Romans 12, 9-21 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in 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. Bless those who persecute you, bless, and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion. Repay no one evil for evil. have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath. For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him drink. For in so doing, you will keep coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." A reading of God's word. We pray that he would bless it to our hearts. Amen. This morning, you guys are in luck, because I will be answering one of the most burning questions out there in our culture today. And it's been a burning question for many years, and the question that you might have guessed is, what is true love? This question appears in all kinds of movies these days, kinds of Disney movies especially. It's there in songs. It's a love story, baby, just say yes. Some of you might know that song. What is love? Great burning question there in many songs. It's been a question, I mean, Shakespeare talked about this. Is love a fancy or a feeling? Tell me where is fancy bred? Or in the heart or in the head? How begot, how nourished? I don't even know what that means, but it has something to do with love. This question of true love is a very important one to us. But, as you also know, too often that is answered wrongly. The question is right! What is love and how do I do it? That's a very good question to ask, but it's so often answered wrongly. Love is what I feel. Love is what makes me feel good. Here, in Romans 12, 9-21, Paul teaches us what true love is. In verse 9, Paul says, let your love be without hypocrisy. That's a fine way of translating that, but a better way might be, or even another way might be, let your love be genuine, or even true. And this very general command, along with the one right next to it, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good, basically determines and dictates the general truth which is applied in all kinds of circumstances in verses 10 through 21. In other words, verse 9 gives us a general command, and verses 10 through 21 give us practical ways of doing this command. And the command is to let your love be genuine. So the answer to what genuine love is, is given here in these 13 verses. And these verses here have basically 30 commands or imperatives. So therefore, I will break down the sermon into 30 parts. April fools. Break it down into three parts. I'm trying to group them all together here. They're very, it's kind of a hard passage to do, not because, I mean it's really crystal clear in understanding, it's not that, it's just that some of these commands are tough to categorize and to do so in a way that's logical. But anyway, I did it here in three parts. And here are the three parts, and this is what I want you to get. True love is one, given to service. Two, empathizing with others, or empathizes with others. And three, lives in peace. Lives peaceably, as our translation says. Given to service, empathizes with others, and lives in peace. And we'll try to unpack that as we go through. Beginning with the first one. true love is given to service. And this is both in attitude and in action. Paul here teaches us how true love serves. And, I might note here beginning, Paul here is not making these things up. He's not simply saying, this is what I think true love or love should be like. Paul here has an example in Jesus Christ. In every way here, in all all three parts here, we'll be able to see that Paul is following Christ's example. Christ, of course, washed the feet of his disciples. That was an act of service. It was a symbolic act of service there, which basically was fulfilled in all that he did, ending in, of course, his going to the cross for us. That was the ultimate act of service to us. And Christ encouraged us to follow his example. So the greatest one of you will be the one who serves, even as the Son of Man came, not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. True love is given to service because Christ served others. And what is the attitude of service? Paul reveals not just what we are to do in serving one another, but also what our attitude should be like when we do so. In verse 10, the first part, and also in verses 11 and 12, Paul teaches us this attitude. First verse 10, be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love. When we serve one another, here the context is still basically within the church, we are not to do so as though it were drudgery, or as though it were simply duty. We are to be kindly affectionate with one another. We are to show brotherly love, and you guys know what that word is behind that, right? Philadelphia. Of course, this place is a perfectly named city where we all show brotherly love to one another. I only am half-joking. I have found many people here who are warm, once you get over the rough exterior. We are to show kindly affection and brotherly love as we serve one another. This, in other words, is to be from the heart. It's not drudgery. It's not simply duty. We are to be fervent in spirit, as Paul says in verse 11. Not lagging in diligence or eagerness. Not being lazy and eagerness is what it really means, literally. And doing so as though we were serving the Lord, as Paul says in verse 11. Because, in essence, that's what we are doing. When we serve one another, we are serving the Lord. Because this is what He commanded us to do. So it's not simply our actions, it's our attitude of service. how we serve one another, we must be kindly and affectionate, and we must also have brotherly love, and do all these other things, be fervent in spirit, and not lagging in diligence. I remember one weekend when I was young, I was probably about fifteen years old or sixteen, We were, my brother and I, we were pretty big even then. And so, people always asked us to move, help them move. And of course, this was just a terrible aspect of being big, because I hated, I hated moving. I could do it, I could lift up the heavy things, but it's hard work. You know, you have done it. And so, drudgingly, I remember we went to this family's house, and my brother and I moved all their stuff. And they even made us wake up at 9.30 in the morning. on a Saturday, and this was just unacceptable for us then, so we did it so drudgingly. We did it! They were very appreciative for us, but was that really what the Bible teaches us to do? Is that really what our calling is? We are to do so with diligence and eagerness and being kindly affectionate toward one another, and that is not the way we are to serve. My example, it is as Paul says here, we are also to be rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, steadfast in prayer. Now those can be very broadly applied, but here in terms of service, we are to serve one another, always rejoicing of our hope in Christ Jesus. Our hope in Christ Jesus is not only just an example for us, it's a reason for hope. Because He has redeemed us. Patient in tribulation. Why? Earlier in Romans chapter 8, Paul tells us why. In chapter 8, Paul tells us that we are now basically groaning with the creation. Awaiting the sons of God, the revelation of the sons of God. but we are to be patient in this because we know that Christ has accomplished it and he will come back to make it happen once and for all. So that's the attitude we are to have when we serve one another. Now on to the actions. What does service look like? I get this from verse 10b and also 13. Verse 10b says, in honor giving preference to one another. And verse 13 reads, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. Those three there from those two verses we'll be discussing. In honor, giving preference to one another. What does that mean, to give preference to one another? Well, I think what it means is to praise and honor others and not seek that for ourselves. To not have our world revolve around ourselves. Too often when we come to church, we basically judge and evaluate the church. Does this church love me? Does this church, will it fulfill my needs? Will it do all these things for me? Everything is revolving around me and I constantly am judging the church based upon how it treats me. But this is not. what we are called to do. We are called to look for ways to honor others, give preference to them. We cannot serve unless we are giving preference to others. When you think it's all about yourself, you're not going to be able to serve anybody. And that will not only impoverish the church, it will also impoverish you. Because as a Christian, this is what you are called to do. And when you do not, you are living in sin. Secondly, distributing to the needs of the saints. Distributing to the needs of the saints. A heartfelt generosity toward Christ, toward his church, and toward her needs. A heartfelt generosity. Now this, I think, is a weakness here, not in our particular church, but in general in the Christian culture. Too often, I think, there are many books on money out there, and many of them are good. But they focus on one of the two aspects of biblical teaching concerning money. How to be wise with your money. how to invest and how to, you know, not get in debt. This is great. I'm not saying for a second that we shouldn't have those books and have that teaching. That's good. But there's a whole other side to the Bible's teaching on money that oftentimes will get ignored, and that is being generous with your money. Now, this isn't that difficult to conceptually understand, but how difficult is it to actually do it? And the Bible calls us to be radically generous with our money. Think of the apostles, think of the early church in Acts, selling their property and laying that money at the apostles' feet. Think of the churches that Paul goes to in the Corinthian correspondence and also in Galatians. All those churches, those are poor churches and Paul is saying, give in your poverty. He uses the illustration of Macedonia. in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. These people were poor, he said, but they gave. They were rich in their poverty. They gave and they were generous in order to help the even more poor church in Jerusalem. This radical type of generosity is what the Bible teaches us to do. Think about all those calls to be generous with your money in all of the Bible, especially in the New Testament there, in the Gospels and in Paul. a heartfelt generosity that hurts our pocketbook. Too often, this is, by the way, the idea behind Malachi, when people are giving lame and blind sacrifices to the Lord. And, of course, they're supposed to give the ones that are unblemished. And they're giving these animals that they wouldn't use anyway. And God says, I don't have any time for that at all. Why are you giving me your worst when you should be giving me your best? It's not that God needs the unblemished one, God doesn't need any of the sacrifices. The point is, our giving should be our best. Our giving should be out of a heart of generosity towards the church and her needs. And this is how we serve one another, is by giving. Secondly, or thirdly here, given to hospitality. Hospitality, verse 13b, given to hospitality, simply. This is another very emphasized virtue in scripture. If you think of the Old Testament example of Abraham. Remember when the people came, when they're angels, but Abraham doesn't know it at that time. They come, and he tells Sarah to go slaughter the fatted calf, and go eat some bread, and do it quickly because people are here, and we need to serve them, and we need to be hospitable toward them. Of course, Abraham is seen as an example here, because in Hebrews 13, verse 2, He says that make sure you entertain strangers because in doing so some have entertained angels in disguise and I think he's actually referring back to Abraham there. This is an example for us. This is also often forgotten here is the importance of hospitality and especially towards one another, especially towards the family. I remember when I went to Lebanon and you guys know the story of when I went to Lebanon. that crazy story in the airport, but I don't want to dwell on that part. I want to dwell on the other aspects of that trip, which are much more positive. When I finally got out of the airport, I went to the house of my cousin. I call him my cousin, but I've never met him before. He has the same last name as me, but we've never met. He's lived in Lebanon all of his life, I lived here in America, and yet, and yet, I was treated with such unusual kindness it really blew my mind. I felt like a stuffed animal coming home. I ate so much food. And he took us to all the sites. He took us to the cedars up in the mountains. There's a wonderful, by the way, underground river in the caves. It's just unbelievable down there. And these are different parts of Lebanon, all the safe parts of Lebanon. He took us to Byblos, the old city there. Just amazing things. He paid for everything. If I even poured out my money to pay, you'd get angry and upset. No, you don't pay anything. You are my guest. Why? Why did he do that? Because I was part of his family, even though we'd never met. We are all one family here, and we are to show a similar type of hospitality to one another. This is what God calls us to do in serving one another. One of the most practical ways of serving one another is feeding one another. And I say that not only as one who loves to eat, but also as one who knows that food is a great way of getting to know people and to share your life with others over a meal. So, the actions of service is giving preference to others, distributing to the needs of the saints, and being given to hospitality. Okay, true love is given to service. Secondly, true love empathizes with others. And by empathize, I don't simply mean a feeling, feeling sorry for others, or feeling like others would be, but also in action, acting on that feeling. And this is also like Christ. Christ mourned for his people, even though he knew that he wasn't sinful like they were, and he wasn't a part of that, in that respect, he still mourned for Jerusalem. O Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, You who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you. How I have longed to gather you under my wings, but you would not listen. Christ not only felt this, but he also acted on it. He associated with those who were lowly. Prostitutes, the poor. He did these things. He identified with the humble. And so Paul urges us to do the same thing. First in attitude, but also in action. In Attitude, we see this in verse 16. Paul says here, be of the same mind toward one another. Now, this is an interesting way of putting it, but the word mind here is much more broad than what we think of it. We think of mind as simply our thinking faculty, that part of us which thinks. But here, the word behind us is much more broad than that. It has to do with our whole feeling and thinking, everything we are inside. We are to be of the same mind. And this doesn't simply mean to agree with one another, although that's part of it. It also means to empathize with one another. When someone is down, you want to feel down too. When someone is rejoicing, you want to rejoice too. Be of the same mind with one another. We are members of one another, as Paul says earlier in Romans chapter 12. Therefore, when one of us is hurting, we all hurt. When one of us is rejoicing, we all rejoice. And connected to that, Paul says to not be wise in your own opinion. Not be wise in your own opinion, but associate with the lowly. Being wise in your own opinion will make it very difficult for you to empathize with others. Why? Because people who are wise in their own opinion only care about themselves. and their own opinion. And everything is revolving around them. And it's all about them and their own thoughts, and their own feelings, and their own teachings. Because they are wise in their own opinion. It's not simply, Paul is not saying here, not to have confidence in what you believe. Of course we do, because it's based on the scriptures. Paul here is not saying to make sure you give disclaimers for everything you say about truth. Well, I'm just a humble person here. and I'm just my own feeble opinion, and sometimes Christians get into that, and that's not exactly what Paul's saying. He's talking about that arrogance which makes it clear that everything revolves around yourself and your own opinions and your own thoughts and your own actions and feelings. That's what Paul is against here, and it will not allow you to empathize with others within the congregation. That is the attitude of being empathetic with others, but it is also an action. You can't simply leave it there. You can't simply say, oh, I feel bad for you and then not do anything. We must act on it. And the first thing Paul says in our action here is to associate with the lowly. Associate with those who are in humble circumstances. Do not think of yourself so highly. Again, the Gospel teaches us to think otherwise. The Gospel says that Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, male and female, barbarian, Scythian, Greek, all of us, we all come in on the same terms. We are all sinners, we are all condemned before God, and we are all justified by faith and by faith alone. Therefore, we are to associate with those who are lowly. They are not different than us in that ultimate, that foundational way. So we are to associate with them. Paul also says to rejoice with those who are rejoicing. This is an action as well as a feeling. Because rejoicing is also going over to them and saying, I am rejoicing with you. This is actually quite hard to do. There is something about human beings which hates it. I say fallen human beings, which hates it when people are happy, when others around us are happy. for a couple reasons. One simply is because we want everyone to be as miserable as we are. Another is we become jealous of those rejoicing around us. Especially it becomes hard to rejoice with those who are rejoicing when you wanted to be in that person's place, when you wanted that job, when you wanted that spouse, or etc. in many different ways. It's very difficult to rejoice with those who are rejoicing. We think to ourselves, why not me? I've been faithful to God. I've done this over and over again. I've followed God's law, and yet God has not rewarded me, but he has rewarded this person over here who did this, this and that against God, or et cetera. We get rationalized. Resist that temptation. It's so easy to do. Instead, rejoice with those who are rejoicing, because we are one body. We are members of one another. And this is what love does. And this is what love looks like. It's a lot harder than it looks like in the movies. In the movies, it looks pretty easy. You have these great feelings for one another. And then maybe, if it's a wholesome movie, they get married. And then the credits roll. And none of the hard parts are there. But this is hard. And this is what love really looks like. Secondly, we mourn with those who mourn. Again, this is not an easy thing for us to do. It's difficult to mourn. We'd rather kind of stay out of it, especially when those over whom your friends are mourning were not so connected with you. This is a very difficult thing to do, because we have to invest emotionally in the people who are mourning. And when you mourn, it's not a good feeling. It's not a happy feeling. It's an emotional investment. We would rather not, honestly. But the Bible teaches us to do so, because this is what love looks like. We mourn with those who mourn. And in doing so, we exhibit true love. and we act like Christ himself. So, we've seen that true love is given to service, we've seen how it empathizes with others, now let's move on to the last part here, true love lives in peace. Verse 18, if it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men, or we might even say, live in peace with all men. Paul here is a realist. He's not one of those people who says, peace at any price. He knows that our commitment to Christ will eventually cause controversy. And though we do not want that, we don't invite that, it's inevitable. So he says, so much as it depends on you. But there is an attitude among Christians that says we should go look for fights, or at least may not say that. But that's the attitude. I once saw a Calvin and Hobbes. I'm not really a Calvin and Hobbes. I don't really like cartoons. I mean, it's not that one in particular. But I saw one that was really, really funny. I really laughed. It had Calvin there, had a snowball in his hand. He had about 30 or 40 other ones behind him. And he said, now all I need is enemies. And this type of attitude is prevalent in the church. All the guns are loaded. All the wagons are circled. Everyone's there ready for war. Now let's just look for enemies and call them heretics. Let's look for enemies and kick them out of the church. Now, the church needs to fight. And Paul says here, as so much as it depends on you, I am not, for a second, saying that we need to be wishy-washy. But live in peace. That type of mentality, which is always looking for war, is unbiblical. That party spirit is denounced over and over and over again in scripture. We need to be cautious about that. One way we may promote peace is by not returning evil for evil, curse for curse, but returning blessing for curse, and good for evil. Paul develops this a lot here in 14. Bless those who persecute you, and bless and do not curse. 17. Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. 19-21. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink, for in doing so you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." This attitude of blessing when you are cursed, of giving good when evil is done to you, this is one way of promoting peace, and it is commanded strongly here in these verses. It also is like Christ. This, more than anything, is like Christ. Christ forgave from the cross. He taught us to love our enemies, and not only did He teach us that, He lived that. And so, we are charged to do so. Positively, we are to pray for the ones persecuting us, and bless them. It's very easy to want to take vengeance want to take revenge into your own hands, especially when there is a legitimate reason for it. And we feel that justice must be served. And yes, justice must be served, but we are not the ones to serve it. As we will read later, that is God's own position. We must resist that. We must flash when we are cursed. We must do good when evil is done to us. Negatively, we do not take revenge, but leave room for wrath. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath." Here, it doesn't say, Paul doesn't use the word God, but it's quite clearly implied that wrath here refers to the wrath of God. And in context, it may not simply refer to the final judgment, when all things will be made right, that ultimately it does. I think it also has an eye toward Romans 13, when those who are instituted to have this authority, the government, are the ones who have this responsibility in the interim until God comes back to mete out these punishments to bring justice. So we are not to take a vengeance ourselves. It does not mean that we are not to be, that we don't care about justice at all, but it means that we are not to take personal revenge or avenge one another. Paul then quotes two Old Testament passages which make clear his point. Deuteronomy 32, 35, and Proverbs 25, 21, and 22. Deuteronomy 32 is a passage which you all know. It's actually, interestingly, the next part of this verse, Deuteronomy 32, 35, is, Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, and recompense. Their foot shall slip in due time. meaning that God is the one who will bring justice. And that is actually the phrase that Jonathan Edwards used in his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. That was the passage he used there. Their foot shall slip in due time, meaning that God will bring justice. The Old Testament, as well as the New Testament, teaches us that revenge is not something that we are to do, but God is the one who is to bring justice. Paul then quotes from Proverbs 25. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him drink. For in so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head." Talk about a lost metaphor. What does it mean to heap coals of fire onto one's head? There have been two views throughout the ages of what this last part of the phrase means. He can close a fire on his head. There are some who say that Paul, or Paul here is teaching that when we do not take revenge, this will actually cause God to be the one who takes revenge. So therefore, feeding your enemy and giving him drink actually is a means towards which God will punish people. And oftentimes this view is substantiated with the idea that often in scripture burning coals and fire images are images of judgment. And they are, and that's true. But I don't think that is the correct view. I think the other view, which burning coals and fire often here refer to perhaps shame or repentance. And there's a good article out there about how in surrounding cultures that people would put burning coals on their head when they were showing their own shame or repentance. Now, I don't know if Paul's aware of that or that Proverbs is aware of that, but I think that's the metaphor. That's Calvin's position, that's John Murray's position, and that is many other commentators on Roman's position. The point here would be that this act of kindness to your neighbor, to your enemy, would be the means through which God would bring this person to shame and repentance. And this would also be like God, because in Romans chapter 2, Paul says that God's kindness leads toward repentance. And therefore, as those created in the image of God, our own acts of kindness, especially when we are being shown nothing but malice and hatred. Our own acts of kindness is what brings people to repentance. It doesn't do it all the time. It may be a way to actually further the judgment of others that they could still reject, but this is one of the ways that God leads people to repentance. The movie Les Miserables comes to my mind. I probably pronounced that wrong, but, you know, anyway. Do you remember that scene there, or the book, or the movie, or the play, whatever one you want to do it, when, in the very beginning, when Jean Valjean's a crook, and he just gets out of jail. He got put in jail for stealing bread, and he just got out, 20 years of service. And he stays at the home of a bishop. And the moving scene there, in the middle of the night, he grabs all the silver candles, and all the silverware, and everything there, and leaves, and steals again. And he is caught, and he is brought back to the bishop. Instead of saying that, yes, this person stole from me, put him in jail, the bishop says, wait, you forgot these. I gave you these also. And he gets a bunch of other things and gives it to him. And of course, the policemen are befuddled, and they just leave. But that one act of kindness completely changed Valjean's whole life. It changed it. Instead of being one who is prone to steal, being one who is prone to be in misery over all the injustice that was done to him, he was reborn, he was changed, and he lived a life of showing kindness and grace to others. Now that's a story, but these things happen in real life. When we show kindness to others, especially those who have harmed us, when we give them food, when we give them drink, we are showing true love in the hardest possible way. And such things lead people often to repentance. I'll end these verses with the statement, do not overcome, be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. In the end, when we love one another in the ways here articulated, true love, not the fancy feeling that is so often masqueraded as love, when we do this, we are participating in that great event when all evil will be overcome and good will overtake all. There is a time when evil will be banished from this earth, sent away forever. And this earth will be renewed and restored. And Christ's victory over evil in the cross will be full over this whole earth. And the earth will be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, even as waters cover the sea. And when we do that, when we love one another, we are participating in an anticipatory way, that great event, when all evil will be overcome. So let's do it. Let's love one another. And let's do so in the ways here articulated. And let's hope and wait and pray for the day when evil and destruction will be gone forever. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, we thank you for the many encouragements we have here. The many admonitions we have here and the many prohibitions we have in this very dense set of commands. We thank you for their clarity, but we thank you also that we, by the Spirit of God, although not easy, can do these things. And we pray that we would. We pray that your Spirit would work in us, and that you would bless us, and that we would exhibit true love and bring about through it repentance and the defeat of evil itself. And this we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Turn this on 37.