First Corinthians 13:4-8a The character of Christs love

Just to start with, I covered the first three verses last week, but I'm gonna go back and do a brief review on those, and then get into the main part, which is verses four through 8A. And Mike's gonna, we're dividing it, we're down to hairs here. Mike and I are splitting hairs. I'm gonna do 8A, and he's gonna start in 8B next week. So hey, we're, anyway.

But it makes sense, you'll see what makes sense. So, you know, this is a chapter, I'm not sure whether you You know, I think this is one of the most beautiful chapters in the Bible and the fact I get to teach it and study it Wow, I mean, it's amazing. There's just you know, we're gonna find that this love described here is Unattainable by man and in his natural state. He cannot attain to this love these statements I our brother kind of choked up I get choked up reading through it and even studying and thinking so as we go through this You're gonna see things, it's gonna make statements about love, and you can think of it, this is a description of Christ's love. So think about, we're gonna get to see the inner workings of God.

This is how Christ operates. And this is how he operated when he was here on earth. This is how he operates now. And this is how he wants his children to operate. But it is totally him. And so hopefully we'll address how that all works out. Anyway, so let's get into it here. First of all, I call this the character of Christ's love. So first of all, we're going to go back and just review briefly.

So this is kind of the This section, you know, this whole chapter is about, or the previous chapter was about spiritual gifts that the Corinthian church had. And they hadn't done a real good job. They had kind of focused on the spectacular gifts. And one of those was tongues. And so these early verses are gonna talk about comparing the spiritual gifts with the greatest gift of all, God's love. So that's what's gonna happen here.

So first of all, he starts off with, if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. So Paul's assuming, you notice this first person, he switched, if you're a careful reader, he switched, in chapter 12 he said we, and he was speaking in, and then he switched to first person, I. So he's using himself as an example. He says, Paul's assuming that he probably would do the following. So he could speak in the tongues of men and of angels. So first of all, the tongues of men, look carefully in scripture, you'll see that that actually is real languages.

But it's interesting, that spiritual gift, even though important for a time period, especially we saw in the book of Acts, it was extremely important to getting the message out, was not high on the list. It was the last on the list that I showed you last week. And secondly, he kind of does a one-up. He might say, you know, I'm good, and I'm really super good, or I'm, you know, it's a one-upsmanship. So Paul's gonna move up to a higher level.

He says, if I speak with the tongues of angels, so do angels have their own language? We don't know if they do. Do they need a language? Is one thing I ask myself. Actually, one thing I noticed in my study, I mentioned last week that, Guess what the Jews thought angel talk was? Hebrew. They thought it was Hebrew. I'm sorry, surprised about that? That sounds like the Jews are pretty puffed up, right? It's got to be Hebrew. Well, we don't know.

But angels did speak to men, right? They spoke to Zechariah. They spoke to many other people. So actually, Macaulay rightly points out that this is hyperbole. He's trying to make a point. He's trying to say, I can speak with the tongues of men, a different language that I know, and I can even speak with the tongues of angels. I can do all that But here comes the kicker, so to speak.

But do not have love. So he assumes that this love from God, in the Greek it's agape, is absent. There's no agape love in his exercising this wonderful gift. And I want to just do a short little definition here of agape love. You know, it's a characteristic word in scripture for Christianity. All Christian love, according to scripture, is distinctly a manifestation of love operating through the human heart. The activity is not the working of human affection, it's rather the direct manifestation of the love of God passing through the heart of the believer from the indwelling Holy Spirit. And I like this last statement, a human heart outside of Christ cannot produce divine love, but we can experience it. And every believer has experienced that divine love as he's been saved.

Okay, so that's just kind of a short, so the consequence, if he doesn't have love in exercising his spiritual gift in tongues, speaking another language, he becomes a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And it's the idea that he actually comes into this permanent state where he's just making a lot of noise. He's come into a new state of being. He's just making a lot of noise. And so a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. I like Constable's comment. He says, gongs and cymbals were common in some of the pagan cultures of the time. They made much noise but no sense.

And so, without love in these spiritual gifts, he's gonna say, you know, tongues had a purpose, but that was given to communicate the gospel, but if love is not present, but without love, agape love, this is not possible. So that's his first point, talking about tongues.

Then he goes on, he talks about kind of a package of gifts, prophecy, mysteries, knowledge, and faith. So I guess kind of summarize these very quickly. If I have a gift, he's talking about himself. If I have the gift of prophecy, and he certainly did, he assumes that he probably does. It's the speaking forth of the mind and counsel of God. And that was given before the scriptures were complete.

Or if he knows all mysteries. Notice here we're going to see that it uses this word all and it's the word pas in the original language and it means all with no exceptions. It's totally inclusive. So what Paul is saying, I know all mysteries. And he goes on, and I have all knowledge. I mean, these are over the top. So all these things Paul is saying that he has, all these wonderful things that were needed for the early church, but And I have all faith so as to remove mountains. You know, he's assuming this wonder working faith which we talked about earlier.

But do not have love. There's a negative part. I do not have love. I do not have this agape love. It's assumed to be absent. I'm nothing. And actually it's a little stronger than that. It means nothing or not a thing. and actually amplified him. I am nothing, a useless nobody.

So think about this. Here's all these wonderful spiritual gifts that were given to the church in Corinth and we have spiritual gifts given today. But if God's love isn't present and being exercised in that gift, it comes to naught. It comes to nothing. It comes to a zero.

And in reading and listening to different people, I was able to listen to Merriman from 1975, here at Holly Hills from 1975. It's like going back in time. But anyway, he goes through and he's talking about this and it's just amazing. Love is critical. God's love is critical to everything that a body of believers is about. It's critical in every ministry that we're involved in. And it's an incredible love.

Okay, so verse three. So now he's gonna keep going here. He's gonna take another round of this. And this one, you know, you get choked up on this one. If I give all my possessions to feed the poor, the Amplified has it. If I dole out all that I have, to the poor and providing food. If I surrender my body to be burned, as I surrender, or actually it could be that I may glory, you might feel proud about that.

But the whole, the kicker is, but do not have love, it's absent. I don't gain anything. I don't get any credit with God. And you can think about it. In our world today, there are people, I think maybe honestly, that are honestly deceived. They think by doing a bunch of things, they're gonna please God. And he says, no. God's love has to be present. And the least has it, I'm being profited and not even one thing.

Pretty stark. Okay, so that kind of sets the stage for today. Okay, so now we're going to switch to our verses. Oops, I actually had another even, amplified even more. You could say that little phrase, in no way and no respect. I'm profiting in no way or no respect. Okay, so now, today's verses, I'm just going to read them again.

And I find it's just incredible. And what I like to do is here, I like to put in, since this is God's love, I'm going to read this putting Christ's name in here, which I think is appropriate. Christ's love is patient. Christ's love is kind. Christ's love is not jealous. Christ's love does not brag. Christ's love is not arrogant. Christ's love does not act unbecomingly. Christ's love does not seek its own. Christ's love is not provoked. Christ's love does not take into account a wrong suffered. Christ's love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. Christ's love rejoices with the truth. Christ's love bears all things.

There's that all-inclusive, with no exceptions. Think about that. Can you truly bear all things? Can you bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things? If you think you can enter into that without the Lord, you, I don't know. Anyway, but love, verse eight, love never fails.

And that's where I'm gonna stop. Mike's gonna tell us about the cessation of some of those gifts, prophecy and tongues and knowledge. Okay, so now there are 16 qualities there. So let's have a little overview of this. So verses 4 through 8a give us the characteristics or attributes or qualities of Christ's love. Love has as its source God alone. Paul describes these attributes or qualities in relation to a person's character that Christ's love rules in. So you see the statements are as though I'm talking about a person, a person interacting with other people, believers interacting with other people. That's how it's phrased. So 16 attributes are listed. These attributes can be divided, and once again, our brother Macaulay is extremely helpful here in the three groups.

And then I add, and then the final conclusion of that is God's love never fails. So here are the three divisions. So the first five will be God's unselfishness, we'll describe God's unselfishness. The next six we'll describe God's the love of Christ in conduct, and then lastly, Christ loves optimism, and that's summed up by Christ's love never fails. So we're gonna work through these, so let's start out.

So actually, it'll be a little repetitive here, I apologize, but it can't hurt, right? Love's unselfishness, so you see the five we talked about, patience, being kind, not jealous, not bragging, it's not arrogant, that's the first five, that's unselfishness. Then we see the next six, kind of does not act unbecomingly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account the wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, rejoices with the truth, And then the last three, last four rather, they're all the, you know, God's love, and we know this, God's love, talk about pessimism and optimism, well, so and so's an optimist, so and so's a pessimist, well, God's love is always optimistic.

Why is that so? Because God knows all things and He is working out His plans and His purposes. And He can be optimistic about that. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And love never fails. Now, okay, we're gonna start into the first, love is patient. So the word is agape, so it's this cool word, I don't know if you've been through this, macrothumia, I think I'm pronouncing that right, it's like, some people like to say it's long suffering. That's the animated version. But it's really a tremendous attribute of God. It's his ability to not, God's not in a hurry.

And I think, you know, I'm in a hurry all the time. I always want to, you know, I'm anxious about getting stuff done maybe, sometimes, when I'm not napping with the grandkids. I fall, Marty has heart attacks. I'm holding some of the grandkids and I fall asleep now and then. Roger, you could drop our grandchild.

Anyway, but God, you know, God is not asleep. He is long-suffering. He's patient. And in that patience, and this is a beautiful verse about his patience. The Lord is not slow about His promises, as some count slowness, but is patient toward us, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. God is patient about men coming to know Him as their Savior. He's patient about that. And actually, I'm gonna say it ahead of time. I really love this. Our brother Hal would mention this often. God is the perfect gentleman.

God is not going to force you He's gonna woo you, he's gonna tell you how you need him, but he's not gonna force you. He's not gonna force you to believe in him initially for salvation, and he's not gonna force you to study your Bible. He's not gonna be there tapping on the window, are you reading your Bible today? No, he's not gonna do that.

He wants you to come to him and see the value of what he's provided for you. I mean, he's the perfect gentleman. I really like that statement. So patience is one of the fruits of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. And actually in a way, the list, the conglomerate list of fruit of the Spirit, this is like another list, these attributes are another list that describes God's very character. And hence they describe the believer who's walking by faith in the Lord. So clearly, patience has its source in God and can only be manifested as we walk by and by can be by the means of the Spirit. That's the first one. Only got 15 more to go.

You guys awake? Okay. I have to take a reality check so we get, you know, hopefully you'll stay awake here. Okay. We're still in love's unselfishness. Okay, let me get over here quickly. Okay, now love is kind, and there's kind of a relationship between being kind and patience. So, okay, kind is the idea to be kind, willing to help or assist. So in contrast to patience, kindness is an active quality where patience is a passive quality. The key idea in patience is restraining. The key idea in kindness is bestowing. So now that's all I'm gonna, to get through this, some will be brief, so kindness and patience are kind of, and they kind of, you know, compliment each other. So now we go to kind of, God is not jealous.

To envy, to be moved with envy, and actually that verse in Acts talks about the fact that, and actually, you know, a verse in Corinthians which we saw, the idea is God's love is never moved with envy, And the verse in Acts was where, remember with the patriarchs where Joseph was put, his brothers, they sold him into slavery in Egypt? Well, it says in that text here they were moved with jealousy. They were jealous. They were jealous that their father liked Jacob more than the other brothers. They were moved with jealousy.

Well, God is never moved with jealousy. He is not jealous. Okay, so that's that one, three. Still there, okay. God's love is not brag. to boast or to brag, refers to being in ostentatious, anxious to display oneself, loving to enumerate one's qualities, So here's a verse that I think helps here.

Who although existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped or asserted. So Christ, he should be, he's the ultimate. The one that could truly brag in our world, right, would be Christ. Because he made us, he created us.

But he didn't do that, right? He took the lower place. He didn't regard equality with God a thing to be asserted. He didn't assert that. He just told people about Christ. He told people about God. He told people that he always did what he saw the Father doing. So he didn't, he did not brag.

A very close companion with that is not arrogant, being puffed up with pride. This was a characteristic of the Corinthian church. Remember they talked about knowledge and it says back in verse chapter 8 we saw that knowledge makes arrogant but love edifies. Remember back when we saw that they had camps in Corinth And the church in Corinth said, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Paul, I'm of Peter. They had camps and they were proud of the camp they were in. Well, that's not a characteristic of God. He's not arrogant.

Now, that's the first five. Now we're going to go into love's conduct. There's six of these. First one is God's love does not act unbecomingly. to behave ugly, to be unseemly. And this is where I kind of came up with the idea. It's not rude. In English, the idea is being rude or unmannerly. So God's love, again, acts as a gentleman would. He has a manner which befits who he is. Okay?

Love does not seek its own. In a couple of verses, let no one seek his own good but that of his neighbor. And that's kind of the idea here, seeking his own good. I was kind of thinking about this. Seeking one's own benefit is a natural human characteristic, but this is Christ's love. So what struck me here was the fact that Christ's love, we normally think of ourselves first, right?

We think of our well-being and what's happening with us, but Christ's love is not seeking its own. It's not seeking its own benefit, it's seeking others benefit, our benefit as those who have trusted him, his creation. Christ's love seeks others, not himself. Christ's love is not provoked. It's not contentious.

The word provoked describes a reaction that cannot occur unless a trigger happens. And this is one that I struggle with sometimes. I was brought up in a home, my mother would, she wanted to make sure that in our family we didn't get a raw deal. So in her interactions with people, stores or whatever, she was always on the outlook for people that might do her in and maybe that was appropriate. But that can kind of carry over and you can kind of be provoked by people trying to quote, cheat you. But that's not the focus. That's not the focus that is here. The focus here is that you're trusting in the Lord that, you know, He's the one that you're concerned about. You're not trying to be provoked and then react in a wrong way. Okay.

Does not take into account a wrong suffered. Does not keep records of wrong. And actually, I think back, this is one that, the idea here is that, and it's this word, logizomai, or logizomai, it's one that we often use, it's an accounting term, you write something down, you put it in a ledger, and the idea here is that you're not to keep, you know, keeping records of wrongs done to you is not gonna help you in your Christian life, it's gonna be contrary to that. So we're to keep short accounts. We're not to hold grudges.

But in this case, there's no question that a wrong has happened. And a story I have about this one, which isn't a great one, is Bonnie and I and others had an occasion to counsel a husband and wife. And even though maybe they were justified in what was happening, the wife said this, the husband said that, The wife on her side had a list of all the husband's wrongdoing. A long list. Well, that didn't help in the discussion. She had her long list, and probably they were all right, but the fact that she had the long list, I think, really hurt her case. And sorry to say, they separated. That's just, that's not the way God would have it. Keeping a long list, keeping a list of wrongs that have been done to you is not what, does not express Christ's love. So we're still in section two, love's conduct.

Does not rejoice in unrighteousness. So we have two here that are kind of complementary. And actually, there's a slight change in verbiage here. The preposition in is probably better translated over. Does not rejoice over unrighteousness. And Macaulay kind of has it here, does not rejoice over the victory of unrighteousness. We're not to rejoice over wrong that happens. Here's a verse I think will be helpful here. They are all to be judged who do not believe the truth, who took pleasure in wickedness or unrighteousness.

And then kind of the opposite side of that is we're to rejoice in the truth. So this is where it's does not rejoice versus rejoice, and the idea here is that love, if you think about this, the truth of God is the truth of God. It doesn't take sides. It doesn't, truth stands on its own, and we rejoice in that truth because we know what truth is. We know the source of truth, which is God, and we have his word, so we rejoice in that truth. Here's a verse that kind of talks about that I was very glad to find that some of you some of your children were walking in the truth Actually I go have another part to this here in the next yard here But speaking the truth in love we are to grow up into all aspects into him who is the head even Christ Love does not avoid the truth love does not compromise the truth Love does not avoid the truth. Love does not compromise the truth. So Paul's kind of antithesis here is it's between, it's actually between truth and unrighteousness, not, that's the main focus there.

Okay, so we're two-thirds through. So now we get into the section, these three optimistic, Christ's optimistic love. Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Bears all things. Love, I like, this is really kind of a neat thing. Love hides the faults of others or covers them up. The meaning of the verb is to pass over something in silence, to keep confidential. This is a quality of love that does not wish to broadcast the bad, even if it is true. Peter says, above all else, keep your fervent love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.

What struck me here was the fact that we may observe a brother or sister with faults, but our job is not to broadcast those faults. We're not to say, did you see what Joe did? Or did you see what Sally did? You know, that's not our place. If somebody asks us, if we talk with them possibly, but this is focused on bearing, not broadcasting man's sin.

Okay, believing all things. And these all kind of tie together, we'll see, I have a little summary statement here at the end. This is not, believing all things, this is not being a gullible person, you know, believe that the earth is flat kind of thing. Paul is teaching that love always puts the best construction on things. In doubtful cases, one would be rather generous in his conclusion than to suspect unjustly. When love has no evidence, it believes the best.

And that's, you know, that's to be, that's the way God looks at man. Imagine if God read us, imagine if every day we got up and God came to us and said, okay, here's what, yesterday, here's what it was. He had, you know, here's the deal. And he told you all the, you know, all the good things, quote, all the bad things.

All the time he trusted, you know, he didn't trust me, whatever. God doesn't do that. He doesn't, that's not his way. He comes to us, he desires that we walk in fellowship with him, we study his word to know him better, we trust him. He's not about, he's believing all things.

Okay, hoping all things. Love is not pessimistic, love is optimistic. Hoping all things. We often, and this is where I kind of told you this earlier, we often think of people are simply optimistic or pessimistic. Where Christ's love is, there's optimism.

Because it's his very nature. So this little part, okay, love endures all things. So this is kind of the, this last, this fourth characteristic here kind of wraps these four optimistic things up. Endures all things is the idea to abide under, to bear under. So here's a little summary here.

When love has no evidence, when love has no evidence, it believes all things. When the evidence is adverse, love hopes all things. When hope is disappointed, love endures all things. I'm going to read them again. You have to kind of think about it for a bit. When love has no evidence, it believes all things. When the evidence is adverse, it hopes all things.

When hope is disappointed, love endures all things. And then finally, the summation of that is love never fails. So the statement is a logical conclusion of verse seven, all those attributes believing all things. If love endures all things, there is no assault will ever vanquish it. It cannot be vanquished. It's obvious it will never fail.

And then Constable kind of sums up this little part. The gift of the spirits will pass away, and Mike's gonna talk about that next week. They're temporary provisions, but the fruit of the spirit will abide. Okay, so the question is, what do I do with this list? It's a beautiful, you know, people put it on plaques, right? It's given at marriages. Sometimes people will give people these verses about love. What do I do with this list?

So I tried to tackle it. Okay, first of all, I'm gonna start kind of on the light side, okay? I put it on the refrigerator, right? Holly Hill's refrigerators are jam-packed with stuff, right? Because we're always talking about refrigerators. We're always saying, you put that thing on your list, okay?

Or maybe I have this as my personal list of how to be a better Christian. So when I interact with Mike, I pull my list out and I say, Love is patient, love is kind. I say it to myself over and over and over. And of course I'll be patient and kind in the whole works.

Or even better, here's the one, I make a checklist and I go around and I say, hmm, Bruce, Let's see, sales number 14 here, not doing too well, Bruce. Okay, so what's the proper use of this list? So this is my take on this. So if you think I'm off track, see me afterward. Okay.

Okay, as I said before, this is the most incredible list about God's love we have in scripture. This list shows us the details of Christ's supernatural love in terms of human relationships. This list is how Christ desires to live his life through us. He desires for us to be that, can you believe that? Those 15, 16 things, he wants us to live that way. You say, Roger, I can't do that. I can't be bearing, hoping, all those things. People are too frustrating. Everything's too frustrating. I can't, that's what he says. That's what he wants us to do.

And this love is only available to us as we walk by means of the Spirit and we will not carry out the desires of the flesh. We studied that earlier, a couple years ago, whenever it was. So lastly, love is the result of our relationship by faith with Christ. We have to have that relationship with the Lord Jesus, walking with Him day by day, moment by moment, to have any possibility that this love can come out through us. So let's close. Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for this marvelous list of Christ's attributes of love, the qualities that he has of love. And we pray that, Lord, that we would be thankful that we have this list and also contemplate it and marvel at it and study it. And by your grace that we would display that, not by trying real hard, but by by focusing on you, by spending more time with you so that your love can be shown through us. In Christ's name, amen.