“31 But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way. 1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient. Love is kind. it does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. 5 It is not rude. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. 6 It does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts...”
I prefer to assume that you believe the best about me. I imagine that you want me to believe the best about you. If there is a way for you to interpret my actions and my decisions charitably, I like to believe that you make that choice. I imagine that you want others, including me, to do the same about your actions and decisions. I think we all want this. In other words, we all want love.
The rub, as you know, is that others do not always believe the best about you. The rub, as you know, is that you do not always believe the best about others. Sometimes people fail to treat you the way that they want to be treated and sometimes you fail to treat others the way that you want to be treated. In other words, we want to experience but don’t always demonstrate the Golden Rule, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” You want to experience love, but you don’t always receive it and you don’t always extend it.
Love is the sum and substance of the law of God. Commandment keeping does not consist in using God’s law to find fault with others. Commandment keeping includes believing the best about others. Commandment keeping includes interpreting the actions and decisions of others charitably. Commandment keeping looks like love and love believes the best. Love interprets life charitably. That is the claim of this sermon: love interprets life charitably.
We will study this in two points. First: distrusting everything. Second: love believes the best.
First: distrusting everything. I want to love. Thirteen weeks into this study, I’m continuing to see how very difficult it is to love. It truly is impossible without the Spirit of God. Before we started this study, I was praying about our time in 1 Corinthians 13 with a friend in Virginia. He prayed that it would be transformative for us as a church. I hope that it is transformative for all of us. I hope that the Holy Spirit works powerfully to bear His clearest mark in your life and in my life. That mark is love. I hope that we love better and more often as a result of this study.
The problem, of course, is that our flesh, the persuasive power of the world, and the schemes of the devil pull us away from love. I don’t even realize it when I’m being pulled away. I wish that my phone had an app that would sound an alarm when I was heading away from this love of 1 Corinthians 13.
I imagine that you are the same. I imagine that you want to interpret everything charitably, but you sometimes find yourself suspicious of others or even cynical about humanity. In his study on 1 Corinthians 13, Wayne Mack says that suspicion and cynicism oppose love. They distrust everything, while love believes the best.
Think back to a time when someone was suspicious of you. Think back to a time when you were lumped together with a family member’s cynical assessment of millennials or baby boomers. I dare say that those moments did not make the impact of love.
If you want to love, you need to beware of suspicion and cynicism. You need to beware of suspicion. Elvis Presley knew that. His last big hit was Suspicious Minds. He didn’t write it. Mark James did. When Mark James’s version flopped, Elvis scooped it up and released it in 1969. “Why can’t you see what you’re doing to me when you don’t believe a word I say? We can’t go on together with suspicious minds. And we can’t build our dreams on suspicious minds.” You can’t build any sort of love on suspicion and that includes your relationships with the people you are sitting nearest to right now.
Suspicion was the driving force in Shakespeare’s play Othello. The title character becomes so consumed by suspicion that he winds up murdering his wife. Love cannot grow in suspicious soil.
A church certainly can’t grow in suspicious soil. The church takes parts of the love that Elvis sang about and Shakespeare wrote about and applies it not to one person whom you find attractive but to a whole group of people some of whom might be competitors in business, some of whom might think quite differently from you, and some of whom you might find rather irksome. Church is filled with people who have different political affiliations. Church is filled with parents who send their children to different schools. Church is filled with children who are part of different schools. Suspicious minds are just as much a threat to church as they are to romance.
Please check yourself for suspicion. Don’t believe the worst. Check yourself for cynicism. Love believes the best, but cynicism considers itself to be too smart to believe the best. Whether you want to or not, you live in a very cynical age. In 2020, we Americans seem to think that we can see through one another. We think we know each other’s true and unworthy hearts. We have become rather cynical. There is no love in this cynicism.
Cynicism is the art of never being proven wrong. Cynicism is the art of never entrusting yourself to anything because everything can disappoint. Such cynicism is like toxic waste poured upon soil that makes it impossible for anything fruitful to grow.
You might be cynical without knowing it. “The genius of cynicism,” writes Dick Keyes, “is that it is a voice in your ear it does not usually hang around long enough to be interviewed. It is usually expressed in innuendos, passing remarks, moods, cartoons, hints, insinuations, unacknowledged assumptions, and jokes.” Perhaps you find it hard to love because you find it so easy to be cynical. Perhaps you find it hard to believe the best because you find it so easy to believe the worst. It is worth considering.
Please check yourself for suspicion. Don’t believe the worst. Check yourself for cynicism. Don’t believe the worst. Check yourself for a party spirit. In that same study on 1 Corinthians 13, Wayne Mack writes, “What does it mean to have a love that believes all things? It means that we must be careful of criticizing with a party spirit.”
A party spirit sees only the wisdom of our choice and only the faults in the other. It believes that our side is inescapably reasonable and the other side is inescapably irrational. It believes that we are nuanced enough to maintain our position even when we have our own reasonable concerns with our side but the other side mindlessly follows. It would be easy to apply this to religion. It would be easy to apply this to denominations, but let’s apply this to our desire for unity in this congregation.
When I candidated here, the matter of school choice came up. This church has children in many different schools. That need not be an obstacle to unity, but it can be. You said you wanted to be unified. That’s good and right. I think that 1 Corinthians 13 is part of the answer, which means that a party spirit is not part of the answer.
Reading about “Drag Queen Story Hour” at Public School 118 in Brooklyn and then painting local public schools with that same brush is not part of the answer. Dismissing Christian education because a group of Christian high students you know drink themselves blind on Saturday night and then go to church on Sunday morning is not part of the answer. Those are manifestations of a party spirit. 1 Corinthians 13 is part of the answer and you need to determine whether you will choose to interpret charitably. As we will see in a moment, believing the best doesn’t mean that you believe anything, but it certainly means that you don’t believe the worst. That is never experienced as love.
We all need to beware of suspicion. We all need to beware of cynicism. We all need to beware of a party spirit. We all need to beware of becoming the sort of person we never wanted to be. Jerry Bridges wrote about this sort of person saying, “Most of us can slip into the sin of judgmentalism from time to time. But there are those among us who practice it continually. These people have what I call a critical spirit. They look and find fault with everyone and everything. Regardless of the topic of conversation—whether it is a person, a church, an event, or anything—they end up speaking in a disparaging manner.”
You don’t want to be the sort of person who looks for the worst. You don’t want to be that sort of person, in part, because no one wants to spend time with that sort of person. All of us are a bit antsy around people who habitually believe and pronounce the worst about everyone and everything. We are all a bit antsy around such people because we fear that they believe and declare the worst about us. If you have a critical spirit, such antsiness may be how people experience your company. It is worth considering.
If you fear that you are on that trajectory, I beg you to change. Don’t look for the worst in everything. Don’t interpret others’ actions and decisions in an uncharitable light. Jesus will not stand for it. He said, “in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
You don’t want him to interpret your actions and decisions uncharitably. If you keep going down this trajectory, beware lest you find yourself in an eternity of interpreting everything in the worst possible light and having everything about you interpreted in the worst possible light. That is hellish in this life. That is hell in the next life.
The love of God calls you to choose to believe the best, but it isn’t exactly true to say that God chooses to believe the best. That is not to say that God chooses to believe the worst; rather, it is an acknowledgement that believing the best doesn’t make sense for God because God knows all. We must believe the best because we can’t know the heart in its fullness. God does. So it doesn’t make sense for God to believe the best. However, I think it is fair to say that God does interpret life charitably.
Think about God and David. David violated Bathsheba. He committed murder. He did repent, but do you think David understood the full horror of everything he did when he first repented? No, it is more likely that he just understood a fraction of it. He probably didn’t understand its fullness even before he died. He repented from his heart, but it is doubtful that he or any of us ever repent with all our heart. We are always works in progress. However, God interprets our repentance charitably. He accept David’s confession with its imperfections.
God doesn’t interpret us according to the worst possible light. Consider Jesus and the thief on the cross. You don’t get a complete profession of faith from that thief. He didn’t understand the fullness of what he said when he asked Jesus to remember him when he came into his kingdom. We read such understanding back into his words. That man was grasping, but Jesus interpreted that man’s intentions charitably and said, “today you will be with me in paradise.”
Jesus didn’t treat that thief with suspicion. “You’re just begging for my help because you are as good as dead.” Jesus didn’t treat that thief with cynicism. “Who knows what you would do if I set you free from that cross.”
Perhaps you’ve spent your life believing in a God who does believe the worst. Perhaps you’ve spent your life believing in a God who is about an inch away from sending everyone to hell. Remember that God is best seen in His Son. Remember that His Son’s character is best seen on the cross. Remember that a cross is not a symbol of a suspicious, cynical God. It is the clearest picture we have of the God who loves. He has loved you so that you can show the love you’ve received.
He has loved you. Love others. Believe the best about them. That is the second point of this sermon: love believes the best.
Believing the best does not mean that you believe anything. Proverbs 14:15 is as true as 1 Corinthians 13:7, “The simple believe anything, but the prudent give thought to their steps.”
Paul wasn’t urging the Corinthians towards naïveté. I find a man riffling through my wallet. ‘Sir, that’s my credit card.’ ‘No, I’m Adam Eezenga.’ ‘Well, love believes all things.’
Paul was not telling the Corinthians to unlearn the “way of distinguishing black from white” as Calvin put it; rather he was urging, “kindness in judging things.” Paul was not urging a love that is gullible, as DA Carson explained. He was urging a love that, “prefers to be generous in its openness and acceptance rather than suspicious or cynical.”
Choose love. “Love will always opt for the most favorable possibility,” said John MacArthur. “If a loved one is accused of something wrong, love will consider him innocent until proven guilty. If he turns out to be guilty, love will give him credit for the best motive.” The trick here, of course, is to treat everyone as if they were your loved ones. That’s what 1 Corinthians 13 is about.
Opt for the most favorable possibility. Perhaps something I’ve said in this sermon has rubbed you the wrong way. What’s the most favorable way to interpret what I’ve said?
Credit others with the best possible motive. Perhaps I’ve said something genuinely reckless or phrased something in a foolish manner in this or another sermon. Credit me with the best possible motive. Imagine your son saying what I said. What might he be trying to achieve?
Believe the best. Imagine the marital discord that could be resolved if both partners believed the best about each other’s motives and actions. Imagine the fights that could be avoided if we parents instinctively credited our children with the best possible motives. Imagine the fights that could be avoided if we children instinctively credited our parents with the best possible motives.
“What does it mean to have a love that believes all things?” asks Wayne Mack. “It means that we must be very careful about judging the motives of others… Too many times we try to take over the Holy Spirit’s role. The Holy Spirit can read what’s going on inside others’ hearts—we can’t.”
Now since you can’t know all that is going on in someone else’s heart, why not believe the best? You would be so much happier.
It would also make church so much happier. I only have a couple years of interactions with you, but some of you have decades of interactions with each other. That is plenty of time for misunderstandings to develop. That is plenty of opportunity for you to interpret the worst about each other. That’s plenty of opportunity for you to say something foolish to a woman and then avoid getting close to her because you are afraid of what she might think about you. That’s plenty of opportunity to grow suspicious and cynical about each other. That’s plenty of opportunities for sides to develop on any host of issues and a party spirit to arise. Put that to death. If we are going to go anywhere, we need to put this to death.
Choose to believe the best. You believe the best by recognizing that God is incredibly charitable. He isn’t cynical about you. He isn’t suspicious about you. If He were, He never would have sent His Son to die for you. If He were, He never would have sent His Spirit to live in you. God’s love is very charitable towards you. Charity you have received and charity you must extend.
You believe the best by recognizing that God is incredibly charitable. You also believe the best by recognizing what is good. Certain people split the world into optimists and pessimists. Certain people like to split the world into optimists and realists. Now, I don’t think those are the most helpful categories, but I do think that realists, like Paul, remember that God is at work.
Realists like Paul remember, “This is my Father’s world He shines in all that’s fair. In rustling grass I hear him pass He speaks to me everywhere. This is my Father's world. The battle is not done. Jesus who died shall be satisfied, and earth and heaven will be one.” That’s what realists remember. You don’t see that when you try to see through people. You don’t see that when you fail to interpret charitably. You only see that when you recognize the good.
If you want to read a book that recognizes the good, read Gilead. This novel might be my favorite book. I recounted one section of it last week thinking about Robert Boughton and his wayward son Jack. The book’s narrator, John Ames, interprets everything charitably by simply recognizing what’s good. He looks outside and sees his little boy with his friend in the sprinkler. He writes, “you two are dancing around in your iridescent little downpour, whooping and stomping as sane people ought to do when they encounter a thing so miraculous as water.” He tells his son, “There is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.” As he nears his own death, he tells his little boy, “I’m writing this in part to tell you that if you ever wonder what you’ve done in your life, and everyone does wonder sooner or later, you have been God’s grace to me, a miracle, something more than a miracle. You may not remember me very well at all, and it may seem to you to be no great thing to have been the good child of an old man in a shabby little town you will no doubt leave behind. If only I had the words to tell you.”
I dare say that you would rather spend time with that man than with a man is suspicious, cynical, and prone to a party spirit. I dare say that you would rather be a man or woman who looks for the good.
You believe the best by recognizing that God is incredibly charitable. You believe the best by recognizing what is good. You also believe the best by recognizing that you don’t have the whole picture. I’m sure you’ve caught yourself believing the worst about someone only to find out that you didn’t have the whole picture. Saul found himself believing the worst about Jesus only to find out that he didn’t have the whole picture. That’s what led to the words, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
Trisha Yearwood launched her career with a story about not having the whole picture. I’m thinking about her 1991 hit She’s In Love with the Boy. ‘Katie and Tommy at the drive-in movie parked in the very last row. They’re too busy holding on to one another to even care about the show. Later on outside the Tasty Freeze Tommy slips something on her hand. He says my high school ring will have to do ‘til I can buy a wedding band. Her daddy says [that boy] ain’t worth a lick. When it comes to brains he got the short end of the stick, but Katie’s young and man she just don’t care; she’d follow Tommy anywhere. Her daddy’s waitin’ up ‘til half past twelve when they come sneakin’ up the walk; he says young lady get on up to your room while me and junior have a talk. Momma breaks in says, “don’t lose your temper. It wasn’t very long ago that you yourself was just a hay seed plow boy who didn’t have a row to hoe. My daddy said you wasn’t worth a lick; when it came to brains you got the short of the stick, but he was wrong and, honey, you are too. Katie looks at Tommy like I still look at you.”’
That mother was telling that father, “honey, my dad didn’t have the whole picture about you. He chose to believe the worst about you. I saw the good. I still see it. Honey, you are believing the worst about Tommy even though I’ve loved you with a love that believes the best. Stop.”
Perhaps God is saying something similar to you this morning. Perhaps you are believing the worst about people in this sanctuary. Perhaps you have grown suspicious of friends. Perhaps you have grown cynical about humanity. Perhaps you’ve developed a party spirit and think you can see through the other side. Jesus didn’t die so that you would live that way. He has been very charitable with you.
Now, if you don’t know this sort of charitable love, come to Jesus. You are never going to be able to give what you haven’t received. If you’ve wandered from this love, come to Jesus. You can only give what you are receiving. You’ve received charity. Be charitable. Amen.