1 Corinthians 13:6-8 | "What Love Does"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Morning.

Welcome.

Glad to have you with us this morning to worship our God together.

I have an announcement to share with you that I think is exciting, and I hope it's exciting to you too.

Next Sunday morning, you're going to have to get here earlier.

Sorry to say that, but we are going to shift next Sunday to our normal summer Sunday schedule.

So what that means is we're going to one service at 10 a.m.

One service, a single service at 10 a.m.

on Sunday morning.

And so if you're watching via live stream, that's when the live stream will be as well at 10 a.m.

If you check in at 10.30, uh you'll you'll just get me, you won't get the rest of the service.

So uh we want to make you aware of that.

If that brings a concern to your mind, we want you to know that we've thought through this.

Um if you combine first service and second service that we've been having for the last, I don't know, four or five weeks now, we are still far under uh 75% capacity that is recommended for us right now.

So uh we are anticipating still being under that capacity for for many weeks.

Um if you come next Sunday or one of the following Sundays and you see that the balcony is full and you're just uncomfortable with the seating that's available here in the sanctuary, uh we will have the service feed available in the lounge as well as in the fellowship hall.

So if you find it uncomfortable in here that there's not a space available for you, you can make your way to one of those rooms, and there will be plenty of space for everyone.

So that that begins next Sunday morning at 10 a.m.

Look forward to seeing you there.

I'd like to direct your attention as we open up God's word this morning first to 1 Peter chapter 4.

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

Now, you don't necessarily have to turn there in your Bibles.

We're going to get to 1 Corinthians 13.

But by way of introduction, I want us to consider 1 Peter chapter 4, beginning in verse 7.

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

The Apostle Peter writes, The end of all things is at hand.

Keep in mind he wrote that 2,000 years ago.

So we are much more than in that place of the end of all things is at hand.

Therefore, be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

I'd like you to keep that passage in mind as we go throughout 1 Corinthians today and take that home with you.

It is, in essence, a summary of what we will be looking at in 1 Corinthians 13.

But implicit in Peter's statement there is that sins are a multitude.

How many is a multitude?

Yes.

An unknown number, right?

It's a lot.

It's an innumerable amount, apparently.

And even more so as the end of all things draws near.

Sins are multiplying, they are ever prevalent.

Therefore, it's important to be self-controlled and sober-minded.

Because apparently, if we are not sober-minded and self-controlled, then that in some way impacts our ability to pray.

And even more so as the end draws near.

A lack of sober-mindedness will increase, and with that will increase a multitude of sins.

Therefore, keep loving one another earnestly.

Why?

Why?

Because love is the healing antidote for great and multitudes of sin.

Love is the healing antidote for those problems.

As sin increases, as sin grows, love is presented by Peter as the antidote.

Now, last week we began working our way through 1 Corinthians 13 and the definition of love presented there.

We started the week before that, actually, but last Sunday we got into what love is.

This morning I want us to consider what love does as we pick up where we left off.

You remember a couple of weeks ago, as we began looking at this passage, we started with God Himself, with the passage of Scripture that says, God is love.

That is God.

He is the embodiment of love.

Love cannot be defined apart from God Himself.

Everything that God displays in his love towards us, then, is the pattern that he calls us to replicate.

So he exhibited a sacrificial love that always considered others more significant.

In the same way we are to love one another earnestly.

So let's remind ourselves of where we are.

The Apostle Paul is showing us a more excellent way, and he begins in verse 1 of chapter 13.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a noisy gong or a clinging symbol.

If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind.

Love does not envy or boast.

It is not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way.

It is not irritable or resentful.

It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.

Amen.

Let's pick up where we left off last Sunday, verse six.

Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing.

Now last Sunday I tried to make it clear that the descriptions of love here in this chapter are not merely descriptions, but are actions.

When the Apostle Paul wrote this, he used verbs, so they are things that love does.

I tried to express that by including the word acts, ACTS, in our description of them.

So I'm going to try to do that again this morning by beginning with love, does not act with joy when sin occurs.

That's what not rejoicing at wrongdoing means.

If your Bible has that word wrongdoing, some translations may have the word unrighteousness.

This is the word righteousness in Greek with the letter A attached to it, which negates it.

It's not righteousness, it's the opposite of righteousness.

In fact, the next part of the verse is a contrasting statement.

It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but instead it rejoices with God's truth.

Wrongdoing, then, or unrighteousness, is really quite broad.

It's inclusive of all things that are sinful.

From the smallest of white lies to mass murders, to the person who gossips or steals or destroys property.

It refers to not only actionable sins that we can see and that people carry out physically, but also sins of the heart that we cannot see, sins like hate and coveting and lust and racism.

We are not to rejoice at unrighteousness.

We're not to rejoice.

We're not to have joy or happiness when someone fails, when someone falls or falls into sin.

We ought to feel grief when God has been wronged.

One commentator wrote, if you have to make an effort to feel sad at the sight of evil or iniquity, you do not possess this love of which Paul speaks.

Let me say that again.

If you have to make the effort to feel sad at the sight of evil or iniquity, you do not possess this love of which Paul speaks.

When wrong occurs to anyone anywhere, we ought to be grieved, not filled with joy as a result of that wrong.

Think of the most prevalent situation in our culture and our world right now.

Think of the cultural, systemic aspects of racism.

That's not a wrong done to you, perhaps.

Maybe you have not ever experienced anything like that in your life.

But if it is a wrong done to someone else, it should not bring joy to you, but grief if you truly love your neighbor.

Do you get a sense of satisfaction in seeing people fall from public positions?

What about what about political scandals?

I know some people just can't wait for the next political scandal.

What if the opponent of your political person has something revealed about them that disgraces them and removes them from the political scene?

Does that bring joy to you?

What about someone else?

What about someone that you dislike or someone you consider a personal opponent or a personal enemy due to their positions or their actions or their beliefs?

If they were to be condemned somehow for some reason of wrongdoing, would you celebrate the fall of your opponent or your enemy?

Or would you be grieved over their wrongdoing?

Loving our enemies means not rejoicing at their wrongdoing, but grieving.

Even when the wicked get what they deserve, even when they get the justice and the judgment that they deserve, God does not rejoice.

Scripture says God does not rejoice in the death of the wicked.

In fact, Proverbs 24 tells us, do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles.

Since I'm in the mode of stepping on toes, let me keep doing that.

This seems to be falling away a little bit, but several years ago it was very popular for people to watch Fifty Shades of Grey.

I heard Christians all over the place celebrating when it just portrays evil and wickedness and immorality, and Christians rejoice at it.

Do we laugh at an unclean joke?

Does gossip grieve us, or do we get a kick out of participating in it?

That's not love, my friends.

And we are called to love.

Now the opposite of that is in the left rest of the verse.

The opposite of that is acting with great joy when the truth is honored.

Now, instead of rejoicing at wrongdoing, we are to rejoice with the truth.

There's a definite article here, the word the, so it's best for us to read this as the truth, as God's truth.

The idea isn't primarily rejoicing when truth in general is told versus untruth, but rejoicing when God's truth is revealed, when the things that please God are honored and brought out.

And there's an emphasis too that we need to notice.

An emphasis that I think is made even greater by the contrast.

We are not to rejoice at unrighteousness, but we are to celebrate when God's truth is honored.

When sin is brought to light, it should bring sorrow.

But the revealing of God's truth is to bring joy in his people.

Now that doesn't mean, that doesn't mean that the truth won't hurt at times.

It doesn't mean that we're blind to the truth or we ignore or reject sin.

It means that we recognize that all of us are sinners at various stages of growth and holiness.

Maybe you haven't started that growth and holiness yet.

If you haven't, then I encourage you to come to Jesus and trust in Him for the salvation that He offers you from your sin.

And he will begin that work.

And you see, when we know, when we know that God is at work in us and sin begins to grieve us, we then become filled with joy when the truth reigns.

Yes, love grieves over sin, but it rejoices with the truth.

It rejoices when God is revealed and honored and glorified.

In the church, when we're gathered together like this, this means that we realize the church gathered together is not a place for vacationing saints who have it all figured out.

This is not Arizona.

Sorry.

We're not a place for vacationing saints who have it all figured out.

We are a hospital for sinners.

And every single one of us is a patient.

And when we sin, which we will, we grieve.

We don't use another's sin as an opportunity to play the trump card over them or to tattle on them or to somehow take advantage of them in some way.

But when there's confession and repentance, that leads to growth in holiness and obedience because of the truth, and then we rejoice, we celebrate because healing has come in the hospital.

Remember 1 Peter 4:8.

1 Peter 4:8

Love covers a multitude of sins.

When sin is revealed in our lives, and it's going to be, it's just a matter of time.

When sin is revealed in our lives, we are not to shame one another unnecessarily for stupidly giving in to sin yet again.

But instead, we are to come along and lovingly seek repentance.

And with that repentance, the healing that brings celebration.

That idea is further developed in verse 7.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

And there's a shift that's taking place there.

We're moving from the negative side back to the positive side.

We've been looking at what love does not do.

Now we go back to what love does do.

Love bears all things.

This particular aspect of love really deserves an entire sermon all by itself.

Its depth and its implications for our lives are really astounding.

But first, let's understand the word bear.

It's a word that was used often in ancient literature of an object that covered something.

Think of a carport.

Okay?

Something that covers your car and protects it above it.

That's a good example because this particular word was used as used for a roof in ancient times.

So it came to refer to something that protected or covered something else.

So as we apply that aspect of covering to love, we need to see then that love covers spiritual ugliness.

Now that needs some clarification because it can sound like we're ignoring or maybe minimizing sin.

But that's not it at all.

Remember that when God calls us to love in this chapter, we're loving one another, right?

We're loving people, we're loving human beings.

Therefore, to cover spiritual ugliness is not to minimize sin, but to lovingly come alongside someone for their benefit.

What exactly does that benefit look like?

Let me ask you this question.

What aspect of your life needs to be covered the most?

Paul wrote, love covers all.

What aspects of our lives are necessary for love to cover or for love to protect?

I think our first answer needs to come from Scripture itself.

Scripture often helps us interpret other scriptures, and so in this case, we look to Proverbs 10, verse 12.

Proverbs 10:12

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

Solomon.

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

So Solomon presents hatred as the opposite of love.

And when hatred is offended, when it is sinned against, it returns the favor.

It stirs up angst and anger and dissension.

When hatred is stirred up, it lashes out, sometimes publicly, with gossip and slander.

It posts all over on social media so that the world knows how much I've been offended.

But love does the opposite.

It seeks to cover the problem, to reduce the amount of strife, to forgive the sin and bring healing to the relationship.

But our natural human nature is not that way.

It's sinful.

Our natural human nature seeks our own good before the good of others.

But love turns that around.

Love turns that around and says, no, you need to focus on others first.

Our nature is not to cover or to bear with the sins of others, but instead to point out sin in every detail of its ugliness, to expose faults and failures.

We want people to know how badly we've been hurt.

We want people to know how badly they've hurt us, and we want them to know the depth of our pain.

We want them to hurt for their sin.

That's our tendency.

We want every person to know how sinful so-and-so is.

We want the world to know how we have been offended and hurt and sinned against because somehow it makes us feel better if the world knows how hurt we are.

Somehow we've twisted God's truth and we have this messed-up view that gossiping somehow brings healing to our souls.

But love, especially in the body of Christ, is not like that.

Our depraved nature tempts us to take delight in the sins and the failings of others.

That's why tabloids thrive.

That's why exposes are so popular.

That's why children tattle on their siblings.

Love, though, bears or covers the wrongs of others in such a way as to bring repentance and healing.

Love doesn't selfishly expose or exploit or gloat.

It doesn't harshly condemn.

Or unnecessarily brings shame.

Love seeks to cover the repentant so as to protect from the full ugliness of unholiness that Christ is still in the process of restoring.

It means let's protect from ridicule, let's protect from exposure, let's protect from gossip so that forgiveness and healing and growth can happen.

Love doesn't exploit a sinful situation.

Now, sometimes, sometimes sin needs to be made public.

Matthew 18 describes a process in which sin is brought before the entire church.

That's not what we're talking about here.

That is unrepentant sin.

That's when a person doesn't have the kind of response to sin that God expects of them.

But when there is sensitivity to our wrong, when there is repentance present, love seeks to cover the wrong and to bring about restoration.

That's why the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Galatia, brothers, if anyone is caught in any kind of transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him.

How?

In a spirit of gentleness.

He goes on.

Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

What is your greatest burden?

You may not realize it, but it's your own sin.

Bear one another's burdens.

If we try to think practically about this, what are the implications of this?

It means that we we think the best about others.

Maybe they didn't mean what they said.

Maybe they didn't realize how they came across to you.

Maybe I didn't understand them properly.

Loving in this kind of way means we give an extraordinary amount of gracious benefit of the doubt.

Now that we don't justify sin, we don't compromise God's standards.

It means we deal with the ugliness of sin by confronting it in love and encouraging repentance, but not in a way that broadcasts or displays the ugliness of sin to everyone who can see or hear.

Because love wants others to see the best in people, not the worst.

Now practically, we can cover others with our prayers.

We can ask the Lord to care and to bring attention and strengthen and forgive people.

And by doing that, we are not giving up on them when we're disgusted with them.

When people disappoint us to no end, we work patiently with them.

We don't add shame upon shame, but instead we have that shame lead to repentance and love and redirection towards obedience in Christ.

You know, one of the most routine ways that we can show love in a covering kind of way is by not taking offense when none is given.

By not taking offense when none is given.

I love the way that R.

C.

Sprohl wrote about this.

He said, and I quote, many times we take offense at things people do or say when no offense was given.

We simply don't like what was done or said.

And we may feel insulted when no one has truly insulted us.

That kind of thing, he says, happens in the church all the time.

We are sometimes too easily offended by things that should not offend us.

We are commanded as Christians to not give offense, not to violate people, not to do harm to other people, but sometimes we can do exactly the right thing and people take offense anyway.

End quote.

So both sides in that situation can express this covering aspect of love.

If someone has taken offense to something that you said or the way you said it, or something that you have done, they are somehow injured, but you never intended it, cover it with your love.

Cover it over, put it aside, don't dwell on it, forgive the sin and move on.

On the other hand, if you are tempted to take offense, don't.

Give them the greatest and most gracious benefit of the doubt that you can.

Believe the best about them.

Believe that somehow you misunderstood or that they misspoke.

You see, to cover another with love means to believe the very best about another from the very first possible moment.

And that's where we move next, because love believes the best.

Love believes all.

Love believes all.

Love isn't suspicious or cynical.

Love doesn't say, you know, what else could I expect from them?

It's just what they do.

Love doesn't do that.

No, love always moves to the most favorable of possibilities.

If there's some kind of doubt, some kind of concern, or even a feeling that someone has intended to harm us in some way, we should believe them to be innocent until they have absolutely been proven guilty.

And then when they've been proven guilty, we love them by speaking to them about their sin and leading them to repentance.

Not in a public, shameful way, but in a healing kind of way.

We don't judge motives.

You know, most of our problems, our interpersonal problems, stem from believing that others have it in for us.

That they mean harm to us in some way, or that they're doing the worst possible thing.

They don't like us, they hate us, and we believe that, we're convinced of that, even though it may not be true.

And when we believe the best about one another, we don't make those kinds of assumptions.

We don't make determinations about another person's actions or motives or intentions or heart or speech.

This may be the modern church's greatest failing.

Think about politics.

Think about somebody who's staunchly Republican versus somebody who's staunchly Democrat.

They're hating one another.

They're looking at each other.

They may be believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, and they're looking at each other thinking, how in the world can you do that?

How in the world can you believe that?

How in the world can you support that person?

Are you some kind of nut?

I know there's somebody that somebody out there who's saying, and the libertarian standing in the middle going like this.

We make determinations about each other's hearts all the time, don't we?

We ought to believe the best about each other and seek to cover any wrong or sin and help to make all things right for God's glory rather than broadcasting the wrong for everybody to know.

And that brings me to an important point here.

Love is a decision.

We do not naturally believe the best about one another.

We are naturally suspicious.

Loving one another so that you believe the best means you are deciding from that first moment, I am deciding to believe the best.

And if you do not make that decision, if I don't make that decision, we won't believe the best.

Consider those people that you tend to avoid.

Try to imagine that kind of person that you would avoid.

Maybe they live on your street.

Maybe there's a particular type of person that you avoid when you are shopping or walking.

Why do you do that?

Are you stereotyping them?

Are you putting them in putting them in a box that only you get to define?

Are you believing that somebody is automatically unsafe because they are walking on the street or because they're wearing certain styles of clothing?

Is that loving by believing the best?

And when we believe the best, we we always realize that there's great hope for me.

There's great hope for the greatest, for the worst of sinners.

There's a belief in the best possible outcome.

There's hope for repentance, there's hope for forgiveness, there's hope for restoration, for righteousness, and for love.

And when we love that way, we begin to work toward that kind of love.

We love that way because love always trusts God's purpose.

Love always trusts God's purpose.

The text says love hopes all.

Love hopes all.

That's the opposite of fatalism.

We've all been there a time or two or three or ten.

You know that that person that you just expect to do the wrong thing?

That person that you just know is gonna make the wrong decision.

Maybe they've lived a life of wrong decisions, and you just think the chance to make a right decision is impossible.

They're just automatically going to make the wrong decision.

It's almost as if they're programmed to failure.

But see, here's the thing about hope in the Bible.

It's not something that is simply possible, that's merely a possibility.

Hope in the Bible is something that is sure.

And the surety is not found in us, it's not found in humanity, it's found in God Himself.

Hope understands that God is in control, that God is ultimately sovereign, that God is working towards the end goal that he set in place from the beginning of time.

And hope knows, hope trusts that as long as God is sovereign, which is forever, as long as God is working, which is all the time, as long as God is still functioning in loving kindness and grace, which is always, his mercies are new every morning, there is no kind of failure, no kind of fall that is final.

Do you have that kind of love?

Kind of love that God is talking about is a settled kind of trust that all things were work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.

That means we don't give up on each other.

Love always trusts in what God is doing, and that that trust works itself out in a settled hope that God is always going to do what is right and what is good.

That means it may not be what I think is right or what I think is good.

But God is perfectly righteous, God is perfectly just, and he will always do what is right and what is perfectly just.

Because of that, love endures all.

Love is strong, it remains firm.

This is a military term.

It refers to manning a post and keeping that post under all circumstances.

It's holding a position at all costs.

So it carries these ideas of perseverance, of sustaining, of bearing up under difficult circumstances in life.

It's related to the word patient in verse 4.

Love is patient, and you might remember last time that we saw that that word patience in verse 4 relates to patience with people.

This word in verse 7 about enduring is a similar patience kind of word, but it refers more to circumstances, to situations in life.

So our love then applies to people and to circumstances.

The opposite of enduring our circumstances would be to forsake them, to run away, to somehow just leave it and abandon our post.

But love does not run away in the midst of difficult circumstances.

Love keeps going.

There are two very clear biblical examples of this.

The first is Job.

In the Greek translation of the book of Job, this same word occurs 13 times, referring to Job.

He endured.

It's also used of Joseph, who endured the trials of life and yet still loved his brothers who sinned against him.

This is an endurance that is a strength that is given directly by God to his people.

The apostle Paul prayed to the church at Colossae: may you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy.

And he's pointing us again to God's love.

God's love always endures.

He is patient with the circumstances of your life.

Therefore, our love is to be enduring as well.

We are called to maintain our post of love towards one another.

No matter what.

And finally, the last characteristic of love is in verse eight.

Love never ends.

Or love always is.

It just is.

It's ongoing.

Love never ends.

The term term for ends here means to fail or to fall.

By adding the word never, it pictures God's never-changing, always faithful, continually patient love for us.

And because God's children are to be patterned after God Himself, their love is to be patterned after His love.

Our love is to always be going as well.

It is to be always patient, always, always giving the benefit of the doubt.

But you will fail.

We will fall.

We will do wrong.

We will sin.

We will not give the benefit of the doubt.

We will get upset and carry grudges.

We will gossip.

We will be jealous.

We will get irritated and offended.

We're not God.

So we will fail.

But that's why the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians.

They were failing.

They were sinning against one another by not loving one another in these ways.

They were impatient and unkind to one another.

They were jealous and proud.

They insisted on their own way.

They resented one another.

They profiled one another.

They exhibited racist sins.

In fact, this is not so much a song of love for a wedding as it is a commentary on how sick and twisted the church in Corinth had become.

And in a much deeper way, it's a picture of the depth of our own sinfulness.

We can all be and do the opposite of how God loves.

But the Apostle Paul here, by writing this, was demonstrating the love of God to that sinful church.

He was hopeful for them.

He was enduring.

He was trusting that the sinful, unloving people in Corinth would grow up in Christ and become loving people.

He knew that if they submitted themselves to the love of God, that same love would be shown to one another in the church.

Sins would then be forgiven.

Faults would be overlooked.

Wrongs would be righted.

Hurts would be, would be healed, because each one would be looking out not for himself, but for the best of others.

That's the kind of love that Jesus had in mind when he said to his disciples, the world will know us by our love.

So it's left to you, beloved.

You will encounter situations and people, maybe today, maybe before you leave this room, that will test your love.

Will you follow Christ in this kind of love?

Will the world come to know that you belong to Christ because of how you think of, how you believe in, and how you treat other people?

Will you follow the more excellent way?

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, forgive our sins.

We are too weak to do this.

So we ask with David that you would create in us a clean heart.

That you would restore to us the joy of your salvation that comes with knowing you.

By your power, through the spirit that you've given us, cause us to love one another.

Because love covers a multitude of sins.

Thank you for showing us that most clearly and giving of yourself for my sin.

It's an astounding thought when we think about it.

That act of putting someone else above yourself is the pinnacle of love.

Work in us, your people, to display that for the good of those around us, for the name of Jesus and for the glory of God our Savior.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.