Love - Not a vague things but definable 2

Text 1 Corinthians 13:5-7 Time 28/09/14 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church

We have begun to look at 1 Corinthians 13, which is all about Christian love. We have emphasised the importance of love and said that, for the Christian, it is absolutely essential. We have also said that it is not something vague – a warm feeling or something like that – no, it can be defined.

We began by saying last week that (positively) true love is marked by patience and kindness and (negatively) that it does not envy or boast or get puffed up with pride.

We drew these points from verse 4 where Paul begins to describe love by personifying it. Now what I want to do today is to focus on verses 5-7 where we learn some more about what love is. There Paul says 10 things altogether, all very briefly. Five statements are negative and five are positive. So we say

1. Five more negative things never characteristic of love. Are you turning from them?

1. Love is never rude - Are you? It is not rude says Paul of love at the beginning of verse 5. It doesn't act in an unseemly way the old versions say. It is a rare word and it refers to not dishonouring a person. This follows on from not being envious, proud or boastful. There is a selfishness and a lack of sympathy about being rude or disrespectful to another person and that is quite out of step with being loving. Paul has already said (12:23) by way of a picture of the body as being like the church that the parts that we think are less honourable we treat with special honour. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty. He will go on to speak about doing things in a fitting and orderly way. Here he highlights the honouring way that love acts.

I heard a story about John Wesley. He was once travelling about and had as one of his companions an army officer who was intelligent and agreeable in conversation but with one serious drawback – he couldn't stop swearing. At a certain point they changed vehicles. Wesley took the officer aside and, after expressing the pleasure he had enjoyed in his company, said that he had a favour to ask of him. The young officer replied, "I will take great pleasure in obliging you, for I am sure you will not make an unreasonable request." "Then," said Wesley, "as we have to travel together some distance, I beg that, if I should so far forget myself as to swear, you will kindly reprove me." The officer immediately saw the motive and felt the force of the request and smiling said "None but Mr Wesley could have conceived a reproof in such a manner." And so without being at all rude Wesley was able to deliver a loving rebuke and spare himself and everyone else this man's rudeness.

Sometimes people make excuses for their rudeness. “Someone has to tell him”. “I speak as I find”. “I like to be upfront about things”. If we love people we will not be rude to them.

2. Love is never self-seeking - Are you?

Next love is not self-seeking. It does not insist on its own way says the ESV. We have already suggested that selfishness, which is all about me, is the very opposite of love, which is all about others. In 1 Corinthians 10:24 Paul has said No one should seek their own good, but the good of others. Philippians 2:4 is similar. There we are called on not to look only to our own interests but also to those of others. Rather, like Paul himself, we must (32, 33) not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God but try to please everyone in every way. For says Paul I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. Our greatest model here and all the way along, of course, is Jesus Christ himself as Philippians 2 makes clear. He did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Those who follow him ought to be like him, especially in this respect. We have been bought with a price and we are no longer our own anyway.

Here is another searching question then – Am I self-seeking or am I able to put others first? If I am a Christian then, as it has been put, I am third. God must come first, then others and myself last.

3. Love is never easily angered - Are you? it is not easily angered,

Here is another test for love. We can call it the temper test, although anger can come out in different ways – some blow up, some just sulk. Love, says Paul, is never easily angered. He does not make the mistake of saying that love is never angry. One can imagine circumstances where the right and loving response might be anger. What Paul protests against rather is an attitude that quickly flares up at the least provocation. That is not in harmony with love at all and is a good test of whether we really love or not. Whenever we become angry or we are tempted that way, it is good to ask ourselves if we are right to be angry and if we think we are then we should consider whether we are handling that anger rightly.

It is good to speak to ourselves sometimes – the first sign of coming to our senses my old minister used to say. Why am I angry? Is it really all about nothing at all – just a misunderstanding perhaps? Or am I getting angry about something that is really quite trivial in the end? Am I angry because this impugns God's honour or is it just another case of me being selfish? Am I in danger of being more angry than this really merits?

I think all these virtues remind us of our Saviour. Think of what Peter says of Jesus on trial (1 Peter 1:23) When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He is our example as well as being our Saviour.

So what about anger? Is it one of the things stopping you from being a loving person, your anger? If so, we need to repent and look to the Lord for help.

4. Love never keeps a record of wrongs – Do you?

The NIV has it keeps no record of wrongs. The old versions say it does not think evil. The word used does have the idea of reckoning up, as in a ledger, however, and so the idea of keeping a record of wrongs or counting up mistakes is what Paul is talking about.

You know how in a relationship people are tempted to bring up the past. “That's what you did last time”; “This is what you always do”; “you've done it again”; “I knew you would do that”

Or sometimes it is worse than that “I'll never trust him again” “I owed you that” “you deserved that” “you had it coming”.

Now Paul is saying that if we really love then the keeping of accounts, totting up the number of times a person has wronged us, will have no place.

Now I don't think the Bible wants us to be stupid. If someone is in the habit of punching you in the face, remember to duck next time! However, as far as we can we must let a person start each time with a clean sheet and not hold his past over him all the time. Give him the benefit of any doubts as far as you can.

You see, every time we pray, as we are taught to pray, forgive our trespasses as we forgive them who trespass against us we are really committing ourselves to not remembering what people may have done against us. If God is willing to wipe the late clean we should be too. We want God to forget our sins against him and so we must forget what others have done against us. Sometimes that is easy but sometimes it is not. It is hard sometimes to forgive.

Have you heard that expression “I will forgive but I won't forget”. That is not the right attitude at all. Forgiving includes forgetting as far as we can. Of course, there is also “I can forgive but I can't forget”. It is hard to forget sometimes. There is a story that the Dutch woman Corrie Ten Boom once told. She was finding it difficult to forget a wrong that had been done to her. She had forgiven the person, but she kept going over the incident so that she couldn't sleep. She called out to God for help to put the problem to rest. “His help” she wrote “came in the form of a kindly Lutheran pastor, to whom I confessed my failure after two sleepless weeks." 'Up in the church tower,' he said, nodding out the window, 'is a bell which is rung by pulling on a rope. But you know what? After the sexton lets go of the rope, the bell keeps on swinging. First ding, then dong. Slower and slower until there's a final dong and it stops. I believe the same thing is true of forgiveness. When we forgive, we take our hand off the rope. But if we've been tugging at our grievances for a long time, we mustn't be surprised if the old angry thoughts keep coming for a while. They're just the ding-dongs of the old bell slowing down.' And so it proved to be. There were a few more midnight reverberations, a couple of dings when the subject came up in my conversations, but the force - which was my willingness in the matter - had gone out of them. They came less and less often and at the last stopped altogether ...”

Forgiving and forgetting then? Is that how we go about it? That is the way of love. Love is never resentful. It is not censorious but thinks the best of others whenever it can. It remembers when it points the finger that four are pointing back to oneself.

5. Love never delights in evil – Do you? Love does not delight in evil. The final negative prepares us for the first positive. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It is a sort of summary statement. Let's begin with the negative. Love does not delight in evil. It is not happy about anything evil. Still speaking of love as a person then Paul says that if it is evil then love will have no delight in it. It will not want to be involved. Obviously love does not try to hurt or injure anyone. Love is never happy either when it sees vices in other people; it can find no delight in their being found guilty of wrongdoing. To hear someone else accused of sin is unpleasant, especially if it proves true. Malicious gossip holds no attraction. We are especially grieved to hear that a minister or someone else in the church has fallen into sin. Love does not desire even that an enemy - a persecutor or slanderer - should do evil or disgrace and ruin himself.

Clive James the Australian writer and critic is very ill and has terminal emphysema. He once wrote a poem, mostly in jest I suppose, about his enemy. It begins

The book of my enemy has been remaindered

And I am pleased.
In vast quantities it has been remaindered
Like a van-load of counterfeit that has been seized
And sits in piles in a police warehouse,
My enemy's much-prized effort sits in piles
In the kind of bookshop where remaindering occurs.

Great, square stacks of rejected books and, between them, aisles
One passes down reflecting on life's vanities,
Pausing to remember all those thoughtful reviews
Lavished to no avail upon one's enemy's book --
For behold, here is that book
Among these ranks and banks of duds,
These ponderous and seemingly irreducible cairns

Of complete stiffs.

It is quite funny but not a poem a Christian would want to write.

Here is a fifth negative then. Are you ever happy when something evil happens? Why? How can that be compatible with love? Yes, we are glad when persecution comes to an end? When our tormentors are removed? But would you be glad to hear of Richard Dawkins or someone like that dying without repenting? Surely not.

2. Five more positive things characteristic of love. Are they things seen in you?

The five negatives are followed by five positives and perhaps we can be more brief with these now that we have built up a good picture of what love is like.

1. Love rejoices with the truth – do you? but rejoices with the truth. We have said that love never delights in evil. In contrast, Paul says not that love rejoices with the good but with the truth. The point is that whereas love does not delight in the vices of others, it does rejoice in their virtues. If anyone does anything that us at all likely to be pleasing to God then we should be glad. As long as good is done and the truth is defended and advanced we should be happy.

Take the hymn book by way of example. All the hymns in this book are good. They are all worth singing. They are not all by Baptists by any means. They are not all by Reformed writers. You could imagine someone putting a hymn book together perhaps and saying we need more Baptists in here – less Charles Wesley and John Newton more John Fawcett and Anne Steele. Well that is not only foolish but unloving. What matters is the truth of the hymn not whether the writer was a Baptist or not. The same extends to who is a successful preacher or evangelist or which churches have large congregations.

Love is always glad to see the gospel going forward by whatever means. Remember what Paul says in Philippians 1. Some people were preaching the gospel in love he says but others were preaching out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? he concludes The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.

Is out love of the truth making us more loving people? Is it giving us the breadth and loving attitude we should have?

This positive is followed by four more very brief positives – Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. So finally

2. Love always protects – do you? It always protects. The old versions have “it bears all things” but the word used is one that refers to a roof or covering and the idea is more likely to be in line with what Peter says in 1 Peter 4:8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Now when it comes to covering up sins there is a wrong and aright covering up of sins.

The Roman Catholic church and others have rightly been criticised for cases where they covered up the child abuse committed by several of its priests. However kindly meant that action was it has simply meant they have gone on to abuse other children in other places. That is clearly not right.

On the other hand, there are situations where it is right and loving to cover up a person's sins. Take situation such as if a young woman finds she is pregnant but unmarried. What should her parents do when they find out? (I am assuming the relationship is good enough for her to tell them). Throw her out? No not at all. They help her all they can. She may be in a position to marry. The character of the wedding is not going to be what it might have been otherwise but the best can be made of it. May be marriage is not appropriate and the young woman will quietly give birth – perhaps it will be better for her to move elsewhere. Love always protects.

Once again such a statement test us. Are we covering up the sins of others in an appropriate way? Love will put up with a lot. There are difficult questions. Here is a minister and from time to time he gets drunk. Does the church sack him? Do they give him a final warning? Or do they try and persevere with him and help him as best they can out of love?

3. Love always trusts – do you? always trusts This is no surprise. We have hinted that this is the loving attitude from time to time. We have also tried to say that this does not mean that the loving person is stupid and easily taken advantage of. It is only the simple person who believes everything (Proverbs 14:15). Nevertheless, there is a trusting attitude connected with love. It is an optimistic attitude, an attitude that is well disposed to the object of its love. Surely anyone who knows anything about love must see that trust is basic to love. If I don't trust a person how can I say I love him?

Here is a couple who have had troubles. The husband has hurt the wife but they are back together and they are trying to make a go of it. Now if she does not trust him not to hurt her again there can be no future for them. Have you ever done that thing when you sway right over until someone catches you. You can only do it with someone you really trust, someone you know cares for you.

Trust and love go together then. No trust, no love; no love, no trust.

4. Love always hopes – do you? always hopes Faith and hope often go together and here they are together here with love, in which both are essential. Hope is more than optimism. It is something God gives. Who would give this world a hope when we see some of the things that happen. But if God gives you hope then there is real hope. Somebody has written that “Hope is averse to sourness and gloom. It takes sunny and cheerful views of man, of the world, and of God, because it is a sister of love.”

Trust and hope also go together. If you really love, you will go on hoping.

5. Love always perseveres – do you? always perseveres. My mother used sometimes to say, exasperated with her son “ I give up”. She never did though. Why? Because she loved me. And I you love someone you will not give up on them. You will persist in loving them. All around us people are giving up; we must not.