Presentation 25

The love which Paul is commending here isn't sloppy sentimentalism nor is it some ecstatic feeling. This LOVE isn’t an impersonal commodity meagrely doled out but God's own love his family characteristic being displayed in his redeemed creation.

It’s nothing less than Jesus at work in the believer’s heart. He first drives out un-Christlike attitudes and then nourishing Christlike ones. We now concentrate our attention on this positive activity of love cf. v7 "Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres" which has been described as the "Labours of Love".

Introduction

"Love ALWAYS protects." How are we to understand the word 'protect'? Its root meaning is that of providing a roof or a shelter. At one level this can be taken to mean a concern to protect from physical danger. Think for example of the cloak of protection that Jesus wrapped around his disciples on the night of his arrest cf. Jn 18.8 "If you're looking for me let these men go".

Christ's love longs to protect.

Love’s Protection

What does this mean in practice? Think of the sanctuary that the church once offered to those in danger. Or of the rescue mission of Amy Carmichael in India who in the C19th snatched children from cult prostitution in Hindu Temples. Or perhaps you’ve read of Corrie Ten Boom and of the way in which her family hid the Jews from the Nazis in Holland. Love always protects! This has a breadth of application ranging from the protection of children from parental abuse to the protection of battered wives and the confused elderly who are at risk to exploitation and intimidation?

Love’s Protection

But the protection love gives isn't just physical; cf. Moffat’s translation. "Love is always slow to expose." Love doesn't hang out the dirty washing of others on the line. There are Christian busybodies, the gossip columnists of the Christian church, who no sooner spy out the fault of their fellows than they publish it on page 1 of their conversation.

Sadly, there are some professing Christians, who are quicker to share, what they consider to be the faults of others than they are to share the good news of Christ.

Love’s Protection

Does this then mean that when we see our brother or sister at fault in a matter that we should refuse to broach it with them? No, for it is selfish indulgence and not love that refuses to be our “brother's keeper”. The Christian has a duty to draw his brother’s attention to his faults in private and in a spirit of humility but he should be unwilling to expose them to the public domain and make him a target for gossip.

This was Joseph’s attitude when he thought Mary guilty of promiscuity cf Matt 1.19 “He did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.”

Love’s Protection

This truth has a particular application in evangelism. There are people who've been ostracised by society because their sin has made them unacceptable. James tells us "Love hides a multitude of sins“ Jas 5.20 . It is able to separate the sinner from their sins, and to love the sinner without condoning his sin.

Jesus provides a beautiful example of this in Jn. 4 when he engages the Samarian woman in conversation. Her sin had ostracised her from others but that didn't stop Jesus from engaging her in conversation. And it was only once she saw that she had value in his sight that he began graciously to confront her with her sin. cf also Zacchaeus. Only God's love can enable us to separate the sinner from sin.

Love’s Protection

Secondly Paul writes, ‘Love ALWAYS trusts’. In other words, Love is always eager to believe the best. Indeed, when love has no evidence it believes the best. We are often quick to believe the worst about people and to place the wrong construction on what they have said and done. When we question the motives behind the behaviour of others we begin to close our hearts towards them. ‘He's giving me a few vegetables out of his garden probably because he hopes I will offer to dig it for him’. ‘She has come to church because she thinks it will help her to get a job’. There is nothing that robs life of its richness so much as a suspicious spirit. Love always trusts.

Love’s Trust

How would you have greeted Paul of Tarsus after he professed conversion to Christ? Would you have thought he was setting a trap to catch Christians? Or would you have rushed to befriend him? Barnabas did the latter. He believed the best. You ask what about the times when our suspicions have been justified, when people prove not to be all they appear to be. Was not Philip the evangelist conned by Simon the sorcerer in Acts 8? Philip accepted his profession as genuine. Simon’s subsequent attempt to purchase from the apostles the ability to bestow the gift of the Holy Spirit called the genuineness of his conversion into question. Is it not better to be deceived in a doubtful case and suffer hurt, than to foster scepticism that hurts those whom we should believe?

Love’s Trust

How does love believe the best when it becomes apparent that a brother or sister in Christ has without doubt fallen into temptation?

It might argue, “He must have been under a strong temptation, and if I had been in his shoes I dare say I could have done the same or worse."

Or again it might argue, “His motive was good, he had no way of knowing things would have turned out as they have”.

Love’s Trust

“Love ALWAYS hopes”. In uncertain circumstances love takes a determined stance and filled with buoyant hope it wants with all its heart the best to be achieved or proved. Perhaps the eagerness with which the spirit of love hopes, may be seen best and most when a loved one is dying or is missing.

Some time ago a husband whose wife had been abducted was interviewed on TV. He clearly could not face the possibility that she might be dead and responded, "All I can say is that I know she must still be alive".

What does the poet say, "Hope springs eternal in the human breast".

Love’s Expectations

However, the hope mentioned here is not mere natural optimism, or wishful thinking but a belief that the grace of God will triumph and win its way through the bleakest of circumstances. However dark things seem to be, genuine love is full of confident hope.

Can you recall the words of Job in the midst of his awful suffering and darkness of spirit? “When He has tried me I shall come forth as gold refined in the fire.” Job 23.10.

Love’s Expectations

Of course Paul's particular application is the hope we have for those we might naturally consider to be beyond hope. It was the hope of love that sent the father of the prodigal out every day to scan the horizon for his return. It was this hope of love which caused Paul to pray constantly for the salvation of the Jews despite the fact that they pursued him from city to city as he preached the gospel.

A missionary couple who worked in North Africa for more than 20 years in the midst of tremendous opposition from the Muslim community. During that time they were sustained by the sure hope that God's grace to touch the hearts of some who opposed them.

After 20 years they saw the first response.

Love’s Expectations

The hope of love reaches out to those as yet unconverted. Many Christians are fervent in prayer for family and friends but only Christ's love in our hearts can sustain the hope that they will be brought to faith, especially when year after year they have shown little or no interest in the gospel. Love always hopes. Whether they come along to an occasional church service, or vehemently deny any interest in the things of God, love hopes all things.

Nor should we despair of our fellow Christians. Love can be greatly disappointed by their coldness and unbelief. You may find it extremely difficult to get on with someone in the Christian fellowship and to meaningfully relate to them and get on their wavelength, don't give up on them- hope all things.

Love’s Expectations

‘Love ALWAYS perseveres’. This is most difficult application of all. People can for a time put up with the wrongs in others and believe the best about them and hope the best for them but then one day they say, ‘enough's enough!’ Love never says "Enough" that word is foreign to love’s vocabulary. The father of the prodigal did not stop searching the horizon after a few weeks or a few months! The love that Christ gives endures.

The word translated endurance here describes an intense form of abiding or remaining, it is a dogged holding on. It describes the man who refuses to run even when under great trial. It was the love that Ruth demonstrated after the death of her husband when she refused to forsake Naomi in her distress. Ruth 1.15-18

Love’s Perseverance

It was persevering love that caused Job to hold onto God to stick by him despite the taunts of his wife and the abuse of his friends. In the midst of all of that Job could cry, "Though he slays me yet will I trust him". Job 13.15 What perseverance!

How do we apply this? When people constantly give you the rough side of their tongue then you say under your breath, ‘I will love you despite that’. When people constantly misrepresent you and are abusive towards you then you say, ‘I will love you despite that’. When people set themselves up against you then you say, ‘I will oppose you by continuing to show you the greatest kindness that I can, the hot coals of my love will melt the Artic icecap of your heart’.

Love’s Perseverance

Only God's Spirit can equip us to love as Jesus loved and enable us to work out the love that he has placed in our hearts.

Think about it. God whose love covers all our faults, believes the best about us, and confidently looks towards what one day he will make of us reveals these persevering qualities. God refuses to let us go. As we are gripped by this truth then we will experience God's love making us love.

Is there evidence of love’s labours in our hearts or is love’s labour lost? If that is the case, then determine today in dependence upon God’s grace to recover it.

Love’s Perseverance

In v8 we read ‘love never fails’ i,e, it never collapses or folds under pressure. Our cars may fail to start our health may fail, human relationships fail but this love lasts all through eternity. To drive home his point Paul compares love with the gifts that had come to mean so much to the Corinthians.

One day they will prove to be irrelevant, redundant. For all of these gifts are conditioned by need and as such have a time limited value. They will be swallowed up in the perfection of eternity.

Therefore, the thing that we should concentrate attention upon developing is agape love.

The Supremacy of Love

Paul’s illustration in v11 helps them think outside of the box of their present experience. He compares his childhood to the Christian’s present state in this world and manhood with his future state in glory. First, the speech of the child is unenlightened. “Daddy, what holds up the sky?” or “The sun is sleepy today it has not come out its bed yet”.

We do not say the child is in error they simply have an inadequate cosmology. As the child grows and develops a fuller understanding, e puts that kind of speech behind him. Similarly, our present view of divine things is not necessarily untrue but inadequate.

Heavenly Completeness

The Corinthians thought that possessing supernatural gifts would provide them with a fuller understanding of God. But that kind of knowledge will not come until the end of the age when they would be embarrassed by how shallow their understanding of God was.Paul’s illustration is pressed further. Children often place great value on trifles. A little toy fills the horizon of their thinking. In adult life it fails to hold the same appeal. What man will admit he cannot sleep without his teddy?

The Corinthians had placed inappropriate value on spiritual gifts while neglecting the most important and enduring gift of all – love. How embarrassing to arrive in heaven to discover that what they had valued most had passed out of existence.

Heavenly Completeness

Thirdly, Paul contrasts the Christians’ present experience of God and what will one day be his cf v12…. In the ancient world mirrors were not made of glass but of polished metal. Corinth was a principle manufacturer of such mirrors. The best they provided was a blurred image.

Similarly, our knowledge of God on earth is blurred in comparison with what it shall be in heaven. If you arrive at a camp site at night you have only a limited understanding of the countryside around you but first thing in the morning when the sun has risen the beauty of the countryside around you can be overwhelming. So too, the difference between what we can know of God down here and what we will know in heaven will be even more staggering.

A Full Understanding

Paul concludes by contrasting the transient wrapping-paper values of the Corinthians with 3 enduring qualities that will not cease throughout eternity,

1. Faith. The Christian’s trust in God will never cease throughout eternity.

2. Hope. Christian hope will not diminish. Heaven will not be an everlasting monotony, which once attained leaves nothing further to discover or excite. Throughout eternity we will make fresh and new discoveries about God.

3. Love. The theme of this chapter will endure. Love is not greater because it outlasts the other two but because it outranks them. And it does that because love defines the very essence of God. “God is LOVE”. God’s love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Love brings us into our fullest union and sweetest communion with God.

The Greatest is Love

Heaven is the Christian’s great goal. We will have no need of a Bible in heaven. We will have no need of preaching in heaven. There will be no communion services for these too will have become redundant. We will be with God and love the expression of God’s very own nature will live on and abide in the lives his people. Love the family likeness will remain.

Conclusion