The Motivation of our Service

Introduction

Last week we concluded our mini-series on the spiritual gifts from Romans 12, but I want to draw us back to the beginning of the chapter so we don’t forget what this is all about. Romans 12:1-2 were all about surrendering for service, Romans 12: 3 was about the enemy of service: pride; Romans 12:4-8 were about our individual avenues of service: our spiritual gifts and now we get to Romans 12:9 which tells us what our motivation for service ought to be: authentic love.

All of Romans has led us up to these points here. Paul’s teaching on man’s fallen state, salvation by faith, our position in Christ with other believers and our victory over sin through the spirit have all been to show us our need to live together as brothers and sisters in the same body. The blessings we have received motivate a response of love to God and propel our service to one another. Understanding what God has done to save us, place us into Christ and bless us in Christ when we truly grasp how much this means, stirs within our hearts gratitude to Him.

Unfortunately, there are many in the church who fall into one of two categories: The first group comes to church, but they only want to sit there and listen. They don’t get involved in the lives of others. They come in at the last moment and leave as soon as possible. They are consumers in the church. They want to receive, but not to give out. They do not serve God in the lives of others because their entire life is focused on themselves. They are all about being fed. This is natural when they are babies. A newborn baby only wants to eat and sleep and thats to be expected, but if you have a 20 year old man who just wants to eat and sleep, we have a problem. The second group is active in serving, but their motivation is wrong. They serve maybe because its expected of them, but push comes to shove, they would rather not. Other’s serve for recognition. They are hoping someone will notice. Other’s feel God would not love them or approve of them if they didn’t; so they serve out of some need to earn God’s love. Any motivation less that the right motivation contaminates our service and has not power to cause us to endure.

So Paul is going to begin by addressing our motivation for how we serve our brothers and sisters in Christ. Ultimately for our service to Christ Himself. But the foundation is love. Most commentators believe this phrase is a summary phrase introducing every other command that is going to follow. What that means is the rest of the chapter is filled with examples of what love looks like in our service to others believers. It is interesting that love is what immediately follows Paul’s teaching on spiritual gifts because he did the exact same thing in 1 Corinthians 13.

1 Corinthians 13:1–3 “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”

This chapter is smack dab in the middle of chapters 12-14 which are about spiritual gifts and you can see the gifts throughout the chapter:

tongues

prophecy

teaching

exhortation

faith

service

Paul is saying that no matter how great my gift and its use might be, if I don’t have love, it means nothing. The most spectacular, sacrificial, amazing use of my gift amounts to nothing without love. Notice Paul doesn’t say the gift doesn’t look like its accomplishing anything.

The tongues are speaking in high exalted languages

The prophecy and speaking gifts produce all knowledge.

The faith is moving mountains.

The giving is feeding the poor and sacrificing even my body to be burned.

The evidence of real, authentic ministry is not found in the results. The evidence of real, authentic ministry is in the heart of the servant. Our service must be motivated by a true love for others if it will matter to God. You can preach to thousands of people and it be worthless. You can sacrifice tons of money to support other’s ministry and it be a meaningless waste. You can do great things, build bible colleges, form associations of churches, preach in the biggest churches, you can see many saved, grow your sunday school class from 5 to 30. You can build a beautiful church building or a good family. You can go down town and feed the hungry and cloth them, but without true love it means nothing.

Authentic Love

Paul’s first command is let love be without dissimulation. That word dissimilation isn’t one that we use very often if at all- In English is the act of hiding your true feelings, character or intentions. The Greek word means pretended, not genuine. The best modern day word that I could think of to explain this type of love is authentic. Its real, not faked.

Have you ever met a good old southern lady? She greats you in church with smiles, and hugs, but you know she doesn’t even remember who you are. She is excellent at putting on the show. I know many who can talk the talk. They are all about saying the right things, painting the right picture of themselves; but its all fake. James talks about this in:

James 2:15–16 “If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?”

This brother wants to appear to really care so they pray for the other person. But when they could help they don’t help. James says it profits nothing. It doesn’t do any good. They appear spiritual, but its all a show. There is no true love in their heart its faked. So inauthentic love is seen when we talk the talk but don’t do.

Inauthentic love is also seen when our motives are wrong. To the Corinthians he would challenge us to give from a right heart. 2 Corinthians 9:7 “Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.” God desires people to give cheerfully. Not complaining about it or feeling like they have to. This ties in to one of the questions we had about giving in the spiritual gifts Q/A. The focus of giving should be a true, authentic heart. It isn’t about how great your gift is. What matters to God is the heart. 2 Corinthians 8:12 “For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.” If there is a willing heart, it is accepted.

Hating Evil

The next two phrase might seem to be out of place. Why put them in the same verse as authentic love? I think there is an important though maybe subtle connection here. Paul says we are to abhor evil. The word abhor simply means to strongly hate and evil is anything that is wicked, morally objectionable. There is a verse that is often misunderstood but its true meaning is the same.

1 Thessalonians 5:22 “Abstain from all appearance of evil.” Many see that word appearance and think it means if something looks bad even when it isn’t we should avoid that thing. There may be some wisdom sometimes in doing that, but that is not actually what the verse means. This verse is saying that whenever any kind of evil appears, we should avoid it. This verse actually is stronger if you think about it that way. How much evil do we allow in our lives? How much of it are we entertained by? We say well its just a little bit. I can ignore it. But evil in all its forms, the ones that appear small or the big forms are to be abstained from and avoided. There is a lot there that we have forgotten today.

But our verse here is even stronger than that. When evil shows up we should avoid it, but more than that, we should hate it. Do you hate evil? There are some evils that I especially hate. I hate child abuse, human trafficking, neglect of children; but I must be honest there are some sins, some evils that do not stir up my hatred as strongly as those. It barely phases me when I am lazy or eat more than is proper. It doesn’t bother me when I see somethings on TV that aren’t right. Like Israel, God could describe us Jeremiah 6:15 “Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the Lord.” Evil doesn’t phase us because we have become desensitized to it. We are exposed to it every where and instead of vexing our souls like lot we ignore it.

Why should we hate evil?

Here is where the connection to love comes in. When I love someone, I will hate that which is opposed to them.Psalm 97:10 “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil: He preserveth the souls of his saints; He delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.” Authentic love for God causes us to hate evil because firstly, Evil is the opposite of everything God is. Could you imagine being in love with a brunette? My wife is a brunette and I love her brown hair. Now let me ask you if you went around saying you only love blonds and everytime one of them was around you your flirted with them, how would your brunette wife feel? Being brunette is a part of who she is and clearly you don’t love who she is. You love something else. This is even more starkly contrasted in God because evil is the direct opposite of who he is. God is good, evil is evil. 1 John 1:5 “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”

Secondly, Evil is the embodiment of everything God hates. Psalm 45:7 “Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee With the oil of gladness above thy fellows.” This verse is applied to Jesus in Heb 1. Throughout the bible we see that God hates sin, and evil. He isn’t apathetic towards it. He opposes it and detests it. Imagine being married to a pro-life activist and then going to a fundraising dinner for planned parenthood. Your life is being thrown in support of something she has spent her life opposing. You are aligning yourself with something she hates with every fiber of her being. You two are definately not on the same page. You don’t love what she loves and hate what she hares.

Thirdly, Evil destroys that which God loves. Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Sin produces death, and destruction. Proverbs 13:15 “Good understanding giveth favour: But the way of transgressors is hard.” Life becomes more difficult and the greatest pain that evil causes mankind is separation from God. Isaiah 59:2 “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, And your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” God hates evil because it destroys, hurts those whom He loves. If we truly love God, we are going to detest the things that hurt what God loves because we love them too.

Clinging to Good

The other side to this is clinging to the good. It really is just the opposite of detesting evil. When we love God, yes, we will hate evil but we will also love good because God is good.

Clinging is to stick, hold together or resist separation. Its like when daddy has to go on a trip and his young kids wrap their arms around his legs so he can’t leave. They are clinging to him, refusing to be separated from him. The good is that which is morally excellent and admirable. Ultimately, God is the definition of what is good. So loving good is loving God.

Authentic love toward others begins with an authentic love for God and who He is.

Too many in Christianity, have no taste for good. Their tastes have been developed by the world and so singing good hymns, spending time with Christians who love the lord, faithfully parenting your family, working hard, being in the word are all boring to them. They want the excitement that fleshly pleasures seem to offer. They want the pleasures of sin for a season and not the steady, satisfying blessings of holiness. But what they fail to see is that God is the only source of fulfillment in their life that can truly satisfy. Jeremiah 2:13 “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”

Conclusion

True authentic love for God and for others must be the motive that propels our service. Anything else falls short of God’s expectation and will never truly satisfy. So many Christians serve, but they do it for the wrong reasons. When we are motivated by anything other than love for God, we will burn out in our service, others will see through the hypocrisy of our service and it will not produce true lasting results. This morning, I want to challenge you to examine the motive behind your service for God and others.

You can use your spiritual gifts and I pray that God has begun this process in your life through our miniseries, but love must be the thing that propels your service. Have you found yourself loving the things God hates and being bored with the things God loves?

Is church just a think to do?

Does singing hymns bore you out of your mind?

When someone bings up the bible, do you find yourself joking around and not paying attention? eager to get out of there and do something else.

What draws you to church? Is it games, food, friends or is it love for God?

True authentic love must be the foundation of everything we do.