Introduction
Welcome to our penultimate sermon on love in 1 Corinthians 13. Love is at the heart of Christianity, we saw that God is love and that we must love as a response. The world is calling out for real love, the Beatles sang I just need somebody to love. Love is such a popular theme in popular music. While some of this does refer to sex, there is also a deep undercurrent of just wanting to belong or to be wanted, to be loved. At the same time they seem to recognise that it doesn’t really exist. Marriages break down, forever doesn’t really seem to mean forever any more. Yet, here Paul wants to tell us that love does exist and that through the power of Christ we can live lives of love.
What is this love like? It is certainly not easy. But it is what we are called to as Christians. This morning we are looking at verse 7. Both this week and next week we’ll be looking at the durability of love. This week we look at love not giving up, that’s our bit, next week we’ll look at love from an eternal perspective as the only thing that lasts. But for the last time, here’s our run down on our approach for this series. 1. How did Jesus show this aspect of love? 2. How do we show or not show this aspect of love? 3. How do you plan to do better in the future?
This verse could be problematic. It is the one that has the most variation in how it is translated. But it is basically about different aspects of not giving up, what I want to do is to read 3 different translations, the NLT, the RSV and the Message of each phrase to help you get to grips with what it means.
Love bears all things, never gives up or puts up with anything.
Love believes all things, never loses faith, trusts God always.
Love hopes all things, is always hopeful, always looks for the best.
Love endures all things, endures through every circumstance, never looks back, but keeps going to the end.
I guess another way of putting it would be that love is durable or love is unbreakable. There was this program on TV called brainics and they basically did all those science experiments that people in science classes always wanted to do. For example what really happens when you place metal objects in a microwave and turn it on and keep it on? Well one week they wanted to see exactly how unbreakable, unbreakable objects were, so they got unbreakable plates, mugs and various other stuff and began by hitting them with sledgehammers, then put them all in a caravan and blew it up. Some survived, some didn’t. Some were truly unbreakable (at least to within the limits of the test), some were not. Paul is telling us that genuine Christian love is unbreakable under any circumstances.
Jesus
So how does Jesus measure up to unbreakable love. Well Easter is coming soon. I am constantly amazed at how close it is, but for completely different reasons. But the cross is perhaps the ultimate expression of this love of Jesus. It shows just how unbreakable his love was. In John 13:1 we are told that Jesus showed the full extent of his love, or loved us to the uttermost, or he loved them right through to the end. Jesus love kept going to the end, endured through every circumstance and all things. If you’ve seen The Passion of the Christ, you’ll have some idea of what Jesus went through, although it is a bit overdone in places. What it doesn’t convey, what it cannot convey but has to rely on the physical aspects, is what Jesus took on himself to become sin for us. God who is by very definition holy, became sin for us. He loved us that much. And then we need to consider the people he was doing it all for. There were the disciples, who misunderstood what Jesus was saying. How got things wrong, who squabbled over who was to be the greatest, while the sovereign creator and sustainer of the universe got down and washed their feet, who in the garden of Gethsemane couldn’t even stay awake and keep watch with him, who at the crucifixion deserted him. But Jesus love for them was unbreakable. Or what about the ones doing the crucifixion. Those who handed him over to the Romans and the Romans who carried out the crucifixion. Those who not only put him through the pain and the death, but mocked and rejected him. Jesus said “Father forgive them”. He was doing it for those who were crucifying as well. And what about us who claim to follow him. With all our failings, imperfections, problems, weakness and downright stubbornness and refusal to do what God says at times. Jesus love for us was unbreakable as well, he stayed on the cross. Even for those who don’t accept him, Jesus love is unbreakable and he wants them to come to him. To allow what he has done for them at great cost to apply to them as well. Jesus love was unbreakable.
The love that endured the cross, was a love that bore all things, never gave up and put up with everything a sinful world could hurl at him. It was a love that trusted in God. It was a love that hoped, it was love that says, yes the disciples have messed up and deserted me, but I know they can do better. It was a love that said, yes I know all these people thousands of years from now will just not get some stuff, but I believe they can. Jesus love was and is unbreakable.
What about us
So what about us, is our love unbreakable or are their limits with strain and snap our love? It is very easy to give up on people, to think they have gone to far, to reach the limit of what we are willing to put up with, to find circumstances where our love does not endure. We all have this snapping point. This far no further. We have this expectation of what is reasonable for us to put up with and what is not. But love has no limits.
Now I am a fairly laid back person most of the time. My Dad sometimes complains that I am too laid back. I imagine some of you think exactly the same thing from the way I act around some of the young people that come into our services. Or rather from the way I don’t act towards some of our young people. But this is not just my nature, it goes beyond that. I have made a concious decision with God’s help to endure all things, to bear all things and put up with anything. Do you think it doesn’t effect me to spend hours on a sermon, praying that I am speak what God wants us to hear and being convinced that I have a message you need to hear and then not one single person hears it because they are all distracted by the young people? Do you think I don’t care about the language and lack of respect we sometimes get from them? Do you think it doesn’t hurt when I spend time and effort trying to faithful represent what the Bible says to be told, ah its just because your young. But I made a decision to love without limits, to endure all things.
But on the other hand there are occasions where I’ve failed, where I must do better. There are times where I just get so frustrated with peoples unwillingness to listen or change, for their unwillingness to see beyond their own perspective and how others see them, that sometimes I just want to throw the whole thing in. Say, stuff it, your not worth it. Why am I wasting my time putting in all this effort for you? And then God reminds me, that if they’re worth him dying for, they are certainly worth me putting time and effort in for. Then I repent and God doesn’t give up on me but forgives me and I move on. Then there are the people at the district assembly that make we want to march to the front and denounce them for the hypocrites they are, because I am tired of the respect they get that in my opinion they don’t deserve. For instance there was an ordained minister at the District Assembly sitting not to far from me, who for the whole of the worship band bit at the start of the service, sat with his arms folded refusing to sing, but then they sang “Called unto Holiness” with the pipe organ and he was up on his feet with his arms in the air. They just make me mad and at that moment I have no love for him, but just anger at the example he is setting and the fact that there are people who look to him for spiritual guidance. Then I remember that God died for him to and I am rebuked. I don’t hold a higher opinion of his actions, but I love.
But to be honest all of these are minor, in my life I have not had to put up with much really. If we look back in church history or even to places around the world today, then there are many many people who have endured far more than we will ever have to, God willing. There are people who have been tortured, who have gone to their deaths rather than recant their faith. We have people who have endured persecution in China. We have people like Martin Luther King, who saw his people oppressed by those around who even claimed to be Christian. Yet, never lost his love and never gave into hate. The other one that I remember is some of the victims of terrorism in Northern Ireland. The ones who despite loosing innocent loved ones to terrorist bombs, have appeared on TV and forgiven those who did the bombing. Those who no matter what they have suffered have been willing to take Jesus command to love others seriously.
And yet there are situations where our love endures. When we have a child who is wayward, who goes beyond the bounds of what is acceptable. Who completely ruins their life and those around them. Do you ever stop loving them? Do you ever reach the point where you do not long for the day where they come home? Love endures all things. Jesus told the story of the prodigal son and last week Peter talked about the story of Hosea. In the story of the prodigal son, we have the story of the boy who decided that he didn’t want to wait for his father’s death to get his inheritance. And so he asks his dad for it now. This was unthinkable, it was like saying he wanted his father dead. While we might even have reached the point where some people may even say this to their father’s this was even more unacceptable in Jesus day. The Father should have thrown his son out on the street with nothing. Yet, he loves and so he gives his son his request. And his son squanders the whole lot, ends up with nothing and working in a job taking care of pigs, even though pigs are unclean and no good Jew would keep them. And then he has the cheek to return home. But the father’s love is unbreakable. It is a love that bears all things, never gives us, never looses faith, is always hopeful and endures all things.
But it is also important to recognise what we are not talking about as well as what we are talking about. This doesn’t mean that we can’t act to change situations or that we have to be passive in receiving everything that is doled out to us. It does mean we have to respond in love. We still have to make a conscious decision to love the one who is the problem. Or sometimes God does want us to just take it exactly like this because in some circumstances it can be a great witness. But not always. What he does always want us for us to respond in love. It’s a tricky one to work out in practice. What must be endured, where should we try to effect change? There is no rule on this, as much as I would like to draw up a list of circumstances and say what you can or can’t do, or draw up a flow chart diagram with unambiguous decisions and responses, it doesn’t work. It is about Spirit led wisdom as to what to do in each situation, but we must be motivated by love in all we do.
So how do we measure up to this unbreakable love? Do we bear all things? Do we ever give up on loving someone? Are we willing to put up with anything? Do we have faith in people? Are we hopeful, always looking for the best? Do we endure all things? Do we endure through every circumstance? Do we never look back but keep going until the end? Or are their limits to our love? Are we like Meatloaf, who says he would do anything for love but not that? Do we ever reach the point where we say enough is enough, they are just not worth loving any more? Do we ever loose hope that people can change and that they can come to Christ? Do we ever reach the point where we just decide that even love couldn’t put up with that? Do we get to the point where we say we have done all that could reasonably be expected? We’ve done our bit? Well, that isn’t the kind of love that Paul is talking about here. This love has no limits, never gives up and is unbreakable.
Again, this is not easy. This love that Paul is talking about is not just a matter of trying harder or looking at things from a different perspective. This kind of love is impossible. We are just not equipped as human beings to love this kind of way. We might possibly have that kind of love towards our own children, but to be honest that’s just about it and even then not always. Yet, God expects us to show that kind of love to everyone. It’s just not natural. But it is possible with the help of God. Jesus sent his Holy Spirit to live in us, to help us live this kind of love. It is not really our love but God’s love shining through us. And again this is not an emotion, this is a conscious decision to live this way with God’s help.
God’s love is about doing all those things that we have already mentioned. Being patient, kind, not jealous, not proud or boastful, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs, it does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. But it does all of these things amidst adversity and among real people who don’t return it and never gives up. Paul was not writing about how people were to behave only in the church or when they get to heaven. He was writing to tell people how to live their lives in the real world, with real people, who aren’t patient, aren’t kind, are jealous, proud, boastful, rude, self-seeking and easily angered. Jesus calls us to live this kind of lifestyle amid a fallen and sinful world. That’s what it means to say love that endures through every circumstances. It means never giving up when those around you give you every reason to give up. It mean always being hopeful even when you cannot see any hope. It means trusting to God, that he will give you the strength and the energy even when all of yours is gone and you feel like your at the the end of the rope and you really can’t put up with any more. Love that never looks back but keeps going to the end.
Conclusion
And so I want to leave you with this challenge. To live this kind of unbreakable love. To live this love in a real world and not give up. Again this is one where God might have highlighted something this morning, but it means going home and asking God, does this one apply to me. Is there anything here I need to work on. As before maybe not. But this is one I think we all have to work on.
