Would you agree, small details can be very important? Consider the following examples. If you and your family are leaving on a dream vacation to Hawaii, it is important that you remember to carry your tickets. If you and your friends are leaving on a Gulf fishing trip, it is important that you remember to fill the gas tanks in your boat. If you have the oil changed in your car, it is important that the attendant tighten the oil plug. I want to address an area of our lives where there needs to be more detail, our love life. We use this word a lot. We tell our loved ones we love them. We tell fellow church members we love them. We tell our children we love them. Our society uses love to describe the sexual experience. However, words can be empty of meaning. Words without substance are meaningless. It is essential that we give attention to the finer points of love. Ladies, how would you feel if your husband or boy friend told you every day that he loved you but never expressed it in other ways.
Joke: This would be like the couple I heard about. They had been married thirty years when the wife complained that her husband never expressed his love to her. The man said “I told you thirty years ago that I loved you and if I change my mind I will let you know.”
Ladies, do you not want a little detail in your love life? Would not flowers help? Would not a nice romantic evening help? Love is the big theme in the month of February. Valentine’s Day is stuck in the center of the month. During the month of February I want to preach a series entitled the “Finer Points of Love.” This series is taken from I Cor. 13:4-7. I want to take these fifteen qualities, analyze, illustrate, and explain them individually during the month of February. Let’s get started.
Quality number 1: Love suffers long. Love is patient with the other person.
The word long suffering could be translated “long spirited.” The Greek word (makrothumein, GSN3114) used in the New Testament always describes patience with people and not patience with circumstances. It describes the man who is slow to anger and it is used to describe God’s relationship with men. In our dealings with men we must exercise the same patience God exercises with us. (William Barclay commentary on I Corinthians 13)
When we exercise the finer points of love we learn to be patient with other people. We learn to be long suffering with them. Sometimes this is not easy. As a young preacher boy I had my first major experience with a difficult person. This man was mean spirited. This man would do things that hurt other people in the church. I would go to him and address issues. After those meetings I would go home feeling good about my efforts. However, in a short period of time the same thing would repeat itself. I never did see that man change. I later realized there were steps that could and should be taken with such people. However, my point is, it is not easy to be patient. At such times we should pray for the grace of God.
A. We must learn to be patient with people in the church.
• People in the church are not perfect.
• People in the church sometimes let us down.
• People in the church struggle with personality issues.
Illustration: I once had a senior adult lady in a church I served who strained my patience. Her nick name could have been grumpy. Almost every Sunday she would find something to grumble about. If you ever used the word “sex” in the pulpit she would get red under the collar. I remember one time she got grumpy on Sunday and I decided I was going to her house and give her a piece of my mind. When I got to her home, she had baked me two pies. She could be sweet when she wanted and she could be grumpy when she wanted.
B. We must learn to be patient with our marriage mates.
Question: How many of you ladies have projects you are waiting on your husband to finish? (patience)
Question: How many of you husbands have an issue with pillows around your house? (patience) Our pillows are having babies.
It will help your patience if you read Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus. That book explains some of the weird differences between men and women.
Patience is such an important quality. We need it in every endeavor of life. I have coached numerous basketball teams over the years. One of the important lessons that I have learned from those experiences is that you cannot rush natural development. Right now I am coaching a group of kindergarten children in “Upward Basketball.” Those children are learning a lot. However, there are some things that require patience. They need time to develop. For instance, their little hands can only do so much with a basketball. They need time to develop. That requires understanding and patience.
C. We must learn to be patient with people at work. This quality of patience may seem to be a wimpy characteristic. We tend to admire the John Wayne type personality. John Wayne was rough, a hard fighter, and anything but patient. We tend to admire that type of He man. Patience does not take away the need to be disciplined, to set limits, and to place demands. Patience refers to Godliness under control.
Quality number 2: Love is kind. Kindness is the practice of doing loving, considerate, and constructive deeds for another person.
A. Kindness should be displayed in the church.
Illustration: I saw kindness displayed in a church I served some years ago. One Sunday we had a young single man visit our church. He was from another state and did not know anyone in our church. In addition, he knew very few people in our city. A couple in our church introduced themselves to this man and befriended him. After church that Sunday they carried him home and shared lunch with him. What a kind deed?
Illustration: I saw this quality displayed in a group of senior adults. One of their class members had to have open heart surgery. This man had always been active working and had had very few health problems. However, he suffered a heart attack and was forced to have open heart surgery. Over the years I have discovered that open heart patients often struggle with depression. This man followed suit. He got extremely depressed after his surgery. The men in his Sunday school class would not allow him to struggle in his depression. Every day for several weeks those men would go to this home and sit with him so that he would not struggle with his depression.
B. Kindness should be displayed in our marriages. Heaven forbid that we should be kind to our husband or wife.
Joke: Many times our marriages are like the one I read about. On their first visit to a marriage counselor, a couple kept blaming the other person for the troubled relationship. So, to help them focus on their own flaws, the counselor asked each of them, "What have you personally done that has contributed to your marriage problems?" The wife said, "For me, it was getting angry, being prideful, growing impatient, and maybe showing jealousy.’ The husband said, "For me, it was marrying HER."
On Saturday night February 28 we are going to show the film “Fireproof.” This movie relates the story of how one marriage was saved because of kind and loving deeds.
Let me suggest some ways we can display kindness toward our mates.
Men:
• wash dishes
• clean house
• buy flowers
• open door for her
• when you come to church pull up under the canopy and let her out at the door
Wives:
• thank him for his leadership in your home
• encourage him in his hobby
• cook a special meal for him
• buy him tickets to his favorite athletic event
Have you seen the television commercials about kindness? My favorite is the one where the delivery man is carrying packages when he notices a senior adult lady trying to open a door. The delivery man goes to the door and uses his toe to open the door for the lady.
C. Kindness should be displayed in daily activities. Oftentimes at work we get caught up doing our work and forget about the needs of the people with whom we come in contact.
“A little lame boy was once hurrying to catch a train. In the press of the crowd he experienced real difficulty in manipulating his crutches, especially as he was carrying a basket full of fruit and candy. As the passengers rushed along, one hit the basket by mistake, knocking oranges, apples, and candy bars in all directions. The man who caused the accident paused only long enough to scold the cripple for getting in his way. Another gentleman, seeing the boy’s distress, went to his aid. Quickly he picked up the fruit and added a silver dollar to the collection, saying, ‘I’m sorry, Sonny! I hope this makes up a little!’” With a smile he was on his way. The young boy who had seldom been the recipient of such kindness called after the ‘good Samaritan’ in gratitude and awe, ‘Mister—please sir, are you Jesus?’ “No,’ replied his new-found friend, ‘I’m only one of His followers.’ So too the people whose lives we touch need to see the Lord in our acts of compassion and Christian kindness.”(Our Daily Bread)
(Contributed to Sermon Central by Ronald Keller)
Quality number 3: Love is not jealous.
Illustration: In a church I served years ago there was a lady that displayed the harmful effects of jealousy. This lady had eight children and was jealous of each of them. At the time I met her she was in her eighties. She had been jealous of her children all her life. She was nearing the point of death. Her jealously had alienated her children and drove a wedge between them. This lady had a house full of nice furniture. She allowed the house and furniture to waste away rather than share it with her children. Her jealousy destroyed her relationship with her children but also her inheritance for those children.
In discussing this quality William Barclay, a New Testament scholar, says there are two kinds of envy or jealousy. “The one covets the possessions of other people; and such envy is very difficult to avoid because it is a very human thing. The other is worse--it grudges the very fact that others should have what it has not; it does not so much want things for itself as wish that others had not got them. Meanness of soul can sink no further than that.” (Barclay commentary on I Corinthians)
The New Testament instructs us against jealousy but it also instructs us to be positive. The New Testament tells us to “Rejoice with those who rejoice.” If something good happens to you I should stand in line and applaud your good fortune.
Christians are not above such behavior. There was an occasion when Jesus interrupted his disciples and revealed a part of their dark nature. They were having a discussion which reflected their jealous/ambitious nature. They were arguing over greatness. They were discussing who was the greatest preacher. Jesus discouraged such behavior among them.
The story is told of a great English preacher, FB Meyer, and his struggle with jealousy. Another great English preacher, G. Campbell Morgan, returned to England after being in America. Meyer said to some friends, "It was easy to pray for the success of Morgan when he was in America. But when he came to England and to a church near mine, it was something different. The old Adam in me was inclined to jealousy, but I got my heel upon his head, and whether I felt right toward my friend, I determined to act right.
(Contributed to Sermon Central by Jim Kane)
There are four words for love in the Greek language.
1. Eros refers to erotic love.
2. Phileo refers to brotherly love.
3. Storge refers to family love.
4. Agape refers to God’s love. God’s love is a self giving, sacrificial love that always has the best interest of the other person at heart. That is the kind of love we need in our homes, churches, and businesses.
The word “eros” does not appear in the New Testament. This is a self seeking, destructive form of love that takes advantage of the other person. That is the love we see on the screens of our televisions. It is a cheap love that cheapens sex. It is a love that makes girls and women’s bodies into an object. It diminishes personhood. It is the force that causes many marriages to break apart. The human body and the sexual experience is not a dirty thing. It is a beautiful gift from God. However, when love becomes an animalistic force that is void of any restraints it becomes harmful, destructive, and horrible. It is the force that feeds pornography. It drives erotic sensual behavior.
God’s love is not this way. It builds up. It is constructive. It is positive. The three qualities of love, we have studied today, are not easy to live out. They are demanding. They cannot be fulfilled except by the grace of God. That is why we study them. We need God’s help to fulfill these Godly qualities. With that in mind let me make three points about this Godly, supernatural love.
1. You can be religious and still not have God’s love. (refer to I Cor. 3:1-3) Just because you do religious things does not mean you are spiritual.
Example: Over the years there have been a great many evil deeds done in Northern Ireland in the name of religion. The Catholics and protestants have killed and done many violent things. You can be religious without being Christian.
2. You cannot fake God’s love. God’s love is supernatural. God’s love is expressed through an act of surrender.
3.If we are to reflect God’s love we must be submissive to HIS character and HIS leadership.
