Jan. 7, 2018 The Real Deal by Pastor Josh Sheldon

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Jan. 7, 2018 The Real Deal Rom. 12:11-19 Pastor Josh Sheldon

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We'll open your Bibles, please, to Romans chapter 12, and the message this morning will be found in verses 9 through 16.
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If you're using the Pew Bible, that's page 948. Romans 12, verses 9 through 16, is the instruction from the
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Apostle Paul, this is the Word of God. Let love be genuine.
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Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection.
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Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit.
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Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer.
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Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you.
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Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another.
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Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Do you remember the old slogan?
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Well, many of you weren't there for it. Did you ever hear the old slogan from Coca -Cola?
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It's the real thing. Do you remember that? It's the real thing. And that kind of goes along with this ethos that we have today, where people are concerned for things to be real, genuine, legitimate.
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We're concerned by food that's not been genetically modified. We want meat from animals that haven't been infused with unnecessary or unnatural hormones.
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We want animals to be our sustenance that haven't been kept in cages. Free -range chickens and cows and that sort of thing.
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See, we want the real thing. We don't just want a slogan. We want the really real thing, a product that is what it was meant to be.
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Integrity. Foods that are real, provide for our bodies, the nourishment that food is supposed to give us.
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And it's not just with food, is it? We want a certain integrity. We want a certain realism in just about everything.
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And today we're shocked when people entrusted with positions of special responsibility and influence abuse that trust by abusing their charges.
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There's a special shock that we have when teachers or policemen or politicians or those sort of people, parents, abuse that authority, that special charge that society has entrusted them with.
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We demand, really, this kind of integrity. That if you are a teacher, you teach and take care of the children and you care.
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If you are a police officer, you follow the laws that you enforce for the rest of us. The recent wave of sexual harassment claims against well -known people has caused a kind of a tsunami of shock and disappointment because some of those people who so recently tumbled were icons of what we might call the progressive movement.
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They were men who everyone assumed to be beyond reproach in regards to treating everyone with respect and dignity, no matter their sex, no matter their ethnicity, or any such thing.
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Now we would all stand for this, but there was a special testimony that this was even more important to them as part of this more liberal, progressive side of things.
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And we must show respect to all. But some of these people who've recently fallen were those who you they would have looked to and said, this one is truly one of those who really stands for and lives out these things.
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So we might think of the men who so recently tumbled, who would have stood like that, who others would have pointed to and said, yes, he's one of me.
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He's one of those who really stands for this. Charlie Rose, Dustin Hoffman, Al Franken, Alex Kaczynski, the
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Ninth Circuit Court judge, and the list goes on and on. And the day after I made this list in my notes, another man, a state senator from Los Angeles, I forgot his name,
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Menendez or something close to that, recently tumbled over the same issue.
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And by all outer appearances, these men, and that short list barely scratches the surface, were men who really believed and lived what they seemed to stand for.
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And so there's this special, this deeper level of disappointment when someone like that takes a fall.
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But they weren't what they meant to be. Right below the surface was behavior the like of which they purported to detest.
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They claimed to treat all people, especially women, with respect and equality. But in private, it was something, as has recently come out, very different from that.
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Their hypocrisy, we could say, found them out to the shock and dismay of their followers.
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So what is it we're looking for? We're looking for integrity. Today we might say he or she is the real deal, by which we mean here is someone who lives what they proclaim, a what -you -see -is -what -you -get sort of a person.
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And even if I disagree with their opinions, I can respect someone whose words translate into their life.
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I can appreciate that kind of integrity. The men I mentioned confessed belief in a system of sorts.
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They said, yes, I'm one of you. I'm one of these. I believe as you do and will use my particular platform to promote these things that we stand for.
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But what did it turn out to be? Just a veneer. A veneer, a cheap covering that couldn't hold up against a small scratch.
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We who profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have, like many of these men, we've said, yes,
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I am one of these. I am a gospel person. I am a Jesus Christ person, a
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Christian. I believe these things. I've arranged my life according to the precepts and the principles of this faith.
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But we do more than just assimilate a system, don't we? As Christians, it's more than just taking in a series of procedures and things to do.
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Anyone with discipline can follow something like that. What the apostle
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Paul insists on here is that we don't just do the gospel, but that the gospel infuses us so deeply that it permeates our being to such an extent that literally every word or action could be lined up against the gospel and not found wanting.
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Does this mean we must be perfect? Well, Jesus says, therefore you shall be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.
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But this doesn't take away the fact, the experiential fact, that we all know this happens where we fumble, we stumble, we need to, first John 1 .9,
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go and repent. And yet there's this integrity that is insisted upon in the scripture, that if you claim the
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Lord Jesus Christ, it's not just something you do like those Pharisees William read to you about from the book of Matthew, who were only doing it on the exterior.
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And in another place, Jesus says, but inside of you, you're full of dead man's bones. Scratch the surface and what do you see?
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Do we see a Christian? Or do we see somebody who just thinks, well, this looks good.
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This appeals to me. I'm going to do these things. No, there's a deeper integrity that's insisted upon by the scripture for we who claim the
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Lord Jesus Christ. This chapter, chapter 12, it begins with the command to be renewed by the transformation of your mind.
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Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. The third verse of chapter 12 sets this tone.
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It says, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but think with sober thinking. Verse 16, it kind of closes out that section and says, think harmoniously with each other and do not highly think of yourselves.
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This is transformation. This is a new mind. This is a gospel mind.
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This is a way of thinking that infuses everything to the point that what we do is consistent with it so that if the surface should be scratched and somebody could look beneath, if there was a special type of Superman x -ray vision so somebody could see the real you, what are they going to see peering back at them?
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God willing, it's Jesus Christ. The image of him who saved us, the image of him in whom our faith and our trust is totally invested.
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But what does this look like? If you could take away the surface and look in and see the real thing, it's the real thing, he or she is the real deal, what would it look like?
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Well, to some extent it would look like Romans chapter 12, verses 9 through 16.
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The first part of verse 9, let love be genuine. That actually has no verb in it. There's no let and there's no be in the original wording.
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Those are supplied to us by the Bible translators. But if we take it as it's originally penned, it says something like the love without hypocrisy or the love genuine would be very good.
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And if it's that way, then it acts as a sort of a heading for what follows, which is the way
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I take it. So what follows? What follows is a series of descriptions that tell us what this unhypocritical love, this manner of life that emanates from transformed and renewed minds actually looks like.
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Now Paul's list here, there's really not even a list. It's not a sequential or logically ordered set of things to do.
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Paul has done kind of a brain dump here, we might call it today. It's not scattered. It's not random or anything like that.
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It's not, he said, well, I need more words. The composition has to be this many letters, so I have to throw in something. It's not like that at all.
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What I'm saying is, if we try to organize this into category one, how we behave in the church, category two, how we behave outside the church.
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If we try and organize it that way, I think we missed the point. What Paul's giving us is an organic picture of what we're looking to look like, a holistic description of what transformed minds look like, what they do, how they behave.
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And we can't break it up, here's what we do inside these four walls and with each other, and here's what we do for them outside these four walls who are not part of this fellowship or Christianity.
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Unless Jesus Christ himself was one way with his inner circle and another way for other people, that kind of a bifurcation just will not work.
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It's an overall picture. He says, the love without hypocrisy. Now, hypocrite used to be the title for stage actors.
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Back in the first century, that's what they were. They were called hypocrites. They wore a mask. They played a part.
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And it was obvious that the actor himself, and I say himself, women weren't allowed on the stage back then.
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It was obvious that he was not what he pretended to be. He wasn't supposed to be.
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He was intentionally and with everyone's knowledge playing a part.
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Matter of fact, the more he convinced you that he was this part he was playing, even though you knew he wasn't really that, but the more real he made it to you, the better an actor he was.
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And we know this today, where some actors are just able to draw you in and you forget that they actually have a name other than the name of the part they're playing.
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What's at the core of this? Well, it's love, the love without hypocrisy.
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That's the core of the entire Christian message, isn't it? John 3 16 says that because of love,
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God sent his son. We read in Romans, God shows his love for us that while we were still sinners,
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Christ died for us. That's Romans 5 8. Ephesians 2 4 says, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, saved us.
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And this love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. That's Romans chapter 5 and verse 5.
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The two great law -fulfilling commands are based on love. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.
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And the other is like it, says the Lord Jesus Christ. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. And of the many things that God is, these plain descriptive statements of our great
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God, God is love. So what does that look like?
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If this must be that which is within us, the reality, if we have integrity, if we have this, and we could then say not integrity if we don't, if the surface could be taken apart and we could look inside if we don't see that, then what do we have?
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We have ungenuine love and a hypocritical life.
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May that never be. Let us look at these verses and say, okay, what does this look like? What should be within?
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Let me go to the Lord if my faith is really in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I trust this word to be the very word of God.
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We can go to God as we read these descriptions, as we think about them, as we pray about them, and tell the
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Lord we can repent before him for these things that we intentionally don't do, ask him to strengthen us by his spirit, make us able, what does this look like?
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What should we find? Abhor what is evil, says the apostle. Abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good.
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What does it mean to abhor something? To abhor something. It means to have a strong hatred for it.
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It's something different than just avoiding something. It's having a repugnance for it.
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Abhorring evil. It's detestable to me. It's odious to me. It makes me dizzy to be around it.
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It makes me nauseated. Abhor what is evil.
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Interesting to think of it this way, that the first description of love, the love genuine, the love without hypocrisy, and what's the very first thing we get as a description of that's to hate something, was to hate the opposite of love.
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It's hating what God hates, and then to go on with the other half of the verse is loving what he loves.
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What does God hate? God hates sin. He hates everything about sin.
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God hates what sin is. He hates what sin does. The natural man at best might be opposed to sin, but that's usually just an intellectual ascent that some things are intrinsically bad.
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God created all mankind in his image. So we could say that mankind in general, in the ubiquitous sense, has a conscience, and at some level knows what is wrong.
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But that's really just up here. I think it's not so good, but I don't abhor it.
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It's just something I slipped into this time. If it's okay for you, that's good for you.
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I'll do what's okay for me. That sort of a thing. That's so far away from what the apostle
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Paul is expecting of Christ's people. I can't even describe it to you.
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We're talking about a soul -deep hatred, an aversion to sin that goes beyond self -discipline, goes so far beyond just picking yourself up by your bootstraps saying,
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I've determined not to do this again. So again, it can't be described. The distance is infinite.
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Paul asks in 2 Corinthians 6 and 14 and 15, for what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?
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Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? The answer, of course, is none to all those questions.
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The answer is nothing at all. What has the Christian to do with evil?
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He abhors it. He looks upon it and says, this is what I was. You were once darkness, says the apostle.
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But now you are light in the Lord. You're the opposite of that. And if now, so often in the scripture, even in the greetings of the epistles called saints over and again, holy ones, set -aside ones, those for whom
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Christ died, those he redeemed, what could we have to do with the opposite?
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It'd be a dog returning to his vomit and going back to those old ways. Which Peter says, your friends, the ones you used to run around with in that flood of dissipation, they think it's strange that you can't do that anymore.
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Why can't you do it anymore? Because it's vomit. It's the dog. Have you ever seen a dog actually do that?
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They're dogs. I love dogs. But I can't stand to watch that. But that's the picture.
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It's a very stark picture. It's kind of a gross picture, and it's meant to be. No, it's an aversion.
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It's beyond just aversion. We have nothing to do with those things.
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We abhor those things. It repulses us the way magnets of the same pole push each other away.
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You can't push them together. The psalmist testifies that do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
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And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred.
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I count them my enemies. This sounds very personal, does it not? Hating other people.
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We say, well, I'm a Christian. I'm supposed to love. Yes, the New Testament Christian is instructed to love his enemies, to do good to those who treat them spitefully.
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And so the psalmist's sentiment against the people who are against God finds a resolution for us in the gospel.
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And so no, this message to you this morning is not go and hate those who hate
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God. That was once valid, and we're not going to take apart the
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Old Testament, New Testament, and that whole difference. Let me just say the gospel, the gospel of the
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Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ came to save sinners of whom I am the chief, that gospel resolves that issue for us.
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Christ makes it very clear about how we are to treat God's enemies. And as we go on,
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Lord willing, next week in Romans, we'll find out about who avenges himself upon his enemies.
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God avenges himself upon his enemies, and we're told what? Get out of the way. It's none of your business.
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Really. We'll get to that, God willing, next week. If we take away the personal nature of the psalmist's words, though, if we take it away, and let's just sort of think of that conceptually, that the psalmist is hating what
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God hates, and so by extension, loving what God loves, if we take it that way, what are we left with?
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Hating what God hates, loving what God loves. Hold fast to what is good.
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Hate what he hates and hold fast to what is good. As much as hatred of evil drives us away from it, love of what is good draws us close.
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I like that little magnet illustration. When I was a kid, we used to have these little square magnets, about an inch, an inch and maybe three quarters of a rectangle, and we used to push them around.
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Because if you put them on the same pole, a negative pushing a negative or a positive pushing a positive, you could push them around.
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It'd be like having a truck, but there was no physical connection. It's a lot of fun. And if you turn them so it's a positive and a negative, then it clings together.
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And of course, the stronger the magnet, the harder it is to break that bond. And this is the sort of thing that Paul is saying, hold fast, cling to, hang on to tenaciously to what is good.
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And this word, hold fast, is used in many other places. 1 Corinthians 6 uses it of the physical union between a man, a husband, and a wife.
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And Jesus uses it that way in Matthew 19 verse 5, where he's talking about how a man is to hold fast to his wife.
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Deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 20, hold fast to the Lord. Many other examples.
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These are just a few. Hang on to it. It's sort of the way Jacob hung on to the angel he was wrestling with.
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He said, I will not let go until I am blessed, and ended up with the blessing. It's that kind of determination that is in that word, hold fast.
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Hold fast to what is good. What does this look like? Well, verse 10 brings it home immediately.
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How does it look to hold fast to what is good? Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another, showing honor.
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Hold fast to this good. Abhor to do otherwise, which would include for the first part of that verse, having an attitude towards a brother or sister that is less than brotherly affection.
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Think of what the apostle is saying here. Abhor not having brotherly affection for a brother or sister.
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Hate that evil. For the second part, abhor the idea of failing to look for opportunities to show honor to others.
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Hate that evil, a sin of omission, if you will.
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Oh, this is heavy stuff. This is hard stuff to take. Paul's going to say towards the end of this letter, he who knows the good to do and does not do it, it is evil.
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I think the net Bible, the New English translation does a good job here. Be devoted to one another with mutual love.
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Showing eagerness in honoring one another. Paul writes to a church there in Rome all those years ago.
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It had Jewish converts, the people of the covenant, all the advantages that we read of in Romans chapter 3,
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Romans chapter 11. And he writes to Gentiles, the ones who came into prominence in the church while the
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Jews were temporarily expelled by Claudius from Rome. Each group was a little bit suspicious of the other, and each thought that they had some cause to feel superior.
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By the time the Jews came back from that temporary expulsion, the Gentiles had risen to prominence in the church.
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And so there was this tension between them, and the one sort of lording it over the other one. And Paul says, no, this is not what
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God loves. You need to abhor doing that, or even thinking that way, be transformed by the renewal of your minds.
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To do that, to have this feeling of superiority over another is a failure of brotherly affection.
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It is a failure to abhor what is evil. It's the opposite of holding fast to what is good.
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Does this sound too stern? I think this is the way the apostle wrote this.
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This section of Romans chapter 12, when we finally, after 11 chapters of theology and doctrine, all that wonderful stuff, we finally got to the good part, right?
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For all you type A's out there, myself, what do I do? Okay, do these things.
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Finally, he's going to say, therefore, here's the list. Do this stuff. No. Terribly convicting.
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It's not a light thing. Oh, let love be genuine. Many of you have heard this before.
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I don't apologize for repetition. When I do weddings, when
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I presided a wedding, I will not read the love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13.
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Do you know why? Because Paul's not saying, oh, love is this and love is that, and love is this way and that way, and it colors things nice.
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What he's saying is love is this way. What on earth is the matter with you? He says to the
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Corinthians with all their divisions, and some want to follow Apollos and some want to follow Cephas, and some say, well,
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I follow Jesus. And Paul says, love is completely different than that.
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What are you folks thinking? It's a rebuke. And I don't think
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I should have a husband and a wife or soon -to -be husband and wife standing in front of me getting rebuked for something they haven't done yet.
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No, these are strong instructions from the apostle. These are supposed to hit us in the gut and hit us hard to not be devoted to one another, to not show eagerness, is to fail to hate what
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God hates and to fail to love what He loves. Here it is, folks, right in front of us.
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Show brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor to each other. Look for opportunities to serve.
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Be eager to show this honor to one another. That is what God loves.
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Does this mean we can never disagree? No, of course not. The very diversity with which Christ is building
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His church says otherwise. But if we are transformed in our minds, then this keeps disagreements from morphing into arguments, arguments from morphing into contingents, and contingents from resulting into splits, as has happened in so many churches.
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And if we think about how that started, if you talk to people who've been through that trauma, you'll see a couple of things.
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One is how hurtful it is. We talk to people who 25 or so years ago went through a traumatic church split over things, and it still hurts, and it ought to hurt.
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It's right that it hurts, because if we have brotherly affection with one another, when that affection is broken, it tears us apart.
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The other thing you'd notice, if you're able to sit down at a Starbucks and have a long talk with people who've been through this, is these things start small.
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They start with a very subtle lack of brotherly affection. Just a little bit of stepping into that failure to hate what
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God hates, and to love what He loves, to forget that the psalmist says, behold how good and pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity, in brotherly affection, could we say?
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These things start small. The vigilance required here is extreme, because we want to be right, don't we?
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And we want to prove ourselves right. And we get so interested in that, in making our point, in winning the day, in conquering through the debate, that we forget what brotherly affection is all about.
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We forget the affection that God has eternally had for the people for whom
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He sent His Son to die. We forget that the apostle says, you are not your own, but were bought at a price.
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Why do you act as though you saved yourself? Which is what it would be, to fail here.
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No, it doesn't mean we can't disagree. It means we enter into our disagreement, devoted to one another with mutual love, as the
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NET says, brotherly affection, as we have in our ESV.
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They both work really, really well. How many quarrels might never have happened if brotherly affection ruled the day?
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Notice I say quarrels. I didn't say disagreements. Quarrels, fights, disunity, and all that leads to.
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What would happen if we were eager, if we were chomping at the bit like a racehorse ready to start the race, if we were like that, trying to show honor to each other?
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I just put the question out there. I can't answer it for you. I would ask you to cogitate upon that.
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What would this look like if you and I couldn't wait to show honor, if we were staring at someone and say,
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I know how to do this for that person. I just thought of something. Well, Lord willing, it's through prayer, and God put
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His Spirit upon you and gave you an idea, but you see my point. Would we be different if you and I were elbowing each other out of the way, not to get to the communion table first, as we read about in 1
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Corinthians, but to show honor, to show affection.
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You know, for a long while in the church, maybe even still today, mission statements were all the rage. Like any good corporation, churches were encouraged to write these things up.
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Who are we? What are we trying to accomplish? What does our outreach look like and why? Let's have a mission statement, and I'm really not against those.
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I'm no good at writing them. That's probably why we don't have one. I have nothing against it, but imagine with me for a moment what this church, this one discreet fellowship here in Sunnyvale, what would we look like if these verses in Romans were our mission statement?
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What would we look like if each of us at every moment was concerned to have a mindset, the transformed mind, a mindset towards the other here of brotherly love and affection?
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If that was our constant thought, and not just here on Sunday, with all the brethren who've covenanted together here in this place,
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Monday through Saturday as well. We could even think of that as preparation to be here on Sunday.
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What would it look like if that were our determination? Would we be different than we are now?
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I mean, I personally feel like this is a warm, a friendly, a vibrant church. We take our cue from scriptures.
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It's our rule of faith and practice. We do the best we can. I think we do a good job. Not perfect, but I think we do well.
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I think we find our purpose in glorifying God's name, our faithfulness to his son
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Jesus Christ. So I'm not suggesting that we need a paradigm shift or anything like that. I am asking if all of us together were determined to have an affection for each other, such that the closest knit family would envy us, what would we look like?
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What would that be like here? We thank you.
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Verse 15 tells us to weep with those who weep, rejoice with those who rejoice. Some of us have less empathy than others, and so we don't really know how to engage these emotional situations.
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And some of us would say, well, I'm just not wrapped together that way. God didn't make me able to even recognize those things.
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Do you know what Romans 12 9 to 16, excuse me, Romans 12 9 to 16 would answer to that?
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If you say, I'm just not able to recognize and enter into that sort of an experience, it says, so what?
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The scripture sort of says, I don't care. Your mind has been renewed.
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You have been, and you are being transformed. And this is what it looks like.
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We spent some weeks on just the first few verses of this chapter. Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.
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Here it is. Do you want to know what to do? Here it is. Do you want to know if you're transformed?
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Compare to this. If you're not this, does that mean you're not saved? No, that's not what it means.
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If you're not this, this means you pray to God, make me like this because your word says I should be like this.
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And your spirit is powerful. And your word says your spirit is mine. Ephesians 1 19 says that the power that God exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead is the same power he works toward you who believe in him, whom
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God raised from the dead. I have a hard time entering into this sort of a situation.
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Scripture says we don't care. Do this.
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Be this way. Weep and rejoice. We're not professional wailers like those hired to follow funerals back in Jesus' day.
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The ones we weep and rejoice with are brethren, those for whom we're to have this brotherly affection.
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It's Ephesians 4 32. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you.
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The corresponding verse in Colossians in the King James version says it this way, put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long -suffering.
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I love that expression, bowels of mercy. What are the bowels? We're not going to do a scientific description here because what the word means in the original is deep down, at the core of your being, let there be bowels, let there be depth of mercies for each other.
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That's brotherly affection. That is, Colossians says, how the elect of God behave, holy and beloved.
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What makes me holy and beloved? How does this play out? What does this look like? Bowels of mercy.
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Brotherly affection. Abhorring evil, clinging to what is good. This is what it looks like.
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This is up -close, one -on -one affection flowing from minds transformed by this gospel.
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Now think about this for a minute. Emails are one thing. And I have nothing against email. I don't use it.
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You all know that. And I think if Paul were here in this day and you said, okay here Paul, now what you do is you click and clack on this thing and it's going to come up on this other thing in front of you.
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And when it's all the way you want it, you push a button. It's going to go out to gazillions of people. I think he would have done it. He used the highest technology of his day to get his letters out to the churches.
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So emails are one thing and they're fine. And Paul would have used it, I think. And when a message goes out, there is comfort in knowing that it's going out to people who actually pray.
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That we can send an email to each other, an electronic cyber message that says,
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I just ran into this difficulty, or my family has this need, or such and such happened.
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Will you pray for me? And knowing that yes, we will see it on our smartphone or on our computer screen, and we know because of the brotherly affection that we have when we're actually together, that we will stop and pray for you.
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But the weeping and rejoicing of Romans 12, this brotherly affection playing out that way is closer than that.
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As we were talking about church membership in Sunday school this morning, I was reminded many years ago as my wife and I were driving up Highway 99 to see her sister.
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And over on the west side of the freeway, there was an old closed down drive -in theater.
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Somewhere up near Elk Grove, I think it was.
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Wilton, Elk Grove. Somewhere in that area about 30 miles south of Sacramento anyway. And it had been converted into a
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Dutch Reformed church. I remember it's just saying Dutch Reformed because that's what said on the sign where it used to say that it was a movie theater. And here's what they did.
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You drove your car in, and you took that speaker. I don't, do they still do that?
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They still have the speakers that come out, and you hang them in your window? They do, they do. Okay, so yeah, it's kind of old -fashioned.
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And that's how you heard the sermon, and that was your fellowship. That's some weeping rejoicing. Now that's going too far.
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But Romans 12, when Paul says weeping and rejoicing together, this physical one -on -one display of this brotherly affection, he's talking about where saints actually meet and pray together in each other's physical presence.
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You know, it's not uncommon to hear people complain that their faith is stagnated or stagnating.
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And I asked them, well, do you pray with your brothers and sisters? Well, no,
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I don't. But you know, I need something to give me a jolt of growth into the image of Christ. I need some spiritual Gatorade or something like that to get me going again.
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So pastor, do you have something? Do you have a book I can read? Do you have a program I can follow? Give me three steps.
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I'll check them off each day, and I'll do better. I said, well, it's not all that complicated.
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Do you pray with your brothers and sisters in the Lord? Well, yeah,
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I do want to pray. But first, I need to get my faith going again, and I need something to get me excited about Jesus Christ again.
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Well, how about this? Let's do what the scripture says. Let's weep and rejoice together.
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Is that not prayer? Is that not putting your hand on someone's shoulder and praying with them with tears if the occasion is for weeping, and with tears of joy if the occasion is for rejoicing?
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I give you a church, brothers and sisters, whose spirits sometimes swell with gratitude at what the Lord has done, or whose hearts have been broken by some providence for which they need prayer to bear up.
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The transformed mind, the one that thinks with sober thinking, whose love is Christ -driven, whose love is genuine, abhors the very thought of not being with God's people, and holds fast to the good of intimate fellowship.
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Notice all these things that flow from that. Abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good.
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And then what follows in each of these cases, you can say to not is to fail to abhor, and to fail to love what
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God hates, and what God loves. You know, Ronnie Van Zandt, he was the original singer for Lynyrd Skynyrd, and he tells this story of a record producer who, as their popularity was rising, they were huge back in their day, he said something like this.
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He said, what are you, man? What are you really? And his answer to that was to write this song called
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Whiskey Rock and Roller. I'm a whiskey rock and roller. If someone had asked that question of the recently disgraced men that I spoke of earlier, they might have answered, said, well,
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I'm a liberal. I believe in respect for all people, and I'm especially keen to show proper, non -objectifying respect for women.
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What are you, man? What are you really? Scratch the surface, and what did we find there?
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The stuff of headlines, national disgrace. They weren't what they claimed, and their behavior was so far from their profession.
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And so, church, what about us? What are you?
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What are you really? And how many of us would raise our hand and swear solemnly to the
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God of heaven and earth that we are Christians, and then dig down a bit, and what is seen?
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Look in your mirror, yourself with prayer to God. Ask, is the love that we have together, is your love, your professed love for the saints, is it the real deal?
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Is it brotherly affection? Is it a love for that brother or sister for whom
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Christ also died so strong that you cannot stand to fail to show them brotherly affection or find an opportunity to show them honor or to put an arm around them and say, brother, sister, about what are you today weeping or rejoicing?
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And let me join with you. Do we, do you, do
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I, at the deepest level of a soul, hate what
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God hates and conversely love what
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He loves? This is the gospel. This is what Jesus Christ died to create,
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His church, this people that does what? This people that reflects
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Him, that mimics Him, that shows each other the kind of love that God showed us, this love that's been poured in our hearts by the
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Holy Spirit, this love that while we were still erected sinners, we were once darkness but now light in the
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Lord, but while we were darkness, while we were rebels against God, Christ died for us.
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That's a demonstration of love. And praise God, He died for us.
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And so we don't die for each other. And though we might physically give our life to save another, and God willing, if the need arose,
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I would, you would, but in God's kindness and His love, can we say?
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Few of us have ever been put in that position and probably ever will. This is what
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Christ died for, to create this people that the apostle here is describing, these transformed minds, and what it actually looks like.
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This is the gospel. This is for which Christ died. This is why we repent of our sins and our faith and our trust and our hope, it all vested in Him, in Jesus Christ, who showed this kind of love, that we might show it amongst one another.
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May God be pleased to show us the truth and to lead us in the ways of His righteousness, and that by the power of His Holy Spirit.
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Amen? Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this day. We thank you, Father, for your word, and though it cuts hard against us and goes against our grain,
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Father, we trust that by your Spirit, you are making us into this people that is this which is here described.
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May we be those that bring much honor and glory to your name and show our gratitude for what you have done for us in Christ, by following the apostles' instructions, by being actually, in fact, transformed, so that at whatever level, this would be what emanates from us, what flows forth, this gospel, this brotherly affection, this love, this abhorrence of evil, and this love for what you,