“The Trust of Love”
I Corinthians 13:7
March 9, 2003
Love of Another Kind – I Corinthians 13
Theme Introduction:
Trust. Who do you trust? Americans trust each other less and less each year, this according to Pamela Paxton, Associate Prof of Sociology at The Ohio State University, who studied the subject intensely. She said the recent rise in gated communities and use of private security guards may be one symptom of a growing lack of trust in the country. “A general lack of trust can be very damaging,” she said. According to CBS News poll, confidence in Big Business is lower in America than even during the Savings and Loan scandals of the 1980’s. We no longer trust the media, according to numerous polls. Most Americans apparently do trust our government when it comes to national security, but a majority do not trust the government when it comes to the economy. In a Harris poll done in December, people were asked about a number of entities whether or not they had “a great deal of confidence” in those entities. Only one of the fourteen entities ranked as having over 40% of the public as expressing “a great deal of confidence”—the military. Organized religion ranked well down the list—not that I’m particularly concerned, because I’m not a particular fan of organized religion—but it did rank ahead of organized labor, lawyers, and the media! There just isn’t a lot of trust around these days—I think most Americans are significantly disillusioned by a whole lot of elements of our society. It’s just hard to know who to trust these days!
Trust isn’t easy to come by; once it is lost, it isn’t easy to regain. Today’s theme is trust, and how love acts toward a fellow believer in the arena of trust. But of one thing we can be certain: “Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus!”
MESSAGE
I confess: I can be cynical. I fear that, the older I get, the more cynical I am becoming. I’m pretty sure this isn’t a good development! I’m honestly more cynical about politics than I’ve ever been. Some of the shenanigans that are being pulled in the U.S. Senate right now are just shameful, bold-faced lies, and I wonder if there will be enough courage to stand up to the lies; call me cynical, I doubt it! Seems to me more and more as though one of our major parties is made up mostly of liars and the other mostly of cowards (you can figure out on your own time which is which!). Yeah, when it comes to politics, I am cynical; there just aren’t many politicians of any party that I trust anymore. Then again, maybe that’s just me waking up to reality!
But I have to be careful as to how cynical I grow in general, how much I allow cynicism to gain a foothold in my life, because of what Paul says to us today. Stand with me as we read I Corinthians 13:1-7.
Paul is saying that love, as a general rule, is not suspicious or cynical. A good simple definition:
I. A Definition: Love gives the benefit of the doubt.
Calvin calls for a “kindness in judging of things”. This is especially important as it relates to evaluating people. Love considers a person innocent until proven otherwise. Hatred leaps to the conclusion that the worst-possible explanation is the correct one; it finds reason to mistrust, to see everything in the worst possible light. Love leaps to the conclusion that the person loved is in the right; love opts for the most favorable explanation. Love holds out hope that the person loved will be vindicated—while praying for the truth at the same time. Love welcomes the idea that a person is better than we thought, or more blameless than expected. Love roots for it all to be a big misunderstanding instead of for there to be sin. Love errs on the side of trust.
A spirit of mutual trust is what ought to pervade a Biblical community. This is an indispensable ingredient for unity. And when trust is broken, love’s instinct is to heal and restore. It is quick to give the benefit of the doubt to the person who evidences repentance and a true desire to change.
Contrast this with Job’s “friends”, who were ready to turn on him at a moment’s notice. When they saw the fix that Job was in, their first instinct was to assume the worst about him. They thought, like some seem to think today, that God was some kind of celestial vending machine God, whereby if you put the right thing in, you get blessings from God, but if you don’t, you get cursing. People thought that in Jesus’ day; remember the blind man whom Jesus healed, and they asked, "who sinned? This man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” It doesn’t work that way, but Job’s buds thought so, and since bad things were happening to Job, they jumped to the conclusion that Job was doing all kinds of sinful stuff. And so they condescendingly lectured him; that’s not love.
This characteristic of love is closely linked to the next one in Paul’s list. For one to have a love that “believes all things”, one must have a grasp on the hope that is found in Jesus Christ and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. I’ll say this again next week, but love prevents us from writing off anyone. Period. Who have you written off?
Love doesn’t act that way, but rather, in a spirit of hope, love always seeks to see the good in others, and hope for the best. Love believes all.
II. A Distinction: Love does not equal gullibility.
This is not a call to the suspension of common sense, or of sound judgment; it is not a call to knowingly walk into an ambush. We balance this with prudence and discernment, to be sure. Love doesn’t give the benefit of the doubt when there is no doubt, of course; it doesn’t demand an unreasonable trust when trust has been destroyed.
Gullibility is not a virtue, folks! Let me say this as gently as I can, in a spirit of helpful love, okay, but here it is: I fear that some of the most gullible people I know are Christians! And that gullibility at times becomes sinful! Let me illustrate. With the rise of the Internet has come the proliferation of “urban legends”, which are stories which are purported to be true but are in reality elaborate hoaxes. They range from sensationalistic stories, to conspiracy theories, to something-for-nothing offers, to tear-jerking stories of someone in terrible physical straits who needs prayer and cards and letters and money, or what have you. I don’t get as many of these as I used to, thankfully, forwarded to me, but I used to get them all the time—from other Christians. Folks, when I pass something on as truth that isn’t, simply because I’m gullible, or because I don’t take the time to do a little research, then I’m being lazy and irresponsible at the least, and depending on the content of the message, I might be spreading rumor or gossip as well. That is clearly wrong, and yet Christians do it, and these things make the rounds. Have we hopefully and finally seen the last of the Madalyn Murray O’Hair FCC rumor, now that the lady has been dead for five years? You remember that one: Ms. O’Hair was petitioning Congress to get all Christian programming off TV and radio. That lie made the rounds for decades, literally, fueled by our gullibility. Paul says that love believes all, love trusts, but that doesn’t mean that it is loving to be gullible, to naively buy everything that comes down the block.
III. A Dependency: Love trusts God, enabling a trust in others.
So how do I pull this off in my life? Well, first, remember that all of the characteristics of love of which we are speaking constitute something that the Holy Spirit must produce in our lives as we cooperate with Him. We don’t come by these naturally, and we don’t simply will ourselves to love in these ways. God does an inside job in our lives, and we cooperate with the work He is doing. He doesn’t change us against our wills, but our wills alone are insufficient to accomplish God-honoring change. I can’t just trust people as God wills in my own strength, but I can do so in the power of the Spirit.
But it takes good old-fashioned guts sometimes to extend trust to a person. Who do you think of when you think of the gutsiest guy in the Bible? Maybe you think of David, slinging his slingshot toward Goliath. A good candidate, to be sure. Maybe you think of Abraham, who stepped out and went to a place he’d never been before, uncertain of what lay ahead of him. Maybe you think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the 3 Hebrew kids who went into the fiery furnace rather than bow to the king, or Daniel, who faced lions for the same reason. Or maybe you think of Elijah, who stared down 450 prophets of Baal in a showdown on Mount Carmel, or of Paul, who boldly proclaimed the gospel to pagan kings and suffered mightily for the name of Jesus.
But my vote might well go to a different guy. Let me set it up this way for you—and some of you will recognize who I’m talking about from my lead-in. Imagine having a dream in which God announces to you this wonderful news: Saddam Hussein has become a believer in Jesus! In the midst of your joy, God then directs you; He says, “Go to such-and-such a place, and that’s where Saddam will be. Take him back home with you.” “Wait, God, You want me to have Saddam into my home for dinner? This guy is trouble, God, and while I’m really happy that he’s a Christian and all, well, I’m just not too sure about that!”
Acts 9 details a fairly similar scenario. It tells of the guy who might get my vote for gutsiest man in the Bible: a fellow named Ananias. God told him to accept Saul of Tarsus, the sworn enemy of the early church, as a brother in Christ. Saul was a major persecutor of Christians; that we what he did; he was good at it and notorious for it. Imagine being in Ananias’ shoes! GULP! How did he accept Saul, soon to become Paul? By first having faith in God! In fact, is that not the cord running through all of the greats of faith we mentioned? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. He journeyed forth because he trusted God. David faced the giant because he knew that God was bigger than Goliath; Daniel trusted God and faced the lions; the 3 Hebrew children were confident God could deliver them. Hebrews 11 gives us confidence that we can accomplish all sorts of things in the power of God when we first put our faith in him, and in Ananias’ case—and sometimes, in ours—when we are called to trust others, we’ll be able to do so because we first trust God!
That doesn’t mean that my trust in people will always be rewarded simply because I trust God; sometimes when I love people by exercising trust in them, I will get burned. And that leads to my last point:
IV. A Disposition: Love causes me to allow myself to sometimes get burned.
“But I’ll get burned if I trust others.” And your point would be? Sure, you’ll get burned on occasion. I have! So what? I do not want to go around in life assuming that everyone is out to get me. Frankly, that’s a form of pride. I would rather be occasionally burned than to be consistently cynical.
Calvin says that “a Christian man will reckon it better to be imposed upon by his own kindness and easy temper, than to wrong his brother by an unfriendly suspicion”. There are worse things than having egg on your face. Having your pride bruised, your expectations disappointed, your hope shattered, even your heart broken; these aren’t the worst things that can happen to you. At the risk of ruining a good phrase, ‘tis far better to have trusted and been disappointed than never to have trusted at all!
This is a milestone month for me. I’m a person who just thinks of silly things like this, but if I live to be 85, as some of you might remember I mentioned in a message a few months back, today is exactly the halfway point of my life; I’m 42-and-a-half today. I guess I’m officially “middle-aged”, huh? Preserved right nicely, don’t you think? More concretely, the end of this month marks 10 years here for us. You people have loved us, and you have shown it, in part, by trust. I still remember sitting in the grange hall, facing the grilling, and when it came my turn, saying, “You have to trust my intentions. I may—no, I will—screw up. But you must trust that what I am trying to do, imperfectly as I might try to do it, is to shepherd this church into fuller obedience and more effective ministry. I’ll try to earn that trust over time, but you have to extend me some right off the bat. Vote “no” if you won’t do that.” And you have loved me for 10 years by doing just that. You’ve trusted me. Now, do that same thing, for others. That’s love—a love that “believes all.”
