I bestow all my goods to feed the
poor.
Though I give my body to be burned
and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.
Love suffereth long and is kind.
Love envieth not.
Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her
own, is not easily proposed, thinketh no evil,
rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the
truth, dareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth
all things, endureth all things.
Love never faileth.
But whether there be prophecy, they shall fail.
Whether there be tongue, they shall speak.
Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy
in part.
But when that which is perfect is come,
then that which is in part shall be
done away.
When I was a child, I speak as
a child.
I understood as a child.
I thought as a child.
When I became a man, I put away
childish things.
For now we see through a glass darkly,
but then face to face.
Now I know in part, but then shall
I know even as also I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, love.
These three, but the greatest of these is
love.
One of the things we owe to this
generation is a new emphasis on love.
You read it in the magazine.
You see it on the bumper sticker.
Make love, not war.
Live love.
Love in.
And all the rest.
Well, this is certainly a biblical emphasis if
you look at it from the Bible standpoint.
So this morning, I'd like to think with
you about love as it is presented in
the word of God.
First of all, I'd like to make seven
basic statements about love and then give some
practical illustrations as to how they apply in
the Christian life.
The first statement is this.
In the Bible sense, love is not so
much a matter of the emotion as of
the will.
A lot of people think of love as
something like an uncontrollable emotion that comes upon
you, something like a case of the measles,
and you just become that nothing you can
do about it.
And if it doesn't come, if it doesn't
hit you, well, it's quite beyond you anyway.
But strangely enough, the Bible doesn't speak about
love that way.
Love in the Bible is primarily a matter
of the will.
We don't think of it that way.
I think we've been so brainwashed and conditioned.
Well, that's why the Bible commands us to
love.
If it were some uncontrollable emotion sweeping over
us, over which we had no control, well,
of course, we couldn't do anything about it.
But the Bible says love, commands love.
So, therefore, it's a matter of, it's something
I can do something about.
The second observation I'd like to make about
it is this, that love basically thinks of
others.
I think you caught that very strongly in
the chapter that we read this morning.
Basically, love thinks of others.
That's why this chapter is in the Bible.
Sandwiched in between chapters 12 and 14, it's
trying to correct an abuse that existed in
the church in Corinth, where the people lost
the conception of love as it really should
be, and they became selfish.
Selfishness is the opposite of love.
Some of these dear people got taken up
with the gift of tongues in Corinth.
Not the way God intended tongues to be
used.
They got taken up with the abuse of
tongues.
And they were using tongues to show off,
to vaunt themselves, to exalt themselves at the
expense of other people.
And Paul is saying here in chapter 13
of 1 Corinthians, look, love isn't like that.
Love is always thinking of the other person
and how it can help the other person.
And so in the exercise of the gifts
of the Spirit of God, love is thinking
of how to edify and build up the
rest of the people of God and never
tries to show off, never tries to exalt
itself at the expense of others.
Of course we see this most beautifully in
the life of the Lord Jesus.
No one was ever as unselfish as he.
And I think in the human sense we
see it very strongly in the love of
a mother.
Really one of the great gifts that God
has given to mankind is the love of
a mother.
And how she can go through life, a
godly Christian mother at least, so unselfishly, always
thinking of others, always thinking of what she
can do to help others, whether it be
her children or the gifts that come into
her home.
But that's the way love is.
It's self-effacing, wondering all the time, what
can I do to help somebody else?
The third observation is this, love manifests itself
in giving.
Love manifests itself in giving.
Oftentimes in the New Testament when you have
the word love, in the very same context
you'll have the word give.
God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on
him should not perish but have everlasting life.
God's love manifested itself to the world in
giving his son for us.
It says in Ephesians 5, Christ also loved
the church and gave himself for it.
His manifestation of love was in self-immolation
at the cross of Calvary.
It must have been wonderful love.
And we manifest our love to others by
giving.
When the Lord Jesus sent the disciples out,
he told them that their ministry was going
to be a ministry of giving, not receiving.
You know, it's so easy in Christian life
and service to develop a giving attitude.
And, you know, what's in it for me?
And what am I going to get out
of this?
And sad to say, in church circles today,
this is very, very strong.
But it's really not the Christian way.
The Christian ministry is a ministry of giving.
The work of elders and the local assembly
is a ministry of giving.
Give, keep up that, and it shall be
given unto you.
Good measure, prepped down, shaken together, and running
over.
But with what measure you give, it shall
be measured to you.
Again, love manifested itself in giving.
That's why I can never say, I can't
love that person.
That means I can't give.
If you say, well, I love him, but
I don't really like giving, we're playing games
when we talk like that.
The fact is, we can.
That's the third thing.
Love manifested itself in giving.
Fourth, love doesn't count the cost.
Love doesn't count the cost.
Mind you, there was no real reason in
us why the Lord Jesus should have ever
come down from heaven and shed his blood
for us.
But it was genuine love, supernatural, divine love.
A love that never counted the cost.
And he went all the way to Calvary
because he loved us so.
This is true in a certain extent in
human relations.
The average mother would go through fire to
rescue her baby.
He doesn't count the cost.
He doesn't say, I might get singed, I
might get burned or anything.
No, no.
The baby's there and in danger.
And then another wonderful thing about love is,
love doesn't place favorites to all.
And if you are in the kingdom of
God, then love goes out to the unlovable.
Brilliant.
Goes out to the unlovable just as well
as it goes out to the others.
Then the sixth thing I'd like to mention
is that love doesn't keep account of wrongs.
Love doesn't keep account of wrongs.
The scripture says love covers a multitude of
sins.
When you read that verse, just remember that
verse doesn't have to do with atonement for
sin.
...away by
the blood of Christ.
This verse is saying love covers a multitude
of sins.
That is, love doesn't go publicizing the faults
and failures of others.
...and failure.
And then finally, love does not withhold.
There's an awful misunderstanding in the world today
about love that love is all permissiveness.
Love never criticizes, never corrects, is never firm.
But certainly that doesn't agree with what we
learned in the word of God, does it?
Love can be firm.
It says in the book of Proverbs that
the parent who doesn't discipline his child hates
his child.
My, that's strong language, isn't it?
Hates his child.
And of course, God is the example for
us in this.
It says, whom he loves, he chastens.
It is not a kindness to our fellow
Christians to have that kind of unrealistic love
that glosses over everything and would never think
of correcting.
Now, how does this work out in the
Christian life?
Well, it's very, very practical.
A lot of people think of love as
just being something ethereal, something in the clouds,
something super romantic and all the rest that
never has its feet on the ground.
But real love does have its feet on
the ground, and real love begins right in
the home.
And if you and I can get the
victory in our own homes, it won't be
too hard to get the victory anywhere else
in the Christian life.
You say, what do you mean by that?
Well, I mean this, that oftentimes it's in
our own homes that it's most difficult to
practice Christian love.
With our own parents and with our own
loved ones, with those who are nearest and
dearest to us by the tides of nature,
it's just one of the crazy quirks of
human, of fallen human nature that we treat
those who are closest to us oftentimes the
worst.
Let me give you an example.
I'm just having a terrible fight with my
parents, running off at the mouth and saying
all kinds of wrong things, and all of
a sudden the telephone rings and I pick
up the phone and it's one of my
friends.
And immediately I just turn on the charm.
I'm absolutely radiant.
I'm a TV personality on the phone.
And it's such a sharp contrast.
It's a good thing they didn't hear what
was going on just a minute ago in
the house, you know.
I mean the walls were quivering, the windows
were bulging, all kinds of acrimony flying around
the room.
And yet here in a moment, the telephone,
just with a ring of a telephone, I
could just turn on the charm and exude
personality.
Isn't it wonderful?
That's why I say it's so difficult.
The difficult place to conquer this is in
the home.
And if God can give us the victory
in the home, it won't be too hard
anywhere else.
We treat people close to us so well
and yet when we can really
be this dichotomy in our lives, God,
he gives us the power.
But such is his calm and demand.
These are battles that are
going to develop.
This great...
Many of you are living in teen situations
now and many of you will be out
serving the Lord, some in the foreign fields,
hopefully, and working with other people.
And you'll find that love is really the...
People who are really broken before the Lord
and who can practice...
Love doesn't want somebody else to get that
bad after.
Terrifically practical.
I know none of you would have this
problem.
But, you know...
I hope I don't say anything this morning
that's indelicate.
But, you know, love...
...room and it cleans the sink.
We'll clean that washbasin so that it's in
better condition for the next person.
Don't think this doesn't make for a happier
life as you're going along.
Toilet paper is exhausted.
Love sees that it's supplied.
You know?
The salvation is to leave and let somebody
else to be
done and does it.
So an awful lot of Christian people who
are really lovely, if you suggest something to
them to do, Johnny on the spot.
They'll really go ahead and do it.
Something as mundane as seeing that plastic bag
of garbage out of the back door and
taking it out to the air.
And the easiest thing to do is
realizing others have work to do.
They have a schedule too.
And you don't want to...
And a grip at this...
Really, I really think that in the long
run this is what...
...for evangelism, evangelism...
Because they're not that.
You see, in many, many ways love
takes the baby out of
thinking of the people there in the meeting
and how they want to listen to the
message uninterrupted.
And the baby's not getting too much out
of the message.
I didn't say nothing, but not too much.
And I
mentioned at the beginning too that love can
be firm.
Love can be firm.
And I
really think we can take a page from
the wonderful
principles.
It's easy to pay attention to...
It's easy to concentrate on young people.
My classic example of that is Bill...
Your brother Jack works in...
I mentioned this to you before how at
his camp at school a man who came
to the camp who had all his
influential well-to-do friends would wave from
their table for mild
voices.
And I'm going to try to speak for
the people.
When he gave the Law of Moses he
said something to a deaf person.
They say, what?
Speak in
a meeting and just speak in a soft,
gentle voice so that...
Chapter 14.
Forgives...
to maintain the grudge.
The opposite of it is pretty gruesome.
If somebody has wronged you and you let
the thing ferment in your bowels so pretty
soon you're gastric...
He was a young man because...
One of the greatest texts of love is
when everybody around you is acting selfishly.
That's the hardest day for love.
When you're in a situation...
Find in the selfishness of others an opportunity
to identify yourself...
Opportunity to identify yourself...
We all tell
the story of...
Some of you have heard of dear brother
Charleston...
You know, it's one thing to go to
the...
ways in which you can...
You can be thinking of...
Even as we say these things...
A little love...
So easy, Laura, just think of...