Mountain View Baptist Church

Last week we opened discussions concerning “one another” when we talked about our theme for 2011 – submitting in faith one to another. We talked of our requirement to submit in love to one another, even when we know gross sin is involved. We focused more upon needs of other believers in our discussions. The theme of our church this year is that we work through our faith to submit to one another.

How often do we find that when we look at those who call themselves “Christian” we find people that are no different from the average unbeliever in the world? Christians need to BE Christians not just act or speak Christian. This means we think Christian and we do this especially toward other Christians. This series of messages is about changing us to BE Christian, inside and out. This means we are changed by the renewing of our minds (Rom 12:2; Eph 4:23). It means we are born again into a new life in Christ (Jn 3:3; Rom 6:4). It means we leave behind us the old man and the things of the world, and take upon ourselves the new man and the things of the Kingdom of God (Eph 4:24; Col 3:9).

You could think, “Well I’m changing, I’m doing fine. What about them (envision the thumb pointing to the right or the left). What about their lives? What about so and so (insert the name of the individual you think most needs to be preached to)?” Let me first remind you that you are only responsible for your own heart, decisions, actions, arrogance, judgmentalism and overall attitude. You are not responsible for any one else’s life. You must make decisions for God in your own life. Those decisions cannot be based upon whether you think someone else is worth it or deserves your Christian love. Your decision also should not be predicated on some false metric, something that says you have done enough already. Your decision should be based solely in the love that Christ first gave to you – unconditional.

Walking by faith means we do not look at someone who claims Christ and decide by their appearance, place of origin, or associations that they are not worthy of our love. If we have no reason to doubt their claim to Christ, we have no reason to deny, accuse or judge the individual. The difference then is that Christians give of themselves to other Christians without condition just as Christ gave Himself without condition.

Look at Romans 12 please. Please read verses 1 through 16. Though we will exposit verses 10 through 16 of scripture in a couple of messages, we concentrate on verse 10 today.

If we look at this from a literary view, Paul opens this paragraph with verse 9. We are supposed to love without hypocrisy. We are to actively detest anything evil, and, in response, cling to good things. In this context then (love sincerely, shun evil and cling to good things) we find the verses that we look at today.

Hypocrisy (“dissimilation” in verse 9 of KJV), is an interesting word. Synonyms for it include: false virtue, posturing, speciousness, empty talk, insincerity, falseness, deceit, dishonesty, mendacity, sanctimony, piousness and fraud. With respect to love in verse 9, we love hypocritically as Christians if we do not love all Christians equally, in action and deed, not just in word.

A dear friend of mine told me recently that a pastor we both know once struggled with great pain over an issue. A black couple began attending the church. They had come for a number of weeks. They liked the church, liked the people, and wanted to continue attending. Then all of a sudden they stopped. The pastor went to them and asked them why they had stopped coming and they told him, “Because someone told us that we were not welcomed there.” What a wicked and horrible thing for someone to tell someone – and all because of the color of their skin! The pastor wanted to confront the couple but the “Jones’” would not tell him who they were. Therefore, the very next week this pastor stood up in front of the congregation and said something to the effect:

“The Jones’ will not be coming to our church any more. The reason they will not come is because one of you told them they were not welcomed here. I have a message for that person: You are not welcomed here!”[i]

The wickedness of a church member who would be so arrogant, so heartless and callous, deeply stung the pastor. We would do well to consider who is injured by such thoughts, let alone permitting these thoughts to form words in our mouth and be spoken. These are wicked contemplations and hypocritical statements to think we can individually decide who is and is not fit to attend services at Mountain View Baptist Church. Worse yet, who is “worthy” of our ministry both in our church and in our homes. That is God’s decision, not ours. We want one class of people here – sinners.

We would never think about singing “Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like YOU” but we do exactly that some times, in our hearts. The sad reality is that church people often think they are better than the person next to them. When this sinful attitude sets deep into the heart, the evil pride it represents spreads. This wicked arrogance quickly seeps outside the walls of the church. These “church people” begin to take action on their pride, through their own power and reason, in an effort to preserve their little world. They see their mission as one who would select individuals to join them and deny access to others who are “not right for us.” They ignore opportunities to invite people to church because they do not see all those around them as worthy. They also miss opportunities to minister to others.

It is the height of hypocrisy to look God in the face as you pray and tell Him that you love everyone, you want to serve Him unconditionally and that you trust Him to care for you, when you exercise some sort of witness or ministry filter in your life.

Chapter 12 of Romans is about our relationship with God and how that translates to our relationships on Earth. It is about how our relationship with God should be mirrored in our relationships on Earth. It is about righteousness in living. These scriptures are about Christian living and loving others through that existence. What we find described here are the duties and responsibilities of Christians in the state of justified salvation before the Lord. One commentator puts it this way:

“Christian ethics finds its motive in the sense of divine mercy in Christ, and the consciousness of redemption; the motive of pagan ethics is prudential only; either that of fear, or that of self-interest.”[ii]

Ladies and gentlemen, faith is a mark of true worship, and the changed heart through faith trusts in God as life’s guide. The key is that people come through these doors and see the love of God in YOU. That love accepts all people regardless of race, creed, color, national origin, financial status or our personal attitude about them.

We should take this one step further and recognize that our home is a place where God and His people should be welcome. All of these people should be welcomed there as well – without reservation.

When one attempts to control the ministry, access to the ministry, or access to their service in a ministry, the reality is that they do not trust the ministry, they do not really trust God, and they lack faith in His sovereignty. They are afraid. These things are all evil. They are the things in the second part of verse 9 that we are supposed to abhor. We are supposed to cling to the things that are good. Faith is good. Witnessing is good. Loving is good. Serving is good. We are supposed to cling to God and our faith in Him,  not to our own devices and our faith in our own power to control. We are supposed to abhor that which is evil. Haughtiness is evil. Pride is evil. Walking in the flesh by sight is evil. Attempting to exercise our will upon the ministry and others lives is evil. It is not our will that will be done, but God’s will that must be paramount.  He desires that none should perish but that all should have eternal life.

Now we come to verse 10 which is truly our target verse today. The entire section (vv10-16) is vital, but verse 10 is where we will concentrate most of our attention. What we find here is kind affection, brotherly love and honorable preference to one another.

I. Kindly affectionate (10a)

What does “be kindly affectioned” mean? The word in question is “philostorgos.” It is a compound word from “phileō” which means to have love or affection for someone based on an association, and the word “astorgos” which indicates a lack of love for close family. Looking at this verse, one has to wonder if it has some specific application. Is “philostorgos” a word that might just deal with a family only situation? Does it pertain only to close friends or family, for instance? Those terms (friends and family) should be defined. Is it strictly for husbands and wives? Does this phrase strictly indicate someone one knows very well, or that has some other, almost family like association? We call some folks brothers or aunts and uncles that are not truly related to us. Is this a word directly associated with siblings? Does this word indicate adopted children? It is good to ask questions that try to narrow down the meaning of words. In this case “philostorgos” means to love or be affectionate toward those closely related to you, particularly members of one’s immediate family or in-group. You can be philostorgos with your brother, with a close friend, or with a very close set of associates. How does this apply to us?

As Christians, we are children of God (Lk 20:26). We are adopted into the family of God (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:5). We are born again into a new life in Christ (1 Pet 1:23). We are family. When we put this in perspective with verse 9 we find that our affection and devotion to our family members must be heartfelt and true without any evil intent. When we look at verses 11 through 16 we see a great many other things that the Christian is called to do within this family; we find how this affection reveals itself.

We are supposed to have an energetic love that is not lazy, but diligent. Our affection for other believers produces action. It sets us and the things we have, our resources, into motion to produce and provide for those we love. This is not just personally, but in business as well, with a fervent spirit just as if we were serving the Lord.

We are to rejoice with those we love, hoping for the return of the Lord, but understanding that challenges will present themselves. We do not mitigate these challenges, but we look forward to them, being instant in prayer in the process of overcoming tribulation.

With this fervent love and affection to others, we also find the need to disperse things where necessary. This is in the process of hospitality. We give and are hospitable to all the saints of the Lord. As we have seen, “one another” means not just those here in this assembly, but those that might cross paths at our door. When we have been told of an individual’s testimony, of their faith in Christ, of their devotion to Him, we are called to provide hospitality without reservation in agapē love for these brothers and sisters. We must give them “philostorgos.”

If there are consequences for our helping a brother or sister in Christ, verse 14 tells us that we are to bless them that persecute us. We must step out in faith, anticipating persecution. You will receive rebuke from the world. There may be evil that makes itself a consequence of your helping another believer. This is a very difficult thing to understand. Many of us want to minimize the amount of dissension or discomfort we might receive from the world concerning our faith. We even see bringing people into our homes as potentially threatening to our comfort zone.[iii] If they claim Christ, folks, you have no choice because you are supposed to love them unconditionally as Christ loves you. Technically, according to Christ, you are never supposed to say “no.” When did Jesus say “no” to anyone seeking Him, His salvation and comfort? Whether there are trials and tribulation or emotional pain and suffering involved, you are to rejoice with those who you can rejoice with, and weep with those who weep. If God asks you to open your home, you should rejoice at every opportunity to minister.

In this affectionate response to others, you should also be of the same mind. You should know that two things are probable in your Christian life. If you willingly open your life to other believers, you will receive the same in return. If you close your doors and your home, you may very well be shut out of great blessings. You should train your pride to keep itself at the lowest possible level and therefore be willing to lower yourself in all ways to the lowest denominator. In this way, we are able to minister to the least of God’s children who, for all you know, may be the greatest in His estate.

Above all, do not try to think your way through how best to protect God’s church. He does pretty well with that Himself. Whether it is your home or your church family, do not think you need to protect it from certain other Christians. Just as unbelievers are welcomed in the church for salvation and sanctification, you should focus on serving the community as a whole with all the resources at your disposal. As James tells us in 2:15-18, faith without works is dead because faith produces works. If there are no works, there is no faith. Equally, if works are conditional, there is no faith. Faith is hope in things unseen. Works must be based in this same faith. You should not expect to see the results you think should come about, but you should hope for the results that God would produce through your faithful obedience.

Everyone can say they love all of Christ’s believers, but only those who actually show it through actions, in faith that God will provide, even for troubles, are truly following Christ. Whether they may foresee tribulation or not, faithful followers always love unconditionally. If you truly are devoted to one another and affectioned toward one another, you will realize the great gifts of God through your faith. If, on the other hand, you attempt to manage your affection and not let faith prevail, you will miss some great and wondrous blessings.

Being affectionate one to another, and being kind in that affection, leads quite naturally into showing brotherly love. The word we found translated “kindly affectioned” is built the same way the word for brotherly love that we are accustomed to.

II. Brotherly love (10b)

It is true “philostorgos” is developed much like the word “philadelphia.” The word “phileō” is the beginning of both words. The second part of the latter is the word “adelphos,” or “brother.” Simply put, brotherly love. When we correlate brotherly love to the rest of this passage, we find that Paul adds another dynamic to zeal, fervency in spirit, serving the Lord, etc.

Which one of us would not respond to a brother or sister with as much zeal as we can muster, helping them in whatever way we can? Which one of us would move as slowly as possible to grudgingly help a sibling in great trouble? We all have challenges between our siblings at some level, but we would respond to challenges in their lives to help them and love them if we were asked, if we needed to. We are supposed to answer the needs of our Christian brothers and sisters even more lovingly than we would answer the needs of our earthly unbelieving family. We are supposed to treat anyone who claims Christ as a blood and spiritual sibling, and seek to help them physically and spiritually out of pure service to the Lord.

Some siblings are very close. Some gather around the Lord to look at how best to bless their family in Christ. Some gather to focus upon God in their families and how they can best honor God through service to their family. I never had a family situation that enjoyed a spiritual focus. We would get together and rejoice in hope of material events (Christmas, visits to favorite relatives, etc.) and the things that they would provide, be it presents, great food or just playing and fun. Though we never really did, some families get together and recall the trials and struggles they went through together.  When you work through those things successfully, you rejoice together about how you made it through. Families that are close, are close because they recall these events and the success they had as a family, navigating these troubling times. These types of recollections strengthen the family. We as believers in Christ should be able to enjoy this reinforcing fellowship.

When we are diligent, fervent, rejoicing and devoted in prayer, we contribute to the needs of the saints. We give support to the saints as family, as brothers and sisters rejoice over conquering difficult things together. What great joy we can have one with another when we regularly practice brotherly love toward one another.

Looking back at the myriad of things that we can remember through our lives, we should remember that above all this is an issue of honor and reverence to the Lord. This honor and reverence is given to each saint when we recognize the reason one is a saint, the Person who makes them a saint, and the Being existing within the saint.

III. An Honorable Preference (10c)

The New American Standard Version reads, “give preference to one another in honor.” This verse is a difficult one to translate. I believe this translation conveys the thought better. The inference is that in our preferring one another, we give honor; therefore, we should prefer one another. We give preference to one another in honor of the Lord and the Holy Spirit who indwells the believer. We give honor and preference to Christians of all types, shapes, sizes and sorts because we desire to honor the Lord Jesus Christ who lives in and through them. This is the overall tenor of the verse.

In giving this honor to other believers, we do so as unto the Lord (v11). When we serve the Lord, we do not do so with a halfhearted attempt and then try to convince Him that we have given our best. We would not serve Christ while saying under our breath, “I don’t know why I have to be the one to do this, someone else could.” Jesus knows our hearts. He knows when we are disingenuous and He knows when we are hypocritical like the Pharisee. If we try to serve and our spirit is not right, there will be no satisfaction in it and we will be looking for someone else to take over next time. If we are not serving with a selfless and loving heart, but are serving only for ourselves, we will get our fill of service and want to point to others and say, “why don’t you serve now, I’ve served enough.” Who are you serving for, yourself or the Lord, who serves you every minute of every day, regardless of your heart’s condition?

When we consider these things in the context of chapter 12, we see a completely new aspect of honoring and preferring one another. If we are to rejoice at the service, we are equally to rejoice in our preference to service and hope to do so! Our zeal should build over periods where there are no opportunities to serve. We should not feel grateful that we have had nothing extra to do in our lives. Many times we feel, when we are not called upon to serve, that it is a blessing. This should never be our response when we consider preferring one another and honoring Christ. One might better consider why they have not been called upon to serve. If we are to serve and rejoice in the hope of serving, we equally should lament those dry times where no service is requested. Our hearts might be troubled with concerns for the lack of opportunity to serve one another, and they should be. However there is hope as we are instant in prayer, to ask the Lord for further opportunities to serve His chosen children.

Think about preferring one another now in conjunction with verse 13, where we are called to distribute to the necessity of the saints. Ask yourself, are you doing this? Are you distributing your skills, your time, your resources in an effort to prefer Christians above all others and to show honor in this preference to the Lord? Are you given to an honorable hospitality for all those who claim Christ? Are you given to preferring to be hospitable to all those who could claim Christ? Do you ensure that Jesus and His church know that any believer who may come into our midst will always have food, a bed and clothing that they need? Have you given Jesus or the church any reason to think that a believer may not be welcomed in your home or to your food? I submit to you if that is the case, you do not fulfill these requirements to prefer one another in honor of the Lord.

Honor can mean a variety of things. In this instance, we are given to esteem, to respect, to admire, defer to and revere. We are supposed to prefer other Christians, and as verse 16 so rightly puts it, “but condescend to men of low estate.” When we think of honor in reference to preferring one another we must esteem the spiritual condition of the individual as though they were far closer to God than us. You should consider yourself wretched compared to them. You should consider yourself and your resources meager and hardly capable of praise let alone being satisfactory. It should be a privilege for you to serve in abject humility. You should not consider people privileged to receive your service or the resources that God has given you to distribute. The former is the attitude of Christ’s requirement for being poor in spirit. The latter is pure pride and arrogance.

When we consider being kindly and affectionate to one another in brotherly love, in honor preferring one another, we must see this as a point of tremendous humility. If we do not see all that we have as tools to serve God on Earth (not for our own pleasure), we do not know the Lord of Christianity. If we belong to Him (1 Tim 2:6) and He owns all we have because He redeemed us with His own blood (Eph 1:7), our possessions are for His chosen children above all. This is why God blesses us so.

God did not give you what you have for you. The things you have here on Earth are not some reward for you. All our treasures should be laid up in Heaven and we should focus on using every single tool and possession we have here on Earth for that very purpose. When we begin thinking about our time, our possessions, our resources, our this or our that; we have walked away from God and are ignorant of the purpose of the things God entrusts to us.

Love, folks, is what it is all about. This is all about loving unconditionally. Loving not based on how much you have already served. Not loving based on race or background or material condition or position or what someone can bring to a ministry. Christ was given to us, even while in our deepest most sinful and depraved state, to show us just how loving and forgiving our God can really be. What God asks in return is only what He himself first exemplified on the cross, and first gave to us. God simply asks us to love one another and to do so in an unreserved and unconditional way. We are to serve in that love unequivocally. We are to seek opportunities to serve in love without limitation.

Ladies and gentlemen, as Chris and I traveled this nation and looked at ministries we found many that were hurt by men who had served poorly and hurt the people of God because their service was conditional and unloving. We also found something else. We found ministries that had people in them that limited their scope of service to only include those they thought worthy of their love and life. How sad to think that individuals would actually count themselves as higher in value than Christ, but they do.

When you esteem your life, your possessions, your time, your gift of salvation or any other thing you have to offer as a Christian as something another individual is not worthy of or they must earn, your mind is on the high things and you are “wise in your own conceits” (v16). All these things (life, possessions, time and salvation) are given for you to glorify God with, not hoard or protect. And you are especially called to prefer Christians above all others with this generosity.

Our church can do one great, sinful thing. It is spiritually sinful as well as psychologically sinful. That sin is to say or even think that someone does not belong, or is not worthy of the assembly, service, time or love at Mountain View Baptist Church. The sin spiritually is to deny that Christ gave Himself for every person regardless of social stature. Psychologically the sin permeates itself through these walls to the people of Lander.

Here is my challenge to you. No matter how long you have known Christ; no matter what you have ever done to serve Him; no matter who you may think you are; no matter what your position in the church; no matter how much of a saint someone else says you are, the one thing you had better never do is to look at the person next to you in the pew and think that this was a great sermon for them. Do not think to yourself, “Goodness I’m glad so and so was here to hear that!” Ladies and gentlemen, whether saved yesterday or 90 years ago, this sermon is for each and every one of you. I commend to you that your hearts need to change, each and every one of you. Your hearts need to change just as much as my heart needs to change. Every study of God’s word is directly applicable to each one of your hearts, whether you see it or not. Consider this truth, the Pharisees always looked at others as lesser than themselves, but they were the least of all those God ministered to and never even knew it (Lk 18:10-14). They were “wise in their own conceits” (Rom 12:16c).