Wednesday, August 2, 2006
"Love is not provoked" [NKJV] or, "Love is not easily angered" [NIV] (1 Corinthians 13:5).
IDEA: We think of irritability as a matter of personality, and we shrug it off as unimportant.
PURPOSE: To help listeners understand that irritability is a sin like any other.
I. When you hear the people talk about their irritability, do they call it a sin?
When we attribute it to our circumstances, or to our personality, what exactly are we doing?
II. When people talk like these folks we’ve just heard, what are they asking other people (and by implication, God) to do?
They want us to make allowances for their faults.
Often irritable people don’t do that for others. Irritability is often the vice of the virtuous.
People who live strict moral lives or are highly disciplined quickly become exasperated when someone else falls short of their standards.
Irritable people cannot or will not make allowances for other people’s weaknesses.
III. Irritability is seldom a matter of circumstances or temperament for mostof us. It is often a matter of choice.
We often display this ugly attitude toward those closest to us -- wives or children. Those we love feel the temper we don’t let others see.
We can control our irritability when we’re around the boss or with outsiders. It’s not quite as uncontrollable as we make it out to be.
IV. We need to be aware that we always live in the presence of God who is very patient with us.
Illustration: LaFontaine told of a chaplain in the Prussian army who rebuked a major (a Christian) for his quick and ugly temper: “If what provokes you were done by the king, you could and would control your temper.”
We live in the presence of the King.
When we do give in to irritability, we need to admit that it’s a sin against love -- just like adultery, stealing, or lying. And we need to receive forgiveness and grace