×

Love is not Arrogant or Rude

I am on vacation for the rest of the month and therefore away from blogging. In effort to continue to provide some content I have asked the other elders at Emmaus Bible Church if I could post the notes from our weekly confession of sin on Sunday morning. It is always a rich time together as we prepare our hearts for worship by considering what God requires and what Christ has done. In these posts I will post the material from 1 Cor 13 reminds us of what the Bible says about love. It is teaching us about where we need to repent even as it teaches us how we must treasure Christ. Each day will unpack a section of the passage. May these serve you just as they served us at Emmaus!

 


 

“Love is not arrogant or rude (1 Cor. 13:4-5)

Love is not arrogant: to be puffed up like bellows full of air. The word means to be conceited and desirous of the praise of men. Paul’s uses this word 6x in this letter. In their pride, they chose a favorite leaders over against another; they were puffed up with knowledge; proud of their gifts; their arrogance allowed a man committing serious sexual sin to carry on in their midst; they even acted arrogantly by taunting the authority of the Apostle Paul. To be full of oneself is to diminish the importance of others. Obadiah 1:3 The pride of your heart has deceived you.

Love is also not rude: to behave improperly or unseemly; to act in defiance of social and moral standards resulting in disgrace, embarrassment, and shame. The Corinthian women were acting shamefully by blurring the distinction between the sexes whereby they dishonored the authority of their husband.  Others who were well off were behaving shamefully toward those who had little. Christian love cares too much for the rest of the Christian community to behave in such ‘unseemly’ ways, (Gordon Fee, 638).

Love is not arrogant; it rather humbles itself in the light of the glorious Christ. Love is not rude; it does not behave in ways that diminishes the importance of others in the Christian community; it rather gives itself to the concerns of others in a Christ like way. Let us take a moment to reflect on these things and silently confess our sins before the Lord.

Prayer of Confession:

Dear Lord, we confess before you our proneness to arrogance. We far too often think of our self importance over the worth of others. We know that you resist the proud but give grace to the humble. We need your grace. Please forgive us. We also confess our tendency to act shamefully by not honoring others. Forgive us for behaving in unseemly ways at the expense of others. Show us Jesus the humble one; he was never proud and never behaved in shameful or disgraceful ways. Lord, we would see Jesus, as we pray in his wonderful name. Amen!

Assurance of Pardon:

Thankfully there is no sin beyond the reach of our great high priest. Not only did he live perfectly humble doing nothing that was shameful or disgraceful, but he died so that we could be assured that we would never be charged for our arrogance or shameful behavior. We turn to him for that assurance of pardon acknowledging that without him we would be forever under the condemnation of our guilt and shame.

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross,” (Phil 2:5-8).

LOAD MORE
Loading