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The Limits of
Love
1 Corinthians 13:4 - 8
Two weeks ago we established the principle that love is not a feeling,
but rather an action. Last week, we attempted to apply that principle to
the problem of dealing with enemies. This morning, we wrap up our look
at love with what I think is a very crucial question; does love ever set
limits?
Does it ever say, "Enough is enough." That seems like an easy enough
question, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13: 8, "Love never fails." One
verse earlier he said, "Love always protects, always trusts, always
hopes, always perseveres." When you consider that Paul uses the words
"never" and "always," it would seem pretty safe to say that love knows
no limits.
Well, let's test that conclusion in the crucible of real world
experience. A woman at your office shows up for work wearing a pair of
sunglasses. But it's a cloudy day. And besides, the florescent lights in
the office aren't that bright. Yet throughout the morning, she hides
behind those Foster Grants. You don't even bother to ask why. You know
why. You've seen her do it a dozen times in the last year and a half.
Her husband has blacked her eye again.
You asked her, once, why she put up with it. "He really loves me," she
answered. "And I love him. And I know that the Bible says that love
always hopes, always perseveres and never fails." You reminded her that
the same Bible also says, "Love protects," but she didn't have ears to
hear.
Does God expect that woman to keep on showing up for work trying to hide
a bruised face with thick make-up and dark sun glasses? Does love ever
say enough is enough?
Or consider a man in his mid-fifties who is responsible for caring for
his aging mother. He's taken her into his home, manages her finances
with utmost integrity, schedules her doctor appointments and provides
transportation to them. He takes her to church every Sunday morning and
Sunday night. To everyone who knows her, she is a sweet, faithful saint,
living out her final years with grace and dignity.
But when he and his wife are alone with her, she is verbally abusive,
impossible to please and mean-spirited. She uses her vast knowledge of
the Bible as a weapon to carve up her caretakers for all their faults,
failures and shortcomings. She constantly criticizes, demeans and
dismisses everything they do. And she is a master at manipulation by
guilt. This isn't a new thing brought on by old age. He knows she's
always been this way.
Does love require him to take her verbal stabs regardless of how much
emotional blood she draws? Or does it permit him to confront her and
demand that she stop quoting the Bible so much and start living by it.
In other words, does love ever say, "Enough is enough?" Does love ever
set
limits?
Look again in 1 Corinthians 13:4 - 8.
I love it when something new leaps out of an old text for me. You may
have seen this years ago, but I got the pleasure of experiencing it for
the first time this week. Listen to Paul's familiar words again -- this
time with the question of love's limits in the front of your brain.
Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and
is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is
not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not
rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all
things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love
never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away;
if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be
done away.
Eight times Paul uses the word "not." Paul spends fifty percent of his
time and ink telling us what love does not do. In other words, Paul
spends as much time telling us about the limits of love as he does
telling us how far it is willing to go. Every time he uses the words
"not," or "no," he's showing us one of love's boundary lines.
Let me explain why I think this is such an important question. The
choice to love someone is a risky choice. It makes us vulnerable. We
open our hearts and souls up to the people we love. If they respond to
us in Godly love, it's a blessing. But if they choose, they can take
advantage of us. They can abuse us verbally, physically, emotionally or
spiritually. They can seize the opportunity afforded them by our love to
manipulate, dominate and control us. And they often do all of that in
the name of God.
So it is important that we understand that God's word identifies some
limits where love is concerned.
The most obvious limit of love has to do with the law of God. True love
never asks you to disobey a command from its creator.
Law and love always agree with each other. Which may sound a little
strange to some of us. We have a hard time getting law and love on the
same page. The Bible, however, not only puts them on the same page, but
frequently places them next to each other in the same sentences.
Romans 13:10 says, "Love is the fulfillment of the law."
Galatians 5: 14, "The entire law is summed up in a single command; Love
your neighbor as yourself."
1 John 5:3 puts love and obedience together: "This is love for God; to
obey his commands."
So does John 15:17: "This is my command; Love each other."
In 1 Timothy 1, Paul orders Timothy to confront some people in Ephesus
adding in vs. 5, "The goal of this command is love."
Go created love. He authored the law. True love, Godly love, then, will
always be consistent with his law. Love never violates God's law. True
love seeks to bring it's object as close to God as possible. And you
can't move closer to God by trying to get around his law.
Listen to how Paul put it in Romans 13: 8 - 10.
Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his
neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, "YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT
ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT
COVET," and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this
saying, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." Love does no wrong
to a neighbor; love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.
The only way for love to remain harmless is for love to remain law
abiding. True love never asks you to disobey a command from its creator.
So what do you do if someone is excusing sinful behavior in the name of
love?
What do you do if someone is pressuring you to violate God's law in the
name of love?
How do you handle it if someone you love is being abusive toward you?
Does love just sit back and take it? Or does love require us to step up
and stop it?
Our text for this three week look at love has been 1 Corinthians 13. The
apostle Paul authored that book. So let's look at an example from his
life to see how he implemented his own teaching. Look with me in
Galatians 2: 11 - 14.
When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was
clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat
with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and
separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who
belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his
hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. When
I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I
said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a
Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to
follow Jewish customs?
There are several strategies that Paul could have used with Peter. See
if any of these sound familiar to your way of thinking:
Ostrich approach
We use this approach when we know that something is not right but
instead of getting involved we would prefer to stick our head in the
sand and pretend nothing is wrong.
At approximately 3:20 on the morning of March 13, 1964,
twenty-eight-year-old Ms Catherine (Kitty) Genovese was returning to her
home in a nice middle-class area of Queens, NY, from her job. She parked
her car in a nearby parking lot, turned-off the lights and started the
walk to her apartment some 35 yards away. She got as far as a
streetlight when a man grabbed her.
She screamed. Lights went on in the apartment building nearby. She
yelled, “He stabbed me! Please help me!” Windows opened in the apartment
building and a man’s voice shouted, “Let that girl alone.” The attacker
looked up, shrugged and walked-off down the street.
Ms Genovese struggled to get to her feet. Lights went back off in the
apartments. The attacker came back and stabbed her again. She again
cried out, “I’m dying! I’m dying!” And again the lights came on and
windows opened in many of the nearby apartments.
The assailant again left and got into his car and drove away. Ms
Genovese staggered to her feet and tried to get the attention of a city
bus that drove by. It was now 3:35 a.m.
The attacker returned once again. He found her in a doorway at the foot
of the stairs and he stabbed her a third time--this time with a fatal
consequence. It was 3:50 when the police received the first call. They
responded within two minutes. Ms Genovese was already dead.
The only person to call, a neighbor, revealed that he had phoned only
after much thought and an earlier phone call to a friend. He said, “I
didn’t want to get involved.” Later it was learned that there were 37
other witnesses to the stalking and stabbing over the half-hour period.
Next there is the Barn Burning approach
We use this approach when we are willing to burn down the barn in order
to get rid of the rats. It is so important that we are right than
nothing else matters.
At what lengths are you willing to go to be right? Are you willing to
have an argument to be right?
Are you willing to hurt someone’s feelings to be right?
Are you willing to loose your self respect by yelling and screaming to
be right?
Are you willing to destroy a friendship to be right?
Are you willing to run someone off, away from here to be right?
Romans 12: 17 “Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is
right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you,
be at peace with all men.”
God says that we must treat one another with respect and do all that we
can to live at peace with one another. I would rather be righteous than
right.
Then there is the always popular Triangle approach
We use this approach when we get someone else involved.
We like this because we get to elevate ourselves above someone else and
there is never a confrontation with the person we are struggling with.
Instead we get on the phone and say nasty things about him all day long.
Peter isn’t going to find out for days with this approach that Paul is
even mad at him. Not only does this approach not show Peter any love,
but there is a lack of respect for Peter shown here also. This approach
will not solve the problem and more than likely it will damage the
relationship beyond repair.
Finally there is the history approach
We use this approach when we not only go to the person we are struggling
with tell him what is wrong with him, but while we are there we must
show a pattern of this behavior by bringing up every other problem and
every other stupid thing they ever did.
This mentality is “I’ll forgive you for what you did wrong, but the next
time it happens, and I know that there will be a next time we will have
to mention and rehashed this again.
This is contrary to what 1 Corinthians 13:5 says that love “does not act
unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take
into account a wrong suffered.”
It’s like two men who were talking about their wives. One said to the
other, “When my wife gets angry she gets historical.”
The other replies, “You mean hysterical.”
“No” the first says, “I mean historical. She reminds every argument I
have of everything I have done wrong in the past.”
The loving thing for Paul to do was handle the problem in a Biblical
manor. The God Paul served demanded the same of him that he demands of
us.
Matthew 5:23-24 "If therefore you are presenting your offering at the
altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,
leave your offering there before the altar, and go your way; first be
reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.
Jesus says here that making things right with someone who you have
offended is more important than worship.
Matthew 18:15 "And if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private;
if he listens to you, you have won your brother.
Here Jesus looks at the other side of it. If someone has wronged you
then you need to seek them out in private. In these two passages Jesus
paints a beautiful picture of two brethren meeting one another half way
to make things right.
Paul had to confront Peter because of his love for Peter and the church.
You see Peter was clearly in the wrong, and his behavior was hurting
Peter and the Church. So Paul did the most loving thing that he could,
confronted Peter's behavior.
If Paul had not confronted Peter, Peter would have continued to behave
in hypocritical ways. Others, like Barnabas, would have continued to be
led astray by Peter's behavior. The Gospel would have been compromised.
Relationships between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians would
have been badly damaged. Does that sound like love?
No, the most unloving thing Paul could have done would have been to
remain silent.
And sometimes that’s just what we do. We are guilty of standing by and
watching someone we “love” hurt, or destroy themselves and we just watch
helpless, not loving enough to accept the personal pain it would take to
get involved.
But that’s not how it is with God. God’s love never says "Enough!" In
his letter to the Ephesians Paul said, "And I pray that you, being
rooted and established in love, may have the power, together with all
the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of
Christ."
God's love for us is unfathomable. But it is not unlimited. There will
come a day in which God will indeed say, "Enough." He will not force his
love on you. He gives you the freedom to accept or reject his love. If
you want his love, it will never be taken from you. But if you refuse
it, he won't force it. It’s your choice.
Today you have a choice to make accept the Love of God or reject it. I
have been praying this week that today you will make the right choice.
Today you will understand that God’s love is what you need to fill the
void in your life.
Today give yourself to God and let Him show you the full scope of His
love.
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