What Love Looks Like

1 Corinthians
Written By Steve Estes

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
February 9, 2025

Sermon Notes

1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NIV: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-7, ESV: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Outline:

1. Fifteen verbs

2. First: Two positives about love

  • “Love is patient”

  • “Love is kind”

  • Combination reflects God

3. Seven negatives about love

  • “Does not envy”

  • “Does not boast”

  • “Is not proud”

  • “Is not rude”

  • ”Is not self-seeking”

  • “Is not easily angered”

  • “Keeps no record of wrongs”

  • “Does not delight in evil”

4. Four zippy little phrases about love

  • NIV translation

  • ESV translation

  • Answering objections

  • Steve’s Uncle Tom

Steve Estes

Steve Estes has been senior pastor at Brick Lane Community Church in Elverson, Pennsylvania, for over thirty-five years. 

Steve’s books and other writings began with his longtime friendship with Joni Eareckson Tada. As teenagers, they grappled with why God allowed Joni’s paralysis in a swimming accident in the Chesapeake Bay. Steve left for college . . . they kept in touch . . . she liked the style of his letters. When her 1976 autobiography Joni spawned thousands of reader responses, she asked Steve to join her in crafting a follow-up. The result was A Step Further in 1978.

Later, Wycliffe Bible Translators commissioned Steve to write the biography of former college friend Chet Bitterman, a Wycliffe linguist who was kidnapped and murdered by political terrorists in Colombia in 1981. Other books and articles followed, including When God Weeps (with Joni) and A Better December (a giveaway book for non-Christian friends at Christmas.)

Steve was educated at Westminster Theological Seminary, Columbia Bible College and Jerusalem University College in Israel. He has taught homiletics at Westminster and is a board member of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation.

But Steve would say his most significant life achievement was persuading college classmate Verna Stoltzfus to marry him in 1974.  They now have eight children and more grandchildren than can fit in a van.

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Love: Graces Better Than Gifts