Okay, let's turn to Romans 12. Romans 12. And so, my joke, obviously, in the spirit of brotherly love, what we're going to be dealing with today. So, last three Sunday school lessons, actually, we've dealt with verses 1 and 2. So verses one and two deal specifically with the Christian's responsibility toward God. And that responsibility we summed up simply in the phrase absolute surrender, total surrender to God. And it's really given to us there in the words in that concept of presenting your body a living sacrifice. So that total and absolute surrender to the God of heaven. Well, as we continue on through the passage dealing with chapter 12, 13, 14, when we come to the next section where verses three to 13. And I realize on your notes, I forgot to change the top. I'm very sorry. But Romans 12, just scratch out one to two and put three to 13. And so that's the portion that we'll read here. And then we'll deal with this, start to deal with this today. So let's start reading Romans chapter 12, verse number three. 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 everyone 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 our ministry, 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 diligence, he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil. Cleave to that which is good. 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 tribulations, continuing instant in prayer, distributing to the necessity of saints given to hospitality. Amen. We'll stop there at the end of verse number 13. But when we come to the second section of the believer's responsibility, we come here really to a focus on the believer's responsibility to the body of Christ, to believers. We have a special relationship inside the body of Christ. We have a responsibility as Christians to all men everywhere. We live in a fallen world. We live among believers and unbelievers. And in another section, we're going to get to the believers, our responsibility toward those outside the body of Christ. But here our focus is to those inside the body of Christ. And while there is that general attitude toward believers, We also are part of a local body of Christ, a local church, in our very specific context, Grace Free Presbyterian Church, and we have a responsibility to one another inside these four walls, those that belong to this body of believers. primarily the Christian community that we rub shoulders with. Now, we all have Christian friends that don't go to this church, go to other churches in this town, other towns, whatever, but primarily we interact with one another as believers. And on the surface of this passage, it would seem that one of our responsibilities and a main theme in these verses is a theme of service. We are to serve one another. But you dig a little bit deeper into this passage, and I think verse 10 really gives us something of a summary of what the whole thing is about. And it really goes beyond just simply service. The word service is used in this passage. It's the word that we get our word deacon from. A deacon is a servant in the church. But verse 10, I think, really gives us a good summary here. I think that summarizes the whole section, and it really summarizes the attitude that we as believers are to have toward one another in the body of Christ. So the theme, really, that we need to focus on this morning is this theme of our responsibility to demonstrate brotherly love to other believers. Now, we're going to deal with those outside the body of Christ later. We are to love them, obviously. But there's a different kind of love demonstrated outside the body. They are not our brothers and sisters in Christ. They are humans, they are people created in the image of God, they are dying souls that we are to love in that sense, but there's a different focus that we inside the church are to have. And as I was thinking about this whole juxtaposition of, well, maybe the theme is service, but no, really the theme is love, you start thinking of those two things next to one another. And I believe love is a higher virtue than service. Think about it this way. It is entirely possible to serve someone that you don't love. But I would submit it is impossible to love someone without serving them. So maybe this is a silly illustration, but I've never worked as a waiter at a restaurant. But if you've ever worked as a waiter or a server at a restaurant, you are serving people at their table. And I would highly doubt that Friday night when Machen and I went out to eat, that the server that we had at our table loved me. Never met the lady before, right? She did not love me. She did not love Machen. She was there to fill my glass of tea and bring me my chicken wings, right? She didn't love me, but she served me. She did all the things that were necessary and appropriate for a server at a restaurant to do. And so you can serve someone without loving them, but the reverse is not the case. You cannot love someone without serving them. And so you take that as the illustration in a marriage relationship, in a home. You love your spouse. Well, you serve them. You do so many things for them out of a heart of love. And so, really, this passage goes beyond an admonition for us just to serve one another and to help one another. It goes beyond that to a higher plane, to a place of true brotherly love. One commentator, I think, made a statement that really is quite catching, really something quite illustrative. But he described love in the body of Christ as the cement of the saints. It is, in many ways, that that holds a body together. Love is the cement, that bonding agent of the believers of the body of Christ. And it's so important for us to have here. So as we get into this, if you look at your notes here, Roman numeral one, we are to love the brethren, first of all, with humility. This is one of the highest of Christian virtues. It is a characteristic of the believer that I would argue is one of the ones that is most contrary to the flesh. The natural response of human flesh is to puff ourselves up. If you've ever been on Facebook, you know that the natural inclination of human flesh is to puff oneself up. You don't post pictures of yourself with a bad hair day on Facebook. You post the very best. You don't post a picture of your messy kitchen with dishes all over the place. No, you post a picture of yourself out on the beach someplace in some fancy whatever. That's the natural inclination of human flesh is to boast and to the opposite of that toward other people, to envy and covet someone else's position. And we are angry and upset if someone else has something better than us. It's very difficult to have that humility and to be content with your place when you envy and covet the place and the position that someone else has. And so Paul deals with that really at the very beginning. He gets right into this, how are we as believers to deal with one another? How are we to demonstrate this love? Well, first of all, with humility. But in this humility, we do it with, first of all, A, here with a right view of yourself. And so look at verse number three. 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. Now, I mean, we see it in English here somewhat. You see the word think more highly than he ought to think, but to think, and then the word soberly. is in English, not the word think, but in Greek, it's actually from the root think. So the word think is used four times in the verse. And there's something in Greek of a play on words that's used here. The Greek word is phroneto, means to think. Well, in verse 3, the first one where it says, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, it has a prefix on that verb, hupere. Now, it's a coincidence that you hear the word super, but it's to super think about yourself, if I can just summarize it that way. Don't overthink about yourself, but instead soberly think about yourself, is really the gist here. So, if I could retranslate the verse, I would put it, don't overthink in your thinking, but rather think right thinking. That would be kind of a more literal, pedantic translation of the passage. But that first word with the hupere prefix is to hold oneself in high esteem. We are to think well of ourselves. We are to love ourselves. It's not wrong to love yourself. Actually, the Bible commands us to love ourselves because how are we supposed to love our neighbor? We're to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. And so we are commanded to love self. There is an inordinate and a sinful and a selfish love of self. and there is a right and appropriate love of self. And so it's not that we are to be all melancholy and drab and eeyore, that's not what the Bible teaches us. But it does teach us a sober right thinking of self. And so if we think of ourselves as indispensable to the work of God, Well, that's wrong thinking because really no one is indispensable. Everyone is replaceable. Now, that hits us pretty hard. Nobody wants to think that way. Nobody wants to think, well, I'm replaceable. I'm not crucial. Well, no, you are crucial in the body of Christ. But if we think about that in a way that's right and appropriate thinking, not thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, Well, we understand I'm simply a tool in God's hands, right? I'm a vessel that hopefully, prayerfully, God is able to use. And there are many other vessels that God is very well capable of using as well. So instead of having this high-minded thinking, this overthinking of ourselves, instead we're admonished in verse 3 here to have right thinking. The word soberly that's used here is a word that means to be in one's right mind. And so if I could kind of give an interpretive translation of this. We could play on this connotation and say that to think of yourself too highly is crazy kind of thinking. It's to be out of your mind. It's to have crazy thoughts about yourself. We're not to have crazy thoughts of ourselves, we're to have sober, right thinking of ourselves. And so, if you think rightly and correctly about yourself, then verse 10 is going to naturally come out of that right thinking, you will be kindly affectioned one to another in brotherly love, in honor preferring one another. So if we come down to verse 10, in honor preferring one another, the point here, I think we can really make the application, and the point here is that you know your own heart better than anybody else, and that you live with yourself. You know what you're thinking. You are really the only one besides you and God that knows your motives, your intent, your whole thought process that led you to do what you did, to lead you to think the way you think. You're the only one that knows that. I know my thoughts, you know your thoughts. You don't know my thoughts, I don't know your thoughts. And so in honor of preferring one another, it is right for me, in this context of verse 10 here, it is right for me to assume that you don't struggle with sin the same way that I do. Now, we're not stupid here, this is not a naive thought process, in that we understand human nature, and we understand we all struggle with sin, but I am to assume that you have a close, victorious walk with God in matters that perhaps I struggle with. Now, there are times, again, this is difficult to talk about without getting super specific and giving illustrations that eventually end up not being very helpful because they're too specific. But there are times that other believers show their hand, if I can use a poker reference in Sunday school. There's times that other believers show their hand, they show their cards. And you know, oh, well, you're actually not struggling with that sin at all. You're just giving right into it. This is not a fight for you. You're sinning. You're not struggling with sin. You're kind of embracing this. And in that, I'm not to think of myself more highly than you. You demonstrate clearly by what you do and what you say, how you act, how you dress, how you whatever, that you're not fighting this temptation. You are embracing this temptation. Well, in that, I'm to have, again, sober and right thinking. I'm not to be naive. I'm not to be ridiculous in the way that I think. But it is right for me. If I don't know anything about it, I assume you are victorious in the Christian life, that you don't struggle with the same thoughts. You don't struggle with the same temptations that I would. I assume you're better than me in that. But the other way around, you're supposed to think the same thing about me until, God forbid, I were to show my cards. And you realize, oh, Derek has a real problem here or there. We all have blind spots that we don't recognize, that we don't see. That's why you need good, honest Christian friends that are willing to put their arm around you. And we're going to come to that in just a moment. That are willing to put their arm around you and say, hey, I'm seeing this. I don't think you're seeing this, but I'm seeing this. And I wonder if we could have a conversation. because I see this in your life that is, I think contrary to scripture, I'd like to talk to you about it, in brotherly love, right? In a right, honest, helpful, godly Christian way, right? You don't want Christian friends that are just yes men that just pat you on the back and approve and support everything you do. You need Christian friends that, if I can put it this way, will get in your face and call it like it is, and tell you, and help you, and warn you, and admonish you. In many ways, that's what husbands and wives are to do for one another. There's hardly a week goes by that my loving wife does not say, hey, Derek, what you said, how you acted, what you did, whatever. That's what a godly spouse is for. And it's very important for us to submit ourselves one to another in the fear of God. That's part of Romans 5. Wives are to submit to their husbands, but it also says, submit yourselves one to another. So there is a submission of a husband even to a wife in that. But we need that helpfulness, but we need that humility to listen, to rebuke, to listen to admonition, and to think rightly of ourselves, not to overthink about ourselves. Love thinketh no evil. So our default assumption about our brothers and sisters in Christ Love thinks no evil. That's the default setting that we should have. We should assume that the other person, they didn't mean that hurtful thing. I was hurt, but they didn't mean to hurt me. I must have misunderstood. I misinterpreted what they said, et cetera. Love thinketh no evil. But we don't do that in a way that's naive. We'll come to more of that in just a moment. The second one is we love with this right thinking, we love with humility, we love with a right view of ourselves, but B here, we love without hypocrisy. Look at verse number nine. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. Now, dissimulation, I doubt that's a word any of us used in the past. Like, who talks that way? What does that word even mean? All right, but the word dissimulation, it simply comes from a Greek word, hypokrito. You can hear the word hypocrite with that, but it has the negative prefix. So, without hypocrisy, the hypokrito is the word that we get hypocrisy from. It means hypocrisy in Greek. But without dissimulation means without hypocrisy, and so that's where I get that point B from. So let love be without dissimulation, meaning our love is to be without hypocrisy, so that means it is to be love that is sincere and love that is genuine. And there is, obviously, you know from any relationship you've ever been in, there is a lot of hypocritical love in this world today. There are people that will talk all kinds of nice about you until you leave the room. And then, wow, that's a whole other conversation now. That's a hypocritical type of love. We are not to have that. We all know that that to be wrong and sinful, that type of hypocrisy, hypocritical love. But we're to pay careful attention to the connection Paul makes here when he says in verse nine, let love be without hypocrisy. But instead, if I can add that, because here's a contrast between these two things. Or there's an explanation here of what that means to love without hypocrisy. We are to abhor, to hate that which is evil and cleave to that which is good. And so, as I was speaking earlier about being kindly affectioned one to another in brotherly love and honor preferring one another, does not mean that we are naive toward one another. Real love does not overlook sin. Because if I'm to love without hypocrisy, Well, that also means, or what that looks like in real life, is that I abhor that which is evil and I cleave to that which is good. A false love, if I can play on the terms, a false love, so what I mean here is a hypocritical love, a false love will overlook sin. a love that is not genuine, or a love that is only surface, or a love that is really only in it to get what I can get out of it, will overlook sin and will allow another person to run roughshod over you, or will overlook sin so as to not cause any ripples and, in a strange way, think that you're actually strengthening the relationship when really you're hurting it. because you're not obedient to the scripture. So real love doesn't overlook sin. You can't love someone and at the same time condone or try to protect their sinful actions. A true friend will confront sin in a life when they see it. They will address it. They will address it lovingly in honor, preferring one another. but they will deal with it. Real love never scoffs that which is good. So you see verse nine, we're to abhor that which is evil. And so yes, we hate evil, but we cleave to that which is good. We gravitate to that. We want to hold on to everything good that we know about other people. Take a little bit of an aside here, but I think we all have friends. or other Christians that we know that we would say, maybe it's a small thing, maybe it's not, well, maybe it is among us. Other people that we would perceive have a higher standard than we do. So you may know another Christian that has a higher standard than you. Now, we're going to get in the weeds of this when we get to chapter 14. What does that mean, a higher standard? Well, that person that has a higher standard, if I can put that in air quotes, may in fact be a weaker brother. They may be a weaker brother in that their conscience is very tender in a particular area. And there's not a full understanding of really comparing Scripture with Scripture in a full way. And so they have this standard. There may be other situations where it's not the matter of a weak conscience at all. It could be a very appropriate godly conscience in a particular area, but as they compare Scripture with Scripture in certain matters of practice, we're not dealing with doctrine here, we're dealing purely with practice. When they compare Scripture with Scripture with certain matters of practice, they've come to conclusions and biblical convictions that are different than yours. I'll use this as an example. I think everybody here knows who Joel Beeky is. Joel Beeky does not own a television. Well, I own a television. In fact, I own two televisions. I think only one of them actually gets used. The other one, I don't think anything has ever happened on it other than Hallmark or maybe some video games. So I have a television. Now, is Joel Beeky better than me? Because he has this higher standard of no television. Well, how am I to react to that? I could be very proud and arrogant and just hey, he's a weaker brother, there's nothing wrong with it, and just defend to the death my Christian right to have a television, and he's wrong for not having one, and scoff at it that way. We get a little closer to home with a different type of thing. There are some families that their policy, their conviction is that a woman ought never to wear pants in public, and that's their conviction. I don't necessarily have that same conviction, but what should be my attitude towards someone who does? Do I scoff at that? Is that something ever that is appropriate to make fun of? I would say absolutely not. We're to treat situations like that in the highest of esteem, because here is a brother, sister in Christ that is conscientious about their walk. They are doing it in a way to be very careful in their walk with the Lord. They are heads up, eyes wide open, realizing there are so many temptations out there for this or that, and I want to be careful to avoid those. But how do I respond to that? There's a sense in which I respond to that in a praise the Lord. I also need to be very careful and conscientious and heads-up, eyes-wide-open to all the temptations that are around me. If you take the reverse of that, how does the higher standard view me? Well, really in the same way that I view them. in brotherly love, honoring, preferring one another. Now, we get to Romans 14 later, and we'll come to understand that, you know, we as Christian people, we have a lot of different practices. And there are things that we hold very, very close to our heart as strong convictions from Scripture. How do we deal with those disagreements and differences of opinion that arise one with another. Really with doctrine, with matters of practice. Now, those that refuse to eat meat that was offered to idols, they did not view that as something that was inconsequential and of a lesser matter. They viewed it as something that was of the highest and most important matter. Now you read what Paul's opinion of it is. Paul's opinion was, this is not an important thing. But yet that wasn't his attitude toward his neighbor. His attitude toward his neighbor was, this is an important thing to you, so that makes it an important thing to me. And so, As far as our relationship goes, I'm gonna give deference to you, and I'm not gonna put this in your face. I may eat this when I'm at my house, but I'm not making a deal about this, because this is an important matter of conscience to you, so I'm on board. And I love you, and we're gonna work together on this. We don't scoff. at other people's good opinion. We don't scoff at other people's convictions and their walk with the Lord. Now, we can take a time out from this argument and back up on this. Now, can those things that I've just been talking about be done out of a heart that is legalistic? Well, absolutely. Of course they can. Could Could a person's lack of doing it be done out of a heart of antinomianism? Casting off rules and I'm free and there's grace and I do whatever I want to do kind of attitude. Well that's just as sinful, that's just as wrong as the person who does these things out of a heart that is in bondage and legalism thinking this is how I prove to God that I'm holy. Both extremes are in error. And you understand, and you've all heard Pastor Kimbrough's illustration here, the happy place is not to meet in the middle. Because if I'm legalistic, the answer to legalism is not to go toward the other sin. And the answer to the antinomian sin is not to go toward the other sin and find a happy place in the middle. Well, to use Pastor Kimbrough's illustration that I think you stole from Sinclair Ferguson, but that's beside the point. You go away from the line. And you go to a greater relationship with Christ. You go off the line. The answer is up. The answer is to the gospel and a right understanding of that that leads to brotherly love, to cleaving to that which is good, abhorring that which is evil. We'll stop there. Next week, we'll come to loving the brethren with your spiritual gifts. In this section, Paul uses really the exact same illustration that he uses in 1 Corinthians 12 when he talks about the body of Christ and the body having different members and the different members having different responsibilities. And so he lists, I believe it's seven different spiritual gifts. listed out here. So we'll go through those and try to understand this. It's not going to be so much a lesson on, you know, what is your spiritual gift kind of Sunday school lesson, but looking at these different gifts and how we exercise and use these inside the body of Christ. So we'll stop here and close in prayer for right now. Our Father, we do thank you that in your word, you have given us all things that are profitable for life and godliness. And we pray that you'd give us an understanding and a right perspective on all of these things today, that we would seek to love one another. and so fulfill the law of Christ as you've told us in the scriptures. Bless our worship service here in just a few moments. We pray for Pastor Kimbrough as he preaches, that you would fill him with your spirit, and we ask all this in Jesus' name.