Well, let's turn in our Bibles tonight to Romans chapter 12, Romans chapter 12, and I anticipated finishing the chapter, but it's so rich, so I would like to just go through verse 13, and the next time we will finish Romans chapter 12. So we're considering tonight verses 9 through 13. Let's give our attention tonight to the Word of the Lord. 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 reading of his word well in john first john chapter three we have one of the defining verses for us that outlines what the new life or the born again life uh evidence of what that looks like and john says something uh there that is uh really beautiful and powerful it says we know that we have passed from death to life. We know this because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. So John says that this is the evidence that we are born again. This is the evidence that we have passed and we've been brought out of one realm and brought into the other realm, the realm of darkness to the realm of light. And John says the way that you know that is by the way that you love your brethren. It's simple but profound. That, of course, was taken as John listened to our Lord teach a lot about love. When Jesus talked about love in John 13 and He explained love and Jesus said that a new commandment that I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you that you also love one another by this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another predominant theme in the scriptures all over the place is this call to love and we just sung it out in the psalm didn't we love for the brethren this is the message this is the message um all throughout the scriptures and especially when we look in as we already have in in romans 5 and we understand the love of christ for us that way he died for us when we were still enemies and he had the crown of thorns put on his head and he had the blows to the face and he had the awful whipping and the scourging and he had the terrible crucifixion and the wrath of god poured out upon him in body and soul so that we would never know that so that we would then understand what sacrificial love is and what sacrificial love looks like well jesus didn't go through all of that he didn't go through that agony and giving himself like that walking up Golgotha carrying what should have been your cross. He carried all of that for you. He didn't go through all that for us to just blatantly and carelessly continue in the former behavior that looked and acted like the kind of behavior that was demonstrated in the world. He saved us with a holy calling, didn't He? And since He demonstrated this love to us, He raised up a whole nation of people who are set apart to show forth that love in one another and to the world, which is remarkable. We have been taught the love of God. No one can say we don't know what love looks like or what it consists of because we see it in the person and the work of Jesus. He teaches us love. Well, the Apostle Paul has been taking that glorious message, the whole book of Romans, And he's explained the love of God, that nothing can separate us from it. And now he's driving the Christian life with it. He's driving the Christian life with it. And Romans 12 has called us, as we considered, to present our bodies as a living sacrifice of thanksgiving, which is our spiritual worship. And then we started wrestling with the question, well, what do we do with all this then? Now what? and you'll remember last time that the focus became very direct on the body of christ god has saved a people the church is the body of christ and this people that he has saved is now set apart to him in an entirely redeemed way and now he governs his people and and the first way that we looked at last time was the outpouring of gifts upon us in verses three through eight spiritual gifts that christ has has poured out being seated in heaven upon his people and it was a a beautiful section to consider it for its simplicity broad categories for us to apply and to work with and to use these opportunities and the gifts he's given us to serve one another it was not complex and that's what i loved about it we looked at speaking gifts and and we looked at serving gifts. And the Lord was saying, be discerning. Discern what the will of the Lord is. These opportunities are right in front of you. Use them. Use your gifts. And it was a great encouragement last week to be reminded that all of you have gifts. And the Lord has equipped you. We spent some time on that. But now the apostle transitions from gifts to what are a series of Christian virtues and attitudes that the born-again Christian is to pursue and to have. In other words, these are the virtues, these are the attitudes that now govern the life of the Christian. And the simple message tonight can be summarized with the words of our Lord, can't it? All men will know that you are my disciples by the love that you have for one another. Well, if Paul has been explaining the love of Jesus to us and he has demonstrated that sacrificial love, I believe the Apostle Paul knew that innately we think, who could ever love like that? I mean, who could ever love like Jesus loved? And fair enough, as sinners, we cannot love to the degree that Jesus loved. I mean, that's just unfathomable, the depths of his love. Who can plumb the depths of his love? Paul wrote about that to the Ephesians. I want you to be able to comprehend this. It is so wonderful. Paul knows as Christians that we struggle with this. And so we have now explained here what love looks like in the lives of His people. Those who make up the body of Christ. He's helping us to discern. He's helping us think through what love is. Generally it's thought here that we just have a series of loosely connected directives for Christian living on how the Christian is to live. But I like to find structure. And I'm not sure I did really well at it because I think this is a challenging section to find structure. But there is structure here. And it's helpful to look at the whole picture. He gives a summary statement in verse 9. And then he describes for us, if you were to outline, and I don't get very far in my outline tonight. It means a shorter sermon. The first section is love for the brethren. Love for those, as Jesus said, who love you. And then the second section, which we'll end with next time, is love for those who don't love you. So think about this. Look at verse 9. Let's start with the summary. Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good. He's addressing love, isn't he? Notice he's not letting us understand love in the way that we typically understand love. This is not sentimentally done. This is a very powerful way of talking about love. He chose the word agape, and he's looking and explaining love using the word that is often used to describe God's love for us. He's talking about a love that in no way identifies with what the world knows or the world practices. This is a love peculiar to God's people. And so there are two characteristics of this love that he describes. I love the ESV translation. I think it's a very good one. let love be genuine some of the other translations have let love be without hypocrisy the word is interesting you want to circle it because it means undisguised or sincere it actually is the word from where we get the word hypocrite and so this is interesting because in the ancient world, they would have understood this. In classical Greek dramas, the hypocrites or the answerer were the actors who would impersonate. They would do impersonations of various characters of stories. And these hypocrites would assume characteristics that are not their own. And the audience really was impassioned with this. You had to be really good at the impersonation. You had to get it right. So in other words, they had no tolerance for bad impersonations. And these hypocrites would then wear these life-sized masks to do their dramas. See, they had dramas in the first century. And the church didn't use them, by the way. Now, you can understand the weight of this. God is saying, your love for one another is to be without masks. It is to be without hypocrisy. Don't play that actor. Love for one another is not to have a mask on. Now, isn't it remarkable that our Lord would say this to us? What does that tell you? Is it possible to bring love and hypocrisy together? I think one of the worst exposures comes in the book of James. I've always been moved by it where James says that we can come here and we can bless God with our mouths and then we can go home and curse those made in His image. That's the hypocrite. This kind of love betrays with a kiss Judas. This kind of love, the Psalms talk about the false love of the world that blesses outwardly but curses inwardly. And what all of this is saying is, as I look at this, and I'll show you how I believe the structure works here, all of this is saying to us is that there must be in the body of Christ a deep, abiding trust for one another. Now why do I say that? All people know that care for one another, sincerity for one another, also goes hand in hand with your trust for the person to love hypocritically toward the person somebody made in the image of god is a contradiction why well you know it's sad today that um people often make the statement i'm not joining the church because it's full of hypocrites you ever heard that now when i hear that i respond very brashly and i say we'll welcome another but i really don't mean that i'm saying that because i know they're making an excuse the church should never be a place that is full of hypocrites and the new testament constantly emphasizes sincerity in the christian life sincerity being sincere peter said this in 1 Peter 1, since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart. What he's saying is establish your hearts and love unhypocritically with this pure and sincere heart, your brethren. How do you do that? Well, that's where I think you have to look carefully at what Paul now says. There's two verbs that follow here, and typically I think people separate this out, but they're linked. These are verbs that are linked. The two immediate statements after this are linked and are describing and helping us understand what sincere love pursues and how it works. In other words, what is one of the things that prevents us from being sincere? It's because I don't trust someone. I'm not really sinner going to invest love if I don't trust them? That's our problem. Contrast that with the world. You ever look at our political parties? Does any of those people trust anyone else? I mean, it's dog eat dog. It is. I would not want to be in those meetings every day. do you trust your president if if if i'm assuming you're going to say maybe yes or no i shouldn't assume but what if he's the president said i'm coming to the escondido united reform church and i'm going to worship with you um what would you do how would you treat him you would respect him you would probably dress nice for him you might smile you might walk up and say you know you're doing a pretty good job now you may not really believe that but you may put on a little bit of a show for him wouldn't you and then you'd go home and trash him that's what we do and all of that would get a smile all of that would get a handshake but inside deep down you're furious maybe at what's going on. Example. Think about what Paul is saying here. I want you, your love to be without masks toward your brethren. Here is how. I want you, strong word here, I want you absolutely to hate what is evil and I want you to cleave to what is good. What is he getting at? Isn't it remarkable that the first thing he tells you after love is to hate something? God says pure love is going to hate something. Sincere love is going to hate something. It's going to cling to something else. To properly love, you have to hate. Well, for a minute, maybe put this in different terms. What if this were describing hypocritical love? Look at verse 9 again and let's describe hypocritical love. What would that sound like? Hypocritical love clings to what is evil and abhors what is good. It hates what is good. Paul is saying here that there is a sinful barrier that has to be removed for us to properly love somebody. What is it? Well, it's a lack of trust, a suspicion toward your brethren. But I believe you know this, you understand this, because we have the great description of love given to us in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. And how does love function towards someone. Listen to the language. Love thinks no evil. Love does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in truth. Love bears all things. Love believes all things. Love endures all things. Why don't we love that way? I'll tell you why we don't love that way. It's because we sit in perceived judgment on people's actions and upon assumptions and upon motives. And we are constantly attributing in our hearts to our brethren evil. This is an easy thing to do. And it leads to all sorts of further things. It fills us with anger and assumptions and we avoid and we're constantly facing offense and you have bitterness and disgust and it promotes a lack of trust of the person and it promotes then wearing a mask toward the person when you see them that's not really genuine, is it? You've clung to what is evil, the evil thought about them when 1 Corinthians says, Love should hope all things, believe all things, endures all things. It clings to what is good. I'm not going to entertain it about them. This is how the world treats one another. The Christian's not to. So I love the emphasis here. I won't cling to anything. I'm going to hate everything that has to do with evil toward my brethren. Can you imagine if we all acted like that? and I'm going to cling to what is good and right. I refuse to think lowly of my brother and sister. I refuse to treat them in a way like the world treats one another. Love believes, hopes endures. I love Ephesians 4. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God and Christ forgave you. That's the love that you've enjoyed. And it doesn't work to stand back and say, well, I just can't do that. That's unrealistic. You're a new creature, and the Lord has set you apart to this. And this is what He wants you to pursue. And so that there would be trust that's built in the body. And so verse 9 has defined for us unhypocritical love or sincere love. And then in verses 10 through 13, he defines for us what that love looks like in action in the body of Christ. You have the definition, and then you have an action. And what I like about this is, he first deals with love among the brethren, and then in verses 14 at the end of the chapter, he deals with love for even our enemies. I tried to see the structure, and the first I come up with in verse 10 is this. A call to be devoted in affection for one another. Look at verse 10. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love. Have brotherly love for one another with tender, affectionate love in honor, giving preference to one another. Affectionate kind of love. As I look at this and I think, there is a love that is peculiar and especially enjoyed in the body of Christ. This is a love that is reserved for the body of Christ. This is a love that the world does not get to know or the world does not get to enjoy. It can't know this kind of love. This is a restricted kind of love for those who have the Holy Spirit. It's a family-oriented kind of love. What's the one thing people do when they want to stay away from the body of Christ? What's the one thing they hate being around? God's people. That's the sign of an unregenerate, dark heart. They want nothing to do with the people of God. They want nothing to do with the body of Christ. Well, once you are redeemed and once you are born again, there's this completely new, renewed desire of a fervent love for God's people. Why do I say that? that's what verses 10 through 13 is describing the beauty of the love of god is that it's ripped down the barriers that the world constantly holds up the gospel has brought down the barriers of different status class rank race on a whole host of things and we're taught and demonstrated and to show this kind of sacrificial love. This is what Jesus was getting at when he said this is the kind of love that men will know that you belong to me. Notice what he says. Brotherly love with tender affection. It's always moved me that the Apostle Paul, whenever he was going around to churches, and you know, you'll get this at the end of Romans. You keep getting, greet so-and-so, greet so-and-so, greet so-and-so, and greet so-and-so. You tell them I said hello, and greet them with a holy kiss. Probably not one we want to do today, I understand. But did you notice how affectionate he was for God's people? He would consider the body of Christ individually, and he would think of people, and he would think of their names, and he would think of them, and he would think this is somebody whom Jesus gave his life for, and Paul said, greet them. There was affection to that. There was sincerity in it. Do you feel the affection with the Apostle Paul? We'll get there in chapter 15 and 16. He was so excited that God was saving people and that this was the fruit of Christ's work. Love them. Greet Priscilla and Aquila. Greet, greet, greet. That's a common form of greeting in the East. That kind of brotherly embrace. And then he says, honor them. Put their interests above yours. You know how much smaller the book of 1 Corinthians would be if this were practiced? The whole thing is full of division. The whole thing is full of people pushing interest. The whole thing is full of, I'm of Paul, or I'm of Apollos, or I'm of this person. That's the first one I have. Devoted affection for your brethren. The second one I have is unwavering zeal in your service to them. Look at verse 11. Let this love not lag in diligence. Be fervent in spirit, all the while serving the Lord. That's really beautiful to me. The whole thrust of that is what? Enthusiasm. Excitement. Joy. Joy that you get to serve those who God has set apart and who were purchased with the precious blood of His Son. Don't let the fire go out. Be fervent in spirit. You know what that word means? It means to boil. Be fervent in this. A joy and excitement in the spirit, not the kind that is hopping over pews. I trust you know that. Hendrickson summarizes this well. They will not be passive, but with joy and enthusiasm will address themselves to the task of actually and wholeheartedly serving the lord i mean notice the beauty of the love that is spilling forth here i mean you notice this affection and fervent doing all things as unto the lord whether you eat or drink you're doing it all to the glory of god you're you're getting these opportunities to glorify the lord third persistent compassion verse 12 rejoicing in hope patient in tribulation Continuing steadfast in prayer. You see the connection with these things. This is where the rubber meets the road now. Notice now we have tribulation entered in. We're all living in hope. We're all living in a hope of what is to come. Paul talked about that in Romans 8. There's a hope of the resurrection of the body. There's the hope of the return, which is yes and amen. It's going to happen. Jesus is going to return. There's a goal to all of this. But along the way, guess what? It's not going to be easy in the body. It's going to be hard in the body. There's going to be struggles in the body. There's going to be growing pains in the body. There's going to be conflicts in the body. There's going to be seasons of conflict that erupt in the life of the body of Christ. And the devil will come in like a dirty dog in a beautiful living room and will track mud everywhere. And he has one purpose in that. Oh, He has a purpose. It is to divide and to conquer. And that's what tribulation often brings. Notice how beautiful and pleasant is the sight when brethren make it their delight to dwell in sweet accord, not just in the good times. And this is why He demonstrates that the love should be patient. That when these seasons of tribulation come, they will come. Churches are tested. Churches are tested. Will they discipline? Churches are tested when something goes wrong in the shepherding. When these tests come, notice the instruction here in this, which is so beautiful. Rejoice in your hope. You be very patient in your tribulations. And then what should you do through all of that? Commit yourselves to prayer. You have an active part in the body to think that you can be in your rooms praying. praying for your brethren praying when these times come praying persistent in compassion and finally he says be generous in your giving notice what he says distribute to the needs of the saints and be given to hospitality you know in the ancient world everyone had to travel and there was economic uncertainties and all the welfare programs that we have today they just weren't there and anyone who walked in the door of a church i tell you the brethren knew that person's coming over to our home today you ever think that the lord brings in strangers and what did we see with abraham abraham has these angels come and and hebrews picks up on that in hebrews says listen don't forget to entertain strangers for some have unwittingly entertained angels and his point was to say you don't know and you haven't considered whom god has sent to you hospitality and there was all of these challenges in the first century and they didn't think they weren't taught to think so individually minded as we are today The problem with Americans is we're isolated. We want to do our own thing and we want to be alone and live our own lives and be quiet. And one of the great marks of love will be your hospitality. No visitor should ever stand alone. No visitor that walks in these doors should ever stand alone. We should love them and greet them. The Lord is a hospitable God. And that's what you've enjoyed. This is free. That's why I didn't want to go too far tonight. We'll look at love for our enemies next time. But this is the kind of love that's special. That's what I really wanted to accent tonight. That's what I want to leave you with. This is the kind of love in verses 9 through 13 that is special among the brethren. And let's all ask what masks have to come down. In what ways we're like these Greek actors who, you know, wore these giant life-size masks and let our love be sincere. Let us be sincere Christians. That witness is going to stand out today unlike any other witness. Sincerity. People need sincerity, especially in a Southern California culture. Know that family, all of this, all of the things that we enjoy here, it's absent in a Southern California culture. We've got a lot to offer and by way of witness in terms of these things. So since we've been loved with sincere gospel love that freely and unconditionally gave us all of these blessings, giving you forgiveness of sins given by the precious blood of Jesus, let us then freely and unconditionally love one another with an unhypocritical and sincere love, a love that is without masks. Let's pray. Lord, our God, we thank you that you love us and have poured out this kind of love upon us and that you have set us apart to demonstrate this. And the thing that we say is with the apostle, who is sufficient for these things? In and of ourselves, we're not. But you have also given us your spirit and you've also said that we have a helper and so we pray that this would be the desire of the escondido united reform church that this love would be pure for one another that it would be sincere that it would be fervent that it would be without masks and that it would make a great impact in this community and lord that you would open the doors and bring in many and that we would love them the way that we have been loved. But let this love for one another, let it start in our own house and let this special love that we have spill over in sincerity and in truth and without masks. Thank you for instructing us tonight. May we put into practice all that we've heard in the coming week. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.