Memorial Day (Sat PM)

Tom Shrader examines 1 Corinthians 13 to define biblical love, emphasizing that without love, even the greatest spiritual gifts and acts of service are meaningless. He walks through Paul's eighteen characteristics of love, highlighting that love does not seek its own as the central principle. Shrader challenges believers to evaluate whether they are truly lovers as God defines love, demonstrating patience, kindness, humility, and selflessness in their relationships.

“Love is patient, but his patience is not infinite - there comes a time when God has had enough, there comes a time when God will pour out his wrath.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: CBCC Memorial Day 2007

Recorded: 2007 at Cannon Beach Conference Center

Duration: 1 hr 4 min

Themes: love, patience, kindness, humility, selflessness, service, relationships, character, struggling with selfishness, improving relationships, evaluating character, spouse, parent, mentor, new believer, spiritual growth

Scripture: Matthew 5:16, 1 Corinthians 13, Romans 5:6-8, John 13:34, John 15:9, John 16, 1 Thessalonians 3:12, 1 Peter 4:8, Galatians 5:22-23, Philippians 2:5-8, Colossians 4:5, Hebrews 11

Theological Themes: biblical love, agape love, spiritual gifts, sanctification, becoming holy, christian character, biblical relationships, spiritual maturity

Full Transcript

I grabbed this brochure because I wanted to mention it to you. You know, it's probably one thing if he begs you to come, but it sounds a little sleazy when he does it. I thought it might have a classy ring if I did it. I wanted to encourage you all—probably some of you, many of you maybe have summer plans already. If you don't, this would be a wonderful time.

Susan and I actually had a group together. We didn't know that Janet and the Bean family were going. We had our own crews put together to go on this exact same ship at the same time, and last November we were just unsure. Cancer came back in November, so we were kind of going, "eh, I don't know." Rather than risk it, we canceled our part of it.

But I'm just telling you, this will be incredible. We've done this three times, I think. You're going to Juneau, and up into the glacier, which is just—the last time we were there, the glacier, the staff on the cruise ship were out filming the glacier. It was incredible how active it was. We got very fortunate. God was good there. Into Sitka and Ketchikan, and this will be a wonderful time.

So I want to reinforce what Brandon said. If you have not yet got plans for summer vacation, you need to try this. This will be—and I forgot, I'm not even thinking—you're all moving out of Seattle. That's perfect if you don't have the airfare or any of the other stuff. So brochures are back there, you ought to try that, and it will be wonderful.

Did you all have a good afternoon? How many of you slept? I mean, I'm just sleeping and sleeping, and it's great. I keep saying this is really incredible, and Susan said, "This is just like home." So maybe it isn't as amazing as I thought.

Our Purpose: Saved For God

Here we go. We're going to talk tonight about love. Now here we are. We are saved, what? By God. From God. For God. Very good.

Janet said at dinner to me tonight, "I heard you told a lot of stories today, and not much Bible." And I said, "Oh my gosh, that's not really good." I'm really sensitive. I'm really paranoid about that. When I'm at home I teach chapter by chapter, verse by verse—we go through and we slug it out. In a deal like this, really, there is just that point we talked about. I'm saved by God, we didn't even talk much about that. From God, didn't talk much about that. But saved for God.

So why don't you open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5. We're going to look at that to start us here, just to remind you—chapter 5, verse 16. We're not even going to read 13, 14, or 15 now. This is our core. This is where we are. "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven."

I am saved by God, from God, for God. Here's what we're just saying: forever God is faithful, forever God is strong, forever God is with us, forever, forever. That is doctrinally rock-solid accurate, and it's given to you for your comfort and for your security.

God's Perfect Love

God is a God of love. Romans chapter 5 tells us that we have peace with God. Chapter 5, verse 6: "While we were still helpless at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly." Verse 8: "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

When we talk about love, there is no more perfect picture of love than the picture of God. God is love. God so loved the world that He gave. Love has with it this idea of action. To say "I love you" is insufficient—important, but insufficient. It's to say "I love you" and then to show it, to demonstrate it.

So we said we're going to let our light shine in such a way that people see our good works. What we did this morning was to point this out: that we're not going to talk about specific actions. You can do that. You can fill in the blanks. There's books. There's volumes written about it. You got it. But we said that the heart is really the issue.

The Fruit of the Spirit

We said the way that our life is going to be distinctive and different than everyone else around us is we're going to manifest the fruit of the Spirit, that God is going to indwell us. Jesus says to the disciples, "It's to your advantage that I go away." That to me, the first time I read that, I thought, "This is an amazing statement." Because I'm thinking, it's not going to get any better than Jesus walking with me, right? And Jesus says, "No, boys, you are better off that I leave."

For two reasons, I think. One, because part of His departure is His death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. So obviously now, salvation. But two, rather than have Jesus with us, walking with us, we have the Spirit in us. And that's our advantage.

The Work of the Holy Spirit

John tells us, as he records these words of Jesus, in John chapter 16, "It's to your advantage that I go away. I'll send you a helper. And when He comes, He will convince you concerning sin and righteousness and judgment." He will convict you and me concerning our—and He uses, and it's significant here—He uses the singular. Not our sins, but our sin.

Do we have sins in our life? Yeah, we absolutely do. But our problem is not necessarily our sins; our problem is that we are a sinner. Our problem is our sin. Our sins, plural—hang with me now—point to our sin. We have these, in our life, we have these manifestations. You may be an adulterer, you may steal, or you may have sex outside of marriage, or you may lie or gossip, or whatever it is. You may have those sins, but the reason that there are those sins in your

The Reality of Sin

Life reveals to us that there is sin in our hearts, and our fundamental problem is that we're separated from God. We come into the world that way. When Brandon's talking about no—we have a grandson, and we now have two grandkids with one on the way September 1st—our grandson loves to say no. No one's taught him this. It's very difficult for him to say yes.

If you say "Brayden, Brayden, Brayden," and then ask him to say yes, he'll go "no." He doesn't have a clue what he's doing, and it just oozes out of him. What's his fundamental problem? His fundamental problem is sin.

Saved for a Purpose

God comes into our life. We're saved by God, from God. We are saved for Him, for a purpose: to make the invisible God visible, to speak the truth boldly, to manifest the fruit of the Spirit in us. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. But the key to that, the heart of that, is love.

The Love Chapter

Here's what we're going to do for our time together tonight. We're going to talk about love. I'm going to invite you to open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, the love chapter.

We'll frequently be around people who are not followers of Christ or believers, and they'll want some scripture read. They'll say, "Read some scripture at our wedding," and almost always they'll say, "Read that thing—there's clanging cymbals—read that one." That's what they mean: 1 Corinthians 13. In this passage, Paul tells us about the supremacy of love, and he also tells us about the permanence of love. Then in verses 4, 5, 6, and 7, he defines love.

Without Love, We Have Nothing

Here's what Paul says in verse 1: "If I speak with tongues of men and of angels, but I don't have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." If I have the gift of prophecy and know all the mysteries and all the knowledge, and I have all the faith so as to move mountains, but I do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but I do not have love, it profits me nothing.

Paul's speaking here in extraordinary hyperbole. When you see that word "all," he's emphasizing this point. Here's the overarching point: What he's saying is regardless of giftedness, if love is missing in my life—no matter how gifted I might be, or proficient I might be, how many great things I might do, how deep is my faith—no matter if I have all those, but if I don't have love, I have nothing.

Breaking Down Paul's Argument

Let's break it apart real quickly. He says if I speak with the tongue of men and angels—I speak in this heavenly language, whatever this is, and who knows what it is—but I don't have love, I'm just clanging. I'm like the dinner bell out there. I'm just making noise.

Verse 2: If I have the gift of prophecy, if I can speak forth publicly proclaiming the truth, and if I know all the mysteries, and I have all the knowledge—I know all the things that are hidden, I understand and speak God's truths, I have all of those in place—if I know all of those things, but if I don't have love, nothing.

If I have all the faith so I can move mountains, he's not talking about saving faith here. He's talking about walking by faith, living by faith.

Living by Faith

Susan and I go back Tuesday, and then I work through Sunday, and then hopefully Sunday night we'll drive over to Coronado, to Del Mar, over to the coast. We'll have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and most of Friday by ourselves. Then on Friday, 15 busloads of junior high and high schoolers come to join us. It's a private little party we have with them.

Every year at our anniversary, we're over there for summer camp, and we're talking about heroes. I'm going to talk to them about faith. We talk about the gospel—remember when I said that we need to preach the gospel to ourselves every day? We think of the gospel as something that goes out there that needs to be preached to a lost world, and it does, but we fail to understand we need to preach it to ourselves every day.

Faith is like that sometimes too. We talk about faith, and we think in the context of saving faith—that faith that's a gift of God, that at that moment in time, whether we're conscious of it or not. I can give you a date, place, time when God saved me. You may not be able to give me a date, place, time. It doesn't matter whether you can give a date, place, or time. The issue is: Do you know Christ? Do you have saving faith?

But now, we live by faith. That's the whole idea.

Heroes of Faith

They came to me and said, "The theme this year is heroes, so you figure out what you're going to talk about." Well, I'm going to do Hebrews 11, the hall of fame of faith, the giants of faith—these men and women who did these extraordinary things, who lived by faith. They understood God and who He is, and then walked by it every day, living in the reality that forever, God is faithful, and forever, God is strong, and forever, God is with us. Forever, forever, and He'll never leave us, and He'll never forsake us.

Jesus says to the disciples, "I won't leave you as orphans, I won't leave you alone. I'll send you a helper, the Holy Spirit." No matter what we face in life, we know we do not face it alone.

Even Great Faith Without Love Is Nothing

Paul's saying if you have that kind of faith—you have a faith so deep that you're removing mountains—but you don't have love, you have nothing. He's saying if you can answer all these great questions about evil and why doesn't God do this—everywhere I go, they want to know where did Cain get his wife, that kind of stuff. If you can answer all the difficult questions...

If I can do all of these things, but I don't have love, something's missing. Do you see the supremacy of love there?

Charles Spurgeon wrote these words: "If you make doctrine the main thing, you will very likely grow narrow-minded. If you make your own experience the main thing, you will become gloomy and critical of others. If you make the ordinances, the sacraments, some of you might say, the main thing, you will be apt to grow more formal, but you can never make too much of the living Christ. For all things else are for His sake. Doctrine, ordinances, they're planets, but Christ is the Son. You get to love Him best of all."

Verse 3: "If I give all my possessions" - giving all my stuff away. The idea here is literally to dole out in small quantities in a significant, long-term, systematic giving program. That's what's all encompassed in there. So I'm very conscientious. I'm a giver, giving it away, all of that, but I don't have love, it profits me nothing.

Defining Love

So now, let's define love, verse 4. "Love is patient, love is kind, love is not jealous, love does not brag, is not arrogant, it does not act unbecomingly, does not seek its own, it is not provoked, does not take into account wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with truth." And now he closes this out strong, verse 7: "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, love endures all things."

So here's the question that we have before us. As we live this distinct life and people begin to see something different in us, supreme among all things, more important than any action we can perform - He's not saying, by the way, that faith isn't important or giving isn't, He's not saying any of those aren't important, He's just saying supreme among all of those is love. So the question is, are you a lover? Are you a lover as God defines love?

Here's how Webster defines it. He has five different tones here. Deep, tender feeling of affection or devotion to a person - that's what we think most, "I love you." Strong interest or liking in something: "I love baseball, I love movies, I love music, I love pizza, I love physics." There's a person you wouldn't want to spend a ton of time with. Number three, an object of affection such as a person.

Now listen to Webster's definition here: "God's tender regard and concern for mankind." There's a distinct picture of love there - God's love for man. Now he flips it around and he says, "mankind's devotion to and desire for God as a supreme good." God loves us, so we should love Him.

The Source of Love

So strong is God's love and so deep is our sin that we cannot even love without God first loving us. That man on his own will never become a God lover. Do you get that? The man on his own is a God hater.

I'm sitting with a guy and we're talking about this whole idea of faith. He's an unbeliever, he's not a follower of Christ. I said, "You hate God." He said, "I don't hate God." I said, "You hate God." He said, "I don't hate God." I said, "You hate God." He said, "I don't hate God. I hate you at this moment, but I don't hate God." And I said, "Well, the fact you hate me is evidence that you hate God." I just thought I'd throw that in there just to get him a little bit.

We don't love God on our own. We love God because He first loved us.

Love in Our Culture

Love is one of those wonderful words that's dominant really in our vocabulary. So there's all sorts of songs about love: "All you need is love, love, love, love, love." If you Google the word love in something like .01 seconds, I came up with 17,215,250 entries. That's a lot. I didn't get through them all.

But I found a site, lovingyou.com, and this is where you can go and you can just post your thoughts about love. Let me read you some. This is what people just wrote in. Carissa submitted this: "When it rains, look for the rainbow." I don't know, she wrote it. Kelly Marie wrote this: "Love is like a rose, the special ones grow in the winter." I don't know.

KB submitted this: "If I love you this much and I'm not the one for you, then the one for you will be everything I am and everything I'm not." Jessica wrote this: "Love and electricity are one and the same, my dear. If you do not feel the jolt in your soul every time a kiss is shared, a whisper is spoken, a touch is felt, then it really isn't love at all. If you love someone, you should just say it out loud right when you feel it or the moment may pass you by."

Here you go: "Love is like a rhino." I was kind of in there for the rainbow, but they lost me on the rhino. "Love is like a rhino. It's short-sighted and hasty. If it cannot find a way, it will make a way." I could go on. Here's the last one: "For a while, I thought I would never love or hate anyone, but I have come to realize I have loved and hated the same person." Keep a knife away from this chick is all I can say. That's sick right there, whatever that is.

What the Bible Tells Us About Love

Well, what does the Bible tell us about love? Let me give you four things here quickly, and then we want to define it. We'll break it apart.

The Bible tells us love is not optional. Jesus said, "This is a new command that I give you" (John 13:34), "that you love one another even as I loved you, that you would love one another." John 15:9, "Just as the Father has loved me and I have loved you, abide in my love."

The Bible tells us that love is not optional and that love is part of every Christian's life. Paul writes this in 1 Thessalonians 3:12, "May the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, love for all men." Peter, 1 Peter 4:8, "Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another."

The Bible tells us that this love is produced by the Holy Spirit, and the Bible tells us that love is essential to real service.

Love Is the Key to Christian Service

We're starting big and moving down. That love is not optional, and that love is the part of our life, and love is produced by the Holy Spirit, and love is essential in our life for real service, for real Christian service.

Now, in the passage you have in front of you, 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4, 5, 6, and 7, Paul gives us 18 words that describe love. Seven of them are stated positively, eight are stated negatively. Tucked in the middle of this is the key. In the middle of this whole thing is the key. Everything else to me floats around this.

So he writes, "Love is patient, love is kind," so those are positive, now some negative. "It's not jealous, it doesn't brag, it's not arrogant, it doesn't act unbecomingly." Now if you write, mark, somehow circle in your Bible, circle this next part, because here's the key. "It does not seek its own." That's the essence of this. Love does not seek its own, it's not provoked, it does not take into account a wrong suffered, it does not rejoice in unrighteousness. Now there's the negative, now the positive. But it rejoices with truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.

We're going to take a second and look at all 15 of these characteristics. I want us to just be immersed in this idea of love, so that we can answer the question: Am I a lover?

Love Is Patient

Here's what he says first of all: love is patient. Again this is an active idea, it's not abstract. Love is patient. The intent here speaks of people, not circumstances. It's a word that's used when a man is wronged, and he easily has it as a power to avenge himself, but he doesn't do it. Love is patient. Love endures. Now in all these instances, we could say Jesus is the perfect picture of this.

God is patient. We are one day in this prayer meeting, we're sitting around, we're praying, we're in a circle. I don't know how many people there are, I can't remember, a bunch. And the guy to my left says, "Let's pray, and then we'll go to my right, we'll go around, and then Tom you close." Well you never want to close, right? What's the problem? All the good prayers are taken by then. Everybody's prayed all the good prayers. They've prayed for missionaries, and heaven, and astronauts, and the mariners, and they've prayed for just about everything, the Seahawks, the Sonics. I mean we're running out of things to pray for. They've prayed everything, and then finally when it gets to you, you go, "Oh God, I mean really, I just echo all they say, amen."

Well the guy right before me prays this. He prays, "God thank you that you are a God of infinite patience." Here's the problem with that. God is patient, but His patience is not infinite. There comes a time when God has had enough. There comes a time when God will pour out His wrath. There comes a time when Jesus at just the right time will come back again, and there will be judgment.

The other night the movie Cool Hand Luke was on. Do you remember that movie? A wonderful movie. I went through that phase where I thought I looked like Paul Newman, so I watched all the Paul Newman movies. Lately I've been watching more Woody Allen, if that tells you anything. Zasu Pitts I might look like rather than Brad Pitt.

And there's a scene where they're out and Luke is on this chain gang and they're working outside, remember this, and it begins to rain, and they're rounding all the prisoners up. And Luke is standing outside, and the lightning thunder all around. He said, "Hey, I'm talking to a guy now. If you're up there, come and get me. Get me, come on, come and get me, come on." Nothing happens. The first time I saw that, even as an unbeliever, I thought, that seems dangerous to me.

God is patient, but not infinite in His patience. God tells us that if we love, we accept inconvenience, and we understand that people will take advantage of us, and that's okay. Because it's not about us and our rights, it's about us and obedience.

I'm talking to a guy. Here's what he says: "I'm married to the world's worst woman, she's awful. She's a witch." He didn't use witch, but he had a whole bunch of words. He said, "She's terrible." And I'm just listening. He said, "Well, do you agree she's really bad?" I said, "I'm not going to get into that." And he said, "Well, she's bad." I said, "I'm not going to do that. I will say this: I wouldn't have married her, wouldn't have picked her, but you did." He said, "Well, all our friends think that she's awful." By the way, just hit the pause button, parenthetical insert: this woman is awful.

And he said, "I went out. I've been at this for 10 years, it's been 10 years of hell, it's been awful, it's terrible. I went out." I said, "That's not an option, my man. You were the one who stood at an altar and said, 'for better or worse,' and we're there. Rich or poor, sickness, health." And he said, "What should I do?" I said, "Just love her and love her." Isn't that the commandment? Here you go: "Husbands, love your wives," how? "As Christ loved the church who gave His life for her." If you have to die for this witch, you have to do it with a smile and grace and mercy. And he said, "Tom, she just takes advantage of me, and advantage of me, and advantage of me, and advantage of me." Love is patience.

Love Is Kind

Love is kind. It means to be useful, serving, gracious. It's the counterpart of patience. It means, here are the words I wrote: sweet to all, courteous, gracious, a pleasant person. The first test of this, typically, is where? At home.

I really like all kinds of different music, but I love, we were raised with big band stuff and others, but the group that I grew up with, that I really loved, were the Mills Brothers. I don't even know who the Mills Brothers are, but the Mills Brothers had a song that went like that. I won't sing it, because I can't sing, but it went like this: "You always hurt the one you love, the one you shouldn't hurt at all. You always take"

The sweetest rose and crush it till the petals fall. You always break the kindest heart with a hasty word you can't recall. Now, listen to this next line. So if I broke your heart last night, it's because I love you most of all.

That doesn't seem right, but there is that, isn't there? Most of us are more gracious and kind to our server over here in the dining hall than we are to our spouse at home. It's to be kind. Love is patient. Love is kind.

Love Is Not Jealous

Love is not, now we're into the nots, love is not jealous. There's a jealousy here that covets what other people have, because you want them, but there's a dark side of jealousy. When we want what somebody has, even when we don't want it ourselves, we just want to make sure they don't get it.

Two really great illustrations of this. We have two girls, Sarah Haley. Sarah's the oldest one, Haley, obviously younger. Sarah is, they're just very different girls. They're wonderful girls. They're just different. They're just terrific girls.

Sarah, when she was growing up, she would date and she just, I don't want to say needed a boy, but she liked the idea of having a boyfriend. She liked that idea. She could see herself getting married. She could see herself having kids. Haley never had a date.

What happened was, Haley met this guy, dated him, fell in love, and they decided to get married. At the same time, Sarah had no candidates, though she's the older one. I watched Sarah like a hawk to see how she would handle her little sister, who honestly never demonstrated any interest in guys at all. How she would handle her having, and then Sarah had to watch as Haley got pregnant first.

I was blown away. I think Haley is so fortunate to have Sarah as a sister. Sarah so rejoices for Haley's wedding, Haley's son. It's unbelievable. I thought of this. There is not jealousy there. She wants that desperately, but no jealousy at all.

Four Things I'll Never See Again

There's four things in my life I've seen that I will never see again. One of them is a horse like Secretariat. Secretariat is an incredible horse. Every year we go through this Triple Crown stuff, and they try to pawn these. There will never be another Secretariat. The second one is the Beatles. There will never be anything like that. And then there's two others, UCLA basketball under John Wooden, and there will never be a fighter like Ali, like Muhammad.

Last year, I'm sitting at my desk, and a friend of mine calls, and we're just talking. He said, I was in Phoenix. I didn't call you. And I apologized, but he said, I'm calling to say how you're doing, see how Susan's doing, blah, blah, blah. This guy played for Coach Wooden at UCLA on his first national championship team.

So we're talking, and I said, how's Coach Wooden? And he said, he's fine. There's a long pause. He was born in 1910. He's 96 years old. Long pause. He said, why don't you come over, and I'll take you up to meet him. I said, I'm there.

So I had this incredible experience. I fly in. We go out to Coach Wooden's house. We spend three hours there, and it was unbelievable. I could go on and on and on. It has nothing to do with the lesson, but I fly back. I'm telling this story in a Bible study the next day, Four Things I'll Never See, Secretariat, Beatles, John Wooden, and Muhammad Ali.

I'm done, and this guy comes up to me and said, you want to meet Ali? I said, yeah. And he said, all right, he's going to be in my office today at 3. Come into my office today at 3, and you can meet him. Well, I'm like a little girl going to Britney Spears' concert. I'm going to get a camera, and I'm trying to think, oh my gosh, Ali's not going to like my hair. What am I going to be wearing? What am I wearing? Oh, this old thing. He won't like this.

Meeting Muhammad Ali

So it is a hugely long story that ended up in an incredible way. Muhammad came in, and they were in, and they said, Tom, why don't you? There was this huge book they have. This guy had a book. The book weighed 50 pounds, imagine that, of just pictures of Ali. And so I would turn the pages, and we would go through these. Muhammad does not talk at this point. He can point a little.

And we had this incredible time, and we're going through, and we got to the Archie Moore fight. Remember how he always had a poem for every fight? And so he tapped the page, meaning turn it, and I said, I'm not going to turn it. I said, get a seat by the door, because Archie Moore will fall on the floor. I can't remember one verse of Bible, but I remember that stupid poem.

And his face is pretty expressionless, and he looked up, and his eyes began to dance. And the people said, I didn't know you were a fight fan. And I said, I'm not a fight fan. I'm an Ali fan. And his wife said, oh, my gosh, we'll never get him out of here now.

I was so wired about that, I came home. The person who would love that experience more than me is my brother Dan. And I called Dan, I said, because he was going nuts on the wooden thing. I said, I had something today that was incredible. He said, well, it wasn't as big as wood, and I said, it might be bigger. Bigger for you. He said, really? What is it? And I said, what do you think? He said, Shania Twain. I said, no, that's bigger than this, okay?

I said, I had an hour and a half with Muhammad Ali today, and he said, come on, there's no way. And the reason I'm telling you this story is, he must have said to me 15 times, he called me two days later, and he said, all I've been able to think about is you and Ali being together, and how happy I am for you. And I thought to myself, I don't know if I could be that happy for him if he had that experience, because I think I might have been jealous.

Love is not jealous, but it's so excited because you have things, even if we don't have them, and wants you to have them, and does not want to take them away, even if we don't want them or need them, just so you don't have them. And love does not brag. See that? It's the only time we see this word in the New Testament. It's the other side of jealousy.

says, "Let me tell you about me in some way to try to make you envious of what I have. Let me tell you about when I did this, and when I did that, and over here I did this, and this is what I'm all about." It's that thing that we hate when we see it in other people. It's that universal thing that we can't stand. My mom would always go, "He's such a blowhard," that's how she would say it. Love doesn't brag, doesn't inflate ourselves, and as much as it can, doesn't even really talk about itself.

Love is not arrogant, which means overbearing or haughty. The synonym now for this would be pride. Napoleon said, and I quote, "I'm not a man like other men, bigger than everybody else." William Carey, the founder of modern missions, was at a dinner one night, and the man trying to put him in his place said, "I suppose, Mr. Carey, you once worked as a shoemaker." "No, your lordship," Carey answered, "not a shoemaker, only a cobbler. Couldn't make a shoe, I only fixed one."

The Root of All Sin

By the way, we're at the guts there of the essence of your sin and mine. I don't know you, barely know me. I know this: your besetting sin is pride. It may manifest itself in a variety of other things, but your besetting sin is pride.

C.S. Lewis talks about pride. He says this, and this is a wonderful sentence, "It was through pride that Lucifer became the devil. I will rise up, I will, I will." Isaiah 14. Then Lewis describes pride this way: "Pride is a complete anti-God state of mind." This is in the center of Mere Christianity when he talks about the great sin. He said other sins might bring us together. We may want to get drunk together, go raise cane together, we may gossip together, but pride in its essence drives us apart.

Pride will motivate us to take another man's girl, not because we want her, but just so he doesn't have her. Pride is in its nature, this is still all Lewis, essentially competitive where other sins tend to be more of a camaraderie. We talk about being proud or being richer or being better looking, and by essence it demands comparison. Pride is a complete anti-God state of mind. God says this: that He resists the proud, God hates the proud, and He draws near to those that are humble.

The Nature of True Humility

Now when we talk about humility, here's what we're talking about: understanding who we're not and understanding who we are. Wonderful example of this in John chapter 1 and John chapter 3, both with John the Baptist. The Jews come to him and say to John the Baptist, "Are you the Messiah?" "No." "You're the prophet?" "No." "You're Elijah?" "No." "Who are you?" "I'm just one who's declaring, 'Make straight the way of the Lord.' There is one coming, I'm not even worthy to unfasten His sandal." John chapter 3 verse 30, "He must increase and I must decrease."

If you were to cultivate in your Christian life a character trait, the character trait is humility. Love is not arrogant. It's not overbearing.

Love Acts with Courtesy and Grace

Love does not act unbecomingly. It means rude. William Barclay said this: "Love does not behave gracelessly." Common courtesy, holding a door.

I love bookstores. I love to go to bookstores. This will happen to me all the time. This drives me nuts. I'll be standing here looking at these bookshelves and somebody will come and they walk right between me and the bookshelf. Now I understand there's not a ton of room and I understand I take up more room now than I used to. I'm all right with all that. My only point would be what? Say excuse me. That's all you've got to say.

I'm standing here watching. So I'm in a bookstore not long ago and this guy comes through and he walks right between me and the book. I'm close to this. There's more room behind me than in front of me and he walks between me and the book. I can't understand it and he walks away and I say to myself, but apparently out loud, "Am I invisible or what?" The guy turns around, a rather large chap, and said, "Did you say something?" I said, "No, I hope I didn't get in your way."

Love is concerned with common courtesy, especially true as we deal with unbelievers. Colossians chapter 4 verse 5, "Conduct yourself with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of opportunity. Let your speech always be seasoned with grace, so seasoned with salt."

Love Does Not Seek Its Own

Here's the key: love does not seek its own. We'll talk now in the middle of verse 5. It's not stubborn and inflexible. The Son of Man, Jesus said, did not come to be served but to serve. Jesus is self-giving.

A friend of mine, and you'll hear me talk about him all the time, his name is Larry Wright. Larry wrote poems. I don't get poetry, I don't ever understand poetry. Every summer I go to the bookstore and think, "Well, this is the summer I'm going to read poetry" and I'll pick up some of this and I'll say, "I'm not going to buy this. I don't understand it." But Larry wrote poems that I get. Here's a poem that Larry wrote. It's titled, "When Things Are Going My Way."

"How easy it is to be loving, to be kind, tender-hearted each day. I'm so wonderfully easy to live with when things are going my way. When things are going my way, I'm as sweet as sweetness can be. I can't understand as hard as I try why others aren't caring like me. Be careful that you don't upset me. Don't cross me or cause me dismay, or I won't love you the way that I do when things are going my way."

Now, I get that. That makes sense to me. Love doesn't seek its own.

The Mind of Christ

So here's the picture of it. I'm not going to turn there. You might want to make a note. Philippians chapter 2, verse 5. Here's what Paul says: "Have the mind in you or the attitude in you that's also in Christ Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He emptied Himself and took the form of a bondservant, being made in the likeness of man."

Augustine was once asked, "What are the three keys to the Christian faith?" Here's what

He said, "Humility, humility, humility. Jesus humbled Himself. Think like Jesus." He humbled Himself. He emptied Himself, not of His deity—still fully God—but He becomes fully man. He emptied Himself, and He took the form of a bondservant. He becomes obedient, obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, a humiliating way to die.

Crucifixion was originated by the ancient Persians and perfected by the Romans. So excruciatingly painful and humiliating was crucifixion that no Roman citizen, no matter how vile their crime, could be crucified. In his book *The Life of Christ*, Frederick Farr describes crucifixion this way: "A death by crucifixion seems to include all that pain and death can have of a horrible ghastly dizziness, cramping, thirst, starvation, sleeplessness, traumatic fever, shame, public shame, long continual torment, horrific horror of application and anticipation, mortification of intended wounds." The unnatural position made every movement painful. The lacerated veins and crushed tendons throbbed with an incessant anguish. Jesus becomes obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Jesus as Our Example of Self-Sacrificing Love

Jesus is self-giving, self-sharing, self-sacrificing, self-abandoning, serving others. Now the greatest example that I have in my life is Susan. Susan is amazing, but she is not perfect, and you would think she would be after hanging around with me this long, but no, just teasing. Susan is not perfect, but she is an amazing wife and friend, mother, lover.

I was trying to get a hold of her a couple of months ago, because I knew she wasn't feeling well. So I called the hospital, called the cell phone, no answer. Couldn't find her. I thought, oh, maybe she's just asleep and I want to leave her alone. So I got home and I said, "I tried to call you today, where were you?" Haley was home, and she wasn't feeling really well, and Susan knew that the baby needed a little milk. So Susan went—and Haley's about 20, 25 minutes away—Susan went down to the store to get groceries, to get some stuff for dinner, to take them to Haley, so that Haley would have something for Tyler when he came home, something she could easily make, milk for the baby, not have to inconvenience herself a lot.

That is in the midst of Susan's own pain and suffering, heartache, difficulty. I watched her put, in essence, her life on hold so that she could minister to the girls when they were growing up, and to me. There's no way that I could do what I do were it not for Susan—impossible to do. What motivates her is a genuine, concerned, selfless love, especially for family. Paul's talking about Jesus, talking about how He didn't come to be served, but to serve. Paul's talking about love doesn't seek its own.

From "What About Me?" to "What About You?"

I used to go on trips, and I would come back, and the girls would come to the bedroom, because whenever I opened the suitcase, I would always bring back something. I was a big t-shirt guy, so they always had t-shirts from everywhere that we went. I'd come back, and they would be there, and I would give one the shirt, and the other one would immediately say, "What? What about me? What about me? What about me?"

We come to this world saying, "What about me? What about me? What about me? Me, me, me, me, me, me, me." That's the essence of selfishness. Paul says love at its core is not saying "what about me," but "what can I do for you? What about you? How can I serve you? What do you need? What do I have that can make your life better, more full, whole?" See, when we're talking about love, we're talking about something way deeper than superficial feelings. We're down into sacrifice, but it's not out of sacrifice. It's not out of duty. It's out of genuine, transformed heart.

Love Is Not Provoked

Love is not provoked. It means aroused to anger, doesn't react in self-defense and retaliation. You know the name Jonathan Edwards? Jonathan Edwards is considered by the Encyclopedia Britannica the greatest mind that America ever produced. What makes that so significant is he believed what you and I believe about the Bible, about God, about salvation.

Here's a story. Edwards had tons of kids. He had a daughter with an uncontrollable temper. There was a young man who fell in love with her and asked Edwards for her hand in marriage. Edwards said, "You cannot have her." "But I love her and she loves me," he protested. "It doesn't matter," Edwards insisted. "Why?" "Because she's not worthy of you," Edwards answered. "But isn't she a Christian?" "Yes," said Edwards, speaking about his daughter. "But the grace of God can live with some people with whom no one else could ever live."

Love Doesn't Keep Score

Love, here's what's really important: love does not, the end of verse five, does not take into account a wrong suffered. The term is a bookkeeping term. It has the idea of to calculate or to reckon, to enter a figure into a ledger permanently. One guy said, "When my wife and I argue, she doesn't get hysterical, she gets historical. Do you remember when, back in 1975, you did this?" Love doesn't keep score.

When I'm keeping score, here's what I end up with. I end up with things like bitterness and resentment, anger. Put those together—anger, temper, wrong suffered. I get a call one night: "Come to these people's house, husband and wife are fighting and the husband has a gun." I go to bed at seven, so it's 1:15. I said, "All right." So I drive over and the wife is out front. She meets me. The police are there. I said, "All right, where's the gun?" "Well, we got him all settled. He's in there." We go through this. The police leave. I'm sitting with the wife and the husband. We're sitting in the room and I'm sitting there. She's there. He's there. I don't even start—I never start with a guy—

Never start with a guy and say, "Tell me what's going on," because he doesn't have a clue. So I say to the gal, "Tell me what's going on, how'd we get here?" She's talking along, I'm talking along, I'm tired, I'm losing interest fast. I'm saying, you need pain, give me something to keep my attention.

Well, all of a sudden, she's just talking along and all of a sudden, I catch out of the corner of my eye, this guy leaps over toward her. I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop, sit down." I'm thinking, what? Because I must have dozed off or something. I said, "Okay, say that again. Do that again." Now I'm listening now.

She gets to the same point and this guy goes nuts. Here's what I discovered. And she's like this little blonde, "I really didn't do anything." Here's what she had. She had, in essence, a little remote control and she knew exactly what buttons to push and set him off like a rocket. He had a temper, she knew how to manipulate it, wasn't fixable until both of them backed off.

Love Does Not Rejoice in Unrighteousness

Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. In this sense, love is pure. Love doesn't laugh at what God calls sin. Love doesn't delight in other people's troubles. That's what makes gossip so interesting.

John MacArthur writes this: one of the most common forms of rejoicing in sin is gossip. Gossips would do little harm if it didn't have so many eager listeners. We love that idea of listening, of slandering.

Love doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness, but now here we go. Love rejoices with truth, with biblical doctrinal truth. There's a kind of modern day lie that says it's important for us in the Christian faith to all get along and put aside our differences. The problem is this: our differences are oftentimes core fundamental doctrines.

Truth Over Unity

I've told this story a billion times. You got September 11th, I don't know if you remember this. After September 11th, they had an all-faith rally in Yankee Stadium. Do you remember this? Do you remember who presided over this? The grand priestess of this, Oprah.

You had all these faiths, and I mean you had them all. You had everything you can imagine. The way I describe it, they did everything that day but sacrifice a goat, and they tried to say that this is an all-faith ecumenical movement. Here's the problem with that. We don't believe what those people believe.

Can we work for some common good? Sure, but our distinctives are always, to me, in front of us. What is that Bible? What does it say about God? What does it say about Jesus?

Love Bears, Believes, Hopes, and Endures All Things

Now look at this, then we're out of here. Verse 7: love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love bears all things. It means to cover or to support, to protect, to look out for the other person, to be cautious. So how do you handle privileged information? Somebody tells you about somebody, can they trust you with it? It bears all things.

Peter writes this in 1 Peter 4:8: love covers a multitude of sins, whether that's God covering our sins or our living gracious with one another. The context really here is a little difficult to figure out, so let's say it's even both. Love bears all things.

Love believes all things. It's not cynical or suspicious. God's grace is powerful enough to change anybody, anytime, anywhere. Love is ready to believe anything that's grounded in reality, or love's always ready to start over. Love gives the benefit of the doubt.

God's Grace Is Powerful Enough to Save Anyone

It was in March of 1980 that God saved me, and it happened in a most odd way, really. There were some guys from our church, or I'm sorry, at work, who went to a Bible study. I went to one of them one night, and I said, my life was just a mess. I said, "Can I go to the Bible study tomorrow?" Here's what the guy said. The guy said, "Well, it's for anyone." Now based on that high standard, I was able to go for anybody.

I went in, and as I'm sitting, and there was about as many people in the Bible study as in this section here. The guy's teaching, and I'm literally shaking. I went back to my office, physically, this is not exact, physically trembling. The teacher's name was Larry Wright.

I grabbed the phone book, Phoenix phone book, and there are, I have no idea how many Wrights, and a bunch of Larry's and Lawrence's, and I went through them. I called this one. I said, "Is there any chance you're the Larry Wright that teaches a Bible study?" And he said, "I am."

A Life Changed by Grace

We got together, and I asked him these questions. I asked him these questions about Adam and Eve, and the Bible, and all these things, and he said, "Listen, read the Gospel of John." I read the Gospel of John that night. I might as well have been in the Greek. I have no clue what it said the next morning.

It was a Wednesday morning, Bible study on Thursday. I'm in my car, and I said, "God, here's the deal. They keep harping on the fact you're a sinner. I got that figured out. I have empirical data to support that. I'm not struggling there, but that Jesus died. I got that. Died for my sin. God, I've had 30 years of my life. You take it. It's yours. I want you more than anything else."

The next day, I walked into the Bible study, and I said to Larry yesterday, "God saved me." Here's what he did. He hugged me. I said, "Oh, my goodness, they're huggers. We're into a hugging thing. I don't want a bunch of hugging."

I went back to the guys at work. I told them what happened, and I said to them, "Why did you not invite me ever to that study?" Here's what they said. "It never occurred to us that God would save someone like you. It never occurred to us. It's like He's got grace, but then, I don't know that He's going to shoot it all on one deal here."

Isn't that an amazing story? God believes all things. God hopes for all things.

Love Hopes All Things

Love hopes for all things. Persistently optimistic. Ray Stedman writes this: Love hopes all things. No cause, no situation, no person is ever regarded as totally hopeless. There's always

Love never gives up hope. So Paul concludes this section with this: Love endures all things. It holds fast to what's love. It bears the unbearable. Love keeps in mind that nothing is impossible for God and no situation is hopeless.

Letting Your Light Shine

Now, you ought to let your light shine in such a way that men around you, women around you, students around you see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. What should they see? Well, they see these actions, but at the core, they see you motivated by the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. At the essence of that, they see us as lovers.

That love manifests itself in that we are patient and kind and not jealous and don't brag and we aren't arrogant and we don't act unbecomingly. The key is we aren't concerned about our own. We're not easily provoked and we don't keep score and we don't rejoice in unrighteousness. We rejoice in truth and we bear all things and believe all things and hope all things and endure all things.

The Essential Question

So here you go: Is that what people see in you? Are they seeing you? Do they see that kind of person? Because no matter—that's what Paul's saying—no matter how great your doctrine is and how cool your teaching is or how wonderful this kind of service is or if you're unpacking these great truths or if you have this magnificent faith or you're doing these incredible things, none of that matters if that love's not in place. The rest of it—gong, gong, gong, gong, gong. It means nothing.

So are you a lover? God tells it. God describes it.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray together, and then this prayer is the only thing standing between you and a s'more. But I feel a long prayer coming on.

Father, I think back of creation. Father, thank You that You loved us, and because You love us, we can love You, and one of the ways we love You is we begin to love one another. God, help us be patient and kind and not jealous and not bragging and not arrogant and not acting unbecomingly. God, don't let us be self-seekers. Don't let us be provoked or keep score. Don't rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoice in truth.

God, let it be said of us that we bear all things, believe all things, hope all things and endure all things. We pray this, that You would transform and change our life and it will be evident to a lost and dying world, not through some resolution of our own but through a transformation of Your Spirit in our life. Thank You for that wonderful truth.

Father, thank You that You are forever faithful, that You are forever strong, that You are forever with us, forever and ever and ever, and we pray to You in Jesus' name, amen.

We'll see you at the s'more pit.