Well, it's good to be with you again. If you were here a couple of months ago, you remember Beverly and I were with you and we opened up the scripture to 1 Corinthians in chapter 13. And so we're going to pick up where I left off. After a couple of months, that's kind of hard, but we're going to pick up where I left off. So I say to you again, let's turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. And you know, even if you weren't here, if you're a believer and you know your Bible at all, you know that 1 Corinthians chapter 13 is called the love chapter. We just sang a song that kind of struck a chord with me as we come to this chapter on love. We sang the song, Speak O Lord. shape and fashion us in your likeness, that the light of Christ might be seen today in our acts of love and our deeds of faith." That Christ might be seen in our acts of love and our deeds of faith. And we know that the writer here, we know that he has two different things in mind, but I would suggest that our acts of love are deeds of faith. When we love one another, we say, I believe God. I believe God that it is better to love than be loved. That it is better to do unto others than then to always serve us and do unto us. That is an act of faith. Every time we love, we believe God. First of all, and so I'm going to kind of remind you of a couple of things now as we get into this text again. First of all, God himself is love. Do you remember we spoke about that? God is love. Not just that God is loving, but this is an attribute, this is a characteristic of God. He is love. And so John tells us not only that God is love, but he tells us that if we have been born of God, what are we going to do? We're going to love. You can't help it. There is no such thing as a Christian who doesn't love. Fruit of the Spirit, love. And John said, if you have been born of God, you love. Let us love one another for love is of God and he that is born of God loves. And if you don't love, you haven't been born of God. I mean, it's that blunt. And so when we love one another, we say God is love and God wants us to love. And in fact, we have to love. We've been born of the spirit of God. We can't help but love one another. And this is an act of faith. We believe God. Now, the last time we were in this chapter, I can't go over everything. Let's just read verses 4 through 8. Verses 4 through 8. Remember, these are the characteristics of love, the attributes of love, or just bluntly stated, this is how love lives. Love is personified here. Remember, love is described as a person. And in fact, we'll see in the passage here in the King James, it says, her, love is personified as a woman. She acts this way. She lives this way. So how does love live? Well, love or charity suffereth long, is long-suffering. And we spoke about patience and impatience. Well, love suffers long. Love is patient. and is kind. Charity envieth not. Charity vaunteth not itself. That's kind of an old word, isn't it? Vaunteth not. Does not brag on itself. Is not puffed up. Is not arrogant. Doth not behave itself unseemly. And The word unseemly there, some will have the word rudely. You may even have a note in your Bible, love does not act rudely. I think unseemly is a better word. Just not unseemly. Seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, not irritable, and thinketh no evil. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. Now, Lord willing, if you'll have me back another time, we will look at verse 7. We won't do that this morning, but I would like to get to verse 7. Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, and endureth all things. There's a nice summary of everything that it means to love one another. And it never faileth. So this morning we're going to go back. There was one characteristic of love, one attribute of love that I didn't cover the last time I was here at the end of verse 5. Thinketh no evil. And so I want us to think about that this morning. Thinketh no evil. Well, first of all, what is love? You may remember we talked about this, you know this already, even if no one's ever defined it for you, you just know this. Biblically speaking, love is a sacrifice of self to do what is good for someone else. It's self-sacrifice to do or to promote what is good for somebody else. So that's what love is, is when we say no to ourselves and say yes to someone else. So that's what love is, that's what love looks like, it's self-sacrifice. So now let's turn our attention then to this characteristic of love, this individual, this person, this woman, this attribute, thinketh no evil. Thinketh no evil. Well, let's just start out by thinking about the words that are here. These English words, thinketh no evil, the word thinketh. Now that tells you that we're talking about the realm of the mind, aren't we? Thinketh, where do you think? Do you think in your mind? So there's an attribute of love, a characteristic of love that takes place in the mind. It doesn't think something. It doesn't ponder, it doesn't consider, it doesn't reflect on it, it doesn't dwell on something. It doesn't even think about this. In your mind, love does not think on something. Think on what? Well, here it says, she thinketh no evil. And so we have to think about that a moment. It's Paul saying that love does not think on anything evil, never thinks about the evil in the world, and never thinks about the bad stuff that's going on. Love just wouldn't do that. So we think, well, how would that fit with the definition of love and the context of 1 Corinthians? And so we understand that Paul isn't saying that love doesn't think just on evil stuff. And in fact, there is a sense here, even in the original, there's a sense of thinketh not on the evil, doesn't think on the evil. What evil? Well, remember the context. Paul is talking about a church. You may remember this part. He's talking about a particular church, problems in that church, and some of the problems in the church are they just don't love each other. They are attacking one another. All manner of evil deeds against each other. And so what Paul is thinking of here is love does not think about, doesn't dwell upon the evil suffered. Doesn't think about, doesn't dwell on, doesn't consider the evil suffered at the hands of someone else. And that's what was going on in the church. And remember, if we're going to really apply this, we have to remember the context. It was written to a church. It's written to every church. And so even this church, right? No church is perfect in love. But he's writing to church. He's writing about interpersonal relationships in a church. people getting along with one another in a church. And so Lady Love does not think about, ponder, dwell on, even consider any evil suffered. And so this word think, it's speaking of, you know, carefully pondering, carefully reflecting, a real deep and thoughtful consideration of something. Love does not have this deep consideration, reflection on any evils suffered. Now, this is where it gets really interesting, I think. I hope you find this interesting. I've described the English words, but what's the Greek word here? And you may already know, this is interesting. It's the Greek word logizomai. Logizomai. What does that word mean? Well, it's often rendered to reckon, to account. to record something. And it's a very picturesque word. It's intentionally picturesque. It creates a picture in our minds of what? Well, logizima is an accounting term. A bookkeeper, he keeps books. And he goes to the books and he has to keep everything balanced, doesn't he? And so the picture here is this accountant, this bookkeeper, he's pouring over the books. taking deep consideration, just thinking hard and long over the books. All the debits, they have to match up with all the credits, don't they? Well, that's what the bookkeeper, the accountant is doing. He's making sure everything balances. If you get a statement from the bank and it says you have $100 in the bank, And your checkbook says you have $300 in the bank. You need to go back over your ledger, right? And you need to balance your books. That's the idea here. Balancing books. Making sure everything is the same. That's what an accountant does. So why is it used here? It's prohibiting us. It's saying, love does not do this. Love does not logizimize. Love is not a bookkeeper. Love isn't worried about balancing the books. We're talking about offenses, things suffered, evil done to us by other people. Love keeps no record. In fact, some of your translations will say just that, or even in your Bible. You probably have a little note there, a number. It takes you over to the middle, to the bottom, and it says, does not keep record. That's what this word is all about. It doesn't keep record of sins against. Well, of course it wouldn't. Not love. Why? Because love is a sacrifice of self to do what is good for someone else. Could you really be self-sacrificing and say no to yourself and do what is good for someone else and yet keep a record of every wrong ever done against you? Have you ever known anybody like that? I have. Some of you have. Somebody who literally has a book, a notebook and says, I gotta write that down. She didn't look at me today. I spoke to him and he didn't speak back. I invited them over to dinner and they never invited me back. I mean, we could just keep writing, couldn't we? There are people who keep records of those kinds of things. And if not literally, they keep them in their minds. Love wouldn't do that. You go to Lady Love, this woman personified as love, and you say, but don't you remember when she did that? And Love says, not really. I don't remember that. Well, don't you remember when he did this or said this or acted that way? No, I don't keep a record of those kinds of things. Now, let's be honest. This isn't just for pagan people. Paul's writing to a church. A church where he calls them saints and brothers and sisters in Christ. Do people in church ever act this way? I would say, I do. You ever give someone a cold shoulder? What's that about? It's called payback. I want my pound of flesh. You did that, I'm gonna do something back, even if it's just a look. I confess, I did that this morning with my wife. She may not even know it. She said something and I gave her the look. What was that? It wasn't love. It was payback. What's that? That's revenge. Getting back at people, it could be just a look, a cold shoulder. Turning away from someone, rolling of the eyes. Well, he didn't invite me, I'm never going to invite him. When I was sick, I didn't get a card from him or her. I'm not going to send him or her a card. Why should I? They didn't do it for me. What's that? Payback. That's revenge. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. You're taking that authority into your own hands, something that belongs only to God. You're acting like God. Getting vengeance on people. You see, love wouldn't do that, would it? Love wouldn't think this kind of evil. Love doesn't have a record. It doesn't keep track. And if you have no record and if you don't keep track and you never think about these things, guess what? There's no payback. No reason to. Logitimai does not keep record. Now the reason this is so, not only important, but very interesting. There is a reason why this is extremely important. Some of you know, where else do we find Logitimai in the Bible? Where else do we find this concept of no record keeping? Yeah, and some of you are smiling. Eh, no. Well, turn with me to the book of Romans. And let's go to Romans chapter 4. And in Romans chapter 4, let's just begin in verse 1, and this will kind of lead us up to where we find this word. What shall we say then that Abraham our father as pertaining to the flesh has found? For if Abraham were justified by works, justified meaning declared righteous, it's a legal term, declared righteous. If Abraham were declared righteous by works, well then he have wherewith to glory. but not before God. Now, if righteousness came by works and Abraham was called righteous, then he's got something to boast about, doesn't he? Verse three, for what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. There's that word. Translated counted. That's an accounting term, counted. No record or a record. And what does it say here? That it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. And that's the same word and oftentimes translated imputed. Imputation. Our doctrine of imputation. What's that about? When righteousness is imputed, like an accountant would write it down, and it's counted, it's imputed righteousness as though it were ours. So that him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth, believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted logizimae for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth not, or imputeth righteousness, there's that word again, counted, reckoned, He counted righteousness without work, saying, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. So we have this word logizimae used variously. Sometimes it's translated thinketh, or to think something. But when we see it, it means to think deeply about something, so as to reckon something, to count something. You know, in Philippians 4, 8, let your mind think on these things. It's the same word. Think, there, is legitimize. Let your mind think deeply. Let your mind consider and reckon and count these things as good. And let your mind dwell on these things, those virtues. But here, in these places, we're looking at it in a different way, to reckon, to count something. It's a legal term, a bookkeeping term, that when God looks at us who have faith in Christ, he sees what? He sees the righteousness of Christ. It's been imputed to us. It's been reckoned to us. This is the way God thinks. God has already counted this up and declared it to be so. turn to another passage just real briefly 2nd Corinthians 519 2nd Corinthians 519 Let's begin reading in verse 17. So this is 2nd Corinthians 5 17. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, and behold, all things have become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation to wit, that is, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing," and there's that word again, same word, not logizimai, not imputing, not counting, not reckoning, their trespasses unto them. and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's dead that ye be reconciled to God, for he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He made him Christ. to be sin for us. And not that Christ became a sinner, but we know that what he did was he put our sins upon Christ, didn't he? He bore our sins in his body on the cross. Our sins were imputed to him, reckoned, logizomied to him. And his righteousness was what? Was imputed to us. called the great exchange. What a great exchange. We are all sinfulness and unrighteousness. He is all perfect perfection righteousness. And we just exchange. When I spoke of this in our church in Oklahoma, illustrated it and it's such a simple illustration that I'm not sure I should do it but I was thinking of the children in our church and how they might be struggling with some of these concepts and maybe people just don't know the Bible very well and just have a hard time picturing this so so here it is okay and you won't be able to see it very well but here it is So here's Mark. There's my name. If you can't see it, there's Mark. And here's a list of all my sins. Now, if this really were a list of all my sins, it'd be a scroll. And it would roll out the door, out into the street, and I could probably follow it all the way back to Oklahoma. This is just a representative list. We're all sinners. And here's a list of all of my sins. And here's Christ. who knew no sin, never sinned, just perfect, perfection, holiness, righteousness before God, never did anything wrong. This is a problem, isn't it? There is none righteous, no, not one. Problem is that I'm a sinner and Christ is perfect. So what did Christ do in this, in this great exchange? He took all of my sins on himself. And there they are. Where's the record of my sin? God doesn't keep a record of my sin. It's gone. It will not be held against me on the day of judgment. I am in Christ. I get Christ's righteousness. And He bears my sin. Now, if we just stop at this page, we still have a problem, because at this point, it's just that my sins have been transferred to Christ. Now that would be a great thing, but that's not enough. Because God demands perfect righteousness, which I can't give him. Even if Christ bears my sin, I still cannot give him perfect righteousness. So then, Mark's righteousness and Christ's righteousness, I don't have any, Christ has it. And so now Mark has Christ's righteousness. I'm justified. We read that word. What's that? Declared righteous. Am I infused with righteousness? No. But I'm declared righteous while I'm in Christ. By faith, as far as my sins are concerned, as far as God is concerned, I'm declared righteous. They're not there. I have the righteousness of Christ now. Not only did He take my sin, but I received His righteousness. What about Christ? He never did sin and never lost his own righteousness. So he is still righteous and all righteousness. It's just that now I have his righteousness. Well, that's what we're talking about. This doctrine of imputation, of reconciliation. It's all about legitimi, about keeping record. And God doesn't keep a record. Now, does God know our sins? Of course He does. But on the Day of Judgment, and even now as far as our relationship with God, He sees us in Christ. And He sees Christ's righteousness. They've been imputed to me. Transferred to me. And my unrighteousness has been borne by Christ. God knows all of that. But it's how you reckon things. It's how you account things. It's a legal thing. On the books, the books of God, it comes to my page, there's no sin. And it's all righteousness, the righteousness of Christ. And on Christ, we find our sins. I can't help but turn to Romans again. Turn to Romans chapter eight. Romans eight. Verse one, there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. There's no condemnation. How do we figure that? Because of imputation. Because of reckoning. Christ bore our sins and we received His righteousness. So, by faith in Christ, there's no condemnation for us, is there? Because we've been justified, we've been declared righteous. No condemnation. Now jump ahead. Let's start reading again in verse 31. This is Romans 8 31. So what do we say to these things? Here's what we say. Here's how we can answer that question. If God be for us, then who can be against us? Amen to that. If God is for us, who can be against us? He has already declared us righteous. We are already by faith in Christ. And he that spared not his own son, but delivereth him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Now here's some very important questions. So who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? We're in Christ. By faith we're in Christ. By faith we have been justified, right? So who's going to bring any charge against the elect of God? What does it say? It is God that justifies. It is God who already declared you righteous. Is someone greater than God? Well, no. It's a rhetorical question. We're intended to see the answer is no. There's no one. Verse 34, and who is he that condemneth? Oh, wait a minute. It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who's going to condemn us? No one can lay any charge against us. No one can condemn us. Look at Christ, who already did this work for us. Where is he? He ascended into heaven. He's seated at the right hand of God. They're even now making intercession for us. And there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sort? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are counted As sheep for the slaughter, nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. What is behind all of this? The love of God. God loved us. When did He love us? From all eternity He has loved us. We are the luck, the chosen of God. We're more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present or things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." God has already reckoned us, counted us, declared us to be righteous through faith in Christ. Does God keep records? No. Now here's the thing. Who shall bring any charge against God's elect and who is he that condemneth? And yet, isn't that what we do? Don't we bring charges against each other? Don't we condemn each other and judge each other? That's what Paul is getting at in 1 Corinthians 13 there. Thinketh no evil, doesn't keep a record of wrongs committed against you. God doesn't. Your brothers and sisters in Christ that are here this morning, already declared righteous before God. There's no charge, there's no condemnation. And yet we want to be the judge and act like we've got to make things balance. You know, my record book says that you did that. Well, God's not going to condemn that person for that. God's not going to lay that charge to that person. But you will. I will. So if we go back to 1st Corinthians 13, thinketh no evil. Love, sacrifice of self to do what is good for another person. Love thinketh in the realm of the mind, right where the thoughts take place, right here. does not thoroughly consider, does not, you know, ponder deeply, does not carefully reflect upon and meditate on. Love does not do that. Love thinketh, Logitimai, does not keep record of evils done against it. And I wonder this morning if there isn't anyone here who maybe has kept record. Maybe you're holding a grudge. What's a grudge? You've kept record. Somebody did something. You remember it. You know it. But you have a grudge. You have a hard feeling. Somebody you don't want to talk to. Somebody you don't want to have fellowship with. Love wouldn't do that. Because love is a sacrifice of self. You can't sacrifice yourself and hold a grudge. So this morning, if you have been trying to play God and tried to get vengeance, payback, revenge in any way, Well, that's not love. And so what do you do when you realize, you know, I've been doing something and I know that it's wrong. What do I do now? When I counsel kids, I have a way of putting it. You fix it. You got to fix it. Well, how do you fix it? First of all, you confess it. You own it. You acknowledge. You repent of it, you turn from it, and you deal with it by going to the person that you had a grudge with. There is a word, if I wanted to summarize this into one word, there is a biblical word that covers everything that we're talking about. It's the word forgiveness. forgiveness what is forgiveness if you study the word and you go back into the Old Testament it technically means to send away to forgive is to send away do you remember when the the priest put his his hands upon the the head of the scapegoat and symbolically put the sins of the people upon the goat, and then what did he do? He ran the goat out of camp and ran it into the wilderness, never to be seen again. He sent it away. That's what forgiveness is, is to send it away. To act like it's not there. And what did Jesus say about forgiveness? In Matthew chapter 6, we all know the Lord's Prayer. You could recite it this morning. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us. Forgive us our debts. Forgive us our trespasses. Forgive us our sins as we forgive others. And then we sometimes forget that Jesus concluded by saying, for if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. You say, wow, that's pretty harsh. That's pretty real. Because if we have been born again by the Spirit of God and of the Spirit of God living within us, we will have a disposition of forgiveness. We will be ready to forgive. This is a fruit of the Spirit of God working in us. And so Jesus can say, look, if you're not a forgiving person, your Father in heaven is not going to forgive you, but if you forgive others, he will forgive you. The assumption is, as a believer, you will forgive. And in Matthew chapter 18, we find some similarly hard words. Remember, Peter came to him and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? we're talking about somebody coming and doing something some suffering wrong evil at the hands of another person just like Paul is addressing in first Corinthians 13 how often my brother sin against me and I forgive him seven times and Jesus and I say not into the until seven times but until 70 times seven and then he tells a little story the kingdom of heaven is like into a certain King which would take account of his servants. And when he'd begun to reckon, and there's that word, that word reckon there means to settle accounts. He got his books out, he opened up his accounting books and he, oh yeah, this person owes me something. And we know the story of the man who 10,000 towns begged and pleaded with him and what did he do? He forgave him. But that man went out, and someone who owed him much less, he wouldn't be forgiving, would he? He wouldn't forgive that man. And the rest of the workers all heard about this, and they went and told the ruler, and he was very angry with them. And he said, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desirest me. Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? His Lord was wroth and delivered him to the tormentors until he should pay all that was due unto him and now Jesus concludes by saying So likewise shall my heavenly father do also unto you if you from your hearts forgive not Everyone his brother their trespasses Remember what Paul said in Ephesians 4 32 Be kind and tender hearted toward one another, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ has forgiven you. Why forgive? Because you've been forgiven so much. Think about that grudge, that little ill will, ill feeling is something that you have against your brother or sister in Christ. Think about it. Does that compare anything to what you have done to offend God? You've been forgiven so much, how can you not forgive so little? To think not evil, or to think not on the evil done, is to be forgiving. To be willing to let it go. Knowing that God has let so much go so much sin against him He's forgiven you How can we not forgive And when you think about this great exchange that we talked about, how that all of our sinfulness was transferred to Christ, and his righteousness was transferred to us, and so that no one can bring any charge or condemnation against us, and yet we walk around with those kinds of things in our minds. I would like to say I'm amazed, but I mean, we are fallen, sinful people, and we wrestle with the flesh all the time. But love wouldn't do that. Not real love. Love doesn't think about those things. Love doesn't reckon, doesn't count them, doesn't keep score, doesn't keep record, is not interested in payback. Are you? Father, we thank you this morning for your word. We thank you for the way that it confronts us, holds us accountable, tells us when we're wrong, and offers us a solution, offers us forgiveness and cleansing. If we confess our sins, you God are faithful to forgive us and to continue to cleanse us. Oh, may we confess the sinfulness of our own hearts. The sinfulness of our thoughts and the hard feelings against our brothers and sisters. I pray God that your word would do a work. A work not only of conviction, but a work of grace. A work of grace where we see your word working in our hearts and we respond in faith. Respond in obedience to your word. In the name of Jesus Christ, our perfect and righteous Savior, in His name we pray. Amen.