Sermons - 2007 Week 44
The Qualities of Love (Part 1)
1 Corinthians 13:4-5
The qualities of love is expounded using just two verses in 1 Corinthians. Paul has summed up these qualities in a succinct manner. He starts of by stating that love suffers long and is kind. He then goes into a negative rhetoric of what love “does not” or “is not”.
“Love suffers long” is translated simply as “love is patient”. In 2 Peter 3:9, God “is long-suffering towards us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” Such is God’s love that He waits patiently for us.
Love is kind. Kindness is a universal language that is found in every society. While patience will take anything from others, kindness will give anything to others, even to enemies. Matthew 5:40-41 illustrates the thought that one must love one’s enemies. It is not just feel kindly about them but to be kind to them. In our busy self-centred culture, there is every opportunity to show love.
Love is not envious. Love does not envy, it is not jealous. Jealousy can take the form of wanting what others have or it can take the form of a destructive wish falling upon others for what they have and one does not. In 1 Kings 3:16-27, the true mother was willing to give up her child to another so that he may live while the envious, false mother would rather the child die as hers had died.
One must remember that jealousy pervades almost all aspects of our lives. There is always someone better, there is always someone promoted faster, there is always someone having more possessions, and the list goes one.
Question: how to harness one’s jealousy and turn it into a “zeal”? The outcome of the zeal cannot be measured by what one perceives against others, but by what God has in store for one.
Love is not boastful. Bragging is the other side of jealously. The spectrum at the other end of jealously is when one has and others do not. Instead of jealousy, one boasts of what one has. Jealously puts others down, boasting builds one up. James 1:17 reminds us of who has given us what we have in just these times of greatness, of plenty, or even of happiness. So, boasting cannot be love.
Love is not arrogant. Superiority often leads to pride and arrogance. These often lead to contention. It can be in a secular setting at work or even at home and it certainly can manifest in church.
How often is a supposed altruistic motive clothing for pride and arrogance?
Love is not rude. Rudeness has its same foundation as boastfulness and arrogance. It is the feeling of superiority that often leads to rudeness. Rudeness is manifested in many ways, in self-centred behaviour, in being overbearing, in carelessness, and in loudness.
Love is not selfish. Jesus is the perfect model coming not to be served but to serve. He sought not His own welfare but the welfare of others. There is no need to speak of this further because the ultimate selflessness must be when Jesus gave His life for us, filthy sinners.
Love is not angry. It must not be easily roused to anger or to a sudden outburst of emotions. However, in 1Corinthians 13: 6, love does not rejoice in iniquity. Thus, righteous indignation is not ruled out. (We must be careful to examine ourselves that our anger is not one of self motivated pride, but truly a righteous indignation. Our motivation must be examined. Discuss this statement.)
Love is not resentful. One must not keep account of things done against us. This is not love and all it does is build up a mountain of unhappiness and revengeful hate instead. Resentment is careful to keep an account which is read and re-read and just makes the reader miserable! Love keeps no such book. Love forgives.
Mr and Mrs ET Chua
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