Romans 12:9-20
Notes
Transcript
Marks of a True Christian
Marks of a True Christian
The last few weeks we have really honed in on the idea that none of us were good enough to save ourselves.
We understand that it was only by Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection from the dead that our sins are paid for.
We understand that as believers we are saved by faith and faith alone in Jesus Christ.
9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
So if there is nothing that we can do to earn salvation...
Why do we as Christians behave in certain ways.
For instance, why should we not get drunk? Why is lust bad? Why do I tell you to respect your parents or read the Bible?
After you have been saved you then begin living a life of spiritual worship to God.
After you have been saved, you should begin living your life YOUR ENTIRE LIFE as a spiritual worship to the Lord.
That means what you look at, what you say, how you treat others.
Because we have been transformed and made righteous through the blood of Christ.
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
As believers we are transformed as a result of our faith and because we have been transformed our lives are supposed to be lived differently then when we didn’t know Jesus.
If we continue to live the same life we used to live before we knew Christ then the Bible tells us that our faith is dead.
26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.
It is not that these works save us but they are the evidence of our faith.
If you were to declare that you were a chicken I would begin to look for the evidence of you being a bird.
Do you have wings
Do you like to peck at the ground
Do you lay eggs
Do you baggack!!!
If you did not have those characteristics I would say that you my friend are not a chicken.
You might be able to act like a chicken in some ways but ultimately we both know that you are not a chicken because I know what a chicken looks like when I see one because it looks and acts like a chicken
It’s also true for believers.
In fact tonight in the book of Romans we see a passage that many Bibles title Marks of the True Christian
Meaning that as a result of salvation because of your faith in Jesus you should try and live a certain way.
Not because you are trying to earn salvation, but because you have been changed and transformed by salvation.
Pray
Pray
9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
In the beginning of this portion of his letter Paul starts with talking about love.
After all, it was because of God’s love for us that we were saved in the first place.
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
This list can be boiled down to two commands and they both are rooted in the foundation of love
Love the Lord with all your heart soul mind and strength
Love your neighbor as yourself
Let love be genuine
But what does it look like to genuinely love others?
Culture today says that genuine love looks like accepting everyone and everything because that is love.
Love everyone because they are just living their truth.
We see this message in movies, music, art, schools, even some people that claim to teach the Bible are trying to say that true love is the acceptance of all lifestyles.
THAT IS NOT TRUE LOVE.
Sometimes love is telling people a hard truth so that they may be saved
I would not love my child if I let him do things that could harm him.
And we do not love people by letting them live in sin and darkness without telling them their is a better way to have life in Jesus.
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This is why Paul follows up this first statement by saying “abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good”
When we genuinely love others we do not always need to affirm them or accept their lifestyle, sometimes speaking the truth in love is what we are called to do as believers.
So with this foundation of truth Paul builds two pillars in which we love genuinely
Love the Lord
Love Others
Love the Lord
Love the Lord
11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
Vs. 11 starts out by first addressing our attitude towards God and our response to His love
Do not be slothful in zeal,
Be fervent in spirit
Serve the Lord
The phrase do not be slothful in zeal be fervent in spirit is actually a literary device Paul is using to make his argument.
They are two concepts that mean the same thing which drives Paul’s point home.
Don’t be lazy in your passion for God
If I was to tell someone about my family I am not going to act like they are just these boring people I occasionally talk to.
No! Why, because I know how talented and smart and beautiful my wife is, and I know how funny, and kind, and talented Titus is and I want others to know about that as well.
When I spend time with them even though I am tired I know that time with them will always leave me feeling more refreshed and centered than time on my phone or on netflix.
The same is true with Jesus.
We cannot be lazy in our passion for Jesus
We have access to a relationship with the King of the Universe and we are going to sit at His feet staring at our phones?
Jesus is waiting for us to pick up our the Bible, His words are written to encourage and strengthen and we are going to say we are too tired because we stayed up too late last night watching TV
When we talk about Him, do we talk about someone we know on a personal level or someone we only know because I stand up here every week and tell you guys about Him.
One last thing, passion or zeal does not come from the environment or the experience
DNOW is not more powerful spiritually then a Wednesday night Immerse at Hutto.
Remember, the explosion of the church where in one day 3000 people were saved and the Holy Spirit fell on believers happened in the upper room of a house with no instruments, lights, or fog machines, just the presence of believers who were passionate about what Jesus had promised them.
Notice that Paul doesn’t tell us to wait to feel God’s presence before we have zeal, he says be passionate always about Jesus! No matter what setting, because your life is lived as a spiritual form of worship.
And finally he says serve the Lord.
Your goal as a believer is not to be entertained by God your goal as a believer is to serve the Lord and in your serving you will find that there is joy and fulfillment that you can’t find anywhere else.
Why? because the greatest joy in the world is to do what you were created to do, serve the Lord as your spiritual act of worship.
For some of us that may look differently than for others.
Paul addresses this fact in verses 3-8 of Chapter 12.
Some are gifted in teaching, others in serving, others in leading, and others in giving money (like people that donate to send yall to summer camp)
None the less you are called to serve the Lord and it may NOT look like standing up on stage and teaching the bible or leading worship but it certainly does not look like sitting in a chair and listening to a sermon once a week.
It is good to gather together and listen to the word, it is good to worship together, these are things we should do as believers, but as much as we spend time being filled up we should also be pouring out into our communities and with the gifts God has given us
So I will ask you this one question to answer within your own heart and mind.
Where are you serving the Lord?
PAUSE and let them think
I know it is hard to serve the Lord especially when your having a hard day or a hard week or a hard month.
Paul knew this too when he says
12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
Remember, Romans is written to the Roman church to encourage them and strengthen them during a time of heavy persecution.
In this time Paul tells them to rejoice in hope (the hope that salvation is secured in Jesus Christ)
be patient in tribulation (knowing that one day our patience will pay off when we go to be with the Lord)
be constant in prayer (prayer is the way that we not only communicate with God but also align our desires and our will with God’s)
Paul then encourages the believers to contribute to the needs of the saints and to be hospitable
The reason why is because there were not hotels or Airbnb’s at this time.
If someone like Paul or Peter were traveling around and preaching the gospel they only had places to stay if fellow believers opened up their homes to them and contributed money to help them fund their journey.
In today’s culture this is why we as believers continue the spiritual discipline of tithing 10% of what we make to the church. Not so that pastors can get rich but so that ministry can continue to occur because believers have faithfully served the Lord.
So love starts first by understanding who we love the Lord.
After all it was Him who first loved us and showed us what love is.
So that that we understand what it means to love and serve the Lord we can look out to a hurting and broken world and we can love them as God would love them.
Not because we have to but because we are passionate about who God is and desire that others would come to know Him
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.
Most of these will sound much like a Proverb. Practical advise on how to live your life in a Godly way.
Instead of cursing people that persecute you you are supposed to bless them.
Why? Because God once blessed you with eternal life when you were His enemy
We should try to live in harmony with one another.
So the gossiping and the drama that causes division that has no place in a christians life.
If that means you have to go and apologize for something you have done then you should do that.
Never be wise in your own sight.
You shouldn’t be too prideful or arrogant.
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
If Christ (the King of Kings and Lord of Lords) could come off His throne in Heaven and humble himself to be a servant to all and die on the cross for the sins of many.
Then you can be humble too.
This doesn’t mean you can’t be smart, or wise, or great at sports or whatever it is you do.
but it means that you should recognize that you are not the ruler of your life but God is.
17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”
This final section in Paul’s Marks of a True Christian is regarding loving others who persecute you.
Paul tells us something very important and a good lesson to learn.
19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
You did not come to know Jesus by someone threatening you to believe in Jesus.
You came to know Jesus when you realized that God loved you so much that even when you were His enemy He died on the cross to forgive you of your sins.
Our responsibility as believers is to show others that same kind of love and grace.
Once again, this does not mean that we sacrifice our beliefs or God’s truth, no we stand for truth and we proclaim the gospel, and because of that people will hate you for it.
But there is a way to proclaim God’s truth without seeking to destroy those that persecute us.
And finally as Paul closes out this portion of his letter he says
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
