Teachings from Quest for God's Own Heart Ministry

Love is NOT Boastful or Proud or Rude

James 4:5-17

Our main passage for our study is 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”

We have focused on the fact that we need to be patient to show the love of Christ to anyone. When we are not patient, we are focused on our own needs and desires, and not the needs and desires of others. We need to patiently love one another as Christ patiently loves us.

Last week, we saw that love is kind and is not jealous of others.

We cannot say that the love of Christ is in us if we don’t show kindness to others.

We cannot say that the love of Christ is in us if we are jealous of what others have. We cannot be envious of what others have become, as well.

We need to instead, focus on Jesus Christ, and become the Shining Light that He has called us to be. We should never compare ourselves to others. Jesus has made all of us unique. He has created us for a reason. His purpose in our lives will be different than others. Instead of being jealous of others, let us instead focus on God’s mission for our lives.

Love is patient.

Love is kind.

Love is not jealous.

Today, we are going to look at three things that love is not. Love is not boastful or proud, nor is love rude.

Love is not Boastful or Proud (James 4:5-17)

This is a very long passage. Please allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you.

“Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate that the spirit He has placed within us should be faithful to Him. And He gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’

“So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up in honor.

“Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you. God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor?

“Look here, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.’ How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” Otherwise you are boasting about your own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil. Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.”

Too often in the church, even though it may appear innocent at first, the teaching of spiritual gifts have caused division, not unity. Please do not misunderstand what I am saying. Studying and understanding our spiritual gifts are important in the life of a believer. However, thinking that our spiritual gifts are the only way God can use us is wrong. The Holy Spirit can and will use us in areas we are not gifted in, to advance God’s Kingdom. Therefore, we should never say, “That is not what God wants me to do, because that is not one of my spiritual gifts.” We are shutting down the Holy Spirit in our lives when we say we can’t do something.

However, that is not the point I want to make. During my 31 years as a follower of Jesus Christ, I was a member of two churches where divisions occurred due to their unbiblical focus on spiritual gifts. Some of the people thought they were better because of the gifts they were given. They thought they were more important to the church because they believed their gifts were greater than some of the others.

I challenged them to show me in God’s Word where anyone is considered better or more important because of a spiritual gift that God had given them. Of course, they couldn’t find one, for there isn’t one. We are to work together, using our individual gifts to become One Body, not many. When we declare that any of the gifts are better or more important than the others, we are creating division. We are not reflecting the Body of Christ. Jesus is the Head, not us.

That is why Paul followed the spiritual gifts passage with The Most Excellent Way. God has given spiritual gifts to each and every one of us. However, if our focus is on the spiritual gifts, and not the One who gave them to us, we are not serving the Body of Christ. If we focus on the spiritual gifts, and not Love, we are only spinning our wheels. We are only making noise. We are not serving the Body of Christ.

Love should be our focus when serving God, not our status in society or in the church.

Love should be our focus when serving the Body of Christ, not selfishly serving ourselves.

Love should be our focus when serving our families.

Love should be our focus when serving our community, our nation, our world.

Love is the most important way for us to serve God, not the gifts He has given us, nor the status we have in life or the church. We are called to be Love to the world.

When our focus is on love, we will be focused on Jesus, not our gifts.

When our focus is on love, we will be focused on others, and not ourselves.

In Philippians 3:7-11, Paul states that if anyone had the right to boast, it was him. If anyone had the right to be proud of who they were and what they had accomplished, it was him. He was the best of the best; the best religious leader from the best tribe of Israel. He was the most zealot of all the religious leaders in Israel. He was the Pharisee of Pharisees. When people saw Paul, they thought, Wow, now there’s a man of God.

However, Paul declared that everything that he was, everything that he had accomplished was garbage in comparison to knowing Christ and His resurrection power. Paul boasted only about Christ. Paul said:

“I once thought these things were valuable (His status and works), but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with Him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with Himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised Him from the dead. I want to suffer with Him, sharing in His death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!”

I want to be able to say that about my life. I want to be able to say that my goal, my desire in life is to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised Him from the dead.

You noticed that Paul didn’t say that his desire was to be rich and famous. He didn’t desire to be more powerful than anyone else in his community or in the church. Paul’s desire was to know Christ and the power of the resurrection.

No one has the right to boast or be proud, believing they are better than anyone else in the Body of Christ. We are no different than the rest of God’s people, for we are all sinners saved by grace. Christ is the Head of the church, not the pastor, not a Sunday School Teacher, not the Prayer Warrior or those who have been given the gift of speaking in tongues. Jesus Christ is the Head. Jesus Christ is the One we are to praise.

Love is Not Rude

With that in mind, seeing that we are all sinners saved by God’s grace, who are we to look down at anyone? Who are we to think we are better than anyone else?

Let us never get to the point where we are rude to others, thinking we are better than they are. May we never judge others because of circumstances they are going through, treating them as if they are not worthy to be in the Body of Christ. Let us instead, come together as one, humbly serving one another, never slandering, never quarreling, but lovingly serving one another. Titus 3:2:

“They must not slander anyone and must avoid quarreling. Instead, they should be gentle and show true humility to everyone.”

We are called to be humble, because we don’t have the right to boast about who we are or what we have accomplished. We are saved through Jesus Christ, not ourselves. We don’t have the ability to accomplish anything for God’s Kingdom unless Jesus is the One doing the work through us. Jesus said in John 15, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing.” We should boast in Jesus and the power of His resurrection.

We are gifted by God to serve His Body. We are given the spiritual gifts to serve one another so that we can shine the Love of Jesus to the world, not ourselves.

When we judge one another, we are tearing down the Body of Christ, trying to lift ourselves up, instead of Christ. That is not Love.

We are called to be gentle and kind to one another, showing true humility as we serve the Body of Christ. Finally, Luke 6:31, Jesus says:

“Do to others as you would like them to do to you.”

Let us serve one another with the Love of Jesus Christ, always patient and kind to one another. Never being jealous or boastful or proud. We should never be rude to one another, instead, with humility; we are to love as Christ loves us. Do to others as you would like them to do to you. Let us love.