FOUNDATION STATEMENT: As believers we must practically go about displaying and developing the love of God in our daily lives if we are very going to experience the kind of life that our Father wants us to experience. (1 Corinthians 13)
I. Love is exceedingly patient, slow to anger, and unrelenting in it’s operation
A. Love suffers long
1. Suffers Long – Patient restraint of anger
a. Love is ready to forbear, patiently (Ephesians 4:1-3 AMP)
b. Love outlasts problems
2. Slow to annoyance and anger
a. Proverbs 15:18 – Be slow to anger and annoyance and it will quench that strife that’s trying to work
1) Proverbs 16:32
b. God’s love for you is exceedingly patient (Psalm 86:15)
1) Psalm 145:8 – He is not easily annoyed or touchy
3. Love is consistent, constant, and never changing regardless of circumstances. It is unconditional. It is steadfast despite opposition, difficulty, or adversity.
a. Love is consistent in its loving even when it doesn’t feel like doing so.
B. Love is not easily provoked. Love is not touchy or resentful
1. Provoked – a person who comes along side of another and pokes, pricks, and sticks them with a sharp instrument until the person becomes provoked and violently and aggressively responds to that person
a. Stop wearing your feelings on your sleeves and get over it
b. Touchy people are looking for reasons to be angry and offended
c. Touchy people are quick to be crabby, quick to be offended
2. Love is thick skinned
a. Love doesn’t wear its FEELINGS on it fingertips.
b. Love doesn’t walk in offense
c. Love is looking for reasons to forgive and forget.
C. Love endures all things
1. Endure – A person who is under a heavy load but refuses to surrender because he knows he is in his place
a. This person knows he is where he’s supposed to be, he has therefore decided that regardless of what tries to come against him, he is going to stay put and refuse to move
b. No matter how hard it is too love you and no matter how much pressure is on me to stop I’m going to keep loving you because I know love is the place that I’m supposed to be
II. Love is kind, unselfish and constantly seeking the prosperity of others
A. Love is kind
1. Love is constantly doing what is necessary to promote the prosperity of others
a. Kind – to be adaptable or compliant to the needs of others, portrays a willingness to serve and to change in order to meet the needs of others.
1) Agape is always reaching out, thinking and focusing primarily on the need of others. The person walking in agape love adapts to those around him in order to, help them in a meaningful way.
b. Kind – disposed to do good to others and to make them happy
1) Love is always thinking of ways to be a blessing to others around them.
2. Love has a considerate nature; it is always considering how its actions are going to affect the prosperity of others.
B. Love is not self seeking
1. Love is not selfish. It does not insist on its own way.
a. Love is not seeking the prosperity of self; love is seeking the prosperity of others
1) John 15:13 – There is no greater love that you can have than to lay down your life for your friends
2) Love doesn’t selfishly take, it gives (John 3:16)
2. Love is constantly releasing itself into the lives of other people
a. Relationships that are based on the statement “what can you do for ME” will always fail
III. Love is honoring, respectful, and it is not critical or judgmental towards others
A. Love is not unseemly (rude)
1. Unseemly – act improperly, dishonorably, indecently
a. Being rude means that you give no honor and respect to people
1) A rude person is tactless and thoughtless.
2) A person that is careless and inconsiderate of others.
3) A person that has bad manners in dealing with people.
4) A rude person is uncaring, insensitive, and unkind.
5) A rude person is rough, untaught, uncivilized and violent; not courteous or mannerly
2. Love is mannerly and courteous.
a. 1 Peter 2:17 – Honor all men; will you honor those who don’t honor you
B. Love is not judgmental or critical (Luke 6:37)
1. Agape is not looking for what’s wrong with you; agape is looking at what’s right with you
a. Ephesians 4:29 – What kind of words are you speaking over other people.
2. Human love is critical and judgmental
a. Human love majors on what is wrong with you
C. Love believes all things – Love is ever ready to believe the best about every person
1. Believe (elpidzo) – constant, continuous hope, a never give up kind of hope for something to turn out the best
2. Love believes the best in every situation
a. Don’t misunderstand; agape isn’t stupid, nor is it blind. It sees everything – the good, the bad, and the ugly. But because agape is so filled with hope, it pushes the disconcerting, disturbing, negative circumstances out of the way. This doesn’t mean that agape ignores the problems or challenges. It just makes a choice to see beyond the problems and conflicts, to strain forward to see the highest potential that resides in every person. (RR)
3. We should be slow to believe the worst about people and quick to believe the best about people
a. If you don’t know it to be a fact, then you believe the best about that person
4. Love hopes all things – Love always expects and anticipates the best in others and the best for others
IV. Love does not vaunt itself and it is not puffed up
A. Love does not vaunt itself
1. Vaunteth – to boast or brag, a person who endlessly promotes themselves and exaggerates his own virtues
a. People boast because they are unsure and insecure about themselves. They don’t love themselves, so they seek the love of others through what they have or what they’ve done, because they feel if others love me maybe that will give me a reason to love myself.
2. Love is so strong, so sure, and so confident that it doesn’t need to speak of itself or its accomplishments, even if those accomplishments are greater than anyone else’s.
a. Love wants to focus on the accomplishments of others in order to build them up and make then feel more valuable and secure.
b. Love isn’t concerned about what men think about him, love’s concern is what God thinks about him.
c. Love understands that the fruit in the lives of people will speak for itself
B. Love is not puffed up
1. Love is not haughty (stuck-up, puffed-up, snooty)
a. A haughty person has a high opinion of him or herself and puts others down
1) Look at their hair, look at what she is wearing, oh I hate how she talks
2) Did that person ask you what you think and is that kind of talk building that person up.
3) Proverbs 16:18 – Haughtiness and pride go before the fall
b. Love builds others up with its words and never says anything negative about anybody else (Ephesians 4:29)
1) How many negative things do you say about people a day compared to the positive things that you say?
V. Love is delighted at the success and prosperity of others and is always moved with compassion to those that have fallen short
A. Love is not envious
1. Envy – a negative attitude of lust and desire for another’s possessions; a feeling of displeasure produced by witnessing or hearing the advantage or prosperity of others, to be jealous
a. Envy says: I don’t know why they got that I’ve been a Christian for longer than them. I’ve believed for the same thing for twice as long as they have and they got it before I did.
2. How do you react when others succeed?
a. Envy will stop your promotion
1) Envy leads to confusion, strife, and every evil work (James 3:16)
b. Envy comes from comparing ourselves to other people
1) We need to be less concerned about what other people are doing and more focused on what God has called us to do
2) If you want to get out of envy then become a part of making other peoples dreams come true
3. Love is not jealous – Jealousy is feeling uneasy whenever preference is shown to someone else
B. Love does not rejoice at injustice or unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail
1. Don’t rejoice or be happy when somebody else is missing the mark
a. You never rejoice at the failure of others even if they were sowing seeds of failure and “deserved” it
2. Love stops injustice and unrighteousness from happening and is always right there to pick the people up that fall into it
a. Love does not feel overjoyed when it sees an injustice to someone else, but it is elated, thrilled, ecstatic, and overjoyed with the truth
VI. Love thinks no evil; Love takes no account of wrong done to it; it pays no attention to a suffered wrong
A. Think – to count or to reckon, to credit to someone’s account
1. Love is not crediting to people’s account evil that has been to do it
B. Love forgives AND forgets
1. Get over it and be quick to forgive
2. Walking in unforgiveness towards somebody is like drinking poison and hoping it kill someone else
C. Who are you, that you think it is your right to not forgive someone after all the things that God has forgiven you for doing
VII. Love bears all things
A. Beareth – to cover as a roof covers a house, protection, shields, guards
B. Love serves like a protection for you
1. Like a roof of a house, a friend who moves in the love of God will stay near in times of trouble. That friend will hover over you to protect you from the storms of life. Rather than expose you and your flaws to the view of others. A person who operates in this kind of love will conceal, cover, and protect you. Real agape love is always there in times of trouble to lend support. (RR)
VIII. Love never fails
A. Love never looses strength, it never fades away, it never stops functioning, it never falls short, it is never unsuccessful, it never disappoints, it never looses it’s authority, never ceases to have force
1. Love never stops functioning – it is all of the time
a. If it isn’t the all of the time then it isn’t love
b. Love is always in operation
c. Love is constant, unchanging, and unbendable
2. Love always has great impact on the lives of people
a. Love always carries with it great force
b. Love is always working as a powerful force to impact the lives of people
3. Love has never failed and it never will.
B. This way of life, “Love” will always prevail
1. No matter what it my look like you should know that if you are doing it love’s way you will always be victorious and succeed