Rebuilding A Bad Love Report Part 2 Series

Living in Chapter 13 and Loving It (Part 3 of 4)

Rebuilding a Bad Love Report Part 2

1 Cor. 13:4-8a

Feb. 18, 2007 FBC, Chester Mike Fogerson, Pastor

Introduction:

A Consider the following love letter:

Dearest Jimmy,

No words could ever express the great unhappiness I’ve felt since breaking off 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 winning the state lottery!!!

1 Love is a very popular word in our society.

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."

a Love is one of the deepest human needs of all, yet it is also a

very misunderstood and misused concept.

b The Bible has a lot to say about love, the word occurs at least

650 times.

2 Scripture tells of the power of love. It tells of what it can do

for broken marriage or a severed relationship or a struggling

family.

B Cor 13:4-8 (NASB)

1 Paul gave his readers a tutorial on how to have a love that was worth something (essence of the text in a sentence).

a Believers are to deliberately interact with each other with the loving qualities described in 1 Cor. 13 (essence of the sermon in a sentence).

b I pray you will learn & live what it means to have a good love report with your fellow brothers & sisters in Christ (objective).

2 What quality do you need to work on most this week to help with rebuilding your bad love report? (Probing question).

a Last week we looked at the first 3 qualities we can use to rebuild a bad love report:

aa Patience (take your time and wait)

bb Kindness (play nice)

cc Humble ("get over yourself")

b Let’s look at the last three qualities we can use to rebuild a bad love report (transitional sentence).

IV The 4th quality we can identify to help us rebuild a bad love report is courteousness (gives up its seat for another). does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth

A Paul’s not telling his readers to abandon their rights.

1 He goes deeper than that.

a More than just "women and children first", "I’ll go next, you go first."

b He had the Christian not seek his or her rights at all.

c "Does not seek its own": doesn’t seek even that which is hers!

2 The courteous quality Paul describes seeks only the good of others, it’s unselfish.

a He doesn’t mean you destroy all regard to self or family.

b Love never tries to get ahead by hurting or neglecting somebody else.

B "Does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth."

1 Do not rejoice even when your least favorite person (enemy) has been bruised, hurt, fired, divorced, summoned to jury duty, or given a subpoena to appear in court...you don’t laugh about it.

a If you laugh at their pain, that’s unrighteous.

b Love does not revel when others grovel (that’s not very polite, courteous).

2 It’s easy to love "our own", it’s difficult to love the "unrighteous".

a That’s exactly what we’re called on to do!

b Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Romans 12:14

C Loving others involves kindness and sacrifice.

a In the days when an ice cream cone cost much less, a 10 year old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. "How much is an ice cream sundae?" he asked. "Fifty cents," replied the waitress. The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied the coins in it. "Well how much is a plain dish of ice cream?" he asked. By now the waitress was growing impatient. "35 cents," she quickly said. The little boy again counted his coins. "I’ll have the plain ice cream," he said.

b The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and left.

c When the waitress came back, she began to cry as she wiped down the table. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies.

d You see, he couldn’t have the sundae, because he had to have enough left to leave her a tip.

V The 5th quality we can identify to help us rebuild a bad love report is forgiving (long fuse & short memory). is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered