Romans chapter 12 verses 9 through 13 responsibly. 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. Amen. You may be seated. I believe that was the ESV version. I'll be teaching out of the New King James. And there were a few words slightly different, although I'm going to refer to the ESV version. But let me just read it once out of the King James. So as I start teaching out of the terminology here, you would have heard it. In the King James it says, let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love and honor, giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence. Fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. So my goal was actually to get through verse 13, but by the time I'd finished things through verse 12, I thought, you know, it's gonna be a while. So I decided to stop there, but verse 13 actually closes off the train of thought focus that Paul has at this point in this chapter. So next time we'll have to kinda cover a little bit before 13 and into 13 before we move on. But just letting you know, we won't quite make it through verse 13 today. All right, so we've been working through Romans 12. In Romans 12, if you recall, I noted that Paul has made a shift in his focus of what he's presenting here in this chapter. He had had a number of chapters, pretty much 11 chapters, in which he was focusing on doctrine. upon orthodoxy would be the theological term for what he is doing there. And now he's entered into his discussion of orthopraxy, if you want to have the corresponding terminology, the practice of what we believe. Again, ortho means right or correct. And so he's been talking about what is the right or correct doctrine up to this point, our belief we should have, and now the right or correct living practice or way of life that we should be walking. And that would be the appropriate way to address things because they are from the internal to the external. It's what you believe And that should be guiding and determining what you do. But that doesn't always happen in people's lives. It's not enough to really just have knowledge of what the Bible says is right. It's not always enough to just have that. In fact, it isn't enough. To simply have head knowledge is not enough. The knowledge needs to be intimately connected with your way of living. It needs to be not only known, but there needs to be some process by which it is transferred and applied to your life. It needs to become really a part of who you are. a part of who you are to determine how you live. You see, there's a lot of people out there, maybe they'd fall under the category of Unitarians, they believe in God, they believe in a God, they doubt the divinity of Christ, but they think there's a God. There are those who are even atheists. They believe there isn't a God or agnostics. They believe that God hasn't really made it, if he's there, hasn't really made it clear enough as to whether he even exists. And in those groups of people, there are those who can quote the Bible. And sadly, can do it better than a lot of Christians. They know the information. Sometimes they know it well because they like attacking it. Other times, people who aren't true Christians find some wisdom and comfort from things that the Bible says for whatever reason that they do. Sadly, they often could know the Bible in their head better than many professing Christians. And in today's society, there's a lot of Christianity that is ignorant, really, of the bulk of the content of the Bible. They know a few choice verses that they like to grab onto, like, I can do all things through Christ who strengthened me, and things like that, in John 3, 16, because they gotta remember to take that to the football game. You know, they know those things, right? But they don't know a lot of the Bible and there are people who would not profess to be Christians that know the Bible better, but they've got only a head knowledge. Yeah, a lot of Christians attend churches. that would even claim to hold to the great confessions of the faith, like the Westminster Confession, or Heidelberg Catechism, or Belgian Confession, or something like that. They might even weekly recite the Apostles' Creed, or the Nicene Creed. A lot of churches make that a part of their weekly practice, and they know those words, and they can even tell you what it means to be a Christian. They even know other things in the Bible, like the two great commandments, or things like this. But when it comes to how they live their life, outside the church, and sometimes even in the church, it's hard to really distinguish them from those who are of the world. So what they know intellectually, in their mind, it hasn't penetrated to the core of their being. The Bible would say in your heart. Okay, and the heart really means your innermost man, your true nature. It's not just your seat of feeling. In fact, operating by feelings is often what Christians pursue, and that is faulty. The knowledge of God and his word for too many of us, if it's any of us, it's too many of us, professing believers really hasn't become the living force of how you live or that's driving your choices and your actions and your desires in this life. Christians often haven't learned or haven't been taught what it means to live in accordance to what they know or profess to know. And what this is usually caused by, I guess you'd say, is what we could call a split in their worldview. Okay? A split in their worldview. They too often have, well, Schaeffer would call it, you know, the secular-sacred split. You know, they've created two realms of life or two structures of thinking based on what part of life they are living. They have a secular-sacred divide. They don't have a permeating Christianity into every area of life. They somehow have compartmentalized their thinking. And usually they have a small area a minimal area that is their religious section, you might say, and then they have a large area that is their daily living section, their real world section, you might think. One of the depictions of what a worldview is has been to use a house. It's the house in which you live and your house is structured a certain way for function and it's furnished for your living. And too often Christians have two houses. They have a large house that is well furnished after the manners and standards of the world, but then they've got this small cottage off to the side that has aspects within it that are Christian, and it's their retreat in a sense. It's where they go in order to get a little relief from the world. They live most of their life in the big house, but when Sunday comes, or maybe a special time of the year comes, but often on a Sunday or whatever, that's like, well, I've had enough of the world. I need relief. And so they retreat to their summer cottage or their retreat center, and they get a break from the world in this little cottage. It's got the basics of Christianity there as far as, you know, the fundamental of the gospel and some promises of God that they really like to latch on to and hear. And so in this little cottage retreat, they kind of take a deep breath and relax and hear some things that help them feel good and be separated from the world. But the problem is Monday comes and they are so used to it that they immediately leave that cottage and they go to the typical house, the big house. It's got all the furnishings for living in the world, but they are the furnishings of the world. and they enter back in to a framework of thinking and applying their lives after the pattern of the world. And often then what happens is they live in there being discouraged about, you know, things being the way things always are. Doubts start to rise up in their mind about, well, what is the relevance of this Christianity? when it's their issue that they left it, okay? But just as the two buildings are separated, they can't see the connection. And so often doubts of Christianity come up and Christianity either is abandoned or it remains simply as the ultimate escape from this world when Jesus comes and takes us away because what's my use here? And those are the outcomes of this sacred secular divide that Christians often live in. So for them Christianity is no more than just a pleasantry to retreat to to get some comfort away from the trials of the world of which they have no idea how to handle them other than how the world has taught people to deal with them. Well, Paul won't have any of that. Well, neither will Jesus or God, but here Paul will have none of that. And he's beginning a section here in which he's dealing with how you live. And if you recall, in the start of chapter 12, where this change of focus from internal, let me fill your heart and mind with the truths of the gospel and the doctrines of God and his sovereignty. And now let me turn you to how do you walk out of that into life here in chapter 12. And it began with the declaration that you are to give your whole life to God as a living sacrifice. your whole life, not just a part or a day here and there, but present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, for it's your reasonable service, meaning It is just the thing that ought to be because of what God has done for you. He said, you know, beseeching them because of the mercies of God that he's laid out before them. Because what God has done in your life, give your life to him. That's the only reasonable thing to do out of gratitude for what he has done. as he will say in other places. In a sense, he is making that statement here. Your life is not your own. And that's where so many Christians stumble. They think they've got control and ownership of their life, and so they pick and choose how it operates here and there. But your life is not your own. You've been bought with a price, Paul will say in another letter, and now If you're giving your whole life to God, you are to actually live it out in liberty in the position of slavery to righteousness. He kind of makes those points even earlier in Romans. To whom you serve, you're a slave, right? And you are to be enslaved to righteousness and the God of righteousness, and that's really your greatest liberty. And so with that as the new starting point, Paul then moves through really what it means to have a house that is a biblical worldview out of which you live and not this two house type of living. So the idea that the world has anything to offer in terms of what is right in how to deal with issues in life, how to deal with relationships with others and so forth, that is to be eradicated from our minds. In other words, don't conform yourself to the world, to this age, to the contemporary happenings that are around you. Don't conform to this world's ways of thinking, but let's transform our mind, allow the truths to work in your mind and process them according to their application to life. Transform your mind into a mind that operates according to all these new, to use the worldview term, presuppositions that I've laid out for you that are the accepted truths that you are to live by. You gotta have this new worldview framework by which you operate. And so then from that point, Paul starts addressing the believer and his living in accordance with a renewed mind. And he starts out by talking corporately, the body of Christ. Because not only are you a new creature, you're in a new family, okay? So you're part of the body of Christ. But in the body of Christ, it's the place where unity and diversity are both eminent and ultimate. You're not lost in the body and are nobody like in communism, but neither are you an individual that negates the idea of the body like individualism. You're an individual in Christ who's part of the body. You're both created new individually and you are functionally important to the body of Christ. You know, we started looking at these things the last couple of times. For example, verses four and five, it says, for we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function. So we being many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. So even your individuality, if you want to call it that, is not Lone Ranger individuality. We're members of one another, which is part of the fact that we're part of the body, but we all have functions. And Paul began presenting some of the gifts. Take this as a representative presentation. Obviously, in 1 Corinthians 12, he gives even a more detailed presentation there. But the idea is there are definitely certain gifts that we can note, but that's not all the gifts that are in the church. But God has graced the church with these giftings of which the significance of the individual is to be recognized and function as a part of the church. And we've looked at those. We're not going to go through them again. Let's just go to that last gift because it's kind of our jumping off point into our text, of which he talked about he who shows mercy with cheerfulness. Each of the gifts, well, several of the gifts had some guidance words. Some of them just said, if this is your gift, do it. If it's teaching, teach. But if it's preaching, do it. You know, according to the analogy of faith, There were guidance words and here's the guidance word for he who shows mercy, it is cheerfulness. I think it's kind of significant that that word is there as we're getting ready to go into this next section. And that's because it's not always easy to be cheerful when you're having to do something for someone else. to show mercy toward another, especially if you're having to do it again and again. How many times should you show mercy toward another? Or as the Bible would say it, how many times do you forgive? How many times do you forgive your brother Well, Jesus, in talking to his disciples, as recorded in Luke, chapter 17, verse four, it says, if he, your brother, sins against you seven times in a day, and it's the type of sin that somebody's gotta do something about, so seven times in a day, he returns to you saying, I repent. You shall forgive him. And most of us, yeah, I can forgive you. Second time, okay, I'll forgive you. But by the third time, it's like, okay, I forgive you. The cheerfulness is diminishing, if not going away. But this is a command. And it is said to the disciples, but it's not limited to them at all. This is for every believer. and not just those gifted in mercy. He has made this a general statement. And when you understand the root and source of, and model, I guess I should say, of forgiveness, which is in God's forgiveness of you. There's other places it talks about forgiving your brother as God has forgiven you. It's not enough for you to respond to your brother, okay, I forgive you. Okay, I forgive you. Now don't do it again. Now you might wanna say that to them and you can say that appropriately, but usually it's coming out of that frustration, right? And so, okay, I forgive you is not the model of God in forgiveness. you realize that, you know, there is an attitude that needs to accompany that expression of forgiveness or that act of being merciful to another who's gotten themselves in a fix again. Or Maybe it was something that was out of their control, and you're the one they always call upon to deal with the hardship that they're facing. And whether it's forgiving or being merciful in another way to the individual, it is not to be done begrudgingly. Okay? Begrudgingly. with, I guess, feelings of resentment about having to do this. It's not to be there, but you're to willingly show mercy. And if showing mercy is your gift, it can't just be presented willingly. It is to be done by command cheerfully. I don't think we need to limit that to those that may be gifted in mercy, but certainly the command is there. Now, we gotta understand this command of Paul's, well, of God's through Paul. It doesn't say that you are commanded to feel cheerful, okay? It didn't say that. When you do the act of mercy, that you do it when you're feeling cheerful. In other words, this isn't an act that follows feelings. I mentioned feelings earlier, and this is where we need to get to this. What Paul says here is, when you do the act, do it with cheerfulness. It's not, when you're feeling cheerful, do the act. Okay. No, the act is done out of a cheerfulness, which might just be an intellectual understanding of cheerfulness rather than your feelings about the situation. I mean, you can understand that I am doing what God has commanded and I will do it with a cheerful attitude because God has something greater here in mind for me and for the person. Even though I feel tired about doing this again, it can be done. So this is a command concerning an attitude with which you do the act, not waiting for a feeling to rise up. And certainly it can be understood in terms of loving our spouses. There are times when it's kind of frustrating and hard, but you're not called To only love them feelingly, if you can say it that way, out of feelings only. But you are to love them in your actions. But we're such a feeling-driven culture. World, really. And far too often, you know, We say things like, well, I just don't feel like doing that. And that's the determination of whether we do or not do. Now, you know, if the choice is whether you go for Chinese food or American hamburgers, yeah, if you don't feel like Chinese, I mean, that's probably an okay thing to say. But when it's helping your neighbor, when it's loving your wife, when it's doing this or that, Feelings is not the determiner of the choice. We're dealing with duty and responsibility. We're dealing with duty and responsibility. Duty and responsibility to another that God has brought into our life or as a part of our church. It's primarily dealing with the body of Christ, but many of these things will step even outside of that realm as Paul addresses things here later in Romans 12. But we're dealing with a call upon us, a duty, a responsibility to another and out of relationship to God. And feelings really have nothing to do with that. As far as whether you do the act or not. So if you're commanded to willingly forgive your brother again, then you willingly forgive your brother. That is your duty. If you're commanded to show mercy with cheerfulness, then you show mercy with cheerfulness. The attitude in which you do something, that's where you have a choice. And what you find is that you continually choose to do something with that attitude, the feelings do follow. And that's the appropriate order in which things should happen. Sooner or later, eventually the feelings associated with the attitude that you're choosing to do the act in actually begin to accompany it. Now, that's the idea. Obviously, I wanted to stress here, and I think Paul is stressing here, and I think it's significant that it's said right before we get to verse nine. where we're called to love. In fact, much of what Paul will be saying here is out of an attitude of loving, being loving toward others' people and in the situations that we're involved in with them. And we are commanded to love one another. Whether we feel loving towards another or not is what we have to remember there. But, let's see what verse nine says here. Verse nine says, at the first here, love, let love be without hypocrisy is the way it's worded in the New King James. And then it says, abhor what is evil and cling to what is good. And if you hear those words, let love be without hypocrisy, you might think at that point, everything I've said before is impossible. This contradicts it because you can't be hypocritical in your loving. He tells us that here. How can it not be hypocritical to show love to someone that you don't actually feel like loving? You don't have loving feelings for. To do a loving act when you don't have loving feelings isn't that hypocritical. The answer is no. It is not hypocritical. Loving a person by doing what is good for them, even when you don't feel like it, is simply doing what you're called to do, to be loving toward that person. It's not hypocritical, rather it's being responsible It's being obedient to do that. And so you may say then, well, what would it be to love hypocritically? I mean, he's obviously means something here. And if he doesn't mean that it's hypocritical to be loving to a person even though you don't feel loving toward that person, and that's not hypocritical, what does he mean when he says that your love is not to be hypocritical? Well, as you probably know, 1 Corinthians 13 is considered the love chapter. Right? Because bulk of it has to do with description of what love is and isn't. All right? He takes quite a bit of time in 1 Corinthians 13 to characterize love. And let me just pick out a few expressions there that Paul uses that could help us understand what he might mean here in let love be without hypocrisy. For example, in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul writes, love does not parade itself. So we could say this, that hypocritical love would be doing a loving act for another in order to be noticed by others. Look what I just did. The motivating factor is critical here. It was done to be seen. It was done to be noticed by you, people noticing you. Hypocritical love looks like that. He also says, love does not seek its own. Hypocritical love then would be this, doing the loving act in order to personally benefit and get something back. You do the loving act, and then what happens? You're not given anything back by that person. So, see if I ever do that again, it wasn't out of love. That's hypocritical love. or love thinks no evil, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13. So hypocritical love would be doing a loving act while you're wishing something evil upon the person. Okay, I'll do this for them, but not only do they not deserve it, I hope something bad happens. Yeah, that's hypocritical love. And we can look at other expressions out of 1 Corinthians 13 and probably come up with even more examples of what hypocritical love is. But with that last one, love thinks no evil, that kind of brings us back here to verse nine in Romans 12 because Paul actually tells us that's what's hypocritical. Let love be without hypocrisy. What? Abhor what is evil. He even tells you there. Don't think about evil things. That's not just an obscure statement that has no tie to what he just talked about. That's part of what makes it hypocritical. And in fact, that's a general term. I mean, we think of evil as really dastardly stuff, but it would be evil for you to do something to parade yourself. It would be evil for you to do something in order to get something back, hidden agendas, right? It is evil to wish hardship and evil upon somebody or trouble in their life, even though because you're a Christian, you're going to do the right thing for them. No, that's not what it means to love genuinely. Okay. Which is another way in which this could be interpreted. It is love that is without hypocrisy, is that which is unfeigned. In other words, not just appearance only. It is genuine and sincere. There would be other ways in which that could be interpreted. You know, one lexicon. stated the meaning of that word there that's translated without hypocrisy as obviously not phony but sincere behavior free from hidden agendas or selfish motives. That gives us a good guideline of what it means to love without hypocrisy. no hidden agendas, single-stranded. We talked about the strings attached type of idea last time. That's not part of this at all. Single-stranded, free from hidden agendas, free from selfish motives. So love is without hypocrisy when it has no motives or hidden thoughts of evil toward the person. and that's achieved when you cling to what is good. So those two expressions after love without hypocrisy are his negative, positive characterization of that. Abhor evil, cling to what is good. That word cling is a, built off the base word Kalao, Kaleo probably is how it's pronounced. And Kaleo is the New Testament word for marriage covenant. When Jesus said in Matthew, He was tested by the Pharisees when they said is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? His response was have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female and said for this reason a man shall leave his wife leave his father and mother and be Kaleo to his wife, sorry, leave his father and mother and be joined, Kaleo. And that Kaleo is cleave, the King James or ESV probably, let's see. No, the King James I think says cleave, hold fast by the ESV, it's to adhere, to glue, to stick, it's like together. And here in 12.9, Paul is saying, the way you love without hypocrisy is you adhere to good like you would to a marriage in Christ. Nothing separates you from that. Even the trial of having to be merciful again and again. You adhere to what is good. Abhor evil. Adhere like glue to the good. And what we're gonna find is that as we go through Romans 12 here, that the strongest weapon you possess for dealing with the challenges and the trials in this world from others, even their persecution of you, is to love them by doing what's good. That's gonna be your strongest weapon. And far too often we choose the world's way, which is if you did that to me, you wait and see what I'm going to do to you. Okay? And that is the world's way. We step into the wrong house. We start living by other furnishings. And we're supposed to live in the house of God within his framework and cling to what is good, even when it's one who's done evil to you, even when you are exhausted by their repeated falters and failings. Okay, and that doesn't mean that you can't call somebody to responsibility and to do what is right on their side, to take time to teach and to train. That's what the whole 2 Timothy 3, 16, 17 is about, concerning the word of God in terms of rebuking and retraining and correcting and getting them to walk again in the ways of righteousness. It doesn't mean that you're just a doormat on which, come on over, stomp on me again, it's fine, no. But the attitude in which you receive them, the attitude in which you forgive them, the willingness to forgive has to remain the same and willing to do good to them. So, what's the good word to cling to? He begins to describe that to us in verse 10. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love. be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love." If we were to throw the Greek in there, Paul said this, in Philadelphia to one another, Philostorgoi. The two Greek words that had to deal with brotherly love and kindly affectionate are Philadelphia and Philostorgoi. Storgoi, of which you can see or hear that the beginning word of this compound expression is philo, the Greek word for love, often translated affection and brotherly love. In fact, Philadelphia is a word we're familiar with, because children, you can ask your parents to show you on a map if you don't know right offhand where the city of Philadelphia is. It's a very important city in our American history, in Pennsylvania, and it was named Philadelphia, not because of its significance in American history, but by the founders for the purpose of its meaning. And its meaning is just that, City of brotherly love. The city of brotherly love. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And that's what's being expressed here is brotherly love. The way the New King James rendered it, they put that word at the end of this sentence. Be kindly affectionate, that's the philo-storgoi, to one another with brotherly love. That's the Philadelphia. So in brotherly love to one another, philo storgoi, that's philo again, or love as its base, being translated here as kindly affectionate, be kindly affectionate. the literal rendering here, where storgoi is the word that's tied to this, it's a word that expresses the affection that is the natural bond or devotion among family members, okay? This is important, storgoi, the natural bond or devotion among family members. So what, um, Paul is saying here is that in brotherly love to one another, devoted. In brotherly love to one another, devoted. That is, just as members of a natural family are bonded together, so should you be. He's asserting that just like you would lovingly support, defend, you know, take your brothers back in your family in that same manner you are to lovingly support, defend, and stand with those that are this family. See, that should be the natural bond and expression that's carried out here. And so in such a loving relationship, you want the best for others, And Paul demonstrates that as he goes along in his expression here about being kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love in honor, giving preference to one another. In honor, giving preference to one another. And what is being meant here is that you prefer others to be the recipients of recognition more than yourself. You prefer others to be the recipients of recognition more than yourself. Why? Love seeks not its own. just as he would say in 1 Corinthians 13. It's not looking to be the more highly recognized person than the other, but the other way around. It prefers that they get that recognition. Paul is admonishing everyone should be working to see that someone else is the honored one and the recognized one. We read it in our responsive reading because we used the ESV. You may have noticed or if not, you can look there. They word it this way and truly capture the drive of Paul or the essence of what Paul is saying here. He says, outdo one another in showing honor. Outdo one another in showing honor. It should be your greatest joy. It should be my greatest joy. When someone else gets the recognition for their contribution, for their participation, for their character and kindness in whatever has been going on, it also means that you should be looking for the opportunities to express that appreciation or honor to them. Paul in his letter to the Philippians, the church in Philippi, he expressed many of these same sentiments. He says, If there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind, let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself, let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Now it's important that he puts that one expression in there because he's not saying don't have any concern of those things that are your responsibility, just care for others. No, you do care for others and what you do is take care of your responsibilities and not let those make you so myopic, nearsighted in your vision that you don't see what is needed by your brother. We need to keep our peripheral vision and our sights up and out in looking at others. They should always be in your view. You should be observing, listening carefully. You should be asking questions and taking time to hear the response from the other individual. And he has this in mind as he moves into verse 11 and says, in the New King James, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. The Greek word translated lagging. It speaks to being slothful, indolent, reluctant, unwilling to participate, disinterested, or even delay in response due to being unready. Delay in response due to being unready. Those all characterize really a myopic individual who's so nearsighted that they didn't realize what was needed to help the other because they're so looking upon their own self-interest. And that word diligence, means also, beyond diligence, earnestness, zeal, and it has its root word meaning emphasizing speed. Actually, speed, making, moving swiftly as well as earnestly. One word study puts it this way, for the believer, Spude, that's the Greek word, speedy diligence, means quickly obeying what the Lord reveals in his priority. To elevate the better over the good, the more important over the important. And they do this with earnest swiftness. How many times have you thought that you kind of noticed something that might be of a concern of another, a need that might be there, but you didn't ask. You hesitated to inquire, only later to find out that, yeah, there really was something, and now they're in deeper need or didn't work out real well for them and you didn't respond. You didn't step forward at the time when it was brought to your attention just by your observation, but you hesitated and didn't ask. I've done it. Okay. I'm not, I'm not just talking at you. I'm talking at me, you know, but how many times do you find yourself saying, you know, I thought something was going on and I guess I should have asked. Or, you know, I wondered what was the matter, but I just didn't find out. I know I've thought or said those things and you know, those kind of comments are actually ones that come from the Okineros, the lagging that we are to avoid. The lagging is there, not the spude, the speedy diligence to really, you know, take the time and be ready. You know, I just didn't feel ready to go up and ask or something. But it says not only that, it says secondly that we are to be fervent in spirit. Fervent in spirit. The word for spirit is pneumati. It comes from pneuma, which is spirit or life. It actually refers to the new spirit in which you have been born. And Paul says that we are to be fervent in that spirit, which literally means to be hot or to boil. to be hot or to boil. Makes me think of what Jesus said to the church of Laodicea, right? One of the conditions he wished they would have had. He says, these things say the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth. Yeah, the Laodicean church had become lagging in their diligence. Just as Paul says, we are not to be. They would become more noncommittal in their Christianity. And what God wanted was a zealousness there, a zealousness for good works. Paul wrote to Titus, Titus chapter 2, where he says, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed, that's the evil, and purify for himself his own special people, zealous, boiling over with passion. That's the word that's there. Boiling over with passion for good works. You know, that expression, fervent in spirit is used, that expression, yeah, is used one other place in the New Testament for a particular individual, okay? One other place in the New Testament for a particular individual, you can see it in Acts 18, if you'd like to turn there or just listen. Verses 24 through 26, it says, now a certain Jew named Apollos Born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord, though he knew only the baptism of John. So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. Yeah, Apollos. He was fervent in spirit. He was boiling over to be of service to God and was preaching accurately to his understanding. And he also was not arrogant. He was willing to be set down and taught something that he had not at that point comprehended concerning the reality of the Holy Spirit, relying simply upon the form of baptism of John. And we know from other readings and his impact upon other places in the first spreading of the gospel, particularly Corinth, but elsewhere, that he did not lose his zeal once he was rightly instructed, but he continued fervent in spirit. And we need to have the same fervency and passion for the truth of the gospel and doing, as Paul says, Serving the Lord. Maybe I'll go ahead and make this verse our final verse for today. Serving the Lord. The word serving is actually formed out of the word doulos. And if you've been attentive, you will note doulos is that word for slave. that word that Paul so often draws upon in talking about himself as being a bondservant to the Lord. Here he's saying, in a sense, be a slave for God. You are to be fervent in spirit in working out of an enslaved position before the Lord. You are to serve him. and him only. That's what the enslavement part is meaning here. Christ said that to Satan himself when he was tempted the third time in the wilderness. He said, away with you, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only you shall serve. And Paul is meaning the same type of service here, complete commitment, your life, a living sacrifice given to God in complete service for Him. Fervent in spirit and serving the Lord. There's a lot of good instruction here about how we are to live our life. And we've only went through nine, 10, 11. Only went through three of the verses. But I think it's a lot of information. And I think you're capturing the picture there. And I think there's things there for each of us to really meditate upon concerning our position about how we love one another without hypocrisy, clinging to the good and the kindly affection and brotherly love to show one for another and, you know, preferring the other, not being hesitant in acting diligently towards how we can help another, fervent in spirit, completely committed to the message of Christ, willing to be used by Him however He would desire, because our total service is to the Lord. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this message. Thank you for your word. It is so, so impactful for us. And Lord, we ask that you just help us clean house in our minds where we've allowed the furnishings of the world to take root and position in our worldview. Help us to create a transformed mind by the things that we're instructed here and how we are to think and in how we are to live. Lord, just work these things in our lives that we be a body of Christ that truly reflects what you have had Paul present for us in terms of what it means to be a Christian and part of your church. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.