Dennis Tuuri

You might have noticed that Psalm 41 both in our responsive version and the singing version ended with a doxology. That’s because it’s the last psalm rather in book one of the Psalter. Psalms 1-41 represent the first book, and the five books of the Psalms are marked off for us by these doxologies at the end. And so it’s good we learn a version of Psalm 41. We know of course Psalm 72. You know, I suppose that’s a way for a church to develop priority of Psalms is to know the first and last book of a collection.

Makes a lot of sense as you dive into the rest of it. Begins to help us to think in an ordered way about the scriptures. I’m happy that we’re here today. We give thanks to God in this country for the freedom to assemble and worship. And that’s a good thing. We kind of take it for granted. I’m glad that this building isn’t cited in North Portland this morning. Some of you know that within a large boundary area of North Portland, it’s been barricaded off and you can go to church if you’re going in there to go to church, but you got to be accompanied by a police officer or somebody.

This is more global warming stuff and it’s stuff that, you know, I hope we, you know, we take seriously the warning signs. I wonder where are the men in that community. It’s not the subject of my sermon today though, but it is a matter of grave concern to me.

Okay. Today we’re going to talk about 1 Corinthians 13, which I guess I need to preach to myself this morning in a proper response to some of the things that go on in our culture that seem so foolish. And of course, the time they choose for this blockoff is Sunday morning. Ends at 2:00.

Please stand for the reading of 1 Corinthians 13. And we’ll all try to be led by the spirit as we think about it.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I’m become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profits me nothing.

Charity suffereth long, and is kind. Charity envieth not. Charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth. But whether there be prophecies, they shall fail. Whether there be tongues, they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. But we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, and that which is in part shall be done away.

When I was a child, I spake as a child. I understood as a child. I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now, we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then shall I know, even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for this wonderful text before us, so well known to us. Help us not to be so familiar with it that we don’t understand what it says or we stop listening to it in a corrective way of who we are. Bless us, Lord God, with a biblical understanding of this text. By your spirit in Jesus name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Well, I chose the King James version. It’s not a King James day. I think we were using a King James in one of the responsive readings, but I didn’t choose it for that reason. I chose King James because I like the word “charity” in there. It’s the name of my youngest daughter and it is the old-fashioned word for love. And this text before us kind of brings us back to that.

Today happens to be my anniversary. Christine and I, 33 years. And so this is a wonderful day for me to preach on love. But I didn’t really intend that either. That was kind of an afterthought. The way it is, the reason I chose this text is because of something Doug Wilson told me years ago. I was at a Grayfriar’s refresher. Many of you have heard this story. Not much of a story at this point.

And he was—I don’t know if they still do them or not, but Grayfriar’s is their seminary. And so they would have present attendees of their seminary and those that had graduated come to this Grayfriar’s refresher course. And it was also open for a year or two to other CRC ministers that wanted to come to it. And so the idea was that it’s kind of more informal. Well, there was some formal Hebrew refresher course, et cetera. But Doug was talking about being a pastor.

And one of the things he mentioned was that at Christ Church, there always have a dozen or so things that could completely destroy the church, completely blow it up going on at any one time over there. And I remember the time kind of thinking, “Wow, you know, and well, you know, they’re a lot bigger than we are.” And I wouldn’t say there’s always a dozen things that could blow up this church going on at one time. There’s usually a couple, three of them. Personal situations, big ticket items, you know, whether it’s a personal problem happening or whether it’s, you know, a bigger issue that’s become part of the culture of the church in a perhaps contentious way or divisive way.

This last week for me was interesting preparation again for my sermon. You know, I was involved in all kinds of very intense matters this week, both within RCC, both in pastoral work, both in relationship to our school, relationship to the CRC. Two pastors getting counsel from me, one a very intense matter. So there are always these things going on that have to be worked through in a biblical way.

And I think 1 Corinthians 13 informs us that the things going on in your life are not the same list of things going on in my life. They intersect at points, but I’m sure in your life various things are going on that are troubling or difficult—you know, problems in relationships or whatever. And for 1 Corinthians 13 is a kind of a primer on how we’re to be Christian about going about these problems.

Even on a global scale, there’s a meeting called Gafcon that’s meeting this coming week in Jerusalem, and this appears to be the beginning of a formal Federal Vision split of the Anglican community. The Archbishop of Australia scheduled this conference and using some very sober words in what they’re trying to accomplish. They held it at Jerusalem. Lambeth—the Lambeth Conference—every 10 years the Archbishop of Canterbury, the titular head of the Anglican church, presides at Lambeth and they sort of talk about matters of the church and a lot of people are thinking this Gafcon people—I think it’s global—something you know, they should have waited for Lambeth. Well, they didn’t, because they don’t want to wait. They want to inform Lambeth by their own declarations. You know, look, we don’t know why we’ve got to go to England, we don’t know why the Archbishop is the guy, and we sure don’t like those Americans because the American church are the ones that have introduced the homosexual problem in the context of the English community. This country is now troubling a worldwide community—a very important element of the church of God—by the foolishness of allowing homosexuality.

Now that’s important to bring into discussion of 1 Corinthians 13 because if you abstract 1 Corinthians 13 into a set of platonic virtues, your response to homosexuality is to be patient and kind to them and that’s it. So we want to see, and the rest of it you can imagine how it would go, and this is what a lot of people use 1 Corinthians 13 as and I think that’s not appropriating it correctly. But it is certainly what we should turn to for direction on a regular basis in terms of how we interact with other people, particularly in difficult situations.

The handout—the second page, I think of the handout—there’s one page that’s just the verses set out, the section describing love. And I’ve given this out years ago at RCC. I mean, I would suggest that today you take that home, put it up on your refrigerator or someplace where you’ll see it and think about it regularly. In addition to that, I’d recommend that as we work through this, hopefully we get through the whole thing, that you identify particular—you know, one or two aspects—that the Lord God, that the spirit lays upon your heart now about your love or lack of love, more precisely.

The other problem with 1 Corinthians 13 is we can look at it and just despair. It’s like the entrance liturgy that we sang as we came into worship. Another entrance liturgy is Psalm 15. We think, “Well, no, we’re not that. We can’t go worship.” Well, ultimately Jesus is, and we’re united to his righteousness. So the two ditches are, you know, thinking that somehow if we don’t do 1 Corinthians 13 correctly, we’re dead meat, we’re toast. And on the other hand, thinking that if we don’t do it correctly, who cares? We got Christ’s imputed righteousness.

The biblical path, the Torah, is to appropriate these things, knowing that they’re coming graciously from God to you to refine you and to mature you so that you and your relationships and your church and your community can be matured as well. So think of a couple things, make a little note, take this thing home. This is one of those texts that’s well known to us that should be meditated upon at regular times in our lives, at least for evaluation and maybe as correction.

So, your pastors go through these big difficulties every week. And my first point of application is knowing that there are these three or four things always going on that could blow the church to smithereens, you know, either here or in broader relationships or the whole church of England could split this week. Pray for those involved in these decisions. Pray for the leaders, the pastors, the bishops of the Anglican community and pray specifically for your pastors here at Reformation Covenant Church. Very significant couple of meetings this week. You know, the most significant probably doesn’t relate directly to RCC, but to another church that we love. And you know, there’s important things that always go on and this week particularly there’s important things. So please pray for your pastors.

All right. So basically I’ve laid the text out on your outline in a three-fold fashion. The first section that kind of is the introduction at the end of chapter 12. Paul says I’ll show you a better way. And then this is the better way. And so you have the introduction first where he’s getting the attention of the Corinthians. And then you’ve got the actual description of love.

There’s a singular subject in that section, verses 4 to 7. And there’s 15 verbs or action words that describe this noun, or this subject rather—love. So that in itself is interesting. The fact that love is described as actions. We tend to think of love and a lot of these actions even as kind of static platonic virtues. But love is active, dynamically involved in a series of ways in the world. So if you think you have love and don’t have the dynamic action that Paul describes love as having, that sort of love will profit you nothing as well.

So it’s the right kind of love and that’s described in the center section. And then at the end he says, “You know what, I know it’s tough, some of this stuff, but you know what, this is maturity.” He says basically, “You want to be an adult? Then do 1 Corinthians 13. Put away stupid childish ways of behaving.” And secondly he says if you do that you’ll be happy, you’ll be victorious. Love wins. At the end of the day we’re postmillennial because love wins. Wins not an abstract virtue but dynamic actions and not actions in isolation from the person of God. Love wins is another way, at the end of the section here, to say that God wins. God has his way in the history of mankind. He will be victorious and he is love.

That’s the title of my sermon. It’s not found in 1 Corinthians 13. God is love. But that’s what’s going on here and we’ll talk about that in just a minute.

So first of all, in the first section then, love and everything else getting the Corinthians and our attention. So, you know, remember the context of all of this, right? The Corinthians are a proud church. They’re a church that don’t exercise love, either patience. So what did they do impatiently that he’s just told us about in previous chapters? They ate supper impatiently. They didn’t wait for one another. And they weren’t kind to the poor. They just enjoyed their excess and didn’t share with the poor at the meal. So they’re not a patient, kind group.

Now, they’re a group that might have a lot of neat ideas and thoughts and theology. I’m not sure about some of that either, but Paul says, you know, in the context of that, that everything that they might have, everything else that the church might have in terms of gifts and abilities, without patience and kindness, without love—he doesn’t say it’s not quite what it should be. He doesn’t say you’re only going to be able to accomplish half the work. He doesn’t say that corporately or individually that’s worth a little, but love would give you a lot more.

What does Paul say? He says, “I’m nothing. Nothing. If I don’t have love, I’m might be the smartest guy in the world. I may memorize the Bible, can sing the psalms to you, every one of them. May do all kinds of stuff. I may give to charity organizations. Helping the poor is a great thing. It’s the indicator that one perspective Jesus says you get to the pearly gates. That’s the only question he’s going to ask you. Did you give a cup of cold water in my name to somebody? So it’s an important thing. But even that, if it’s done without love, it’s worthless to them—at least to the person that’s actually doing it. God may use unloving people to help people. But so he gets their attention.

This is the most important thing he’s saying. If you don’t have this, everything else goes by the by. So a lot of times the text of scripture becomes the hammer you use in that week and your everything looks like a nail. Replies to that text: well, this one, the text itself tells us that it’s kind of one of the big deals because without this, nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. It’s a line from a song and that song is about community in the context of a heavy metal band actually. Don’t worry if you don’t know the reference. But it’s true in a way that the love shown in community is really all that matters.

He wants you to do all the other stuff, but it gets your attention. Notice, by the way, right away we have a problem where this is doing what the culture doesn’t do in America because our culture is one of self-worth. The answer to everything is to tell them how important they each are. And Paul says just the opposite. The smartest guy, the best guy—without love, he’s to be told he’s nothing. Zed, nil, zero.

So this is not modern-day counseling. This is biblical counseling that says as we walk away from what is essentially an image of God’s character and don’t exhibit that character, we have no self-worth. We’re to regard ourselves as nothing. That’s what Paul says. So without love, our most beautiful things we might do—helping the poor or oratory or whatever it is—the most beautiful things we do are ugly to God without love.

He gets their attention. So this is the better way. And let’s talk a little bit then now directly about that better way. Love in action: verses 4-7. So, having gotten their attention, he doesn’t then say, “Well, you need something really important” and then hides it from them. He tells them immediately what he’s talking about. It’s not as obvious to us what he’s saying. Ralph Smith was here four years ago and preached on this text. I think it was about four years ago and helped us out a lot. I always saw patience and kindness as kind of a header section and the handout I gave you really is from a long time ago. And so a long time ago, I sort of saw patience and kindness as the two deals at the top. This is what love is. And then I saw the connections to everything else as manifestations of either impatience or unkindness.

Ralph brought to us an understanding of the Septuagint and relates this center section back to it. He also gave us a better sense of the Greek rendering of the first line of this beautiful statement. On your outline, I’ve got the header, “God is love.” So it doesn’t say “God is love,” but it uses characteristics of God. It’s a header first because, as I said, I could see sort of connections back to those two statements from the beginning and everything else in it.

So the literary style shows us it’s a matter. And then secondly, as Ralph pointed out, it’s actually a chiasm at the first. And unfortunately, our translations don’t normally show this. So on your handout, I’ve got: “Love is patient, kind is love.” So most places put a comma, which there are no commas in the Greek text, in the wrong place. “Love is patient, and kind, love is, and the rest of it.” But actually, the comma goes after the love. The love goes back to the kindness. It’s written chiastically.

If you take a pen and connect the two terms “love” and connect the two terms “patient” and “kind,” you X right. So that is the Greek letter that we would correspond with: X is chi. So this is a very small chiasm. “Never be kissed by a fool or fooled by a kiss.” Chiasm. “Don’t ask what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” Chiasm. Because if you put the elements together you got an X or a chi, Greek chi.

So I was explaining this to my niece yesterday in the Chinese gardens and she said, “Oh, X marks the spot.” Yeah, that’s right. Middle of that X is right where you want to be. That’s a pretty good way of saying it. So, X marks the spot. The spot is the definition. The two middle terms are patience and kindness. And as Ralph pointed out to us, you know, this would have been known to people that knew their version, their Greek version—the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. They had these, you know, they were like us. They had sort of texts that sort of stuck out. Those are the ones you would memorize more than other texts. We talked about that last week with Psalm 78. And so one of the big texts for them was this Exodus 34 section where after they sin, God is going to give Moses new commandments. So that’s the context in chapter 33. And God tells Moses to come and hide in the cliff of the rock and God will, you know, show him some of who he is. He’s will pass by. And so then God declares something in Exodus 34. And that was a real important text.

And what I’ve given you on your outlines is that by way of introduction to this—is that it really says that this is the characteristic of God. God is patient and kind. And so that’s described in the declaration of God in Exodus 34. That becomes central to the prayers of the Old Testament. When Moses prays, that God doesn’t kill them all when they refuse to enter the land—the 12 spy incident—in the context of that, Moses prays and that prayer counts on it. Goes back and quotes this text of Exodus 34: that God is patient and kind in our English words.

So he, in his prayer, he pleads that. In Jonah, this declaration is that this is who God is. In Psalms over and over again, this inhabits the praises of Israel. “Yahweh inhabits the praises of Israel.” The praises of Israel are frequently praising God for these two characteristics: patience and kindness.

So right away, if we know our Bibles well—and we don’t, and that’s okay. I understand, I’m not—but if we understand the Hebrew Old Testament in the Greek translation as scholars do and as Ralph brought to us, we recognize that these same two Greek words are used to describe God in Exodus 34. And then they’re used to describe the prayers of people to God based on those as characteristics. And then we see that the praises of God are praising him for those two Greek words too. And so we sort of see that, “Okay, when Paul says, ‘Love is patient, kind is love.’ What Paul is doing is saying ‘God is love’” because that’s the way they would have heard it. “Oh yeah, patience and kindness. The two characteristics of God. So God is love and we’re supposed to be Christians, image-bearers of God. And so we’re supposed to be patient and kind.”

So the—this is another line of understanding the text before us that reminds us—and it’s very important because it immediately puts love in the context of personal action. Right? As I said, a lot of problems we have with 1 Corinthians 13 is it’s a platonic understanding. It’s these abstract virtues that are being described and God helps us to avoid that stumble by giving us 15 verbs and by using two terms that immediately are identified with him and putting himself personally at the header of the text.

So the header to understand everything else he’s going to talk about—and this is why, since love is described—you know, these action words are dynamic and love wins. Well, it’s not some abstract thing that wins or is dynamic. God is dynamic and moving and we’re supposed to be dynamic working and the end result of God’s dynamism in history through his people and through the power of his spirit is victory. So the whole text, if we just understand a little bit of what’s going on at the beginning list of the set of virtues, we’ll see they’re not really virtues. They’re actions and they’re personal.

So I hope that helps by way of overview. You might turn to the next—to that overall thing where I wrote out 1 Corinthians 13 by way of New American Standard Bible reference. And I’ll explain this other little bit about headers again. So, “Love is patient, love is kind.” And so what I did at the top of the list was to give italics for the kindness stuff and straight up and down for the patient stuff. And then following this, one way to think about the verses that follow—and you know, you never want to just say “this is it.” I mean, the Bible’s about meditating. You got a beautiful kind of poem like here. Well, you want to meditate on it. But one way to look at it, there’s seven contrasts.

There’s contrast by self-interest. And so this contrasts love with the opposite of it, which is not kind. So if you’re being jealous, you’re not being kind. If you’re bragging, you’re not being kind. One of the things I should say here is that the word “kind” is useful. It doesn’t mean, you know, a smiley disposition. It means useful to the other person. It’s not useful to be jealous of somebody. It’s not useful to brag about yourself. It’s not useful or kind to be arrogant. It’s not useful or kind to act unbecomingly or rudely. It’s not useful or kind to seek your own. You’re supposed to seek the well-being of the other person.

Then there are some contrasts by hostility, which is the opposite of patience. I guess we could say it’s still kindness, but now it seems like what’s going on is patience. Now, love isn’t provoked. And the idea here is people are doing something to you that you could actually do something in return and stop it. But you’re patient. You’re forbearing. You’re long-suffering. That’s the idea of this word “patient.” You’re suffering long. So it means—see, otherwise you think patience is this kind of gnostic abstraction from everything. “I don’t suffer as a result of the stupid things you do, then I’m being patient because I’m not striking out at you. But you’re not being patient because you’re not suffering.”

Suffering doesn’t ignore the blows you’ve received or the hurts you’ve suffered, but you’re just long-suffering. You don’t immediately try to strike out in your own best interest and attack the other person. You don’t—you’re not hostile. You’re not provoked by that. You’re long-suffering. And the opposite of patience is to take into account a wrong suffered. You know, you make a list. I know guys, I mean, I know good Christian men, very talented, gifted people. I mean, seemingly gifted for us to the kingdom. And because they kept a record of a wrong suffered—in this case 15 years ago—that guy is not productive for the kingdom because he’s become bitter, hostile toward the person that he suffered the wrong from.

So that’s not being patient. Did he suffer wrong? I don’t know if he did or didn’t. And it doesn’t make any difference. It certainly wasn’t a wrong suffered that was so egregious that it had to be reconciled. It was something most people would say, “Okay, well, tried to explain myself. Didn’t work. Okay, let’s just walk on.” No. So he wasn’t patient, wasn’t long-suffering. He instead becomes bitter.

So it’s opposed. Then there’s the right kind of joy. This contrast—again, another contrast—doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. So it has to have the right kind of joy and unrighteousness. Then remember righteousness is usually justice in community. So unrighteousness is impatience with people and being bad to people instead of being good. And that’s—you can get joy in that. You can get a lot of joy, you know, out of venting your spleen. I’ve done it lots of times and in the short term it’s really fun. But that kind of rejoicing is not love. Maybe you’re rejoicing, but you’re not rejoicing correctly. You’re supposed to rejoice rather with the truth.

And again, Christ said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” You’re supposed to remember Jesus at the heart of this in your relationship with your Christian brother or sister. So you rejoice in that. Now, rejoicing here is described as in community. You’re rejoicing with something. Either the wrong kind of things, unrighteousness, or the right kind of things, truth. We could by application say that you’re not supposed to rejoice with the wrong people, you rejoice with the right people. Or you’re not supposed to rejoice with people when they’re doing the wrong things, blabbering on, slandering people, being impatient, unkind. Fun. But if you have that kind of communion, it’s wrong. Have communion with truthful people. Either way, what it says is love exists in community. I mean, to rejoice with something or somebody else that’s exhibiting something, you got to have community. So love is community. All these things assume community-based.

And then there are four affirmations at the end. Bears all things. So again, you know, it doesn’t bear things relative to patience. It believes all things. So you’re not striking back at somebody you think has wronged you. You’re putting on a good attitude and kindness toward that other person by believing them. It hopes all things. That’s a kindness towards somebody—to hope something good about them. And it endures things. So we’re back to not being impatient or long-suffering, or have being short-nosed or angry in the short term or long term.

So it seems like patience and kindness just sort of are continued throughout this text. And so this is I think the way to understand these things. We’re just as prone to misunderstand patience or kindness as we are to misunderstand love and think we’re being patient and kind. So God gives us a list of a bunch of stuff for us to look at, think about, “Gee, I guess I wasn’t as patient as I thought I was and I guess I wasn’t as useful to that other person as I thought I was.” So that’s kind of the big overview there and we’ll come back now in a slower fashion to some of these things.

So, you know, there’s 15 verbs or action words in this section. Love is about what we do, actions, and what God does. Love can be said to do what two things? On the children’s handout: love suffers. Love suffers long. That’s what patience means. Suffers long. And then secondly, love is useful, kind. Still not quite sure what that means. So I think if we use what really is probably a better translation of the root word here, it’s usefulness to the other person. It’s helpful to them. And that keeps us away from thinking, “You know, somebody’s being useful to somebody may not seem kind to them.” So the problem with “kind” is—again we can kind of get it wrong. “It may not—we’re going to—okay, well, let’s—I’ll talk about this again in a minute when we look at the song that’s being sung here back in the Old Testament.”

So it’s not stoic, it’s not abstract. It is action and dynamic. And so the source, of course, is God then. So what we’re saying is God is patient, kind. You’re supposed to be patient, kind. What do we read? We read, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, patient, see, just as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you.” So action items: God demonstrated his kindness and patience to you by forgiving you your sins. You’re supposed to be kind, useful to the other person, and the emphasis here is on being gracious and patient with them, long-suffering, and forgiving them. So the source of God, and then it works out into the rest of who we are.

This is seen as I said, really clearly if we go back to the Old Testament citations that are being alluded to here. Exodus 34 is specifically what we’re going to look at. So listen. Exodus 34, verses 5-7. And again, the context is the second giving of the law. So this is who we are. People that have broken the law, God’s going to renew covenant with us. And so Moses asks him please with him. God says, “Okay, I’m going to pass by.” And when he passes by, this is what’s said in verse 5.

“Now, the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord.” So this is God speaking. He’s proclaiming who he is to Moses.

“The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abounding in goodness and truth. So long-suffering, goodness, kindness—it abounds in these things. Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression in sin.’”

Now listen to the rest. “By no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”

Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s unloving to execute a murderer, that it isn’t a demonstration of impatience or lack of kindness. Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s unloving to excommunicate people from the church of Jesus Christ. Sometimes the way that is treated in the New Testament, it’s the most useful thing you can do to get their attention. You know, some of us are, you know, thick-headed, Irish-fin kind of a guy like me. And sometimes people got to grab me right here and go boom, boom. See? And that’s not unkind. That’s loving to me. And this is what Paul’s point is.

So Paul hums a little verse, right? Comes a few bars. I can name that song in two notes. The two notes are patience and kindness. And everybody’s supposed to fill in the song. And the rest of the song is a reminder to us that we don’t want to be Greek about this or gnostic about this or stupid about this because God proclaims himself as being patient and kind and he also immediately proclaims himself as blessing thousands but by no means clearing the guilty.

So you know that’s important as that song is brought into view. So God is said to be patient and kind in this text. This is what Paul is alluding to. And the most important thing is to remember that this is a personal God. It’s the characteristics of God. As Christians, you know, we’re renewed as image-bearers of this God who is patient and kind. That’s who you are. That’s who you are. One of the most important ways to put this on is to put it on, to think right, to get your head around that in a proper way. That’s who you are.

Now, when the church excommunicates you, then you know we’re not sure that’s who you are anymore. Even so, we’re hoping for your repentance. We’re thinking that’s who you are. But you know, you’re remembering good standing here. That’s who you are. You need to hear that you’re patient and you’re kind. That’s who you are. Now, you muck it up sometimes. I muck it up sometimes. We get impatient and not very useful to other people. But our identity is in Jesus Christ, in God, the God who proclaimed himself to be patient and kind.

As I said, then in Numbers 14, there’s a long reference—verses 18 to 35. And I’ll again tell you why I did so. Verse 18: Moses is praying to God and in his prayer, he quotes the scriptures just like the pastor is doing here. We have, you know, a lot of things. We’ll base our pastoral prayer on a psalm or the dedication of the temple, some piece of scripture. We’ll work scripture into what we’re praying. And as Moses prays for mercy from God, he says,

“The Lord is long-suffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgressions.”

Long-suffering, abundant in mercy. There’s the—you know, in the Septuagint, the same two things. Love is patient. Love is kind. God is long-suffering, abundant in mercy. And what he wants it applied to now is forgiving iniquity and transgressions. And he sings a little more of this song than Paul does. So Paul wants us to fill in the rest. But this is what we’re supposed to be filling in. “Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.”

So he acknowledges that he’s not asking God to be Greekly kind or nicer than Jesus, but he says, Jesus—in visiting the iniquity of the fathers. And then Moses prays, “Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of your mercy, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt even until now.”

Lord said, “I have pardoned according to your word.” When God’s word becomes our word, prayer becomes confident. God’s going to hear that and he’s going to answer according to our word because it’s really his word that Moses is using in praying to him.

“But truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. I’m going to be victorious. This characteristic of mine is going to fill the world because all these men who have seen my glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and have put me to the test now these 10 times and have not heeded my voice, they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers.”

So and the text goes on. At the end he says they’re going to die in the wilderness. This is where that judgment is recorded for us. And it’s recorded in response to a prayer pleading God’s patience and kindness. And knowing that God’s patience and kindness doesn’t mean he clears those rebels against him. So again, the prayers of the people are to be informed by God being patient and kind. And we’re to ask for forgiveness from him. We’re ask him to be patient and kind with us now. And we’re asking him to demonstrate that patience and kindness to a watching world. And none of that means that God can’t kill off, you know, most of them in the wilderness. He will. He did—in his patience and his kindness. But the idea is that the prayers of God’s people are inhabited by God’s characteristics of patience and kindness.

Again, in Jonah 4: “It displeased Jonah exceedingly. He became angry. So he prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore, I fled previously to Tarshish, for I know that you are a Gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abundant in loving kindness, one who relents from doing harm. Therefore, now, oh Lord, please take my life. Be kind to me, kill me.’”

See, now there’s a couple of important points here. Again, the point here is that the prayers of God’s servant Jonah rely upon this designation of God as patient and kind. And it’s interesting because, you know, in terms of the story, he says he knew this. That’s why he ran away from God because God would—he knew God was more prone to forgive people. Now, some people think, “Well, and what it was—Israel had enemies. He couldn’t stand the Assyrians because they were they couldn’t stand the Ninevites because they were so brutal and horrible.” And that may well be the case.

Other people think that Jonah was concerned because God was making him a false prophet. “I know you’re going to forgive these people. I know it’s going to happen. I got to go tell them something that isn’t going to happen in 40 days. Nineveh will be restored and destroyed. He doesn’t say ‘Nineveh will be destroyed in 40 days unless you repent.’ He’s been told to say something that to him just looks like it’s not going to happen because he knows that God is doing this to forgive him.”

So some people think that his dilemma was you don’t want to be a false prophet. Now that represents a failure to understand God’s character as well. When God tells you something, he’s giving you 40 days for a reason. 40 days is a time of sackcloth and ashes. 40 days is a time for repentance. So the king of Nineveh knew God better than Jonah did. He says, “Well, we’re going to go down to death here. Sackcloth and ashes, even the animals—who knows?” He says, “God may forgive.”

King of Nineveh: better acquainted with the character of God. “I don’t think it’s a statement of, you know, ‘I don’t know God.’ It’s like, ‘You know, this God is prone to forgive at times. We know about it. We’ve seen it.’ And so, you know, he’s not insisting that God, you know, save the city. And he says, ‘You know, God might do that.’ Seems to be part of his nature.”

So either way, the point is our prayers are to be based on the love of God, the love of God. When we pray, we ask God to be loving. We ask God to be patient and kind. And then, as I said, in the Psalms, the Psalm book—just a couple references quickly.

Psalm 86:15: “You, oh Lord, are a God full of compassion and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in mercy and truth.” Same words used from Exodus 34.

Psalm 103:8: “When we sing 103, we sing, ‘The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in mercy.’”

Psalm 145:8: “‘The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger, great in mercy.’”

Lord, you know, we’re always singing the praises of God. You know, little birdies are out there praising God with their songs and they’re singing, “God is gracious. God is patient. God is kind.” That’s what we’re supposed to sing. In the inspired song book we’ve been given is the patience and kindness of God. So over and over again—hope I’m not making this point at too long a length, but I think it’s quite important—to see that the header here is not an abstract truth. The person we praise him for his love, which is his patience and his kindness.

The other point of doing it this at length is that I think this is a pastoral deal. In other words, if when we pray, we self-consciously remember to invoke God’s patience and kindness, usefulness to us—acknowledging that you know he doesn’t forgive, doesn’t clear the rebels, but if our prayers become more like that and if we notice in our singing of songs, if we have hymns that build in these characteristics of God, if we notice in our psalms or singing of psalms that what we’re singing about over and over again is “God is so great because he’s so patient and he’s so useful, kind, abounding in good deeds to us,” right? Abounding in good deeds. Well, if we do that and then if we pack that thing up on the refrigerator, you know, I think we’ll go a long way.

And if we remember what other verse—we bring it into the New Testament, Romans 2:4: “Or do you think lightly of the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Yeah, same thing in the New Testament. Not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?”

Such a significant verse. God is patient and kind. In fact, it’s that kindness and usefulness that actually led you to repentance. If you remember right, it wasn’t usually so much the thundering as it was the love of God and kindness and usefulness and even this thundering was part of that usefulness to you.

And then we read in Galatians 4—well, actually in Romans 5:5—listen: “Hope does not disappoint because the love of God, which is patience and kindness, has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

So patience and kindness is God. And we’re told directly that the love of God, the patience and usefulness, kindness that God, the long-suffering aspect of it, he suffered with those rebels in the wilderness a long time. He was kind to those people. Their shoes never wore out. You know, that love, that kind of love, is what the Holy Spirit has given us. He’s poured that out to us through the Holy Spirit. Maybe reference to baptism. I don’t know. But the point is that’s who we are. That’s who we are now. That’s within you. Don’t bottle it up through sins. Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit. Don’t listen. Don’t fail to listen to his voice. And what’s his voice going to tell you? Be like God. Be loving. Be long-suffering. Be useful to other people and kind. That’s what the Holy Spirit witnesses to us.

Galatians 5:22 tells us that the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, right? Kind of joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, patience and kindness—fruit of the spirit.

2 Corinthians 6:6: “We are to be in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in genuine love.” So the last two—patience and kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in genuine love. See, over and over again, the Bible tells us these things.

1 John 4:16: “We have come to know and to believe the love which God has for us. God is love and the one who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.”

Oh, so now we know why it’s nothing without it. Because if we don’t abide in the God of patience, long-suffering, kindness, and usefulness, we won’t be like that. And we’re not abiding in God at all. As it turns out, we’re abiding in some construct or something. But if we abide in that God, if that’s the God we’re worshiping, grouping, praying to, praising, and relying upon and knowing—if that’s who we’re abiding in, then we have true love that abides in his love and God abides in us.

And if not, then we’re not going to be that way. God’s spirit makes us like him, patient and kind. So if we just do those simple things of remembering prayer, praise, designation of who God is—this is what it means to be an image bearer of God, to have these two characteristics. Now we’re going to talk about them more in a couple weeks in more detail. But if we remember this is what it’s about, and then we look at that sheet and tick off one or two ways where we’re not being very patient and we’re not being very kind and ask God, God’s spirit to lead us to be more patient and kind in those particular manifestations—whether it’s arrogance or pride or hostility or listing wrong suffered—whatever it is that the spirit talks to you about today and talks to you about at your home, work on that specifically.

We’ll return to this in 2 weeks and talk then about more of the specific ways to identify this and what the opposite is. May the Lord God grant us an assurance of the victory of love and may he grant us a participation in that love.

Let’s pray.

Lord God, we thank you for your wonderful gifts to us, for your long-suffering attitude toward our sinfulness and our grumbling and our whining and complaining. We thank you, Lord God, for that. And we thank you as well that you don’t clear the rebel. Help us not to be rebellious people. Help us to be a community that is long-suffering toward each other, that is kind and useful toward each other. Give us yourself, Father, through the Holy Spirit. Pour that kind of love out in our hearts that results in actions, dynamic actions that win this culture. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.