1 Corinthians 13:5c ~ 20150111 ~ Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org
01/11 1 Corinthians 13:5c Love is Not Irritable; Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20150111_1cor13_5c.mp3
4 Ἡ ἀγάπη μακροθυμεῖ, χρηστεύεται ἡ ἀγάπη, οὐ ζηλοῖ ἡ ἀγάπη, οὐ περπερεύεται, οὐ φυσιοῦται, 5 οὐκ ἀσχημονεῖ, οὐ ζητεῖ τὰ ἑαυτῆς, οὐ παροξύνεται, οὐ λογίζεται τὸ κακόν,
1 Corinthians 13 [ESV2011]
12:31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends...
We are in the middle of 1 Corinthians 13, the 'Love Chapter'. We are looking at what love is, what God's love is, and learning together about the God who is love. We see this love perfectly displayed in our Lord Jesus Christ, and we also ought to see evidence of this love growing in the lives of the followers of Jesus. That is what this chapter is about. In the context of a church full of people who were all about status, position, importance, thinking each was better than the other, or feeling they were of no significance and didn't belong, asking what gifts or manifestations were true evidence of advanced spirituality, Paul answers by saying that all the tongues speaking, all the prophesying, all the faith in the world amounts to nothing, reduces the speaker to nothing, and will gain us nothing of eternal significance without love. Love is long-tempered. Love is kind. Love is not jealous. Love does not boast or puff up self. Love is not rude. Love does not seek its own. Love is not irritable. Love does not keep records of wrongs done. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoings, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears and believes and hopes and endures. This is the kind of love God has, the kind of love Jesus displayed as the image of the invisible God, and this is the kind of love that the Holy Spirit produces in the life of the follower of Jesus. The fruit of the Spirit is love. This kind of love is the primary evidence for those who are truly spiritual.
So this chapter is a rebuke. The Corinthians lacked love. They were the opposite of all these things. The Corinthians were impatient, unkind, envious, braggarts, puffed up, indecent, self-seeking, irritable, and they held grudges. Paul was humbling them, pointing them to the way of love, pointing them to the utter worthlessness of their spiritual giftedness without God's love at work among them.
Today we look at the sixth in a list of eight negatives, describing what love is not. The ESV translates this 'not irritable'; (NIV) 'not easily angered'; (KJV) 'not easily provoked'; (ISV) 'never ...gets annoyed'; (Phillips) 'not touchy'.
Passive
This is a passive verb, indicating not something that I do (that would be an active verb), but how I respond when someone does something to me. This does not have to do with if I provoke others, but how I respond when others provoke or irritate me. 'If only people would stop irritating me, I wouldn't get so angry!' I am on the receiving end of provocation. This assumes that there will be provocation. People will provoke me. Circumstances will irritate me. Things will annoy me. That is not the problem, and the solution is not to eliminate the annoyances. The problem is in me. The problem is with how I respond. Jesus promised his followers “in the world you will have tribulation [pressure, affliction, distress]” (Jn.16:33). That is unavoidable. But Jesus offers in the midst of the pressure “that in me you may have peace.”
Irritable Corinthians
So what does it mean that love is not irritable? How were the Corinthians acting irritably? How is God who is love not irritable? What can we learn from Jesus about not being irritable?
1 Corinthians 13:4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
The Corinthians were irritable. They were easily provoked. We see that from how they conducted themselves. There was quarreling, dissension, disputes, jealousy, strife. There was boasting, some thought more highly of themselves than they ought to think, puffed up, thinking they were wise and powerful and important, who didn't think they needed anyone else. Others felt pushed down, trampled, unimportant, undervalued, they were easily offended. They were all eager to insist on their own rights, demanding what was their due, even if that meant taking one another to the courts of law to settle disputes. This is not the way of love.
God's Righteous Provocation
If love is not irritable, not provoked, then we should be able to look at the God who defines love to see more clearly what this does and doesn't mean. When we look to the Old Testament, we find something interesting.
Psalm 7:11 God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day. 12 If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; 13 he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.
God feels indignation every day. This does not sound like a God who is not provoked. In fact, we find God provoked frequently through the scriptures. Listen to Deuteronomy 9, where Moses warns the people against provoking the Lord.
Deuteronomy 9:6 “Know, therefore, that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. 7 Remember and do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD. 8 Even at Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, and the LORD was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you.
...12 Then the LORD said to me, ‘Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them; they have made themselves a metal image.’ 13 “Furthermore, the LORD said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stubborn people. 14 Let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’
...18 Then I lay prostrate before the LORD as before, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin that you had committed, in doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD to provoke him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure that the LORD bore against you, so that he was ready to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me that time also.
...22 “At Taberah also, and at Massah and at Kibroth-hattaavah you provoked the LORD to wrath.
It sounds like the God who is love is at times provoked to anger and wrath. If God is love, then there must be a righteous and loving kind of provocation as well as an evil and unloving kind of provocation.
Deuteronomy 32:16 They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations they provoked him to anger. 17 They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded. 18 You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.
God is provoked to anger when his people whom he loves and cares for turn away from him, the only source of life and joy and run after false hopes that will fail to satisfy. He is provoked to anger because he loves his people, he wants what is best for them, and he knows that he alone is best for them. Even at the disobedience of his people, God is patient. Nehemiah prays:
Nehemiah 9:17 They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. 18 Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies, 19 you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. 20 You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. 21 Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.
God can be provoked, but he is slow to anger. He is patient, he is great in mercy, he is abounding in steadfast love.
Provocation of Jesus
When we look to Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God, we see him reflect the same kinds of things. In John 2,
John 2:14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15 And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
Jesus was provoked. He was passionate. He was rightly irritated and offended by people seeking to make a profit off of those who had come to seek God.
In Mark 3, the Pharisees had set Jesus up. They were using a crippled person – using him to test Jesus.
Mark 3:1 Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2 And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” 4 And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
Notice Jesus' response. He was provoked. He attempted to reason with them. They were callous. He was provoked to wrath. Wrath and sorrow. He was grieved and angry. Angry at their insensitivity to the needs of a person. Grieved at their callousness to the truth of God, their hardened refusal to consider that he might indeed be who he claimed to be. They set him up, and Jesus was angry and grieved, and he healed the man. And the Pharisees conspired to kill him.
His Provocation and Ours
When we look at Jesus, we begin to see some of the differences between God's perfect, loving provocation, and our sinful selfish provocation. God is provoked when we seek satisfaction in things that will bring only harm and heartache. Jesus was provoked when God was dishonored and people were hurt. Jesus was provoked when people were more interested in self-preservation and their own agenda than the good of hurting people and the glory of God.
We are irritated when things don't go our way, when we are inconvenienced, when we are hurt, when our plans are thwarted. We are provoked when people are thoughtless or unkind toward us. We want to defend ourselves, our ideas, our reputation, our honor. Anthony Thiselton describes our irritability as a “readiness to overreact on one's own behalf.” He describes a provocation that “takes offense because one's self-regard has been dented, wounded, or punctured by some sharp point” (NIGTC, p.1052). Our irritability is rooted in selfishness, which is the opposite of love. He also points out how these characteristics of love work together. Love is patient, or long-tempered. Love does not seek its own. “patience delays exasperation … and …lack of self-interest diverts a sense of self-importance away from reacting on the grounds of wounded pride” (NIGTC, p.1052).
Jesus is Not Irritable
We look to Jesus for an example of a selfless life surrendered to pursuing passionately the purposes of God, and how to respond to people and circumstances and things that bring irritation and provocation.
Interruptions
How do you respond when you have purpose, when you are on mission, when you are doing what you are supposed to be doing, when you are moving forward, going in the right direction, and someone comes along with an interruption and derails you? How do you respond to interruption? Do you respond with irritation, with frustration, with anger? In Mark 5, Jesus was on mission. He had been summoned by a desperate father whose daughter was dying. He was going to help someone. What he was doing was very important. But he was rudely and inappropriately interrupted.
Mark 5:22 Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet 23 and implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” 24 And he went with him. And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. 25 And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, 26 and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. 28 For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” 29 And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 And he looked around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” 35 While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?”
This delay was not only inconvenient, poorly timed, and inappropriate, but the delay caused the death of the girl he had set out to heal. He was derailed. How would you respond to this kind of interruption? How did Jesus respond to it? He allowed the interruption. He embraced it. He stopped. He turned. He took the time to identify the one who had interrupted him, to address her. He treated her with kindness and compassion. He cared for her needs. This unplanned interruption served to exaggerate the glory of God as the planned healing escalated into a full-on resurrection from the dead!
Distractions
How do you respond when you have been called to big things, when you are doing important things, and something small and trivial gets in your way? Distractions, diversions, inconsequential things, inconveniences that steal precious time away from the great task at hand. How do you respond to the trivial interruptions of life? In Mark 10, Jesus' disciples were trying to do a good thing. They were trying to protect Jesus' time. He had come for great things, he was teaching the multitudes, so they attempted to intercept the insignificant distractions so that he could focus on the more important things.
Mark 10:13 And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” 16 And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.
Jesus was indignant, not that people would be so trivial as to bring their little kids to him to get him to touch them, but because the disciples were turning them away. He embraced these distractions. These distractions were people, and he took time to show them love and affection, to bless them.
Impositions
How do you respond to impositions? You have been going and going, serving and pouring out, to the point that you are exhausted, even neglecting your own basic needs. You need to get away. You need time alone. You need rest. You just need a break. And just as you are about to take some precious time to yourself, someone drops in on you. Someone who is needy. Someone who is self-centered. Someone who wants to take from you. Uninvited, unwelcome impositions. How do you respond? In Mark 6, Jesus responds to uninvited impositions.
Mark 6:30 The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32 And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. 33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. 35 And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. 36 Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 37 But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?”
Jesus was looking for private time, isolated time, time away from the crowds, time by themselves, time to rest. But the crowds chased him down. They horned their way in on what was supposed to be rest and leisure. How did Jesus respond? He had compassion on them. He saw their hurts, their needs. They were like sheep without a shepherd. He embraced the imposition. He invested in them. And he refused to send them away hungry. He poured into them spiritually, and he cared for them physically. He fed them as much as they could eat. And there was still plenty left over for his disciples. They were satisfied, and God was glorified.
Irresponsibility
How do you respond when you give a trusted friend a simple task and they utterly fail you? A small thing, an easy thing, but an important thing. And they drop the ball and leave you hanging? Do you cut them off? One time and that's it. I'll never trust you again. In Mark 14, Jesus gave some of his closest friends a very simple but important job.
Mark 14:32 And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. 34 And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” 35 And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” 37 And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? 38 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 39 And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. 40 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. 41 And he came the third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”
Watch. Pray. Simple things in his hour of greatest need, and they failed him. They fell asleep. He gave them three opportunities. They failed every time. He didn't become angry. He didn't write them off. In his hour of need, he challenged them, he instructed them, he cared for their needs. After his resurrection he pursued them and entrusted them with the greatest commission of being his witnesses and changing the world.
Intentional Offense
But what about intentional offenses? What if someone is really out to hurt you, out to injure you, out to do you harm? What do you do when you know that there is malicious intent? How do you react? How did Jesus react? The prophet Isaiah foretells it this way:
Isaiah 50:6 I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.
Isaiah 53:7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
Peter holds Jesus up as an example for us:
1 Peter 2:21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. 22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
Jesus instructs us:
Luke 6:27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
What kind of love is this? What kind of love is so selfless that it is not irritable, not resentful, not provoked to anger? What kind of love loves enemies? God's love. While we were his enemies, God demonstrated his love for us (Rom.5:8-10). Having been loved like this, the Holy Spirit now works this kind of love in us. We can only love like this when we have first been filled to overflowing with his love.
I am not my own. I have been bought with a price. I am a slave sent to do my Master's bidding. So I love because he first loved me.
Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org