Preacher: Jeremy Herbert

Theme: Love is not irritable or resentful

Text: 1 Corinthians 13:5

Notes:

The descriptions of love in 1 Corinthians describe the character of Christ.

Proverbs 22:1, “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches”

Irritable

• Paul’s primary concern in this verse is that love is not irritable with people
• However, when we are irritated with circumstances, we are often irritated with God himself
• Love chooses not to be angered, annoyed, or exasperated with others
• Paul himself was not immune to this temptation, nor was his partner in ministry, Barnabas:
  • Acts 15, “the contention was so sharp that they parted from one another”
• Why do we get irritated?
  • Our values are distorted by sin
  • We value our time and energy more than we value people
  • We would love to get our way more than we love others
  • We view others as obstacles to happiness rather than agents to push us toward holiness
  • Those who irritate us help us to see our own weaknesses

Resentful

• Irritation(s) over a period of time fester into resentment
• The biblical language is rooted in accounting/recording wrongs in a ledger
• “Love keeps no record of wrongs”
• Love does not ‘forgive and forget’–it remembers, and still forgives
• Chrysostom, love quenches wrongs rather than recording them

How do we respond when we get irritated or resentful?

• Angry looks
• Angry words
• Poisoned courtesy
• Silent treatment
• Sulking
• Withdrawing

God uses people and circumstances to grow us into Christlikeness

Real joy is circumstance-independent

How do we address this in our own heart?

• What do I really want?
• Philippians 2:1-4
• Galatians 5:26
• 1 Corinthians 13:7-8
• No matter how difficult circumstances and people are, love persists
• People are not obstacles
• 1 Corinthians 13:13-14:1, “the greatest of these is love…pursue love”
• We are most like our Savior when we love

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Preacher: Jeremy Herbert

Theme: Love does not insist on its own way, and is not irritable or resentful

Text: 1 Corinthians 13:

Notes:

“Do you realize how God treats his children who mistreat His love?
He loves them all the fiercer.” –Dane Ortlund

Love is always:

• God-centered
• God-shaped

Love doesn’t insist on its own way

• “Cure selfishness and you have replanted the garden of Eden,” –R.C.H. Lenski
• The gospel is by its very nature others-focused
• 3 John 9, “…Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority.”
• How do we insist on our own way?
  • Pushy
  • Overbearing
  • Vindictive
  • Make non-essential issues into essential issues
  • We see ourselves as completely wise but not in need of wisdom
  • When we focus on our experience/expression in church service
  • When we dishonor those with differing gifts, or different applications of gifts
  • When we insist on doing everything in church to our liking
• How does love behave?
  • Love appreciates the unity in diversity
    • Unity in Christ and essential doctrines of Christian faith
    • Sees the good in differing gifts/points of view/expressions of faith
  • Love is teachable
  • Love is flexible when possible
  • Love is willing to sacrifice their wants for the good of others
  • 1 Peter 5:5
  • B.J. Thompson, “Surround yourself with people who feed your soul and not your ego.”
  • Philippians 2:3

I’m here to serve God and others and not myself.

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Preacher: Jeremy Herbert

Theme: Love

Text: 1 Corinthians 13

Notes:

Love is defined by what it does–not what it says or what it feels.

Love:

• Is Patient/Longsuffering and Kind
  • Patient with the faults and failures of others–and is still kind to them
  • It is not possible to claim to be patient if you are still unkind
  • How do I react when other people let me down?
  • God is patient with many who will reject Him
    • “God is good to the just and the unjust”, Matthew 5:43-48
    • Psalm 145:9
    • Romans 2, “the goodness of God leads us to repentance”
  • Kindness is love in working clothes
    • Augustine in Confessions, Ambrose moved him by his kindness;  “that man of God received me like a father”
    • Amy Carmichael in India
• Rejoices in and speaks the truth
  • Our love for God and our love for others are rooted in the truth
  • Ephesians 4, truth matures us and unifies us
    • Ephesians 4:15, “speaking the truth in love”
  • The truth speaks love–but it always speaks lovingly
    • 1 Timothy 2:1-4
    • 2 Timothy 2:24-45, the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome
  • Revelation 2:1-5, it doesn’t matter how many things you get right–if you get love wrong

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