Learning to Love Like Jesus Part 4 - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

1:31But that's the standard, right? That's what we're to achieve to. We are to love like Christ. This is the commandment. In fact, this is the mark of Christian maturity. The degree to which you love one another, the degree to which you love like Christ, is a measure of your spiritual maturity. Does the world know that you're a disciple of Jesus? Well, there's something that stands in stark contrast to the principle of this world, and that's real love.

2:15The world is about, operates on a whole different paradigm. It's self-interest, self-first. Christ came with a whole different paradigm, and the world will know that you are a disciple of his if you truly exhibit the principles of love like him. There's something about love that has gotten really cheapened in our age. We've reduced it to a feeling, to an emotion, and have stripped it completely void of its commitment. It's well-regulated. Regulated discipline for the well-being of somebody else. That's what love is.

3:07Disciplined determination for another's well-being. So in 1 Corinthians, the church was really spiritually immature. In fact, it is one of the most dysfunctional churches we read about in the New Testament. The church had many divisions. They're prideful individuals. They're impatient with one another, unkind, many ways, filled with jealousy and self-promotion. The very way they arranged the affairs of their service, the very things that took place in their service was about promoting self, promoting individuals, and not the well-being and the edification of the church. It was not ordered by well-regulated minds, but by hasty, flashy, and selfish spirits.

4:08Paul steps into this context and he tells them: I want you to know what love is. In fact, the book is about growing up, about becoming spiritually mature. The whole book is Paul's message saying, Look, this is what love is. You do not love because you are spiritually. Spiritually immature. And so, spiritual maturity really is gauged by the degree to which you really love like Christ loved. That is the work of the Spirit of God in us. That is what is transforming. And it takes a work of God, it takes an inner, deep change because we can't love like Him in our own strength. Sounds like we've made it sound cliché: go love like Christ loves. But wow, there is a depth to that: a determination to suffer something so horrendous, to constantly give one's attention to selflessness. That is Christ's command to love one another like He did. And that's my prayer for this church. That's the prayer for my life. I pray for my family, is that we would all be individuals that are growing on this trajectory of spiritual maturity.

5:41And so we've looked at what love is. We've come to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, looking at 4, verses 4 through 7. And Paul lays out what love is. He gives a definition of love. He gives a really expansive definition of what love is. Is and in order to give the church an insight, clarity as to what love is and how to put this in practice, and so that they can see ways that they are not loving, so that they could put on a life of love to one another.

6:20And so, in verse 4, he says, Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous, love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. A very expansive definition of what love is. So, we've been taking our time to walk through these because we really want to love like Christ love, and no one better embodied love than Christ. And so, as we're walking through Paul's definition of love, explanation of what love is, we're also looking at Christ's love or see how Christ illustrated these principles.

7:18By way of review, we've basically made it through verse 4: Love is patient. That is, love is waiting. These are verbs they're. All verbs throughout this. They're translated as adjectives. I like that predicate, adjective, predicate, nominative. Some of them are nouns, but adjectives. They've translated these into adjectives to describe, but really they are verbs. Love is waiting. Love is kind. Really, what that means is love is helping. And so I've tried to translate these into catch the verb. Love is helping. It's all in action. It's all about action. Love is doing something. It is always active or accomplishing something. Love is not jealous. That it is not coveting. If you're coveting, you're not loving.

8:17Love is actually the very opposite of coveting. So love is waiting. Love is helping. Love is coveting. Love does not brag. That is, it is not bragging. It's not going around through speech trying to elevate itself about its accomplishments. That's not what bragging is about, elevating self. Love is not arrogant. That is not bowing up. So love isn't going around bowing up, being puffed up. And sometimes that's a puffed up in anger. How dare you speak to me like that? Do you know who I am?

9:00And love is not bragging. It's not trying to make somebody else feel small in your presence. And that's what arrogance or bragging does. It's making somebody feel small in your presence. And that is not at all love. Love seeks to build up. So now that's where we've been. Now we're going to look at verse five and look at a couple more tonight. Love does not act unbecomingly. Does not act unbecomingly. Now, what is that? Does not act unbecomingly. Well, again, it's a verb. It's a verb. And it's an active verb. It's a present. Love is not going around doing something. It's not acting disgracefully. The idea of unbecomingly is behaving disgracefully or dishonorably.

10:06It doesn't do that. The word speaks of indecent behavior, and it can indecent behavior of many sorts. You may have heard me share this story before, but I remember an individual. Who got into a conflict with his wife over a movie that he was watching or hadn't had the kids watching in front of the kids and the wife stood up and said, That's not an appropriate movie. The husband then got upset, took the movie, threw it away, and then said, Fine, we're not going to ever watch any other movie again, and just went and threw away every movie or a whole bunch of them.

11:11The idea of going beyond, that's acting unbecomingly. Indecent behavior, many sorts, the whole spectrum. Love does not degrade a person by acting disgracefully in their presence, no matter what they've done. Love does not dehumanize somebody by acting disgracefully or dishonorably. Really talking about actions that degrade a person, that really make a person feel small and expose them. In fact, let me just read to you. In Deuteronomy 25, this is illustrated. If there is a dispute between men and they go to court and the judges decide their case and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, then it shall be: if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall then make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of stripes according to his guilt. He may beat him 40 times, but no more, so that he does not beat him with many more stripes than these, and your brother is not degraded in your eyes. That is, to make you feel low, to degrade him, to dehumanize him. And that's really what, when we don't get our way, and maybe this is an appropriate action that follows up bowing up, sometimes if a person, you know, love is arrogant, and sometimes we get puffed up in our own minds, or somebody might do something that offends, and we become arrogant, bow up, and then lash out or act disgracefully or dishonorably or reducing a person. In fact, it's interesting how. This is how Ezekiel deals with this. Ezekiel chapter 16, verse 36. Thus says the Lord God: Because your lewdness was poured out and your nakedness uncovered through your harlotries with your lovers and with all of your detestable idols, and because of the blood of your sons, which you gave to idols, therefore I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, even all those whom you loved and all those whom you hated. So I will gather them against you from every direction and expose your nakedness to them so that they may all see your nakedness. So there's, he's talking about God's judgment is upon Israel for their actions and their idolatries. And so he brings on them judgment. And the judgment is exposing them.

14:37So you see this principle in judgment about bringing a person low. Come back to that in a minute. But basic thought here is that love is not degrading. It doesn't degrade a person by acting unbecoming. When you act out of sorts towards somebody or a rest. Somebody, guess what? You're really degrading them. If you're acting like, I don't know, I don't know what the illustration is. If you're acting like a banshee or a monkey or something, if you're out of sorts or whatever, you're saying, what you're saying to that person is, this is how you deserve to be treated. And it's demeaning, degrading. Well, Jesus didn't degrade people by behaving improperly or ungraciously. You remember Jesus at a Pharisee's house, Luke chapter 7. You remember in verse 36? Now one of the Pharisees, his name was Simon, was requesting him to dine with him. And he entered the Pharisees' house and reclined at the table. You remember the story? And there was a woman in the city who was a sinner. And when she learned that he was reclining at the table in the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume. And standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and kept wiping them with the hair of her head and kissing his feet and anointing them with perfume. That's quite an expression, right? Quite a scene.

16:29Now, when the The Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching him, that she is a sinner. And Jesus answered him, Simon, I have something to say to you. And he replied, Say it, teacher. A money lender had two debtors, one owed five hundred deneri, the other fifty. When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave both of them. So which of them will love him more? Simon answered, I suppose the one whom he forgave more. And he said to him, You have judged correctly. Turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, Do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with perfume. For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much, but he who is forgiven little loves little.

17:51Then he said to her, Your sins have been forgiven. Well, you see that. The story really isn't really just about the woman's love, as beautiful as that love of hers is. What's in contrast here is Jesus' love, in sharp contrast to the lovelessness of Simon. That's what's showcased here. It is Jesus' love. He's the one that loves her. The Pharisee would have degraded her. Oh, who is this? She's a sinner, deserves to be rebuked, made a public spectacle, reduced in the eyes. What does Jesus do? He acts with proper decorum, doesn't he?

18:53And he behaves graciously to her. It was not Jesus' actions, but Simon's attitude that was unbecoming. That's what's unbecoming. That's what's degrading in this whole episode. Simon's blaming Jesus for being out of sorts, but what's out of sorts here, what's unbecoming was Simon's lovelessness, his attitude. For us to be aware of the lovelessness of Pharisaical criticism, right? We can really look down on people, can't we? Degrade them in our own minds, but that's not love, that's not loving like Christ at all.

19:50We can be like Simon, can't we? Talk about this for a moment. Sometimes it's our attitude and our actions in the name of rightness that is more unbecoming than the things we criticize. Anyone can give me any examples and be angry about other people's behavior. Yes, in the back? I'm sorry? Disassociation. Yes, we can disassociate. Yes. Other thoughts? You voted for who? What? Yeah, you can. I'm sorry? We'll have to talk about that one afterwards. That brings a whole nother ethical. We're not, this isn't a class on ethics. This is on something else. But what's the opposite concept? The opposite, not degrading somebody by inappropriate behavior, but the opposite concept is love strives for proper decorum. That's what it does. Love is, think about it, just doing what's right, proper decorum.

21:30In what circumstances? All of them. That's what love does in all circumstances, right? Seeks to proper decorum. Making every effort, yes. And to whom? All men, right? To who? Why? Because, yeah, because he loved. And we're commanded to love, and we are to love like and we are striving. But that's what love does. It doesn't matter friend or foe, you know. You can think about this. How is love to be expressed to friends? This kind of love. How would you express it to friends?

22:18Or family or whatever, close. I mean, if you're always striving for proper decorum, you know, slamming. A door in somebody's face, is that proper decorum? That's degrading the person, right? Just handling conflict with people you love. I mean, you can easily interrupt, you can get loud, you can degrade a person just in the way you interact with each other, right? Love is to be expressed, to maintain a proper etiquette out of deference to the person. What about enemies?

23:07Are you to show love for your enemies? Yes, and how do you do that? Forgiving them, yes. But always maintaining that proper decorum, right? Even if they cross you, even if they despitefully use you, and you do good to them. Yes. Pray for them. Maintain. Go ahead. Very good. Honor who they are. They still bear the image of their Creator and every individual, because of the image they bear, deserve to be treated properly, graciously. Honorably, and that's what love does. But love, but it's not behaving unbecomingly.

24:12Now, just here's a thought. I may briefly mention it and move on. But how do we reconcile this principle with Jesus clearing the temple on numerous occasions? Well, we know he didn't sin, so he did the right thing. No, he didn't sin, that's right. He was zealous for his father's house. God might have the right to have a righteous anchor about peace and that men. Yes. Well, and even here, he's not degrading. I mean, he is exposing, but as in the Ezekiel passage, judgment exposes. We're not judges, right? We're not the judge. We're not going to execute, but even we're not going to execute God's divine wrath.

25:16But at the same token, I would say he didn't lose proper decorum. What he did was very appropriate in those circumstances. But sometimes I think we try to. We have to rebuke one another and you have to be able to rebuke someone without belittling them with the proper decorum. And he went in and he drove them, he turned everything over and he said, Look, there's a way to handle my father's house, and you're not doing it, right? You're not getting the message, and you don't understand what's coming.

25:57Yes, yes, and he exposed that. But even then, he doesn't, you know, you don't, he could have, you see, like, he could call down all kinds of things on them, right? But he wants to straighten out their worship. He wants to expose the error of their worship. He wants to give the nation an opportunity to understand, to be transformed. And so, no, I don't think it fits at all with, or giving us license to act unbecomingly because Jesus cleared the temple. That's not an excuse. I don't think he acted. He acted very appropriately for the circumstances. And besides, he is God, and he is executing judgment. We do not execute judgment. And so, but back to 1 Corinthians 13:5. Let's take another one. That's all we'll have time for.

27:00Love does not act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own. It does not seek its own. Love does not seek its own. It's again a verb, present active. It's an active, ongoing verb. Literally, if I just translated it, I would make it say something like this: Love is not seeking the self. Just word order in Greek. Love is not seeking the self, the self. But it describes, this expression describes the act of striving for one's own interests, striving for one's insisting on one's own way or asserting one's own rights. You've seen all that, right? I'm very familiar with that. Seeking its own advantage. That's not what love is doing. Love is not insisting on my own rights.

28:01It's seeking the benefit of others. I didn't know how to really put this into one word, so I had to use two. Well, it's not one word in Greek either. But love is not seeking self-benefit. You can articulate it in several ways, but love is not seeking self-benefit. It's not seeking its own advantage. It's not asserting its own rights. It's not. Striving for its self. Self is not striving for self. Love is not self striving for self for self-advantage. But you can't miss it. Jesus came to serve others' interests, right? Well, you can't miss that. It's very large in his whole ministry. In fact, you remember there's a point where the mother of the sons of Zebedee come up to Jesus and say, please let me, I want to ask a favor of you. Will you give, will you let my son sit on your right hand and on your left hand, James and John, right? The other disciples, they hear about it, they're indignant, right? They're upset about this whole thing. By the way, they're on their way to Jerusalem, and Jesus has already said what's going to happen. And here they are talking about who's the greatest, who's going to be the greatest. And then Jesus says, okay, look, guys, he calls the disciples and he says, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. That is their rulership. And their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you. Not that it shouldn't be. It is not this way among you. This is not the paradigm.

30:01It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever wishes to be the first among you shall be your slave. Slave. A word that hardly can speak anymore in our climate. And yet Jesus is saying, the one who is to be first shall be the slave. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many, the whole reason he came was to serve.

30:46Slave, to slave, for his father's glory and for his people's benefit. He didn't come to seek his own interests. You see this in Mark 10. You can see this in a number of areas. But love for children. Love for children. Remember, let me just read to you Mark, that passage, Mark chapter 10, verse 13. And they were bringing children to him so that he might touch them. So there was this ongoing thing. People were coming to him, they were bringing children. They were.

31:30Wanting the children to get near Jesus, to bless them, to pray for them, to touch them, that he might touch them. But the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant. It's interesting, you don't really see this kind of language about Jesus towards his disciples, except for here. He was indignant, and he said to them, Permit the children to come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Serve them, bring them to me, do not be hindering them. It says, Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter at all. And he took them in his arms and he began blessing them, laying his hands on them.

32:20It's interesting. Children certainly were relatively unimportant. They really brought nothing to the table, and certainly in the minds of the disciples, they added nothing to the significance of the matters that the disciples were engaged in. The disciples were engaged in far more important matters than to let the children, to bring the children, to bother, be bothered with children, but not Jesus. His love for the children is in sharp contrast to the lovelessness of his disciples. And this is really remarkable.

33:00Look back at chapter 9. Well, if you're, you can just listen, but in chapter 9 and verse 33, they were talking about, again, are talking about who's the greatest. And sitting down in verse 35, he called the twelve and said to them: If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last and servant of all. Taking a child in his arms, taking a child, he set him before them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, Whoever receives one child like this in my name receives me, and whoever receives me does not receive me, but he who sent me. It's incredible here, and just a little bit later, in just the very next chapter, the disciples aren't letting children come to him. And Jesus is saying, Look, this is what I want you to do.

33:57The greatest ones in God's kingdom are the first to serve the least. That's who's the greatest. That's who the great ones are. They're the first to serve the least. And certainly that applies to all of our friends, right? If that's what he expects us to do, be the first to love the least. How about in your family? Are you the first to love your brother and sister? Are you the first to love? Are you the first to?

34:31Serve. Yeah, we've got a lot of growing up to do to love like Christ. And nowhere do you see this fact that Jesus didn't seek his own interest more than in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus' love for his father. The very name Gethsemane means oil press. And that's exactly what it was: an oil press. It was a place of great anguish. In fact, you can, just in Mark chapter 14, let me read these verses to you in chapter verses 32 to 36, just so they're in your mind. They came to a place named Gethsemane, the oil press. And he said to his disciples, Sit here until I have prayed. And he took with him Peter and James and John and began to be very distressed and troubled. And he said to them, My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and keep watch. And he went a little beyond them and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.

35:49And he was saying, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but What you will. Credible. This is a very graphic expression. This need to pray is very, you see, these three very graphic expressions here. He was very distressed and troubled, very distressed, deeply grieved to the point of death. He fell to the ground to pray. And this is remarkable. The one who is up to this date in the gospel records has exhibited so much power, so much authority, and now he is completely overwhelmed. You don't see, he's see this distress in our Lord, the pressure.

37:01And at that point, I mean, this guy does not want to go to the cross. If there is any possible way, Father, let this cup pass. If there is any other way to rid the world of sin, to take away sin, by all means, let's go that route. Contrary to popular belief that there are many ways to heaven, I guarantee you, Jesus would have said, Yeah, go down that road, go down that road. Don't make me open up another way if there's already a lot of ways. No, there wasn't another way. And he's calling upon the Father to tax his whole creative and his whole omniscience and all his power and say, Is there any other possible way? That's the anguish he is in.

38:00And yet, his love for his father is, you know what? But I love you more. I love your glory. I love your will. I want to do what pleases you. It's not about my interests. Not what I will, but what you will. That's our Lord. Coming back to Corinthian church, what were some of the ways the Corinthians were seeking to benefit themselves? They didn't love. They're spiritually immature. They're loving themselves and they're seeking self. And what ways were they seeking self?

38:53Yeah, coming and eating. And I'm going to eat first, and I'm going to have a big party. Don't care if that person doesn't have much food. Yes, so very much in the way they ate. What else? Yes, yes. I like this teacher better because, oh, really, it showcases me a little more. And I like the way he thinks because he thinks a lot more like me. You know, I often say there's no one's opinion I agree with more than my own. And that's where it's, you know, sometimes you find the teacher that agrees the most with your opinion, you get behind him. And a lot of times that can be very self-seeking, very, very good. What else?

39:39The food, yes. And what way? Just not yes, yeah, exactly. I'm going to eat. I'm going to eat meat from the market, and I don't care what that does to. Yes, I don't care if that, if you fall flat on your face, you shouldn't fall on your face. All right. What else? Disorderly worship. Yeah, I want to be first. I want you to see me. And I'm going to pray a little louder. And I'm going to speak a little louder. And I'm going to get in your face so that you can see me.

40:15All that is not love at all. What is the opposite concept? Well, love is seeking the benefit of others. In all of your relationships, can you really see? Say that you seek the benefit of the person next to you, the person across from you, the person that's in your life. Can you do you really go around seeking their benefit? I love this epitaph of a man, General Gordon, at the St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Epitaph reads this after a little bit of statements. It reads this: General Gordon, who at all times and everywhere gave his strength to the weak, his substance to the poor, his sympathy to the suffering, and his heart to God.

41:20Wouldn't that be a nice thing, people, to write on your tombstone? And it be true? Right? In what ways might this epitaph be a good model for us? Right now there are a lot of people who are suffering to show sympathy. Yes. Yes. Showing sympathy for those who are suffering, taking time to pray, showing sympathy. If you can do express an expression to help the suffering, give your substance, give your sympathy to the suffering. Very, very good. What else?

42:35I'm sorry. Unity through humility. Yes. Yeah, do nothing out of selfish community. Very good. Yes. And that's what the weak, if you're strong, and let me tell you something, you're always stronger than someone out there. There's somebody who could use your strength, give your substance, your sympathy, your heart, all that. That's an expression of loving. Well, that's it. Go ahead. Right. He has it. Very good. Very good. Yeah, for Americans. It's hard. Any other thoughts before we?

43:45Yes, sir. Joey? I just think if you take the principle from Romans 13, well, apart 13, 14, and 15, Paul says, oh, English, he says, owe nothing to anyone except love. I mean, it's a bad act of bad money advice, but he says if you're going to be in debt in anything, this is the one area that you should be paying debt. Right. That's right. We're always in debt because that is what we've been commanded, right?

44:35Not being armed or a horseback, but I gotta actually go to the confusion. You gotta be aware of other people. You gotta pay attention to other people. And that in itself is an act of love that brings you out of yourself. So, yeah, very good. Well, loving like Jesus loves is really a measure of spiritual maturity and and And so we can grow in this area. And I pray that through this study, it'll give us a little more insight how we can love each other better and grow.

45:13And the beautiful thing of all this is as we're studying how to love one another, this isn't just a here, go and love like this and put this big burden on your back to go do something that you just can't do in your own strength, but it's to reflect this is how God loves you. So as you're learning how to love, you're learning how you are loved. And that's what makes loving people like this possible is because you are loved like this and you know that. And so this becomes a rich reward, a rich time of understanding just how much God loves each of us. And that satisfies and motivates.

46:13Yeah, I don't know who said that. God's DNA in us. Yes. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for your truth and abiding in us that Your seed abides in us, and that because of that, we are indeed your children, and that's sure, and that you are a good father. And so, Father, we can rejoice in the days ahead, and we can delight in the things that you delight in, and we can find joy in the things that you found joy in, even sacrificially loving, especially sacrificially loving others. That brought immense joy to your heart. Father, help that joy come to our hearts. Help us find and partake of your joy as we love like you loved. Help us grow in this area. We plead and ask in Jesus' name. Amen. They're dismissed.