One clarification on the announcements,
which it’s clear when you write it,
not always clear when you read it.
~ Nathaniel Lebow,
who we’ve sent cards to, ~ is a contact in
South Haven.
He has ~ cancer.
His father unexpectedly passed away this
week.
So he’s this young man’s dealing with
cancer at age 17.
And now the sudden passing of his father
at the same time.
So keep Nathaniel Lebow and his family in
your prayers.
Charlie was his his father who passed
away.
~
Take your Bibles, if you will,
and open them to First Corinthians.
We’ve spent some time in the last few
weeks examining this idea of love does
not,
love is not. Paul, as he’s writing to the
church at Corinth,
will help them to understand love.
He is helping them to understand love in
view of
the miraculous gifts that they are
struggling with because they have raised
The miraculous gifts in their minds to
such great importance to
be more significant than basically
anything else in their spiritual lives.
To have a priority on these things,
to measure oneselves by these things,
to say this gift is better than this other
gift,
and therefore the person who has this gift
is greater than this other person
who has in their minds a lesser gift.
Paul will begin as he writes to them and
say,
Though I speak with the tongues of men and
of angels and have not love,
I have become a sounding brass and
clinging symbol.
Paul says, if you can perform these great
miracles through the power
of the Holy Spirit in the first century,
if you can speak in a language that you’ve
never studied and open your mouth
and proclaim God’s word in that language,
A language that you don’t even understand
when you speak it.
But you don’t have love?
You’re empty. He goes on to say,
and though I have the gift of prophecy
Excuse me.
Hmm. The air’s thick this morning.
And though I have the gift of prophecy and
understand all mysteries
and all knowledge, and though I have all
faith,
so that I could remove mountains and have
not love,
I am nothing.
Prophecy was in their minds the second
greatest gift right next
to speaking in tongues. And at the same
time,
there were the gifts of knowledge,
the gifts of faith. He says, if you If you
have one of these and
you don’t have love,
Do nothing.
He says, and though I bestow all my goods
to feed the poor,
and though I give my body to be burned,
but have not love, it profits me nothing.
It doesn’t matter what gift you have.
It doesn’t matter what level of sacrifice
you’re willing
to give if the only thing you’re
interested in is yourself.
If it is not motivated by love.
And then from that, Paul will write,
Love suffers long and is kind.
Love does not. And with verse 4,
he begins a series of things that love
doesn’t do.
That love isn’t. We’ve noticed all of them
except one.
We’ve noticed love does not behave rudely.
We’ve noticed that love does not envy,
does not parade itself, is not puffed up.
We’ve noticed love does not seek its own.
We’ve noticed that love does not rejoice
in iniquity.
So we will conclude with this one.
Love is not provoked.
As Paul writes to the church at Corinth,
then he says, Love does not seek its own,
is not provoked.
The word provoked in the original language
comes from a word meaning to irritate,
to stir up, to sharpen, to make angry.
Something being sharpened to a razor
point.
is the idea. But as it’s used,
it usually connotates a sudden or intense
outbreak.
It is the response where someone lashes
out at you and says something incredibly
pointed and incredibly mean as a reaction
to whatever you did. That’s this word.
And Paul says this
is not a description of love. There’s a
word in the English,
paroxysm.
Which means a sudden intense outbreak of
something.
It comes from it’s really a tra almost a
transliteration wor letter
for letter of this Greek word.
Here though, it’s in the passive.
In other words, in the Greek it’s saying
this is something we,
if we have love, do not allow ourselves to
respond with when
others do something to us.
We do not have this reaction to what
others do.
So, in other words, Paul is saying love
refuses
to allow the actions of others to set it
off and control its reaction.
Sometime.
We all have to admit.
That we, in a circumstance, on a rare
occasion,
lose control. Yes.
At some point, all of us are going to say
something we shouldn’t have said,
react to someone in a way that they did
not deserve.
Quite often in a scenario where
circumstance after circumstance after
circumstance
after circumstance have piled on one
another,
and they were the straw that broke the
camel’s back.
They didn’t deserve that. They just ended
up being the one who got it because
of all the people who frankly did deserve
it along the way,
but didn’t get it.
The idea here isn’t, and as Paul writes
these things,
Paul does not intend for us to look at our
lives and go,
well, okay, I never do that, and I never
do that,
and I never do that, and I never do that,
and I never do that, and therefore I have
love.
Because I never do all of the things love
is not.
That’s not what he means. Paul’s talking
about when
we build our lives structured.
In love, that these things will
not be a common description of our
everyday life.
Not that we’ll be sinlessly perfect or we
can’t possibly love anyone.
But rather that the description of our
lives
is built up in a description of this isn’t
how we live.
Paul says
Love is not provoked.
Now the King James says it is not easily
provoked.
a as if
This attitude, this reaction is dry
kindling and somebody lights a match.
You know, if you take wet wood and you try
and build a fire with it,
you’re gonna have to have some patience.
You’re gonna have to have some endurance.
You’re gonna have to have some other fuel,
and you’re going to have to wait to get
that in the right state where it will
burn.
You take dry Kinlin and you light a match
to it and it’s up.
That’s this.
The person who Paul is describing is not
on the edge of their seat,
a hair trigger, waiting for the very
moment for someone to do something
so they can let off.
But what is it not?
This idea is not first righteous anger.
Over in the book of Mark, Jesus
on the Sabbath day is with his apostles in
the in the fields.
And the people,
the Pharisees specifically, bring to him a
man who has a withered hand.
And the text tells us that they did so.
to see whether or not Jesus would heal the
man on the Sabbath.
So here is an individual who’s become
nothing more than a prop to their
argument.
Nothing more than a potential opportunity
to catch Jesus
in something that they can leverage
against him so as to say Jesus
is in violation of the law and contrary to
Moses.
They don’t care about this man,
they don’t care about his withered hand.
They don’t care about the fact that in the
first century where
the majority of people build and maintain
their income by the work
of their physical hands, that this man is
incapacitated and in some
way unable to provide for himself.
They don’t care about that.
They care about the fact that they believe
that Jesus is healing people
on the Sabbath and that’s a violation of
the law,
and they’re gonna prove to the people that
Jesus is in violation of the law.
Now, of interest, it is the same law of
which Jesus said,
the greatest commandment in the law is to
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
with all thy soul, with all thy strength
and all thy mind.
And the second was like unto it,
to love thy neighbor as thyself.
That is not a concern to them.
The thing that concerns them is the nature
of the commandment about
not violating the Sabbath.
And not what Moses said about not
violating the Sabbath,
but rather what their elders had taught
about not violating the Sabbath.
So they bring a man into the situation in
the presence of Jesus
as a test, as a tripwire,
as an opportunity to create a stumbling
block for someone they disagree with.
And when they bring the man with the
withered hand before Jesus
Jesus asked the question, is it lawful to
do good
or to do evil on the Sabbath?
And the text tells us.
that they wouldn’t answer.
And the text tells us that Jesus looked
upon them with
anger.
And said to the man, Stretch forth your
hand.
And his hand was made whole.
Consider what Jesus has done.
Jesus has become righteously angry
because they, in their position of power,
in their position as leaders,
fulfilling what Ezekiel had prophesied
about them,
that they would be the evil shepherds who
would not take care of the sheep.
They would not provide for the sheep.
They would not console the sheep that was
injured.
They would not heal the sheep that was
sick.
They would rather consume the sheep than
help them if
it was in their interest to consume the
sheep.
Jesus looks upon them in righteous anger
because they
in their hardness of hearts did not care
what happened to this man.
They cared about keeping their power.
So Jesus not only proves them to be hard
hearted,
he also demonstrates that he was far more
intelligent than they were.
As all he did was ask the man to put out
his hand.
He didn’t pray to God. He didn’t shout
some great shout.
He didn’t cause the man to do some great
wonder.
He just said, put forward your hand.
How are they going to claim Jesus worked?
He didn’t do anything other than tell him
to put his hand forward.
Righteous anger.
That is anger which exists because someone
realizes that the very nature
and law of God is being violated,
oftentimes in God’s own name, it’s being
violated
is not under consideration when Paul says
love is not provoked.
But then consider as well confronting
wrongdoing.
Over in Galatians chapter 2, Paul
is going to describe a scenario and a
situation when he was among
the churches of Galatia, and there were
those from Jerusalem that were coming
and were gathering with the churches of
Galatia,
and they were teaching them and they were
helping them grow.
And one of those who came is Peter.
And he says in verse 11, now when Peter
had come to Antioch,
I withstood him to the face because he was
to be blamed.
Wait a minute, Paul. Are you saying Peter
provoked you?
Not in this sense. Rather in the right
sense.
Because Peter was at fault.
Notice what occurred.
For before certain men came from James,
he would eat with the Gentiles.
But when they came, he withdrew and
separated himself,
fearing those who were of the
circumcision.
And the rest of the Jews also played the
hypocrite with him,
so that even Barnabas was carried away
with their hypocrisy.
And when I saw that they were not
straightforward about the truth of the
gospel,
consider here that this is no slight
against Paul.
This is not a reaction of Paul because he
is personally offended,
because they have done something against
his teaching.
Paul is slighted,
Paul is reacting this way because of what
they’re doing in violation of
the word of God.
He says, But when I saw that they were not
straightforward about the truth
of the gospel, I said to Peter before them
all,
if you being a Jew, live in the manner of
Gentiles and not as the Jews,
why do you compel Gentiles to live as
Jews?
We who are Jews by nature are not sin or ~
and not sinners of the Gentiles,
knowing that a man is not justified by the
works of the law,
but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have
believed in Christ Jesus that
we might be justified by faith in Christ
and not by the works of the law,
for by the works of the law no flesh shall
be justified.
Paul made it clear, Peter,
you’re being a hypocrite.
And you’re leading others to do the same
thing,
even Barnabas, because you’re afraid of
others’ opinions.
Now was Paul in violation of love is not
provoked when he did that?
No. Then consider Acts chapter seventeen.
And Act chapter seven teen.
We read as Paul is there in Mars Hill.
As Paul is in Athens,
as he’s not yet to Mars Hill, but he is
he’s in Athens.
This is the only other use of this word,
the Greek base word in the New Testament
for provoked.
And it’s here in this text. Now,
while Paul waited for them at Athens,
his spirit was provoked within him.
When he saw that the city was given over
to idols.
Paul, as he walks through the streets of
Athens,
passes idol after idol after idol on every
corner,
in every house, in every business,
another idol and another idol.
It was said of Athens that there were more
idols than there were people
in the city of Athens in the first
century.
And Paul in his heart, in his spirit,
is provoked by this. He’s got to do
something about it.
It causes him to have a reaction.
The reaction is to go to the Areopagus and
speak to these people.
Feeling of indignation at wrongdoing,
and the seeking to right that which is
wrong by teaching the truth
is not under consideration when Paul says
love is not provoked.
Now, we would be tempted to say,
okay, that means as long as the person
deserves it when I lash out,
then I’m justified.
I don’t think that’s what that means.
You’ll notice in every single one of these
scenarios,
the indignation, the response,
the anger is because of
a person’s violation against God.
and not the person who’s having the
reaction.
You see, it is right for us to abhor evil.
It is right for us to react strongly
against sin.
It is right for us to stand up against
brethren who are behaving
in a way so as to put a stumbling block in
front of those who are weak
and those who are ignorant.
But when we try to justify ourselves
by our sharp reactions,
now we’re in violation of the command.
So some examples. As we’ve gone through 1
Corinthians 13 and we’ve looked
at all these examples over and over,
we found Paul’s already talked about this.
Paul has already
Corrected situations in which they’re not
living out what they should have been
living out. First Corinthians chapter 3.
Paul says, And I, brethren,
could not speak to you as to spiritual
people,
but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ.
I fed you with milk and not with solid
food,
for until now you were not able to receive
it,
and even now you are still not able.
Paul said, I I taught you the basics.
Because that’s all you could handle in the
beginning of your Christian walk.
You weren’t ready for the meat.
You weren’t ready for the substance and
the depth of God’s Word,
yet you needed to get out of the Word.
You needed to slowly but surely migrate
out of a mindset of
~ of carnal and fleshly things and the
paganism that you had grown
up in into spiritual things. So I gave you
milk so that you could take it.
He says, The problem is I still can’t give
you any meat.
I still can’t give you the bulk of the
word because you’re still not able
to take it, because you’re not growing.
He says, For you are still carnal,
for where they are or Where there are
envy,
strife, and divisions among you.
Are you not carnal and behaving like mere
men?
There’s your picture.
Paul said, I look at you, and you’re at
war with one another.
You’re striving not against spiritual
matters,
not against principalities and powers of
this world,
not against the evil ruler of darkness,
not against Satan and his minions,
not against the wickedness that exists in
your culture.
You’re striving against one another.
For when one says I am of Paul or I am of
Apollos.
are you not carnal? Who then is Paul?
And who is Apollos but ministers through
whom you believed as the Lord gave
to each one?
Paul says, you want to know how I can
prove you’re carnal?
You want to know how I can prove you’re
fleshly minded?
You’re arguing over which teacher to
follow instead of following the Lord.
You’re being provoked to react to the
teaching of others instead
of following Christ.
Over in First Corinthians chapter ten.
Paul will point out that he intentionally
avoids causing this reaction
in evangelism. First Corinthians chapter
10,
he writes, beginning in verse 31:
Therefore, whether you eat or drink,
whatever you do, do all the glory of God,
give no offense, either to the Jews or to
the Greeks,
or to the church of God.
He says, when you’re out there in your
daily life and you see a scenario where
you could provoke someone to anger,
you could provoke them to having a mindset
that is a stumbling block to the gospel.
Stop it. Don’t do it.
Hold yourself back from creating the
reaction.
He says, verse thirty-three, just as I
also please all men in all things,
not seeking my own profit, but the profit
of many that they may be saved.
says you know somebody has a problem with
something.
This is much to the to the mindset of i i
if you knew that
it was something against the conscience of
a of a friend of yours who’s a Jew.
To do something or to eat something and
you invite them over for dinner,
don’t serve them the thing that you say,
you know what, I’m gonna prove them wrong.
I’m gonna put it on the plate and see if
they eat it.
He says, Don’t you do that. Why don’t you
worry about their soul instead?
Why don’t you help them hear the gospel
instead and get the stumbling block
out of the way?
So then, Paul tells them in chapter 11,
verse 1, imitate me as I also imitate
Christ.
Then you see in chapter 14.
You see the reaction from the
disorderliness in the assembly.
As Paul writes to them, How is it then,
brethren? Whenever you come together,
each of you has a psalm, has a teaching,
has a tongue, has a revelation,
and has an inner interpretation.
Let all things be done for edification.
He says, I’m gonna demonstrate you’re
doing this in your own assembly.
Everybody shows up and they’ve got
something to say.
But you’re not edifying one another.
You’re not getting up to say something to
the benefit of the congregation.
You’re getting up to say something for
yourself.
To prove how good you are.
To prove what you know. To prove what you
can do.
He says, verse 27 if anyone speaks in a
tongue,
let there be two, or at the most three,
each in turn. And let one interpret.
He says, You’ve got somebody who knows how
to speak in tongues?
Great. No more than two or three in a
whole service.
Ain’t got time for that.
And if you don’t have an interpreter,
as you’ll notice, sit down and be quiet.
He says, Let one interpret, but if there
is no interpreter,
let him keep silent in the church and let
him speak to himself and to God.
Let two or three prophets speak and let
the others judge.
And if anything is revealed to another who
sits by,
let the first keep silent. Notice,
he says, you’re supposed to give way for
somebody else.
If something is revealed to one who is a
prophet and you’re in
the middle of speaking, and they say,
the Lord has shown me something and I need
to speak,
he says, Go sit down and let him speak.
He says, For you can all prophesy one by
one,
that all may learn, and that all may be
encouraged.
And the spirits of the prophets are
subject to the spirits.
For God is not the author of confusion,
but of peace, as in all the churches of
the saints.
He’s pointing out, he says, if God gives a
prophecy to someone and it’s
in the middle of the service and they see
that prophecy,
and they have that vision given to them,
or they have that revelation given to
them,
guess what?
They can keep their mouth shut until
there’s an opportunity to speak.
Imagine the scenario in the first entry
church in Corinth as they were getting
up and one person would get up and they’d
start speaking in tongues.
And in the middle of that person speaking
in tongues,
someone would get a prophecy and they’d
start speaking as well.
And then this person over here would start
speaking in tongues at the same time.
And then this person over here said,
Well, I had a prophecy too, and they’d
start speaking.
You ever been in a room where everyone’s
talking,
nobody’s listening? That was the church in
Corinth during their assembly.
Everybody wanted to be seen.
And everybody wanted to be heard,
but nobody wanted to listen. Nobody wanted
to be subservient
and humble and sit down and be quiet.
Paul goes on to say.
Verse thirty four, let your women keep
silent in the churches,
for they are not permitted to speak,
but they are to be submissive as the law
also says,
and if they want to learn something,
let them ask their own husband at home,
for it is shameful for women to speak in
the church.
Or did the word of God come originally
from you,
or was it you only that it reached?
Paul says, here’s the ordinance when it
comes to women.
They may be a prophet.
They may be able to speak in tongues.
They may have a gift of the Holy Spirit.
It was prophesied all the way back in the
days of Joel that there would
be women who received the gift of
prophecy.
Philip had four daughters who had their
gift of prophecy.
Paul says, that’s great. Not in the
assembly in public.
Not in leadership in the church.
Now when he says to keep silent,
the idea here is utter silence.
But he’s not talking about the
participation in worship.
Because they’re also commanded to sing.
Have you ever noticed someone sing
silently?
Not in accordance with the New Testament
commandment,
you haven’t. Not unless they were quite
literally mute.
They’re doing everything they can to sing,
and that’s physically unable to.
Paul is not teaching that the women be
utterly silent.
In worship, he is teaching that they be
utterly silent in leading in worship.
He says, It’s not gonna happen.
That’s not appropriate. That’s not what
God commanded.
So then we consider as well that Paul
and his companions also lived this out
before the church in Corinth.
If you go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 4.
When Paul is using himself, Apollos and
Cephas as examples
He says down here in verse 10,
he says, We are fools for Christ’s sake,
but you are wise in Christ. We are weak,
but you are strong. You are distinguished,
but we are dishonored. He’s using sarcasm
to set a contrast between
the way the Corinthians view themselves
and the way he was living.
He says.
To the present hour we are but we both
hunger and thirst.
We are poorly clothed and beaten and
homeless.
We labor working with our hands,
being reviled, we bless.
Being persecuted,
we endure. Being defamed,
we entreat.
We have been made the filth of the world
and the off scouring of
all things until now.
Paul says, if there’s anybody who could
return evil for evil?
If there’s anyone who’d be justified in
reacting because they were done
wrong? If there’s anybody that would be
justified
in the human mind of pushing back instead
of taking it,
he said, we’re right at the top of the
list.
That’s not what we do.
He says, when we are reviled, we do
exactly what Christ said,
we bless in return.
You see, Love doesn’t do what’s natural.
What’s natural is to when someone does you
wrong,
you fire back. Paul says that’s not love.
As a matter of fact, Jesus said that’s not
love in Matthew.
Matthew chapter 5. Jesus in the Sermon on
the Mount will establish this very idea.
He says you have heard that it was said
verse thirty eight,
an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
But I tell you not to resist an evil
person.
But whoever slaps you on your right cheek,
turn the other to him also. If anyone
wants to sue you and take away your tunic,
let him have your cloak also. And whoever
compels you to go one mile,
go with him too. Give to him who asks you,
and from him who wants to borrow from you
do not turn away.
You have heard that it was said you shall
love your neighbor and hate your enemy,
but I say unto you, love your enemies,
bless those who curse you, do good to
those who hate you,
and pray for those who spitefully use you
and persecute you.
Jesus, why? Why would we ever do such a
thing?
Why would we allow ourselves to be
trampled under?
Why would we allow ourselves to be
persecuted?
Why would we not stand up for ourselves?
That you may be sons of your Father in
heaven,
for he makes his son to rise on the evil
and on the good,
and sends rain on the just and on the
unjust.
And then he says this: For if you love
those
who love you, what reward have you?
Do not even the tax collectors do the
same?
And if you greet
Your brethren only. What do you do more
than others?
Do not even the tax collectors do so?
Therefore you shall be perfect as your
Father
in heaven is perfect.
When Paul writes to the church at Corinth
and says to them,
Love doesn’t seek its own. Love is not
provoked.
He’s saying when someone does you wrong
If your reaction is to get them back,
to respond sharply, he said,
It’s time to go educate yourself in the
ways of God.
It’s time to send some sunshine on their
dark day.
It’s time to give them some rain when it’s
a drought.
It’s time to demonstrate love toward your
enemies and not.
just your friends. Because love
is different than the world.
Love suffers long and is kind.
Love does not envy. Love it does not
parade itself,
is not puffed up, does not behave rudely,
does not seek its own, is not provoked,
thinks no evil, does not rejoice in
iniquity,
but rejoices in the truth.
If you have need of the invitation of our
Lord to put Christ on in baptism,
to be once again reunited with Him through
repentance,
or for any reason, why not come forward
now as we stand and as we sing?
