Don't repeat it, don't watch it, don't look at it, don't read it. If it has anything to do with sin, in secret, have nothing to do with it. Imagine applying that standard to our lives. How many movies would you have to walk out of? How many TV shows could you watch?
How many songs could you listen to on your favorite? Radio station. Frankly, when we understand that Paul's statement reflects such a high standard that the American church has so abandoned, that if we saw somebody attempting to apply that high standard, we'd think they were out of touch with reality. What kind of things do you take delight in? What would your television viewing habits reveal about the true answer to that question?
How about the websites you visit? or the way you spend your money. How about your feelings toward other people? Do you ever take delight in something bad happening to someone else? This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey.
Stevens in a series about love from 1 Corinthians 13 called True Love. In today's lesson, we're going to learn what true love delights in. Today's message is entitled Capturing Love's Attention. Stay with us. It has been said that a A person's true character is revealed in What makes him laugh?
And then what makes him weep? There's probably a lot of truth to that. What is it that causes you to Rejoice. In fact, take Take five. Ten seconds here.
And think about the last time You laughed. What was it about? Was it a joke somebody told at the office? Was it uh some scene on Television, was it something you read? What puts windows in the wind?
into your sales. What do you get really excited about? When somebody bumps into you, you're going to talk about this, whatever it happens to be. It might be, you know, The weather, it might be some Current event, it might be the upcoming game next Sunday between Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. You know, what do you get excited about?
Huh? Take another five seconds or so and try to recall. When the last time it was when you were really sad? What brought it about? What was it that upset you?
See, for the believer, we ought to be challenged with the question: what is it that captivates our interest? What do we get excited about? What is it that brings a laugh? or a tear. To our face.
Raptures. Our emotions. True love is not interested in the gutter. True love. does not live off salacious news.
It does not long for the latest juicy bit of Sin or sacrilege. Let me have it. Give it to me quick. What Paul does next in 1 Corinthians 13, if you'll turn there if you haven't already, is he describes genuine, lofty, godlike agape. This is a love that imitates Christ.
He will reveal to us what captures true love's attention. Notice verse 6, where we find our place tonight. Love He's speaking of agape, does not rejoice. In the sim. Unrighteousness.
But rejoices with The truth. You could translate this. Love does not delight in anything wrong. Off color. Dirty, sinful.
To delight in wrong, what does that mean? To delight in wrongdoing, to delight in sin, is to respond to sin in at least. Two or three different ways. Let me give them to you. First, to delight in sin is to enjoy sinful actions in others.
Now, it's easy for all of us to say, of course, I don't delight in sin. I'm in church tonight. I have a love for Christ. I have a love for holiness. I want nothing more than righteousness to win the day and then go home and watch a program that promotes and encourages and describes evil in such a way that you find yourself kind of cheering it on.
You land on the side of the one in sin. See, here's the problem. We are so exposed. that I think were dulled. or blunted.
But sin is sin. We we desensitize ourselves by our exposure to things that laugh at or promote fornication and immoral things that exalt money, materialism, and crime. See, here's the challenge of agape. How's this for a radical challenge? When we allow ourselves to be entertained by things promoting sin, we are rejoicing.
in unrighteousness. whether we like to admit it or not. Let me read that again. When we allow ourselves to be entertained by things promoting sin, we are rejoicing. Mm.
Unrighteousness. Let me tell you how far we've come in the wrong direction. Paul wrote to the Ephesians in chapter 5, verse 8: Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth. Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness. And you say, Well, I don't do that.
Well, the word for participate Yeah. The same word that we know of very readily as we talk about Christian fellowship, it's the word koinonia. Don't have any koinonia. With the deeds of darkness. It simply means to come alongside.
It means to have a part in. Don't participate or even come alongside deeds of darkness is what Paul is saying. He goes on to say in verse twelve, for it is disgraceful Listen to this. It is disgraceful even to talk of the sinful things which are done in secret. Paul refers to these secret deeds as shameful.
Here in this text, the same word is translated filthy. In Titus 1:11. Imagine this as a standard for genuine love. Don't have anything to do with shameful deeds done by the disobedient in Secret. Don't repeat it, don't watch it, don't look at it, don't read it.
If it has anything to do with sin, in secret, have nothing to do with it. Imagine applying that standard to our lives. How many movies would you have to walk out of? How many TV shows could you watch? How many songs could you listen to on your favorite?
Radio station. How many videos on YouTube? Could you look at? How long would you be able to listen to talk radio on Monday morning? The average Christian would never consider that they are happy about sin.
I am not rejoicing in unrighteousness. Frankly, when we understand that Paul's statement reflects such a high standard that the American church has so abandoned, that if we saw somebody attempting to apply that text and that high standard, we'd think they were out of touch with reality. We think they're a Pharisee. We'd think they're a prude. If you really want to love God with genuine love, and you want to love one another with genuine love, Paul says you won't allow any attachment or willing pleasure in sinful things.
So to rejoice in unrighteousness is. to take delight in the sinful actions of others. Secondly, To delight in sin is to applaud. sinful behavior. in others.
Kind of obvious, right? Since sin is offensive to God, we we should never applaud or approve of anything that is offensive or grievous to God. Listen, when we delight in sin. When we cherish and participate in sin, we are delighting in that which offends our Heavenly Father. It brought about the death of His Son.
It dishonors and grieves the Holy Spirit. When we enjoy sin and justify sin and applaud sin and approve of sin, either in our life or in the lives of others, we prove insensitivity and an utter lack of true love for God. According to Paul, the approval of sin is the final evidence. of a culture's corruption. And Irreversible condition.
In Romans 1, Paul catalogues the downward digression of a culture and their refusal to accept the creative. handiwork of God. We talked about that earlier today.
Furthermore, in that chapter, they plunge into moral and sexual devency and their bisexuality and their homosexual lusts. They're filled, Paul wrote in verse 28, with all kinds of unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, and evil. At the end of the paragraph, he writes this: Without understanding, They are untrustworthy. They are, here's the word, unloving. Unloving.
Although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice, and he had listed a whole lot of sins there. Those who practice such things are worthy of death. Here it is. They not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. In other words, Paul talks about those who not only practice Sexual immorality, both heterosexual and homosexual, but they go one more step further in giving hearty approval.
to those who practice them. Can you imagine what this means today about our culture? The hearty approval of sexual deviancy to the degree that The school system now in this country, the public school system, not only allows but encourages children, as it did last year, to hold a moment of silence in honor of the homosexual and lesbian community. It's now an annual event. When I found out about it last year, I got up and encouraged our kids to, on that particular day, go around and talk as much as they possibly could.
But can you imagine what this says then about our leaders? in this election year. Presidential candidates who in this election year have made it clear that Homosexual couples should have every right and privilege of married couples, and they are scrambling to make sure they are on record of approving of what God disapproves of.
So John the Apostle, who wrote during the days When the Roman Empire glorified sexual experimentation. In fact, you ought to just go back and read history. where the elite Roman citizens considered bisexuality balance. Heterosexuality was considered prudish. which is becoming all the more popular in our day.
You can now watch a television show where a woman, a bisexual woman, is choosing her lover from among a group of young men and young women who are all vying for her attention and she's going to make her choice. John was writing to Christians who lived in a day like ours. In fact, his was far worse. But we're catching up. In the first century, believers lived under the leadership of men like Nero who publicly married men.
And women? They lived when the foundation of the home and virtue was literally being dismantled and dissolved through repeated serial divorce and adultery. John wrote to this generation. Little children. Make sure no one deceives you.
The one who practices righteousness is righteous. The one who practices sin, and the key word is practice. Who loves it, follows after it, longs for it, wants it. Who practices sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning, 1 John 3:4 to 6. This is not necessarily the politically correct message for our culture today, but it is the truth.
And when a culture arrives at the point where Isaiah said, people will call evil things good and good things evil, Isaiah 5:2, John wrote, Don't be deceived. The standard of God's holiness is not. Shifted. Right is still right, and wrong is still wrong, according to the inspired record of God's truth. To applaud unrighteousness does not make unrighteousness right.
To denigrate and scoff at purity doesn't make purity wrong. If we love God and we love others, we will not practice sin. We won't wave sin under anybody's nose. We won't offer them a bite of sin. We won't keep sinner on the house.
We won't pack it in their lunch. We're not going to start on the computer. We will confess sin, be grieved over sin, flee sin, and hate sin. If anything, the church needs to be revived today in its holy aversion to sin. In fact, according to 1 Corinthians 13, you can't really love God.
without a disdain for sin. Because you don't rejoice in it. What Paul was saying. Have you ever heard of a man proposing to his girlfriend, sweetheart, I want to. I want you to marry me because I love you and three other girls.
I hope you don't mind if I keep seeing them. No. True love decides to abandon any other affection. Like that. It will have a disdain for any affection that would possibly get in the way of affection for the beloved.
This is what Paul is saying here. You can't have true love for God and your three favorite sins, too. It's him. Or them. John says, don't be deceived into thinking God will happily go along with our unrepentant sin.
If we love him, we will not rejoice in unrighteousness because we will recognize it grieves God. Paul describes true love. He says, true love isn't captivated by sin. It doesn't rejoice in sin. In other words, it doesn't enjoy sinful things.
Secondly, it doesn't applaud sinful behavior. One more, thirdly, it doesn't delight in repeating sinful deeds. I agree with one commentary on this text. As this man wrote, one of the most common forms of rejoicing in sin. is gossip.
And you say, now, Stephen, you're meddling, you know.
Well, I am. Gossips would do little harm, though. He writes if they did not have so many eager listeners. This sin, which many Christians treat lightly, is wicked, not only because it uncaringly reveals the weaknesses or sins of others and therefore hurts rather than helps, but because the heart of gossip. is rejoicing in evil.
The essence of gossip is gloating over the shortcomings or sins of others, which makes gossip, then, a sin. itself. See, we would say we don't rejoice in evil. What is it about our nature that loves to hear stuff? That starts with the words, hey.
Have you ever heard? Hey, you just lean in closer. No, I haven't. Have you heard? You know, and and it's never followed up with.
He's reading his Bible through it a whole year. He started praying on the way to work. She's a great mom. Have you heard the latest answer to one of her prayers? Wait till you hear this.
That isn't gonna travel. It's a strange trait. Barclay wrote of human nature that we prefer to hear the misfortune of others. rather than their good fortune. If we truly love each other, then Paul is coming right down to where we live.
And a phrase that when I first looked at it, I thought, we're not going to have much trouble with this one. But when you look at what it means. It means we will not take pleasure in the faults and failures of others. In fact, Peter at Love covers a multitude of what? Yeah.
Sins. A gossip does what? Uncovers a multitude of sins. The truth is we delight in gossip. not only because of our corrupt hearts, but because it makes us all feel a little better.
a little more superior. Then this other person who fell or failed. With what devastating results. An anonymous author wrote these Words. I have no respect for justice.
I maim without killing. I break hearts. and ruin lives. I am cunning and malicious, and gather strength the older I am alive. My victims?
are helpless. They can't protect themselves against me because I have no name. No face. To track me down is impossible. The harder you try, the more elusive I become.
I topple governments. I wreck friendships. I ruined careers. and cause sleepless nights. I make innocent people cry.
I make headlines. I make headaches. Even my name hisses. I am called Gossip. And I am nobody's.
Friend. True love is a refusal. to rejoice. In unrighteousness. It doesn't enjoy sinful or unfortunate actions in others.
It doesn't applaud sinful or unfortunate behavior in others. It doesn't delight in repeating sinful or unfortunate News. of others. Let me quickly flip the coin over, as Paul does here in this one text. We'll get through this verse tonight.
He says, Love. on the other hand, rejoices with what? The truth. The truth. If you put these two concepts together, you could translate verse 6.
Love does not delight in anything that's wrong. It delights in everything that is right. Leon Morris paraphrases, love is happy wherever the truth is. The Apostle Paul referred to the truth in a variety of ways. He referred to the truth of God, Romans 3.7.
He said, Christ is the minister of truth, 2 Corinthians 6, 7. He refers to the truth of the gospel, Galatians 2.5. We're told the unbeliever suppresses the truth of creation, Romans 1:18. The unbeliever exchanges the truth for a lie, that nature is to be revered and worshipped, Romans 1.25. Paul challenges the believer to submit to the truth, even when it's uncomfortable, Galatians chapter 4, verse 6, where Paul writes, Listen to this.
Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth? In other words, when Paul writes here in 1 Corinthians 13 that love is rejoicing with the truth, he sees love as deeply concerned with the advancement of the gospel and everything related to the pure and holy reputation of Jesus Christ. If you truly love someone. You're going to desire then that they walk with Christ. and that they honor Christ according to the truth of Christ.
In a very practical way, then, the guy that tells his girlfriend, if you love me, you will give yourself to me, doesn't really love her because he's asking her to abandon. The truth! The guy who says, I love God, but I really don't care about sharing the gospel with Anybody. is deceived. That's like saying, listen, I love my wife and children, but I really don't ever want to talk about them.
And I don't ever want them to come up in conversation, if you please. My wife and my children are a private matter. It's just for me. Kondo. Let me show you some pictures.
Let me tell you how old they are. Let me tell you what's going on in their lives. To truly love the truth. is to walk in the truth, talk about the truth, and be interested in the truth. rather than to be captivated with Stuff like that.
The Apostle John wrote to a friend named Gaius, just listen. And notice how often the word truth comes up. For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth. As indeed you are walking in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in The truth.
See, true love is grieved when people follow after lies. And it rejoices when they follow after. The truth. When they follow after Christ, when they seek to surrender to the Spirit of God, the one who truly loves them will encourage them onward. and forward.
True love. pursues and longs for and applies and lives. for the truth. Let me close by reading a letter written by a woman in her 50s. She has chosen to walk in the truth of God's word and genuinely love her husband.
despite unique challenges. Every day this woman rejects Decisions that would be unrighteous, and she chooses to walk. in the truth. She writes, I met him when I was 19. married him at twenty, We were separated when I Turned twenty two because he was arrested and convicted of a violent crime.
He had failed himself. His family. His wife, and his future. But He was my husband. I was sad.
I was disappointed. mad and frightened. But I stayed with him through weeks of trials, his years in jail, and now decades in prison. Why? I believe in the covenant of marriage.
and in God before whom we stood. as we took our vows. I am now fifty. He is fifty-five. I see him four hours every weekend.
I talked to him on the phone twice a week for twenty minutes. I'm not deceived. Or a martyr. I'm not uneducated or desperate. I'm a wife.
I work. Have a mortgage. A nine-year-old car. Two dogs and bills just like everyone else. It's hard sometimes to imagine that I'm only one wife of over two million men behind bars.
I've not made many friends at the prison. But this is a decision that I've made.
Somewhere in here, I think I'm supposed to say I believe my husband is innocent, that the system didn't work. That we're victims of whatever, but that isn't the point. Yes, I get angry at the situation. I've grieved the loss of many of the normal things others have done, like having children and vacations abroad. This is not the life I would have expected for myself 30 years ago, and it isn't one I recommend to others, but it is my life.
At 50, I have come to the conclusion it is not the life I have that defines me. It is the way I choose to live that life. I choose to to live it. Being faithful. Wow.
You are not going to find this woman's story. in one of these. You know, it's never going to happen. It isn't anywhere near as exciting. As when Jen told Brett, I hate you.
and a guy who flees at rehab. and gets drunk. But then again, the world is not captivated by demonstrations of agape. Are they? But we, as the followers of Jesus Christ, should be captivated.
by true love. And how do you know if you are? You won't applaud. Or pursue or repeat Anything having to do with sin. You will applaud.
and pursue Everything. having to do. with the truth. That is true love. This is Wisdom for the Heart with pastor and author Stephen Davey.
Today's message was called Capturing Love's Attention. We have one more message to go in this series, and we'll bring you that next time. As we close today's episode, I want to remind you that our team would be honored to pray for you. If you have a need, a burden, or even just something small that's on your heart. We'd love to bring it before the Lord, but It's simple to share your request.
Just visit wisdomonline.org forward slash prayer. Fill out the short form. and send it in. Prayer is a powerful gift from God. and we want to stand with you in your time of need.
But we'd also love for you to join us in prayer. Stephen's teaching is now reaching people in more than a hundred and fifty countries. And each week we set aside time to pray for one of those nations. We ask God to use His Word to change lives. When you join our global prayer team, we'll send you a weekly email with specific prayer requests.
We'll send you a weekly email with specific prayer requests for the country and for the ongoing work of this ministry.
So Whether you need prayer, or you'd like to join us in praying for the nations, Take a moment to visit us at wisdomonline.org. to get started. We'd love to pray for you and alongside of you. And I hope you'll join us again next time for the conclusion to this series. here on wisdom for the heart.
