WIVES AND HUSBANDS (23A): WHEN LOVE GIVES UP (Ephesians 5:22-33) Eph 5:28 tells us In the same way

husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. That instruction has taken us to I Cor 13 where God gives a detailed description of love. This defines how we should be toward all fellow-believers, and then more specifically toward our spouse. The Corinthians were prickly people. They were rather like the lady was at the doctors office waiting for treatment for a pulled neck muscle. The nurse poked her head into the waiting room and asked a man who was sitting there, Are you the flu shot? He replied that he was. Then the nurse turned toward the lady. Before she could ask anything, the woman blurted out, Im the pain in the neck. The nurse smiled and said, Dont worry, dear. Hell see you anyway. Thats our theme today how to love even when a fellow-believer or spouse is being a pain in the neck especially then. Three verses will help. I Cor 13:4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5) or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6) it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Last week we looked at what it means to be patient. Next up Kindness. E. Sympathetic 1. The Meaning (28-29a) 2. The Model (29b-30) 3. The Manifestations (29b) a. Patience b. Kindness Love is kind. It takes in not only the word kind in verse 4, but also the opposite Love is not rude in verse 5. Love is kind. It does things in the best interest of others. But Jesus adds an interesting element in Luke 6:35. He saysBut love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. We are to love even our enemies with kindness -- and especially notice expecting nothing in return expecting nothing in return. Kindness is an act performed with no expectations otherwise it is not kindness, but manipulation. A tourist had lost his way back in the hills of West Virginia. After hours of wandering, he came across a hillbilly who lived there. He said to the local, Man, am I glad to see you. I was really lost. The hillbilly asks him, Is
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there a reward out for you? The guy says, Well, no, not that Im aware of. The hillbilly says, Then youre still lost. No reward no kindness! But as a Christian, if we are showing kindness in expectation of a result, then our motives are messed up, and it doesnt count! Kindness seeks nothing in return. It usually gets rewarded, but it is not seeking reward. Our training ground for this is our fellow-believers. Someone has well said, Everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to do the dishes. How true that is. If we would only realize that one of the greatest things we can do as a church and body of believers is to find ways to be kind to each other without any expectations. Eph 4:32 would solve most church and marital problems: Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Simple as it gets, dear friends. In marriage, kindness is about getting back to how we treated each other when we were first dating, right? Most of us have slipped some rather drastically. See if this hits home -- the seven stages of a cold. Your wife comes down with a cold. Here is your reaction: Year 1 Sugar Dumpling, Im really worried about my baby girl. Youve got a bad sniffle and theres no telling about these things. With all the strep going around, Im putting you in the hospital. I know the foods lousy, but Ill bring your meals from the Charco Broiler. Dont you worry. Year 2 Listen, Darling, I dont like the sound of that cough. Ill call and get the doc over here. You go to bed like a good girl and take care of yourself. Ill fix you a nice omelet. Year 3 Maybe youd better lie down, Honey. Nothing like a little rest when you feel lousy. Ill fix something to eat. Any canned soup ard? Year 4 Now look dear, be sensible. After you feed the kids and do the dishes and mop the floor, you better rest up. Get yourself a little nap before you worry about dinner. Year 5 You know that blowing your nose all the time is kind of irritating. Why dont you take a couple of aspirin? Year 6 Why dont you gargle or something instead of sitting around barking like a seal all day long. Youre driving us all nuts! Year 7 For Petes sake. Stop sneezing. Youll give us all pneumonia. Very convicting, dont you think? Kind can turn to rude so easily. But not love. Love is kind. It seeks to give Gods grace to others in kindness c. Contentment
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The next thing we see about love is that it is content. Middle of verse 4: love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant. What you have here are polar opposites. Envy wants what someone else has. Boasting or arrogance brags on what it has. Polar opposites. Love is neither. True love falls dead center between the two. Love is in the place of perfect contentment. The context of Pauls comments in I Cor 13 was the abuse of spiritual gifts. Many in Corinth who did not have the gift of speaking in tongues were envious of those who did. And they were made further envious by the fact that those who had the gift were bragging about it. Tough environment -one group claiming to have a corner on Gods blessing and the other group coveting to get in. But Paul is saying, Guess what? God doesnt live either place because love doesnt live either place. You are all wrong those who envy and those who boast. Neither side is right. Neither side is loving. Where is God? He is in the middle -- at the point of contentment. Happy with whatever God has given and however He has blessed. Love and jealousy are mutually exclusive. Where one is, the other cannot be. Shakespeare called jealousy the green sickness. And churches are not immune. It is so easy to become jealous of the position of another. Why was he or she asked and not me? We can become jealous of the gifts of another and try to do things we are not equipped for, leaving undone that which the Lord has specifically designed us for. But because it is not as showy or as recognized, we disdain to do it. We rob everyone of the contribution God has intended us to make. Love does not envy. It is content. In marriage, this means we love our wives from the depth of our being. It means no looking at other women, whether she is present or not. I know some women say, He can look all he wants as long as he comes home to me. But let me tell you, every look says to your wife, You could do better. You could be better. The hidden message is, Im a little disappointed. It wears away at a womans sense of worth. Of course, admiration for another woman can be expressed, but with extreme care. Our wife must know at all times that not only is she number one in our heart, but there is no one else on the list! Thats our job. Contentment with our wife. The fact is, most of us should continue to be awestruck that she is with us in the first place. As Nancy Astor said, I married beneath me. All women do. And so did yours and so did mine! Envy can take another path too. An insecure husband may jealously guard his wifes every move. He calls it love, but its not. Its distrust and that is
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exactly what it will feel like to her. Its insecurity, and thats what it will look like to the world. You must, with Gods help deal with it. Trust her. Glory in her as a gift of God, but dont drive her away by smothering her. It can happen to anyone. Charles Swindoll, one of the greatest pastors and Bible teachers of our generation, tells in his book The Grace Awakening, how for years he was insecure about his wife, Cynthia. He would drill her with questions petty, probing questions that were no more than veiled accusations. He was smothering her until she confronted him. He sought Gods help to trust his wife. He says, I asked God for grace to help, for relief from the destructive habit I had formed, for the ability to love and give myself to this woman without all the choking conditions. I distinctly recall how much an understanding of grace helped. It was as if grace were finally "awake" in my life. I could appropriate its power for the first time. It seemed to free me, first in small ways, and finally in major areas. I can honestly say that today I do not entertain a single jealous thought. Grace literally wiped the slate clean. Help didnt come easily or quickly, but it came. Love does not envy. Another thing love is characterized by -d. Giving Up Love gives up. Calls it quits? Far from it! What we mean is that for the good of the relationship, it is willing to abandon certain things three to be exact that we find in verse 5, It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful. Love is willing to give up rights, wrath and resentment. Lets look at each briefly. This section really gets practical. Rights Our text reads, It does not insist on its own way. It literally reads, It does not seek its own. Its not out for itself. Very honorable and noble. We all subscribe to it in theory. It is only when it is our own rights that are being violated that we suddenly sing a different tune. Churches are so vulnerable to this. Otherwise kind and loving people suddenly find what they consider to be their rights violated, and they will do anything to protect those rights. It could be rights that they think they have by virtue of position or amount of their giving or expertise in a certain area or seniority as a member but when push comes to shove, they prefer their rights to the health of Gods church. Ive seen churches split over whether to have an organ or not, praise team or choir, simple personality conflicts. The church at Corinth was about to get torn apart one of the reasons being that some people understood that meat that had been offered to idols and then offered for sale was no big deal. They could rightfully eat it in good
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conscience. Pauls advice give up your right for the sake of your weaker brother. He says in I Cor 8:8, Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. 9 But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. What he is saying is for Gods sake give it up. Love calls it quits on rights. It does not insist on its own way. The same applies double to marriage. We are in favor of giving up rights, until our wife says, John, will you watch the kids tonight? There is a Tupperware party at Jans that Id like to go to. Tupperware! Its Monday night. Monday night football. You know I plan my week around that. Its my right. Or, Honey, can you please check that water sprinkler this afternoon? What?! It cant wait? This is Sunday afternoon and you know I take my nap on Sunday afternoon. I work hard all week; surely I could have one hour of uninterrupted peace. We know our rights, do we not? That list is constantly right at our fingertips in our minds. Question: Why are we so defensive for our rights? What compels us to recite them the moment we think they have been violated? Well, we consider that those rights are what will make us happy, right? That is the path to usefulness, fulfillment, happiness and joy. My rights. Take those away and you might as well kill me right now, right? Thats our thought process. If I am not looking out for me, who will? But listen to Jesus words in Luke 17:33, Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. His take is radically different from ours. His take is that the only way to preserve your life, your usefulness, your happiness and your joy is to give your life away. Just give it away. Love calls it quits on rights. It does not insist on its own way. Wrath Secondly, love gives up wrath, expressed as irritation in I Cor 13:5, It does not insist on its own way (rights); it is not irritable (wrath). You say, Irritation isnt wrath. The Bible begs to differ. The dictionary definition of the word used here (, paroxuno) is to cause a state of inward (note inward) arousal, urge on, stimulate, esp. provoke to wrath, irritate. Youd think he would leave us some room to maneuver some little corner that could be ours. How bad is it to be a little irritable at times? But no such relief is in sight. How do we do on this test? The first thing to note about irritation is, it is taking place inside of us. It is our responsibility. We almost never see it that way. To us, irritation is
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caused by the other person. He irritated me no end by doing such and such. His fault see? God urges, see it accurately: He did such and such and I allowed irritation to build inside of me. God urges own what is yours. He may have been wrong, but now -- so are you. She may have done something on purpose, or subconsciously to get a reaction but the point is you own the reaction. Irritation is my flaw. Im responsible. I own it. Irritation is a red flag Im losing it. Me not the other person. A couple of years ago, the Westfield (Massachusetts) Evening News had this item in their police log; A caller reports that her neighbors are having another argument. The responding officer reports the resident was alone and not intoxicated but was having a disagreement with his Christmas tree, which was giving him trouble as he was taking it down. The flaw is internal to us. Irritation is an alarm. This is a test. Wouldnt it be nice if a buzzer would go off when we are about to have the same disagreement with a brother or sister in Christ or with a spouse? Buzz. This is a test. If you proceed in anger, the fault lies within you regardless of what the other person has done. Love is not irritable. So whether or not the other person truly did something wrong or you just think they did all of that is beside the point. Acting in irritation is your fault, your flaw, your problem! We must recognize its all a test. Think of a speck of sand. If the sand gets in the human eye, it causes irritation, then infection, and if not cared for, eventually loss of vision. But put that same speck of sand in an oyster. It causes irritation, then secretion, and eventually the oyster forms a pearl. Was the sand the primary cause of the results in the eye? Was the sand the primary cause of the results in the oyster? No. If it were, the results would be the same. The sand was an agent that revealed the inner properties of the eye and of the oyster. Irritation is a test. We decide the result. Will we continue the devastating cycle of recrimination or will we interrupt the pattern, overcome the irritation and bring peace. What is inside us HS or self? The same sun that melts butter hardens clay. The sun just reveals the inner qualities, and so does irritation. Love is not irritable. Resentment The third things love gives up is at the end of verse 5: It does not insist on its own way (rights); it is not irritable (wrath) or resentful (resentment). Resentment. Very interesting word. It literally means to record in a ledger. You all remember ledgers where you recorded your
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debits on one side and your credits on the other? The picture here is of someone who does that in a relationship. This is the guy who, every time someone does something he considers wrong, he carefully licks his mental pencil and records it. He keeps score. Many of us do this. Most of us do this. Only problem is we are not nearly so careful recording the credits as we are the debits, right? Come on. Be honest now. Were keeping score. We may not even say anything at the time, but two nights later when something else comes up then we spring it. Remember when you said this or did that? Keeping score. Resentment is such a killer not for the one resented but for the one holding the grudge. It takes over our life without us even being aware. I saw one cartoon which showed a wife talking to a marriage counselor about her husband. She says, And then, do you know what he did on our honeymoon, just 21 years ago? Is that sad or what? Yet many of us live with unresolved issues of bitterness and resentment. Folks, love doesnt live there. Love is not resentful. Where there is resentment or bitterness or grudges, love has flown the coop. It cannot coexist with those. One writer has said, Resentment is like taking poison yourself and waiting for the other person to die. Keeping score kills relationships by inches. Give it to God, Beloved. Move on. You are the only one being hurt. e. Openness Eph 5:28, He who loves his wife loves himself. So, how many secrets do we keep from ourselves? Not many, right? And thats why openness, honesty, integrity is another characteristic of love. Openness. No secrets, no skeletons, no hidden life nothing I cant share with others. I Cor 13:6: It (love) does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Pauls point to the Corinthians with this verse was that love would apply the truth of Gods Word to every one of their difficult problems. This is the principle of openness. Where love reigns there are no secrets, no conspiracies against other brothers and sisters and in marriage, no rejoicing in keeping the spouse in the dark, no life so focused in one area that the spouse can never get in. Instead, there is truth. There are many reasons that people close themselves off. It could be perfectly innocent in the sense that it involves no wrongdoing. We are just so focused on our own work or hobby that we have no other life. We kill relationships. Brennan Manning comments in Ragamuffin Gospel, I fear
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for the lawyer whose only life is corporate tax, the doctor whose whole existence is someone elses prostate, the business executive whose single responsibility is to his stockholders, the athlete who puts all his eggs in an 18-inch basket, the theologian who thinks the world can be saved by theology . . . A closed mind kills marriages and human relations: it deadens feelings and sensitivities. It isolates us from fellowship at church and leads to two people living in the same house, but leading separate lives. Are we guilty? Some of us are living a fantasy life. One comedian said, My brother Scott was great at playing hide and seek. He was so good at it that we havent seen him since 1967. That could be any of us men or women -- hiding some shameful habit of habitually flirtatious relationships, unconsciously feeding an insecure ego or perhaps a secret existence devoted to pornography or maybe we are even covering an adulterous relationship. Whatever it is, it is deadly to a loving marriage relationship and we owe it to ourselves to get help if necessary to come out of hiding to live in reality. It is so much better there. Perhaps we are hiding financial dealings. Gambling habit? Money spent in areas we think our spouse would not approve? I heard of one accountant who won an office pool. He was asked if he would report his winnings to the IRS. Before he could answer, a coworker interjected: "He won't even report this to the MRS!" I hope that is not us. Godly love is an open book. Years ago, Donald Grey Barnhouse was counseling a couple who were having marital difficulties. The husband spoke in frustration at one point, saying, But I dont understand it. I have given you anything a woman could want. Ive given you a nice house. Ive given you a car. Ive given you all the clothes you can wear. Ive given you The list went on. At last the man ended and his wife replied sadly, Yes, John. That much is true. You have given me everything everything except yourself. True love gives up envy, rudeness, rights, wrath, resentment and secrecy it gives oneself. It rejoices with the truth. Lets pray.