Discipleship in Community: Spiritual Formation and the Church

Transcription

1 Discipleship in Community: Spiritual Formation and the Church SF501 LESSON 24 of 24 John R. Lillis, Ph.D. Experience: Dean and Executive Officer at Bethel Seminary in San Diego, CA. In the previous session, we were discussing in our functional description of love 1 Corinthians 13:6, the fact that love does not rejoice in unrighteousness or iniquity but rejoices with the truth. And in the prior session, we focused on that first phrase, the fact that love does not rejoice in iniquity. And we looked at that from two different perspectives, from the perspective of the doer and the perspective of the observer. You will recall that what we meant by that was the person engaged in unrighteousness as the doer and that that person would be rejoicing in the iniquity as they continued in a habitual lifestyle of iniquity or sin. And that is not a loving act. That impacts the rest of the body and, therefore, cannot be described as love. Also we looked at it from the perspective of one who observes another brother or sister in Christ involved in sin and does nothing about it, does not involve themselves with that individual in a loving fulfillment of Galatians 6:1-3. In this session, we want to conclude our discussion of that verse by looking at the second phrase: The fact that although love does not rejoice in iniquity, it does rejoice with the truth. And as we look at this, we need to, first of all, understand what we mean by the truth. And the word that is used here means more than just that which is not false. It s used basically in contrast with the word adikia, which is referring to the unrighteousness or the iniquity. And in contrast with that, the emphasis here in the second phrase is on the holy lifestyle or righteousness that should characterize the child of God. Now it certainly includes truth-telling, so that that would be one aspect of it. But it is just one aspect. It s far broader than just truth-telling. We see the word illustrated in Romans 1:18. It says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Now notice the truth being suppressed is developed here within the context of ungodliness and unrighteousness, unholy lifestyle, wicked actions as you look at the context from verses of 13

2 Also over in Romans 2:8, we see the word again used, But to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, wrath, and indignation. Again note the connection of disobedience with those who do not obey the truth, the connection of unrighteousness. So here in 1 Corinthians 13:6 when we talk about the fact that love rejoices with the truth, we re talking about an emphasis on a righteous and a holy lifestyle, the characteristics, the attributes that one who is a follower of Christ should manifest. Love rejoices with those characteristics. Love rejoices with that type of lifestyle. And literally, the verb is to rejoice together with. It s the idea of the fact that love and truth belong together. Love or love so-called that is involved in unrighteousness of any type is not biblical love, because love always rejoices with the truth. First John 5 illustrates this principle for us as John was talking about love and our actions one towards another. First John 5:2 he says, By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and observe His commandments. You see we are truly loving the children of God, we are truly loving one another when we keep His commandments. To keep His commandments, to follow God s will, to live lives consistent with God s will, that is love. Love and truth belong together. We have the example in our own society today and in our own culture of situational ethics and people talking about loving acts being acts which can be contrary to the revealed will of God. For example, is it love to steal to feed your family? Perhaps your family, your children are starving. You re involved in poverty of a great degree and so the idea is that the loving thing would be to steal in order to feed your family. That would be loving them. How do we connect that with 1 Corinthians 13:6 and the fact that love rejoices with the truth? And the idea that it is love if it is consistent with God s commandments. It is love if it is consistent with His truth. Well, let s think a moment. I think the reason that we even propose this as love is because we have mixed up our priorities. We have placed the physical and the material over the spiritual, over the relationship with God. What we are saying is that our physical and material well-being has priority over our spiritual well-being. If we were to steal to feed our family, to feed our children, what are we communicating to those children about this value set? What we are communicating to them is that the physical and the material have the priority. And we are not really loving them 2 of 13

3 because love rejoices together with the truth. I think, in light of this passage and others that we see in Scripture, that it would be better to starve than to steal, ultimately, by eternity s values. Because that relationship with God that we have through Jesus Christ is ultimate reality, not the physical and not the material, but we live very much in the physical and material world too often and ignore that aspect of the relationship that we have with God through Jesus Christ. And I think we could look at any of the so-called ethical situations and define them in that sense and look at them and describe them in that sense. What are we communicating? Usually the situational ethic is applied to a situation to better someone s physical or material well-being. For the Christian, for one who has a relationship with the living God through Jesus Christ, death is not to be feared. Death has been overcome. There is no victory in death. We have won the victory through Christ. So as we look at this, we say that love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. Love does not rejoice in iniquity, but it rejoices together with the truth. An act is a loving act if it is consistent with God s commandments, consistent with His truth. Otherwise it is lust. It is greed, self-centered desire, and misguided benevolence. I think of those situations where a man and a woman are caught up in an adulterous situation. And they look at one another and say I love you. And this has happened in Christianity. This has happened within Christian circles where a man and a woman, Christian leaders, caught up in adulterous situations all in the name of love. Well, it cannot be love. It is not love, because love does not rejoice in unrighteousness but love rejoices with the truth. And those acts are not acts that are consistent with truth. Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, rather love is responsible. We are responsible to rejoice in righteousness and live in righteousness as believers together. We are responsible to lovingly guide one another from sin to a right relationship with God. And as we do that, we must love in truth. God s love is always firmly-based in the truth. And God s kind of love that we exhibit one to another must always be firmly based in the truth. We are not truly loving someone if the action involves anything contrary to God s Word. Well, as we have been looking now at several negative characteristics, several things that have described what love does not do, we come now to verse 7. And we see here the positive nature of love, the things that love always does. The New American 3 of 13

4 Standard translates verse 7 as love bears all things, love believes all things, love hopes all things, love endures all things. In order to assist us in understanding the meaning and the application of these four phrases, we need to understand that in all likelihood, verse 7 is in a chiastic structure. That is Paul is relating items or phrase one and four and phrase two and three. Love bears all things, love endures all things go together. And love believes all things, love hopes all things goes together. It becomes important to us, especially with respect to the first phrase love bears all things, as we attempt to determine its meaning. The word that is translated here, the verb can actually have two meanings. And that s why many of the translations differ. One sense of the word is to bear patiently, reflecting what we have here in the New American Standard. The idea would be to tolerate or to bear up under something. The other meaning or sense that the verb there can have is to cover or conceal. And the idea is the passing over of things in silence where it would do harm to make them public, excusing or concealing the faults of others. And that would be the sense that we have in the New International Version translation that love protects or love always protects. I think again because of the chiastic structure here and the relationship of this first phrase with the fourth phrase, that we re going to take the meaning bear patiently and be consistent with the New American Standard translation love bears all things. And the idea again is that love bears up patiently under annoyances and troubles that come its way from others. Now how is this truth applied in terms of our corporate life together as we engage in these corporate disciplines of love together? I think one illustration is provided to us by Paul in 1 Corinthians 9 in which Paul talks about the bearing up that he had endured. In 1 Corinthians 9:1 he says, Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. Basically here he is saying that he had the right to expect support from them. In verse 4 he says, Do we not have a right to eat and drink? Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or do only Barnabas and I not have a right to refrain from working? Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat the fruit of it? Or who tends a flock and does not use the milk of the flock? What he s saying there in verse 7 is that he had the right to these things. He had the right to have his expenses 4 of 13

5 met. In verse 8 he says, I am not speaking these things according to human judgment, am I? Or does not the law also say these things? But down in verse 17 he says, For if I do this voluntarily, ( this in verse16 is preach the gospel ) I have a reward. But if against my will I have a stewardship entrusted to me. What Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 13:7 is that love always responds in a way that bears up. Paul had a right to expect certain things from them, and he was not receiving those things. But he responded in a loving way. Love always bears up or love bears all things. We re talking in terms of our own application about those situations where somebody denies us something that is rightfully ours knowingly or unknowingly. The response of love is to quietly bear the injustice or the wrong. Often what is owed us is justice, the right action. But often or sometimes it s not provided. Love bears all things. Love bears up under that kind of mistreatment. Paul, I think, was also alluding to that, or the lack of it, in 1 Corinthians 6 when he was talking about the lawsuits beginning at verse 6. He says, But brother goes to law with brother and that before unbelievers. Actually then it is already a defeat for you that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud, and that to your brethren. And I think that is one of the things he had in mind when in 1 Corinthians 13:7 he said, Love, that which should characterize our love together, the very essence of our relationship together, love bears all things. And you see how that would draw us together and knit us together as believers. Love bears all things or always patiently bears the wrong. Now remember, the motivation is love and not stupidity. All things refers to those things for which the word can properly apply. We re not saying that love bears up under extreme punishment, that love bears up in abusive cases, as we sometimes have with spouses or children. In those situations, there often needs to be a moving away, a protection of the individual. So love is not stupid. But the types of things that we re talking about here would be like when people make fun of us, people take advantage of us, people unintentionally irritate us or aggravate us. And that could happen in a myriad of contexts: children, students, friends, spouses, church members, fellow workers, whatever. Love bears all things. That s the characteristic or a characteristic of love that is so vital and so important. How much more unity we would enjoy as believers together, how much more quickly could the church grow up in the love in which it is intended to if we could develop this characteristic in our lives 5 of 13

6 together of bearing all things? The second phrase in 1 Corinthians 13:7 is that love believes all things. The basic idea here is that of trust, trust or faith in other people. Love trusts in the redeemable qualities of others. Love trusts a person fully, expecting nothing but good things from that person even though appearances might be against them. Love always sees the best in others. Love is always ready to give the benefit of the doubt. Love is not suspicious but readily accepts what people say in their defense. This is the idea here when we say that love believes all things. Now it does not mean that we allow ourselves to be fooled by every rogue or rascal trying to take advantage of us, or that we pretend that black is white or white is black. And there are examples of that, people who claim the love that should be there in churches, try to take advantage of churches. We need to still practice love but at the same time we need to be as wise as serpents. People sometimes come and if you ve been involved in any type of ministry you ve experienced this people will come to a church or come to a Christian and say they are hungry or they need medicine and would you please give them money? And there are people throughout who have made a racket of that, who make a living of cheating churches and taking advantage of churches in this way. However, there are loving ways that we can deal with those individuals, individuals who just want the money to go and spend in other ways. I know that when my family and I were living in Asia as missionaries there that we experienced this on a regular basis, people who would find out we were Christian missionaries and preaching the gospel of love, who would then come begging and, in many cases we had individuals who wanted the money and who would then go and spend the money on other means. And one of the things that we would do is we would offer to let them earn the money, or if it was a case of food, we d say, Well, we ll take you down to the grocery store here and buy some food. If it s medicine, let s go to the pharmacy and we ll buy the needed medicine. You d be surprised about 95 out of 100 people said no to that, because all they were really interested in was the money. We have a responsibility as God s children to be good stewards and, thus, to check people s stories sometimes. So when we say that love believes all things, we re not saying that love allows itself to be taken advantage of totally and completely. What we are saying is that when love has no evidence to the contrary, it believes the best about someone. 6 of 13

7 Well, how can we apply this in our relations again as brothers and sisters in Christ growing up together in the Lord? You know, as humans it seems that we are always quick to believe the worst about people. We are always quick to believe gossip and slander about brothers and sisters in Christ. Often we have no evidence at all concerning the person and yet we accept the negative that is said about them. Love does not do this. Love has faith in the brother or sister. Love believes the best about them. Have you ever noticed that when we re separated from individuals for a certain length of time that often we dream up these fantastic sins or offenses which the other people have done against us and that somehow, in the period of separation, the assumed or fantasized offense seems to grow and grow in magnitude, and how that all just seems to disappear when we re with that person again. Love believes the best. I think we need to work on this and discipline our own thought life and our own ideas and our relationships to others, in terms of what we do believe about them. Another case is we need to be careful about misinterpreting people s motives or reasons for actions that we don t like. Again as humans, as those who are redeemed but being redeemed, we always seem ready to believe that people are out to get us. We always seem ready to believe the worst about an individual s motives. Love not only bears patiently with his neighbor s mischief, but love also credits the neighbor with good intentions unless there is evidence to the contrary. We must fight the temptation to distrust people or to believe the worst about their actions or their motives. We must exhibit this positive characteristic of love. Love believes all things or love always trusts in the other individual, believing the best about them unless there is hard evidence to the contrary. How much better the church would be, how much more loving and unified we would be as believers together if we would but practice this particular characteristic and aspect of love. If we would just believe the best of one another and refuse to immediately accept the worst and turn our back upon the gossip and slander of a brother or sister. Well, the third phrase here again is related to the second because of this chiastic structure. The idea here is love hopes all things. Now as you look at the word hope in the Bible, hope is not blind optimism or wishful thinking expressed in the sentence I hope that it doesn t rain tomorrow or I hope that we can go shopping together or I have a hope that I will receive a bicycle for my birthday. That s a use of the word in English which is really not consistent with the sense of the Greek word that we have here. 7 of 13

8 Biblical hope takes reality into account. But biblical hope is more than a wishful optimism. Biblical hope is a confident expectation that something will happen. Paul talks about the blessed hope. And when he s talking about the blessed hope, he s not saying well, I wish or that someday that Christ will return. It s not some kind of wishful optimism or wishful thinking. He is saying we have a confident expectation of the second coming. And when Paul talks about faith, love, and hope, again the hope that he s describing in that triad of faith, love, and hope is not blind optimism or wishful thinking but the confident expectation that we have in Christ Jesus of the future blessings that will be ours. Now hope is applicable, as I ve indicated here, to the future as well as to the present. So it is an appropriate follow on to the previous word that we ve just had. Remember the second phrase says love trusts in people, present emphasis. Love always believes present tense. Love also has hope for people s actions in the future. So we move to that future perspective. In the Old Testament the idea of hope always included the element of trust as well. We can hope that God will do what He says because we have this present trust in God. I have hope. I have a confident expectation that such and such will happen because I have trust in the basis of that hope right now. And so it is in our relationships with one another. I have hope for a person. I always have hope for a person because I know that God is working together all things for good to that person because I believe in that person. Love always believes or love believes all things. Love hopes all things or always hopes. Some of the applications of this particular aspect of love are illustrated by the example of Jesus and his disciples. Jesus loved His disciples. In John 13 through John 17, that section begins with John affirming Jesus love for His disciples. And in that section, Jesus addresses these individuals and expresses hope for them, these individuals who often blew it and misunderstood His teachings and purpose, in fact these individuals who were going to fall in the immediate future, Peter who was going to deny Jesus. In spite of that, throughout that section as well as in other portions of the gospel, he always expresses hope for them. Once you recall He turns to Peter and says, Peter, upon this rock I will build my church, expressing great hope, a confident expectation for good things in the future of Peter, this very same Peter whom he knew would deny him. Then He looks at His disciples and He s talking about the things that He had done, and He said you will do greater things, expressing His love for them in this manifestation and expression, vocalization of hope for them, a confident 8 of 13

9 expectation that they would see and do and realize better things in their future than they had at the present. Well, as we love one another in Christ, we also must confidently expect that God s best will be done in each of our lives as we relate to one another. We must believe in one another not only for the present but also for the future. This has extreme significance in the relationship of older Christians with newer Christians in the discipling process. How easy it is and how tempting it is sometimes to give up hope on a particular believer who seems to keep stumbling. Well, love does not give up hope. Love always hopes. Love always has a confident expectation for the best for this individual believing that He who has begun a good work in that individual will continue it until the day that Christ returns. You see, Paul expressed that love in his letters to the churches and to those whom he had won to the Lord and to those he was discipling and ministering to. He believed confidently. He had an expectation that God would continue to work in each of their lives. Even to those like the Corinthians who were stumbling in very severe ways, he still expressed a hope for them. Friends that we have, maybe not new Christians but friends, brothers and sisters in Christ who are going through hard times, who are going through difficult times spiritually in their Christian life, in their Christian commitment, we need to love them. And one aspect of the love that we demonstrate towards them is this hope. Love always hopes. Finally, the fourth phrase that we have here love endures all things. The word or the phrase that Paul uses here is actually a military term. And as we look at the secular literature of the time, the term often appears in the literature with a background or idea of heroic deeds when a particular individual is described as being an enduring individual, one who endures all things. It s generally within that type of context, with that type of idea or background. And we re not talking here about mere passive endurance but rather the active perseverance and patience of the stout-hearted soldier, the soldier who having done all as Paul says in Ephesians 6, still stands actively involved in the endurance, the endurance of a soldier who in battle is not dismayed but continues to fight lustily, not overwhelmed but manfully playing his part whatever the difficulties. That s the sense that we have in this word as we see it used in the secular epic literature of the time. And again like hope, this word has a future as well as a present perspective. It speaks of an enduring courage which having done all, stands firm and will stand firm to the end. So there is a future view here with 9 of 13

10 this endurance. And again, I think because of the structure of the verse, it s related back to the first phrase love bears all things. But in that phrase, the emphasis and the focus is on the present, whereas here there is certainly the present perspective but it s seeing the future as well. Love always endures. Love holds true to the end, stands firm to the end. In the New Testament, the word is often used to speak of the brave and the noble patience with which the Christian contends against the various hindrances and the persecutions and the temptations that would befall him or her in their conflict with the inward and the outward world. Often it s used in lists of virtues and in descriptive passages with this sense in mind. The Christian enduring patiently and bravely the assaults of persecution or suffering which Christ plainly told us we could and should expect in this life with Him. The word that we have at the beginning of verse 7 love bears all things has references to annoyances and troubles, irritations while this word not only has the future perspective but also refers to severe suffering and severe persecution so that it not only shifts the perspective to the future, but it also steps up the level or steps up the degree of the persecution that the Christian is told to expect. This Christian will overcome all difficulties, endure to the end. And the interesting thing now is that this word is used to describe love, love stands up for the other person no matter what. Remember love is a relational word. When we talk about love having this characteristic, we re talking about some aspect of our relationship with a brother or sister in Christ. Love can be counted on to bravely endure all sufferings and all persecutions on behalf of the object of that love. Paul tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church. Husbands are to endure all things on behalf of their wives. That s the way that Christ has loved the church. That s the way we are to love one another. Well, we do indeed have the example of our Lord Jesus Christ and His love for us. Think about it a moment. He endured the shame of the cross for our behalf. We don t truly appreciate or understand that in the 20th century because we don t fully comprehend the scandal of the cross as Paul mentioned. The cross was capital punishment that was reserved for the lowest and vilest of offenders. The cross, in fact, could not be the means of capital punishment for a Roman citizen. If a Roman citizen committed a crime worthy of death, they could not be crucified. There had to be another form of punishment. Christ endured not just the pain, not just the physical suffering, but the shame of the cross. And then, coupled with that Greco-Roman perspective, we also have the Jewish Old Testament perspective of the fact that anyone who 10 of 13

11 is hung on a tree is cursed. Jesus, in loving us, endured the shame of the cross on our behalf. How willing are we to endure shame on behalf of a brother or sister in Christ? That s what it means to love one another, to share in the shame sometimes. Christ also endured the rejection of the object of His love. In John 1, John tells us He came unto His own and His own received Him not. Those whom He loved, those for whom He was dying rejected Him, and yet He continued to love them. He endured that rejection. He endured that rejection throughout the years of His ministry. He endured that rejection, as we saw earlier in Luke 23, on the cross in the very act of crucifixion. He was enduring the rejection of those that He loved. This is what biblical love involves. It involves enduring all things. It involves enduring rejection sometimes of the object of the love. Jesus also endured tremendous physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual anguish and suffering for those whom He loved. We cannot begin to comprehend the degree and the magnitude of the suffering that He endured for those that He loved. But that s what it means to love, and we re told to love the same way. And love endures all things or love always endures. That should characterize our relationship with one another. Jesus, in talking to His disciples in John 15:13 in anticipating a question that was going on in their mind when He said I want you to love one another. The question was, well how great should that love be? How much do we have to love? The question was always there. When He told them to forgive one another, they said, well how often do we have to forgive? So in John 15:13 He says, Greater love has no one than this, that he be willing to lay down his life for his brothers, being willing to endure suffering, rejection, and shame on behalf of one another, being willing to endure persecution from the object of our love, being willing to endure. Love bears all things. It believes all things. It hopes all things. It endures all things. That s what it means to love. As we reflect back upon these four verses, look with me again at those characteristics, this functional description of love. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not jealous. Love does not brag and is not arrogant. Love 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. And think about those characteristics now in terms of the extremes that we ve talked about. As you think about what those words mean, some of them being used to describe God in the Old 11 of 13

12 Testament. And now we re told that we re to act that way. What Paul is describing here is a very radical lifestyle, an extremely difficult lifestyle, in fact an impossible lifestyle for humans apart from the indwelling Holy Spirit, apart from this relationship that we have been brought into. You see, as we look back at Ephesians 4 and some of the other passages that have provided our corporate model of spiritual formation, these other passages that we ve used to describe what spiritual formation really involves growing up together. They were sprinkled liberally throughout with the word love. We re to do this in love. We re to grow up together in love. And so often we read through those passages and just kind of glide over love. When we use love as the measure of our growth together, as Paul does in Ephesians 4 very clearly, love is the beginning, it is the measure, and it is the goal towards which we are growing together. We need to understand that love, in terms of this functional description that Paul gives here in 1 Corinthians 13. That s why I ve spent the time on this, because it is so crucial. As we ve said throughout this course, love is the essence of the Christian experience. And love is a lot more involved than just warm, emotional feelings that we have one towards another. Love has characteristics that are articulated here in 1 Corinthians 13. And as such, it involves a very different, radical lifestyle, a lifestyle entirely unique and contrasted to the lifestyle that the world promotes, a lifestyle that is entirely in conflict with what we naturally want to do in the flesh, but nonetheless a lifestyle that we need to develop, not individually. You can t do this individually. Love is not an individual virtue. Love is a relational virtue. And so as I ve mentioned earlier, I believe this functional description, these characteristics that we have of love here in 1 Corinthians 13 provide, in one sense, a set of corporate disciplines that we are to develop by the grace of God and through the Spirit of God working in us as we grow together in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me, in closing this session and the course, remind you again of our model in Ephesians 4 as we begin reading in verse 11. And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer 12 of 13

13 to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 13 of 13