It is very encouraging to hear so many voices who have either
experienced or extended love this week.
That's a good thing. Whether you have been attending
to the church calendar or the secular calendar this week, can
I just say that this particular week in the calendar offers a
lot of space for sentimentality about love last Tuesday. if you
have any kids or A significant other you would know is
Valentine's and you might be like my little friend in grade 2
who wrote dear Oscar on so many of his Valentine's that his mama
was like we're about to run out of cards for your friends.
Now he loved himself and he wanted to make sure there was
going to be something in his box at school, so he kept writing
cards to himself and there were supposed to be for his friends.
There was also may be a treat attached to this car.
Cards. And if you write for to
yourself, you get four pieces of chocolate, it's not a bad thing.
Then tomorrow is Family Day and why don't you know?
You think we'll family. We could all go.
Hmm But we all have that cousin and you're probably at the age
some of you where you're trying really hard to differentiate
from your parents and that's not all smooth sailing.
And then we have friends who've lost somebody in the last year.
And so, family day is particularly brutal.
Craig and I have a friend and family day is the one-year
anniversary of when his wife decided to leave him and his
three children. And so, it's a bitter day.
And then Tuesday's a weird day in some places in the world
Carnival is celebrated and there's a whole lot of
Celebration and fun and then if you're from where I'm from, You
have to eat pancakes Tuesday night for Fat Tuesday, so it's
very decadent. You're having buttery bread with
syrup and chocolate chips and fruit and because come Wednesday
you're going to sacrifice for love.
Okay, so let's look at all the mental pictures of love.
We have syrupy relational, love with lots of red and pink.
And because we don't know how to do it.
Well, we have teenage girls at high school where I work going
around, and giving everybody flowers because they knew that
they weren't going to get any and they didn't want.
Anybody else to feel that loneliness, we have people who
want a day where everybody's going, oh, it's family day are
feeling bitter, pain and then in trying to remember the sacrifice
of Jesus and to walk with him in it.
At least where I'm from. You eat a lot of Rich gooey,
gooey pancakes right before cuz sacrifice his heart.
We have a lot of messed-up ideas about love and unfortunately
that comes into then are important relationships.
So I was like, Oh, Ellen, you're being a little bit hard on this
week so then I Googled best relationships.
Okay, I encourage you to do it. When you get it.
Well, the list there were some web TV things and I didn't know
mall. So I went of all time because I
wanted something that I could. Well, it started with Adam and
Eve. I've never thought about Adam
and Eve as a model relationship because it got messed up pretty
early and so my huh. And then it went through
relationship after relationship, that ended in self-harming,
castration. So joint suicide, I was like,
why does Me when our pictures of important relationships are like
in the top 50, I think it was like, 36 were dysfunctional like
profoundly dysfunctional. I was like, oh we are in
trouble. If this is what you put up and
say that's what love looks like. So we're going to go to a space
that you know. Well first Corinthians 13 to
think about love for a few minutes.
You can read along with me if I speak in the tongues of men or
of angels, but do not have love all only a resounding gong, or a
clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of Prophecy
and can fathom all Mysteries, and all knowledge.
And if I have faith that can move mountains but do not have
love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the
poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast but do
not. Not have love I gain.
Nothing love is patient. Love is kind.
It does not envy. It does not boast.
It is not proud. It is not does not dishonor
others. It is not self-seeking, it is
not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not Delight in evil, but rejoices with truth it
always protects. Always trusts always hopes
always perseveres Love, Never Fails.
But where there are prophecies, they will cease where there are
tongues, they will be stilled where there is knowledge, it
will pass away for we know in part and we prophesy in part.
But when completeness comes, what is in part disappears, when
I was a child, I talked like a child.
I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child when I
became a man. I put away the ways of childhood
behind, And me for now we see only a reflection as in a mirror
then we shall see face to face. Now, I know in part, then I
shall know fully even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain faith, hope, and love.
But the greatest of these is love.
Now, have you ever heard that passage read or part of it at a
wedding? True story back in the day when
I had time for these kinds of things.
I actually cross stitched Verses 4 to 7 and gave it all fancy and
gussied up to a friend for a wedding gift because we want to
know that this expression of Love Can Happen somewhere, but I
think it's well, it's important with all passages, but for this
passage for us to look at what is the context because I hate to
break it to you but it is not romantic love.
It is Christian Community. It is set in the middle.
I bet you can count of chapter 12 and chapter 14.
They chapters 12 through 14 form a complete idea, and the
complete idea is, hey, you Corinthians.
You are not using all your gifts for building up the body.
But for your own, patting yourself on the back and
attention and guess what? You're a body that works
together and the way you work together for the common good and
to honor. Jesus.
Guess what is in the environment with the medium of love?
So when you get to worship and you're almost having a
competition of who's speaking in tongues and who's prophesying
louder, who's getting the more attention?
Is that the medium of love and is God honored.
So that's chapters 12 through 14 in a nutshell So when we read
chapter 13, I think we take the beautiful verses of 4 to 7 and
chapter 13 and we put it into romantic love because we're
like, whoo, these are tall orders and maybe maybe we can
live up to it with one other human.
But we are called to this kind of love in community, in
Christian Community, where there are people acted he's writing
this to people who are in conflict with each other who
were being proud and who were trying to show off what was
happening who weren't looking after the common good?
And that's where the call to love comes and, you know, that's
hard. And so, in the first three, four
verses he goes through. Kind of this.
Let me tell you, he takes some of the gifts he had referenced
in chapter 12. He says, with your speaking in
tongues, without love, what are you?
You are nothing. Okay, I want you to say it with
me if you're speaking in tongues, but without love, you
are. If you prophesy without love,
what's going to happen, If you have so much understanding and
knowledge, but you're communicating that knowledge
without love. What's going to result?
And if you have faith that moves mountains but you don't have
love what happens? Woo me, I don't understand this
one, but if you are generous you sell, all you have.
You might even cause it was in some people do this in this, his
day, sell yourself to be a slave, so that you can give more
to be generous, but you're not doing it with love.
What do you have? Wouldn't you think all those
good action should be enough for something?
We are very busy people. we are pursuing things that honor God,
we are pursuing better gifts, both in the world and in the
Christian kingdom, Sometimes at the expense of our hearts.
And all that effort and all that trying can be for nothing.
And sometimes we think, well, this is just a season, but the
problem with busy seasons is that they build habits and then
we have another season that's busy and it builds more habits.
And before you know, it We're in a lifestyle of busyness without
love, not because you are not, or I am not loving people,
because we're too busy to stop. And do this kind of work.
Now these Verses 4 through 7. There are 15 verbs in three
verses and so in English it's written in the passive tense.
But these are all present 10th action verbs.
Because you know what, at the end of the day we experientially
know this love is action. If I only tell my children, I
love you at night but I I never healed a skinned knee.
I never listened to a silly story.
I never read a book, I never gave a kiss.
I never nurtured them. When they were sick or went to
their school events. Would my I love you at night.
Have any any substance behind it?
No. Love is an action.
So let's look at what these actions are.
Okay, love is patient. The verb part of that is love is
long-suffering. Okay, we'll see.
This is why we only try it with one person because who amongst
us wants to suffer. I don't think any of us do.
We're rather quite avoidant of that.
Pain sucks and if you're going to love, you are going to have
some pain. Now.
The lovely thing is that we know the one who knows how to love
this way. If you go back, I hope you'll be
the chapter later. Exodus 34.
Children of Israel have gone and acted the fool.
Moses up God's. Let the LED them out of slavery.
There in the desert, Moses has gone up to talk to God, face to
face, to get the 10 commandments and what did they do?
They burned all their jewelry that they had just gotten from
the Egyptians and made a golden calf.
Now that calf hadn't been there to get them out, but what do
they do? They get all excited that they
need something. And so they created Moses comes
down, you know, the story. What did Moses do?
He had a fit. He was hot mad.
He broke the tablets. Did you know that anger can be
an expression of Love? Now what he God didn't like how
Moses handled it but he was like well y'all can do better, he
broke those tablets Moses is having to go back up.
And while he is meeting with the Lord, over new tablets being
made, I want you to hear what he says, God passes in front of
Moses, proclaiming the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and
gracious, God slow to anger abounding in love and
faithfulness. Maintaining love to thousands
and forgiving Whitney. Goodness, rebellion and sin yet.
He does not leave the guilty unpunished and he punishes the
children and their children for the sins of the parents, to the
third and fourth generation. The Lord is slow to anger.
So when we are called by Paul, I want you to hear The Echoes of
that verse that that is happening in First Corinthians
13 that love true. Love Suffers long, love acts
kindly. Now that part I think we know
kids know, we know, it does not envy.
They all that's just hard, that's hard and environment.
Like I thought about this, sometimes, when you look at
academic Journal articles and you want to get more people
reading your Journal article, I'm like y'all that she's grown
up Facebook. That is a same thing.
I need more like, so I can publish more so I can get hired
at this. And that's just, that's a
different form of social media. It doesn't mean that your ideas
weren't having and then I think oh I'm less than and so then
this temptation comes Now does not envy starts us off on a list
of negatives. It's what love isn't because
sometimes we Define things by what it is, sometimes we Define
what? It's not and in the middle.
There's a whole list of doesn't boast.
Isn't proud know what's the difference?
One is bragging and one is trying to puff up what you do.
Love doesn't dishonor others and it isn't self-seeking, if
there's any of these isn't. I think the self-seeking one is
the hardest one because frankly, if I didn't have any benefit as
much as I love Craig O'Brien, we wouldn't have been married for
30 years. If there wasn't some good things
in it for me. Lick frankly, I wouldn't have
gotten married like it's not like a divorce because I was so
there is a certain amount there is a mutuality in love and
people but that's not what this is.
It is when you start to use people for what you need and it
can look like putting cute or beautiful things on your social
media Pages. It can look like oh we're going
to do this together. Yeah we can do this together but
let's be clear. This is your goal and not mine
or ours self-seeking in the Christian Community can look
like we You say this is the vision for our Bible study
group, or this is the vision for our organization or this is the
vision for our church. Really it's about making a few
people look good. And so we need to ask what is
the motivation for things that we are doing?
This love is not easily angered, okay?
And this is another thing that's important and it's we're going
to get to it with the rejoices with the truth.
Does it say love never gets angry.
No. I know people I have been in
conversation with a very good friend at the time and she said,
if you do not agree with me, you cannot be, you cannot love me as
a friend. I like, but if I love you as a
friend and I see that you leaving, your husband is
actually hurtful, would I not be a worse friend to not ask you to
at least think twice. So when we say it's not easily
angered, it does it mean we never go against what our
friends are saying. It doesn't mean Christian
Community, where actually called.
Old to speak, truth to one another.
And that it is loving to not always agree.
There is a loving demeanor and how we do it.
Okay. Now y'all if we can conquer this
next, what love does you are on the road to emotional maturity.
It says it love being the, it keeps no record of wrongs.
This isn't a term for accounting.
Okay. Keeping a book of all the wrong
things and you're like well I don't manage my own finances.
So well I'm sure not doing that. Oh but have you do you have a
place and every time you go by that coffee shop, you think hmm.
That's where they said that. And then you walk and then look
at that. She has a new cross necklace but
you know, how she really treats people?
Hmm. Yeah.
Is Uncle Bob Uncle Bob Owen calls with family when he wants.
Hmm. That's keeping a record of
wrongs. I am not suggesting you don't
have boundaries, if Uncle Bob always shows up for money, you
don't need to give Uncle Bob money but you don't have to list
the 23 other times. He came to get school fees for
his kids, when your parents are trying to pay your own school
fees. Keeping a record of wrongs means
that that person's violation of you.
Is keeping you hostage, the term resentment.
If you just break it down, is re feeling now.
I would have told you, I'm not a bitter person in general, that's
true. Oh, but Lord, have mercy on me
and I say that in the truest of ways, we feel things and we feel
them and we feel, you know, why? Because people matter to me and
relationships really are important to me.
So when you hurt my heart, Heart.
I don't always know how to heal. And in community, when we choose
to refill, Andre feel Andre feel and keep a record of long
wrongs. Love is not going to flourish.
Hopefully, you all have not had to have this yet, but when you
go to the physiotherapist, and you say, oh man, my lower back
is killing me. Yeah, this is still drives me
crazy. I'm telling you I'm hurting here
and you're touching my foot and my back here.
And I'm like, why you do that? What hurts is here?
Fix it? I'm paying good money for this
to be fixed, but here's well Glory.
Here's what I learned, everything's dropping.
Here's what I've learned. When you go in with pain here,
it probably means you started moving differently because of
something somewhere else. And so where the pain shows up
is not the source and in love that it has been hurt.
It may show up and we may miss the source and that's where the
spirit of Jesus is going to have to sign in light.
But we have to acknowledge that maybe we're a little
self-seeking because we're hurt and we're try out of that or
we're a little bit angry. Or we sure have a list
internally of the recorded wrongs.
Now, here's another thing that loved the last - action verb,
love does not Delight in evil when you like, well, of course,
we're a Christian Community. Of course, we do not Delight in
evil, but you know what, have you not been in this
conversations? Well, if you love me, you'll
agree with me. I was talking.
Someone asked me a view about a moral issue and they didn't
agree. They said well, I have lots of
friends who fought I was like, well, I also have lots of
friends. It's not about who I love and
know it's about. You ask me, is that action?
A wise Godly action. And so, their assumption was
that in loving somebody who does that action, I have to love that
action. And this is saying I can love
you so much without loving those actions.
And then we come back to the positives.
Okay? Those of you that are like
structured nerds or English nerds, I want you to realize
these three verses have an A a BB and an A.
So we start off with a positive verbs and we're going to end
with the Positive verbs. What is what does love do it
rejoices with the truth. Now, this isn't just a little
bit, that's sweet. Oh, that's nice.
But it's like, yes, I love you so much.
So much that we're going to live in reality, that's where
Integrity starts. I come from a culture where you
better. You better show up pretty And I
don't mean just how your groom, but you show up with your good
attitude and you smile. Now, you may have just been in
the car fighting with your parents and your brother and
his, Hi, how are you? And it's not purposefully Fake
it? Well it is fake but it's more
that the culture is you show good.
I'm not talking about this here. It's rejoicing with the truth
and when the truth is hard, you're still rejoicing.
The ra truth that a friend might not pass a term.
A truth that a friend, just lost a baby there is that's not
pleasant. But the thing is, is that it is
the truth and that is the space we're going to share Now love
always protects that word protects his kind of cool.
Put your hands up like a little roof.
Okay, this part of Love. Is it gives you?
It's actually the word for roof. It's going to bear away the
snow, and the rain, and the hail, and it's going to put
something over and bear that stuff.
We can learn to do that, more and more for one another Then
love, always trusts. Now this was a tricky piece for
me. Still is in some ways by Nature,
I'm kind of trusting. I was also a volunteer chaplain
in a juvenile detention center, when I was younger and I really
loved those teams. I trusted them but I also
learned that when I was going to play dominoes I've had my back
at the wall so that if the dominoes game became emotional,
there wasn't a kid behind me that was in for for murder,
okay? So why do I tell you that?
And I'm like, I'm not exaggerating.
I trusted those kids. In that, they were very honest.
But I also trusted that they had habits and they had broken this.
That had not yet, been dealt with and so I had a to be in a
safe place while I trusted. How we play dominoes?
And so why do I tell you? That is I want you to trust here
that is that you're going to believe the best about people
but not at the expense of wisdom.
It's okay to sit in a space where you can see everything.
When, you know, the people that you are with, don't always know
what to do with strong emotion. And so trust is Hope seeing the
best, but it's not being gullible or denying reality.
Love always hopes. Now, why could I sit with these
kids? It was an 11 year old in, for
rape. Like this was these children,
had done, some rough stuff, but I knew a resurrected Jesus who
could affect change. So when somebody hopes up hurts
us, and we can lose hope especially when we're keeping
that accounting that record of wrongs we can give up And love.
Always hopes. Not because we can fix some of
the Brokenness in our friends lives.
Because we know a wide who is resurrected and he has got power
to resurrect wholeness and wellness and loving kindness.
And then love always perseveres. I want to give up on love and
some people sometimes. There are sometimes we're loving
somebody else costs a lot. It costs so much in energy.
So much in figuring out what's Discerning what's the right
level of trust that the persevering is just easier to
give up sometimes. But that's not what love does.
And here is the Peace. Love, Never Fails, it endures,
everything else, these other gifts that they people in
Corinthian, Corinth were so excited about the prophecies,
the tongues, the knowledge, that all of that was going to pass
away, And many, most of the things that we spend our day
hours going after will help other humans, but they're going
to pass away. But what last, when completeness
comes now, that verb is maturity.
It's also into X completeness, like Jesus, coming back.
This is like when it all comes together, what's going to be
there? Everything else passes away, but
love. Now if you've been around kids a
little bit kids, have this thing where baby talk is how they
talk, and then they, Outgrow baby talk, but when they want to
be cute or get their way they occasionally revert to baby
talk. Now, as a parent, you might be
fooled around the first time but a second kid, you're like if you
want it, use your words. It's just not cute anymore.
If you're a teacher with little kids, you're like, when you can
ask me in your usual voice, I'm happy to listen to your request.
Okay, but you know what else happens?
This happens. We have immature speech, we have
immature, thoughts, and we reason immaturely.
And if we just camp out there, we don't learn to love the way
God has loved us or called us to love and we stay juvenile.
I am not saying that Paul was calling the church in Corinth to
an easy. He life.
He was calling them to a wholesome, fulsome mature, love
and a mature way of relating to one another and he is calling
through the centuries to us. To accept and grow into that
completeness. Again, I come back to why is it
that we only seem to handle this passage for one-on-one
significant other relationships? I think verse 12 gives a little
insight. We can't see clearly.
What's going to happen when we learn to love this way?
And it's very hard work and it's very risky and we really crave
being known. And so we think if I can just
risk it with this person, I'll be known and I will know them.
But what Paul is saying is there's going to be a time where
we see the Lord face to face, there is going to be a time
where we are fully known but that's not now.
Even in the happiest. And frankly, most joyful of
marriages, I am delighted with Greg O'Brien.
There are things he does that. I do not understand.
And at this point, I think probably not going to ever I
love him. But I am not fully known or
fully know. And we need to seek the father's
face trusting. He fully knows us.
And if he's calling us or since he's calling us to this kind of
love, he's going to give us what we need to help grow into that.
And now these three remain faith, hope, and love.
But the greatest of these is love.
This triumphant is throughout the New Testament, New
Testament. If you want other verses with
it, let me know and I'll just send you the full list.
They think it was an early part of Christian liturgy.
I am speaking to Brothers and Sisters in Christ who are highly
competent in so many arenas. But our competencies will not
last. But the love of God will.
And so in the midst of trying to find a life partner and trying
to figure out how to be yourself and honor your parents and in
trying to understand the sacrificial Love Of Christ.
May you receive all of the love, he has for you. and then extend
that love and when it is hard to be long suffering and kind and
rejoicing in truth and protecting and trusting and
hoping and persevering in love, then put a pause on the busyness
and all these other important skills, you're developing and go
sit with the one who does fully know you.
And receive back from him. The love that he has.
Because you cannot extend what you have not received.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you have loved
us so well we do not understand your love.
We probably don't even have a full glimpse of how painfully we
have not loved you back at times.
I pray that we would be a people who would humbly confess to you
our sentimentality. And Lord, we want bad, chocolate
and red heart boxes, sometimes rather than deep relationships
that call us out to be forgiving and the call us out to be
truth-telling. You have protected us and you
have hope in us and you have persevered and loving us.
And so Jesus, we just say help us because we don't love that
way. But we would like to because we
understand that what's done in Love Last that this is the
medium of the Christian Life that this is the water we swim
in that this is the currency of your kingdom.
And so make us people who love broadly and as a community and
on this campus and in this city and in our places of origin, and
in this World, we want to be the hands and feet of Jesus but
Lord, we've gotten hurt and it makes it harder.
So fill us up with you and your loving spirit.
When Jesus name, amen. Let's stand in worship.