Love bears all things
1) If there is one overriding message in 1 Cor. 13, it is this: love is a choice.
2) True love (love in the Biblical sense) is not based on a feeling.
3) It is not like two teenagers who meet, spend time together, and eventually say, “we are in love.”
4) Someone may say to us, “I fell in love and do not know how it happened.”
5) Bible love is in a very different category. True love is a choice.
6) It is a decision we make, even though it may not be our first inclination.
7) Love is a force (power) that causes people to be kind. It makes people patient.
8) It helps people overcome an impulse to be rude and boastful. It helps man rejoice over what is right.
9) True love is a choice, and God says it is a choice Christians are to make every single day.
10) “Bear” in 1 Cor. 13:7 tells us quite a bit about Christian love.
11) Bear is a verb (it describes action). Bear is also a present tense verb (on-going action).
12) True love means Christians are like rocks—people who will withstand some very difficult times.
a) Circumstances may be very, very difficult, but love helps God’s people stay strong.
b) This sounds nice and may not even sound all that difficult.
c) This morning we want to apply the truth that love bears all things.
13) Imagine a congregation of God’s people. It is an average congregation in just about every way.
14) For one reason or another there is someone there who does not feel loved by his brethren.
15) Most want to feel acceptance and part of a group, but this man does not feel loved.
16) At some point the family he feels like the situation will never improve so he leaves.
17) He decides to seek a “loving church” somewhere else in his community.
a) What I have just described has been happening for 2,000 years.
b) It has happened in this country and outside the United States.
c) If we can envision my illustration, can we not see how odd it is in view of 1 Cor. 13:7?
18) A man did not feel love so he became agitated and left.
19) He decided to throw in the towel; he became a quitter in the sense of leaving a congregation..
20) What did this man do (show) by his actions? He showed that he himself lacks love.
21) God says love causes people to “bear all things,” but people say, “I am not going to bear with this church.”
a) People have walked away from local congregations and somehow felt vindicated.
b) There is a part to many of these stories that has often not been told.
c) A congregation may indeed have a problem with love.
d) What about the man who leaves? Is it not true that he too has a problem with love?
e) The one who quits is just as guilty because of 4 words in 1 Cor. 13:7 – love bears all things.
f) Love is to keep people afloat even in situations when they around those who do not have love.
22) This is one way to apply what Paul said; let’s look at another.
a) I came across and illustration that may or may not have actually occurred.
b) A minister was performing a marriage ceremony; it was time for the couple to make their promises.
c) The man was asked if he would stay married to his wife “for better and for worse.”
d) Would he keep the woman he had chosen for “richer and poorer, in sickness and in health”?
e) The man answered, YES, no, YES, no, no, YES.
f) He wanted her for better, but not for worse.
g) He wanted her for richer, but not for poorer, He would only love his wife when she was healthy.
h) Whatever level of this love had for his bride, he was not ready to “bear all things.”
i) Our world has a skewed concept of love.
23) When a man and a woman meet, everything may seem just about perfect.
24) If two people date for a long enough time period, they will find that their prospective partner is not perfect.
25) If a dating relationship is to continue, people must on some level apply 1 Cor. 13:7.
a) True love causes people to “bear all things.”
b) Several years ago a lot of products did not have much in the way of warnings.
c) Because of lawsuits we are almost to the point of putting warnings on cans of vegetables:
d) “Danger: you can cut yourself when opening this can. Be very careful if opening this container.”
26) I would like to think that no warning would need to be given about “bearing all things.”
27) Perhaps it is necessary to make this quick point.
28) We should understand that “all things” relates to the types of matters that have been described.
29) We are dealing with things that are hard and difficult, not dangerous and deadly.
a) If in a dating relationship one of the two parties is being beaten, do not bear with the beatings.
b) Bearing all things does not mean accepting some type of abuse.
c) It does not mean we allow our life to be endangered.
d) Bearing this in mind, let’s take return to the subject of dating and marriage.
30) After people date for a while they may decide to get married.
31) We live in a time and place where a lot of marriages end in divorce.
a) Jesus gave one reason for divorce in Mt. 19:9 – quote.
b) When we look at our world we find people who have divorced for many other reasons.
c) I have heard a lot of people say, “We did not get along. We fell out of love. We were too young.”
32) People need to learn about the principle from 1 Cor. 13:7.
a) Love causes people—and this includes married people—to “bear all things.”
b) When two people get married, these few words will help solidify or destroy a marriage.
c) Our partner may have some qualities we do not like.
d) We are not authorized to be like the man who was described a little earlier.
e) We cannot say “yes” to some of the vows and “no” to some of the others.
f) Marriage is a package deal.
g) We say to a person, “I am going to take you—the best of you and the worst of you.”
h) When I see the worst, I will bear with those things.
33) For the first 30 days in marriage, things may not be too bad. We can get through anything for a month.
34) After six months of marriage people are getting a better picture of married life.
35) After a year things have settled some more. As time passes, spouses see the need to bear all things.
36) Such is also true when children enter into the relationship; many things need to be borne.
37) It is not very common now days to find people who have been married for 50 years or more.
a) Those who do have lasting marriages have something in common: they bore with one another.
b) Part of bearing with someone involves covering each others flaws.
38) Covering one’s flaws is really the second aspect of bearing all things.
a) Accepting another person’s faults is going further than some want to go.
b) For the Christian, this is just half of the responsibility.
c) Bearing all things also has a sense of concealment.
39) Imagine a situation where a wife can list every one of her husband’s flaws without any help whatsoever.
40) One day she decides to share all his faults with others.
41) That might be interesting for those she tells, but how would her husband feel?
42) Instead of “bearing all things,” the man’s wife would be “sharing all things.”
a) Too many want to share instead of bear.
b) Bearing the sins of others sometimes means we will keep some things quiet.
43) This does not mean we are trying to lie, be deceitful, or are involved with dishonesty.
44) Some things simply do not need to be shared with other people.
45) The NIV translates verse 7 with the word “protect” instead of the word “bear.”
46) I am not enthused about “protect” for the full sense of the thought, but it captures part of the idea.
47) Part of bearing all things is protection.
48) When a person does have true love, they bear with others in many ways.
49) Most of us have read 1 Cor. 13 many times.
50) There is a way or two to read this chapter that gives us a fresh perspective on some things.
51) I want to read verses 4-7a of this chapter and make a word substitution.
a) I want to take the word “love” and replace it with the word “God.”
b) READ.
c) I ended with “God bears all things” on purpose.
52) God has given us an example of how love bearing all things.
53) God created a perfect place for man to dwell and what did man do? He ruined it.
a) By sin man began a process that will one day destroy the entire world and universe.
b) We may have seen people in life make some pretty big mistakes, but none have been this large.
c) In spite of man messing up in a way we cannot imagine, what did God do? He bore with man.
d) God loved man and literally “bare all things.” He bore all things to the point of sending His Son.
54) God has borne with man to the point of creating for Him a new dwelling place.
55) Parents have sometimes said to their children, “I will help you get a car.”
56) “If you wreck it, that is all you get.”
57) Imagine not a car, but an entire planet. This planet was wrecked.
58) In spite of what man did God says, “I have another place for you.”
59) Bearing all things is a quality that will challenge us every day of our lives.
60) Jesus literally lived in this way while He was on the earth.
a) This is what God wants from us as we go through life.
b) As we deal with difficult people and circumstances, bear with these situations.
c) Keep going; God’s people are not quitters. That is the way of the unsaved.
61) If we need some help in this regard from time to time, let me share one more little tidbit.
62) We have read 1 Cor. 13 as it is written. We just substituted “God” for the word “love.”
63) What if we now replace the word “love” with our own name?
64) We can do that later if we like.
a) To let us see how this might come out I am going to use the name of a congregation.
b) See if this reading does not really bring home the point.
65) READ the text.
66) True love is truly a spectacular thing and we hope you have found it as a Christian.