Cultivating a Good Memory that Forgets - Haddon Robinson

0:10 Soon after I graduated from seminary, one of my first ministries as assistant pastor at the First Baptist Church in Medford, Oregon. During those three years, I attended a number of ordination exams. in our denomination. Ordination exams are about the same as the baseballs at Fenway Park, all of them pretty much alike. But there was one that I do remember. A young man was being examined for ministry, and as I remember, he was a graduate of a Bible college. And the pastors in the area had come to put him through his paces. Standard stuff. call to ministry, conversion, and then they got into the doctrinal section.

1:07 That was pretty standard, too. What did he believe about the scriptures? What did he believe about Jesus Christ? What did he believe about the Holy Spirit? I think it was all right for people to speak in tongues. And then there were always the questions on eschatology. Are you premillennial or are you amillennial or are you postmillennial? If you got it right, you said premillennial. And then they moved on to a second set of questions. Are you pre-trib or mid-trib or post-trib? And after a while, the chairman decided that it was enough, the suffering was over. And he began, you know, he said, I guess there are no more questions. And a pastor stood up and said, yes, I've got two more questions.

2:05 Folks are a little uneasy. But he began and he said, young man, I've got two questions. The first question is, do you love people? I guess I remember it because I remembered my reaction. you know they say there are no stupid questions get about as close as you can get you love people what do you expect them to say no I hate people but I love the money and the ministry As the years passed, I realized that wasn't a dumb question. It was a crucial question. In fact, if you take Paul seriously in 1 Corinthians 13, he is saying whatever you do with your gifts, no matter how brilliant they may be, if you do not exercise them in love, you accomplish nothing.

3:01 You yourself are nothing. and you gain nothing at the judgment seat of Christ. Do you love people? That's a crucial question. The young man, I'm sure, answered that correctly. But then the second question was, son, if you love people, how do you know? How do you know? Oh, you have warm feelings towards some people. You're about as loving as the next person, maybe a little bit more. but how do you know?

3:47 Paul answers that in 1 Corinthians 13 by showing us what this love, this agape love looks like. He defines it by describing it in 15 phrases. The first two, love is patient, love is kind, kind of like the headline for everything that follows. Real love is patient because real love knows that every one of us is a work in progress. None of us has arrived. Every one of us is a way to go.

4:29 So you understand that you can be patient with people. And you're also kind. real love is always filled with those little acts of consideration that make life bearable, make it pleasant.

4:49 And this love of which Paul speaks is able to handle the fact that there are differences among people, differences in gifts. Some people have very evident gifts, public gifts. and when you see that you don't envy it because God's given you gifts God has given us the gifts we need to serve him where he puts us when you can settle for that then you don't envy other people who have more evident gifts and certainly if you have public gifts you don't boast you don't keep dropping suggestions about how wonderful your ministry is. You're not puffed up like a balloon that has only air in it.

5:45 And then Paul turns to talk about social situations. In 1 Corinthians 13, 5, Paul says that love is not rude. King James Version says that love does not behave unseemly another translation says that love has good manners I realize that you're going to talk about manners at a chapel at Gordon Conwell Seminary it's a bit like wearing a sweatshirt to a formal dinner I mean matters we've got so many important things to say but Paul says love isn't rude I guess the reason we don't put a lot of stock in manners is that we think of manners as being etiquette.

6:45 The word etiquette comes from the French word for a ticket or a card. Back in the great days of French royalty, if you had an audience with the king or the queen, They gave you a card, told you how you were to enter, where you were to stand, how you were to sit, when you were to speak, how you were to leave. So today, the rules of etiquette are those rules, often very complicated. They govern us when we meet, greet, eat. Americans don't think too much of that. Maybe coming out of our frontier spirit, we think they're kind of stuffy. So when we hear about that love has good manners, we think, well, yeah. I mean, you never hear a youth director saying, I want to challenge you today to have better manners.

7:43 They don't advertise in Christianity today. We're having a conference on manners. It's all so trivial. but manners have to do with the manner that we have when we interact with other people they are important whether they're good or bad but we all have manners Even people who do not know the rules of etiquette, if they are people of love, have manners. I grew up in New York City, and a section of New York that Rita's Digest said was the toughest section in the United States.

8:38 So we were not schooled in the social graces. When you said of somebody around our neighborhood that he was good with a knife, you were not talking about the way he cut his food. When I went off to college, it was a whole new world. College was in the South, and they put a great deal of emphasis on etiquette. I mean, I learned about stuff I didn't even know existed. How you pasture food, when you're all through, where you put your knife and fork. like introducing a woman, a man to a woman, got to get it right, introducing a younger person to an older person. I mean, I came back after that first semester educated beyond my intelligence.

9:32 We had a lady in our church. Her name is Mrs. Anita Winnie. She's a wealthy woman and a very cultured woman. and she invited several of us at the church to go as her guests to a very formal dining room very formal dinner then she spoiled it all because she invited my father to come as well and my dad didn't know the rules I knew it was going to be a long evening we got there my father sidled up to one of the waiters who was dressed in a tuxedo and asked him how the tips were in a place like this then when he sat down opened the menu and you know it had the items but no prices my father had never seen anything like this and he said sure how do you order if you don't know what the, you don't want to just take all the expensive things.

10:40 I said, Dad, that's the way it works here. When they passed the food, there were times in which he took the shortest distance between two points. And, you know, you were, well, it was a tough evening. I remember leaving 17 years of age, ashamed of my father. What surprised me was a few days later, we were at church and Mrs. Winnie was there and I thanked her for coming. She said, well, I've already gotten a thank you note from your father. I'm glad he could come. He's such a gentleman. I thought she was putting me down. But she was too gracious to do that.

11:34 Now, she had realized that what my father had done was not the rules of etiquette, but he cared about people. What he did was simply a display of that. She could see beyond his errors to his heart. years later I read a a comment that said you can take the most untutored person and if they have a reservoir of love in their heart you can put them into the most formal situation and they will not be rude they cannot be because they are governed by love now don't mishear what I'm saying They said it's not an argument against etiquette. It's a good thing to know the rules of etiquette.

12:28 Those rules keep us from bashing each other in the landslide of life. But etiquette without love can make you a snob. But love can give etiquette a soul. people at Corinth could have used a course in etiquette or in manners you know they began the first of a series of great potluck suppers they called them love feasts people came Sunday evening and everybody brought something to share with others I guess the rich brought lavish dishes, pies, cake, whatever they had. And the slaves who came, they could afford a little more than a bowl of jello.

13:28 It all worked well. They shared that with the Lord's table. They began with the breaking of bread. They ended with the taking of the cup. It was a full meal. I mean, it wasn't the kind of stuff we have where we get a little wafer or a little tiny piece of bread. I mean, it was a full meal. It was a love feast. but after a while the love got lost the wealthy people came and they came early, they came with their food they ate, when the slaves came later all they got was the leftovers when Paul wrote about that in 1 Corinthians 11 he's furious he says what this thing is is not the Lord's table it has nothing to do with the Lord What you're doing is sinning against love.

14:33 And I rebuke you for that. well we still have the potluck suppers and we still have the danger of ignoring people so they weren't there when the service is over in chapel, church we have a way of getting up and going over to greet the people we know and a stranger who is there is ignored.

15:08 Often feels as though we're as distant as a star. It's cold as space. Look, that's not just bad manners. That's not just a sin against etiquette. That's a sin against love.

15:28 Love isn't rude. Can't be. Now, I think it would be good to have a conference on manners. I think sometimes we practice our virtues in such a way that they lack love. People who are proud of candor are often unkind. And people who like to call a spade a spade often end up treating other people like dirt. Dr. Richard Sumi was a pastor in Houston and he told me that he had a well-known Bible teacher in for several days for a week of meetings. Before one of the meetings, they went out to get a bite to eat and while the waitress was serving the food, she spilled some water on this man.

16:33 and he was furious. He told that waitress what he thought of her, rebuked her for her carelessness, said she should be more careful. She's going to be a waitress. On it went. She went to get a towel.

16:55 Sumi leaned over and said, Doc, when that girl comes back, I dare you to witness to her. And she couldn't. His rudeness had destroyed his witness. That's worth keeping in mind, isn't it, when you're down in Hamilton, Beverly, and folks who wait on you make a mistake? it's certainly worth keeping in mind if you travel a lot and the airlines are late again how you handle a person at the counter has a lot to do with your Christian witness Now we need to hear the word. Love isn't rude. It doesn't put other people down.

18:00 not nasty. And then Paul says, It's not self-seeking. I think that's the modus behind good manners.

18:21 It's not self-seeking. It isn't always asking, what's in it for me? When you really love people, your learning is for their benefit. Your service is for their good. your leadership is for their enrichment Love is not self-seeking. and when you read that and think about it you realize that whatever it is Paul's talking about he's not talking about something natural that you can just sort of say from here on out I'm not going to be self-seeking now this is the kind of love that comes from God because by nature we are self-seeking by nature we're always wondering How does it benefit me?

19:23 But real love doesn't make that the first question. you don't need the Bible to tell you how selfish we are Rudyard Kipling in his novel Dombey and Son has these words Dombey and Son these three words conveyed the one idea of Mr. Dombey's life the earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in and the sun and moon were made to give them light.

20:13 Rivers and seas were formed to float their ships. Rainbows gave them promise of fair weather. Winds blew for or against their enterprises. Stars and planets circled in their orbits to preserve inviolate a system of which they were the center. A.D., after a date, had no concern with Anno Domini, but stood for Anno Domini's son. that's not just out of one of his novels that's out of life another novelist is talking about Edith he said Edith was like an island surrounded on every side by Edith on the north there was Edith on the south there was Edith on the east there was Edith on the west there was Edith everywhere she looked all she saw was Edith that could refer to Harold or Mary or Rebecca or Tom.

21:22 It's just the way we are. But this kind of love that comes from the Holy Spirit doesn't seek its own. it asks about the good of others Paul got to the Corinthians with that one of their issues was could you eat food sacrificed to an idol it was a big issue theologically idols are nothing piece of stone, wood, you don't have to worry about them but that wasn't the end of it there were people who ate the food offered to an idol sold in the meat market common stuff in Corinth but when they saw that they couldn't eat it because it would offend their conscience and the danger was that if they did that practice they'd go back to the old life and so Paul spends basically three chapters talking about it but the principle he says is that nobody should seek his own good but the good of others That's the norm.

22:44 This kind of love just doesn't keep asking, what's in it for me? The basic question is, what's in it for others? So, love isn't rude. It's not self-seeking. and then Paul says it's not easily angered another translation says it's not irritable You read that, depending who you are, that can make you irritable. Love is not irritable. Man, if you knew the roommate that he stuck me with, I couldn't help but be irritable.

23:39 The people in my hall, the noise they make. You were married to my husband. I mean, he doesn't even know how to squeeze a toothpaste correctly. And my wife, you let her get hold of that checkbook for 10 minutes, and she'll destroy it for a year.

24:01 I mean, irritable. Man, if you were surrounded by the clods that I have to work with at the office, you'd be irritable. I mean look other people are born with the disposition of a sheepdog I mean you know they're just born half Christian but you know out of my background I was born with the disposition of a bulldog I mean I get wound up tight in a banjo string I mean you can't expect anything else of me and look if you can't handle that if God can't handle that I'm taking the trolley I'm out of here All right, admit it, I will.

24:54 Irritability is a greater problem for some people than others. There are some people who just get along, and there are others who never lose their temper. It's always out there where everybody can see it. But usually when people say they're irritable, and you ought to overlook it, they say that and they mean you ought not take it too seriously. I mean if it's just part of my personality or my background, I expect you to overlook it. It's the one thing irritable people don't do for others. Sometimes it's called the vice of the virtuous. If you're a highly moral person and somebody doesn't toe your line...

25:56 If you're a perfectionist and you want to get it all right and you always have a clean desk and you're around the rest of this and make the top of the desk look like a snowstorm, get irritated, especially if you have to deal with it. You don't make allowances. What you don't say is this is sin. I mean, I'll grant you, you have difficulty with it. Some people have difficulty with stealing, some with lying, some with pornography. Your problem is irritability. Love isn't irritable. The only way I know you can deal with it is by seeing it as a moral evil. and seeking for grace and forgiveness.

26:59 If you'll excuse the mistake of a homiletician. Paul is talking about manners, motives, and mood. and he says if you really love people you'll see it at least in those three things in action Years ago in Decision magazine. a seven-year-old boy wrote a letter to Billy Graham, and they printed it. It had his scrawl. It said, Dear Billy Graham, I love God. I love Jesus.

27:53 Signed, Johnny. And then underneath there was a PS, and he said, I love people, too. He was well on his way. to having ministry. Two questions. Do you love people? And if so, how do you know? if so how do they know