Love, he says, endures. All things. This is the steadfastness. of love. What a fitting way to end this paragraph too.
All the good Above in this paragraph is meaningless if you stop. If you find some loophole, Psalm escape clause Nothing shall separate us from the what? Love of Christ. Romans chapter 8, verse 35. If we are to love one another, then as Christ loves us, then we will in Door.
And that makes it mad. Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Stephen's been working his way through 1 Corinthians 13 in a series called Will true love please stand up? We're learning what true biblical agape love really is. Today we come to the eighth and final lesson in this series.
Puppy love means Manifests itself in Valentine's Day cards, friendship rings, and nice dinners. Mature love manifests itself in long work days, hospital rooms, and nursing homes. one last for a moment. The other lasts for a lifetime. Stephen's calling today's lesson beyond puppy love.
Now we come to the end. of this study. And Paul gives us five distinct positive. phrases that summarize True agape, true love. 1 Corinthians.
Chapter 13, verse 7. Love Bears all things. believes all things. Hopes all things. Endures all things, and the first part of verse eight: love never.
fails. Let's go back to the first one. Paul writes, love bears all faith. Things. This is the support.
of love. Some take this verb here, stego. Uh which can mean to cover as It's sort of its nuance. It's used for a roof that. that covers So that Paul has in mind the idea that love We'll cover over everything.
That nuance could be true. More than likely, this verb here actually refers to the bearing of a load. That is the strength of the beams that hold the roof up. In other words, true love will will bear up Under a heavy load. Great pressure.
Great insult. Great disappointment. One author said it this way: true love gets underneath the load of life and bears it. To the limit. How true.
And in relationships in general, true love. gets underneath the load and helps. Carry the load of life. The Apostle Paul then is saying in this phrase that true love bears up under the heavy load of life's problems and suffering. Despite deprivation and it includes hard work and even opposition.
Agape lens. A hand. It shares the burden. It joins another person under the pressure of life. It lends a shoulder to lift.
The load. I had lunch today. With four prospective seminary students who traveled here for the weekend. Three from South Carolina and one from Ohio. One was married and already a college graduate, having served now for 15 years as a youth pastor and sensing the need for training.
I asked him about his family. And he told me that he had two children. This wife and Then he went on to tell me that his His 13-year-old son was born with severe uh brain uh defects. unable to swallow. severely mentally retarded, unable to move.
Needing to be fed. Oh, through tube. 24-hour care in their home. The boy is very aware of life around him. even though emotionally and mentally he's about at the age of three or Yeah.
The man's depth of Character had already been apparent to me, but now I knew. Why? He and his wife had chosen to be a man. to love and care. for a child with great challenges.
He said to me over lunch, So we were sitting around the table that God had been so faithful to them. It's such a sweet and kind... Disposition, spirit, no bitterness, no complaining. In fact, he said to me, I know there are a lot of people out there suffering a lot. more greatly than than we do.
But our son is a joy to us. See, that is strength. of agape.
Next, Paul goes on to tell us about what we'll just call the simplicity of agappa. He writes, love believes. all things. It's completely trusting. As we apply this God word, it simply means that we're taking God at His word.
We simply take Him at His word, we trust Him. We don't complicate his word. We don't twist his word. We don't redefine his word. We take it.
We trust it at face value. As this relates to other people, this means we give them the benefit of the doubt. We simply. choose to believe the most favorable Possibility, right? We refuse the urge to be suspicious.
to create complicated conspiracies. We resist the urge to engage in drama, assigning the worst possible motive to what somebody says or Yeah. Agape believes All things. It's just... There's a simplicity to it.
It takes the kindest view. Takes God at his word. People at face value. When the scribes and Pharisees, you remember, saw Christ. They thought the worst of him, didn't they?
When Jesus told that paralyzed man, you remember in Luke chapter 5, that his sins were forgiven. First thing he said, your sins are forgiven. They immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was blaspheming God. Then he simply validated his ability to forgive sin by doing what only God could do. And he said to the paralyzed man, why don't you pick up your mat and walk home?
And he did. The scribes and Pharisees remained convinced that the Lord was not of God. but an imposter at best. There he was in broad daylight. Just healed a paralyzed Man, but they couldn't believe the best about Christ.
Why? Bottom line. They hated him. They hated him. And hate.
Believes The worst? Agape. believes The best.
Now understand simplicity And Being simple-minded. It's not the same thing. These are different things. Paul goes on to add a third enduring quality here. This is not only the strength of agape and the simplicity of agape, but the sweetness.
Of Agape. You could call even. This next phrase, the smile of agape. I didn't know which one to go with. They both started with S, so that worked for me in this outline, but I didn't know.
I decided on sweetness. Notice where Paul writes further in verse 7, love. Hopes All things. This is the sweet. optimism of agape.
It never stops. hoping. It never takes anybody's failure as Final. The world frowns at you. This person.
Smiles. At you. Even when you're in trouble, They'll smile. Ever had a teacher like that? I thought this was interesting and it was funny.
In fact, Pepper Rogers intended it to be funny. Several years ago, when Pepper Rogers was the head football coach at UCLA, he was going through a terrible losing season. He couldn't win a game, couldn't buy a touchdown. The media was hounding him. The alumni of the school were calling for his job.
UCLA fans were upset and angry, his friends were becoming more and more scarce. Pepper Rogers said this on one occasion. He said, I wasn't even sure where my wife was in all this. She'd become really quiet.
So he kind of complained to her one day and he said, I guess my best friend now is my dog. But a man needs at least two friends. She said, Well, then you better go buy another dog. This love works when the chips are down. The the Corinthian church Listen.
If you study this letter, you you fully understand they They don't do much right. But here Paul writes too. The Corinthian church with these words, great, listen to this. Great is my boasting on your behalf. You've got to be kidding.
There's nothing to boast about. This is This is the week? Immature. A body of believers. They're wayward.
Tolerating sin How do you boast?
Well, you ought to love 'em. And love always hopes. For the best.
So he writes to them in 2 Corinthians 7:15, I rejoice that in everything I have confidence. And you This is that rare Coach. Telling his players This is that rare teacher. telling her students I believe You can do it. I believe.
You can make it. Aren't they rare? There's something incredibly infusing about this rare kind of person. And the trouble is, we know very few people like this, don't we? People who see the best in everything.
in everyone. People who are full of this sweetness of agape that engenders even more hope and they get around you and they get around me and they just sort of put wind in our sails and they tell us we're behind you. You can do it. Why so few? Like this.
I think it's because our nature gets hung up. on the past, We get dull.
So we hear a new believer. New believer comes in. Talk to one. A couple of days ago, talk about how great God is and how interesting the word is. And instead of encouraging them, here we are standing there thinking, well, you know, he'll eventually learn, he'll get over that excitement.
Just wage. You talk to a newly married couple. And that young bride, you know, comes up with her husband, you know, and oh, she gushes, look at him, he is so sweet. And you're standing there thinking, just wait. See, we go around pouring cold water on everybody's fire.
We live. In the negative, we live in the accusative case. By nature. Don't we? Let me just take a little survey.
How many Green Bay Packer fans do we have here? Hands shot up everywhere. Obviously. You know, you're not a Patriots fan, or you wouldn't be here tonight, right? We're glad you're here.
34 days ago, which you guys know that raised your hands, Brett Favre. Broke. The NFL record for throwing the greatest number of touchdowns. Just 30 some days ago in NFL history. It's amazing.
And he's fun to watch. 421 touchdown Passes. 15 days later, 15 days ago, Bret Favre broke another record. He is now the most. intercepted quarterback in NFL history.
Green Bay Packer fans are going on. I can't wait to get you outside, buddy. Just wait. You know what? You talk to a Green Bay Packer fan, are they going to tell you about that?
Yeah. Do they really care? About 278 picks. They're focused on 421. Touchdown.
Passes. They love this team. It's the optimism. of this kind of love. You say, I'm so proud of my children.
Have they ever disappointed you? Of course. But you're focusing on the hope. of agape, like Paul with the Corinthians, who chose to focus on what they could be and the good they had done. One author wrote, This agape is demonstrated in the hearts of the parents of a backslidden child.
The spouse of an unbelieving Marriage partner. The church that has disciplined members who do not repent. They all hope in love. Agape uh hopes all things. They hope that the child, the spouse, the erring brother or sister will be saved or restored.
Love refuses to take failure as final. He goes on to add, God would not take Israel's failure as final, Jesus Christ would not take Peter's failure as final. And the Apostle Paul will not take the Corinthians' failure. as final. Let's go back to parents for just a minute.
Isn't this the great challenge? For dads especially. Your child just might have the record number of failures. Along with A record number of successes. Which record?
Will you frame? and put on the mantle. of your memory. True love chooses to focus on hopeful. things.
Paul reveals a fourth, enduring, quality. Love, he says, endures All things. This is the steadfastness. What a fitting way to end this paragraph, too. Doesn't make a lot of sense.
Why not? All the good. Above in this paragraph is meaningless if you stop. If you quit, If you find some loophole, Psalm escape clause If it doesn't endure, it doesn't matter. Agape, then he says, does not have a back.
Door. We're told that God will never leave us Nor what? Forsake us. Hebrews thirteen, five. Nothing shall separate us from the what?
Love of Christ. Romans chapter 8, verse 35. If we are to love one another, then as Christ loves us, then we will in Door. And that makes it matter. I found it.
Interesting and somewhat sad to read about some of the data from the 2007. U.S. Census Bureau regarding marriage today. The findings Are reinforcing what some are now calling sort of tongue-in-cheek the seven-year itch. They found that on average, census data Couples that separated did so after seven years, divorced after eight.
This particular author that was bringing out the census data said perhaps this is why a very popular politician in Germany by the name of Gabriele Polli is proposing now legislation that will make Legal marriages dissolve. after seven years. This legislation will allow couples either to extend their marriages or allow them to terminate. automatically after seven years without undue legal burden or tiresome Litigation. This kind of legislation is in our future.
And why not? Already, as I mentioned, I think in one of our sessions, one author has suggested that we should plan on three spouses over the course of a A lifetime. This is the love of the world. This is self-focused, self-protecting, self-enamored. Self-serving.
And so a seven-year marriage makes a lot of sense. Ladies and gentlemen, It's puppy love is what it is. Tall it is. It's infatuation. Until the challenges are realized.
Its love only is long. as the sun shines. But aren't you glad that the love of Christ is not a seven-year affair? It is everlasting. And as we demonstrate the love of Christ, the agape of God for our spouses and our children and the assembly, we will not be fickle, it will endure.
Not that that makes it. Easy, just because he says it. In fact, the word Paul used here for endure, hupa mene, is a word that referred to a soldier deeply. involved in battle. He is literally fighting for his life.
And the lives of his companions, and he refuses to desert the front lines.
So he is enduring. That's the idea here. Endure in that way. And you will experience or demonstrate the love. Of agape for when life It's tough.
In his Tremendous book. The disciplines of a godly man Ken Hughes writes of his friendship with A Robertson McQuilkin. Robertson McQuilkin is the former president of Columbia International University. When he was the president, it was called Columbia Bible College. Robertson's wife, Muriel, was in the late stages of Alzheimer's when.
Dr. McQuilkin resigned. to take care of her. They'd been married, I think, 40-some years. In his resignation letter, he wrote, Powerful words.
My dear wife, Muriel, has been in failing mental health for about eight uh years.
So far, I have been able to care for both her ever-growing needs and my leadership responsibilities at Columbia. Recently, it has become apparent that Muriel is contented most of the time she is with me. Almost none of the time I am away from her. It is not just discontent. She is filled with Terror.
that she has lost me. and goes in search of me whenever I leave home. It is clear to me now. She needs me. Full time.
This decision was made in a way Forty some years ago, when I promised to care for her in sickness and in health, till death do us part. He adds, so I have already told the students and the faculty that as a man of my word, I will do it. She has cared for me fully all these years. If I cared for her for the next 40 years, I would not be out of debt. Duty, however, can be grim.
and stoic. But there is more. I love Muriel. She is a delight to me.
Now notice these words. Listen. I do not have to care for her. I get to. I don't have to care for her.
This is much more than the temporary infatuation. when everything is sunshine And Roses This is a love that issues forth during the pressures and challenges of life. This is the endurance. of love. There's one more enduring quality here.
Get to it. First part of verse 8, and on to the end of the chapter, Paul will speak on the supremacy of love.
So let's just slip down for just a moment here as we bring the series to a close to the first phrase in verse. Eight. He writes this about agape. And let me give you my own translation. Love.
never falls to the ground. If there are gifts of prophecy, They will taper off. If there are tongues, They will stop. If there is knowledge, there is a revelatory word of knowledge. It will taper off.
as well. And now you remember From verses 1, 2, and 3, Paul told us that all tongues and all knowledge and all prophecy and all faith was worthless without love. In fact, we just make a lot of noise as if we're just banging cymbals. You remember that? And now he informs us that these wonderful gifts are temporary, but love is eternal.
This is sort of the exclamation point of agape. He says, Nothing outlasts. true love. This is why it is supreme. One day in heaven, we're not going to need faith.
We're not going to need hope. I'm not going to volunteer to teach. We don't need mercy. None of the gifts. But love will last.
The word here for fails or falls, pipto, is a word the Greeks used for the falling of a petal from a flower. to the ground or the falling of a leaf that would then wither and die, Paul says true love The love of Christ Never falls down. It never withers. Away. It chooses to remain constant and connected.
This is the constancy. This is the loyalty. This is the dependability. This is the dedication and the faithfulness and the devotion of true Genuine. Christ imitating God-honoring.
Love. One day Charles Spurgeon The well-known London pastor of the 1800s was walking through the English countryside with a friend and And as they strolled along, the pastor noticed a barn with a weather vane on top of that barn, and inscribed on the weather vane were the words: God is God. Love. And Charles Spurgeon said to his friend that he felt that was a rather inappropriate uh place for such a message. He said, weather veins are changeable, but God's love is constant.
The friend responded, No, Charles, I think you misunderstand the meaning. I think the weather vein is indicating a truth. regardless of which way the wind blows. God Love. Agape, ladies and gentlemen, is simply the description of the character of God.
Christ himself. And as we are conformed into the image and confess our dependency upon him. We demonstrate a little bit of his nature as well, don't we? But it's going to take a lifetime of practice. and will never fully Master.
But we strive for the goal. The goal is. To please our father. And as we pursue him, As we surrender to the Spirit, we begin to bear the fruit of the Spirit, which is first and foremost, the fruit of the Spirit is. Love.
And we like him. demonstrate to our world. Lives marked. with this Amazing quality. True.
Love. With that, we bring to a close this message and this eight-part series on love. Stephen's been working his way through 1 Corinthians 13. in a series called, Will True Love Please Stand Up? We have this series available as a set of C D s that you can include in your library of biblical resources.
Today is the last day that this resource is deeply discounted. It's half price to day. There's information on getting that on our website. wisdomonline.org You can also call us today and we can assist you over the phone. If you don't want C D's, we have it available as a digital download as well.
That way you can have the lessons and the printed manuscripts on your computer. I'll also mention that Stephen has a booklet that came out of this series called True Love. It's a short easy to read resource that's also easy to share with others. Call us at 866-48-BIBEL. or visit wisdomonline.org.
or visit wisdomonline.org. That's 866-465. 482. 4253. Join us back here next time.
