The Beauty of Love - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

If you have your Bibles turned to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, as you turn there, I want you to think about what love is. What is love? If we can try to define it, it's hard to define, but there are certain characteristics about it that 1 Corinthians 13 tells us a little bit about it. But as you think about what love is, is it emotion or is it an action? Hollywood will tell us that love is a romantic feeling of the heart. It's purely an emotion. Hollywood will tell us that love is something you can't help to experience. You fall in love like you fall into a ditch. You know, you didn't mean to, wasn't planning on it, but you just happen to fall in love. Or you can also, and it's not for you to be beating yourself up about this, but you can fall out of love.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

You know, I'm sorry, honey. You know, I didn't mean to, but I just don't love you anymore.

I fell out of love. I, you know, in, it's kind of this idea. You can't help who you love. You've got to go with your heart. You just got to love that which you love and can't help it. You're a victim if you would. It's like some type of disease that you get. And so some biblical counselors in opposition to this notion of just raw emotions that you can't help. Some biblical counselors kind of go to the other extreme and think and say, love is merely a command. It's all commands. It's just actions. You know, you're to be good. You're to command to even love your enemies. You don't have to have affection in your heart towards them. You don't have to be feeling warm and fuzzy towards your enemies, but you still to do good to them. And then husbands, you're to love your wives, wives, you're to love your husbands. It doesn't matter how you feel. Your feelings have nothing to do with it. So it's just commands. I think these are two extremes. I think love definitely is an emotion, but it is also a command. It's both ends. But another question we need to ask ourselves is love something that is drawn out of us or is it something that is put in us?

I mean, it depends on what you believe about the privacy of human nature, but is love something is just drawn out of you. Something, you know, something that is lovable on the outside of you attract your attention. Romeo saw Juliet and once he saw her, he was smitten instantly.

And you know, and it just drew the love out of him. It pulled it out. And the things that are lovely that you crave, that is brings attraction to you, that is attractive and you desire and want that pulls out your affections. The things that are disposable and ugly and that makes your love shrink or it doesn't pull it out, pulls out your hate and so forth.

So is love merely something that is pulled out of you or is love something that has to be put into you? That human nature, because of depravity, because you're a slave to sin, love is not something you inherently have within you. You don't have love. You can't, it can't be pulled out of you. Even if you saw the most lovable thing in the world, which is God and God was set before you, you would hate God of your own accord. Love is not something that is pulled out of us. We're not the source of love. We're not the originator of it. We don't have it. We're depleted of it. You said, what about does grandmas and grandpas who are not Christians, can they not love their grandkids? Well, there's a form of natural affections, of course.

But the problem with the concept of love and the reason we have problems with it is we don't really have a good definition of it. The world has tricked us. And in fact, it's our flesh that tricks us. We have a counterfeit love, a cheap knockoff that has some of the same characteristics of love.

So at first glance, when we feel the feeling, we call it love. Like I love ice cream. I love shrimp. I love steak. I love a lot of things. And we call that love. You know, guys love girls.

Well, I hope they do. Girls love guys.

You know, we say, well, I'm in love. I love. And love, this counterfeit love, this cheap knockoff is not the real thing. It's the world's love. They call it love. They identify it with that term, but it's nothing more than lust. Lust, the lust of the flesh. And it's similar to real love because it is an emotion. It's a passion. It's a craving. Love does desire that which the object that it's attached to. You love God. You desire God to be near God. You run to God because you love God.

When you hate something, you run away from something. So when you love something, you're drawn to that thing. Well, when you lust after something, it's a strong passion or craving.

You're drawn to the thing you're craving. So it's an emotion. It's a craving. It draws you and love is sacrificial. When you love something or somebody, you'll sacrifice.

Well, lust, believe it or not, will have a measure of sacrifice. You and I will go to the restaurant and lay down some heavy cash in order to get a good meal and we'll sacrifice for ice cream. We'll sacrifice. Some men will sacrifice for their ladies. They'll open the car door. They'll buy flowers that they wine and dine. They do all this effort in a sacrifice. And look, look how much he loves me. Look how much he's sacrificing. Look how much he's spending on me. Look at all the attention he's given me. But just like you're craving food, sometimes you crave the opposite sex. You've got these longings and cravings. Even to the point that you will, to some measure, give up other things to obtain it, to get it. And I'll tell you, most marriages in America, in fact, the world is based upon not love. Based upon lust.

I got to have this girl. I got to have this guy. I can't live. I can't live without them.

So they say to themselves, I'm in love, but it's no more love than hate. Because it's the end goal, the end difference between lust and love.

Love is unselfish. And the glory and the joy and the benefit of that which you love is your chief of desire. Lust, the chief desire in lust itself. You know, if I loved ice cream, I wouldn't consume it. I mean, that's not very nice to ice cream. You know, I'm destroying it for my own gratification.

Right? And think about how many marriages is built on the same concept. It's not for better or for worse, but it's better and it hopefully don't get worse. It's mutually beneficial. As long as the contract is good and you know, you're scratching my back. I'll scratch your back. I'll sacrifice.

I love you, but you're loving me. You look good. I feel good when you're next to me.

It's satisfying to be with you. I'm happy with you. But once the spouse starts misbehaving or miss not looking as attractive to you or all of a sudden I've fallen out of love.

I no longer crave you anymore. No longer desire you anymore. I've fallen out of love. That's the way the world is. It's not for better and worse. It's just simply you provide me something I want and that's selfish and that's the heart of hate. It disguise itself as love, but it's not the real thing. You see, natural man doesn't have the real thing. It's from God. We don't have it.

In fact, once we start defining what it is and looking at its characteristics, we'll see that this stuff is supernatural. It is glorious. It's beautiful. In fact, that's the title of my sermon, the beauty of love. But we have to see that the only way we can love God is of God to put love in us. The only thing we can love how only way we can love one another is God put his love in us so that we can love others with it.

Let's read our text and notice in this text verses four through seven of first chrythian. Thirteen. There's fourteen characteristics describing love.

Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It's not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It's not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things. These things are nothing like the lusts of the flesh, the cravings of the body. Lust is ugly. Love, you know, lust is ugly because love, lust will exploit others for self benefit. Joyfully exploit others. You know, when you're eating your food that you love, you're joyfully exploiting it for your own joy, for your own benefit.

But love is when you exploit yourself, you sacrifice yourself, wear yourself out, where you pour yourself out, not self beneficial. At least it doesn't seem to be self beneficially for the betterment, the joy and the good of someone else.

You know, these fourteen characteristics can be summarized into three major attributes.

There's fourteen of them listed here, but if we kind of group them together in the things that they seem to have in common, we've got three overarching attributes that helps us define what love is. Three things this morning to define love and the beauty of love. One, love is not selfish. Two, love endures abuse. Three, love gives of self.

So love is not self focused. It's not selfish. It's not give me. Let me get what I can get out of this world. Love will even deplete itself and be abused by others when you love something.

And third, love is going to give. And the fact this is the very character of God.

God is love. He is all these things. First of all, let's look at this. Love is not selfish.

This is the to me depravity could be rephrased to selfishness. Selfishness is the heart of all sin.

Every commandment is broken because of selfishness. Selfishness is the root of every evil, putting self at the top, putting self above others, not loving God above yourself, not loving your neighbor as yourself, but putting self as your God. And everybody is born. Everyone who's born in this world is born as a God to himself. I'm going to live for me. It's about me. I mean, that's the nature of little kids. You say little kids are not sinful. No, they they're living for themselves. It's all about them. The whole world rotates around them and teenagers are not even better if they're not converted. In fact, us adults are not any better. We just know how to disguise it better. We know how to pretend like we're not selfish all the while we are.

It's our default position to be selfish, to be self centered. But love is not selfish.

First Corinthians 10 24 says no one should seek his own good, but the good of others.

Romans 15 to each of us should please our neighbors. And this is the first and the first characteristic of the unselfishness of love is there in verse four. Love is does not envy.

It's not envious. Envy is the feeling of resentfulness when someone else is blessed or you're resentful. You don't. It's like a little negative feeling when someone else is lifted up or exalted or blessed or get something. It's the nature of the world to be envy. I mean, all the TV commercials that sells vehicles, they sell it through envy so that you can drive your new car and other people can look at what you have and be envious because they know you know what it feels like seeing someone else's nice car and feeling that envy. So they sell. They market vehicles. They market everything basically on trying to make you discontent and envious of what you do not have. But love is not envious of others stuff or others positions or power or blessings or exaltation. Think about this kids. Listen to me. If I had a hundred dollars here and so I'm going to give it to one of you kids first one it raises their hand. I'm going to give you a hundred dollar bill right there. This kid right here is taking me up on this.

We should all pitch in and get him a hundred dollars.

Now let's pretend we're going to give this boy a hundred dollar bill. How many of you other kids are so happy for him. I mean you know if you've got if you win something you're going yeah I won.

But what if someone else wins or you're going to go just as excitedly go. Yes they won. They got it. They got the they got the hundred dollars. I'm so happy for them. I'm excited that they're blessed because you care about them. Now that's law. That's law. And it's so contrary to human nature. But envy the Bible tells us a James three it says where envy is there selfish ambition and disorder in every evil practice envy is something that's of the flesh of the of the devil and it's not of law. Love finds happiness in giving not receiving that's why the Bible does truly say is more blessed to give. I never understood that verse as as a child when I was a child like man Christmas is the best time of the year. That's when I get stuff. What do you mean is better to give presents than to get them. That's so so contrary. But if you truly understand love and you have love in your heart you really are more blessed. You're happier. You're really happier when you see the people you love get things that are beneficial for them helpful for them.

Secondly why love is not selfish we see in verse four because love does not boast. It's humble.

Boasting is putting self on display is look at me.

It's trying to get attention for some accomplishment or some gift.

It's seeking a platform for himself. It's self promotion. But the Bible tells us let another man praise you. It's love doesn't say look at me. Love is happy to be in the shadows and others in the spotlight. Love doesn't want to sit at the top of the best seats at the table. Rather set at the lower seat and wait for someone else to call him up. You see love is not focused on self.

Self is not the goal. Ambition is not the goal. Honor self honor is not the goal.

We rather see other people exalted and lifted up than yourself being honored or lifted up.

In other words love is humble. Peter tells us be like minded and sympathetic. Love as brothers.

Be tender hearted and humble. First Corinthians four verse six tells us. Paul says I've written these things that you may learn in us not to think beyond what is written that none of you may be puffed up on behalf of one against the other. Who makes you differ from another.

And what do you have that you do not receive. Now if you do not receive it why do you boast as if you had not received it. You see most of us don't struggle with verbalizing our pride. We're too prideful for people to see our pride. Right. And we don't want to be the arrogant one everybody thinks I got is prideful and we don't want that because we want to be humble in their eyes so we hide our pride we conceal our pride but the battle is in our mind the battle is how we think about others and how we think about ourselves and we don't let people know our thoughts but in our minds we struggle thinking we're the better credit or Christian we struggle with thinking that we're doing things just a little bit better than that person because we're critical of them and we're not so critical of us we're more critical of others than we are ourselves. And don't we all struggle with that. And it's because we struggle with having love and a heart for others. And it's a form of arrogance. And self exaltation in our own thinking pride always begins in our conscience before it's exhibited and some people are so self-absorbed in their thinking it can't help but who's out of them. But we need to fight it in our thoughts. We need to fight it before it comes out because God sees the hidden men of the heart.

You see thirdly we see in verse four love is not arrogant. It's not selfish because it's not boastful and arrogance arrogance is the idea that we're more important than someone else.

One time I had a trip paid to Europe and you know Stice when it's not your money it is set in first class. It is nice when they got these passes that you don't have to take your shoes off and check your bags. You can kind of walk around the lines. Have you ever done that. Am I the only one here that's got to do that. I mean it's glorious. It's extremely glorious. Well you know when you go to the airport to airport you know you see these long lines and you're just in the one of these lines.

No joke no joke. They had cookies and you could walk through the lines. Other people taking their shoes off and you can grab your cookie and just keep on walking. I mean this was wonderful. And I notice just to be transparent honest to you. I notice in my own mind looking at the long lines and going you peasants. I mean it started to do something. I mean like I'm a little special here.

I'm an important person and you start feeling important. And you get this idea. I'm an important person. I've done something. I'm accomplishing something. I'm I'm somebody somebody special.

And when you have that concept I'm somebody special because of your accomplishments your education or your wealth or whatever it may be you begin to look down on the old peasants.

And he said well I would never do that. You know we might be the peasants. Actually most of us are in that peasant category but it wouldn't take us two seconds to turn into the upper class and look down on the ones that we used to be. That's our human heart. And that's not what love does.

I mean think about Christ. If he didn't have love he would have become one of us peasants.

One of us worms. I mean that's love to become one of us. He's glorious. He's above the angels.

But he came and dwelt with us. Now that is humbleness. That's love.

Poor reason that love is not selfish because it's not self-focused. Look at verse five. He says love does not insist on its own way. Love is seeking the happiness and the well-being others not of self. It's not placing our desires and wishes above the desires and the wishes of others.

Truly we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. It's not bit or not.

Love is not bent on saying hey it's got to be my way. We're going to do it this way.

And that's kind of it. If you ever see kids fight over toys that's the problem.

It's the problem is like there's revealing something within the heart that I'm more important than the other kid. This is this is about me.

So love is not selfish. First point second point.

This is one you may not like but if we don't like it it's going to reveal that we don't have love.

Love endures abuse. And I thought about why maybe abuse is too strong of a word.

But no it's probably not strong enough.

Love endures abuse.

You know every here people say I'm not going to take anything from anybody.

They get the idea you're not going to cross me. You're not going to double cross me.

You're not going to walk on me.

I'm not taking that from you. It's a kind of a hard attitude. I'm not going to be taking advantage of I'm not going to be abused if you ask me to do a one mile out as far as I'm going to go is that one mile. I'm not going to do two miles.

If you ask my jacket I definitely not going to give you my coat too.

I'm not going to give you more than you ask. I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to be taking advantage of here. That's the heart of selfishness.

It's our enemies. Well the Bible says we're to love our enemies.

You see I'm going to be walked on. He's like Jeff you're going crazy talk.

Before you start rebuking me think about how much you abuse Christ Jesus and he's endured it.

And think of who you'd be where you'd be if God didn't take your abuse.

You ever heard someone say I don't deal with stupid.

Well first of all love endures abuse because look at verse four love is patient.

That is love deals with stupid people. It's patient with stupid people.

Love is patient with everyone.

And it's hard to be patient. You know it's hard to the hardest reason hardest way to reason why it's hard to teach kids to sweep the floor to to learn math.

You know the hardest thing about it is for to teach people is having the patience with them.

Instead it takes love to be patient.

It's like I'm right. Come on. I got to get planes. I got things I got to do.

This is about me. I mean I can't sit here and sacrifice and teach and do this and this and this for you and I just you know I can't do this. It's like the lack of patience is a lack of love.

The second reason love will endure abuse is because love doesn't get irritable.

Look at verse five. It's not irritable.

I like the word irritable even though I get irritable a lot.

Well I get irritable when I'm in a deep strain of thought I'm doing something and I get disrupted.

You know like it's like I have to fight that you know like wait this is my time. This is what I'm doing. Leave me alone. You know I'm self this is focused on what I want to do. You know it's like then irritability comes. It's a wise tired. Yeah no.

The irritability is is not based on love. It's not loving. To be irritable is to be easily provoked, easily upset, easily angered. To be irritable is to easily find fault. It's to have a critical spirit. But a critical spirit ever met someone is always critical you know picking people apart is like this person does this is like they're prone to gossip because they enjoy highlighting people's criticisms.

You know we all have things that were ashamed of and we have things we're proud of and the things we're proud of we display you know we put the trophies on the mantle. Look at that you know and the things that were ashamed of the F's that we got in school we we thought those were poor cards in the trash and shred them. We don't want people to know that. So we we naturally cover up our own insecurities and failures right. We do that and we don't talk about them. Then why do we talk about other people's failures. We're putting their failures on display is for to other people's ears so that they can see their display their failures. We wouldn't want other people to talk about our failures. Would we. But we're critical of others and we kind of enjoy it.

We kind of we have this tendency to enjoy criticizing people and because it makes us self feel just a little bit better a little more superior because we become the judge and we and being the judge it means what we know everything is right and about what we're doing and so we're it's a form of thinking better of ourselves. In thinking lesser of others and getting joy out of that. You know someone who's always finding fault. Never satisfied.

But love. Endures this and I love love is the one who is not irritable.

Who can. Cover sins. Bible says. Verse Peter four eight. Above all. Keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins. The only way a church can stay together because love is the is the thing that unifies us. It keeps us unified love. The only thing that can keep you married. Is if you have love that just covers these failures. Does it you know high you know doesn't highlight them not just don't call out them and speak about them to others.

You've got to not allow your mind to speak about them. You know where you're rotating in your mind and you're building a case against someone. No love covers that. And we'll see it thinks the best of others. See love is not bitter. Verse five says is not bitter. And I've talked about this before because I've experienced in my own life. That when we're wounded and being wounded is not sinful when someone abuses you and you hurt your offended. It's truly crushing to your soul.

We've all experienced that and that's perfectly fine to be hurt.

But you know what's not fine is that response that the flesh says you need to be bitter.

And hurt turns into bitterness and resentfulness quickly. And then when you're hurt devil says oh easy target I'm going to come in and so the seeds of bitterness in your heart. I'm going to get you to be a little bitter towards that person. And that bitterness is the beginning is the beginning phases of hate the beginning of phases of of of all types of evil thoughts.

But the Bible tells us Hoover conceals an offense promotes love but he brings it up separate friends.

The King James version translates this as not bitterness but you think of love think of no evil that is love is not assuming the worst in people. It's not thinking like so that person did this. Well it's not quickly jumping to the worst case scenario or even to a bad scenario. It's going to you know how some people come to you and they have come to you and you say you did this to me and you didn't know you offended them you really didn't. And then when you go to explain it you go well this is what I was thinking they go oh well that makes sense. I'm not offended anymore. Seeing what you were doing. You know. Once you can explain why you did something a lot of times the fence is gone because they saw that it wasn't in your heart to be offensive it wasn't in your heart to be attacking them it was you wouldn't intend to do that. But they read into it because it's like what seems to me by the evidence it seemed to me that you did this on purpose it seemed to me that you didn't like me it seemed to me that you were trying to hurt me and it's like no love doesn't quickly go to that it doesn't quick to think that the worst the N.I.V. translates this bitterness as love does not keep records it doesn't hold on and this is where the bitterness comes in you're holding on to something you're not quickly letting it go you're not covering it up you're not forgiving it in your heart you're holding it in you know this is what will destroy your marriage is like when your wife does this you take it and you don't respond to it you don't deal with it properly you don't cover it up with love but you put it into the ammunition bag you know your little bag that you carry and then the next thing she does you put that in your bag and then when things you've had enough that the straw that breaks the camel's back you start dumping everything out for the last two years look you always do this and you did this and you do this it's like where did all this stuff come from why am I now just hearing about this that's just keeping records you're keeping it to use it up on someone listen when you cover it up it's gone it's like you're throwing the sin into the sea it's not to be recalled it's not to be brought back up if you didn't deal with it then you don't have a right to bring it back up later love doesn't keep these records thank the lord the lord loves us thank the lord he doesn't have a record on us the whole of it's gone it's like we've never done anything that is beautiful but it's hard for us to do it's hard for us to not have some bitterness and resentfulness towards others who've hurt us but see love will take the abuse and it will forgive it it'll do away with it it'll throw it away sometimes if it's offensive enough you may need to go talk to them but a lot of little stuff you know you just need to just throw it away you see love does not delight in others failures look at verse six it does not rejoice at wrongdoings but rejoices with the truth just as you should be happy when others are blessed when someone's sins is exposed or they fail at something you're like oh i love what alabama loses i just do i i'm sorry you know i'm always pulling like i'm always pulling against them and it's like when they lose i'm happy you know it's like and i don't know if i should feel that way i just do but that's how sometimes we feel towards our enemies we like it when they fail or when they humiliated or humbled but love doesn't feel that way love doesn't rejoice over wrongdoing it doesn't rejoice when your enemies fall in fact love it does says love rejoices in the truths it's not that some truth is vital but the difference here's the difference say you have someone that's living in sin and you know they're in sin and you do love them you don't rely on their sins but sometimes if their sin is exposed it's not that you're glad that their cynics exposed and they're humbled but you're thinking now the truth is out now there can be healing now there can be reconciliation now there can be some good there can be repentance truth is good i want the truth to be exposed i love truth truth is love loves the truth it doesn't broadcast the truth it doesn't broadcast the lies you remember when joseph found out mary was pregnant he was a righteous man so he tried to put her away secretly he didn't just broadcast it for everyone to see try to cover it up but it doesn't mean that he doesn't love truth and in fact here's the difference i thought about this i said here's the difference love wants the best for the one who's in sin truly does you know when someone's just critiquing you because they don't like you criticizing you because they're upset with you and bitter towards you they don't really want you to be better they're not really trying to build you up it's not helpful critiques it's not like help me let me help you do this a little bit better it's just don't like you so they're just criticizing you making it known to everybody but if you love someone you go and help them but you do it because you truly want what's better best for them love fifthly love endures abuse because it bears all things verse seven love bears all things and it goes on to say love endures all things if you're a teenage kid and you're disrespecting your mother i mean how selfish is that she loves you she's she's invested in you she's sacrificed for you and you're disrespecting her you're not saying yes ma'am you're not honoring her it's all about self it's all about yourself what you want to do you i can't do this i want to do this anyway i mean how unloving is that response but think about the godly mother who continues to love that son what does the mother get out of this is it beneficial for her to love a son that continues to sin and rebel but a mother's not thinking a godly mother is not thinking hey this is what's best for me godly mother is thinking i just want my son or my daughter to be saved i just want the best for them i want their happiness and well-being that's my joy that's all the payment i need i don't need any return for all my sacrifice other than the well-being of my child this is what love is and it will endure long it'll suffer long it'll it'll walk the extra mile it'll go beyond what is required it'll give uh the tunic to the one who's asked for your coat it'll bless those who curse it's not in the marriage for better or for better it's really for better or even if it's worse you'll stay by a loving wife will stay by her husband's side thick and thin the bible tells us in feasuries four with all humility and gentleness with patience bear with one another and love we're to bear along with another i mean it takes all of us to be patient with one another and bear along with one another and suffer long with each other clausius 313 bear with one another and forgive anyone who has a complaint forgive as the lord has forgiven you i mean this is the key to unity this is the this will be the if we have more love our church will be so what a wonderful atmosphere but if we bite and devour one another i mean we're going to be to split it off in all kinds of divisions my last attribute or the last attribute i see here in first Corinthians 13 is to us which means he exhausted himself completely greater love has no one than this that someone lay down his life for his friends so the the strength of love is to the strength of you your sacrifice so how much will you give how much will you serve how much will you deplete yourself this is why it's the greatest command love god with all your heart mine and soul and love your neighbor and yourself in all this the law is fulfilled if we just have love we'll do everything right we'll be kind we'll be patient we'll be filled with all the fruits of the spirit and how are we to love we're to love like christ love who gave himself for us a new commandment i give you jesus says love one another as i have loved you so you also must love one another i mean look at look around everybody in this room in fact everybody outside of this room all your family members even the ones that are crazy every one of us can you say i love them i love them it's hard to love well my enemies don't pull it out of me i'm saying no love is not something is pulled out of you something that has to be put in you by god that comes out of you this is why god loved us while we were yet his enemies you think we drew out his love do you think we we attracted him it's oh there's something in jeff johnson oh he's cute he's lovable oh look he'll be a mighty servant for me one day i can see potential in him he's got potential no there was nothing in me that enticed god to love me why did he love me not because i'm lovable i mean i was depraved i was like a snake i was i was i fact i hated him we all did why does he love us because that's who he is he's a giver he gives to the unlovable he gives to you he loves you unconditionally that's unbelievable but jesus says no i have showed you how to love i've loved you i've cleaned your feet i've served you i've preached to you i've given you my time my energy my efforts i give you my life i've died for you i couldn't do anything more than what i've done to everything i did was motivated by love i never did any act of selfishness i never thought about myself always thought about the glory of god and the good of my people i've done everything with love now love as i have loved you first john 3 16 by this we know love because he laid down his life for us as we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren we're not to divide and criticize one another we're to die for one another verse 17 but whoever has the world's goods and see his brothers in need and shuts up his heart from him how does the love of god abot in him my little children let us not love and word and tongue but indeed in truth you see love we see in verse four love is kind by its very nature it's kind galatian 6 2 says bear one another burdens and so fulfilled the law of christ to be kind to one another and it's amazing kindness is a attribute that's less and less in this world just being kind thoughtful um i know my time is slipping here but my wife got onto me once well just one time i've done something wrong i've been an angel ever since then and no but what she got onto me once and it was rightfully she needed to but i was offended by her review because i didn't believe i was doing anything that bad she says jeff um you know i think our marriage is not doing well i said what are you talking about what do you mean our marriage is not doing good i mean i'm faithful you're faithful i'm working you're working i mean we're running smoothly i mean i'm not hating you i'm not despising you i'm not my mind's not wondering to other ladies what do you talk about we're hey you know this is how guys think things are great you know and my wife looked at me says yeah but you just don't think about me like you used to you should write me notes and you know it'll be things that would indicate that i was on your mind i just don't know if you're on my you know this that you know that that unfallfulness is the first thing to slide we see that in romans that they knew god but didn't give thanks to god they just didn't think about god i hate i hated god originally it begins with just not thinking about god and that's the beginning of selfishness being self-focused and that's the beginning of marriage problems is just ceasing to be thoughtful husbands think about your wives put them on your mind through the day put their pictures on your cell phones take marco jordan off um i have picture of marco jordan with them so love is kind secondly love is not rude um it's not rude i looked up this what does this mean and the various ways of translating this word it's like it's just any type of act that brings a little bit of embarrassment to someone else you know it's not doing something that brings a little measure of shame to someone else you know laughing at them or making fun of them i mean we tease sometimes in good faith and i think that's fine but i think we got to be careful about just being rude uh i've committed that sin thousands of times love is giving of self because thirdly it prefers the desires and interests of others look it i've already hit on this in that it's not selfish but i'm hitting on it from the other direction that love doesn't seek its own it seeks the good of others it's not self-seeking it's other seeking flippings too tells us do nothing from selfish ambition our conceit but in humility count others more significant than yourself let each of you look not only to his own interest but also the interest of others first Corinthians 10 24 no one should seek his own good but the good of others i mean this is the nature of timothy paul says i'm gonna send timothy to you there's no one like him all the other ministers seek their own i mean they're they're preaching for self-glory they're preaching to get maybe a financial benefit or they're doing something because they're self-interest but not timothy he's not this is not about him he's truly a servant he's truly serving christ and serving the church and he's he's putting himself last he's not even thinking about himself i mean and when i think of timothy i'm like man this is the top of minister i want to be i see this this example of christ and timothy and others like oh i see the mirror of love and i go oh i see my own imperfections in this beautiful mirror oh that i'd be more like timothy fourth love gives of itself because love believes the best of others i mean we've already talked about how love is not critical fault-finding it's not irritable it's not quickly finding things to complain about and others but it's here it says it love in in the opposite it believes all things it believes the best of things now right now you've heard this message who have you thought old johnny there's old johnny i wish he could hear this one i mean who has it applied this message to someone else already you see that's our human nature you need this it's not our human nature to go i need this we are quick to think evil of others the worst of others um we need to flip this around i need to flip it around we all need to flip this around we need to be the most critical towards sill and the most forgiving and tolerant towards others we need to be the most fault-finding in ourselves but this is how it works i've seen this i've seen it myself i've seen it in others the one who's always critical usually has a log in their eye they're picking out these little specks of dust in people's eyes oh look there's some dust look there's another dust hey there are dust in people's eyes there's all kinds of things wrong with me there's all things hey all of us have all thousands of things that you can find fault with us don't wait be honest if you had a critical spirit none of us would be able to stand and be friends with anybody so we got all these specks in our eyes we got we need to help each other pick them out but here's the problem the one who sees the specks are typically the ones who have a big beam and that beam is lack of love and are there some gross sin that they're covering and hiding and they're not they've got something secret sins that they're far away from god in fact usually you can sit by yourself if you're critical if you're not walking really closely to the lord it's one of those you know lights on your dash that comes up say hey you need some gas or you need to check your engine here it one of the things that will indicate how close you are to the lord is how critical you are and then one thing I'll tell you how close you are about how loving I mean and here's the thing we should all be it's like I can't believe I really cannot believe knowing the the corruptions of my heart knowing how much lack of love I have knowing my own sins my own thoughts and my own battles I'm battling these things deeply I know how bad I am I can't believe grace battle church let's be be a member I know I'm the chief of sinners I'm the worst one one well there's one worse christian in here but he's not sitting at the front anymore but we should all have we should all have that I gotta get this beam out of my eye and then when you get the beam out of your eye it's not you enjoy the specs and other people's lot you really love them and it's not that you can't help people with specs but your motivation is no longer I feel good about this and I don't like you the motivation is I love you I can help you we clean ourselves up first so we can help others afterwards the more critical we are they're usually more selfish we are but I think love believes all things and it hopes all things the last phrase it says it hopes all things and this helped me out and it helped me out tremendously about 10 years ago have you ever had dealt with paranoia that hey this person you see two people talking you're not there and they and they look at you they kind of like look up and then they go back to talking and they go man they're talking about me ever ever had that sensation that people are talking about you why do you feel that way typically because we're so self I've worked with a lot of people in my old job that were had a lot of mental illnesses and there was this concept that these the people about everything you know was about them and I think it's easy when we're so self-absorbed and self-focused we just assume that we're the center of their conversation but also it's not loving to think they're thinking the worst and I realized I was doing that I realized that I I found myself assuming that people were saying negative things about me and there's something wrong about them and I've been thinking the worst of that and that's like no this is not love this is not the what the Bible tells me to do the Bible tells me to assume the best don't assume the worst assume the best now they may prove otherwise but until they prove otherwise I'm going to thank the best of them I'm going to assume the best of them and it's helped me tremendously go I know that person that they love God they love their family that's a good person I'm just so thankful for them and once you start thinking the best of people it's it's you're not you're not as paranoid you're not as critical so in conclusion love is a beautiful thing it's not of this world it's supernatural and this is when God is love and to have love you have to have God in you he has to break apart that stony heart of selfishness self-centeredness and he has to pour out his love in you you it's not something that is drawn out of you it's something that has to be infused into you and you have to understand that yes it's it a it's a command that we're to do but it's a command that we cannot obey until God comes and pours his love in our hearts and we get love we obtain love by knowing Christ read Ephesians 3 about this prayer about how we be filled with all the fullness of God and in that we would understand that with death and height length of the love of Christ and this Bible the love of Christ and our that gives us having the love of Christ in our hearts we in turn can love him return in return we can love him with that love so God has to give us the power to love him he has to give us the love to love him and it's only when we have love coming into us that we can love one another this is why we have to abide in him and if we don't abide in Christ we can do no good thing we'll weather up critical self-absorbed and miserable you see we need more love 1 Corinthians 6 14 says let all that you do be done in love everything we do needs to be motivated out of love for God and love for our neighbor love is like a mirror James talks about the law being a mirror and when you look at Christ who is the perfect reflection of love and you look at how beautiful love is and you hold it up to yourself love begins to show you you know don't use the mirror to point to someone else you know even in this message I'm not thinking of you I'm thinking of myself I'm trying to at least you know like like take the mirror you know that's why I prepared the sermon I've it brought me to tears because like I'm not living up to this you know I'm not preaching because I've accomplished this let's look at Jesus he's accomplished it but now take that mirror and look at yourself with it for a moment examine yourself with it and it is transformational it'll show you the sin and the corruption still within you and the selfishness and the hate and all these ugly things and say come to the light come and draw yourself to Christ so that you can be filled with love because in the end I'll close with this this passage is about Jesus Christ let's replace love with the word Christ Christ is patient and kind Christ does not envy or boast Christ is not arrogant or rude Christ does not insist on its own way Christ is not irritable or resentful Christ does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth Christ bears all things believes all things hopes all things and in[BLANK_AUDIO]