We're gonna be in 1 Corinthians 13 this evening, and then again next week, and then next time we are together, we'll look at the book of Hebrews. We'll go back to Hebrews chapter eight for our verse-by-verse study where we left off last time. But today is sort of part two where we began last week, and we're going to talk about what Christian love really looks like. And even though when we look in our Bibles at 1 Corinthians 13, this is in the section of a church with a bunch of problems. So no doubt what we're looking at today is applicable to all of us in the church. But what we're looking at today is certainly relevant to every relationship. dating, marriage, engagement, interpersonal relationships with one another, parents and children at your workplace. These are so important and vital for all of us. So we wanna give our attention to the Lord and his word. So follow with me. Let me read the chapter, 1 Corinthians 13. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but if I don't have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and I know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient. Love is kind, is not jealous. Love does not brag, and it is not arrogant. Love does not act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own. It is not provoked. It does not take into account a wrong suffered. It does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, Love never fails. But if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away. If there are tongues, they will cease. For there is knowledge, or if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I have also been fully known. But now faith, hope, and love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love. The question that I want to pose to you this afternoon is a question of all questions, but careful, because our world has a way of answering it that is dead wrong. The question that you and I need to answer is this, what is love? What's love? How would you define it? How would you explain it? How would you demonstrate it? How would you prove it? How would you define love? There are a couple of places in the Bible where God defines love. 1 John 3, verse 16. We know love by this, that Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Or shortly after that, 1 John 4, verses 10 and 11 is another definition of love. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and he sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. You see, what we are looking at this afternoon and in this chapter of 1 Corinthians 13 is the answer to the question, what is love? What is love? It is the way of agape. It is the distinctive of all of Christ's followers. In fact, Jesus said in John 13, they will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. How will people know that we are distinct from the world if we have love for one another? And God defines love in what Jesus has done for us on the cross. So this great agape love is seen in Christ and it is to be shown by us. But this is super practical. This is the same love that a husband must have for his wife, according to Ephesians 5.25. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. This is the love in Ephesians 4.2 that describes how we are to relate to one another in the body of Christ with humility and gentleness and patience, showing tolerance for one another in love. This is how we respond, get this, when we are wronged by the world, according to 1 Peter 4.8. This is how we respond even to our enemies who hate us, Matthew 5.44. This is the kind of love that we must have to all people when God says, love your neighbor as yourself, Mark 12.31. There's a man who lived in the early church. His name was Tertullian. He was an early Christian writer from the city of Carthage in North Africa. He lived in the late second century A.D., and he is famous for saying that in the Roman Empire, the pagans, the Romans, they would often point at the Christians. and they would be baffled and say, see how they love one another. Would the world do that, pointing at us? See how those people love one another. See how they are sacrificial in love toward one another. What we are looking at today, this afternoon, is this topic of love. Not just any kind of love, not a worldly love, not a selfish love, not a taking love. Anybody can take love, but the God-like love that we are looking at is a self-giving love. This is a certain kind of love that God calls His people to in the Bible. And yet here's the beautiful thing. God doesn't just say, you better love like this. God says, here's the kind of love that I've shown toward you. Receive this love. Be overwhelmed with the great love that Christ has for you. Be astonished at the saving love that Jesus would take on human flesh and come and die and lay down his life for us and be the sin bearing sacrifice for you and bear all of infinite hell on your behalf. That's love. Take that and then show that love to others. What we're looking at today is a certain kind of love. In the Greek language, there are different words for love. There is a marital love between a husband and a wife. There is a family type love and commitment to one another. There is a Philadelphia, kind of a brother to brother, a man to man kind of a love. We looked at all those and mentioned them last week. But this is a fourth kind of love that was scoffed at by the Roman Empire. The pagans, the unbelievers scoffed at this. It was not very common in the Greek writings, and yet it's all over the New Testament. It is a self-giving agape kind of love. It is a self-denying love. It is a self-giving love. It is the way of agape. Really, the Bible says that love should control and fuel our actions. The kind of love that we're looking at in the Bible demonstrated in Christ is an unconquerable kindness. It is an unconquerable kindness. And last week, I defined this kind of agape love in this way. This kind of agape love that we're looking at tonight is a self-sacrifice for another person's good, regardless of how they respond. Self-sacrifice for another person's good, regardless of how they respond. It's not, well, I'll love you if you love me, no. This isn't, well, they don't deserve my love, so I'm not gonna do it. That's not this kind of love. This kind of love is a God-like love where you choose, even when you may not feel like it, I'm gonna choose to serve them, sacrifice my own desires to serve them in the highest possible way, even if they don't respond. Romans 5.8, God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So if you're here today and you hear what I'm gonna preach here in a few minutes and you think, that's impossible. How am I supposed to love like this? The answer is this. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. Remember who you were. Remember how vile and corrupt and wicked and God-hating we were, and how Jesus in love saved us, and he seethed us, and he atoned for our sins, and he brought us into his family, and he said, you were my enemy, and you were hating me, headed for hell, but I seized you to myself. That's the kind of love that we're looking at today. You look to Christ as our great example. So today, what I hope to do this afternoon is show you the uniqueness and the supremacy of this kind of Christian love. And just as a little footnote, this will solve all church problems. This will solve all marriage problems. It would solve all relational problems. It would solve all interrelational problems in the workplace or any kind of sphere of life. I mean, if we know this and live it out, this is God's perfect plan for unity. It's amazing. Last week, we looked at love's primacy, the primacy of love in verses one to three. Remember that? We showed the importance of love. Verse one, if I've got all the languages of men, if I'm a great orator, Corinth was a place that loved oratory. They had plays and actors that would often come through the port city and they had a large amphitheater and there were plays all the time. They loved good orators. Paul says, what if I was the best speaker out there? What if I was the best actor out there? What if I could draw the crowd and I had the best skill, but I had no love? Verse one, I'm nothing. Verse two, what if I have the gift of prophecy and I know all mysteries and I've got all knowledge and I've got all faith? Interestingly, all these are the spiritual gifts that they really wanted in chapter 12. Boy, if I've got all the cool gifts, if I've got all the religion and all the knowledge and I'm first and I'm up front and everybody sees me and I'm doing all these great things for God, verse two, but if you don't have love, you're nothing. Verse three, well, what if I give my possessions to the poor? What if I'm just a good philanthropist and I just help people and I'm a hero and I even give my body to die so that other people can live and I just sacrifice for others, a very heroic act. But if you don't have love, it's nothing. That's the primacy of love, verses one to three. We're not talking about emotions here. We're not talking about some sort of emotion that is driven by feeling. This kind of agape love is driven by choice. Feelings will follow, but it's driven by choice. It's an attitude of selflessness. Because you're focusing on others. Agape love is a self-giving love. It's not interested in what I can get. It's easy to get. But yet this kind of a love is a giving love. It is a giving love. Self-sacrifice for another person's good, regardless of how they respond. Maybe even as I'm preaching this this afternoon, no doubt you're gonna have in your mind the Lord will bring some person or some situation or some event or something that happened, and you're gonna have that in your heart and your mind and your thoughts. Be thinking about how you can take what you hear in the word and apply it and even implement it this upcoming week. Verse four, last week we looked at love's activity. Not only the primacy of love, it's important, but then we saw the activity of love. Look at verse four, love is patient, love is kind, love is not jealous, love does not brag, and it's not arrogant. We looked at all that last week, what love is. What I want to do this afternoon is look at the next definitions of love in verses five to seven. I want to give you a lot of negatives today. We know love by what it's not. It's not this. It's not this. It's not this. We're going to look at a lot of negatives and then one positive at the end. Next week, we'll finish the chapter. So if you're taking notes. Let's just continue where we left off last week with the activity, the activity of love. What are the actions of love? What does love look like? What is the description of love? What is the activity? If you're taking notes, here's the first that we're gonna look at this afternoon. Number one, love is not unbecoming. Or you could put a little slash and just write the word, it's not rude. Love is not rude. It is not unbecoming and it is not rude. In your translation, you might have, it's not dishonorable. It does not act unbecomingly. It does not behave itself unseemly. Let me tell you what the Greek word means. It's a strong word. And the Greek word means disgraceful. It means improper, it means indecent, it means shameful. You don't live in such a way that it's improper for a Christian to live. It's not bringing shame on the ways of God. In fact, in the first Corinthians context, this church had a boatload of problems. The Corinthian church had a boatload of problems, and they were unbecoming in many ways. They were living out bad practices of marriage, divorce, and remarriage, chapter seven. They were taking fellow believers to court before unbelieving judges, chapter six. They were allowing sexual immorality to just remain in the church without any reproof and discipline, chapter five. They were not considering other people, but demanding their own liberties. This is my right. I've got the freedom to do this. And they were not loving their neighbor. Chapters 9 and 10. They were allowing women to usurp the leadership role in the church, verse chapters 11 and 14. They were getting drunk at communion time, chapter 11, and there were factions and divisions all over the church in chapter three. They were walking and living in a shameful, rude way. They were bringing disgrace on the gospel. And Paul's like, this love, this God-like love, this Christian agape love is not shameful. It's not rude. You understand the meaning. It's pretty simple, pretty straightforward. For those of you that are here, young people, teenagers, children, you should listen up, but really all of us, we can all listen to this. I wanna give you some pastoral advice. on how to not be rude and unbecoming. How to walk in the way of agape in this culture in which we live. Like, super practical, okay? Number one, put the phone down and look people in the eyes. Number two, sit still, sit up, and be respectful when other people talk to you. Number three, be punctual and arrive on time. My kids, they know my saying, if you're five minutes early, you're on time. If you're on time, you're late. If you're five minutes late, you're dead. They know that, and so we wanna be punctual. But it's good practical advice Number four, remember how you talk, how you act, how you dress, and how you present yourself is a reflection of your God. And number five, just guys, gentlemen, men, be a gentleman. Be chivalrous. Protect women. Be gentle and caring and tender. Open her doors. hold her hand, treat her with honor. Love is not unbecoming. It's not rude. It's not disgraceful. It's not improper. It's not shameful. Love is not rude. Rather, love should help others, not hurt others. It should bless others, not burden others. Be considerate of others. Be considerate. Where in your life Can you and I grow in not being rude? In our Christian lives, where can we grow in not being dishonorable? Where can we grow in not living improperly? Where can we grow in our relationships with other so that we are helping others, not hurting them? So that we are blessing others, not burdening them? So that we are considerate in the way that we live. Paul says, love is not unbecoming. Number two, if you're taking notes, jot this heading down. It's again in verse five. You see it right there in your Bible. Number two, love does not seek its own. Love does not seek its own. Actually, I think there's a better way that we could think about it. Love does not demand its own way. Love doesn't demand its own way. Maybe in your English translation, love is not self-seeking. It doesn't demand its own way. It doesn't insist on its own way. It's not selfish. This is convicting. I'm forewarning you, this is convicting. The daily mission for all of us as people of God who are called to walk in the way of love, Our mission could be this, I wanna look for opportunities to bless others and do good to other people. But it requires sensitivity to other people and for their wellbeing, but here's the killer. The killer is that my preoccupation with myself and my needs and my wants and my time and my agenda and my calendar gets in the way of that. And man, that happens like every day, every day. Philippians chapter two, verse three, the apostle Paul says to the church, don't look out for your own interests, but also for the interests of others. And then if we want to know what that looks like, we just keep reading Philippians two. And the example is Jesus who humbled himself. came down from heaven in obedience to the Father, even obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. The Bible says in 2 Timothy 3 verse 1, in the last days, difficult times will come. And here we are. For men will be lovers of what? Self. Lovers of self. Okay. I have my street preaching amplified. If I could go to public high schools and public universities and blare this out, because I need it in my own heart and in my own home, but everywhere, here's what I would shout, ready? Spoiler alert, your life is not about you. And it's not about getting what you want. Our lives are to be for God, to be for God. But let's go further. You know that, you understand that, but let's go further. When you and I grumble, when you and I complain, it's sin, why? Because we're seeking our own agenda and we're complaining because we don't get it. Our grumbling, our complaining, is a manifestation of not living in love in that moment. Pornography, all sexual sin, adultery, sexual deviances of all of their forms, living together before marriage, all of those sexual perversions are sin. Why? Because all of them are seeking their own agenda, not God's. So this is super practical. I mean, this is really, really helpful. And one of the indicators that we are needing to work in this is when we say things like, yeah, but I want. I know you wanna do this, but I want. Yeah, I know that the leadership has chosen to go this direction, but I really want this. And we have heart desires and we have heart cravings and we have heart wishes that we just want our plan and our agenda and our desires and all of our ambitions to happen. Conflict, disunity, divisions in Christian homes and communities and churches is when we are seeking our own way and our own glory. By the way, footnote, James 4 is proof on this. What causes fights and quarrels among you? Where do all quarrels come from? And it's easy for us to say, well, it's his fault, it's her fault, it's my boss's fault, it's the kid's fault. No, where do all fights and quarrels come from? From my own desires in my own heart that are waging war. Here's what I want. What do you want so bad? So I wanna give you four words. Four words. When we are seeking our own way, when we're seeking our own glory, how do we know when we are stumbling into this, when we're falling into this in our Christian life? Number one, the word is insisting. Insisting, it's gotta be my way. I want this, I insist this, I demand this. I get home from work and I want a quiet house. I insist that the children be obedient to me. We wish. Number two, rushing. Not just insisting, but rushing. I've got to get this now. We live in a fast paced society. I mean, look, you go to the drive-thru and you wait for like three minutes and we get angry. We're taking too long. because I've gotta have this now. I gotta have my way. I crave, I need. A third word is interrupting. How do you know when you're desiring your own way when you're interrupting? Well, I know you're talking, but let me interrupt you and tell you my way, my plan, my opinion, my agenda, my thoughts, they're more important than yours. Any parent teaching that in their home? We need to work on that, I need to work on that. When we're insisting, when we're rushing, when we're interrupting forth, the word forcing. I'm gonna make this happen. Domination, force, manipulation, I've gotta get this. I'm gonna do whatever it takes to achieve my goal. Those are manifestations. of seeking my own way. And yet, and yet here's where the Bible says, love does not seek its own. It's not demanding. And here's the beautiful, perfect example. Ready? The example is Jesus. The son of man did not come to be served, but he came to serve and give his life a ransom for many. If anything in that point, point two, love does not seek its own. If anything there is convicting to you, and you think, man, this is so hard for me. I do seek my own. At work, or with your spouse, or with your children, or with that employer, with that neighbor, or whatever relationship it is, and you're thinking, that's hard. Then that means each day, preach the gospel of Christ to your own hearts. My Savior did not come to be served, but He came to serve. And He came to lay down His life so that others may live. If you're taking notes, jot this down. Number three, here's another definition of love. We have seen, number one, love is not unbecoming. It does not seek its own. Number three, love is not provoked. provoked. We have so many words in our cultural vernacular to reword this, don't we? I'm frustrated. I'm irritated. I'm angry. All upset. All the different ways that really is tied to this. Love is not provoked. The word in the Greek refers to a sudden outburst of emotion. It's like an impulsive response where you respond in a way and you're thinking, I shouldn't have done that. Why did I say that? Why did I do that? Why did I say that then? In that tone, in that way, to that person. The word provoke actually can be a positive word in the Bible. We are to provoke one another to do good. Hebrews 10, we are to not forsake the assembling together, but stir one another, provoke one another to love and good deeds. The apostle Paul was walking through the pagan city of Athens and he saw all the idols and all the temples in the city and his spirit was provoked within him. He was deeply troubled when he saw the idolatry But here, this is not a positive virtue. When the Bible says your love is not provoked, it's somebody who's sharply and easily irritated. Quite simply, somebody who overreacts. It's somebody who, he's highly moody. He's moody, you don't know what you're gonna get one day. He could be really happy, he could be really sad, he's just highly moody. All that is connected to this word right here. In your English Bible, you might have love is not provoked, not irritable, it's not easily angered, it's not overly sensitive, it's not quickly angered. Okay, is anybody here easily angered when something doesn't go your way? Anybody relate to that? Do you get mad at your dad or mom or children or parents, boss, team leader for things that aren't really that important? When the Bible says love is not provoked, it means that this person is humbly patient so that when we are wronged in the midst of a conflict, this kind of person can't cry over every hurt. He doesn't cry over every slight. If we whimper and whine over every slight, that is proof of our self-centeredness. If we cry and whimper and moan and grumble over every hurt or slight, it's proof of our self-pity. That's why this is here. Love is not provoked. There was a pastor who was commenting on this, and he has a number of children, and he was speaking to his church on this particular topic, and he said, okay, we just need to plan that when the difficult times come, we need to pray instead of emotionally reacting. Just make it your goal, make it your heart's ambition that when the unexpected, when the difficulties come, I need to pray and draw near to God rather than responding in anger. So he says this. Imagine on a Sunday you climb into your minivan to go to church, okay? And you need to tell yourself in advance, he advises, somebody's probably gonna spill their milk in the backseat of the van. And you know what? Somebody's probably gonna pull their sister's hair at the same time in the minivan. And then another kid's gonna roll down the window and chuck their Bible out the window on the highway, all at the same time while you're going to church. And he says, rather than yelling in that moment, resolve to pray. Because those are real life things. Those are real life things. Love is not easily provoked. You think, yeah, but that's hard. It is, but think of how our savior could be so easily provoked toward us and how patient he is and how patient God is toward me and you. Number four, if you're taking notes, here's another description of love. It's another negative, so let me give it to you this way. Love does not keep a record of wrongs. Love does not keep a record of wrongs. Okay, fasten your seatbelt. This is life-changing. 1 Corinthians 13 verse 5, love does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, it is not provoked, it doesn't take into account a wrong suffered. The Greek language is a bookkeeping term. Agape love, Christian love, doesn't keep a track of ways that other people have hurt you. Don't get out your Excel spreadsheet and type out every time you've been wronged by that person. One commentator on the Greek words, he said, love does not perform the bookkeeper's task of maintaining a careful accounting of every time he is wrong. You see, God-like love keeps no record of wrongs. God-like love is not resentful. God-like love does not take into account a wrong suffered. It doesn't keep a record of the wrongs that other people do. Hold up. You might be wronged by other people. But yet this kind of love says, I'm gonna choose, even though it'd be really easy to say, man, you always do this. But God-like love chooses to not do that. and it chooses to not take into account a wrong suffered. Quite simply, if you and I were to tally up all the wrongs and offenses that other people have committed against us, and if we ever use that against them in a conversation or discussion, or we sort of bring up all that baggage to them, that is the sin of keeping a record of wrongs. I remember when I was counseling with the ministry of another church, here in the area and one afternoon I was there in the counseling room and a man sat down and he brought a spiral notebook and he said, these are all my wife's faults that she's done. And I said, I don't want that. He said, why? I said, throw it away because we're not here to fix her. We're here to work on you. So take that notebook of all of our faults and throw it away. Because biblical love, God-like love, does not bring up all of the past hurts and the past sins and use it as leverage against people in a conversation with them. Listen to Proverbs chapter 16, verse 27. A worthless man digs up evil. Proverbs 17 verse nine, he who repeats a matter separates intimate friends. It's a true story. There was a tribe that was living on the island of Polynesia. I only know Polynesia because of the coffee blend. So I had to look where Polynesia was in the South Pacific islands. But there's a tribe in Polynesia that has this practice. It's customary for men in this tribe to keep reminders of his hatred for other people on the island. And so what he would do is he would write down different reminders and he would suspend them, he would hang them from the roof of the inside of his living room or his little hut that he lived in. I mean, so he had all these memories of all of the wrongs of all of these people that he had written out just hanging from his hut that he could see them all day every day. And yet some people do the same. And they live miserable lives because of it. The Bible, the Bible says this in Psalm 130. if God kept a record of sins. Pause right there. Now, the Bible tells us God-like love does not keep a record of sins. Okay, Psalm 130, verse three. If the Lord marks iniquities, if he keeps a record of sins, who in the world could stand? I'd be cast into hell and so would you. And the next verse, Psalm 130 verse four, but there is forgiveness with you. I mean, aren't you thankful that God doesn't suspend in his living room all of our sins and look at them each day? But he forgives and he washes and he cleans and he takes all of our sin and he casts them in the depths of the ocean. And he can do that because he punished our sin upon Jesus, his son on the cross. It's paid in full. God's justice has been met. And if God has done that with all of our sins, we must do that with one another. God's way is so much I mean, this would transform relationships. This will transform marriages. This will transform churches. No record of wrong. I love so much that I'm going to choose to keep a record of wrongs. I'm not going to nurse grudges. I'm not going to pick at old wounds. I'm not going to dwell on grievances. I'm not going to say, you always do this. I'm not going to harbor bitterness. I'm not going to rehearse. all of their faults in my mind over and over and over. That's God-like love. And when that's hard, when that's hard to do, when you're wronged, legitimately wronged, like Peter in Matthew chapter 18, Lord, well, what if he sins against me? 70 times seven, that's a lot of times to forgive people. I just keep record in a one, two, three, all the way down to 490. That's pretty good forgiveness. And God-like love is like, no, you forgive the way you've been forgiven by God. Don't keep a record of wrongs. Now, there is a related discussion. that when there is sin that becomes a habit and you need to address it in the life of another believer, there are biblical grounds and there are biblical guidelines for how to do that well. But this is dealing with the heart of one who has been wronged so that you're not nursing a grudge and holding and harboring bitterness all the while. Let's do a couple more. Number five, what is love? Number five, if you're taking notes, love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. Now, there's so much to say on this. I mean, this is so practical and so helpful. Look at verse six. Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. Literally, love doesn't rejoice in sin. Our love, biblical love, doesn't delight in evil. It doesn't take pleasure in evil. It's kind of like Paul. If Paul's behind the pulpit, Paul's like, okay, don't find any sort of pleasure in sin. Don't rejoice in sin. Don't get contentment, don't take entertainment, don't find happiness in unrighteousness. So what do we look at on TV? Movies, Netflix, Hulu. I mean, it's like God is saying, this biblical God-like love does not laugh at unrighteousness. I mean, homosexuality, sexual immorality. I mean, I could only imagine. It's all over the place in the media platforms. Marital infidelity, drunkenness, drugs, language, taking God's name in vain, violence, family disunity, on and on we could go, and yet people laugh at that? This verse is saying, the way of God-like love does not laugh at that. The way of God-like love does not find entertainment in these things. I mean, gossip. Gossip. Revealing the weaknesses and sins and faults of others. And we laugh and we take part in that. When there's tension between family members, do we laugh at conflict? Do we laugh at sin? Do we laugh at sinful responses? It's like God is saying, don't rejoice in unrighteousness. Now listen to this, Proverbs 14 verse nine, fools mock at sin. And we are living in a world where there are many who mock at sin. Proverbs 14.9 is so clear, fools mock at sin. Proverbs 10.23, doing wickedness is like sport to a fool. I mean, we are living in a culture where it's like, I mean, it's a laughing matter to sin. But Titus 1.8, God says, on the contrast to all of that, an elder should love what is good. 1 Peter 3.13, God's people should be zealous for what is good. 2 Chronicles 6.41, let the godly ones rejoice in what is good. God-like love cannot rejoice in sin. We cannot laugh at what God loathes. We cannot be entertained by what God abhors. I mean, if we If we see someone in need, if we see someone caught in sin, if we see someone who's tangled in a trespass, we ought to hurry with patient, tender love. to do that work of restoration. Not assuming, well, the pastor will do it, other people will do it. It's other people's job to restore them. They're sinning and I don't wanna get involved in that. No, don't just hope that somebody else is gonna do it. Don't just hope they're gonna be okay. If somebody is caught and trapped in a sin, don't just leave it to the pastors and elders. You should care enough and take the initiative to rebuke that person in love. to bear the burdens with them, looking out for yourself, to show the sin from the word and call that person to repentance. What a helpful description of love by showing in these verses what love is not. Follow with me, let me read it before we go to the last positive and then we'll be done. Look at verse five. Love does not act unbecomingly. Love does not seek its own. Love is not provoked. Love does not take into account a wrong suffered. Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. But now let's end here. Number six, if you're taking notes today, here's the positive. Love rejoices with the truth. Love rejoices with the truth. This is the counterpart to the previous. Instead of laughing at sin and taking delight in unrighteousness, we rejoice in the truth. I mean, so it may change the movies that we watch, the music you listen to, the people we hang out with, the places we go, the video games you play. finding truth in God's Word and holding on to it and rejoicing in it. It's focusing on what is true. It's focusing on what is right. It's emphasizing that as we hold on to the truth of God in the Word. So verse six, we rejoice with the truth. You say, Jeff, I get it. I see it here in my Bible. I hear what you're saying. I understand that. So what does that look like? We've seen a lot of negatives. Here's what love is not. So what does it look like to rejoice in the truth? Number one, it means that you study the truth. You study the truth. because scripture is truth. Psalm 119 verse 151, all your commandments are truth. The gospel is truth, the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, Ephesians 1.13. How do we rejoice in the truth? We study the truth. Number two, I think this is really practical and helpful, we sing the truth, we sing it. We sing the truth like the songs that we enjoy when we gather together on Sundays and we sing these great hymns that are focusing on the truth of our God and the truth of his character and the truth of the gospel. We study the truth. We sing the truth. Number three, we have to protect the truth. We have to protect the truth. And we have to do that in this day. We can't have our guard down. We can't just sort of coast through Christian living. I mean, Jude said I was going to write about something else, but I found it necessary to call you, to compel you to contend earnestly for the truth. We got to fight for it. Number four, how do we rejoice in the truth? We gather where the truth is loved and preached. We gather, we gather, we gather. with the people of God. Number five, I think another way to rejoice in the truth is we urgently compel unbelievers to believe in this truth. It's pretty compelling when you share the gospel with a smile. It's compelling and it ought to behoove us to talk with unbelievers with a smile. Let me tell you how you can be forgiven, how you can escape the wrath of God in hell. Let me tell you how you can be made right with God and how you can have the confident assurance that all of your sin is forgiven today. We urgently compel others to believe. And then practically how we rejoice with the truth, we walk godly. We walk godly in the truth. What is truth? Well, God, God is the source of truth, isn't he? Scripture is where we find truth. Jesus said, I am the way, truth, and the life. Of course, the Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth, and the gospel is the message of truth. I mean, that's our lives. We just wanna center our lives around God, Christ, the Spirit, His word, and the gospel, and others who love the same. Much more could be said. We don't have time for more. But let me mention this, before, I go to a conclusion and some applications. Just a brief pastoral word. So you're here and you have your Bible open and you've been reading this and you've been hearing this and you've been reading what love is not. And the spirit of the living God who loves you has convicted you of your sin. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. You come to God And you confess your sin. You come to God and you openly, you openly acknowledge, Lord, here's what your word says. Here's the meaning of the word. And Lord, I confess I have sinned. And when we come to the Lord, we ask for God's mercy. We ask for his forgiveness. We plead for his pardon, for that restored nearness of fellowship. And God grants it. Before you're even done praying, he grants it. Pray for the Spirit's help to walk in love. You can obey these verses. through the power of the Lord Jesus. And you know what? I firmly believe, and I think the Bible would support this, that there are a lot of things interpersonally, in the church, marriages, parenting, work, any place of life, where we are growing in our walk with God, but there are spiritual problems and there are genuine problems that are going on, and yet, Lord, I don't know what the solution is, and so the way to love is through consistent, desperate prayer. I think one of the greatest ways that you can practically love the congregation is to take that membership list that Sandy emails out, the 70 members by name, and you pray for each member. And you pray for the children, and you pray for the families, and you ask, and you follow up, and you're consistent to pray. I believe it's one of the greatest ways that we can practically love one another. Wherever you live, whatever stage of life, whatever season of life, we can love. I wanna give you a practical list of relational agape love. Don't write this down. You're not gonna get it. I'm gonna go fast. But you're gonna get an email in one minute that's gonna have all this in it. Number one, what is the practical list to demonstrate relational love? Listen without interrupting. Speak without accusing others. Give without holding anything back. Pray without ceasing. Answer without arguing. Share without pretending or hypocrisy. Enjoy without complaining. Trust without wavering. Forgive without punishing. Promise without forgetting. I believe that these principles will help us. And you'll read more on that in a little bit when you receive that. I want to close our time today with two brief words. Number one, the hope that we have for all of this love. is to go back to Christ and His agape love that He sent for us. For God so loved the world that He gave His Son. The Son of God loved me and He gave Himself up for me. What is the solution for the husband who finds it difficult to love? What is the solution for the wife who finds it difficult to love the husband? What is the solution for the parents who find it hard to love the wayward children? What is the solution for the church member who finds it hard and difficult to love those other individuals? What is the solution? And the solution is look to the love that Christ has shown to you. and see it, and enjoy it, and bathe in it, and consider it, and dwell on it, and then show that love to others. And then finally, the early church, the early church called a man that I'm gonna tell you about here, they called him the apostle of love. He has that nickname because of two observations. One, he called himself the disciple whom Jesus loved, but that wasn't a prideful title. It was actually a title of humility. I'm so sinful, I can't believe that he would love me. And the second reason he's called the apostle of love is because he wrote more about agape love than anybody else in all the New Testament. But this is the same guy in Luke 9 verse 54, when Jesus said, go ahead of us into Samaria and prepare the way. And so John goes to Samaria and they won't accept Jesus. And then John says, Lord, do you want me to call down fire from heaven and consume him? I can relate to that guy. Because John was headstrong, fiery, demanding, impulsive, emotional, irritable, harsh. And we can prove it because Jesus called him a son of Boanerges. In Greek, that means he's a son of thunder. He's fiery, he's demanding, he's impulsive, he's impetuous. But as God worked in his life, he wasn't the son of thunder, he became the apostle of love. First John 3.1, see how great a love the Father has bestowed on us. First John 3.10, you're not born of God if you don't love one another. 1 John 3.11, we must love one another. 1 John 3.14, he who does not love abides in death. 1 John 3.16, we know love by this that he laid down his life for us. 1 John 3.18, don't love with word or with tongue, but indeed in truth. 1 John 3.23, this is God's commandment that we love one another. I mean, he wrote a lot about love. A couple hundred years later, John had died. All the apostles had died. There was a man in the early church by the name of Jerome. He was a fourth century Bible scholar. Tradition had been passed down orally at that time. Jerome wrote about John at the end of his life. John was 100 years old. He was the only apostle who didn't die a martyr's death, although he had his own fair share of suffering. As a hundred-year-old man, John became so feeble that he could not even walk into church in those older years. In fact, his disciples had to literally carry him into the congregational meetings for worship. He could no longer preach, his voice was too weak, his speech was so difficult to understand in his later years, but he would whisper to his disciples, little children, love one another. Well, Jerome says that on one occasion, a disciple came to John, the 100-year-old John, the apostle, and said, teacher, why do you always say that we should love one another? And John, the 100-year-old man, he said, because it is the Lord's commandment. And if you love one another, That's sufficient. It's quite a word. If you love one another, you have fulfilled the law of Christ, Romans 13 says. May that describe us as well. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your truth that you have given in the word. Thank you for the glory of Christ. And His perfect love, His saving love, His sacrificial love, His eternal love, what great love we have received in Him. Help us to live a life that is dependent upon His grace, that we would show that same love to one another. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's sing.