Love endures all things

1) Do you enjoy fireworks?

2) We may not like the traffic jams associated with them, but most like fireworks.

3) At least once each year there are fireworks displays throughout the Unites States.

4) Fireworks offer brilliant and beautiful displays, but they soon fade.

5) They are just one of the many things in life that are temporary, or at some point fizzle.

6) When Paul described love in 1 Cor. 13:7, he said it “endures all things.”

a)The apostle used a present tense verb.

b) He meant love begins to help endure things and it continues to endure all things.

c)Love does not quit, and people with true love do not quit.

7) Life can be very, very difficult.

8) There can be sickness, and sometimes an illness can be prolonged or very serious.

9) A doctor may not give much hope to a person who is ill.

10) If medicine and doctors can offer no hope, where can a person turn?

11) Love. When people have true love, they can endure. There is hope.

12) A love for God helps people focus on the eternal place called heaven.

13) A love for God helps Christians stay obedient no matter what their circumstances are.

14) A love for the gospel causes us to bear with other people under all circumstances.

a)We have an expression in our day to day lives that consists of three words: wear and tear.

b) When we think of enduring all things, we may think about the “big problems in life.”

c)It can be very difficult to face life’s big hurdles.

d) Sometimes people are overcome when they are not facing gigantic problems.

15) They may simply be experiencing the daily “wear and tear of life” and be overcome.

16) God designed love to help us with the small stuff and the big stuff.

17) We heard for our scripture reading some verses from Mt. 24

a)I want to go back and take another look at one of the verses from the reading.

b) This is Mt. 24:12 – READ

c)The “love of many will grow cold.”

d) If Jesus had not given us a reason for this statement we would have wondered what He meant.

e)Why would a person’s love and commitment for God decrease and decline?

f) Jesus gave the reason in the text: sin would be rampant.

18) God’s people would be in an environment that was hostile to them.

19) There would be very few who would believe as Christians believed.

a)In the work places in first century times a person may have been the only Christian.

b) He or she may have worked with people who talked bad.

c)They may have been surrounded with people who lived wicked, filthy, vile lives.

d) As God’s people were in that type of environment, some became weary.

e)Their faith was challenged and tested day after day after day.

f) Some did not have the right type or level of love and did not endure.

g) It must have been especially difficult for the youth in this day and time.

20) We all know that in life some tests are not passed.

21) In many ways Christianity is a test. Part of that test is an enduring love.

22) Each day we go through life we will have our love and faith tested.

23) After we get to the end of a day, we might want to look back and see how we did.

24) Perhaps we can look at this aspect of the Christian life in terms of a daily report card.

25) We may look at today or tomorrow and find that we do pretty well.

26) Maybe we did so well that we would grade ourselves as receiving an “A.”

27) Or, it may be that we didn’t do too swell and it was a “B” day.

28) Perhaps we really had some problems and it was a “C/D” day.

29) Or, it may be a day when we flunked; it is an “F” day.

30) There can be some fail days because all sin (Rom. 3:23); God’s best people have off days.

31) There problem is generally not a couple of off days.

32) The problem is a poor grade in the area of endurance on a regular basis.

a)If we do not have an enduring live, we have a problem that will sink us.

b) We have a problem that needs to be addressed or it will overcome us.

33) Peter picked up on this subject towards the end of his first letter, 1 Pet. 4:8.

a)Peter was writing to some people who were having their love tested.

b) He told his readers that they needed to be ready to suffer (verse 1).

c)Then he warned his friends (verse 4) that their former associates would be somewhat unhappy.

d) Since Christians were not living as the world, the unsaved would mock them.

e)This scorn and contempt would test the love these saints had for God.

f) Peter wanted God’s people to endure, but there was a chance they would not.

g) In verse 8 we have these words – READ

34) Peter spoke about the need to persist in love because some do not.

35) Just as Jesus said, love can “wax cold” (decline and then cease to exist).

36) Love may grow weak and then die. Man will always face this temptation.

37) We do not quote too often from the Song of Solomon.

a)Today we want to back to this Old Testament book.

b) People approach this Old Testament book in various ways.

c)Some think it figuratively represents Christ and the church.

d) The right explanation seems to be that it is a love story.

e)It is about King Solomon and one of his wives.

f) In SOS 8, we read about one of these wives.

38) It is a woman who has just become the king’s wife.

39) Chapter 8 is the final chapter, and in verses 6-7 we have an “explanation of love.”

40) These are the two verses we want to read – READ

a)Notice these points from the text: the woman said the love in this marriage was irresistible.

b) She said it was as powerful as death.

c)Death is something that endures; people do not come back from it after weeks, months, or years.

d) Love’s passion is presented as a blazing fire.

e)We have seen fires that burn and burn; they endure.

f) Love is also portrayed as flowing water and rivers.

g) All of these illustrations have some limitations.

h) Rivers may dry up, fires burn out, and there will be a resurrection for the dead.

41) These three illustrations do help us grasp the point of an enduring love.

42) Love is to last like a burning fire, a raging river, and be like death (it continues).

43) When we sign up to become a Christian (are baptized into Christ), we are making a commitment.

44) Part of our pledge to the Lord is a commit to love Him and His will all our days.

45) BEFORE PEOPLE BECOME CHRISTIANS THEY NEED TO REALIZE THIS IS WHAT GOD ASKS OF THEM. FROM TIME TO TIME CHRISTIANS NEED TO BE REMINDED OF THIS COMMITMENT BECAUSE IT IS POSSIBLE TO NOT ENDURE IN LOVE.

a)We are familiar with the fact that John wrote to 7 congregations.

b) One of those congregations had “left their first love.”

c)A lot of discussion has centered around what that first love was.

d) Whatever it was, it involved love and it had been left.

e)This church did not “endure” in this area.

f) Rev. 2:4-5 – READ

46) 2,000 years ago Christians failed to continue in love.

47) Today this problem still exists.

48) For one reason or another we can be beaten down to the point where we throw in the towel.

49) 1 Cor. 13:7 is trying to tell us that love is tough; it makes people endure.

50) If we have true love we are not quitters.

a)“Endure” in 1 Cor. 13 is actually a word associated with the military.

b) It meant, “withstand the assaults of the enemy.”

c)Most of us have never been shot at.

d) I doubt that anyone who has had this experience relished it.

e)Seeing or hearing bullets come our way is a frightening experience.

f) Soldiers have endured assaults that threaten their lives and good health.

g) As Christians our love and faith will be assaulted.

h) The weapons will not be bullets and knives, but they will be just as hurtful.

i) Our job if we are a child of God is to “stand.”

j) The Corinthians were told (1 Cor. 16:13), “act like men. Be strong.” Stand.

k) Another passage, a well-known text, is Eph. 6:14 – READ

l) God has told us what to do (endure) and given us a basis for it (love).

51) People sometimes ask how long something lasts.

52) Questions like “when will it end?” and “how more will we need to endure” are common?

53) Most of the time people want to hear, “it’s over” or “it is just about over.”

a)Sometimes these are the right answers for Christians.

b) Sometimes the end may not be all that near.

c)In Mt.10 we have some information about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

d) Jesus said this would be the worst event the world would ever see.

e)The Lord promised that Christians would be “hated of all men” for His sake.

f) Christians were surly asking themselves, “When will this end? How much more can we endure?”

g) Listen to Mt. 10:22 – READ

h) It was no fun to endure to the end of Jerusalem’s destruction; this is what some brethren had to do.

i) We have that same responsibility in our Christian life; we must endure to the end.

j) This enduring may be one of the hardest things we ever do in life.

54) If we really are a Christian, this will be our choice.

55) Speaking of life, enduring a life of faithfulness may cost us our life.

56) In Rev. 2:10 John said, “be faithful unto death.”

57) The thought is, “be faithful even to the point of death.”

58) If our obedience to God means the end of our physical life, that is the choice we make.

59) Love for God helps us plough through the most difficult circumstances.

60) If we are genuinely a Christian, we will endure the daily things of life and the big times of crisis.

61) “Blessed is the man that endures temptation” James said.

62) “When he is approved, he shall receive the crown of life” (Jas. 1:12).

63) Are we a Christian who is enduring?