Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness

1) Have you heard of the Church Sanctuary Movement?

2) If not, it will probably come to your attention soon.

3) Basically the Church Sanctuary Movement brings together U.S. churches and illegal aliens.

a) Churches help people who have come to this country illegally.

b) Religious groups may assist with food, lodging, and other necessities.

c) Some religious groups are claiming they have a right to do this because the U.S. has bad immigration laws.

d) Passages talking about decent treatment of strangers are being used when churches break the law.

e) This movement is literally taking place from coast to coast; and we are in the middle of it.

4) It may be a little longer before America sees this on a wide-spread scale, but it seems to be coming.

5) Today our subject matter can be directly related to the Church Sanctuary Movement.

6) A good beginning point I suppose is to come right out and ask a very simple question.

a) Is it right or wrong for a church group to harbor (hide) someone who is in the US illegally?

b) People certainly have strong feelings about what is right and wrong.

c) Feelings are not a measure for morality; right and wrong are not determined by personal judgment.

d) Righteousness and sin are not established by majority vote or even by religious groups.

e) God and His word are the source for right and wrong, and that is where we must turn.

7) Our text is very short – 1 Cor. 13:6 – love “does not rejoice in unrighteousness.”

a) It may not seem there is much to this verse, but we are going to break it down into small pieces.

b) We want to start with the word “unrighteousness.

c) This is a bad word. Paul used it in Rom. 1:29 and then he said this in Rom. 1:32:

d) “People who are involved with things unrighteousness and related matters deserve death.”

8) God tells us that whatever unrighteousness means, we need to be very, very concerned about it.

9) In past lessons I have commented on a special feature involving the language of the New Testament.

a) Some words were changed by the simple addition of an “a” at the beginning of a word.

b) The process is a lot like adding “un” to some of our English words.

c) Suppose we take the word “holy.” We have a pretty good idea what holy means.

d) What if we put “un” in front of holy and our word now becomes “unholy”?

e) What does our new word mean? It now means the exact opposite meaning.

10) This is what we find with the word “unrighteousness” in 1 Cor. 13:6.

a) This is the word for “righteous” (good, wholesome, pure, right, decent).

b) In the original text an “a” (the equivalent of “un”) is placed at the beginning of the word.

c) Now the word changes to mean the exact opposite of righteous.

11) That helps our understanding, but let’s dig a little deeper.

12) The Bible tells us God is love (1 Jn. 4:8).

13) Since love is not involved with unrighteousness (1 Cor. 13:6), God is not involved with unrighteousness.

14) If God is not involved with unrighteousness, we do not any part of it.

15) In fact, John also said (1 Jn. 5:17), all unrighteousness is sin.

16) Unrighteousness is the opposite of righteous and we really want to stay away from it.

17) Paul used the word unrighteousness when writing to Timothy, 2 Tim. 2:19.

18) In this passage he was about as plain as he could possibly be.

19) Listen to what a young preacher was told – READ.

a) A preacher was told to leave unrighteousness alone.

b) I suspect there is a pretty good chance that Timothy made a sermon out of this text.

c) Love causes people to leave unrighteousness alone.

20) Let’s go back to the Church Sanctuary Movement – what is this movement?

a) It is a movement that says to the government, “We know you have a law about illegals.”

b) “In spite of that law, we are not going to obey it. we defy it.”

c) “We believe these people need to be helped and we are going to help them.”

21) Paul said in Rom. 13:1-2 that citizens of a country are to obey the governing authorities.

22) When a religious group says “No, we will not obey,” this is a very serious matter.

23) It conflicts in the clearest possible way with Rom. 13.

a) Someone might say, “Are there not times when a church (Christians) might not obey the government?

b) The Bible addresses this point in Acts 5:29.

c) Christians were told to stop preaching the gospel and they said they this could not be done.

d) They had to obey God rather than men.

e) There are some very limited circumstances under which a government annot be obeyed.

f) If a government said “Renounce Christ,” our reply would have to be: “We cannot do that.”

g) We could not renounce the Lord and still serve Him as Christians.

24) Suppose a government said, “We demand that you sell your meeting place and give us the money.”

25) We would not like or want to do that, but such a request would fall under Rom. 13:1-2.

26) We would comply because selling the building would not stop us from serving God.

27) We could worship in homes, under a tree, or in a rented facility.

a) Our laws say illegals are not to be harbored.

b) A religious group may feel compassion for people who are in this category.

c) If a group aids and abets people who are not supposed to be here, it violates the law.

d) It is an unrighteous act, and John said all unrighteousness is sn.

28) A religious person or group may shout from the housetops that helping illegals is a loving act.

29) God says that is not true. Acts of unrighteousness are not demonstrations of love.

30) True love begins with God; when we love Him we are like a man with a compass and map.

a) A love for God means a person will obey the government as fully as possible (Rom. 13:1-2).

b) When people refuse do that, they put love of self first.

c) They are doing what they want and what they think is right.

d) It is not “We are doing this because God wants us to, but because we want to do this.”

31) I said there is a lot in the first part of verse 6 and there is certainly more to see.

32) We also find the word “rejoice.”

a) Being involved with unrighteousness is bad enough; Paul said it makes people worthy of death.

b) It is possible to beyond involvement in what is contrary to holy living; we can rejoice in unrighteousness.

c) Our world excels at rejoicing in unrighteousness.

d) We have people who are paid a lot of money to rejoice at unrighteousness.

e) Think of all the humor (jokes and stories) based on unrighteousness.

f) Humor is based upon intoxicated people who reel down the street.

g) Jokes are made about sexual sin. We see this in some parades in big cities.

33) There have been many public displays that have glorified some type of unrighteous act.

34) People were not only involved with supporting something unrighteous, they took great joy in it.

35) In many of these instances people claimed they were showing love and support.

36) Love does not rejoice over unrighteousness.

37) When Christians see unrighteousness they feel sick. It nauseates them.

38) Often the world rejoices over unrighteousness and says to Christians “What do you think about that”?

39) When believers make it clear they do not approve, they are labeled as people who believe in hate speech.

40) Christians need to let the world know they have no plans to rejoice over unrighteousness.

41) Making this clear to non-Christians will usually make unsaved people seethe.

42) For the Christian that is okay because we know the unsaved do not fully understand or practice true love.

43) True love means seeking to disconnect ourselves from unrighteousness and certainly rejoicing over it.

a) This can be a challenge for some people.

b) Most of us have had, at one time or another, someone who did not like us.

c) Maybe there have been several people who did not like us.

d) Perhaps there have been people over the years who “had it in for us.”

44) It may have been someone who wanted our job, or maybe they wanted us to get fired.

45) They wanted to create trouble for us in a neighborhood or in a school.

46) Someway, somehow someone made our lives difficult.

a) In some of these cases the person who was after us finally experienced a tragedy.

b) Maybe the person who tried to get us fired was himself fired.

c) Perhaps the person who tried to get us thrown out of an apartment complex was himself evicted.

d) Maybe there was something important to them and they did not get it.

e) When that time came (or may come in the future), there can be a temptation for us.

47) We can laugh at the misfortunate of others. We can find joy in the fact that someone has been hurt.

48) We can think, “He finally got what was coming to him and I am so glad.”

49) Feeling this way has been a temptation for a large number of people.

50) If and when this temptation comes, it is good to turn back to 1 Cor. 13.

51) All of these circumstances are covered by 1 Cor. 13:6a, love does not rejoice over unrighteousness.

a) A person may have hurt us and does deserve to be punished.

b) If and when that time comes, regard that matter as justice having been served.

c) The case has been closed, but we take no joy in seeing the person suffer.

d) Sin and love do not together—this is what we are told in 1 Cor. 13:6.

e) All too often people in one way or another rejoice over unrighteousness.

f) Some seem to never find enough occasions when they can lecture someone.

g) They are just waiting to find someone who makes a mistake so they can attack them.

h) Others wait to rebuke a person who has done something wrong or does not believe the right thing.

i) What these people are motivated by is not love.

52) In the Old Testament God said He had no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

53) Punishment was and still imposed on people, but God gets no joy from that (Ezek. 18:32).

54) God is pleased about things that are good and right.

a) When we are around people of the world this week we should listen carefully to their speech.

b) Listen for what they rejoice over; consider the words that generate enthusiasm in their speech.

c) Unsaved people often rejoice over what is what is unrighteous.

d) A person may boast about how much he drank, how he can’t remember the weekend, or a hot date.

e) They may boast how they ran someone off the road or verbally attacked someone.

f) We can meet people who will brag about how they won a bar-room brawl.

g) People will take some sin and boast about it; they will rejoice over and in it.

h) That is not the way of love, and it is certainly the way of Christ.

i) The best way to live one’s life is Christianity.