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

0:54And so it's always a delight to study him more in depth. We're looking in 1 John this morning, and in chapter 2, John talks about the one who knows God is the one who keeps his commandments, and plural. And then John focuses in on one single commandment, and that is the new commandment to love one another as Christ loves us. And so I've often wanted to put together a study that just looked at the Commands of Jesus.

1:33Just go through what are all the commands of Jesus. One who has his commandments and keeps them. This is the one who loves me. And one day I hope to complete all that. But certainly, a good place to start is with his commandment to love one another. And I want to go deep. And then as I start studying it, I realize we're only going to go so deep because it's a profound subject. And so I just want to pray for this study as we launch.

2:17Go with me to the Lord. Heavenly Father, as we come before you, we are completely relying upon your Spirit to produce in us the kind of love that Jesus had. We're asking you to guide our study, illumine our minds, give us ears to hear, give us an understanding of how Jesus loved, and give us true insight, true wisdom. Father, give us a thirst and a desire to love like He did. And so we're completely reliant upon you to bring this about. So please. Please bless this study, bless tonight, bless the nights that will follow this study. And we ask this that to the end that we will truly be able to be better equipped and to really obey the command to love one another. That's our goal. And so we're dependent upon you, and we ask you to bless this study in Jesus' name. Amen.

3:24Well, so I want to tell you a little bit about what gave me the idea for this particular study. Phil Reichen wrote a book called Loving the Way Jesus Loves. You know, I like to read the Bible the way Jesus loves, so I had to write a book about that. Good thing is, I don't have to write a book about this because Phil Reichen already has, loving the way Jesus loves. And really, it is a study. It's where I got the idea to look at 1 Corinthians 13 and then look at how Jesus embodied those precepts of love and the commands of love and the definitions of love we find in 1 Corinthians 13. Phil Reichen, the book, I will loosely follow it. After I start getting into it, my mind goes in another direction oftentimes and gets excited about certain things. But generally speaking, I'll be following the pattern laid out in this book. And I encourage you to pick it up. We'll have some in the Resource room, and I would have ordered a whole bunch, except it is kind of a little bit expensive than some of the other books. So I bought a few, and they'll probably be showing up sometime this week or next. But I encourage you to get it. It'll take you into further study and maybe in a study in some areas that I won't be focusing on. But if you want to supplement the study, that's a good resource. So, 1 Corinthians 4, 13, 4 through 7. Let me just go ahead and read those words to you. Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous, love does not brag, and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, it 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.

5:37Enough said. Before I jump into this particular passage, verses 4 through 7, I want to give you a little context, historical context for the whole book. It's important to understand the big picture. Understand the flow of thought, understand what the author's big picture before we jump in. It's always helpful to understand the big picture. Well, as we begin 1 Corinthians 13, and we'll probably be able to do just a little bit more than that, not much more than this tonight, but we'll give you a good context of where we are, and then we'll start looking at one of the characteristics of love here in a moment. But first of all, if you just look at chapter one, you see that Paul begins this book by affirming their giftings. He says, I thank God, thank my God always concerning you, for the grace of God which was given to you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in Him in all speech, all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. So he begins by affirming them that they have been equipped, they're not lacking anything, and all speech, all knowledge. There's not something that the church is missing, even Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, they have been fully equipped in everything. So they're not waiting, they're not lacking anything as they wait for Christ.

7:30But then Paul goes on to address their spiritual immaturity. Right off the bat, in verse 10 of chapter 1, he says, Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you. So there's a real problem going on at the church at Corinth. There's divisions in the body. And he goes on to say, Some of you say that you are of Paul, some of Apollos, some of Cephas, some of Christ, as if the church itself is a bunch of little factions, leaders. And there's a problem. There's divisions.

8:09And the reason there's divisions is because they are spiritually immature. Chapter 3, verse 1, he says, And, brethren, I could not speak to you as spiritual men, but as to men of the flesh, as to infants in Christ. You're still very worldly. That's why there's lots of divisions among you. There's worldliness. You still operate more according to the pattern of the flesh than you do to the pattern of Christ. You are infants, spiritually immature. And then, as you come to 11, I won't spend a whole lot of time developing these, but you just, as you go through the book, there's divisions, divisions. And in chapter 11, speaking about the Lord's table, he says, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that division. Exist among you, and in part I believe it. And so he, some were eating, not waiting, and turning the Lord's Supper even into a display of the divisions. And so, but all this boils down to spiritual immaturity. And Paul is addressing your infants in Christ. And then he goes on to address their spiritual pride.

9:32And he does this in several places. Now, these things, brethren, I have figuratively applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes, so that in us you may learn not to exceed what is written, so that none of you will become arrogant in behalf of one against the other. Don't become arrogant, each other. Don't think there's a problem with arrogance, one thinking they have one up on the other person, and that arrogance, spiritual immaturity, and spiritual pride.

10:07Now, some of you have become arrogant, chapter 4, verse 18, as though I were not coming to you. And then, even dealing with sin in the body, you have become arrogant, and you've got some gross sin in your body, some that don't even show up in the pagan circles. And you're arrogant. You should have mourned. He goes on, you'll see that pattern, spiritual immaturity, spiritual pride. And then Paul gets into their questions. So really, he's addressing their spiritual immaturity. He's addressing their spiritual pride. And then he starts in chapter 7 answering their questions. So they had asked him some questions. And in chapter 7, verse 1, he says, Now concerning the things which you wrote me about. Basically, you wrote, and now I'm going to answer those issues that you wrote about. And concerning the virgins, 7:25. Now, concerning the things sacrificed to idols, chapter 8, verse 1. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware, chapter 12, verse 1. Now concerning the collection of the saints. Very simple, laid out how he moves through this book, each topic. Now, as you get to the spiritual gifts, that's where we're going into to get to 1 Corinthians 13. So now he's concerning the spiritual gifts. He doesn't want us to be ignorant. And so in chapter 12, 1, he begins, chapter 12, chapter 13, chapter 14 are about spiritual gifts.

12:00Specifically, their uses and their misuses, which are very prominent in Corinth. In fact, careful study reveals they probably were acting a little bit like the Temple of Apollos more than they were the Church of Christ in some regards. But the pride and immaturity is touched upon in chapter 13. Chapter 13, verse 4, he says, Love is patient, love is kind, it's not jealous, it does not brag, it is not arrogant. In 13:4. And then in 13:11, he says, When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man, I did away with childish things. You see, this exhortation to spirit, to put away the childish things and to move on to spiritual maturity. So here's Paul's message when you come down to 1 Corinthians 13, and really in the greater context of the whole book. Here's Paul's message: This is what love is. Chapter 13 speaks about the importance of love. You don't have love, you have nothing. And he goes on to say, Love never fails, it's permanent. The greatest, there's faith, hope, and love, but the The greatest of these is love. Love is permanent. Love, even faith is going to be done away with. Faith will be sight one day. Hope will be done away with. Hope will give away to what's realized, and the only thing that will remain is love. The greatest is love, the permanence of love. And so, what Paul's message is saying, this is what love is, verses four through seven. And here's the problem: you do not love. And the reason you don't love is because you are spiritually immature. And so, it's time to grow up in love. That's the context. And so, in verses 4 through 7, he says, This is what love is, so that you can grow up.

14:26Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous, does not brag, it is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, it is not provoked, it does not take into account a wrong suffered, it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. This is what love is. And so, I want us to look carefully and look at what love is, look at what these words mean, but then also look then, take a close look at Jesus' life and look at how he embodied these. And so, as we go through this list over the next four weeks, or two weeks, and next two weeks, and then the end of February, we'll go through it, pick up with number three and number four, but we'll want us to really understand what love is and start loving like Jesus loves. And that's my hope.

15:44And I know it must be your hope, or you wouldn't be here. So, let's just start. We'll take the first one. That's all we'll do tonight. Love is patient. Love is patient. In fact, what's really interesting in all of these is love is not described by adjectives or nouns, it's verbs. When Paul describes love, it's a verb. So, when he says love is patient, what he is saying is really love is this present action. It is waiting. Love is waiting. It's a literal. Love is forbearing. It's being patient. It's not just patience. Love is waiting. That would be a really good translation of what Paul is saying here. Love is waiting. Waiting.

16:57Has anybody heard of the Love Waits campaign? It's a campaign for sexual purity. And I know that I think hope pregnancy was involved with that. Love waits is what it's called. Love waits. And the idea is: you wait for sex, you wait till you marriage for sexual intimacy. Love waits. And I thought, that's clever. I didn't realize how profound it is until I really started translating this verse. That is spot on. Love waits. Love is waiting for people. That's what love is. Right off the bat. Love is waiting. Waiting. It's a verb.

17:42I just want to take a few moments and look at Jesus and how he waited. How he waited for people. You can picture impatience is not waiting for people. Is waiting. Jesus was patient with people's ability to learn. One of the things, these disciples, they were not quick learners sometimes. Sometimes they were pretty dull. But Jesus was patient with people's ability to learn. In Mark 4, 13, and he said to them, Do you not understand this parable, speaking of the parable of the soils? How will you understand all the parables? And so then he goes on to explain the parable of the soils. Took time.

18:43Then the crowd, Mark 7, 14, after he called the crowd to him again, he began saying to them, listen to me, all of you, and understand. If you really see a teacher that wants them to get it, understand. All of you understand. And then he goes into the teaching that it's not what goes into a person that defiles him. It's what comes out of him that defiles him. But he calls everybody, listen, come, get this, understand this. We see a teacher taking time. It takes time to teach something, doesn't it? You have to wait for people to, oh, did you get it? Did you get it?

19:23And he began to teach them. Remember his disciples that the Son of Man must suffer many things. Of course, people. Peter's like, no way, that ain't ever going to happen to you. Get behind me, Satan. You don't have God's interests in your mind. But that's us. But Jesus, through all that, he's a teacher. He took time to teach people. I think it's a real indication of how he waited for people. Second, Jesus was patient with people's spiritual progress. Not only was he patient with their ability to assimilate who he was and information and take it in, he was patient with people's spiritual progress. Mark chapter 4 said to them, Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith? No faith in who I am and calm the water. I mean, I'd be kind of afraid, too.

20:29You still have no faith. Matthew or Mark 8, why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet see or understand? Do you have a hardened heart? And he doesn't just say, that's it. You guys, look, I fed the four thousand. I fed the 5,000. I fed the 4,000. And you're over here concerned that we don't have any bread. Are you missing something here? Are you not connecting it? That's it. Game's over. I'm done. I'm getting off this boat right now.

21:08No, he just stays. He's patient with people's spiritual progress. Even Thomas, you see in John chapter 20, 27, then he said to Thomas, Reach here, reach here with your finger and see my hands, and reach here your hand, and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believing. Jesus is patient with people's spiritual progress. Isn't that nice to know? I think as we look at the disciples, we really see ourselves a lot. Yeah, I'm not that quick of a learner. And boy, I have a hard time believing. And my heart is hard.

21:55And yet we see Jesus, love is patient, loving people, waiting, waiting. Jesus also, just a casual reading of the Gospels, you see that he's patient with human frailty. And the examples are many, many, but he was patient. He took into consideration human frailty. I remember that picture in Mark chapter 1 when evening came. Came after the sun had set, they began bringing to him all who were ill and those who were demon-possessed. And the whole city had gathered at the door, and he healed, and he kept healing. And the line was going all out the door. And he said, and he healed, and he healed, and he healed. Patient with human infirmities and patient with human weakness, just the physical Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. He's like, Look, he doesn't come in there and say, Look, you were going, weren't you going to die with me? You can't even stay awake for an hour. You know, what's wrong with you, Peter? Come on, get with it. You don't hear any of that.

23:32He was patient in the face of human frailty. It's because he loved people. He loved people. If you love people, you're patient in the face of their dullness to learn, their slowness in their spiritual progress, and their dependence upon you and need of you and the failings of their own flesh. Dependency, need. That's what loving people is: waiting for them. Jesus was also patient with his enemies, patient with his enemies. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it.

24:32But you see in there the patience. 2 Peter 3:9 says, The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient, is waiting. That's the same word as you find in 1 Corinthians 13:4. Love is patient, but he is patient. He is waiting for you. He is patient toward y'all, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. That's Christ. It's like he wants the whole harvest in. I mean, I think if you and I were in charge of this, okay, 62% is enough. Let's go. Let's move on, right? That's a D. That's passing, right?

25:22He loves people. He loves down to the very last. He's patient with his. Enemies. So, Jesus, we can, he's waiting. We'll just jump into a few discussion questions. And this is where I invite your input. What might patience look like in individual relationships? If we're talking about this aspect of love, love is waiting, love is patient. What does it look like in individual relationships? What might it look like? Parent and a child, right? Waiting, waiting, right? I'm waiting for you to get it, to obey.

26:22Yeah, very good. Yeah, waiting. And that is what, in fact, I can tell you, just if you ever see somebody care for somebody who's infirm, and you can really see a love, right? Waiting for somebody, waiting for their needs, waiting for them. I sure witnessed that this past week. Others, thoughts, individuals. Patience, waiting on people. Let your patience, let your waiting on people take the form of prayer for them instead of animosity or hostility toward them.

27:20That's good. Very good. And that's loving people. Yes, sir. Joey. Or crunch ice, rise your stock. Not that anybody would do that. Right. That is something that's about it for having knowledge there. Yeah, very easily. You can sit at the dinner table and somebody might cause you to lose your appetite. And I remember that. That really did happen to me one time. So I know what you're talking about. An individual, he had, he always had a very difficult time.

28:30I would. I would lose my appetite when we sat down to eat. But what I learned later is that he had cancer in his throat, and they had taken out the roof of his mouth. And so, whenever he had to eat, he had to remove that. And then he had to eat. And so it all of a sudden just changed the whole dynamic. He had to live with that all his life. And so, yeah, very good. Sometimes these quarks, putting up with quarks. Yeah.

29:07And moving on. If you love a person, you know what? The quark doesn't matter. You love the person. And you're not looking at, man, you're really bothering me. Very good. You know, we often hear of 1 Corinthians 13 taught in the context of marriage. In fact, that's a lot of times when you go to a wedding, or I've heard this 1 Corinthians taught in the context of marriage. This is what love is. But Paul has a different context in mind, doesn't he? What is it?

29:44Church life, isn't it? Basic Christianity. Basic Christianity in the congregation, in the fellowship, right? That's where that's the context that this is played out. What were some of the evidences of a lack of love in the Corinthian church? I'm sorry? Divisions. There are divisions. Yeah, there was a lack of love. They were divisions. Some of Paul, some of Apollos. What were some of the manifestations of those divisions? Ah, yeah, the whole context. Chapter 12, chapter 14 is all about spiritual gifts, right? And then in chapter 13, he's saying, Let me show you the more excellent way. You're not using your spiritual gifts to love anybody. You're using them as a divisive tool to propagate yourself. And all those spiritual gifts are really given to edify somebody else.

30:53And you are very spiritually immature. Grow up, use the gifts that God has given you for the edification. Don't make it all about you. And that very good. What else? Somebody said the Lord's supper. Oh, yeah. Wow. They were coming together. They were eating. They were feasting. Some didn't have any. I mean, what a picture of division, of spiritual immaturity. You don't love. You're not waiting for. People, you're going ahead, and so that's all a lack of love.

31:39Now, think about this in our corporate setting here. How might this aspect of love, and I'm talking about the patience, the waiting, manifest itself in our corporate life together? How would that patience manifest itself by praying for one another? Yes, yes, praying for that person and maybe even praying for yourself, right? Like, Lord, help me love. Help me wait for people, help me not be so easily annoyed, help me not be so quick to be first, help me not be so easily offended. Help me make my time at church today about others. Help me wait, help me listen, help me somebody else from Samantha.

32:54Preventing or part, yeah, not participating in God. Gossip. Yeah, don't come over and slander somebody. If you're not coming to me, don't come over here to slander somebody and put them down, but come to build them up. Participate. Good. What else? Giving each other the benefit of the doubt. Giving each other. Who said that? I can't see that. Oh, Jonathan. Yes, Jonathan. Yeah, giving each other the benefit of the doubt. Love likes to believe the best, right? We're waiting, waiting for people. Very, very important. Good knee-jerk. That's just a good knee-jerk reaction, right? Always give people the benefit of the doubt. Good. What else?

33:48Back, Chloe. Oh, okay, say that again. So, yes, I like what you're saying. Say it again. Very good. Very good. When someone robs you the wrong way, pay attention, spend a little more time, because that may be the very thing that you're doing, correct? Is that what, yes. Other thoughts? Yes, sir. Um I was thinking of the one is each other. Honest. Yeah. I wanted to hear what you have to say, even this is the sermon. I'm not saying you're happy to serve that moment between listening to a sermon and a brother coming to you hurting and grieving to me.

35:15Yeah. Listen to people. I mean, when you ask, How was your week? Be ready to listen to the answer. That's waiting on somebody, right? Because, like you say, if you put somebody into the yeah, how was your week? And if you're looking for the the the the one second great and move on, maybe you're not maybe you're asking the wrong question. But if you ask and they start, yeah, if they if it's going to take a uh a few minutes to listen or longer, park yourself. If you ask the question, wait to listen. Wait to hear the answer, the real answer. Good. Good.

36:04Jesus was patient with people in the face of their learning capacity, in the face of their spiritual progress or lack of it, in the face of their human infirmities, weaknesses, hostile feelings, and actions. In what situations might we be called to do the same? Teachers, yeah, teachers get called to be patient all the time with learning capacity, right? Teaching our kids, yes, teaching, teaching. You know, and I think sometimes we come to the church and somebody may be new to the faith or maybe even been in a grow up in a tradition that is very different. It takes a while to work through a good theological statement, right? I think sometimes we can get impatient with people as they're on their theological journey, right? You hear me say it often: life's the thing that happens as you're working through your theology.

37:31Right? And I think sometime we can say, if you don't, if you can't sign on really quickly, there's something wrong with you, right? I've worked through this issue for years, and now I've come to the point of what's right, and you haven't worked through it, but you should have already. I mean, I think we can get very impatient with where people are in their biblical understanding, especially if they come from different backgrounds or no background and they're trying to get their mind around the things of God. I think we may be called to be patient with people as they learn biblical doctrines and truth. Yes, very good. What else?

38:37On the freeway, yeah. In the grocery store. In the grocery store. Everybody rushes to pay. We don't see the person as a person. We see it as an object in front of me and behind me. That's very good. Right. Yeah, somebody cuts us off down the road. It's like, ah, what are you thinking? Well, the question is, what are you thinking? Do you love this person? And then, yeah, grocery store, but certainly right here at church, right? How many similar things? Somebody just got in the way of what I was going to do. Somebody is taking this conversation in a direction I don't want it to go. Somebody is, you fill in the blank, getting in my way. Yeah, so, and especially, I think that's what Paul's talking about, specifically in the corporate gatherings.

39:46What else? Yes, ma'am. Laura, as they work long-term, the education of people like, why haven't they already got? Why haven't they fixed this? Why didn't they solve it? It's hard to listen to over the long term. We get a lot of people who are going to be able to do it. Yeah, as people are walking through difficult times, sometimes. It's very easy to just say, you know what you ought to do? You should have done this, and you should already have been there. I don't know why it's taking you so long to get there. And yes, and that especially we feel that way when we really don't understand what they're going through.

40:48And so, good, very good. Thank you. Yes, sir. We all have expectations of those things in other people, you know, depending on if you see someone up here, you're going to have an expectation that they're at a certain spiritual level. But that ain't necessarily so. And so, you know, when your expectations aren't met, at least I have a tendency to get very frustrated. Like what Jesus, you'd say, you know, hey, why aren't you getting this? You know, why don't you understand this?

41:20And yet he would immediately put on the brakes and back up and teach, you know, instead of just rolling into frustration. It's like, you've got the perfect teacher right in front of you, and you're not getting it. You know, you know, he didn't. Yeah, I know. Be prepared for your expectations to not be met. Right. Be prepared that your expectations are not going to be met. People are going to let you down. Yeah. And and but love them.

41:50I think that's yes, Nancy. New COVID has inserted a lot of new strains. Yes. Yes. Closures. It's an opportunity for us to stand with each other. Yes. Yeah, you think about what COVID has thrown into the mix for the church. People are operating on different levels of information. Some come from one background, some from another. Some have this source, some has the other source. Some say masks are great. Some say masks are no good at all. Some say, and you just go on down the line, and it's created. Some say we should close, some say we shouldn't close, some say we should create different mandates, or some say we shouldn't, and it's created dissension.

43:01And yet, I think this is a great example. We are to wait for people. We're a body of Christ. We're going to get there as a body. And we need to think like a body. And we need to defer to one another. We need to love one another and give people time to get on. And so waiting, waiting. Yeah, I think that's great. COVID has put a lot of strain into the mix. But if you come back to this, I mean, in Corinth, it was eating meat, you know, sacrificed to idols. There was to me just going on, and the whole idea of deferring, loving one another, and letting that express the relationship.

43:47Good. Patrick. Sometimes we have to absolutely. Right. Right. Right. Yeah, so go ahead. I'm sorry, did you finish? Okay. Yes, sir. Don't forget to say what you always say. The main thing isn't the main thing. The main thing is how you handle the main thing. And I find that true so often. It's like I have to keep reminding myself. But yeah, the main thing isn't the main thing. The main thing is how you respond to the main thing. The main thing to The church is facing is not COVID. The main thing is how we relate to one another through COVID. That's the main thing.

45:07And yes, and I think, Pat, you're spot on with, and Jesus will definitely address these and embody love in the midst of confrontation. In fact, Paul, this whole letter, and as he goes on into 2 Corinthians, you know, he loves them and he's confronting what is missing and wanting to build them up. And that's what love does. Well, let's go ahead. Last one, right here. Words of wisdom. Even if you're right on an issue, is that what you're saying? Whether you're right or wrong.

46:07Right. Oh, yeah, if you're wrong on an issue, yes, being patient is wise. You don't know, right? Right. Right. And that's that is to rush into something knowing, like, I know, I've already got this figured out. I'm right. That's kind of an arrogant and patient. So, yes, very, very good thought. I hope you'll go and you'll think this week in all of your relationships at home, work, and whatever setting that you're in, that love is fundamentally waiting. It's waiting for people. If you love people, you're going to wait for them, and you're going to find that principle applicable in so many settings. And so, I hope that you'll purpose to love like Christ and go out this week and purpose to wait on people a little more. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your goodness. Thank you for your word. Thank you for the discussion. Thank you for the body of Christ that is assembled here tonight, Father. May you go with us and truly navigate our ways such that we can love people more and more, bring us into, bring these thoughts to mind, especially this week as we will need them. In Christ's name, amen.

47:39Take care. Amen.