SPEAKER_00: So we'll be reading from Romans twelve today, starting from verse nine, and today's question is: how should we respond when we want to take vengeance?
SPEAKER_00: Let love be genuine, abhor what's evil, hold fast to what is good, love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
SPEAKER_00: Bless those who persecute you.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed and do not curse them.
SPEAKER_00: Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep, live in harmony with one another.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.
SPEAKER_00: Never be wise in your own sight.
SPEAKER_00: Repay no one for evil, but give thought to do what is honourable in the sight of all.
SPEAKER_00: If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
SPEAKER_00: Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_00: For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.
SPEAKER_00: If he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by doing so you will be head heap burning coals onto his head.
SPEAKER_00: Do not overcome, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
SPEAKER_00: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to you if you joined us while we were singing.
SPEAKER_02: My name's Mark, I'm one of the leaders here at the church.
SPEAKER_02: And let's talk about love and how you can how you can continue to love me more.
SPEAKER_02: We've been doing this really since the since the start of the year, and now we're in chapter 12.
SPEAKER_02: And chapter 12, and really the rest of the book is very, very practical.
SPEAKER_02: Um, there's lots of little commands here about how to uh about how best to love one another.
SPEAKER_02: But here's one of the things that you know.
SPEAKER_02: One of the things you need to know is that chapter 12 comes after chapters 1 to 11, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Profound stuff, first thing on a Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_02: And the reason why that's important is because Paul has spent 11 chapters outlining what God has done before he starts telling you what you ought to do.
SPEAKER_02: And you need to get it that way around, okay?
SPEAKER_02: So if you are new, if you're just jumping in on chapter chapter 12, don't lose the fact that actually Paul has already built a foundation of being made right with God, not by any of your works, not by fulfilling any of the things in chapter 12, but simply as a as a work of his grace, and now as a response to that grace, and empowered by that grace, we now live differently.
SPEAKER_02: Don't think I need to do these things in chapter 12, and then God will love me.
SPEAKER_02: No, it's God loves me, He has transformed me by His grace, and now I get to live this way.
SPEAKER_02: We saw last week that God wants to transform us by the renewing of our minds, He wants us to think differently.
SPEAKER_02: And this is not just a moral upgrade, that's not just what He's interested in, making more moral people.
SPEAKER_02: It is that through this transformation that God shows the beauty of his grace, the beauty of his character, even, to the whole world.
SPEAKER_02: And he does that as he renews your life individually, but then he also places individuals alongside other individuals who are placed alongside other individuals, and he calls that the church.
SPEAKER_02: And all of those individuals who come together, well, they begin to help that renewal process with one another.
SPEAKER_02: They help to catalyze and accelerate that transformation that God is about by his grace.
SPEAKER_02: That's why it's good for you to be part of a church like City Church Dublin.
SPEAKER_02: And it is as a whole community is transformed that actually we show the beauty of God's grace and his character all the more brightly.
SPEAKER_02: We become what Jesus uh talks about in Matthew's gospel of that city on a hill that cannot be hidden.
SPEAKER_02: What is the light that we show?
SPEAKER_02: It's the light of the grace of God, it's the light of transformed lives, loving differently.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul here in this passage is helping us to see some of the ways in which we can be transformed by the renewing of our mind.
SPEAKER_02: And one of the ways that we need to think differently is in how to love one another and how to love in the face of adversity.
SPEAKER_02: We live in a world where love is a kind of an amorphous thing.
SPEAKER_02: It's it's kind of self-defined, it's sentimental.
SPEAKER_02: We're encouraged to love ourselves first, as Whitney Houston told us.
SPEAKER_02: The greatest love of all is the one that's happening to me.
SPEAKER_02: Learning to love myself.
SPEAKER_02: That's my that's my karaoke go-to.
SPEAKER_02: We love as long as it fulfills us, as long as it makes us happy, and then when it when it no longer achieves those ends, then love has love is waved, it is run out.
SPEAKER_02: We love those things that are lovely and despise those things that are unlovely.
SPEAKER_02: And God would come and say, Well, actually, all of that needs to be reformed, it needs to be reshaped.
SPEAKER_02: For Paul here, love is something much more beautiful, it's much richer, it's much harder, it's much more meaningful.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I don't know how much attention you paid during the reading, but one of the things that as you're kind of scanning through verses 9 to 21, you might realize is that it's quite hard to kind of figure out the structure and how to kind of um put all of these kind of staccato commands into groupings.
SPEAKER_02: And there's an important point for that, which we'll come to later.
SPEAKER_02: But but broadly speaking, I'm gonna address these commands in in two particular chunks, just for the for the sake of note-takers, or even just for those of you who are listening, just to know when I'm gonna shut up.
SPEAKER_02: Um so there's two chunks.
SPEAKER_02: The first is the uh the shape of Christian love.
SPEAKER_02: What does Christian love kind of look like?
SPEAKER_02: And then in particular, love in the face of conflict or love in the face of adversity.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so we're gonna do those two things: the shape of Christian love, and then in particular, love in the face of adversity.
SPEAKER_02: So let's look at that that first one.
SPEAKER_02: And and really, right now, we're just in verse nine, the first verse of our of our reading, the shape of Christian love.
SPEAKER_02: One of the things, and again, I told you there's lots of little commands.
SPEAKER_02: Between verses nine and verse 13, there are 13 different individual commands about love.
SPEAKER_02: I do not have 13 subpoints to this point.
SPEAKER_02: You will be glad to know, right?
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so we're we're doing some we're doing some grouping.
SPEAKER_02: And the first command, I think, forms a kind of a kind of headline over the rest.
SPEAKER_02: The kind of if you begin to grapple with the first one, some of the others will begin to make sense.
SPEAKER_02: So, verse 9 of Romans 12, he begins with this phrase: let love be genuine.
SPEAKER_02: Let love be genuine.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, well, what does it mean for love to be genuine?
SPEAKER_02: Well, genuine here, the word genuine means unhypocritical.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02: That's what you just got hit in the feels there, didn't you?
SPEAKER_02: Like, oh, okay, unhypocritical love, right?
SPEAKER_02: That's what Paul saw.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, this is hard, right?
SPEAKER_02: This is why this flows after Romans 1 to 11, because we need the grace of God at every point during this passage.
SPEAKER_02: He's saying, don't be hypocritical in your love.
SPEAKER_02: Put it another way, don't let your love just be an act.
SPEAKER_02: Just be something performative, something that you that you put on.
SPEAKER_02: How could love be hypocritical, do you think?
SPEAKER_02: Well, one way would be to speak words of love with a pented smile on your face, and yet uh harbour ill will, or maybe just uh feel completely indifferent towards the other person.
SPEAKER_02: It's not that you actively hate them, it's that you could take it or leave it.
SPEAKER_02: You don't really care.
SPEAKER_02: But you're putting on the facade anyway.
SPEAKER_02: Another way that love could be hypocritical would be the love that flatters someone with the goal of receiving back from them their validation, their acceptance.
SPEAKER_02: So you're you're saying and doing loving things, but actually there's a there's a part of you that you don't really like to admit that is using their response.
SPEAKER_02: You're loving them in order to be affirmed, or you perform acts of service out of a desire to be seen or recognized.
SPEAKER_02: It looks like love on the surface, but it's not genuine.
SPEAKER_02: And hey, look, well, if we only did uh if we only operated out of unmixed motives, uh I scarcely think that we would do anything at all, okay?
SPEAKER_02: I understand that this is a this is a grace-fueled process.
SPEAKER_02: And that even as you think, well, yeah, yeah, like I do kind of struggle with people's approval and validation of me, but I I feel like I am kind of genuinely trying to be loving.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, look, I look I understand.
SPEAKER_02: I think Paul understands as well.
SPEAKER_02: Again, that's why this doesn't come in chapter one, but comes in chapter 12.
SPEAKER_02: That this this purifying of our motives is something that happens in view of the mercies of God, as he says in chapter 12, verse 1.
SPEAKER_02: But he he is calling us to not just wear a mask, a mask of love, the way the world does, right?
SPEAKER_02: You know when somebody is just being civil to you, when somebody is uh speaking words of love, but you know that by their actions or other things that you have heard, that actually they they don't have feelings of love towards you.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul is simply saying, as you're living out of this renewed mind that has been renewed day by day, one of the things that you want to seek to grow in is an unmixed love, an unhypocritical love, a love that isn't just an act.
SPEAKER_02: And he helps us in the the rest of these verses, the rest of these little commands to help us understand what genuine, unhypocritical love is.
SPEAKER_02: And so we're still in verse 9, but again, another really helpful point.
SPEAKER_02: Let love be genuine.
SPEAKER_02: That's the the kind of the headline, the title over this uh little mini section.
SPEAKER_02: And then he says, abhor, abhor just means hate.
SPEAKER_02: Hate what is evil and hold fast to what is good.
SPEAKER_02: I hear this.
SPEAKER_02: What is he saying about genuine love?
SPEAKER_02: Unhypocritical love, love that isn't just an act, but it's a love that hates.
SPEAKER_02: Strange, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: It's a love that hates what?
SPEAKER_02: That hates evil.
SPEAKER_02: Genuine love hates evil.
SPEAKER_02: This is particularly important in the light of the whole sweep of the book of Romans, because one of the things that Paul has told us, right at the start of the book in chapter one, is that human beings kind of by disposition were kind of hardwired to give approval to things that God disapproves of, because we we kind of want to say when you're defining um uh one of the ways that you define uh sin to children, like in kids' work, is so sin is shove off God, I'm in charge, no to your rules.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's kind of right about us.
SPEAKER_02: And so we we part of our shove off God is when God says that that's wrong, we're like, yes, love that.
SPEAKER_02: More of that, please.
SPEAKER_02: You know, we're kind of uh we're kind of petulant in that way, we're kind of hardwired to love the things that God hits, to give approval to the things that that God disapproves of.
SPEAKER_02: And so it stands to reason that actually part of the renewing of our mind is bringing our loves in line with God's loves, to love what he loves and to, yes, hate what he hates.
SPEAKER_02: He hates evil.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Well, because it harms his creatures and it harms us and those around us.
SPEAKER_02: It is offensive to him in his holiness.
SPEAKER_02: And so he calls us to, in the renewing of our minds, to reform our categories of good and evil, and to love what is good and to hate what is evil.
SPEAKER_02: You see, it's not enough simply to say, well, love is just love wherever it's found, however it is expressed, that it has the same utility, the same value.
SPEAKER_02: So no, no, no, actually, so some loves are are not in line with God's love.
SPEAKER_02: They are things that God calls wrong, and instead of loving those things, we're called to hate those things, to turn aside from them and to hold to what is good.
SPEAKER_02: This is challenging to us in a bunch of ways, but one of the ways in which I think that it challenges us is to remember that Christian love doesn't always equal niceness.
SPEAKER_02: That is not a that is not an affirmation uh to any of the young men here to go around continuing to be jerks to people, as one who who might have dabbled in that in my younger days myself.
SPEAKER_02: But it is wrong to think that actually the most loving thing that we can do is just to go along and say nothing and be nice and uh and affirm whatever the the world affirms.
SPEAKER_02: No, actually, there are times when we need to say, actually, that this is this is not good for people.
SPEAKER_02: This is not something that that that we can accept.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we think that the loving thing is just to say nothing to or to say, well you do you.
SPEAKER_02: No, to love God's way is loving enough, is loving someone enough rather to disagree with them.
SPEAKER_02: Do you love someone enough to express your disagreement to them?
SPEAKER_02: That would be genuine love, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_02: In the sense of it wouldn't be love that is contingent upon a person's response to you.
SPEAKER_02: That kind of I need this person to um to continue to like me, to continue to affirm me.
SPEAKER_02: Genuine love would say this is a this I I know this is going to be a hard conversation, but my value is not placed on how they respond to me.
SPEAKER_02: This doesn't mean that I I don't it's not doesn't mean that I come in with a uh with a critical spirit, I don't come in with any sort of pride or haughtiness, again, as Paul says here.
SPEAKER_02: But there are times in which we need to say, actually, I I I I don't agree.
SPEAKER_02: I don't think that that's the most loving thing.
SPEAKER_02: I don't think that that's what God calls good, actually.
SPEAKER_02: I still love you as a as an image bearer, as somebody created in in his image with dignity and value of worth, somebody that I long would come to know the grace of God, but actually I I'm called to love what God loves and to hate what God hates.
SPEAKER_02: Love has an objective moral grain to it.
SPEAKER_02: Because as Stefan prayed, God is love.
SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that we're doing is as we have our remind our minds renewed by the Spirit is we're learning to kind of live our lives with the grain of God's love rather than against the grain.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see?
SPEAKER_02: Genuine Christian love hates evil and holds fast to what is good.
SPEAKER_02: Genuine Christian love also sees one another within the family of the church as family.
SPEAKER_02: We are family together.
SPEAKER_02: It's a verse 10.
SPEAKER_02: Love one another with a brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor.
SPEAKER_02: Do not be slothful in zeal, but fervent in spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Serve the Lord, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer, continue uh sorry, contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
SPEAKER_02: The church, us here together uh this morning, we're not a we're not a social club.
SPEAKER_02: We don't just happen to share particular interests, and so we're coming to to express that interest together, and then we go about our uh our weekly business.
SPEAKER_02: Part of the reason why we why we meet midweek is because it's not just about what we do on a Sunday.
SPEAKER_02: Kind of this is our this is our club meeting, and I'm your club president, and uh I'm setting the agenda for the week.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, it's more than that.
SPEAKER_02: It's that we're a family.
SPEAKER_02: It might be better uh as well as we kind of think about this family image, uh, to think that actually the church is not a social club, but an embassy.
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what an embassy is?
SPEAKER_02: Some of you have to go there to have your visas renewed, get your, you know, pick up a passport, go to vote when you're uh when your home country has has elections.
SPEAKER_02: And when you step onto that, uh into that building or onto those grounds, you're stepping onto the sovereign soil of that nation that is governed by the laws and cultural norms of that country.
SPEAKER_02: And the church is kind of like that.
SPEAKER_02: That when we come together as the church, when when people experience us as City Church Dublin, one of the things that they should more and more experience is something of the culture of heaven.
SPEAKER_02: We're an outpost, an embassy of the kingdom, governed by the rules of that great land, showing something of the beautiful culture that heaven is.
SPEAKER_02: It's where a a bunch of misfits who would never have gotten together naturally.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, just look at the person beside you and think, I would have never gotten together with you naturally.
SPEAKER_02: Perhaps some of you may have even hated one another by nature.
SPEAKER_02: But you've been transformed together into this.
SPEAKER_02: Beautiful and complicated family.
SPEAKER_02: So our desire as we gather and when we eat together and when we're in community groups is to express that familial love to one another.
SPEAKER_02: And so that's why Paul says that we should seek to outdo one another in showing honor.
SPEAKER_02: To bless and to encourage, to be quick to serve where serving is is needed.
SPEAKER_02: Then that requires a kind of mindfulness, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Of seeing, okay, how can I be a blessing?
SPEAKER_02: How can I serve?
SPEAKER_02: How can I show honor?
SPEAKER_02: What would that mean for you this morning?
SPEAKER_02: How would you show honor to somebody who has served you this morning?
SPEAKER_02: Somebody who arrived here at half past eight to roll out the rugs and get the coffee going.
SPEAKER_02: They don't do it for the acknowledgement, but it's nice that somebody recognizes it from time to time.
SPEAKER_02: And maybe you might thank somebody who's serving you today.
SPEAKER_02: Can we show honor?
SPEAKER_02: How can we be a blessing, an encouragement?
SPEAKER_02: How can we see an area of need?
SPEAKER_02: You can think, well, nobody's uh nobody's tidied up that.
SPEAKER_02: Or that person's actually, that person, I haven't seen them before.
SPEAKER_02: And maybe they're new, and maybe it's just because the room's dark and I've actually been here for the last six months.
SPEAKER_02: But I that's what happens to me, right?
SPEAKER_02: Is this your first time?
SPEAKER_02: No, I've been here for like four months.
SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
SPEAKER_02: Uh but to recognize that person to go up and go, actually, I don't think that we've spoken before.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm so and so.
SPEAKER_02: How are you?
SPEAKER_02: That is what it means to show the culture of heaven.
SPEAKER_02: He goes on to talk about contributing to the needs of the saints and seeking to show hospitality.
SPEAKER_02: What was your um what was your home like growing up?
SPEAKER_02: How open was it?
SPEAKER_02: Some of you, I'm sure, lived in a house or in a culture where where people were constantly in and out of your house, or just felt like the door was being open and closed all the time.
SPEAKER_02: And and and people felt like that was a the like that that was an okay thing and it was understood, and it was it was joyful and kind of messy, but it it worked, right?
SPEAKER_02: You kind of lived in a very open home or an open culture.
SPEAKER_02: Then there are some of us who grew up in a house where visits were planned.
SPEAKER_02: Uh the good towels were put out, and woe betide you if you use them.
SPEAKER_02: The nice biscuits came out of the of the good kind of McVitie's, you know, the expensive ones that you get at Christmas.
SPEAKER_02: There's a box kept away there for when visitors would come, and those would be the biscuits that came out, and you did not take one, certainly not first.
SPEAKER_02: They were maybe even served in the good room.
SPEAKER_02: My grandmother, my parents-in-law, they have a good room that the family don't go into.
SPEAKER_02: It's kept kind of the door is closed, and the the furniture is lovely, and that's where the mahogany is.
SPEAKER_02: And uh and but when a guest comes in, they're ushered in, like some presidential visit into the good room, and the adults would speak in in hushed tones.
SPEAKER_02: If you lived in a house like that, you will know the look of panic on your mother's face if somebody arrived at the door unannounced.
SPEAKER_02: And the look that was shot to you of go and get changed.
SPEAKER_02: You know the bill, you know where the biscuits are, go and get them.
SPEAKER_02: You know that look, and I will kill you if you do anything to embarrass me.
SPEAKER_02: And all of that was communicated in about 1.5 seconds, just as the ah, hello, what a surprise.
SPEAKER_02: Some of us lived in more open houses than others.
SPEAKER_02: Paul here talks about hospitality.
SPEAKER_02: He is encouraging in us a disposition of openness amongst the people of God.
SPEAKER_02: And here's why.
SPEAKER_02: Before I tell you here's why, let me say one other thing.
SPEAKER_02: Hospitality is an interesting one in this list because he's commanding people to show hospitality, but hospitality is also a gift.
SPEAKER_02: Um so you might say, well, I don't have the gift of hospitality.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_02: Because it's also a command.
SPEAKER_02: Have you thought about that?
SPEAKER_02: That sometimes you kind of think, well, I don't really, that's not really my disposition.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but it's a command.
SPEAKER_02: And so even if you don't feel particularly endowed with that kind of desire for openness, it's something in some way to lean into.
SPEAKER_02: You know the people who are gifted it.
SPEAKER_02: The people who are gifted it are amazing at it, right?
SPEAKER_02: You come into their house and there's there's just instantly kind of three-course meals, and the coffee is good and the chat is great.
SPEAKER_02: Doreen is great at it.
SPEAKER_02: I love to go around to her house because she has the gift of hospitality, and I am just showing her off.
SPEAKER_02: So all of you get an invite to Doreen's house.
SPEAKER_02: Because she's gifted in it, and she and she enjoys it.
SPEAKER_02: And a busy house is a life-giving thing for her and for me as well.
SPEAKER_02: I enjoy it too.
SPEAKER_02: And there are some of you sitting here going, This is just the worst sermon.
SPEAKER_02: Why did I decide to come to church today?
SPEAKER_02: You ought to find some way to lean into just a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to have 50 people in your house, but you might need to have two.
SPEAKER_02: Hospitality in the ancient world is much more than just having people around for lunch.
SPEAKER_02: Hospitality in the ancient world was much more like uh ancient Airbnb.
SPEAKER_02: So there weren't uh there weren't hotels and hostels and things like that.
SPEAKER_02: What tended to happen is that if you had a house of particular size, you would you would give out some of the some of the rooms, some of the spaces.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you had a courtyard and somebody could uh could throw up a tent and that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_02: And what what Paul is saying is that actually you're not just family uh with the with the people that you gather together with on a Sunday, that actually all across the world, in this case the ancient world, the Empire of Rome, there are other believers in Jesus, and they're also your brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_02: You haven't met them yet, you don't know their name, but they're your family too.
SPEAKER_02: And when they come through and they're kind of looking around, like, I like I don't know where the place to, I don't know where to go, and I don't know where the good places to eat are, uh, and kind of struggling.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's saying, remember that they're your family as well, and welcome them in as though they are brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_02: It's one of the amazing things of the Christian church, and you maybe experience this, that as you go from uh from one place to another, that you find this instant affinity with other believers.
SPEAKER_02: You're you're welcomed into their midst very, very quickly, and they do, as far as they are able, tend to go further than most in terms of showing care and hospitality.
SPEAKER_02: Hospitality is a recognition that the family of God extends beyond the people that we have met and that we gather with on a Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_02: And what's more, because we are family, Paul understands that our joys are sweetened and our burdens are shared when we when we do that together.
SPEAKER_02: And so he he says in verse 15 to rejoice with those who rejoice, to weep with those who weep.
SPEAKER_02: That is to develop an empathy with others.
SPEAKER_02: That empathy can only come from genuine love.
SPEAKER_02: Do you know if you're if you're actually kind of using somebody for your own validation, when when they're kind of struggling and weeping, it's gonna be hard to kind of enter into that.
SPEAKER_02: Genuine love also hears a person's successes and doesn't think, well, why didn't I get that?
SPEAKER_02: Why did they deserve that?
SPEAKER_02: I wanted that.
SPEAKER_02: No, it's a love that recognizes that when God is good to an individual, that should be celebrated by all.
SPEAKER_02: Even if that celebration is tinged with some longing or some pain for ye.
SPEAKER_02: Similarly, it is a love that is not unmoved by the suffering of suffering of others.
SPEAKER_02: That does not shy away from difficult moments when you don't know what to say.
SPEAKER_02: And the tears begin to flow.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes some of the most meaningful things when you are with somebody who is in grief, pain, suffering, or trial, is actually they don't they don't need you to say anything.
SPEAKER_02: Never mind the fact that in those moments there's very little that you can say.
SPEAKER_02: The best thing that you can do is just sit there in silence and allow the tears to flow as well.
SPEAKER_02: Communicates without words that that person's pain is seen.
SPEAKER_02: It's recognized that it's it's shared in a sense.
SPEAKER_02: Those moments are precious.
SPEAKER_02: They show the beauty of our community.
SPEAKER_02: All of this, as I've said, the the shape of Christian love, it leaves us crying out, doesn't it, to the for the grace of God, because we know already that that there are a bunch of ways in which we don't love this way.
SPEAKER_02: There are so many uh examples here, even in just these verses, that think, I need the mercy of God to help me with this.
SPEAKER_02: Our love isn't often genuine.
SPEAKER_02: We are slow to serve others.
SPEAKER_02: But then we remember that God has been merciful to us, he's been merciful to us in the Lord Jesus, and that while our affections often come with mixed motives, his never did.
SPEAKER_02: He lived an unmixed life, no hypocrisy.
SPEAKER_02: He draws us close and he calls us his family, he calls us brother, he calls us sister, and we learn at his feet, we follow his example.
SPEAKER_02: We're empowered by his grace to think differently.
SPEAKER_02: And one of the ways, secondly, then, that we really need his help to think differently is when it comes to conflict in the face of adversity.
SPEAKER_02: That's the second and final point.
SPEAKER_02: See, as I said at the start, one of the reasons why these verses are tricky to unpick in terms of an overall structure is because it's not as simple as saying, here's how to love people in the church, and here's how to love outsiders.
SPEAKER_02: Or to say, here's how here's all of the beautiful ways in which Christians love one another, uh, and here's how to cope when uh when those awful non-Christians persecute you.
SPEAKER_02: It's not that simple.
SPEAKER_02: None of this is that simple.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because life isn't that simple.
SPEAKER_02: Here's one of the things that I think refreshingly, helpfully, Paul recognizes is that Christians hurt one another.
SPEAKER_02: That one of the reasons why the need to kind of uh bless those who persecute you, why that's just kind of dumped there, verse 14 is kind of dumped there in the middle of some of the uh the other verses about how Christians ought to kind of respond to one another, is because we hurt one another.
SPEAKER_02: We're the family of God.
SPEAKER_02: And the flip side of saying that we're the family of God, as you will know, is well, who are the people in your life that hurt you the most?
SPEAKER_02: Your family.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because you love them.
SPEAKER_02: And so it matters.
SPEAKER_02: And they know you and so they know where to get you.
SPEAKER_02: Why does Paul encourage us to live in harmony for no other reason than he presumes at some level that there is going to be temptation towards disharmony amongst us, that it's possible within the context of the church?
SPEAKER_02: Perhaps you have been at a church like that where that disunity, that disharmony has just kind of festered and grown, and maybe even something quite small has created factions within the church.
SPEAKER_02: And it has been so destructive to the church's witness to any joy in being part of that family.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul's recognizing that that can happen.
SPEAKER_02: So the question then is well, how do Christians promote harmony with one another?
SPEAKER_02: Verse 16, live in harmony with one another, do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.
SPEAKER_02: How do Christians promote harmony?
SPEAKER_02: Do not be haughty, Paul says.
SPEAKER_02: That is, don't be proud.
SPEAKER_02: Or put it another way, think of yourself less.
SPEAKER_02: And that heart might be genuine.
SPEAKER_02: But Paul is saying that one of the one of the ways in which you kind of bring down the temperature and you begin to reform a unity with one another is when you try and walk in the other person's shoes, when you try to think less about the heart, which may well be genuine, and we'll come to see what you do with some with genuine heart in a second.
SPEAKER_02: But to think slightly less about ourselves, one of the most painful places in which this can happen is not in the church, but within a marriage.
SPEAKER_02: Your ideal marriage is a place of harmony and unity where where the yes, there are things that challenge that unity, different ways of thinking about the world, different expectations, different viewpoints, and and every marriage has to contend with those things.
SPEAKER_02: But what makes it really difficult is when both parties entrench themselves in those positions where they cannot see beyond their own rightness and the other person's wrongness.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's saying, oh, look if you could if you could both think about yourself slightly less, you'd be able to see more of where the other person is coming from.
SPEAKER_02: You know, in our world, we aren't really encouraged to love people who hurt us.
SPEAKER_02: Our instinct is to strike back, to repay evil for evil.
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't work.
SPEAKER_02: And marriage, that's deadly.
SPEAKER_02: If you get into tit for tat in a relationship where you just spiral down one person gets hurt, and so they hurt back in return, and then it goes on and on and on.
SPEAKER_02: It's deadly in a marriage, it's deadly in the church.
SPEAKER_02: Paul recognizes and says, Well, how are you going to overcome evil?
SPEAKER_02: You don't overcome evil with more evil.
SPEAKER_02: Remember that MLK Martin Luther King Jr.
SPEAKER_02: quote says the violence only breeds further violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
SPEAKER_02: The only thing that will overcome evil in the church, in your marriage, in your home life, is good.
SPEAKER_02: Seeking to do good to the other.
SPEAKER_02: Genuine affection.
SPEAKER_02: Outdoing one another with honor.
SPEAKER_02: And yet, Paul gets even more realistic.
SPEAKER_02: I think this is so striking.
SPEAKER_02: Have a look at uh verse 18.
SPEAKER_02: If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
SPEAKER_02: The final command, live peaceably with all.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay, fine.
SPEAKER_02: We can kind of slightly understand that.
SPEAKER_02: But he's just said a couple of things before.
SPEAKER_02: If possible if possible, Paul recognizes, look, there are situations in your life where things just break down.
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes it's not possible to keep the peace, to keep that harmony.
SPEAKER_02: That's really hard.
SPEAKER_02: If possible.
SPEAKER_02: But the second thing that he said is also important.
SPEAKER_02: As far as it depends on you, yes, Paul's saying there are situations and circumstances where somebody walks away.
SPEAKER_02: Things just seem to go from bad to worse because the devil gets a foothold and sin loves to run riot in people's lives, and people are complicated and messy.
SPEAKER_02: He says, as far as it depends on you, what does he mean by that?
SPEAKER_02: I say, well, don't you be the one that adds to the darkness?
SPEAKER_02: That the deterioration may come.
SPEAKER_02: That's part of the tragedy of living in a fallen world.
SPEAKER_02: But don't you contribute to it?
SPEAKER_02: Seek to, by your actions in your renewed mind, not to compound the difficulty that has come upon this situation.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's so often the case, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: When we when we find ourselves in in really difficult circumstances, in really difficult relationships, that we have a we have a kind of a choice, and you maybe don't realize you have a choice.
SPEAKER_02: And the choice is this.
SPEAKER_02: The choice is that you can either you can either let this be a tragedy or you can make it hell.
SPEAKER_02: You can either let it be a tragedy, or you can make it hell.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's saying, don't choose to make it hell.
SPEAKER_02: Don't you add further tension, more things to overcome, to have to resolve, to have to apologize for and reconcile over.
SPEAKER_02: As far as it depends on you, like tragedy might strike and things might break down, and that is awful.
SPEAKER_02: But as far as it depends on you, don't add fuel to the fire.
SPEAKER_02: There's deep wisdom needed for that.
SPEAKER_02: That's why we need to, that's why, again, this is why these verses come after 11 chapters of telling us about the grace of God, because we need the grace of God to live this way.
SPEAKER_02: Because our instinct is not to do that, our instinct is to choose hell.
SPEAKER_02: Because hell is where proud people show how right they are, and it's miserable.
SPEAKER_02: How can we do that?
SPEAKER_02: How can we live at peace with one another?
SPEAKER_02: Gosh, I really need to be done.
SPEAKER_02: Um Sorry everyone.
SPEAKER_02: Let's accelerate.
SPEAKER_02: Has this been helpful?
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I know we're kind of we're kind of we're running over.
SPEAKER_02: Let me say, look, okay.
SPEAKER_02: All of this hurt, and you have been heart, you're maybe just feeling this morning the heartedness of your heart.
SPEAKER_02: It feels all the more visceral because of the things that I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_02: Where do you go with any of that?
SPEAKER_02: How does any of that make sense?
SPEAKER_02: How can you seek to live at peace and with harmony with other people while carrying genuine hearts and a feeling of injustice and a desire to be vindicated?
SPEAKER_02: But Paul in verses 17 and 21 encourages us to see that actually the only way that you can live like that is if you understand that there is a future judgment and that God is a just judge, and that God is the one who will take vengeance.
SPEAKER_02: What I mean by that is we don't just live in a closed system where there is no God, and so whatever has been done with done to you, you either need to avenge it, or it's gonna go unrecognized.
SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna have to swallow it.
SPEAKER_02: No, and even the state is kind of put there as a um as an end, I mean we'll get to this next week, as an entity who can help recognize where hurt has been done uh in terms of criminality, but there's a whole bunch of other hurts that we all carry that's you know, it's hard, but it's not criminal.
SPEAKER_02: Um and it's painful, but it's not criminal, so the state isn't going to get involved.
SPEAKER_02: So what do you do with that?
SPEAKER_02: Well, you recognize that actually, in the end, all of these things will come out in the wash.
SPEAKER_02: That there is a God who's a just judge, and that the things that you're carrying won't go unrecognized or unaccounted for forever.
SPEAKER_02: And that frees you now.
SPEAKER_02: That frees you now to cast that upon the Lord, to do what Peter says of the Lord Jesus, who entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus could have demanded uh his that his innocence be heard, and yet he didn't say anything.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because he knew that he would be vindicated three days later.
SPEAKER_02: Your vindication will come.
SPEAKER_02: So be free.
SPEAKER_02: Be free from the need for everyone to recognize how much you have been wronged.
SPEAKER_02: It will be seen in the end.
SPEAKER_02: Let us help you carry the pain now.
SPEAKER_02: A love that is unmixed, a love that is genuine, a love that is zealous, to seek out people to love, a love that enters into weeping as well as laughing, a love that overcomes evil with good.
SPEAKER_02: Well, this is the love that Jesus has shown us.
SPEAKER_02: This is the love that Jesus has for us in his death and resurrection.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul ultimately is calling us to love like Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: We need his help, don't we?
SPEAKER_02: We know that we cannot do this uh on our own.
SPEAKER_02: This is why it is transformation by the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_02: But let me tell you, folks, your life, your relationships, your marriage, our church family will be made so magnificently beautiful.
SPEAKER_02: Joy-giving, wondrous.
SPEAKER_02: If by his grace we seek to love like this.