A high School senior was asking his father's advice on how to woo the girl of his dreams. And his dad said "Well son, when you take her out for pizza tonight and you're sitting across the table from her, take her hand in yours gaze longingly into her eyes and softly say 'Wow, you have a face that would make time stand still.'"
That night, when the boy took the girl out to eat, he sat down across the table from her, took her hand in his, gazed into her eyes. But he was nervous. His hands were shaking and he couldn’t quite remember exactly what his father told him to say. Then suddenly he smiled and said "Whoa babe, you've got a face that would stop a clock."
Somehow I don’t think that line was going to work on her.
He was trying to follow his father’s advice.
He was trying to tell her “I love you”
But that’s not what she’d heard.
(I took a daisy and walked down into the audience, plucking petals from the flower as I said)
When we were children, many of us would take flowers and pluck the petals as we recited
“She loves me… she loves me not”.
“She loves me… she loves me not”.
“She loves me… she loves me not”.
Hoping that the last petal would tell us “she loves me”.
Some of the petals were “love me” petals.
And the rest were “love me nots”.
Last week we talked about the “Love me” petals of the flower of love.
This week, we’re going to look at the “Love me nots”.
There are phrases in I Corinthians 13 that are “love me nots”.
They are phrases describe actions and attitudes - that when we see them –say to us
“This is not love”.
“That’s not what love looks like!
(These are “love me nots”)
There are about 8 “love me nots” listed in I Corinthians 13:
envy,
boasting
pride
rudeness
self-seeking,
being easily angered,
keeping record of wrongs.
and delighting in evil.
When we have these attitudes and behaviors in our lives we’re not loving like we should.
Now, that doesn’t mean you don’t WANT to love.
We may want to follow our FATHER’S advice on how to love.
But unless we master these attitudes in our lives the world isn’t going to hear “God Loves Me.” They’ll hear “He Loves me not.”
So how do I recognize the “love me nots”?
Well some of them show up in how I view myself.
A person who’s covered with “love me nots” is boastful, proud and self-seeking.
(For the reader of this sermon, I took the liberty of grouping these “negative” attributes under specific headings rather than dealing with them in the order in which they’re found in the text)
These people are all wrapped up themselves – they tend to think of themselves 1st.
And frankly, that’s how most of us are naturally anyway.
ILLUS: Dennis Waitley wrote a book called “Empires of the Mind.” In that book, he says that there are approximately 450,000 words in the English language. Four hundred and fifty thousand words! BUT 80% of our conversations use only 400 words. And the most commonly used words in those conversations are. . . "I," "Me," "My," and "Mine."
So we all tend to think of ourselves first. It’s a human tendency.
Thus we tend to think in terms of others meeting our needs.
Doing things the way we want them done.
Noticing us and praising us.
In fact, we’re so self focused that when many Christians look for a church they tend to seek out a congregation that will meet their needs.
ILLUS: One preacher told of shopping at the supermarket when a lady came down the aisle heading straight for him. She screeched to a halt within a few feet of him, wagged her finger, and said, "I left your church. I left your church".
So I said, "Well, if it's my church, I think that was a very wise decision. If it's my church, I think I'm going to leave too."
She said, "Don't you want to know why I left?"
I said, "No, not particularly, but I think I'm going to find out". And I was right.
She said, "You weren't meeting my needs".
I answered, "I don't ever recollect seeing you before, let alone talking to you, let alone knowing your needs. Did you ever tell anyone specifically what your needs were?"
She couldn't recall that she had, so I raised another question.
"Can you tell me, if we have 5,000 people sitting in that church, ALL with your attitude, how anyone's needs are going to be met? If you reserve the right to have that attitude, then you must give everybody the freedom to have that attitude. And if everybody has that attitude, who on earth is going to do all the need meeting?"
Now, that’s NOT how Jesus wants us to think.
Jesus said "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." Mark 9:35
And this is important to Jesus because - when a person is proud, boastful, and selfish - not only are they not serving God’s Kingdom, they’re also not all that concerned about whether anyone else gets to heaven.
ILLUS: Dostoevsky tells the story of a woman who found herself in hell and felt she did not belong there. She could not bear the suffering and cried out in agony for the mercy of God.
God listened and was moved with pity and so He said to her: "If you can remember one good deed that you did in your lifetime, I will help you".
Wracking her brain, she remembered that once she had given a an onion to a starving neighbor. So, God produced the onion complete with stem.
The woman grabbed the onion, and God began to pull her up and out of hell.
But others, damned with her, began to grab hold of the woman’s skirts to be lifted out, too.
The stem of the onion held and would have saved them all but the woman began to kick and scream for them to let go. Thrashing about trying to dislodge her friends was too much for the onion and the stem snapped, plunging them all back into the depths of hell.
That woman wanted to be saved… she just didn’t care whether anybody else was or not. And that was because she was a selfish, self-centered… “Love me not”.
The 2nd kind of “love me not” is when a person is envious or jealous of another’s happiness. This “love me not” is closely associated with the first ones.
If I’m boastful, proud and self-seeking I tend to be envious of others who are more successful, more happy, more fulfilled.
And it seems that many people struggle with this temptation.
ILLUS: Some time back “Discipleship” Magazine took a poll of its readers asking:
“What’s the Greatest Spiritual Challenge you face”
The top seven challenges for these religious readers were these:
1. Materialism.
2. Pride.
3. Self-centeredness.
4. Laziness.
5. (Tie) Anger/Bitterness. 5. (Tie) Sexual lust.
7. Envy.
(This survey appears to have taken place somewhere during the late 1990s or early 2000s)
Envy is such a significant challenge for God’s people that the 10 Commandments even lists it. Do you know which commandment forbids it?
“Thou Shalt Not Covet” (Exodus 20:17)
To covet is to be jealous or envious of what someone else has.
It’s such a powerful an emotion that its the ONLY emotion that’s specifically forbidden in the 10 commandments. And the reason this emotion is so destructive is that it leads to the exact opposite of love.
Instead of being the servant and serving Jesus commands us to be, envy leads us not to serve – but to destroy.
One person observed that:
• Cain was envious of Abel and murdered him.
• Saul burned with envy over David's popularity and sought to kill him.
• The chief Priests and Pharisees were envious of Jesus' popularity and they crucified him.
Envy can’t abide someone else being successful, fulfilled, or happy when they’re not.
ILLUS: Charles L. Allen wrote about a fisherman friend of his who told him that one never needs a top for his crab basket. If one of the crabs starts to climb up the sides of the basket, the other crabs will reach up and pull it back down. (“The Miracle of Love”)
Allen then observed that lots of people are just like those crabs – envy leads them to pull others down… or even destroy those who they’re jealous of.
And that brings us to the last set of “love me nots”.
These “love me nots” are actions that rise from a proud, boastful and self centered heart
These behaviors are the ones that the envious and jealous resort to.
In I Corinthians 13 God tells us that love is not…
Easily angered
It’s not Rude
It keeps no record of wrongs
It does not delight in evil
In other words, someone who’s a “love me not”…
• Gets angry - easily
• And as a result they tend to be rude to others
• They keep a list of what others have done wrong
• And if they hear of something evil in that person’s life (gossip) they delight in it
Now this is the heart of what Paul is writing about to the Church at Corinth.
Corinth was NOT a “loving church”
They didn’t share much with each other
They argued about all kinds of things
And they even took each other to court when they got mad enough
They got angry with each other … easily
They were rude to each other
And IF a brother or sister in Christ EVER offended them… they had this “list”
ILLUS: You know about the “list” – don’t you?
The “LIST” is a tally sheet that some people keep of how others have offended them
These people keep the mental record of the wrongs others have done to them.
AND every time that person offends them… they add that to the list
* THERE THEY GO AGAIN
* THAT’S JUST WHAT YOU’D EXPECT FROM THEM
* I’LL BET THEY DO IT AGAIN NEXT WEEK!
Those stupid, foolish, ignorant people… I don’t know why they’re in this church anyway.
OK… that is a definite “love me not”
And that’s a definite sin, when Christians do that.
Love doesn’t keep a record of wrongs.
That’s because true love knows that God loved us so much He doesn’t keep a record of our wrongs either. Once we become Christians our sins are forgiven. And when we sin after that, I John 1 tells us that when we confess those sins, Jesus is faithful and just and forgives all of that we’ve confessed.
They’re removed as far as the East is from the West.
They’re buried in the very depths of the sea.
God doesn’t keep a list… and He thoroughly expects us not to either.
But in Corinth they did.
But even worse than that… they delighted in evil
They liked to listen to the gossip about the people they were irritated with.
They relished the juicy parts where that person’s reputation was dragged thru the mud.
ILLUS: A woman named Marilyn Helleberg told about being a teenager at church camp. She said an ugly rumor got started there about two of the counselors and it quickly became the talk of the camp.
The next day, at Morning Prayer, the minister read the story of the adulterous woman. He spoke of Jesus telling the crowd that if any person who had no sin they could cast the first stone. And one by one, those who had come to stoned her to death walked away.
Then the minister passed around a bucket of stones and insisted that we each take one and carry it in our pocket throughout the remainder of camp. Any time we felt like criticizing someone else or talking behind another's back or passing on an ugly rumor we were to reach into the pocket, touch the stone and ask ourselves if we were without sin.
That shut down the gossiping. Because true love remembers how much Jesus has forgiven us and - because of that - refuses to “delight in evil” and the spreading of gossip.
CLOSE: “Love Me Nots” are common in this world
Whenever Christians are “love me nots” - the world hears that God doesn’t love them either. However, when we show love the way it’s meant to be, people see God the way He’s meant to be.
Dr. Fred Craddic tells of the time he was asked to speak in Winnipeg, Canada. While he was there he stopped into a deli get something to eat. He said the place was packed but people moved over and made room for him. Many people in there where just in to get out of the cold.
A few minutes later someone opened the door and a shout came from inside the deli that said, “hey shut that door your letting all the warm air out”.
In came a rather unkempt woman, a couple of people made some room for her,
A large man with a greasy apron came over and asked in a loud voice, “What do you want?”
She said “I’ll just take a glass of water.”
He sat the water in front of her and said, “now what do you want?”
She said, “The water is fine.”
He said, “Look lady there is paying customers in here. Either you going to have to order something else or get out.”
She said, “Can I just stay in out of the cold?”
He said, “No you have to order something, or leave.”
Slowly she scooted out of her seat and started to leave.
But when she did the person on her right and left also got up to leave. Then the persons on each side of them got up to leave. And pretty soon everyone started to leave, and the man in the greasy apron said, “All right come on back you can stay”.
She sat down and he even gave her a bowl of soup.
Craddic asked the man beside him, “Who is that lady?”
The man said I don’t know, but if she’s not welcome I’m not welcome.”
Fred Craddic said you know, as I started to eat that soup it wasn’t so bad. The matter of fact it reminded me of something I had eaten before and I couldn’t figure out why it tasted so familiar as I ate that bowl of soup.
He said I left that little deli and I looked back at that woman sitting there in that atmosphere I remembered what that soup tasted like. It tasted like the bread and wine of communion.
Even when the world shows this kind of love, it is easy to recognize that this is what the Father had in mind all along. That’s what we remember each time we take communion. And that is what we should seek to be like in our every day lives.
