Agape Love

A Seven Part Homily Series

Part Three

Love is not Proud, Rude or Self-Seeking

 

By Michael K. Farrar, O.D.

© God’s Breath Publications

 

I Corinthians 13:4-8

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

 

We continue in this series on love to examine this scriptural painting of God’s character. The brush strokes we see in this portion of scripture illustrate what God’s “agape” love is not. Such love is not proud or arrogant. It is not rude to others and it does not seek its own selfish gain.

 

Love is not Proud

 

Boasting is a grab for praise, but when we are prideful we are trying to acquire power over situations or individuals. Pride is a grab for power that we don’t deserve. We are exerting inappropriate authority over our lives and the lives of others. We can even go so far as to challenge God in our pride and this leads to rebellion. Prideful people push themselves into leadership or positions of authority while they walk on others and cause harm and hurt.

 

Pride leads to arrogance and prideful, arrogant people use others to acquire the power they desire. Other words to describe people who are proud are conceited, haughty and egotistical. Such individuals are not demonstrating God’s agape love when they act self-important or condescending. Their lack of humility is obvious and they are in your face about how great they are. It is a rather unpleasant place to be when confronted by a proud and arrogant person.

 

Vanity is a result of such pride and arrogance. Our vanity can cause us to become so puffed-up with who we are that we fail to notice how we are deceiving ourselves and hurting others. We can become so vain that we feel we don’t need God to work in our lives because we have it all together. Relationally the vain person often only thinks how they can use people to acquire more attention, applause or power for themselves.

 

Lewis B. Smedes states, “Pride is arrogance in a vertical direction…It is to grab God’s status for one’s self.” He goes on to tell us the result of this grabbing for power that we don’t deserve. “Once we decide we have to make it on our own, we are attacked by the demons of fear and anxiety…we are worried that we cannot keep our balance as long as we carry no more inside our empty heart than what we can put there.” Many scriptures speak of how God feels about those who are proud.

 

Proverbs 16:5 

“The Lord detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.”

 Psalms 138:6

“Though the Lord is on high, He looks upon the lowly, but the proud He knows from afar.”

 

We are proud when we attempt to manipulate or control others for our own purposes. Such behavior is saying, in reality, that “I” know best and we leave God out of the picture. We lean to our own understanding because our pride won’t allow God to sit on the throne of our life. There is room for only one to sit on the throne of our heart and it will either be God or us.

 

But possibly as I share this we say to ourselves, “I’m not proud, arrogant or vain like that.” Does each of us have an element of pride, arrogance and vanity living within our fleshly nature? I would guess yes. None of us can say we don’t struggle with some degree of pride. That is why we must rely upon the Holy Spirit to hold us accountable. None of us perfectly express the love that God calls us to in this scripture. God our Heavenly Father calls us to strive towards it with the strength and power of His Holy Spirit. Here He tells us what love is not, so that we can express what God’s love truly is. In this process of loving as God loves, we emulate Jesus Christ and minister to others as well as ourselves. The only way we can avoid the sin of pride is to humble ourselves before God and allow Him to change us by His Word and the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

 

That is why God’s agape love is so crucial to keep in check our fleshly nature that is bent on being proud. The closer we are to God in our relationship with Him the more His Holy Spirit can transform our hearts, minds and soul. As we are influenced and held accountable by the Holy Spirit we become more and more like Christ. Romans 12:1-2 commands us to do this.

 

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

 

The pattern of this world is to be proud, arrogant about your accomplishments and not to let anything or anyone stand in your way.

 

But this is not the heavenly pattern we as Christians are to follow. We are children of the King. We are members of a royal priesthood. We are called to be dedicated to loving in an agape fashion. There is no room for pride in this love.

 

Love is not Rude

 

It is interesting that the Greek word in the New Testament for rude is “idiotes.” The implied meaning is that a rude person is an ignoramus. They are ignorant and unlearned. Rudeness is a product of a prideful heart.

 

Pride, leads to arrogance and both of these cause vanity to live within our hearts. As these spiritual cancers grow in our spirit we become rude to others. We mistreat people because we are too concerned with ourselves. We not only step on other peoples toes in our rudeness we can cause horrible emotional damage as we run roughshod over the spirits and hearts of those around us. Our prideful attitude towards our pursuit of our personal kingdom leaves no room for the feelings of other individuals, even those we love. Rudeness is a result of emptiness within a person that has been caused by their pride. The prideful person is rude in their behavior when people cannot offer anything to them to feed their pride.

 

But God’s agape love can break this cycle. It has been said that, “Love is never rude, because love is the power that moves us toward people for their good alone.” God’s love stops such rudeness if we listen for the Holy Spirit to speak to us and guide us. God’s Word can set boundaries around our rude behavior if we rely upon Holy Scripture to monitor our motivations. God’s love cannot coexist with rudeness. If we are rude, we have not acted in love. God’s love moves us towards humility, which in turn stimulates us to be repentant when we fail to love properly. When we are real with ourselves and God we have no reason to be proud or arrogant and we stop being rude. Again, we all need balance in our lives so we can seek to love properly. This balance comes as we grow and mature as Christians and learn to love as God loves. When we seek to love as God calls us to we will not act rude towards others. We will be kind and considerate and love as God loves.

 

Love is not Self-Seeking

 

A self-seeking person is concentrated on making sure justice is done in their life. They feel that they have certain rights and they must obtain and protect these rights in whatever way possible. Self-seeking people put their own rights over the rights of others.

 

The love we are called to in 1 Corinthians does not mean we don’t have any rights or that we shouldn’t seek to be treated with justice. It simply means that God’s love when properly expressed will not hurt others to obtain such rights or justice. Discernment is the key. God’s love tells us that we may sacrifice or put aside our own rights so that the rights of others can be preserved and protected. It also means that such love will seek justice as defined by God’s Word. Such love will also rely heavily upon the Holy Spirit for guidance in how actions are taken to express such love for others. Such love will work within the boundaries of God’s Word (Hebrews 4:12), the prompting of the Spirit (John 16:8-10) and the counsel of Godly advisors (Proverbs 15:22). When people have an agenda of seeking the needs of their self, they will not be willing to respond to the guidance of God’s Word. They will quench the Spirit by ignoring His direction and they will avoid listening to the counsel of wise Godly advisors.

 

Proverbs 18:1

“An unfriendly man pursues selfish ends; he defies all sound judgment.”

 

God’s Word is clear what a true child of God will strive to do when it comes to selfish desires.

 

Philippians 2:3-4

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

 

The problem for those who are self-seeking is that their lack of love for others will provide a breeding ground for other sins.

 

James 3:16

“For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.”

 

Our natural tendency in the flesh is to be self-seeking. As Christians we are in a lifelong process of growing in Christ so we can deny the self and all it desires to seek its selfish ends. When we humble ourselves before God and are transformed by Him we can be true to our self and seek what is good and true not only for us but for others as well. God knows that when we seek to love as He loves, we will not only avoid being proud, arrogant, rude and self-seeking, we will be fulfilled and at peace. May we avoid the temptation of pride, any expression of rudeness and the pursuit of self-seeking.