A four-part series on Romans 12 by Andrew Williamson
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Read transcript of Romans 12:1-2
Transcript produced automatically and lightly edited; it may contain errors.
I’ll break into the reading from verse 33.
In fact, 32.
For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
There ends the whole of the first section of the Roman epistle. We could see this doxology at the end as fitting onto the end of that. But chapter 1 to chapter 11 is coming to a conclusion now.
Again. For of him. And through him. And to him. Are all things. To whom be glory.
Forever and ever. Amen. I beseech you therefore. Brethren. By the mercies of God.
That you present your bodies. A living sacrifice. Holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
And be not conformed to this world. But be transformed. By the renewing of your mind. That you may prove what is that good. And acceptable. And perfect will.
Of God. We know God blesses the reading of his word to us.
It’s one of those sections of the word of God that is epic. Really in Romans chapter 1 to 11, we have what we might term the great doctrinal section of the epistle. He has travelled through so many wonderful heights of doctrine and teaching. And Paul does this all the time. He will give us the teaching before he tells us how to put it into practice in everyday life. And so chapter 1 to chapter 11 of the Roman epistle is doctrinal.
It is exposition. He is unpacking and unfolding to us wonderful things about God and the gospel in particular. And what God has done for us, those of us that are here today that have come to know him as our saviour God. And then of course chapter 12 to chapter 16, Paul doesn’t end with something that’s purely cerebral.
He wants it to flow down into our hearts and form part of us. And then flow out into our hands and our feet and change how we walk and change how we live. And so as we move from the end of chapter 11 into the start of chapter 12, he is going to give us a “therefore”. You’ll notice of course that it’s there, and of course as you’ll have heard, you ask what it’s there for, and it’s looking backwards over, I take it, the whole of the 11 chapters up to this point. And he says this. I beseech you therefore brethren. By the mercies of God.
That you present your bodies. A living sacrifice.
And so he is pivoting now. It’s not so much what God has done. And as we’ll see at the end of chapter 11. For a moment or two. Who God is. In all his greatness and sovereignty.
And wisdom and riches. And glory.
But it’s how we should respond. How we should respond to the grace of God in our lives. And that’s really where we’re coming to at the beginning of chapter 12. In a sense you could say this whole section. The whole of chapter 12 into chapter 13 and further in the epistles. It’s all what we might call responding to grace.
Responding to grace.
In verse 1 and 2 we’re going to see that Paul firstly, and of course this is key, Paul firstly touches upon our relationship with God, our appreciation, our attitude, my attitude to my God. That’s verse 1 and 2.
And he’s going to show from that that what is the response to what God has done in our lives should bring us to dedication, consecration and worship. So my attitude to my God. Then from verse 3 to 8, it’s my attitude to myself.
You’ll see that, won’t you? Verse number 3.
I say, through the grace of God given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, or sanely, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith. So that’s my attitude to myself. And then of course we come down to verse 9 to 13, and he’s going to deal with my attitude to my brother, my brethren and sisters. And if in the first, my attitude to my God, it’s dedication and worship that’s the focus. If in 3 to 8 it’s my attitude to myself and humility that’s the focus. From verse 9 to 13 it’s love that’s the focus. He’ll start with that tremendous statement that love be without dissimulation, or hypocrisy. Play acting. And he’ll develop that through that little section.
And of course he does with my attitude to my neighbour we might say. My unconverted name. Includes some of the section has to do with my attitude to my brethren still. But from verse 14 to 21. The focus is on the opposing. Of someone who is against me.
And if in the first section we have dedication and worship. And the second humility. And the third love. In this section from verse 14 to 21. The emphasis is on goodness. And he’ll finish the chapter.
With “be not overcome of evil. But overcome evil. With good.” What I want to do for the next 40 minutes or so. Is focus on these first two verses.
Because there is so much in these two verses that demands our attention. Our brother David has already been bringing to our attention the grace of Christ. The cross of Christ. And the response that should flow from our hearts. And that’s exactly where Paul is going to start here. In the slightly broader context of the Romans.
Actually you’ll notice first of all. What we might term. How he introduces, or the introduction to, God’s mercies. Look what he says. I beseech you therefore brethren. By the mercies of God.
Or through the mercies of God. Now notice that the mercies of God. Are the great motivating factor. For what he’s going to ask them.
He is beseeching them, we’ll think of that in a minute, but it’s through the mercies of God. Well you might ask the question, what has God done, what are his mercies? And I want you to take just for a few seconds a bird’s eye view across the Roman epistle, and you think of that group of Christians in Rome as they’re listening to this letter for the first time, and what they’re discovering about their position in Christ.
Paul has said to them, you know, he has dealt with your sins. He has cancelled your crimes. You see, as they come through chapter 1, 2 and 3 of the Roman epistle, what they have discovered, if they didn’t know it already, and I’m sure they did, many of them, was that all the world stands guilty before God. And the answer to that is found in the cross. The redemption. The grace.
And the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. As we read of in 3 and 24. So he has cancelled your crimes. He has paid your penalty. He has declared you righteous. He’s cleared you of every charge of guilt that was against you in the courtroom of God.
You’re justified freely by his grace.
God is just and the justifier of those who have placed their faith in Jesus. And so we have this wonderful truth that we are cleared from the charge of guilt against us. We are saved. We are justified. Particularly, that’s the focus of chapter 1 to 3.
Of course, in chapter 5, we find out that we now have peace with God.
Now that’s not to do with our inner peace. It’s to do with the fact that hostilities have ceased. That there is a relationship that’s now between us and God. Wherefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And he goes through that early section and my mind goes to that beautiful hymn. “Oh joy of the justified. Joy of the free.” Because he says I’m going to glory in this. And eventually he gets to verse number 11 of chapter 5 and he says we joy, or we glory, or we boast in God through whom we have received the reconciliation.
You say, is that all? Well no, it’s not. He’s then linked you to a new head. Do you remember the first man Adam that you were linked to? Through one man’s disobedience many were made sinners. And through the obedience of the one, the many shall be made righteous.
Chapter 6, he’s broken sin’s grip in your life. Sin no longer has the place as master over you.
Not only has Christ died for you, and that’s dealt with the problem of your sins. You have died with Christ. That’s what we were speaking about. Brother David was mentioning the whole subject of baptism. It’s illustrated at the start of chapter 6 of the Romans.
And so we can sing, my chains are snapped. The bonds of sin are broken. And I am free.
He’s given you a new position in Christ. Now that’s on the other side of death and judgment. This is a wonderful thing. We are now linked to a risen Christ who lives in the power of an endless life, and that resurrection life is to animate and motivate us, and we have it mediated to us by the indwelling Holy Spirit of God. Chapter 8, the spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus.
He has made us sons and heirs. Heirs of God. Joint heirs with Jesus.
Joint heirs with Christ. He has given us eternal security. For if God be for us, who can be against us? He has shown you mercy as a vessel of mercy, a vessel prepared for glory. Glory, chapter 9. When you called upon him in chapter 10.
He was rich unto you. Chapter 11. He set aside Israel from the focal point of divine purpose. In order that the message might reach out to Gentiles. Here in Portnockie. That blessing might flow to us.
And then eventually blessing might flow right back to Israel. And so he gets to the apex and the summit of this mountain top that he’s on. And it’s as though he stops and surveys the land and he turns his view to God.
He says, oh the depths, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. And he’s just revelling not only in what God has done for us in grace, but in who God is, and from him he says he’s the source.
And through him, he is the agent that’s brought it about. And to him, he is the aim of it all, the ultimate purpose of it all. To him are all things.
To whom be glory forever. Amen. And you say, well, that is not lovely. It’s not a lovely lecture, Paul. I’ve never heard such wonderful, exalted, glorious things. Thank you, Paul.
Paul says, no, it doesn’t end there.
It doesn’t end there. You see the great motivating factor for us to live in a different way is what God has done in grace to us and for us, and who he is in the person of his son. But you know, his mercies, there’s not only a great what we might call a great motivating factor, but a great enabling factor.
Because of that life that you now have, because you’re linked to a risen Christ, you are able to do what he says in verse 1 and 2.
So by his mercies, we can give back to him what he’s already given to us.
Let’s just think about that for a second. David in 1 Chronicles 29.
He puts it like this as he views the great evidence of the grace of God working among the people of God in 1 Chronicles when they brought and brought and brought again to the temple. “But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? For all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.” And as he goes to speak about the whole idea of sacrifice and altar and us on that as living sacrifices to God. He starts by bringing to us all the wonders.
The wonders of what grace has done already in our lives. And it’s on that basis. And it’s from that point.
He can launch into what he says in the first two verses. So the introduction to God’s mercies. Secondly, we have a presentation of our bodies. Look at verse 1. I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God. That you present your bodies a living sacrifice.
Wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Now there’s a lot there. I just want to lift a few things from it. Notice firstly his appeal. I beseech you therefore, brethren. Now Paul was an apostle.
He’ll mention it even in verse 3 in a kind of semi-obscure way, which we might find out tomorrow in the will of the Lord.
But he was an apostle. He could quite easily have commanded it in some way. Demanded it. But he doesn’t. He beseeches. He urges.
In fact the word is the same word when we get the thought of paraclete, or comforter. The one called alongside to help. And it’s almost as though here’s Paul and he wants to put his arm around.
Those who are just revelling in what they’ve discovered of the grace of God, he says, I beseech you. You see it has to come out of a voluntary heart. This kind of consecration is not something that you force on someone. It must come from them. They must be willing. You know, during the war of course there was conscription, and that was when you got, for those that are younger, you got papers through and it basically meant you had to go and sign on, you had to go to the front, and it became something that was legally forced. The nation was in a bad place and they needed to get every man, as many as they could anyway, to go, or they could punish you if you didn’t go.
When it’s God’s army it’s a volunteer army.
You know we used to have a lot of different, the older preachers especially at home, they would have spoken about the fact that there’s no conscripts in heaven. Well that’s true, and there’s no conscripts in God’s service either.
And so Paul comes alongside and he makes an appeal. I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God. You know my mind goes forward to a coming day and it’s painted for us in Psalm 110.
A day when the Lord comes out of Zion in mighty power.
And it says there, thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, and it pictures a scene of thousands flocking to Christ to come under his banner, to be, I think Newbury margin, voluntary offerings in the day of his power.
Another version puts it like this, your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power.
We’re not in the day of his power just yet, we’re in the day of his rejection, but the call is still going out for those who will be voluntary offerings.
And what is it, that brings us on to our next point, what’s the aim of it all, why is he making this appeal to present your bodies a living sacrifice?
The first thing that comes into my mind when I look at this is something of the completeness of it. Your bodies. Your bodies really prefigure the whole person. You’re giving yourself.
People like the fact that this is in the aorist tense. I think it emphasizes more than anything else really the decisiveness.
This conscious decision to present your bodies a living sacrifice. It was really in the spirit of this that Frances Ridley Havergal, a wonderful hymn writer, and if you haven’t read about her, I would recommend you do so. Who wrote many of the beautiful consecration hymns that we still sing today.
And who also impacted many, many people in our life for the Lord.
It was Frances Ridley Havergal that sat down on one occasion and she started to write, and she wrote this, “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.” Take my hands. You see, it came down to the physical members of her body. “Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love. Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from thee. Take my intellect and use every power as thou shalt choose.”
“Take my will and make it thine. It shall be no longer mine. Take my heart, it is thine own. It will be thy royal throne. Take my love, my Lord, I pour at thy feet its treasure store. Take myself and I will be ever, only, all for thee.” That’s what she was speaking about, this idea of presenting your bodies a living sacrifice. Of course Romans 6 has already pointed to this, if you want to turn back.
A couple of pages to Romans 6 and 13. Now we can’t break into the context too much here. But notice from verse 13.
Neither yield or present, same word, your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. But yield, that’s the same word, present yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead. And your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
So we have this idea of completeness. Present your bodies a living sacrifice. What about the idea of cost? Because you can’t get away from it. You come to the word sacrifice. There’s always the thought of cost behind it.
We live in a generation that really doesn’t like to think too much about costs. People like to put things in the never never. Never, you know, another credit card. It doesn’t matter whether you pay it or not.
And there’s just that sense of, in our age, that people are cushioning themselves against every possible cost. We’re such a comfortable age.
And now we see Mary coming with her alabaster box of spikenard. Very costly.
And there were those, and they had all their ideas and their calculators were out with her, not really in their hands because it wouldn’t have been there then, but in their heads anyway, and they were totting up just how much that cost, and they haven’t got it, sure they haven’t, they haven’t understood the value of the person that’s in their midst. And Mary brings her 300 denarii worth of medicine, or pure nard.
She brings it and she breaks it and she pours it, and they’re all thinking what a waste, but she knows the value of the person. You know, I live beside a man.
He’s a Geordie. I don’t know if you know anything about that part of the world. I’ve got a sister that lives down that way and I don’t know very much about it, but I know this much, and the man beside me will tell me this, he says Newcastle United is the religion down there, and people call their dogs and call their pets and call their little children after names of footballers. And they paint their houses probably black and white. And they do everything. What are they doing? They’re showing how much they revere and respect the football club. Seriously?
Think of what our Lord has done for us. Does it not deserve a bit more? Sacrifice. Of course Abel realised that about sacrifice way back at the beginning. He brought of the firstling of his flock and of the fat thereof.
He brought the best that he had.
The people of Malachi’s day had kind of lost sight of the fact that when you’re bringing your best, you’re showing how you value the person that you’re bringing it to.
And so the Lord has to rebuke them and say, you offer defiled food on my altar. But I say, in what way have we defiled you? By saying the table of the Lord is contemptible. Look what they did.
Malachi 1 and 8. When you offer the blind his sacrifice. Is it not evil?
They were looking around in their flocks. And finding the little lamb that was blind that wouldn’t be worth anything anyway. They were giving that to the Lord. Is that the way I’m looking at my service for the Lord? I can spare 15 minutes once a week. I’ll do some work on a Sunday.
I’ll maybe read the Bible on a Sunday too.
God has given us our whole life and we can’t divide it into sacred and secular.
We can’t compartmentalize it. Oh yes, the Lord doesn’t call us all. I’m not saying that everybody should be involved in service and leave their jobs and all that kind of thing. I’m not saying that. The Lord has you where he has you.
But you’re as much the Lord’s servant in that as you are anywhere else.
There’s a cost here. There’s a sacrifice.
I remember hearing about a conference that happened in Northern Ireland many, many years ago.
And the brother stood up and he spoke on tithing, and he spoke about 10%, and he said that he’d always given 10%, and the brother who got up after him from the United States, he says, I want to speak about the other 90%.
Now of course I’m not saying that you don’t have legitimate things, bills to pay, places to go, people to see, families to raise. And God has given us what he’s given us to enjoy richly of his bounty. But we should hold it in trust, shouldn’t we?
And this idea of reckoning was never far from the Lord’s teaching. You remember that occasion in Luke, in Luke chapter 14. If anyone comes after me and does not hate father and mother, and wife and children and brothers and sister, yes in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. You say, Lord.
I thought you were meant to love your wife. Of course you are. I thought you were meant to look after your parents. Of course you are.
But if the choice is between turning to the Lord and being the Lord’s disciple, or your family, there’s no competition is there? And so many people across earth’s broad acres. At the cost of their family.
Have left all.
They’ve been thrown out. They’ve been martyred. They’ve been divorced. They’ve been ridiculed. They’ve been all sorts. They’ve been put out of their communities.
You know what? They held not their life dear. Because they knew who they were doing it for. One of the books that most impacted me in my early Christian life was The Triumph of John and Betty Stam. Tremendous little book. For those here who want to read.
That’s a lovely book to read. I remember reading the story of how John and Betty, they went to China, served the Lord there spreading the gospel, and then they were martyred there. They had a little daughter who grew up, escaped and was taken out of the situation and grew up outside of China. But it’s really in the preface there was something that struck me that I couldn’t get out of my mind, and I want to read to you just a little clause out of what was in the preface of that book. It’s written by someone called MGT, and this is what he says. He died to redeem. They died to make known at his command that glorious redemption. And still he is seeking those who will live and die if need be that he may see of the travail of a soul and be satisfied.
To all eternity. We shall live and reign with Christ. But shall we ever be able to make sacrifices for him again? When sin and pain and death are no more. And all tears are wiped away. Shall we ever again have the privilege.
That is ours now. Of sharing the fellowship of his sufferings. To seek and to save that which is lost. That struck me very hard. Shall we ever be able to make sacrifices for him again? Of course.
There is a continuation in this. A continuity. It is a living sacrifice. God often doesn’t call us to the ultimate of martyrdom, of dying for the Lord.
I remember lifting up an old Bible of my father’s many years ago, I think it was his when he was very young, and he had put a little caption in the front, and you might have heard it before, it’s a common little statement, he had written this in the front, “If he died for me, the least I can do is live for him.”
But of course the idea behind this living sacrifice brings to us the thought of the life that we now possess. This resurrection life of Christ that we share in. And so it’s not just the fact that this is something that is ongoing. The sacrifices of old. When the sacrifice was on the altar that was it. But this is a living sacrifice.
It’s ongoing. But it’s also only possible in light of the life that we now have in Christ.
This principle of life, this moment by moment dependence that we must have on the Spirit’s power. We cannot do it just, you know, we could be whipped up into a frenzy. We could go away from a conference and say, I want to live for Christ. But unless I understand that I’m completely dependent on the Spirit of God and the life of the risen Christ in me,
it could just peter out.
But we can do it. We can do it because he died and rose again. And because we do now live in the newness of life that he has produced in us. Finally, in relation to the verse, let’s look for a minute about the acceptance. Acceptance. The acceptance that we have in the next couple of words.
Present your bodies a living sacrifice. Holy. Acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Holy.
Acceptable unto God. Really I think there’s three things here. There’s the living sacrifice. It’s holy and it’s well pleasing. And there’s a sense in which I think that the life is associated with our life. Resurrection life and the risen Christ.
The holiness is because we are indwelt and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. And ultimately that leads to a sacrifice that is well pleasing to God. So what I’m trying to say is here. I think behind this, implied anyway, is the whole trinity. The whole of the Godhead is involved in me dedicating myself to God’s service.
It is God who works in me. To lift another passage slightly out of context.
Just stop for a moment and think of that. The one who has begun a good work in you is wanting to see that developed and fructified until eventually you’re willing to bow the knee and do his will in your life. That’s what he’s wanting.
Another verse, and again I’m lifting it slightly out of context. Destroy not the work of God.
You see we can be after self. We can live for self. But we’re going to miss out. On what God has in these verses. If we do so.
It’s well pleasing. I suppose sometimes in the din of the world that we have around us.
Sometimes the voice from the sanctuary.
Becomes not so clear. Can I recommend you unplug? You turn off. You throw the phone on the fire if you need to.
You find some way in which you get away from constant connection
so that
you might know what it is to enjoy God’s presence again.
I worry about this brothers and sisters.
How is Google sapping your spiritual life?
And mine?
“Alone with thee,” the writer of the hymn said, “alone with thee, O Master, when the light of earthly glory dies, misunderstood by all, I dare to do what thine own heart will prize.”
And if we were just to understand how pleasing it is to the one that we worship, the one that we love,
I think our attitude would be completely transformed to a verse like this, your reasonable service.
Now many have pointed out the fact that this word reasonable is the word that we get our word logical from, or logic.
In a sense that is true. He could be saying
if God has done all this for us, the logical response of our heart in worship is to give ourselves to him. That’s certainly a viable understanding of this verse.
But there’s a little bit more to it I think. You see he uses this word for service, or sacred service, or worship in chapter 9, and there he’s speaking about the Jewish nation. They took these dumb beasts and they were unreasoning, and they placed them on an altar and they died, and it was all a picture. But now he’s speaking about something that’s far deeper and real. He’s saying this is not just like that.
Your mind is involved in this. Your spiritual exercises are real and deep and meaningful. This isn’t a dumb beast going on an altar.
This is real and it’s sacred in the eyes of God. It’s decisive dedication of myself to God in service. I want to come on to the next verse for a couple of minutes. That’s verse number two.
The transformation of myself. You see, he goes on and he says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. In fact, the force is, stop being conformed. Stop being conformed to this world.
And so he’s going to introduce a contrast here. He’s not speaking so much of the body now. He’s speaking about the mind. The kind of centre of our beings. The locus of our thoughts, our desires, our will, our emotions.
And this is where the battle is today. It’s in your mind. Whether you realise it or not. I remember a preacher many years ago. And he spoke on minding your mind in the minefield. I thought that was a good kind of summary.
of something of this verse.
If you’re going to give yourself a dedication to God, we must understand how to reboot or reprogram our mind to think as God thinks.
Stop being conformed, that’s outward pressure, fashioned by this world, this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You see, whether we understand it or not, there’s a pressure exerted by the world around us. The age in which we live. A pressure that involves the opinions, the values, the philosophies, the worldviews of the people around us. And it kind of presses in on us. As Christians.
And so, Phillips has translated this verse, don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould.
It happens all the time, doesn’t it? Let’s stop for a second, folks. You’re watching something.
And it’s on marriage. Something of marriage comes up in whatever you’re watching. And someone’s laughing at so-and-so cheating on their husband or wife.
They’ve obviously got a different view of commitment than the Christian view is, the biblical view is. It wouldn’t be something we would be laughing at, would it? Maybe it doesn’t affect you the first time you watch it. You say, well, I don’t believe that. But maybe if you watch it 10, 20, 30, 40 times, you find yourself laughing away. See, what is happening in that scenario, and it’s only one of many, we could do it in every aspect of the Christian life and the Christian values, but what is happening there is that we would be being conformed,
squeezed into the mould of the world. What about the workplace? Everyone signs off on an unfinished worksheet, you’re a Christian, but I haven’t signed it off yet, because, oh don’t be silly. Nobody sees it. No one looks at them. Why should you? Oh, a different view on marriage and commitment.
A different view about truth. Does it matter? Our brother was telling us about uprightness and truthfulness. Does it matter? Of course it matters. God sees.
What about witnessing? Well, I’m happy for you.
But I have my own hobbies. If it suits you that’s fine, but you know it doesn’t really affect me. It’s your truth, it’s not my truth.
There’s only one kind of truth, isn’t there, true truth.
Truth that affects both you and them, when it comes to the Bible.
If the building was burning they wouldn’t be able to pressurize you into silence telling them about it, and yet how often are we affected by the world around us?
But be transformed, now this is key, from within. Same word is used in 2nd Corinthians 3, we all with unveiled face beholding as in the mirror the glory of the Lord are being changed, or transformed, into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
This is an ongoing process. This change. And how is it? By the renewing, the renovation of your mind. By the renewing of your mind. Now this isn’t just a little touch-up job, changing you a little bit.
I used to have one. My first car I ever had was a little Austin Mini. If you know anything about Austin Minis, they just rusted. They drove alright, but they rusted. And so every year, you had to touch it up so that it wasn’t peeking through. But this word for renewing is a deeper word than that.
It’s the thought of renovation. Renovation. Brother Mark Mayer, I remember I stayed in a house in Portnockie a few years ago. And they had just renovated the whole house. And it was hard work. From what I gather from the pictures, I saw them.
It was hard work. You see, it had to go right back to the bare walls. And what we’re finding out here is that if I’m going to think the way God wants me to think, I’m going to have to saturate myself in the word of God. I’m going to have to think the way God thinks. If I want to know the will of God for my life, it’s not just some abstract thing hanging out here that I can say yes or no to. I have to allow the word of God to change me
entirely and completely.
And so in 2 Corinthians he speaks about gazing at the glory of God, as I say, and we can be transformed or transfigured. How do we do that? We do it in the word. In Titus chapter 3 speaks of the renovation of the Holy Spirit, the renewing of the Holy Spirit again. And so we’re dependent on the Holy Spirit within us, ungrieved, to change us, to renew our minds, to help us think the way we ought to think.
Just want to come on to my last little point.
Not only the transformation of myself? What about the vindication of God’s will? The vindication of God’s will. Look what he says right at the end of verse 2.
That you may prove
what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Really behind this is the thought of saying not my will but thine be done. God’s will is that, as he’s already announced in the verses. Is that we present our bodies a living sacrifice. That we live in a transformed way. That we become more Christ like.
1 Thessalonians chapter 4. That we become more holy. Chapter 5. That we are joyful and thankful and prayerful. All these things are part of God’s will in that sense, but what he seems to be saying here is that the purpose of this transformation in our inner selves is that we might test and prove and therefore approve the will of God.
And we will come to see it from God’s standpoint as good. Good, acceptable and perfect.
Good, essentially good and beneficial in effect. That’s the thought. So we start to look at this not as something that’s way out there that’s really scary. But we start to accept it as good because it’s from the hand of a good God. It’s well pleasing. I don’t think that’s just well pleasing to God.
He’s mentioned something of that in the verse before. But I think he’s saying that it becomes something that we delight in.
I delight to do thy will, oh my God, say the Lord Jesus. And perfect, it’s complete, it’s full, it’s mature, it’s the life that’s really worth living.
And because of a renovated mind we see things in a different way. At the moment you might not be seeing things like that, but get into your Bible for a while, bow yourself in prayer before God for a while, and you start to see things differently and think in a different way. Amy Carmichael, who left my part of the world, all good people leave my part to serve the Lord among the Tamil people, you’ll remember this story again, another worthwhile story to find out about, rescuing temple girls from prostitution and loving and caring and giving herself first to the Lord and then to them.
She was lying in a bed of pain for a lot of years before she died. And as she came to the end of her life, she said in one of her last dictated letters, I am very happy and content.
Green pastures are before me and my saviour has my treasure. What happened? She had understood this verse, that it was good and acceptable and well pleasing. What about Frances Ridley Havergal? That we were speaking of earlier. Having expended herself for the Lord tirelessly until eventually she took very ill.
On May 29th, the memoir is written about her by her sister, states. Fever and internal inflammation rapidly came on. But her peace and joy shone through it all. When we were distressed for her, she whispered, it’s home the faster. She told Mary she was quite sure that she should never go to Ireland. Adding, listen to this, this is it.
Adding, God’s will is delicious.
He makes no mistakes.
Are we there, brethren and sisters? Paul says, I’m ready to be offered. I fought the good fight. I finished my course. I’ve kept the faith. Do you think it was worth it, Paul?
Of course it was worth it. Paul, you’re going out to be martyred.
Everything’s worth it for my Saviour.
What about us?
May the Lord help us to respond to his grace.
In this way. That our attitude to God, our God, individually my God. Might be such that I’m in the altar of service for him. And that my life’s a worshipful life. The way he wants it to be. I just want to quote at the end.
Phillips’ paraphrase on this verse. Just for effect. Sometimes when you hear something. Put in a different way it’s helpful. With eyes wide open to the mercies of God. I beg you my brothers.
As an act of intelligent worship. To give him your bodies as a living sacrifice. Consecrated to him. Acceptable by him. Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould. But let God remake you.
So that your whole attitude of mind is changed. Thus you will prove in practice that the will of God is good. Acceptable to him. And perfect. May the Lord bless his word.
Thank you.
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02
Read transcript of Romans 12:3-8
Transcript produced automatically and lightly edited; it may contain errors.
Verse 3.
For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to each, every man or each, a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all the members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith, or ministry, let us wait on our ministering. Or he that teacheth on teaching. Or he that exhorteth on exhortation.
And he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity. He that ruleth with diligence. And he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness. That’s the end of that little section. You’ll notice again it starts the next section with “let love be without dissimulation,” or without hypocrisy. We’ll just conclude our reading there. You know the Lord blesses the reading of his word and to us.
We live in a world that is really focused on being self-aware, and you’ll know that there’s all these self words that have become very important in recent years. And even when you take a picture of yourself now — it used to be you took a picture of other people, but if you take a picture of yourself now, it’s called a selfie. And then, of course,
well, there’s all sorts of issues that have come up about people having issues with their self-esteem and so on. And of course, there are some genuine issues related to these that we’re not trying to deal with this evening. But really, the section that we’re looking at today is going to focus in on how the Christian views themselves.
You see, the first thing I had to get right when I’m responding to the grace of God, chapter 1 to 11, we were speaking about yesterday, was my attitude to my God. And so verse 1 and 2 was the whole subject of consecration. The whole subject of me on the altar before God, and me in that place of worship, as it were, before my God.
But then there’s the everyday life where I’m working among people, I’m living among other believers. What is my service going to be? What’s it going to look like? I might have had wonderful and thrilling — and I hope I have — had wonderful times in the presence of God. But how is that going to be translated into my everyday life? How is my consecration going to be seen to others?
And really that’s what Paul is coming on to. So it’s not so much my attitude in this section to my God, it’s my attitude to myself. How do I view myself? How do I view myself in relation to other people and other Christians? And so this section from verse number 3 to verse number 8, he’s going to deal with the whole subject of humility.
And having a sane, sober understanding of what my role is. Because you see, you can be carried away with the wonders of being dedicated to God in service. But then we have to ask ourselves, how can I best channel my energies for God’s glory and for the blessing of those around us? There are dangers from the world’s thinking at the moment with regard to how I am to view myself. I mean, we live in a world, as I say, that’s very self-promoting. We live in a world — I just
found out the other day that the pop idol that’s on the go at the minute, Taylor Swift, she’s actually brought out a new album called Me! Me! Exclamation mark. And that kind of sums up our age, doesn’t it? It’s all about me, I’m the greatest. And if you could just be like me. And it’s kind of very, very shallow because there’s no underlying philosophy to back it up. I mean, if you believe that there’s no such a thing as God, or so such a being as God, well, you’re just random molecules that happen to be in the form of who you are, so there’s not any great wonderful thing about you. But yet there is that promotion of self which says I am wonderful, look at me, I am the greatest thing since sliced bread. And that is the kind of play, and sadly that is the play that
people get sucked into, younger folk get sucked into. And then when they find out they’re not just all they thought they were, there’s this big dip. And we’ve got an awful issue of teenage suicides in the Western world. A massive problem. And it all centres around how they’re thinking. So my brethren and sisters, I know an older generation might not understand some of that, because most of us had the privilege of maybe a Christian or a Christianized background where we were told that our values, the value of each individual human being lay in the fact that they were created by God, that they were created in his image, that they had intrinsic value — that the value of an individual isn’t on what they look like or what they attain in life. Just because they’re human, just because they come from the hand of God, they have an inherent value. Now that is being chipped away in our society. And that’s why, when you were to get
your quality of life index worked out by the NHS, they’ll ask you, what is your life worth? And they’ll say, well, what can you do? And what they’re really saying is that your life only has instrumental value. Let me illustrate this for a second. Kind of getting off on a tangent, but it’s a helpful tangent, hopefully. That pen has instrumental value.
It has value only in as much as it can be used as a pen. When that pen is finished, I’ll throw it in the bin.
But humans don’t just have instrumental value. And human life is not something that you can assess as something, you know, “my life’s going really bad, I’m just going to end it.”
That’s not the way we think as Christians. That, sadly, is the mentality of the age in which we live. They have no — they assess things through just simply instrumental value, not inherent value. Now, the difference with inherent value is this, just to simplify it. It’s maybe not the best illustration, but
my little girl is three. She’ll draw a picture of Daddy, come to me, and I look at it. I hope I don’t look like that, but — no, but the thing is, I’ll still keep it. You see, it has value to me because she’s valuable in my eyes, and it was created by her.
It doesn’t have any instrumental value. It’s not going to make it to any museum. It’s not going to win any art prizes. But it has a value that’s intrinsic to me anyway because of who did it. Now God has created us in the image of God, and yes, we’re broken and we’re bad and we’re sinful, and we know all the truths of depravity, sadly, that beset us. But as Christians, we have to understand that we have a purpose in life, that we have been created by God for a specific purpose, that there is a purpose in the universe, and therefore we don’t look at the world the way the world looks at each other. And so this whole idea of how the world thinks about itself has affected nearly everything that it does, and there’s no philosophy underneath this kind of promotion of self that can undergird it. And so what happens is people see through it and get depressed and have all sorts of issues, and the psychological issues in our age are multiplying by the day. Now I just say that in the back as a background, because we’ll touch on one or two of these things when we’re looking at this text, but it’s maybe helpful to keep it in our mind. But there are also dangers from Christian thinking about self. Let’s look at the text now. For I say to you, through the grace given unto me, to every man, each man that is among you, each person that’s among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.
So here’s another danger. The danger of thinking highly of yourself. Pride. I think there’s a real danger that you might feel, I really want to serve the Lord. And pride could hijack your priestly consecration. You could start to — sin could make its way, as it does, into most of our, in our most sacred thoughts, in our most wonderful times,
and you could start to think, aren’t I special? Look at me, I’m serving the Lord. See, those other folk, they’re not serving the Lord half as much as I am. I’m more dedicated than they are. If only so-and-so was doing this work as well. And there would be a danger that with that attitude, that it was just smack of pride.
I always start to think, I’m the main man here. I’m the man that’s running this thing.
And I think there’s maybe something of that in the background. However, if that consecration is true and genuine and before God, it will be marked by humility. And so he says, for I say through the grace given unto me, not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. There has to be a sober, a sane understanding of what is it that the Lord has for me in my work for God. What can I accomplish? What sphere has God placed me in? What gift — we’re going to deal with gifts in a minute — what gift has God given me?
And so there is a danger, as I say, of pride. Perhaps there’s another danger — I just mention this again and we’ll leave it. There’s a danger that once you realise that there’s so much work to be done for God, that you can kind of spread yourself like butter. You spread yourself so thin over everything, instead of focusing on the things that you become burdened that they’re your thing to do. And so I think there’s maybe something of that in the passage. We’ll see that as we go down.
What should I do for the Lord? How should I use my hands, my feet, my heart for his glory? How should I do that? The wonderful thing is, when we come to being in that place of saying I want the Lord to take control, I want the Lord’s will to be done in my life, in all genuineness, we don’t need to panic at that point.
We’ve got the whole of God’s scriptures to look into, to assess, to understand, to try and appreciate what the Lord has for us and so on. And just even a deeper knowledge of scripture, whatever sphere, whatever gift the Lord gives you, a deeper knowledge of scripture will help it.
We also don’t need to panic because of God’s character. You see, God wants you to fulfil what he has laid hold of you to do. I’ll repeat that, God wants you to. So it’s not like that, you know, God has sort of made it a mystery and somehow if you just try hard enough that eventually, possibly you’ll miss the whole — even though you’re genuine, that you’ll miss it all. I don’t believe that for a second. God, in his character, he wants you to do his will. And if there’s a genuine desire to do it, he will see to it that you fulfil it.
Another thing. I wouldn’t panic because of God’s sovereignty.
You see, he has you exactly where you are at the moment. In your life, in your situations, in your environment, in your family, just exactly where you are. You’re seen by the Almighty God, and the God who is your Father.
In 1 Corinthians 7, it speaks of something similar to this. We’re not going to go into the details of that passage at the moment, but it speaks about abiding in the same calling in which you were called. There’s no need to immediately panic. I want to be more focused. Oh, there’s that work over there. I could do that.
I could start with that settled conviction before the Lord that you want to do as well. And you want to follow your way even down this passage and understand the whole passage before you try to put into practice something that can end up being perhaps spreading yourself very thin. So let’s look at the passage in a little more detail. I want to think first of all of assessing myself. That’s verse 3. Assessing myself.
I say, through the grace given to me,
do you notice, he starts with the grace of God given to him. And Paul, I take it, is speaking about his apostleship here. The role that he plays, the gift that he has, if you like. And he calls it the grace given unto me. He says — and if Paul speaks about his gift as simply God’s unmerited favour to him, and he was an apostle, we should not have high thoughts about whatever gift God gives to us. So I think he starts with this idea of the grace, because he’s going to really emphasize through this passage. He’s going to speak about the grace given, he’s going to speak about the measure, a measure of faith given, he’s going to speak about gifts, and in each of these bits the emphasis is on the fact that God is behind it. God is behind it.
This verse can be read like this: be not high-minded above what you ought to be minded, but be minded unto the being sober-minded. You say, that sounds a bit confusing. The reason why I’m emphasizing like that is that if you were reading this in the original language, what would strike you very clear is again the importance of your thinking, of your mind. I tried to emphasize that yesterday, a slightly different word in chapter, in verse two. But again, the focus is on a right assessment.
He contrasts this idea of being high-minded with the thought of insanity. You’ll notice that. With the thought of sanity, I should say. So he’s actually saying that self-conceit is a species or a form of insanity. He says there’s two options here. You could either have a high-mindedness, a proud sort of look at yourself, thinking you are very special.
Or you could think sanely, soberly.
There’s another mind that’s spoken of. You’ll remember that one. Philippians chapter 2. In lowliness of mind, esteem others better than ourselves. Let this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus. But when it comes to assessing our own spiritual gift, assessing what the Lord wants for us, we should have a sane, a sober, a genuine, hard look at the way we are.
He says, as we move down, you notice he says according to —
according as God has dealt to each a measure of faith, it should read. Now this is interesting, because really this seems to be saying that God has assigned us the ability, or an ability — each person differently — to comprehend what he has for us to do, to understand. And it’s by faith. You see, the Christian life doesn’t just start by faith. This isn’t speaking about initial faith in this passage. He’s speaking about a faith that has to do with my understanding of what I am to do. And Christian life is like that. You remember the Israelites when they were going into the land.
God says it’s for you, but they had to go in and put their foot just right where God says it’s yours. They had to move forward in faith. And you see, Christian life is not just about, hey, I’m starting, I’m trusting the Lord, and I’m believing his word, and it doesn’t matter anymore, I don’t need to trust anymore or believe anymore, I don’t need to develop my understanding and walk forward on it.
It’s the very opposite. In chapter six of Romans, Paul brings this out very clearly. He starts off the chapter by saying there’s things that you should know. You should know that you have died with Christ, for instance. Then he says, now you should reckon that to be the case. In other words, you should go and put your foot firmly on that and say, well, if God says it I believe it. And then he says you should then act. So, reckon, and yield, it says. So act on what you now know. And that is the process of how we enjoy the scriptures, understand — that is the process of faith, of trusting the word of God for what it is. Now here he says God has dealt to each a measure. Now this faith seems to be specifically in relation to our understanding of what God calls us to.
I must assess myself soberly in the presence of God, he’s saying. In line with and according to the ability, the faith that God gives me to assess and understand where I am. So firstly, we have assessing myself. Then verse 4 and 5. What about appreciating the body? I must appreciate myself as part of the body of Christ.
This is again really important truth as well. You’ll notice what he says. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office. Now in the first verse, he’s speaking about the physical body. He’s not speaking about the body of Christ in verse 4. He’s going to leapfrog, leapfrog, leap, what?
He’s going to get into his illustration and understand it a bit more in verse number 5. But in verse 4, he’s going to just set out the illustration. We all have a physical body. We know what a body’s like. Many members in one body, of hands and feet and eyes and ears and nose and whatever.
It’s all in one body. And all the members have not the same office. They all don’t have the same function. They all, mostly all, do different things.
And then he says, so we,
being many, are one body in Christ. And every one member is one of another. Now he’s speaking not so much of the local church here. You’ll notice he uses the “we.” That’s helpful. Paul’s away there in Corinth.
He’s never been to Rome. And he says, so we, being many, are one body in Christ. He’s speaking of the large aspect of the church. The church, the body of Christ. And he’s telling us, just the way there are certain features that are associated with a physical body, so there are certain features that are associated with the body of Christ that every Christian is a part of.
Every Christian.
Everyone that’s truly saved is a part of the universal church. The church, the body of Christ. I hope we all understand that. I’m kind of making that, underlining it for individuals. Now, not everybody is a part of this local church here. But everybody is a part
of the universal. And he’s speaking at this point about the universal church. We being many are one body in Christ. In Christ is the position we have. We’re no longer in Adam, we’re in Christ. We are associated with all the blessings that have come to us in union with Christ. We’re on the resurrection side of the cross, where all these wonderful truths come in that we can’t stop to think of. But he’s saying something specific about it now. He’s saying that you and I and every other Christian, that we have a union together, because we’re all in one body. Whether we understand it or not, we are all united together. Notice what he’s saying here. He said of the physical body, verse 4, there’s diversity, many members.
He said there’s unity, there’s one body. And then he said there’s a variety of function. He says all members have not the same function. Now he develops it into the next verse. He says there’s diversity, for we being many. There’s unity, our one body in Christ. There’s individuality, and every member, every one member. And then he says one of another. There’s actually the thought of interdependence, so that that hand owns that hand, and that hand owns that hand, and we all have therefore a mutual dependence, the one on the other, and a co-ownership, if you like, of each other in the body of Christ. This is a tremendous truth to understand. I’m not out on some limb. I’m not away, I’m the only special Christian in the world who can do X, Y or Z. I can just float my own boat and paddle my own canoe and my life just is fine, I don’t need any other Christians — not a bit of it. You need them all, and every Christian the Lord brings into your life, you thank God for them, every one, because they’re part of the same body that you’re in, and they can help you in a way that you can’t help yourself, and you can help them in a way that they can’t help themselves. And there’s this wonderful unity of life that the Lord has created. And Paul is absolutely ecstatic in passages when he’s explaining about the body of Christ. So you appreciate every single believer you know. And I’m not just speaking about the believers that come here. You should appreciate every single believer in your own local church, your own local assembly.
But appreciate every believer that’s bought by Christ, because he loves them all and he has died for them, and so appreciate them. But you see, there’s a problem that comes up here. I’m going to take you to 1 Corinthians, maybe, to delve into this for a wee bit more, because in 1 Corinthians 12 he looks at this body illustration in more detail. Turn with me, please, to chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians.
He begins a very similar — it’s almost as though the Romans passage is a little cut-down of what we have in 1 Corinthians.
He says in verse number 12, well, for as the body is one and has many members, and all members of the one body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ. You’ll notice an article before it, if you’ve got Newberry. So also is the Christ. For by one spirit — he explains how the body was formed. We’re not going to go into that today. The baptism of the spirit.
Wonderful truth and wonderful subject. Verse number 14. For the body is not one member, but many. And now he goes and they explain it a little bit more. He first of all says, now just so that you don’t get an inferiority complex, I’m going to explain something, he says.
If the foot shall say, because I am not the hand, I am not of the body, is it not of the body? In other words, the foot, down there, lowly member, hands higher up, more prominent. There’s a danger that you see someone that’s maybe gifted in a different way than you, and they’re more prominent or they seem more successful or something, you say, well, okay, it’s all right for them. But, you know, I don’t have much I can do, much I can give. There’s nothing really I can do for the Lord. And there’s a danger that you get a kind of inferiority complex.
But the hand can’t do what the foot can do. That’s what he’s saying. He says more. He says, verse 16, if the ear shall say, because I’m not the eye, I’m not of the body. You know, the ear’s around here. It’s around the side, a bit out of the way.
It’s not as pretty as the eye and all that. You know, I’m not the eye. I’m not of the body. There’s a danger that someone will just shrug and say, well, I just can’t do much for the Lord, so I’m just not going to. Every member is vital in the body. Underline it.
Every member. If the whole body were an eye, he goes on to say, where would the hearing be?
See what he’s saying? Just imagine for a minute that the whole body was one big eye. You’d have a lot of problems, wouldn’t you? No hearing, no walking, no talking, no anything. And so what he’s doing in the 1 Corinthians passage — and we’ll take it back into Romans in a second — what he’s doing is he’s emphasising the mutual dependence of one member on another.
Everybody needs each other. Now, he’s going to bring it in the context of humility in Romans 12. This is why we should be humble. This is why we should not think of ourselves too highly. Because every one of us is vital. We need each other.
Of course, there’s a danger of a superiority complex. Turn over — or keep where you are, actually, in 1 Corinthians. Just down a little bit more.
Verse number 21. The eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of you.
Nor the head to the feet, I have no need of you. And so on. There’s more to the 1 Corinthians passage we’ll not go into. But really what he’s saying there is, you know, you can’t just think to yourself, well, I don’t need brother so-and-so, I don’t need sister so-and-so. You know, those Christians, other Christians in my life, I don’t need them.
You can’t say that. Because the head, even if you happen to be more prominent and will have a more obvious gift and so on, the head still needs a feet. You can see the point I’m trying to make. So appreciating the body is a point he’s making in this little section of Romans. We’ll go back to the Romans 12 passage to finish where we are today.
A couple of minutes, I’ll be back. Notice thirdly, acting on my gift. Verse 6 to 8.
Acting on my gift. Having then gifts differing according to the grace given to us. You know the emphasis again. It’s all of God. It’s God’s grace.
Whether prophecy. Prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith. In other words, again, that’s the idea of faith. Revealing to the prophet — we were hearing about prophets the other day — revealing truth to the prophet.
Well, he’s to go to the hilt in telling people what God has told him. He’s to fulfil his ministry. If you’re a prophet, you have to fulfil your ministry. Then he says more. Or ministry. And that’s the word for service.
That could be a service in relation to the word of God. It might not be. But there’s a particular service that’s your gift. Then get involved in that service, he says. Or teaching. You get involved in your teaching.
Put yourself into where God has gifted you.
Or exhorting, on exhortation. And then he uses three other different types of gifts. He says, he that gives, let him do it with liberality, perhaps better translated. He that rules, let him do it with diligence and earnestness. And he that shows mercy, let him do it with cheerfulness. These are all different gifts.
Now, there are many other gifts, but these are ones he’s just saying, listen, get all into the gift God has given you. Try your best to understand what the Lord has for you and give your best to that. Don’t try to spread yourself so thin that nothing gets accomplished, but focus on where God has given you a gift. The spiritual exercise of consecration — this is me finished. The spiritual exercise of consecration and transformation, verse 1 and 2, should lead to humble service in my life, in this sphere God has placed me.
With the gift God has given me, in a way that glorifies him. Jim Elliot — you’ll remember Jim Elliot. I’ve been recommending books, Christian biographies, left, right and centre the last few days. If you haven’t read Jim Elliot, you haven’t read one of the best. Jim Elliot — you remember Through Gates of Splendour, those wonderful books — the murdered missionary to Ecuador. He summed it up well when he said this, I think: wherever you are, be all there. Be all there. He said, live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God. There’s a danger, you see.
I can get so taken up with the fact I want to do a work for God. I see works for God all over the place. Start by doing the work God places in front of you. Do it for his honour and glory. Develop, understand your own gift, and give your all to what God has given to you. May the Lord bless his word.
We’ll just sing it, for verse 216.
Hymn 216, “Praise the Saviour, ye who know him.” We’ll stand to sing the first three verses.
Praise the Saviour, ye who know him,
Who can tell how much we owe him?
Gladly let us render to him
All we are and have.Jesus is the name that charms us,
He for conflict fits and arms us;
Nothing moves, and nothing harms us,
When we trust in him.Trust in him, ye saints, for ever,
He is faithful, changing never;
Neither force nor guile can sever
Those he loves from him. -
03
Read transcript of Romans 12:9-13
Transcript produced automatically and lightly edited; it may contain errors.
and we’ll read the section. Actually, I’ll just read from verse 1 so that we keep in our mind the whole section. It all flows together. Really, I suppose I should read from chapter 1, verse 1, but we wouldn’t have much time to minister on it if we did that. But Romans chapter 12, reading again from verse number 1.
a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man or to each a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all the members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.
Our ministry, as we mentioned, that’s just the word for service. Let us wait or let us use it on service. He that teaches on teaching. He that exhorts on exhortation. He that gives, let him do it with simplicity or liberality. He that rules with diligence and he that shows mercy with cheerfulness.
Then we come to the next section, the section we’re looking at this evening. Let love be without dissimulation or hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love. In honour preferring one another. Not slothful in business.
Fervent in spirit serving the Lord. Rejoicing in hope. Patient in tribulation. Continuing instant in prayer. Distributing to the necessity of the saints. Given to hospitality.
We’ll stop reading there. There’s a wee bit of a debate as to whether verse 14 to 16 is still in this section. We’re going to assume, for the sake of these meetings anyway, that 14 begins a new section down to the end of verse 21. And we know the Lord will bless the reading of his word to us. And we trust that we’ll know the Lord’s blessing as we look at his word together again this evening. So we’re touching this whole subject of responding to grace.
Responding to grace. Chapter 1 to 11 we were mentioning. It’s really all about the grace of God, isn’t it? And now we come to our response to the grace God has shown to us. And we noticed in verse 1 and 2 that it’s to do with our attitude firstly to God. Consecration.
then we thought of our attitude yesterday to myself or ourselves and that’s really the thought of humility and right-mindedness having the right the correct mind the correct mindset about things about ourselves particularly in this section from verse 9 to 13 the emphasis lies not so much on the closest relationship we have, which is our relationship to the Lord, nor the next relationship in a sense that we have, which is our relationship to ourselves. But we’re broadening out slightly and we’re looking at my attitude, my relationship to my brothers and sisters.
And I suppose if the first section is all about worship and consecration and the next section is all about having humility and right-mindedness about myself, assessing myself. This section from verse 9 to 13, I take it, is really founded in this whole idea, this whole truth about love. It starts, this section starts, as you’ll see, with this word love. Verse number 9. Let love be without dissimulation or without hypocrisy. And really everything from this section down to verse 13, I take it, really is coloured by that foundation he’s going to lay in verse number 9.
I want to stop and think about love this evening. What exactly is it?
What is the biblical idea of love? Love because of course there are many ideas in the world that that clearly are not the same as the biblical perspective.
This word for love is the word agape. You’ll have heard that word or agape. It doesn’t really matter I don’t think how you say it.
Agape love. But what is it?
There’s different words that are used in Greek for love. You’ll know that. There’s this lovely word phileo. And Philadelphia, brotherly love. We’ll come to that in a wee moment. There’s a few other ones as well.
And they all have slightly different meanings and emphasis. But this word agape is a very particular word. And it has really no significance in classical Greek. It seems to be a word that was adopted by the New Testament writers. Firstly, of course, used by the Lord and giving a different flavour to love entirely. So while, of course,
love in the Old Testament, you could see the truth of agape love, it wasn’t really defined as that until the Lord Jesus came.
The Lord himself, when he was speaking about this kind of love, he uses it as the distinguishing mark of Christians.
He says,
Then shall men know that you are my disciples indeed, if you have love one to another.
distinguishing mark of disciples. In fact, Francis Schaeffer wrote a little book back in the 70s, and he called it the mark of a Christian. I didn’t know that he was going to say love. I read the book genuinely not knowing where he was going to go with what does he mean by the mark of a Christian? But that is the subject matter. I’ve given it away now, but you can still read the book.
It’s a good book. It’s well worth the reading. A little book, The Mark of a Christian. What is that mark? What distinguishes a true Christian from those who are not believers? What should it be?
It should be this agape love. You say, Andrew, you’ve gone round it quite a bit. What exactly is it? Well, it isn’t a love that’s based on the emotions.
But rather a love that’s based in our will. It’s a choice. So when the Lord Jesus stands up and he says to a group of people, he says, love your enemies. And you say, well, I don’t have any fondness for so and so. I could never love my enemies. That’s not the thought.
It’s not the thought that you should be fond of or want to go and throw your arm around your enemy. That’s not really the thought at all. it’s this agape word which means that you should always seek the best for you should choose to seek the best for your enemies
it’s nothing to do with what I feel about it it’s what I choose to do and that’s helpful
the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia a massive publication that was published way back about 1900 it summed up this love in this way love whether used of god or man is an earnest and anxious desire for and an active and beneficial interest in the well-being of the one loved. Now there’s more to it than that but I think that’s a helpful start. W.E. Vine, wonderful
wonderful expository words dictionary he puts it like this, Christian love when exercised towards the brethren or towards men generally is not an impulse from the feelings. It does not always run with the natural inclinations nor does it spend itself only upon those for whom some affiliation is discovered. Love seeks the welfare of all and works no ill to any. Love seeks opportunity to do good to all men.
So this is based on the will and it’s my choice to want to seek the benefit and blessing of those around me. That is what the Lord would seek that I do. Now I might not feel like doing it. I might not have love drawn out of me towards someone, but that love should flow out. Let’s stop for a moment. This is God’s love.
This is God’s love.
Just think about that. For God so loved the world that he gave. It was out of his own nature, his own character, that the love flowed. Lord, it wasn’t that there was anything good or lovable about us. But God set his love upon us. And he loved us.
And so this love is nothing to do initially with the emotions. Now, I’m going to put a few caveats around that eventually. But the baseline is that it’s based on the will. It’s my choice. That’s why the Lord can say, love your enemies. you choose to do them good.
They might choose to do you evil you choose to do them good. They might revile you, you pray for them. You love them.
Of course we have a kind of sentimental culture and I guess Hollywood has done this in some measure and people you know they get to a certain age and they just want to fall in love.
Could I just say, there’s nothing wrong with being attracted to someone. It’s quite a normal thing.
But when it comes to you getting married to someone, you’re going to have to make a choice. You see, we get this idea, and it’s from the world, that you marry the girl you love. But more accurately, you love the girl or the lady that you marry. That’s a biblical way of putting it. You have a choice in the matter. Whether you feel like it or not.
There is a deeper thing than just the outward. There’s nothing wrong with the beauty of romantic love. It’s a biblical thing. Look at Song of Solomon and so on. in the context of marriage there’s no problem with it whatsoever it’s a biblical thing but at the baseline you’ll remember husbands were told to love their wives agape be self-sacrificial choose their best interests above your own like the Lord Jesus Christ of course the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me and so it’s not that you’re entering into a kind of 50-50 arrangement when you want to keep your kind of wee part and keep it when you enter into marriage it’s you saying I’m choosing to love this person
and it’s you covenanting to do exactly the same thing before God that makes it very solemn it means that if you wake up in one morning and you no longer feel romantic attraction or anything like that to your husband or wife that doesn’t change a thing you understand that the love that you fall into you can fall out of
we’ve got very fickle hearts and ideas. But this love, if it’s done before God and supported by God, is a far deeper thing. Far deeper. And it’s based on your choice, your will, not on your emotions. Now we’re going to see a wonderful thing, actually. When you have that love right, that base love right other types of love follow so whether we’re taking it as I am just in a general way in relation to a marriage situation it’s not this idea that you know you’ve heard it just follow your heart no it’s lead your heart you’ve got a choice and yes there will be times when you’re wonderfully attracted to the girl that you marry.
And that’s wonderful. And the Lord’s given me one of the best. So I know what I’m talking about.
But my responsibility is to be self-sacrificial in my love to her, whether or not I feel like it.
But you see, this love I’m taking in the marriage context, let’s broaden it out a little bit, because this is far wider than marriage. This is the mark, as I say, of the Christian.
How does it fit into the local church, the assembly? 1 Corinthians 13. The same character of love as should be seen among us as husband and wife. And of course there’s another arena there, another type of love that I’m not touching on, particularly the romantic side of love.
But when we come into the local church and we’re exercising our gift, Paul very interestingly, both in Romans and 1 Corinthians, he’s just spoken about gifts and then he goes on to speak about love. In this passage, you’ll notice having just spoken about gifts in verse number 7 and 8, he says, let love be without hypocrisy. He’s going to speak about love now. You see, if in the section before he has spoken about things that we each differ on, we have different gifts. Now he’s going to unite all God’s people together under virtues that they all should characteristically have. So from verse 9 to verse 13, it’s not so much I’ve got this particular gift or I’ve got that particular gift.
No, he’s saying, listen, see the use of those gifts. They all should be done in this kind of atmosphere. this atmosphere of love so let’s look at the the verses together i want to think first of all verse number nine let love be without hypocrisy now if you have a Newberry you’ll see abhor what is evil. Actually there’s a little sign at the start of it. And you know, I love Newberry. When I was just learning something about the Bible, when I was maybe in my early twenties particularly, I loved to find out about all the signs and what they meant. And they, you know, if you’re going to have a Newberry
use it, that’s what I would say. Find out what the signs mean and try and find out what the emphasis is. You’ll find it’s in There’s a little sign which really means it’s what’s called a participle. A pouring. You put an ing in the end. So it says, let love be without hypocrisy.
Using that word. Abhorring, what is evil, clinging to what is good. It’s all linking back to the love.
This is how it flows out now. Love is without hypocrisy. Well, that word for hypocrisy was actually used of play acting. Actors would have been looked upon as hypocrites. Because they were, not necessarily in a bad way, but they were playing a part. They had a mask that they put on.
And back in the days of Greece and Greek culture, back here, if you like, in the first century, they didn’t have all the beautiful elaborate you know backgrounds that that acting and all has now in stages it was pretty simple and you would have stood up and then you had a little mask that you put in front of your face at times to show what kind of emotion you were feeling so there maybe would have been a smiley face well probably slightly more developed than that but and and this was a scene that was you know meant to be a pleasant scene another scared face you were meant And that was telling the audience in a sense what’s happening here.
But this is really solemn. Because as he looks at the local church and as he tries to unpack this response that we should have to the grace of God. He says, listen, there can’t be any play acting with this love. It doesn’t work like that.
in fact he implies by saying abhorring what is evil and in fact that word is is this word for malignant evil like the evil that spreads and clinging or gluing yourself to what is is good and beneficial he is actually saying there’s a real danger with kind of pretending this love. It has a habit of spreading evil. You say, I never thought of it like that. Well, that means, you know, when we come together and say you’ve got a real issue with a brother and you push it away down out in the back here, put on a smile, shake their hand. I love you, brother.
this is bouncing around the back of your head.
It would be far better
if before God you had a proper genuine issue if you went to that brother. And all humility say, brother, I’ve got a problem. It might be on my side. Do it in the spirit of humility of the verses before. It might be on my side, but I just want to raise it because I don’t want it to be something that spoils this atmosphere of love that there should be. I don’t want to end up being a person who is play-acting at love.
That would be sad, wouldn’t it? If when we come together, instead of there being that genuine warmth that should be among us by the ungrieved spirit of God working and showing Christ’s love in all different ways among us and manifesting to angelic beings and manifesting to God and manifesting to the world around us or in this case manifesting to the town of Culloden around us that we are completely and utterly different. That we have this mark of Christians. That we are really genuinely His. We are Christ’s ones. there’s no hypocrisy about us
and we abhor that as something that’s potentially evil we actually recoil in horror from it that’s the thought of abhor and we glue ourselves to things that are good and beneficial for everyone.
And he says this at the beginning of this section, he says now see this Christianity, there’s no play acting in it. You’ll remember the first time somebody started play acting in the church. I know you’re going with me. Way back to the early book of the Acts, Acts chapter 5, isn’t it? and Ananias and Sapphira. Oh yes, oh we love the Lord.
What was the problem? It was all a big sham. That was the problem.
How does that sit with us, brethren and sisters?
Either I come here,
for instance me coming to Culloden, with love, To benefit the saints and use whatever grace God has given me. Or my contribution this week before God is going to be a big fat zero. That’s 1 Corinthians 13, isn’t it? Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels. You see, if I had every gift with regard to tongues, it was possible. He says.
He goes to the superfluous. I don’t have love. he says it’s worth that. It’s worth that. He says if I give my body to be burned and go to the very edge of what seems like apparent devotion to Christ and there’s no true love in it, he says it profits me nothing.
He says if I have all the knowledge in the world crammed into my head, all the mysteries of God, and I’m spouting them, and there’s no genuine love in my heart, the mark of a Christian, if it’s missing,
we might as well pack up our bags and go home.
Love’s foundation. He has more to say.
He speaks about love’s family bonds. Look at verse number 10.
be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love in honour preferring one another it’s very interesting because in this verse he crams he crams two more of the words for love now as i say the basis the basic word for love that the foundational word for love is this choice that I make, this something that’s in my will, a direction of travel that I’m going on. I’m going to love the Lord’s people. I’m going to give myself to them, for them. I’m going to do them good and that determination I have before God, I’m going to love them. That’s the first thing. But now he says that develops into a warmth. He says be kindly affectioned
one to another with brotherly love. Now you see that word kindly. I know you’re probably reading it the way I read it. You think kindness, that’s a lovely thought. But that’s not the meaning behind this word kindly affection.
When the translators of the authorized penned that word, they weren’t meaning what you’re thinking about kindly affection. It’s the word kind. Kindred.
In fact, what he’s saying is, have kindred affection with brotherly love.
Another translation puts it like this. Show family affection to one another with brotherly love.
Outdo one another in showing honour. So what he is saying here, I take it, is that this love, this foundation that you’ve set of love, love that and we’re only responsible for ourself in this but if that comes together in a local assembly if we’re showing that love in a genuine way it creates an atmosphere a warmth a bonding that flows out of it he uses another beautiful word here you see there’s there’s two other there’s three other words in greek for love but he uses two of them in this verse he uses the word phileo in fact he uses it and links it to adelphos which is for brother so philadelphia brotherly love with brotherly love and he also uses the word phileo and he links it
to storge and that’s another word that doesn’t come up very often in the new testament it Comes up in a negative way. And an A is put in front of it. And what it’s saying is that. There are people who are without natural affection.
Says that twice in the New Testament. But here it’s linking them together. And it’s saying. That there should be this warm. Affection. That begins to grow among us.
With brotherly love.
In honour, he says, giving preference to one another. That’s the thought, giving preference.
You see, if we had this love, I think Abraham showed some of it, you remember, when there was that issue came up between Lot and him, and he said, we’d be brothers. We’re brothers. We’re sisters.
we’ve got to work through this
a person I know very well she was speaking to me one time I know she wouldn’t worry about me saying this she was speaking about her family background she told me how difficult it was for her to deal with some of the others in her extended family because her parents had come and kind of there’d been this generation of resentment against another faction of the family. I’m sure you’ve come across it. It happens in families far too much. And she had to come to it herself as a Christian and somehow strip away the poisoning that had affected her. I’m going down a similar route as Brother David was mentioning the other night about how we speak of one another. that when it turns from jesting into something a bit more bitter and hard, and you’re getting…
I know there’s things that need to be said at times, but we need to be really careful that what starts out very small and innocent can become someone is the butt of the joke. That shouldn’t be so among us. And in the case of the family that I’m speaking about, about what had happened was there’d been issues that had never been dealt with, and they’d been pushed under the carpet, and again and again, until there was a deep, bitter resentment.
How can this be shown? How can this atmosphere of love be among us, if that is the case? Be kindly affectioned, have kindred affection one to another with brotherly love, in honour giving preference to one another. leading the way in showing the honour that is due Vincent says
it doesn’t mean that I come along to someone and I flatter them because that would be hypocrisy wouldn’t it if I was taking something that wasn’t true but when there is genuine worth and you see and you’re on the lookout to see among the Lord’s people something of Christ likeness or some virtue you or some maybe they’re doing well and they’re developing their gifts whatever it is just be the first one he says you lead the way in something you lead the way in and saying to them you know that was good I enjoyed that that was helpful and again what you’re doing is helping with this this idea of family this this this warmth that should be among us I think this can lead to a deeper atmosphere of care and consideration. You know, when someone comes, I know a brother. And you know, before you ever get saying anything to him, he’s saying, you know, I really enjoyed that. You did that in a way I could never have done.
And it just leaves you feeling that he values you.
We should value one another, brethren and sisters. Sometimes, you know, we can really irritate each other, can’t we? Let’s be honest.
Because we’ve all got rough edges and there’s things about me really irritate other people. I’m sure of it. I’m sure of it.
But we’ve got to step beyond that.
and we’ve got to be able to look at that person that brother that sister as someone for whom Christ has died and not only that he’s a he’s he’s a useful member in the body he’s someone who can be used of the Lord and I know there’s situations where people have sadly got away from the Lord that’s an area where we should be in sorrow and on our knees about brothers and sisters
but as we’re dealing with our brethren and sisters may the Lord help us to have that care and be first, lead the way when there’s honour to give it
that can be hard can’t it there’s sometimes something in us we want to hold it back
and we can sometimes give ourselves a good lot of excuses as to why. And they all seemed very legitimate at the time.
But in light of the presence of God, may the Lord help us to, in honour, be leading the way in relation to one another.
He then goes on to this whole idea of love. And I think it’s still running out of this initial that love be without hypocrisy. He goes on and he says, not slothful in business, fervent in spirit serving the Lord and this is what I might term love’s fervour love’s fervour so if we’ve had love’s foundation and the family bonds that love now we have a fervour and the fervour is understood by the third expression you see the two for the first two expressions here the first First two clauses are really leading to the third clause. Serving the Lord. That’s where he’s getting to in the verse. He’s saying, not slothful in zeal would be a better way.
In fact, it’s the same word as you have back in verse number 8. When he says, he that ruleth with diligence or earnestness. So he says it again. He uses the same word. He says, not slothful in earnestness. fervent in spirit so one’s negative, one’s positive fervent in spirit and can be fervent in this spirit the article is there, it could be that he’s saying you know, you’re so enjoying things and you’re in the good of the spirit of God
I think all these three, by the way, have the article if I remember rightly, not
slothful in business
Now my children are interesting. You know what it is. You always get an education with children.
I think quite a lot of people in the hall will recognise that. Hannah’s a great helper. She’s three, but you tell her to do something and she’ll do it. If it’s within her powers, she’ll do it. But Isaac, well, you sometimes see him dragging himself towards where you’re sitting. Come to the kitchen, Isaac.
Help out here, please. Want to see a wee bit of initiative here? Oh, God, can’t bring my toys. Whatever. And there’s that thing of, that’s the thought of dragging, of hanging back, of lagging behind, slow flow. That’s the thought.
don’t be like that. He said, not slothful in zeal for the Lord and the desire to do something for the Lord. May the Lord help us to, and we all can be guilty of this, I don’t know. It seems to me that it’s really easy to fall into the habit of just being, oh, somebody else will do it.
not slothful in diligence or not slothful in zeal fervent in spirit serving the Lord isn’t it wonderful we serve the Lord Christ do you remember that perfect that Hebrew servant I was thinking again of the Hebrew servant I love my master I’m not going free he’s been good to me he’s done so much for me and of course you’ll remember what happens that he’s taken to the door and he looks outside and instead of his freedom he chooses to allow that man to put a mark on him I just think there would be that that spring in his step he says the reason why I serve is because of the Lord that I serve the Master I serve
we serve the Lord Christ may the Lord help us he died for us he lives for us at God’s right hand one day he’s going to gather us to himself and change us into his very likeness
may the Lord help us in our service that that burning love that we should have for our brothers and sisters sister, you’ll remember it has to go upward to Christ as well. That’s really the basis of it. We love because he first loved us. I know we do quote it, we love him because he first loved us. And that’s nice. I think, I think, and you might disagree with me on this.
I think the emphasis is just simply on the reason why we love at all.
It’s because he loved us and came.
and so he has told us in chapter 5 you’ll remember that when we were saved that the love of God was poured forth that’s the thought in our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he had given us he’s told us in chapter 8 nothing can separate us from the love of God and the love of Christ he mentions both the love of God and the love of Christ in relation to our eternal security in chapter 15 I think it is he’s going to speak about the love of the Spirit world. So the whole Trinity is involved in this divine love.
And there should be that reciprocation, that mirror in our heart, in our life. We’re serving the Lord Christ. There’s a zeal and energy about us. There’s a fervour. We want to serve him. There’s a self-sacrificial Christ-like love that should be manifest among us. Why? Because
Because we’re serving him.
Rejoicing in hope.
Patient in tribulation. Continuing instant in prayer. This is love’s firmness I’ve termed it. Love’s firmness.
He actually points out three elements of basic Christian life. I take it. And he puts an article before me. You’ve got your Newberry, you’ve got your wee pointing hand.
And he says there’s the hope. And there’s the pressure or the tribulation or affliction, if you like. And there’s the prayer.
Three aspects of Christian life that we will all in some measure come into. The hope of what God has for us ahead. The hope of the Lord’s return is included in that, of course. The hope of eternal blessing that he’s already spoke about in the epistle. He says rejoicing in hope.
To think of the joy of the Lord.
Do you remember he rejoiced in spirit? It tells us that.
We were thinking earlier on of the idea of oblation. and you’ll remember that Paul speaks about being that drink offering that would be poured out in Philippians chapter 2 and behind that idea of the drink offering was the thought of joy the wine symbolised joy and you look at the Lord’s life and you think of how the cup which my father has given me shall I not drink it and he’s looking towards the cross and he’s looking past the cross and he’s going to fulfil God’s will in his life and there’s going to be a joy about it.
And yet he knows there’s the other side. There’s the time when that joy will meet its fulfilment and he will be anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows, it tells us in Hebrews chapter 1. And here we are in our little sphere with all our problems, doing what we do and sometimes everything seems so small and yet we have this vast hope that one day we’re going to be with him and like him forever and every tear is going to be wiped away
and we are going to be united to him forever and no one and nothing on earth or hell can stop it in any way.
and we should be rejoicing in that
rejoicing in the hope
patient
the idea behind this is the thought of endurance and pressing against bearing up under pressure you’ve got pressure in your life at the moment
if you don’t have you will have
one of the evidences of a Christian moving on for the Lord is the ability to bear up under pressure this is aside from pressure there’s coming a day when all heartaches shall cease there’ll be no No more clouds in the sky. No more tears to dim the eye. He’s talked about that. He said, you rejoice in that hope. But under the pressure that you’re in, you bear up under it. You bear up under it.
You say, how can you do that? Well, you can do it, firstly, by remembering the hope and rejoicing in it. He says, secondly, you can do it by being instant in prayer. Now, it’s really not the best translation, continuing instant in prayer. It’s the idea of persistence in prayer as much as anything else. It’s that idea of continuance.
I suppose continuing instant gives a thought.
Persistent in prayer. When I think of these three virtues, my mind goes to my aunt. I was saved just a couple of years before my aunt, who was more like my grandmother, she’d brought up my father, before she passed away. She was a great spiritual help to me. It’s funny because she almost would have deferred to me on things. And I, of course, being 20
and thinking I knew everything, I would have told her about the Bible. And she was 70 years on the road or whatever.
But I remember her physically suffering and despite her health issues and the problems that came and the pressures that weighed when I used to stay with her some nights because she needed to be up to get to the hospital the next day on dialysis and what not I remember I would have heard the hymns floating up the stairs six in the morning. And it wasn’t like we’re all just hearing the same hymns. There were new hymns every day. Hymns I’d never heard before. I’d come down and say, where did you learn that? Now, she couldn’t sing a note in tune.
But when she was singing on her own, she was in tune. When she was singing in congregation, well, it was better not to be standing beside her. But there was that joy in her heart. That idea that I think that we have in this verse of rejoicing and hope. She used to, her favourite hymn was, what a gathering that will be. It’s in your gospel hymn book.
Lovely to see the gospel hymn book. We don’t have the gospel hymn book in Culloden. It’s a great grief to me. I miss it. Anyway, what a gathering that will be. And every time she was at the conference or whatever, and she heard that she just broke down in tears she would have said to me Andrew you know I know more people on the other side
what was she doing she was just rejoicing in that hope
and all the pressures that came upon her she just kept going and I’m sure you have people like this in your life you younger folk look around you and look at the calibre of some of the Christians you know and learn from it, appreciate it.
She prayed and her house was her sanctuary. She was a single lady. She never married because she actually, she turned down opportunities to marry because she was looking after an old sick father. And she lived her whole life and she was the most contented lady I ever knew.
you can paint so many pictures from a verse like this may the Lord help us deliver we must conclude look at love’s freeness, verse 13
distributing to the necessity of saints
given to hospitality. I think this is where thoughtfulness comes in.
Seeing the need among the Lord’s people. I mean, where there’s genuine need. It’s not always easy. People come out and, you know, it’s like, how are you today? Fine. That’s part of the word fine.
Yeah. Are you? Sometimes it’s not just as easy as that. Sure it’s not. We have our defences up. And, you know, we’re not prone to being like our transatlantic cousins.
You know, it’s not just all out in the open. Sure, it’s not. We just have that kind of British stiff upper lip and a bit more sometimes.
And really, we need to have discernment, brothers and sisters, I think, when you see a need. To be prayerful, to look for a need.
to be looking at the Lord’s people saying to myself how can I help them is there a way in which I could assist and it might be very practical actually something’s coming into my mind we have a lovely sister in fellowship in Culloden she’ll probably hate me for telling you this but she’s called Magda she’s a Polish sister well Derek some of you folks will know Derek from Fort William well Derek’s dog died a while ago it’s his only companion he’s down there on his own he has a dog and he loved his dog well I didn’t clue into this at all oh that’s sad someone’s dog died but Magda well she started praying about this and she had a dog that she was walking from the dog homes and whatever and she went and she prayed about it and she went along to the dog home she said is there a is there a collie there we need to be well trained and we need to be x y and z to fit in with the lifestyle of Derek
it’s funny the lady turned around you know there’s a lovely dog like that we have We don’t know why it hasn’t gone. We don’t know. It’s just been sitting there for weeks. It’s a lovely dog. There’s nothing. So Derek got his dog.
You see, I’m just saying, here we have distributing to the needs of the saints.
It’s actually the thought, distributing gives us the idea, oh, you’re down there. But that’s not the thought. It’s actually sharing with the needs of the saints. that’s the force of it it’s coming alongside and I was extremely touched and impressed at the character of Magda to think that and to see the need and to meet that need in a way that I would never in a million years have ever thought of
given to hospitality see this is love and practice isn’t it this is what it means this is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. Given to hospitality. Actually, you know, this idea, given to hospitality,
it’s actually the thought of pursuing it. Pursuing it. You’ll see in the next verse it says, bless them that persecute or pursue you. There’s two meanings to that word persecute. Either it’s this idea, in both ways, it’s the thought of the hunt.
someone’s out to get you either you can be the one doing the pursuing or you can be the one who’s being pursued and when it’s the idea of persecuting you’re being persecuted it’s the idea of someone’s out to get you in a bad way in a sense you’re the rabbit in the other sense you’re the hound you’re pursuing something you’re looking for something so So, pursuing hospitality. In fact, that word means friendliness to strangers. It’s going to launch us into our next section, which is not just about believers. So among believers and among unbelievers, we should be pursuing opportunities to show kindness, to share hospitality. This should be the goal, the focus of a love-giving life. A life that gives and gives and gives not only firstly to the Lord, but to his people and to strangers.
I remember, I might as well say it, my aunt, when she was dying in hospital.
She was lying in hospital. And I had this random conversation with her. and she turned around to me and said, Andrew, you know, have you ever thought about hospitality?
I said, well, it’s not something that’s entered in my head too much at the minute. She said, you see, we get it all wrong, she said to me. And she was about two days from passing out of this time and she seemed to already be in heaven at times.
She said, you see the word hospital? I said, you see, hospitality.
it’s not about you gathering your own social group around you, you know, making sure I’m showing hospitality. That’s all, my friends. No, it’s seeing needs. It’s meeting problems. It’s opening your heart and at times your home to meet people in where they are. May the Lord help us to show some of these traits.
Just in conclusion, conclusion, God’s love shed abroad. Christ’s love, he mentions that in chapter 8. The Spirit’s love, chapter 15. This love’s very practical. May the Lord help us to exemplify that and act it out in our lives. May the Lord bless us.
Our Father, we come to thee in the name of the Lord Jesus. We’re so thankful for this beautiful, beautiful characteristic.
We think of how Paul composes those words about love in 1 Corinthians. Love suffers long and is kind. he goes on and he speaks about a love that never fails
our father we would pray that as we’re in thy presence before thee before thy word that something of the reality of this love might enter into our hearts and we might set ourselves to pursue it. Remember that Paul would say that as well. He would say pursue love. Hunt for it. Go after it. Our Father, we would pray that we might not be satisfied with anything less in our own Christian pathway.
So that among us as the Lord’s people there might be an atmosphere that when people see it they say there’s something different here. there’s something of Christ here. Our Father, we feel so
ashamed at times at our lack of Christ-likeness. May the Lord give us this calvary love that might mark our lives in the Lord’s name. Amen.
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Read transcript of Romans 12:14-21
Transcript produced automatically and lightly edited; it may contain errors.
Keep it fresh in our minds. So Romans 12, reading from verse number one.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to each a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith, or ministry, let us wait on our ministry, or he that teacheth on teaching, he that exhorteth on exhortation, he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity or liberality, he that ruleth with diligence, he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be without dissimulation, hypocrisy.
Abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love. In honour preferring one another. Not slothful in business. Fervent in spirit serving the Lord. Rejoicing in hope.
Now we’re looking from verse 14 this evening. Bless them which persecute you, bless and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one towards another. Mind not high things but condescend to men of low estate, or go along with the lowly more accurately. Be not wise in your own conceits
and recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him.
If he thirsts, give him drink. For in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. You know the Lord blesses his word to us.
We have looked so far at my attitude to my God, the first two verses. And the whole thought behind that was consecration. The thought of devotion and consecration and worship is all merged together. And he says, I beseech you, present your bodies a living sacrifice. And then we look from verse 3 to verse number 8. And the focus there was not so much my relationship to my God, but my relationship to myself.
My relationship to myself, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. And so behind this is the thought of a right-mindedness, of a humility that should mark us. And he brought in the whole subject of the body of Christ in a large aspect, and how each one is placed in that body with a function, with a purpose, and that we should never think that we are more important than anyone else in that sense, because all members are vital in the body of Christ. And of course he goes on to say then, well, okay, the Lord has given you a particular gift, a particular function that he wants you to play, therefore seek by the help of God to fulfil that function. Rather than perhaps, as a result of a desire to and seeing of a need all around us, which is just immense. We could just be swallowed up and spread so thin that we never accomplish what God has for us to do. So he says, more or less, if God has called you for a particular service. He says just be involved in that service. Focus on that.
If he has called you to teach, be involved in teaching. Put your best effort into that. If he has called you to exhort, make sure you are involved in exhortation and so on. And we looked at that the other evening. Then of course the next section we focused in on was my attitude to my brothers and sisters. My attitude to my brothers and sisters, verse number nine down to verse number 13. And the focus there was on this love that was there, there was no play acting in it, it was a real, it’s a real thing, and it was the foundation for all the other virtues that we see in verse number nine, ten, 11, 12 and 13.
Finishing up with that little expression, given to hospitality. And we mentioned the fact that this idea, it’s the idea of pursuing a love of strangers, pursuing hospitality, chasing after it. And it would seem that perhaps this is triggered in Paul’s mind, another way the word is used, because in the very next verse he uses the same word but he uses it in this other context. He says bless them which pursue you, which persecute you, because that was a feature of the early church. As we know, many throughout the first centuries of Christian witness, Christians were pretty much under the cosh. Things haven’t really changed. We’re in the wee bubble.
In the West. For the last couple of hundred years. We think it’s strange if we’re persecuted. If we walked outside this hall. And people were there to throw stones at us. And to put us in prison.
Or break into this hall. And take away our Bibles. And torch the place. We would think well isn’t that really strange. And it is strange in our culture. It is strange.
But it’s not strange in most places of the world. I mean, there are statistics coming out all the time, and it’s even reached the BBC. It must be true then. But it’s reached the BBC that Christians are the most persecuted group in the whole world.
Most persecuted in the most countries.
And so we have sometimes to set aside ourselves from the culture, the bubble that we’ve lived in the West. We’re very thankful for it. Very thankful for men that worked and did a mighty work for God. And there was blessing and revival and people were saved. And the people that were saved had such an effect upon the culture that we are in. That for a few hundred years there was a certain reverence with regard to the Bible.
From even those in authority in our land. Now, we’re moving out of that now.
And there’s a coldness creeping in. We’ve all seen it in the last 10 or 20 years, haven’t we? And there’s that focus now. And you’ll see, you’ve seen, I’m sure, you’re aware of different people that have lost their jobs because they’ve said some things that tie in with the Bible.
Some have lost their jobs because they witnessed to a colleague, and that is not unheard of in our land. There’s definitely a movement away from Judeo-Christian values and so on. So we look at a passage like this this evening, when we’re going to look at my attitude to my enemies, or we could broaden it out a wee bit and say my attitude to my non-Christian friends as well. Or even my attitude just more generally to people. Maybe that’ll cover it better. Because there’s sometimes he seems to refer back to my attitude to the other Christians in this section from verse 14 down to the end.
But we’re just going to focus on this this evening. Look how it ends. Verse 21. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. And so that’s where he’s heading in his discussion, I would take it, in a sense, even from verse number 14. He is going to really bring home to these Christians the importance of seeing things from God’s perspective.
Of being marked by goodness, of not just seeing the situation at an immediate level and wanting to retaliate or react against an evil done to you or maybe to another Christian, but rather to view the whole thing from God’s perspective. And so he’s going to speak about how we can display goodness, something of the goodness of God in our generation even among those who persecute us.
Now of course I don’t have a wide experience of persecution. I, this part of the world, as I’ve said, we’re not really that.
We’re very blessed in many ways, but I have seen some of it in different places.
And our responsibility anyway is to teach what Paul is writing here. He did know about persecution and he was instructing us about it, and who knows what the future will hold for any of us. So may the Lord help us as we look at it this evening. Now early Christians in the early centuries, first century and subsequent, when they were under the heel of the Roman Empire,
they were characterised by not rising up against the captors or the rulers. They were characterised by non-aggression during the early centuries. Later distortions of Christianity, when you find Constantine coming on board, 300 and so and thereafter.
Later distortions, when it was kind of subsumed into the Roman Empire, did not follow the example of Christ. Now that is a key difference. You see, when we come to speaking about Islam and so on, they follow Muhammad in practice, because what he did was he went out and he battled in wars against Jews and Christians and anyone else he found. So they’re following their leader. Whereas if Christians are marked by using aggression and using violence, they quite clearly are not following either the teachings.
So somebody comes to you and says, well, what about the Crusades? There’s two ways in which you can answer them. You could go into the history of it, if you’re a scholar, an ancient historical scholar, and you can point out that these wars, the Crusades and the sort of middle centuries, you could point out that they were mainly defensive wars, wars of last resort. And people have done that. They have pointed those things out. Right. Or, and I recommend this approach, since it isn’t your job to defend the actions of everybody who has called themselves a Christian since the first century,
it’s probably better that you just turn to the example of Christ and point out that anybody can call themselves or link themselves to Christ, but it’s their actions that speak louder than their words. And if they’re marked by a violence and a hatred of other people, they clearly are not following the example of Christ. And then I would recommend that you turn them to somewhere like Matthew chapter 5. And that’s where we’re going to turn right now.
Matthew chapter 5 just for a few verses.
Verse 38.
Turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him that asketh thee, and for him that would borrow of thee, turn not away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy. But I say unto thee, love thine enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them who hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.
For he maketh his Son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more than others? Do not even the publicans so? Be you therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven.
It’s perfect. Now, the reason why I’m reading that, and we could turn and we will think a wee bit anyway, of 1 Peter chapter 2. Not only the words of Christ, but the actions of Christ. When he was reviled, he reviled not again. And when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him who judges righteously. To his own self, we know, bare our sins in his own body on the tree.
So there are two ways in which we could try to justify our violations of the teachings of this passage of Romans chapter 12. We could say, first of all, it tells us in Scripture, an eye for an eye.
That’s the law of retribution. If you like your Latin, that’s lex talionis. Lex talionis, you might have heard of that. The law of retribution. It’s actually something that is in a lot of law codes around the world. I’m not a lawyer.
I’m not going to say much else about it. But that basic principle is, it was a command for the justice system to punish equivalent to the crime.
An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. And so on. And so forth. But it’s also a limitation. For.
A limitation from punishment. Beyond the crime. What was happening was. A limitation was being placed. On man. So if somebody.
Happens to smite you. And you’re in with the judge. And it comes up before the judge. And there you are with your black eye. And he knows you.
What the justice system was to do, it was to be just. You weren’t to be put on the rack because you gave someone a black eye.
You know, that would have been unfair and unjust. And so the principle of an eye for an eye. Some people, they’ll twist it around and say, well, look at that, isn’t that awful, an eye for an eye. But they’re not understanding that it’s integral to a justice system, the law of retribution. But of course this law was taken and mangled by many, many different countries and different cultures into a kind of tit-for-tat
feuding system where one person takes one person’s life and so on, and it just keeps going on in a cycle. And so the Lord Jesus, when he speaks to these people, people who are heirs of the kingdom as it were, those who were disciples of him, those who were followers of Christ. We can take the principles for us as Christians. And he speaks to them and he said.
You heard it said that it’s an eye for an eye. Now you resist not evil.
So he’s not dealing there. You see they were taking this eye for an eye. And they were using it to justify personal vengeance. They were using it to justify if somebody hits me, I’ll hit them back.
Whereas the Lord is not disputing its place in the legal system of Deuteronomy. But what he is doing is he’s saying when it comes to a personal vendetta or a personal insult that’s received by me, as one who wants to follow Christ I have got to ask myself, is there a higher principle I can follow?
Am I just going to follow the restrictions that were placed in the law so that men didn’t go too far? Or am I going to seek to follow Christ’s example which is higher? And so he says turn the other cheek. And we’ve got a responsibility as Christians.
Of course, the justice system has a responsibility to be just. We have a responsibility to show mercy and show Christlikeness. That’s our responsibility. So we cannot misinterpret the scriptures and say at this point, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, I’ve got a right to just do what I want, and so on. Now, this misuse of scriptures and misinterpretation of scriptures is something that we can do without even realising it. There’s another thing that comes out of this.
We can subtract from scriptures or add to scripture. So what the Lord does, he goes on to the next statement. You’ll notice this next statement in Matthew.
You’ve heard that it was said that you should love your enemy. Or sorry, that you should love your neighbour and hate your enemy.
Now, you’re thinking to yourself, I don’t remember that second statement in the Old Testament. Of course you would be right, it doesn’t say in the Old Testament that you should hate your enemy, not that way anyway. You see there’s two things happening when you put love your neighbour and hate your enemy side by side. You’re changing what God meant by loving your neighbour, because you’re restricting that word neighbour to those who are not your enemies. And you remember the Lord Jesus dealt with that very thing. Because he told him about a certain Samaritan that came and journeyed and found that man and so on. The Samaritan was an enemy of the Jews. The Jews were an enemy of the Samaritans. And yet the Lord says this is an example of someone loving his neighbour.
He says, you see, your neighbour is not just the person who happens to be from your background and your culture and your race and your family. No, no, your neighbour is anyone.
So loving your neighbour was meant to be extended to the whole of the human family. And yet here they are and they’re setting something beside the word of God. Which is restricting what the word of God means.
It’s easy to do that brothers and sisters. Be very careful with what you place beside any statement of the word of God. That can change the force of the meaning of it.
God never told them to hate their enemies, he told them to love their neighbour, and that included their enemies. And so the Lord Jesus goes on and he deals with that. So I’m just saying that by way of background, that when we come to a subject like this we need to be very careful about how we handle the scriptures, if we are just wanting to get our way and maybe have a different attitude to those who are perhaps against us in a way that we don’t like. Let’s look at verse number 14. We’ll look at the verses together. The first wee section from verse 14 to 17. I’m going to entitle it my attitude. My attitude.
It’s not so much dealing with actions in those first three verses. Bless them that persecute you. Bless and curse not. Rejoice. You know, just bless and rejoice and be of the same mind. And so don’t be wise in your own eyes.
That is all to do with our attitudes. So when he’s dealing with someone coming and the danger of persecution and different things, he says, let’s start with our attitude. Let’s start inside. And then from verse 17, he’s going to speak not so much about attitude as about actions. Verse number 17, you’ll see what he says, recompense to no man evil for evil
and so on. Then from verse number 19, he’s going to deal with the whole subject of avenging.
Verse 19 says avenge not yourself but rather give place unto wrath. And then at the very end, verse 21, he points out what my aim should be: be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with good. So my attitude first of all, how should my attitude be, so that when circumstances come up and people come in perhaps and they’re against me in some way, that I can show the goodness of God in these circumstances. Verse number 14. Bless them which persecute you. Bless and curse not. So the first thing we notice in this is that Christians should bless. Christians should bless.
In fact, if you wanted, you could say Christians should eulogise. Here we have the thought, this word is the thought of speaking well of. We use it in different contexts. You’ve heard of a eulogy and so on. The meaning of this word is basically that you should speak well of someone. Now, is he calling us to speak well of those who persecute us?
Or is there something a bit more specific that he has in mind? Because you see, the word can mean speak well of, or it can mean that you’re calling down blessings upon that person. You bless them. Or you speak well of him. It can have a very general meaning or a very specific meaning. How do we decide which it is?
This is, I suppose, 101 on Bible study. You see the word and you say, well, it has two meanings. What does it mean really? Can we tell from the context and from the sentence? I think we can. You see, he doesn’t only say, bless them which persecute you.
He emphasises bless and curse not. Now the meaning behind the word curse is more straightforward. That’s the idea of calling down vengeance upon someone, calling down retribution on someone. So the focus seems to be when he said call down blessings upon someone rather than calling down curses upon someone. That’s the focus, I take it, of this word and the contrast that’s been brought out. Not to call down a curse or an imprecation but rather to call down a blessing. So we must pray for those who, it says here, persecute you, those who are out to get you, who have it in for you you might say. We think about that and you say, well have I ever had a circumstance like that. You might have, maybe in the workplace you’ve got a boss who doesn’t like you, you’re a Christian. If you haven’t had, you probably will have. Or maybe in the school, I find that out with different younger ones that I know, and they have a rough old time at school, and there just seems to be one or two that are out to get them, out to make their life a bit of a misery. And we’ve all been at school so we know it’s not always easy, it can be quite difficult. And so how do we respond as a Christian, how do we respond to a situation like that? Well the first thing we do is we get into God’s presence and we bring that person’s name before God and we pray for their blessing and for their salvation, and that God will open their eyes.
You know, what we don’t do, or what we should try not to do, and it’s easier said than done, this is why we need to be very thoughtful about our Christian life, what we don’t want to do is just go away and start bad-mouthing them.
Or worst of all, asking in that sense that something awful might happen to them. That would not be in character with this verse, and the focus of what God wants us, how God wants us to react in these circumstances. Now, it’s interesting because when you come to a subject like this, somebody’s going to say, but what about the imprecatory Psalms in the Old Testament? Somebody’s going to say, well, did David not do that? Now, David had a very specific role as well.
And we’ve got to understand what our role is in this age that we’re in. It’s called the age of grace for a purpose. We’re here to display something of the grace of Christ in our generation, so
David had a responsibility also with relation to Israel. Well, we’ll maybe not touch too much of that, but David saw something that was unjust and he called for God to correct the injustice, he called for God to move in judgment, and in a sense that is not wrong, because God does correct injustice and God will move in judgment, we’ll see that by the end of the passage. And so what David did was very fitting for him in his day and in his generation. But now God is calling us to a pathway of non-resistance, a pathway of grace and showing grace, and therefore we are called upon to be different than that. We’re called upon to bless them that persecute us. To bless and curse not. And we’re following the most wonderful example that ever lived. The Lord Jesus himself.
And so, I’m thinking about some folks. And whether it’s the workplace or school or maybe in the family. And the pressure is on and it’s very difficult. And I’m not trying to minimise it. But we have a responsibility, first and foremost, before we do anything else, is to bless those. To bless those who persecute us.
To bless and curse not.
So Christians should eulogise. Verse 14. That’s the first thing about our attitudes. Christians should eulogise. Secondly, Christians should empathise. Verse number 15.
Now you can see that he’s not speaking specifically here necessarily about persecution, although that might be included. But he just broadens it out slightly. He’s dealing with attitude and he says rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep. Now if we were to go to 1 Corinthians chapter 12, you would see that that’s a body truth as well. If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. If one member is honoured, all the members rejoice with it.
And so on. So that is a body truth as well, but he doesn’t link it to the body here. And it seems to me that he’s not necessarily limiting it to just Christians here. When you see someone and they’re rejoicing, as Christians, we should not be cold or distant or hard or unfriendly. We should be the type of people who can empathise, who can sympathise, who can draw near, who can feel. You remember the Lord Jesus as he stood by the tomb of Lazarus and the tear was trickling down his face.
And so on. And we should have a human heart. We should be marked by fellow feeling for those of us, you know, whether other Christians or anyone else. And this can be a hard one, you know. Especially if that person happens to be someone who is out to get you.
Do you remember David and Saul’s death?
Now David is a very interesting example of this. The very man who was involved in the imprecatory Psalms, we know, in a very specific way, but he was certainly an example in some ways of this very characteristic. Do you remember when Saul came to get him again and again and was pursuing him? And there was opportunities for David to kill Saul and so on. He withdrew himself. In a sense, he was acknowledging that vengeance is mine, says the Lord.
And when it came to Saul’s death eventually, you’ll remember what he did, he lamented. When Saul and Jonathan died he lamented, the beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places, how are the mighty fallen, tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. And so Christians should be marked by that empathy that sets him apart from the norm. You think of that situation that just came into my mind today. The situation over there, that girl that went away to fight with ISIS and so on. And then she lost her baby on the way back. I’m not saying that you should change the justice system for her or whatever. But we should have a heart for the fact that she’s lost a child.
We don’t agree. And yes, she probably would have gone out of her way to kill us if she got an opportunity. But as Christians, I’m talking about how should we deal with it? Something like that. We still should have a heart for people. Even if they don’t have a heart for us.
So rejoice with them that rejoice and weep with them that weep. Christians should eulogise. Christians should empathise. Let’s look a little bit further. Verse number 16. Christians should humbly harmonise.
Harmonise. And I’m not speaking about singing. Because some of us really can’t harmonise. We can try, but we’re not that good at it.
Verse number 16. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.
This expression be of the same mind one toward another, it’s variously translated in different versions. Some of them put it like this, live in harmony with one another, that seems to have a focus here. It’s quite difficult to translate, so you’ll find it translated in various ways. Have the same concern for everybody, another puts it. Have the same respect one for another, Darby has it. Be in agreement with one another, the Christian Standard Version has it. And so there’s that thought of, a ticket, being of the same mind one to another involves having that idea of respect, of looking at each person as an individual and having a concern, as it were, for each. And that seems to focus in on the rest of what he is going to say in the verse. Because he goes on and he says, don’t be marked by pride.
Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Don’t be proud, minding only high things, being marked by conceit. But instead, associate, be drawn along with the humble, the lowly.
So again, these seem to be things that are bringing out this idea of a man who wants to be marked by harmony. He’s not going out of his way to be awkward. If there’s people of a different social place than he’s in, he’s not the type of person to turn up his nose at people. Oh they’re just lowly, I’m important. And of course there’s always dangers, there’s dangers of that in the local church as well isn’t there. We were hearing about Corinth the other day and that’s what happened in Corinth, the rich people were, well, they were just so
ununited, that’s not really the right word, split away from the poor people, that they were eating their food in the corner and there was nothing left for the poor people. What a shame. What a tragedy if that should come in among us as the Lord’s people. And I think again here he’s speaking more generally. We should be marked by being the type of people who are listening people, who are respectful people. Even when we disagree with people, we do it with gentleness and respect, 1 Peter chapter 3. You know when someone
someone comes to ask us about our faith there should be a respect that we show them as people. And it says do not be wise in your own eyes, that’s the force, do not be wise with yourselves. It’s the idea of a little echo chamber. Oh yes, I know everything, and me and my buddies, we’ve got it all sorted out, every problem, and I never need to learn anything. And again that can cause a disunity, because you’re never able to just sit down with someone and have a conversation without pontificating and collectively patting yourself on the back with others that feel exactly the same as you. And this can lead to a harshness, a pride, a disunity, and it can create an attitude that the world sees isn’t like our Lord.
I don’t mean we shouldn’t be convicted about truth, brothers and sisters, of course we should.
But we should be careful not to just be so full of our own opinions and ideas that we think that we can learn nothing from anyone else, whether they’re a believer or unbeliever.
We should have an ear that’s open to listen. We should learn how to listen to people. To listen to people. That’s not easy sometimes. I wonder how we appear to our unbelieving friends. If we keep this in the context of an unbeliever.
I know some people take it from verse 17 down. But for the sake of tonight. And I think there’s enough in it to suggest this. How exactly do we appear to our unbelieving friends? If one of them is to come along and say I just don’t believe the Bible. What do you say?
You say, well, if you don’t believe it, it’s nothing for you. Is that right? Why did missionaries go across the world and spread the gospel to lots of people that didn’t believe it? Bring the news of Christ. And tell people about the God of creation and the God who has placed a conscience in people’s heart. And tell them of the proofs that are in the scriptures of his veracity.
Well, why is it that all those are laid out before us in scripture?
A friend of mine, a brother was speaking to him, and he said, he says, I had a friend, had a man come round to me, he says. Had a man come round to me and say, I don’t believe the Bible. I say, well, I’ve nothing to say to you. And he thought this was good. My brothers and sisters, that’s not a good answer.
What about following up with saying, oh, why do you not believe the Bible?
Oh, well, I think there’s contradiction. Oh, can you show me some?
Oh, well, yeah. And before long, you can actually get into a genuine conversation with someone. There’s a real danger that we have that we can be very wise in our own conceits. And we just think that the only way that we can speak to people is by battering them with the truth. And we’ve got to be careful with that. The Lord Jesus was marked by words that were marked by grace.
He cared about people. Yes, there was a time and a place when he was very direct. When he said, woe unto you Pharisees and so on. But there were many times when he gave them more than that. So let’s be thoughtful in our attitudes when we’re dealing with unbelievers. So Christians should be people that are marked by respecting.
Marked by blessing. Blessing, marked by empathising, marked by harmonising. Let’s move on to my actions. Verse 17. Goodness me, where’s the time gone?
Look at verse number 17. Recompense to no man, evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.
If it’s possible, as much as lies in you, live peaceably with all men. Let’s think about that for a second.
So, the idea here is, it seems, not so much my attitude, but going this step further. This is a person who takes it into his own hand to act against evil. Now, the evil might not be directed specifically to this person at this point. You’ll notice from verse number 19, avenge not yourselves. That’s very direct. You know someone has come to me, has attacked me or mine, and I’m going to respond. At this point it’s more general, it’s evil for evil. I think I’ve got the right to move out and, as it were, do God’s work for him in judgment. God calls us, you see, just display his love and display his grace, but he does not call us to carry out his judgment. And that contrasts the church with Israel. Israel, by the way, Israel had a responsibility when they were going into the promised land as a nation.
What they were doing was, they were actually acting out and carrying out the judgment of God upon those nations. Now, God and the church has never called us to that. So that’s why we’re not in the same era as Israel. And we’re not called to do the same things as Israel did. Christians should be marked by being peace loving, in verse number 18, and we’ll accelerate a bit here. If it be possible, as much as lies in you, live peaceably with all men. Now you notice that, as much as lies in you. Well I don’t know, I think that sounds a wee bit, it’s like, oh well I couldn’t help myself, I couldn’t help myself anymore, so it wasn’t, it’s as much as it depends on you, not in them, that’s the force. If it depends on you at all. You make sure you’re at peace. Sometimes people will come and they’ll do
everything to be at war with you anyway. But as much as it depends on you, your responsibility is to be peace loving and to be marked by harmony. Now let’s move on to the next section. Verse 19.
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.
So here we have this idea of the Christian looking above the circumstances when it comes to avenging. He’s now going to look at the fact that God is the judge. This is extremely important. You remember the Lord Jesus, we mentioned it already. He committed himself to him who judges righteously. And so here it says, vengeance is mine.
I will repay, quoting Deuteronomy chapter 32.
And so, as another author has put it, God has long ago settled the whole matter about exacting justice from wrongdoers. Not one of them will escape. Perfect justice will be done in every case and will be done perfectly, Lenski says. And so really it’s the height of presumption for us to move in summary justice, no matter what the circumstances, no matter what has happened to us or our families. I’ll tell you a story actually from the troubles in Northern Ireland. There was a man who lost his son, he was a police marksman
and he was a Christian. My dad knew him. And he knew who had done it.
And he knew where he would get him to. And he knew that the police couldn’t touch him because they had no evidence.
And he got his rifle and he put it in the boot of his car and he drove to where that man was.
And as far as I remember from this story, he was just opening the boot of his car and he broke down.
He broke down and he said to my dad, he says, it would have just made me like them.
You know what was happening? It’s okay saying it until you’re in the circumstance. What he was understanding was this. And what he was having to understand was this, that God is the ultimate judge. Listen, we’re not called upon to be that, and I don’t know what it would have been like to lose my son, I don’t know how I would have reacted. But may the Lord help us in whatever circumstances life throws up, that we might not be like them and not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. You remember it goes on in here and says, verse 20, if your enemy hunger, feed him, and it’s quoting Proverbs. If he’s thirsty, give him drink.
For in so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head. Now, there’s a lot of interesting thoughts on coals of fire.
It’s entered common parlance in a kind of very negative way. The idea is, you know, you’re kind of heaping up judgment on this guy. I don’t really think that’s the focus. You know, it could be allowable in a sense, obviously, if you keep blessing him and he keeps, they keep acting against you in some way, it is in a sense even more sinful and therefore greater judgment will be theirs. That is true. But the idea seems to have been in these days.
Well, there’s a few ideas. But one of them was that you would have taken these coals of fire from your neighbour. You know, it wasn’t like there was easy matches and fire lighters. So if your fire went out, you would have taken coals of fire and placed it in a vessel and put it on your head or whatever and been able to go and relight your fire. And so it was an act of kindness to place coals of fire on someone’s head. There’s another thought, and the thought comes from a kind of Egyptian roots.
But there was an idea that people in penitence or repentance, they were marked by placing a vessel with coals of fire on their head. And perhaps there’s something there, you know, you return good for evil.
And eventually they might well break and there’ll be blessing as a result of it. And they’ll realise the error of their ways. And so we’re being called upon to show, to shower people with good and with blessings rather than with judgment. Look at verse number 21. The aim in it all. Be not overcome of evil. Overcome evil with good.
So I shouldn’t want to take aim at them. That’s the point. I should want to take aim at good and do good. I shouldn’t want victory over them, but I should want victory over evil. You see, I’m looking at the picture in a different way. With the Lord’s help, obviously, we are trying to be governed by goodness, and God is good, and the God who lets the rain fall on the just and on the unjust has called us to be like him. You remember the story of Jim Elliot and so on. I was just thinking about it again today.
The Waodani people, the Waodani Indians, Auca Indians in the book, the Elliot books. In the 1940s, more than half of them were dying by the spears of other Waodani tribesmen. So it was this cycle, it was this very cycle, it was a cycle of evil for evil. Retribution. That was what was killing that tribe. Entirely.
And into that circumstance. Stepped. Jim Elliot. Nate Saint. And the other three or four men. That were involved.
And they set out. And as they set out. They made sure they didn’t bring rifles with them. They purposed not to. Because they were prepared to die. Be prepared to die.
Rather than to harm or hurt these that they wanted to win for Christ. And on that beach, you know the story. They lost their lives. You say, well look at that. Evil is triumphing over good. Not a bit of it.
Not a bit of it.
Through specific request from that people. The widows. Went to live among them.
and lived Christ among them. Brought up their families for a couple of years among these people. And they saw saved the very people that had killed
Elliot and the other men.
What were they doing? They were not being overcome by evil. They were overcoming evil with good. There was a statistic that came out, I think it was about 2006, of the 2000 tribe members
430 of them had trusted Christ.
Lives were completely altered, they were baptised, and from that circumstance, just for that tribe, God had taken it and shown us the principle that you overcome evil with good. May the Lord help us to be like this. Shall we pray?
Our God and Father, we acknowledge that these subjects are difficult at times. Difficult because we know our own tendencies, we know our own hearts. We don’t know how we would react in circumstances of persecution and pressure. We don’t know, Father, how we would react in circumstances when those who are nearest and dearest to us are harmed or hurt. And so, Father, we would pray for grace that whatever our lot in life, whatever pressures and persecution will come our way, for if we live godly, we will suffer in some way. We pray, our Father, that thou wouldst give us grace and help to be marked by this character of overcoming evil with good.
We leave ourselves in thy hand. We have been trying to look at how to respond to the grace of God in our lives. We would pray that as we have concluded and wrapped up this chapter, we pray that it will live with us and the truth of it will live with us so that our Christian lives might be more like our blessed Lord. Our Father, we thank thee for him and we pray that he might have the preeminence in all parts of our lives. We ask it in the Lord’s name. Amen.
Thank you.