Admonition Podcast

 This lesson explores the biblical definition of love, emphasizing its selfless nature and importance in the Christian life. It discusses how love should guide our actions, especially in judging others and handling disputes within the church.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to biblical love and its importance
01:59 Love contrasted with miraculous spiritual gifts
03:55 Love does not behave rudely or seek its own
06:03 God's love exemplified through Christ’s sacrifice
10:57 Handling disputes within the church with love
16:55 Judging matters in the church and the importance of wisdom
23:57 The danger of seeking one’s own and the need for love
30:06 Love and liberty: serving others over self-interest
32:46 Eating food offered to idols and loving others enough to abstain
35:58 The importance of love in Christian liberty and actions
39:50 Invitation to accept Christ and live by love and sacrifice


Creators and Guests

Host
Aaron Cozort

What is Admonition Podcast?

The Admonition podcast brings you Bible lessons and sermons from the Collierville Church of Christ with host Aaron Cozort. Each episode focuses on interpreting Scripture in its original context, exploring the background of key passages, events, and teachings. Gain deeper insight into God’s Word as we study together, applying timeless truths to everyday life.

We've spent some time in the last few weeks discussing the things love is not, the things
love does not do.

We're going to continue that this morning as we open to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, and I
encourage you to have your Bibles open, to go with me through the book of Corinthians,

because Paul, as he's writing about love, we've mentioned this before and we'll say it
again.

He's not writing about love.

In the abstract.

He's not writing about love from a dictionary perspective.

He's not just defining what love is.

And he's not writing about love in a specific context of marriage or of families.

He is writing in a specific context of love in the body of Christ.

He is writing about love as a comparison and a contrast to the miraculous gifts that the
first Corinthian church or the first century church in Corinth had received miraculously

by the laying on of the apostles' hands in the first century.

And they were emboldened in their view of themselves because of these miraculous gifts.

Because they had the ability to speak in tongues, because they had the ability to
prophesy, because they had the ability to do these things that God had given them the

ability to do, and yet they had left off love.

And yet, when Jesus is answering the question concerning what is the greatest commandment
in the law, he doesn't give an explanation concerning.

How to perform a a sacrifice on the altar.

He he doesn't establish the laws and the ordinances of the Old Testament law in all of
their 613.

He dials straight into Deuteronomy chapter 6 and says, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.

And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, on these two hang
all the law and the prophets.

And so Paul, as he is writing to the church at Corinth, will begin by describing how if
they have all of these miraculous gifts, as he opens the chapter.

And they do not have love.

They're nothing.

He writes to them in chapter 13, verse 1 of 1 Corinthians Though I speak with the tongues
of men and of angels and have not love, I have become a sounding brass and a clinging

cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and
though I have all faith that I could remove mountains and have not love, I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,
but have not love, it profits me nothing.

He says, I have produced nothing.

I am nothing, and I have gained nothing.

Verse 4, he writes, Love suffers long and is kind.

Love does not envy, does not parade itself, is not puffed up.

We looked at that two weeks ago.

But he also says love does not behave rudely.

We noticed that last week.

That is to say, love refuses to cause others to be put down so that I might be put up.

It refuses to humiliate.

It refuses to dishonor.

And as we've gone through these lessons, we've noticed in the first twelve chapters of the
book of First Corinthians, Paul has.

Described where the church at Corinth is actively doing every single one of these things.

They have within their membership those who are behaving dishonorably toward their
brethren.

But he goes on to say: love does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not
provoked, thinks no evil.

That's where we're going to spend our time this morning.

Love first does not seek its own.

As Paul writes to these Corinthian brethren, as he writes to them about this fundamental
character of God.

See, John would write to the first century church, and John would say, God

is and he doesn't finish that with speaking in tongues.

He doesn't say God is prophecy.

He doesn't say God is knowledge.

He doesn't say God is faith.

He says God is love.

Paul says, love does not seek its own.

The definition here literally is does not seek the things of itself.

In other words, it does not look at itself and say, you know what?

I am going to care exclusively and with the highest priority about me.

Now,

This is certainly not to say, and is no biblical context to say, that love does not care
for oneself.

Because if that was true, then Jesus' statement in the second describing the second law in
the old testament law would mean nothing.

Because didn't he describe it as thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself?

So

Love, in view of this, in this context, does not mean it has no consideration for itself.

That's not the point.

Rather, that it does not seek its own.

There's an active action here in seeking.

This is to desire and to motivate oneself to passionately fulfill.

Every desire you have for yourself.

Paul says love doesn't do that.

Love doesn't enumerate all of the things that you are interested in and that you value and
you want for yourself.

And now it doesn't matter what happens to everybody else.

We're going to do those things.

Love refuses to make itself the center.

Love asks what is best for someone else, for the other person.

In Roman chapter five.

Paul, as he's writing to the church at Rome, will describe the nature of God's love.

As he writes, beginning in verse 6: For when we were still without strength in due time,
Christ died for the ungodly.

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man, someone would
even dare to die.

But God demonstrates his own love toward us.

Notice the direction of love.

God is love, and the direction of his love is toward us.

Paul says if you have love and your love is entirely self-centered.

That your desires and your passions and your movements and your your energies are all
focused entirely on you.

Then what you have is not love.

Because love doesn't seek its own.

Love is motivated toward someone else.

But notice the rest of the text.

Paul says God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.

You see, God exemplifies this in sending his son to die on the cross for our sins.

What did Jesus say when he was speaking to Nicodemus in John chapter 3?

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

That whosoever notice all of the directional statements in that verse.

It was motivated not for God's concern for Himself, but God's concern for the world.

It involved sacrificing self for the benefit of the world.

It involved creating a path of salvation for the world.

Love does not seek its own.

It says what is best for you instead of what do I get?

But then consider some examples where Paul draws home the problem in the church at
Corinth.

In First Corinthians chapter six.

We read and in verse 1, Paul writes to the church at Corinth, and he says, Dare any of you
having a matter against another go to law before the unrighteous and not before the

saints?

Here's the scenario.

You have the church at Corinth, which is growing.

Which is made up of Jews and Gentiles, which is made up of those who, some of whom were
taught directly by Paul, some who have been taught by other teachers along the way.

And within this congregation, you have individuals who have businesses.

They they have endeavors that they're involved in in their daily lives.

And perhaps the scenario may come where one member of the church does business with
another member of the church.

But as they're accounting for the business that they've done, they realize, you know what,
you didn't do me right.

You you didn't get do what you said you would do.

You didn't give me everything you sold me.

You sold me this much of something, but you delivered this much of it.

And so here are these two members of the body of Christ, and they're saints.

They're Christians.

And one of them is saying, listen, you didn't handle this relationship properly.

And so instead of dealing with it together, instead of dealing it with it in the body of
Christ, this member of the body of Christ says, You have not handled this properly.

You have not delivered what you said you would.

I'm going to go take you to the court in Corinth until you pay me everything you owe me.

Something to observe in this as we go through the text is Paul never says that the person
who's bringing the case isn't justified in bringing the case.

He never says that the one who did wrong to his brother didn't actually do wrong to him.

Rather, Paul's addressing it on a deeper level about the motivation in the heart of the
one who's taking his brother to the courts.

Notice what he says.

He says, Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?

First thing that Paul wants to address is do you not realize what the scripture and what
prophecy has said concerning those who belong to God?

You go all the way back to the life of Noah.

And you find there as the Bible speaks concerning Noah, that not only did Noah find grace
in the eyes of the Lord, but Peter will write concerning Noah that through Noah's life he

preached righteousness, he judged the wicked world that he lived in.

Paul says, Do you not know that the people of God judge the world?

Do you not comprehend that as a Christian you stand in judgment of the world by your
obedience to Christ?

But then he goes on to say, and if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to
judge the smallest matters?

Here you are.

You are a Christian.

You are declaring that the world is lost, that the world is in sin, that the world is in
danger of eternal judgment by your actions, by your life, by your faithfulness to Christ.

You can judge in the single greatest, most weighty matter that there is eternity.

And are you telling me that as a Christian you can't judge on a matter of business?

You can judge the world that they're in sin.

You can judge the world that they stand condemned before God, but you can't judge whether
one Christian or another Christian is right on a matter of business?

He says, Do you not know that we shall judge angels?

How much more things that pertain to this life?

Paul makes it clear that as a Christian, as a person living in this world who has received
the gospel, he says, you stand in a position of honor and judgment even before the angels

in heaven.

Consider what Jesus would say and what Paul would point out.

Even the angels believe.

They know who Jesus is, they know what his what authority he has.

But those who follow Satan, they know it doesn't mean they obey him.

Paul says, You're going to stand in judgment before angels as one who has been obedient to
the message of Jesus Christ.

So you can judge the world and you can judge the angels.

How is it you can't be considered wise enough and faithful enough to the Word of God to
judge on a matter of this life?

He goes on to say, verse 4 If then you have judgments concerning things pertaining to this
life, if you're seeking a judgment, you have a matter.

That needs to be judged.

But it's not about eternal matters, it's not about spiritual matters.

It's about a matter in this life, he says.

If then you have judgments concerning things pertaining to this life, do you appoint those
who are least esteemed by the church to judge?

You've got a matter you need to deal with.

I tell you what, I know that that judge worships at the altar of Zeus, and I know that
that judge goes out and commits fornication with the worshipers of the altar of Zeus.

And I know that judge is dishonest and accepts bribes, but here's what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna take my matter that I have with my brother in the body of Christ, and the two of
us, Christians, are gonna go stand before that judge to get him decide on a matter.

Paul says, I say this to your shame.

Is it so that there is not a wise man among you, not even one who will be able to judge
between his brethren?

Moses, look over the congregation.

Look around you in the body of Christ.

Can you not find one man who's got any wisdom?

Can you not find one Christian with a shred of wisdom, so much so that they would become a
Christian, and they are therefore in a better position to judge matters of morality and

rightness and justice than the world?

Can you not find a Christian who can judge on this matter?

But brother goes to law against brother and that before unbelievers.

Paul says, I'm going to declare this as shameful as it is.

He says, No.

Sorry, verse seven.

Now, therefore, it is already.

Look at this language that Paul uses.

He's used shame, unbelievers, and he says, now it is already an utter failure, as the New
King James translates it.

You have missed it in every degree at every point.

In this scenario.

He says it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another.

Now here's the question.

Here's the position where we draw back to love does not seek its own.

Paul says, why do you not rather accept Rome?

Paul says, if you were to give me the option, am I going to take another person in the
body of Christ, a Christian, and in perspective of that, the reputation of the body of

Christ, and take it before a judge.

To allow an ungodly judge and an unrighteous person to declare one who is my brother and
by reputation the church to be an ungodly entity, an unjust entity, someone participating

in wrong.

He says, if you give me that choice or the choice to accept wrong done against me, I'll
tell you which I'm taking.

You do wrong to me all you want, but don't you dare do wrong to the church.

Don't I dare do wrong to the church by taking it before a judge?

He says, Why do you not rather accept wrong?

Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated?

No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren.

Notice Paul's not letting the guilty party off.

Paul is in no way allowing the guilty party who has done this to get away with it.

Paul needs to address first their heart.

And by the way, one of the things that you see here is you see a scenario very similar to
the wicked servant.

You remember the parable that Jesus gave?

The king had a servant who owed him a great debt.

A debt so large he would never be able to pay it.

And he brings the servant before him and he says, You're going to have to be vanquished uh
vanquished, your your your family's gonna be sold, we're going to regain everything we

can, fire sale, this servant gone.

And the servant says, Give me time, give me time, and I will repay all of it.

And the king, knowing it is impossible for the servant to ever pay the debt, forgives the
debt.

The servant then, having been forgiven, goes out, finds a servant who owes him money.

And turns around and takes the servant who's under his authority and throws him in prison
and says, You're not getting out of prison until you pay me every penny.

had authority.

So the king calls for the servant who he had forgiven.

When he sees what the servant has done, what did I forgive you?

You had a debt you could never have paid.

And now you go and hold someone guilty and will not forgive a debt which they could have
paid?

Here's a Christian.

who could never have paid the debt of sin that they owed God.

And they turn around and tell another Christian, if you don't pay me what you owe me, I'm
going to get you sent to prison and to judgment and I'm going to pull you before the

court.

You see the parallel?

Paul says, why do you not rather let yourself be cheated?

The real question he's asking is, haven't you done worse to God?

Don't you owe a debt you can't pay?

Haven't you defrauded the one who came and sacrificed his son for you?

He goes on to say, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of
God?

Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals,
nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners

will inherit the kingdom of God, and such

W some of

um In direct parallel to Jesus' parable.

Paul says, I want you to look at where you came from.

You want to be justified.

You want to be repaid.

You want to be made whole?

Let's examine whether you can make God whole.

Let's examine whether you can repay the debt you owe.

Mm-hmm.

Paul says, and such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, but you
were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

Paul says, show me where you repaid your debt.

I know your condition.

I know that you stand sanctified and justified.

I know that he made you holy, but he made holy.

And how did he do it?

He did it by the love that he had for you.

And here you are seeking your own.

Here you are only worried about your debts that others owe you.

Here you are only worried about you being made whole.

And you're willing to take the reputation of the church and draw it before the courts, the
body in which you found justification.

And sanctification and forgiveness.

Chapter eight.

Mm.

Paul will write in chapter 8, verse 1.

Now concerning things offered to idols, we know that we all have knowledge.

Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.

And if any one thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing, yet as he ought to know.

But if anyone loves God, this one is known by him.

Therefore, concerning the things, the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an
idol is nothing in this world, and that there is no other God but one.

For even if you there are so called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there are many
gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father, who for whom of excuse me,

of whom are all things, and we for him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all
things and through whom we live.

However, there is not in everyone that knowledge.

For some with consciousness of the idol, until now eat it as a thing offered to an idol,
and their conscience being weak is defiled.

But food does not commend us to God.

For neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we do not eat are we the worse.

But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are
weak.

For if anyone sees you who have knowledge,

Eating in an idol's temple.

Will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to
idols?

And because your knowledge uh shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died.

And but when you thus sin against the brethren and wound their weak conscience, you sin
against Christ.

Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my
brother stumble.

Paul, as he draws forward this point, to another scenario.

This one concerning the meats that were sold in the marketplace and the eating of the
meats there in the marketplace where the temples were.

Paul says here, you've got two brethren.

One brother is

Knows that an idol is nothing.

He's read the book of Isaiah.

He knows what happened to create that idol.

The man went out into the forest and he chopped down a tree.

And with the tree, he cut up some wood to make a fire, some wood to build his house, and
some wood that he had left over.

He made an idol.

And then he set it up and then bowed down and worshipped it.

And God's point in Isaiah, and God's point to the Corinthians is that idol is nothing.

It's a stick that was in the woods.

And someone decided to worship it.

And Paul says, I happen to know also that there are those around who are called lords.

They are called gods.

There are those who walk through the streets who are honored as gods.

He says, I also know they're nothing.

But some of your brethren don't understand that.

Some of those Christians in your church don't fully comprehend that because they're
novices, because they're weak, because their conscience has not been fully trained by the

knowledge of the Word of God.

And so they walk into the marketplace and all they see is the paganism they used to be
involved in.

All they see are the idols that they used to worship when they were ignorant and unlearned
and unknowledgeable of the true God.

And they walk in and they see a brother sitting in an idol's temple eating the food.

And for them to do that, to join their brother, would be to violate their own conscience.

And Paul says, here's what you're doing.

You're not guarding them, you're creating a stumbling block for them.

You're saying, I have the liberty to do this because I know that this idol is nothing.

But when they come do it with you, they're violating their conscience and they're sinning.

And Paul says, Lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who
are weak?

For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will not the
conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols?

But in doing so, he'll violate his conscience?

And because of your knowledge shall the weak

Brother perish for whom Christ died.

Paul says, you absolutely have the liberty.

You absolutely have the freedom.

But will you use your liberty and your freedom to cause your brother to stumble and to
fall?

And Christ paid his debt.

Paul says you're only thinking about yourself.

You're not practicing love because Christ loved you enough to die for you, and you don't
even love your brother enough to not eat meat that will cause him to stumble.

He says, Because of your knowledge, shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died?

But when you thus, and notice what the phrase is.

Sin against the brethren.

Paul says, you're sinning against your brother.

By your liberty, by what you claim you have every right to do because you have knowledge
concerning these spiritual matters, you are violating your trust with your brother, and

you're sinning against him.

He goes on to say But when you thus sin against the brethren and wound their weak
conscience, you sin against Christ.

Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, Paul says, I will never again eat meat lest I
make my brother stumble.

Paul says, I'm not going to seek my own.

I'll rather sacrifice so that my brother gets the benefit.

But then consider as well 1 Corinthians chapter 10.

First Corinthians chapter ten.

Paul has brought up the Old Testament example of Israel and their lack of faithfulness
toward God.

And he has told the Christians in Corinth verse 14 Therefore, my beloved brethren, flee
from idolatry.

I speak as to a wise man, judge for yourselves what I say.

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?

The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?

For we, though many, are one bread and one body.

For we are all partakers of that one bread.

Observe, Israel, after the flesh.

Are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?

What am I saying then?

That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything?

Rather that the things which

The Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God.

And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.

You cannot partake of the Lord's table and of the table of demons, or do we provoke the
Lord to jealousy?

Are we stronger than He?

All these things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.

All things are lawful for me, but not all things edify.

Paul is establishing everything that God said was good is good.

But it doesn't mean that everything that God said is good and is lawful should be done.

Because sometimes it doesn't edify.

Sometimes it doesn't build others up.

Sometimes it tears them down.

He goes on to say, let no one seek his own, but each one his other's well-being.

What Paul is essentially saying is, you know, everything God said was good in this world.

Everything God created and said was lawful.

It is.

But you better measure whether you should participate in it based upon your love for one
another first.

Because not everything is edifying, not everything is building up some things that you
say, well, this is good, therefore I can do it.

Some things will tear down.

He goes on to say, verse 25: Eat whatever is sold in the meat market, asking no questions
for conscience' sake.

He says, When you walk into the market and you see a piece of meat and it's for sale, buy
the piece of meat, take it home, and eat it.

Don't ask them what they did to it before you got to the market.

Don't ask them if it was sacrificed to an idol.

Don't ask any questions, just eat the meat.

But then he says, Whatever sold the meat market, asking no questions for conscience' sake,
for the earth is the Lord's and all its fullness.

If any of those who do not believe invites you to dinner and you desire to go, eat
whatever is said before you, asking no questions for conscience sake.

He says, Gentile pagan out there in the world in Corinth, they invite you over for dinner.

You walk into the house, you don't ask them what they did with the food before you got
there.

You don't ask them if they took the food and they put it on the altar to their house God
and offered it as a sacrifice before they put it on the table.

You walk in knowing full well that even if they did, the all the idol that they offered it
to is nothing.

And that everything belongs to the Lord.

He says, But if anyone says to you, this was offered to idols, they invite you in, you
walk into the house of the pagan, you walk into the house of this Gentile, and you walk

in, and they say, Now I want you to know we have blessed this food by offering it to the
gods.

Paul says If they say to you this was offered to idols, do not eat it for the sake of the
one who told you.

Notice the love isn't exclusively toward other Christians.

Paul said, You need to love that person who's lost enough to not eat the food.

To demonstrate that their God is not God.

He says, But if anyone says to you, this was offered to idols, do not eat it for the sake
of the one who told you, and for conscience' sake.

For the earth is the Lord's and all its fullness.

Conscience, I say, not your own.

But that of the other.

For why is my liberty judged by another man's conscience?

He says, I know what you're gonna argue.

I know what you're gonna say.

You're gonna say, But I have every right to eat that food.

That food has nothing wrong with it.

There's no problem with that food.

He says, I know.

And you're gonna ask why your liberty should be restricted by another man's conscience.

He says, But if I partake with thanks, why am I evil spoken of for the food over which I
give thanks?

Therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Give no offense, either to the Jew, or to the Greeks, or to the church of God.

Just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of
many that they are.

May be savd.

Paul says, Let me tell you something about what matters more than your liberty.

Let me tell you something about what matters more than you being made whole.

Let me tell you something that matters more than you being justified in your actions.

that other person's soul.

Because Christ died that that person might be saved.

But you're impeding their salvation through your liberty, through your rights.

in the body of Christ, we have the right to do many things.

But we have the obligation to love one another.

And to not put our liberty or our position or our justification or our being made whole in
front of the thing that matters far more.

And that is another person's soul.

If you have need of the invitation this morning, there is a

Lord, and there is a Christ who died on the cross for your sins, who shed his blood that
you might be made whole.

He paid a debt, the song says.

He did not owe.

I owed a debt I could not pay.

When we consider our actions as Christians, if you're a member of the body of Christ, may
you always measure your actions first on your debt to God, and second on the benefit to

your brethren, and thirdly on the opportunity of

that this thing may provide or remove for a lost person to find Christ.

If you have need of the invitation this morning, why not come now as we stand and as we
sing?