Sermon for 2/22/98
1 Corinthians 13:6
What Do We Rejoice In?
Introduction:
Jonathon deserves to be called the “prince of friends.” He was the son of the king and the heir apparent to the throne. Suddenly David looms upon the horizon with his beauty, his courage, and that nameless magnetism and heroism that surrounded him and marked him as the coming leader of the people. A small man would have been insanely jealous. An ordinarily wise and good man might have expected to have nothing to do with David. But Jonathon was a rare soul. He cast all ambition out of his heart, and his soul was linked to David’s. 1 Samuel says that Jonathon loved David; for he loved him as he loved his own soul. 1 Samuel 23 says Then Jonathon, Saul’s son, arose and went to David in the woods and strengthened his hand in God. And he said to him, Do not fear, for the hand of Saul my father shall not find you. You shall be king over Israel, and I shall be next to you. Even my father Saul knows that. So the two of them made a covenant before the Lord. What would our response have been to David’s troubles? Their friendship lights up the pages of a warlike and corrupt time. It was a golden thread that runs through all the later years of the story of Saul’s reign. Great friendships can grow up only between large and generous natures. Jonathan had true godly love. Sacrificial love.
WBTU:
A. Summary of last week. Love is not rude, love is not self-seeking, and love is not easily angered.
B. Love thinks no evil. Two things this means. Talked mostly about the record of wrongs last week. Expanding on last point.
Thesis: Let’s examine what love does and does not rejoice in.
For instances:
I. Love does not rejoice in evil.
A. Love does not rejoice in ignorance.
1. Love is not so superficial. Ignorance is not bliss, it is ignorant. Ignorance leads to sin and to a lack of love.
2. When Marie Antoinette came to Paris as a bride, not a single ragged or starving person appeared on the streets along which the splendid procession passed. France was seething with discontent at the time, born of dire poverty- a discontent that was later to break out in the horrors of the Revolution- but Marie Antoinette was not to know anything about that. So the poor starving population was swept into the side streets where they could not be seen, and kept penned up there so that Marie Antoinette might think all was happy and prosperous in Paris. When she was asked about the poor and how they should be fed, she said that they should eat cake. She had no idea. Optimism based on ignorance is not optimism at all. It is only self-deception. Many people do this. I am a good person.
3. Selfishness turns its face away from sorrows, shames, and the failures of others. Love does not turn away from lonely, broken lives.
4. Love faces the facts with confidence that God is able to deal with them.
B. Love is saddened by sin.
1. Love has 20/20 vision. Love sees more clearly. Paul was not blind to the grave sins and weaknesses of the Corinthian Christians.
2. Love is not blind.
3. Jesus saw through outward disguises to inner being. Jesus knew the evil in the world as only the sinless One could know it. Jesus did not trust himself to men because he knew what was in a man.
4. God is a loving Father who cannot ignore wrongdoing of a child but is nevertheless sorry to see it. Parents today are not showing true love.
5. Wrath is love reaching out against evil with deep concern. Love feels intensely.
6. It is our duty to be angry at wrong, but love puts divine sorrow into our anger. Must be learned at the foot of the cross.
C. Love does not rejoice in its own morality. This is evil.
1. Proverbs 14:12- There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.
2. People who live together. But we love each other, if you loved each other so much why don’t you get married?
3. WE must go by the guidelines of the Bible.
D. Love does not rejoice in the misfortunes of others.
1. When we learn that someone in public life has been found guilty of wrongdoing, what is our reaction? President Clinton.
2. Luke 18:11-13- The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you that I am not like other men-extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess. And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner!
3. Christian love is not content to denounce wrong; it seeks to save men from it.
4. What stirs our anger at evil in others? Is it our own insecurities?
5. Does wrongdoing hurt more when it affects God and His kingdom or when it affects us personally?
6. Do our hearts leap up in fierce exultation when we hare something bad about our rival! If we are a Christian we should feel sorry for him.
7. Have we ever noticed how easy it is to be glad at another’s misfortune, when it leads to our gain?
8. What injustice has been done to someone we know, and we stand to profit by his fall, what is that rejoicing in our hearts?
9. When that fellow servant began that evil habit that have now ruined him and thereby exalts us, did we ever try to save him from those sinful habits?
10. Those who persecute us.
II. Love rejoices in the truth.
A. Our delight should be in the truth.
1. Psalm 119:35- Make me walk in the path of your commandments, For I delight in it. 77- For your law is my delight. 174- I long for your salvation, O Lord, and Your Law is my delight.
2. Psalm 1:1-3- Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.
B. The positive sides of the negatives we have just discussed.
1. Love is not ignorant. It knows the truth but loves in spite of the truth.
2. Love knows the worst but is saddened by it and works toward the best.
3. Love knows that people are full of sin and are prone to sin, but love still loves in spite of this. Essence of agape love. What Jesus did for us. While we were yet sinners. Many people would like to emphasize positives of gospel, but must have negatives to get to the positives.
4. Love rejoices in the good fortunes and the positive characteristics even of our enemies. Looking for the good.
5. A young man left his employer, a lumber merchant, and began business in opposition to him. For a while he prospered greatly and got many orders that would have gone to the firm he had left. But just when his business seemed to be most flourishing, and he had more orders than he could supply, a great fire in his yard destroyed all his lumber. The day after the fire he saw his old employer coming toward his office, and he said, “I could have hated him, for I thought he was coming to gloat over my misfortune. But he came to me as a friend in need and said, “I know you are contracted to supply lumber to your customers by certain dates, and this unfortunate fire makes it impossible for you to do it. But my lumberyard is at your disposal. You can have what you need and pay me at your own convienance. Your business may go on as usual.” The young man was overwhelmed by this example; the hatred that he had felt gave place to love.
C. Love rejoices in the truth. Some people seem to think that love should always be soft and yielding.
1. Love must be tough. It knows the truth and makes tough choices that sometimes don’t look like love but really are love.
2. Love makes a clear distinction between what we should and should not rejoice in.
3. Lack of discipline in children is the fault of parents. Really did not love.
4. A saying that goes, “There is nothing in the world that destroys love like the truth.” That is not Christian love. Christ loved in spite of our faults.
5. Love that is in a Christian can endure the worst because it has its roots in the best.
6. Christian must imitate Savior, who loves us not because of faults but in spite of them.
7. Love is not refusal to believe the truth. A wife whose husband had embezzled thousands of dollars simply would not believe it of him. She loved her husband. So did a close friend. But this friend had to appear in court for the truth’s sake and witness against him. The man was pronounced guilty by two courts and sentenced to a jail term. Overwhelming evidence was produced against him. However, his wife still would not believe the truth. Is her kind of love of any help to his sinful and eternal condition? No, it only encourages him to persist in perpetuating a lie.
8. Liberals who refuse to acknowledge things as sin.
9. Which is kinder in the long run, to shut one’s eyes to sin that is ruining life or to admit it is there and pray and work for its removal?
10. “Your child will walk again,” said a wise physician to a polio victim’s parents, “if you keep up a regular course of exercise that I will prescribe for him, and if you do not wait on him hand and foot, but insist that he try to help himself.” At first the exercises were painful, and the child cried out. But though the parent’s hearts were full of pity, their concern for his future would not let them give in. They continued hour after hour, day after day, month after month, kindly but firmly encouraging their little boy to exercise his partly paralyzed legs, and to follow as nearly as possible the routine of a normal child. Now a young man, this once crippled youngster walks without the trace of limp. Is not this an illustration of the way that God loves us, and the way we are to love and help others?
D. We need to seek to be honest in our own lives.
1. A novelist once wrote of a husband and wife whose marriage was about to break up because of the man’s terrible temper. They separated, but a week later the husband begged his wife to give him one more chance. “Why don’t we trade faults, dear?” suggested the wife. “You give up your temper, and I’ll give up something you don’t like about me.” “You have no faults,” said the husband. When the wife protested that she must have, he burst forth once more into uncontrolled anger. Love that refuses to face the truth about others is not a good basis for a lasting relationship.
2. Matthew 7:3-5- And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, Let me remove the speck from your eye.’ And look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
3. People in Corinth church were not blind to the faults of the outside world in Corinth, but they were blind to their own faults and deficiencies. It’s the same way today.
4. Galatians 4:16- Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?
5. Cannot friendship and truth exist together? WE have many false friends. My friend Jay.
6. God never treats our faults as if they were of no account. Yes, we come as we are, but after that God works on our faults.
7. Love sees both sides of the picture. The good and the bad. It makes the good look so much better. We rejoice in the good.
E. We need to see the good, the truth.
1. It is tragic for us to be aware of only the shortcomings of our children, brothers and sisters, parents, or friends and not of their good qualities.
2. The news people. Always focus on the bad.
3. We have the same problem in the church. Focus on the bad.
4. To hear some evangelist it would sound like God has gone out of business. We need to make it our business to discover goodness God has instilled in others, even in those who are not of his children, much like a collector rejoices when he finds rare coin or book.
5. Love of God is the highest good. In praising others good, maybe we can win them to Christ. Many times we notice their bad points and make them painfully aware of them. This is needed, but how many times do we praise them as well.
