Rom 12-Sincere Love
| Sincere Love! Romans 12:9-10
March 9, 2008 (New International Version) 9Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.(New Living Translation) 9Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. 10Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.(The Message) 9Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. 10Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. PRAY Scripture Memory:Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. – Romans 12:4-5 (NIV) Intro:What does Love mean?A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs." – Chrissy - age 6"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK." – Danny - age 7"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken." – Elaine - age 5"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones." – Lauren - age 4 This Week:1. Sincere Love – True love is genuine2. Good Hatred – True love is discerning After Easter:3. Devoted Honor – True love is commitment The Context:Notice how love is emphasized in connection with the gifts…1 Cor. 12-13…Where love starts: 12:1-2 – before God / 12:3 – within ourselves / 12:3-5 – “The proper exercise of our spiritual gifts in the Body of Christ cannot be attained apart from an other-oriented love.” (Chuck Swindoll)“Authentic love cannot flow on a horizontal plane until its vertical relationship with God has been established. Among other things, this involves the dedication of ourselves to Him.” (Chuck Swindoll) 1. Sincere Love – True love is genuine (v. 9a)(NIV) Love must be sincere.(NLT) Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them.(The Message) Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it.Notice the words associated with love in these different renderings of this verse: Love – sincerity, not pretended, real, not fake, from the center of who you areSincere: based on the Latin words sine cera, meaning w/o wax – pottery – “Quality was stamped with sine cera (‘without wax’) to show that it had not been doctored.” (Boice)This is our goal. Like holiness, it is rarely pure, but it must be our goal. What does insincere love look like?Ø Words or actions which are more meant to make the speaker look better than to make the hearer feel betterØ Words or actions which are more attempts to alleviate guilt than to bring healing to anotherØ Words or actions that flow from a sense of obligation rather than genuine concernØ Words without actionsØ Words accompanied by actions or attitudes which contradict them What does sincere love look like?Ø Words or actions given self-sacrificiallyØ Words or actions which flow from genuine concern for anotherØ Words or actions which come through faith in God and flow from love for GodØ Actions, which may or may not include wordsØ Child-like – with no thought of earning anything in return – the Blind Boy and the Weed Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four-year-old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry." The Most Beautiful Flower Disillusioned by life with good reason to frown, For the world was intent on dragging me down. And if that weren't enough to ruin my day, A young boy out of breath approached me, all tired from play. He stood right before me with his head tilted down And said with great excitement, "Look what I found!" In his hand was a flower what a pitiful sight, With its petals all worn - not enough rain, or too little light. Wanting him to take his dead flower and go off to play, I faked a small smile and then shifted away. But instead of retreating he sat next to my side & placed the flower to his nose & declared with surprise, "It sure smells pretty and it's beautiful, too. That's why I picked it; here, it's for you." The weed before me was dying......or dead. Not vibrant of colors, orange, yellow or red. But I knew I must take it, or he might never leave. So I reached for the flower, & replied, "Just what I need." But instead of him placing the flower in my hand, He held it mid-air without reason or plan. It was then that I noticed for the very first time That weed-toting boy could not see: he was blind. I heard my voice quiver, tears shone like the sun As I thanked him for picking the very best one. "You're welcome," he smiled, and then ran off to play, Unaware of the impact he'd had on my day. I sat there and wondered how he managed to see A self-pitying woman beneath an old willow tree. How did he know of my self-indulged plight? Perhaps from his heart, he'd been blessed with true sight. Through the eyes of a blind child, at last I could see The problem was not with the world the problem was me. And for all of those times I myself had been blind, I vowed to see the beauty in life, and appreciate every second that's mine. And then I held that wilted flower up to my nose And breathed in the fragrance of a beautiful Rose | | And smiled as I watched that young boy, another weed in his hand About to change the life of an unsuspecting old man. Question: Does this mean that I should not do something for someone else if I really don’t really care, out of a sense of obligation? – Should I do what is right if my heart is wrong?REPENTANCE…Note: this type of love is not natural. It is supernatural. It will not happen by our merely trying harder to be like this.It is a by-product of our understanding and awareness of God’s love for us. – a derivative love1 John 4:19 (NIV) – We love because He first loved us.We will NEVER be sincere lovers until we are secure in God’s love for us…To the degree that we are secure… Two things we need to grow in:1. Our understanding of God’s love for us2. Our love for each other because of God’s love for us 2. Good Hatred – True love is discerning (v. 9b) – (NIV) Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. (NLT) Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. (The Message) Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. The Greek tense gives us: Love must be sincere, hating what is evil and clinging to what is good.Once again, notice the words associated with hate and good in these different renderings of this verse: Hate what is wrong, run from evil Good – Cling to it, hold tightly to it, hold on to it for dear lifeHatred and Love – opposites? In a sense…“Love is not some mushy emotion that embraces all, forgets all, and requires nothing.”True love does hate.God is love. (1 John 4:7)Yet, God also hates…Ø God hates haughty eyes, a lying tongue, etc. (two of six things from Prov. 6:16-19)Ø He hates religion that is merely formal (Isa. 1:12-15; Amos 5:21)Ø He hates Idolatry (Deut. 16:21-22)Ø He hates wickedness (Ps. 45:7)Ø He hates the practices of the Nicolaitans (Rev. 2:6)“Hatred is a faculty given to us by the Creator for good. It is difficult at first, perhaps, to see its place in religion, because we see in it so plainly the evidence of man’s fall.” (William Bell)“It is a faculty liable to abuse and the Christian requires great grace to use it well.” (William Bell)So what are we to hate?Evil – Sin – God mentions a few specific sins in the passages we just looked at—pride, lies, insincere or hypocritical religion, idolatry, sexual immorality—but we could just as easily say that He hates ALL that is sin.“Crimes sometimes shock us too much; vices almost too little.” (William Bell) Our tendency is to hate sin which blatantly hurts people while downplaying sin which is an offense to God; to hate sin which is clearly ugly, while justifying sin which we enjoy…The alternatives to hating evil:Compromise – giving up truth for the sake of…Redefining Evil to allow what we don’t hate“We are secretly in love with evil, and nothing but the regenerating, sanctifying influence of the Spirit of God can remove the love of sin.” (William Bell)Once again we come back to v. 2 – our need to resist being conformed to this world’s standards and to have our minds (and hearts) transformed by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. Two more things we need to grow in:3. We need to grow in our understanding of what truly is evil—as GOD would define it…4. And We need to grow in our hatred of that which God calls evil… Summary / Review:Four things we need to grow in:1. Our understanding of God’s love for us2. Our love for each other because of God’s love for us3. We need to grow in our understanding of what truly is evil—as GOD would define it…4. And We need to grow in our hatred of that which God calls evil… A Truth to Remember: God’s love for us truly sincere. In full awareness and understanding of our sin, He still loves us intensely and enjoys our worship of Him. A Challenge to Consider:Which of the four things that we need to grow in are you willing to invest in over the next week or so? One thing I heard this morning was… |