Fifteen Ways to Love
—1 Corinthians 15:4-7
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- Andrew Fountain – Feb 15, 2015
- 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
1 Cor 13:4-7
- Love is patient, love is kind,
does not envy, does not boast, it is not puffed up, it is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs.
- It is not glad about wrongs, but rejoices in the truth.
- It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
v.4 Love is patient, love is kind
- patient: simply means giving time to people
- “Suffers long” (KJV)
- Matt 18, the servant who owed money “be patient with me and I will pay”
- 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
Love is kind
- Both together in Romans 2:4 talking about God’s attitude to his enemies:
- 4. Or do you have contempt for the wealth of his kindness, tolerance, and patience,
and yet do not know that God’s kindness leads you to repentance?
- Passive & Active—Opposite sides of the coin
- Patience means not giving people what they deserve
- Kindness means giving them what they don’t deserve
- 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”
Seven “nots”
- does not envy
- does not boast
- it is not puffed up
- it is not rude
- it is not self-serving
- it is not easily angered
- keeps no record of wrongs.
1. Not Envyious
- Definition? Someone else has something that you want
- Acts 7:9 tells us that Joseph’s brothers sold him as a slave out of envy
- We can be envious of spiritual gifts (supposed to promote unity)
- Some people here have more than others —are you glad for them? good news—someone has a new job
- Rivalry in the church of Corinth between different factions (3:3)
2. Not Boastful
- Definition? Means to go on about your accomplishments, to make sure other people know what an amazing person you are
- We all do it—some people are unsubtle—they tell you all the time how amazing they are
- Most of us are much more careful—we tell stories that put us in a good light
- 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
3. Not Proud
- Definition?
- Literally “puffed up”, —how does that work? arrogant and inflated above our size
Puffed Up
- 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?
4. Not rude
- literally embarrasing or shaming others
- By not sharing the food they had brought, they embrarrased those who had brought nothing
- 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
Ashamed
5. not self-seeking
- The ultimate good is to find yourself?
- to be the best person you can be?
6. Not Easily Angered
- You know there are some people for whom it doesn’t take much to get them cross do you know anyone like this?
- You have to be careful talking to them, put things in the right way
- Can you be corrected easily?
Yes, I’m Angry!
- 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
7. Keeps no record of wrongs
- Do you still hold onto wrongs people have done to you years ago?
- Publically embarrassed by Pastor years ago
v.6,7
- It is not glad about wrongs, but rejoices in the truth.
- It bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.
- God is love—we can only do this in him
- 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...”
1 Cor 13:4-7
- Love is patient, love is kind,
does not envy, does not boast, it is not puffed up, it is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs.
- It is not glad about wrongs, but rejoices in the truth.
- It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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.