Marriage and Love

I. Introduction
A. 1Corinthians 13 is the love chapter. It’s often read at weddings, but it’s not about marriage or romance.
1. The context is a church that is filled with disputes especially over the gifts of the Spirit. Paul writes these timeless words about love in order to emphasize to the Corinthians that it’s more important to love one another than to have or use any spiritual gift.
2. However, no matter what the generating circumstance for the chapter, it is a chapter about love, a chapter about what love looks like in a down-to-earth, nitty-gritty, everyday sense.
3. And love applies to every relationship, including marriage.
4. So this morning we’re going to look at 1Cor.13 from the perspective of marriage.
II. Explanation of 1 Corinthians 13
A. 1-3 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.
1. “Many have done great things from fear of hell, hoping to appease God and make atonement for their sins, and many have done great things from pride or a desire for reputation or honor among men.” – Edwards
2. The same is true in marriage. Many do good things for their spouses or for their families which are not done in love.
3. Paul crafted these statements according to the Corinthian situation. Let’s recraft them with marriage in mind:
a. If I earn a very good living but have not love then I am nothing.
b. If I am great in bed but have not love
c. If I buy everything my family needs but have not love
d. If I keep my area clean but have not love
e. If I’m a great cook but have not love
f. If I work very hard but have not love
g. If I’m a very serious Christian but have not love
h. If I’m heavily involved in ministry but have not love
i. If I know lots of Bible and theology but have not love
j. ...then I am nothing.
k. If I’m great at talking my way out of the doghouse but have not love then I am nothing.
(1) 1John 3:18 “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”
4. The issue isn’t talent, or drama, or gifts, or eloquence. The issue is love.
5. Great deeds are of no value if done without love, and little deeds are of great value if done for love.
B. So what is this love that is so essential? I’ve told you that I think love in the Bible can be defined as a desire and aspiration for another’s welfare. Well, Paul doesn’t define love here but he tells us what it looks like.
C. 4a Love is patient and kind;
1. Patience doesn’t apply when the other person is pleasing you. In fact, the Greek word here is the Greek word for slow combined with the word for anger. It means slow to anger.
a. It’s describing a way people can react when others are difficult, annoying, obnoxious, offensive.
b. Are you slow to anger? If you are, you very rarely get angry — and it takes a lot to get you there.
2. Kindness is something Paul urges over and over again in his epistles.
a. Kindness comes when another person reveals weakness or need.
b. The Greek word here means good-natured, helpful, adaptable, flexible, open-hearted
c. Kindness is the opposite of what is referred to in 1John 3:17 “If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?”
d. It involves looking for a way to say yes instead of looking for a way to say no.
e. Have you seen the movie, Wit, with Emma Thompson? It’s the story of an English professor who esteems wit and cleverness and intellectual sharpness above other human virtues. But when she contracts cancer and her body fails her and she wastes away in the hospital, she comes to esteem something else above quickness of mind. She comes to see that something else deserves to be treasured above wit and intelligence. When all the doctors with all their smarts have no help to offer her, she learns through a humble, lowly nurse, that the thing which is more worthy of esteem, the thing the scientific doctors can’t offer her is kindness.
3. When I think about kindness I think about the way Joseph set about to divorce Mary: “Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.” (Matthew 1:19)
a. Imagine in the exciting time of being engaged and preparing for a wedding, and you find out that your fiancé has been unfaithful, and not only that but a pregnancy has resulted. (Now, of course, this isn’t what had happened, but it’s what Joseph had to assume.)
b. Most people in that situation would find their love has turned into hate. They would want the other person to look like the bad guy.
c. But because Joseph was a righteous man he didn’t want to put Mary to shame. That’s kindness.
D. 4b love does not envy or boast;
1. These words speak of how love changes the way we react when you or your spouse is blessed or honored.
2. Envy: when the other person gets the praise, reward, attention, etc.
a. Can you rejoice in their success and honor?
b. Some of you, like me, are married to a person who is more loveable than you. How does that make you feel? How do you react when everybody is expressing love for them?
c. If you really love the other person, if you want the best for them, you don’t resent it when they succeed or when they get more praise than you.
3. Boast: when you’re the one who is getting blessed or honored, when you get more than the other person
a. Do you really enjoy being above the other, looking better than the other?
b. Boasting is a way of glorying in how you are above others, instead of humbling ourselves and considering others as better than ourselves (Phil.2:3).
4. Romans 12:15 says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”
a. There’s a part of us that wants to weep when others have reason to rejoice, and to rejoice when others have cause to weep.
5. For many years there was a lot of competition in my marriage, I’m ashamed to say. There was so much pride in the two of us!
E. 4c it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way;
1. Arrogance is thinking you know more than everyone else, thinking your thoughts, ideas, opinions and perspectives are better than everyone else’s.
a. We need to recognize that no matter how smart we are:
(1) we know very little, and have only a tiny picture of what things are really like, and that
(2) our spouse knows and sees things we don’t see, and we need their perspective.
2. Rudeness: What’s so wrong with rudeness? Some people mistake rudeness for honesty: “I’m just saying what I feel or think!”
a. But the book of Proverbs warns us against saying whatever comes to our mind (Prov.12:18, 13:3, 21:23).
b. Some may say: Isn’t your spouse the one person in the world you should be able to say anything to?
(1) No. Your spouse is the one person in the world it’s most important NOT to say anything to, the one person in the world with whom it is most important to be sweet and kind with your words (Col.4:6) — even when that’s not the way you’re being treated or spoken to. “Do not repay evil for evil or insult for insult.” (1Peter 3:9)
3. Not insisting on one’s own way
a. Literally this means, “it does not seek that which is of self.”
b. It is not always wrong to be strong-willed, of course. We should be unshakable when it comes to God’s will, but flexible when it comes to your own.
F. 5c it is not irritable or resentful; (Love has a big effect on how you react to the other person’s sins. Here we see how we react to sins when we are not acting in love.)
1. The word translated irritable in the ESV means easily provoked, easily offended, touchy.
a. We tend to blame others when we get upset. Often you hear people say, “I don’t get provoked unless someone provokes me.”
b. But God blames us for our anger, for our overreaction to the sin of another.
c. “Love covers a multitude of sins.” (1Pet.4:8) But no-love uncovers, publishes and harps on sins.
d. Over-sensitive can mean under-loving.
2. Resentful
a. Literally, the Greek here translated “resentful” means: does not keep track of evils committed.
b. This is grudge-holding.
3. Here are two loveless ways to react to the sin of the other: by becoming angry, and by hiding the anger and becoming bitter.
4. That’s not the way to love. Love covers a multitude of sins and when love demands addressing something, love goes in humility and compassion to address the matter for the sake of edification.
G. 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
1. Love comes from God. It’s not just being nice. A person who truly loves people also loves good and hates evil.
2. Why is it unloving to rejoice in wrongdoing? When you rejoice at wrongdoing you’re rejoicing at someone getting hurt or mistreated or taken advantage of.
H. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1. Love bears all things,
a. No matter how much you get hurt, you keep loving.
2. believes all things,
a. Love means thinking the best, not the worst, of the other.
b. You see, when you love someone, you want the best to be true. When you hate someone, you want the worst to be true.
3. hopes all things,
a. This one is so important. If you love someone, you never lose hope in them, no matter how hopeless they seem. It’s hard to not lose hope — because it means having your heart broken over and over again. And when you keep hoping, you keep opening yourself up to more pain. But that’s love.
4. endures all things.
a. Does this imply that you should stay in an abusive marriage? No. But it does mean you keep loving your abuser even if you leave the marriage.
I. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1. Love never ends. Love isn’t something you try on someone to see how they respond. Love is something you have and keep having for someone.
2. This seems to suggest that if you fall in love and then fall out of love, then it wasn’t love at all.
3. One of the problems with marriage is that people think it’s based on romantic love — the “falling in love” kind of love. But romantic love cannot be the foundation of a healthy marriage. Godly love must be the foundation, the kind of love which you have for another because of the love of God, the kind of love spoken of in 1John 4:7–8: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
III. Application
A. 1Corinthians 13 is not a description of who I am, I’m embarrassed to say. Is it you? Then let’s not be so hard on our spouses.
1. I can’t tell you how often in marital counseling it’s him pointing out her failings and her pointing out his failings.
2. I always tried to avoid giving that impression when my wife and I would get counseling. I knew what it looked like. But I can tell you that when my wife and I were living in bitterness toward one another, there was a part of me that rejoiced in her sins because it gave me more ammunition to feel sorry for myself, to justify my unhappiness in life, to justify my bitterness toward her.
3. I stood ready to judge, looking for more evidence that my wife was a bad wife.
4. And the whole time while I was building a case in my mind that she was the reason for our bad marriage, I was tearing down the marriage by my attitude.
5. Pride is the poison of marriage. Humility is the key to unlock a jammed relationship.
6. What we need is: two people who know they’ve failed and who know they need Christ, two people who know they’ve failed just as much as the other and also need Christ just as much.
7. But even one person realizing these things is a start. Don’t start with your spouse. Start with yourself. Start by apologizing for your own lack of love. Start by pointing the finger at yourself.
B. This is not a description of me, but you know who this IS a description of? Jesus. 1Corinthians 13 is a description of Jesus. It’s a description of Jesus’ love for you and me.
1. His love is patient and kind; it does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It is not self-seeking. It is not not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. His love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And his love never ends.
C. Jesus is the only way for you and me to become like this.
1. Trying harder won’t get you there. You know why? Because we each have a sinful nature. And our sinful natures cause us to love only ourselves.
2. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control: these are the fruits of the Spirit, not the fruits of human effort. (Galatians 5:22–23)
3. The only way for us to love like Christ is if Christ loves in us and through us by His Spirit.
4. Seek Him, go to Him, come clean with Him, rest in Him, enjoy His love for you.