Loving People

SLIDE 1 – Summer of Love Series

Today, we’re continuing in our two-week Summer of Love series. We’re focusing on love over these two weeks because our desire here at Trinity Church Golden Grove is for love to be central to all that we do. As the banner up the front reminds us each week, we’re all about three simple things: loving God, loving people, and making disciples of Jesus.

Last week was all about loving God. Loving the God who is love in his nature and in his actions, and responding to his generous, loyal, and sacrificial love for us by loving him and being loyal to him with our whole selves, our whole lives. And we saw that part of how we show our love for God is by how we treat the people around us.

So this week we’re looking at the second of our three simple things: loving people. Loving people is very much the focus of today’s Bible reading from Romans chapter 12. This is evident from the very first sentence of today’s reading, which says “Love must be sincere.”

SLIDE 2 – Love must be sincere

And this reminded me of when Liz and I first started dating. In June of 2020, I got a phone call from my long-time friend Luke. It seemed like a regular phone call, just general chit-chat back and forth, until we got towards the end of the conversation. As I was about to hang up, he told me to hold on because he called me for a particular reason.

Now he felt weird even bringing it up, and I didn’t have to say yes if I didn’t want to, but his wife Sophie had a sister who was single. Her name was Liz, she was a great girl, and we might hit it off if we got to know each other. The only slight complication was that Liz was living in Canberra at the time and I was in Adelaide.

But despite the complexities of being in different cities, Liz and I agreed to exchange numbers. We started messaging and talking on the phone. A few weeks later, I went to Canberra to see my family. And so we had the opportunity to meet up in person and have a face-to-face date. And this all went very well, and our relationship started to grow. But after a couple of weeks, I had to return to Adelaide.

And we weren’t sure when we would see each other again. Because as I’m sure you all remember, state border closures were a slight issue back in 2020. And this meant it was no longer possible for me to go to Canberra to see Liz, or for Liz to come to Adelaide to see me.

But then we realised… the border between ACT and Queensland was open… and the border between South Australia and Queensland was open… and if we both went up to Queensland, we could see each other there.

So we decided to go to Brisbane for a weekend so that we could see each other. And we had a great weekend together, spending time with one another and getting to know each other better.

And towards the end of our time in Brisbane, I was convinced of my feelings for Liz and the future direction of our relationship, and so I thought that I should say ‘I love you’ to her for the first time.

And of course, it’s a very nerve-racking moment telling someone that you love them for the first time! Those three little words are significant, and you want to be sure that that’s how you really feel before you say them. And you’re also hoping that you hear those same three little words back in return.

And so I mustered my courage, and I looked at Liz and said, “I love you.” And her response back to me was… “really?!”

(P) Now that wasn’t exactly the response that I wanted to hear… but I took that ‘really’ to be an expression of joyful surprise. But maybe Liz had been reading Romans chapter 12, and she knew that love must be sincere. And maybe she wanted to know if I really, genuinely, sincerely, loved her?

Main Point

And similarly, when it comes to our love for God and our love for people, our love must be real, genuine, sincere. And so here’s today’s big idea up front. Jesus gives us the supreme example of what it looks like to love people with a sincere love. I’ll say that again. Jesus gives us the supreme example of what it looks like to love people with a sincere love.

And when we look at Jesus, and we look at Romans chapter 12, we see that sincere love has these three characteristics. Sincere love is dedicated. Sincere love is different. And sincere love is good. Dedicated. Different. Good.

First Teaching Point – Sincere Love is Dedicated (v9-13)

SLIDE 3 – Sincere Love is Dedicated

Let’s have a look at each one of these three characteristics in turn. So firstly, sincere love is dedicated. Look with me again at Romans chapter 12. We won’t have the verses on the screen so it may be helpful to have your Bible open in front of you. Romans 12:9-13 say:

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”

These five verses are full of instructions, one after the other, each describing a different aspect of what it looks like to love people with sincere love. And we could go through this list methodically and spend time looking at each instruction individually. But let me just highlight what all these instructions have in common.

And when you work your way through these instructions, a common factor stands out. All of these instructions require a great deal of energy, commitment, and enthusiasm. To summarise it all into one word, following these requires a great deal of dedication.

And that is because loving people sincerely is not a one-time thing… to love people sincerely requires repeated efforts. To use the words found in these verses, sincere love requires devotion, an ongoing commitment. And sincere love requires patience and faithfulness. Again, these are things that are expressed over time. And sincere love requires zeal and fervour, that is to say passion and enthusiasm.

We just had my family come and visit us for a week over Christmas. And in that week, our ten-month-old son Levi decided to put on a show for his family and learn to crawl. And now that he can crawl, he doesn’t stop. He’s always on the go. He’s our little energiser bunny, moving around like he’s got a couple of long-lasting batteries in his back to give him the energy to go and go and go.

And if we want to be people who love other people sincerely, we need to operate like our batteries are at full charge. Be people who are energised, people who are committed, people who are dedicated.

And that doesn’t mean going at full speed 100% of the time and doing the biggest and most extravagant things possible. And it doesn’t mean that we all have to do exactly the same thing because we all have different capacities. We’re each at different life stages with our own unique abilities and gifts.

But loving people sincerely means making an effort to do the small things and to do them often. To show kindness today, to be patient today, to be hospitable today. And then to do it again tomorrow. And the day after that. And then next week. And then next month. And then next year.

Anyone who knows me just a little bit knows that I like my sports. And in just about any sport, what separates the really great players from the average players is not their ability to do the extraordinary things, but their ability to do the basic things.

Great players do the same basic things over and over again, without lapsing in concentration or execution. That’s what separates the great players from the average players.

And that is also what separates fake love from real love, insincere love from sincere love. It is easy enough to fake an act of love once, or even to be genuinely kind once, to be patient once, to be hospitable once. But to do those things over and over again takes sincerity, it takes genuine, real, love.

And if we return to our main point, it is this type of dedicated, committed love which we see Jesus exemplify. So very often he was patient with his disciples as they struggled to comprehend his teaching. Throughout his ministry, he regularly found time to share with and to be with those who were in need. To heal the sick and to show compassion towards the societal outcasts. And he did so with compassion, with enthusiasm, with sincerity.

So firstly, our sincere love for people ought to be dedicated. And secondly, our sincere love for people ought to be different.

Second Teaching Point – Sincere Love is Different (v14-17)

SLIDE 4 – Sincere Love is Different

Returning to Romans 12:14-17. From verse 14, it says:

“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.”

Sincere love is different because it does not take the easy option. Instead, sincere love takes the hard option, the different option. To curse those who persecute you is the easy option. It is much more difficult to bless those who persecute you. To rejoice with those who rejoice is not always an easy thing to do. Sometimes pride or jealousy can get in the way as we see other people rejoice over something we wish we had.

And it is easy to spend time with people who are similar to us, who can repay the favour if we show kindness and hospitality towards them. It is much more difficult to spend time with people who are different from us, who are down on their luck, and have no way of repaying any favours they might receive.

Yet it is in doing these hard things that we see what makes sincere love so different. And it is this different kind of love that Jesus both taught about and lived out in his actions.

This section on love in Romans chapter 12 echoes the teaching that Jesus gave in the most famous of his sermons, the Sermon on the Mount. And in this sermon, Jesus taught his followers that they are to go above and beyond the world’s standard of love.

The world’s standard of reciprocity – loving those who love you and hating those who hate you. But Jesus says that’s a really low bar; everyone, even the despicable and traitorous tax collectors, could meet that standard.

Instead, Jesus calls his followers to a higher standard of love. A different standard of love. Instead of retaliation and hatred, Jesus’ followers are to love and pray for their enemies. To turn the other cheek and go the extra mile.

Jesus teaches his followers to love their enemies. And then in his sacrificial death on the cross, Jesus shows his love for his enemies. Romans chapter 5 verses 6 to 8 says:

SLIDE 5 – Romans 5:6-8

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

I think this is one of the many wonderful things about the Christian faith. Jesus does not ask us as his followers to do anything that he was not prepared to do himself. He says love your enemies, just as I loved you and gave my life as a sacrifice for you when you were my enemy. He says love sincerely, love differently to the examples you see around you, because that’s how I love you.

(P) Jesus shows us sincere love that is dedicated. Jesus shows us sincere love that is different. And thirdly, Jesus shows us sincere love that is good.

Third Teaching Point – Sincere Love is Good (v17-21)

SLIDE 6 – Sincere Love is Good

The final section of Romans 12:17-21 says:

“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.

On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Do not repay anyone evil for evil… do not be overcome by evil… but overcome evil with good. The apostle Paul gives this instruction because he knows that evil and violence, they tend to escalate and become all-consuming.

Every time evil is returned with evil, its life is extended and hatred and fear is reinforced. And when people retaliate to evil with their own evil actions in an attempt to get even, invariably and inevitably, it is evil that ends up engulfing them.

But as people who have experienced and who continue to experience the love of Jesus, we are to be engulfed by sincere love. Sincere love that seeks what is right, sincere love that seeks what is good. And not just what feels good in the moment, like revenge often does. Rather, we trust that God is good, and that he is just, and that a day is coming when all of us will have to give an account of our actions to him.

So what would this type of sincere love, this good love that does not seek revenge, look like for us in modern-day Australia? Consider the example of Andrew Thorburn. In October 2022, Andrew Thorburn was announced as the new CEO of the Essendon Football Club.

Less than 24 hours later, he was forced to resign from his position as CEO because his beliefs as a Christian and his position as Chair of the Board at his church in Melbourne, City on a Hill, were supposedly not in alignment with Essendon’s values as a safe, inclusive, diverse, and welcoming club.

Now it would have been easy for Andrew to compromise on his beliefs in order to keep his position. And it would also have been easy for Andrew to publicly shame the football club by pointing out the hypocrisy of not being included in a workplace that says it is inclusive. And it may have been tempting to see what legal action he could pursue.

Yet rather than doing what was easy, I think that Andrew Thorburn did what was good. His public statement in response to his resignation was gracious and a steadfast witness to the sincerity of his faith in his Lord. I’ll read a short section of this public statement in which he said:

SLIDE 7 – Andrew Thorburn Quote

“My faith is central to who I am. Since coming to faith in Jesus 20 years ago, I have seen profound change in my life, and I believe God has made me a better husband, father, and friend. It has also helped me become a better leader. That is because at the centre of my faith is the belief that you should create a community and care for people, because they are created by and loved by God and have deep intrinsic value.”

Application

(P) Now it is unlikely that you or I will hold as high-profile a position as CEO of an AFL club. But this example does demonstrate how Christians can experience discrimination in the workplace for professing beliefs contrary to popular culture. And it is very possible that instances like this are only going to become more common.

SLIDE 8 – Sincere Love is Dedicated, Different, Good

And so my application for you to consider today is… how will I respond in this type of situation, if – or maybe when – it does occur. We have to ask ourselves… will I compromise to avoid the difficulty of the situation? Will I want to get even, to get justice, to get revenge? Will I be overcome by evil, or will I overcome evil with sincere, good, love?

No doubt it is a challenge not to take the easy way out but to take the high road instead. Yet it is possible for us to love people sincerely for two reasons. Firstly, God himself makes it possible for us to do this.

Through renewing our minds through the power of his Word and through the guidance and leading of the indwelling Holy Spirit, God transforms us from the inside out so that it is possible for us to love people sincerely. This transformation is described earlier in Romans chapter 12, in verses 1 and 2.

And then secondly, we can display sincere love that is good by once again looking to the example of Jesus. Evil tempted Jesus when he was in the wilderness for 40 days. Evil tempted Jesus when he was betrayed by one of his own disciples on the night before his crucifixion. And then evil tempted Jesus during his trial and execution, as he was repeatedly insulted and mocked.

Yet he was not overcome. For our sake, through his death and then his resurrection, he overcame evil with good.

Conclusion

And so, let me leave you with this final challenge. Let your love for people be sincere. Let your love for people be dedicated as you commit to doing the little things well and doing them again and again. In 2026, will you be committed to showing up and loving and serving your church community, week in and week out? Will you be committed to showing up and loving the people in your community group, week in and week out?

And will you hold your love for people to a different standard, showing kindness and hospitality to all people, not just those who are kind and hospitable to you?

And finally, will you let your love for people be good, the kind of good that overcomes evil? And as we each seek to love people, to love each other, in these ways, my prayer is that our love will be like the love of Jesus. The love of Jesus, who loved us and died for us while we were still his enemies.

My One Thing

As we do each week at the conclusion of the Bible talk, let me invite you to now take one minute to open your phone or your notebook and write down your One Thing. One thing that struck you, challenged, or encouraged you today. Take 60 seconds to write it down. Then share it over morning tea. After the 60 seconds, Madeleine will continue leading us in a time of prayer.