Andrew Fountain - Fifteen ways to love

Full sermon notes - Fifteen ways to love

• Quick overview of 1 Cor.
  • Can anyone remember what the problems were at the church in Corinth?
  • immorality, lovelessness at Lord’s table, competition in gifts, rivalry re Apollos, chaos at their meetings.
• In 1 Cor 12 he has been talking about gifts.
  • At the start of 1 Cor 13 he sums up that there are three gifts that are the greatest.
  • What are they?
  • Similarity to the three foundations of Newlife church.
  • Singles out love.
• Title “15 ways to love”
• I’m going to end up by saying that we can’t work-up or manufacture love—love is a place
  • explain that at the end

• Some of us need you to be very patient and not get easily frustrated with us
• Sometimes I am slow at learning, like where things go in the kitchen
  • Anne has to be patient with me and allow for the fact I’m learning slowly
  • The other day someone said to me “I’ve already told you that!—weren’t you listening?”
• Jesus demonstrated this with the disciples, time and time again.
• The other side of the coin is: kindness

• Jesus with the disciples: found them having an argument about who would be greater in the kingdom! —what patience he had to have
• Mother Wanted her sons to sit each side of his throne.
  • Have these people not been listening?
  • He says “Have I not been so long with you Philip...?”
• Jesus had to have so much patience
• Mat 11:30. For my yoke is easy kind, and my burden is light.”
  • “An unkind yoke?” A kind farmer would give a kind yoke.

• This was like the heading. Positive and Negative.
• next we have Seven “nots”

• That doesn’t mean we don’t tell anyone when we’ve done well.
• A friend of ours in Engand recently called to say she’d passed an exam with 99% —was she boasting? no, she was just excited and wanted to share her joy.
  • wrong to have a “false humility” that would never say anything positive about ourselves

• E.g. Matt Redman—how hard it is to look for a reaction as a “seal of approval” from God. Not to get inflated when God does great things.
• Paul said that so that he didn’t get “puffed up”, God gave him a “thorn in the flesh”.
  • What would a thorn do to the guy in the picture?

• If someone was supposed to do something at the meeting today and forgot to do it, and I publically mentioned it.
• Problem at Corinth with people who had no food being humiliated.
• My Mum’s “most embarrassing moment”
  • Shamed my mom “That man’s smoking a cigarette”
  • We “punish” people, by embarrassing them for what they have not done, in front of others

• We need to be the kind of person that people can point things out to.
• David is hiding in the forest from the rebellion of Absalom
  • Joab says “you carry on behaving like this and you’ll have nobody loyal to you any more”
• Anger is an energy. It is not wrong to be angry (God is)
  • Some thing should make us angry
  • It’s about acknowledging it but not expressing it in a destructive way

• Publically embarrassed by Pastor years ago

• v.6 It is not glad about wrongs, but rejoices in the truth.
  • Why should we be glad about wrongs?
  • If someone treats you badly, then something bad happens to them
• v.7 First and last are a pair
  • For the sake of love, putting up with bad treatment
  • Putting the best construction on things
    • example of persone who was under a lot of pressure —“You’re making excuses for him”
    • There are some very good reasons he has not done this for you.
    • Person was getting very angry because they thought I was making excuses for them
    • Jump immmediately to the worst explanation: He’s deliberately trying to snub me
  • Whenever you have a range of possible explantations...
  • It’s about not judging their hearts
    • If Luke dropped something on my foot
    • If someone said something hurtful—two explanations. “I’m sure you weren’t intending to hurt me...”

Love is a place

• God is love, we need to be in him (elasticated bracelet)
• Three things on it
  • held together by love
  • The place of love is in the middle
• “He who is born of God loves”.
  • You can only ulimately love if the life of God is in you.
  • But Jesus said “I in you and you in me”
  • God is the ultimate example of love
• In the middle of this loving embrace we experience and receive love and give it out.
• How do I get there?
  • If you are not a Christian, then you getting there is a free gift.
  • The only cost is to give up what is not love in your life and admit that you need God in order to love
  • When you tell him of your need and ask him, he will give you his love
• These 15 things—I can’t do them. God’s divine love in me has to do them
• Question:
  • If we can’t do these ourselves, but the life of God in us will do them naturally, then why bother to list them?
  • How do I know if I am living in dependence on God?
  • If I can recognize what love looks like, it will help me to know if I am living in dependence on God.
  • The list helps us to know where we need strength because we are not doing it.
  • Road signs tell you when you are on the right road. They don’t actually get you there.

Updated on 2015-02-09 by Andrew Fountain