Untitled Sermon (61)

This section of scripture it's still about the Christian life. And we have instructions for different situations. In this section we learn how we are to treat one another. That is how you are to treat other saved people. How you are to treat other Christians.

This section teaches us how we are too deal with other people in the world or another way to say it, our relationship and actions towards the lossed. This section teaches us how we are to respond in situations. And this section tells us how we are to respond with the problem and issue of evil in the world.

and it is given to us in a very rapidway. But it's a section we really need to focus on. In our own personal lives. It's one we need to be honest about ourselves with period because the last thing I want for this ministry to do is nod their head in agreement to something that they are guilty of.

And folks you have to understand something, we are all guilty. This is why we have to be told, This is why we have to be instructed to act this way because we all violate these actions.

Do you get that question mark we all walk around proclaiming i'm not perfect. But rarely do we ever get real personal with ourselves .

As a matter of fact i get the suspicion that people walking around saying I am not perfect is a cheap cop out to get some attention off themselves. It may be slightly honest, but it may also be treated as i'm not perfect you're not perfect so let's move on.

And of course nobody in here affirms that anyone is perfect but I question how often we, as human beings, really hold ourselves accountable. Imagine when you lie that you would actually call yourself a liar.

Imagine that if you cheated at something you actually called yourself a cheater. What if we actually called ourselves the very things that we are actually doing?

But the issue is, we kind of dilute ourselves we are a bit delusional about our own actions. I have never met a Christian who didn't agree with the statement that we are to love our neighbor but do you really love the people around you?

Well pastor I don't hate them, it's not what I asked. Do we really love the people around us. If so, how is that love displayed.

You see when we begin to hold a mirror in front of us we begin to get a little they see. We begin to cringe bit. So we see this reflection in the mirror and we say Yikes that's not a pretty image.

Let me just comb this that way let me just straighten this up. Let me just apply this to my face. Let's cover our imperfections.

And if it's not being delusional about ourselves what we then do is break the mirror in front of us so we do not have to look at the reflection. We push away what we see and act like it does not exist.

As I have been reading and studying this section, this chapter of scripture I couldn't help but to think about the first ministry i really got active in. Where I was a youth pastor at.

It is a place where they pay their pastor very well . A place that is conveniently located and a place that I want I'm wanted to pastor at.

And I have to say I am so thankful that God did not allow that situation. Because I was being delusional about the situation. It is a ministri that I'm very fond of in an area that I greatly cared about.

It is also a ministry that is Deacon ran. Where the deacons have the power over the church. Which by the way, I realize it is a 19th and 20th century tradition, Completely unbiblical.

Today's teaching is not on how God designed the church to be governed but I have to let it be known that part of the reason the situation I'm bout to share with you all is because in its governing the church did not honor God.

So in a situation where the deacons have the power this gives unqualified men, and by me saying unqualified men I mean unqualified to have elder status power, it gives unqualified men a taste of power and gives them the temptation to abuse such power. Which often happens. Not every time. But it happens often

it happens so often that churches are beginning to get away from it and going back to the biblical model. This specific ministry has a history of doing that period they dictate how long a pastor is allowed to preach, they dictate how many hours he is to spend inside of his office , they dictate what events he will be involved with, and sometimes they dictate what the pastor is allowed or not allowed to preach on.

In this specific ministri, 1 Deacon was paying his mortgage with church funds and when that was discovered his right to the finances were taken away but he still remained Deacon and still had the power to make decisiones they have long term effects on the ministry.

Some of the deacons at that ministry were standup guys, some diegans had enough and left. Some deacons couldn't resist having a position of power. And so they mistreated people, they mistreated the pastors, they mistreated people who volunteered. Not every Deacon but to the deacons that were abusing power.

And I would like to think that this is just one ministri that went through this but no. I know of too many. Some Deacon boards do have men who are qualified to be what we would call inhelder status but they just kind of stick with early American tradition and keep it a Deacon board.

In that case I don't know if the title is a big deal to fuss over. But when you do have unqualified people abusing other people that is an issue.

And I wish I can tell you all that it's only deacons at specific ministries that are the issue and that's not true. The church is filled with problem people who do not want to follow the commands of God and think that they have the right to dictate a ministry.

There are people in churches all across the world who do not practice these Christian attributes that we're going to be looking at but demand that everyone else do.

There are churches all across the world or people nod their head and say yes it is true that we should love God and love our neighbor but do not have a love for any one of those things. So if you were wondering why this section is so important it's because our fallen nature leads us to do those kinds of things.

An there shall not be a soul in here who shall think for one second that they are immune to this kind of behavior. I assure you you are not. I assure you that not only are you capable of behaving in such a wrong way but that you are inclined to behave in such a way.

And if you were not capable and if you were not inclined to behave in such a way then there would be no need for Paul to command these things to believers.

There very much is a need to command these things to believers. There is very much a need to remind ourselves how we should behave towards one another, how we should behave to those who are perishing among us, on how we should behave in specific situations, and how we should behave or how our attitude should be towards the issue an problem of evil in our world.

So I want to encourage you all too closely pay attention an ask yourselves am I honestly this person that Paul is describing am I honestly practicing such things period or am I guilty of doing the opposite? So let's dive in let's see what God has to tell us through his word.

Romans 12:9–10 NASB95

Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor;

The section we looked at last week was in relation to the gifts used in the ministri. Now Paul is moving on and versus 9 through 13 can fall under how Christians should act to one another and how Christians should act in situations. Doesn't say specifically what situations but this is the way we are to behave.

And so the first statement that Paul makes is let love be without hypocrisy. Again one of those statements that we all nod our head and say Yep. But this section that we're looking at from Paul echoes what Jesus taught in the beatitudes.

Ultimately we can sum up the law, and we can sum up the teachings of Jesus as love God and love people. And so I have no doubt that when Paul says let love be with out hypocrisy he has the Christians love for God and the Christians love for other people in mind.

Love for God should be pure and undefiled In other words without hypocrisy. If you say you love God and do something contrary to his attributes or his nature you display that your love for God is not as strong as you might think.

This is due to the sin that lives within us. This is why we emphasize daily confession an repentance of sin. Because it is there all the time.

Regardless of our failures there is still a command to be holy as God is holy and there is still a command to love without hypocrisy. Love is not I love you brother but right now I don't like you.

That's not love. Now here is a fun fact or maybe even a sad fact for some of you. The early Christians struggled with the concept of love. Specifically they struggled with the idea of a loving father period because 1st century believers typically did not have very loving father's.

And so the concept of love, especially for those in the Greco Roman world, was very difficult to wrap their heads round. They really do not know how to love. And so the scripture has so much emphasis on love and what love looks like and really what follows from this list is what love looks like.

And the question we all need to be asking ourselves is our love without hypocrisy? Or do we get agitated with other people, do we get frustrated by other people and we allow our sin to disrupt our love for other people. Your answer should be yes we do . Yes I do.

And so the beginning of knowing how to truly love someone begins with God for he is love. We learn everything from God about love. And God does not love with hypocrisy.

That would be nonsense. He loves with a perfect love and so we need to be mimicking that perfect love. An it is a love that holds people accountable in caringness , it is a love that shows mercy to one another. It is a love that shows grace to each other.

it is a love that if you feel mistreated you take the time to explain why you feel that way instead of snapping. But the one thing it doesn't do, the one thing love is not is hypocritical.

So if you were saying things like I love that person but i really don't like them that would be a hypocritical statement. If you are saying things like I love that person but I don't want anything to do with him ever again. That is a very hypocritical statement.

Now it's hard for me to predict every single situation where one might be saying that period I understand that perhaps discernment has to be practiced and you have to possibly get away from somebody for safety reasons or whatever reasons that may be involved. I get that, we're not sacrificing discernment for the sake of love. Rather true love uses proper discernment.

So true love, in a situation where a person may be in danger would know to get away then get themselves in a safe position. True love does not allow oneself or people they love to put themselves in situations that can harm them. This is possibly the reason why Paul follows up with abhor what is evil.

Because true love does not love things that are evil. Rather it abhors evil literally one of the strongest words you can use in the Greek language. It literally means to hate.

Hate what is evil. We often say you should not hate. The correct understanding would be that we should hate the things that God hates and God hates with a perfect an righteous hatred. God hates evil. Yes he hates evil.

Anne if you don't believe me all you have to do is go back to the psalms where the psalmist says under the inspiration of the holy spirits that God hates the one who practices evil.

And it's not that hard to understand. When you think of child abduction and the feet of whatever may happen to that child in the hands of the abductor , it is easy to understand why we should hate evil.

Paul says to cling to what is good an all things that are good are a gift from God. The Greek word literally means to be glued to what is good. And that is what we need to be seeking out and clinging ourselves to is everything that is good.

And folks, there is so much good out there. The atheist would proclaim if there is a God why is there evil? And you can respond with but then why is there good?.

They have a problem with the concept of God and the problem of evil but they never associate that to everything that is good in their life. So we cling to everything that is good, we are glued to everything that is good.

Paul says to be devoted to one another in brotherly love. This is such an interesting statement to be made at this point in history. You see, Judaism always had such a thing as Brotherhood. It is one of the very few movements that used that phrase Brotherhood.

at least At this point in time. But the concept of brotherly love was used nowhere except in Christianity. So it is easy for us to sit here 2000 years later and just passed by that word like it's nothing. But that right there my friends, was a mind-blowing culture shock statement.

A movement that said we're not just a Brotherhood but we are to love like family. Now the Bible uses masculine language but it's intended for everyone. It is not excluding any females.

If we're honest to the language then we translate it with the masculine tones. The context reveals to us that is meant for everyone. Some modern day translations will take away the masculine language and just make it a little more gender inclusive.

If it's meant for a section where clearly it's for everyone i really have no problem with that period it's not my taste to get away from the original language but that is not a Hill I'm going to die on.

But if they want to become gender neutral about who God is then I have a huge problem and I believe that to be heresy. But if somebody wants to translate this section as be devoted to one another in brotherly and sisterly love, that's a Hill I will not die on I have no problems with that.

and the reason is because that is what is implied in the context anyway. And if I was teaching on it I will state it that way regardless so again not my taste to change the original language but not a big deal if it's in the proper spots.

But the teaching on this is clear we are to be devoted to one another in sibling love in brotherly love. Show each other care, show each other respect. And again , some people struggle with this because they never had love between siblings and so they have no clue what that means.

And again we go to God to learn that kind of love. We see how Jesus treated the 12. We look to the teachings of Christ and how he instructed we should be twords one another.

Anne Ramsey, we should be striving and fighting to be like that with one another. Paul adds emphasis to it by saying give preference to one another in honor.

Meaning allow somebody elses needs to be above your own. You want to know how you can love somebody and respect somebody in brotherly and sisterly love. Put their needs above your own. Don't be so focused about what you want put the needs of others before your own and think about other people. Do you see how this all goes together?

Romans 12:11-

Romans 12:11–13 NASB95

not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.

Do you see how all of this goes together?. Now verse 11 is a difficult verse to translate into the English language . And by now we should be used to this period there are just some things that don't crossover into the English language from the Greek language.

So they take some explanation. Where is 11 typically is not translated the same way because of its difficulty in translation. My translation says not lagging behind in diligence fervent in spirit serving the Lord.

And so that first part is not lacking in diligence should be more accurately understood as do not lack in zeal. The idea is to have a lot of zeal. Paul follows with fervent in spirit, this literally means boiled in spirit or heated in spirit on fire in spirit.

Now the difficulty in this spot is that we do not know what Paul means by spirit. Is it a capital S spirit in reference to the Holy Spirit question mark or is it a lowercase S spirit 4 man's spirit.

You have great men throughout history who argue that it's one or the other period honestly I think we can conclude to be on fire in man's spirit for the Holy Spirit.

The text does not actually say that, but, I do not think Paul would have much argument with that and beings how we do not know what his intention was with that word spirits then maybe we should play just a bit safe. But the meaning is clear.

Paul is telling us that we need to be on fire in spirit or by the spirit. And again I will emphasize in spirit for the Holy Spirit, so we need to have much zeal.

Here's the thing folks, our lives and the sin that surrounds us help us lose that fire, help us lose that zeal and so we want it always there we want it always back and so he is telling us do not fall behind with our zeal. Do whatever it takes to keep your zeal up but do it be on fire in the spirits and always be serving the Lord.

And it seems to be that Paul is saying that increasing this zeal and being on fire in the spirit is done by serving the Lord. Paul adds rejoicing in hope and preserving it tribulation.

Boy Oh boy do we need to hear that from time to time. That we are always rejoicing when times are good but persevering in the mist of tribulation.

God guarantees that tribulation would come for his people, when we read in the scriptures about a prosperous life it's not a prosperous life on earth it's a prosperous everlasting life in his presence in his glory.

And people have come over the years and taken these passages of prosperity and turned them into materialism. You would think , with all the preachings against materialism , that people would get it through their heads but of course they don't . Because they serve idols. So tribulation does come. And for some worse than others.

And so Paul is saying Hey when times are really good always be rejoicing in that. Always be living in that. Behave when times are bad persevere. He adds devoted prayer And I think it's fitting he does that right after the preserving and tribulation.

Be devoted in prayer. Prayer is a conversation with God. It's not a situation where we demand things out of God and expect them in return. We take our problems to God we take our request to God we give praise to God we talked to God, prayer is speaking to the one who saved us.

Paul adds contributing to the needs of the Saints and practicing hospitality. Is there somebody in here with need, how can we help. If you know you are a need you have to let somebody know. This is not an invitation for abuse, this is not an invitation for free employment, but if somebody is in need fulfill that need.

Pulses practice hospitality. Hospitality is another one of those situations that require discernment. You don't show hospitality Satan, so it's not hospitality without exceptions. But you know when it's proper time to show hospitality practice that hospitality.

Romans 12:14–15 NASB95

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.

I gotta be honest, I don't think we truly know what this means. And then when we think about when we are in situations like this, are we going to be obedient to the scriptures? Paul tells us to bless those who persecute us. What does that look like? Well we only have to look to the life of the Apostle Paul to get an understanding of what he means by that.

he says bless and do not curse. Paul was a man who was not afraid to tell the truth. But to those who are persecuting him, he did not repay back with violence. Instead he always gave them the gospel.

He preached wherever he went. He established real leadership qualities to the point where his very captors even began to respect him. Some of the Roman soldiers that were given the task of watching him learn to respect and admire Paul.

Paul's life is a true testimony of what Christianity looks like in action. And not only is it a testimony of what it looks like but it is a testimony to how powerful life can be when we do things God's way. If Paul had retaliated with revenge or an angry, he would not have made it to the places that he made it.

Which we believe he made it all the way to Nero. That was his goal, to get to the emperor and we believe that he completed that goal. Because Paul's writing stopped right before he meets the emperor.

Now this section that we're looking at is a transitional section which means Paul is getting ready to change the focus and the focus is no longer strictly on how we treat one another within the walls of the church and how we respond to certain situations but it is now switching over to how our attitudes should be like towards others.

Towards others in general. So Paul says rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. You wanna see people come to Salvation? Then be there for them. This is essential appall means when he says rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep , he saying that we need to be there for these people.

We need to be there for them in time of need. Now there will come times where people really do not want help, there will come times where people act like they need something from you but they really don't.

There will come times where people will act like they appreciate you coming alongside them but they are just using you for something. Doesn't matter . Because we do not perform for these people we perform for God and his heavenly host.

All of our actions have nothing to do with whether or not they work or not when it comes to church growth period everything we do we need to ask ourselves did God take pleasure in this?

You think I'm worried about it the world takes pleasure in what we do? No. So rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep no matter what.

Now folks, there is more that Paul has to say about our behavior and attitudes but that will be for next week period we must not lose sight of how we got to this section of scripture.

Paul told us do not be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. So do not forget that these attributes an actions and desires do not just magically happen but they happen at the renewal of your mind.

You become more like Christ when you begin to dive into the things of Christ and begin to read the words of Christ and begin to have the mind of Christ. So do not isolate this section and say these are just a list of things i must do in order to keep up this Christian facade.

The only way you can truly do this to the glory of God is if it is done in faith then you are being transformed by the renewing of your mind. If you are rejoicing with those who rejoice simply because it looks good in front of other church folk you were doing it for all the wrong reasons.

These are not the attributes of the people living around us this is the attributes of the people who live in Christ Jesus. These are the people who have died been buried with him and resurrected unto new life. And this is how you live out your new life.

So if you know you are in Christ then live it. But if you have never truly placed your trust in Jesus Christ alone for Salvation then you don't know anything about what we're saying here. If you cannot get past the first 2 verses of chapter 12 this does not pertain to you.

It has zero effect on you. because the type of attitude that Paul is describing here are meant for a special group of people it is the behavior of a special group of people and those people are described as those who are born again.

Those who have been renewed in the mind. So as we have been going through this list and if you've been sitting here thinking you know what none of that appeals to me.

I don't care for some of that stuff, I disagree with what Paul is saying then your problem is not with me or Paul your problem is with the commands of our Lord.

if you were saying you have a renewed mind yet reject or angry at the commands of the Lord then maybe you need a question of whether you have a renewed mind or not.

Perhaps you do have this renewed mind but you have backslid insofar insane over the years that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get back to that state that you once were and there's only one word I can give you that can help you and that is repent.

Turn from their sin that has darkened your heart in your mind and come back to living in the light as it is described here by Paul. This is truly free living.

Don't live like the world, you are not of the world, we do not belong to them and they're not free do truly live the joyful life. Oh how great life would be if we would just stop allowing sin to Rob us of the joy that it constantly robs us of.

I want the best for this ministry, I want us to treat each other the way that it is described here by Paul. I want us to obey the scriptures in everything that we do in practice and how we treat one another. But Oh how we let that's in Rob us of such true joy.

And my question to you all is, how long are you going to tolerate the thing that wants to kill you in your life. That is what soon wants, send wants to kill you. How long will you welcome the very thing that intends harm to you? How long will you be flirting with a venomous snake? How long will you play with black widows? How long will you sip on poison thinking it's coffee or tea?

What we see described in these words that we just covered are the key and path to true life, to true victory, an too true joy. Do you all want to true joy? Then seek God be transformed by the renewing of your mind for sake the ways of the world, do not conform to the world and beginning today begin to practice these things that we have just covered let's pray.