Love Does not Boast

1. Read: “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up…”

2. About the Text:

1) Love does not “parade itself” is how the NKJV

2) The Greek word here is περπερεύομαι.

3) It means to boast, brag, or be vain-glorious.

4) Self-display, employing rhetorical embellishments in extolling oneself excessively.

5) Someone who is always talking about himself or herself.

6) This could manifest in many ways.

a. Explicit braggadocio.

b. Talking about yourself all the time or turning the conversation back to yourself.

c. One-upping people by making comparisons.

d. Attention seeking or strutting around like a peacock as if to say, “Look at me!”

3. Ref. to S, T, P, O, and A.

1. The second commandment teaches us to love others.

1) “And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matt.22:39).

2) Paul explains the meaning of this in Romans 13:8-10.

3) “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

4) Love starts in the mind with how we regard others.

5) We can avoid many sins and troubles by remembering to love other people, not use them for selfish purposes.

2. We don’t want to think highly of ourselves.

1) “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith” (Romans 12:3).

2) “For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself” (Galatians 6:3).

3. We need to be mindful of others above self.

1) “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4).

2) “Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:4).

3) Eating with spoons Hell vs. Heaven illustration.

4. When we consider others over self, we will not boast, but listen to others.

1. Jesus both taught and gave us the greatest example of self sacrifice.

1) “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:13).

2) “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16).

2. God loves those who practice self-sacrifice.

1) “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart—These, O God, You will not despise” (Psalm 51:17).

2) “’For all those things My hand has made, And all those things exist,’ Says the LORD. ‘But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, And who trembles at My word’” (Isaiah 66:2).

3. We need to be living sacrifices.

1) “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1).

2) “you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5).

4. Valuing self-sacrifice, we will not boast; the sacrificed self doesn’t need validation.

1. God is supreme in creation.

1) “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).

2) “For thus says the LORD, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: ‘I am the LORD, and there is no other.’” (Isaiah 45:18).

2. God is supreme in salvation.

1) “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10).

2) “But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4-7).

3) “Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith” (Romans 3:27).

3. God is supreme in sanctification.

1) “And the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the LORD’” (1 Corinthians 1:28-31).

2) “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25-27).

4. When we recognize God gets all the glory, we will not boast.

1. Love does not boast because…

1) Love considers others over self.

2) Love values self-sacrifice.

3) Love recognizes God’s supremacy in all.

2. Invitation