This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day two of our look at 1 Corinthians chapter 13. We're going to focus on
verse four today. Yesterday we began our look at this chapter by reminding
ourselves that to love, I must recognize its priority.

And when I recognize the priority of love, then out of that I ask God for the
power to live out that priority. I don't try to do it on my own power. I need
the power of Jesus' love in me in order to love the world around me.

Once I've done that, once I've recognized the priority of love, then I must
choose to act like love acts. I must carry out the actions of love. I must live
out the character of love.

What does that mean? What do you choose to do when you choose to love? What
exactly is this love that we're talking about here?

Well, it's agape love. It's God's kind of love in our lives and it's love that
acts in certain ways that gives of itself for another person. Maybe it's good to
know what love isn't in this chapter.

Love is not an emotion, although it affects your emotions. We're not talking
about a feeling here, conjuring up some feeling. Love is not a philosophy,
although it influences your philosophy.

We're not talking about just a way of writing down words about love. Love is not
a physical desire, although it governs your desires. We're not talking about an
emotion or a philosophy or a physical desire.

Love is an action. In 1 Corinthians 13, we clearly see that this is not about
how love feels or thinks or desires. This is about how love acts.

So listen to verse 4. Love is patient. Love is kind.

It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud.

That's what love is like. Now as we talk through these actions of love these
next few days, we're going to see that true love sacrifices. You sacrifice what
you want in order to meet the need of someone else and then in making that
sacrifice, you realize that's what God made me to do.

I'm not made just to chase after what I want. I really am made to serve others
just as Jesus came to this earth to serve others. But when we say that true love
sacrifices, it's important to remember that the greatest sacrifices may not be
the once-in-a-lifetime sacrifices.

The greatest sacrifices are more likely the daily sacrifices. You give up your
way for another person's need. No one else may even know that you did it, but
you'll know that you acted in response to Jesus' love for you.

Now what do these daily sacrifices look like? Do you have to wait until you get
into some difficulty and a relationship is about to end and all of a sudden in a
crisis you say I'm going to change, I'm going to sacrifice, I'm going to go the
different direction? Does it have to be a crisis situation?

Of course not. There are positive steps, seemingly small sacrifices, but they're
great in the moment, that you can take each day to revolutionize the way that
you love the people around you. Picture it this way.

Instead of waiting until you have to choose surgery, you're doing daily
exercises to keep your relationships healthy. Based on this description of love
in 1 Corinthians 13 over these next couple of days, we're going to look at five
what I call practical exercises for your spiritual heart each day. Now I don't
expect that anything new is going to be in these exercises.

New information is not really the point here. What we're going after is changes
in the way that we act in our families, in our churches, in our workplaces, in
our schools. And the only way to make those changes is in the moment, day by
day, through life.

I make this decision instead of that decision because I love. What is that going
to mean? What does that look like?

Well, here's exercise number one. Be patient. Love is patient.

We just read that. So exercise number one is be patient. Ephesians 4.

2 says be patient with each other, making allowance for each other's faults
because of your love. Because of your love, your patience is realized and lived
out and acted in your life. Patience means that I not only wait with someone,
but I also wait for someone.

That's the difficult part of patience, waiting for someone, for someone to grow,
maybe for someone to change. It's even a struggle to wait for someone to get
ready before you leave for a dinner or you go together maybe to church. What
does it mean that love is patient?

Here's what it means. When one person in the family is ready before another
person in the family, that person who is ready does not go out and get in the
car and circle the cul-de-sac, honking the horn every time around. Love is
patient.

You wait for someone. What does it mean to be patient? It means that when your
kids get involved in a project and they're struggling, you don't jump in and
say, "Let me do it for you.

" Even though every fiber of your being wants to get it done faster, instead you
help them do it because they need to learn through it. What does it mean to be
patient? It means you don't finish other people's sentences for them.

I confess, I often fail at this opportunity to express patience. You know what
the other person is going to say, so you just sort of move the conversation
along. You say it for them, but maybe, I mean just maybe, they wanted to say it
for themselves or possibly they were going a different direction than you were
thinking.

Love is patient. And there's no greater example of genuine patience than in
God's love towards us. Think of this.

God listens to all of your prayers. As halting as they might be, even though he
knows in advance what you're going to say, God listens to every word. Love is
patient.

God is patient in the way that he listens, that he cares for us. That's one of
the actions of love, one of the actions that I can take today. There's a second
action, second exercise.

Be patient and then be kind. Love is kind. Kind, the word kind is one of the
most powerful words in a relationship.

It sounds so small, it's just a short word, but it is a word. Kindness is a word
that can heal the deepest hurt. It can strengthen the weakest relationship.

Kindness, what does it mean? It's doing the little things. And it's the little
things that add up to a great relationship.

Kindness means that you recognize and meet someone's need in a practical way.
Kindness means turning the grand vows that we make to one another in a marriage
ceremony into washing dishes and dumping trash, even when it's not your turn to
wash the dishes or to dump the trash. Kindness is turning those great hopes that
we have in a hospital nursery into changing diapers and staying up all night
with sick children.

Kindness is turning your great plans to change the world into serving hungry
people in a soup kitchen or visiting the sick in a quiet hospital room.
Kindness, this may be, English poet William Wadsworth wrote, this may be that
great portion of a good man's life, his little nameless, unremembered acts of
kindness. Love is kind.

Who could you be kind to today? Someone close to you, someone you just meet
along your way. Love is kind.

Love is patient. Be patient. Love is kind.

Be kind. A third action of love is this, be humble. Be humble.

And that's found in those last words in 1 Corinthians 13, four. Love does not
envy. It does not boast.

It is not proud. You could set besides those words, envy, boast, proud, the word
insecurity. If you felt truly secure in God's love for you, you would have
nothing to envy in anybody else's life.

You wouldn't need to boast. You wouldn't have to build your ego by feeding it
pride. And security, it's an Everest sized issue in relationships.

You take any relationship, you take the greatest of relationships and you add
just a little bit of insecurity and you will create stress. So you ask yourself
when it comes to love, what am I doing to add even a degree of insecurity to a
relationship? Maybe you're hiding something, some feeling, some fact from your
spouse.

Maybe you're not consistent in disciplining your kids and they don't know what's
coming next from you. Maybe you haven't spoken to someone in a long, long time.
The real issue behind each of these choices is our pride.

So what one step could you take today to make some relationship more secure?
I'll tell you where it begins. It begins with the choice to be humble.

Instead of thinking this is about me, I'm not going to write them until they
write me. I'm not going to say I'm sorry to them until they say they're sorry to
me. I'm not going to talk to them until they open up to me.

Instead of it being about my pride, be humble. Think of the difference that it
might make for you to call someone today and say, no matter what happens, I want
you to know I'm going to always love you. I'm going to always be your friend.

I'm going to always be there for you. That's what love does. That's how love
acts.

Let's pray for God's strength. Lord, today, show me how. You're going to give me
plenty of opportunities.

Show me how and give me strength to be patient. When I'm tempted to be
impatient, help me to look to you, Jesus, to get strength from you. Lord, show
me how today to be kind.

Show me how to be humble. And Lord, I pray as we seek to learn to love that
you'd show us your grace, that instead of noticing all those times when we fail,
we wouldn't see those times when you've strengthened us and we build on those.
Satan wants to get us stuck on the accusations of what we've done wrong, but you
want us to grow by building on our choice to love you, to commit to you.

So Lord, let us build on that today. Help us to find one place to be patient and
start there. Help us to find one place to be kind.

Start there. Help us to find one place to be humble, to start there. We ask for
this grace in your name, Jesus.

Amen. Tomorrow we're going to look some more at what God has to say about the
characteristics, the actions of love.