Freedom to Love
Tom Shrader opens the ethical section of Galatians by anchoring Christian freedom in the finished work of Christ, contrasting salvation by grace through faith with every form of human effort to earn God's approval. He warns that adding works to grace negates the gospel, just as writing over an autograph destroys its value, and calls the Galatian believers back from the bondage of law-keeping. Drawing on 1 Corinthians 13, he closes by pressing the congregation to let genuine, self-forgetting love—bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring all things—mark their relationships and witness to the world.
“We're saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves us is never alone—it's accompanied by a life transformation.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Galatians: Fighting for Grace
Recorded: 2012 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 53 min
Themes: freedom, love, grace, legalism, works, faith, relationships, witness, struggling with legalism, new believer, feeling unworthy, young adult, seeking approval, striving to earn god's favor, mentor, longtime church member
Scripture: Galatians 5:1-15, Galatians 3:24, Galatians 3:10, 1 Corinthians 7:23, 1 Corinthians 11, 1 Corinthians 13, Romans 8:2, James 2:10, Acts 2
Theological Themes: soteriology, salvation by grace, justification, faith alone, sanctification, law and gospel, agape love, finished work of christ
Full Transcript
Welcome and Personal Update
Open your Bibles, if you would, to Galatians chapter 5. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand — the guys will be moving down the aisles, so get your hand up high so they can see you. If you get a Bible from us, it's page 632. Galatians chapter 5, page 632.
Let me explain why I wasn't here last week. I didn't teach last Sunday, but I did come to the 4 o'clock service, so I got to hear Tim's explanation of what happened — and now I can tell you the truth. It started two weeks ago, on Sunday. I really felt awful. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, I felt really bad, with a lot of pain. Wednesday morning was particularly bad. I taught that morning and was just struggling. In fact, I had a meeting with Tim and Neil, and I spent the entire time stumbling for my words — I'm not sure what word that is, but I made it up.
So I texted my cardiologist and said, "Give me a call when you get a chance." He called, I told him what was going on, and he said, "I want you to go to the emergency room." I said, "No, I'm not going to the emergency room." He said, "You just need to go down there — I'll take care of it." Long story short, it wasn't a lot of drama. They did all sorts of tests, because first he asked, "How long have you had these symptoms?" And the answer is two years. I've had these symptoms a long time — a lot of numbness on my left side, all the classic things.
When they were all done, the heart muscle was strong, but one of the arteries was essentially 95% closed, and there were some other things as well. They fixed that one artery — opened it up. The other things they're confident can be addressed with diet and exercise. He seemed more certain of that than I did. I said, "There has to be a pill for this." I have a feeling he and I are going to get close again.
That was pretty amazing — at age 62, I had never been in the hospital before. I spent two nights there, and it was a great team, great nurses. You all were awesome, because here's what you did: nothing. Which is exactly what I always like from you — just prayer and support. You called the girls, you checked in with them. It was really something, because Haley was out of town, and we didn't tell her. I just didn't think it was fair to tell her until it was all done. I figured if I died, she wouldn't be mad that we didn't tell her, and if I was okay, she'd forget that we didn't tell her. So we didn't tell her. We're a little goofy, but that's what makes this work — I'm just like you. I did what you would have done: something stupid.
So we got through it. I was back at work Tuesday and back in the South. One of the things we've learned over the years — and we learned our lesson with Susan — is that we understand the public part of our life. You'll hear it from here, and if you hear anything other than what I tell you, it's not accurate. I'll tell you the truth as you need to know it, and that's how we'll handle that.
Overview of Galatians
All right, here we go. Week one, in the book of Galatians, we said the book divides into three sections: chapters one and two, chapters three and four, and chapters five and six. The first section is biographical — that's Paul defending his apostleship and his teaching against the Judaizers, who were coming in and saying Paul was preaching a false gospel. Paul's gospel, let me just remind you, is that salvation is by grace through faith — that we are justified by faith alone. We'll unpack that.
The second section is theological. That's Paul explaining his message of justification by faith, in chapters three and four. Then chapters five and six — where we are now, beginning at chapter 5, verse 1 — is application. It's ethics. It's the daily application of this theological truth.
I simply wrote this phrase, and if you've been around here for any length of time, you've already heard it from us: right doctrine produces right living. When we talk about theology, we don't talk about academic theology — we talk about practical theology. Think of it like a science class: we have the classroom, but we also have the laboratory. This is not just an endeavor to see how much theology you can accumulate. The way you know you've really learned it is if it transforms your life.
The gospel comes and it doesn't just change your destination — meaning you were going to hell, now you're going to heaven. It doesn't just change your designation — meaning you were a sinner, now you're a saint. It changes the way you live. If this doesn't work itself out at home, at work, in your daily life, then you haven't truly learned it. And that is what the Spirit of God does.
The Big Point: Saved by Grace Through Faith
Every week, before the study begins, Tim and Neil arrive around six in the morning. After a few minutes of conversation — sports, the weekend, whatever it may be — Tim always asks the same question: "What's the big point today?" The big point is this: I am saved by grace through faith. If you have been with us for the past nine weeks, that has been the same point every single week. Paul comes back to this over and over again, not because he has nothing else to say, but because this is the gospel itself. This is the essence of the Christian faith. This is what it means to be a Christian.
What makes someone a Christian is primarily what they believe, which will then affect how they behave. You will sometimes hear someone described as "a strong Christian man," and people mean he is a good father, a good husband, a good boss. But that is not what makes you a Christian. What makes you a Christian is that you trust Christ and Christ alone for your salvation. When that is in place, those other things begin to follow. There are plenty of secular humanists who are good husbands, good fathers, and good business people — so the Christian faith is fundamentally about what we believe, and ultimately that belief affects how we behave.
Overview of the Passage
Today we are looking at verses 1 through 15. In verse 1 and verse 13 you will see the word "freedom," and in verse 1 you will also see its opposite: "slavery." We are going to talk a great deal about freedom and bondage. We will camp on verse 1, look at verses 2 through 4 together, spend some time on verses 5 and 6, touch on verses 7 and 8, and then close with about fifteen minutes on verses 13, 14, and 15.
Paul writes in verse 1: *"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery."* The words almost sound odd — it is for freedom that He set us free. Eugene Peterson paraphrases it this way: "Christ set us free to live a free life." Paul echoes this in 1 Corinthians 7:23: *"You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men."* That is exactly the idea Paul has here in verse 1.
These were people who had been saved by grace through faith, but who were now submitting themselves back under the law. Peter had come to Galatia and was spending time with these believers, and then the Judaizers arrived. Their message was this: to truly be a follower of Christ, to be truly converted, truly a Christian, you must also become a Jew. For the men, that meant circumcision.
The Contrasts Paul Has Been Building
Week after week we have seen this contrast running through the letter. Going back to what we looked at last week: it was Hagar versus Sarah, Ishmael versus Isaac — all of it setting up these eight weeks of study. It is the children of Satan versus the children of God. It is the commandments and the law versus the promises. It is the wrath of God versus the mercy of God. It is bondage versus freedom, flesh versus Spirit, lostness versus salvation.
When we talk about freedom, that word resonates deeply in the United States. But the freedom Paul is describing here is almost contrary to the way many of us in our culture tend to think about it. John Stott puts it this way: freedom from my silly little self in order to live responsibly in love for God and others. Freedom is not simply doing whatever you want, with whoever you want, whenever you want. It is not taking your life and jettisoning anything that would encumber you so that you can pursue your own desires.
True freedom — freedom from religion and from the bondage of sin — is being so free that you voluntarily enslave yourself to Christ. That is how Paul identifies himself over and over again: a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ, a bondservant of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Circumcision and the Obligation of the Whole Law
Look at verses 2 and 3: *"Behold, I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you, and I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is under obligation to keep the whole law."* The idea of circumcision here — as we have seen in previous weeks when we discussed the law — is this: it represents my effort to satisfy a holy God and to somehow pay the price for my sin.
Paul says we are freed from sin, and especially from the guilt of sin. We are also freed from death. As we draw near to Easter, that is worth pausing on. When Peter delivers the first recorded sermon in Acts chapter 2, he declares that Christ rose again, putting an end to the agony of death — not the physical process of dying, but the agony of it.
When I was in the hospital, there were people all around me who were dying. We are all dying. But some were dying in agony — not merely physical agony, but the agony of uncertainty. To know that to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord is to be free from that bondage. I am no longer under sin's restriction. Jesus came, lived, and died, and in doing so He conquered sin and He conquered death.
One author writes it this way, and it is striking: He has freed us from the law's deadly curse against our sin. He kept the law we could not keep. He paid the penalty we could not pay. He won the victory we could not win.
Freedom from the Law, Freedom in Christ
Romans 8:2 tells us, "The law of the Spirit of life has set me free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death." Free from the yoke of slavery, as verse 1 makes clear. For many of you, this is repetitive, but Paul wrote it, not me. Apparently he thinks we need to go through this again and again. I come into this world separated from God because of my sin. That is why, by nature, I am a child of wrath.
If you ever doubt the sinfulness of man, all you have to do is walk down the children's corridor. I got out of the service and walked over to say hello to some people, and there were two, three, four, and five-year-olds right in there. These little ones, when they begin to talk at age two or three, say things like "mine," "me," and "no." You don't teach them that — they just say it. They say it because by nature they are sinners. That is what we are by nature.
Two Approaches to Righteousness
So the question for us becomes: how does a sinful person come into right relationship with a holy God? There are two basic answers, and Paul has dealt with them over and over again. Today he uses the imagery of circumcision. One approach says God will solve the problem. The other says I will solve the problem.
In verse 2, Paul says that if you receive circumcision, Christ benefits you nothing, and you are back under the law. Circumcision represents me trying to satisfy God with my own works. Christ, on the other hand, represents God's achievement. Circumcision is the idea that I must do something. Christ is the idea of grace, faith, and freedom. Everyone has to choose one of these.
Do not get hung up on the literal act of circumcision. What it represents is man's effort to appease the holy God. It is human achievement set against divine achievement. It is my plan set against God's plan.
A Personal Illustration
Let me be autobiographical. I was born and raised Catholic — grade school, high school, college. I have friends who want to debate this with me, but I do not know how anyone can debate my own experience. My experience was that I was told over and over again that Jesus died for sin, but that there was something I had to do in order to be saved. If there were nothing for me to do humanly, then you would not have things like penance and indulgences. You just would not.
My father died, and a number of people spent a great deal of money on masses for his soul. But when my dad died, he was either in heaven or in hell at that moment. You can have masses until the cows come home — it is not going to change a thing one way or the other. Salvation is by grace through faith.
That is what Paul is teaching: biblical Christianity. I simply trust in the finished work of Christ. Christ died, and in doing so He paid the price for our sin. God activates that grace, and our faith is the reality of it. The other approach puts the activation in my hands.
Human Achievement vs. Divine Achievement
We quoted from the Mormon website a couple of weeks ago, where they state in essence that Jesus died to save us and that we now achieve salvation by obedience. Those two things are mutually exclusive. Either He saved us or He did not save us. When Christ died on the cross, He did not merely make salvation possible. He actually died for people. He either died for some or He died for none. That is a significant difference.
I can imagine some of you beginning to look the way I looked in a geometry class — glazed over, wondering what difference it makes. It makes a huge difference. One is human achievement, one is divine achievement. One is God's plan, one is my plan.
The Purpose of the Law
Turn back in your Bible to chapter 3, verse 24, which by this point should be circled, marked up, underlined, or highlighted in whatever color you use. "Therefore the law has become our tutor." God did not give us the Ten Commandments so that we could keep them and thereby achieve salvation, because no one can keep them. We have already broken them, and the standard is perfection. If you break a law, you break the law.
The whole point of the law was to lead us to Christ so that we would be justified by faith. That is exactly the point James makes in James 2:10: "If I keep all the law but stumble over one point, I've broken the whole law." So if someone wants to make God happy through their own effort, the standard is not simply "be good," because that always gets complicated by the question of how good is good enough.
Here is how my own mind worked — I do not know that anyone explicitly taught me this, but I think it is what most people believe. I imagined that somehow God had a prototype computer, and that everything I did in my life was recorded in a column that was either good or bad. At the end of life, He would press a button, and if there was more bad than good I went to hell, and if there was more good than bad I went to heaven. Well, by the time I was in college, I took my own—
The Impossible Standard
The bad stack was so high that I said, "I've got no shot." The yoke of slavery was to be good — but how good? When you understand this, you understand why trying to make God happy on your own will never work, because the standard is not goodness. The standard is perfection.
Take the biggest skeptic in the world who has never heard the Bible. You can finish this yourself, right? We all say it all the time: nobody's perfect. If nobody's perfect, we already acknowledge it — and that means you can't do it. That is the whole point.
So when you talk to people — go to a busy square, interview a hundred people, ask them what you have to do to go to heaven — the dominant answer is: be good. Well, good by whose standard? God's standard is not "be good." God's standard is "be perfect." You didn't make it. That is the whole point, and that is what Paul is fighting against.
Paul says in verse 3 that if you want to go back under the law, you need to understand what you are doing, because you are climbing into a situation filled with condemnation. In fact, you are cursed under the law. Chapter 3, verse 10: "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is everyone who does not abide by all the things that are written."
Relief from the Burden of Earning
If God has you here today — whether you were driving by and saw a sign, found the website, or somebody brought you — God has you here for a reason. It may be to hear this, perhaps for the very first time: I want to give you relief. You are trying to be good enough to please God, and you feel like you are not good enough. The reason you feel that way is that you are not good enough, and I do not want to give you any hope that you ever will be.
But Christ died, and it is as simple as this: believing that when Christ died, He died for me. When I put my faith and trust in Him, I am justified — it is a legal term — I am declared righteous before God. That declaration is based on what Christ did, not on what I did. It is based on His grace and His mercy extended to us.
When I add works to that, all I do is negate the work of Christ. I read a great illustration about this. A man had inherited a baseball passed down from his great-grandfather through his father, and it was autographed by Babe Ruth. This was two generations removed, so the ball did not mean much to him personally. Some people told him it was worth a lot of money, so he thought he would sell it. Over the years the signature had faded, and so before he went to sell it, he got his pen and went over the autograph himself. He found out what you already know — the ball now has no value.
That is exactly what Paul is saying to these people. When you say Christ died for me and then add to it, it is like writing over Babe Ruth's signature. You have negated the whole thing. It holds no value for you at all.
Severed from Christ — Not Losing Salvation
When Paul gets to verse 4 and says you have been severed from Christ, he is not talking about losing salvation. He is talking about the foolishness of coming to Christ in repentance and faith and then putting yourself back under the law. It would be like a slave who was freed after the Civil War choosing to show back up and live as a slave for the rest of his life. Paul says this is simply foolish.
Verses 5 and 6: "For we through the Spirit by faith are waiting for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but everything means faith working through love." Here is what Paul is teaching: we live a life powered by the Holy Spirit.
Remember the quote from last week — legalists are led by the law, hedonists are led by their desires, materialists are led by their possessions, but Christians are led by the Spirit. We will see that in detail next week.
Led by the Spirit
Look at verse 16, where we will start next week: "For if I say I walk by the Spirit, I won't carry out the desires of the flesh." Verse 18: "If you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law." And if I am led by the Spirit, verse 22 tells me how I will know it — I will see the fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
So Paul says if I am a follower of Christ, I am led by the Spirit, I am living by faith, and I am in the process of waiting — waiting on what God is going to do in my life.
Two Very Different Gospels
Now let me make this point before we move on. It may seem like a small thing, especially since next week we will talk about how a Christian's life will show evidence. Someone might say: wait a minute — isn't it functionally the same if I say I believe and I work, whether I hold those two things in one combination or another? What difference does it make?
The difference is this: one is a man-centered gospel that says my works matter. The other is a God-centered gospel that says anything I do that is good is a result of God's work in my life — that apart from Him I can do nothing. When we say that Christianity is primarily about what we believe, and that we are saved by faith alone, we mean that old adage: we are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves us is never alone. It is accompanied by a life transformation.
If you say Jesus is Lord, I ought to see it. If you say you are a follower of Christ, it should be evident.
The Joy That Comes with Freedom
One of the starkest contrasts in all of this is joy. When you feel the weight of the language — the yoke of slavery, the bondage of sin, the bondage of the law — and then suddenly understand that this is not based on your work but on what Christ did, something breaks open. All at once there is freedom. There is joy in the midst of it.
Running Well — and What Hinders Us
All of a sudden there is a spirit of thanksgiving. If you think that you did something that resulted in God saying you are good, you are going to always take credit for something. It may only be the mustard seed of faith, but you are going to be pretty excited about that mustard seed. But if you say, no, wait a minute — He did it all. He saved me in spite of me, not because of me. That is going to, practically speaking, change everything.
A.W. Tozer said it this way: here is the problem with our theology — it does not ascend high enough or descend low enough. It does not get high enough because if I think I am making a contribution, then God is not as big as He really is. It does not descend low enough because if I think I am making a contribution, I do not see how sinful I really am.
This was one of my biggest concerns — and I know this sounds really strange — but as a father of two girls, I have essentially known Christ for all of their lives. They are both good girls. Both of them, around age five, made a profession of faith, and neither of them wandered away or caused us any real trouble to speak of. Hayley especially could have raised herself. I say that all the time — she was that kind of kid. You just add water to her and she raised herself. If you couldn't raise Hayley, you just failed as a parent. Now Sarah was a little more like me, and even she would push and push, but then sit down and say, "I'll do it — I don't agree with it, but I'll do it," and never gave us any real difficulty.
My biggest fear for them was that they would not understand how sinful they really are — that they would actually think they were good. When you truly understand how sinful you are, all of a sudden that changes everything. God gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and you get smaller and smaller and smaller.
A Race That Has Been Hindered
Verse seven says, "You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? And this persuasion did not come from Him who calls you." He is saying you were doing fine, but now you have stumbled along the way. That imagery of running is something Paul uses over and over again — he talks about running the race and uses a lot of athletic imagery. We should point out quickly that by and large the Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint.
I was watching an interview — I wish I could remember the name, but it was a woman who ran in the 2008 Olympics. She lost a medal by one one-thousandth of a second. Think about that. And she said, "I lost it at the start — I just had a slow start." Rarely do you hear somebody in a marathon say they lost it in those first few steps. It is not just about how fast I start with Christ; it is about how I finish with Christ. These all sound like bumper stickers, but it is true. Paul says you were running well, and something has hindered you.
When athletes ran in Paul's day, they did not run an oval track as we know it. They ran to a post, turned around, and came back. One of the strategic moves in a race was how quickly you could cut off the other person at the post. What Paul is saying here is that somebody has come in and cut them off, hindering them from obeying the truth. That could mean the truth of salvation, or it could mean the truth of God providing instruction and power — we do not know for certain.
John Stott writes this: our creed — in other words, what we believe — is expressed in our conduct, and our conduct is derived from our creed. Christianity is not simply something we know; it is something we do. It is not merely a belief in a system or a moral code; it is a theology that comes to life. And Paul says somebody has come along and cut them off.
He makes clear in verse eight that this detour does not come from the one who called them into the race in the first place. This is from someone who has come back in — the Judaizers.
The Destructive Power of a Little Leaven
Paul says he knows at least two things about these people. First, the effect they are having is destructive. Look at verse nine — he uses imagery the Jewish audience would immediately understand: the idea of leaven as a picture of sin. It takes just a little leaven to leaven the whole lump of dough. You get a little leaven in it and it affects the whole lump. You get a little sin into a person, sin into the church, and pretty soon everything is affected by it.
It is like a cancer cell. It is a single cell, but it expands from there — it metastasizes and spreads through the whole body. What started in one isolated place now spreads throughout the entire body. That is why you need to deal with sin in such a radical way in your own life. How much sin is it safe to have in your life? Think of it like water. If the city of Gilbert said, "Don't be alarmed — the water supply is ninety percent pure," you would rightly think that does not seem right at all. How much of that does it take? That is exactly what Paul is saying.
God's Confidence and God's Judgment
The second thing Paul says he knows about these people comes in verse ten: he has confidence that the Galatians will not adopt this teaching, and that the people promoting it will be judged by God — that God is going to deal with this, because God is a jealous God who is protective of His church. He does not know when. He does not know the timing.
I was driving — I tend to be a creature of habit, so I drive the same way on Thursday mornings up to where I do my study. I was going over McDonald and there was a church with one of those clever little boards they change every week with some pithy saying. This week it said, "God is waiting for you." And I thought — really? How long is He going to wait? I think I have told you before, I was not a Christian very long, and I was in this prayer circle. We started to my left, and we were going —
Freedom Without Responsibility
For you were called to freedom, brethren, only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.
Paul comes along here and talks about the idea of freedom. He presents it negatively — do not use it as an opportunity for selfishness — and positively — through love, serve one another.
Before we get into those verses directly, it is worth stepping back to think about what freedom actually means. In our country we talk about the land of the free, the home of the brave. We talk about free markets, free trade, and free enterprise. Franklin Roosevelt enunciated four freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Whatever freedom means in any of those contexts, it does not mean acting any way you want regardless of the consequences to those around you.
The simple sentence is this: trouble comes whenever and wherever freedom exists without responsibility. When freedom is untethered from responsibility, the attitude that emerges is "you owe me." That is not at all what Paul is talking about here.
Paul's Defense Against False Accusations
Verse 11 seems strange at first: "Brethren, if I still was preaching circumcision, why am I being persecuted? And the stumbling block of the cross would have been abolished." What we can conclude from this is that one of the accusations against Paul — which is exactly the opposite of all the accusations in chapters one and two — is that he was preaching circumcision as necessary for salvation. Apparently that rumor was going around.
The opposition to Paul was throwing everything at him at once. One group was saying he taught salvation by grace through faith alone; another was saying he required circumcision. Paul deals with this in the most logical way possible: if I am teaching that circumcision is required, then why was I persecuted? Why was I stoned? Why was I beaten? That makes absolutely no sense.
There is also a sharp word in this passage where Paul says he wishes that those who were troubling the Galatians would go further and mutilate themselves — that they would be cut off entirely. It is a pointed and deliberate statement.
The Patience and Judgment of God
It is worth noting that when we observe God's patience, we can mistakenly conclude that He is tolerant, that He will overlook sin. But God ultimately judges. We are told in 1 Corinthians 11 that there were apparently some in the church who died because of their sin. And with Ananias and Sapphira, His patience ran out. God's patience is real, but it is not the same as indifference. He is not overlooking what is happening.
Serving One Another Through Love
Returning to verses 13 through 15, Paul presents freedom with both a warning and a calling. The warning is clear: do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh. The calling is equally clear: through love, serve one another.
Paul then makes a remarkable claim — that the entire law is fulfilled in a single statement: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Everything the law required finds its completion in this one command. That is not a small claim. It places love of neighbor at the very center of what it means to live faithfully.
Paul then adds the contrast: "But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another." The image is vivid. A community that turns inward in selfishness and conflict does not merely wound itself — it destroys itself. The freedom we have been given is meant to move us outward in love, not inward in self-interest.
Freedom from License
God comes along and says, "I'll give you freedom. Whoever is in Christ is free indeed." But do not do something foolish by using that freedom as an opportunity for sin. You are free, you are forgiven — that is not a license to go and sin. We are free from the bondage of sin to serve Christ, which we will look at next week.
The contrast is plain in the text. If I am led by the flesh, I will see all the things listed in verses 19, 20, and 21. If I am led by the Spirit, I will see the things in verses 22 and 23. Those two lists stand in huge contrast to one another.
Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
Paul then offers a good rule of thumb: love your neighbor as yourself. We need to be clear right away — that is not a command to love yourself. Paul is not saying to have a healthy self-esteem and love yourself. Here is what he is pointing out: you already love yourself. That is the most natural thing in the world.
As the study guide puts it, "Love your neighbor as yourself" is a command to take your natural, already existing love of self, and make it the measuring rod of your love for others. There is not a harder command in the Bible than this.
It means wanting to feed the hungry as much as you want to feed yourself when you are hungry. It means wanting to find your neighbor a job as much as you are glad to have a job. It means wanting to help your fellow student get an A as much as you want to get an A. Wanting to help a person stalled on the freeway as much as you are glad you are not stalled. Wanting to give the poor softball player a chance to play as much as you want to play. Wanting to share Christ with your neighbor as much as you are glad to know Christ yourself.
It is to use all your creativity and energy and perseverance to do good things for others as you use them in doing good things for yourself. It is to care about what happens to others as much as you care about what happens to yourself. Can you imagine what the church would be like if we lived that way — looking out for the person to our left or right, feeling the same longing for their happiness as we feel for our own?
That is all Paul is saying. All of a sudden I am moved by love — the love God has for me, and now my love for Him. And if I really love Him, it will be evident to the people around me.
The Danger of Lovelessness
Paul addresses the opposite condition in verse 15: "But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you shall not be consumed by one another." One paraphrase puts it this way: "If you bite and ravage each other, watch out — in no time at all, you will be annihilating each other." If I am not operating in love, we will simply begin to eat each other alive. Lovelessness becomes destructive.
The Definition of Love from 1 Corinthians 13
With that in mind, turn to 1 Corinthians 13. Many of you know this passage — certainly in earlier days it was read constantly at weddings. It is the love chapter, the definition of love. Paul gives us fifteen characteristics of love: eight stated negatively, seven stated positively.
Tucked in the middle is what holds the whole definition together. Love is patient, love is kind — those are positive. It is not jealous, does not brag, is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly — those are negative. Then comes the linchpin: it does not seek its own. That is the definition of love. I am not worried about me, I am worried about you. I am not thinking about my agenda, I am thinking about yours.
It is not provoked, it does not take account of wrongs suffered, it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth. The love Paul is talking about in Scripture is completely different from someone simply meeting my needs. It is me thinking about you, not me.
Bearing, Believing, Hoping, and Enduring
Verse 7 deserves particular attention: "It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things." I am really struck by how amazing a family would be, a business would be, a church would be — the world would be — if this is how we treated one another.
Love bears all things. To bear means to cover, to support, to protect. Love bears all things by protecting others from exposure, ridicule, or harm. Genuine love does not gossip or listen to gossip. That truth sets me off like a rocket.
Love also believes all things. In addition to bearing, there is this posture of believing — choosing to extend trust and good faith toward others rather than suspicion.
Love Believes, Hopes, and Endures
Love bears all things, believes all things. Love is not suspicious or cynical — it believes the best outcome. It hopes all things. Even when belief in the loved one's goodness or repentance is shattered, love still hopes. When it runs out of faith, it holds onto hope. As long as God's grace is operative, human failure is never final.
God would not take Israel's failure as final. Jesus would not take Peter's failure as final. Paul would not take the Corinthians' failure as final. And God doesn't take your failure as final. And then it endures all things. The word means literally to endure — it is a military term referring to an army holding a strategic or vital position at all costs.
Every hardship, every suffering — love holds fast to those it loves. It endures all things at all costs. It stands against overwhelming opposition and refuses to stop bearing or believing or hoping or loving.
A Small Illustration with a Large Point
When we read this, we tend to think of big things. But consider a small thing that happened this week — one that is absolutely harmless, yet makes a huge point. Walking across campus Wednesday morning, Jamie Rasmussen called. Jamie is the senior pastor at Scottsdale Bible Church and a friend. When I was in the hospital, I had sent him a text saying I was there, no need to worry, not looking for visitors, talk to you later. When I got out, I called him.
So he calls Wednesday morning and asks how I am. I tell him I'm great. He says he just heard from two people that I had a stroke. I didn't — and nothing was harmed — but step back and consider what's behind that conversation. What compels a person to pass something like that along? How much of your life is wasted talking about things like that? In some convoluted way, you could say the person was passing on something they hadn't bothered to verify because they thought Jamie would want to know. Doesn't that just reveal a little bit about your heart?
It is the same with so much of our culture. I have never watched it and I cannot get away from it — if I never hear the word Kardashian again, I will be a happy person. Why do we need to know about the Kardashians? The sad thing is that people who know everything about them often know nothing about Washington or Lincoln. We have kids who know all the Kardashians and their social security numbers but cannot tell you who the first president of the United States was. The last statistic I saw was something like 37% of high school seniors cannot name the first president. That is not good.
If you want to while your life away on things like that, that is your choice — but what it says more about is you than it does the Kardashians. All of this — who wears what, who said what about whom — it reveals the heart.
The Unending Climax of Love
Here is how Paul closes this section. Love bears what is otherwise unbearable. Think about that. Put yourself in a relationship — maybe with your spouse, your kids, your parents, your boss — a relationship where you say you really love that person. Love bears what is otherwise unbearable, believes what is otherwise unbelievable, hopes what is otherwise hopeless, and endures when anything less than love would give up.
After love bears, it believes. After it believes, it hopes. After it hopes, it endures. There is no "after" for endurance, because endurance is the unending climax of love. That is what Paul is talking about.
A Transforming Faith
We are saved by grace through faith — that point has been made over and over again — but that faith is a transforming faith. It doesn't just transform your life. It transforms relationships. It transforms churches.
Imagine for a second — and I know this is way too big a dream, but just imagine — if we really did love one another, if we really did care for one another. Imagine there were people in your life whom you love so much that you have been praying for them and you are willing to risk the relationship to say, "I love you so much that I want you to know there is salvation in Christ — will you come with me to Good Friday, to Easter?" That is what love is.
Love is action. Love has emotion to it, for sure, but it has an action. "For God so loved the world, He gave." If you love, your life will be marked by giving — time, energy, effort, money — to the people around you, and in some cases, to total strangers. And oftentimes, if I am honest, that means I am going to end up having to love people I do not even like. I cannot do that on my own. But the Spirit can. And that is exactly where we pick up next week.
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*Father, thank you for these awesome and amazing truths. You are a great God who loves us and cares for us and blesses us. Thank you for that reality. As we come now to communion, remind us again of Your love that was manifest on the cross. We pray to You in Christ's name, amen.*