Romans 12:10-13

Romans 12:10-13

10Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Last week we looked at verse nine and talked about the importance of a sincere love for each other as Christians, being genuine in our love for each other.

We also talked about in verse nine that love is not to be taken lightly, that we must use discretion when applying our love.

That also in verse nine we are called to have hate in our lives, a hate that is righteous and applied in a godly manner, a hate of and for evil and whatever form that may come in.

Proverbs 8:13 - To fear the LORD is to hate evil

If we “hate evil” and “cling to what is good” as it says, then we are creating a situation in our lives were we are better able to stay on that straight and narrow road of righteousness. We are to hate evil that comes not only from around us in this world but also from within us, the evil of sin that is in our lives.

But in doing this we also need to be careful that we are not keeping ourselves from doing Gods work. If we stay to far away from evil and by that I mean evil people or worldly people, then we are unable to confront them in a way that will bring them to faith and repentance in Jesus Christ.

Have you ever watched that show on the Discovery Channel, Dirty Jobs? I love that show. That guy gets into some of the nastiest stuff.

Well being a Christian means that sometimes we are going to need to get in to the dirt a little. Not that we are to allow that dirt to sink within us but that we for sure are going to get a little dirty and have to go home and wash it off of us when were done.

In verses 10-13 Paul lists 8 things that we should see in the Christians life. Now these are not the only eight things, but just eight items we should strive for in our Christian walk. We may be doing a great job in some of these areas already and that’s fantastic. Other areas maybe not so well and we will need to work on those.

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love – Brotherly love as I am sure most of you know in the Greek text is the word Philadelphia. Paul here is telling us that we must be devoted to each other as we would be to our natural brothers and sisters.

Now I thought to myself when I read this that if most of you have families like mine then you may have different relationships with your siblings, some closer than others. But we still tend to always say “but he is my brother or she is my sister and I still love them.”

What Paul is saying is that as Christians we are truly brothers and sisters, we are one family. It doesn’t matter what our background is, or our nationality, or our occupation, education or wealth, or our hair color, skin color or what shade of nail polish you may use.

All of it is irrelevant! None of it matters. God doesn’t see any of it and we shouldn’t either.

Honor one another above yourselves – We should not wait around for someone to recognize our contributions and praise us, but we should recognize others contributions and praise them.

Unfortunately, if we look at today’s church as a whole, we must conclude that the exact opposite is more often the case. Instead of thinking about and appreciating other Christians and other churches and what they are doing, our minds are usually on ourselves, and we at times are resentful that we are not sufficiently recognized or appreciated.

Therefore we are really jealous of other Christians. Much harm has been done to Christianity because of such jealousy. Ministries have been weakened, churches have split, and valuable causes have been set back because of this jealousy.

Philippians 2:3-4 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

This is how true brotherly love works for Christians. It gets to the front of the line not to receive its own honors, but to show honor and respect for others first.

Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord In the King James Bible it says “Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.” What it means is we must have a passion, like we would in the building of a business, when we serve the lord.