"A PERFECT LOVE!"
Written and preached by David P. Nolte




1 CORINTHIANS 13:4-8

Lorraine Hansberry's play, "Raisin In The Sun," tells the story of an African-American family who receives $10,000 from their father's insurance policy. It is their opportunity to leave the ghetto life of Harlem and move out to the country into a house with flower boxes. Beneatha, the brilliant daughter of the family, sees the money as an opportunity to live out her dream and go to medical school. The older brother, Walter, however, makes a plea to his mother, Lena. She isn't able to ignore his imploring. He wants to borrow the money so he and his "friend" can go into business. He assures his mother that he can make something of himself and ultimately help the family, too. Against her better judgment, she loans him $6500.00, feeling that life has never been good for the boy and that he deserved the chance the money might provide. She wanted to demonstrate maternal love as described by John Burke when he said, "To think of mother is to recall her unselfish devotion, her limitless, unfaltering love through good and evil report, never wavering, but growing stronger and stronger with the years; and to remember that she asks nothing in return for herself; she asks of us and for us that we be good men and women. If we fail, she does not love us less, but more. Wonderful, constant, miraculous mother's love." Let us think this morning of love as Paul described it in its quintessence; here are words that set forth perfect love. Perhaps nowhere on earth does perfect love find such complete expression as in the heart of a mother. What is perfect love? Let's consider this morning.

  1. PERFECT LOVE IS UNTIRING:
    1. Note what Paul said about love in the text. He is describing an untiring love. Get the flavor of it: Paul says
      1. Love is patient, forbearing, unfailing and without end. That is, perfect love is not depleted or dissipated. Perfect love does not wear out or grow tired.
      2. Love keeps on enduring, and putting up with, and persisting in all things. It is inexhaustible.
      3. Love never says, "I've had it with you! I'm tired of putting up with you!"
    2. Think about this:: perfect love just won't wear out, fold up, or give in.
      1. It keeps watch through the long weary night.
      2. It serves when energy has long since been depleted.
      3. It loves when love has been severely and repeatedly tested and tried and challenged, rebuffed and even rejected.
      4. It loves when loving is the hardest thing to do.
    3. There are times when a mother's love is pushed to the limit of endurance, I am sure. She demands more patience than Job, but somehow, no matter how exhausted she may be, she seems to find the energy to endure and to go on loving.
    4. So it is with God's love. We can roll onto Him all the cares of our lives which have long since drained and wearied us; He never grows weary of loving His own no matter how many demands they may place upon His compassion.
So, Walter borrowed the $6,500.00 and promised to pay it back. Though Walter had probably made promises and broken them before, Lena goes on loving her son untiringly. She loans Walter the money; as you might guess, the "friend" takes the money and skips town. The desolate son returns home, breaks the tragic news that all their hopes are gone, their dreams shattered. Beneatha says to Mama to get out the casket; she implies that Walter is dead to her. She outright disowns him! "He is not my brother!" she declares. She berates him with a barrage of ugly words. She has an unlimited contempt for her brother. But her mother said, "I taught you to love him!" Lena's love was not altered by his malfeasance. She manifested another quality of perfect love.
  1. PERFECT LOVE IS UNCONDITIONAL:
    1. Again look at the text. Catch the atmosphere of perfect love.
      1. "Love doesn't seek its own." Love never says, "I'll love you if you give me what I want. I'll love you if you let me have my way!" Perfect love isn't conditioned on those things.
      2. "Love is not provoked." It never says, "I'll love you if you don't make me angry!" It is not contingent upon never being bothered or vexed or irritated.
      3. "Love doesn't keep a record of wrongs" Love never says, "Well, you have one too many misdeeds so I can't love you anymore!" Perfect love is not based upon never being "done wrong."
      4. So, perfect love is not predicated on the contribution or performance of the beloved, it just exists and continues unconditionally.
    2. That's perfect love; that's love most approximated by the ideal mother; that's unconditional love! A mother wants to be loved, certainly. But
      1. She will not withhold her love until something comes back to her.
      2. She will not withhold her love if we are a bother or problem to her.
      3. Her love never seeks profit, gain, gratification or fulfillment for self.
      4. She loved us before she knew how we'd turn out and keeps on loving us no matter how we turn out. Her love is unconditional.
    3. How like the Love of God. Henry Ward Beecher was right when he said, "My God is a God who loves out of His nature, and not on conditions. It is not needful that I should be beautiful in order that He should love me. ... He loves me because of Himself."
    4. The poet is right: "Like a hope divine in this troubled world is the thought of a mother's care! No payment is asked for its giving, no selfishness prompts its prayer. Shared, it increases in richness, divided, it's full in each part. For God has hidden a love like His own in the depths of the mother heart."
Walter borrowed the family's $6,500.00. He got involved in a real scam and had carelessly blown the family fortune. His sister hated him for it. But his mother said to her, "I taught you to love him!" Beneatha sarcastically replied, "Love him? There's nothing left to love!" The boy loses the money, the sister hates him, but Mama says, "There's always something left to love!" Here she demonstrates the third quality of perfect love.
  1. PERFECT LOVE IS UNENDING:
    1. Paul describes the perpetuity or the permanence of love in these words.
      1. "Love endures all things." He means it perseveres through all manner of hardships, testings, and problems.
      2. "Love never ends or fails." He means it never drops away, never turns aside, never ceases to exist.
    2. Perfect love is unending:
      1. Because it is not an emotion or a feeling. It is an attitude and a decision.
      2. Because it is of the very nature of God Himself: God is love.
      3. Though heaven and earth pass away, yet will abide faith, hope and love, the greatest of which is love.
      4. Love is as the old song says, "I'll be loving you always, with a love that's true always ... Not for just an hour, not for just a day, not for just a year, but always."
    3. As to the constancy and unending nature of love
      1. Hear King Solomon who said, "Many waters cannot quench love, Nor will rivers overflow it." Song Of Solomon 8:7. How like God's love.
      2. Listen to God who said, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness." Jeremiah 31:3. That's unending love!
      3. Hear John, who, speaking of Jesus love said, "Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end." John 13:1. That's what unending love is all about.
    4. The poet correctly said, "A mother's love is fashioned after God's enduring love, it is endless and unfailing like the love of Him above."
After Walter blew the family fortune, his sister despised him. His mother said, "I taught you to love him!" But Beneatha said, "There's nothing left to love!" But speaking from a mother's perspective, Lena told her, "There's always something left to love." Then she continued, and I quote her, "And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing. Have you cried for that boy today? I don't mean for yourself and the family because we lost all that money. I mean for him; for what he's been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most: when they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain't through learning, because that ain't the time at all. It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in himself 'cause the world done whipped him so. When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done take into account what hills and valleys he done come through before he got to wherever he is." I realize that some present today never experienced that sort of mother love. Some had mothers who didn't measure up to this ideal. Some of you have told me so. But you can still be loved like that! God loves you like that! God knows the hills and valleys you've come through; God knows what got you to wherever you are. And He loves you. He knows your secret sins, your presumptuous immorality, your besetting failings. And He loves you. He knows all about the foolish investments in folly and the losses you've sustained by doing it your way. And He loves you. He makes no excuse for sin; He tolerates no impenitence; He brooks no irreverence. But when we come to Him sincerely sorry, honestly humble, and really repentant, He embraces us in a love that is untiring, unconditional and unending; a perfect love. He Who loved us to death, waits to love us to life. Who just needs to be loved to life this morning? God waits to fill your need for perfect love.
 

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