Uncommonly Rare, Undeniably Real

Ladies and gentlemen, some guy is gonna eventually die with a $20 gold coin in his safe. And what good did it do him but to give him somehow the impression that he had spent his money well and now owns something valuable because it was rare. Listen, the most valuable things in your life are indeed rare, but they are not kept in a safe.

They are lived out in your life. The most valuable things in the world are the uncommon things. As believers, we need to cherish what is uncommon, but not in a way that the world does.

Uncommon courtesy, uncommon concern, uncommon self-control. These are all aspects of the most uncommon thing in the whole world, true love. Unlike other valuable possessions, true love is never hidden away in a safe or a lockbox or a vault.

Today, Stephen Davey continues his series entitled True Love with this lesson called Uncommonly Rare, Undeniably Real. Since it was minted in 1933, one particular gold coin has been stolen, shipped to Egypt, almost destroyed by fire twice and hidden for years. It is the double eagle $20 gold coin, an ounce of nearly pure gold.

When it went up for auction just a few years ago, it sold for an amazing amount of money. It all started during the days of the Great Depression. During the worst years of the Depression, people were hoarding their gold out of fear, and it was undermining the nation's financial system. As soon as Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president, by executive order, he took the United States off the gold standard and payment for anything by gold was now prohibited. Thousands of citizens exchanged their now worthless gold at banks for cash. Only problem is, somebody forgot to tell or send a memo to the U.S. Mint to stop making these gold coins. And they produced hundreds of thousands of these $20 gold coins until they got the memo and stopped. All of the coins never left the mint, they were melted down and that was the end of it. All except for ten of them. Ten coins that the U.S. Mint's chief cashier had stolen. Eventually, after a number of years, the Secret Service were able to track down all of them but one. The tenth and only remaining double eagle had landed in the collection of the King of Egypt.

A man who had an interesting penchant for Egyptians. He collected old aspirin bottles, used razor blades, stamps and coins. In 1952, this last double eagle was to be returned to the U.S. after this Egyptian king died. It never made it, it somehow disappeared again. Forty-five years later, it showed up in the hands of a dealer in 1966, claimed to be the legitimate owner. He ended up going to court and battling the U.S. government over ownership of this coin. During the court battle, the coin was placed in what seemed to be a secure location, a vault at the World Trade Center. If you can imagine it, just days before 9-11, it was moved to Fort Knox where the government agreed to release the coin and sell it at auction and split the proceeds with the dealer. When it went up for auction, an anonymous telephone bidder won the bid and purchased the $20 double eagle coin for $7.6 million.

Can you imagine? $7 million for a $20 coin you'll never spend. Why the incredible value?

And frankly, why all the interest that has spanned now nearly a century? Well, it's because it's one of a kind. There's no other coin in the world like it. Rare things are treated differently than common things, aren't they? I believe it was the great theologian Mark Twain who once said, if stones were rare and diamonds commonplace, we would be wearing rocks for jewelry and throwing diamonds at stray dogs.

It's true. Now if you're like me and you wouldn't spend any more than $20 for a $20 coin, the truth remains, the more uncommonly rare something is, the more valuable it becomes. In 1 Corinthians 13, we have been exploring the rare sightings of genuine, authentic, uncommon love. We've contrasted it thus far with the loves of the world, the passion, the epithymia, the eros, the storge, the philia of the world, and we discovered the rare beauty of agape.

We have noted thus far the absolute necessity of this kind of love. In fact, if we have amazing character qualities and ministry dynamic, if we do not have love, we might as well all just grab a pair of cymbals and make a lot of noise, right? By the way, I gotta tell you, when I preached at Dallas Seminary, I preached these three messages, and I don't think it's ever happened in Chafer Chapel before, but I played the cymbals. I played my cymbal solo.

They will forget me, but they will never, ever forget the cymbals. No, actually we had a great, great time. Next, we began to explore how love acts. And remember verses 4 to 7 are not adjectives.

They are 15 action verbs. This is not what love is. This is what love does. Now we've arrived at verse 5, where I was immediately struck by the simplicity of love's activity.

Let's take a few more words here, action verbs tonight. Paul writes in verse 5, love does not act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own.

It is not provoked. These phrases are so down to earth. The description of the way love acts is so obvious here, isn't it? In fact, one of my friends would say this is not rocket surgery. That's deep for a Sunday night.

You hang with me. But listen, what is obvious to us is that this is rare. These are the actions, these actions are really like double ego coins. Not only are they rarely seen in public, they are becoming more and more uncommon in the church today.

They're hardly surfacing at all. These are expressions of selfless, willful, committed, true love. And as we work through these three verbs, let me just call them three uncommon or three rare expressions of love.

The first is uncommon courtesy. Paul begins this verse by saying love does not act unbecomingly. You could translate this agape does not treat others rudely. One author translates it, love does not behave indecently. In the Corinthian church, by contrast, they were selfishly overindulging at the love feasts.

We talked a little bit about that this morning. Even to the point of drunkenness, 1 Corinthians 11, 20 to 22, they were suing one another for all sorts of things in chapter six, verses one to seven. They were hogging the floor and taking over the assembly with their own personal agendas, 1 Corinthians 14, 26.

In fact, in verse 27, Paul even had to ask them to take turns speaking and not all at once as they clamored to be heard. This was becoming then this unbecoming nature of love more and more rare, this uncommon expression of courtesy. This is, ladies and gentlemen, frankly put, this is tactfulness. Someone once said that tact is making people feel at home when you really wish they were. One author wrote that this verb for rude or unbecoming conveys the idea of inappropriate dress, immodest dress, inconsiderate talk, disregard for other people's time, taking advantage of people, running roughshod over others' plans and interests, inappropriate behavior with the opposite sex, basic discourtesy and rudeness and a general disregard for proper social conduct are all evidences of this one verb that Paul would consider the opposite of true love. By the way, this phrase can refer then to being inconsiderate of how your behavior might affect somebody else even in little things.

This has to do with the manners our moms tried to teach us. This is the courteousness, the sensitivity to other people. And then Paul is speaking in such obvious language, he says, love is like that. It can come down to earth in such basic ways, just being sensitive in little things. Uncommon courtesy is synonymous with true love. Paul goes on in this text to refer secondly to what we'll just call tonight uncommon concern. He writes in verse five, love does not act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own. In other words, love does not insist on its own way.

Paul kind of brings out this rare coin in public view of the Corinthians. In fact, he does it time and time again, and they just weren't getting it. He said in chapter 10, I try to please everyone in everything I do.

How? Not seeking my own advantage, but that of many. It doesn't mean he shelved the truth. It simply meant that when he got around Paul, he'd tell you the truth in love, but he also wanted your best. He wanted your advantage. He wanted to promote you. He wanted to talk about you. He wanted to help you. That was Paul. He said in chapter nine, for though I am free, I have made myself a slave to all.

A few verses earlier in chapter 10, he challenged the Corinthians with this. Let no one seek his own advantage, but that of another. Then here in chapter 13, love does not seek its own. There are two kinds of people in this regard, those who insist upon their own privileges and those who never quite forget their own responsibilities, those who are always thinking of what life owes them and those who never quite get over the fact that they owe life. Agape is rare because agape is uncommon concern for others. It is the selfless pursuit of another's blessing, and the reason it is so remarkable is you rarely see it in public.

Selfless, self-defacing, self-promoting, self-sacrificing love. But listen, seeking your own, which would be to flip this coin over, that's the law. That's within your rights. The most natural and human thing is to stand up for your own rights, isn't it? Here then is that rare, unnatural act that goes against human feelings and reactions. This is the opposite of selfishness. Love, the way Lenski penned this rather provocative statement in this particular commentary on this passage, he said this, if you can cure selfishness, you replant the Garden of Eden. True love is always unselfish and how easy to say, right?

Man, how hard to live out. That's why selfishness is as common as rocks and unselfish living is as rare as a double-eagle $20 coin. Uncommon courtesy, uncommon concern for others.

Thirdly, uncommon control. Paul writes in this text, love does not act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own. It is not provoked. You translate this, love does not become cantankerous when disappointed.

And now we're all going to throw up the white flag. Well, it gets worse when you find out what he means. The Greek word is transliterated to give us our word paroxysms, fits of anger. By the way, it can have a positive meaning, this provoking. The same word is used in Hebrews 10 24, provoke one another on the love and good works. So that word can have a positive impact. He's speaking of it in a negative passive sense that it is not provoked in the form of irritation. You read this phrase and immediately every one of us has to say, well, guilty. Who can live without being provoked, right?

It does no good, by the way, in the face of this text to say, well, I lose my temper a lot, but it's over in a few seconds. So is a nuclear bomb. Rare love develops and grows into this demonstration of uncommon control.

It's good to see it in public every once in a while, isn't it? One author I was reading wrote about being on a flight where two young children were sitting near him. You've been on those flights before? They were arguing and fussing and quarreling. And anyway, the flight attendant knew exactly how to handle them. She went over to their seats and she smiled at them and she said, what's all the squawking going on over here? The children grew quiet. She leaned over them and said in a serious voice, I must remind you, this is a non squawking flight.

And it worked. Paul is effectively saying true love views life as a non squawking flight. And he's telling us to us grownups. And since it takes two people to have a provocation with the kind that he has in mind, Paul is saying you are to refuse to become the second person. You read this phrase, love is not provoked and you think, yeah, all right, Paul, you didn't expect me to take this literally. This verse is for people like apostles or dead people.

They can't be provoked. This is a verse for Paul. Now again, the secret to uncommon control is not that you have some sort of amazing self control. This is spirit, Christ control. Roy Lauren said to be mastered by this love is the same as being mastered by Christ. And again, I go back to this and let me make sure that I have said it clearly enough as we're halfway through these verbs. Agape is impossible. It is not difficult.

It's impossible. That's why the fruit of the spirit. Is first and foremost, what love. The Lord had already begun to reveal this radical control, this refusal to be provoked in difficult situations when he preached a sermon on the mouth very quickly. I want you to go back to Matthew five.

Would you just turn there very, very quickly? Matthew five, verse thirty nine. He brings up a couple of situations where you would get provoked. And he's teaching his disciples to show restraint and control that they will learn is the control of the spirit of God. He says in verse thirty nine. But I say to you, do not resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him.

Also, I mean, this is the ultimate provocation, isn't it? If somebody slaps you on the right cheek, turn and let them slap you again. Now, most people misunderstand what Christ is saying. They think this is referring to letting somebody punch you in the face and then turning and saying, you can have one more shot before I put you in the hospital. No, that's not what Christ is saying. This is effectively the same demonstration of control that Paul will refer to in first Corinthians thirteen.

What I want to do, I think the best way to teach this is to illustrate it physically. So what I'd like to do is, if I could get a volunteer to come up here that I could hit. OK, David, I saw that hand. Come on up here. Come on. I'm going to slap David and we're going to watch his response.

Now, if you look at your text, there's something very critical here. Jesus Christ specifically refers to being slapped on which cheek? Which cheek?

That one. Now, most of the world happens to be right-handed, right? So the only way that I can slap David on this cheek with this hand is to do this, right?

Come on, now you're exaggerating. This way right here and then to turn the other cheek would mean that this person could give then another backhand. What this is referring to in Christ's day is one of the most insulting things you could ever do to anybody is take your hand, which represents your authority and dignity, your personhood, and give someone the back of it. So Jesus Christ is saying, if somebody provokes you to that degree, insults you, which is the point, be willing to be insulted again.

And you would be willing, wouldn't you? Thank you very much, David. What great self-control.

Thank you very much. To refuse to be provoked means a couple of things. First of all, it means you are willing to forfeit personal dignity. Now look down further, verse 41, another one that we wouldn't really understand. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.

Again, the generation of the Lord and of Paul would know immediately what he's talking about here. If somebody compels you to go a mile, go with him two. During these days, the law of the land gave the Roman soldier the right to impress any citizen or any alien, Jew or Gentile, into personal valet service. They could immediately impress anybody to carry their heavy gear.

Hey, you, come up here. Carry my gear. And Jesus said, you know, the most gracious thing somebody could ever do is go with them a mile. Now they had to anyway, but it would be gracious if they didn't mutter all along. Million, the Latin word for mile. And they considered a mile one thousand steps. And so that person that's impressed into service, you can imagine, and they often did it audibly. They began to count off as they walked carrying that heavy gear out of total frustration. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, nine hundred and ninety-eight, nine hundred and ninety-nine, a thousand.

And they could throw it down. You have been inconvenienced enough. You've gone to the letter of the law.

Jesus says, look at your text again. If you're compelled to go one mile, go two. Can you imagine the surprise of a Roman soldier? And you telling him, look, I know you've impressed upon me to walk a mile, and I have to by law, but I want you to know I serve a higher law. It is the law of love, and love for Christ compels me to go another one thousand steps with your gear, which meant that he would walk two miles out of the way and two miles back, four miles, never mind your afternoon plans.

Love that refuses to be provoked is first willing to forfeit personal dignity and secondly willing to forfeit personal inconvenience, which makes this so rare and precious. Instead of provocation, it is procession for one thousand more steps. You went one mile, you'll go two miles. This is where we get the phrase we still use to this day, going the extra mile. It came right out of there.

This is indeed uncommon. It is rare love, but it is undeniably real. See, he puts it down where we live and where we struggle.

And so when we respond with a love of Christ, it is immediately obvious that we are controlled by the Spirit. Ladies and gentlemen, some guy is going to eventually die with a twenty dollar gold coin in his safe. And what good did it do him but to give him somehow the impression that he had spent his money well and now owned something valuable because it was rare. Listen, the most valuable things in your life are indeed rare, but they are not kept in a safe. They are lived out in your life, especially this rare thing called true love that demonstrates these uncommon expressions, uncommon courtesy, uncommon concern, uncommon control. Would any of us not agree with Paul that this is true love? With that powerful illustration, we bring today's lesson to a close. I hope that image sticks with you and that you'll value what is truly precious in this life. This is Wisdom for the Heart with our Bible teacher, Stephen Davey. The lesson you just heard is called uncommonly rare, undeniably real.

It comes from Stephen's series in 1 Corinthians 13 called, True Love. We'll be continuing through this series over the next several lessons. If you joined us late today, or if you missed the first four lessons in this series, you can go online and listen to the entire lesson at wisdomonline.org. I also want you to be aware that Stephen has a booklet that came out of this series, and it's also called True Love. You'll find that on our website, or you can call us today at 866-48-Bible. Again, that number is 866-48-Bible or 866-482-4253. Thanks again for joining us today, and please be with us next time for more wisdom for the heart.