2020 VISION: RADICAL LOVE - Love Does Not React Nor Respond - 1 Corinthians 13:5 - February 16, 2020
Prayer
INTRODUCTION
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud.
They will know you are my disciples by your love.
This love is demonstrated by our actions and our attitudes.
“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 NIV
- IT IS NOT EASILY ANGERED
A. Uses of the term
1. Tyndale renders it, "is not provoked to anger."
“While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.”
Acts 17:16 NIV (only other NT usage)
2. “Prone to violent anger or exasperation.” (Matthew Henry)
3. Underlying word connotes the sharpening of an ax or sword.
B. Our response to others
1. We don’t react when “rubbed the wrong way.”
2. We are no easily provoked.
3. The example of Jesus
a. His ministry
b. His arrest
c. His trial
d. His death sentence
“We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”
Isaiah 53:6-7 NIV
4. Calmness
St. Chrysostom says, "As a spark which falls into the sea hurts not the sea, but is itself extinguished, so an evil thing befalling a loving soul will be extinguished without disquietude."
- IT KEEPS NO RECORD OF WRONGS
A. Translational variances
1. The Greek word (λογίζεται logizetai) is that which is commonly rendered "impute," and is correctly rendered here "thinketh."
2. Barne’s Notes of the Bible
“Love, so far from devising evil against another, excuses "the evil" which another inflicts on her [Estius]; doth not meditate upon evil inflicted by another [Bengel]; and in doubtful cases, takes the more charitable view [Grotius].”
3. Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“but the meaning is, either that one possessed of this grace of love does not think of the evil that is done him by another; he forgives, as God has forgiven him, so as to forget the injury done him, and remembers it no more; and so the Arabic version reads it, "and remembers not evil"; having once forgiven it, he thinks of it no more; or he does not meditate revenge, or devise mischief, and contrive evil against man that has done evil to him, as Esau did against his brother Jacob; so the Ethiopic version, by way of explanation, adds, "neither thinks evil, nor consults evil"; or as the word here used will bear to be rendered, "does not impute evil"; reckon or place it to the account of him that has committed it against him, but freely and fully forgives, as God, when he forgives sin, is said not to impute it; or such an one is not suspicious of evil in others, he does not indulge evil surmises, and groundless jealousies; which to do is very contrary to this grace of love. “
4. Pulpit Commentary
“The phrase seems to be a very comprehensive one, implying that love is neither suspicious, nor implacable, nor retentive in her memory of evil done. Love writes our personal wrongs in ashes or in water.”
B. Our attitude toward others
1. We will not define others by what they have done.
2. We will not impute evil to the actions of others.
3. We will give people a second chance.
a. Peter
b. Paul
- LOVE RELATES WELL
A. We are not to be provoked because we live by the Spirit, not our human tendencies.
B. We do not treat people as their actions/attitudes deserve.
“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.”
Psalms 103:8-14 NIV
CHALLENGE
Read 1 Corinthians 13 every day. Memorize 1 Corinthians 13:6. Write down the names of those who can “easily provoke” you. Ask God to forgive them, and ask God to forgive you. Erase a “record of wrong” this week. Christians have no room to be unforgiving. Love does not allow for that.
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