Love

Love without Limits – Romans 12:9-10

Intro: YOU GIVE LOVE A BAD NAME INTRO… SOFTEN the HYPOCRISY thing? Also tie in to how love is a basic of Chrisitanity, 1 john texts?

Let’s start off the day today talking a little about hypocrites. That’s always a fun one to get the juices going, is it not? I wonder who or what comes to mind when you hear the word hypocrite? I know for me, that the primary place that I heard the word growing up was in the church. As I started to get a little older, I was sort of turned off by this fact. I learned that the world called us Christian’s hypocrites, I heard Christians say that other Christians were hypocritical. I began to ask myself question like, so every time I sin, am I a hypocrite? If I say I believe something, does that mean I can’t ever mess up or come up short of that standard? That’s a tall order. But as I continued to grow in my faith, and look at scripture, I realized that Jesus’ thoughts on hypocrites had much less to do with people who struggled with sin, but instead he went after those who pretended that they didn’t struggle with sin.

If anything, hypocrites have learned how to sin appropriately. True hypocrites may never be labeled as hypocrites because they’ve kept the necessary appearances around the necessary audiences. Under the guise of nationalism, we put down other races, within the confines of our white circles we talk about “the blacks”, dirty jokes and off-color remarks are ok around our closest friends because they “get us”, and gossip or derogatory statements are ok because we are “prayerful” or “concerned” about the situation. Ultimately, a hypocrite is not one who necessarily fails, a hypocrite is someone that acts as if they never do. (Repeat) Now with that introduction, can you shift gears here with me a little bit, because today’s sermon is not about hypocrisy, it’s about love. It’s about a crazy love, a limitless love, a love that unifies, and brings us together. But our text will clue you in to why we went this way with the introduction. Let’s look at Romans 12…

Text: Romans 12:9–10 “Love must be free of hypocrisy. Detest what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor.”

PRAY

Love without Limits We put limits on our love

Paul says here that our love must be without hypocrisy. In light of everything we just said about hypocrisy, how does that play out? It has a whole bunch to do with the golden rule. You know it… plain and simple…Love your neighbor as yourself. Which I think could beg the question, Do we really realize how much we truly love ourselves? We justify ourselves, forgive ourselves, ignore our own shortcomings, believe we are better, deserve more, somehow have certain rights, but is that what we offer up to others? How do we have love without limits, love without hypocrisy?

Transition: It starts with detesting evil, Detest is a strong word isn’t it?

Detest What is Evil – Most of us might say hey I detest evil, I make sure to post my holy opinion about everything on social media that is against scripture… which by the way I’m sure has helped you invite that person to church afterwards. But let’s think about who was writing this passage. Paul, the guy who was writing this passage was the same guy who God entrusted to write half the New Testament, yet he revealed that he considered his commitment to Christ something he had to recommit to daily, and said he still struggled to do what he was supposed to, and struggled to not do what he knew he shouldn’t. So if Paul, one of the greatest Christians of all time felt this way, how should we view ourselves? One theologian said If you don’t consider your sin to be the greatest you know, you either misunderstand your own sin, or you spend too much time judging the sins of others.

We start by continually living in states of personal spiritual evaluation and reflection, and build on that by seeing the best in others… clinging to what is good in them as our passage says. Let’s talk about an idea called GOOD mining.

Good Mining – We’ve all heard of gold mining, but Andrew Carnegie said that people are developed the same way gold is mined. Several tons of dirt must be moved to get an ounce of gold; but you don’t go into the mine looking for dirt. You go in looking for the gold. Can you imagine how our world, and even more so our churches would be transformed if we were just continually focused on all the good that we could find in others? Going back to Carnegie’s quote, there’s plenty of dirt if you want to find it, but that gold is precious. It adds value to people and causes excitement. In the 1800’s the gold rush resulted because people found out that gold was plentiful and needed to be mined out. If people in this community find out that we are a people who mine out the good in people, perhaps they would come rushing in to see what’s going on.

If we can live each day in a state of personal reflection on holiness and how WE OURSELVES grow closer to God, if we can grow in an attitude about admiring the best in others, then all that is left is to put those individuals before ourselves if we want to see love without limits.

You Go First – Quite often love without limits simply says you go first.

During my first year hear i preached a sermon where we took communion and we used the phrase you go first. When we used that phrase then we talked about Jesus washing feet and how when it comes to service, but today we talk about the phrase saying that when it comes to good things, we say to others, You go first. edit and attach to below

I can be fairly competitive by nature and probably tend to take more of a parenting approach that you aren’t going to learn anything if I let you win. But I also like to think I’m growing up a little bit and getting better at that. For those of you that are familiar with games like Uno, Guess Who, or Tic-tac-toe, the person going first has a huge advantage. I mean for goodness sakes in tic-tac-toe the person that goes first always gets an extra turn. But lately I’ve had the thought that while I don’t want my kids to think that life is a push over, or that they are always going to win, I sure do want them to know and remember that with dad they go first.

So what, it’s just a game with the kids right? But adults you know we do it too I mean when was the last time you walked up to a dessert table and said which piece of cake or pie looks the smallest or most unappealing? If you do, you’re a better person then me. I know how to pick out a good piece of cake from the bunch. What if I always took what was left instead of what was first, what if I always let the spouse pick where we are going to dinner, or what show we are going to watch.

Verse 10 said give preference to one another with honor. If you can’t do it at home, you won’t do it anywhere. And if you do it everywhere, you might just get a chance to talk about why you act that way. Let’s show the world what we are made of by exhibiting a limitless love.

RESPONSE AND WORSHIP

What is it for you today? Have you overlooked areas of your life that you know need to be corrected? Often this is exactly what causes us from seeing the good in others. If we can focus on other’s faults, we can minimize ours. Be real about the sin in your life, Be adamant about finding the good in others, let others go first, and soon you might find that you are becoming more Christ-like and creating a picture of limitless love that will draw others to the limitless love that they can only find in Jesus.

BAPTISM TRANSITION, TOM HELP?