Romans 12:9-11

Let's look together again in the book of Romans chapter 12 and we're going to read the first verse again and then move down the chapter to verse 9. Romans chapter 12 verse 1 I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service. Now we have been looking at the first eight verses up until now so tonight we're going to start at verse 9 and in contrast to the individuality of the gifts the following exhortations come to all of us equally. Verse 9 says let love be without dissimulation or hypocrisy abhor that which is evil cleave to that which is good be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love in honor preferring one another not slothful in business or we could translate that in diligence not slothful fervent in spirit serving the Lord rejoicing in hope patient in tribulation continuing instant in prayer distributing to the necessity of Saints given to hospitality bless them which persecute you bless and curse not rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep be of the same mind one toward another mind not high things but condescend to men of low estate be not wise in your own conceits recompense to no man evil for evil provide things honest in the sight of all men if it be possible as much as life in you live peaceably with all men dearly beloved avenge not yourselves but rather give place unto wrath for it is written vengeance is mine I will repay saith the Lord therefore if an enemy hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head be not overcome of or by evil but overcome evil with good now I would have to acknowledge that in most of the years that I have been preaching and teaching and speaking on Romans chapter 12 I have nearly always focused almost exclusively in the first eight verses I have taken up the subject in relation to spiritual gifts a number of times and given the familiar exhortation of verse one to present your bodies a living sacrifice unto God but I have been very strongly impressed just this past year the past few months in studying through the book of Romans again to see the impact of nine down to the end of the chapter and I want you to remember that this is still the outflow of verse one all that we are looking at tonight is based on the assumption that we have placed ourselves at the disposal of the Lord Jesus that we have recognized that we belong to him we owe our life to him at the wisest most intelligent most reasonable most logical response to the wonderful salvation that we have experienced is to simply lay ourselves out for his use now he's telling us how he wants us to live he's telling us what use he wants to make use of us with we've been looking at spiritual gifts it's a very important facet of our Christian experience but when we come to this verse again I will have to acknowledge that in the last year particularly I have been more strongly impressed than I ever have in my life before with the supreme importance of love if we have missed the importance of love we have actually missed the mind of God and we strongly emphasize truth and we strongly emphasize the idea of upholding a pattern of worship a pattern of Christian life a pattern of assembly gathering but we must recognize that what God wants supremely from us is that the love of his son would be reproduced in our lives if we fail in this we have failed in everything and whatever else we uphold we are missing the essential thing there are a number of verses that I could quote you to you tonight that would highlight that emphasis that is given to us in the scriptures if you think about John chapter 13 through 17 the final night that the Savior is with his own before the crisis of the cross is going to unfold and bring such disaster into their lives he's going to leave them he's going to leave them here in this world to continue his work and what is the one supreme command and charge that he gives to them this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you that you love one another if we recognize as first John chapter 4 teaches us that love is of God because God is love if you can have a text that expresses God and defines God in such a brief sentence that can says God is love it must be telling us that we are really touching the essence of God we are touching the essence of spiritual life we're not talking about something that is secondary peripheral optional we are talking about what is essential to spiritual relationship with God whatever else you know about God whatever else that we can learn about God must be in harmony with this essential reality God is love now in this passage then we see as so often in the list of virtues or a list of exhortations love is either given at the very beginning of it as the foundation of it all or it is given to us as the crowning virtue of them all and again there's a number of other passages that we could go to to show that but here almost every exhortation that follows is hinged upon this is related to this and I'll just mention some of the grammar that is not so apparent in our English translation but when it says in verse 9 let love be without dissimulation or without hypocrisy abhor that which is evil cleave to that which is good it's actually I'll give it to you as it literally would be abhorring that which is evil cleaving to that which is good so in other words that's showing a more immediate connection to the first exhortation let love be genuine abhorring that which is evil cleaving to that which is good and in the next verse as well actually contains that same kind of structure and continues as you go down through the verse the verses how many times you have an ING verb wherever you get ING verbs rejoicing serving abhorring cleaving preferring all of these that you have distributing as you go down through and there's some of them again that aren't here in the English translation but are there in the original they're all linking back to a main clause that goes before that or explaining it and so I'm what I'm trying to emphasize is that this is the primary exhortation of this section let love be genuine let love be without hypocrisy so why is he emphasizing that well if truly love is the most important most essential of everything of our spiritual life then the protection of our love from corruption should be a priority in our lives so this is talking about protecting the love that is within us now remember that God has placed his spirit within us God indwells us and God is love and he wants that love to be in control of our life but somewhere there's a filter between God and our souls and I wonder if the filter is getting plugged I wonder if there's hindrances one of the important things involved in the protection of love is brought out in this idea of hypocrisy what is hypocrisy well it seems to be all too familiar doesn't it if I was to ask you tonight do you know any hypocrites probably every believer has a short list if not a long list of people that don't seem to ring true or there's things about them that just seem inconsistent you know whether fairly or unfairly there are many young people growing up in Christian homes who turn away from Christianity because they see us as hypocrites sometimes it's because they hear us preach about love and then show something other than love in our relationships they may not understand all the issues that affect us but they do pick up on the attitudes that we show the behaviors that we manifest in our relationships with one another and so it really does matter hypocrisy is pretending and the scriptures actually give us some important material to think about because we can be hypocritical in good in doing things to be seen to be approved of men and so on but hypocrisy also and I'm thinking primarily of it in the context that we have here with the following warning to a poor that which is evil hypocrisy is the cover-up that permits evil to go and develop you see there are many evils that would never be able to gain mastery in our lives without the cover of hypocrisy so whenever you find in any relationship where you start keeping things hidden you're not telling the whole truth you're holding back information you're disguising your real feelings you're lapsing into this hypocrisy you could almost take it as a given that whatever has to be kept hidden kept secret is identifying itself as evil and so this really gives to us one of the important protections one of the very first lines of defense against the corrupting of our love is simply to live honestly to be genuine to live in the light and primarily that is to live in the light of God's presence that expression the fear of the Lord really means to live in the awareness of God present and if you and I were truly conscious of God present with us we shouldn't be able to sin we shouldn't be able to allow sin to work within our minds to contemplate evil let alone to practice it and so the fear of the Lord will lead us to abhor evil now I remember mr. Adams I don't know if he was ever down this way mr. Arnold Adams he was a gem of a preacher and one of the things that I always appreciated about him is that he seemed to be able to just bring you into the presence and the consciousness of God every time he taught us and spoke to us being around him just made you almost feel a little bit closer to God that was just these almost the atmosphere in which he lived but one of his he had many quaint sayings but one of them was this that hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue now that's kind of a proverb hypocrisy is the homage that pays to virtue and what it means very simply is this virtue which is anything that is honorable anything that is good doesn't need to be ashamed doesn't need to cover up anything virtue draws to itself appreciation admiration glory and honor vice on the other hand which is anything that is wicked immoral unrighteous it's ugly it's disgusting it's dishonorable and so hypocrisy is used to cover up to protect from what vice draws to itself and so basically what it's saying is that most people have the tendency to hide their sin and by the fact that they hide it they're acknowledging that it's wrong and that there is something more noble and that's virtue and so then putting it in the context of this let love be without hypocrisy he is saying this let this be your first line of defense don't become a hypocrite don't become a pretender be genuine be sincere in your care and interest towards other people and as I said abhor that which is evil cleave to that which is good it's really abhorring that which is evil cleaving to that which is good now it's interesting that both of these expressions abhor and cleave are very very strong relationship terms what does it mean to abhor well the word has the word hate in it and it also has the idea of of shrinking back from so it's not just that you stay away from but you actually shudder and pull away from because you hate it you detest it you abhor it and so this is a very strong term and I would just like to ask the question if we have lost our ability to abhor evil I think we're all aware to some extent that our culture has made a deliberate attempt to blur the difference between good and evil and there has been a deliberate attempt to desensitize us to what is morally abhorrent and I think especially in terms of relationships you know when you hear people talk about some couple breaking up and moving on to another partner it's it's related just as if it's just perfectly normal as if it isn't a tragedy as if the children who are left in that awful mess as if they'll just adapt and keep on rolling on in life with no problems there is this this atmosphere of denying the the damage the harm that evil causes and really the word for evil here emphasizes that aspect of evil it's not just talking about the fact that it's wicked but the fact that it brings harm it causes damage it's destructive and so he says I want you to protect your love your interest and involvement in other people I want you to protect it from causing any harm to them my love for you should never bring harm to you it should never destroy you and that's what divides the line between good and evil righteousness and unrighteousness what is moral and what is immoral and so today we are confronted with this challenge as Christians we must see the difference between light and darkness good and evil and it must be a sharp distinction just this year there's a Christian family in one of the assemblies up in the territory where I come from that's been devastated it was what this cup this couple and this family would have been considered one of the strongest families in the assembly but back maybe about January or so we had seen a change happening in the wife particularly in the family some of the changes you know you just kind of observe and you wonder what does this mean she was a very very strong family oriented person everything revolved around her family and and keeping them keeping the world out but we could see this the subtle change that was happening but she started getting involved with an old acquaintance on Facebook someone that she actually had a relationship with as a teenager and at first she was trying to testify trying to witness to this man her husband found out about it and warned her to stop it to leave it well enough alone but she went undercover she started covering up kept on with it and it was only a matter of a couple of months and she was again hypocritically pretending to be visiting some Christians a little further away and making a trip to go and see him it has torn the family apart it has torn her apart I I wonder if she will be able to survive mentally what she's doing she has been back and forth to her family probably six or seven times and it's like she comes back everything's normal and then a switch turns and off she goes again it seems to be almost final now tragically because it's so hard to come back and face the reality they had a significant testimony in the community they were quite well known and so to come back and to face the shame is almost too much that's the tragedy of evil if you yield to it it not only brings you the disaster the devastation at the time but it makes it so hard to come back to what is right and so we today are faced with almost unlimited opportunities to be deceitful to have avenues of connecting with people in ways that are hidden for a time and that's unfortunately what technology has permitted and I have a computer I have internet and so on as I see over and over again these dating sites all of these ads that are always popping up all these kinds of things it makes me realize just how easy it could happen that someone is just in a moment of whatever curiosity or loneliness or frustration in the relationship or whatever it might be falls into that snare so we need to be very strongly challenged that our love would be kept in its purity in its honorable character of a pouring what is corrupt damaging and destructive and the word that is used for cleaving to that which is good again is actually a term used of marriage what God has joined together is the same word what God has joined together and it really is the word to glue together now you know when you glue something together it's not something that you intend to put together and take apart put together and take apart it's glued it's meant to be stuck together permanently and we are to be bonded to good bonded to what is beneficial what is righteous and holy and if you remember that first Corinthians chapter 6 again in warning in the context against immorality tells us reminds us that he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit and that really emphasizes that in every moment every moment of my life I share that moment with the Lord Jesus Christ my relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ is an eternal relationship on the deepest level of my existence I can never never be separate from him so that means I involve him in everything I am doing even in my thoughts and so this passage then is challenging us that in the deepest core of our being love might rain in all its goodness in all its beneficial effect and that we would continually shudder and shrink back from anything that is evil you notice the next verse relates now to our affection our emotional warmth to our brethren and sisters in the Lord Jesus verse 10 says be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love in honor preferring one another now that expression and I'll give you how the Derby translation gives us it's much the same it just gives a little different emphasis as to brotherly love kindly affectioned towards one another as to honor each taking the lead in paying it to the other what is the emotional atmosphere of the assembly is it kindly affection is it a warm loyalty as belongs to a family relationship it you know family squabble families have their quarrels but there is an underlying love and loyalty that seems to stick the problem that we have in our Christian relationships is that we allow problems and there's no denying that we all run into conflicts and problems and issues in assembly life we allow ourselves to begin to think distantly of one another and often when I'm listening to believers I'll hear they they they and there's not that sense of we as a bond as it's us if it's their problem it's our problem because it's all us when we allow relationships to become distant and that emotional closeness is destroyed all kinds of evil flourishes and so often it seems that when problems happen and when issues are confronted it never seems to get completely resolved or there's always a residual damage and in effect you know the longer I live in Christian relationships the more I value harmony and closeness carefulness and handling one another because this is saying that the way I act and the way I react should be controlled by this care for the relationship this acknowledgment of this other believer as being my brother as being my sister that's the kind of warmth and loyalty that is demanded of us by the Lord himself and so we have to challenge our hearts what is the character of our relationships be kindly affection to one another with brotherly love remember Hebrews chapter 2 where the Lord Jesus declares that he is not ashamed to call us brethren he acknowledges us in relationship with himself there's another passage that I'm just going to remind you of in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 3 in verse 15 do you remember in Thessalonica which was a persecuted assembly they were going through a lot of hardship very quickly after getting saved but even in the midst of all the external persecution and so on there was actually internal problems taking place and one of those problems was kind of an odd one in that some of them didn't think they needed to work and some of them were just kind of becoming nuisances among the Saints whether they thought they were too spiritual to work I'm not sure what their problem was but they are warned in the first epistle then they are actually admonished again through the second epistle and then a further action is called for if they neglect to hear the word of God and yet for all that he closes with this little balancing truth he says yet count him not as an enemy but admonish him as a brother so could we honestly ask ourselves how are we thinking of fellow Christians have we got to the place we're actually thinking of them as an enemy you know what I find in Christians who do this is what we do is we build a framework we have basically framed them in that framework and everything they do everything they say we keep in that framework we think we know their motivations we think we understand why they say what they say and I have been involved just in the last year and a half with trying to mediate between believers who have had some long-standing issues with one another and it's just so heart-rending to listen to believers who cannot see anything good in one another and they don't believe that the other has any genuine care toward them all they can see is hostility and enmity and negative unspiritual things in each other and yet there I can see a lot of wonderful characteristics in all of them I wonder how the Lord feels because he loves each one he cares about each one and he is actually calling us to share in his impartial unchanging interest and care in all his people and this is part of the control that he longs that we would have for one another be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love in honor preferring one another what does that mean that means that I should be anxious to see you honored and this again I want you to understand that every one of these exhortations are linked to love very simply if I love somebody I'm delighted when that person is honored when I hear something good about someone that I really love well I'm delighted to hear that I'm pleased to hear something positive something honoring about that person and so this is saying our attitude towards one another should be that we're always wanting to uphold that person we're always wanting to protect their honor and to promote their honor that's part of love isn't it that's one of the marriage vows to love honor and cherish in honor preferring one another and that also comes out down in verse 16 where again we have a challenge about minding high things condescending to men of low estate really it's talking about an attitude of me promoting myself or me preferring to promote someone else it's a real test of my genuine care for another person now let's think about the next verse not slothful in business or as other translations will give indeligence not slothful fervent in spirit serving the Lord now you might say to yourself now what does that got to do with love well I want to just try to explain and I'm going to take you through some of the Proverbs because the Proverbs has quite a bit to say about being slothful now I'm sure there's some of you here who don't understand what slothful means because you don't have a lazy bone in your body but there are some of us who tend to be short on motivation we tend to thrive under external motivation because we're not as highly motivated within ourselves naturally so what is this really getting at in diligence not slothful do you know that you can do as much damage through slothfulness as somebody else might do through deliberate malice and evil let me just give you a few of the verses and in the contrast the emphasis on diligence diligence is that day by day faithfulness consistency that gradually builds that gradually brings benefit now Proverbs 12 and 24 I'm going to I've got them all written down here so you don't have to turn to them all but I'll quote them to you Proverbs 12 and 24 says the hand of the diligent shall bear rule but the slothful shall be under tribute and then in verse 27 of same chapter the slothful man roasts not that which he took in hunting but the substance of a diligent man is precious what is that telling us that is telling us that a diligent person will make use of what is given into his hands and because he is consistently making good use of his time of his energy of his opportunities he's going to make progress whereas slothfulness is the same thing in the opposite direction where we're careless about what comes into our hands we're not making use of the opportunities that we have and we let them slip by and at the end of a day we might not notice much difference at the end of a month you could probably see a difference in those two lives starting to settle in at the end of a year at the end of five years at the end of 20 years you could see a tremendous difference in two lives one lived in diligence the other being slothful the hand of the diligent shall bear rule that means someone who is diligent is is gaining progressing developing in ability and character that will in it and in some future time equip him to be able to manage and rule whereas the slothful man will end up being under somebody else's rule because he really can't manage his own business let alone manage anything bigger what this emphasizes is the power of gradual accumulating effect both for gain and for loss so that means that day by day fellowship with God matters day by day meditation in the Word of God day by day obedience to his principles following the Word of God doing what is good fulfilling righteousness day by day by day walking with God is going to build a life that is not only personally stable and strong and prosperous but beneficial to others and what impresses me in thinking about slothfulness in this context is not only slothfulness terribly wasteful but it's awfully ungrateful God has given to us blessings and if we just let them fritter away we are being ungrateful to the God who has provided for us and I'll give you a few more verses Proverbs 15 and 19 says the way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns but the way of the righteous is made plain now if you can just picture that contrast a nice clear highway or trying to walk through a thorn bush going lengthwise a hedge it'd be pretty painful almost impossible this is saying that slothfulness has this accumulating effect of making progress almost impossible and it's put in contrast with the righteous man so here again just linking it back to the good and evil of verse 9 we may never intend to be harmful we may never have harsh hateful thoughts malicious thoughts to hurt someone else around us but by simply being neglectful the final outcome and effect of our life upon theirs is one of harm rather than blessing and so it's put in contrast to righteousness so putting it simply we cannot be an example we cannot be a beneficial effect righteously for God if our lives are disabled by slothfulness Proverbs 18 and 9 says he also that a slothful and his work is brother to him that is a great waster there's a number other ones too but there's one that I've always been impressed by because coming from a farming background in Proverbs 24 verse 30 to 34 says I went by the field of the slothful and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding and lo it was all grown over with thorns and nettles had covered the face thereof and the stone wall thereof was broken down then I saw and considered it well and I looked upon it and received instruction yet a little sleep a little slumber a little folding of the hands to sleep so shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth and I want as an armed man so we could call this the the power of creeping destruction you know you would not likely go out and burn your barn down or burn your house down deliberately but you can let it fall down by neglect by not keeping the roof properly covered and things like that and it's so sad that so often damage and ill effect follows because we fail to maintain what is of God what he has given us so I hope your farm doesn't look like this I remember after we sold our farm and the man who took it over always reminded me of Ecclesiastes where Solomon lamented about no matter how much you do and accomplish in your life you're gonna leave it to someone else and you don't know if he's gonna be a wise man or a fool everything just went gradually to shambles but is that what our assembly is like where the gradual accumulating effects of things not done not wrongs deliberately done but just the good that never did get done whether it's teaching exhortation meditation meditation visiting so often we think of it we know we should do it and then we manage to talk ourselves out of it and sometimes we see believers who are starting to spiritually fade and we recognize that something is happening but we just don't intervene we don't act and it's like seeing a disaster in slow motion and somehow we let it happen and so this is a I'm linking it now with love in this sense my slothfulness is a failure in love to my brother and sisters it's not only dishonoring my Lord but it is damaging to my brothers and sisters and you notice what he says here indeligence not slothful fervent in spirit serving the Lord this is what is meant to to preserve us from settling down into this apathetic slothful condition to be fervent in spirit to be on fire to be serving the Lord if we actually remembered day by day I am serving the Lord today I am the Lord's servant wherever I am whatever my job is whatever my realm of services I am serving the Lord there today we should serve him fervently zealously diligently making the best use of the opportunities that come to our hands I'll have to leave that my time has just about evaporated I guess not slothful in business fervent in spirit serving the Lord now I really don't have time to start into the next verse but I'll just make a couple of comments about it this is a little trilogy rejoicing in hope patient and tribulation continuing instant in prayer or persevering in prayer try to think about those three together I would suggest these are really drawing attention to our own personal relationship with the Lord particularly and the strength of that relationship and I like to think of verse 12 as a triangle a triangle is one of the strongest formations they can withstand the most force and this is like a triangle where each of these sides of the triangle help to strengthen the other two and so I'll leave that with you to think about and we'll try to pick up from there tomorrow night we're going and see if we can cover a little bit at least least of the rest of the chapter shall we pray our gracious God and Father at times we are overwhelmed with the recognition of how much time we have wasted how many opportunities we have neglected and how much more fruitful the vineyard of the Lord could be if we had been diligent our father we are not really capable of measuring this thou alone art able to know the true health of every individual the true health of every assembly and what our individual lives and what our assemblies would be represented by what type of vineyard what type of farm our father we would seek in my presence to be challenged and to be renewed in our service to thee renew our fervency rekindle within us the desires to live for thee to make use of our lives as they fade away so quickly our God we are troubled as we think of how time evaporates and what time is left and so we draw near to thee and would seek that thou might move graciously and yet powerfully in our lives to revive our hearts that we might have a renewal of fervency of spirit that we might serve thee devotedly and we ask that thou might help us to to manifest in our relationships to one another that overcoming love that is able to overcome evil we beseech thee for this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ amen