SERMON OUTLINE:
• Be displeased about the wrong things.
• “love does not delight in evil”
• Be pleased about the right things.
• “but rejoices with the truth.”
SERMON BODY:
• NIV: “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.”
• TLB: “It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out.”
• KJB: “Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.”
• Message: “It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people.
• On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.”
• Curley Translation:
• "Love does not delight in wrongdoing but in right-doing”
Ill:
• In Royal Leamington Spa, a town in central Warwickshire,
• There is a graveyards with a very unusual tombstone.
• The only thing written on the tombstone are these words:
“Here lies a miser who lived for himself
and cared for nothing but gathering wealth;
now where he is or how he fares,
nobody knows and nobody cares.”
• Now in contrast,
• There is in St. Paul’s cathedral in London a plain tombstone that reads;
“Sacred to the memory of General Charles George Gordon who at all times and everywhere gave his strength to the weak, his substance to the poor, his sympathy to the suffering,
his heart to God.”
• TRANSITION: Two epitaphs, two distinct opposites.
• One life shows loveless-ness, the other life shows love.
• Chapter 13 of 1st Corinthians is a passage on love, on caring, on compassion;
• This chapter it is not just theoretical, good advice;
• But it is very practical in its instructions.
• And as Christians we need that practical out-working element of putting love to practise;
• Otherwise our studies on love just become lectures i.e. the passing on of information.
• But a sermon should always challenge its hearers;
• That if they apply this truth by the power and enabling of the Holy Spirit;
• Their lives can be changed and they can make a difference!
Ill:
Talking of lectures, I like the humorous definition of what a lecture is:
“The art of transferring information from the notes of the lecturer to the notes of the lecturees without passing through the minds of either.”
• TRANSITION: That might be lecturing but it is not preaching!
• Quote: I like how Alistair Begg describes preaching:
“The preacher’s task is to declare what God has said, explain the meaning, and establish the implications so that no one will mistake its relevance.”
• The apostle Paul even through his letters is declaring what God has said,
• He is explain the meaning, and establish the implications;
• So that no one (including you & I) will mistake its relevance!
Ill:
• Henry Drummond in his classic little booklet on 1 Corinthians 13;
• Called, “The Greatest Thing in the World,”
• Compares verses 4-7:
• To light passing through a prism and being separated out into its various colours.
• Just as the various colours of the spectrum all work together to make white light,
• So that apostle Paul describes love in its component parts,
• A rainbow of actions that all work together to make true ‘agape’ love.
Note:
• The apostle Paul describes love in verses 4-7 using a series of 15 verbs.
• Our English translations change some of the verbs to adjectives,
• But in the Greek they are all verbs, they are all doing action words!
• I believe that’s significant.
• The love Paul is talking about is not primarily something you feel but something you do.
• Because ‘actions always speak louder than words!’
• We may not always be able to control our feelings towards someone,
• But we can control our actions, and even to some extent our motivations.
The framework of these verses is:
• FIRST: Love described positively – what love is (vs 4a):
• Love is patient.
• Love is kind.
• SECOND: Love described negatively – what love is not (vs 4b-5):
• Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
• Love is not rude, it is not self-seeking
• Love is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs
• THIRD: Love described with a contrasting statement. (vs 6):
• Love does not delight in evil - Love rejoices with the truth.
• FOURTH: Four things love always does (verse 7)
• Love always protects.
• Love always trusts.
• Love always hopes.
• Love always perseveres.
This evening we are focussing our thoughts on verse 6:
• Where love described with a contrasting statement.
• “Love does not delight in evil - Love rejoices with the truth.”
(1). Be displeased about the wrong things.
• One of the problems with chapter 13;
• Is it gets divorced from the rest of the letter;
• And it is so often read and quoted out of context
• i.e. It is one of the great portions of the Bible read at weddings.
• Because it is a lovely constructive encouraging piece of poetry
Ill:
• Remember chapter divisions are not part of the original Bible text.
• They were added by Archbishop Stephen Langton in 1228BC;
• And first appeared in the Latin Vulgate Bible,
• (e.g. The first Bible to reach British shores).
• Verse divisions were later added by Robert Estienne (1503);
• A printer living in Paris;
• And they first appeared in the Geneva Bible (e.g. bible of John Bunyan).
• And whereas chapter and verses divisions are extremely helpful;
• I for one would not want them removed from my Bible!
• They can also at times be a hindrance,
• Sometimes they divide up in the wrong place and stop the flow of an argument;
• Or they tempt us to pull out verses or sections out of their context.
Ill:
• Classic example is Isaiah chapter 53 – The suffering servants song;
• Which should have been divided and started at chapter 52 verse 13;
• And not chapter 53 verse 1.
• TRANSITION:
• We can forget that chapter 13 flows out of chapter 12 and into chapter 14;
• And so often chapter 13 gets divorced from the rest of the letter;
• And so often it is read out of context
i.e.
• It may be one of the great portions of the Bible read at weddings.
• But how many people realise verse 6 was probably penned in response to chapter 5;
• Question: What happened in chapter 5?
• Answer: The Corinthians were ‘delighting in evil’;
• They were boasting about their sinful behaviour.
• It may surprise some of you to know that the sin mentioned in chapter 5;
• Is the sin of incest!
• Hardly wedding poetry!
Ill:
• Warren Wiersbe in his ‘Be Wise’ Bible commentary;
• Pinpoints all these characteristics of love mentioned in chapter 13;
• Relate to the problems dealt with by the apostle Paul;
• Earlier on in this letter.
• In context it would seem that verse 6 is probably written with chapter 5 in mind;
• As mentioned already, the sin revealed in chapter 5 is incest within the fellowship;
• A member of the Church was having a sexual affair with his mother-in-law.
• The description used is of; “his father's wife”, not “his own mother”
• The apostle Paul then reminds them of just how bad this situation was:
• He says this sort of behaviour would even shock the pagan Corinthians!
• Even in their permissive culture, incest was taboo even for them.
• And yet these Christians were pleased of their behaviour.
• Quote: The apostle Paul in chapter 5 verse 2:
• “You should be heart broken and mourning but instead you are proud by this situation!”
• Instead of being scandalised by this behaviour ;
• In their confusion they mistakenly saw the situation as something to boast about.
Question: Why would they be proud and boastful?
Answer:
• They misunderstood what ‘grace’ is all about!
• They misunderstood their freedom in Christ.
• God’s grace, our freedom in Christ is not a licensee to do whatever we want;
• And to get away with it without any consequences.
• To think like that is to misunderstood what ‘grace’ is all about!
Question: What is grace?
Answer: “Grace is everything for nothing to those who don’t deserve anything”
• True grace is when Jesus takes sinful, polluted, rotten to the core people.
• People like you and me who have plenty of faults and failings and corrupt baggage.
• And he gives to us what we did not deserve;
• In him we find forgiveness.
• And there is the promise of a new start, a new life;
• Not because we deserved it or earn it;
• But simply because of his grace towards us!
Ill:
• Yesterday someone put a post on Facebook;
• Which illustrated the difference between grace and works.
• Between the Christian faith and the religions of the world!
• Mahatma Gandhi acknowledged the inability of his religion to atone for sin.
• Despite his moral lifestyle and good works, he admitted,
“It is a constant torture to me that I am still so far from Him whom I know to be my very life and being. I know it is my own wretchedness and wickedness that keeps me from Him.”
• The real tragedy for Gandhi is contained in his autobiography he wrote;
• That during his student days;
• He read the Gospels seriously and considered converting to Christianity.
• He believed that in the teachings of Jesus;
• He could find the solution to the caste system that was dividing the people of India.
• So one Sunday he decided to attend services at a nearby church;
• And talk to the minister about becoming a Christian.
• When he entered the sanctuary, however,
• The usher refused to give him a seat and suggested that he go worship with his own people.
• Gandhi left the church and never returned.
• He wrote these words:
• “If Christians have caste differences also, I might as well remain a Hindu.”
• That usher’s prejudice not only betrayed Jesus;
• But also turned a person away from trusting Him as Saviour.
• TRANSITION: Because Gandhi did not experience the love of Christians;
• As illustrated in chapter 13;
• He never experienced the love of the one true God.
• And throughout his life he depended on a religion of good works;
• That gave him no peace in this life and no hope for the next.
• It is only in Jesus Christ that sinful people;
• Can find forgiveness for their sins and deliverance from death and Hell.
Sadly these Corinthian Christians had misunderstood what ‘grace’ is all about!
• They misunderstood their freedom in Christ.
• God’s grace, our freedom in Christ is not a licensee to do whatever we want;
• And to get away with it without any consequences.
• To think like that is to misunderstood what ‘grace’ is all about!
Ill:
• A little girl got saved and applied for membership to a church.
• So she was interviewed by two of the elders:
• They asked here: "Were you a sinner?"
• She replied "Yes,"
• They asked here: "Are you still a sinner?"
• She replied "Yes,"
• They asked here: "Then what real changes have taken place in your life?"
• She replied; "The best way I can explain, is that I used to be a sinner running after sin, but now I'm a sinner running away from sin."
• TRANSITION: These Corinthian Christians were real ‘trophies of grace’.
• They had been wonderfully converted.
• i.e. The apostle Paul listed in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 9-11;
• Some of their lifestyles before they met Christ,
• Some of you were ….’wicked, thieves, greedy, drunkards, slanderers, and swindlers’.
• ’Sexual immoral, idolatrous, adulterous, homosexual’
• It is not a very pleasant list to have to read out publicly;
• But at one time these Christians were an ‘unholy people living in an unholy world’.
• But then they encountered the good news of Jesus Christ!
• They changed, which is why after that list of sins the apostle Paul writes a great line;
• “That is what some of you WERE!”
Yet, some of these Corinthian Christians seemed to have misunderstood that grace;
• And they seemed to had assumed;
• That God’s grace gave you license to live anyway you want to!
• In their confusion their mind-set, their thinking appears to be:
• “The more you sin, the more God’s grace will forgive you”
• And the more you are forgiven the more reason to rejoice.
Ill:
• Recently chatting to some Jehovah Witnesses and to some Muslims;
• Both have that misunderstanding of grace;
• Both groups reject the Christian idea of grace because they see it as;
• A license to freely sin without any consequences.
• TRANSITION: That idea of a license to freely sin without any consequences.
• Is of course an abuse of grace;
• And a misunderstanding of what true grace is.
Ill:
• Imagine a man involved in a serious car accident;
• He is rushed to hospital in a critical condition.
• The odds are against him and it looks like he is about to die.
• But due to the intervention of a skilled surgeon;
• The man is not only saved from death,
• But in time his scars heal up and he is as good as new.
• Now imagine the same man a few months later gets in his car and says;
• “I’m gonna go out and deliberately crash this car hard into that wall,
• because I want to show you just how good the surgeon and the hospital is!”
• You and I would say that the man is insane;
• Hospitals, surgeons & nurses are not there to deal with peoples stupidity;
• Rather they are there to help the needy, the vulnerable, the sick.
• TRANSITION: God’s grace is there to forgive the past;
• To repair the damage of sin in our lives and to give us a new start;
• Set us in a new direction.
• Only a fool will deliberately keep crashing their lives;
• To try and prove how good God’s grace is!
• Grace does not does not work like that!
These Corinthian Christians had misunderstood God’s grace;
• And assumed that grace gave you a license to live anyway you want to!
• And so the apostle tells them, “No!”
• NIV: “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.”
• Or as the Curley Translation says:
• "Love does not delight in wrongdoing but in right-doing”
• So the apostle Paul tells them straight:
• They should be mourning over this situation not boasting!
• They should be ashamed of their actions and not proud!
• They should be repenting and not rejoicing!
(2). Be pleased about the right things.
Ill:
I like the poem that one lady wrote, that goes like this…
“My face in the mirror
Isn't wrinkled or drawn.
My house isn't dirty,
The cobwebs are gone.
My garden looks lovely
And so does my lawn.
I think I might never
Put my glasses back on.”
• TRANSITION: The truth revealed in this book is not open to interpretation;
• For the Christian it is designed for application!
Quote: John R. Stott (the epistles of John):
“To walk in the truth is more than to give assent to it. It means to apply in one’s behaviour. He who “walks in the truth” is an integrated Christian in whom there is no dichotomy between profession and practice. On the contrary, there is in him an exact correspondence between his creed and his conduct. Such conformity of life and truth on the part of his children brought John greater joy than anything else. To him truth mattered.”
Question: What is the truth we are to walk in, live by etc.
Answer:
• I would suggest it is contextually what the apostle Paul has dealt with in this letter.
• To live a life that delights in right-living.
• Remember the Curley Translation of this verse:
• "Love does not delight in wrongdoing but in right-doing”
• In almost every chapter of this letter the Corinthian church was doing it wrong;
• And the apostle Paul had to correct them.
• So if we highlight their mistakes;
• Right-living is simply doing the opposite of how they were behaving;
• And following the corrective advice of the apostle Paul.
Note: The problems:
• Chapter 1 you have the Problem of Divisions in the Church.
• (1 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 10-13)
• Chapter 1 you also have the Problem of Worldly Wisdom.
• (1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 17 to chapter 2 verse 13)
• Chapter 3 you have the Problem of Carnality.
• (1 Corinthians chapter 3 verses 1-4)
• Chapter 5 you have the Problem of Immorality in the Church.
• (1 Corinthians chapter 5 verses 1-13)
• Chapter 6 you have the Problem of Bringing a Fellow Believer to Court
• (1 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 1-8)
• Chapter 6 you also have the Problem of Fornication.
• (1 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 15-20)
• Chapter 7 you have the Problem of Marriage and Divorce.
• (1 Corinthians chapter 7 verses 1-40)
• Chapter 8 you have the Problem of Meats Offered to Idols.
• (1 Corinthians chapter 8 verses 1-13)
• Chapter 11 you have the Problem of the Role Men and Women.
• (1 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 1-17)
• Chapter 11 you also have the Problem of Abusing the Lord’s Supper.
• (1 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 20-34)
• Chapter 12 you have the Problem of Misusing Spiritual Gifts.
• (1 Corinthians chapter 12 verses 1-31)
• Chapter 13 you have the Problem of a Lack of Love
• (1 Corinthians chapter 13 verses 1-13)
• Chapter 14 you have the Problem of misusing the Gift of Speaking in Tongues.
• (1 Corinthians chapter 14 verses 1-40)
• Chapter 15 you have the Problem of Wrong Teaching About the Resurrection of the Dead.
• (1 Corinthians chapter 15 verses 1-58)
• Chapter 16 you have the Problem of Collecting for the Saints.
• (1 Corinthians chapter 16 verses 1-3)
Now I make that 15 problems that needed correction (but you may well find a few more):
• To ‘rejoice in the truth’.
• Is to live-right, to live according to God’s truth;
• And therefore to do the opposite of what se Corinthian Christians were doing.
• Chapter 1 you have the Problem of Divisions in the Church.
• Truthful living is therefore to seek unity.
• Chapter 1 you also have the Problem of Worldly Wisdom.
• Truthful living is therefore to be spiritually minded.
• i.e. to be guided by the things of God.
• Chapter 3 you have the Problem of Carnality.
• Truthful living is therefore to follow the attitude and example of Jesus Christ.
• i.e. not ‘jealous and quarrelling’ by being loving and peaceable.
• Chapter 5 you have the Problem of Immorality in the Church.
• Truthful living is therefore to live a holy life with wholesome relationships.
• Chapter 6 you have the Problem of Bringing a Fellow Believer to Court
• Truthful living is therefore to honestly deal with issues.
• And not let those little ‘acorns grow into huge unmovable trees’
• Chapter 6 you also have the Problem of Fornication.
• Truthful living is therefore to be sexually pure.
• Chapter 7 you have the Problem of Marriage and Divorce.
• Truthful living is live according to God’s guidelines for marriage.
• Chapter 8 you have the Problem of Meats Offered to Idols.
• Truthful living is keep a clear conscience before God.
• Chapter 11 you have the Problem of the Role Men and Women.
• Truthful living is appreciate God men and women equal but different.
• Chapter 11 you also have the Problem of Abusing the Lord’s Supper.
• Truthful living is to examine our hearts (if need be repent) when we break bread.
• Chapter 12 you have the Problem of Misusing Spiritual Gifts.
• Truthful living is appreciate spiritual gifts are tools to build with;
• And not toys to play with.
• Chapter 13 you have the Problem of a Lack of Love
• Truthful living is to remember love is the glue that binds everything together.
• Without love we don’t have anything of lasting value.
• Chapter 14 you have the Problem of misusing the Gift of Speaking in Tongues.
• Truthful living is use our gifts for the benefit of others, to build up the Church.
• Chapter 15 you have the Problem of Wrong Teaching.
• Truthful living is to study the scriptures which encourage, rebuke and correct.
• Chapter 16 you have the Problem of Collecting for the Saints.
• Truthful living is an awareness that part of my holy living;
• Is to use my money for the extension of his kingdom.
In summary:
• Verse 6 is a simple verse divided into two parts:
• The first part stated the negative ‘does not delight in evil’
• The second part of the verse is positive; “But rejoices with the truth.”
• Or as the Curley Translation says: "but in right-doing”
• In the first part of verse 6 the focus is on wrong or sinful living;
• In the second part of verse 6 the focus on right or holy living!
Sermon Audio:
https://surf.pxwave.com/wl/?id=m88Bu9ZwZt3MPsJjMutBspVzA1LFTosS
