Characteristics of Love – Part 2

Transcript

GR 1352
05-06-07
Characteristics of Love – Part 2
1 Corinthians 13:5
Gil Rugh

We are studying about the subject of love in our study of 1 Corinthians, so if you'd turn to 1 Corinthians 13 you'll be at the place where we are going to concentrate our attention. In the paper this past week I clipped out an article some of you may have seen. This came from the Omaha paper, the Omaha World Herald, and it was repeated from the Wall Street Journal. It was this past Monday's Omaha World Herald. And it relates to what we're talking about with biblical love. Remember biblical love, agape love, the focus of the love in 1 Corinthians 13 has as its central characteristic, it is self-sacrificing, it gives itself for others. The title of this article is Being Special Can Become Addictive. Employers notice that some younger workers have come to expect praise and are unhappy when it doesn't come. The article begins this way, you, you, you, you really are special. You are. You've got everything going for you—you're attractive, witty, brilliant, gifted is the word that comes to mind. Childhood in recent decades has been defined by such stroking by parents who see their job as building self-esteem, but soccer coaches who give every player a trophy, by schools that used to names one student of the month and these days name forty. Now as this greatest generation grows up, the culture of praise is reaching deeply into the adult world. Bosses, professors and mates are feeling the need to lavish praise on young adults, particularly 20-somethings, or else see them wither under an unfamiliar compliment deficit. Some employers are dishing out kudos to workers for little more than showing up.

Then they give examples. Corporations like Lands End and Bank of America are hiring consultants to teach managers how to compliment employees, using e-mail, prize packages, public displays of appreciation. The 1000-employee Scooter Store, some of you know about, has a staff celebrations assistant whose job it is to throw confetti—25 lbs. per week—at employees. This person also passes out 100-500 celebratory helium balloons a week. The Container Store has 4000 employees and it estimates that there is one employee every 20 seconds receiving a celebration voice e-mail. I checked my e-mail this morning, I didn't get one. Certainly there are benefits to building confidence and showing attention, but some researchers suggest that inappropriate kudos are turning too many adults into narcissistic junkies, narcissistic praise junkies. Adults who were over-praised as children are apt to be narcissistic at work and in personal relationships. Narcissistic, they are absorbed with themselves. Narcissistics aren't good at basking in other people's glory, which makes for problematic marriages and work relationships. I mean if it's all about me, how can I be occupied with you? We both have to be occupied with me. I mean, I need praise, I need recognition, I need honor. And If I don't get it, I just can't function. It's not easy for me to bask in your glory, I have to bask in my glory.

They have some research to say that we're getting more self-centered. They have a test they give, it's conducted over a variety of universities, encompasses over 16000 students. It's the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. And you respond to such statements as I think I am a special person. The last 25 years there was an increase of 30% who think they are more special. So we are becoming more self-focused, is the point, a lot more self-focused. People's positive traits can be exaggerated until words feel meaningless. There is a runaway inflation of everyday speech. These days it's an insult unless you describe a pretty girl as drop-dead gorgeous, or a smart person as genius. No one wants to be told they live in a nice house, nice was once sufficient, that was a good word. Now it's a put-down. Everything has to be focused to say everything I am, I do, I have is over-the-top. On it goes.

There are numerous examples. They mention people at a certain elderly age, my age bracket, where they were asked, they said I get praise every week—I get a paycheck. But that's not enough anymore. You have to be told again and again, you're wonderful. Now sinners have always been self-focused, don't misunderstand. The focus on self has always been the characteristic of sinful people. What has developed in our society is we have exalted it to something that is desirable and honorable and has to be. And that's the environment in which we live as God's people. We like to think we're not affected by it, but our kids go to school, they have friends, we work in the workplace and all of this constant emphasis on you have to recognize how wonderful you are, you have to think about how exceptional you are, you have to expect that people are going to recognize you as something more than just average. Begins to color our thinking, and if we're not careful, we as believers begin to think like the world does. Remember Romans 12? Do not allow yourselves to be conformed to this world, but be transformed.

When we talk about the kind of love we're talking about in I Corinthians 13, agape or agapao kind of love that is unfolded for us in the New Testament as being totally self-sacrificing, completely taken up with doing what is best for someone else, it's not arrogant, it's not self-centered, now we are going upstream against the world. Because the world says your world ought to be all about you, and when it's not, you're not happy.

So that's what we're talking about in 1 Corinthians 13, biblical love. We have to go to one other portion—I Peter 1. The full display and manifestation of agape love, agape being the Greek word for love that we're talking about, as unfolded in the New Testament is only true of those who have experienced God's redemption, His saving work in their lives, and now have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them who produces this love, this action as people submit to Him and commit themselves to doing what God says they must do. In I Peter 1:3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope. Note that statement, God has caused us to be born again. Look down at the end of chapter 1, verse 22, since you have in obedience to the truth, the Word of God, the message of Jesus Christ. Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls, you are cleansed from your sin when you obey the command of God to believe in His Son, Jesus Christ. You purify your souls, note this, for a sincere love of the brethren. Fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again. You see what happens when you were born again, you are born into God's family, you are cleansed and purified from sin, you have purified your souls, verse 22, for a sincere love of the brethren. That love of the brethren is the word we have as Philadelphia, which is the Greek word phileo and the Greek word for brother, the love of the brethren. Then since you were purified you love fellow believers, the focus here, you are to fervently love them. And there we move to that word agape, fervently love, intensely love. That agape love where you do what is best and right for them. I want you to see the connection. It comes out of the new birth. There are other kinds of love in the Greek language, words for love, storga love, not used in the New Testament except in the negative on a couple of occasions. I want to say more about this in our next study, storga love. That's affection, that's the love that is a mother's love to a child, a dog's love to her pups could illustrate it. It is an affection kind of love, somewhat of a natural affection. There is eros love which is a passionate love, a love that desires to possess. We get the word erotic from it. There is the phileo love which is the friendship love. Each of those loves, they are not bad in and of themselves, they have a place. But each of those first three are somewhat of a give-and-take love, there is something you are getting out of it. Then you come to the agape or agapao love, and as the New Testament would define it and set it forth, it is the totally self-sacrificing love. It is the love you have and you get nothing back. This is the love that God produces in the life and the love that we are expected and required to demonstrate as God's people.

Now as I said, there is a place for the other loves. Let me use the eros or erotic love. In a marriage relationship there is indeed the place for that kind of passionate, fulfilling love. But if that's all you have and you don't base it on the agape love and it doesn't come out of that, you'll find erotic love will come and you'll want to move on to another person or another person. Because someone may come that stirs the passion and you want to possess that person. We use Hollywood as the example. They are always falling in love, which really is falling in lust, we say. Their love is an erotic love. This person stirs a passion and I want to possess them. There is a place for that erotic love, Song of Solomon love, but it has to be based on the agape love, and it's foundational to everything else. There is no stability and durability outside of this love.

So come back to 1 Corinthians 13. In verses 4-7 we have 15 characteristics or attributes or agape love. There is a 16th that begins verse 8, love never fails. We'll mention that when we get to verse 8, but since we're focusing on verses 4-7 I've just mentioned the 15. But if you read someone and they say 16 that's because the first statement of verse 8 follows that patterns.

We have looked at five of these characteristics in verse 4. Now we've noted that all 15 are verbs, not adjectives that describe what love is like. They are verbs that tell you what love does. Love as agape, the agape love we're talking about, cannot be described as an emotion, a feeling. It has to be described as an action, it is something you do. That is why it can be commanded. You must do this. Other love is hard to command. People come and say, I don't have any feeling for them, we don't have any feelings for each other anymore. We've fallen out of love. They're talking about erotic love. The passion is gone, the feeling is gone. You say, you have to love them. I can't love them, I have no control over my heart. We're talking about the erotic love. How do you say to someone, I want you right now to have strong, intense, passionate feelings for this person? I don't have them. May be a good thing you don't. But agape love is a love of action. It's never, I can't do it; it's rather, I won't do it. Keep that in mind in this love. It's never I can't do it, it may be I won't do it, but it's never I can't, if you're a believer. Now if you're not a believer, then you never produce this kind of love. It requires the Holy Spirit to be in the life. That's a whole different subject.

All right, we've looked at five of the qualifications in verse 4. Let me just remind you. 1) Love is patient. The word is long-tempered. It puts up with a lot. This kind of love. It is patient, it puts up with a lot. 2) It is kind, it is concerned with what is thoughtful and helpful, considerate to the other person. Remember it is other-centered. It's not what I would like, it's what could I do for the benefit of this person. What would please them? What would help them? What would be beneficial to them? It is kind. 3) Third quality, it is not jealous, it delights in the good that happens to others. It delights in the honor given to others. It's not in competition for glory, it is pleased to have someone else get the glory. It's not jealous. 4) It does not brag, true love doesn't talk about itself, its accomplishments. Some people in the conversation always have a way of working it around to themselves, what they've done, what they've accomplished, what they have, what they are going to do. We as believers can slide into this. But love doesn't brag, because love is not about me. It's about you, it's about others. 5) Love is not arrogant, it's not puffed up with its own importance. We easily become self-focused. We have to battle it. The sin nature is still there. We have been set free by the power of God, but I have not yet been glorified. And that old man whose power and authority has been broken in my life still desires, and I sometimes find pleasure, and we all have to battle it, in thinking about me. Love is not arrogant.

So those five characteristics in verse 4. Goes through them rapidly, but we have to think about each of these and so we're going to move on to four more in verse 5 of 1 Corinthians 13. Four more verbs, telling what love does not do. Remember this is a mixture of what love does and what love does not do. It doesn't say everything that could be said, there are other things in other portions of scripture said about love. But this gives you a concise picture to evaluate your own behavior, your own conduct. Are you indeed a loving person? Is this what you do? Is this what you do not do?

So look at verse 5, love does not act unbecomingly. Basic idea is that love does not do what is not proper, not acceptable, not mannerly. The basic word here is the word schema. We get the English word scheme from it. Something of certain form or order, and it's just made negative. So here is something that is not of the proper form, not of the proper order. It is not becoming, it is not fitting. One person put it this way, it's the contrast on one side between courtesy, good taste, good manners, propriety, and on the other side, focusing on self, regardless of the conventions and courtesies of interpersonal life. We would say agape is not ill-mannered. We can easily get the idea as a believer, you can't judge my heart, you can't tell me what's going on in my heart, so what I do is none of your business. We sometimes think that's okay for us to be rude or disregard what would be considered to be polite or mannerly. I can dress like I want, I can be up here in a torn T-shirt and dungarees and an old ball cap preaching the Word, it's the Word of God that matters, not externals like dress. That's true, but that does not mean that just because I am comfortable being up here like that, that it would be the proper thing to do. That doesn't mean if you don't wear a tie you are not proper. Some of this stuff depends on where you are. Certain things in certain places, certain societies are considered bad manners. When I was in South America we were at a church service and the time for the service came. There were only a couple people there and everybody is milling around. I'm a person that if we don't get started pretty much on time, I start to go fast on the inside. So I'm sitting there going fast and 15-20 minutes later they're not starting. I finally said to the missionary, don't you think we ought to get this show on the road, get moving? He said, this is South America, we don't run on American time. Forty-five minutes after the appointed starting time we started the service. By then I'm going 232 mph inside. But I had to be reminded, in South America people are more important than time. So the people on the way bump into friends or somebody they know, they stand and talk to them for 10-15 minutes. I was going down the sidewalk with a different missionary in a South American city and he stopped and talked to people. I said, we're supposed to be there by ............... He said, you understand, that will be all right. It's a greater offense to ignore people and keep time than it is to recognize people and be late. So I had to realize, in South America it is considered good manners to take time to visit with people and it's all right to be 30-45 minutes late for your appointment. But here it is not so. If I came walking in here 45 minutes after the service and said, I was talking to a friend. You'd say, what's wrong with you? You had an appointment.

All right. All that to say I have to be sensitive to where I am, but the fact of the matter is, in personal dealings love is polite. That's true with your husband or your wife. You know how you were when you were dating, you always wanted to be careful to treat each other properly and with attention and thoughtfulness. And after you're married 10, 15, 20, 30 years it doesn't matter. I mean, that's just me, she knows it. Well there is an adjustment, thankfully, but I have to be careful, I still need to treat that other person with consideration, with respect, with honor, politely, concerned about their feelings and so on.

One person wrote this, loving people are considerate of how their behavior affects others, even in little things. Those who are possessed of God's love are sensitive to proper social relationships, public decency, social convention, politeness, tact, proper conduct in dress, speech, action. We need to show good manners. You know, isn't it sad the Corinthian church would not be characterized as loving. Think about it. What happened when they got together for the Lord's Supper? Back up to chapter 11 verse 20, therefore when you meet together it's not to eat the Lord's Supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first. One is hungry, another is drunk. I mean, think about it. The church gets together, they sit down to have a meal, here is one person stuffing his face with all the good food and the person sitting next to him has not had a good meal for a week. What terrible manners, what thoughtlessness. You would think they would say, can I share what I have with you? We say, terrible. But in our own ways and our own actions we get comfortable thinking we can do what we want to do. Good manners. Goes back many years, but in early years grace was a new subject to many people at our church. And we had to be careful to draw a line between law and grace and being legalistic. We put parking lot signs up, we had people wanting to leave the church because we had instituted law in telling people where to park. You say, that's stupid. Well, yes. Have good manners, good conduct, being orderly is not necessarily being legalistic. So some of these things........... I think, how will this impact others if I dress like this, if I talk like this, if I do this? What will be the impact on others? Our first thought is, I'm comfortable, I like it, I do it. Well wait a minute, that's not love. Love is thinking about the other. So love does not act unbecomingly.

Second action of love back in chapter 13, and we're going to get more to that because Paul will use that word in talking about that their worship services ought to be conducted properly, using that same basic word, but in a good sense. Verse 5, love does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own. This is the heart of the matter. What is agape love? Seeking the good of another person, therefore, it does not seek its own, it's not centered on itself, it's not selfish, it's not all about me. This is what I feel like, this is what I want, this is what I don't like, this is what ................... That's not biblical love. Love does not seek its own. It is always concerned about what would be pleasing to the other person, what would be good for the other person.

Look back in chapter 10 verse 23, all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify. Let no one seek his own, but that of his neighbor. There we are. You don't seek your own benefit, your own profit, your own likes. You pursue that which is good for the other person. Down in verse 33, just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of the many, that they may be saved. This is true of my dealing with unbelievers. What I do that I may be more effective in reaching them with the glorious message of Christ. Love doesn't seek its own. We are selfish people by birth because we are born sinners. The new birth sets us free, but that old self, that old man constantly wants to put himself to the fore. And it's about me.

Back up to Romans 15:2, each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification. We're not just talking about being men-pleasers in that negative context, we're talking about doing what is really good and beneficial, helpful, good for the spiritual development of others. Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good to his edification. And what is the pattern to be followed? Even Christ did not please Himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on Me. Who did He die for? Whose sin did He bear on the cross? Why did He suffer? He took to Himself what was due to me.

Turn over to Philippians 2:3, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourself. Do not look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourself which was also in Christ Jesus. You see how quickly in these passages when we are instructed to focus on others, to look out for their good, he quickly brings Christ to the fore as the example? Now for some people that would make no impact, but those people don't know the wondrous grace of God in Christ Jesus. We're talking about people who are redeemed. This is what Christ did. How can I do less, how can I do other? 2 Corinthians 8:9 says, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich. Total self-sacrifice. Does not seek its own. You know this would solve........ Think of your marriage, you are never occupied with yourself, your interests, your likes, your feelings, but always with those of your partner. That takes about 98% of the difficulty out of marriage. I keep trying to explain this to Marilyn, just think about me. And that's where we go. I find myself as I prepare the messages on this, as I study it, it's easy for my mind to run to people I can think should hear this, people this would be good for. Then I go look in the mirror, I say, there is the #1 candidate. Love does not seek its own. Think about the past week, how many times you've been upset about something, with your spouse or another person you work with, someone at church. Did it come because you were really thinking about their good, their benefit? Or were you thinking about yourself, what you like, what you feel like, what you want to do or don't want to do. And that creates the tension. And let's face it, using marriage, if I'm thinking totally about my wife and she's thinking totally about me that doesn't leave much room for conflict, does it? Love does not seek its own.

Let's go on to the next one—love is not provoked. The word here carries the idea of being jabbed with something pointed, so it's rather picturesque. You know somebody is goading you with something they do. It's just like they're sticking me, and it just irritates me. That's the idea. We could say, love is not irritated, love isn't provoked. In other words, there is not that response to what somebody is doing, the improper response, the personal animosity toward them for what they do. One person said that this word is a cross between irritation and anger, somewhere in there. You take offense because they haven't treated you quite right, they've done something that you found offensive, they do something that you think, they ought to know better. Happens in our marriages because we begin to expect our spouse to know what we're thinking. They do something and it just grates on us. I told them before I don't like that. And so we feel like we've been provoked and that helps us justify why we're upset. It's not me, they did it. If they hadn't provoked me, I wouldn't have gotten upset. If they had done what pleased me, I wouldn't have been provoked, in other words. In other words, I'm thinking about who? Me. And in subtle ways we turn it around because what do you expect? We've been married for 78 years, don't you think you ought to know by now I don't like that? Well, no. But love doesn't get provoked, right? Doesn't get irritated. Those stings that jab you, they don't bring out that response if you have biblical love.

Now this word is used in a good sense in Hebrews 10:34, we're told to provoke one another to love. Do those things that are going to spur people on to love. So it's a use of the word that's taking a word that's usually used in the negative sense and turning around to the positive. In other words, do those things that will prod people on and provoke them to do things consistent with love. That's how we provoke. Generally it has that negative sense of not allowing, especially in the passage here. It's not allowing ourselves to be provoked. It does happen.

This is the word that is used in Acts 15, why don't you turn there so you can see the context. Remember the conflict between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark? They disagreed over whether they ought to take John Mark on the second missionary journey. Barnabas says we should take John with us, Paul says, no, he can't come. And verse 39, there occurred such a sharp disagreement. And there's our word, [paroxusmos ?] sharp in it. They were poking each other, and the disagreement was so sharp, they separated from one another. And we'll get to another expression about love a little bit down. They got over it later and they expressed appreciation for each other and John Mark. But here there was a sharp disagreement over something, they were both prodded. Paul couldn't give in to Barnabas, Barnabas couldn't give in to Paul. Sharp contention.

Now let me say something here. This doesn't mean that we never get upset, there is never an expression of anger. Remember in the gospels, Mark 11:15-18 is one example, it's used in the other gospels as well, Jesus drove the moneychangers out of the temple with a whip and went through and drove out the merchants in the temple. He said, you shall not make my Father's house a house of merchandise. It's a house of prayer. Jesus' anger there, it's a righteous anger. We are to be angry and sin not. One thing about Christ and the example of Christ, He became angry over sin, over those things that, for example, in the cleansing of the temple, were an affront to God, rejection of God's Word, religious leaders who corrupted God's Word. He deals with them very harshly, like in Matthew 23, with the religious leaders. Calls them open tombs, stinking graves, full of dead men's bones. One thing about Jesus Christ, He never responds to personal provocation.

Turn over to I Peter 2. Remember even Pilate was amazed at the demeanor of Christ in not coming to His own defense. In I Peter 2 he starts out telling servants how to conduct themselves. These are slaves and they could have some harsh, unkind, unfair masters. Verse 18, servants, slaves, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable. For this finds favor if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. See the context here. It's when you're not being treated fairly, a person did something to you and it was wrong, it was mean, it was unfair. Verse 20, for what credit is there if when you sin and are harshly treated you endure with patient, it's when you do what is right and you suffer for it, and you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. We get so concerned to decide whether I was treated fairly here, and if it wasn't fair, then I am justified in my reaction. All I have to prove is that I was right and they were wrong, and therefore I had reason to be angry, I have reason to be irritated, I have reason to be upset. That's a denial of what the scripture says. What really pleases God is when you have done something proper and right and you are still mistreated for it, and you respond properly. This finds favor with God. You see the goal in this has to be pleasing to God. Wait a minute, I'm right, I'm justified, it was wrong what they did. So? Here is an occasion for you to demonstrate the love of God.

Where do we go for an example for this? Verse 21, you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example to follow in His steps. We don't try to pattern our life after Christ to be saved, but now as God's children we do desire to manifest the character of Christ in all that we do, and He's the one who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth. Here is the perfect, sinless Son of God. While being reviled He did not revile in return, while suffering He uttered no threats. He kept entrusting Himself to the one who judges righteously. And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. Isn't it amazing? Here is the Son of God who never committed one sin, never had one sinful thought in His life and men are reviling Him and spitting against Him and mistreating Him. And He doesn't lash back, He doesn't defend Himself. And He's doing it for me, for you, bearing our sins in His body on the tree. And I think I'm justified in being upset. I have a right to be angry. You know what they did? I didn't deserve to be treated like that, and on we go. And we pass up the opportunity to be pleasing to God. Happens in our marriages. Well, I'm justified, I mean, I have good reason. People want to come in for marriage “counseling.” They want to tell you what the other person has done wrong. In other words, I'm exempt from showing love here, because I was right and they were wrong. And if I can show they were wrong more often than I was wrong, then I am right and............ What? In other words, how are we going to have this relationship go on without having to be loving?

Happens in the church all the time. People get upset over the dumbest stuff. I've shared with you before, I pastored a church before I came here. We had a center aisle and that could divide and I could mention the family names that sat on this side and the family that sat on that side. And the generations that came and the friends that came. If you visited that church on one Sunday you didn't know what's going on, but where you sat that Sunday marked you permanently, you had made your choice. All I did was come in and sit in a bench. Doesn't matter, now you are part of that faction. I thought, we're going to resolve this. I sat down with the families that were the head, what the two names would be, the Hatfields and McCoys. You know what they told me? This has gone on longer than you have been on earth, and it won't be resolved by the time you go, either. I mean, that's ...................... Love is not provoked. I don't even consider it, it's ........ All right, doesn't seek its own, it's not provoked.

Come back to 1 Corinthians 13. Love is not touchy, it's not ready to take offense, is the way someone put it. Back in verse 5, love does not take into account a wrong suffered. Oh my. Love does not take into account a wrong suffered. This is an accounting word, logidzomi, I know that's helpful. It's a word you'd use to make a ledger if you were to write down the accounts that you have, to keep a record. Love does not keep a record of wrongs suffered. It's used in a good sense and a bad sense. God reckoned the righteousness of Christ to our account, use this word, Romans 4:6,8. Love doesn't enter into its ledger wrongs that have been suffered, doesn't take into account a wrong suffered. Why would you take into account? Why would you keep a record of what has happened to you, the wrongs that people have done to you? Are we looking to get even? Are we waiting for them to come crawling back and apologize and show that I was right? Just what is this record here for? I mean, think about it. And you know if we’re honest all of us consider and think of things that people have done to us that we have made a point of remembering. One man wrote it this way, so many people nurse their wrath to keep it warm. They brook over their wrongs until it is impossible to forget them. That's not love, love keeps no records. I meet with people, I keep using marriage as an example but it happens in our churches. People couldn't go back to a church. Why? Because this happened. In other words, you have a record of it, huh? They sit down and want to talk about their marriage problems and they want to list a record of the wrongs that have been done. We need to be careful here in our perversion. You know what I do, I want to turn this around and tell my wife she can't keep a record, tell my wife she can't be provoked, tell my .......... Well, wait a minute, this is about me, my life. We all become experts at what somebody else ought to do and how they could be more loving. The challenge for me is to look at myself and see is this what I am doing. You mean to tell you don't keep a record of how I wronged you. The real challenge for me is not to keep any of my own records. Say, let's open up your ledger book, oh there is nothing there. No one ever wronged you. Not that I recall. I forgive but I can't forget. Lie. Lie. Because love doesn't keep a record. Well, yeah, but I can't help .............. Put it out quickly and you find out you forget a lot of things. It's just not there. I guess if somebody sat down and brought it up...............

Great example, I wish I had more examples, but I only have this one. I got a letter from someone apologizing for the terrible letter they wrote me and hoping I'd forgive them. You know to this day I have never been able to figure out what that letter said. I wish I could remember that earlier letter. I even went through my files because I thought, this is great, I'll pin it together and I'll have a victory. You know I should deal with them all that way, right? If we all dealt that way, somebody would come up and say, I have to apologize for what I said to you, I have to apologize for what I did. Don't tell me because I might remember, but thank you. And we go on. Because it oughtn't to be an issue, should it? I don’t know. What happens when I come back even if I don't say it? I say, that's fine, in my mind I'm thinking, I knew you'd realize I was right before this was done. Thank you, Lord. You know what the Lord does? He forgets, He's forgotten my sins. You say, I have a little trouble with that.

All right, I knew you would. Come back to Isaiah 1:18. You have to see the context. The end of verse 4 God is saying, they have abandoned the Lord, they have despised the holy one of Israel, they have turned away from Him. This is the character of the people He is dealing with, and then He says in verse 18, come now and let us reason together says the Lord. Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they'll be like wool. You know what? They'll be washed away. Remember we read in Peter, you purified your souls. You're washed clean. Not, well the red shows through in some places. It's a little hard for the white to cover the red. No, it's washed away. I don't know if that means to forget.

Turn over to Isaiah 43:25, I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for my own sake. And I will not remember your sins. What a statement. I'm the God who wipes them all off the book, and I won't remember them. And I should be keeping a ledger if how somebody has wronged me? I should have stored up in the back of my mind hoping that someday I will get vindication, someday they will know that I was right, someday ............... Someday what? Will I come before God with my ledger book under my arm to show Him what people did to me and expect that He wipes out my transgressions, makes me white as snow, doesn't remember my sins anymore, and I'm keeping a record? Well I don't keep a record of everything. You don't know how much I've forgiven. I just keep a record of what? More serious ones.

Look in Jeremiah 31:34, the last statement, this is in the context of the New Covenant. For I will forgive their iniquity. What about I forgive them but I don't forget? I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more. So I forgive and I also forget, I'm not going to bring it back to my mind, it's a done thing, it's as though it didn't happen, it's over. I choose not to remember. Now I want to think about it, I go to bed and mull it over. I pray about it, I just stew about it, I sit and I think and I mull it over and it gets more serious in my mind and I think, now I can't forget it. No wonder. It's like the statement I read, we like to brood over it, I get a certain pleasure and I'm hoping for the day when the record will be made right.

Come to the New Testament, Matthew 18. This is a serious matter. Verse 21, then Peter came and said to Him, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times? I mean, Peter is being magnanimous, generous. I mean, really, my brother sins against me and does the same thing seven times and I forgive him. Jesus said to him, I don't say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. That would to 490. Okay, I make my ledger book with 490 lines. That's not the point. The point is, and he gives the example, to show the overwhelming debt that was forgiven to a man who was then so small to go out and not forgive the pittance that was owed him. Then you come to the application of that. Verse 35, my heavenly Father will also do the same to you if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart. Lack of forgiveness is a mark of an unregenerate, unredeemed, unforgiven person. There is no other explanation of this account by Christ, an extensive account but that. An unforgiving person is an unregenerate person, doomed to pay the penalty for their own sin. I mean, the whole point is that if you're not forgiving, you will not be forgiven. How can I who have been forgiven so much, think about it, you understand what sin is and what it is to be a hell-bound sinner and Christ took it all on Himself for me and God wiped the slate clean. And now I'm running around keeping a record of what people did and how they wronged and the way I was offended, and the way I wasn't treated fairly, and .................... God has forgiven me. I know I'm going to heaven, my sins are forgiven and I have my ledger close to my heart.

Turn over to Ephesians 4 and then we are ready to wrap up. We've been to this passage for something else, another portion of our study. Verse 30, do not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. The Holy Spirit is dwelling in us, we oughtn't to be fighting against Him, resisting Him. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. That's the standard. What's left on my ledger before God who's wiped it clean. Now I'm to forgive you and others as God has forgiven me. What's in my ledger? Nothing, it's clear, clean. Nothing there, nothing more to be forgiven because it's been forgiven, done.

Let me read you 2 Corinthians 5:19, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting, and there's our word, logidzomi. Not counting their trespasses against them. Love does not take into account a wrong suffered. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, because it was wiped clean in Christ.

Love does not act unbecomingly, love does not seek its own, love is not provoked, love does not keep a record of offenses. Examine yourself to see if you be in the faith. Is this a description of you? Is it a description of me? Don't evaluate someone else, don't evaluate your husband or your wife or someone else. Evaluate yourself before the God who examines your heart. Is this me? And all of us will find a lack of perfection in this area, which ought to drive us to greater commitment, that these qualities will be manifest in my life. These are things I will do by the grace and the power that I have in Him.

Let's pray together. Thank you, Lord, for your grace, your love, Lord, a love that goes beyond measure, an endless love, a complete love, a love that has dealt with us in mercy and grace and kindness. Lord, as we provoke you, and yet you responded in kindness and love. A Savior who walked this earth and suffered the ridicule and scorn and pain to bear our sin and yet He did not respond in anger and hatred. Lord, your record book is clear and clean because you have forgiven us. Lord, may these qualities be true of our love. Lord, make us honest before you. Any who are here, Lord, evaluate themselves and recognize they are unloving. May they realize that they need to enter into new life through faith in Christ. May each of us as your children be ready and willing and desirous and committed to grow and manifest more beautifully the love that you've had for us. We pray in Christ's name, amen.