Our Father, what a blessed privilege it is to withdraw from the world and have thy spirit draw our attention unto you. We confess our belief that God created all things, exactly as recorded in the scriptures, that God now sustains all things, in Christ all things consist, and that all Life should give account to God. The judgment is coming. We believe that we are eternal. We had our first day, but now as we look toward the future, there is no end. Our souls are eternal. And we know that there is an abode with God and there's an abode away from God. And the issue for us is our sin. Sin separates. We need to have our guilt removed, something with which we are entirely helpless. None of us can wash away a sin. None of us can live a good life that would balance out and fix the problem. No, we are helpless and must call upon God for the one solution by which we can be reconciled to Thee. And that is by believing on the substitute who died in our place, a sinless savior, need not to die for himself, but could die for the sins of the world. This is our belief. We seek fellowship with God, power from God, direction from God, purpose, meaning, fulfillment, all in keeping with this confession of faith. We believe that Christ died for our sins. and that He, the Just, died for us, the unjust, that He might bring us to God. We come as a people today desiring to have sweeter and deeper and richer fellowship with the Living God. We ask that Thy Spirit would work through the preaching of the Word of God today so that we comprehend more completely and are transformed more thoroughly into being what you would have us to be. There are souls gathered here who have not been reconciled to God. We pray that this would be the day that by the power of the Spirit of God, dark hearts are made light, that hard hearts are made soft, that ignorant hearts are informed, that resistant wills are made pliable, and we have the rejoicing of all of us being brought into the family of God, as only can be done by Thy Spirit. We pray for our visitors to give them much grace and deeper and more wonderful appreciation of the love of God, its breadth and length and depth and height. We pray for those who have been out due to illness, sickness, different trials, and those going through severe trials now that we know of and those we don't know. May more and more we come to love this truth, understand and appreciate this truth that God is our refuge, strength, a very present help in trouble. Now we pray as we continue, bless Thy Word for Thy name's sake in Christ. Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. And please turn with me to Romans chapter 12. Verse 11 chapters of Romans, we have the most complete explanation of the gospel. starting with the bad news of the sinfulness of humanity, how all are accounted as sinful before a holy God, but that God commended His love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. As many as believe on Him, all sins are washed away, souls cleansed, and the very righteousness of Christ is applied to our account, and we are born again. what wonderful news this is. And so we have a transition in chapter 12 where we are, in essence, addressed with the question, what are you going to do with it? What are you going to do in light of the mercies of God, as explained in the first 11 chapters? We found in the first verse of chapter 12, we are to present our bodies a living sacrifice, wholly, completely surrendering ourselves to God now to have Him do whatever He will do with us. our aspirations, our thoughts, our possessions, our plans, all of that now is surrendered to God. Here I am Lord, do what you would with me. Then in verse 2 we saw of chapter 12 that what's going to happen as we present our bodies is our minds need to be transformed. Our minds have not been thinking right. Now that we are redeemed we have the opportunity to be transformed more and more into thinking like Christ. We saw in the next verse that means, first of all, humility. That we would not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. And that we see then as we go on through the next verses, we enter into God's plan for our lives as He puts us into the church, gifts us according to the way that we can be best used to carry out the advancing of God's kingdom here on earth. Now, what we've come to next is the clarification. You've got to have the right motive to do this. It's not enough just to do it. You have to have the right motive, and the right motive is love. But it can't be love as the world defines it. It can't be love as our mind or our flesh defines it. Love is not whatever you think it is. When I was a freshman in college, I took a course, the philosophy course. We spent the whole semester defining love. I don't think we came out at the end not knowing any more than we went into it. But love is not a matter of what you think. What do you think? We have political parties now. This political party might define love more in terms of compassion for the down and outer. And so you give these things, and you let those things go, and you compromise this way, and if they think they're this, then you go along with what they think they are. You have another party that's charged with not being loving because they don't give as much as they could give or they're prospering themselves or whatever else people would define it as. What do you think love is? What do you think love is? We've got to go to the scriptures to know what love is. You see this problem throughout the scriptures of people not being able to define it correctly. Think of Samson and Delilah. Delilah says to Samson, you don't love me. Oh, I love you. No, because if you love me, you tell me what's the secret of your strength is. She had a definition of love. She said, you're not feeling my definition. We go to the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, and God addresses his people through the prophet Malachi and says, you don't love me. And the people are stunned and they say, where in don't we love you? We're doing this stuff, we're doing that, we're doing all these things, we love you. God says, no, you don't love me. I can tell you don't love me by the way you offer your sacrifices to me, by the way you don't give of your tithes, by the way you mistreat your spouse, other ways you don't love me. So God's saying your definition, my definition are not the same. We go to the New Testament, we see illustrations like that of Peter. They're at the end of the gospel where Jesus says, Peter, do you love me? And he says, if you do love me, I mean, here's the basis for feed my sheep. There's a connection there, a clarification of what true godly love is. Connection between having a love for Christ, feeding his sheep. We go to the last book of the Bible. I'm just kind of cherry picking here, thinking this through. You got the book of Revelations chapter 2 and there is the church of Ephesus commended for many things that they did right. You won't allow those who are false to stay in your fellowship, you hate evil, you labor hard, labor, labor, labor for the good, but I have this against you, you've left your first love. Love is not what you think or what I think or we vote on or what our culture has established, it is what God declares it to be. He says you've got to have this motive. The day will come when we appear before the judgment seat of Christ, and we're going to be evaluated according to what was our motive and what we did. And so here we are in Romans chapter 12, and we looked at verse 9 the last couple of weeks. We're going to continue there. Let's read that. We'll start in Romans 12.9, and today I'd like us to read through verse 15. The question before you and me is, do you love right? Is your love the kind of love God has set out for you to love? Well, I provide for my family. I'm patriotic to my country. How would you define it? I'm just saying God defines it very clearly and it's very important for us to get it right. Because we're charged there in verse 9, let love be without dissimulation. Now that's not a word we use each day, but we use the word similar. And dissimilar means not the same. Dissimulation means hypocritical, charade. Let your love not be some contradiction, some display of something when in truth it's not that. It's not reality at the heart. It's dissimilar. Let love be without this conflict. What's that mean? It means you're going to abhor that which is evil. Yes, we spent a week on that, noting that true love abhors certain things. Make a list. What do you abhor? The Bible says there are many things we are to abhor. Abhor that which is evil. Ye that love the Lord hate evil, the Scriptures say. The Lord despises six things, yet seven are an abomination to Him. So we are to abhor that which is evil and then we are to cleave to that which is good. We started looking at that last time, what it means to cleave to that which is good. We'll continue reading through verse 15 and then I'll start making my comments. Verse 10, be kindly affectioned 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, bless them which persecute you, bless and curse not, rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep. Let's pray. Lord, as we continue, guide us now, please, to understand the mind of God, the heart of God, and what is true, vital, spiritual, God-like love. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, last week we saw that real love involves cleaving. We saw that to cleave means to unite firmly like you've been glued to something else. It means to grip tenaciously as with a snapping turtle. It means to lay hold on, to adhere to firmly. closely, loyally, unwaveringly. Are there certain things that you've got a grip on and you will not let go? Was it Charlton Heston that said something about, you know, I have to peel my cold, dead hands off of that gun? Do you have things that you would hold to like that? We saw an illustration in Eleazar. Remember, he's one of the three great compatriots of David, courageous fighter. We've read in 2 Samuel that his hand, clave unto the sword, could not peel his fingers off. What a great fighter he was. Then we looked at King Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18. We saw him to be an obedient follower who claimed to the Lord and departed not from following him. We look thirdly at Jacob, a determined fellowshipper who wrestled with and claimed to the Lord and would not let him go say the Lord blessed him. We looked at Barnabas, New Testament, Acts chapter 11, who exhorts new converts that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord, even as Moses charged God's people in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy chapter 30, cleave unto God for he is thy life. We were reminded that cleaving is what husbands are to do to their wives. We saw in Acts chapter 17 that spiritually hungry people cleave upon a good Bible teacher when they find one, as the Athenians did with Paul. And so we ask, do I love anything strongly enough, something that is good, that is, that I will not let it go? It might be a good thing to take a paper and a pencil and list the top five things I cleave to. And are they all good? See, people can cleave to the wrong things. We saw illustrations of things that people would cleave to, bound to it, and nothing but death would cause them to depart from it. We saw, for example, the fool. The Bible says, grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle, grind him to fine powder, and his folly will not depart from him. Something got a cleave on you? I mean, that's what David speaks about in the Psalms. He says, I walk with integrity within my heart. I hate the work of them that turn aside and shall not cleave to me. Sin can be like a cocklebur to your soul. So we need to cling to that which is good. What is good? Define love for us Lord. That's what he does in verses 10 and on. These are explanations of what real love is like. And so we look at the first part of Romans 12 verse 10. We see first of all that genuine love is to be affectionate. Affectionate. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love. That's a very special kind of love. It means having a readiness and inclination to love, the most genuine and free love, the most natural, unforced, unconstrained love as of what parents have to their children or to their grandchildren. So should it be with us in the church. Brotherly love. Something in the blood relationship. Where you might find yourself not really having all that much in common with your own sister or brother or somebody else in the family. It happens that way in times. But he's still your brother. She's still your sister. They're still your mom, your dad. They're still your kids. There's a binding there. We're told there should be that sort of a binding. That's what we call brethren. The word kind of is abused within the church, sisters. But that's the idea here. Be kindly affection as if they were your blood relatives. Can I turn you please to Mark chapter 10? You become saved, you're born again, you have a new perspective on other born again people. And that is the context here, household of faith. You love everybody, but I'm talking about a special type of bond, brotherly love with the fellow redeemed people. Mark chapter 10 and verse 17, we have of course there the story of the rich young ruler, We read in verse 17 of Mark 10 that when He and Jesus had gone forth into the way, there came one running, look at the zeal, and kneeled to Him. passion and asked him, good master what shall I do? What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? Puts the emphasis on what he is to do. Jesus said unto him, why callest thou me good? There's none good but one that is God. He's not denying his deity here. He's not saying he's a sinner here, but the rich young ruler doesn't know that and that's what the issue is that's being brought up here. There's none good, no not one. Don't use that word sloppy, thrown out this way and that way. I'm not good if I'm not the Savior. And you're not good no matter how good you think you are. But He thinks He is good. You see, Jesus tries to correct him through the schoolmaster of the law, goes through the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, defraud not, honor thy father and mother. And He answered and said to him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth. Such ignorance. Then Jesus, this is the verse, Jesus beholding him loved him. See the affection? You have a vain, zealous, deceived, lost person who defends himself and is looking for a good deed to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus looks upon him and loves him. I'd like to give you a second example, Mark 6, verse 34. We could spend the rest of the hour doing this. It's the reflexive response that Jesus has. We see it again and again. Mark 6, verse 34, Jesus, when he came out, saw much people and was moved with compassion toward them. Bowels were stirred with affection for them because they were as sheep not having a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things. love the Christian brethren as though brethren by blood. That's what Paul does in 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Quite an interesting text there, 2 Corinthians 12 verses 14 and 15. Paul's visited the Corinthians who are a rough crowd weak, vacillating, troubled church in many ways. But he writes them, 2 Corinthians 12 verse 14, Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be burdensome to you. For I seek not yours, but you. That's quite a statement. For the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. I'm coming here to give, he's saying. And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved. I'll spend and be spent for you. I'm going to love you, and I'm going to love you the more, and I'm going to love you the more. Even if it means you love me less, I'm still going to love on you." See the affection. Genuine love is to be affectionate. One more text, Mark chapter 10. There are some people who were never blessed with marriage or were never blessed to have children or have, but the children have moved on. There are people who always wanted a brother, didn't have a brother, didn't want a sister, didn't get a sister. There are things that happen in life, but there's a way that there's at least some compensation in coming into the church One is born again. And that you gain as though blood brothers, as though blood sisters, as though blood parents, those who are redeemed and in the fellowship. That's what Jesus explains in Mark chapter 10 and verse 29 and 30. Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, there's no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or fathers, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my sake and the Gospels, but he shall receive a hundredfold, note, two adverbs, first adverb now and the adverbial phrase in this time, now, in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and on. Be kindly affection one to another with brotherly love. Family. Affection. Genuine love is affection. Secondly, we're going back to Romans 12, it is respectful. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love in honor preferring one another. Second part of verse 10 of Romans 12. The idea here is instead of contending for superiority, Let us incline to give preeminence to others. As we read in Philippians 2, 3, let each esteem other better than themselves in honor preferring one another. Fairly easy task to esteem others better than ourselves if we know our own hearts. We should be quick to notice and value and confirm the gifts and performances of our brethren. That's what a church should be. That's what Christians should do. Be swift to notice, value, and confirm the gifts and performances of our brethren. And be more forward to praise another, more pleased to hear another praised than ourselves. The opposite would be diatrophies. 3 John 9, diatrophies would love to have the preeminence among others. We're pleased and satisfied with taking the low station. Convey respect for others. Our focus is there. I think of John Adams. How would you like to follow George Washington as president? Seemed like almost everybody loved George Washington, though that's a more complicated story than that. Nevertheless, when he announced that two terms were enough for president, And then John Adams was elected just barely. Tight race. Adams was only liked so much. There were those as enemies who called him his rotundity. He was a little corpulent. He was disliked by a lot of people. And yet he had to follow George Washington. And there at the time even of Adams' inauguration, people were saying, I don't know if the nation can handle losing Washington. Can we stand? Articles in the paper, editorials, people were writing, can we possibly survive the loss of George Washington and the addition of John Adams? How would you like to be Adams? In his graciousness, and I believe it was authentic in reading his letters, George Washington was a great man and he was pleased that Washington was getting the credit due him. And that's what we're talking about here. Not getting in a battle of egos, a church will go well, a family will go well as Christians when in honor we prefer one another. Which leads us to the third mark of genuine love. It's the next verse, verse 11. I would describe that as being diligent. Genuine love is to be affectionate, respectful, diligent. Verse 11, not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. A genuinely loving person is zealous. He values time. He accomplishes much to the instruction and benefit of others. Now, I understand some people are hard, fast workers because that's just the way they're brought up. That's the way mom did it, that's the way dad did it, whatever it is. That's the way you feel in your bones. You're just that kind of person who labors hard and fast and gets a good job done efficiently. And that's fine. Those aren't bad motivations. But here is a motivation that sometimes people miss. If you're some kind of a couch potato slug who produces nothing, who could be something if you could get off the couch and get to working, That's unloving. That's self-centered. God has given us talents and time to invest them in part to the blessing, service, inspiration of other people. And that's the point here. You don't know what true love is? You fight, you labor hard. You're not satisfied with being a sluggard. The Bible says the soul of the sluggard desires and has nothing. Now we've heard that verse many times, memorized a long ago, Proverbs 13, 4. But I hadn't really thought about what the nothing is that he has. The soul, the slugger, everybody desires. Sluggards desire. Sloth people, they desire too, they want stuff, but they get nothing. And I was thinking this week, he's got nothing to give. He's got no insight from your studies, because you were too lazy to study. He's got no food from your gardens, growing weeds. You got no blessing to the church by your participation, no inspiration to your peers. I was reading this week about John Eliot. 1690 is the year he died. On the day of his death, he was 80 years old. John Eliot was called the apostle to the Indians here in America. He was teaching the alphabet to an Indian child at his bedside. A friend asked him, John, why not rest from your labors now? This is Eliot's response. He said, because I have prayed to God to render me useful in my sphere, and now that I can no longer preach, he leaves me strength enough to teach this poor child his alphabet. That was on the day of his death. That's diligence. Any modicum of energy and capability we have invested out of love for other people. That's true love. It's affectionate. It's respectful. It's diligent. Fourthly, it's sincere. Romans chapter 12 and verse 12. Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer. I think the best way to understand this verse is to reverse its order. I was thinking on this, and I think if you continue instant in prayer, you're equipped to be patient in tribulation, which leads you to rejoice and hope no matter what happens. We need to be sincere in our faith. That is, we have a true love for God that compels us to remove the dross from our faith, which if there will be revealed in times of trial. We're not whining, convoluted, amalgamated contradictions where, oh, I believe in God, but, oh, I whine and cry indefinitely and incessantly if some trial arises. Work it out out of love for other people. Develop a sincere faith that will show true love for God and for others. It compels us to remove the dross from our faith. We don't seek trials, but the trials are a means of purification and we embrace that because we want to be pure. Adoniram Judson, often described as the first foreign missionary from America, early 1800s, you know his story. He was locked up in a foul prison, no provision for waste, disgusting people, difficult, ugly situation. And the prisoners there were given no food. So Judson's wife, he's in Burma, no man's land, but his wife needs to bring him food. She does until she runs out. She has no resources. She ends up begging on the streets trying to get food so she can bring her husband so he doesn't starve to death. For a year and seven months, Judson was beaten daily and then hung upside down every night by his feet in a prison for being a Christian. He was rejected, whipped, slandered, oft times near starved. He lost all his children. His children and his wife all died from disease. But through all this, he never gave up. Here's his quotation. If I had not felt certain, he says, that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings. So Judson joins with Paul in declaring the love of Christ constraineth me. Therefore, I will glory in reproaches, in persecutions, and in distresses for Christ's sake. Found this poem somewhere, I don't know who wrote it. In every joy that crowns my days, in every pain I bear, my heart shall find delight in praise or seek relief in prayer. When gladness wings my favorite hour, thy love my thoughts shall fill. Resigned when storms of sorrow lower, my soul shall meet thy will. Fifthly, genuine spiritual love is generous. That's verse 13 of Romans 12. Affectionate, respectful, diligent, sincere, generous, distributing to the necessities of saints. given to hospitality. The idea of the Greek word translated distributing is as though held in common. What I have, what you have, what you have, it's like this, all in common. Who needs it? Draw it out. We hold it that freely, openly. We distribute to the necessity. Now, I know it is necessities, and it is of the saints. We should hold all our resources with open hands and open our homes. It's a charade to say we love but don't notice or help our brethren in their need. And do note the emphasis is on need and on saints. Do good especially to them that are the household of faith. I read a most interesting work, I don't know if you've read it before, it's called Run with the Horses by Eugene Peterson. Great insight about birds. He said, birds have feet, birds can walk, But flying is their characteristic action, and not until they fly are they living at their best, gracefully and beautifully. They can hop, hop, hop on their feet, but get them up in the air and they soar. So also, he said, giving is what we Christians can do best. It is the air into which we are born, the action designed into us at birth. It is where we can be graceful and beautiful. Isn't that a neat correlation? Found an old book. The guy spent his life, he would go to wherever city he was in, to cemeteries, and find interesting inscriptions on tombstones. He wrote a whole book of them, the epithets. Here is a contradiction. The first one is a description of a person who was a miser, who was not generous. On his tombstone were written these words. Here lies a miser who lived for himself and cared nothing for nothing but gathering pelf. Now where he is or how he fares nobody knows and nobody cares. Contrast that with this tombstone, sacred to the memory of Charles George Gordon, who at all times and everywhere gave his strength to the weak, his substance to the poor, his sympathy to the suffering, his heart to God. 1 John 3.17 says, Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shut up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? Number six, and we have seven, we're looking at the traits of true, sincere, spiritual love as God defines it. Number six is absorbing, absorbing love. That's verse 14. It may not be the best word, but it's one I could come up with. The idea is to absorb a blow and not have to punch back. That's a mark of maturing love, when you can take a beating and give the other cheek. They can say this insidious, vile, inaccurate, painful thing about you and you don't have to, oh yeah, back at them or about them. Verse 14 says, bless them which persecute you, bless and curse not. Mature love takes blows and doesn't need to launch back. Somebody needs to absorb the blow. Taking it is a mark of unhypocritical love. Bless them which persecute you. You might see something in those who are mistreating you. You might see blindness. You know, the other day, I went to the hospital and had some opportunities to witness, and I was leaving, I still had a book left that I wasn't able to give to somebody, and I thought, what should I do? And I pass this guy, and he looks kind of scary. He's got long hair, beard, tattoos, and he looks just kind of rough, and he's just sitting there, and I thought, oh, let me give it a try. So I say, would you like this book, what he said? I'm deaf. Don't mean to make me mock him, but his delivery, he couldn't hear. And he smiled big that somebody showed him attention. And so I said, would you like this book? Oh, thank you, he said. I was oblivious to his need. He was isolated. He was off by himself. He seemed like a gracious young man once we were able to communicate with each other. Those who strike out, who persecute, they got something going on in their life that you may be able to pray about. They may be blind, blind to God, blind to the things of God. They may have unresolved issues in their life. They may be estranged from God. They may have a pitiful future. This might be as close as they get to something gracious to have you interact with them. They die and they go to hell and they burn forever. Why not do what you can now? Oh, you got to fight back? Is that the depth of your love? Is that the strength of your maturity? We need to have absorbing love. We need to move on to the last characteristic, which is sympathizing. Verse 15, sympathizing love. We're going through how God biblically defines what is true spiritual love. One element of it is that we sympathize, same pathos, and a feeling as though we are there ourselves experiencing what they are experiencing. We rejoice with those that do rejoice and weep with those that weep. Where there is a true spiritual love among the members of the Christ's body, there will be compassion in the sorrows and joys of another. Paul writes of his daily sympathy for all the churches. 2 Corinthians 11.29. Paul says, Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is offended and I burn not? Sympathy. I end with this story. There was a boy who lost his right hand. He felt so bad about it that he did not want to see anyone. He lost his hand, just a boy. His father said, I'm going to bring the minister in to see you. The boy was hesitant, but when he saw the minister and his empty sleeve, things changed. The minister said, I don't have any hand either. I lost mine when I was a boy. I know how it feels." It wasn't hard for the boy to get acquainted with a minister who knew how it feels. All that we're describing, of course, is found in perfection in the Lord Jesus Christ. Was He not tempted in all points like as we? Christ has suffered for us and He knows how it feels. Let us pray. The work of God must be done by the power of God. We know the scriptures say they shall know that we are Christians by our love. God forgive us if we have been slow on the uptake of what biblical Christ-like love is like. Thank God for all the grace that has been given, for all the transformation which has occurred, and we pray that it will just be sped up now. And we know that one of the best ways to grow in our love is to meet the love of Christ, that the love of Christ constrain us. Lord, there may be souls here who have not met the love of Christ. We pray for them today that something that has been said will trigger a thought and will not give the person rest until he finds his rest in Thee. We know that the whole gospel is a story of love. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. May none leave today without knowing what that means and applying it to their own lives. We're going to close up with this prayer. We're going to sing. Perhaps there are those who would like to come forth and inquire more. But let none of us, Lord, leave the same as we came. Increase our love. And may we understand more of the love of God for us, for the glory of God and Jesus Christ. Amen.