First Corinthians chapter 13. First Corinthians chapter 13.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have
not charity I am become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of
prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though
I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not
charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods
to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned and have
not charity, It profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long
and is kind. Charity envieth not. Charity
voneth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly,
seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but
rejoiceth in the truth. Beareth all things, believeth
all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. I thought tonight that it might
be well for me to remind us of some things that the Bible tells
us about love. before we partake of the Lord's
Supper. We have tonight on this table
a reminder of the death, the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. A picture is presented to us
by the bread and the wine being separated. And we know that his
death is the greatest manifestation of God's love. The Apostle John
wrote, In this was manifested the love of God toward us. Just
put me in there if you're one of his children. In this was
manifested the love of God toward me. Toward me. Because that God sent his only
begotten son into the world that I might live through him. Then the apostle Paul in Romans
wrote, but God commendeth his love toward us, and that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Listen to these four
things that we're told about love in the scripture. First,
love and the great commandment. Love and the great commandment.
You know, we have the example in the Gospels when the Lord
Jesus Christ was asked this question, which is the great commandment
in the law? What's the greatest commandment
in the law of God? And he answered, thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart. and with all thy soul
and with all thy mind. This is the first commandment,
and the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself." And he said, on these two commandments hang all
the law and the prophets. In Matthew chapter five, he said,
think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets. He
said, I'm not come to destroy but to fulfill the law and the
prophets. All the law hangs on these two
commandments. All the law is fulfilled in fulfilling
these two commandments, to love God with all the heart, with
all the soul, and with all the mind, and to love our neighbor
as ourself. We haven't done that. That's
obvious. We haven't done that. The Lord
Jesus Christ did that. He did that. He fulfilled the
law, as he said. He didn't come to destroy it.
He come to fulfill it, and he filled it full by his love, first
to God and then to his neighbor. Excuse me. So love and the great
commandment. How important is love? How important
is love? Second, love and the identifying
mark of God's disciples. Remember he told his disciples,
by this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you
have love one for another. His disciples are not identified
by our dress. We're not identified by many
things that men use to separate one another or to identify one
another. I know there's a secret society,
some of you may be familiar with this, and they identify each
other by a handshake. They have a particular way they
shake hands and they identify each other in that way. But no,
our Lord said, this is the way my disciples will be identified,
that they have love one for another. Third, love and saving faith
in Christ. Now I mentioned this morning
in the message, remember the scriptures only, Christ only,
faith only, by grace only. Faith is very important. But
the Apostle Paul said this in Galatians, for in Christ Jesus,
neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision. You know, some of the, those
who were Jewish, they believed that in order for a person to
be saved, he must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. And
the Gentile converts, they were troubled over that because they
had not been circumcised. They had not come under the law
of Moses. And there was an issue. And Paul
said, neither one, neither one makes any difference. Not before
God, but this is what makes the difference. Faith which worketh
by love. Faith in Christ, true faith in
Christ, worketh. We are His workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath ordained before
that we should walk in them. So yes, faith and love. I noticed I was reading before
the service this evening in the letter of Colossians, just the
first few verses there. And this is always true. You have faith, love, hope. Those are graces that always
go together, aren't they? When a person is saved by the
grace of God, He has faith in Christ, he has love for Christ
and Christ's people, the brethren, and we have a good hope, a good
hope by grace, and our hope is eternal life in heaven with our
Lord and Savior. So we have love in the great
commandment, love in the identifying mark of Christ's disciples, love
and saving faith in Christ, and number four, Love and the fruit
of the Spirit. Love and the fruit of the Spirit.
We're all familiar with Galatians 5, where the apostle said, but
the fruit of the Spirit is. And the first that he mentions
is love. The fruit of the Spirit is love,
and many people believe that all of these others are all included
in that word love. joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Now, when we speak of the fruit
of the Spirit, we are speaking of the fruit that God the Holy
Spirit enables the new nature, that which is born of the Spirit.
Remember, our Lord said, that which is born of the flesh is
flesh, that. That which is born of the Spirit,
what is that? That's that spiritual nature
that God's children have when brought to know the Lord as their
Savior. And it is God, the Holy Spirit,
who enables that new nature, which is Spirit, born of the
Spirit, to bring forth fruit unto God. And the first thing
that's mentioned is love. The psalmist David, in one psalm,
Psalm 116, he confessed, and what he confessed is true of
every child of God. He said, I love the Lord because,
I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice and my supplication. And every child of God might
say the same thing. I love the Lord tonight because
in my distress, He heard my voice. He heard my supplication. When I cried for mercy, mercy
came. No one ever cried for mercy who
didn't receive mercy. I would remind us before I go
any further, as I've read these first seven verses here in 1
Corinthians 13, that this word charity We saw that all through
those verses. Charity is the very, very, very
same Greek word which is translated in other places, love. God is
love, the same word. Why the disciples or the translators
translated it charity here, I don't know. But when I read this, I
usually just change it because it should be love. We will never
say God is charity. Now, I think I know the reason
why the word charity has changed its meaning. You know, that's
something about languages which are spoken. Dead languages, their
meaning doesn't change. But languages which are spoken,
words change and have different meanings. And maybe in the 1600s
when the King James translation was made, charity, maybe everyone
understood it, meant love. But I don't think that's the
case today. And so I wanted to point that
out. It's love, it's love. Now, I
have seven characteristics that Paul tells us here about Christian
love. First of all, if you notice in
verse four, Christian love is patient. Charity, or love, suffereth
long. Christian love is patient. You know, some people are easy
to love. They really are. Some people
are so nice and so kind, and they're just easy to love, but
not everyone is like that. Some people are not so easy to
love. And we must, as believers, as
God's children, we must learn to love even those who are disagreeable. Some people say, well, they're
just unlovable. Some people may come across like
that. They're just unlovable people.
But a Christian, as a Christian, we must learn to love even the
unlovable. Now, no one is saying the lesson
is easy. No one's saying it's easy to
learn. And only God, who is love, living in us, only God living
in us, can help us in this. But Christian love is patient. Now this is what I've found over
the years. When there's been a particular
person that has been somewhat disagreeable, he and I, maybe
personality conflict, that's the word they use today, pray
for that person. Pray for that person. And you
will find as you pray for that person, whatever that disagreeable
Disagreeableness will go away if you pray for that person,
pray in sincerity for God's blessing upon that person. The second
thing, Christian love is kind. Notice that in verse four also.
Christian love is patient and is kind. Someone said kindness
is the coin of Christian love, kindness. And kindness, this
kindness is not shown in just big, what we would call big things
or great things, but this kindness is shown in a number of small
things, little things. One writer pointed this out.
that some of the miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ we would
consider to be greater than others. They were all great, don't misunderstand
me. But when he fed thousands of
people, creating that bread and the fish to feed thousands of
people, that was a great miracle. When he called Lazarus back from
the dead who'd been in the tomb for four days, that was a great
miracle. But what did he do between the
great miracles? What was he doing? Well, you
know, the Apostle Peter was a disciple and he accompanied with the Lord
Jesus Christ. And this is what he says in Acts
chapter 10. This is what he was doing. When
he wasn't maybe performing a great miracle, what was he doing? He
went about doing good. He went about doing good. You
know, maybe just a smile. Maybe just a smile. Maybe just
a kind word to someone, an encouraging word to someone. Christian love
is kind. Third, Christian love does not
envy. Again, in verse 4, envieth not. Now, not to envy is evidenced
by rejoicing with others in their joy. That's what it means, not
to envy. It's to rejoice with others in
their joy. In Romans chapter 12, the apostle
Paul wrote that we are to rejoice with them that rejoice and weep
with them that weep. talking about a community of
believers. Rejoice with them that rejoice,
weep with them that weep. It's much easier for most of
us to weep with them that weep than it is to rejoice with them
who rejoice for some reason. If someone tells us that one
of their loved ones have passed away, It's easy to enter into
that and feel empathy with them and compassion, sympathy with
them. But to rejoice with them that
rejoice when someone on your job, for instance, gets the promotion
that you wanted, the promotion you felt like you deserved, and
they get that promotion, and they're happy about it, they're
rejoicing about it, to be able to rejoice with them. Christian
love envieth not. When your neighbor comes driving
up in a brand new car, and you're still driving that old rattle
trap, rejoice. Christian love envieth
not. You see why I say it's much easier
for most of us to weep with those that weep than it is to rejoice
with those who rejoice. The flesh, right? The fourth
thing, Christian love is not self-seeking. We see this in
both verse four and verse five. Vaunteth not itself, is not puffed
up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own. I don't
know, you probably didn't notice this, I counted, but there's
13 words that I just read in verses four and five, 13 words,
and two times self, self is mentioned, self. Love boneth not itself,
is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly. Unselfishness is at the heart
of Christian love. It's when self, when we interject
self into our thoughts and feelings that we spoil our love. Christian love is not self-seeking. Fifth, Christian love is not
easily angered. Verse five, is not easily angered. Now it's true, we all know this,
the apostle said, be angry and sin not. And as long as we live
in a sinful fallen world, as we do, there are going to be
things that will provoke us. That's just a given. There's
going to be things that provoke us. And I'm sure that we have all
known some people who are so touchy. You know, you feel like
when you get around them, you're walking on eggshells. You've
got to be careful of everything you say because they take it
in the wrong way, or they're apt to take it in the wrong way.
Well, Christian love will enable us to learn not to be that person,
not to be that person that's so touchy, takes everything that
is said. You know, I think of the person
who went to the church service and she went home and she said,
well, no one spoke to me. And someone in her family said,
well, did you speak to anyone? No, no. She didn't speak to anyone,
but she was complaining that no one had spoken to her. One
thing I'm so appreciative of this church family here is your
friendliness. You welcome people here and that's
the way it should be. That's the way it should be,
to be friendly and to speak to those who visit with us. We must
learn not to take everything personal and to make allowances
for people. Sometimes, you know, when people
speak roughly to you, you just have to think, well, maybe they're
having a rough day today. There's something going on in
their life that I don't know anything about. Just have to
overlook that. not easily angered. Some people
fly off the handle, that's what they used to say, fly off the
handle. The least little thing, you know. The sixth thing, Christian
love keeps no records of wrongs. Verse five, thinketh no evil. We're all familiar with the story,
the history, not story, but the history of Peter. When he asked
the Lord Jesus Christ, Lord, How often shall my brother sin
against me and I forgive him? Seven times? And we know that
when Peter said that, seven times, he thought he had gone the second
mile. If he forgave a brother seven times. And our Lord said,
Peter, till 70 times seven. In other words, an infinite number
of times. Doesn't keep a record of wrongs. Some people, they can tell you
that so-and-so back in certain times said something mean to
me and, well, what did they say? Well, I don't remember what they
said, but I didn't like it. You know, they just keep that.
You know, anger is such an awful sin. It'll destroy a person. It'll destroy a person's life
to hold anger, to keep records of wrongs that have been done
to you. Forgive, and by the grace of God, forget. Forget. Think of how many times the Lord's
forgiven you. How many times he's forgiven
me. Innumerable times, right? And
every day we come and we confess unto him our sins and he forgives
us. That's what his word says. If
we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Christian love doesn't keep a
record of wrongs. And seventh, Christian love looks
for the good and not the evil in others. We see that in verse
six. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but
rejoiceth in all truth. Some people love to hear of some
sin of others. You know, they have a glass, a microscope, and they can put
that microscope up to their eyes and they can see other people's
sins. But then when they look at themselves,
they use a telescope. And everything looks small. The
sins of others look great, look so big, but when they look at
themselves, they seem so trivial, so minor. One writer, I'll close with this,
one writer said, to learn to love is to learn to live. To learn to love is to learn
to live. I'm gonna read a little bit more
of what he said there, As I was preparing this message, I thought,
you know, if a young man who believes God is calling him to
preach were to ask me what I should do, I believe tonight this would
be my answer. Learn to love. Learn to love people. It's so
important. It's so important to love God,
absolutely, but to love people. When we lived in Mexico as missionaries
many years ago, I've probably told you before, but we had a
pastor friend who came to visit us several times from the States.
He couldn't speak a word of Spanish, but I'm telling you, he could
communicate, connect with the people in such a way that I never
understood that. But it was love. He loved God's
people. And pastors must love the people
that God gives them to pastor. He must. Without that love, we're
just like Paul said here, we're a tinkling cymbal. That's all
we are, a sounding brass, if we don't have love. Well, that
writer said, to learn to love is to learn to live. The lesson
is a long one, but it is the great business of life to master
it. The master not only taught the
lesson in words, but also set it down for us in a life. To follow Christ is to practice
the great lesson, learning more of it day by day until school
is out and we go home. I'd say amen to that. Amen to
that. Until school is out. In other
words, until we leave this world and we go home. Every day we
pray and ask the Lord to teach us to be more like Christ. And Christ, how would you describe
him? The embodiment. In him dwelt
the fullness of the Godhead bodily. God is love. He embodied love,
didn't he? Love. And we have that displayed
to us tonight here. His love for you, his love for
me was so great that he gave his life to redeem us from all
iniquity. I'll ask the man, if you will,
to come at this time.