Love Without Hypocrisy

Introduction

We turn again to the word or God and continue our study of Romans 12.

Up to this point Paul has shown us that worship, true worship that is acceptable and reasonable in view of the mercies of God reshapes the mind and reorders the self.

Now we turn our attention to verses 9 and 10 where Paul shows us that worship must inevitably reshape our relationships.

Here we see a noticeable shift in tone. Paul lets go of the metaphors, he offers no extended arguments. This section consists of a series of short forceful exhortations.

Paul moves from the structure of the body in verse 3-8, to the tone of the body which we will see as we study down to verse 21

But he begins this section where all true community must begin: with love that is real. Basically he insists that:

I. Love Must Be Genuine (v. 9a)

“Let love be without hypocrisy” (v. 9)

The word love here agapē is a covenantal, self-giving love. There is no basis for chemistry, or personality alignment. In fact, it does not even depend on reciprocation.

It operates independently from what it may or may not receive back from the object of love

The word anypokritos translated as without hypocrisy refers to acting, pretending, or wearing a mask. The apostle is saying that love must be completely sincere, without pretense.

In the ancient world actors wore masks. The word points to performance. That is, pretending to be something you are not.

So love without hypocrisy is love that is not performed, staged, or strategic. It must be authentic. Peter says the same thing:

1 Peter 1:22 LSB

22 Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a love of the brothers without hypocrisy, fervently love one another from the heart,

This is absolutely important because it is possible to serve without loving, to smile without actually caring. You can appear warm while remaining guarded. You can compliment someone while at the same time competing with them internally.

That is hypocrisy. Here lies the difference between good manners and truthful hearts. Good manners come easy to those who have truthful sincere love in their hearts.

Love that is genuine flows from a heart that has recognized the mercies of God.

Unless you know that you are a sinner saved by the grace and mercy that God has had on you loving properly will not only be beyond your grasp, it is beyond your understanding.

Likewise, a mind that has been renewed produces unmasked relationships because it has a right view of self. God said long ago,

Leviticus 19:18 LSB

18 ‘You shall not take vengeance, and you shall not keep your anger against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am Yahweh.

He did not stuttered, he just repeated Himself:

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39)

If you have an improper view of self, you will have an improper love for others. Hypocritical love naturally protects self. But genuine love gives self.

Hypocritical love asks, ‘how will this affect me?’ Genuine love asks, ‘how can I serve you?’

If you think too highly of yourself, you will use people. If you think to lowly of yourself, you will fear people. But in both cases you cannot love people rightly.

Here comes the ouch… Unfortunately religious environments are fertile ground for performance. We know the language, tone, and expressions. We can appear loving without actually being loving.

Jesus denounced this type of behavior with the religious leaders of His day when they would pretend to be righteous but were altogether something else.

Matthew 23:13–15 LSB

13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. 14 [“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation.] 15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

The root cause for those religious leaders and for us all is self-protection. Hypocritical love is not always malicious but it is always protective.

We perform love when we fear rejection, or want approval, or we are protecting our image, or we want to be seen in a certain way. This connects directly with what we established in verses 3-8:

Pride distorts love

Insecurity distorts love

Both are forms of self-focus

God did not pretend to love us. At the cross Christ there was no performance, there was no mask, there was blood. In fact,

Romans 5:8 LSB

8 God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

His love was costly, honest, and exposed. And then, after the demonstration of what love is, what love does, and how love behaves Jesus says,

John 13:34 LSB

34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

If your love in this church is strategic, selective, or convenient then it is not sincere. Genuine love forgets self long enough to actually care about another person. Worship that is placed on the altar must show up in relationships

You cannot claim surrendered worship and maintain relational performance. If love is fake, your worship, whatever you call it, is actually something else.

II. Genuine Love is Morally Serious (v. 9b)

“abhorring what is evil , clinging to what is good” (v.9)

Paul moves really quickly here to anchor love unto moral clarity. If the first part of the verse guards love from hypocrisy, this part guards it from sentimentality.

The word abhor appears twice in your English Bible but in the Greek this word apostigeō appears only once in the NT. And it is an extremely strong word. It means to hate, detest to the utmost, to loath. It implies total repulsion.

This is not disagreement, it is not dislike, this is not avoid. Any of these words would greatly soften what Paul actually means here. The command here is for us to hate evil intensely, to recoil from it, to be repulsed by it.

Not people, but evil. Now people do evil things. Yet the hatred is toward the evil done not toward the people doing the evil. Jesus died for those people. But the evil done must be detestable to us.

Biblical love is not morally neutral. It does not shrug at sin and it does not redefine evil to preserve comfort. Look at

“Hate evil, you who love Yahweh” (Psalm 97:10)

“The fear of Yahweh is to hate evil” (Proverbs 8:13)

A love that refuses to confront what destroys is not love, it is cowardice disguised as compassion. Those who insist on doing evil are so intertwine with evil that in their eyes it is their very identity.

Because in our culture, behavior is often treated as identity. So when evil is confronted, it feels personal. But Scripture makes a moral distinction between the sinner and the sin.

For this reason, our hatred of evil which is godly is considered as hatred of them which is ungodly. We can and must separate the sin which we must hate, from the sinner. But often the sinner cannot make that distinction.

And how do we respond? In an effort to be amicable, we tolerate and wink at evil. In our culture love is defined as affirmation. If you love me, you must affirm me in my sin.

But in Scripture, love is defined by allegiance to what is good. Therefore Paul issues the double imperative that are inseparable from each other

Hate what is evil

Cling to what is good

This word kollaō to cling literally means to glue yourself to something. The same idea is presented in Genesis 2:24 where a man will leave his father and mother and cling to his wife.

So Paul is saying let your heart recoil from everything that dishonors God and let is attach itself stubbornly to what reflects Him

A church that only talks about love but refuses to define good and evil will eventually drift because genuine fellowship is impossible without moral clarity, without a shared righteousness. True love without truth? what is that?

But if your mind is not being renewed, your definition of good will follow whatever the culture calls good, and then love becomes indistinguishable from what the world calls niceness.

When a parent hates drugs, pornography, slothfulness, it is not hatred toward the child, it is love that protects the child. When a pastor hates false teaching, it is not intolerance, it is protection of the flock

When believers hate gossip, bitterness, sexual immorality, deceit, etc, they are guarding the unity of the body. Love that refuses to hate what harms is not loving, that is truly hateful.

Remember that Paul is speaking to the church. He is speaking to each among us, so this begins with me. It begins with you.

Do I hate my own sin? Do I excuse what God calls evil? Do I cling to what is good only when it is convenient?

Because often we are very good at hating evil in others. But we are very creative at excusing it in ourselves. Genuine love begins with moral integrity in the heart.

Again, our example is Christ: He welcomed sinners, ate with tax collectors, and showed compassion to the broken, but He never, ever affirmed their sin.

If your life is on the altar, you cannot make peace with the very things that nailed Christ there. True worshippers hate what crucified their Savior. This is called loyalty. You cannot cherish what cost Him His blood.

III. Genuine Love Is Familial and Devoted (v. 10a)

“Being devoted to one another in brotherly love” (v. 10)

Paul shifts vocabulary here. Where he used the word agape in verse 9—covenantal, self-giving love here he uses philadelphia, brotherly affection.

Paul piles up family words here. He commands us to be philostorgoi — devoted with tender family affection — in philadelphia — brotherly love

This is not organizational loyalties , nor ministry partnerships, this is family attachment. The church is not a volunteer association, or a gathering of like-minded consumers. It is a redeemed family.

John 1:12 LSB

12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,

This means that we share the one Father. This makes us all family. Consider the words of John:

“See how great a love the Father has given us, that we would be called children of God; and we are.” (1 John 3:1).

You do not choose your siblings. You do not discard them when they annoy you. And you do not withdraw when they disappoint you. Family love is stubborn.

Devotion is commitment that goes beyond convenience. It stays when it would be easier to just leave. It bears with one another despite personality clashes. It forgives quickly

This kind of love cannot survive self-centeredness. devotion includes visible warmth and tangible care that would be very obvious to outsiders.

The early church was marked by this kind of love the Scripture says that they were

“daily devoting themselves with one accord” (Acts 2:46)

Which means they were attached to one another. In a culture marked by isolation, genuine Christian affection becomes evangelistic as Jesus said:

John 13:35 LSB

35 “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The world is not persuaded by our programs but by our love. This means you have to be invested in the lives of your brothers and sisters in Christ and you must allow them to invest in yours. The writer of Hebrews stated,

“He is not ashamed to call them bothers” (Hebrews 2:11)

Think about it. The king, creator, God of the universe is not ashamed to be associated with us. This is familial devotion. If we belong to Him, we must belong to one another.

Here comes some hard questions: Are you emotionally invested in this body? Or are you spiritually renting space? Do you treat this church as family or as a weekly event?

Family members carry weight. Renters carry options. Worship that is placed on the altar will show up in how deeply we attach to one another. So let us recap. Genuine love

Is sincere (v. 9a)

Is morally serious (v. 9b)

Is devoted like family (v. 10a)

And now, Paul takes it one step further —not just affection, but honor.

IV. Genuine Love Is Humble and Honoring (v. 10b)

“Giving preference to one another in honor” (v.10)

Or more literally:

“Outdo one another in showing honor”

“The verb carries the idea of going before — taking the initiative. Paul is not calling us to respond to honor. He is calling us to initiate it. But of course now the question is, What is honor

It is not flattery or exaggeration, and it certainly should not be manipulative. It is the recognition of the image of God in another person and treating them as weighty because of it.

Honor says you matter, your presence has weight, you are not invisible. We live in a society that honors the gifted, wealthy, charismatic, obviously useful.

However, genuine love honors those who are quiet, or weak, overlooked, or even difficult because honor is not earned by performance it is simply granted out of humility.

All of this means that when honor is practices competition or jealousy dies. Honoring means rejoicing in others giftings and celebrating their success. Christ is our example in how to do this,

Philippians 2:6–8 LSB

6 who, although existing in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a slave, by being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

He honored the Father through obedience. Honored sinners by serving them and honored us by laying down his life.

The king knelt, washed feet, and cooked breakfast. That is honor. A life marked by sincere love, moral clarity, familial devotion, and humble honor, that is living worship.

You cannot live for the glory of God while demanding glory for yourself.