Lesson 52a

Romans, chapter 12, verses 9 through 13. I'm going to read them. Unless one of you guys wants to volunteer to read them, that'd be cool. Why don't one of you guys read them? Or I'll pick somebody. Who's got a Bible? Well, I got a Bible. OK, read. 9 through 13. OK. This is the Holman Christian Standard Bible again. OK.

A love must be without hypocrisy. Detest evil. Cling to what is good. Show family affection to one another with brotherly love. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lack diligence, but be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in affliction. Be persistent in prayer. Share with the saints in their needs. Pursue hospitality. Boy, have you ever looked at five verses that gave you more to do than those five?

Wow. I mean, it's amazing. He starts out by in my New American Standard, let love be without hypocrisy. And so my first question on the list was, what does it mean to love without hypocrisy? Well, it's interesting. I looked up a couple of the words. Hypocrisy is a word. The noun is dissimilation. The verb is lupocarinomaia.

It means to take up another statement in reference to what one has decided for oneself to reply, or it means to answer. Also means to give off judgment. Here's another cool thing. It means to be an actor on a stage or to impersonate someone else or to play a part.

What I find interesting as I got down farther into these definitions, to love one another without hypocrisy. It appears to me that Paul recognized that believers can have a tendency to do the nice smile and the handshake and the fist bump, but they don't really mean it. You think that's what he means? Do you think he's telling them, look, don't play the hypocrite? Genuinely love someone without any hypocrisy. And if this word hypocrisy is looked at, it means to impersonate or to play a part.

And you know what? Honestly speaking, we're really good at that. We can run into somebody that we really don't think very highly of and act like they're the best lost friend we've ever had. And that same thing happens within the body of believers. And so he's right out front. If we're gonna love one another, we should do it without any play acting. It's either real or it's not. And one of the great things about Paul's epistles, if there's anything more real than Paul's epistles, I don't know what they are. So, and it's a command. We're to do this.

So, next question without going to question two. So I'm sitting there one day in my office and I'm thinking about this and I'm praying and it dawns on me that I really do kind of fake this when I'm in a situation, especially with someone I don't admire too much. What do I do about that? Nobody knows. Come on, you guys have to answer. That's why your mic should be unmuted. I want you all to talk. Unmute your mics, all of you. Courtney, unmute them all.

You're talking about tough love, Mike. Is that what it is? JD, is it tough love? I'm just getting it started here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, do I suck it up and go love somebody? That's a tough one. And I'm not trying to. No pun intended, but it is tough, right?

You want love to be extremely genuine, and you want it to be from the heart. And in order to do that, you have to be walking with the Lord because otherwise you're going to fake it till you make it and it's going to look like it. It's going to sound like it, but at the end of the day, you know, it's not coming. It's not the Lord's type of love. It's not about giving and serving. It's more about getting and using. And our love is, is, is 100% based on getting something from it. Yeah. That's not how the Lord functions, and without walking with Him, we will absolutely fake it till we make it. Sure. Anybody else? Well, it has to be sincere.

I think we have to understand what kind of love God put forth to love us. And if we really understand what kind of love that God has for us, I think That's the kind of love he wants us to have for the brothers, for other people, and not just the brothers, but for the unsaved also. Anybody else?

I had a lesson you had a while back about love your neighbor as yourself, which was one that I never really understood for a long time. In the lesson that you gave, I really got something, which is really, I want people to treat me with respect and kindness. I don't necessarily want them to love me so much. And that's kind of what I took is like, I may not like my neighbor that much, but if I come from a place of I'm going to respect him, kind and generous, even though I don't really inside, I don't really feel that love so much. I really feel like I'm coming from the Lord. And I feel that that's an act of love. It may not be fleshly love, but it's an act of coming from, you know, I'm going to respect my neighbor and be kind to him.

And anyway, that's a good thought, Jim. Who else? you know, Mike, one of the things, uh, it, the last verse I had was about, uh, mercy and ask the question, can you do that uncheerfully? And, and, you know, kind of, well, yeah, I think JD, you might've said, you know, yeah, you have, there are times where he can't be, but then the actual definition, the Greek word is hilarity. And so I'm wondering, you know, it, You've got to have mercy with cheerfulness. If you're grudgingly doing it, is it really mercy that you're suffering through this? Is this similar with love? If you're grudgingly doing it, is it done without hypocrisy? Yeah. And I was being a little ornery with you last week. Oh, gee. Gee, I'm surprised. Yeah, right? I think the attitude behind the behavior is...

That's definitely a dependence upon the Lord, because we're not good at that as people. At least I'm not. I don't know, maybe you guys are sitting here listening to me thinking, oh, he's got a big problem worth solving. But sometimes it's tough. It is hard. But that has more to do with my walk with the Lord than it does with what I'm dealing with, oftentimes. It's not enough liking that I think it can. The one thing I was thinking about was we have—you notice where these commands are? They're in Romans 12. And we have gone through Romans 5, 6, 7, and 8, especially 6, and especially 8. And so the believer has two natures.

He's got the old nature, which is not a lover. And he has a new nature, which is exemplified that God so loved the world that he gave his only son. He's the only one that's ever died for me. And he did it without my permission or without anything that I was even aware of, which demonstrates that God loved the world.

So what I discover is, If I'm judgmental about myself and I'm not loving this way, what am I doing? I'm messing with the old man. I'm walking in the flesh and I'm trying to figure out a way to get the flesh to function like Paul says, love without hypocrisy. Well, guess what? The flesh can't do that. Like, you know, JD, you said, I'm always loving to get something, or maybe Jim, you said that.

And so, The point is, I think, that as the Spirit of God grows us up and conforms us to the image of Christ, this is the kind of love that's going to come out of us. Our focus is on the Lord Jesus. And so for Paul to tell us in an imperative to love without hypocrisy, he's showing us that love can be very hypocritical. But because of who we are and our position in Christ and the life we have, it's possible and probable that we would love without hypocrisy as we, like one of you said, walked in the Spirit, abide in Christ. So what's tricky here is that when you see something like this, You're convicted about your own inability to love without hypocrisy. You go to work immediately on trying to make this happen out of your own strength, and it isn't going to happen that way.

So, you know, it's quickly back to, I was crucified with Christ, buried, resurrected. I have a new life in Christ, and this new life, as I behold the glory of the Lord Jesus, this is the new life that will come through me as I'm maturing as a believer. That make sense? This kind of goes maybe back to one of my isms that I think of with love without hypocrisy.

And one of the things that I think I've said in some of the classes is, again, that your choice of being offended, it's your choice to be offended. And it really ends up being harmful to you and also has the inability to love others. if you choose to be offended. And going back to the point is that you willfully make the choice to be offended. No matter what anybody does to you, you willfully make that choice.

So if you don't choose that all the time, and this is by realizing your new life in Christ, and it's only by the power of the Holy Spirit that will allow you to not to make that choice all the time. But that frees you up to love much more if you're not offended. And I think that's what a lot, again, in my life, it's helped tremendously. 30 or 40 years ago, when a guy told me that, it really made sense to me.

And usually when you're offended, you're the one who's miserable, but the guy who offended or whoever offended you is fine, they're off without any problem. You're the one suffering because you choose to be offended. But it's kind of the love without hypocrisy, I think, You're offended, but you're faking love. I mean, if you truly don't be offended, you can love much more freely.

Sure. Sure. Any other comments? Go ahead. I do. I also wanted to say that it's easy to show love sometimes. And, but not love from the heart. I think loving from the heart, you will express it in actions too, just like 1 John 3, 18 says, let us not love in the word or with, let us not love in word or truth. Let us not love in the word, neither with tongue, but indeed in the truth. You know, you show it by your actions. Yeah, and truth, notice the key word there, truth.

What's interesting is, I, you know, as I reflect back on my life before I was a believer, I don't think I ever loved anybody, to be honest. I mean, I would, I could fake it pretty good. I always had an agenda that if I demonstrated love towards them, I had something that I wanted from them. But then as a believer, as you walk around, I think initially I was sort of surprised that I, especially, I always thought believers were sort of weird, you know? And so when I became one, and then I started hanging around with them, and I discovered, well, they're not so bad. And then I began to discover, well, some of them, I kind of love them. They're really kind of neat, you know?

And it's interesting how the Spirit of God slowly but surely this life that comes out of you isn't in spite of you, sometimes it is, but it's who you are now in Christ. And you walk with the brothers and the brethren, and even if they're not cool like you are, that's okay. You love them anyway, or you run into somebody who's a believer that you've never met before. There's a connection, a heart connection with them just because they belong to Christ. and you didn't have to work it up to do it.

It's just there, you know. He's just there, is maybe a better way to put it. So, now, that's on the positive side. Now watch this next one. He says, abhor what is evil. So my question too is, how does a believer express hate for evil? I gotta tell ya, I've had Christians tell me that they just, you know, that they, They just hate the sins they're doing, like Romans 7 and my attitude was, I never hated any sin I ever did. I did it purposely and I wanted to. So, when we talk about hate here, this is abhor. It's more than just a dislike it. This is hatred that's expressed. So again, if I come into a situation that's evil and I gotta hold down my expression or I gotta manifest my expression of hatred, do I really hate? It's like, do I really love it? On the other side of that same nickel is do I really hate evil? Do I? So Mike, are you talking about, it kind of sounded like personal, like hate the sins that you do, Is this also evil that you see in others?

It's both. It's both. I just want to clarify that. It sounded like you were first going with singular, your own evil, your own sins, hate that, but this is also seeing what is evil and hating that. Yeah, and it's interesting if you look at this word, hate or abhor, and it's two words. Apo means to be away from and means to which which is expressed. Put it this way. The Christian is to express his hatred of evil by withdrawal from it and the loathing of it. And the word evil is pineros, which we know that word pretty well. It's the latter speaking of evil in the abstract. I'm sorry, kakos is evil in the abstract. Pineros is evil in active opposition to good.

The word pernicious could well translate this. Again, I can't get over the understanding of all that we've learned in Romans in terms of, it's almost like as I read this, this is the way the new life functions. This isn't a list, a refrigerator list for me to try to imitate. Does that make sense?

No, yes? when you said the Christians express this hatred of evil from withdrawal from it and a loathing of it, that always comes back to, well, or this is kind of hate the sin, love the sinner. So when you withdraw from it, I mean, this always comes up, abhor evil, but you wanna bring the word to the sinner, to the one who is in that evil. So it's kind of a, You hate it, but again, hate the sin, love the sinner, I think. Well, I think the first part of chapter nine solves that problem.

To love without hypocrisy, you're loving the person, but you don't love what they do, you know? Right, you just said withdrawal from it. I guess it's, to me, it's more not a condoning or approval of any of the evil. It's withdrawal from that, but you, show Christ to that person or in that evil situation, you're the light, you're the one providing Christ as an ambassador. Yes, that's a good point. You make known that it's evil, it's bad, but you still have that love without hypocrisy to that individual. Do you at some point withdraw from the person? I don't think so. I don't think Christ ever gave up on anybody. Sure.

But, but you don't give approval, you know, I think in Romans one, I think it's, you know, somewhere about giving hearty approval to the sin. I think there's something that you, you, you know, it goes through all the sinful and then to those who give hearty approval, we're not giving hearty approval to it.

Yeah. But we are, you know, still actively pursuing the individuals who don't know the Lord. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think that when you understand that this word, S-T-U-G-E-O, is hatred as it is expressed, it's not just a mental thing.

And oppo means to withdraw or move away from. And I move away from it because it just, oh, I don't want to use the word offend, Courtney. but I abhor it. I really abhor it. I don't want to be around it. Yeah. Well, it's not a personal offense. You just don't like, you abhor it. It's not an offense to you. Right. It's not right. And you, you pull away from it. So, yeah, I mean, that's, that's not offended. You're not offended. You're just not approving. Right.

Well, and it's more, it's more than not approving. There's an abhorrence here. You know, I'm not going there, you know, so In my accordance app, the Goodrich-Kohlenberger dictionary says another word to describe that apostate jail, whatever it is, is to detest. And it's the only time this word is used in the New Testament. But I think in contrast to love, Love actually takes action to show itself. I think...

We don't necessarily take action against, you know, to show our hatred against it. Right. We just, we withdraw from it. There you go. We distance ourself from it. That's good, Jim. Yeah. Not necessarily from the person. We love the person, like Courtney was saying, but we just detest the evil that he participates in. Yeah. That's pretty good. I like that.

Something that's been going through my head. We were listening to Vern's Law and Grace series, Matthew, and he talks about Jesus washing Judas' feet. And he was expressing his love for him, even knowing the evil he was about to commit. Surely abhorring the evil, but loving him. Right. That's good.

Yeah, and actually the feet washing is a good example of love without hypocrisy, because the symbology there is the fact that your feet are the thing that's connected with the earth. And so they're the part of the human body that needs to be cleansed as believers. And the metaphor is back in those days, when you went into somebody's house, your feet were really dirty, and they needed to clean them. And the Lord Jesus demonstrate that he loved the apostles by doing that for them. And so what is he doing in light of these verses?

He's demonstrating loving without hypocrisy, but he's also getting rid of the evil. All right, third part of this verse, cling to what is good. The word cling is an interesting word. It means to glue, cement, to join fast, firmly together. So how do I cling to what is good?

That question's not in your notes. How do you do that? And clinging is, you know, I have, I remember one time, oh, I think Courtney was with us. We were swimming in the ocean, and my son was with us, and the current grabbed him, and he started heading towards some rocks, so we went to get him, and when I got to him, he clung onto me, boy, I'll tell you what, he wasn't gonna let go.

That's what this word means. That's exactly what this word means, to glue, you know, to glue to what is good. Now again, I think it's not, this is not item three on the refrigerator list, that you get up every morning and say, okay, today I'm gonna love without hypocrisy, I'm gonna abhor evil, and I'm gonna cling to what is good. And then I'll check them off as the day goes along. This is part of the new life.

You know, and what's interesting is, to personify it, what did the Lord Jesus say was good? Who did he say was the only one that was good? Yeah, the Father's the only one that's good. So, goodness is godliness. So, what it means from the standpoint of identification is to hang on to Christ as tight as you can, because He is goodness. You know, it's a personification. Yeah, it's a principle, but it's also a personification. And a lot of time, go ahead. Oh, I was just going to build on what you said. I think that is really important.

Everything about these verses is personal to our focus and beholding the Lord Jesus. These are not to-do lists, like you said. They don't sit with check boxes next to them for the daily life. They are simply a manifestation of having spent time with our Savior. him manifesting himself through us and these are the things that he does through us and um so the believers can be so um hung up with these you know these these different qualities of of life love um lack of hypocrisy um you know clinging on to god or clinging on you know to to what is good and it can just it could Really bear a lot of weight if you don't understand. It's actually it's about a person and it's about Spending time with that person that that these qualities manifest themselves. That's really good JD. I think that's right That's really good kind of kind of jumping on top of that. I mean It's a life not a program. It's not a it's it's a manifestation of Christ. It's not a a program that we sign up or a book that has a check mark that you do all this, you know, it's, it's really the manifestation. It's kind of interesting.

Go back to what Jim said to the, the contrast to love without hypocrisy. We have that, that you love without, without any hypocrisy. And then you run away from evil, but you cling to good. It's the polar differences. You want to get away from evil as much as possible, but the other is that you cling to what is good. So it's the polar opposites here. You want to stay away from all the evil stuff, but you want to cling to what is good. So it's quite the polar difference.

I really like what Jade, he personified what is good. It's a person. You know, you cling to Him, and that's really critical. I think that's probably the most critical aspect of this whole verse, is you hang on to Christ. He's the one, so. You know, I think the whole beginning of this lesson has to do with us growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. Right.

And apart from Jesus, it's really him doing it in and through us. And I remember when Hal Malloy used to teach us at work, Bible study work on Romans, he would say when he was a brand new Christian, but he had a Thursday night whiskey, cigar, and poker night. And he was born again, but he was just smoking cigarettes and the cigars, and they were all getting wasted.

And you have to grow to understand and see evil through God's eyes or his lens. Well, I think, Russ, that there are a lot of things. When you come to Christ as an adult, there are a lot of things that you're comfortable with that are evil, sinful. And some of them abhor you right away, but others don't early on. But as you grow, some of that stuff just drops off of you because it's, like it says, you walk away from evil. You don't wanna be associated with anymore. It doesn't have any allure to you, so you walk away. But it's a two-edged sword. You just don't walk away into, you know, out on the road on the yellow line.

What you do is you cling to Christ, and the clinging to Christ is what allows the walking away, because you begin to find out over time that you really aren't interested in much that has anything to do, that doesn't have everything to do with Him. If it's not about Him, you're not interested. Well, that's a work that the Holy Spirit works in our heart as we grow spiritually. There are things in the world that we really, really like and hang on to, but as you grow in Christ, and as we'll see down towards the end of these verses, to serve Him, there are things that in and of themselves aren't evil, but they're not Him, and that makes the difference.

Mike, there's also, especially for young believers, it's, I think it's necessary to direct our thoughts towards things like in Philippians 4.8, you know, whatever is true, noble, honorable, just, pure, lovely, you know, good reporting, if there is any virtue of any praise, Think about these things. So we have to direct our thoughts towards those things, too, until Christ just takes over. We become more mature in Christ.

I connect that with Colossians 3.1. Since you be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.

Courtney and I have had discussion about, well, what are those things? Are they the refrigerator list? Are they the good things? No, they're the things of the person of Christ. My affections are on things above and not on things of the earth. And that's what, to quote the Philippians, those are the things that are good and important and as you described. Yeah. And then in verse two, he says, set your mind on these things. That's right. That's right. Yeah. OK. Screaming ahead to question three, how is it possible that we believers can be devoted to one another? And so we're looking at, now we've come to verse 10, be devoted to one another in brotherly love. How's that possible?

A little background, brotherly love is the word Philadelphia, philio means to have affection for, to be fond of, and adelphos means a brother. So we're talking about fellowship here. Exhibiting brotherly affection and brotherhood here being that of believers. So this is among believers. Another way to put it is kindly affectionate, a sentiment innate and peculiar to men as men, as distinguished from love of desire, called out by the circumstances.

So what are we talking about here? One of the commenters I read said that this, the word here represents Christians is bound by a family tie. Yesterday we had, and our family, my daughter organized, we had a Zoom bingo game, which people from Washington and all of our family, my wife's family, all over the country, plus some of my family, all Zoomed in and we played bingo.

And that lasted about 30 minutes and it was over. And then we spent the next hour like we're right now on as many people, and as many people as I can see back and forth talking, well, you know, hey, Tiffany, how's it going with you? And are you going to nursing school this fall? And a whole entire hour, what was the motivation there?

The motivation is, is that they're family, and we're tied to them all, and they're tied to us. Well, the family tie in a body of believers is even stronger than that, because our family ties are spiritual, united by sharing the same life of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I think that in a fellowship, that's why they call it a fellowship. I think that defines the characteristics of a body of believers and how they function together. And a realization of who we are and how we're connected The truth is, I'm more connected to all of you than I am to one of my brothers who's not a believer. I'm way more connected to you than him. He's still my brother from an earthly standpoint, but in terms of unity of life and purpose, you guys are stuck with me. Don't keep reminding us. I feel the same way. You know, the Holman Christian Standard Bible says, show family affection to one another. And that's exactly what you're talking about.

We'll also just just remember what we you know, we we parse these in small sections Remember what we just went through and earlier in Romans 12 were a body hands feet arms So there's a there's a natural natural being in the body of Christ that nature of affection for the rest of the body because we're all part of Christ's body and So I think the manifestation of it and why you feel the closeness with believers are we are all part of one body. And that foments this love and affection for each other is because we're all part of one body. The hand and the feet and all the things we went through earlier in Romans 12 shows us that we're all working together and there's a natural within Christ's body affection. and shared by the same life. You know, I have, how do I say this? I have life from my parents, physical life, but I have the life of Christ. And we all share the life of Christ, not from him, of him. And that's a huge difference, I think. And we're gonna be able to be like this for all eternity.

It's gonna get nothing but better. Hopefully not forever in Zoom meetings. Oh, face-to-face, you know. You know what's kind of funny is because Vern has all the African friends. Right. And because we're his friends, they befriend us on Facebook. And I've got three or four friends and I've never met them.

They're just, you can just tell they've got the same spirit. They're so loving, and they're like Julian, Hassan's wife. She's like one of those precious Christians. She's just- Oh, Juliet? Yeah. Yeah, she's like an instant sister. Yeah. Well, when Hassan came here, that's the way it was.

I mean, the first time I met him, I thought, this is a really cool guy, you know? Why? Was he so cool? Because he was from Africa? No, because he had the heart for the Lord Jesus. And there was another guy that came from Africa that didn't have that heart. And so although we hung around with him, I didn't have the same affection for him. I really didn't. And it wasn't because I tried or didn't try.

It's just the way that life that's shared is a life of affection. You know, okay, the five minute bell just rang. So we've got, actually, we've got four minutes. I was having Ingrid try and find the bell so she can, or maybe we can have Bill Speckman ring the bell in your ear. He's busy.

So be devoted to one another in brotherly love. And the last part of verse 10 is give preference to one another in honor. So honor is an interesting word, the valuing by which the price is fixed. Deference, reverence, veneration, honor, hence the word means that respect shown another which is measured by one's evaluation of another. And I find that How do you evaluate another Christian? That's probably a good question.

And as I'm looking at my screen, do I have an evaluation of each one of you differently? And as you look at your screen and look back at us, do you have a different evaluation of each one of us differently? What do you think? I know you evaluate me, Mike. No, you don't. Thank you, JD. I was going to say something too. Notice the evaluation is based on the word honor. It's really interesting. JD, why would I honor you? I think it is interesting. We evaluate people.

Yes, we do. And we have to understand levels of maturity. We have to, I mean, there's so many things that are qualifications for being, you know, different roles within the body. So evaluations have to be made. with regards to where we are with relation to spirituality.

I think there are those things that we, as humans, evaluate that are not worth spending time on, but we- I just muted everybody. Okay, can you hear me still? So yeah, I mean, there's those personality evaluations that this is not what I think is being discussed here. This has to do with who we are in Christ, right? And the value that that gives each and every believer to the body. We have different roles, however... I think I muted everybody. Okay. So I'll leave it at that. No, you didn't, Cheryl. I'll mute you. I'll leave it at that.

That's pretty good, J.D. I do think that if you add the word here, preferring one another in honor, it means that they go before you, leading the way in preference. Here's the thing, and I'm going to talk about this the next couple of Sundays in the verses that we're doing out of 1 Corinthians. If we operate on a world basis, our evaluation system is based on worldly premises.

Where do you fit in the tribe, and what have you accomplished? It's like with men. Somebody introduces you to a guy, and how many questions before you ask him, what do you do? Because what he does matters how you evaluate him. Is it time? That's for Brian. Brian, you get your job back immediately when we get back together. So that's time. All right, well, we're going to get ready because we'll get up. I want to talk some more about this next week when we we meet again. So let's close and we'll shut down and then reissue the invitations to the main service. So thank you, guys. It was great. Thanks for your participation.

And your father, we thank you for the grace that we live under. We thank you that you're so careful. to show us the difference between how the flesh operates and how the life in your Son, resurrected life in your Son operates. And so we, again, we grow, we desire to grow in the knowledge and grace of Him every minute of every day. And we thank you, we pray in your Son's precious name. Amen.