The Art of Loving: Love Believes & Hopes (1 Cor. 13:4-8)

The Art of Loving: Love Believes All Things
1 Corinthians 13:4-8

INTRODUCTION:
Dr. McDonald was a POW in Germany during WW II. He learned about Normandy and D-Day while a POW. One morning, an American came up to him and said, “The Scotsman wants to see you right away.”

McDonald went over to the barbed-wire fence that separated the British and American POWs and the Scotsman told him, “They have come! They have come!”

Back in the American barracks, McDonald starting screaming, running around, and telling everybody, “They’ve come! They’ve come! They’ve come!” At that, all the men started shouting, hugging each other and crying. Then they ran out in the street and rolled in the dirt with joy.

The German guards watching them must have thought they were crazy. And why not? Nothing physical had changed. The Americans were still prisoners at the mercy of their Nazi captors.

What had changed, however, was that suddenly the Americans had hope. Allied troops were on their way. Freedom was in sight, a certainty only weeks or even days away. That hope made all the difference.

There was a lady named Ruele Howe who told about growing up in the country and about how, when she was 15 years old, her house burned down. The family members escaped with nothing but the clothes on their back.

Since there were no neighbors nearby, she and her father had to walk to the village to try and get some help. When they returned, they saw something that stayed with Ruele all her days. Beside the charred remains of what had been their home, her mother had laid out a little lunch on a log, and next to it was a tiny can filled with wildflowers.

Those flowers were a symbol of hope, of optimism, of love of life in the midst of tragedy. They were a statement that no matter what happens, they will always face the future confidently because the know it’s in the hands of the Lord who loves them. “Love always trust, always hopes,” (1 Corinthians 13:7), Paul defines love.

We are studying the “Art of Loving” from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 on the first Sunday of each month this year. We have only three months to go, only three lessons to go. In this lesson, we look at the topic that love is optimistic - it believes all things and love hopes all things.

The actress Lucille Ball once said, “One of the things I learned the hard way was that it does not pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.” Optimism and hope are built out of a loving, God-like heart.

There are two types of human beings in the world: those who think life is a privilege and those who think that life is an endless string of problems. And that difference in world view makes a huge difference in how we live and how we relate to each other. If you believe life is a privilege, then you tend to be enthusiastic and energetic; you love being challenged and are resilient in the face of pain and sickness. You see life as hopeful and exciting. The pessimists are hesitant, suspicious, self-centered. They think that there is always an ambush waiting to spring on them.

There was a little boy whose mother died so the dad was trying to be a mother and father to him. Under those difficult circumstances, the dad had scheduled a picnic for them. The boy had never been on a picnic, and was so excited the night before that he could not sleep. Soon, there was a patter of little feet down the hall to the bedroom where his father was sleeping. He shook his dad, who would have responded gruffly if he had not see the expression on his child’s face.

“What’s the matter, Son?” the dad asked. “Oh, dad,” he answered, “Tomorrow’s going to be such a wonderful day! I just can’t sleep, I’m so excited!”

The dad laughed and said, “Well, it won’t be a wonderful day if you don’t get some sleep. Now you go back to your bedroom and try to sleep.”

The little boy disappeared. But it wasn’t too long later when the patter of little feet could be heard once again coming down the hallway. “What do you want now, Son?” Dad asked. “Daddy,” the little boy said, “I just want to thank you for tomorrow.”

That’s Christianity - thanking God for what we have not yet received but for what we hope to receive. That’s optimism. God continues to prove Himself worthy of trust; that’s why Christians should have hope.

BIBLICAL HOPE:
Abraham — God told him in Genesis 12:1-3 to leave his country and his family and go to a land he had never seen. There, God would make him a great nation. Abraham was already an old man and did not have children. But he obeyed; in fact, he would not even have a homeland throughout his life and he would have no extended family. But God was promising him to be the father of nations.

“Against all hope,” Paul writes in Romans 4:18, Abraham had hope and became the father of many nations, just as God had said. He believed in God’s promises and found them to be true and reliable. We will too, if we follow the footsteps of faith that Abraham had.

Jesus is probably the greatest optimist - flawless in His expectations. Probably because He trusted in the Father so much. He knew where He was going and He knew how to get there. He had a hope built on absolute trust that everything would work out in the end.

“…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). Jesus had that sure hope, illustrated in Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

It was with confidence that Jesus said, “upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it” (Matt. 16:18).

We have the same Father; we can have the same hope. Romans 8:28 is not just a warm blanket to comfort those who are hurting but a solid rock on which we can build a life of optimism and hope: “we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

Listen to the words of Jesus in John 16:33: “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” We can be optimistic when we internalize the point that everything ultimately is in God’s hands.

Again, listen to God’s word, voiced through the pen of the apostle Peter: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1:3-5). We have a living hope because of what the Father has done and what He has done through Jesus Christ.

FALSE HOPE:
It hasn’t been too long ago that researchers were promising that an extract from apricot pits - Laetrile - would cure cancer - every type of cancer - without any negative side effects. Thousands of those with cancer who were desperate for healing went to Mexico full of hope. The National Cancer Institute eventually found that Laetrile did not do any good with cancer but, in fact, was harmful. Many doctors believed cancer patients were killed by hope in a worthless treatment.

We simply cannot live without hope, but it has to be hope built on a firm foundation. Martin Luther, the Reformer, wrote that everything done in this world is done by hope. Orson Sweat Martin said, “There’s no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow.”

But, again, it has to be hope that is built on something solid - God’s word.

People hope in money.
They hope in possessions.
They hope in the stock market.
They hope in their physical appearance.
They hope in intelligence.
They hope in their professional credentials.
They hope in their attractiveness to those of the opposite sex.

But the world simply has no good substitute for hope in the resurrected Christ. It is especially when we reach the end of life that everything the world has offered us is futility. Warren Chandler, as he lay dying, was asked by friends who came to visit him, “Do you dread crossing the river of death?” He responded, “My Father owns the land on both sides of the river. Why should I be afraid?”

Dr. Barker, a White House physician, writes about asking the happiest man he’d ever known, in St. Louis, MO, how he managed to stay so happy.

“Well, I’ll tell you a story,” the man began. “When I was a young man, I fell head-over-heals in love with the sweetest girl, and she still is and I still am. We’ve been married for 40 years now.

“But she had one fault then, and she still does. She’s always late for things. One time when we were dating, she begged me to take her to the concert of this certain singer. I promised her that if she would be ready 30 minutes before the concert, I would get the tickets and take her.

“Well, I went over to her place even earlier than that. Her mother invited me in and said, “Nellie will never be ready in time. She just came in.” I stood there a minute and then began to pace up and down the floor, getting more and more angry by the minute as I watched the clock. Sure enough, the 30-minute deadline passed. I just sat down on a chair in the hall in frustration.

“Beside me on the table was a book. I opened it, and on the flyleaf were written three sentences that changed my life. Here’s what they said: ‘For every evil under the sun, there is a remedy or there is none. If there’s one, seek till you find it. If there’s none, never mind it.’”

“I decided in that moment that I couldn’t change Nellie’s habit of tardiness, and I decided to accept it. I did that with everything in my life I couldn’t change, and it’s brought me the greatest joy and happiness.”

Life is always going to throw us curves; serve us lemonades - whatever metaphor you want to use. Satan wants us frustrated; he wants us pessimistic because he turns our hearts away from God. The only thing we can change over those frustrations is our attitude and response. We are responsible for our attitudes and how we handle what life brings our way.

Go to a prison and ask inmates why they are there. Too often, you’ll hear things like, “I was framed.” “They ganged up on me.” “Mistaken identity.” “The police had it in for me.” Very few will say, “I was guilty.” And those are the ones who actually have a realistic hope of overcoming their problems and make something of their lives. They have accepted the reality of what they’ve done.

Sooner or later, if we want to have a real hope for the future, we’ve got to take responsibility for ourselves and our own choices.

Each one of us, as Christians, represent Christ to the world, all day, every day. We cannot change reality, but we can change the way we respond to that reality. And when we realize that God is in control of reality, it helps us to “believe all things, hope all things.”

OPTIMISM’S FRUIT:
A warm, genuine smile. Are you happy because you smile? Or do you smile because you are happy? Let’s allow people to see the optimism and hope God has put into our hearts. A smile is like the rays of sunshine in our hearts shining out. An optimist laughs to forget; a pessimist forgets to laugh.

The Value of a Smile

It costs nothing, but creates much.
It enriches those who receive without impoverishing those who give.
It happens in a flash, and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever.
None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits.
It creates happiness in the home, fosters goodwill in a business and is the countersign of friends.
It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad and nature’s best antidote for trouble.
Yet, it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed or stolen, for it is something that is no earthly good to anyone until it is given away.
Author unknown

Our health. Our attitude has a profound impact on our physical health. Placebos - sugar pills - work anywhere between 30 and 60% of the time - people get better because they think they are getting medicine. Pessimists seem to be less resistant to diseases; they get sick more often.

Social life. Hopeful, optimistic people are more pleasant to be around. They are more friendly so they have more friends. Pessimists who think that other people won’t like them tend to create self-fulfilling prophecies.

Success in business. An insurance company found in a study of their salesmen that optimists outsold the pessimists 20% in the first year and 50% in the second year.

Spiritually. There was an old flower lady who sat on the street corner, wearing a beautiful smile on her wrinkled face. She was alive with joy. One day a man approached her and said, “My, you look happy this morning.” “Why not?” She responded, “Everything’s good.”

She was drably dressed and obviously poor, so the man asked, “Well, don’t you have any troubles?” She said, “Oh, you can’t reach my age and not have troubles, but it’s like Jesus and the resurrection. When Jesus was crucified on that Friday, that was the worst day in the whole world. And when I get troubles, I remember that day. But then I think of what happened three days later - resurrection. The Lord came forth. So when things go wrong, I’ve just learned to wait three days, and somehow every time things get much better.”

CONCLUSION:
When we have trust in God and His love for us, we can be patient and give Him a chance to help. Pessimists frankly don’t expect God to help. But we’ll see Him do a lot more, and we’ll grow a lot more in our faith, when we offer Him that opportunity to show Himself faithful.

Take home message: Love is optimistic. Practice that with each other and with God. It is loving like Jesus loves.

Start an evangelism conversation: “How do you handle pressure? When the pressure is really on, what do you need from your friends?”