Context/Reminder
Romans 12:1-2 - the Christian mind is a transformed mind, not slipping easily into the same pattern as the world around us, but renewed by our relationship with our almighty and merciful God.
Romans 12:3-8 - how that principle works out in the way we think about ourselves: soberly, not too low and not high & mighty
Now, in Romans 12:9ff Paul talks about how the transformed mind will think about and treat other people. The principle is that of sincere love.
{At this point in giving the sermon I put on an elaborate, colourful mask}
The Language of Love
Paul uses an interesting word to describe the love that we are to have for one another – “sincere”. Another way of putting it is to say that we are not to be hypocrites with our love, being real and genuine, not play-acting.
Our word “hypocrite” comes from the word that the Greeks of Paul’s day used to describe actors on a stage. They would put on masks – usually a lot bigger and grander than the one I have on now – to hide their real identity so they could play their parts.
We are not to be like that! The love we show to others ought not be just playing a part, but really what we think and feel towards them. It is possible to pretend to love someone.
In the Bible think about Judas when he kissed Jesus – what hypocrisy was in that show of friendship!
In our lives today, think about people who use sweet talk to make someone think they are loved, but the real motive is to manipulate them into giving the other person something that they want. Or love that is given only so long as you play along with the other person, but as soon as you make your own decisions you are rejected and cut off from friendship.
{At this point I took off the mask}
So it’s off with the mask of the hypocrite and on with true Christian love.
The word Paul uses for love is also an interesting one – it is the Greek agape.
This is a word that talks about the highest quality of love there is, that of God towards His Son Jesus, and towards all of His people who are in Jesus. It is not the sort of fickle, sentimental, unreliable love that we know in this world, but it is love that is supremely shown in the self-sacrifice of God for our benefit; it is absolutely unconditional, reliable and unfailing.
John 3:16 – God so loved the world that He gave His Son
Romans 5:8 – God’s love is demonstrated in this that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us
Romans 11:38 – there is absolutely nothing that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord
The Character of Sincere Christian Love
Paul lists several features of anypokritos agape – sincere love. We don’t have enough time to go through them one by one, so I’ll try to distil them into the main ideas. We can see that this kind of love comes from a transformed mind that is not conforming to the pattern of the world, but comes from God Himself. As John says in his letter, we love because God first loved us.
1) Sincere love seeks what is spiritually best for the other person
It might seem strange for the first thing that is said about love is that it involves hating what is evil and clinging to what is good. But that is probably because the pattern of love that we have around us is one of making easy, selfish choices. Just as morality has been thrown out the window in making individual choices in this post-modern world of ours, so “love” has been downgraded to a relationship of convenience, rather than a relationship that reflects God’s righteousness.
Think about how easy it was for everyone to accept that girl Andy in Big Brother actively seeking sexual involvement with others in the house even though she is married. Apparently she and her husband agreed with having an “open” relationship. But, it is not acceptable as far as God is concerned that people in a relationship agree to certain courses of action if what they agree to is wrong; there IS right and wrong behaviour and true love - true friendship - acts on the basis of right and wrong.
I don’t mean that every situation will have an easy, black and white answer about what is the loving thing to do. Life can be a lot more complex than that! But the Christian should be very deliberate in the way they make their decisions, weighing up the moral and spiritual implications of different courses of action, not just following the way that other people choose or the easy patterns of the world around us.
Christian love actively seeks a relationship with the other person that reflects the character of God and His relationship with us. Purity in the way we behave together, the way we speak to one another, the way you work out the priorities of our friendship. If I love you then I will seek those things are that are the best for you, for your spiritual and moral well-being, and having worked out what they are I will stick with them like glue. And we will all be better off for it.
This doesn’t meant that sincere love involves moralising and judging others, harping on about their faults and weaknesses. No, no, no! As Paul says in this very passage, we are to honour others above ourselves. Seeking what is best for others involves esteeming them highly, focussing on their good points rather than their bad points, encouraging them to better and higher things.
A great Biblical example of this is the way David treated Saul. Even though David had already been anointed the next king of Israel, he still treated Saul with absolute respect and dignity as the current king, even when Saul was trying to kill David.
So that is the first characteristic of sincere love – it seeks the spiritual good of the other person.
2) Sincere love doesn’t give up, no matter what comes along
The pattern of worldly love is often fickle, hot one day, but cold and indifferent the next.
Christian love, however, should be committed and reliable. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love, Paul says in verse 10. Be there through thick and thin, good times and bad. Jesus showed his devotion to His mother when even as He was in agony on the cross, He asked John to take care of her. And the father of the prodigal son had it, when he kept watching out for him to return and celebrated with gusto when he finally came home!
This is why Paul talks in verse 11 about being enthusiastic, about Christian love. We are to be spiritually fervent, like a pot continually on the boil. Sincere love doesn’t just drift along in life, but actively seeks ways of showing itself, actively seeks outlet and expression, all the time.
And we do mean all the time. Tough times come to all of us, for all sorts of reasons whether spiritual, emotional or physical. Paul talks about being patient in affliction. He does so in the context of also talking about the joy that we have because of our hope in God. As Christians we have some amazing promises that have been made to us by an amazing God. We have certainty that our life, in the end, amounts to something. It is not just that what we do in this life echoes in eternity, as Russell Crowe’s Gladiator said, but that God has stored up for us an inheritance in eternity that is wonderful beyond all imagining and guaranteed by the resurrection of Jesus from the grave. Because of that, sincere love will endure tough times with others, sticking with them and standing by them when they need us.
Now, I don’t believe this means that we suppress our feelings about what is going on in our life, as many people teach, or that we are to stoically ignore the pain that people have in their life. On the contrary, Paul tells us to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Share in feelings, or at least encourage others to let their feelings out and deal with them in a constructive way. In reality we only add to people’s pain if we don’t let them express it and deal with it as they need to. Sincere love is open to expressions of grief, anger, frustration, etc and doesn’t desert people when they need us the most.
No, the second characteristic of sincere love is that it is devoted to the other person, through thick and thin.
3) Sincere love is practical
Finally, lest you get any idea that this is all rather airy fairy stuff, Paul makes it clear that sincere love is practical. Meeting people’s needs, hanging around with them even if they are what the world would call “lower” than you are, living in harmony with others – these are not things that exist only in the realm of theological concepts but in the harsh realities of daily life.
“Share with God’s people who are in need; practice hospitality”, he says. John in his letter is even more blunt – you can’t claim to love God if you turn your back on a fellow Christian when you have the means of easing their suffering, he says in 1 Jn 3:17. Sincere love is generous; sincere love opens up its heart and its wallet to help others.
“Be willing to associate with people of low position – don’t be conceited”. This really gets down to it, doesn’t it. The pattern of love in the world around us is that we love those who are lovable, those who are part of our social set, those who meet our criteria of people we are willing to hang around with. But the transformed Christian mind is not conceited; it extends love to anyone. Sincerity and snobbery are totally inconsistent with one another!
The famous parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the best Biblical illustrations of this principle at work and the message there was that our neighbour is anyone in need, and that we are to love our neighbour.
Conclusion
I said earlier that the love that Paul is talking about here is the highest form of love there is, that it is nothing short of the love of God Himself. God’s love always looks out for what is spiritually best for us – supremely, it is shown in the death of Christ for us, so that we can be given true life for ever. And so our love should look out for the spiritual well-being of others.
Second, God’s love sticks with us no matter what. Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor powers, nor anything in creation can separate us from His love. One of the great images in the Bible of God sticking by us is in Isaiah, when he talks about God holding His arms out all day long for His people. Try it – stand there and hold your arms out in front of you for even a few minutes; they will ache, they will droop, and you won’t be able to sustain that posture for long. But sincere love will stick with the other person no matter what.
Third, God loves us practically. My God shall supply all your needs from His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. This is where the rubber hits the road so to speak, though, for us. Most of the time God shows His love through the practical love of other people. Phillip Yancey’s response to the question about where is God in the aftermath of Sept 11th is that He is down there at Ground Zero in the hundreds of people who are helping with the recovery, who are feeding the firemen, who are counselling the victims, who are supplying needs in so many ways. Sincere love is practical, meeting people’s physical and emotional needs as best we can.
Jesus gave His disciples what He called a New Commandment – to love one another as He had loved them. As this church looks to reach out to the community with the gospel message our words will be important in telling the news of Jesus, but our sincere love towards each other and to the people around us will be at least as important. Because Jesus attached a promise to the New Commandment, namely that “by this will all men know you are my disciples, if you love another”. May God give us grace to love sincerely.
