1. EVERYTHING MINUS LOVE EQUALS NOTHING Based on I Cor. 13:1-2

2. LOVE IS A CHOICE Based on I Cor. 13:1-13

3. THE EXPRESSION OF LOVE Based on I Cor. 13

4. GOD-LIKE LOVERS Based on I Cor. 13:4

5. POSITIVE ATTRIBUTES OF LOVE Based on I Cor. 13:4

6. LOVE IS KIND Based on I Cor. 13:4

7. LOVE DOES NOT ENVY Based on I Cor. 13:4

Where love is absent hate will reign. This is true in every area of life for individuals and

groups of all kinds. We are grateful for those who give their lives to protect us from enemy

forces, but we cannot thank God that their sacrifice was necessary, for we would not have

needed such sacrificial protection if love had reigned instead of hate. It is the lack of love

that causes the wicked, wasteful, worthless wars that force men to become dead heroes.

Woodrow Wilson said that World War I was "A war to end all wars." Such an ideal was

impossible in a loveless world. There are no end to the conflicts of classes and races because

of all the prejudice and hatred in the world. It is no wonder that even the life-long skeptic

Burtrand Russell said, "The only hope of the world is Christian love."

It is not because this was his conclusion, however, that we want to consider love, but

because his conclusion has always been the conviction of those who accept the Bible as God's

revelation. In this great love chapter Paul makes it clear that love is the supreme gift. All of

the human relation problems in the world are caused by a lack of love, and only love can lift

us above the hatreds in the hearts of mankind. Paul is writing to a church that is filled with

conflicts because of their immaturity, and lack of Christian love. The specific problem Paul

has been dealing with concerns the gifts of the spirit. The Corinthians, like so many

Christians since, were so preoccupied with the secondary that they lost sight of the primary.

They were losing the best for the sake of the good.

The external gifts such as speaking in tongues were coveted by them. Everyone want to

speak in tongues or interpret, or do something special and unique like doing miracles, and

this caused a great deal of excitement. The more sublime gifts of faith, hope, and love were

pushed to the back burner. Paul has to write and explain to them that not all Christians have

these more eternal gifts, like healing and tongues, but the greatest gifts are available to

everyone, and he urges them to covet these. He ends chapter 12 by saying that he wants to

show them a more excellent way. Chapter 13 is a great Psalm of Love in three stanzas. First

we see The Absence Of Love in verses 1-3. Second we see The Attributes of Love in verses

4-7. Thirdly we see The Absoluteness of Love in verses 8-13.

I. THE ABSENCE OF LOVE. vv. 1-3.

In these first 3 verses Paul says that according to divine mathematics, all gifts minus love

= nothing. Tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith, and sacrifice, minus love = nothing. When

love is absent all is lost. Take away love and you eliminate the value of everything else.

A. TONGUES.

Paul begins his rebuke of the Corinthians with this reference to tongues because this was

apparently the most showy of the gifts, and had become the one to be most coveted in order

to gain prominence in the church. Paul warns them that the gift of tongues at its greatest

conceivable development is worthless if love is absent. Too much interest in tongues led

them to abuse the gift, and create such disorder that Paul had to counsel them to follow an

ordering pattern lest the world think them to be mad.

There is a great deal of disagreement as to whether the tongues here refer to language or

ecstatic praise to God. It is conceivable that both are true. The tongues of men being

foreign tongues, and the tongues of angels being sounds not known to human ears.

Whatever be the case, Paul says it is just so much racket without love.

Paul would have loved the hymn Love Lifted Me. He knew that the lost were not lifted by

languages, but by love. Even if you can break the language barrier, if you do not love, you

will not lift. Language will not convince where love has collapsed. Some of the most

eloquent polished sermons ever delivered in the great churches of England were listened to

by handfuls of people, while outside the city limits many thousands gathered to hear Wesley

and Whitefield. It was not because of their greater eloquence, but because of their greater

love. Goethe said, "But never hope to stir the hearts of men, and mould the souls of many

into one, by words which come not native from the heart."

The secret of effective communication is in the heart and not the tongue. That is why a

Christian need never fear that he will not say the right thing when he is witnessing, if his

heart is filled with love. Love will cover a multitude of mistakes, and win a person to Christ

far faster than cold and empty eloquence. Paul spoke in tongues more than all the

Corinthians, yet he is not known for this gift. He is not known as a great soul-winner because

of his eloquence or ability to communicate. It is because of the constraining love of Christ.

Paul was even willing to be accursed for the sake of his people Israel that they might be

saved. Meyers in his poem St. Paul gives us a beautiful picture of how love, as the Queen of

Graces, characterized Paul.

Then with a thrill the intolerable craving

Shivers throughout me like a trumpet call-

O to save these-to perish for their saving-

Die for their lives, be offered for them all.

O let thy love my heart constrain!

Thy love for every sinner free,

That every fallen soul of man

May taste the grace that found out me;

That all mankind with me may prove

Thy sovereign everlasting love.

Jesus did not come with brilliant oratory, but with simplicity of speech, and a life of love.

People thronged to Him because of His acts of mercy and compassion. His parables and the

Sermon on the Mount are beautiful language, but they would be but sounding brass without

His life of love. His teaching does not save, but He does. The essence of Christianity is not

what Jesus said, but what He did. Love is something you do, and not just something you say.

Jesus demonstrated His love by both His life and His death.

Paul is saying to the Corinthians, stop majoring on minors. Stop wishing you had some

unique gift that would make you more spiritual, for nothing will do this without love. Covet

love, and ask God to fill you with the love of Christ, and then your life will count for the

kingdom. To try and communicate the unsearchable riches of Christ, or to try and praise

God with tongues without love, is like trying to play one of the Beethoven's beautiful

symphonies with a clanging symbol. You are trying to do the greatest task with the least

important instrument.

Someone said, "Love is the leading instrument in the orchestra of character." Without

love there is no melody or harmony, but only loud irritating noise. In a world of hate,

discontent, and disharmony, it is obvious that there is need for clanging symbols to add to

the deafening racket. What is desperately needed is spiritual Davids who can soothe the

half-mad Sauls of the world with saving harmony from the harp of love. If we do not love we

will not lift. Without love all of our efforts will be as worthless as the attempt to play classical

music on the lid of your garbage can. Eloquence is only noise without love, and none of the

gifts amount to anything without love.

B. GREATER GIFTS. v. 2

It is not surprising that Paul exalts love over tongues, for tongues were clearly among the

lesser gifts, but here he tells us that even the greater gifts are of no value without love. The

implications of this verse are astounding. Certainly a man who can prophesy and have great

knowledge, and have such strong faith that he can do miracles, must be somebody, but Paul

say he is nothing without love. Jesus said there will be those who will come to Him on the

day of judgment and say, "Lord, we have prophesied in your name, and did many mighty

works in your name," but Jesus will say, "I never knew you." Paul explains how this could be

true by telling us that they did some great things, but it had to be all in self power, for they

never were motivated by the love of Jesus to do what they did. Their lack of love made all

they did of no value.

When it comes to knowledge the Pharisees were marvelous. They not only memorized the

law, but added hundreds of their own laws. They knew more about right and wrong tha God

had even revealed, but for all that they were nothing ,for it was knowledge without love. Paul

was a Pharisee, but he counted all his knowledge as dung that he might know the love of

Christ. When Jesus was at the home of Simon the Pharisee, a woman came in and wiped the

feet of Jesus, and Simon said, "If he knew what kind of woman she was he wold not allow

that," but he was wrong, for Jesus was not like him. He had knowledge without love, but

Jesus had knowledge with love, and that made all the difference in how he dealt with sinners.

He knew what she was, but he did something about it. Knowledge just knows and looks, but

love lifts, and that is what Jesus did. It does nobody any good just to know that someone is a

sinner. It is love that is needed to help them see there is a better way.

The rich young ruler had the knowledge of God's will, and even obeyed it, but he lacked

the love necessary to give his all to the poor. He had everything but love, and everything

without love is nothing. Paul goes so far as to say that even faith is not enough without love.

This is the great Apostle of faith that is writing this. Faith that is not mixed with love is dead

faith. We see Paul in full agreement with James here. James says that faith that does not lead

to acts of love is a dead faith. What good is a faith that moves mountains, if there is no love

with it to move men? If you really want to be somebody in the kingdom of God, then love

people, and show it. God does not need a lot of people who can move mountains, but there is

no end to His need for those who can move men by love.

When Carl Lundquist was President of Bethel College and Seminary he told this story of

Ann Marie. She was a little German girl who came to Bethel. She was not a Christian when

she came, but soon opened her heart to receive Jesus as her Savior. She was working her way

through college by baby sitting, and one of the jobs that came her way was an emergency

situation. A family had just moved to the area, and had not even unpacked when the

mother-in-law had to be rushed to the hospital. They had several small children and knew

nobody to call, and so they called Bethel that was just a few blocks away. They asked if they

could get someone to watch their children. Ann Marie went to help out. The man told her

they did not know when they would be back, but the envelope on the stand has some money,

and she could leave the next morning when his sister would be arriving.

The sister did come and Ann left. When the man got home he found the envelope still

there, and with it this note: "I don't want any money for baby-sitting. I am glad as a

Christian I could help you in your hour of need." That man was so impressed that he called

Bethel. He said he did not know that people like her existed, and that her love had an impact

on him greater than all the sermons he ever heard. She never moved any mountains, but she

moved men, and did what no amount of eloquence, or any other gift, could have

accomplished. That is why Paul wants us all to covet this gift.

Paul says love never fails. Faith can fail and turn to doubt. Hope can fail and turn to

despair. But love endures to the end. People wonder about security in Christ, and the

answer is in love. Can people be lost who are preachers, or teachers, or speakers in tongues,

or people who do wonders? Yes, all of such can be lost, for security is not in these things, or

anything else. It is in Christ, and we only have Christ in reality when the love that took Him

to the cross is in our hearts, and motivating our lives.

The controversy over eternal security can easily be resolved by showing that both sides

are correct. People can have every gift in the book and be marvelous professing Christians,

and yet have not security, because everything minus love is nothing. Eternal security is

found in the love of Christ that gives value to all of the other gifts and virtues of the

Christian life. Each side of the controversy has much Scripture to back up their view, and

each can be right when it is all seen in the light of the importance of love. But it is not enough

to be right, for even being right is nothing without love. Nothing is enough without love, but

with love all is of value. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ, but we must

have this love to have that kind of assurance and security.

John confirms this truth of Paul in I John. He writes in I John 2:5-6, "But if anyone obeys

his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. "This is how we know we are in him:

Whoever claims to love in him must walk as Jesus did." In 2:15 He writes, "Do not love the

world or anything in the world. If anyone love the world, the love of the Father is not in

him." In 3:14 he writes, "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love

our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains n death." In 4:7-12 he writes, "Dear

friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born

of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. this

is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son in to the world that we

might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his

Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to

love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love each other, God loves in us and

his love is made complete in us."

In the light of all that Paul and John have to say about love, who can doubt that its

absence is the greatest loss, and its presence the greatest gain and gift possible. We many

never have many of the lesser gifts of the Spirit, but God forbid that we ever lack this

greatest of all gifts, for everything minus love is nothing.

Missionaries often get into complicated cross-cultural issues. Such was the case of the

missionary to Africa who had the chief of a tribe all ready for church membership. Only one

barrier blocked the way. The chief had 50 wives, and the church would not admit him to

membership until he dismissed his harem, and kept only one wife. It was a day of rejoicing

when he finally decided to surrender to this demand. But there was one technicality, which

wife should he keep? The missionary ruled that it should be wife number 1, but the chief

thought it should be wife number 16. They departed to think it over for the night, and the

next morning the chief returned. "How many wives you got?" he asked the missionary.

"Why, only one, of course," he replied. "Well then," said the chief, "That settles it. You got

one wife, I got 50. Therefore, I know 50 times more about wives than you do. I keep number

16."

We do not know all the reasons why number 16 was his choice, but this story illustrates a

basic truth about love, and that is that love is a choice. This is the essence of this whole great

love chapter of Paul. He stresses that we are nothing, and we gain nothing, if we do not have

love. Even if we have all kinds of other gifts, we are nothing without love. Everything minus

love equals nothing. That is the formula for failure. Leave out love, and you leave out the

heart, and life is empty. But the whole point is, nobody has to leave out love. Love is a

choice. That is why his first words in chapter 14 are, "Make love your aim." In other

words, love is no mere accident that happens to you. Love is something you do. It is an act

of the will. It is a choice.

God did not look down upon the fallen world and suddenly get goose pimples, and feel

love for lost man. God has feelings of compassion for man, but God's love is not a matter of

feeling, it is a matter of His will. He could have justly chosen to destroy man, but He chose

to show mercy, and provide a way of escape, that man might be redeemed. God's love for us

was a matter of choice, and not emotion, for it was while we were yet sinners that He chose to

die for us. His emotions were just the opposite of His choice of love. Sin makes God angry,

and you too can be angry with someone, but still chose to do the loving thing, just as God did,

because love is a choice.

This does not mean love is cold and unfeeling, but that love can and does function with or

without the energy of feeling, for it is primarily an act of the will. Ordinarily the two will

coincide, and the choice of love will produce the positive feelings that go with a loving choice.

But if for some reason the feelings are short-circuited, true love goes on choosing without

their support. This is how you distinguish between love and infatuation. Infatuation is an

emotion which controls you. It is a powerful feeling that motivates you, but circumstances

can alter it, and, therefore, it is dependent upon that which is outside you. Love, on the other

hand, is an act of the will, and you can continue to choose it regardless of changing

circumstances and feelings. Someone defined love as the feeling you feel when you feel like

your going to feel a feeling like you never felt before. This is infatuation and not love.

In our culture we often we fall in love and marry on the basis of infatuation. Then we

learn to love, that is, develop a pattern of choices whereby we relate to our mate in love as

acts of the will, and not emotion. In many cultures the young people start off on this level.

They do not date or experience the emotion of infatuation, but they are brought together by

their parents, and they choose to love the one so selected. This is not appealing to us, but it

has been a very effective method for marriage, for it is based on love as a choice, and not as

an emotion. We are so hung up about feelings in our culture, it is hard for us to grasp this

truth that love is a choice.

The more we can make love a choice, the more we will understand love in all

relationships, and the better we will be able to sustain and improve all relationships. Jamie

Buckingham, an outstanding Christian author, was explaining his parental love to his 14

year old daughter. He said to her, "When your older sisters and brothers were born I loved

them. But I did not love you because I did not know you. When you arrived, several years

later, I willed myself to love you as much as I loved them. I did not love you simply because I

had to. The nurse could have handed me any baby in the nursery and I could have willed

myself to love that baby. Fortunately she handed me the one your mother had given birth

to-and I chose to love you because I wanted to." Then he said, "I went ahead to explain how

my parents, after having had four sons, adopted a tiny baby girl. They willed themselves to

love her as much as they loved their own children. In turn, I willed myself to love her as

much as I love my brothers."

The point here is, my love relationships in life are not built on emotion, but on acts of the

will. It seems so easy and natural to grasp. You do not love your children or other family

members because you feel all gooey about them necessarily. They often aggravate and anger

you, and your emotions are frequently negative. Nevertheless, you love them, because your

love operates on the level of the will. Love is a choice. The more we apply this truth about

love to life, the more we will build relationships. Many a marriage would be greatly

strengthened if mates would see their love for one another as a matter of choice. Emotion is

too unstable, and too subject to change, and so love based on emotion is more unpredictable

than the weather. Nobody always feels positive about someone they love. But love based on

choice can remain solid and sure through all the turmoil of change, for negative feelings do

not alter one's choice.

I like the way this author put it, "I have bound myself for life; I have made my choice.

From now on my aim will not be to choose a woman who will please me, but to please the

woman I have chosen." He is heeding Paul's advice by making love his aim. Here is a man

who has caught the Biblical meaning of love. It is not feeling, it is a choice. We show our

love for God, not by our emotions, but by our choices. This does not mean we never feel awe

and deep feelings of love for God. But it means that these feelings are not the key element.

They are the frosting on the cake, and make love more enjoyable. Feelings that are positive

are always a welcome addition to the choices of love. But love that is more than superficial

sentimentalism will go on making the right choices pleasing to God whether their are feelings

or not.

Jesus said, "If you love me you will keep my commandments." So we demonstrate our

love by choosing to obey regardless of how we feel. I may have feelings that pull against the

choice of love. I may feel like stealing something, but I chose love, and keep the

commandments. Usually I feel like obeying, but even when I don't feel like it, I chose to

obey, for love is in my choice and not my feeling. Feelings may be opposite of my love, but

they do not hinder my love when I make the right choices. If I only obey God's will when I

feel like it, and have emotional support, I do not love God at all. I only love my feelings, for

they are the dominant motivation of my life, and not the will of God.

What is true in my relationship to God is true in my relationship to my mate and others. If

you are trying to build a marriage on feelings, you are like the foolish man building his house

on the sand, and you are heading for collapse. The wise man built on the rock, and the rock

on which any loving relationship must stand is the rock of choice. Your love must be based

on your choices and not on your feelings. There is too much of life's responsibility that

cannot get done based on feeling. How often do you feel like scrubbing the floor, or taking

out the garbage in below zero weather. You get many tasks of life done, not because you feel

like it, but because it is a loving choice to do it.

Love is what makes you do so much that you don't like to do. You do it because you love

God, you love yourself, you love your mate and family, and you love your neighbor. You feel

obligated to shave and comb your hair, and to keep your kids clean and well-clothed, and to

keep your yard in respectable appearance. What are all of these social pressures? They are

opportunities to chose, and when you chose to do what you do not feel like doing, because it

is the best choice for others well being, that is love. Love is the constant making of choices

that are for the benefit of one's family and community. It is also love for self, for the person

who does not care about how he subtracts from the over all beauty and harmony of life, has a

poor self-image, and lacks a love vital to his relationship to God and others.

Franklin Jones was certainly accurate when he said, "Love does not make the world go

round, but it makes the ride more enjoyable." We do not want to minimize the value of

feelings, for they are precious and God-given. We just want to recognize they are not the

engine of love, and that love can function well without them. Plush seats do not make the car

go, nor do they make it go better. They just add to the pleasantness of the going. That is a

positive value, but it is a negative factor if people refuse to make the trip, because the plush

seats are absent. When the journey of a couple through life revolves more around their

emotions then there choices, they are like a couple who refuse to go on vacation because

their velour seat cushions are matted down, and are no longer attractive. When love is seen

as emotion rather than choice, there will be confusion, and a loss of God's perspective and

value system.

Nobody really needs you to feel any particular emotion. What they need is for you to

chose to do those things that say I love you. This is what makes courtship so romantic and

enjoyable. People do things that are fun and loving in courtship. Their feelings are also

excited and positive, and we see the two go hand in hand. The emotions motivate us to do

things that are loving. But mature love is when we go on choosing the loving things, even

when the flames of emotion are no longer pushing us. This is Christian maturity. The

enthusiasm of the new Christian is long past, but the mature Christian goes on doing what

God delights in by choices of the will, and not emotion. Mature love is choosing to do what

meets the needs of others, regardless of emotions. You cannot decide how to feel, but you

can decide to do what is loving. Make love your aim, for love is a choice. Here are some

Biblical examples.

1. The rich man Dives chose not to help Lazarus in his poverty, and so non-love is also a

choice.

2. The priest and the Levite chose to ignore the need of the man robbed and beaten. It was

their choice not to be loving. The Good Samaritan made the other choice. Both choices face

us daily in many situations. We chose to love, or we chose to ignore a chance to love. All of

life is choosing, and we are doing it constantly, and so everyday we are choosing love, or

choosing non-love.

3. Jesus chose to go to the cross. He said, "No man takes my life, but I lay it down freely."

The cross was His choice, and that is why the cross is the greatest symbol in the world of

God's love. He could have chosen to let man be lost forever, but He chose the cross, because

God is love.

Every choice in life can be evaluated by asking, is this a loving choice? If it is not, it is a

bad choice. All sin is a bad choice, for it is a violation of love for God or others. Everything

that is right is so, because it is loving. Everything that is wrong is so, because it is not loving.

Why is lying, cheating, and stealing wrong? Because they are not loving choices. Why is

being honest, generous and kind, good? Because they are loving choices. All of life revolves

around choices. You are what you chose. Man was lost by unloving choices, and man was

saved by loving choices. Every time we make an unloving choice, we are part of the

problem. Every time we make a loving choice, we are part of the answer. The goal of life is

to simply make love your aim, and this means making choices that please both God and man,

for love is always, and primarily, a choice.

Predicting the unpredictable is what weather forecasting is all about. There are so many

variables that nobody can be sure what tomorrow holds. Back in 1816 Mt. Tambora in what

is now Indonesia erupted with a blast 80 times greater than that of Mt. St. Helens, and sent a

massive cloud of volcanic dust into the atmosphere that affected the weather of the Eastern

United States. It affected it so much that 1816 was called the year without a summer. The

temperature rarely got above 50 degrees. On July 4th in normally sultry Savannah, Georgia

the high was 46. Snow, sleet, and ice caused crop damage as far West as Illinois. Such

radical variations from the norm are impossible to predict, but even the normal variations

make weather hard to nail down.

Love is like the weather in many ways. It is always a popular subject, and it affects all of

us, and it is also hard to predict, for it too has many variations. Love is as mysterious as the

weather. Adam and Eve had it made in the shade. They had a love enhancing environment,

and even then the enemy of love was able to cloud their minds and seduce them into an

unloving choice. This made the first storm that came to spoil the perfect sunshine of their

relationship to God.

In that fallen family, however, there was still a lot of love, and Adam and Eve loved each

other, and there was love for God, as well as love for their children. Love was still a major

ingredient in their lives. But without all of the divisions of modern life even that small family

developed bad relationships, and Cain, like lightening, struck down his brother Abel, and

man's environment of love was invaded again by a storm of anti-love. And that is the pattern

of the rest of history. It is like the weather, and you can be basking in the sunshine of love,

and all of a sudden the clouds cover the sun, and you are plunged into darkness and the

storm. David is basking in the sunshine of great victories over his enemies. God loves him,

the people love him, and he has a loving family and lovely loyal wives. In the midst of all that

love the storm of temptation strikes, and a flood of lust washes him off the road of

righteousness, and David's life is never the same.

We could go on with illustration after illustration of how people can have the experience

of love, and yet lack the ability to come through on the other end with the expression of love.

Judas was so loved by Jesus that never once did Jesus embarrass him, even though he knew

his heart was not right. He experienced an inflow of love like few in all of history, and yet his

outflow was unloving betrayal. The major problem of life, therefore, which makes love as

unpredictable as the weather is man's inability in the area of expression of love.

When Paul says, if one does not have love he is a sounding gong or clanging symbol, or if

one does not have love he is nothing, he is referring to the outflow and not the inflow. The

Corinthians had experienced the love of God and the love of Christ. They had experienced

salvation, and they had experienced the multiple gifts of the Holy Spirit. They had all kinds

of experiences of love, and yet their lives were tossed and troubled by the storms of

non-loving behavior. The problem was not that they were unloved, for they were, and had

abundant evidence of it. The problem was for them, as it was for Adam and Eve, David, and

Judas, and every other human being, the expression of love. They had love in the sense of

being objects of God's love, but they did not know how to express it.

God inspired Paul to give them this great love song as the greatest tool in history to aid

men in the expression of love. Paul tells us what love does, and what it does not do. He

reveals to us how to express love. This makes it clear that love has to be learned. Love is not

automatic. It takes time and effort to learn how to express love. Love is patient Paul says. If

Adam and Eve had just taken some time to talk over the temptation of Satan with God, they

would have been expressing love, and that would have led to understanding and victory over

the deceiver. Had David not acted on impulse, and had been patient in dealing with his

temptation, he could have resolved it in love rather than lust. Had Judas shared his

impatience with Jesus, and gotten his greed off his chest, he could have been released from

the bondage that destroyed him. Patience can change the history of almost everyone.

The point is, there is a way of escape from all temptation, and that way is the way of love

that patiently waits to see the escape route. Learning to express love is the highest level of

learning. The story is told of the German professor who dreamed he saw two doors. One

door led directly to love and paradise, and the other led to a lecture on love and paradise.

There was no hesitation on his part, and he went in to hear the lecture. It sounds like a

foolish choice of an egghead intellectual, but in fact, it is the wise choice, and the only choice

God gives us. There is no easy road to love. Love is learned, and it is a hard subject, even

for those who are redeemed children of God. It is no snap course, but the most challenging

course in the university of life.

The experience of being loved is a gift that God freely bestows because He is love. We do

not have to learn how to be loved, for we just are. But we do need to learn how to express

love and be loving. Even natural love for family and friends needs guidance to be expressed

wisely, and how much more the love for the unlovable, and for one's enemies. These

expressions of love call for the most rigorous training. we train people hard to know how to

hate and defeat an enemy. They are put through the rigors of boot camp, and they are

forced to learn effective aggression.

We think the soldiers of the cross, however, do not need such training, and that we can

march off into the world and just automatically know how to encounter the enemy with a

spirit of love. It is just not so, for it is often very painful to try and love those who are

unlovely. This is why Christians have failed in many battles. They did not know how to

express love for the enemy.

They expressed hostility, prejudice, and all kinds of non-love, and so they lost the battle.

They didn't even know how to use their greatest weapon, and so they used all kinds of other

weapons without love, and they learned the hard way that what Paul was saying was

true-everything minus love equals nothing.

History confirms this over and over. The great Christian failures of history all revolve

around the fact that Christians did not know how to express love. All of North Africa and

the Middle East should be Christian, for it was strongly Christian at one time. Then

Christians began to fight among themselves, and like the Corinthians they chose their

loyalties and began to persecute each other, and fight over all kinds of theological issues.

The result was a divided and unloving church. When the Muslim invaders came many

Christians, weary of the persecution and controversy, joined the invaders and Christians

were removed as a force in that part of the world. They did not learn love, and the result

was they lost their chance to be the light of that part of the world.

Christians have failed to win the Jews to Christ because they never learned to express

love to them. Only in modern times do we see Christian groups working hard to learn love.

In the Middle Ages the Jews were the prime target of Christian hostility. The Crusaders

robbed and plundered and killed Jews for no other reason than that they were Jews. The

expedition of Columbus to America was financed by confiscating the wealth of Jews.

Christians have persecuted Jews all through history, and then we wonder why so few Jews

believe that Jesus loves them.

The point I am making is that Christians do not know how to express the love of Christ

just because they experience the love of Christ. The Dead Sea takes in water from the

Jordan River, but no water ever flows out. It is possible to receive love and not know how to

let it keep flowing through you out into the lives of others. This is the problem that leads

Christians, like the Corinthians, to have so much and yet do so little. They have received so

much love, but they are expressing so little love. Their very gifts are doing harm to the body

of Christ. The storm that is rocking their boat is due directly to their lack of knowing how to

express Christian love.

This is the great challenge of the church in every age-how to teach, and how to help

Christians learn to express the love of Christ. Dr. Cecil Osborn, a leader in Christian

psychology, says, "The final goal in all theology is to release within the individual a greater

capacity to love." He is convinced that the small group is a key to helping Christians learn

how to release this capacity, and learn how to express love. The resistance to small groups is

evidence of the problem Christians have in expressing love. The fear of intimacy and the

fear of getting to close to 8 to 10 people is the fear of love-that is the fear of expressing love.

Because Christians have this problem the world starves for lack of love. It is like starving for

lack of food. It is not that there is not enough food in the world for everybody, but the

problem is in the distribution. It is piled up in one place and extremely rare in other places

where people need it most. So it is with love. It is a distribution problem. It is a problem

getting the outflow to match the inflow, and getting love to those who most need it.

In a novel by the Israeli writer Shim Shalom called Storm Over Galilee, there is a group

of children gathered on the roof of the school taking turns looking through the telescope.

They express awe and wonder, but one girl makes the comment, "Teacher, I want to be a

star." The teacher asked, "Why?" She replied, "Because they are so lucky. Teacher loves

those stars." Here was a hunger for love in a child who saw an adult express love for the

distant stars, but who could not manage to express such love for her.

Children have the same problem expressing their love. I read of a problem child who just

created all kinds of problem, and the teacher was frustrated with her. One day she saw her

pin a note to a tree in the school yard, and when she left the tree the teacher went to see what

it was. The note said, "To whoever finds this-I love you." The child did not know how to

express love. She had it in her, but could not express it, and so non-love comes out instead.

How many rotten people are really lonely people who cannot express love? It is easier to say

that nobody loves me than to admit that I do not know how to love, but that is the real

problem.

Back in II Sam. 23 there is a fascinating little story of only 5 verses in the life of David. He

is camped in a cave outside Bethlehem where the Philistines were in control. David makes a

remark, "Oh, that someone would get me a drink of the water from the well near the gate of

Bethlehem." Three of his mighty men heard this remark and took it seriously. They broke

through the Philistine line, and risked their lives to get the water from the well and get it

back to David. He was so impressed with their love that he refused to drink the precious

water gotten at such a price. He poured it out as an offering to the Lord. David did not need

water from that well. He cold have taken a drink of water from the supply they already had,

and we know he did or he would not have survived. His wish for that water was an expression

of longing for the good old days of his youth in Bethlehem. He was happy with his family and

friends that met his needs for love.

Now he is the king, and had many enemies and burdens. He wondered if even his closest

friends really loved him, or just served him out of duty and obligation. All of us long

sometimes for the good old days when love was assured. These three friends of David were

not ordered to go get that water, but chose to do so in expressing their genuine love for him.

David is overwhelmed by it, and feels that his deepest need was met, for he sees that he is still

loved just as he was in his days of youth. These three friends expressed the essence of love by

doing for him that which brightened his life, and gave him joy, not because they had to, or

were ordered to, but because they chose to. Love is doing something for another voluntarily

without feeling it is an obligation and a necessity. It is an act of free choice.

One of the primary values of the group experience is that it helps people discover ways of

expressing love. For example, a man had a hard time understanding why his wife was so

unresponsive to his giving of gifts. She would merely say that is nice and it almost seemed

like indifference to him. In a small group she shared in one session that her mother did not

know how to express love, and so she substituted gifts instead. She felt the need for love and

not gifts. When she shared this it suddenly dawned on both of them why she was not

responsive to the giving of gifts. They represented a substitute for love. When she saw this

she was able to correct her attitude and recognize that the gifts that her husband gave were

not a substitute for love but an expression of love. She may never have learned this apart

from the group experience. Now she could respond with a flow of love out to express her love

and joy for what she was given.

Homer, 900 years before Christ, wrote his famous epic The Odyssey. The hero Ulysses

had been gone for 10 years, and his faithful wife Penelope had been waiting even though

there were many suitors trying to win her love. Finally she feared he must be dead, and so

she promised she would marry the man who could shoot an arrow through 12 rings using the

bow of her husband. In the meantime Ulysses finally returned and heard of the trial for his

wife's hand in marriage.

He disguised himself as a beggar and went to the place of the trial. One by one the

suitors stepped forth, but they found they were unable to bend the bow. Then Ulysses came

forward and said, "Beggar as I am, I was once a soldier and there is still some strength in

these old limbs of mine. Let me try." The others jeered him, but Penelope consented for

him to try. With ease he bent his old bow and sped the arrow unerring through the 12 rings.

Penelope knew instantly, and she shouted, "Ulysses!" She threw herself into his arms. This

story is one of the first, "They lived happily ever after," stories in human literature. It had a

happy ending because both Ulysses and Penelope had a love for each other that was filled

with the quality of patience.

In any great love story you read, or see in a movie, the key ingredient that leads to a

happy ending is this virtue of patience. If the story is a tragedy, and does not end happily, it

is often due to impatience. Gerald Kennedy, one of the great preachers of the 20th century,

said, "As one grows older, one comes to the conclusion that more lives are destroyed by

impatience than any other sin." This is illustrated by history. Lucy Lambert Hale, the

daughter of Senator Hale from New Hampshire, was the most ravishing beauty in

Washington D. C. when Lincoln was president. She was the talk of the town, and many

famous men dated her. One went on to be a senator; another was justice Oliver Wendell

Holmes of the Supreme Court.

The 24 year old John came along and won the heart of this 23 year old beauty. It seemed

a perfect match except for one thing. John was very impatient with her, and he demanded

his own way always. They quarreled all the time, and even through Lincoln's second

inaugural address. Things got even worse when Lucy danced with Robert Lincoln, the

president's oldest son. Then came the straw that broke the camel's back. Lincoln appointed

Lucy's father to be Ambassador to Spain, and she went with him. Later she married Will

Chandler who was a Harvard man and Senator. John's impatience lost him a woman that he

loved, and his reputation forever after, for he let his angry impatience lead him to murder.

John was none other than John Wilkes Booth, the man who shot Lincoln. Love gone soar is

behind much of the tragedy of history, and love usually goes soar because of impatience.

The first thing we need to see is that everyone has some problems in relationships. You

can't have a dog or cat who does not at some point make you angry because of something

stupid or destructive they do. In a fallen world all relationships have problems of some kind.

It is the price you pay to avoid total aloneness. So you will have problems with relatives,

friends, neighbors, and you will have problems with your mate. It is inevitable. We have no

examples of marriage in the Bible that are problem free. The first one should have been

perfect, but it was not, and Adam and Eve set the stage for all human relationships to follow.

Even God had endless problems with His bride Israel, and Jesus has had no end of them with

His bride the church. The perfect marriage will not be experience until all evil is defeated,

and we enter the sin free environment of eternity.

This ought to be clue as to why patience is vital to happiness in time. If you are going to

give up and run out on a relationship because it is imperfect, you are going to spend your life

running, for that is the only kind of relationship there is. There are limits, of course, and

everyone recognizes there are sick relationships where the only cure is to dissolve them.

There are far fewer, however, then the divorce statistics in our culture would indicate.

Impatience destroys love, and this is a major problem in our world today.

The reason marriages use to last was because couples knew it took time to work out

problems and adjust to each other. The reason they do not last today is because couples

want instant solutions or they give up. Dr. David Mace, one of America's great marriage

counselors, looking back over his career of 52 years observes, "One of the ironies of the

decade is that young people talk about intimacy and relating skills, and yet their marriages

are flying apart at an alarming rate. Older people never thought in those terms, and their

marriages lasted a lifetime." He goes on to say that the typical young couple today does not

want to hear the advice of being patient. They want a solution right now, and they are not

willing to wait and learn.

Love that is patient will win, and it will learn to enjoy the mate they have chosen.

Impatient love will demand instant solutions, and when they are not forth coming will

forsake the relationship. M asses of people are divorced who could have saved their

marriage with an exercise of patience. This is the key to maintaining all relationships. In To

Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus Finch and his daughter are discussing a school problem, and he

is explaining what a compromise is, and he says, "An agreement reached by mutual

concessions. In the calm of discussion and agreement is sure to be worked out by mutual

concession, involving some give-and-take by both parties. The important word when

arguments arise is patience. Wisdom is always on the side of the tortoise."

The most unloving thing you can do in any relationship is to make hasty negative

decisions. You see it in advice columns all the time. Someone does a rude or offensive thing

and people want to disown them, cut them out of the will, and never speak to them again.

This is not love. This is letting your life be controlled by anger. If God would have let His

wrath decide His plan for man, rather than His love, we would all be hell bound with no hope

of redemption. But God is love, and that means God is patient, and He is able to look beyond

the offense to the joy of forgiveness and reconciliation.

True love is not manipulated by the emotions and circumstances of the moment. It looks

at the over all long range plan, and lets the ultimate goal be its guide. Too many marriages

and too many relationships are destroyed because people are deceived into thinking that the

negatives of the moment are all that matter. This impatient perspective pushes love to the

back burner, and decisions are made on anger and frustration. Impatience is destructive of

all love. I can see this in my experience of trying to learn the computer, and in trying to

learn to play the piano. If you do not keep the long range goal in mind, you will forsake the

whole thing in frustration. It takes time to learn, and if you are impatient you will give up

before you learn.

If you let impatience dominate you, it will destroy your love for anyone and anything.

Love has to be ever focused on the long range goal to keep you persistent in learning. Once

your love ceases to be patient in its plodding toward a goal you will stop short of the goal and

begin to lose you love. No doubt all of us have given up some goals in life because we became

impatient, and because of it lost our love for the goal. All love on any level will be eroded

and finally eliminated by impatience. Patience is the key to the survival of all love. This

means all love is a matter of the mind as well as the heart. Love is an emotion, but it is also a

matter of the intellect and the will. Love is a learned experience. It is not like breathing,

which is an automatic function that we do not have to learn. Love is learned by example,

imitation and practice.

If your parents never verbalized their love, you probably won't either. If they were

openly expressive of their love, you probably will be as well. Your style of loving is learned

by what you see and experience. If a child does not experience love, they do not learn how to

love. Children are being conditioned by the love they experienced as to the kind of love they

will express.

When two people have the same love style instilled in them they will have a much easier

relationship to adjust to, but often couples have different love styles they grew up with.

When they marry they have conflict and a lot of hurt, for they see their different love styles

as being unloving. This is why patience is the key to their happiness, for it takes time to

learn to understand the other's love style. The good news is that because love is learned new

love styles can be developed to make couples more compatible, but it takes patience.

Mates are much like computers and musical instruments. If you do not hit the right keys,

you do not get the response you are aiming for. You have to understand how to

communicate with your mate just as you do a computer or instrument. If you do not, your

relationship will be one of frustration rather than pleasure. Patience persists and does not

give up because of obstacles. It presses on with determination to find the right key. It is

committed to the ultimate goal of harmony and oneness, and sees all disharmony and conflict

as an opportunity for learning what does not work. Two people committed to patient

learning will overcome all obstacles.

Francis Hunter, the charismatic evangelist, deals with a lot of Christians in troubled

marriages, and she writes, "Did it ever dawn on you that love, understanding and patience

can do more to change undesirable characteristics than anything else? God removes the

things from our lives that are not pleasing in His sight through His great love of us. When we

find ourselves totally committed to Him, we want to please Him. In wanting to please Him,

the things which we know displease Him fall by the wayside. The same principle is true of a

husband-wife relationship. If we exhibit patience in loving our mates, and our love is

unchanging in spite of their idiosyncrasies, they will want to change because of our patience

and love. Try it on your mate and see what happens."

Paul says in v. 8 that love never fails. Why is that? It is because, as he says in v.7, "It

always protects, it always trusts, it always hopes, it always perseveres." In other words, it

never gives up because it is always patient, and so always optimistic about the future. The

present problem is not permanent. We will get over it; through it, or around it and beyond

it. This is love's perspective, and that keeps it going.

A good example of this is the enormous patience needed on the part of mates in

overcoming problems due to sexual abuse. A woman who had been abused by her stepfather

married a fine man, but then discovered that she could not return his love. When he showed

her affection it would elicit the ugly feelings of hatred toward her stepfather. She sought

counseling and began a long process of forgiving her stepfather. She tried hard to see his

good points, and she studied all the Bible said about loving your enemies. She began to pray

for him and for his repentance. She gave his a birthday present and tried to civil with him.

The whole process revolted her, but she persisted because she wanted to be a loving wife.

Week in and week out she prayed and worked at her feelings. Then one day she saw her

stepfather leaving the grocery store and go to his car. She was amazed that she felt no

hatred for him, but had a feeling of compassion instead. She had conquered her hate, and

love was now free to be expressed. She was able to love her husband and their marriage was

saved. This was not a quick or easy answer. It took a long winding path to get there, but

they made it. Only patient love could have saved that marriage. Had either partner lost

their patient persistence the battle would have been lost. In millions of cases it is lost

because couples are not patient.

Patience is so loving and God-like because you never know what changes life will bring

that makes a bad thing good. This is often true in the world of love and romance. Joy

Davidman, for example, was not a likely candidate to be the wife of a famous Christian. She

was brilliant and had her college courses started at 14, and she had her Master's Degree by

age 20. By 25 she had her own book published. Her father was an outspoken atheist, and she

followed in his steps. She joined the Communist party in the 1930's, and she got a divorce.

Most would write her off at this point, and assume she would have no role in the kingdom of

God. But such impatience would go counter to the ways of God.

Joy was lonely and fearful when her husband left her, and even though her first published

poem was about denying the resurrection of Christ, she became open to the possibility that

Jesus was alive. C. S. Lewis said, "Every story of conversion is a story of blessed defeat."

Joy was defeated, and all her arrogant brilliance and defiance of God had gotten her

nowhere. She sensed in spite of her rebellion that God loved her, and in 1946 she

surrendered, confessed her sin, and became a believer. She said that she was the world's

most surprised atheist, for God took her into His family. She began to read the books of C.

S. Lewis, and she saw her need to make Christ Lord of her life. She opened her heart to

Jesus and felt that C. S. Lewis was the key person in helping her to become a true Christian.

To make a long story shorter, she went to England and met Lewis, and after a long

courtship she married him, and made him one of the happiest bachelors in England. It is a

fascinating love story of how two former atheists became two of the leading Christians of the

20th century. They have touched untold millions for Christ. But none of this would have

been possible without the patience of God's love. Had He judged them in the early stages of

their lives He would have robbed the world of great lovers of His Son, and authors who have

led masses of others to love His Son. God is patient because He knows that often the best

surprises are near the end rather than the beginning of a life. God can wait, and that is why

He sees victories when others have given up. God-like lovers are lovers who can wait in

patience.

The major mistake people make is in thinking that love always feels good. The fact is,

love often feels awful and painful. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten

Son, and that was not a pleasant feeling for Jesus to die for the sin of the world. The world is

filled with people who leave their mates because they don't feel love anymore. They have the

foolish idea that the caboose is what pulls the train. Feelings are the caboose in our love for

God and our mate. They are the after effects of acts of the will. Studies show that when

people start acting like they love each other their feelings of love will return. If they are

kind, thoughtful, affectionate, and patiently work through the obstacles that put a wall

between them they can again have the feelings that brought them together in the first place.

But people are too impatient. They want the feelings of love at the flip of a switch, and when

it does not work that way, they walk out of the relationship. This is a rejection of the way

God has provided for getting through life's valleys.

We exercise our muscles to keep them in shape, but seldom do we think of exercises our

virtues to keep them alive and vibrant. Christians should select someone they do not like

very much and start behaving toward them in loving ways to see how their behavior will

change their feelings. If you start praying for one you do not like and doing loving things for

them you will discover that acts of your will can change your feelings. It will be a valuable

lesson to remind you that if at some point it is your mate you don't like at the moment, the

thing to do is to not let your feelings lead you, but take control and exercise love as a choice,

and do what is loving. This choice will restore you to a positive level of feeling. Loving our

enemies is more often then we realize the challenge to be patient with our mate until they are

again our friend. This is to be a God-like lover.

The theme of love has been associated with the Lord's Supper down through the centuries.

The early Christians had what came to be known as an Agape feast before they partook of

the Lord's Supper. This was a time in which they ate a full meal together in an atmosphere

of Christian fellowship. It was a great contrast to the pagan parties which were held on

behalf of false gods. Most of the Corinthian Christians had been involved in this corrupt

pagan celebrations before their conversion, and some of the self-centeredness of those began

to creep into the love feasts of the church. The result was that the outgoing concern for

others in agape love faded, and eros love came in, which is a love that is more concerned

about self and what pleasure it can get at the expense of others.

It was a constant battle to keep the love feast a time of true Christian fellowship. After

New Testament days the church changed the feast and held it after the Lord's Supper, but

there was still problems of corruption. In times of persecution the agape meal was had in

prisons with condemned Christians before they were martyred. It soon became a custom to

have a love meal after weddings and funerals, and so our modern days receptions after such

events are nothing new in the church. During the Middle Ages, however, the practice

became so corrupted by non-Christian influence that the Council of Trullan in 692 A. D.

ruled that those who held love feasts in the church should be excommunicated.

The agape feast is still practiced in the Eastern Church just as it was in New Testament

days. A small group in England called the Peculiar People also have the love feast. They

demonstrate that the practice does not have to be corrupt. The only trace of the idea left in

most churches today is the practice of taking a benevolent offering after the Lord's Supper

to be used to help the needy. The result is that few people today connect love with the Lord's

Supper. It is appropriate, however, to consider the theme of love before we commune with

the Lord of love. We want to focus our attention on the attributes of love that are first

mentioned, and they are patience and kindness.

I. LOVE IS PATIENT.

Patience is the first attribute that Paul mentions, for this is essential in all the

relationships of life. If God was not patient, He would have destroyed the earth long ago,

and there would be no plan of salvation. But God is love, and His love is patient, not willing

that any should perish but that all come to repentance. God is exceedingly patient with

people. Jonah even became angry at God when He did not destroy Nineveh but forgave

them, and gave them a second chance when they repented. God is patient because He is love,

and if the love of God is in us, we too will be patient with people.

This means that we must have the capacity to forgive. This word always means patience

with people, and not just with circumstances. In verse 7 Paul deals with enduring all things,

but here at the start he puts first things first and says that the first attribute of agape love is

the ability to be patient and forgiving of people. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "He who is

devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love." The Corinthians desperately

needed to learn this, for there were weak Christians and proud Christians, and Christians of

every type of personality all mixed together with different convictions and likes. If there is

no patience in such an atmosphere, there is bound to be trouble, and there was. Some were

of Paul, others of Apolos, and others of Cephus. At their love feast some would have steak,

and others would have just vegetables. The rich would not share with the poor. Some ate

meat offered to idols, and others thought it was a sin.

The church has the hardest task in the world. It has to take people of all walks of life with

endless differences in background, convictions, and personalities, and unite them in one

unified mission of extending the kingdom of God on earth. The task is not difficult, it is

impossible unless the unifying power of agape love is present, only agape love can bear

patiently the conflicts in human personalities. Someone said, "To live above with the saints

we love, Oh that will be glory! But to live below with the saints we know-that's another

story."

It is the basic ingredient in the unity of every church. In any church business meeting you

will find differing opinions and convictions. In any group of Christians you will find varying

viewpoints on many practical issues, and how to deal with them. If the patience of agape love

is not present the result will be division and conflict which is neither for the glory of God nor

the good of man. If love does not reign in the church, it ceases to be the light of the world

and, as one has said, "Only adds deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars." Love

alone can dissolve the clouds of darkness and let the light of God shines through.

Abraham Lincoln had a bitter enemy when he was seeking to become President of the

United States. Stanton was his name, and for some reason he hated Lincoln. He did

everything possible to degrade him in the eyes of the public. He use to call Lincoln, "The

original gorilla." On one occasion he said that a certain Frenchman was a fool to be

wandering about in Africa trying to capture a gorilla when he could find one so easy in

Springfield, Ill. In spite of Stanton, Lincoln was elected. Lincoln ten began to select his

cabinet of men to work close to him, and the man he chose to be his Secretary of War was a

shock to everyone, for it was none other than Stanton. His advisors warned him, but Lincoln,

knowing all the things he had said about him, still felt he was the best man for the job, and so

he was appointed.

Such an act of love, forgiveness and patience in the face of hate made Stanton a great

servant of his country, and a great friend of Lincoln. When Lincoln's body was laid in a little

room after he was shot, it was Stanton who stood over him and said through tears, "There

lies the greatest ruler of men the world has ever seen." Maybe not all felt like Stanton, but

then not all men experienced the power of Lincoln's longsuffering love. Likewise, only as we

recognize the longsuffering love of God for us can we be patient with others. It was while we

were yet sinners that Christ died for us. It was while all the hate of sin was being poured out

on Him that He said, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." Only after we

have entered into, and experienced that forgiveness, can we forgive those who trespass

against us.

That is why love is linked so closely to the Lord's Supper, for it is our remembrance of

His longsuffering love that endured even the death of the cross that keeps us conscious of

our obligation to be patient with all others for whom He died. It is this attribute of patience

that enables us to love even our enemies as God loves His. The Christian destroys his

enemies by making them his friends, even as Lincoln did with Stanton.

Longsuffering agape love is the basis on which M artin Luther King Jr. waged his war

against those who hated the blacks. He demonstrated in an historical crisis that love can

conquer hate. Here is a paragraph from his book titled Strength To Love.

"To our most bitter opponents we say: We shall match your

capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure

suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force.

Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We

cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because

non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is

cooperation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes

and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of

violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we

shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer.

One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart

and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double

victory."

The wicked weeds of hate and prejudice will eventually wither in the brilliant light and

blazing heat of such longsuffering love. Little did a young lady in England many years ago

realize how important longsuffering love is in teaching Sunday School. She had a class of 4

ragged boys, and they seem to be hopeless, and especially Bob. It was a struggle just to keep

him coming. The Sunday School superintendent gave him a new suit of clothes so he would

not feel out of place, but after a couple of Sundays he was gone again. The teacher went after

him and found the clothes all torn and dirty. She invited him back and he came. The

superintendent gave him another suit of clothes, but after a week or so his seat was empty

again.

The teacher was so aggravated when she found him again and the clothes were a mess.

She reported to the superintendent that she was utterly discouraged and felt she must give

him up as hopeless. He asked her to give him one more chance, and he gave more clothes to

him if he would promise to attend regularly. Bob promised, and he was won by this

persistent effort. Later he accepted Christ as Savior and went on to study for the ministry.

He became the famous Dr. Robert Morrison. He became a missionary to China, and he

translated the Bible into the Chinese language. Agape love never fails because it never

admits defeat. Longsuffering love found a way to redeem my soul, and it will find a way for

me to bear with those who aggravate and discourage. He loves us with patience at our slow

growth in grace, and we must pass on to others this same patient love.

Sometimes people are melted into one by the fires of affliction. We see this in the classic

musical tragedy set in South Africa called Lost In The Stars. The moment of anguish has

arrived. The white son is dead, and the black son is about to be executed for his death. The

two grieving fathers are together, for they have worked through their grief and bitterness

together, and in spite of the calamity that has fallen upon them they come to this moment

with something beautiful as the black father, whose son is about to die, says, "I have a

friend," and the white father, whose son is already dead, responds, "I have a friend."

It is one of the great paradoxes of history that people you suffer with you get to know

quickly, and you tend to care about more deeply. Suffering produces an atmosphere

conducive to love. Anyone who has ever had a loved one go into the hospital with a crisis,

and who has sat with others in an intensive care unit room knows the truth of what I am

saying. Suffering brings people together. It breaks down walls, and people who are total

strangers become like family over-night. People can instantly identify with others in their

common bond of suffering, and so they have a oneness built into their relationship however

diverse they might be apart from their suffering.

There is a clear cut relationship between suffering and love. This is a side of love that we

seldom explore. It is like the dark side of the moon. We prefer the light side of love, and so

we tend to conclude that love always feels good, but when we probe deeper we discover that

sometimes love hurts. If God would have been guided by the principle that if it feels good

do it, do you think there would have been a cross? God so loved He gave His only Son, and

that gift linked together forever the bond of love and suffering. For it was the greatest love

ever expressed, and it was expressed by the greatest suffering ever experienced. The cross

brings these two together and shouts the message down the corridors of time so that we

cannot escape it-love can hurt! We like the love can help message, and the love can heal

message, and the love can give hope message, but we prefer to listen less intently, if at all, to

the message that love can hurt.

Longsuffering means to suffer long, and to put up with what you do not enjoy. You do

not have to be patient and endure pleasure. It is pain that you have to endure. It is irritation

that you have to patient with. Longsuffering is that aspect of love that enables it to relate to

a fallen and imperfect world. It is that part of love that can hurt and not cease to care

because of the hurt. Eros love only functions as long as there is pleasure. It cannot survive

pain. It ceases to exist when it has to endure. Those who love only on this level are totally

self-centered, and do all they can to avoid pain. Did it hurt God to love man? Yes! Did it

hurt Jesus to love man? Yes! The cross is the answer. Yes it hurt, and all love that is truly

of God will be willing to hurt. It does not hurt all the time, however, for Jesus was not always

a man of sorrow. He was not so until the end of His earthly life, and He never will be again

for all eternity. His love just had to hurt until His purpose was accomplished.

Any love that ceases to be when it costs pain is not agape love. It is pure self-centered

love which says I love me, and like you, for you make me feel good. When you cease to make

me feel good, I don't like you anymore. This is the love that leads to the weak commitments

of our day in all realms of life. Agape love says that even when it hurts to love you, and even

when it costs me pain, I will be loyal to you. This is the love that is the fruit of the Spirit.

The essence of this love is the being willing to suffer for and with another.

II. LOVE IS KIND.

Love does not just patiently put up with people. It also positively puts out for people. In

other words, it is not enough to just turn the other cheek. You must also walk the extra mile.

Agape love is not satisfied with the avoiding harm to people. It must also desire to be of help

to people. The Roman Stoics had a longsuffering patience that enabled them to avoid getting

angry if someone aggravated or injured them, but the emotion of sympathy and kindness

which would motivate them to help others was absent.

The Christian has a motivating factor in his life that no one else has. He has experienced

the kindness of God's love, and so by God's grace he is able to express that kindness to

others. We must always remember that agape love is not automatic. It operates only when

we consciously will to allow the love of God to flow through us. That is why Paul can write in

Eph. 4:31-32, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away

from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another,

as God in Christ forgave you. When we remember what Christ did for us, let us also

remember what He expects us to do for others. He expects us to love with the kindness of

His love, and His loving kindness is supreme. Jesus said that if we love even our enemies our

reward will be great, and we will be sons of the Most High, "For He is kind to the ungrateful

and the selfish." (Luke 6:35).

Why does God love His enemies, and why is He kind? Paul tells us in Rom. 2:4, "Do you

not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance." God's kindness is not to

encourage His enemies, but to erase them by making them sons through repentance and

acceptance of Christ. So we are to be kind to all men that we too might destroy our enemies

by making them friends, and part of the family of God. God grant that we will be able to give

the testimony of Lord Shaftesbury who said, "During a long life I have proved that not one

kind word ever spoken, not kind deed ever done, but sooner or later returns to bless the

giver and become a chain binding men with golden bands to the throne of God."

There is real danger in a sermon like this. It is so easy for people to think of it as a mere

moralistic message. He has told us what all good people already know-that we should be

patient and kind. The same counsel can be gotten from a Buddhist priest, a Christian

Scientist, a PTA lecture, or a government pamphlet on social adjustment. That which

makes it a distinctively Christian message is agape love. Only those who know the love of

God through Christ can practice this kind of patience. Only those who have been

enlightened by the flame of God's kindness can be kindled with this kindness to others. In

other words, only those who have experienced agape love can express agape love. God so

loved He gave His Son, and only if we have received that gift can we so love.

Sometimes people are melted into one by the fires of affliction. We see this in the classic

musical tragedy set in South Africa called Lost In The Stars. The moment of anguish has

arrived. The white son is dead, and the black son is about to be executed for his death. The

two grieving fathers are together, for they have worked through their grief and bitterness

together, and in spite of the calamity that has fallen upon them they come to this moment

with something beautiful as the black father, whose son is about to die, says, "I have a

friend," and the white father, whose son is already dead, responds, "I have a friend."

It is one of the great paradoxes of history that people you suffer with you get to know

quickly, and you tend to care about more deeply. Suffering produces an atmosphere

conducive to love. Anyone who has ever had a loved one go into the hospital with a crisis,

and who has sat with others in an intensive care unit room knows the truth of what I am

saying. Suffering brings people together. It breaks down walls, and people who are total

strangers become like family over-night. People can instantly identify with others in their

common bond of suffering, and so they have a oneness built into their relationship however

diverse they might be apart from their suffering.

Clovis Chappell, the great Southern preacher, told this story of a Christian man who

bought a lovely home in the suburbs in one of the big cities of the South. He had his

furniture moved in one day, and the next day he arrived and was out walking over the wide

lawn of his new property. His next door neighbor came rapidly across the lawn to meet him.

He was glad to see he was eager to be a friend. But his neighbor did not greet him

peacefully, but instead, with a voice of anger asked if he had purchased this property.

"Yes," he replied. "Well then you have just bought a law suit. That fence is 7 feet over on

my land, and I'm going to have every inch of what is mine."

These provoking words encourage a response of anger and defense, but the Christian

man said, "There is no need for a law suit. I believe you are perfectly sincere in what you

say, and though I bought this land in good faith, I am not going to claim it. I will have that

fence moved." The neighbor was wide-eyed in amazement. "Do you really mean it?" "That

is exactly what I mean," was the quiet response. The neighbor said, "No you won't. This

fence is going to stay right where its at. Any man who is as white as you are can have the

land." They became good friends because hostility was met with kindness rather than more

hostility. We greatly underestimate the power of kindness because we look upon it as a mild

and superficial virtue.

You can study history and discover that almost everybody recognizes the value of

kindness. It is a universal virtue, and, therefore, because it is not unique to Christianity we

tend to minimize its importance. This is folly, for if the natural man can love on this level,

what a poor testimony it is if Christians do not. In Acts 28:2 we read that after Paul and all

the other prisoners had survived the shipwreck, and made it safe to the island of Malta, "The

islanders showed us unusual kindness." Here was a pagan people showing Paul and the

others great kindness which they much needed. Cicero the Roman said, "Nothing is so

popular as kindness." Sophocles the Greek said, "Kindness is ever the begetter of

kindness." The religions of the world all praise kindness.

Bertrand Russell, the famous atheist philosopher, wrote a book titled Why I Am Not A

Christian. In this book he surprised the world by saying that the key to a stable world is

Christian love. He wrote, "If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide in action,

a reason for courage, and imperative necessity for intellectual honesty." Here is a

non-Christian praising the value of Christian love, and the impact it can have on all

humanity by means of its kindness. If anybody can see it and have it, then it is too

commonplace to be a major significance is the way we sometimes tend to think. The only

problem with this logic is it has to ignore the fact that the Bible gives kindness a major role,

and the Bible is to be our guide, and not logic, or our feelings that it is too universal to be a

major Christian focus. And so the first thing we want to consider is-

THE IMPORTANCE OF KINDNESS.

Paul writes in Eph. 4:31-32, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and

slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted,

forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgives you." Being kind is the opposite of all those

negatives, and so it covers all that is involved in being polite, courteous, tolerant, and

thoughtful. Peter does not hide this virtue in the closet, but puts it right up there with the

key virtues of the Christian life in II Pet. 1:7. He writes, "Add to godliness brotherly

kindness and to brotherly kindness love." You are playing in the major leagues when you are

being kind.

Eros love says I am in the world for my pleasure. Agape love agrees that pleasure is a

valid and vital part of life, but its vision goes beyond self-pleasure and seeks to give pleasure

to others, and that is why it is kind. Kindness is giving to others the pleasure you desire for

yourself. You like to be treated with respect and courtesy, for this enhances your

self-esteem. Jean De La Bruyere said, "The most delicate, the most sensible of all pleasures,

consists in promoting the pleasure of others."

During World War I Marshal Foch, the French commander, was approached by a noisy

Westerner who criticized the French politeness. "There's nothing in it but wind," he

sneered. The Marshal replied, "There's nothing but wind in a tire but it makes the ride very

smooth and pleasant." Being kind may seem superficial, but the superficial is more

important than we realize. Washing your face is superficial, for it only affects one layer of

skin, but it is important none the less. Waxing your car is superficial. Painting your house is

superficial. Wearing clothes is superficial. There are hundreds of things that we do that are

a mere surface things, but they are still important. The surface is not irrelevant just because

it is not the ultimate. Being kind may not be the ultimate goal of the Christian life, but it is

one of the aids to achieve the goal of being Christ-like.

Dr. Harold Dawley says if we are wise, we will not only check the oil level in our car, but

we will check the lubricant level of our lives, and see if we possess an adequate supply of

kindness to make life run smoother. If not, we need to add, add, add. Get yourself prepared

to live in a world where friction is frequently wearing us down. Agape love meets life's

friction with kindness, courtesy, and politeness, for many a rough ride is made easier by

these lubricants of love.

Napoleon was one of the world's great generals. M any thought he was the anti-Christ in

his day, but there was a reason for why his troops would die for his cause. He made it a point

to be kind to every soldier who fought under him. He would find out some personal

information from the commander of each unit about each soldier, and then on the day of

review he would walk up to one, address him by name, and ask him how is your family in

such and such a place. He made them feel like he knew them personally. This kindness

expressed publicly made him a great leader. We do not know if he was sincere, or just using

good psychology, but it does not matter. Even if a virtue is abused, it is no reason for a

Christian to neglect its proper use. There is power in kindness, and the Christian has an

obligation to use this power for the kingdom of God.

Lack of kindness is the cause for much of the conflict among Christians. Samuel

Coleridge said, "The first duty of a wise advocate is to convince his opponents that he

understands their arguments, and sympathizes with their just feelings." I read of Christians

all the time who do not show the slightest interest in understanding their opponents views,

nor in being sympathetic to their feelings. The result is another area of life where the wise

pagan may be superior to the unwise Christian, for he knows the value and the power of

kindness.

It is a secular problem that says, "You can catch more flies with honey than with

vinegar." Most of us are not into catching flies, but it works with people too. Kindness can

bring peace and reconciliation where all else fails. Criticism tends to compel people to justify

their bad behavior, but compliments reinforce the desire to do what is good. This is just

good psychology that secular people use as well. The difference is, nobody is commanding

them to do it, but the Christian is commanded to be kind to one another. The expression of

God's nature demands it. The example of Christ's nature demands it. The experiences of

life's nature demand it. It is important for all aspects of life.

It is the positive that balances out the merely passive attribute of patient longsuffering.

Longsuffering puts up with people, but kindness puts out for people. It was longsuffering

that made the Prodigals father wait and hope, but it was kindness that called for the party to

celebrate the son's return. Longsuffering endures the pain, but kindness enhances the

pleasure. God does not just endure the folly of man, but He responds in kindness to them.

He is active in His expression of love for the least and the lost.

Sometimes Christians feel proud because they tolerate the sinners and endure their

presence in the world. We share the same world and put up with them, but we do little on the

active side of showing kindness. Jesus, however, demands this as evidence that we are truly

children of God. In Luke 6:35 he says, "But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to

them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will

be sons of the Most High, because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked." God is actively

engaged in being kind to the wicked of the world. He makes His sun to shine and reign to fall

on the unjust as well as the just. He does not withhold the blessing of creation and His

providence from those who are not in His kingdom.

It is God's conviction that people will be won more through kindness than by judgment.

Paul writes in Rom. 2:4, "Or do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, tolerance

and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance." D. L. Moody

was one of history's most powerful evangelists, and it was his conviction that the loving

kindness of God is what the world most needs to hear. It is because people do not feel loved

that they flee from righteousness, and even commit suicide. Moody wrote, "If I could only

make men understand the real meaning of the words of the Apostle John-God is love, I

would take that single text, and would go up and down the world proclaiming this glorious

truth. If you can convince a man that you love him you have won his heart. If you really

make people believe that God loves them, how we should find them crowding into the

kingdom of heaven! The trouble is that men think that God hates them; and so they are all

the time running away from him."

Moody learned from experience that kindness was no minor value, but was the key to

evangelism, and one of the reasons we do not win many to Christ is because we are not kind

to those outside of Christ. He said, "Many of us think we know something of God's love, but

centuries hence we shall admit we have never found out much about it." He said that over

100 years ago, and we can now rightly say that he was a prophet, for we may know even less

rather than more about the love of God. What we want to learn in this message is that the

kindness involved in the love that Paul speaks of is central to its effectiveness.

We sometimes get so use to hearing the stories of the Bible that we forget how radical

they were. The story of Jesus meeting the woman at the well is a good example. It was rare

for a Jewish man to talk with his own wife or mother in public, and it was unheard of to talk

to a strange woman. To talk to a Samaritan would be beyond the bounds of dignity. Yet

here is Jesus, a Jewish Rabbi, talking to a Samaritan woman at a public well. It is no wonder

that the disciples marveled that He talked with her. But it was this kindness toward one who

would expect to be condemned that makes one of the greatest stories of victory in the New

Testament.

She was not only a Samaritan, but also a woman of very questionable morals. There were

social rules that guided how you relate to such a person, and the disciples would have

followed those social rules and shunned her. Jesus showed her the kindness of one who was

worthy of being cared about. He did not scold or condemn, but treated her in a caring way,

and she became one of the most effective witnesses for Christ in the New Testament.

Jesus specialized in being kind to people who were supposed to be rejected. Zachaeus,

for example, was shown the kindness of coming to his home to eat. That was a scandal to the

Pharisees, but to Jesus it was the way to lead him into the kingdom. If you want to have a

great impact on someone's life you need to be kind to them. If you read accounts of

marvelous conversions of people not likely to be won, it is often the case that kindness plays

the major role.

In an Indianapolis prison for women one old woman who had been there for 30 years was

known as the terror of the jail. She was a tough wicked person who had broken all of God's

commandments. A Christian woman became the warden of that prison, and when she began

her duties this miserable wretch was brought to her office in chains. She told the guards to

release her. They warned her of the danger, but she insisted. She had compassion on this 70

year old woman whose life had been wasted in sin and folly. She stooped down and lifted her

with her arms around her. The old woman was overwhelmed by this act of . kindness, and

she began to weep as she said over and over, "Do you think that I could be better? Do you

think that I could be better?" Nobody ever dreamed that she could, for they labeled her as

the worst there was.

One person showing kindness gave her hope that she could be better, and 6 months later

she became a Christian. In a year this terror of the jail was better known as the angel of the

jail. Kindness brought her into the kingdom. What all the condemnation of 70 years could

not do, kindness did in a short time. This is the pattern for great conversions. You don't

find any stories where the hardened sinner was blasted and finally saw the light. It is

kindness in spite of their folly that makes a person melt and lose their hard heart.

Condemnation only makes them resist and become harder. It is the age old story of the wind

and the sun seeking which one had the greatest power to make a man remove his coat. The

wind blew and raged around the man, and he only clung to his coat all the tighter. Then the

sun sent its warm rays upon the man, and soon he voluntarily removed the coat. The

warmth of kindness will get people to respond more than the cold wind of condemnation.

Jesus went through His life being kind, and turning funerals into festivals and water into

wine. He did not ask whether all He did would pay off or not. Much of it did not. Nine

lepers that He healed did not even come and say thank you. Many whom He fed and healed

did not follow Him. He was kind because love is kind. It is the nature of love to be kind, just

as it is the nature of the sun to shine. Love does not calculate and say, "If I do thus and so

will I gain this or that?" That is eros love that says I will love only if I get pleasure by doing

so. Agape loves because love is needed regardless of the response it receives.

Part of our problem is that we have stressed certain cliches so often that we have lost

balance. We say we are to do all things with eternity's values in view, and so we tend to say

that just being kind will not change anything for eternity, and so why bother? Being kind

seems so temporal and insignificant that we feel justified in neglecting it for bigger fish in the

sea of Christian values. This is a major mistake, and it is based on a unrealistic view of life.

Christians who go through life waiting for some spectacular chance to show love and do

something great will be living in a fantasy world. It is the Christian who sees that everyday

we are presented with opportunities to be kind who will really be living with eternity's values

in view.

The one thing that every Christian has in common is not their gifts, for these vary widely,

but it is in their ability to be kind. Beth Robertson wrote,

When I think of the charming people I know,

It's surprising how often I find

The chief of their qualities that makes them so

Is just that they are kind.

The most common Greek word for kindness in the New Testament is chrestos. The word

for Christ is christos. There is only the one letter difference between them. To be kind and to

be Christ-like are very close to being the same thing. Andrew Blackwood Jr. wrote that God

speaks to this world through the human voice that is kind. Frederick Faber said, "Kindness

has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence, or learning." What we need to see is that it

is just because everybody can see the value of kindness that makes it a universal language.

People cannot understand many things that Christians believe, but everyone can understand

kindness.

You do not need any special training of skill to be kind, or to be touched by receiving

kindness. It is just because it is so universal that it is so important. There is nothing else quite

like it, for all of us have the capacity to give and receive it. This means all of us have a great

potential power with us at all times. We cannot understand everybody's language, but we can

be kind. We cannot agree with everyone's ideas, but we can be kind. We cannot follow

everyone's behavior, but we can be kind. There are endless numbers of things that I cannot

do to touch people for Christ, but the one thing that I can do in relation to every human

being who crosses my path in life is to be kind.

Emerson spoke truth when he said, "You can never do a kindness too soon, for you never

know how soon it will be too late." Someone else said that you need to be a bit too kind to be

kind enough. Gypsy Smith was one of the great evangelists of America, England, and

Australia. He tells of how a total stranger's kindness affected his life. In his autobiography he

tells of how he traveled with his gypsy family and how he felt rejected by those outside the

family. He only felt loved by his father.

One day as a young boy he stood gazing at a chapel when an old man shuffled up to him

and took his hands and said, "The Lord bless you my boy. The Lord keep you, my boy."

Those are hardly immortal words to be carved in stone. They are not the words of an

eloquent speaker. They are nothing more than the words of an old laymen given to

encourage. But listen to the testimony Gypsy Smith. "The dear old man passed on, and I

watched him turn the corner. I never saw him again. But when I reach the glory-land, I will

find that grand old saint, and thank him for his shake of the hand and his "God bless you."

He made me feel that somebody outside the tent really cared for a gypsy boy's soul. His

kindness did me more good than a thousand sermons. It was an inspiration ;that has never

left me. Many a young convert has been lost to the church of God, who would have been

preserved and kept for it and made useful in it by some such kindness as that which fell to

my lot that day."

The great need of the world is not for more gifted people, but for more people who use

the gift of kindness. We can make a difference in this world of friction if we will add to it the

lubricant of kindness.

Sometimes the best way to say what something is, is to say what it isn't. If a child asks you

what a smooth surface is, you would probably say it is a surface with no bumps and no rough

spots. Bumps and rough are not what smooth is, but what smooth isn't. It would be hard to

describe what smooth is without reference to its opposite, and what it isn't. If a daughter

asks a mother what she means by perfectly clean sheets, the mother will say, "I mean that

there is no dirt or stains on them." The easiest way to describe a vacuum is to say it is the

absence of air. The easiest to describe total darkness is to say there is no light, and the

easiest way to describe pure light is to say, as John does of God, He is light and in Him is no

darkness at all. When John tells us about what heaven is like, he focuses on what heaven is

not. It is the absence of night, pain, tears, sin, and death.

The point is, a quality or value can only be fully grasped by seeing its opposite, and by

knowing what it isn't. That is why Paul, after telling us two things love is-patient and kind,

follows up with a list of 8 things which love is not. Love is like all supreme values, for it is

easier to say what it isn't than to say what it is. The first thing Paul says that love is not is

envious. Pride is usually considered the first sin of man, but envy is a partner with this first

sin. Satan envied God, and he tempted Adam and Eve to envy God. He said that they could

be like God knowing good and evil. In other words, God has something you do not have, but

it can be yours if you do what I say. Envy makes the self the center of focus, and this opens

the door to all sin. Paul puts envy before pride in this list of what love isn't, for it leads to all

that is unloving.

1. Cain killed Abel and became the first criminal in history because he envied his brother.

2. Joseph brothers envied him because of his relationship to his father, and they sold him

into slavery.

3. Saul sought to kill David because of his envy of David's popularity.

4. The leaders of Israel sought to kill Jesus because they envied His popularity.

The number one cause for all non-loving behavior in human relationships is envy. Watch

children play and you will see them fight over a toy bitterly when there are dozens of other

toys to play with. It is not that they want it that bad, but they just do not like another to have

it. They are motivated by envy, for as soon as one loses interest in the toy the other will no

longer crave it either. Paul says he gave up childish things like this when he became a man.

Maturity is the ability to not need what somebody else has to be content. It is not easy to

grow up emotionally and be loving instead of envious.

We live in a world of much inequality. People do not get equal breaks. Some have better

looks, better health, more wealth, and even more spiritual gifts. This is a major problem in

the world, but also for Christians. We do not like a world where this reality kicks us in the

face almost daily, and reminds us that we are inferior to others in some way. It all seems so

unjust and unfair, and it leads easily to envy. One can get so obsessed with his own

inequality that his own gifts and blessings lose their meaning. The women sang, "Saul has

slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands." This led Saul to feel that he was

nothing, and no longer a hero. He could have been a great hero of Israel, and a great king,

even if David did surpass him, but he so let envy take over in his life that all that mattered

was the destruction of David.

Envy causes people to lose perspective and they are made to feel so inferior that with the

loss of self-love comes the loss of all love. They become so bitter that they are like one who

said, "I can't read, and therefore wish all books were burned." P. J. Bailey said, "Envy is a

coal that comes hissing hot from hell." It leads to all that is the opposite of love. It shrinks

the soul and destroys all relationships. Envy can kill the best relationships. George

Whitefield and John Wesley were great friends, but they came to a time of tension in their

relationship. A man who did not like Wesley asked Whitefield if he thought he would see

Wesley in heaven. He said, "Certainly not." The man was pleased until Whitefield

explained. He said, "Wesley will be so near the throne of God, and you and I so far that we

will not be able to see him." Whitefield could have indulged in some envious slander, but he

chose the way of agape love, and that saved their relationship in spite of the tension.

Love does not envy Paul says, but he does not say that Christians do not envy, for we

know that being a Christian does not eliminate envy. It is love that does not envy, and so

when we do envy we need to recognize it is because we do not love, or that love is not now in

control of our emotions. What this means is that love must be a constant choice of the will.

It is not automatic. What is automatic is the response of the fallen human nature. The

negative is more likely to be automatic, and the positive is more likely to be work.

Katherine Porter said, "Love must be learned, and learned again and again; there is no end

to it. Hate needs no instruction, but wants only to be provoked."

So when you feel envy you need to recognize this is a defect, and a falling short of the

ideal. You do not have to go to pieces and feel guilty, but simply acknowledge your feelings

are sub-Christian. This means they are not to be the basis for your behavior or your talk.

You check any of your words or acts that are motivated by this emotion, for they will not be

loving words or acts. Suppression of the natural man is not only good, it is essential to the

Christian life. You hold back the negative results of non-loving emotions, and instead you

chose to act and talk on the basis of love.

Can you be loving when you feel non-loving? Of course you can, and you must, or you

will let your old nature, rather than your new nature, be your guide, and this is to quench the

Spirit. When you are open to the filling of the Spirit of God, you will quench the works of the

flesh and deny their expression, and you will choose instead the way of love. This calls for

honesty with our emotions. Gary Collins, the Christian psychologist writes, "Envy is an

emotion that everybody possesses but to which nobody admits. While many people would

confess that they are anxious, discouraged, lonely, overly-busy or bothered by feelings of

inferiority, very few of us will tell another we are envious. Indeed, we don't even like to

admit this to ourselves. But above all, we especially want to keep our envy a secret from the

person whom we envy."

Envy is a dangerous emotion for our mental health. The harsh and horrible things said

about it cause us to so fear it that we do not want to acknowledge we have it. We need to

learn it is far healthier to be aware of our emotions, and learn to control them, and not

repress them. Do not fear your negative emotions so much that you do not face them. The

only way to gain the victory is to face your enemy and say, "I am now envious, and in a

non-loving state. My attitude and behavior will be influenced by this emotion, and I can

easily do or say what is non-loving. I must now chose to do and say that which is the will of

God for me. I must will to love even though my feelings would take me down a non-loving

path." You will only be able to be this honest when you are fully aware of your negative

emotions. There are three things about envy that we want to focus on. First let's look at-

I. THE EVIL OF ENVY.

Envy is a violation of love on all levels. It is a rejection of loving God with all your heart,

for envy says I consider God unfair to me, for He has given others what He has not given me.

Therefore, I am rejected by Him, and I will in turn reject His will for me. This is why Cain

killed Abel. He said that life is not fair, and God plays favorites, and so I will try to fight

God's plan and kill the one he favors. His envy led him to first despise God, and then to

despise his brother. Envy leads us to violate God's commandments by leading us to a low

self-image where we hate who we are, for we are less and inferior to someone else. This in

turn leads us to despise that someone else who is superior, and so we have gone full circle

and end up hating God, and hating our neighbor, as we hate ourselves. Envy leads to the

reversal of the will of God for us completely.

That is why one of the most destructive characteristics of non-love. It is anti-love which

makes us weep with those who rejoice, and rejoice when they weep. Theogenes, the Greek

hero of the public games, was so envied by another athlete that it drove him to destroy the

statue that was erected in his honor. He finally succeeded in toppling the image, but it fell on

him and killed him. Envy is like this-it is like shooting an arrow straight into the air above

you. It will not likely hurt anyone but the one it falls on, which is you. Envy is so destructive

to the self that it can cause the self to loose its sense of value and esteem, and thereby lead it

to take risks in doing evil and folly that would not be considered with one with a healthy

self-image.

Envy of another is saying that you are of little worth compared to them. You are saying

that you are rejected and have little value. Others are so much better off, and so they are

superior. You want to rise up and destroy their good fortune for that is the only way you can

feel self-worth by making others less. Much of the evil of life is caused by this lethal logic of

envy. The victory over this evil is clearly found in the development of one's self-esteem. If I

can see that I am not of less worth and value to God, and to others, because I do not have the

name, fame, or assets of others, then I need not be motivated by envy. It may enter my

emotions, and I feel it, but then my mind weighs the facts in the light of my self-worth, and I

conclude that I am loved and valuable even without the gifts that others have. I may be

inferior in many ways, but I am loved by God, and I love God. I am loved by others, and I

love others. I will not let envy rob me of these values that make me an equal to any who have

ever lived.

As parents, we know that when we bring a second child home from the hospital that we do

not love our first child less because now we have another one to love. But the first child does

not know this and so there is often a battle with envy at an early age. It is based on the fear

that another's good fortune is my loss. This is not so in God's family, or in our earthly

family, God does not love any of children less because some are more blest, but it is a felt

emotion of many children and many Christians. We all go through the battle of seeing

others in the family seemingly more loved than we are. This leads to life becoming a

competition where you have to fight for your share of love. You are no longer the exclusive

object of attention, for now there is competition, and the new baby seems to get more

affection. The rest of your life will be competition as other children get the teachers

approval more than you. Others will get awards that you don't get. The coach will pick

others over you. Someone else gets the job you wanted. There is always some realm of life

where someone else is the winner, and you are left feeling envy.

The lower your self-image the more you will envy those who win out over you. Their

good fortune will seem like a curse to you. Envy can become such a vicious beast that it will

never forgive those who surpass you, and in that relationship love is blocked. When love is

blocked all sorts of negative emotions grow. The Pharisees were envious of Jesus and His

popularity with the people. They become totally blinded to all the good He was doing, and

they sought only for a way to eliminate Him from the scene. Such is the power of envy. So

much of the persecution of history is motivated by envy. Christians have done their share of

persecuting each other to prevent the success of one another.

Pride cannot endure someone else becoming superior, and so it give rise to envy. Paul

writes in Gal. 5:26, "Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other." The

Christian is in the same danger as anyone else, and can let the inequality of life led them to

envy. There are Christians who become rich, get fame, and have many blessings of all kinds.

There is no equality among Christians, and so they have all the grounds for envy that anyone

else does. If they do not control it, Christians can be just as resentful and unloving as the

non-Christian.

Victory over this vicious vice must begin with an honest awareness that we carry the virus

for this vice with us at all times. It is especially dangerous when we are in a negative mood

and down on our own self-image. St. Augustine said many centuries ago, "M ay God take this

vice not only from the hearts of all Christians, but from all men, for it is a vice proper to

demons and from which they will always suffer. The devils have fallen, but they are envious

of man who still stands upright. So also, some men are envious of others, not because they

wish to have the prosperity that they see in others, but because they would wish that

everyone be as wretched as themselves."

Do you ever find yourself feeling good at the misfortune of another? It is time to

recognize, if you do, that you are letting envy be your guide. To be loving one needs to keep

in constant contact with his or her own emotions. They must be evaluated in the light of

love, and seen for what they really are, and then kept under control by the will which chooses

the way of love regardless of feelings. Next we see-

II. THE ENERGY OF ENVY.

Where does the energy come from that feeds this anti-agape emotion? It comes primarily

from a poor self-image. Lack of self-love is what leads us to not love our neighbor. Just as

loving yourself will led to loving your neighbor as yourself, so also not loving yourself will

led to not loving your neighbor as you don't love yourself. A healthy sense of self-esteem is

the key to victory over many negatives, and envy is one of them.

We are all in the same boat with the elder brother of the Prodigal. Had he felt loved by

the father he would not have needed to envy his younger brother. But because he felt

unloved he felt cheated and inferior, and this was the source of the energy for the envy that

made him such a negative person in a story with a happy ending for everyone but him. Had

he felt secure, and could have said that he felt good about himself and his loyalty to his

father, he could then have felt good about his foolish brother being forgiven and welcomed

back home. Instead of pouting on the outside, he could have joined the party on the inside in

celebration of a lost one who was now found.

The reason he could not do this was because he felt sorry for himself. He was saying, poor

me, I never had a party with my friends, and I have been good and loyal. I am being treated

as inferior, and all my efforts are forgotten. Most Christians find their emotions tending

toward envy when people they feel are inferior are saved. It almost seems wrong that they

should get to go to heaven after all the lousy things they have done. It does not seem fair

that these people should be equal to them when they have been so good in comparison. This

feeling comes because of a lack of adequate self-worth. If you get your self-image together

you can keep envy under control, and prevent its energy from dominating your emotions.

Next we see-

III. THE EASING OF ENVY.

I could have said the erasing of envy, but this would be unrealistic. We will not be able to

eliminate all non-loving emotions. They are a part of the package of life, and it is

self-defeating to be plagued by the presence of such emotions as envy. Just accept it as a

force that has to be dealt with, like pimples, mosquitoes, or rainy Saturdays. Look at your

negative emotions as a testing of your love. Can you cope with it, or do you collapse under

it? The Christian needs to learn how to handle the negatives of life so as to ease the

pressure, and be able to choose love rather than be carried away by the negatives.

One of the ways we can all help ease the pressure provoked by envy is to recognize the

worth of all members of the body. The church often gets so caught up in the culture that all

of its focus is on the superstars. Christians are as bad as the world in their exaltation of the

few, and their neglect of the many. We need to counteract this tendency and appreciate

people for being who they are. It is the glorifying of the gifts of the few that leads to rivalry

just as we see it in the Corinthian Church. Some were saying, "I am of Paul, I am of Apollos,

I am of Cephas, I am of Christ." Where is the group that says I am of Joe Blow or John Q.

Smith? We create envy and rivalry by creating a hierarchy of gifts and forget that love is

the greatest, and that love is the level where we are all equal. Joe Blow or Jane Doe may not

have equal ability in many areas, but they are equally objects of God's love, and are to be

equally love by the body.

If this is practice, and people feel loved, there is no need for envy to get a foot hold. When

love reigns each member of the body can rejoice that others are superior in ways they are

not, for that just adds so much more to the body. My leg loves my arm and does not feel bad

that my arm can throw a ball better than it can. The whole body is grateful for all the

different gifts of the individual members, for each gift makes the body as a whole more

capable. The diversity and the many superiority's of one member over the others are not

causes for envy, but for enjoyment.

Christians need to develop the unity of the body to erase the power of envy. Ruth

Esbyornson says Christians can move in this direction by developing the ability to

empathize. When you hear another Christian play an instrument, instead of wishing you

could play like that, you enter into the blessing of the music and enjoy it. It becomes your

music as one part of the body provides something for another part.

By empathy it becomes your music. It is not a cause for rivalry but of unity. When one

Christian has had the chance to travel and see the world do not be envious that it was not

you, but enter into the picture and see the world through their eyes and their experience. It

is by empathy that we can see the treasures and feel the thrills of other members of the body.

By empathy you make the experiences of all the members of the body become your

experience. Life is made full, and you are enriched by the experience and gifts of others.

You cannot be the ear, eye, nose, mouth, skin, arm, leg, and all the members of the body. No

member can be the whole body, but each member can enter into the experience of the whole

body, and by so doing enjoy the wider experiences of the whole body.

Do not limit your life to what you have done and feel, but by empathy enter into the

experience of all the members of the body. By doing so you enjoy the blessings that go

beyond your own limitations, and this eases the pressure of envy. Why envy that which

enriches your life, and the life of the whole body? Empathy eases envy, and if it is

consistently practiced a Christian can escape the power of envy to hurt his life. This is easier

to do in an atmosphere where we do not promote pride. When the gifted are made to feel

they deserve special praise and honor, we are back on the world's level where pride reigns.

Jesus said the truly great are those who serve. The gifted are to be a blessing to the whole

body, and the great are those who minister to all.

The pride pattern is to exalt the class president, the star athlete, the beauty queen, and

make them the recipients of honor. This is what leads to envy. As Leslie Flynn says, "We try

to blow out the other fellow's light when it shines more brightly than our own." But we need

not feel that way if we can see the other's light is for our enlightenment and enrichment. Any

Christian who is superior to us in any way is for our blessing. Their superiority is to serve

the members of the body who do not have their gift. When love is kind, and all gifts are used

for the good of the whole, then love is not envious, for there is no need to feel envy toward

that which is a blessing.

It is rivalry that promotes envy. Gen. 30:1 says Rachel envied her sister. It is because

Leah and Rachel were rivals and not partners. Joseph's brothers envied him, and so it is all

through the Bible and history. Rivalry builds up envy, but unity and empathy eases envy.

The reasons we envy other Christians is because of our lack of love. If we could feel we are

one with them, and that we were all part of the family of God, then we could better handle

the emotion of envy. I would love to hear that my brother or sister won a trip around the

world, or ten thousand dollars a week for their life. Even more so if one of my children had

such a good fortune, but I would probably envy if such good fortune came to one of my

peers. The reason is that I do not love them on the same level. It is lack of love that leads to

envy.

Had the rulers of Israel loved Jesus, and saw His fame and popularity with the people as a

blessing, they could have entered into and enjoyed the ministry of Jesus. But instead, they

saw Him as a rival and a threat. In Matt. 27:18 we read that Pilate, "Knew that for envy

they had delivered Him." This four letter word is a four letter demon that will destroy all

that is good and precious. This enemy will always be with us, but we can take the pressure

off and let it be a force in our lives if we grow in love, for love does not envy.

I envy, but love does not, and so only as I and love become one can envy be eased out of

my life. It may not be easy, but we must work at it. We should practice loving actions to get

rid of envy. Go and do something good for someone you envy. The more love you learn to

express, the more you will see envy fade, and you learn by experience that love does not

envy.