If you have a Bible, I wanna invite you to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. I'm gonna read verse four through the beginning of verse eight and pray and jump right into the sermon. Hear now the word of God. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoings, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. Thus ends the reading of God's holy, inerrant word. May its truth be ever written on your hearts. Let us pray. O Lord, our Lord, we thank you that you have spoken in this text, and we pray, help us to see you, to understand you, to know you, and to love you. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be ever pleasing and acceptable in your sight. O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen. So we're on the third part of going through this exposition on what is love. Two weeks ago, we saw that love is patient and kind. And we talked that love that is patient and kind responds to others in an undeserving manner because God responds to us undeservingly. Last week, we said that love does not envy or boast. And we said that that means that love that does not envy or boast happens when our contentment comes from God and not from other people. This week, I want us to take a look at that third phrase, love is not arrogant or rude. Love that is not arrogant or rude makes less of oneself than of God. This kind of love comes from a deep and rich understanding of who God is, of the greatness of God. This kind of love realizes that God is in control of everything, not us. This kind of love sees God as so beautiful, so wonderful, so powerful, and so good that it does not think better of ourselves, and it does not think worse of others. It has a very realistic sense of our place in the world because it realizes how little we are in comparison to the greatness of God. So Christian love makes less of oneself and more of God. According to Webster's dictionary, arrogant means, quote, exaggerating or disposed to exaggerate one's own worth or importance, often by an overbearing manner, or showing an offensive attitude of superiority, end quote. In other words, to be arrogant is to make more of yourself than you ought. It is to present yourself in a way that gives yourself an inappropriate amount of significance. Arrogance is seeing yourself as superior than others. But for the Christian, that doesn't really make any sense. For the Christian, we realize that we are nothing apart from God. I mean, just think of the gospel message, that message that brings us to our knees before the Lord Jesus Christ. We ultimately believe that we are sinners. We believe that God created everything good, but in our humanity, we have rebelled against it. But Jesus saves us. Jesus makes us whole. To quote the old hymn, The Christian faith says, come ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and poor. Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love, and power. In Christianity, we understand that we are but mere, small, ignorant beings. Nothing but evil and folly becomes us apart from Christ. So Christian love cannot be arrogant because it is the Christian who realizes that it's not about us, but it's about God. It's the Christian who realizes that it is God who is great and mighty, that it is God who is righteous and true. So Christian love ultimately makes less of you and more of God. Christian love cannot see itself as superior to others. Or as the NIV translates this, love is not proud. In the original Greek, the word arrogant literally means to be puffed up. So we see that arrogance means to be proud. It means to be puffed up. The same word is actually used in the Sittuagent of Isaiah to describe a blacksmith blowing on the coals with a flume. It's the image of blowing up one's own self, of inflating your own value. This kind of arrogance is thinking you are better than others. But really, deep down, this kind of arrogance is thinking that you are better than yourself. It is thinking you are more capable, more valuable, more worthy than you actually are. It's the kind of thing where you watch someone with a great amount of skill or ability do something, and you think, oh, I can do that too. It's like looking at a Picasso or a Rothko and thinking, oh, I could do that. It's like watching the NFL play and seeing a football player and saying, oh, I could do that too, but you probably can't actually run the length of the football field. Or it's like watching Food Network and thinking you could be a great chef, but you haven't made anything from scratch in years. Arrogance is not saying that you are what you are. It's assuming you are better than you are. It's not actually arrogant for an NFL player to think that they're a pretty good ballplayer. It's not arrogant for a Michelin star chef to think that they're a pretty good chef. Because they're just looking at their capacity and where they are, and by the fact that they're in that place, in that state, you can assume that that's a factual statement. It is arrogant to assume that you are more than you are. This word arrogant is actually used in Exodus and Nehemiah to describe how Pharaoh and the Egyptians saw themselves in relation to the Israelite slaves. You see, they thought that they were somehow so much better than an entire other people group that they enslaved them and even tried to destroy them by killing their firstborn sons. Ultimately, it shows that they were more concerned about themselves than about God. Interestingly enough, twice so far in 1 Corinthians, Paul has called out Christians in the Corinthian church for being arrogant. I think looking at these two statements will help us see what Paul means by arrogance in this passage. If you want to turn there, it's pages 1133 and 1134 in the Pew Bibles. It's the end of chapter 4 and the beginning of chapter 5. At the end of chapter 4 in verses 18 and 19, Paul is sending Timothy back to the Corinthians And the reason is because in verse 18, some are arrogant as though I were not coming to you. Verse 19, but I will come to you soon if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people, but their power. We see in these two verses that arrogance talks a big talk, but does not do what it says it will do. Similarly, we see that arrogance assumes that other people will not do what they say they will do because the arrogant person assumes they won't be doing what they will do. And so arrogance assumes the worst of others because they know the worst in themselves. And ultimately, we see here that arrogance has no power to back up its claim. But there's a second use of arrogance in the first two verses of chapter five. I really encourage you to turn there, because it's going to be helpful moving forward. It's page 1134 in the Pew Bibles. First Corinthians, chapter five, verses one and two say this. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among the pagans. For a man has his father's wife, and you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you." In these two verses, we see that in the church in Corinth, there's a major act of sexual immorality. And the church is accepting of it. In fact, they're not just accepting of it, they are embracing it. And Paul is saying that accepting such immorality within the church is actually arrogance. Accepting such sin is an act of arrogance, not an act of love. You see, it is puffed up, it is proud, it is arrogant for a church of the Lord Jesus Christ, for a church that belongs to Jesus Christ, to think that it can accept something that God condemns. Rather, according to Paul, we should mourn it. When other people are living in sin and those amongst us are living in sin, it should cause us to hurt and to ache because we know that's not what's best for them. A church that is accepting of sexual immorality or any other sin is actually acting in arrogance. And sadly, I think we see this all the time today, with so many so-called open and affirming churches. This may sound weird. In today's culture, it seems like they are the loving ones, because they are more welcoming, and therefore they are more loving. We have this idea that acceptance becomes love, and therefore they love their neighbors. But open and affirming is more than just being welcoming. It's affirming sin. It's encouraging sin. And that is not actually loving. According to what Paul is saying here, such acts is arrogant. It is arrogant for a church, which is Christ's possession, Christ's people, to think that they can undermine God. It is making more of yourself and less of God. It is to think that you know better than the creator of the universe. And so Christian love is not arrogant. Christian love makes less of oneself and more of God. Christian love is not free then to be offensive though. Christian love is not arrogant, but Christian love is also not rude. According to Webster's, rude means lacking refinement. It goes on to have an idea of being ignorant or uncivilized. The idea is being outside of current social norms, which I think is a good starting place. But I must say that the Greek, the original word, is really hard to translate. Partly because this is the only place it's used in the Bible. If you have a word that's used a couple hundred times, you have a couple hundred examples of different things that word can mean. But this word is only used once. Lou Naida, a famous lexicon of the Greek language, says that it means to behave improperly. Or as the old King James puts it, love doth not behave itself unseemly. To be rude is to behave in an unseemly manner. John Piper says, sorry, John Piper says that that means that this love does not consider the long accepted present cultural mores and practices and then arrogantly offend against them. Piper is saying if you look around and you see the cultural norms, the social behaviors, Love doesn't purposely offend against them. If you go over to someone's house and you see that everyone takes their shoes off when they come inside, or that everyone washes their hands before dinner, it's actually rude for you to not do the same. Piper goes on to say that this love does not behave itself unseemly, quote, it acts properly and in its place, rather than out of place. It acts properly and in its place. It seeks to honor commonly accepted standards because it is humble and not self-asserting, end quote. So love that is proper and in its place realizes the social context and tries not to be unseemly or out of place. It doesn't do things that might be vulgar or inappropriate. This love might look differently in different places. In America, it is often rude to burp in a public setting. And so we say, excuse me. But if you go to Taiwan, it's actually an honor to have someone burp after your meal. So it's a compliment in their culture. Similarly, in much of Europe, you greet close friends and loved ones with a kiss on the cheek. In America, that is taboo and considered quite rude in most settings. Christian love realizes the social context it is in and tries not to be abrasive or unseemly. it will act different in different situations. This does not mean that if sin is common, that we should then go on embracing sin. But when the culture does that, we should not act unseemly when standing against it. And I think if we look at the bigger picture here, with open and affirming being a type of arrogance, the call to not be rude becomes a kind of counterbalance. You see, we all know those Christians who go to LGBT pride events and preach against homosexuality. But it seems to me that showing up at an event that is designed to support such debauchery, with the purpose of confronting it, is ultimately rude. Going to a pride parade and holding up signs that say Leviticus 18.22, it is an abomination for a man to lie with a man, or Romans 1.27, men abandon natural passions for other men. Holding up signs with those verses is unseemly in that place and time. In no way do I want to deny what those verses say. God has said it in inerrant scripture, and it is true. But I want to be clear that what we are saying here is that is not the place to confront that issue. I'm not saying it's wrong to go there and present the gospel, to declare that Jesus Christ is King and Lord and that he loves and saves us from our sin. But what I'm saying is that's not the place to rail about biblical sexuality. Similarly, it is rude to go to a museum of evolutionary science in order to advocate creationism. Now, I absolutely believe creationism. God created the whole universe, the Bible teaches, and it teaches that he created Adam and Eve uniquely in his image. I have no idea how you can hold to those two biblical beliefs and come to a conclusion based off evolution. But a museum of evolutionary science is a place meant to propagate those ideas. It would be unseemly to go there with the primary agenda to preach against it. Again, I'm not saying it's wrong to bring the gospel, to talk to people about Jesus. But if you go to a museum of evolutionary science to proclaim creation, or an LGBTQIA event to proclaim that homosexuality is a sin, you're not actually making it about Jesus. You're making it about you. You're making it about an issue that you are connected to, that you love, that you agree with, and you're taking the issue, not Jesus. And let me tell you a secret that you may have not heard because it doesn't sell many books. No one's going to be saved because they believe homosexuality is a sin. No one is saved because they believe God created everything. We are only saved if we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and we follow him. And if we actually follow Jesus, then we ultimately have to wrestle with what does Jesus say about all things such as sexuality and creation. And if you go in Following Jesus, if someone comes to follow Jesus, they then have to say, what does Jesus believe about these things? But if you go into a place like a creation museum or an LGBT pride event or some other place that is set apart for doing something not of God in order to rail against what they're doing, even if what you're saying is absolutely true, you are making it about yourself and not about God. Now, I know hearing these two sides may sound a bit contradictory. On the one hand, it is arrogant for Christians to be completely accepting, to be open and affirming within the church. But on the other hand, it is rude for us to go into other contexts and to proclaim in their space that what they are doing is wrong. But I think that's exactly what Jesus does. You see, Jesus doesn't go into pagan temples flipping tables. He goes into the temple of God. Jesus doesn't go into the brothels where the prostitutes are. But when the prostitutes discover who Jesus is and how beautiful he is and how wonderful he is, they leave it behind to follow him. You see, throughout Jesus's ministry, he made less of himself and more of God. He was not arrogant, thinking himself better than others, but in his lowness, he lowered himself, taking on the form of a servant. He was not rude, coming into the world to condemn it. But scripture says, for God did not send his son to condemn the world, but in order to save it. Even though Jesus was light in the darkness, Even though he lived a perfect life unlike any other man in history, even though he was completely different than the world around him, he did not act unseemly towards it. But he grew up in favor with both God and men. And so you see throughout Jesus's ministry a different expectation on those who claim to follow God and on those who don't. And ultimately, Jesus gives himself for those who realize they don't follow God. For Jesus says in Luke 5, chapter 32, I have not come to call the righteous, but the unrighteous. So Christian love makes much of God because it is what God has done for us. Christian love realizes that we are only able to come to God through Jesus. That we are the unrighteous ones that Jesus came to call and save. Christian love is not arrogant or rude. It is not puffed up and it does not behave in an unseemly manner. It makes more of God and less of yourself. And so when we love the unbelievers in our life, we need to remember to not assume that we are better than them just because we're Christians. Rather, we realize that apart from Jesus, we'd probably be worse off than they are. As Christians, it is not arrogant, we are not so arrogant to assume that non-Christians will act like Christians. But we should also not be so arrogant to assume on God's favor, to not twist what God has said, to not change what he is doing or what he commands. And as Christians, it means we are not rude. We don't act like unbelievers are less than human. We don't neglect the fact that they are image bearers made in the beauty of God, no matter how far they might stray. And so this type of love makes less of ourselves and more of God. But love that is not arrogant or rude is also that way towards other Christians. By realizing we are not the standard of following Jesus, we realize that even though we follow Jesus, others might follow Jesus in a way that looks different than ourselves. With that, we do realize to be a Christian is to follow Jesus and to believe certain things about Jesus. But we should realize that the same Jesus and the same gospel may have different ways of functioning, different implications in different cultures, different societies, different churches, and different communities. If you go to a church in Africa, you should expect that they speak another language and sing songs not like what you sing here at Batchelor Congregation. Sadly, for centuries, missionaries from the West, from English-speaking places, went to places like Africa and taught them English, set up churches that read the Bible in English, prayed in English, sang English hymns, instead of going in and translating the Bible into their language. and helping them develop a Christian culture and a Christian life in their society. And we must realize that it is arrogant to assume that English-speaking Christianity, that our prayers and practices and scriptures are somehow better than others and they should do what we do. And it is rude to go into other cultures and force it upon them. Let me be clear. I'm not saying there's a problem with going to other cultures with the gospel. Jesus is for everyone, every tribe, nation, and tongue. So we should actually assume that there is a way to follow Jesus in every nation, tribe, and tongue. That Jesus doesn't need us to take our American Christianity other places. He needs us to take Jesus other places and develop a Christian culture in China, in Africa, in South America, wherever it may be. Similarly, though, we need to realize that there are even differences between Christians and our local church, that the person next to you might not live and practice their Christianity the same way you do. We realize that often older Christians sing different songs and hear different things than younger Christians. We often realize that people from different church backgrounds might have different ways of thinking about core things we do in the church, how communion works, how baptism works. And we're not saying one is better than the other. And even within our own church, we realize that people might pray differently, that people might read and do devotions differently, that people will practice their Christianity in different ways. And so we love them without being arrogant or rude. For example, if you are someone who doesn't drink, you might go to someone's house who is also a Christian, and they might drink, and that's okay. But you might be someone who drinks every day, and you might invite someone over who doesn't drink, and it might be rude for you to offer in that situation, even though that's something you normally do. we realize that there is not an arrogance amongst us, that we are to not be arrogant, assuming our ways fit for others, or to not be rude, assuming that others have to then fit into our ways. Christian love thinks less of ourselves and more of God. It realizes that we are all broken sinners, that Jesus makes us new, and Christian love realizes how little we are in comparison to the greatness of God. Rather, Christian love sets its adoration on God and God alone, because He is not arrogant or rude. Jesus does not make too much of himself because it is impossible to make too much of God. And Jesus is not rude. And I know this because he doesn't want us to change first. He comes to us in our problems, in our brokenness, and in our rebellion, and turns us to him. He doesn't come into our lives expecting us to fit his mold before we are saved and come to faith in Jesus. And so we should do the same for others. So Christian love makes less of oneself and more of God. Amen. Let's pray. Dearly God, thank you that you sent Christ. who was not arrogant or rude, but in his grace and his mercy, gave himself, gave his life upon a cross to forgive us from our sins. Help us to live that out towards others. Help us to not be arrogant or rude, but to love others as you first loved us. We thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name, amen.