November 10, 2002 I Corinthians 13:4-7
¡§The substance of Love¡¨
INTRODUCTION
I think that I would be safe in saying that everyone wants to be loved. And in their desire to be loved, they will try almost anything. ¡§A young man was determined to win the affection of a lady who refused to even talk to him anymore. He decided that the way to her heart was through the mail, so he began writing her love letters. He wrote a love letter every day to this lady. Six, seven times a week she got a love letter from him. When she didn¡¦t respond, he increased his output to three notes every twenty-four hours. In all, he wrote her more than seven hundred letters. And she wound up marrying the postman.¡¨ ¡V Tale of the Tardy Oxcart, p. 354
Almost every day when I check my e-mail, there will be an advertisement for a matchmaking service. When I go on the internet, the home page of my internet server will have several places listed where a person could go to find pornographic pictures of women. When I go to the checkout at the grocery store or Walmart, I am surrounded with magazines that have headlines about the latest romance, breakup or affair. People are looking for love. Amazon.com lists 2,652 book titles regarding ¡§Heaven,¡¨ 10,304 for ¡§Money,¡¨ 16,765 for ¡§Sex,¡¨ 18,818 for ¡§God,¡¨ and 30,066 for ¡§Love.¡¨ Love is one of the deepest human needs of all, yet it is also a very misunderstood and misused word. It is this misunderstanding about love that causes people to look for it in all the wrong places.
Some people think of love as an emotion. It is not. Others think of it as sex. It is not that either. One person defined it using an acrostic of the letters of love:
L ¡V listening when another is speaking
O ¡V overlooking petty faults and forgiving all failures
V ¡V valuing other people for who they are
E ¡V expressing love in a practical way - Denis Waitley, Seeds of Greatness
I suppose that if I was to ask each person here for a definition of love, you probably all would give me something different. We all have our own idea of what love really is. We try to define it in terms that we can understand because defining something helps us to get a handle on it ¡V to control it. But how do you get a handle on love? Who is qualified to define it? Who has ever experienced it in its purest form? The only one who meets that requirement is God.
God wants us to know what real love is, so he directed the apostle Paul to record His thoughts on the subject. They are recorded here in 1 Cor. 13. There¡¦s a reason that God would choose to include this chapter about love in his letter to the Corinthian church. They were confused about love. Not only were they not expressing love toward one another within the church, but what love they were expressing was totally outside the confines of God¡¦s will. There was prostitution going on, and they thought nothing of it. Divorce was rampant in the church because of marital unfaithfulness. It even went so far as a man having a sexual relationship with his step-mother. And instead of the church being shocked by it, they were proud of it. They were searching for love, but they didn¡¦t understand what real love is. So Paul wrote them this chapter to give them just a glimpse of God¡¦s kind of love. In order for them to be healthy people and a healthy church, they had to understand God¡¦s kind of love, and they had to learn to express that love to one another.
This morning, we are going to look at two principles of love, we are going to quickly see the 16 characteristics of love that Paul wrote about, and then we are going to learn from the greatest example of love.
1. Principles of love.
a. Love is active.
Though some of the characteristics that we are going to look at in a minute are expressed as adjectives in English, they are actually verbs in Greek which is the language that they were written in originally. True love is more than just a feeling on the inside. If it stays on the inside and is content to remain just a fuzzy emotion, then it will never grow into real love. Real love causes you to reach beyond yourself to impact the life of the one that you love. As we saw when we looked at vs. 3 last week, you can do kind actions without love, but you cannot love without acting on that love.
b. Love is decisive.
Mary had grown up knowing that she was different from the other kids, and she hated it. She was born with a cleft palate and had to bear the jokes and stares of cruel children who teased her non-stop about her misshaped lip, crooked nose, and garbled speech. With all the teasing, Mary grew up hating the fact that she was ¡§different¡¨. She was convinced that no one, outside her family, could ever love her ... until she entered Mrs. Leonard¡¦s class. Mrs. Leonard had a warm smile, a round face, and shiny brown hair. While everyone in her class liked her, Mary came to love Mrs. Leonard. In the 1950¡¦s, it was common for teachers to give their children an annual hearing test. However, in Mary¡¦s case, in addition to her cleft palate, she was barely able to hear out of one ear. Determined not to let the other children have another ¡§difference¡¨ to point out, she would cheat on the test each year. The ¡§whisper test¡¨ was given by having a child walk to the classroom door, turn sideways, close one ear with a finger, and then repeat something that the teacher whispered. Mary turned her bad ear towards her teacher and pretended to cover her good ear. She knew that teachers would often say things like, ¡§The sky is blue,¡¨ or ¡§What color are your shoes?¡¨ But not on that day. Surely, God put seven words in Mrs. Leonard¡¦s mouth that changed Mary¡¦s life forever. When the ¡§whisper test¡¨ came, Mary heard the words: ¡§I wish you were my little girl.¡¨ - John Trent, Ph.D., Vice President of Today¡¦s Family, Men of Action, Winter 1993, Page 5
2. Characteristics of love.
The characteristics that we are getting ready to look at are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all the things that characterize God¡¦s kind of love. Instead, they are a starting point that can help us evaluate the level of our own love, and they are a commercial for God¡¦s love. They are put here to cause us to want to know more about Him and the love that He offers us.
a. Love is¡K
„X Patient ¡V ¡§never gives up¡¨ - Message
¡§Love is like a big rubber band that can stretch a long way without breaking or snapping under a great deal of stress.¡¨ ¡V Paul Fritz
The Corinthians were not being patient with one another. They looked at the weaker, more immature portions of their body and wanted them to get strong and mature right away. They weren¡¦t willing to wait. If these parts didn¡¦t progress as fast as others thought that they should, then they were willing to just cut them off. They weren¡¦t willing to wait for the growth process to reach completion. They were not patient.
Just because you are not patient with someone at some portion of your day doesn¡¦t mean that you don¡¦t love them. It does mean that you are not acting in a loving way toward them. The same can be said for all of these characteristics.
„X Kind
Kindness is the other side of patience. While patience enables me to never give up on a person and put up with all the junk that they throw my way, kindness causes me to send good things back to them even when they don¡¦t deserve it. I am kind to them, and my kindness helps them to get to the point that they will respond to my love.
b. Love is not¡K
„X Proud ¡V ¡§The fellow who is deeply in love with himself should get a divorce.¡¨ - 14,000 quips and quotes Love is always focused on the needs and greatness of the other person. When I am expressing pride, I am focused only on myself. Pride says that my needs are more important than your needs. Pride says that you are here to benefit me, to make me feel good, to make me look good. But love says that I am here for you.
„X Rude ¡V It¡¦s the idea that I¡¦m going to put you ahead of me. I¡¦m going to let you know you important you are to me. When we enter into a conversation, I¡¦m going to block out every other person and every other distraction so that I can give you my 100% undivided attention. I¡¦m not going to watch TV, read the newspaper and pretend to listen to you all at the same time. I¡¦m not going to interrupt you, and I¡¦m not going to let anyone else interrupt the time that I have devoted to you.
„X Self ¡V seeking (¡§demand its own way¡¨ ¡V Living Bible)
"Dearest Jimmy, No words could ever express the great unhappiness I¡¦ve felt since breaking our engagement. Please say you¡¦ll take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart, so please forgive me. I love you, I love you, I love you! Yours forever, Marie... P.S., And congratulations on willing the state lottery."
„X Irritable ¡V You know when I get irritable? It¡¦s when someone interrupts my plans, my goals and the fulfillment of my needs. In other words, when you get in my way, I get irritated at you. So whenever I am irritable, the focus is once again on me, not you.
c. Love does¡K
„X Rejoice with the truth
„X Always protects the reputation ¡V cover, pass over in silence, keep confidential; roof [¡§throws a cloak of silence over what is displeasing in another person¡¨]
(1 Peter 4:8) ¡§Love covers over a multitude of sins.¡¨ Love is willing to overlook a fault for the sake of a relationship.
Love allows no room for gossip.
„X Always believes the best
It isn¡¦t that God¡¦s kind of love is gullible, believing everything that it sees and hears. That¡¦s what blind love does. God¡¦s kind of love is the kind of love that believes the best about a person even when it knows all of their faults.
I heard a definition of the contrast between infatuation & love. It says, "Infatuation is when you think your husband is as handsome as Tom Cruse, as amusing as Rodney Dangerfield, as intellectual as Albert Einstein, as devout as Billy Graham, & as athletic as Hulk Hogan." That is infatuation. "Love is realizing that your husband is as handsome as Albert Einstein, as intellectual as Hulk Hogan, as devout as Tom Cruse, as athletic as Rodney Dangerfield, & as amusing as Billy Graham. But you love him anyway." You see, there¡¦s a big difference between infatuation & love.
„X Always hopes for a future ¡V it expects great things in the future.
„X Always perseveres to the last ¡V it remains instead of fleeing. It stands its ground and endures in the face of trouble, affliction, persecution and suffering. Love hurts. ¡§To love at all is to be vunerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin or your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable...The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers...of love is Hell.¡¨ - C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1960. If love is real, then it will stick around no matter how much pain it is enduring.
d. Love does not¡K
„X Envy
Paul¡¦s girl is rich and haughty;
My girl is poor as clay.
Paul¡¦s girl is young and pretty;
My girl looks like a bale of hay.
Paul¡¦s girl is smart and clever;
My girl is dumb but good
But would I trade my girl for Paul¡¦s?
You bet your life I would! ¡V David Roper, The Law that sets you Free
When you envy what God has given someone else, you are saying two things. One, you are not satisfied with what God has given you. And two, you are not showing love toward that person you envy because you have decided that they are not worthy of having whatever it is that you want for yourself.
„X Boast
„X Keep score
„X Delight in injustice ¡V Real love doesn¡¦t rejoice when the guy who dumped you gets dumped by someone else. It doesn¡¦t even rejoice when someone receives the just consequences of wrong actions that they have done. It always wants good to happen to the people who are the object of its love.
„X Fail
I wish that I could say that ¡§love never fails¡¨ means that love will eventually bring about the change that you have been longing for in someone¡¦s life. But that¡¦s not necessarily the case. God in his love has been reaching out to some of you for a long time, and you have still refused Him. Some of you will refuse Him until the day of your death. But God¡¦s love for you will never fail. It will never end.
3. Example of love.
The best definition of love is God Himself. God is love. So if you want to see love in action and understand it, look at the character and actions of God.
[go through different characteristics and show how God exercises them toward us, His creation]
¡§Only one act of pure love, unsullied by any taint of ulterior motive, has ever been performed in the history of the world, namely the self-giving of God in Christ on the cross for undeserving sinners. That is why, if we are looking for a definition of love, we should look not in a dictionary, but at Calvary.¡¨ -John Stott, The Cross of Christ. Intervarsity Press: December, 1986.
Karl Barth, famed theologian, was once asked, ¡§What is the greatest thought you ever had?¡¨ His answer: ¡§Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.¡¨ ¡V Dale Galloway, Rebuild your life
CONCLUSION
In the book, ¡§Children¡¦s Letters to God: The New Collection¡¨, a little girl named, Nan, writes this letter: ¡§Dear God, I bet it is very hard for you to love all of everybody in the whole world. There are only four people in our family and I have trouble loving them!¡¨ It is hard to love people. They do so many unlovely things. But if you have God¡¦s Spirit living inside of you, you have the capacity to love with God¡¦s kind of love. But you have to decide to love, and you have to give control of your emotions and your actions to God so that He can live through you.
Application:
1. Do you have a problem with any of these characteristics?
Do you have a problem with patience, kindness, pride, envy or gossip? Can I suggest to you that your problem is not a patience problem. You don¡¦t need to pray to God for more patience. Your problem, at its core, is a love problem. You need to pray for more love. That is a prayer that God will always answer. Would you be willing to pray something like this: ¡§Dear Lord, help me to love ________ with the type of love described here in 1 Cor. 13:4-7. Help me to love them the way that you love them.¡¨?
2. Do you have a love relationship with God?
God loves you. He has always loved you. There is nothing good that you can do to cause Him to love you more than He already does. And there is nothing bad that you can do that would cause Him to love you any less. Some of you have responded to His love. Others of you have refused His love. Don¡¦t refuse it again.
