I invite you to turn tonight to Romans chapter 12 as we continue our study in the gratitude section of Romans. And tonight we are looking at 9 through 13 of Romans 12. 11 27 Last time we looked at gifts, and now we move to this section that deals with love in the body of Christ. And then next week, love for those outside of the body of Christ. But first, for the body of Christ, beginning at verse nine,
"Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, but fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality."
May the Lord bless tonight the hearing of his word.
Well, as you know, in Romans chapter 12, we have really been looking at the Christian life. You'll notice the title that I gave tonight to this of real Christianity We're going to sort of contrast real Christianity with false Christianity, which is of great interest to people today. To understand what people want to know is: authentic in Christianity and what is true? And that's exactly what this passage aims to show us.
Remember, he had said, "I want you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, worship, in life as we give ourselves on the sacrifice and service of each other's faith." And so the book has been organized so beautifully to show us the Lord's will for us. As he labored for all these chapters to explain the incredible grace of God in Christ to us, we looked at sin and salvation, and now we are in service. Guilt, grace, or what we call gratitude. That is exactly how the Heidelberg makes its lines of separation throughout that document based on the book of Romans.
And tonight, we are getting to the heart of one of the great principles that guides the Christian who has been redeemed from his sin, now in sacrificial service to his brethren. And he turns tonight to service in the body of Christ. He has been looking at that in some ways. There is a redeemed action now, a redeemed way of life for the people of God. There's a way that is proper for how we live and how we act and what we do, and principles are given to us tonight.
But this follows, you'll remember, verses three through eight, that After calling us to the sacrificial life, he outlined for us the necessity of using our gifts in service toward one another to bless one another. And encourage one another. And the section on gifts is really important. Obviously, in church, there's lots of discussion in history about the giving of gifts, and what is my gift, and do I have multiple gifts or one gift? And I love that section for its simplicity. Paul's not really trying to figure out what is everyone's particular gift. He's giving and showcasing certain gifts to really tell us, simply: use them. Go serve, if you will. Think that way. It wasn't complex.
There are opportunities all around us in the body of Christ to serve and encourage one another for the glory of God and for the blessing and benefit of his people. So, that whether it's speaking truth or whether it's serving one another according to their needs, or whether it's exhorting one another with some word of comfort or encouragement or strengthening somebody, or giving of time and resource, or if you still don't know how to go and serve, he leaves it wide open at the end by saying, "Well, then go show mercy." Everyone can show mercy because people need mercy.
And this is such a beautiful encouragement to use the gifts, to exercise at the end. He said, "Do it with acts of mercy, with cheerfulness to your brothers and sisters." It was a great encouragement last time that all of us should take the opportunities that God has given us as a way of gratitude in our lives. There's Christian life is meaningful. The Christian life is purposeful. The Christian life is intentional. And this is one of the great purposes that God brought us together.
In Hebrews, it says, "Don't neglect the assembling together." But then it goes on to say, "Instead, stir up one another to love and good works." So what a great responsibility the Christian has!
Well, we spent some time on gifts last time, but now what we have is a bit of a transition from gifts to what are really certain Christian virtues and attitudes that the Christian must have in the kingdom as he serves in the church and among the people of God. In other words, there are virtues, there are attitudes that govern the Christian life. There are motivations and desires that govern the Christian life. You could go back and read Matthew 5 and the Beatitudes that describe those virtues of the blessedness that has come upon the people of God. And here, Paul, you might say, is filling that out for us of what it looks like in practical service and as a way of gratitude.
And the simple message tonight can be summarized with the words of our Lord that said, "All men will know you're my disciples. The defining characteristic of my disciples, the way that you will be known in the world, is by the love that you have for one another."
So there, he's looking at the body. He's looking at his church. And for Paul, chapter after chapter in Romans has been explaining for us the love of Christ for us, right? That while we were yet sinners, he showed his love for us in this: that he died for us. While we were enemies, we were reconciled through the blood of his Son. Paul knows that Christians really struggle with love. We forget this. We forget as time goes on because of difficulty and trial what we are called to do and how we are to behave.
So Paul is explaining then what gospel love looks like in the body of Christ to those who make up the body of Christ. And in verse 14 to the close, really what he does here for verse 14 to the close of the chapter is answer the great question: "Well, how do we love enemies in the world? How do we love those who hate us? How do we do that?" That's next week. But this week is: "How do you simply love your brethren? Start there." That's where he starts.
It's sometimes challenging when you have a lot of imperatives that are given in sort of rapid fire like this to find a structure. But I believe there is a structure to this. He's not just writing these in abstract or just saying, "Do this over here and do this over here and do this." There's a flow to this thought tonight. There's a line of reasoning in this thought. It's linear, if you will, to help us to understand what his will for us and what love looks like in the body.
And they're tied together by one little phrase here, you'll notice at the beginning of verse 14 that functions as a sort of summary statement to what he's talking about: of love in the body of Christ. And notice what it says. Let, verse 9, love be genuine. Abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good."
It's such a pure command, isn't it? It's such a right command. Let your love be genuine. Let your love be sincere. Let your love, you could say, not be fake. He's addressing love, but he knows here how most people typically look at love as a sentimental phenomenon, how I feel about someone, and feelings oriented. No. Paul wants to go deeper than that. It's well beyond just feeling. As feelings are important, he's looking at how it's used in Scripture to speak of God's love. He wants to make clear that the love that he's talking about for us in no way looks like the quote, "love" that the world has for its own. It's different. It's sanctified. It's unique.
And there are two characteristics of this love that he describes. The ESV translation is really good: "Let love be genuine." Some of the older translations, I think, capture it even more potently when it says, "Let love be without hypocrisy." Let love be without hypocrisy. The word's interesting, if you were to circle it. It means "undisguised" or "a love that is not insincere." It's from the word that they understood in the Greek language from where they got the word "hypocrite."
In the ancient world, they would have known what this is talking about when Paul is saying this. In the classic Greek dramas, the hypocrites, or the "answerer," as they were called, were the actors who impersonated various characters in a drama. And so these hypocrites would assume characteristics that are not their own, and the audience was very serious about the actors getting it right. In other words, they had no tolerance for bad impersonations or bad acting. We're similar to that today in many ways.
And so to get the correct impersonation in the Greek dramas, what they would do is: the hypocrite would wear a life-size mask. You understand the point of this? God is saying, "Let your love be without masks. Let your love be sincere. Let your love be without hypocrisy." Love that is true is a love that doesn't have a mask on.
Have you ever felt like when you talk to people, certain people you just can't get into? There's always a wall in front of them. They don't let you in. They don't let you in their lives. They don't let you into their person. There's a brick wall in front of them. What you're getting is only a superficial presentation of the person. And Paul's saying, "That is not what love is."
Think of the exposure. You might say, "Well, what does that look like?" Well, James captures it with the tongue. calls the tongue "an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." Listen to this. Think of the hypocrisy of this: "With it, we bless our God and Father, and with it, we curse men. Think about that. We will come and we'll praise God, and then we will use the same lips to curse people who are made in the image of God. Out of the same mouth come blessing and cursing, my brethren. These things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus, no spring yields both salt water and fresh."
He's talking about hypocrisy. That's the kind of love that betrays with a kiss. It's the kind of love that curses behind the back. It's the kind of love that will bless the person in front of them and then go out to the neighbor and slander them. That's not love, of course. That's hypocrisy.
And Paul is really challenging us here on to for us to be sincere in who we are as redeemed people, that what is on the inside and what comes out on the outside is reflective of the inside. We've been looking at that in Matthew. That's a huge theme, you know? But to love hypocritically is to have that mask on. It is to do things without goodwill toward the person, the one who's made in the image of God to your brothers and sisters.
This emphasis is everywhere in the New Testament. 1 Peter 1: "Since you've purified your souls and obeying the truth through the spirit and sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a what? pure heart. It's pure in its intentions. It's cleansed in its intentions. It's sincere in its intentions. That heart has to be established unhypocritically, with a pure heart.
I think, so to notice here, important, It's wrong then to separate the two verbs that follow, as if they're speaking of some unbroken train of thought here. He's connecting this together. To understand this, when the two immediate statements after this are linked to and support this initial, sort of programmatic statement that he makes here: "Let your love be without hypocrisy. How so? Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good."
Well, what's the one thing that promotes a lack of authenticity or sincerity or what is real and true? It's a lack of trust. In other words, I'm going to invest my love in those think about this and really care about How am I going to do that if I don't really trust them?
Imagine a Democrat and a Republican working together in Congress. What's that like? You think they handshake? You think they smile at each other on the outside when they meet? You think they say flattering words to each other? Maybe not. But my guess is there's a lot of show in those meetings. They hate each other. They don't trust each other. That's the world.
With that in mind, Paul looks at the body of Christ with a great call for us: "I want your love to be without mass towards your brethren so that whatever you would say and act to their faces, nothing should be different on the inside." Imagine that in the church. Imagine how beautiful that is when that functions in the church. That whatever you say and how you treat them on the outside is reflective of what's going on on the inside.
And how do you accomplish that? Well, then you have to hate what is evil and cling to what's good. Hypocritical love clings to what's evil and abhors what is good. Right? Paul's saying, "There's a sinful barrier that has to be removed for you to properly love somebody." That sinful barrier is what is it? that very lack of trust and that suspicion toward your brethren that the world shows to its own.
Now Paul describes this in 1 Corinthians 13. How does love function, true love toward one another? Listen to the language: "Love now listen, thinks no evil. It does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in truth. Love hopes all things, bears all things, believes all things."
You want so much trust among your brethren that it removes the inner judgment on people's motivations and actions. Do you understand that? That's how love operates. That you never begin with the assumption that the motives and the actions of your brothers and sisters are evil. He wants that kind of simplistic, in the right way, love. Trusting love.
Now, it may be that somebody has done something to offend you outright. But most often, if you're honest, the evil that fills us has some form of anger and is based on assumption of the motivations of others that they're evil. Paul's saying, no, That is not how we operate as Christians. that is not how we think of our brothers and sisters as Christians. We don't operate like the world operates that way. This is how the whole world has fallen apart. There's no trust in society anymore. Nobody has trust in society anymore of one another. That lack of trust is ruinous to a good society. And this is where all conflict comes. Right here. You have clung to what is evil and the inside what is evil about them and their motivations. And you've not hold fast to what is good.
Love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, bears all things. I will not entertain and think of my brothers and sisters, their purpose being evil. I may not agree with them, but I clearly, and maybe I'm not seeing things the same way on a particular matter, but I never have the right to assume the worst intentions of my brothers and sisters. See that? That's what he's saying. It's genuine. It's a bridge to all harmony and peace.
I will think the best of them. I will not entertain what is damaging or evil regarding them and will actively hope what is best and endure whatever the problem may be. And that's the greatest release to us because if there are evil intentions, that belongs to the Lord anyway. But God never gives us the right to regard as evil the motives of our brothers and sisters.
This is what he's aiming at here. This is Ephesians 4: "Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. And instead, here's the path, instead be kind to one another. See, this is authentic. This is real. Tenderhearted, forgiving one another just as God and Christ forgave you."
So imagine the approach of our brethren this way, the harmony and peace that's built up, that we refuse to think evil of them and actually, in all circumstances, we love them so much that we will cling to what is good and what is true in life. That builds the body.
So verse 9 has defined really unhypocritical love, and then now in verses 10 through 13, he shows us how more so to practice that in the body of Christ. I'm trying to find the structure here, and I have three sort of brief ways I think he's addressing this. And it is, first: be devoted. Have devoted affection to one another. This is how it's practiced. Have devoted affection to one another.
Look at verse 10: "Be kindly. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor."
That's a really beautiful verse. "Love one another with brotherly affection." There has to be an affectionate kind of love for your brothers and sisters. The phrase is directing us in the most restricted sense to the body of Christ, to one another. It's a family-oriented kind of love. You know this in your natural families in your families that you're raised in, and your mother and your father. There's an affectionate kind of love. Paul says that affectionate kind of love is in your true family, the body of Christ, that same kind of affectionate love. It's a familial kind of love that he's talking about here, a bond in our love that the world cannot have and does not truly know that the redeemed children of God do.
And that's the beauty here that Christ has brought together you. Think of what he does in the church. He brings together all these different people of all these different backgrounds, of all these different convictions, of all these different ethnicities, of all these different characteristics in their lives, and he makes us one. And he wants there to be brotherly affection this way among one another.
It's beautiful. I'll really get to the heart of it when Jesus said, "By this you'll know all will know you're my disciples if you love one another." He wasn't saying, "Hold up the wine glass selectively. These are your brothers and sisters."
It always fascinates me how excited you get from the Apostle Paul, how much gladness you get of interest and love for people. They say going into ministry you have to really love people. We all have to really love people. But it's really amazing here. When you look at Paul, he marvels and is overjoyed that God has saved people. And he was thrilled to think of them as people that Christ died for, people that Christ loved, people that Christ looked upon, people that Christ specifically gave his life for. And he thought, "They're my brothers and sisters."
At the end of the book, you'll read a long list: of "Greet one another, greet one another, greet one another. Greet Priscilla and Aquila. Greet, greet, greet—" an endless list. And then he ends saying, "Greet with a holy kiss." We'll get there when we look at that. But that was a common greeting in the East that is still a common greeting. But he's really capturing the affectionate nature of the love, pure and undefiled.
The second is a devoted. Notice that. The first was devoted affection. The second is an unwavering zeal in serving them. Notice that. Unwavering zeal in serving them. Look at verse 11: "Do not be slothful and zeal. Be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord."
It's really beautiful to me. The whole sort of emphasis is that is a proper kind of enthusiasm, if you will, an excitement, a joy in this. Remember Colossians 3: "And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." And do it in such a way, he says, that is doing it for the glory of God, fervent in spirit.
William Hendrickson summarizes this way: "They will not be passive, but with joy and enthusiasm will address themselves to the task of actually and wholeheartedly serving the Lord." And we do that through one serving one another.
And then finally, I call it persistent compassion. Notice what he says in verse 12: "Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer."
That's such another beautiful verse here. There are going to be in the body of Christ and in life seasons of real conflict. Sometimes you will never understand why conflicts come. You cannot understand why these seasons of conflict come. These seasons of conflict will come in among the brethren in the body of Christ, and the devil attacks.
You'll notice the emphasis here on patient and tribulation. It's the tribulation moments that challenge this all the most. He is always listen to me, the evil one is always working to set fires in the church. He is always working to divide and to conquer.
Now, put it together so far. You've already overcome in many ways by simply saying, "I am not going to assume the worst of my brethren, right?" But what does conflict and tribulation bring? Separation. Separation. Fellowship is broken.
And that's why he mentions love should demonstrate real patience in seasons of tribulation. We don't name call. We don't disregard. These seasons come, and you have to recognize that they have come as times of testing. And instead of acting as the world acts, what does he say is the great solution? "Don't be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope."
Hope is not wishful thinking. There's a hope that is certain. And we are patient in tribulation. How so? He's filling it out by being constant in prayer. Unhypocritical Love again, that's the summary statement here. Love without masks handles these things a certain way, and it devotes in times of tribulation. The call to love is to devote such things to prayer.
Most people, when they're frustrated with their brethren, the litmus test is how they're speaking about them on the outside. And how they're speaking about them on the outside is a key indicator that there is no inside praying for them. That's so crucial: pray for them, help them.
One of the best ways to love your brethren is to pray for them. It's persistent in this kind of compassion as we've received.
And then finally, he says, "In all things, in verse 13, contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality."
The way out of sort of the tribulation is to again remember what the calling is, right? What's the calling? It is to seek and to serve the needs of the saints. The saints have needs. Contribute to them. Give yourself to help them. Show hospitality.
Hospitality is one of the best ways to get out of these kind of things and serve one another. Those are solutions to strife. Those are solutions to difficulty. To serve one another. To show hospitality to one another.
I'll challenge you on this. It's the most difficult thing: Who's the one person in the church that bothers you the most? Long pause. Invite them to dinner. That's real Christianity.
Now, don't do it this week, okay? Don't do it this week, okay? If you do it this week, I'm going to get in trouble, okay?
Invite them to dinner. Have them over. Feed them. Love them. Watch what that does for you and for them. It's so freeing. It's wonderful to be able to serve the people of the Lord in this way. That kind of love is special among us. The world doesn't know it.
And next time we'll consider how to love the world that hates us. But we start here. This is the great platform to do it, to love our brethren.
So what masks do you have to pull down, right? I have to always ask myself that. Be sincere. We don't want to be like the Greek actors who just wore masks and then took them down. Let our love be sincere in the gospel. Freely forgive. Serve one another. Trust good motives. Don't let the devil come in and wreck what is good. Unconditionally love your brethren as you have been loved by Christ.
This is the way for us, right? This is what everyone's saying: this is the way. This is the way for us. This is the way he's given us to be children of light who walk in light and not in darkness.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, thank you for helping us tonight to think more about sacrificially loving one another. It's difficult for us. We confess we don't do this well. But help us to be sincere, authentic, real in our Christianity, and to do it with fervency, with zeal, that your people might be built up and that we might not look like the Republicans and the Democrats in the way that we treat one another. But that we, Lord, in a sanctified way would serve one another with gladness and look at the people here as those whom you've purchased through the precious blood of Christ. Bless us, O Lord, and help us in Jesus' name. Amen.