Two weeks ago we established the principle that love is not a feeling, but rather an action. Last week, we attempted to apply that principle to the problem of dealing with enemies. This morning, we wrap up our look at love with what I think is a very crucial question; does love ever set limits?
Does it ever say, "Enough is enough." That seems like an easy enough question, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13: 8, "Love never fails." One verse earlier he said, "Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." When you consider that Paul uses the words "never" and "always," it would seem pretty safe to say that love knows no limits.
Well, let’s test that conclusion in the crucible of real world experience. A woman at your office shows up for work wearing a pair of sunglasses. But it’s a cloudy day. And besides, the florescent lights in the office aren’t that bright. Yet throughout the morning, she hides behind those Foster Grants. You don’t even bother to ask why. You know why. You’ve seen her do it a dozen times in the last year and a half. Her husband has blacked her eye again.
You asked her, once, why she put up with it. "He really loves me," she answered. "And I love him. And I know that the Bible says that love always hopes, always perseveres and never fails." You reminded her that the same Bible also says, "Love protects," but she didn’t have ears to hear.
Does God expect that woman to keep on showing up for work trying to hide a bruised face with thick make-up and dark sun glasses? Does love ever say enough is enough?
Or consider a man in his mid-fifties who is responsible for caring for his aging mother. He’s taken her into his home, manages her finances with utmost integrity, schedules her doctor appointments and provides transportation to them. He takes her to church every Sunday morning and Sunday night. To everyone who knows her, she is a sweet, faithful saint, living out her final years with grace and dignity.
But when he and his wife are alone with her, she is verbally abusive, impossible to please and mean-spirited. She uses her vast knowledge of the Bible as a weapon to carve up her caretakers for all their faults, failures and shortcomings. She constantly criticizes, demeans and dismisses everything they do. And she is a master at manipulation by guilt. This isn’t a new thing brought on by old age. He knows she’s always been this way.
Does love require him to take her verbal stabs regardless of how much emotional blood she draws? Or does it permit him to confront her and demand that she stop quoting the Bible so much and start living by it. In other words, does love ever say, "Enough is enough?" Does love ever set
limits?
Look again in 1 Corinthians 13:4 - 8.
I love it when something new leaps out of an old text for me. You may have seen this years ago, but I got the pleasure of experiencing it for the first time this week. Listen to Paul’s familiar words again -- this time with the question of love’s limits in the front of your brain.
Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.
Eight times Paul uses the word "not." Paul spends fifty percent of his time and ink telling us what love does not do. In other words, Paul spends as much time telling us about the limits of love as he does telling us how far it is willing to go. Every time he uses the words "not," or "no," he’s showing us one of love’s boundary lines.
Let me explain why I think this is such an important question. The choice to love someone is a risky choice. It makes us vulnerable. We open our hearts and souls up to the people we love. If they respond to us in Godly love, it’s a blessing. But if they choose, they can take advantage of us. They can abuse us verbally, physically, emotionally or spiritually. They can seize the opportunity afforded them by our love to manipulate, dominate and control us. And they often do all of that in the name of God.
So it is important that we understand that God’s word identifies some limits where love is concerned.
The most obvious limit of love has to do with the law of God. True love never asks you to disobey a command from its creator.
Law and love always agree with each other. Which may sound a little strange to some of us. We have a hard time getting law and love on the same page. The Bible, however, not only puts them on the same page, but frequently places them next to each other in the same sentences.
Romans 13:10 says, "Love is the fulfillment of the law."
Galatians 5: 14, "The entire law is summed up in a single command; Love your neighbor as yourself."
1 John 5:3 puts love and obedience together: "This is love for God; to obey his commands."
So does John 15:17: "This is my command; Love each other."
In 1 Timothy 1, Paul orders Timothy to confront some people in Ephesus adding in vs. 5, "The goal of this command is love."
Go created love. He authored the law. True love, Godly love, then, will always be consistent with his law. Love never violates God’s law. True love seeks to bring it’s object as close to God as possible. And you can’t move closer to God by trying to get around his law.
Listen to how Paul put it in Romans 13: 8 - 10.
Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, "YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET," and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.
The only way for love to remain harmless is for love to remain law abiding. True love never asks you to disobey a command from its creator.
So what do you do if someone is excusing sinful behavior in the name of love?
What do you do if someone is pressuring you to violate God’s law in the name of love?
How do you handle it if someone you love is being abusive toward you?
Does love just sit back and take it? Or does love require us to step up and stop it?
Our text for this three week look at love has been 1 Corinthians 13. The apostle Paul authored that book. So let’s look at an example from his life to see how he implemented his own teaching. Look with me in Galatians 2: 11 - 14.
When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?
There are several strategies that Paul could have used with Peter. See if any of these sound familiar to your way of thinking:
Ostrich approach
We use this approach when we know that something is not right but instead of getting involved we would prefer to stick our head in the sand and pretend nothing is wrong.
At approximately 3:20 on the morning of March 13, 1964, twenty-eight-year-old Ms Catherine (Kitty) Genovese was returning to her home in a nice middle-class area of Queens, NY, from her job. She parked her car in a nearby parking lot, turned-off the lights and started the walk to her apartment some 35 yards away. She got as far as a streetlight when a man grabbed her.
She screamed. Lights went on in the apartment building nearby. She yelled, “He stabbed me! Please help me!” Windows opened in the apartment building and a man’s voice shouted, “Let that girl alone.” The attacker looked up, shrugged and walked-off down the street.
Ms Genovese struggled to get to her feet. Lights went back off in the apartments. The attacker came back and stabbed her again. She again cried out, “I’m dying! I’m dying!” And again the lights came on and windows opened in many of the nearby apartments.
The assailant again left and got into his car and drove away. Ms Genovese staggered to her feet and tried to get the attention of a city bus that drove by. It was now 3:35 a.m.
The attacker returned once again. He found her in a doorway at the foot of the stairs and he stabbed her a third time--this time with a fatal consequence. It was 3:50 when the police received the first call. They responded within two minutes. Ms Genovese was already dead.
The only person to call, a neighbor, revealed that he had phoned only after much thought and an earlier phone call to a friend. He said, “I didn’t want to get involved.” Later it was learned that there were 37 other witnesses to the stalking and stabbing over the half-hour period.
Next there is the Barn Burning approach
We use this approach when we are willing to burn down the barn in order to get rid of the rats. It is so important that we are right than nothing else matters.
At what lengths are you willing to go to be right? Are you willing to have an argument to be right?
Are you willing to hurt someone’s feelings to be right?
Are you willing to loose your self respect by yelling and screaming to be right?
Are you willing to destroy a friendship to be right?
Are you willing to run someone off, away from here to be right?
Romans 12: 17 “Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.”
God says that we must treat one another with respect and do all that we can to live at peace with one another. I would rather be righteous than right.
Then there is the always popular Triangle approach
We use this approach when we get someone else involved.
We like this because we get to elevate ourselves above someone else and there is never a confrontation with the person we are struggling with. Instead we get on the phone and say nasty things about him all day long.
Peter isn’t going to find out for days with this approach that Paul is even mad at him. Not only does this approach not show Peter any love, but there is a lack of respect for Peter shown here also. This approach will not solve the problem and more than likely it will damage the relationship beyond repair.
Finally there is the history approach
We use this approach when we not only go to the person we are struggling with tell him what is wrong with him, but while we are there we must show a pattern of this behavior by bringing up every other problem and every other stupid thing they ever did.
This mentality is “I’ll forgive you for what you did wrong, but the next time it happens, and I know that there will be a next time we will have to mention and rehashed this again.
This is contrary to what 1 Corinthians 13:5 says that love “does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered.”
It’s like two men who were talking about their wives. One said to the other, “When my wife gets angry she gets historical.”
The other replies, “You mean hysterical.”
“No” the first says, “I mean historical. She reminds every argument I have of everything I have done wrong in the past.”
The loving thing for Paul to do was handle the problem in a Biblical manor. The God Paul served demanded the same of him that he demands of us.
Matthew 5:23-24 "If therefore you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.
Jesus says here that making things right with someone who you have offended is more important than worship.
Matthew 18:15 "And if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.
Here Jesus looks at the other side of it. If someone has wronged you then you need to seek them out in private. In these two passages Jesus paints a beautiful picture of two brethren meeting one another half way to make things right.
Paul had to confront Peter because of his love for Peter and the church.
You see Peter was clearly in the wrong, and his behavior was hurting Peter and the Church. So Paul did the most loving thing that he could, confronted Peter’s behavior.
If Paul had not confronted Peter, Peter would have continued to behave in hypocritical ways. Others, like Barnabas, would have continued to be led astray by Peter’s behavior. The Gospel would have been compromised. Relationships between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians would have been badly damaged. Does that sound like love?
No, the most unloving thing Paul could have done would have been to remain silent.
And sometimes that’s just what we do. We are guilty of standing by and watching someone we “love” hurt, or destroy themselves and we just watch helpless, not loving enough to accept the personal pain it would take to get involved.
But that’s not how it is with God. God’s love never says "Enough!" In his letter to the Ephesians Paul said, "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have the power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ."
God’s love for us is unfathomable. But it is not unlimited. There will come a day in which God will indeed say, "Enough." He will not force his love on you. He gives you the freedom to accept or reject his love. If you want his love, it will never be taken from you. But if you refuse it, he won’t force it. It’s your choice.
Today you have a choice to make accept the Love of God or reject it. I have been praying this week that today you will make the right choice. Today you will understand that God’s love is what you need to fill the void in your life.
Today give yourself to God and let Him show you the full scope of His love.
