad is this “rude” business?

Well, one of the words used in scripture is / / unbecoming - behavior that is not fitting or appropriate. Now, we have to be careful not to swing the pendulum here, and simply say, “If I don’t like it, it’s rude...” because I’ve noticed that there seems to be this ever growing ideology that if I deem that you are rude, then you are rude, and I am the one that gets to make that determination based on what I believe is rude.... which I don’t think is how we should look at this. Because you’re not meant to live by my standard, you’re meant to live by God’s standard. And my standard, that being the standard any one individual can have personally, will be as varied as the directions the wind blows.

So, a couple things to go over before we get really practical this morning.

/ / We live by the Word of God

This means really looking at and understanding what the word says about living a life that is not rude.

How would Jesus live his life, did he get offended or offend people without cause or without care? That doesn’t mean he didn’t offend people, he certainly did, especially the pharisees. I said it last week, we can’t presume to be able to please everyone. But that doesn’t mean we are not responsible for ourselves and our actions, we absolutely are.

/ / We live by Grace

If you do something you shouldn’t do, you probably want grace for yourself, so remember that if someone else does that something to you, have grace for them.

1 Peter 4:8, which could be a great add on to this series, says, / / Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.

This is a thought from Proverbs 10:12, although not a direct quote, / / Hatred stirs up quarrels, but love covers all offenses.

That doesn’t mean love ignores, or overlooks or even tries to hide sin. This is a call to forgiveness, not holding a grudge, repenting to each other and living a life of overcoming sin, denying ourselves and living in the way of Jesus, which is to love. Love works as a sort of shock absorber, cushioning and smoothing out the bumps and irritations caused by other people we are close to.

Have you ever had a friend hurt you? or offend you? Do something you don’t agree with? But you give them a second, third or 100th chance? Why? Because you love them.

So, remember those two things, we live by God’s word and definition of rude, and we live in grace toward others people and ourselves.

Now, the reason I gave those two things to keep in mind is because we’re going to look at 8 things we’re probably all doing that are rude, as a practical, “how can we do better” at this love thing! So, that’s your trigger warning!

/ / 1. Being Noisy

Now, this one you gotta take with a grain of salt, you can’t always do anything about it, but just think for a second, and you’ll probably have way more examples of this happening TO you rather than you doing this to someone else. Your car stereo, back yard, home stereo, talking in public… Again, there’s a line here, but I think we all know when we’ve pushed the boundaries - and why do we know that? Because I can guarantee we ALL can tell at least ONE story of someone doing this around us and we had the thought, “It’s just so rude of them to do that...” “Why are they being so inconsiderate?” “Don’t they know it’s 10 o’clock?” “Why are they doing that at 7am on a Saturday???”

/ / 2. Cutting in Lines

This is a couple years ago now, but I was driving in to the McDonalds up on Old Cutler and there was a car stopped kind of near the front of the building, and as I pulled in, and I am being 100% honest, I did NOT think this person was in line - I honestly must have just spaced for the moment, and so I pulled around the person and into line because there was at least a 2 car gap. Well, as soon as I was pulling in, this person who was there starts pulling up, a guy actually came out of the restaurant, up to my window, yelling at me how *BLEEP BLEEP* rude I was etc… and then when I get to the the call box to put my order in the car behind me just laid on their horn the entire time I was trying to order...

I didn’t mean it, but it was rude. Did I do something wrong? Maybe that’s arguable, but do I WANT to notice things like that to be able to act in a way that is honoring toward other people? Of course. I didn’t notice it, so I did something that ended up being rude. If I would have noticed it, I would have given a little tap on the horn to see if the person in the car was maybe just not paying attention and hadn’t seen the cars ahead pull up. Remember, this is not about what we can learn to refrain from doing, it’s about what we DO that exemplifies kindness, love, honor.

Have you ever let someone in front of you at the grocery store? I did this a couple weeks ago, I was pulling in to the lane at Publix, and could’ve booked it a little and got in front of the other person also walking toward that lane, but I recognized it and stopped, and said, “hey, you go first...” So there’s redemption, or maybe I’m making up for my McDonalds experience. But when I do that the other person looks at you like, “wow, that doesn’t happen very often...”

Lines for some reason are one of the most stressful of situations for some people. I always try to stay calm. I’ll whistle, or hum a nice tune to try and break up the tension when a line is going super slow.

/ / 3. Interrupting

This is a BIG one. Kelley and I have done a lot of work on this one in our relationship, and still working at it. But I would say we’re better than we were. We used to be pretty bad, and we got to a point where we were both open and gave each other permission, sort of, to say, “If you let me finish, please”… which is essentially saying to the other person, “you’ve just been rude”, without saying that.

I don’t catch myself all the time, but I try to, at least I think I do, Kelley will let you know if I do. I did it the other day, I savagely cut right into the middle of her sentence and I stopped myself and said, “Sorry, I cut you off.”..

Danny Silk, who teaches a course called, “Keep Your Love On”, we did it here a couple years ago, probably time to do it again, says that the purpose of conversation is to listen, not speak, it’s to understand, not convince. If I go into a conversation with the goal being to convince you of my point of view, I’m ultimately trying to control you. And most people in conversation are not listening with the intent to understand but listening for their opportunity to jump in and give their opinion.

Like I said, this is a big one, and we need to learn to catch ourselves when it happens so that eventually it won’t happen at all. And we need to give people the place to speak and share their thoughts while we truly listen with the intent to understand the person, because that actually shows that you really love the person.

/ / 4. Any Form of Disrespect for the Elderly

The bible actually says in Leviticus 19:32, / / Stand up in the presence of the elderly, and show respect for the aged.

1 Timothy 5:1 says, / / Never speak harshly to an older man, but appeal to him respectfully as you would to your own father. Talk to younger men as you would to your own brothers. Treat older women as you would your mother, and treat younger women with all purity as you would your own sisters.

That’s really an encouragement to respect people regardless of their age, but this is something we need to be teaching our kids because there is an increasing gap in the honor of the generations and it is not the way of love and I believe it grieves the heart of God. And this starts with us, as parents, being an example to our kids in how to respect people of any age, but especially the elderly. Take care of people! Show them honor and respect. The best thing we can do is teach our kids and be an example to them in helping people.

/ / 5. Bad Manners

Another one to be teaching and modeling for our kids. At the dinner table, reaching over people, slurping, smacking, chewing with your mouth open. Again, you might think this seems odd to talk about in church on a Sunday morning, but what did we read that rude is defined as? not flattering or appropriate behavior. And of course, I’m not saying get so picky on these things that it consumes you. Sometimes I put my elbows on the table, I don’t hang my head in shame and repent for it. But for the sake of pursuing a life of love and following what 1 Corinthians 14:1 says, let love be your HIGHEST goal, how are we doing?

What’s the standard we want to live by? Because if there isn’t a standard, and we don’t get that standard from our relationship with God and His word, then we’re saying any standard goes. Are we satisfied with living as the standard of things in this world seems to go down, or do we want to be trend setters in the best way showing what it truly means to love.

The fact that we have a saying when someone does something nice, “See, chivalry isn’t dead...” It used to just be normal life, now it’s something special because we’ve lost something of the standard of living toward each other. Maybe this is holding the elevator, hold a door, stepping aside and letting someone go first or helping someone with their groceries, or picking something up when someone drops something…

/ / 6. Driving

Oh man, this is a big one. Cutting people off. Tailgating. Did you know the #1 cause of accidents in the US is due to distracted driving. So, if rude is inappropriate behavior, then in respect to how we treat other people on the road, loving people on the road would be as simple as paying close attention to what we are doing, where we are, whats going on around us and following the rules of the road.

/ / 7. Using the Last of Anything and NOT Replacing it

I can hear the need for counseling shoot up in the room as we speak… Paper in the copier at the office, gas in a shared car, the toilet paper roll [totally guilty - actually I think I’m doing better on that one]. Let’s add in this one, leaving things around the house that you just expect, or don’t even think about and inadvertently make someone else clear up [dishes, clothing, socks, underwear, toys, remotes, games, mail etc…]

So, this is something I’ve had to personally work at. See, there are things I just don’t care about. If a cup sits on the end of the couch or the coffee table for a couple days before it finds its way to the sink that didn’t bother me. And I don’t do it on purpose but there are things that I just don’t personally care about nearly as much as Kelley does. But after nearly 15 years of marriage I have realized that although it doesn’t matter to me, it DOES matter to her, and by NOT doing it, I’m being rude, even though it isn’t a big deal to me. And it’s not actually the leaving the cup that is rude, it’s the ignorance to the person I love…It’s like the McDonalds situation. I WANT to recognize situations BEFORE they happen so that what I do IS honoring, not just not rude.

I have actually heard Kelley say, audibly, as I get up to go to bed, and take the cup and bowl to the kitchen, “awww, I love when you do that...”

If it matters to her, it should matter to me. And there is room for compromise and I’m not saying we just live by every little detail of someone else’s life. But listen to this scripture… Romans 12:18, / / Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. the ESV says, IF possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

/ / 8. Being Late

Or we could just call this one Time Management. And I get it. Life happens. Things seem unavoidable. We all know that, but every time we are late, we are affecting someone else. If it’s a meeting, of even just a casual dinner, whatever the case may be - the reality is most of the time, the reason we are late is because we did not do what we needed to do up front to ensure that we would be on time. Whether that is planning our route, planning our day, getting up earlier ....

The reality is this, the use of our time often shows our respect, or lack of respect, for someone else’s time. It shows we thought about it, made it a priority, or not. There was a reason that made being on time not as important.

Kaylee is 8 years old, and it took a good 6 years for us to stop using the excuse, “oh we’re still getting used to being on time with a child...” Is that true? Because the real reason is we weren’t trying hard enough. It is true, there is so much more to do when you’re not just getting yourself ready, and sometimes you’re unable to do anything to get the people you’re waiting for to speed up. We said a couple weeks ago, we still need to teach our kids time management!

Do we need patience for each other? Absolutely. Probably why Paul started with that one, because he knew that everything else he was going to say was going to trigger certain people thinking about what other people have done to them!

Perfect example. A few years ago, before Kelley and I took over the church, our service started at 10:15, on paper. But in reality, we never started until at least 10:30 or really, more like 10:45, but everyone knew we started at 10:15, even though we never started at 10:15, so it wasn’t important to be here at 10:15. So, we decided to switch it to 10:30 and do our absolute best to actually start at 10:30. And for a short season we were on time, we started at 10:30, but Ya know what happened? over time it crept up and crept up until one Sunday we didn’t start until 11am.

And I realized in that moment, I am not responsible for anyone else, I am responsible for myself. See, I’m not saying this because people are late coming to church. I’m saying this as a matter of us honoring all of you coming in. Now, one way the pandemic pushed us in the right direction was that suddenly we were online, where we had not been live streaming before, and we also weren’t waiting for people in the room, so there was zero reason for us to start late. We should start on time every week. So, when we were allowed to start meeting in person again we made the decision to continue streaming our services online AND to start on time every week - not just for the sake of those joining us online, but it was a perfect opportunity to force ourselves to honor everyones time.

I can’t expect anyone to show up on time if we aren’t starting on time. That makes no sense. And really, we’re here at like, 9:30 or 9:45, so y’all can feel free to come and have a coffee here and hang out with us! Our desire is to have real, healthy community, right? Let us pay for your Sunday morning coffee!

It’s also why if you are having a conversation with Kelley or myself and the other one of us walks up and says, “Hey, we’re starting” it’s not our intention to be rude and walk away from our conversation, it’s our intention to NOT be rude by starting things on time.

So, we’ve done ok, unless we have technical difficulties, which happens sometimes and are kind of unavoidable, sort of, but our commitment to you is that we will do our very best to start at 10:30 because we want to value and honor your time.

We could keep going, there’s plenty of things we could dig into, and a lot of this stuff might just seem like innocent behavior, but part of the overall issue is that most of these things, when we really look at them are situations where we are more concerned with OUR situation, OUR story, OUR life, OUR world than what is happening around us and who is around us. It’s the lack of thinking and the lack of noticing things that often ends up being why we do certain things. And if we are thinking more of ourselves then we miss the opportunity to show love because we weren’t thinking of the other person. The more I notice things, the more honoring I can choose to be and the less rude I will be. If I would have just noticed that the car at McDonalds was actually in line…

If we truly make an effort to do that, meaning we think less of ourselves and more of those around us, what was once rude behavior will turn into honoring behavior. Here’s the reality, rude behavior isolates people, it pushes them away, which is the opposite of what love does. And honor brings people in close. And isn’t that kind of the whole point of loving someone, to draw people in?

Rude behavior, whether we are intentionally doing it or not, says to the people around us, “I’m not thinking about you.”

1 John 3:18-19 says, / / …let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. Our actions will show that we belong to the truth...

I’m not saying you’re a rude person, or I’m a rude person. I’m not classifying anyone as that. I’m simply challenging us to live by the standard that God has set before us, to live a life of love and honor. If we are truly open to God changing the way we think, which is the true path to transformation in Romans 12:2, then we have to be willing to make these little course corrections along the way.

You can’t steer a ship by just picking it up and turning it around while it’s moving, you have to turn it one degree at a time… These are small course corrections over time.

And I want to leave you with this thought this morning. / / The choices we make represent how transformed our minds have become.

When your faith, asking and believing God to do what only He can do, is matched with your actions to make these small course corrections, the commitment to be more patient, more kind, the commitment to boast less, be less jealous, be less arrogant and rude, to actively try, you will realize that God is working in you and changing you from the inside out.

By Paul saying “love isn’t rude” he’s giving us an opportunity to get very specific about HOW we live our lives SHOWING the love of God. Listen, no one wants your Christianity if you’re rude and jealous and unhappy, if that’s all it looks like Jesus offers, then keep your Jesus. But if your life represents true change, and life, love, happiness and hope, that becomes really attractive. If you’ve become a more kind, patient, loving person, if you’re not jealous but you’ve become content with your life, if you’re not always complaining, but you are actually honoring of those around you. You’re not putting people down, but you’re encouraging them. That shows that what you have is valuable.

We believe God wants to change us. We also see the opportunity we have to CHOOSE to be better. We get to CHOOSE to be patient and kind, putting others above ourselves. / / The choice is yours, the transformation is the Lords! And I want my life to be transformed as I pursue and allow God to teach me how to think differently SO I will act differently!

Let’s pray.