Scott Wiley here, the executive director of Wisdom International. We're celebrating our 25th anniversary this year. What began as a radio program in a single city has grown into a global ministry now in 16 languages. We're hosting a banquet to celebrate all that the Lord has done, and you're invited. Please visit wisdomonline.
dot org slash twenty five. That's wisdomonline. dot org slash twenty five. There's a link in the show notes. And now here's Stephen with today's message from Wisdom for the Heart.
The next description reads: Love is not irritable. Original word talks about an eruption. Of anger, this is an explosion of fury.
Someone might argue with the Apostle Paul and say, "Hey, listen, I lose my temper a lot, but it's over in a few seconds." Well, so is a nuclear bomb. Again, agape, beloved, is not so much about self-control. I am going to try harder to do better. It really involves surrendering to the Spirit's control. What's interesting is that the Holy Spirit never uses the word eros in any New Testament passage describing love.
It will use a word the world ignores: agape. Agape will show up over three hundred times in the New Testament. Which is a way of saying God is going to teach us that He loves us in a way we can't imagine. We we don't know much about it. He's going to teach us how to love Him in a way we have to learn to love one another in marriage, in the relationship of the church, in family.
Again, the average Christian in Peter's day would say, "We're going to need more help here." To explain this supplement, perhaps that's why there's more commentary in the New Testament on agape than any other supplement in Peter's list. Let's look at one of those commentaries. Go over to First Corinthians, chapter thirteen. There's an entire chapter on agape.
Now you might say, "Well, I know about that because that's that's you know Hallmark, that's where it gets all its material." Well, has it ever occurred to you that one Corinthians thirteen was not written to couples; it was written to Christians. Couples could use it, but it's written to Christians—single, married, young, and old alike.
Now, before we dive in. Let's let's notice the introduction he writes here in verse one. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not agape, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.
Now, in other words, what he's saying is, if I know all the languages on the planet, glossa is the word used here for tongue, glossary. If I know all of the vocabulary of every language on Earth, and I am as fluent as an angel, who, by the way, have you ever noticed, whenever they appear in the Old Testament or New Testament, and they address a human being, they speak in that human being's language.
So Paul is saying, "If I'm as fluent as an angel, I know every language on the planet. Yet I don't care about the people to whom I'm talking. I'm just making noise. I'm just a clanging symbol. We had some incredible music this weekend.
If you're visiting today, we actually get to enjoy this every Sunday, and it's wonderful. And you know those symbols." They they are crashing this morning, at just the right crescendo, aren't they? But have you ever thought about the fact that you've never heard a cymbal solo? There are no symphonies written for cymbals. It doesn't mean we don't like them.
We love it. A percussion. I sit right behind it. I know it's coming. And man, is that a wonderful crescendo!
They're perfect when they crash at the right time. Paul is saying here that if you speak with eloquence and you don't care about people, all they're going to hear is noise. It's kind of like that Charlie Brown Christmas special that'll be on TV. You know, the teacher— all it is is that—that's kind of what he's talking about: just noise.
Now, somebody in his audience might say, "Well, wait, Paul. If you're delivering God's word, who cares how you feel about the people? If you're telling the truth to someone and you're delivering the Scripture, who cares? If you care, it's almost like he's expecting that response. He adds another qualifier, verse two.
If I have prophetic powers." And understand all mysteries, and have all knowledge.
Now, wait a second. What is he saying? Even if I notice how he uses himself as the example, an apostle, the person you're supposed to listen to. Even if I, as an apostle, deliver God's truth. In fact, if I have all prophetic power, I can tell the future, and it's always accurate.
Who wouldn't want to hear that? But I don't have agape, just noise. If I understand all mysteries, I mean, if I can understand God's ways that are not yet explained and explain them to you, I mean, who would want to listen to that? Without love, just noise, just noise. Even if you have all knowledge, Paul adds.
There, I mean, you're a walking Bible commentary. Anybody asks you a question, you can take them right to chapter and verse, give them the biblical definition, the explanation, and the application. And wow, no, not at all. You don't love them. Noise, just noise.
In fact, Paul writes here at the end of this: I, without love. Am nothing. That is strong language. In other words, without love, our lives add up to one big zero. Peter says, "You're going to lead an ineffective and unfruitful life." This is why Jesus told his disciples.
Your world is going to identify you as belonging to the true living God. How by your agape, your love for one another. John thirteen thirty five. Jesus did not say, and they will know that you are my disciples by your grade point average. Thank God for that.
They're going to know you're my disciples because you are eloquent and you are so knowledgeable of the Bible. You have such deep insight. You've got an answer from Scripture for everything. No, by love, because the world knows nothing of it. It is so distinctive.
No wonder Peter says, "Give it all diligence. Give it everything you've got to add this to your life." And we need Paul's commentary because we're not going to love. We're going to learn love from the world. The love of the world is is self centered. It's self enamored.
Even when it seems to do something good for someone else, they're doing it because it makes themselves feel better. They may be blind to it. It isn't natural. It is supernatural. Because the world will teach us.
How to be self enamored? How to be self promoting? How to love ourselves? It is self love. We're all about that, and it—that's very natural.
Started revealing itself at a very young age. I mean, do you think down there in the toddler room this morning with the two year olds that it is one demonstration of of Sharing after another, random acts of sharing. Hey, my mother gave me too many Cheerios for the morning. Here, everybody, Cheerios on the house. No, I've had this toy long enough.
Who wants it? No, it isn't natural. It has to be learned by the Spirit of God. And if it were. We're not for God's revelation.
We'd be scratching our heads today to say, "I don't have any idea what you're talking about." What is it?
Well, Paul says, "Without it, I'm a zero." All right, Paul, what is it? What he does next is he gives us 15 verbs. This is not the start of a new series, so relax. We'll cover what we can today, but he's going to give 15 present tense verbs. I like the way David Garland writes it.
He says, "Agape can only be defined by what you see it do and what you see it not do." It's really impossible to come up with a sentence definition. Is it a feeling? Is it a decision?
Well, frankly, it involves both. But it is observed in what you do and what you do not do.
So here we go. He writes in verse four about twin sisters. I like to think of it this way. Paul writes, "Love is patient and kind," and that's important. They're together.
Why? Because it's possible to be patient without being kind about it. You're going to wait, but you're going to tell them you're not happy. You're waiting. You're going to tap your fingers, and you're going to huff and puff, and you're going to scowl.
Agape determines to act. With patience and kindness to those disappointing moments, those obstacles, those difficult people in life, and I wonder what tests of patience and kindness are you going through today? Paul goes on to write: Love does not envy; it's not envious. William Barclay writes: There are only two classes of people in our country, those who are millionaires, those who want to be. But the verb runs deeper than just desiring to be rich.
It's actually a dangerous warning, carries the idea of boiling over.
Someone who fervently desires what someone else has, and they're not happy about it. In fact, this particular word not only refers to to wanting something that someone else has, but it wants that other person to not have what they have, and you have it instead. That destroys goodwill. I they got it, I want it. I don't want them to have it.
It's infantile, but it is destructive. Paul adds now, verse four: Agape does not. Boast. You could translate it. Love does not brag about oneself.
The one who loves others is not the subject of their own ever-ready, never-ending conversations, or looking for somebody else they can begin to talk with about themselves. The one who does this is merely proving they're in love with themselves.
Solomon, in that wonderful proverb, chapter twenty-seven, verse two, says, "Let another man praise you, and not your own lips." I wonder if social media—I'm going to meddle again—is perhaps one of the most popular ways or forms of bragging in our generation today. Be careful! Be careful! Envy. That just came before this word.
Envy is wanting the life someone else has. Bragging is wanting people to envy the life you have.
So be careful; may not be helping people with what you post. Palmus to the end of verse four to write. Love is not arrogant. Your translation might read: Love is not puffed up. That's a great, a great description.
It didn't full of itself. It didn't puffed up. Remember, Marcia and I sitting through our baccalaureate when I was finishing seminary in Dallas, and Chuck was always our speaker, and he said, "Now that you've gotten your graduation, get over it." Great advice.
Now that you've gotten that promotion at work, don't remind everybody about it.
Now that you've been honored in some way, get over it. Don't get puffed up.
Now Paul adds at the beginning of verse five that love is not rude; it doesn't act rudely. Your translation might say that love is is isn't unbecoming. One author who researched this word in the ancient world said that this verb shows up numerous times in these settings. They seem to be such a variety of settings. Let me read a few of them.
Acting rudely can refer to dressing inappropriately. Acting rudely can be disregarding someone else's schedule, running roughshod over other people's plans. Acting rudely can mean flirting inappropriately with the opposite sex. You can mean being discourteous toward others. All these are evidences of rudeness.
Now Paul adds: next, love does not insist on its own way. Needs very little, if any, commentary at all. It's self-explanatory. It'll be proven, and how you treat your mother for what she fixed you for lunch today, or maybe even how you decide where to go get it today. The next description reads: "Love is not irritable." Your translation might read, "Love is not easily provoked." Original word again is a little more descriptive.
It gives us our transliterated word: paroxysm. It talks about an eruption of anger. This is more than being slightly irritated. This is an explosion of fury.
Someone might argue with the Apostle Paul and say, "Hey, listen, I lose my temper a lot, but it's over in a few seconds." Well, so is a nuclear bomb, but look at the damage. Again, agape, beloved, is not so much about self-control. I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm going to try harder to do better. It really involves surrendering to the Spirit's control, being committed in that direction.
Now, in the next phrase, Paul moves from outward anger to secret inward emotion. He writes here at the end of verse five that love is is not resentful. You could translate this a little more fully to read: Love does not count up wrongdoing. Love does not keep a record of wrongdoing. In other words, agape doesn't keep a ledger volumes over a lifetime of wrongs.
Agape lives with a well-worn eraser at work. One author provoked my thinking when they wrote that one of the finest accomplishments of agape is learning what to forget. Learning what to forget. One of the things I love about Christmas is that my wife will pull out this special recipe for hot chocolate. Only drink it in the Christmas season.
If we drink it, you are around. I wouldn't fit up here in this pulpit. It's kept in a big pot on the stove, and it just simmers all day long or all afternoon. It fills the house with the aroma of hot chocolate. I don't know what the ingredients are.
I've never made it. I don't belong in there. She knows it, but she's got the recipe, and is it ever good. If you're interested, Marcia, we'll see after the service. She'll be happy to sell you the recipe, half off today.
Oh, the only thing I can tell you about it, and the only thing I have to do with it, other than you know, stand there with my mug like a beggar, is if I'm in the kitchen, she'll say, "Honey, would you stir it?" And so, if I'm nearby, I'll go in there and I'll I'll stir that pot. That's all you do. All afternoon, every so often, you just stir the pot. Agape refuses to keep that pot on the stove because we're inclined, as it were, to put all our insults and injuries and all our slights in that pot, and periodically in life. Go over there and stir it up.
Still there, yeah. Agape turns off the stove. Paul goes on to write in verse six that love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. In other words, it doesn't celebrate sin. It doesn't celebrate sinful people.
Which our world does today. What makes agape throw a party, rejoice, be happy, is when God's truth is advanced in our lives and through our lives into the lives and the world around us, where it is appreciated and followed.
Now, in quick fashion, Paul wraps it up by saying in verse seven, "Love bears all things." By the way, that means it stays under the weight of pressure. That that word comes from a phrase of a of a beam in a roof that holds the roof up. It's bearing up a roof covered with snow, so it doesn't try to find its way out from underneath it. It bears up under it. Under the weight of life's pressure, he says, "Love believes all things and hopes all things." I love this.
One author said, "This is the optimism of agape. It's going to believe the best about others. It's going to hope for the best in others. And when that best doesn't seem to be turning out, Paul adds here: Love will endure all things." It's going to stay there. It's not going to look for the back door.
It's going to stay at it, stay the course, and endure in little things, big things. I came across this some time ago. I thought to be a illustration. I'll end with, but it's about an elementary teacher. She was a kindergarten teacher.
She was helping one of her kindergarten students get his cowboy boots on before leaving for home, and he had asked for her help. He couldn't do it. She soon figured out why. I mean, it was hard. It just didn't fit.
They looked like they were large enough. His feet just wouldn't slide in. He had asked for help.
So with all the pulling and the pushing, and finally she she she got those boots on, and she'd worked up a sweat and. She almost cried though, and she finished. The little boy said, "These are on the wrong feet." And you know how boots can can you know be a little tricky, hard to tell. She was in a hurry, and sure enough, they were on the wrong feet. She pushed and pulled, dug, and finally got the boots off.
Managed to keep her cool, and and finally she finished. She sat back to kind of catch her breath and. She started all over again, putting him on the right feet, pushed, pulled, had him up against the wall, pushing. Foot seemed smaller than the boots; they just wouldn't slide in. And she worked them on, and finally got him on, and finished.
And he looked at her and he said, "You know, these aren't my boots." She got a bitter tongue, and once again struggled to pull him off, and finally got him off. No sooner had she gotten them off, he said. They're my brother's boots. Mom said I could wear them today. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but she mustered up what patience she could and wrestled him back on his feet one more time.
He just wouldn't slide all the way in. But finally, she finished. She stood him up and helped him into his coat and said, "Now wear your gloves." He said, "They're in my boots." In four years, she'll be eligible for parole. I wonder what God will bring into our lives, big and small. But aren't we glad that this season, this is the basis for this gospel?
For God so loved the God, Agape, Agapao, the world. Aren't we glad? Are we sure He did?
Well, look what He did. He gave His only unique Son, and then, if you believe in His Son, He's going to give you not only a rescue from perishing eternally, but. Eternal life with Him forever.
So, when we demonstrate agape, we're going to look a little bit more like our Lord, who loves us like that. Stand with me, would you? If while your heads are bowed for just a moment. If you know him, he's your savior. You know this lesson is not a coincidence.
Probably just perfectly timed, as he does so in our growth. Maybe there's an area that he has already pointed out. This is a moment of. Rededication to that, and that's how he does it. He points out this or that.
So wherever it is that he is at work, even now, ask the Spirit of God to walk you out of here and into whatever that is. Guide you, strengthen you. While you, as a believer, are praying, if you're here today and you don't know the gospel, you've never come to understand His personal love for you, the sacrifice His Son made on the cross for your sin. I'll be greeting visitors just across the hallway to your right. Love to begin a conversation with you.
Thank you, Father, for your inspired word that gets to the very heart of who we are. We thank you that you are committed to our growth. You've promised that what you began in us, you will complete. In the day when we see Christ, you're asking for our commitment, dedication along the way. You deserve that.
We want to give you that afresh today. Thank you for gathering us to celebrate this Lord's Day together.
Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. That was Stephen Davy, and this is Wisdom for the Heart, a production of Wisdom International. Learn more at wisdomonline.org.
