April 22, Earth Day

Lesson: 1 Corinthians 12:31b-13:5c

Sermon Title: The Comfort of Love

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INTRODUCTION:

  1. There are a lots of things said about love

    1. LOVE CAN BE THE GREATEST SOURCE OF COMFORT IN THE WORLD.

    2. George E. Ross in The Wilderness Word of God (1) tells a story about a terminally ill man and his night nurse.

Yesterday I visited one of our dear friends of this parish in the hospital. The word from the doctor was not good. The days ahead for him are hidden in a cloud, but in that cloud there is a glory, and already he is living in it.

Yesterday morning he awoke to find a note from the night nurse pinned to his pillow:

"I did not want to wake you," she had written, "but I want to thank you for our talk last night. It meant more to me than I can tell you."

"The talk was about her life, her sorrows and some of the tragedies that had come her way and of her many, many years away from God. In the night season they had talked of these things. Out of his faith and through his waves of pain, our friend spoke simply of the Lord he knows and trusts and loves. In the wilderness of the night at Akron General Hospital the Word of God came.

      1. What has been shared between patient and nurse?

      2. Is this an illustration of the Comfort of Love?

    1. Teri Thomas writing in Thursday Mail talks about an experience she had with her grandmother. (2)

Grandma will be 95 years old on Mother's Day. It shouldn't surprise me that she didn't know who I was when I saw her last weekend -- but it did. She knew me at Christmas. Was the marked decline because they had moved her from assisted living to nursing care or had they moved her because of the decline? I guess it really doesn't matter -- she still didn't remember me.

As we sat talking about the insignificant stuff you talk about with people you don't really know, I laid my hand on her back. She immediately leaned forward and as I started rubbing her back she began smiling and purring. When it was time to go, she asked me to come again soon.

The next day when I arrived at her door, she looked up and smiled. "Good morning, Grandma," I said. "Do you remember me today?" "Of course I do," she replied indignantly. "You are the girl who rubs my back."

      1. I guess sometimes what I do is more important than who I am.

      2. What she is, is a person who loves.

      3. She expresses the comfort of love.

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MAIN BODY:

  1. IF LOVE CAN BE THE GREATEST SOURCE OF COMFORT IN THE WORLD WHAT HINDERS THE EXPRESSION OF SUCH COMFORT?

    1. Love is not irritable.

    2. Love is not resentful.

    3. It can help us to meet with confidence and success many of the troubles with which we have to contend.

Shakespeare had a name for them

Scene from Hamlet:

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

  1. The things that happen in life which call be called irritants and may lead to resentment.

    1. I asked the congregation to suggest irritants.

    2. I asked the congregation to suggest resentments.

    3. This was a wonderful exercise with considerable congregational input.

    4. Then I added the following.

  2. Irritations and resentments

    1. Irritations: Petty annoyances and frustrations

      1. List of irritations

        1. Discourteousness

        2. Selfishness

        3. Interruptions

        4. Put downs

        5. Inconsiderateness

        6. Misunderstandings which occur because people do not take the time to check out what is said or done.

          1. We hear something, but we don't quite understand what is being said.

          2. No time is taken to check it out.

        7. Opinions based on conjecture or rumor rather than facts.

          1. It was said.

          2. It was thought.

          3. They said.

        8. Not taking into consideration the life's experience of a person.

          1. You don't know what you are talking about.

          2. You don't know me.

    2. Unresolved irritants can lead to resentment.

Ann Landers in The Washington Post, May 19, 1998, said:

"Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head."

    1. Stop for a moment and think about this question:

      1. How can you tell if inner resentments are lingering beneath the surface of your life?

      2. Dr. Norman Wright offers these hints related to your potential resentments. (3)

          1. You feel like striking back at or telling off those in authority.

          2. You explode for no apparent or obvious reason.

          3. You engage in a power struggle with your spouse and view him or her as your enemy.

          4. You compare yourself with other family members. You either feel inferior to or compete with them.

          5. You make caustic or spiteful comments toward those you love.

          6. You feel unappreciated or left out at work or at home.

          7. You experience bodily complaints which could include stomachaches, headaches, backaches and so on.

          8. Your outlook on life itself is basically pessimistic or negative.

    A school superintendent and his family lived through a time of great tension between the School Board and the teachers' union.

    They even received threats that their home would be burned.

    Their son David had the highest SAT scores in the school, a triple A rating on the tuba, was extremely active in school functions, had an almost 97% average, yet was blackballed from the National Honor Society because of the feud between the administration and the teachers.

    His parents were heartbroken, but after some brief moments of anger and resentment, David announced: I don't need them to tell me who I am.

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  1. There is only one way that I know of to deal positively with irritations and resentments

    1. What does it say in 1 Corinthians 13:5c

    ...it (love) is not irritable or resentful;

    1. How is that going to be accomplished?

      1. The differentiation between like and love.

        1. I am commanded to love without exception.

        2. I am commanded to love all people.

        3. I am not commanded to like all people.

      2. Love is acting rather than reacting.

        1. Talk about Reacting?

    One day at a busy airport, the passengers on a commercial airliner are seated, waiting for the cockpit crew to show up so they can get under way. The pilot and co-pilot finally appear in the rear of the plane, and begin walking up to the cockpit through the center aisle. Both appear to be blind. The pilot is using a white cane, bumping into passengers right and left as he stumbles down the aisle, and the co-pilot is using a guide dog. Both have their eyes covered with huge sunglasses.

    At first the passengers do not react; thinking that it must be some sort of practical joke. However, after a few minutes the engines start revving and the airplane starts moving down the runway. The passengers look at each other with some uneasiness. They start whispering among themselves and look desperately to the stewardesses for reassurance.

    Then the airplane starts accelerating rapidly and people begin panicking. Some passengers are praying, and as the plane gets closer and closer to the end of the runway, the voices are becoming more and more hysterical. Finally, when the airplane has less than 20 feet of runway left, there is a sudden change in the pitch of the shouts as everyone screams at once, and at the very last moment the airplane lifts off and is airborne.

    Up in the cockpit, the copilot breathes a sigh of relief and tells the pilot: You know, one of these days the passengers aren't going to scream, and we're gonna get killed!

    This story is told by Peter Langston, Flying Blind? Fun People Archive, web.langston.com. February 20, 1997. It is not a true story.

        1. What this story does communicate is how we react, rather than act, in many of the experiences in our lives.

    1. What is necessary is the willingness to act on principle rather than feelings.

      1. I feel that I believe that, but I am not sure.

      2. Feelings allow dependence on the other person's sense of what is right and wrong.

      3. Principle means that I am more in control of the situation.

  2. The comfort of love.

    1. The comfort of love is achieved when I become comfortable with the ways in which I am dealing with irritations and resentment.

      1. A high level of understanding of myself.

      2. A high level of understanding of my skills and abilities.

      3. A willingness to avoid blame, or false rationalizations.

      4. A willingness to expose myself to alternative or even hostile opinions.

    2. The comfort of love is developed when I can relate to all kinds of people in all kinds of situations without feeling threatened.

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CONCLUSION

  1. It is a fact that we are going to be hit, and possibly rather frequently, with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

    1. Irritants are like poison ivy.

      1. Poison ivy requires something to soothe, to take the sting out,

        1. Calamine Lotion

      2. The body's natural healing process will eliminate the poison.

    2. Take love along.

      1. Love is the calamine lotion for the soul and the mind.

      2. Only it's better than calamine lotion.

  2. Comfort is a noun: consolation, contentment, plenty.

    1. Comfort is a verb: calm, reassure, soothe.

    2. Comfort is not a state of ease, but a condition of serenity.

    3. It is true, isn't it, that we all want the "Comfort of Love."

    3. Hugging to Life (4)

    A business executive became depressed. Things were not going well at work, and he was bringing his problems home with him every night. Every evening he would eat his dinner in silence, shutting out his wife and five-year-old daughter. Then he would go into the den and read the paper using the newspaper to wall his family out of his life.

    After several nights of this, one evening his daughter took her little hand and pushed the newspaper down. She then jumped into her father's lap, wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him strongly. The father said abruptly, "Honey, you are hugging me to death!" "No, Daddy," the little girl said, "I'm hugging you to life!"

      1. Jesus is hugging us to life.

      2. Accept the comfort of love and share it with those who are irritating and resentful.

Amen.

1. George E. Ross, "The Wilderness Word of God," 8 December 1985.

2. Teri Thomas, Thursday Mail, National Capital Presbytery, May 3, 2000.

3. David Walls, Finding God in the Dark (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books, 1993), 104-105.

4. PreachingNow [preachingnow@preaching.com]

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