Without commenting on that, let me say this. 1 Corinthians 13 is unquestionably one of the most beautiful, inspiring, and practical passages in all of the New Testament. There are many commands to love in the New Testament. but few more accurately define what is meant by the word love than this one that we've just read in your hearing. Two different Greek words are used in the New Testament to express the concept of love, agape or agape, however you want to put the accent. I hear people say it both ways. And phileo, phileo means brotherly love. Anything come to mind? Maybe the city of what? thank you Philadelphia the city of brotherly love. It's the kind of love you should have for family and friends and everyone for that matter. Agape is the other New Testament word translated love and it's used to describe the affection that God showed for his creation and for his only begotten Son, and for the selfless, unconditional love that Christ embodied, especially in the redemptive work, or the cross work, that he performed at Calvary. The relevance of this kind of love lies in the fact that God created us for the purpose of relationship. He created us to be what? To be relational beings. And it is agape love that makes relationships possible, right? However, sin has entered in. It's affected our relationships. Oh my goodness, has it ever affected our relationships, huh? Big time, like a nuclear bomb. God created us to be relational beings and it is agape love that makes these relationships possible, but sin has radically impacted and affected our relationships. In fact, we are now not whole, but broken people. We cannot and we do not love as we ought to love. Things like pain, anger, fear, and distrust keep us from loving as we should, which in turn keeps us from truly loving others and from experiencing deep, satisfying relationships. We tend to think of love mostly in positive terms, I think. Of what it does. And that's understandable because there are seven positive manifestations that you'll find here of biblical love in verses four to seven of our text passage. Seven. Seven things that love does. such as being patient and kind in verse four, rejoicing in the truth in verse six, as well as bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, and enduring all things in verse seven. But did you know, listen, that in addition to these seven positive characteristics of love, there are nine negative characteristics, as it were, listed in verses four to eight. Because love isn't only manifested by what you do, but also by what you don't do. And in today's text passage, I've chosen three things that love doesn't do. And all three are taken from verse, I say three, three, four, what are three? No, I've chosen four things that love doesn't do. Doesn't your bulletin have four listed there? I hope it does, yeah, four things. And we certainly couldn't cover all of them, we'd be here too long, unless you want to stay until about 1.30, 2 o'clock? No, we won't do that. Now, let me preface this to you by saying that, and mentioning that in scripture, the presentation of both positive as well as negative aspects of the character of biblical love is not something unusual. In fact, it's really quite ordinary. For instance, consider the moral law of God, the Ten Commandments, right? Are those all positive? No. Positive and negative, right? There are thou shalts and thou shalt nots. And as is the case with biblical love, there are more negative commands than positive ones. More don'ts than dos. more actions and behaviors were to avoid doing than ones we are commanded to do. So with that in mind, we come now to the morning subject where we will consider what love doesn't do in four particulars. Look at them in your bulletin. First, love isn't envious, jealous, or covetous of others. On the right hand side, that is. Second, in verse four, love doesn't brag or boast about oneself. Third, in verse four, again, love isn't arrogant or proud. And fourth, in verse five, love isn't easily irritated or quickly aroused to anger. We're just taking them in the order that they come. So again, the first point from verse 4 is this, love isn't envious, jealous, or covetous of others. Verse 4, look at it, love does not envy. Now we all know what envy is, don't we? The old expression to be green with envy. is something we've all experienced at one time or another. Envy wants to be what others are, or to have what others possess, like maybe another person's beauty, gifts, and abilities, or job and position, and a thousand other things. The Greek word translated in your Bible, envy, is zelo'o, which means to be zealous or to be moved with envy or jealousy. And it is sinful, condemnable behavior. Furthermore, jealousy or envy can assume two malignant forms. One form of envy or jealousy covets someone else's fame, abilities, gifts, influence, or physical traits, but in its worst manifestation, jealousy not only wants what someone else has, listen, it also wants others to be deprived of what is rightfully theirs and what they rightfully possess. And that kind of envy and jealousy is frequently illustrated throughout the pages of scripture. For instance, envy was the root cause of what led Cain to murder his brother Abel, right? It's what led Joseph's brothers to sell him into slavery, and it's what led Daniel's colleagues to have him thrown into the lion's den. Very simply, it was envy and jealousy. Also, it was envy that caused the elder brother to resent his father's special attention given to his brother, the prodigal son. upon his return, his repentance, and his restoration. But perhaps Eve, our first mother, is the best example of how destructive envy and jealousy really is because at the root, listen, at the root of her sin against God, was her desire to have what rightfully belonged to God alone. And that was what Satan so cunningly appealed to when he tempted Eve in Genesis 3, 5, you remember, when he said, God knows that in the day that you eat of this tree, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God. knowing good and evil. So what was the root cause of original sin? It was envy and jealousy. Eve wanted to know what God knew. Eve wanted to have what God had, and she wanted to be like him. And when the serpent tempted her with this, Eve coveted what God possessed and what rightfully belonged to Him. And therefore, Paul's admonition to believers in verse 4 is not to envy, not to seek to possess what belongs to someone else, because that's contrary to biblical love. And it's something biblical love doesn't do, or shouldn't do. Here's the application. Love always delights in what belongs to others. Do you do that? Do you delight in what God has in his providence given to others in terms of their, I don't know, their possessions, their beauty, their job, whatever it is? Do you delight in what belongs to others? When love sees someone who is successful, popular, or wonderfully gifted, love is glad for him or her and is never envious or jealous. Richard Lenski, I think he was a Lutheran, he wrote this, when love sees another person, prosperous, rich, or gifted, it is pleased and glad of its advantages, Love never detracts from the praise that is due another, nor tries to make him seem less and self seem more by comparison. Instead of being envious or jealous, love is satisfied with its own portion. and glad of another person's greater portion." So what he's saying is our point of application, simply this, that love always delights in what belongs to others. Now the second thing that love doesn't do, also taken from verse four, number two on your outline, love doesn't brag or boast about oneself. Look at verse four, love does not, what's the word, boast. Now the Greek word here only appears one time in the entire New Testament, this is it, and it simply means to brag or boast or to speak with conceit. Again, we all know what this means by way of personal experience, don't we? because at one time or another we've all been braggarts or show-offs. I have. Have you? We've all done it. We've all done it. We do it whenever we exhibit pride in ourselves and in our knowledge or accomplishments. However, we have no ground or basis for boasting, do we? Quite to the contrary, God's Word says that we have none And therefore, the same apostle who forbade the Corinthians to boast and brag about their spiritual gifts also explained why they shouldn't. Just hold your finger here and turn back to 1 Corinthians chapter 4, just a few pages back. And in chapter 4 and verse 7, Paul gives the Corinthians a very humbling explanation why they must never brag or boast about any gifts or knowledge that they have. In verse 7 of chapter 4, he says, For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive. If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? You see it? You see Paul's reasoning here? Why all pride and boasting should be vigorously avoided? He says it's because all the gifts that Christians possess have come from the hand of their sovereign Lord. What do you have? What do you possess that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not? receive it. So the Corinthians had no reason to boast or brag about anything or any spiritual gift that they possessed and neither do we. Amen? Yeah. Didn't hear a loud amen on that one. Again, there's application here and it's this. Openly acknowledging God's control of distributing spiritual gifts to His people is the antidote to the sin of prideful boasting. I mean, you compare yourself to somebody else and you think that, you know, you've got something that they don't. then you're boasting, right? You're boasting. But if you recognize and acknowledge God's control of distributing things to people just the way he has chosen to do so from before the foundation of the world, in terms of gift and grace and everything, there's no room for boasting. If you realize that the only thing that makes you different from another Christian is God's distribution of gifts to whomever he wills, then there's no ground or basis for any boasting or bragging at all. The heart of the Corinthian problem was their desire to parade their spiritual gifts. In everyone's view, they were spiritual show-offs, all trying to be the center of attention in the church. And therefore, Paul burst the bubble of their pride with some penetrating questions that brought them to the realization that God alone controls the distribution of gifts to his people. And that realization was the antidote for their sin of pride and boasting. And that realization will do the same thing for us that it did for the Corinthian church. But there's an even greater antidote for pride and boasting than this, which is the consideration of Jesus Christ as God incarnate. You get that? Although he was and is the incarnate God, yet He never exalted himself in any way, did he? Wow. Imagine that. I mean, if anyone had the right to be proud and brag and boast about himself, it was Jesus, right? But where do we ever see or sense the Savior boasting? On the contrary, in the language of Paul to the Philippians, in chapter 2, verse 6, we read these words concerning Christ, I think I printed these in your bulletin in red, I did, who though he was in the form of God, referring to Jesus, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself. By taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Christ had everything, as it were, to be proud of and to boast about, yet he never did. Instead, he deeply humbled himself. He condescended to become incarnate. He took upon himself the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. So brethren, when you're tempted to the sin of pride and boasting, consider Jesus. Consider Christ, who though he was the eternal, omnipotent, and almighty God, yet as man he never exalted himself in any way. And this is the great antidote for human pride and boasting, namely, that the God-man Christ Jesus was humble and never exalted himself. Okay, back to 1 Corinthians 13, we've got our third thing that love doesn't do. At the end of verse four, it's this, love isn't arrogant or proud. The word that Paul uses here is the exact opposite of humility. To be arrogant or proud or egotistical, is to be unloving, it's to have an inflated sense of self, living as if only your opinions or your preferences or your choices matter, not somebody else's. Arrogance displays a condescending, patronizing, snobbish superiority when in fact there should be none. And pride is at the heart of this ugly transgression. And it's especially hated by the Lord who loves its opposite, which is humbleness and humility. Just make a note of it, 1 Peter 5.5, The Apostle instructs believers to clothe themselves, every one of them, with humility toward one another. And then Peter states the reason why we're supposed to do this when he wrote, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Which side of the fence you want to be on on that one, huh? He gives, he opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, he says, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you. So humility precedes exaltation and being lifted up by God, His grace is only given to the humble. And lest you think that arrogance is a small sin, consider the Proverbs 16.5. Everyone that is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Worst word that could be possibly used. It's a terrible word. Everyone that is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Be assured, he or she will not go unpunished. Let me hurry ahead to the fourth point. The fourth and last thing that love doesn't do, taken from verse 5 on your outline, love isn't easily irritated or quickly aroused to anger. Verse 5, it does not insist on its way, it is not irritable or resentful. The word irritable is a Greek word which means to quickly become irritated or aroused to anger, quickly, you know. And we hardly need an illustration here since we all know by painful personal experiences what this is, right? It's being touchy, or we might say touchy, or quickly irritated, quick tempered, or short fused. It means losing your cool when crossed or mistreated, even by little things. Hmm. Matthew Poole defined it this way, he said, it is to fly out or fly off the handle extravagantly against your brother or sister upon every light and trivial occasion, end quote. But in sharp contrast to this kind of response, Paul says that love is not irritable, it is not easily irritated, and it's not quickly aroused to anger. In fact, it's the exact opposite. of how James exhorted every believer to respond to provocation when he wrote in chapter 1 verse 19, Know this, my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, and here it is, slow to what? Anger. For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Love isn't easily irritated or quickly aroused to anger. Of course, the ultimate reason why we shouldn't be sinfully angry is because it is inconsistent with God's character, and it violates God's moral law that says, you shall not, what, murder. For instance, in Matthew 5, Jesus warned his followers that to be angry with a brother or a sister without a cause, without a substantial cause, you know, would put them in danger of judgment and hell. Boy, we ought to feel that, don't you think? So anger isn't something trite and insignificant, no, it's something that has consequences, sometimes serious consequences. In fact, if your life is characterized by a pattern of habitual anger, being easily irritated or quickly aroused to wrath, then your behavior is at odds with God's character and does not reflect the greatest and most essential virtue by which Christians are known, namely, love. And in addition to this, if you're easily irritated, and quickly arouse to anger, then you're damaging, you're actually damaging relationships by that kind of behavior. Do you know that anger produces wounds? It produces deep wounds. Ones that sometimes last a lifetime and aren't easily forgotten. All of us need to realize that relationships are delicate, fragile things, and they can be easily damaged by words and by anger. Dr. John MacArthur wrote this, telling our wives or husbands that we love them is not convincing if we continually get angry at what they say or do. Telling our children that we love them is not convincing if we often yell at them for doing things that irritate us and interfere with our own plans. It does no good to protest. I lose my temper a lot, but it's all over in a few minutes. So is a nuclear bomb. A great deal of damage can be done in a very short time. Temper is always destructive, and even small temper bombs can leave much hurt and damage, especially when they explode on a regular basis." End quote. What he's saying is that if you're easily irritated and quickly aroused to anger, then you're severely damaging relationships by that kind of behavior, and you're creating wounds that are hard to mend. and memories that are hard to erase. I read a poem just yesterday called The Echo, captures this well. I spoke a word in anger to one who was my friend. Like a knife it cut him deeply, a wound that was hard to mend. That word so thoughtlessly uttered I wish we could both forget, but its echo lives and memory gives the recollection yet. Perhaps a simple application we should make from this is to remind ourselves that every time we become irritated or aroused to anger, its effects are felt. They are felt. Relationships are damaged, and others are affected by it. No man lives unto himself. I read a story about The early days of Major League Baseball, you know, baseball was my favorite sport growing up. I played a lot of baseball when I was a younger man. And I love this story. We'll end with it. In the spring of 1894, that's in kind of the earlier days of baseball, the Baltimore Orioles came to Boston to play a routine baseball game. But what happened that day was anything but routine. The Orioles' John McGraw got into an argument with the Boston third baseman that turned into a fight, and within minutes all the players from both teams had come out of the dugout and had joined into the brawl. The anger on the field quickly spread to the grandstands, and fighting among the fans quickly went from bad to worse. Next, someone set fire to the stands and the entire ballpark burned to the ground. Not only that, but the fire spread and damaged or destroyed over 100 nearby buildings. 1894, look it up. The story illustrates that when we become irritated and aroused to anger, its effects are felt, damage is done, and others, maybe many others, are affected by it. but love isn't easily irritated or quickly aroused to anger. And I wish I could keep going on to number five, but we'll have to save that for another day. Let's pray. O Lord, that we could love like you love.