Ready to Love Beyond Disappointment

The love of scripture, the love of God, the love that Paul is displaying is one that speaks the truth in love that says, "Hey, there are things in your life just like there are things in my life that God does not like, that God does not tolerate, that are not okay." This is where so many people get this wrong. They think loving someone means accepting everything about them. They think it means never challenging them, never calling them out. But that's not love. That's enabling. That's not compassion. That is being a coward. But hey, if you have your Bibles, let's go ahead and open to 2 Corinthians chapter 12. We're going to be starting in verse 14. And and as you're flipping there, here's a question that I want you to ponder and think about a little bit. Is have you ever been deeply disappointed by someone you love? It's quiet. first service. Yeah, first service laughed when I said that. I was like, "Dang, that's a" and hit their spouses. Um, but like think about that for a second. Have you ever been disappointed by someone that you love? Maybe it's by a parent who who you wanted to show up at a certain time and did not show up when you really needed it. Maybe it's by a spouse who who broke your trust and you're still working through some wounds and some hurt. Maybe it's a friend who betrayed your confidence. A child who rejected everything you raised them in and has gone a weward path. Maybe it is a church leader who fell into sin and broke some of that that odd time just that heartfelt trust you had there. Or maybe it's a mentor who poured into you but eventually let you down. If we're honest, all of us have been disappointed by people because in as people, we are all in the business of disappointing others. And when we talk about disappointment in our relationships, it's one of the most painful and one of the most inevitable experiences we all face. And I don't know about you, but I have a feeling your natural response is a lot like my natural response is when people disappoint me. When people hurt me, when people do things that I do not like, I cut them out. I move on. I want to run away. In the natural sinful urge in me is I'm out. But today as we step into this chapter, Paul is going to show us what is the proper response when we are disappointed. And really, he's going to ask this question to us and frame this this key question that we're going to dive into and answer is how do we love beyond disappointment? People will disappoint us. It's not if they will, but how do we love people? And how are we loved despite that disappointment? Now, as we start to get into this, I want to make clear very quickly upfront that loving beyond disappointment doesn't mean we become a doormat. It it doesn't all of a sudden mean we tolerate abuse or we enable destructive behavior. Paul is going to show us a kind of love that is a beautiful balance. It is a balance between being tough and tender. a balance between being confrontational and compassionate. And we see all this starts in 2 Corinthians 12 starting in verse 14. This is what the Apostle Paul writes. He says, "Look, I am ready to come to you this third time. I will not burden you since I am not seeking what is yours, but you." For children ought not to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. I will most gladly spend and be spent for you. If I love you more, am I to be loved less? As we start down this journey, the first thing that Paul shows us is loving beyond disappointment is loving without condition. Paul Paul's making in a little context here as he dives into this. He's about to make his third visit to the city of Corenth. and and he's establishing something crucial right from the start as he's about to visit them. His love for them isn't conditional on what they can do for him. He he says this in verse 14. He says, "I'm not seeking what is yours, but I'm just seeking you." Now, this is the heart of unconditional love. Paul isn't after their money. He he's not after their approval. He's not after their service or their reputation. He wants them and them alone. And then he goes into this beautiful parent child uh metaphor in this uh this idea of we don't expect children to care for their parents or parents to save and care for their children. And it got me thinking a little bit about my kids. I got four kids nine and under. And as I was thinking about what our kids contribute to the economy of our house, it's a big old negative. All right. I'm like, what are you guys like doing? How are you contributing? What are you What are you helping for? Then I thought about my one-year-old daughter. She is so cute. Alice, she's 18 months old. We went over to a friend's house from church this last weekend. They had a cow outfit that was like for an 18-month-old that they've had uh for way too long. And then we put on our account if it was the cutest cow you've ever seen in your life. And then I'm thinking about Alice as she's being a crazy person the whole rest of the week. Hurricane Alice is what she's going through. She just takes out all the toys. She climbs up on the furniture. She tries to jump off the counters. And I'm like, what do you contribute to our household? You don't do chores. You don't even you don't even go to the bathroom on your by yourself. You don't clean up after yourself. Like, you contribute nothing. But I love her because she is mine. I love her cuz she is part of me. I love her cuz she is literally she and is me and my wife's precious kid just like the other three we have. And Paul as he's diving into this, he's saying, "Hey, Corinthian church," he's like, "You're not giving me anything back. If anything, you're a headache. You're you're a pain in my side. You're a drain on my energy and my resources, but I love you regardless." And Paul loved the Corinthians this way as we love our kids and honestly how God loves us. And that's exactly how we're called to love others without condition. But here's where it gets even more challenging. Look at verse 15. He said, "I will gladly I will most gladly spend and be spent for you. If I love you more, am I being am I to be loved less?" Paul is saying, "I'm willing to give everything for you. I'm I'm willing to give my time, my energy, my resources, my very life. And even if you do if you love me less as a result in return of this, I'm still going to love you more. This is the heart of unconditional love. And it is so countercultural to what we see in our world today. Our world is the epitome of conditional love. Our world says if I'll love you if you appreciate me, if you respect me, I'll love you when you get your act together. You're going to be waiting a whole long time for that one, right? Um if your spouse is like, I'll love you when you get your act together, you're going to be waiting forever, right? It's like, or our world says, I'll love you as long as you meet my expectations. Husbands, we're all in trouble there, right? It's like our world puts these conditions on how do we love, but Paul says, "No, it's not like that. It's not like I'll love you when you do these things, but I'll love you even if you don't love me back." This past week, I got a message and part of this this happens this this actually happens consistently um through just the life of church. But I got a message from someone who's been coming to our church for a while and for a little while and we've been we've been pursuing and get them plugged into different ministries and they're like, "Um, hey pastor, you know, I still love you guys, but we're we're checking out some other churches, trying some other things." And the first thing that came was just like a pit in my stomach. I was sad. And then I'll be honest, just being open, transparent, that that sadness in my flesh turned into some anger. And I was like, "All right, we don't need you. You're dead to me." Like, "Right, delete." No. Then the Holy Spirit came out. All right. But here is the conviction on my heart that literally as I'm studying this passage for the past 3 weeks that God's like, "Hey, you don't love people just because they go to your church. You love them before they come to your church, while they're at your church, and after they leave your church." We love people before they come into our lives, when they're in our lives, and after they leave our lives. Is we love without condition, not when they have everything together. Because they will disappoint you just like you disappoint other people. But we love them through it. Conditional love is a transactional love. It keeps score. But unconditional love, the love that we see from Paul, Christ's love working through Paul, keeps no record of wrongs. It gives without expecting return. It serves without demanding appreciation. So let me ask you this question to ponder in your heart as we go through this journey. Who in your life have you been loving conditionally? Who in your life are you saying I'm loving you if you do this, when you do this? As long as you do this. All of us fall guilty in our lives of falling into those categories. But loving without condition, meaning we love people who don't deserve it. And here is the beautiful thing about this. We can do this because God loves us when we don't deserve it. And Paul, as he begins to go down this journey, he shows that we need to love without condition. But he keeps going in verse 16. He says, "Now granted, I did not burden you, yet sly as I am, I took you in by deceit." He's not like, "I didn't make you like me. Instead, I kind of warmed up to you and I snuck in real quickly. In verse 17, he says, "Did I take advantage of you by any of those I sent you? I urged Titus to go and I sent the brothers with him." Titus didn't take advantage of you, did he? He's asking a rhetorical question. Didn't we walk in the same spirit and in the same footsteps? Verse 19, "Have you been thinking all along that we were defending ourselves to you? No. in the sight of God. We were we are speaking in Christ and everything, dear friends, is for building you up. Paul says, when we are to love beyond disappointment, we don't just love without condition, but we also love without ceasing. Here Paul addresses some accusations that were apparently being made against him. Some people were accusing and suggesting that Paul, even though he didn't take money directly from the Corinthians, that he was somehow manipulating them through his associates and through other leaders in the church, men like Titus. And Paul responds, his response here is essentially like, really? He's like, you think I'm trying to run some start a long con? Paul's like, I I have enough friends. I don't really need you. Is what Paul is nicely saying here. He he's like, "I'm not doing this for my benefit. I'm not trying to trick you. I'm not trying to do all this." Instead, he said, "Despite your suspicions, despite your accusations, despite you pushing back and accusing me, I am going to love you." And look verse 19, how he does this. He says, "You've been thinking all along that we were defending ourselves to you. No, in the sight of God, we are speaking in Christ. And everything, dear friends, is for building you up." You see, Paul is saying, "I'm not defending myself because I need your approval or validation." He says, "I'm doing this because I'm trying to grow you stronger in Christ. I'm trying to build you up." And this is what loving without ceasing looks like is you keep showing up even when it's hard. Many of you know that I am a born and bred um in Phoenix, Arizona. Okay. I I I was actually telling some pastors, I'm I'm organizing some pastors in the West Valley, kind of getting together every now and then, and I'm like, I love the West Valley because I've grown up in the West Valley. I'm a product of three churches, three Southern Baptist churches, my whole life in the West Valley. I think God would not let me buy a house past Central. I'm just not allowed to do it. I lived at 15th Avenue in Union Hills one time. That's as close as I got. And God's like, "That's too close. We're sending you to North Surprise at 175th and Joeax is where I live now. Um, it's just how it is. So, in part of growing up in Phoenix, I love our sports teams so much despite how abusive and much they reject me. All right. It's hard to be an Arizona sports fan. I mean, uh, we're going to get destroyed today with a backup quarterback against the Green Bay Packers. Um, it's going to be ugly and awful and then we're going to go on a by-week like two and six or seven. I don't even know. We're trash. It's over. Um, I don't even know how many games we played, but they're going to give us some extra losses just cuz of how bad we've been. But yesterday, all right, let me just tell you this story. I was watching ASU and and I actually called this two weeks ago. I told Pastor Chad, I said, "We're going to lose in Utah, but I think we're going to win at home against Texas Tech, number 17 in the whole nation." I called it and and but as I'm watching that game, we should have been up by 30. I I'm texting a guy at the game, a friend. I'm texting my dad and my brother. I'm texting 10 other friends. I'm talking so much trash. I'm telling them like I prophesize this and it's coming true. And then with two minutes on the clock, Texas Tech goes ahead. And then all of a sudden my prophecy I was like, it was a false prophecy. I'm like, this team's trash. I can't stand it. ASU did another ASU. All right. And I was so angry. And then somehow we came and win the game. We celebrated one of the lone bright spots in the darkness that is being an Arizona sports fan. Hey, I don't want to hear any tech. I heard some like tech uh excuses over here. We'll talk after. All right. Uh we'll pull the receipts out. Okay. Um freshman, whatever. Hey, Texas Tech Twitter was saying how that was the better quarterback anyway than the other guys. So, I'm just going to throw that out there. But here's the point of this story before this sermon becomes 50 minutes. I have loved those teams despite the fact that I should have stopped long ago. And often, here's the problem is we are more loyal to our sports teams and cheer for them despite the abuse they give us back, despite the lack of results, despite the fact that they're owned by people who are morons at times. We love them and cheer for them. But sometimes we don't give the same respect and longevity to the relationships that actually matter in our lives. We love our teams without ceasing, but we don't always love our spouses or our parents or our family members or our friends when they hurt us. Be like, "Nah, that's too far." But Paul says, "People will disappoint you. People will hurt you. People will do all these things to you, but you keep loving them anyway." You see, loving without ceasing means we love people persistently, even when it's painful. And the question for you is, let me let me just put this on your mind as you continue think about the people maybe that you have conditionally loved. What about the people that you have been tempted to or you have done where you've given up on because they've just hurt you too much? The people in your life who you stopped pursuing because the relationship was just too hard. Maybe God is calling you to love without ceasing, to keep showing up, to keep praying, to keep reaching out even when there's no guarantee of change. And Paul keeps diving into this. You be like, cuz I I don't know. You might hear that and be like, well, the these you don't know these people like that sounds great that I just need to keep loving them without condition. I just need to keep loving them even when it's hard, without ceasing. Like that sounds great, but I don't know if you know my situation. You don't know how messed up they are. They need to be right and they need to be fixed. Well, Paul gets into that in verse 20. He says, "For I fear that perhaps when I come, I will not find you to be what I want." Paul's like, "I'm going to come and you guys are going to be a mess." And then he continues. He says this. He says, "And you may not find me to be what you want." He's like, "You guys are going to be a mess. I'm going to tell you you're a mess and you're not going to like it. But he continues, "Perhaps there will be quarreling. Perhaps there will be jealousy, angry outburst, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder." He says, 'I fear that when I come, my God will again humiliate me in your presence, and I will grieve for many who sinned before and have not repented of the moral impurity of the sexual morality and the sensuality that they practiced. Paul, as he's taking us down this journey of how do we love beyond disappointment? We love without condition. We love without ceasing. And lastly, we love without compromise. Paul here, it takes his love in an interesting area because just because it's unconditional, just because it doesn't stop, doesn't mean that we accept everything. Paul starts this in verse 20. He says, "For I fear that perhaps when I come, I will not find you to be what I want and you and I may not be what you want me to be." But he says, "Perhaps there will be." And then he starts listing specific sins that he's concerned about that are inside that church. He says, "Perhaps when I come, I'm going to see quarreling. That you guys are going to be constantly arguing. You're going to be in conflict. You're going to be mad at each other. There's going to be jealousy. You're going to be envying what other people have, and you're going to want that in your life. There's going to be angry outbursts." He's like, "There's going to be this uncontrolled rage that some of you just need to be put in your place." He's saying there's going to be these selfish ambitions. He's like, "Some of you are pursuing personal agenda over God's kingdom." He says, "Some of you there's slander. You're damaging others reputation." Paul was a recipient of this. There is gossip spreading harmful information. That never happens inside a church, right? There's no gossip ever, especially in a Southern Baptist church. Anyway, um there's arrogance, right? He says pride and superior superiority might be wreaking havoc through the church. There's disorder. That there's chaos and lack of godly structure. And then he goes in 20 and he says in this moral impurity, this sexual morality, the sensuality, he said, I've been talking about these against these various sexual sins, but it keeps coming back. And Paul's like, "I'm going to come." After repreaching for you for years, after writing four letters to you, two that we have in scripture, after visiting twice, and coming a third time, he's like, "I think I'm going to come and you're still going to be a mess. And I'm going to have to tell you, you're a mess." But Paul saying here that just because I'm not overlooking these things, just because I'm not pretending like these things don't matter, he says, "I'm going to love you unconditionally, but that doesn't mean that anything goes." He loves them enough to be honest about their sin. He loves them enough to grieve over their unrepentance. He loves them enough to confront what is destroying them. You guys ever see memes and think they're all stupid? Just me. Okay, that's good. You're like, "Hard left turn." I know. But here, I saw this the other day. And usually when I see memes, I'm like, "This is like who creates these things?" That's my first question is who creates these things? And maybe it's some of you, right? Um on some different things, but I saw this one. And usually I scroll by and like this is ridiculous. But I saw this one and let me just I was going to show a picture of it, but I think I'm going to just paint you a picture with my words instead in your mind. All right? and and but it was this it was a scene from the first Avengers and Captain America it's near the final battle is he turns to Bruce Banner he says now is the time to get angry and Bruce Banner turns to him he's like that's the trick I'm always angry and he turns into the Hulk now half of you checked out half of you checked in for the first time welcome to the sermon all right so that's the scene and then they the meme they put words over it so it said Captain America and And this is his caption they put over Captain America. It said, "Don't be that Christian that pushes people away from God." That That's a great line, Captain America. Like, that sounds like something Captain America would say. Like, don't be the Christian that pushes people away. Don't be a jerk. Don't be mean. Don't push people away from God. Got it, Captain America. But here's what Bruce Banner said in the meme, not in the movie, just in case you go watch it after and be like, "That is not in the movie." All right. He said, "Don't be that Christian that loves them all the way to hell." This is the balance of loving people in a biblical way. Is how do we not just be a jerk and push them away, have big old signs that say you're a sinner, you're going to hell, you're going to burn, but how at the same time do we not say, "Yeah, I see all your sins, but don't worry about that. God loves you. I love you. Keep doing you. just don't change because that is not the love that scripture has. The love of scripture, the love of God, the love that Paul is displaying is one that speaks the truth in love that says, "Hey, there are things in your life just like there are things in my life that God does not like, that God does not tolerate, that are not okay." We need to purge those things out of our life, the ones Paul lists here and many, many more. There are things in our lives that God detests because they are evil and because they are sinful. And we are not loving when our brother has something in his eye and we're like, I just got to worry about my stuff. But when he has a plank in his eye, help him lovingly pull that plank out of his eye while you're cleaning the speck out of yours. And Paul here, he's saying, this is where so many people get this wrong. They think loving someone means accepting everything about them. They think it means that never challenging them. Never calling them out. But that's not love. That's enabling. That's not compassion. That is being a coward. Real love, the kind that Paul demonstrates, the kind that Jesus has shown us throughout scripture, speaks truth even when it's uncomfortable. It confronts sin because it cares about the person's spiritual health. It grieavves over unrepentance because it knows the consequences of it. You look at Paul's emotional state here. He fears finding them unchanged. He He knows where that's leads to. He He anticipates that being humiliated because he has to give a a a a message counter to what they've been hearing. And he knows they're going to hate him for it. And he knows he will grieve over those who have not repented. You see, this isn't cold clinical correction. This is heartbroken love on display by the apostle Paul. It is a spiritual father grieving over his weward children. You see loving without compromising compromise means that we are loving people enough to tell them the truth even when that truth is really really hard. Who in your life needs you to love them enough to speak truth? who needs you to stop pretending that everything's okay and start addressing what's really going on in their heart. You see all this and and you hear this and you take this passage out like, man, that sounds great, but I don't think I'm that kind of a loving person. I don't know if I can love people without condition because sometimes I need those conditions because they keep hurting me. I don't know if I can love people without ceasing because sometimes they just hurt me and it's just too much to bear. I got to put a stop to it and I don't know if I can love people without compromise because when I see it hurts them to speak this truth that challenges their life. It it just is hard for me to do. And you're like I don't know if I have the strength or the power to do this and you are right. You do not. I do not. But we have a God that does. And Paul, this chapter kind of ends on a cliff note, right? like ending a sermon with sexual morality and sensuality they practiced, right? That's not a really like loving gospel response to end on the sermon. But when we read this in the larger scope of scripture, as Paul is loving them, as Paul is correcting them, as Paul is pushing them down a path, I think we see the beauty of what Paul does here and what Paul is pushing us towards. The God who has the strength to love this way. And we see it in Romans 5:8. And you can flip there or you can just listen or you can write this down. And Paul writes this in kind of his massive letter where he really lays out his theology totally of who Christ is. But I love in Romans 5:3. You've probably heard this verse if you've been in church before. It says, "But God proves his own love for us." He proves it. He shows it. He makes it known in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. You see, here is the answer to how do we love beyond disappointment. Is if Christ can love beyond the disappointment of our sin. While we were still sinners, Christ loved us. Then we can love others beyond the disappointment they're in right now. You look at other people and you're like, man, I don't know if I can love them. They have hurt me too much. They have screwed up too much. They have messed up too much. But when you look internally, you're like, and I have done that and so much more. And you've disappointed God more than anyone. You know, cuz you know the depths of your heart. You know the worst sins in your life. You know the thoughts that have gone through your head. You know the ways that you have disappointed God. But we're told in scripture that while we were still disappointing God, while we were still sinners, while we were still messed up, while we are helpless, in verse six, it says God proved his own love and that in the middle of this, Christ died for us. As we reflect on this today, we're going to go into a time of prayer. And we pray in different ways here at Cross Church. Sometimes we pray out loud. Sometimes we pray in groups. Sometimes we pray in different ways. But today, you're going to pray between you and God. Nobody else. And here's what I love. This is this is your private prayer life. So, when everyone eventually bows their head and close their eyes, and there's some prompts we're going to take you through, God knows if you're lying or not. I may not, but God knows. God knows if you're taking a little nap before you get out. God knows if you're secretly checking your fantasy score instead of searching the depths of your heart. And in this time as we talk and we just reflect on the fact of how can we love others, it starts by first recognizing how much God has loved us. That while we're still broken and sinners, Jesus came down for us. that even though Jesus lived a perfect life that was an innocent man, fully man, fully God, that he died on a cross for our sake, for our disappointments, for our failures. That he rose again to forgive those sins, not knowing that we would accept him as savior, not waiting to see if he's were going to love him back, but he did it to prove his own love while we were still disappointing him.