What Love Is and What Love Is Not, Part 2 (1 Corinthians 13:5b-7) - 9/4/22

INTRO

• Agape Love… love in action

• Not feeling love, but doing love

• What love does & What love does not do

• Paul is painting a portrait of love, and Jesus Christ is sitting for the portrait. He lived out in perfection all of these virtues of love. This beautiful picture of love is a portrait of Him. (John MacArthur- 1 Corinthians Commentary)

• Remember the context. Spiritual gifts within the life of the church

• Our relationship with others is a direct reflection of our relationship with God.

Love does not insist on its own way – v. 5

• Seek to be second rather than first

• Even when deserved… we are 2nd

• Opposite of … I want my own way

• Matthew 20:28

• Others not me.

Love it is not irritable – v. 5

• not easily angered

• when the inside comes out (our heart)

• Our tongue. Our Words

• We should only be angered by the things that anger God

Love is not resentful – v. 5

• keeps no record of wrongdoing

• Bringing things up

• Does not keep score

Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing – v. 6

• Rejoice when someone fails

• Find satisfaction in the wrong of others

• Gossip at the failure of others

Love rejoices with the truth – v. 6

• Biblical truth applied in life

• Shines the light on the right of others

• Looking for and focusing on the right

Conclusion – Driving the point home – v. 7

• A summary and conclusion of this section – vv. 3-7

• all things – in every way – everything in accordance to God’s divine tolerance.

Love bears all things

• to cover, to cover over in silence

• Willing to cover up

• Love never protects the sin but is anxious to protect the sinner.

• Galatians 6:1

Love believes all things

• Not suspicious.

• Thinking the best and not the worst

Love hopes all things

• Refuses to take failure as the final answer

• Looking toward the future.

Love endures all things (the present)

• Military term… hold the line at all cost

• Willing to do whatever it takes

Love bears what otherwise is unbearable; it believes what otherwise is unbelievable; it hopes in what otherwise is hopeless; and it endures when anything less than love would give up. After love bears it believes. After it believes it hopes. After it hopes it endures. There is no “after” for endurance, for endurance is the unending climax of love. JOHN F. MACARTHUR JR., 1 CORINTHIANS, MACARTHUR NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY (CHICAGO: MOODY PRESS, 1984), 355.