A Word in Season: Unfeigned Love (Romans 12:9)

In William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, the famous assassination scene involves the conspirators rushing upon Caesar, and amongst them he sees the face of his young friend and protégé,

Brutus. And so Caesar dies saying, Et tu, Brute? Then fall,

Caesar. What stings most, perhaps even more in Shakespeare's mind than the swords that are piercing his flesh, is the fact that Brutus had professed love for him and yet had betrayed him.

King David in the scriptures would have known something of that. When Ahithophel became the counsellor of Absalom, David felt that sting keenly.

And what makes it worse is the professed love that gives way to the cruel treatment.

I don't know whether or not Paul had something so extreme in mind, but certainly that spirit when he said in Romans chapter 12 and verse 9,

Let love be without hypocrisy. He's saying that to every Christian in the church at Rome, and by extension he's saying that to every

Christian in every church. We are to be bonded by love. We are to have this deep sacrificial affection one for another.

And to use the language of the Apostle John, our love is not going to be in word only, but in deed also.

And it's that division between words and deeds that Paul has in mind when he exhorts the Romans to let their love be without hypocrisy.

Their professions of love are not to be mere words. They're not to be a mere show.

And by extension their demonstrations of love are then not to be a mere performance rather than a genuine sacrifice.

It's all too easy for us as Christians to profess love one for another. We probably do it in our meetings together.

We certainly do it, I hope, in our praying for one another. We may do it in the church covenant which we state to one another.

There may have been vows and promises that we have made to one another as brothers and sisters that we will love one another as Christ loved the church, that we will follow in his footsteps, that we will love as he loved.

Now we confess that as men and women redeemed but still wrestling against remaining sin, that love will never have the pure perfections that it did in the life and experience of our

Lord Jesus Christ. But still that love is to be in essence pure and sincere.

It is not to be a mere pretense. A love that does not do anything, a love that offers one thing but actually lives another is a love that involves hypocrisy.

There's a cartoon I remember reading as a child. The context is less important but there was a gathering of women who were meeting together.

The usual group were there and the character who was observing says,

Mrs. So -and -so can't attend today which gives the other ladies a perfect topic of conversation.

It's Mrs. So -and -so. And perhaps as Christians we need to ask if that's the kind of context in which our love is going to be proved either as sincere or hypocritical.

What do we actually think about the people who we profess to love? What do we actually say about them?

What is our attitude? What are our words? And then what are our deeds toward them?

You see if we are believers our love is to be without hypocrisy. We don't need to be the friend in the crowd with the sword raised.

We don't need to be Ahithophel the betrayer or Judas Iscariot in order for us to be the man or woman whose love is hypocritical.

That may be the far end of the spectrum, the extreme degree.

But when we say that we love God's people and yet the evidence does not exist in the way that we think about them, the way that we speak of them and the way that we act toward them, then we need to go back to Paul's exhortation to the body of Jesus Christ here in Romans chapter 12 and verse 9 and pleading to the

Lord God of heaven. We need to take to heart this exhortation. Let love be without hypocrisy.

So may God forgive us and may God help us to love not just in word but also in deed.