This is Andrew Smith, pastor of Christ Reformed Community Church here in St. Johns County, Florida. I would like to extend to you an invitation to worship with us each Lord's Day at 1015 a.m. Our address is 161 Hampton Point Drive, Suite 2, St. Augustine, Florida, 32092. You can also access archived video versions of these same sermons on our Facebook page. Additionally, our sermons are broadcast live on Facebook every Sunday morning. Now, let's open God's Word and listen to the sermon for today's broadcast. Well, let's take our copy of God's word and be turning to the book of Romans as we continue our study and really Paul's magnum opus. And we find ourselves in Romans chapter 12. Now we're entering a section of scripture, namely verses nine of chapter 12, going really all the way through part of chapter 15, which is an immensely practical portion of scripture. We began Romans chapter 12 a couple of weeks ago, which begins the practical portion of Paul's letter to the Romans. The first 11 chapters of Romans is very theological, but the back half of Romans is immensely practical. And we're going to begin looking at verses 9 through 16. I want to read these verses in their entirety, if you'd please stand in honor of the reading of God's word. We're only going to look at a few of these verses. We'll see how far we can get this morning, but I at least want to Read verses 9 through 16 to give us a running start. Paul writes under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, 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, be 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. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Please be seated and let's ask the Lord to bless us as we look at this text this morning. Father, we are grateful, Lord, that you have given to us sections in Scripture that are immensely practical. And Lord, now as we come out of this deep theological section of Romans, we really get into the nitty gritty of the Christian life. This is where the rubber meets the road. And so Lord, we pray, what is so often difficult for us to apply, not to understand, but these simple truths which are difficult to apply, we pray that your Holy Spirit would help us. to understand, Lord, the areas of our lives in which we need to nurture to become the Christians that You have called us to be. We pray You would do this for Your glory, and we pray and ask all of these things in Jesus' name. Amen. If there is one catch-all word for the Christian life, I think we would all agree this morning that it could be classified or summarized in that four-letter word, and that is the word love. The Bible has many different Greek verbs that are used for love. Agape love is the sort of love that is most common to all of us. It's the type of love that is described here in the passage that I read to us this morning. In fact, the word love, agape, really dominates this particular portion of Scripture. But if you think about it, agape love has dominated really everything Paul has said up to this point in the first 11 chapters of Romans. except for the fact that the love that Paul has spoken about in the first 11 chapters describes the agape love that God himself has for us. It is the sort of love that was first of all demonstrated at the cross. We saw in chapter 5 that God demonstrated his own love toward us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. It is not only a love that was demonstrated at the cross, but it was a love, Paul said, which was delivered into our hearts. Paul put it this way in Romans 5, verse 5, that the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts. It's been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. So it is a love that has been demonstrated at the cross, the love of God. It is a love that has been delivered into our hearts. And it is a sort of love that is determined to never let us go. Paul said at the end of Romans 8 that he was persuaded or that he was sure that nothing could separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Not even death, not life, not tribulation, not distress, not anything. That is God's love for us. But beginning in verse 9 of chapter 12, Paul is going to shift his focus to speak about agape love as it relates to all of our relationships within the Christian life, that love, that four-letter word, is to mark all of our relationships in our Christian life. And Paul gives a number of different examples of this in verses 9 through 16. He speaks about how such agape love relates to one another within the covenant community, that is within the local church and by extension the universal body of Christ. But he begins to speak how it moves outside of the covenant community. Our love is even to be expressed toward our enemies. And we see that in chapter 12 verses 17 through 21. It's even to be demonstrated love is by Christians to the state, to the government. We are to be citizens that have a good reputation. And whatever country it is that we reside in, we are to be good citizens. We are to demonstrate love in that way. Paul speaks about that in chapter 13. In chapter 13, he also speaks about just generally how we are to be good neighbors, loving neighbors. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves in society, whether that be coworkers or whether that be people that actually live near us and in our own community. And Paul speaks in chapters 14 and 15 about how agape love is to relate to the weaker brothers and sisters within the body of Christ. That is, those brothers and sisters, I think that I can be frank enough to say here this morning, that are difficult to love because of their immaturity, because of their weakness. So Paul is very comprehensive when speaking about love. He has spoken about God's love for us through Christ. That is chapters 1 through 11. But now chapters 12 through 16 is going to speak about the necessity of our love for one another. And all of it is built upon what Paul opened up with at the beginning of chapter 12, where he says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Paul was clear that when we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, this is wholly unacceptable to God. And he was very quick to show us, as we saw last week, that one of the ways in which we demonstrate that we are living sacrifices to God is through the demonstration of our spiritual gifts. We saw that in verses 3 through 8. Paul tells us that there are many gifts, verse 6, that differ according to the grace given to us, but he is clear in verse 6, let us use them. If it's prophecy, we're to use that. If it's service, we're to serve. If we are gifted with teaching, we're to teach. With exhortation, we are to exhort. With contributing in a generous manner, we're to do that. If we're leaders, we're to lead well. We are to show zeal. We are to show kindness and acts of mercy and so there are different gifts within the body of Christ. Not all of us have been given the same gift or the same gifts and so the way that we use our gifts will be different depending on the context in which we use them, depending upon the local church in which we are attached to, depending upon our personality and our opportunity and all of those things. So some of verses 3 through 8 doesn't apply to every Christian because not every Christian is gifted with prophecy. Not every Christian is gifted with teaching. But everything Paul says in verses 9 and following does apply to every single Christian. Because all Paul is telling us is that one of the ways to be a living sacrifice, or maybe the chief way to be a living sacrifice, is to demonstrate love in everything that we do. Now, you are going to find it difficult to find any sort of arrangement and organization to what Paul says in verses 9 and following. That is why many have referred to this section of Scripture to be similar to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus really gives some New Testament proverbs on what it means to be a citizen of the kingdom of God. In other words, Gone long ago are those long and weighty sentences of chapters 1 through 11 of theological depth. Paul now is really going to give us some bullet points. He's going to give us some principles. He's going to give us some maxims, sort of like in staccato fashion, like rapid machine gun fire, to tell us that love is non-negotiable for the Christian life. So the principles that Paul gives us in these verses are principles or maxims that are true every time and they are true any time for every Christian. That agape love... is a love that is commanded. Jesus himself said that, love one another just as I have loved you. By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. So agape love is a love that is commanded. Agape love is also a love that is exemplified. It was exemplified in Christ. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. And Jesus serves as the greatest example of love. Agape love is also a love that increases. Paul says in Philippians 1 that he prays for the Philippians that they may abound more and more in love. So the topic of love is a topic that Paul loves to speak about. In fact, Paul has spoken about here in Romans chapter 12 in verses 4 and 5, for example, that we are one body in Christ. That is one way to really emphasize the fact that we are to love one another. We are part of the same body. And he has then moved to describe, as I said earlier, the diversity of spiritual gifts. We're all part of the same body, but we're a different body part. And now he moves to say how the demonstration of those gifts, the demonstration of our service to one another within the covenant community is to be marked by love. By the way, Paul did the same exact thing in 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 12, he spoke about the fact that we are one body in Christ. He spoke about the fact that we all have different gifts, we're all a different part of the body. And he concluded that whole section by describing love. You're familiar with this portion of Scripture, 1 Corinthians 13. You don't have to turn there, but Paul says, If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clinging cymbal. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, Paul says, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Paul says love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not boast. And then Paul says love never ends. But prophecies will end. Knowledge will end. Love is the supreme demonstration of Christianity. Loving your brothers and sisters in Christ is God's will for every Christian. It's God's will for your life. And it's incumbent upon us this morning as we begin to look at these 12 manifestations of love that Paul lists in this passage to ask ourselves the question, has our love for God or has our love for one another grown cold? And why has it grown cold? And if it has grown cold, it's time to rekindle that love. So as we look together at verses 9 through 16, Paul is basically telling us that love is to mark one another within the covenant community. This is what it means to be a living sacrifice. This is what it means to be on fire for God, to be hot for God. It means that your life And all of your relationships within the covenant community is marked by love. And Paul gives us 12 manifestations of love as we relate to one another within the covenant community. Now, we're not gonna look at all of these this morning. We're gonna divide this up between this week and next week. But let's at least look at some of these manifestations of love. The first manifestation of love is found at the beginning of verse nine, where we see that love is characterized, number one, by authenticity or sincerity. Notice the beginning of verse nine, Paul simply says, let love be genuine. Let love be genuine. Anapokratas is the Greek word for love here. It means an undisguised love or an unfeigned love or a love without hypocrisy. In fact, it's related to the Greek word hypocrites where we get the word hypocrite But this word for genuine actually describes that of an actor, someone who is on the stage. So Paul is saying, when he says, let love be genuine, he's saying that the church is not to be full of actors on a stage. Love in the theater is not the same thing as real love, real relationships, as the Reformed commentator John Murray says. If love is the sum of virtue and hypocrisy is the epitome of vice, what a contradiction to bring those two things together. To bring love and hypocrisy together is the height of hypocrisy. Let love be genuine. Paul is saying that love is best spoken by our deeds, not merely by our mouths. That true love uses every part of the body, not just our mouths, to show our affection and our sincerity toward one another within the body of Christ. That true love is not cold, formal words. But it is warm, informal words and ways and deeds of sincere affection. Agape love is unselfish love. It is devoted love. It is genuine love. Otherwise, it's artificial love. It's fake love. Now, Jesus said in Matthew 24, because of lawlessness, and because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. And that is why Paul says, let your love be genuine. It is to be attached to the law of God. Jesus said that God's law is summed up in love of God and love of neighbor. So love that is genuine is love that is sincere, not love that is merely sentimental. It's not based upon mere feeling. And the Bible is clear about this throughout. For example, Peter says, Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. This is love that is sincere, not love that is merely sentimental or sappy. It is to be sincere, not sentimental. True love is to be Spirit-empowered, not simply self-induced. This isn't sort of a love that is conjured up by the works of the flesh. That is artificial love. It's something that only the Spirit of God can produce. That's why the first fruit of the Spirit that Paul lists in Galatians 5 is love. In fact, love that is genuine is so foundational to the Christian life that John tells us that its presence actually reveals the authenticity of our faith and the absence of love reveals that we're not even true Christians. 1 John 3, 14, we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. And maybe the greatest example of hypocritical love was the fake love of Judas. You know, Judas's mask of fake love came off while he performed on the stage of life when he betrayed Jesus with a kiss. And Luke 22 verse 48 tells us that Jesus read Judas's heart and said, are you going to betray me? with a kiss. Jesus knows our hearts. Someone once said, the truest thing about me is what God says about me. And so the question this morning is, what does God say about our love toward our brothers and sisters in Christ? Is it real? Is it genuine? Or is it artificial? The Queen Mary was the largest ship to cross the ocean when it was launched in 1936. And it served our country through four decades and even a world war until the ship was retired. It was anchored as a floating hotel and a museum in Long Beach, California. But during the conversion of the Queen Mary to become a hotel and a museum, her three massive smokestacks were taken off put on the deck to be scraped down and to be repainted. But as they began to do this, nothing was left of the three quarter inch steel plate from which the stacks had been formed. All that remained were more than 30 coats of paint that had been applied over the years because the steel had rusted away. You know, when Jesus called the Pharisees whitewashed tombs, He meant that they had no substance. They just had an exterior appearance. They just painted themselves with coats of paint to look spiritual. They were like actors on a stage that had paint on their face. And what Paul is saying here in Romans 12 and verse 9 is that our love is not to be hypocritical. It is to be genuine. It is to be unfamed, undisguised. It is to be authentic. It is to be sincere. Now, that is the first manifestation of love, and it is really the foundational manifestation from which all the other manifestations flow from. So, let's look at the second manifestation of love. Love is characterized, first of all, by authenticity, but secondly, love is characterized by consistency. By consistency. The next phrase closely follows what Paul just said about love at the beginning of the verse. Notice the back half of verse 9. Paul goes on to say, In other words, Paul is saying that love has the ability to discern. Love is not willy-nilly. Love is not wishy-washy. Love does not turn with the tide. It knows how to love. It knows what to love. It knows who to love. So verse 9 in this phrase, abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good, is a call to wisdom and discernment and consistency to know what to love and on the other hand what to hate or what to abhor. This teaches us that love, as I sort of said earlier, is not blind sentimentalism. It's discerning. It's discriminatory. Biblical love is not kumbaya love. In fact, biblical love is so passionately devoted to loving the right sort of things that it hates any evil that gets in its way. That's what Paul is saying. This is love's hatred of evil. Paul is saying that hatred of evil is really the other side of love. It's no different than what Proverbs 8, 13 says. The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. So Paul says, abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good. He said in 1 Corinthians 13 and verse 6 that true love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. So to truly love rightly, we must abhor or hate what is evil on the one hand, and then on the other hand, Paul says, hold fast to what is good. Now that phrase, hold fast, is one word in the Greek. Kalao is the Greek word. It literally means to glue something together. In fact, it's used throughout the Bible to refer to a marital relationship, which is a one-flesh union. So you can think of it this way, Christians are to have a one-flesh union with what is good, not with what is evil. 1 Thessalonians 5.22, abstain, Paul says, from every form of evil. Now these staccato injunctions, these 12 manifestations of love that Paul gives, it's like machine gun fire that Paul gives. He gives no elaboration on this. There is no legalistic list of principles of what to do and what not to do. And so it's going to require wisdom in order for us to consistently in our own lives love what is good on the one hand and abhor or hate what is evil. But it always begins when we guard our hearts. David promised, for example, in Psalm 101 in verse 4, a perverse heart shall depart from me. I will know no evil. That was David's desire that he would know no evil. And you and I both know we don't need to feel sorry for ourselves this morning about the state that the world is in. We know that evil marks the world, but we are to hate the ways of the world. If love is to abound within the covenant community, we are to hate the ways, the ideals of the world. Proverbs 6 is a wonderful passage to turn to to describe the ways of the world, because the Bible says there are several ways of the world that God hates. The Bible says in Proverbs 6 that God hates, for example, haughty eyes, a prideful spirit. God hates a lying tongue, a tongue that is dishonest, a life that is not full of integrity. God hates hands that shed innocent blood. And this might be physical murder, but it could also be, borrowing from Jesus' words on the Sermon on the Mount, murder within our hearts, calling people other names. or hearts that devise wicked plans. Proverbs 6 says God hates that. Hearts that are manipulative toward other people and their relationships. God also hates feet that are quick to run to evil. God also hates a false witness who breathes out lies. God also hates one who sows discord among the brother. And this is all taken from Proverbs 6. And so when Paul says in Romans 12, 9, that we are to abhor what is evil, and we are to hold fast to what is good, we are to love the things God loves, and we are to hate the things God hates. And we are to pray that by the power of the Holy Spirit, our lives might not be marked by the things that the world is marked by. and that the covenant community above all communities must be a shining light in the midst of darkness in order for love to abound. Well, there's a third manifestation of love. Paul is just giving these very quickly. He tells us at the beginning of verse 10 that love is characterized by what I'll call affinity. Affinity. Notice the beginning of verse 10. Paul says, love one another with brotherly affection. Now here we find one of the New Testament's famous one another commands. We are to love one another. And the word for love here is actually not agape, it's philostorgos. This is the type of love that refers to the natural love found within one's family, like that between a parent and a child. So when Paul says, love one another with brotherly affection, he's saying that the same sort of affinity or love that you have for your own children is the same sort of affinity or love that you should have for those in the body of Christ, which he mentioned in verses four and five, that we're all part of the body of Christ. Love one another. And then that phrase, with brotherly affection, just reinforces this, because this is a different Greek word. It's the Greek word philadelphia, which refers to brotherly love. So Paul says, love one another with brotherly affection. And I need to point out that Paul's point is not, please hear me on this, that the fellowship of the saints replaces your family as the object of your love. That is not what Paul is saying. Although it may come to that, Jesus said we ought to be willing to hate our fathers and our mothers. We ought to be willing to hate our brothers and our sisters and our children in comparison to the love that we have for Christ in comparison to our zeal and following Christ as a disciple. But his point is not that the fellowship of the saints replaces our family as the object of love. Paul says in another place that we are worse than infidels if we don't provide for our own family. Paul's point is rather that Love among the fellowship of the saints is like the sort of love that you have for your family, because God is our Father, and we are brothers and sisters in Christ. And I might say, just by means of a caveat here, that you cannot love the church like your family if you don't love your own family that God has given you. So this is not an either-or, this is a both-and. If you love your family well, then you will love those in the church well. It has been my experience, and again this is my opinion, that those who come from broken homes and broken marriages are never ideal church members. And here's the reason why. They don't learn and they've never learned how to love those that are closest to them, those that God has given to them. And so those who are dissatisfied with their closest relationships are going to have a very difficult time loving those within the church that they're not related to by blood. Children that are disobedient to parents are not going to be those who come into the church that will obey church leadership. Wives that do not respect their husbands at home are not going to be wives that are going to willingly submit to the elders of the church. So if you want to cultivate love and unity within the body, then make the necessary repairs on your home life. That healthy, loving homes create healthy, loving churches. So Paul is giving to us here 12 manifestations of love. He's not elaborating on these in any great detail, but he has told us that love is characterized by authenticity. Love is characterized by consistency. Love is characterized by affinity. There's a fourth manifestation of love. Paul tells us that love is characterized by dignity. Notice the second half of verse 10. Paul simply says, outdo one another in showing honor. Now, dignity is ascribing worth to others by honoring them. This is one way, I think Paul is saying, that the brotherly affection that he mentioned at the beginning of verse 10 is demonstrated. How is it demonstrated? When we outdo one another in showing honor. This means that showing mutual brotherly affection involves demonstrating mutual honor or dignity toward others within the covenant community. In other words, instead of pursuing honor for ourselves, we should promote the honor of one another. Now I think there is a verse that sort of clarifies Paul's seed thought here and that is a verse we looked at last week, namely verse three. If you skip back up to verse three, Paul says, for by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. There Paul simply told us we are to have humility and he calls it here sober judgment toward our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. That is we are to treat one another with honor or dignity. We aren't to overestimate. people within the body of Christ, making them the center of the church's attention, but nor are we to underestimate their value to the body of Christ. We are to have a humble spirit, one that appreciates and recognizes the various gifts of those within the body of Christ. We are to have a spirit of honor toward even the least among us. In fact, Paul said in Ephesians 3, verse 8, that he considered himself less than the least of all the saints. That's the spirit of what it means to outdo one another in showing honor. When Paul says he was less than the least of all the saints, it didn't mean that he shirked his duty of preaching. It didn't mean that he had no authority in the church. It didn't mean that he didn't confront sin, that he didn't preach against bad doctrine and bad behavior. It just meant that he didn't view himself as better than other people. He didn't have a superiority complex. In fact, the book of James really helps us with this. If you turn with me to James chapter 2, James describes to us the importance of outdoing one another and showing honor. This is how James describes the same principle. James chapter two, verse number one. My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, you sit here in a good place, while you say to the poor man, you stand over there or sit down at my feet, James says, have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, which is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, James says, then you are doing well. But if you do the opposite, if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty. of all of it. This is very similar to what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13. You can have all the gifts imaginable. You can have the most important gifts in the church, but if you don't have love, if you don't have that one principle of obeying God's law, which is summed up in love, then you're guilty of breaking all of God's law. You're guilty of showing partiality, of not honoring every member of the body of Christ. And so Paul says, outdo one another in showing honor. And of course, there are various ways in which you can do this. One of the chief ways to do this is simply to say an encouraging word to someone or to tell someone how much you value their friendship or you value their spiritual gift or you value being able to see them each Lord's Day. Well, this then takes us to a fifth manifestation of love. In verse 11, Paul tells us that love is characterized by duty. Love is characterized by duty. There are three staccato-like commands, but all of them are related together in verse 11. They're related to this idea of duty. Notice verse 11, Paul says, do not be slothful and zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. First Paul says, do not be slothful in zeal. Now we all know Christians within the covenant community that are slothful. We could say that they are spiritual couch potatoes, or maybe to be even more spiritual, pew potatoes. They sit there, they're slothful, they're lazy. But Christians above all are to be marked, as it says here, by zeal. Do not be slothful in zeal. That is to say, we are to be go-getters. Christians are not to be laid back. regarding our duty and serving our master. There needs to be a sense of urgency to living the Christian life. Jesus, by the way, is our example. Jesus said this. He said, we must work the works of him who sent us while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. Paul said in Galatians 6.10, so then as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those of the household of faith. Or we could go to the Old Testament, Ecclesiastes 9.10, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. Or again, back to Paul's words to the Ephesians, in Ephesians 5, walk not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of our time, because the days are evil. So Paul says, do not be slothful in zeal. Now, if you're using a King James, it's probably translated, do not be slothful in business. But it's not speaking about a businessman or a businesswoman. It's not speaking about commercial enterprises, although it applies to that. As a Christian, if we're a Christian businessman, we're to be the best Christian businessman that we can be with zeal. We aren't to be lazy. But really, it's describing the business of the kingdom of God, that whatever our vocation is, whatever our spiritual gifts are, wherever it is our lot in life is, we are not to be slothful, we are to be zealous. And you ask the question, why is being zealous and not lazy a manifestation of love within the covenant community? Well, I can answer that by quoting Proverbs 18, 9, which says, he also who is slack in his work is brother to him who destroys. We live in a society that is full of a lot of people that simply want free handouts and it's destroying our society. Paul is saying that the society of the church ought never to be marked by slothfulness or laziness, that everyone has something to contribute. Throughout the course of every week, I am oftentimes phoned by various people. They could be in the community, they could be outside of the community, and they'll ask what time our services are on Sunday. And this past week, I received a phone call from someone out of state who said that her friend had moved to the area. She was going through a very difficult time and she needed a church to go to. And as I began to really ask some questions of this lady's friend who wanted to attend our church, I began to realize that this was an example of a person who wanted to come to a church and not contribute anything. They wanted to be a getter and not a giver, and so I kindly revealed to this individual that perhaps our church was not the type of church this person was looking for. Because although there are seasons in our lives in which maybe we need to be ministered to more than we are ministering to others, we can never take a day off as a Christian. We are all called to contribute to the needs of the saints, to the body of Christ. We are called to be in relationship with one another. A church is not a place that we sit. It is a place that we do. And so Paul says, That love is characterized by duty. Do not be slothful and zeal. And then notice that second phrase. He says, be fervent in spirit. This just reinforces the phrase, do not be slothful and zeal. The word fervent is zeo. It literally means to boil. And so Paul is metaphorically saying that Christians are to be boiling over in their spirits. They're to be hot. in their spirits for God, there to be fervent. Whatsoever you do, whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10 31. Someone once well said that it doesn't take much of a man to be a Christian. It just takes all of him. And that's what Paul is saying here when he says, be fervent in spirit. Do not be slothful and zeal, be fervent in spirit. And then he says at the end of verse 11, serve the Lord. This is what motivates our service to the Lord, our duty to the Lord. It's being reminded that he is our master, we are his servant, we are to serve the Lord. This helps us not to grow weary in our well-doing, as Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 3.13. Paul lived by a certain very important principle, and I'm convinced that Paul was an avid sports fan. Because he said in 1 Corinthians 9.26, I do not run aimlessly, describing the Christian life, I do not box as one beating the air. That was a way of Paul saying, I live my Christian life with purpose. I live my Christian life with urgency. There are priorities in my life, and my biggest priority is the kingdom of God. So Paul is saying we are to give ourselves in love to others, boiling over in service, being fervent. We are literally to exhaust ourselves as a living sacrifice. for God. It was D.L. Moody who said, A story is told that when James Calvert when as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the captain of the ship sought to turn Calvert back. He said to Calvert, you will lose your life and the lives of those that are with you if you go among those savages. To which the missionary Calvert replied, we died before we came here. In other words, we have already given ourselves as a living sacrifice to God. And come what may, we will serve God because it is our duty to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And one of the most disturbing things to me, I think I mentioned this last week, are Christians who think that ministry is left to the professionals. left to those who are seminary trained, left to those who are ordained. Whatever our gifts are, whatever our vocation is, we are to serve the interests of God's kingdom. I remember reading one time about a dry cleaning store that also dyed clothing. And on the door of the store, it said, we dye to live, D-Y-E. We dye to live, we live to dye. The more we dye, the more we live. The more we live, the more we die. That's what it means to be a living sacrifice to God. We understand that it is our duty, whether we're in full-time ministry or not. In fact, the Apostle Paul, at one point in his ministry, made tents on the side just to prove the point that every Christian is to pull their own load, that whatever we do, whether we make tents or whether we preach the word of God, we have a duty to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is a demonstration of what it means to love the church, what it means to love the kingdom of God, what it means to love Christ. All of this takes us now to a sixth manifestation of love. Paul tells us in verse 12 that love is also characterized by persistency. There's another triplet of staccato commands here in verse 12. They're all related to this idea of perseverance or persistency. Paul says rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. This is another way of saying that the Christian life is a marathon. It's not a sprint. So Paul says rejoice and hope. And of course we know from studying the first half of Romans that Christians can have joy. Christians can rejoice in almost all situations because we have hope. This is a reference, I think, to future hope, the future hope of eternal glory that the Apostle Paul described back in chapter 8 and verse 24, when he said, for in this hope we were saved. Now, hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. It is this future hope that grounds the Christian, that keeps the Christian grounded in the midst of present trials. And that's why Paul goes on to say next, be patient in tribulation. Our future hope helps us be patient in our present tribulation. The word for tribulation there, you might want to circle it. It is the Greek word thalipsis. It literally means pressures. It can be applied to persecution, but really it can be applied to any pressure that the Christian has in his or her life. Paul says, rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation or pressures. And then he says, be constant in prayer. Of course, we are constant in prayer because we all know how reliant we are on God's grace to bear us up under the pressures of life. And let me just say this, verse number 12 is not a verse that's telling us to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We know that the pressures of life are difficult. That's why we must constantly be in prayer. But we also know that the pressures or the tribulations of life produce within us a sort of spiritual callous to make us tougher, to make our lives be marked by tenacity. In fact, if you just turn back with me to chapter five, I want to remind you what Paul says about toughness and tenacity as it's tied with hope. Romans 5 and verse 2, Paul says, through Him, that is Christ, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We stand in God's grace. We stand on the foundation of His grace. So Paul says, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. There's the word hope used again, the future glory of God. And notice he says in verse 3, not only that, But we rejoice in our present sufferings because of this future hope of the glory of God, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. And it is the testimony of all Christians, isn't it? That in the midst of tribulation, in the midst of the pressures of life, it isn't fun. But when we come out the other side and we are stronger, our faith is stronger as well. And we can thank the Lord and praise the Lord for what he put us through to make us more like Christ, to make us more grateful. and also to make us more sympathetic to our brothers and sisters in Christ. One of the reasons you must persevere and be persistent in all the tribulations and trials that you face is because you and I need to be there for one another. In fact, just sort of skipping ahead, notice what Paul says in verse 15. He says we are to rejoice with those that rejoice, but we are also what? To weep with those that weep. How are we going to weep with those that weep? How are we going to be sympathetic with others that are struggling if we ourselves have not gone through struggles? In fact, later in Romans, Paul tells us in chapter 15 that whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. When we have other saints that we can look to, who have been strong and sturdy and faithful and that God has held up, it gives us confidence that God will preserve us as well. So Paul says in Romans 15, 13, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. The story is told of a great never say die general, who was taken captive by the opposing army, and he was thrown into a deep, wide pit with a number of his own soldiers. And in that pit was a huge pile of horse manure. And as the general was getting ready to be thrust into that pit, he said to his soldiers, follow me, before he dove in and then made the statement, there has to be a horse in here somewhere. He was demonstrating the fact that he had optimism. In the midst of the pile of the mess of life that we all walk through, that we all face, that stinks to high heaven, that is not fun when we walk through it, we are those who can have hope. And when we have hope, It's one of the most loving things we can do in the context of a covenant community because when we have hope through the stinking mess that we are facing, when others go through a stinking mess, they too are strengthened and can have hope. There's a seventh manifestation of love. Paul says in verse 13 that love is also characterized by generosity. Notice the beginning of verse 13. Paul says we are to contribute to the needs of the saints. Now the word contribute here is the verb koinoneo. It actually literally means to share. It's related to the word koinonia, which you're familiar with, which means fellowship. And I think in our own day, fellowship, that word is often a misused word. It's a diluted word. When Paul says contribute to the needs of the saints, he's saying to share toward the needs of the saints. The fellowship of the saints, this is not describing a church potluck or a church social event. The church is not a country club. The church is a fellowship. It's a place to share. In fact, when we partake of communion, we are partaking of a fellowship feast, a love feast. And when Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he told them that when they come together, they were to share their food together in this love feast. They were to share their gifts, their resources, and even their food, because everyone is expected to share something, contribute to the needs of the saints, whatever it might be. Now, as I've said before, this could be applied to the sharing of our financial resources when Paul says, contribute to the needs of the saints. Every Christian is meant to contribute in some form or fashion, at least by minimum, by way of the tithe, to contribute to the kingdom of God. Oswald Sanders once said that the basic question is not how much of our money we should give to God, but how much of our money we should keep for ourselves. And Thomas Watson said, there is a blessed kind of giving, which though it makes the purse lighter, makes the crown heavier. God blesses those who contribute. And perhaps this is financial contribution because back in verse eight, Paul spoke about those who contribute in generosity. So apparently there are some in the church who have a special gift of contributing financially out of their wealth. But I think this term also applies broadly to any way that you can share, whether it's your spiritual gift, whether it's financial resources. We are to share everything in love with the saints, whatever And this can be illustrated by the grandfather who gave a box of chocolate to one of his grandchildren and a box of chocolate to the other one of his grandchildren. And the first grandchild took the box of chocolates, went to his room and stuffed his face with them so that he had chocolate smeared all over his face. But the second grandson, upon receiving that box, opened it up, looked at the candies, lifted it up and said, since you gave this to me, I want to give you the first piece. Now that is a simple illustration that even children can understand. And I'm convinced that one of the clearest signs and indicators that a child is a true believer is when they are marked with kindness and sharing and giving. It is very unnatural to share and to give. But even children who have been saved by the blood of Christ know what it means to be kind, what it means to give. Paul is just giving some simple, almost elementary level maxims. This is not deep theology when he says in verse 13, contribute to the needs of the saints. Love is characterized by generosity. So we're looking at the many manifestations of love in the Christian life. What does it mean to be a living sacrifice? What does it mean to be on fire for God? It means that our lives are marked with love. Love of authenticity, love of consistency, love of affinity, love of dignity, love of duty, love of persistency, love of generosity. We'll end with this one this morning, the end of verse 13. Paul tells us that love is characterized by hospitality as well. Not just generosity, but hospitality. Notice he says, contribute to the needs of the saints, but then he says, and seek to show hospitality. Now, the word hospitality, I'm convinced, is also another diluted word in our vocabulary. When we see the word hospitality in the Bible, we are not to think this is just having church people over to our house for socializing. That's often what Christians think of when they think of hospitality. But no, true hospitality is serving anyone, anywhere, and for whatever reason. In fact, if generosity, which was spoken about at the beginning of verse 13, and contributing to the needs of the saints, emphasizes what we do within the covenant community, then seeking to show hospitality is how the covenant community demonstrates generosity outward to strangers. In fact, the word hospitality is phyloxenia. It literally means to love strangers. So it's showing us that the way that church folk are to live is to not just have an eye to ourselves, but to look outside of ourselves. In fact, the way that the word hospitality was used in the first century can help us understand this. Ancient inns were not prevalent in the first century, and they were often unsafe and, shall I say, unsavory places of establishment. And so this meant that Christians oftentimes had to open their homes to traveling preachers or to Christians who had been displaced because of persecution. They would open their homes to complete strangers who named the name of Christ. In fact, the Apostle Paul was on the receiving end. of such hospitality as he was a preacher of the gospel. But I think today we have lost what it means to show hospitality. I would just put it this way. Showing hospitality is not showing off your house to your guests that you already know. It's showing love to those perhaps you don't know and those that maybe you do know but that you know cannot give anything in return. This is true biblical hospitality. And the Bible says that we are to do hospitality without complaint. 1 Peter 4, show hospitality to one another without grumbling, without grumbling. We are to show hospitality without complaining, without thinking that we are being inconvenienced, that this is part and parcel of what it means to demonstrate love, even to complete strangers. Jesus said this in Luke chapter 14. He said, when you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. No, Jesus says, when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. There are many examples in the Bible of those who have shown great hospitality. In fact, the Apostle Paul was so appreciative of the hospitality shown by one man that he mentions him in Scripture. 2 Timothy 1. He speaks about a man, he says, may the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains, but when he arrived in Rome, he searched for me earnestly and found me. May the Lord grant to him mercy on that day, because you all well know his service that he rendered to me at Ephesus. Now you and I might not have our names recorded in scripture, like Onesiphorus' name was recorded in scripture, but we can have our deeds recorded in heaven and great will be our reward on that day when we show similar hospitality. Jesus said in Matthew 10, whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. So as you can see from this really comprehensive list As Paul defines love, love is far more than a feeling. Love is lively. Love is active. Love is practical. Love is comprehensive. It covers every Christian and every part of the Christian's life. And Paul isn't even done yet. He's going to give four more manifestations of love. But I believe the best way to conclude this sermon is to pray that the Lord might give us strength to demonstrate this sort of love. You know, in studying the first 11 chapters of Romans, the great challenge is just trying to understand what exactly Paul is saying. And trying to understand and wrap our minds around the depth of that rich theology, it's difficult to understand. What Paul says here is not difficult to understand. It's just difficult to apply. And it is only the Holy Spirit that will help us be Christians who have lives that are marked by the single greatest quality a Christian can possess. And that is love for one another. Let's pray that he help us. Father, thank you for your words of truth. They are heavy words of truth, not because they are difficult to understand, but because we are difficult people. We are stubborn. We are hard-hearted. We are by nature selfish and self-serving. And it is very difficult for us to love our neighbor As we love ourselves, but Lord, you have called us as Christians to do that. Our great motivation is the mercies of God that have come to us through Christ. The great manifestation of love. and your son coming to this earth and dying for sinners. That is what should motivate our love, our giving, as the Spirit of God empowers us to do that. Lord, we pray that you would be with us even as we partake of this fellowship feast, this love feast, as we share together in this communion meal, as we're reminded of the gospel, that we might be reminded of our duty toward one another. That we might have a love that is characterized by authenticity and consistency. That it might be marked with affinity and dignity and duty. Lord, that our lives might be marked with generosity and hospitality. and a duty that wants to serve others and the interests of your kingdom. So thank you for this blessed opportunity to partake of this meal. And even as brother John plays and we prepare our hearts, Lord help us to be ever grateful for the greatest sacrifice that was ever made. And that was the sacrifice of your son on our behalf to give us eternal life and to forgive us of our sins. We give you the glory and we pray all of this in Jesus name. Amen. I hope this sermon from God's Word has ministered to your soul. For more information about our church, you can visit our website, www.ChristReformedcc.com. Also, for access to more sermons, articles, and a podcast I host entitled, Today in Church, His Story, you can visit www.PastorAndrewSmith.com.