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From the Pastors at Joy

Tough Love

"I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children" (1 Corinthians 4:14).

This verse, and its surrounding context, teach a very important lesson on biblical love: love is willing to say hard things for the good of the beloved.

Paul says, "I do not write these things…" What things? Verses 8-13 are some hard, biting, even sarcastic words that Paul employs to knock the wind out of the Corinthians’ inflated view of themselves and the Christian life. Prior to that, he had told them that they were acting like babies. They still needed formula because they weren’t mature enough to handle solid food. They were acting like unbelievers, and if the ringleaders of this quarreling didn’t stop, they would be destroyed. If they were in love with the world’s wisdom, they were fools in God’s sight.

So “these things” are hard words! But what is Paul’s aim in writing these hard things? "I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children." His hard words, his admonishing, is an expression of his love for them.

Does that seem odd? “You’re acting like babies, and if you don’t repent you’ll go to hell…I love you!” I don’t think most of us are inclined to receive a rebuke like that and feel loved, because our view of love is shaped more by our culture than God’s Word.

In our culture, love and how we express it to others is controlled by how we think people will feel about our words and actions. We’re very thin-skinned, easily prone to feeling like victims, offended, wounded, and always placing the blame on someone else. So the way we express love to people – especially those who we feel are in need of a tough word – gets restricted because we feel like we’re held hostage by their bad feelings. If they convince us that we’ve made them feel bad, we think, “I must not be loving.” The bottom line isn’t truth or what’s best for people; it’s how people feel about themselves.

But that view of love won’t work here. Paul is loving the Corinthians (“beloved”), but in love he’s said some very hard things to them, things that probably did not give them a warm, fuzzy feeling inside! So why do we confine love to this sentimental, touchy-feely, “It’s ok, you’re alright, I know you have it hard.” It is that – sometimes – but it isn’t only that. It’s also loving for Paul to tell the Corinthians that they’re acting like babies and will go to hell if they don’t repent. Yet so often when you say something tough like this to another person – Christian or not – the response is, “Whoa, back off. That’s not loving.” But it is loving; Paul makes that clear!

To understand how it’s love, we need to understand what love is. In his book, The Surprising Offense of God’s Love, Jonathan Leeman defines love like this: Loving another means taking pleasure in that person’s movement toward conforming to and enjoying the greatest of goods: God. To truly love another means wanting that person to know, experience, receive, enjoy and adore the greatest possible good: God.

There is biblical warrant for understanding love like this. The most famous verse in the Bible on God’s love says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that (notice, here comes the goal of God’s love) whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). God’s love for you aims at you having eternal life. And what is eternal life? "This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3).

Elsewhere, Paul says that the good that God’s love is working for His beloved in all things is our conformity to the image of Christ Romans 8:28-29). So we are loved by God by being brought into the joyful knowledge of God and conformity to the image of God’s Son, Jesus.

And He calls you to love others as He has loved you: "Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another" (John 13:34). That’s what Paul is doing with the Corinthians; he longs for their movement toward conforming to and enjoying God, and as he sees them making choices and saying and doing things that are moving them away from God, love compels him to speak boldly to urge them back toward conformity to and enjoyment of the greatest of gifts: God. That’s how a rebuke is love.

In his (tough) letter to the Galatians, Paul challenged the church, "Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?" (Galatians 4:16). Think deeply about the nature of true, biblical, love, and resolve to never allow this to be said to you. Cherish those who love you enough to speak a hard word to you.

Taken from the sermon, “Tough Love,” preached on August 8th, 2010.