Love in Power

Well, we are wrapping up our series on love this week and it just so happens to be Pentecost Sunday as well. And those two events couldn’t be more perfectly suited for each other.

On one hand we are celebrating the whole reason why / / Jesus came - for God so LOVED the world… and then we are celebrating what happens / / BECAUSE Jesus came, the Holy Spirit has been sent to us, to fill us!

If you don’t know what / / Pentecost Sunday is, or why we would celebrate it, here’s a bit of a recap of the Christian world 2000 years ago.

7 weeks ago we celebrated Easter. A bit different than what happened in Jesus time, it wasn’t a celebration, it was a murder. They hung him up on a cross, crucified him. But we know, three days later he rose again, and that actually started 40 days of resurrected Jesus spending time on this earth with his disciples before he goes up to heaven! Of course he wasn’t doing public ministry, he didn’t appear to everyone on mass, that would have definitely changed things I think... but 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, Paul says, …/ / Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. After that he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles.

So, some pretty good representation of people who saw Jesus alive after he had been crucified and buried. And Acts 1:3 tells us WHY he did this, / / During the forty days after he suffered and died, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God.

So, we have the crucifixion, the resurrection and a 40 day period of Jesus continuing to minister to his closest followers. And that makes so much sense. This whole thing is based on the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection proves that He is who He said He is. Without it, Christianity has nothing to stand on, it would be just another dead religion, BUT, the fact that Jesus IS alive, proves He is God and proves the teachings He gave. So, yes, when it says, “and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive...” that is a huge statement. They needed that!

And then we get to Acts 1:4 and it says, / / Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

This echoes what Luke wrote in the end of Luke 24:49, Jesus says to the disciples, / / “And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.”

Remember, these were some of the same guys who were around when Jesus was baptized and saw the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descend upon him like a dove, and heard the Father say, “This is my son in whom I am well pleased.” So there’s probably some pretty good excitement and anticipation building. What is it going to be like, are we going to get a dove? And then Jesus says, “But, you have to wait for it...”

Thankfully Luke records in Acts 1:4 that Jesus says, “…in just a few days...”. and that is truly all it was.

Now, what is so absolutely incredible about Pentecost Sunday is that it shifted the entire religion. All of the Jewish religion was really centered around the temple. In the Old Testament it was the tabernacle first, the tent that the Israelites put up when they were wandering in the wilderness, took it down every time they moved, but that is where the presence of God would show up. And for the first time and only in this religion, there’s an actual physical manifestation of a god. This is untrue of every other religion. The God of the Jewish bible is the only god who is alive and present, in the beginning, throughout history, and today! So that was good enough to begin with, a God who actually exists and presents himself to his people. But it seemed to be quite location specific.

Then after the tabernacle, after Israel has land as a nation, they build the temple, and in the temple there are different sections and one of those sections is called the Holy of Holies, and it’s where God would visit the priests, but just once a year and just one priest was allowed in there.

But when Jesus died on the cross, Matthew 27:50-51 says, / / Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit. At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom...

This was to signify that no longer was the Holy Spirit going to only visit this place called the Holy of Holies, which was behind this curtain - that is a major change. Jesus had been saying that the Holy Spirit will be given to anyone who desires Him, and not in a place, or a room, or a building, but he says in John 14:15-19, / / “If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.”

So, four things about the Holy Spirit we must understand:

/ / The Holy Spirit is available to anyone who follows Jesus

Jesus says in Luke 11:13, / / “…if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”

Paul writes in Ephesians 1:13, / / And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago.

So, the promise is, repent, have a change of mind, recognize you don’t know best, but God does, so you choose to follow Jesus as the savior who can lead you into life, and in doing so you receive the Holy Spirit.

/ / The Holy Spirit will never leave you

Jesus said it in John 14, The Father will give you another advocate, who will never leave you.

/ / The Holy Spirit brings truth

We’ve talked about truth a lot in the last few weeks as we’ve been looking at love, haven’t we? What better gift could we receive than the gift of the Holy Spirit who will lead us into all truth. That’s what Jesus said, / / My father will give you another advocate, who will never leave you, he is the Holy Spirit, who leads into ALL TRUTH!

/ / The Holy Spirit wants to live IN you

As you read the Old Testament there are moments where the Spirit of God would rest ON someone for a certain task. Samson, David, the Prophets… but now Jesus is saying all who receive the Holy Spirit will receive him INside.

That was the last part of the promise Jesus gives, / / But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.

I don’t know if you remember a song from a bunch of years ago, “Take me in to the Holy of Holies, take me in by the blood of the lamb...” That song is Old Testament scripture, Isaiah 6:7, but the New Testament, the new covenant that we are now living in… When Jesus died and the bible says that the curtain separating the holy of holies was torn, that wasn’t to let us in, and it wasn’t to let the Holy Spirit out either, he wasn’t stuck in there, it was to symbolize that no longer was this the method of connection to God the Holy Spirit.

Acts 7:48 says, / / The Most High doesn’t live in temples made by human hands.

1 Corinthians 3:16 says, / / Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?

1 Corinthians 6:19, / / Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?

So, the disciples follow the instructions, they wait in Jerusalem, and like Jesus promised, just a few days later, on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes. We identify Pentecost as the day God sent the Holy Spirit, but when we read Acts 2, starting in vs 1 it says, / / On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place.

We won’t get into all that Pentecost was today, but it was already a festival, an important day. The word itself means “fiftieth” and was a celebration 50 days after Passover - Passover being the festival of remembrance for God leading the people of Israel out of captivity in Egypt. And if you remember, Passover was the last meal that Jesus had with his disciples before he was arrested and crucified. It’s also why the city was so full of people, because Passover was one of the festivals that people would come from out of town to Jerusalem. They also did this for Pentecost, so the same people that were shouting “Crucify Him!” were all back in town for the next festival and this is when the Holy Spirit comes!

And we’re going to come back to that, but we are also wrapping up / / What’s Love Got To Do With It? today and we have one last verse to look at.

Let’s read through 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, / / 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.

Those are some pretty strong statements in that last verse. I’m not sure I live up to those all the time...

/ / Love NEVER gives up?

NEVER loses faith?

Is ALWAYS hopeful?

Endures through EVERY circumstance?

That’s a lot of all, always, never, every in there...

But this is why we are growing in love, right? Colossians 3:14 says, / / Above all, clothe yourselves with love… This idea that we need to remind ourselves to put love on. Danny Silk, who I’ve mentioned a couple times recently wrote a book called KEEP Your Love On… This idea that we can’t just select when we want to love, but that we need to clothe ourselves with it, keep it on, remind ourselves that love is ALWAYS the way to live.

We need the reminder. We’re not perfect. We’re learning, growing, being made into the image of Christ! Working out our salvation… being transformed by allowing God to change the way we think. But let’s be honest, that doesn’t all happen over night. It’s a process.

We aren’t meant to simply live by a standard that is better than the world, or as long as our standard is above the worlds…no, we are meant to live by the HIGH standard of God. Romans 3:23, God’s GLORIOUS standard. Here’s the kicker, the standard of God has absolutely nothing to do with where the standard of the world is at. I’m pretty sure that if God sets a standard, he means that is the standard.

Now, the other part of Romans 3:23 is that it says we’ve all fallen short of that standard. We talked about that last week, the fact that we all need a savior is the great leveler, the great common denominator. We are all equal in that we need Jesus Christ and what he gave for us on the cross.

So we all fail, we aren’t going to get this love thing right every time. But, the goal is to work toward that, isn’t it?

Remember, you are a masterpiece, but it also means you’re a real piece of work, and a work in progress!

So, when it comes to love, when it comes to all these things we are and are not supposed to be and do as we truly learn to love, don’t let it be a burden, but let it be an encouragement to continue on the journey of transformation to becoming more like Christ.

IF / / Revelation + Application = Transformation then the process is to continue on growing and learning and receiving that revelation and doing your best to apply that truth to your life so that as you do you are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit as you follow Jesus Christ!

So, 1 Corinthians 13:7, and I’m going to read it from the ESV this time, / / Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

/ / 1. Love bears all things

This is really such a relational word. The NLT says, Love never gives up...

The word / / “bears” [stego] or “never gives up” means to cover with silence, to endure patiently, to protect or keep by covering, to preserve. / / To keep secret, to hide, conceal, of the errors and faults of others. By covering to keep off something which threatens…

So, let’s just think through those questions we’ve been asking as we go through this scripture:

/ / How does God love us in this way?

How do we love God in this way?

How do we love ourselves in this way?

How do we love others in this way?

That first one is pretty obvious. God covers us continually, doesn’t he? It has not been my experience that God exposes us, uncovers our weaknesses or our insecurities or sins to use them against us. If something is uncovered it is to bring healing and freedom, and then in that case it is covered all the more.

And covering doesn’t mean ignoring or being ok with our sin. In the greatest example of this kind of love, Jesus in John 8 has a woman brought before him by the Pharisees and religious leaders. They are plotting to try and get him in trouble, it has very little to do with the woman, unfortunately, she’s really just being used. And they drag her over, throw her down at Jesus feet and say in John 8:4, / / “Teacher…this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him...

It says they continued to demand an answer from Him and what they are hoping is that he either sides with the law of Moses, and then his message of Grace is over, or he sides with grace and by doing so looks to be abandoning the law, which the Pharisees lived their lives to keep every single aspect of the law and use that to set themselves apart as the better ones… but he is smarter than that, he doesn’t fall into their trap. But even MORE than that, he’s not there to defend or break the law, he’s there to fulfill it, to fulfill scripture, so he brings in something beyond their limited focus. He says to them, / / “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”

When they heard that they sort of just disappeared one by one. It even says, beginning with the oldest…like the ones who had had the most time to sin were like, “Ya, I’m not touching that one...”

And when they are all gone, he turns to the girl and says, / / “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

“No, Lord,” she said.

And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

Three things Jesus does in this scripture that shows how God bears with us in love....

/ / First, Jesus does not approve of sin! He doesn’t endorse or approve of the sin. He doesn’t change the standard God’s already set. He doesn’t change the law. He doesn’t say, “I totally get it, you just like sleeping around. It makes you feel good. I love you anyway.” No, of course not. He very directly tells her she’s been sinning by telling her stop doing it, AND he calls it a sin. The word is hamartano which means to miss the mark.

The second thing is what he doesn’t do. / / He doesn’t shame her, condemn her, chastise her. He doesn’t call her scum, doesn’t berate her for not living up to the standard. He doesn’t make her feel less than she already does. Think about it. She’s been dragged through the streets and thrown at the feet of a prominent religious teacher and her dirty laundry is being aired out for all to hear and see. She already feels horrible.

And the third thing He does, / / Jesus invites her to follow! And He does the same with us. He doesn’t send her away to figure it out on her own. He invites her to follow. The word go, along with meaning go, like, go over there, also means, to carry on with your business, or with your life. Jesus invites her to carry on living her life, but WITHOUT falling short of the standard, without missing the mark. And the very next verse is the invitation. John 8:12 says, / / Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”

Just imagine for a second, Jesus has crouched down to this woman who has been exposed and said, “You don’t have to live with this. You can carry on with your life without it. I can show you the way. In me is light and life, and if you follow me, the darkness you’re hiding in will disappear and you will find yourself walking in the light, and you will find yourself living true life...”

If that isn’t the heart of God the Father, I don’t know what is. He covers us. Love bears all things. Encourages us. Lifts us up and invites us to relationship.

The real power in this is the love that’s connected to it. If this woman didn’t know she was sinning, she does now. The pharisees defined it for her, they said, “this was her sin” and Jesus said, “don’t do it anymore...” and so maybe that is revelation for her, maybe she didn’t now. But revelation given harshly isn’t motivation. It is true, she has committed adultery. It is true, she’s missed the mark. She has sinned. But like I said last week, those things, although they are true, will never set her free. But the Truth that Jesus invites her into is, “I am the light of the world, follow me and I will lead you OUT of darkness INTO life.”

That is the truth, the revelation, that if applied to her life will bring transformation!

And it comes without the shame and punishment. I think that’s where we often times get wrong how God deals with things vs how we as humans want to, or tend to deal with things. God doesn’t want to punish us for the things we do wrong, he wants us to learn that doing the wrong things is going to punish us itself because the wrong things usually have consequences that hurt us.

Instead, God wants us to learn to do right, because right living leads to blessing. Following after him leads to life.

So, God shows us how to love in this way, Love bears all things, by covering us, covering our mistakes, covering our wrongs and insecurities and inviting us into a way of life.

Now, can we do the same for him? Is there a way or a reason for us to / / Bear all things with God?

Well, God doesn’t need us to protect Him, or to defend Him, or cover what we don’t understand, so does love need to bear all things, cover with silence when it comes to God? Sometimes I think defending God is like stepping into the ring where a dog is trying to attack a lion and saying, “Hey dog, if you wanna get to that lion you gotta get through me first....” God doesn’t need our protection in that way… He doesn’t need us to defend His honor...

But I would say that there is a place of secret with God that we are individually invited into. Each of us has the ability to find a secret place, a confident place with God. Psalm 25:14 says, and I’m reading this from the International Standard Version, / / The intimate counsel of the Lord is for those who fear him so they may know his covenant.

Most translations use the word secrets. God shares his secrets to those who honor, or revere Him.

James 4:8 says, / / Come close to God, and God will come close to you.

When we choose to seek God, to pursue His presence, to live a life before him of honor and reverence, He shares his secrets with us, there is intimate counsel. Now, one of the definitions of “bear all things” was to keep off something which threatens. And we know that the enemy is prowling around like a lion, looking for someone to devour, that’s 1 Peter 5:8, and I have learned that there is wisdom in keeping secrets.

There’s a saying, / / “It’s not that I’m hiding anything from you, it’s just that I don’t have anything to say to you.” Meaning, not everyone deserves or needs to have access to every part of you. I’m not talking about keeping negative secrets, or hiding sin - I’m talking about keeping close those things that God shares with you in those times of intimate counsel. When God gives you dreams and visions, those personal things He shows you in His word that deserve to be hidden until the appropriate time.

We love God in this way by protecting that relationship we have with God as something incredibly precious, because it is.

Now, think about how this works in your own personal life. / / How do you love yourself in this way?

Do you cover yourself? Protect yourself? Endure with yourself? Do you give yourself a break?

When you are struggling, do you get down on yourself, condemn yourself, berate yourself, or do you, like Jesus in those moments say, “Yes, you’re doing wrong, you’re falling short of the standard, but I’m not going to condemn you and kill you in your sin, I’m going to tell you to follow me so you can carry on with your life without it!”

When you mess up are you quicker to say, “Uh, I’m such an idiot!” or are you able to say, “Ok, that was not good, get up, go again, do better, let revelation lead to application to cause transformation!”

Are you like the Pharisees ready to stone yourself or are you like Jesus, encouraging a better way?

And of course this “Love bears all things” definitely rings true when we ask, / / How do we love others in this way?

Are we covering people when they are struggling, rather than gossiping or exposing them? Is it our place to condemn? Is it our place to judge?

Are we keeping secret the things that are not ours to tell?

Are we standing with others even when they are at fault, continuing to love them to the best of our ability?

Are we covering and protecting those who are threatened?

Again, this is not about endorsing or being ok with sin, it’s about loving someone regardless of that sin so they can follow Jesus into a life free of that sin!

If our role is to simply introduce people to Jesus, then let’s introduce them to to a Jesus who wants to lead them out of their sin into life, not condemn in their sin unto death!

/ / 2. Love Believes All Things

Love never loses faith...

This one is pretty simple, but not necessarily easy. It’s a matter of faith when it comes to God, and it’s ultimately a matter of faith when it comes to the people in our lives as well.

The word for believes is / / pisteuo and it means to have faith. Specifically to entrust one’s spiritual well-being to Christ, to believe, to commit, to put our trust in.

But it also means, / / to think to be true, to be persuaded of, to give credit to, to place confidence in.

Now, depending on your relationship with God you may find this to be easy, or you may find this to be pretty difficult. Sometimes people have a hard time trusting that God is as good as we say he is in church. I’ve said this before I believe that as humans our deepest desire is to truly know that God IS who He says He is, and will do what He said He will do. But sometimes we have a hard time believing that. Sometimes it’s difficult to believe that God loves us as much as the bible says he does. Unconditionally, without reservation, with or without our sin, having done it all right or having done it all wrong.

But love, love chooses to continue to believe, even in the face of doubt. That’s true faith. Do we have the type of faith that believes no matter what? No matter what other people say, no matter the cost, no matter the doubts or the evidence? And are we pursuing a relationship with God that even in that doubt we are able to say, “I do believe, but help me in the areas I don’t quite believe yet...”

What do we do when the evidence around us doesn’t support what we are trying to believe from the bible? Do we give God just 1 chance, or 2 chances, 10 chances? And if he doesn’t come through like we think He should, do we give up on faith?

What happens when we watch the news or look at world events, or the state of things and we’re worried and trying to figure out how on earth God is going to work this whole thing out… ?

And don’t feel bad if you’re asking these questions. Don’t feel bad if you feel backed in a corner. Jesus didn’t encourage us not to worry because it’s an easy thing to do… he encouraged us not to worry because worry can get to us, will always try to get to us, and he knows that when we are stuck in worry, we’re not operating in faith.

And what about when it comes to what God has said, when we talk about His standard for our lives. This verse says that love believes ALL Things. Do we pick and choose what we want to believe, or what’s easy, but leave out what’s more difficult to believe or what’s harder to follow, or maybe what’s harder to explain? Do we leave those things alone because the current culture might not understand, or sees things differently?

And as difficult as all of that is with God, it’s probably even more difficult with people! It’s not always easy to believe in people ALL the time, is it?

Do we choose to give continual chances to people? Even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, do we continue to believe in someone, to encourage them in who they TRULY are as God sees them? “Love believes all things” takes risks, takes chances on people. They may fail you. They may let you down. They may hurt you. But don’t stop loving them. Don’t stop believing....

Mother Teresa had a poem inscribed on the wall of her children’s home in Calcutta. It’s a poem called “Anyway” by Kent M. Keith, he also calls it the Paradoxical Commandments… it says this:

/ / People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

It’s a good reminder to love anyway. To continue to believe in the good and the right, and the people in our lives. That loving doesn’t always get reciprocated. Believing and trusting again sometimes means we get taken advantage of again. Giving another shot, another opportunity sometimes comes with being hurt again.

Now, let me clarify. I believe there’s a difference between being naive and living with wisdom. I’ve worked for some people in the past that we ended up having pretty big disagreements with and a falling out in our relationship. And even though we worked to restore the relationship, I won’t go back to working for them. I won’t subject myself to that again if I haven’t seen change. But I love them. We have relationship. I can honor them and trust them to the extent of our relationship.

Loving doesn’t mean not having boundaries. Sometimes loving means we DO have pretty strong boundaries because to the level you can handle the openness I present to you is the level of openness I can give you. You don’t give a thief the key to your house. That’s wisdom.

And believing all things is not blindly believing all things, it’s making the choice to believe IN the person, not just simply to believe what they say or do. You may not be trustworthy at the moment, but I believe you can be and I will continue to believe you can be, and I won’t condemn you in your untrustworthiness…yes, it will dictate how close we are, but I won’t let it dictate whether I love you or not and believe in your ability to make the right choice AND God’s ability to lead you into freedom!

We could really say it this way, / / Love doesn’t give up on people.

Ya know how sometimes we’ve been hurt too many times that we have a saying, “they’re dead to me...” or “I’ve written that person off...”

“That was the last straw, you treated me poorly one too many times. Now I won’t take your call. I won’t let you back in.”

Love chooses not to do that. Because if I give up on you that means I stop believing there’s any power for you to change, and I stop praying for you. If I’m ok with saying you’re a lost cause, what I’m really saying is God can’t even fix you, you’ll never change, you’re doomed to die living the same way you are today.

/ / Love doesn’t let, “They’ll never change” into their vocabulary.

Love doesn’t make room for, “They’ll always be like that. They’re too old to change. They’re too stubborn to change. They’re too whatever....”

It may be true, they may have always been like that, are old and set in their ways and incredibly stubborn, all of those things may be “true”, but to agree with the lie that they can not or would not change in the face of an encounter with the Almighty God who loves them and can transform the HARDEST of hearts is to admit defeat and give up on Love itself. Sure, it may be true, but that’s not the truth that will set them free, is it?

/ / 3. Love Hopes All Things

This one takes believing to a whole new level.

Hope by definition is a confident expectation in a positive outcome.

So, if love hopes all things, what does that mean?

It means we don’t pick and choose what we hope for, but we hope to the best of our ability, and ask God to help us hope for ALL that he has said. Love doesn’t waiver in our belief and pursuit of God’s promises.

Let me ask you this morning:

Have you had disappointments?

Have you had unanswered questions?

Have you had tragedy when you were believing for promise?

/ / Do you have the courage to hope again?

That doesn’t mean you drop the questions or give up on your pursuit for understanding. The reality is there are things we may never understand. Questions we may never have answers to. Isaiah 55:8-9 says, / / “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

But notice what the scripture does NOT say. It doesn’t say, “So get over it, don’t bother, you’ll never get it…you’ll never know...”

What it IS saying is, You won’t understand until I give you understanding. And sometimes that understand is NOT actually understanding the situation, but it’s understanding the heart of God and the truth of His word. I don’t need to understand WHY God does something when I understand that HE is good in the scenario. I don’t have to understand the reasoning if I trust the one who did it, or got me through it.

How often do we say that to our kids? They ask why, why why? and we say, TRUST ME....

And in Isaiah, when God says his thoughts and ways are higher than ours, he’s not saying so get over it, he’s actually saying, I am a God of great things, and a God of promise. It’s not a, “I’m smarter than you, so sit down and don’t bother..” it’s just like we do with our kids. / / God can see more than you, He knows more than you, can do more than you, so rest in that truth and trust in Him!

God continues to speak through Isaiah and says in vs 10-11, / / “The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.”

God’s word, God’s promises, God’s purposes will accomplish what He has said. That is WHY love can hope all things, because / / the promise of God is that His word is true. His word is trustworthy, even when we don’t understand his thoughts and his ways, he is for us, not against us.

So, even in the face of possible heartache from the past, or issues unresolved, disappointments or whatever else, choose to hope again in the word of God. Choose to hope again in His truth. Choose to speak life into your situations to have a confident expectation in a positive outcome!

/ / 4. Love Endures All Things

Paul may end with this simply because it may just be the most important part of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Love endures all things. To / / endure means to take patiently, to abide, be patient, to suffer. To remain, not recede or flee. Even under misfortunes and trials, to hold fast to one’s faith in Christ!

/ / To endure is to bear bravely and calmly in the face of ill treatment.

I could easily reread the Paradoxical Commandments again, couldn’t I?

Endurance is such a foundational encouragement, or a fundamental need within the Christian life.

Romans 5:3-5 says, / / We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they helps us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.

Love endures all things, and in the face of that endurance our character is built up.

The word / / character, it means proof, or experience...

Character is the proof that we are who we say we are.

Character is the proof that God has done in us what He said he would do.

Character is not us trying to be something, it is because of our experiences, because of our endurance, because of what we have gone through we are now something new. You don’t try to have character, character is simply the proof that you are what you claim to be or not. We have been shaped by our experiences into something.

That is true of good and bad character. We are either shaped by our experiences in a negative way that produces in us a character not worth having, OR, we endure, we persevere, we patiently remain, we don’t flee, we don’t run away from the trial, hide from it, but we embrace it and rely on God through the midst of it. And through that trial, through the testing, through the suffering, we come out on the other side proven!

Character is proof, and / / proof is defined as, the evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement.

/ / Your endurance will establish who you really are.

You say you are something…patient, kind, not jealous etc… well this situation, this trial, is going to prove whether you actually are willing and able to follow through...

Endurance…in the face of hardship, trial, testing and suffering… Love endures!

If endurance builds character, then every time we choose to be patient when it would be easier to just be frustrated, or when we choose to be kind, or choose not to be jealous or proud or boastful or rude. When we decide we aren’t going to rejoice in wrongdoing but we rejoice in the truth, even though it would be so easy to just agree with the negative and give up hope for the positive. Every time we choose to not give up on someone, to bear with them in their situation, to press on in faith, to renew our hope even in the face of disappointment.... our character grows, and it is the proof of God’s work in our lives!

So, how are Pentecost Sunday & What’s Love Got To Do With It? connected?

It’s found in the second part of Romans 5:3-5, It’s the connection between the Power of the Holy Spirit and the Love of God alive in us.

Romans 5:5 says, / / For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.

So, today, I am asking and I want you to ask with me, for a fresh baptism of the Love of God through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. All over the world today people are asking God, “Would you pour out your spirit on us, just like you did 2000 years ago.”

Acts 2:2 says, / / Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit...

when Jesus says in Acts 1 that the disciples will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, that word baptized means to be continuously filled. And if you believe in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is a promised gift. Not only is the promise that he won’t ever leave you, but that he keeps filling you to overflowing. He’s not a stagnant pond, he’s a flowing river!

Jesus says in John 7:37-38, / / “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’” When he said “living water,” he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him.

If you have confessed that you need Jesus as your savior, that you believe in Him and what He did for you on the cross, then you are not only saved by grace through your faith, through believing, but you have received the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is a river of life that wants to flow INto you and OUT of you!

So, I want to right now, take a minute to just pray, and ask God, to invite Him, to give him the invitation to pour His love into our hearts, just like Romans 5:5 says, the ESV says it this way, / / God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

We are asking right now, God, would you pour your love into us. We know that it’s by your love that we are able to love you in return. It is by your love that we are able to love ourselves. And it is by your love that we are able to love the people around us. And this is what you have called us to: to love one another, JUST AS you have loved us.

END - get a few people to help move a few things in the hall for us.