This is the manuscript of the sermon preached at Christ Church, Los Angeles, CA on Sunday March 3, 2019. It is the second in the "Love, the Badge Of The Christian" series.
Just as people in offices, factories, government, and military, wear badges to show that they belong there we as Christians have a badge too. Our badge is love. Wear the badge of love proudly so that the world can see that you belong to Christ.
John 13:34-35 ESV A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
This was a new commandment in that the love was not because they all belonged to the same nation or all looked like each other, but because they belonged to Christ. This love was to be the expression of the love of Christ, which the disciples had seen in His life and would see also in death.
To hear the audio click on the YouTube image at the end of the manuscript.
Just as people in offices, factories, government, and military, wear badges to show that they belong there we as Christians have a badge too. Our badge is love. Wear the badge of love proudly so that the world can see that you belong to Christ.
John 13:34-35 ESV A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
This was a new commandment in that the love was not because they all belonged to the same nation or all looked like each other, but because they belonged to Christ. This love was to be the expression of the love of Christ, which the disciples had seen in His life and would see also in death.
To hear the audio click on the YouTube image at the end of the manuscript.
Photo Credit: Heartfelt.og
This is the third sermon in our series “Love, The Badge Of The Christian.
Love is the thing that identifies the Christian to the world. Love is our badge.
The text for the entire series is;
John 13:34-35 ESV A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
This new commandment to love wasn't to love just the people of Israel or the Jewish people, or just the people who looked like they looked, but to love them because they belonged to Christ. Jesus He went on to say at another time that they should love not only their friends but their enemies too. He commanded them to love everybody.
Matthew 5:43-48 ESV "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Here's what it says in
Mark 12:28-31 ESV And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the most important of all?" Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
The text today is the same as it was for last Sunday and was our Scripture reading today.
1 Corinthians 13:1-8 ESV If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
Our emphasis last Sunday was on verse 4
1 Corinthians 13:4 ESV Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
Last week we talked about the “Positive Nature of Love” of Agape love. That love that is the most powerful, noblest type of love: sacrificial love. The kind of love that God has for man and that man has for God and that He wants us to have for everybody our Christian brothers and sisters, our family, our friends, and even our enemies, everybody.
We said that Agape love is patient, it's always kind, it never gives up no matter what, it always believes the best, it never stops hoping, and it gives us the power to endure anything.
Agape love is never an accident, nor is it automatic. It is made possible by the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ for each of us. As God’s gift to us, love is the first fruit of the Spirit in the hearts of believers. It grows to maturity as we nourish it.
Our emphasis for today is the second half of 1 Corinthians 13:4 but and verses 5 and 6.
1 Corinthians 13:4b-6 ESV ...love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Introduction
As I said last week, Paul's description of agape love in his letter to the church at Corinthians comes right after his description of all the spiritual gifts.
1 Corinthians 12:27-28, 30-31 ESV Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
Then he goes into his description of agape love.
The church at Corinth had received many great spiritual gifts from God.
If we go back to;
1 Corinthians 1:4-8 ESV I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Instead of accepting these spiritual gifts with humility and exercising them with love, the members of this congregation had become proud and boastful of their gifts. Instead of demonstrating genuine love, they were permitting attitudes to prevail that hindered their fellowship with God and destroyed their fellowship with one another.
Paul insists that for them to fail at the point of practicing genuine Christian love is to fail utterly and completely. Love is to be the Christian’s trademark, or badge of identification. Without genuine love, everything we do is incomplete and useless.
Like Paul said;
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 ESV If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
He wanted to show them a more excellent way to use their spiritual gifts for the church.
1 Corinthians 12:31 ESV But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
That more excellent way is the way of love. Love is the way we use the gifts of God and relate to and serve others. Love is the first and second commandments that Jesus said encompass everything which is to first love God and then love everybody else.
Matthew 22:37-40 ESV And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
Love is the first thing mentioned when describing the fruit of the Spirit which is in every believer.
Galatians 5:22-23 ESV But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
The command to love is repeated over and over throughout the New Testament.
It's called the royal law in James.
James 2:8 ESV If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well.
Paul said that love fulfills the law.
Romans 13:10 ESV Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Back to our text.
1 Corinthians 13:4b-6 ESV …love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Last week we talked about the positive nature of agape love; it is patient, it's always kind, it never gives up no matter what, it always believes the best, it never stops hoping, and it gives us the power to endure anything. This week let's talk about what agape love does not do.
Love is the thing that identifies the Christian to the world. Love is our badge.
The text for the entire series is;
John 13:34-35 ESV A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
This new commandment to love wasn't to love just the people of Israel or the Jewish people, or just the people who looked like they looked, but to love them because they belonged to Christ. Jesus He went on to say at another time that they should love not only their friends but their enemies too. He commanded them to love everybody.
Matthew 5:43-48 ESV "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Here's what it says in
Mark 12:28-31 ESV And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the most important of all?" Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
The text today is the same as it was for last Sunday and was our Scripture reading today.
1 Corinthians 13:1-8 ESV If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
Our emphasis last Sunday was on verse 4
1 Corinthians 13:4 ESV Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
Last week we talked about the “Positive Nature of Love” of Agape love. That love that is the most powerful, noblest type of love: sacrificial love. The kind of love that God has for man and that man has for God and that He wants us to have for everybody our Christian brothers and sisters, our family, our friends, and even our enemies, everybody.
We said that Agape love is patient, it's always kind, it never gives up no matter what, it always believes the best, it never stops hoping, and it gives us the power to endure anything.
Agape love is never an accident, nor is it automatic. It is made possible by the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ for each of us. As God’s gift to us, love is the first fruit of the Spirit in the hearts of believers. It grows to maturity as we nourish it.
Our emphasis for today is the second half of 1 Corinthians 13:4 but and verses 5 and 6.
1 Corinthians 13:4b-6 ESV ...love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Introduction
As I said last week, Paul's description of agape love in his letter to the church at Corinthians comes right after his description of all the spiritual gifts.
1 Corinthians 12:27-28, 30-31 ESV Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
Then he goes into his description of agape love.
The church at Corinth had received many great spiritual gifts from God.
If we go back to;
1 Corinthians 1:4-8 ESV I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Instead of accepting these spiritual gifts with humility and exercising them with love, the members of this congregation had become proud and boastful of their gifts. Instead of demonstrating genuine love, they were permitting attitudes to prevail that hindered their fellowship with God and destroyed their fellowship with one another.
Paul insists that for them to fail at the point of practicing genuine Christian love is to fail utterly and completely. Love is to be the Christian’s trademark, or badge of identification. Without genuine love, everything we do is incomplete and useless.
Like Paul said;
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 ESV If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
He wanted to show them a more excellent way to use their spiritual gifts for the church.
1 Corinthians 12:31 ESV But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
That more excellent way is the way of love. Love is the way we use the gifts of God and relate to and serve others. Love is the first and second commandments that Jesus said encompass everything which is to first love God and then love everybody else.
Matthew 22:37-40 ESV And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
Love is the first thing mentioned when describing the fruit of the Spirit which is in every believer.
Galatians 5:22-23 ESV But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
The command to love is repeated over and over throughout the New Testament.
It's called the royal law in James.
James 2:8 ESV If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well.
Paul said that love fulfills the law.
Romans 13:10 ESV Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Back to our text.
1 Corinthians 13:4b-6 ESV …love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Last week we talked about the positive nature of agape love; it is patient, it's always kind, it never gives up no matter what, it always believes the best, it never stops hoping, and it gives us the power to endure anything. This week let's talk about what agape love does not do.
I. Agape love is never jealous or envious.
The kind of jealousy I’m talking about is the destructive kind. The kind that is suspicious of someone or their achievements.
Jealousy is basically a selfish concern for oneself rather than a dedication to the well-being of another. There are times when our desire for our own well-being can conflict with what should be our desire for the well-being of others. Jealousy and envy are expressions of selfishness.
We must careful that we don't envy folk who have different gifts than we have or appear to be more fortunate than us. First of all we never really know what's going on in another person's life so rather than envy we should respond with agape love.
II. Agape love is never boastful.
It is no braggart; rather, it is humble and grateful for God’s gifts and for life’s achievements. Just as agape love isn't envious or jealous of the blessings of others, it's also not eager to make a display of its own gifts and achievements.
People boast to make others notice them. It’s not possible to be boastful and love at the same time.
Agape love never struts like a peacock. It’s not arrogant or proud. Agape love never responds to others with an inflated sense of one’s own importance.
Agape love is never puffed up with pride.
Remember the parable the Jesus told about the Pharisee who in his prayer thanked God that he wasn’t like other people especially the tax collector who was also praying at the same time. It was the tax collector, who was humble, who went home justified not the boastful Pharisee.
Luke 18:9-14 ESV He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."
Agape love is not boastful
III. Agape love is never rude.
Agape love does not behave in a shameful manner at any time. Agape love is never blunt or brutal in its comments or in its relationships with others.
People with agape don’t behave rudely or badly or act inappropriately. That means more than just being polite. It means to think about others above yourself.
Romans 12:3-5 ESV For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
IV. Agape love does not insist on having its own way.
Agape love is never self-seeking at the expense of others.
Agape love insists on the well-being of others first.
Agape love puts aside self-assertion and self-preservation for the well being of others.
People with agape don’t seek their own first. They don’t look out for their own interest before considering others.
1 Corinthians 10:24 ESV Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.
Philippians 2:3 ESV Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
V. Agape love is not irritable or easily angered, it doesn't fly into a rage.
Agape love is not mean or hot-tempered.
Agape love is not difficult to live with.
Agape love does not irritate or provoke others.
Agape love does not “lose its cool.”People with agape are not easily provoked. They do not easily become angry.
Agape doesn’t answer insults with anger. It’s alright to be angry at times but agape love is patient even in anger.
Ephesians 4:25-27 ESV Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.
VI. Agape love is not resentful, keeps no record of wrongs and is never glad when others go wrong or when things turn out badly for others.
We talked about this last week, agape love refuses to tolerate bitterness in the heart.
Agape love refuses to harbor hostility toward others but instead practices forgiveness and forbearance.
Matthew 18:21-22 ESV Then Peter came up and said to him, "Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Matthew 6:12 ESV and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Agape love never gloats over the sins and mistakes of others.
Agape love never rejoices over the failures and tragedies of others.
Like we said last week; people with agape love don’t take pleasure in evil things, they don’t rejoice in the fact that someone has fallen into sin, has made a mistake, and is now suffering the consequences.
Proverbs 24:17-18 ESV Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from him.
Agape love doesn’t try to find fault in other people.
People with agape don’t keep a record of how people have hurt them. Just as God in Christ does not keep a record of our sins.
Micah 7:18-19 ESV Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
Romans 4:7-8 ESV "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin."
So if we have agape we shouldn’t keep remembering an action or insult against us.
Ephesians 4:32 ESV Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
And finally as we also said last week
VII. Agape love never gives up hope.
Agape love believes that no person is a hopeless case.
No situation is without hope if you remember God and the power of his love.
I John 4:17-19 NKJV Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.
Conclusion
Now having talked about the positive nature of agape love last week and then this week about what agape love doesn't do the question is; Who can practice love on this level?
The answer is you can, with the help and grace of God. God's love for us brings about love that's in all believers.
We can love because of the presence of the living Christ in our hearts.
Romans 8:9-11 ESV You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
We love because God first loved us.
1 John 4:16-21 ESV So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Agape love is one of the most powerful forces in existence and it's invaluable.
Song of Songs 8:7 NLT Many waters cannot quench love, nor can rivers drown it. If a man tried to buy love with all his wealth, his offer would be utterly scorned.
In other words it’s so valuable all the money in the world can’t buy agape love.
God created us and loved us from the moment of our conception and will love us to the day we die, whether we acknowledge him, mock and scorn him, or deny him. He wants us to turn to him and be born again by his spirit, and to live with him forever.
In the end, it is only love that will remain and conquer the horrors of this present world.
Martin Luther King Jr said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” (From Strength to Love Martin Luther King).
I want to end today with this;
1 Corinthians 13:8-13 ESV Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
So let’s accept the love of God in Jesus, so that we can love ourselves and love others, and in our own various ways hold back the darkness. It’s a time to love.
Sermon Audio
RSS Feed