Manifestations of Being Transformed

Transcript

GR 1467
04/10/11
Manifestations of Being Transformed
Romans 12:9-11
Gil Rugh

We're going to Romans 12 in your Bibles. There is one book of the Bible that you would want; if you could only select one out of them all, I would have to take Romans. So full and complete in its theology of the gospel, unfolding God's work for us, God's work in us and God's plan for us. God's salvation comes to us as a package. Peter says that in Christ we have received everything necessary for life and godliness. When you came to faith in Jesus Christ, God brought to you His salvation in its fullness. There is nothing more, there is nothing else, nothing to be added later, nothing to be taken away. We received it all in Christ. Now the entering into the enjoyment of it all, that's an unfolding thing. The climax of it in glory is yet before us, but it is all ours. And in Christ we usually unfold the plan of salvation with He has brought us freedom from the penalty of sin, from the power of sin, and from the presence of sin. That freedom from the penalty of sin took place at the moment we believed; freedom from the power of sin, the authority and power of sin over us was broken. We saw that particularly in Romans 6. Now that is progressively being worked out as we live day by day free from the domination and the power and the authority of sin in our life to live now in obedience to the indwelling Spirit of God. And we have also been brought and promised freedom from the presence of sin. And we ultimately realize that in the glories of eternity in the presence of God when all sin and all remnants of sin will be finally and completely removed. All ours in Jesus Christ.

The book of Romans deals with all of that and the first eleven chapters dealt with all areas—the penalty, the power and the presence of sin. We come to Romans 12 though, on the basis of that complete work of God in salvation Paul begins to focus on specific areas of our lives, specific aspects of conduct. He started out by saying that our bodies in their entirety are to be presented to God as a sacrifice because of the mercies He has poured out upon us in Jesus Christ. Our response is to bow in submission and obedience to Him, presenting to Him these physical bodies and all their parts. Everything we think and everything we do now is done in service to Him.

The first area he moved into was our functioning with spiritual gifts as part of the body which is a natural progression. Because as we are going to present our bodies in service to the Lord, the first area of service is to recognize He has supernaturally and specially gifted us to serve Him in a special way as part of the spiritual body of Christ. That's why we can function effectively as a local church. We have been brought together from a variety of backgrounds, a variety of places, a variety of interests, but God has made us one in Christ. And to enable us to function us as a body He has gifted each one of us like the parts of our physical body so that we can function together as a unity, as one. And that is how He has provided that we bring glory to Him and grow to further maturity in the salvation that He has given us in Jesus Christ.

He's going to move on to other areas and other aspects of our lives as believers and address particularly areas of our behavior. And he comes to this, we might say, rather abruptly because we pick up with Romans 12:9 and you'll note the words we have in italics. As you are aware, when a word is in italics in your English Bible, that indicates it wasn't present in the original text here, but it has been added to smooth out the English. But literally verse 9 is just simply, love without hypocrisy. Now what we have here gives you the force of it—let love be without hypocrisy. But there is a certain abruptness about it, a simplicity to it, directness. Love without hypocrisy. And that sort of gives a basis and a cover for everything that is going to follow as well as what preceded. Our conduct as new creatures in Christ is permeated and characterized by love. The pattern he has followed is the same pattern he followed in I Corinthians, which we have had occasion to go to several times when we were looking at the subject of spiritual gifts in verses 3-8. He follows the subject of the gifts here by talking about the love that is to characterize us. In I Corinthians 12 he talks about spiritual gifts and he follows it with I Corinthians13 which is about love. Because in the exercising of our gifts love for our fellow believers has to be a dominating characteristic and a dominating motivator. So love without hypocrisy is his first instruction.

He has talked about love previously in Romans, but there the emphasis was on the love that God has had for us, demonstrated in Christ. Come back to Romans 5. He talks as this chapter opened up about the fact that we've been justified by faith and thus we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And so it's through faith in Christ that we now stand in the grace of God and all that that grace has provided and does provide and will provide continually. And we have a hope, verse 5, he's going to move toward that further on in Romans 12. Hope does not disappoint. Why? Because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. And that love of God which has been poured out within our hearts, remember, is the love that God has for us, the love that He has demonstrated to us in Jesus Christ. That assures us that the hope we have in Christ will not fail, will not disappoint. Because God's love for us has been poured out upon us in Jesus Christ.

Look at Romans 5:8, but God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's a remarkable thing. He died for His enemies, He died for those who were hostile toward Him, who were opposed to Him. This is the great demonstration of God's love.

Turn over to Romans 8:35, who will separate us from the love of Christ, the love that He has for us? Can anything separate us from Christ's love for us? Will tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword? For just as it is written, for your sake we are being put to death all day long. We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. And Christ loved us and died for us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. You see we are secure in the love of God poured out upon us in Christ. Nothing, nothing can ever separate me from the love of God, can separate you from the love of God, poured out upon you in Christ.

So that's God's love for us. Now as His children who have become as we have seen Peter refer to, we have become partakers of the divine nature. Now we have been born into God's family, His seed dwells in us, I John says. His character is being produced in us so His love is now manifest through us. We demonstrate we belong to God, we are His children by manifesting His character. In this crucial area is His love.

There are different words for love in Greek. The word we are talking about is agape, or agapao, a noun and a verb. That's a self-sacrificing kind of love. For God loved the world in this way, He gave His only begotten Son, John 3:16. Or as we just read in Romans 5, God demonstrates His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. This love is a self-sacrificing love, a love of action, it is doing what is right and best for the other person. It's not a love based on a reciprocal relationship. Another love we are going to see in a moment is phileo love. It's put together in a word we are going to see, Philadelphia, brotherly love. It is a love of friendship or family. There is often more of a give and take in that, but for us as believers they are joined together. We are going to see that as well. Storga is another word that will come up in Romans 12, which is a family love. Then there is eros which does not appear in the New Testament, which is a sensual love. But we're talking about agape love, that self-sacrificing love.

Come over to I Corinthians 13. This is a love that is produces in believers by the action of the Holy Spirit. In Galatians 5:22 we are told the fruit of the Spirit is love, starts out with love. It is what He produces in the life of the child of God. In that sense it is unique as the New Testament is talking about it to the way we act as God's people. In I Corinthians 13, after talking about spiritual gifts in chapter 12 he moves to talk about love in chapter 13. For the Corinthians the exercising of their gifts had become a cause of division. They weren't being exercised as a demonstration and display of love. I just want to read the verses that describe the love we are talking about. He picks up in verse 4, love is patient, love is kind, is not jealous. Love does not brag, is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth. Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. Isn't that amazing? We go through that, we say, yes, we know about love as believers. You know, good for us to go through and carefully look at these things and say, is this what characterizes me? Patience, kindness, not jealous, not bragging, not arrogant, don't act unbecomingly, doesn't seek its own, is not provoked, on it goes. Does not take into account a wrong suffered. You know we easily allow our thinking to be influenced by the world's thinking. You know, we deserve to be treated in a certain way. We should expect if we are going to show someone kindness and love, they ought to show it back. And there may be an element of truth to that, but the fact is we are called as God's people to demonstrate His love in our dealings with one another. And that's a whole new realm, a whole new world. That's why Jesus said in John 16, the closing verses of that chapter, by this shall all men know that you are My disciples if you have love for one another. It marks us off as different. This love is not provoked, it does not take into account a wrong suffered, it doesn't seek its own. The world would say you have to look out for yourself, you first have to learn to love yourself, you have to give time for yourself, you have to do for self. Self, self, self. And pretty soon we begin to bring that into our minds and think, yes, I deserve.

Sometimes when people are having trouble, often in their marriage, they'll come and they want to talk. And they want to present their case and what they have gone through and what has happened to them. And that all may be true. Where does that leave you? Well I just can't do this any longer. Oh, you don't belong to God. Of course I do. His character is not being produced in you. It is, you don't know what I've been through. But I thought I Corinthians 13:8 says love never fails, I thought this kind of love says it doesn't take into account a wrong suffered. I thought it didn't seek its own. We easily fall into the fact of what is happening to me. We have accepted the world's view that I have a right to be happy, I have a right to enjoy this relationship, I have a right to. And now I'm talking about my rights. But love does not seek its own. So we easily think ...... And we begin to corrupt what the love of God is. God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Come over to I John 2:10-11. Verse 10, the one who loves his brother abides in the light, lives in the light. Light started out in I John 2:1, God is light, in Him there is no darkness at all. You abide in God when you abide in love. If you love your brethren, we're talking about family love, the family of God here. The one who hates his brother, verse 11, is in the darkness, and in God there is no darkness at all. So you are not in God when you hate your brother. That one is in the darkness, walks in the darkness and his whole life is controlled by the darkness. That's characteristic.

Now come to I John 3:16, we know love by this that He laid down His love for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. See there. How do we know God loves us? How do we know that Christ loves us? God sent His Son to die for us and Christ came to die for us. So we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. So if someone says, you don't know what I've been through. I can't put up with this any longer. I say, you haven't come to the full demonstration of love yet. Well, you don't know. Well I do, God says you haven't. You are here sitting and breathing, telling me about your problems. You haven't poured out the love to the extent, have you? We lay down our lives for the brethren. Well that's getting a little extreme. Don't tell me, tell God. He drew the comparison here. We know love by this that He laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Love never fails. So when we go out, we go out in love, right? This is not natural to us, this is what God does in us as part of His redemptive, transforming work.

Verse 18, little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. It is so easy to talk about love and to express our love by saying, I love you. But then he says, don't just talk about it, do it. Come down to verse 23, this is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ and love one another just as He commanded us. Back in John's gospel, a new commandment I give you, that you love one another just as I have loved you. Another way this is put, this is His commandment, this is the commandment. It's one commandment, basically, not these are His commandments. This is His commandment, they go together, one commandment and two parts. You believe in Jesus Christ and love fellow believers. And to claim to have done the one and yet not the other, something is wrong. I fear that we have people who have claimed to have believed in Christ but they still walk in darkness. This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as He commanded us. That's the commandment. You have either kept the commandment or you haven't. Now you're not saved by doing commandments because the commandment is to believe. But part and parcel of saving faith, and included in that will be the transformed life because you become part of the family of God and you love the rest of the family.

The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him and He in him. The whole doctrine of abiding has been totally torn out of its scriptural context and made as something different than being a true believer. A true believer abides in God and God abides in him. And if the Spirit of Christ doesn't abide in you, you don't belong to Him. The abiding life is not something different from the Christian life, it is true for every believer. That's what happens when you are placed in Christ, in God and He comes and dwells in us. We know by this He abides in us, by the Spirit He has given us.

Come down to I John 4:7, beloved, let us love one another. Do you get the idea the Spirit of God is trying to drive home a point to us with clarity? Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. People take these kinds of verses out of context and make love some kind of thing like the Beatles in the '60s and some kind of feeling that the world is all coming together in love. Put it in the context of scripture. He is talking to those who have placed their faith in Christ and have the obligation and requirement and ability from God to demonstrate the character of God in love. And that becomes a defining characteristic of a true child of God and functions in love. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. Has the world ever misunderstood this verse? Amazing how well they can learn a certain verse, God is love. Indeed He is, but that's not all God is. Love is one of His defining characteristics, but it's not the only one. We've looked at some of that.

But the one who doesn't love doesn't know God because God is love. And so when we become believers and become partakers of the divine nature and now we abide in God and God abides in us, His seed is manifest through us. He dealt with this in I John 2 with the seed of God dwelling in us, the transformation that brings. So if we don't have this love, this agape love, this love that was described for us briefly in I Corinthians 13, this self-sacrificing love, on what basis are we claiming to belong to the living God? And if a certain thing happens to us that people do to us that changed that altogether, how do we differ from the world? Remember Jesus told His disciples in that same section where He is teaching them in the gospel of John that the world loves its own. And if you were of the world, the world would love you, because the world loves its own. But because I chose you out of the world, the world hates you. So we're talking about something different than the love the world has. And the love of the world is a feeling-based word, it comes and goes, they fall in love and fall out of love. And pretty soon believers are thinking that's the pattern of love and I can still claim to be a Christian and manifest the character of God. I just fell out of love like the unbeliever does. That's not the love we are talking about here, we're talking about the character of the God who is love. Will He ever stop loving me? Can height, or depth, or angels, or principalities, can anything separate me from the love of God? No. Does the kind of love that God is producing in us ever fail? No, it never fails. So everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God. By this the love of God was manifest in us or to us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation or satisfaction for our sins. You can't talk about the love of God unless you talk about our sins and the death of the Son of God to pay the penalty for our sin. Until you come to understand and believe that basic truth of the gospel, you know nothing of the love of God because that is the manifestation of God's love. This is love, not that we love God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the satisfaction for our sins.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. That's a shocking connection, that we are to have the same kind of love for one another as God had for us. That's a supernaturally enabled and empowered love. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. In other words, to claim to love God but not love the fellow believer that you see, that's just a figment of our imagination. It's easy to talk about loving God, you don't see Him. But here is a child of God, I don't love him. Well that's a characteristic of an unbeliever. Jesus said the world doesn't love you, it hates you because I chose you out of the world. You don't belong to the world anymore. The children of God manifest they belong to God because they have a love for the people of God.

Verse 13, by this we know that we abide in Him and He is us because He has given us of His Spirit. And what does His Spirit do? The fruit of the Spirit is love. It is not just some feeling, I think the Spirit is in there, I feel like it. He manifests His presence by producing the character of God in us. Down to verse 16, we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. There you see the foundation for that. We believe God's love for us. God so loved the world, meaning He loved the world in this way, that He gave His only begotten Son. That's that self-sacrificing love. We have come to know and believe the love God has for us. God is love. Same thing he said in verse 8. And the one who abides in love, abides in God and God abides in him. By this love is perfected so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment. Why? Because as He is, so are we in this world. You see the connection. God is love, and so are we in this world. Again, not floating along in some psychedelic, drug-induced state where I love everything, the trees and the flowers and the rocks and everything and anything. No. We're talking about the love that characterizes God now characterizes us. So we are joined together as the family of God. That's how I John started out—fellowship with God and fellowship with one another. Sharing in common with God and the light and life of God and sharing in common with one another as the people of God. Verse 19, we love because He first loved us. Verse 21, this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
Come back to Romans 12. This is the love that is to characterize us, must characterize us. That means in the family of God there will be conflict, there will be differences, but our response must be one of love. In our personal relationships the same thing true. That's a sad thing when believers begin to take on the character and practices of the world and it becomes acceptable to the people of God. It is not acceptable. And in the context of love we practice discipline. That's why we title the booklet, Discipline, an Evidence of Love.

Back in Romans 12 the love we are talking about is to be manifested without hypocrisy. With genuineness, not as a facade, not as an act. You are aware, it's just a Greek word, hypocrisy, the English word is just transliterated over from the Greek word, hypocrisy. And we have unhypocritical here, just a Greek word. Came from actors in a play. Sometimes you know how they do, they would use a mask in some of those early days and you would hold up and be this character, then you hold this face up and you're being this character. They are playing the hypocrite and actors then on stage. It has the negative connotation now. But then it was somebody playing a role, putting on a front, pretending to be someone. Our love is not to be pretended love, not just a facade, like I want everybody to think I'm like that but I can't stand them. Well wait a minute. A believer said to me about another believer, I hate them, I cannot stand to be in the same room with them. Wait a minute, what do you mean? Almost scary to hear it, that vehemence there. I don't even want to know what they did. Where are you spiritually? We want to quickly turn, if you knew what happened to me, you would understand why I hate them. No, there never should be a reason to understand why I hate you.

Those of you in our study of Acts, we saw Stephen being stoned to death. What is he praying as he dies at the hands of being stoned? Father, forgive them. What in the world? You would think I would be calling down fire from heaven to consume them. Love is to be unhypocritical, it is to be genuine. It is interesting, several times this word unhypocritical is joined to talking about love.

Come over to II Corinthians 6:6. Paul is talking about his own situation, what he has gone through, and it has been a difficult life. And all kinds of things have come in upon him. Just pick up verse 5, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, sleeplessness, hunger, in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in unhypocritical love, genuine love. The thing with the Apostle Paul, everything he has gone through, he is consistently manifesting the character of God in this realm.

Come over to I Peter because this will connect us to another emphasis on love that is coming up in Romans 12. I Peter 1:22, since you have in obedience to the truth, the truth of the gospel, purified your souls for a sincere. There is our word again, unhypocritical, genuine love of the brethren. Now there we have that word phileo joined with brother—Philadelphia. Love of the brethren. Then he goes on to say, fervently love. There is agape love. So both kinds of love, when I mentioned some of the different words for love, are to be true of us. It says that we have purified our souls to have a genuine brotherly love for one another, so we are to be fervent in that self-sacrificing love for them.
_______________________ analogy in the family. You'd say, I have brothers and a sister and you have a family love and relationship. Like you have a close friend, this word phileo could refer to that kind of love. And because of that you do things for them that you don't do just ordinarily for everyone, because they are family. So here you join two ideas together. We have had our souls purified. Why? We think, so you can enjoy heaven forever. And that's one result. But here the point he chooses to pick up, you have had your souls purified in salvation for an unhypocritical love of fellow believers. So have an intense love for them. That's to characterize us. That's why divisions in the church, it becomes so personal, the animosity. Just deny everything. And we claim to tell the world that we believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Come back to Romans 12. Now after talking about love, unhypocritical love, isn't it interesting that the next thing he says is to characterize us is to have hatred. Unhypocritical love, verse 9, and then we are to abhor, to have the strongest, most complete hatred for what is evil. But this is not just some kind of washed out feelings you have for everyone and everything. And I'm not judgmental, I let love control everything. And I don't think the church ought to be judgmental. They know nothing of God's love because God's love is a love that includes also abhorring and hating fully what is evil. This is characteristic of God.

Come back to Romans 1:18. You'll remember we were here for the early part of our study in Romans. We talked about the wrath of God, we talked about the hatred of God when we got over to chapter 9. We noted how the wrath of God and the hatred of God are two sides of the same coin. God's wrath is poured out on those He hates. And you'll note Romans 1:18 says, for the wrath of God if revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. God hates, He abhors what is evil and we as the people of God who partake of the character of God hate and abhor what is evil. That's not a contradiction. We are to be a people characterized by an unhypocritical love and by a firm, clear, strong hatred.

Jude 23 says that believers are to be those who are hating even the garments polluted by the flesh, stained by sin. You know sometimes we have a lot of discussion about the gray areas. That which is black and white we say, that which is clearly acceptable and pleasing to God and that which is clearly unacceptable to God. Then we have that area where God has not spoken, we call it a gray area. The Bible doesn't address it, we'll get to it in Romans 14. But we need to be careful. That doesn't mean we should think that the goal of our life is to see how much in the gray and how close to the black we can get. We are to abhor what is evil, we are to be hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. I don't want anything to do with anything that might be connected with sin and evil. Is there any evil or sin in the character of God? We would say that would be blasphemous to say there is. And we are in God and God is in us. We are to hate sin, abhor it. I don't want to say, I'm not into the black area yet of sin, I'm careful, I don't step over the line. What are you doing walking the line? Get over into the fully white, clear, righteous area. What are you doing out here and trying to justify this is acceptable, this is okay, this will be good, I can do it. What do you mean? Why are you dabbling around? That indicates something is wrong, doesn't it? We are to manifest the character of God in abhorring with the strongest hatred anything evil. We don't want to touch it. That is to characterize us as believers.

The other side of it, come back to Romans 12. Cling to what is good. Another very strong word. Cling, denotes the closest kind of bond or relationship. It's used of the marriage relationship. We are cemented together, gorilla glue or whatever. We are joined together, we are married together in that sense. We have an unbreakable bond with that which is good. There ought to be no doubt, people look at your life and it is characterized by good. What is good? That which is consistent with the character of God. We sang about the goodness of God and God is good. Indeed He is, and there is no evil, no sin involved with Him in any way. And we are to be those that are joined with that which is consistent with the character of God, it is to characterize our lives. There oughtn't be any doubt. People will look and say, what are they doing? Why are they doing that? What are you doing it for? Well, I have my reasons. Well, that's not a reason, not acceptable. We ought to cling to what is good. That would remove a lot of the questionable things out of life, wouldn't it? Don't do it. Well, I think I can justify it. We are to be bound inseparably with that which is good and hated and abhor everything that is evil.

I mean, you sit down with people who profess to be believers and listen to them give their excuses and reasons why they are doing what the Bible says is evil but they think it is not evil in their particular case. I mean, we begin to make a mockery of the gospel and the truth of God and we don't help anyone.

Verse 10, be devoted to one another in brotherly love. I mentioned brotherly love, this is Philadelphia. The Greek word for love, one of the Greek words, and the Greek word for brother. Philadelphia is brotherly love. We saw that in I Peter 1:22. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Devoted. We are committed to one another, firmly committed to one another in brotherly love. We are the family of God, we are God's people set apart from the world for God, sanctified, set apart from sin, from the world to God to one another, if you will, now as members of the family of God. We are to be devoted to one another in brotherly love. So that family love, that love of fellowship together characterizes us as well as the family of God. There is a devotion to one another, a closeness in our bond. It amazes me how easily we as believers can just turn and walk away from one another, for superficial things. We are devoted to one another. That doesn't mean God doesn't move us. We are still devoted to one another in brotherly love.

Give preference to one another in honor. Put the other person first. We touched on this up in verse 3 where the one side of it was, I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think with sound judgment. And then we looked over into I Corinthians 12 and there we are told to let each of you think of others as better than themselves. Give preference and honor.

You know if that's my thought, it keeps me in balance. If you start thinking about me, what gets on your nerves, what irritates you about me? Pretty soon you just won't be able to take it any longer. That's just the way it works, isn't it? You start thinking about your spouse and what you don't like about them, what gets on your nerves. And that list just keeps getting longer because they just grate on me. I don't know why they do it. But if you think about those things which are attractive, lovely, whatsoever things are beautiful and attractive, Philippians 4, you think on these things. We give preference to one another in honor. We think of them as worthy of honor, we think of the honorable things about them.

Even that person, we use marriage all the time because it's easy. People with marriages breaking up come and talk. When they get done it doesn't sound like there is anything you like about this person, but for some reason you married them. Just take me back, were you drunk? You were temporarily insane at that point? Or was there something that you saw in this person that you liked and you decided to marry them? Almost everybody can go back and find something, but somehow that has gotten lost over the years. You know what happens? We fail to think biblically.

And that happens to us as a church family. I come, I'm excited about it, I'm enthused about it, this is where I want to be. And over time I just find that people get on my nerves and I just don't like some things there. Some of the people just aren't kind, and they aren't this and they aren't that. I sat there and may have gotten up and walked out and they haven't spoken to me. And I've done that for ............... I'm just not going to take it. We ought to think differently about them, give preference to them in honor. Not think I'm glad they aren't here getting on my nerves, but thank you Lord for your grace in bringing them here and letting them sit here and hear the word. Thank you, Lord, I see them do things that I know need to be done. Pretty soon I think about them and they become somebody worthy of honor instead of somebody I just don't like.

Give preference to one another in honor, not lagging behind in diligence. Not becoming lazy, lax. We have many commentators note, the danger we face as believers. We are going to come to being fervent in spirit, in a moment, in serving the Lord. But we are not to become lazy and lax, we are not to ease off. You know we start out the Christian life with enthusiasm, with zeal, ready to do whatever needs to be done. With the passing of time we begin to ease off and we're not quick in coming to church. But you know we just need a break. And as we get older we can think it's time for the young people to do it. Some things it is time for the young people to do, we don't have to hold on to everything like no one can do it but us. But there is a balance, we oughtn't to bail out, either. The world says the best thing to do is as soon as you can, quit doing everything you can, go sit on a beach chair and do nothing. But that's not an option for us because we serve the living God. Our lives are not our own, they have been bought with a price. That's what the world has held out and they ought to do it. Eat, drink and be merry, for tonight you die. This is as good as it gets for them. Grab the gusto, have another beer. But for us as believers, we are going to glory. This life until the very end is a life of service for the living God. I can't tell Him I've quit, I've done enough. Doesn't mean as we get older we have the same energy, the same physical stamina, but with the energy left until the end we are required to be slaves of the living God, doing His will, honoring Him with the little bit of strength we have. I have to be careful not to get caught up in the world and pretty soon I'm thinking like the world and the goals and ambitions of the world become my goals and ambitions. And I become lax in the things of the Lord. We have to be careful.

Not lagging behind in diligence, not easing off, not quitting. We have to be careful, sometimes we have discussed here. We have a great group of college kids who are involved in a lot of ways but often we older people say, let's get the college kids to do this, they ought to be involved. They may already be running to keep up between school and working and what they are doing at church and we've come to the point that we just make sure they are doing what they ought to do. Well wait a minute, we ought to be modeling for them. I don't have the energy you have, the physical strength you have, but what I have, I'm just as diligent serving the Lord. And it oughtn't to be that every van driver has to be a college kid, you know. Some of the old grandpas can drive a van and show the kids that old grandpas don't have to be grumpy. And so the idea that we'll just pass this off to the college kids, give it to the college kids, they can do it. They should be diligent, we want them to learn, we can train them, but we ought to be modeling, too. There is old so-and-so, he doesn't have much energy, but with the little energy he has, he's still at it. Not lagging behind in diligence.

Paul wrote to the Galatians in Galatians 6:9, let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary. Fervent in spirit. That word fervent means fiery hot, boiling hot. He doesn't say that is age related. I'm getting close to 70, still ought to characterize me in my passion for the Lord and in service for Him. Boiling hot. I used to work in the steel mill as some of you know, and I had to monitor the ingots, the blocks of steel they brought in to roll. And they would heat them up until they were fiery hot, then they would put them in the rolling mill and they would roll them down so they would get into the thin sheets and then they would roll them up and ship them out to car places and so on. I would look at that steel just glowing, red hot, and I had to monitor the temperature so it wouldn't melt.

And here he says, fervent in spirit, glowing hot, red hot. We oughtn't to be sitting here saying, I remember when I was fervent and red hot for the Lord, too. I shouldn't remember that, I should be living that today, right? Do I have a right to cool down in my passion in serving the living God and passion to bring Him glory? Passion to serve Him with all my life and energy and strength? Fervent in spirit, red hot, serving the Lord as far as we can go.

That's what we do. Put it in perspective. What am I doing? Serving the Lord. This is good enough. Good enough for the Lord? That's what I'm doing, serving the Lord. I'm not my own, I've been bought with a price. Do I dare tell the Lord it's good enough for you? Serving the Lord. If I keep that before me, it keeps things in perspective. I can't change other people, can't make other people different, but I can do what I am supposed to do, be what I am supposed to be. These are the things that are to be true of me as one who has been saved by His grace, experienced the mercies of God and has presented His body as a sacrifice, living, holy and acceptable to God.

Let's pray together. Thank you, Lord, for the greatness of your grace. Thank you for your mercies, innumerable poured out upon us in Jesus Christ. Thank you for the ongoing work of your Spirit in our lives. Thank you, Father, that you are preparing us for an eternity of glory. May we be faithful until you call us into your presence. We pray in Christ's name, amen.