Take your Bibles to Romans chapter 12, if you will, Romans chapter 12. It's so good to have each one of you here with us. This evening, we have a special guest. Tom Vogel will be with us at 5 o'clock, our evening service. He is a Vietnam vet. He wrote a book years ago called Growing Up in Vietnam. very enjoyable, he'll tell about what happened and then the spiritual application that later he came to realize. I don't believe he was a Christian, a believer when he was in Vietnam, but later came to faith in Christ. But so many lessons that God taught him during that time that have a spiritual significance. And so let me just encourage you, if you can, I think especially our veterans will enjoy that and that's at 5 o'clock this evening if you're able to make that. It will be a special blessing. We had a good crowd in our 8.30 service here this morning, but there is far more room in the 8.30 service than in the 11 o'clock service. And so if some of you want to be able to spread out a little bit more, let me encourage you to visit our 8.30 service sometime. And I think you'll thoroughly enjoy that. You get the same sermon. You don't get as many thrills with it, you know. We do have an 830 choir that sings. We usually have a special that will sing as well. And it's from 830 to 945. And so be mindful of that. Romans chapter 12, we're looking at verses 1 through 13. If you found that passage of scripture as our custom is, we're going to stand and read that together if you don't mind. I'll read and you follow along in your scripture and your Bible to be able to follow along here. The Bible says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and perfect and acceptable good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith, or ministry, let us wait on ministering, or he that teacheth on teaching, or he that exhorteth on exhortation, he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity, he that ruleth with diligent, he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be without dissimulation, abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another, not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer, distributing to the necessity of saints, given to hospitality. And we'll stop right there. Let's have a quick word of prayer and you may be seated and we'll get into the message for this morning. Heavenly Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit would take your word and let the word of God speak powerfully to every heart. For those of us, dear Lord, who have acknowledged you as our personal savior, we pray that you'll take your word and teach us what it is you would have us to do and how you would have us to live. And Lord, if there's those this morning that do not know Christ as their personal Savior, I pray that your Holy Spirit would speak to their heart. And just as you wooed us to yourself years ago, I pray that you'll be in the same business this morning of bringing people to yourself. You're not willing that any should perish, but that all should come into repentance. Lord, you do not want us to die in our sins, but you want us to live forever with you. So I pray that you'll speak to hearts as only you can. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. And you may be seated. We're looking at Romans chapter 12, verses one through 13, more particularly, we're gonna be looking through verses nine through 13. And Romans is the most doctrinal book in the Bible. By doctrinal, I mean it tells us how Jesus Christ died for us, how he died to save us, how he took our sins on himself, how he suffered, how he paid a price that you and I could not pay, and he paid it in full. And then he tells us how that we can trust him as our personal Savior and become his children and become what the Bible calls born again, born of the Spirit. We become the children of God by faith, accepting Christ as our Savior. In Romans 10.13 it says, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It is believing that what Jesus Christ did for us, believing in what he did for us that brings salvation. When we place faith in his death, his burial, and his resurrection, that's salvation. When we place faith in what he says about his death, burial, resurrection, and about his willingness to redeem us to himself, that brings security. In other words, we believe that we're saved because of what Christ did. We know we're saved based on what Christ said. He said, if we trust him as our personal savior, we will become his children. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Now that's a promise made by Christ before his crucifixion. And then afterwards he told his disciples to preach the gospel to the ends of the world. If we will but trust Christ as our Savior, we become his children. So doctrinally, Verses chapters one through 11 in the book of Romans deal with doctrine. Chapters 11 through 16, the end of the book of Romans deals with practical Christian living. Now practical Christian living is what I call God's house rules. It's how he wants his children to behave. If you've raised children, you had different house rules. Some will say at 9.30, all the children are supposed to be in bed with the lights out. And then inevitably, one of your children will say, well, yeah, but my friend Eddie, he gets to stay up to 11 o'clock. And you'll say, yes, but I'm not Eddie's mother or father. That's his parent's problem. But our house rules are at this time, lights are out and you're in bed. And that's called your house rules. Everyone had that. When I grew up, I had house rules. And that is that we had to be home at dark. Now, to me, dark was a very objective thing. Because I could still see just fine. But when it started to get dark, my mother would call us and expect us to be home. And if we were in the neighborhood, and I say in the neighborhood loosely, because it seems like even if I was a mile away, my father could stand on the front porch and whistle in such a way that if I was in China, I still could have heard that. And when he whistled, that meant I better be running home because I had about a minute to show up before the Battle of Armageddon took place and the end times and everything else. And I'm just saying that I would say to my mother, I'd say, well, mom, it's not dark yet. It's just dusky. And we did not have a time when it got so dark, the lights came on. This was pre all those electric lights. So it got dark, but the sun was, I mean, the moon was out, the stars were out. And my mother would say, you've come home too late. And I would try to argue with her. I found that my father would always solve those arguments very effectively. He would apply learning to the seed of knowledge and I would know not to do that next time. House rules, everyone was different. When I grew up, I got for allowance 10 cents a week. I had a best friend, his allowance was $15 a week, which back then was unheard of. That's wealthy. Ten cents was poor, I tried to share with my mother, but every house operated different. And so it is today. And it never helped for me to try to argue with my father or my mother about their house rules. Because the obvious answer is one day I'll have a home of my own and I will get to determine those house rules. Now, when you invite Christ in your life as your personal savior, It does no good for us to say to God, well, let me share with you what I think are appropriate house rules for believers. God tells us in his word what he expects us to do. So in chapters 12 through 16, we call that practical Christian living. It's simply God telling us as believers how he wants us to live. Now we can argue about them all we want, but God, because he provided salvation through sending his son, he is the one who gets to choose the house rules for how Christians choose to live. Now in verses one and two of chapter 12, he tells us that the Christian life begins with a presentation. He says, I beseech you therefore, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice unto God. And he'll continue to tell us how what that sacrifice ought to be. And then in verse two, he'll say, and be not conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what has that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So in verses one and two, it says we start our Christian life with a presentation. Now remember this, that we become a Christian because we accept what Jesus Christ offers us. But we grow in grace by what we choose to offer him. You see, we become a child of God because we have accepted his life. but we grow in Christ as we yield to him our lives. And so that's what these verses are talking about. It begins, if you're serious about being a Christian who follows God's house rules, it begins with you first offering your life, holy and acceptable to the Lord, which is our reasonable service since Christ died for us. And then in verses three through eight, the apostle Paul talks about the gifts that are given us as believers. He talks about we're not to boast because God's given to every one of us a measure of faith. Now by measure of faith, it's not talking about a measure of trusting Christ as our savior. It's not that. Remember, we are not saved because of how much faith we have. We are saved because of where we place our faith. If we place our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that is what saves us. Christ saves us by faith. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians 2, 8, 9. So we yield ourself to the Lord Jesus Christ in order to grow in the Christian life, to mature as a believer and to understand his house rules for us. In verses three through eight, it tells us that every Christian has been given spiritual gifts. And this passage of scripture is gonna tell us that whatever the spiritual gift that God has given to us, He is also going to tell us how to minister that gift. For instance, you read in verse three, and let me share just a few of these thoughts. Let's actually go to verse five where it starts, no, verse six where it starts listing these gifts. Having then gifts differing according to grace that is given us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith. So if God's given you that particular gift, he tells you how to administer that. In verse seven, or ministry, let us wait on ministering. If you have a spiritual gift to minister to others, God says, wait on it. And that means give yourself to it. That's an old English phrase, wait on it means give yourself to it. Then he says, he that teacheth on teaching. So in other words, whatever spiritual gift that God has given you, Use it for the furtherance of Christianity in the body of Christ and in the world in which we live. That's what he's saying. Verses three all the way through verse eight. In verses nine through 13, which are the text verses I plan to spend what remaining time we have left on, we have what I've called power-packed verses. Power-packed verses, because in every one of these verses, the Apostle Paul is gonna tell us at least two, sometimes three different ideas. And you'll find in your Bible that each one of those phrases are separated by a semi-colon. And it's separated by a semi-colon because it's a completely separate thought. It's not an extenuation of a thought, that would be just a comma. But the semicolon is just a group, almost like a parenthesis. It's a whole new separate thought. And what it means in verses nine through 13 is the Apostle Paul has simply given us house rules one right after another. One right after another. And all of these are important that we understand. And so this morning, we're gonna start at verse nine, and I'm gonna try to get quickly through it. I know in the 8.30 service, I got halfway through it. I felt like that was a great accomplishment. So we're gonna start at verse nine, let me just, and we'll go as far as we can until time is gone. And don't worry, that clock really doesn't mean anything. It's just up there for humor. But we will get out before service this evening, I guarantee you that. I am hungry for lunch, so that ought to encourage you. We'll be just fine. So in this passage of Scripture, starting verse nine, it says, first of all, let love be without dissimulation. In verse nine, notice that. Now that's probably not a word you've used this week, is it? You probably haven't said to your friend, you know, I thought I would go to Burger King and have something for breakfast, but I just hate to be seen as being dissimulated. And your friend would look at you like, what? Well, the word dissimulation means hypocrisy. So in other words, if you work at McDonald's, you probably shouldn't go to Burger King to have breakfast. especially with your McDonald's uniform on. That would be a little hypocrisy. If you like their breakfast so well, you ought to wear their uniform and work in their place. But that word dissimulation means hypocrisy. So it says, let love be without hypocrisy. Now hypocrisy is a Greek word that comes from the Hippocratic actors. And it literally means two-faced. Back in those Greek days when they had plays, they didn't have a different actor for every role in the play. Sometimes one actor would have as many as three or four different parts. but they would have a face. If they played a happy part, they'd have a face with a big old smile, and it would have a stick on it, and they would hold that character of a face up to their face, and they would just speak with a different tone of voice. Most of the female actors in a play was played by a male who talked like this. I can't, tell me how it goes, Brother Vestal, I can't get that down. But anyway, it would talk with a high pension. He pointed to Brother Hoxie, but Brother Hoxie would say, yeah, this is Sheila, what do you want? But it just wouldn't work. And so they would put a face, sometimes it'd be a sad face and they'd play a sad face. Sometimes it'd be a happy face. Sometimes it'd be like a woman, sometimes like a man. And they were called the Hippocratic Actors because it meant two-faced. They would play the part based on the face that they hold up. And the Bible's saying, let love be without hypocrisy. Don't be two-faced. Don't say you love someone if you don't love them. And Christians are to love each other. Jesus said, a new commandment I given to you that you love one another as I have loved you. And yet the challenge is to love each other without hypocrisy. It's so easy in greeting time to go up and shake someone and say, so good to see you, brother. And at the same time, see another brother coming and say, I'm going the other way. You say, well, I wouldn't do that. I know, you've probably been a Christian longer than I have, but let me just say that there's always in every congregation, some people you're naturally drawn to, and some people you're naturally not so drawn to. The good news is we don't have many of them here. The bad news is I'm not gonna point them out for you. So anyway, you find them your own. The truth is there's people don't really mix with my personality and sometimes I don't mix with him, but I'm still commanded by God's word to love them. And so are you as a believer. So some people it's easy to love, some people it's a great challenge to love, but the Bible says we're to love them, and then it says we are not to love with hypocrisy, and hypocrisy is loving in word only. I've often said if I've had opportunity to meet with husbands and wives and maybe teach some marriage seminars, my wife and I, I'll say, your wife doesn't wanna hear you say, I love you alone. She wants to see it. She actually wants you to see, she wants to see you helping her. Even Jesus said to the Pharisees, they love me with their lips. but their heart is far from me." See, that's love and hypocrisy. And God says, let's don't do that. So the Bible says, let love be without dissimulation. And then in verse two, it says, abhor that which is evil. The word abhor here is one of the strongest words that means hatred for evil. It says, abhor that which is evil. Well, we live in a world where it seems like there's evil all around us and we get so acclimated. We're like the frog in the water that they gradually, you know, increase the temperature and the water's boiling all this around us, but we're still just as happy as could be. And we're literally being cooked alive. The Bible says, abhor that which is evil. Listen, folks, we see so much evil, whether it's on TV or in movies or in real life, we see it all around us. And if we're not careful, we coddle it. instead of abhor it. But let me just say this, that no matter what we come across, it doesn't mean that we have to show hatred. It just means on the inside, we ought to abhor that which is evil. We ought to be kind and gracious to people we would totally disagree with. How many understands that you can love someone without endorsing everything they choose to do? We're not called to endorse everyone's actions in our life or even our own relatives or even our own children or grandchildren or whatever. We're not called to endorse them, but we're called to love them without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil. Psalms 97 verse 10 says ye that love the Lord hate evil. Then the Bible says we're to cleave to that which is good in verse 9. So notice in this one verse you have three separate teachings. That's why I call it power-packed verses. And so the Bible says, cleave to that which is good. The word cleave means to glue or to cement yourself to. Cleave to that which is good. So find something that's good in your life and cleave to it. The local church, I believe is good. Every Christian ought to be a part of a local church. Now, I'm not so naive as thinking everybody ought to be a part of Grandview Baptist Church. We're one church in a world full of many, many, many, many good churches. But you ought to find a church that preaches God's word, teaches God's word, and you ought to find something that fits you and you plug into and get evolved in because God wants every Christian plugged into a local assembly. Cleave to that which is good. Don't build your life around your work. You know, when you get to heaven, God's not gonna ask you how your office ran. He's not gonna ask you about the profits for your business. He's not gonna ask you about your IRA and your 401k and how early did you retire and how much did you retire with and how successful were you in business? He's gonna ask you about the important things of life. How'd you serve me? How were you involved in the local assembly? How were you involved in my word that I made available for you to read? How were you involved in prayer that I gave you a privilege to talk to me? So cleave to that which is good. The Bible goes on to say in verse 10, be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love. Now, let me encourage you here that Greek word brotherly love is a word you already know. You didn't know you knew Greek, did you? It's Philadelphia, brotherly love. You see, William Penn was given the landmass of Pennsylvania and Delaware at the same time by the King of England because the King of England owed William Penn's father a debt. And rather than paid off in money, which he didn't have, he gave it in land, which really he didn't own. And on the other side of the ocean, he said, here, you can have that. And so William Penn accepted it, having never seen it, not knowing what it is. And he went over there and he called it Pennsylvania, William Penn. Aren't you glad it wasn't Mike Mutchler who founded Mutchlerville? Well, Pennsylvania, so he named it after himself. And William Penn was a very religious man. He was a Quaker. He gathered all the believers in that area together and said, let's all live in a city together. It's gonna be wonderful. Get all us as Christians that love Jesus, let's live together. And we're gonna call this city Philadelphia, city of brotherly love. What a great idea. But you know, the reality is that every church ought to be a city of brotherly love. Every assembly, whether it runs 20 or 20,000, whether it's little or big or anything in between, when God's people get together there ought to be brotherly love. Now here's the thing about brotherly love, you don't have to see eye to eye. You have a brother, you have a sister, Sisters don't always see eye to eye brothers don't see always eye to eye, but here's what they do. They always defend each other You don't have to agree with your brother, but if someone else says something negative you're going to stand up for him and We ought to stand up for each other. It's God's children. I A few years ago, my wife and I were sitting at the table, I think it was around Thanksgiving. And one of my children brought up someone who used to attend our church. And I said, yes, I said, but wait a minute, that's a good man. And then my children said, I know he loves the Lord, he's a good person. And what? And he's faithful and has a good heart. And my children repeated that because I've said that so many times. When I'd hear anything negative about some Christian, I'd say, listen, they're a good person, they're faithful, and they have a good heart, and they love the Lord. And I started to say that, and my children went through that. They said, I know, Dad, he's faithful, he has a good heart, he loves the Lord, and just kept going through the list. And I said, well, it's true. And they said, I know, but you say that about everyone, Dad. And I said, yes, but that's how we're supposed to feel about everyone. That's my brother in Christ. That's my sister in Christ. I don't have to see eye to eye with everything they do, nor would they see eye to eye with everything I would do or everything I would believe. But the Bible says we're to have brotherly love one to another, and that's family love. where you can disagree within the family, but don't you tell me their negatives if you're outside the family, because you stand up for family. Boy, I'm still old fashioned enough to believe we ought to be standing up for our own family. And I know it doesn't mean that they do everything we endorse, but if they're your family, You keep loving them and love them strong. The Bible says in honor preferring one another in verse 10. Now this is an interesting thing. This is a master level course of Christian growth. Preferring one another. You can almost determine your maturity as a believer based on whether or not you've come to prefer one another above yourself. It's easy to lift ourselves up. It's hard to lift others up above ourselves. But that's exactly what this scripture is telling us in honor preferring one another. It means you're putting them first. I can tell your maturity based on how many people in your life you choose to put first. Who do you open the door with when you're both walking fast to the restaurant? Open the door. Yes, sir. Go right on in. Well, I know, but I got eight in the car. That's okay. Come on in. That's a master level course of Christianity when you can put others ahead of yourself. That's something we all need to work on. And let me just say, I usually do a great job in that unless I get in a car behind a wheel. Sometimes my Christianity just sets in the back seat. She thinks she's gonna get ahead of me. She got another thing coming. Now, I don't say that because I'm proud of that. I say that to say that we all need to work on some things in our life, amen? We all, you pray for your pastor. That when I'm 80 and I'm behind a wheel, I'll be very passive. Because I'm praying for that day. I'll be very passive. Not so passive I'm the guy that everybody honks at. No, I don't wanna be that. But passive enough that I at least stay in the middle lane and get out of the passing lane sometimes. I just want, you pray for me. The Bible says not slothful in business. Not slothful in business. Ecclesiastes 9.10 says, whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. Proverbs 6.6, go to the aunt thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. You see, God wants us as believers to be hard workers. Hard workers. Because we reflect the image of our God and of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It's not that it's our name on the line, it's Christ's name. He lives in us. And so he says, be a hard worker. not slothful in business. I read of a small businessman who had immigrated to this country and he kept his accounts payable in a cigar box and his accounts receivable on a spindle and his cash in the cash register. And his son said, I don't see how you can run a business this way, his son said. I don't see how you even figure out what your profits are. Son replied the immigrant businessman. He said, when I came to this country, I had 38 cents in my pocket and the pants I wore. He says, today your sister is an art teacher, your brother is a doctor, you are an accountant, I have a car and a house and a good business and everything is paid for. He said, just add it all up and subtract 36 cents in the cost of those pants and it's all profit. I heard about two other men who went into business where they got a truck and they went way out into the country, a hundred miles to a watermelon field and they bought a stack of watermelons for 50 cents a piece. They went back to the town and sold them two for a dollar. And one of the guys said, I told you we wouldn't make a profit unless we got a bigger truck. Not slothful in business. If you can't figure out business, work for someone in business. But let's be careful about the business that God's called us to be. Then it says fervent in spirit. Fervent in spirit. God deliver us from a Christianity that has no fervency, has no excitement. We do not meet together on Sunday mornings for a funeral, we meet because we're celebrating a risen Savior. I was in Israel, the tomb is still empty. We serve a risen Savior. David Livingston, that famous missionary to the Central Africa received a note from one of the mission agencies in England. And he says, have you paved a good road? Have you found a good road to where you are? Because if there's a good road, we have missionaries we can send you. And David Livingston wrote back and says, if those missionaries need a good road to get here, that's not the kind I'm looking for. I'm looking for those who will come when there's no road to get here. And we gotta be careful that we're fervent in spirit when serving the Lord, not just serving the Lord when everything goes smoothly and everything so easily. Serving the Lord is sometimes like a salmon, it's all upstream. And you're fighting the currents of this world and of this life. But let me say, it's all worthwhile to be fervent in serving the Lord. The Bible says in verse 11, serving the Lord, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. We certainly need to give God the very best that we have and give him all that we have. My time is gone. Let me end with this last illustration and we'll be through. There was a Spanish philosopher. I know I'm murdering his name, but it was Emanuel. and it's not quite spelled that way, but he tells about a Roman aqueduct that fed his home city in Spain. It was built in 170 AD. And for 60 generations, it provided water to that lovely city in Spain. But within the last hundred years, there came people along and says, you know, this is an element of history. And it ought to be our job to preserve it. So they bypassed that aqueduct, and they put in modern pipes underground, and they said, we're going to look at the aqueduct, and it's going to be a museum piece. 10 or 20 years had passed by and the sun had so baked on that aqueduct that all of the mortar had cracked and started falling and now great sums of the aqueduct had fallen down to the earth. You see what 1800 years of use could not destroy, 100 years of inactivity did. You want to live a long life, you better choose to be active. Well, it hurts when I walk too much. You better walk with hurt because once they lay you out, you don't walk anymore. You better learn to move about with all the aches and the pains that you get with old age because the alternative is you lie real still for a long time. And so it is in the Christian life. We were saved to serve. We were not saved to sit around. We have a Savior that's worth serving with our lives. If you're here this morning having never trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior, may I say that Jesus loved you so much that he came to Calvary and bore your sin debt and my sin debt and the sin of the whole world on himself as he hung on a cruel cross. And he died and he shed his blood for our salvation. Just being over in the Holy Land, I was in the Garden of Gethsemane. That's where he prayed before he was betrayed. And within 24 hours, he'd be crucified. But he was there for you and I. And he died for us. And he was buried and he rose again three days triumphant from the tomb. And all who place their faith in Christ, become his children, and are promised heaven forever and ever and ever. For with the mouth, righteousness is, for with the heart, man, believe is under righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made into salvation. If you're willing to believe that Jesus Christ loves you and he died for you and he will save you, if you let him. The Bible says, and all that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out. John said in John 6, 37, there's never been anyone who wanted to have a relationship with God that Jesus Christ turned away. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If you're willing to invite Jesus Christ as your personal savior and trust him, You say, pastor, I don't have all the faith in the world, I don't know. There was a man who had a son who had great infirmities and he came to Jesus and Jesus says, if thou canst believe all things are possible, here's what the father said, Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief. You're never gonna get rid of unbelief. Jesus isn't asking you to do that. He's asking you to believe. Take whatever faith you have, put it in Jesus, and you can be saved. You can be His child.