Introduction
Do you know the problem of doing a series on 1 Corinthians 13, its not that you run out of material. While at the moment I’m covering 3 characteristics a sermon, I’ve seen series that cover one a sermon. I’m don’t repeat myself enough to bring that off though. It’s that you quickly run of love introductions and there are only so many different Bible versions that you can read the passage out of. Anyway, I though up this start for last weeks sermon, but thought it was too cheesy. But then I thought I’d go with it anyway. The beatles thought it was all you needed, the Black eyed peas have been searching for it and so far haven’t managed to find it even though they’ve been looking for what seems like decades and the Meatloaf would do anything for it, apart from that. Love. It is also the key to Christianity. John Wesley described holiness as perfect love. We are supposed to love.
We’ve already seen that love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy, love is not boastful, love is not proud, love is not rude. Tonight we look at love is not self seeking, is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs. Again, we’ll look at how these worked in Jesus life and then see how we can apply them to our own. And I hope your doing your homework, thinking and praying these things through and asking God to tell you where you need to work.
It is not self seeking
The first one is very straightforward. We’ve been working with it from day 1. Love is not self seeking. I’ve already described the essence of love as seeing other people as more important. It means that love is not out to get all it can for me, no matter what the cost. Or we can use the cliché from Christmas, slightly adapted. Love is about giving not receiving.
So did Jesus show demonstrate that love is not self seeking. Well Jesus entire mission sums this up. As we mentioned this morning, he was the one who had it all, yet gave it all up to benefit us, for our good. One illustration of this point was in Jesus temptation in the wilderness. The devil basically offers Jesus an easy way out. He says avoid the cross, avoid the pain and the suffering. Instead demonstrate your power and prove you are God. Or worship me and I’ll give it all to you free. But Jesus was not interested in doing stuff just for his glory. He wanted people to be free from sin and empowered to love. So he rejected the self seeking way of riches and glory and took the way of the cross for us. For most of the other incidents where Jesus was not selfish you kind of have to look at the way other people making his claims acted and contrast Jesus. Jesus didn’t go round charging for his healings. We read of the woman who spent all her money trying to be well but Jesus just healed her. It isn’t only modern faith healers who try to make a fortune by healing, but Jesus wasn’t like that. When he has the power to feed hungry people by multiplying the loaves and fish, he doesn’t sell them to people, he gives them. Some one who could turn stones into bread could make a fortune running a bakery, but Jesus doesn’t. He’s really not out for his own gain, but to do what he can for us.
So what about us. I think that is one advantage to the salary of Nazarene pastors, what ever else you can say about them, you know they’re not in it for the money. Unfortunately you can’t say the same about some tele-evangelists or some pastors in countries like Nigeria, where the poor are giving sacrificially in the offerings and going without things they need, while their pastors are driving round in Mercedes and own big houses. I’m not claiming they’re all like that, I know some people from Nigeria who are not, but there are some.
But lets bring it closer to come. Are we ever like this? Are we ever in it to get all we can and that’s it. Is our lifestyle one of accumulating and keeping everything we can. Or of using what we have to help others. I know they won’t like me saying so, but Thomas and David have been showing this recently. When I’ve had my troubles with my car and been unable to get around, both have always been willing to pick me and run me about. Both willingly do double runs to pick up people to bring to church and the other day Thomas even took me to Manchester because my car wouldn’t start and I couldn’t get there in time on public transport. I’m not saying this so that we can all go and exploit them. I’m saying it because they demonstrate a desire to use what they have for the benefit of others. They are not self seeking.
Of course the ultimate illustration of being self seeking comes from a recent film, that I’m guessing most of you that have seen it are already thinking about and will all know the scene I am talking about if I just mention the name of the movie, Finding Nemo. All together now, lets do the seagulls on 3, 1, 2, 3. Mine, mine, mine, mine. This is the exact opposite of the Christian love. Love is not self seeking. But even if we are not all about accumulating wealth or possessions this same self seeking attitude can sneak into church in other ways. The devil is very crafty if he can’t get in with the sledge hammer obvious approach, he can be more subtle. If its not about possessions or money because that’s sinful, it can be about the way we do church because that’s spiritual. No its not, if it’s all about me, me, me and mine, mine, mine its sinful and not love no matter the topic.
How does this work. Well do you demand that church be done the way you want. That everything in church be designed to meet you needs. That if you don’t get something out of everything that goes on, then its not right or you shouldn’t support it. I am not the only one with needs, you are not the only one with needs. Church needs to be designed around everyone and to meet the needs of the unsaved. Therefore, everything we do, will not always be designed for you, nor will everything always meet your needs. Nor will you necessarily always get even just a wee bit from everything we do. They might be designed to meet the needs of others. But again this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t support them.
I organise the NYI holiday. There are tons of stuff on that holiday, that I don’t really like, some stuff that I hate and not that much that I would really choose to do for me. Yet, I participate in organising all of it, I set up the sound system to play their rap and dance music. I convert the tracks from CDs to a digital format so we can set up a play list and leave it running. Does nothing for me and when the stuff is actually on, I duck out and go for a nice glass of Irn Bru, but I’m the one that puts in a lot of the effort to make it possible. We should be viewing the church in a similar manner. Evaluating what goes on in what it does for others and not just ourselves. Love is not self-seeking. Or as the NLT translations puts it, love does not demand its own way.
It is not easily angered
Love is not easily angered. A few months ago we looked at Jesus teaching on anger. We say that anger itself wasn’t good or bad but the way we dealt with it could be good or bad. Here the emphasis is on being easily angered. The Message translates it “love doesn’t fly off the handle”, meaning love doesn’t loose its temper. But I think the best translation here is the New Living Translation, which says “love is not irritable”. Its about who easily we can be provoked and how we react when we are.
How was Jesus not irritable. We have one reference in all four gospels to Jesus getting angry, its in Mark 3 where he gets angry at people trying to stop him healing on the Sabbath. And what does he do with this anger. The only recorded action is that Jesus heals the withered hand of a man. Here was Jesus reacting in love, to people trying to stop him helping one who was in need and his reaction was love, he healed the man. If we could have anger like this, there wouldn’t be a problem. But Jesus was not irritable and didn’t fly off the handle. Other than that, its actually kind of hard to give examples of someone not being irritable. We just note that in all his dealings with sinners, slow to understand followers, corrupt religious leaders, Romans, Jews, Samaritans and Greeks, Jesus was never irritable.
So how about us are we irritable. I certainly used to be. I did loose my temper and do things I later regretted. It was very easy to needle me and get me to loose it, if you knew the right buttons to press. But God has worked on me since and this is no longer the case. Do I get angry, not actually that often, but on occasion. But I don’t loose my temper or fly off the handle, or even act irritably. And sometimes when you run youth clubs and I’ve been at ones with much worse behaviour than here, its hard. When you know who the drug dealer is, and their in their mid twenties and giving drugs to 12 year olds and under and setting up ones who are barely older than that as dealers, its easy to get angry, you really really just wish you could deal with them, if you know what I mean. But loosing your temper with them or being irritable is not going to accomplish anything. Or when the kids you’ve been giving up hours of your time and money to run clubs for them and provide them with equipment and then they break into the church and steal stuff, its hard. When a kid accuses you of hitting them, when they are a bully and do lash out and hit others, yet other kids believe them and the only reason you are believed is because you had witnesses, its not easy. But love is not irritable and does not fly off the handle, it is not easily angered.
What about you? Are you irritable? Can people provoke you or cause you to act rashly. Do you react to situations criticality, moaning and complaining irritably or fly of the handle and lash out verbally if not physically at others. Love is not irritable and does not loose its temper. Even in the face of extreme provocation it remembers that love considers others feelings and thinks of others as more important. But that’s so hard. Of course it is, that’s why Jesus had to die and rise again then send his Spirit to live in us to help us do it. Love is not irritable. Love does not loose its temper. Love is not easily angered.
It keeps no record of wrongs
Love keeps no record of wrongs. Actually this is another one where I really like the Message translation “doesn’t keep score of the sins of others”. We talk about forgiveness in the church, but this is more than just forgiveness. When Peter asked how many times he had to forgive his brother, Jesus tells him limitless. Don’t count the past. Keep on forgiving. Don’t dredge up past sins when dealing with present ones. Don’t keep a record of wrong.
Again with Jesus we don’t find him ever dredging up a list of past sins. He confronted people with their sins, right enough. There was the woman at the well, to whom he pointed out her adultery. There as some Pharisees and Jewish leaders that Jesus accused of some very great things. But there is not one reference to one incident of Jesus recalling a sin or accusation that has been forgiven or dealt with. When its forgiven and dealt with, its gone. The Old Testament talks about God separating us from our sins as far as the east is from the west. This is a brilliant piece of imagery, because east and west are both infinitely far away in that you can travel as far as you can and never reach them, you can still travel further east or west. And yet it also bring about the idea that repentance is no more than turning round. It is so close yet so far. But anyway the idea is of an infinite, unreachable distance. They are never brought back again.
So how about us? How do we measure up. I admit it’s very tempting when you have a dispute with someone and your not doing very well, to dredge up past issues to either divert attention from the current issue. I know married couples can do this. But love keeps no record of wrongs. When something is dealt with and handled, it is dealt with and handled never to be remembered again. This means a constant effort to not count past actions against someone when it has been dealt with. It means making a conscious effort when dealing with present problems to stick to present problems and not to dredge up old stuff. I can’t claim personal knowledge of marriage yet, but I think many marriages would survive and most would be much happier if people could only learn this lesson. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Church life would also be much better if every time there was disagreement, people would stick to the issue at hand, instead of bringing 200 years of family history to bear. It would improve your relationships at work, at home, at school, everywhere, if we just lived, love keeps no record of wrongs.
There are two aspects for us to do here. The first is not to mention these past wrongs. To bite our tongue and just not mention them. To not be sly and slip them out and then blame the other party for making so much out of one slip. To just plain no mention it. Then there is the second, which is that we do not any longer hold them accountable in the way we think. We really do forgive them and move on. It’s not something that is always at the back of our mind. Or rather if it is we don’t let it effect either the way we act towards them or view them. But that’s hard. Yes, it is hard. But it is also what love means and what God expects us to do with his help. If you don’t think it’s hard then its probably because you have not understood what I’m saying or don’t realise that it really is meant to be the way we live rather than an ideal to aspire to. Love keeps no record of wrongs.
I remember one person in my life. I can tell you the story here because you do not know her and you will not meet her. [personal story showing how I did badly at this one, removed so no-one recognises themselves] I was mad, I was fuming. I have to say I hated the person who had caused me all the frustration. I had to go to her with my bad attitude and apologise and try to make things right. She accepted my apology and was nice enough. But she never once apologised or said, sorry you were actually right and still didn’t treat with any respect at all. It was so incredibly hard to deal with her without dredging this up and throwing it in her face. I started by just no mentioning it. Then trying not to let it show in my face. Then trying not to let it affect how I dealt with her. All the while struggling with forgiveness. I think I have forgiven now. I’m not sure I went about it in the best way, if you forgive truly first then the others flow from this. But I am saying its hard to live up to this and we can only do it with God’s help.
Conclusions
So we have learnt about three more things this evening. We have learnt that love is not self seeking, love is not easily angered and love keeps no record of wrongs. We saw how Jesus lived these three principals. Now its up to us to see how we measure up and where we need the Holy Spirit to really work with us. We also noticed that these are not easy things to do. They are hard. But they are possible because of what Jesus has done and that he has sent the Holy Spirit to live in us and empower us.
