Galatia New Life Church
Sunday, February 15, 2026
      • Bible Trivia
        Loading...
  • In The Garden
  • Revive Us Again
  • Four verbs, One Love
    TEXT: 1 Corinthians 13:7 (ESV)
    I. Introduction
    Last week we sat with a single phrase - thinketh no evil. Paul used the Greek word logizomai — an accounting term — to describe what love refuses to do. Love doesn't open a ledger. Love doesn't record debts. Love destroys the account books rather than collecting what it's owed.
    But here's the question: If love puts down the ledger, what does it pick up instead?
    The answer is verse 7.
    Read the Text
    1 Corinthians 13:7 ESV
    Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
    Four verbs Paul shows us that love does. One word repeated with each: panta — all things.
    a. No exceptions
    b. No conditions.
    c. No fine print.
    Whatever love faces, love does not stop. And Paul wants us to feel the weight of all by saying it four times in a row.
    II. Four Verbs, One Love
    These four verbs fall naturally into two pairs.
    The first pair tells us what love does in the present.
    The second pair tells us where love is aimed in the future.
    Together they form a complete portrait of what it looks like to love the way Jesus loves.
    1 Corinthians 13:7 ESV
    Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
    A. Love Bears All Things (stégei)
    The first verb is stégei, from the root word stegō.
    a. It means to cover
    b. to protect
    c. to serve as a roof over something
    Scholars note that it can also carry the idea of bearing weight — absorbing pressure without giving way.
    Think about what a roof does. A roof doesn't just let the rain fall through. It takes the storm so that the people inside don't have to. It is strong enough to absorb what would destroy everything underneath it.
    This is love. Love covers.
    Not in the sense of enabling sin or pretending everything is fine, but in the sense of being willing to absorb cost without broadcasting it.
    d. Love doesn't announce every offense to the room
    e. Love doesn't post it on social media
    f. Love doesn't weaponize it later
    Do you see how this connects to last week? Last week we said love refuses to keep a ledger.
    Now Paul tells us what love does instead — it serves as a roof.
    The offense comes in, and love takes the weight of it.
    It doesn't record the debt; it absorbs the cost.
    1 Corinthians 13:7 NKJV
    bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
    B. Love Believes All Things (pisteúei)
    The second verb is the Greek word for faith.
    a. It means to believe,
    b. to trust
    c. to be persuaded of something.
    Now here is where people sometimes stumble. Does this mean love is naive? Does it mean love pretends people can't do wrong, or ignores evidence, or refuses to see reality? Absolutely not.
    1 Corinthians 13:7 AMP
    Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].
    What Paul means is this: love defaults to the most generous interpretation of a person rather than the worst.
    When someone could have meant something harmful or something innocent, love assumes the best first.
    d. Think about how suspicious we have become.
    e. Someone doesn't respond to our text and immediately we are constructing a case: They must be angry with me. They must be avoiding me. They don't care.
    f. But love says: Maybe they're just busy. Love takes the posture of trust first.
    When was the last time God assumed the worst about you?
    He sees everything — every thought, every failure, every moment we didn't reach for Him — and yet He keeps pursuing.
    He keeps believing in what He is making us into.:
    C. Love Hopes All Things (elpízei)
    The third verb is elpízei —
    a. to hope
    b. to expect
    c. to look forward to something with confident anticipation.
    This is not wishful thinking. In the New Testament, elpís (hope) is always grounded in the character and promises of God.
    This verb picks up where believing leaves off. Believing is about the present — how we interpret what is in front of us right now.
    Hoping is about the future — what love still believes God can do in a person.
    One of the most destructive things we say in relationships is:
    "You will never change."
    Four words that close every door.
    Four words that treat the worst version of a person today as the permanent, final version.
    Love refuses to say them.
    Think about Joseph. He was sold into slavery by his own brothers. He had every reason to write them off forever. But hope ran through his life like a river under the ground. Years later, when he stood before those same brothers with all the power of Egypt behind him, he did not say, "You will never change." He said: "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." That is love that hopes all things.
    And think about what Jesus hoped for Peter — even after the denial. Three times Peter denied Him. Three times Jesus reinstated him: "Do you love me? Feed my sheep." Jesus held open the future for Peter even when Peter had slammed the door himself.
    Is there someone in your life you have written off? Hope says: God is not finished with them yet.
    Have you written off yourself? Hope is also for you. The same God who raised Jesus from the dead is still working in the hardest corners of your story.
    D. Love Endures All Things (hypomenei)
    The fourth verb is hypomenei — and this is the most muscular word of the four.
    It combines hypo (under) and menō (to remain, to stay). It was a military term. It described a soldier who, under the crushing pressure of battle, holds the line and does not retreat.
    Notice that this is different from stégei (bears). Bearing is about covering in the present moment. Enduring is about holding through prolonged pressure — the kind that doesn't resolve in a day or a week or even a year.
    Some of you know this kind of love. You've been in a hard marriage for fifteen years.
    You've been praying for a prodigal child for a decade.
    You've been faithful to a friendship that keeps costing you.
    You are tempted, not in a single dramatic moment, but slowly, quietly, over years — tempted to simply stop.
    Paul says: love does not stop. It holds the line. It remains under the weight.
    Hebrews 12:2 NKJV
    looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
    III. The Panta Problem
    Here is where we need to be honest. These four verbs are impossible. Not just difficult — impossible. At least for us, on our own.
    a. Bear all things?
    b. With that person?
    c. After what they did?
    d. Believe all things?
    e. Hope all things?
    For someone who has hurt you that deeply? Endure all things?
    The word panta — all things — appears four times in this verse. It is deliberate. Paul is not describing what comes naturally to us.
    He is describing a love that must be sourced from somewhere beyond ourselves.
    And this is precisely where Paul is pointing us. Because in Christ, we find a love that already did all four of these things — perfectly, completely, for us.
    IV. How Jesus Loved: The Model for All Four Verbs
    Let's trace all four verbs through the life of Jesus — because this is not abstract theology. This is a person. This is what love looks like with skin on it.
    Jesus bore all things. Isaiah 53 says He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. He absorbed what we deserved. He took the storm of God's righteous judgment so that we could stand dry inside. The Cross is the ultimate act of stégei.
    Jesus believed all things. When He called Simon — impulsive, unstable, unreliable Simon — He looked at him and said, "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." He saw what Peter could become and called it out before Peter could see it himself.
    Jesus hoped all things. Even from the cross, even while they were driving in the nails, He prayed: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He was holding open the door of redemption for the very people who were killing Him.
    Jesus endured all things. Hebrews 12:2 tells us that He endured the cross, despising the shame. He did not abandon the mission when it cost Him everything. He held the line all the way to "It is finished."
    This is our model. This is our source. We do not generate this love ourselves — we receive it from Him, and then by the power of His Spirit, we extend it to others.
    V. Application: Love Is a Daily Choice
    Let me bring this home with some very practical questions. These are not rhetorical. I want you to sit with them.
    A. Who Are You Refusing to Bear?
    B. Who Have You Stopped Believing In?
    C. Who Have You Written Off as a lost cause?
    VI. Conclusion
    Prayer
    Be Blessed
    .

      • 1 Corinthians 13:7NKJV

      • 1 Corinthians 13:7NKJV

      • 1 Corinthians 13:7NKJV

      • 1 Corinthians 13:7NKJV

      • Hebrews 12:2NKJV

      • Bible Trivia
        Loading...
Galatia New Life Church
info@galatianlc.org
1-618-268-4026
http://www.gnlc.life
5 members