“Love Does Not Stop Working”
In1 Corinthians 13:4–8 (ESV)
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends…
Pray
Introduction
Jenni asked a question over a year ago about the extent to which this selfless love should push us to being taken advantage of
My words – Do we let people run over us, and do as they please?
Do we say nothing?
Do we accept abuse?
Are we a doormat?
That is what the text will help us explore this morning.
1 The does the text sound like?
When you read words like, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things…” it seems like we have to put up with everything, be gullible, keep wishing, and suffer every kind of maltreatment.
No wonder Karl Marx believed that religion was the opium of the masses.
No wonder that Nietzsche had the concept that Christianity was “servile mediocrity.”
Of course they had no Holy Spirit. They were not born again. They could not understand what Paul was saying to the Corinthians.
Consider this
Have you ever known of a person, or watched a person, that always seemed to passively get whatever events would deal out to him or her?
It’s like they make no plans, or investigate the details of their choices. There seems to be no prudence.
I have watched one person just stumble into a job. Work that job. Retire from that job, and discover that he or she wasn’t going to get hardly anything from Social Security or their school pension. All this because they didn’t bother to get active about their life old age, preparations.
This isn’t an anomaly. Many people don’t get active with their lives. They just passively fall into whatever they stumble over.
Other people get active. They research. They plan. They work hard on their education, their job choices, and they build a career and resume that produces big results.
2 What did Paul mean?
Paul isn’t saying we just passively accept what is happening, but rather he is describing a life of active, intentional service to others and God.
Live actively and selflessly.
Anthony Thiselton gives us a great translation that gets the meaning Paul is writing.
“Love never tires of support, never loses faith, never exhausts hope, never gives up.”
This communicates the active intention.
Love isn’t passive. Love isn’t mediocrity.
This is important. We know well that love is an action verb.
Notice this text.
Galatians 5:6 (ESV)
6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
Faith is active. It obeys the truth. It works, and the text says it works through love.
Wasn’t that the message of James?
Wait… Isn’t this a letter from Paul?
Could this be a central and cohesive message from God himself?
Faith works.
Faith is active.
Faith works though love.
3 What did Paul mean in the larger context?
1 Corinthians 13:6-7 (ESV)
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
7 Love never tires of support [covering, protecting], never loses faith, never exhausts hope, never gives up.
When a church member struggles in sin, we don’t get happy about it and use it as leverage over them.
We find joy in the truth.
We actively seek to minister.
We never tire of supporting (protecting) them.
We never lose faith in the power of God’s grace to transform them.
We never exhaust the limits of our hope – we expect God to act on behalf of his people.
We never give up.
We use wisdom to seek the best correction in the life of another saint.
It might be confrontation.
It might be patience or kindness. (Use the text)
Love is all these things because love is actively and intentionally working through a plan to serve the person where they’re at.
2 Thessalonians 3:10–15 (ESV)
10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.
11 For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies.
12 Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.
13 As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good.
14 If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed.
15 Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.
Philippians 4:2–3 (ESV)
2 I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord.
3 Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.
2 John 9–11 (ESV)
9 Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.
10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting,
11 for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.
3 John 9–11 (ESV)
9 I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority.
10 So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.
11 Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.