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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Preacher: Jeremy Herbert

Theme:

Text: 1 Corinthians 13, Ephesians 4, Galatians 5

Notes:

Ephesians 4:15, We are not to hold to love (at the expense of truth),
nor hold to truth (at the expense of love);
both constitute a false dichotomy.

From 1 Corinthians 13:1-3:

1. Being spiritually gifted is not enough
   • Exercising gifts apart from love is not beneficial to anyone, not even the one serving
2. Being biblically knowledgeable is not enough
   • Speaking the Word of God without the heart of God is not beneficial to anyone
3. Having great faith is not enough
4. Grand gestures are not enough
   • Selling all you possess to give to the poor
   • Giving your body through martyrdom
   • Yet if done without love these gestures are fruitless
5. Ministry without love is nothing
   • It does not benefit anyone
   • It does not glorify God
   • It may even be destructive

Biblical love motivated by and empowered by the Spirit is glorifying to God and beneficial to others
–and ourselves.

Anything else is nothing.

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Preacher:  Pastor Jeremy Herbert

Theme:  Prayer

Text:  Matthew 6:5-15

Notes:

Preacher: Jeremy Herbert

Theme: The Humanity of Christ

Text: Hebrews 2

Notes:

Christ came not to redeem only our soul, but to redeem us in our entirety, heart, soul, mind, and emotions.

1. Jesus submitted his emotions to the Father, and so should we
2. Jesus wants to redeem every part of you–including your emotions

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