Labor of Love

In this part of the sermon: This section defines 'labor' as arduous, sweat-inducing toil, drawing on biblical examples of field workers and masons. 'Love' is defined as powerful, selfless affection that…

The obsolescence of the Stanley Steamer and the prevalence of automation are used to highlight how modern society has lost touch with the concept of 'labor' as intense, sweat-inducing toil, making it harder to grasp Paul's meaning.

Now first of all we must define the two words. Paul says that he gives thanks to God remembering without ceasing their labor of love. Let us therefore define the word labor and then the word love and see why this was an occasion of Paul's giving thanks to God. Now in a day of automation, where sweat on the brow, is almost a forgotten thing like a Stanley steamer, it's hard for us to realize what Paul meant by the word labor.

4:37 - 5:14 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section defines 'labor' as arduous, sweat-inducing toil, drawing on biblical examples of field workers and masons. 'Love' is defined as powerful, selfless affection that…

The work of migrant farmers, often seen as 'common laborers' doing physically demanding work in the hot sun, is used to illustrate the intensity and nature of the word 'labor' Paul uses.

But the word used here is the same word used in John 4.38, where we have a description of the kind of work that a man does out in the fields, in the hot sun, sowing and reaping grain. That's labor. That's the kind of work here in the States that we give to the migrant farmers, to those whom we judge to be least capable of higher forms of employment in terms of dignity and responsibility.

5:14 - 5:44 Read in full sermon

The point: Read 1 Corinthians 13 repeatedly to counteract the world's non-biblical concept of love.

Martin recounts his personal experience working summers for a mason contractor, carrying concrete blocks and mixing cement in the baking sun, to vividly convey the physical pain, sweat, and relentless effort implied by the word 'labor'.

Now when I was working my way through college, I did construction work summers for a mason contractor. And when you get working with 12-inch or 10-inch concrete blocks out in the baking sun on a slab of concrete for eight and nine hours a day, with but one coffee break in the morning and one in the afternoon and a half an hour for lunch, and when you finish carrying block and mixing cement, we were non-union, you didn't sit around waiting for the fellows to call for some more, you picked up a trowel and laid some blocks, you understood a little bit what laboring was. What it was. To feel the s...

6:00 - 6:41 Read in full sermon

The point: Read 1 Corinthians 13 repeatedly to counteract the world's non-biblical concept of love.

The daily, early morning, few-days-off routine of a farmer (like his brother-in-law) is used to illustrate continuous, demanding labor, emphasizing that responsibilities like milking cows don't allow for breaks.

The husbandman, the farmer that laboreth, must be the first to partake of the fruits. And our dear farmers, for whom we don't give much praise, they know what it is to labor. I've got a brother-in-law who's a farmer, up every morning, 4 o'clock, 4.30, and very few days off.

6:55 - 7:14 Read in full sermon

The point: Read 1 Corinthians 13 repeatedly to counteract the world's non-biblical concept of love.

The 'prostituted' use of the word 'love' in popular songs and Hollywood is used to highlight the difficulty of understanding biblical love and the constant 'brainwashing' influence of society's non-biblical definition.

Now, Paul is thanking God that as he saw the Thessalonians, and as a report came from Timothy, that they were no strangers to labor, to intense sacrificial work. Now he says, it was a labor of love. And in a day when this word has been so prostituted, by the songs that we hear, and by the theater in Hollywood, it's very difficult to put on this word a biblical connotation. But the best way I know to do it, and I try to do this periodically, lest I be brainwashed in thinking of love in a non-biblical way, and you and I are brainwashed constantly, constantly.

7:40 - 8:24 Read in full sermon

The point: Don't be brainwashed into the world's concept of love; recognize that popular songs often equate 'love' with lust.

Lust is defined as 'love perverted to take instead of to give,' contrasting it sharply with true love which is concerned with what it can give for the well-being of its object. This helps clarify the selfless nature of biblical love.

Lust is love perverted to take instead of to give. Christ so loved the church that He, what's the next word, gave Himself for it. Oh young people, don't, don't, don't be brainwashed into the world's concept of love. Every time the word loved is used in any popular song, it's nothing but lust.

10:14 - 10:39 Read in full sermon

The point: Don't be brainwashed into the world's concept of love; recognize that popular songs often equate 'love' with lust.

Martin uses the example of his children obeying him, sometimes out of fear of consequences and other times out of love, to illustrate that while fear can motivate, love is a far more delightful and superior motivation for labor.

Now thank God that fear, sometimes, is the only thing that moves us to do what we do. We're afraid of the consequences. There are times when I know my children obey me out of fear of the consequences if they don't. Well, you say you're some kind of a cruel tyrant.

11:32 - 11:48 Read in full sermon

The point: Stir yourself up to stay awake and listen carefully to the sermon, recognizing these are matters of life and death.

The metaphor of measuring spirituality by 'how much shoe leather you wear off running to meetings' is used to critique Christian activism rooted in a defective, man-centered theology, where busyness is equated with godliness.

If you want to know how spiritual you are why then you take your shoe off and you get a micrometer and you measure your shoe leather. And if you've worn off fourteen thousandths of an inch that day why then you're very spiritual and if only ten thousandths why you're not doing so well. Now much of this activism is based in a rooted in a defective theology. It's rooted, in a theology that is man-centered.

23:55 - 24:19 Read in full sermon

Driving home: His working which worketh in me mightily. But in the outworking of God's inworking God did not bypass Paul's sweat. His working out was manifested in Paul's sweat.

A friend's phrase 'relying and relaxing' is used to describe a mistaken understanding of trust in God that leads to passivity, contrasting it with Paul's active laboring that flowed from his trust.

There's the same word again in the original. Therefore we both labor and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God. You see Paul's trusting did not lead to that which a friend of mine calls relying and relaxing. Because he trusted he didn't become a pacifist.

28:04 - 28:28 Read in full sermon

The point: If you are not a Christian, God commands you to repent and believe; set yourself to seek His face and cry for grace to turn from sin.

The 'vivid picture of a woman giving birth' is used to illustrate the intense, all-consuming focus and effort involved in Paul's 'labor and travail' for seeing people brought to spiritual birth.

He brings the two strongest words he can bring. Bringing before our minds the vivid picture of a woman giving birth when all that she is and has is focused upon that one thing of giving birth to that child. Paul says his involvement in the work of God so demanded the full employment of all of his faculties. And energies upon this one thing of seeing people brought to birth.

30:40 - 31:04 Read in full sermon

The point: If the work of God is to be established in this assembly, we must have an assembly of people who labor, not freeloaders.

Martin describes the arduous process of preparing sermons three times a week, involving intense study, mental effort, and even physical struggle to stay awake, to illustrate what 'laboring in the word and in doctrine' entails for a pastor.

Same word, 1 Timothy 5, 17, especially those who labor in the word and in doctrine. And I'm not saying this in any sense this morning to protect the ministry, but I wonder if very many of you have any idea of what's involved in producing week by week, three times a week, a study in the scriptures that is really worth 45 minutes of attention, that has some measure of clarity of thought, that is true to the sense of scripture, that has application to young people and children and adults, that has some illustration to make it light, to give some light to it like little windows, to let in some lig...

32:35 - 33:44 Read in full sermon

The point: Young people, die to legitimate social concerns and engage in labor for God's kingdom, like street preaching.

Martin recounts his experience as a high school senior, street preaching three to four times a week, enduring physical exhaustion and foregoing social activities, to illustrate the self-sacrificing 'labor of love' young people can engage in for evangelism.

Probably from the Lord and His word. I don't know where else we could have got it from. We just somehow had sanctified sense enough to believe that with a city of some 70, 80 thousand going to hell, maybe there was some work for us to do. And we just better roll up our sleeves and get doing it.

36:15 - 36:32 Read in full sermon

The point: Do the work of God according to the word of God in the power of the Spirit of God, trusting in His blessing and grace, rather than engaging in aimless activism.

The phrase 'busy beaver Christians' is used to characterize those who engage in aimless, unguided activism, contrasting it with labor that is deliberate, rooted in God's Word, and empowered by the Spirit.

Thank God we need not go into the camp of the busy beaver Christians who are running about doing anything somehow, hoping to accomplish something. But we can with calm deliberation, as it were, come to the word of God and say, Now, Lord, what activities have you ordered in your book? And seeing His marching orders can go to our knees and cry to Him for grace and for the anointing of the Spirit and rising up then with a clear understanding of the task, given to us from the word of the power that is available to us in the Spirit to go forth and labor, not doing something somehow to accomplish so...

37:57 - 39:20 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But, he said, I have somewhat against thee, thou hast left thy first love. You see, these people had a labor, but it ceased to be a labor of love.

The phrase 'how tedious and tasteless the hour is when Jesus no longer receives' is used to describe labor that continues out of habit after the initial love has waned, highlighting its barrenness.

You see, these people had a labor, but it ceased to be a labor of love. What had been done at one time out of a spontaneous affection for the Lord, the affection had waned, but since they were in the habit of doing it, they went right on doing it. Oh, do you see how that applies to us? Those labors which once glowed with delight, because they were labors of love, when the love subsides and you go on in the labor, how tedious and tasteless the hour is when Jesus no longer receives.

40:10 - 40:51 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But, he said, I have somewhat against thee, thou hast left thy first love. You see, these people had a labor, but it ceased to be a labor of love.

Martin shares that he is able to preach despite recent personal and ministry difficulties only because 'love to the hungry-hearted sheep' compels him to pray through issues and lay hold of God, illustrating how love gives labor its patience and endurance.

For love, what? Beareth all things. Beloved, I say, God bearing me witness, there's only one reason I could stand this morning and preach with any degree of liberty. Certain circumstances within my own life and ministry over the past couple of weeks have just about torn the heart right out of me.

41:01 - 41:20 Read in full sermon

Driving home: You say you have love to God and men? I can't see your love. Where is it? I can only see it in the flesh and blood of your labors.

The analogy of the body and spirit in a human being is used to explain that while love itself is unseen, its reality is confirmed and made visible in the 'flesh and blood' of one's labors, just as the body embodies the spirit.

Just as the body and the spirit are joined in every true human being, I can't see your spirit, but I see you, the embodiment of it, so when we profess to love our Lord, it's as though the Lord says, do you really love me? You say, oh yes, Lord, I do. And the Lord says, how do you know? You say, well, Lord, I just can feel it right here.

42:21 - 42:44 Read in full sermon

The point: To increase your labor of love, intensify your love for God through contemplation of His love for you.

Love is likened to an engine and labor to the wheels of a vehicle, illustrating that if one's labor is weak, it indicates a problem with the 'engine' of love or a lack of 'gas' (contemplation of God's love).

You see, if love's the engine, and labor is the wheels of the distance that the engine will take you and you're not going very far, there's something wrong with the engine and no gas in the tank, what's the way toward more intense labor of love? Well, it's the pathway of an intensified love. Well, how is my love to be intensified? In contemplation of His love to us.

43:31 - 43:57 Read in full sermon