Back to the Basics

Working out our faith

Nowhere else in Paul’s writings do we find a more concise collection of ethical injunctions.

In these five verses are thirteen exhortations ranging from love of Christians to hospitality for strangers.

I’m sure each of the thirteen exhortations could serve as the text for a full length sermon

What they deal with are basic to effective Christian living.

Our responsibilities to other brethren extend to the exercise of grace as well as to the exercise of gift.

This exercise affects all aspects of the Christian’s life. (1)

It affects our character.

"Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good" (v. 9).

J. B. Phillips renders that, "Let us have no imitation Christian love. Let us have a genuine break with evil and real devotion to good."

Counterfeit love is worthless coin in the kingdom of God.

God sees right through the counterfeit

There is no need to be a prim and proper, kind and empathetic towards people and then be vicious and cruel behind their backs

The thought behind the word "dissimulation" is that of hypocrisy.

In olden times the "hypocrite" was a man who played a part on a stage.

When we assume a character we do not have, we play the hypocrite.

Love must never be used as a disguise for ulterior aims

True love is free from all pretense and hypocrisy

True Christian character is founded on true Christian love and is expressed in a hatred of evil and a love for good.

An outstanding example is that of George Muller.

His early life was one of gross wickedness, and although well educated, confirmed and in the communion of the church, he was not a Christian.

Living deep in sin, he had spent time in jail when, at about the age of twenty, he visited a Moravian mission and was soundly saved.

Eventually, Muller moved from Germany to England where he took up his residence in Bristol and was led of God to found the famous orphan homes that bear his name.

He believed that through faith and prayer alone God would supply temporal as well as spiritual needs.

During his life of service for the destitute, George Muller handled some eight million dollars, and at his death, so consistent was he to his passion for doing good, his personal possessions totaled less than a thousand dollars.

More than ten thousand orphans had been cared for in his orphan homes, which remain to this day as a testimony to the power of faith and the passion of love.

Another example comes from Harold Begbie’s chronicles of the early days of the Salvation Army in London.

He begins his series of case histories with the story of "the Puncher."

The Puncher started out on his career of wildness and daring as a boy by getting into trouble at school and with the police.

He was wild and ungovernable.

He took to fighting as a career, fought sixteen famous fights and won them all.

Many times he entered the ring so drunk that the referees objected but although blind drunk he never lost a fight to anyone his own weight.

With money to burn, the Puncher married, bought a business and lived in high style.

As his fighting days drew to a close he started a racing business, traded on his famous name, and tricked and cheated in a hundred ways.

At last he was exposed and lost his fame, his popularity and his good name.

He fell from wealth to poverty, dragging his family with him into the gutter and earning their scorn and contempt.

His wife left him time and time again.

To obtain drink he simply walked into a tavern and demanded liquor.

It was given to him without question so long as he would go away.

Food had no attraction to him, only drink; he was a blazing mass of alcohol, living now in common lodgings occupied by the lowest of the low.

No one dared to interfere with him.

Murder shone in his eyes, the man had become a demon.

One day the Puncher’s eldest son, wearing the uniform of the Salvation Army, sought him out in his low haunts, and pleaded with him to become a Christian.

The Puncher laughed him to scorn.

The next day was Sunday. The Puncher was spending it in jail, tortured by thirst, mad with the rage of a caged beast, cursing God and furious at his imprisonment.

He spent the time reviewing his life, loathing it but also loathing his intention to reform it.

He decided to commit suicide. He would murder his wife and end his life by dying gamely on the scaffold. So fixed did the idea become that it destroyed his craving for drink. One demon went out and another came in.

He left the prison, drank himself drunk with some friends because they pressed him, borrowed some money and bought a butcher’s knife.

He went to his wife, proposed a reconciliation and suggested a visit to a local music hall.

She accepted the proposal, apparently out of fear of his fists, and together they left the house and went down the street.

A Salvationist who knew both the Puncher and his son joined them.

To get rid of this unwelcome company, the Puncher struck across the street and entered a tavern, leaving his wife at the door to await her would-be murderer.

While sitting at the bar, the Puncher had a sudden and shaking vision. He saw the dreadful deed done, himself hanged for murder, and the world pointing the finger of scorn at his son, who in reality he really loved.

He walked out of the bar, deeply smitten by shame and horror, and although drunk went straight to the Salvation Army. His wife went with him. Together they knelt at the penitent’s bench and accepted Christ as Saviour.

The past dropped clean away.

He became a shining Christian and a clear testimony to his old companions.

He joined the Salvation Army and his home became comfortable and happy. He gave himself to the task of winning to Christ his friends and neighbors in the London slums.

The years passed by with only one brief relapse followed by swift and lasting restoration. But his wife’s interest in the things of God waned.

"The shadows," says Begbie, "have deepened for him. His wife’s lack of sympathy is an increasing distress and discomfort in the house. His children do not care about their father’s religion. He has to earn his living among men who are not Christians and who do not show him sympathy.

But in spite of this the Puncher remains in the neighborhood, perhaps the greatest force for personal religion among the sad, the sorrowful, the broken, and the lost who cram its shabby streets."

To love God is to regard evil with horror

Familiarity with a culture that is shaped by the forces of Satan has lulled too many believers into a state of general tolerance for whatever deviant behavior is in vogue at present

We’ve heard the saying, “familiarity breeds contempt” but I also believe that “familiarity breeds indifference.”

"Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good."

The exercise of grace transforms the believer’s character.

The exercise of grace does more. (2)

We are to abhor evil because it is the enemy of all that leads to Christlikeness

“Cleave to that which is good

We are to turn away from all evil and “cling to what is good.”

The Greek participle for “cleave” comes from a verb (kollaō) that means “to glue or join together.”

It affects our contacts.

"Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another" (v. 10).

In his contacts with his brethren, the believer has a responsibility to show grace. He is to show brotherly love.

Love for the brethren is a proof of spiritual life (1 John 3:14), but to be really kindly affectioned to the brethren is a rare grace. Someone has put it this way:

To dwell above, with saints in love,

That will indeed be glory;

To dwell below with saints we know,

Well, that’s a different story!

But it can be done.

When it became obvious to Jonathan that David was preferred before him and that David, not Jonathan, was God’s heir-apparent to the throne, Jonathan showed brotherly love to David and in honor preferred him.

He was glad for David’s sake.

Then when David came to the throne he forgot and forgave for Jonathan’s sake the bitter hatred of the house of Saul, sought out Jonathan’s unfortunate son Mephibosheth and showed to him the very kindness of God (2 Sam. 9).

The exercise of grace (3) affects our conduct.

"Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord" (v. 11).

The first eleven chapters of Romans emphasize justification by faith; here we have "justification" by works.

"Not slothful in business," that’s the outward look; "fervent in spirit," that’s the inward look; "serving the Lord," that’s the upward look.

The expression "not slothful in business" has nothing to do primarily with secular work.

It has to do, as the context reveals, with the exercise of the gifts God has given for the furtherance of His work.

The word "business" is the word translated "diligence" in verse 8.

Spiritual activity rather than secular activity is in Paul’s mind.

Fervent literally means “to be or become emotionally inflamed, conceived of as water boiling. to be hot, boil, glow, to be enthusiastic, excited”

Robert Mounce puts it this way: The word "fervent" reminds us of water brought to the boil. The inner springs of the believer’s life must be so fired by the Spirit that he continually boils over with enthusiasm in his service for the Lord.

The exercise of grace (4) affects our convictions.

"Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer" (v. 12).

Praise! Patience! Prayer! The Christian has an anchor for the future; he has hope.

Not just a vague and sentimental optimism, but hope as bright as the promises of God.

The Christian does not rebel in tribulation nor rashly accuse God.

He is patient, knowing that God is too wise to make any mistakes, too loving to be unkind and too powerful to be thwarted in His ultimate aims.

Nowhere in the New Testament is the church promised freedom from tribulation.

On the contrary, such freedom is far from the norm (John 16:33; Acts 14:22; 1 Thess. 3:4).

The church was born in tribulation and for three hundred years passed through fire and flood, writing with martyr blood some of its noblest chapters.

It is going through tribulation today

It is, then, a very practical and pertinent word of the apostle—"patient in tribulation."

The Christian is also "instant in prayer."

That is, he is persevering in prayer, and probably nothing adds more passion and importunity to his prayer than tribulation.

Tribulation makes the believer’s hope more real, and it makes his prayers more real as well.

It adds a whole new dimension to his convictions.

Finally, the exercise of grace (5) affects our concern.

"Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality" (v. 13).

The thought here is of actually pursuing opportunities for hospitality, not just passively waiting for them to come.

A lavish generosity with one’s worldly goods is a mark of true discipleship.

"There (in the temple court in Jerusalem) stood thirteen chests, each with a brazen, trumpet-shaped receiver into which the worshippers dropped their offerings; nine of them were marked ’for Jehovah,’ and four of them were marked ’for the poor.’

The widow would fain manifest her love to the Lord and to her neighbour as well.

If she casts the mite into His chest it will be known in heaven that one of the Lord’s lovers has been in the treasury that day; if she casts it into the box marked ’for the poor’ it will show her care for her fellows, but will it not seem to place human need above divine worship?

The solution she adopts is both simple and costly; she will balance the claims of heaven and earth, and drop two mites into separate chests.

With eager joy the Lord called the attention of the twelve to her actions, and offers them a problem in the arithmetic of heaven. She loved God and her neighbour."

Abraham pressed his hospitality upon the wayfarers that were journeying past his door (Gen. 18) and thereby entertained angels unawares (Heb. 13:2), not to mention the One whom the angels worship! "Ye took me in" will be the Lord’s commendation to the righteous in that coming day. "I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in... Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, When... when... when...? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" ( Matt. 25:35-40).

Nobody can lose who follows God’s pattern for giving.

A farmer, known for his prosperity and his lavish giving to the cause of Christ, explained it this way: "I keep shoveling into God’s bin, and God keeps shoveling back into mine, and God has the bigger shovel!"

Here then is Paul’s portrait of the Christian as a brother.

He enjoys his relationship to his brethren and he shoulders his responsibilities to other brethren.

In so doing he exercises both gift and grace, and as a consequence becomes increasingly like his Lord.