Alright brethren, let's turn
to Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12, we read in
verse 9, Let love be without dissimulation, without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil, cleave
to that which is good. Be kindly affection one to another
with brotherly love in honor preferring one another. Now,
Paul has declared the gospel here in these first 11 chapters. The first 11 chapters have been
taken up entirely with the gospel of Christ and Him crucified.
And then in chapter 12, Paul begins to put the doctrine into
shoe leather. He begins to apply it to us so
that we know what it means to us and we're able to walk in
the doctrine. And this is how we always must
preach the gospel. We must always preach Christ
and Him crucified. We must always shut sinners up
in their sin. and declare the truth of Christ.
But we also must always apply the message. The old timers used
to call it preaching for a verdict. You preach commanding a response. And that's how we are to preach.
First we got to preach Christ. First we have to preach the three
R's. The three R's. Ruined by the
fall. redeemed, redemption accomplished
by Christ for His people and regeneration. Irresistibly by
God the Holy Spirit. We have to preach the three R's. We have to tell sinners first
of all that they are ruined in sin. You won't need a savior
if you don't have a sin problem. And we have to declare to sinners
that we're ruined, totally ruined in sin. All of us are born into
this world with Adam's corrupt nature. And so, by nature, we're
spiritually dead in trespasses and sins. And that means we can
do just what a dead man can do, nothing. And because we were
in Adam, and he represented us in the garden, when he sinned,
we really broke the law. We really broke the law. You
can read this in Romans 5 in verse 12 when that one man was
made the head and when he sinned because God made him the head
of all those that would be born of him and that includes everybody. Therefore we were in Adam and
when Adam sinned, we sinned. So we come into this world, brethren,
where the sin nature makes it impossible for us to believe
on God. We can't do anything to make
God receive us. We can't do anything to please
God. Romans 8, Paul said, while we're in the flesh, we can do
nothing to please God. The only thing we have in the
flesh is enmity against God. It doesn't say our flesh is at
enmity with God. It says our flesh is enmity against
God. There's a difference there. It's
not just that we're angry at God. Our flesh is nothing but
hatred for God. That's how we come into this
world. So we're ruined in sin. Paul declared that in Romans
3. And then secondly, the next R we must declare is we need
to declare that redemption was accomplished by the Lord Jesus
Christ for His particular people. When Christ went to the cross,
He didn't go to the cross and just die for sins in general
and just make this blanket redemption for sins and for all
sinners. No. If somebody takes the place
of another, then there has to be a particular person they're
taking the place of. If somebody's going to take the
sins of somebody, they have to take the sins of a particular
person. And Christ bore the sins of God's
elect. That's who He bore the sins of.
He laid down His life for the sheep, for those the Father gave
Him in eternity. And Christ not only laid down
His life for them, He accomplished our redemption. He fully accomplished
justifying us before the law. He accomplished making atonement
for our sins with God. He accomplished redeeming us
from the curse of the law by Him being made a curse for His
particular people. That's what I'm saying to you
here is I'm trying to use great plainness of speech. I don't
want to try to code this language and so that some of you can say,
well, he's preaching particular redemption, but the others can
say, oh, well, he's preaching universal atonement. That's how
you hear preachers preach. It's like a horoscope. You read
a horoscope, it can apply to you, you, you, you, you because
it's written in this This language, it just applies to everybody.
I don't want to preach that way. I want to preach to you so you
know what I'm saying. I'm saying Christ didn't die
for everybody. It wasn't His purpose. His name
is Jesus for He shall save His people from our sins. And He accomplished it. He accomplished
it. Then the third R is regeneration
by the Holy Spirit of God. Regeneration by the Holy Spirit
of God. This is a necessity. And we must
preach the necessity of it. Because we're dead in sins, because
His people cannot do anything, because we're dead in sins like
all the rest of sinners, therefore those God chose in Christ, those
Christ redeemed, God will send the gospel to them. And through
the Holy Spirit, He will irresistibly give them life, and give them
faith, and give them repentance, and bring them to Christ, and
they'll come. They will come. They're going
to come willing. Because Scripture says, God said
to Christ, Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power. It's by Christ's power that we're
made willing. But we have to be given a new
heart and a new nature to have that new will. and you and I
can't do that of ourselves. I'll turn the TV on this morning,
I rarely do this, but I turn the TV on this morning and where
I'm from, if you turn the television on on Sunday mornings, every
channel you turn to has got preaching on it. And I had to go through
all the channels today and I finally found one that has preaching
on it. And I wish it would add a ball game or something on it.
Because this fella, he was preaching on Four things to know you're
going to heaven. Four ways to know you're on the
highway to heaven instead of the highway to hell. And the
first three were good. The first one was, you have to
know you're a sinner. And he quoted Romans 3. He quoted
the four nones. None righteous, no not one. He
very well set forth that we're ruined in sin. All of us. And then secondly he said, God's
holy. And that's true. He was right
on the money there. Those first two points were exactly
right. God can't look upon sin. He can't receive a sinner. And
the third point was Christ is the one who laid down his life
and paid all the debt. Now, of course, he said for sinners.
He didn't speak plainly and say for his people. But I could still
go with that. I could still say okay to what
he said because that's what he did. He did lay down his life
and bear the sin of sinners. And he put it away. And then
he got to the fourth point. But all of this is of no effect
unless you believe on him. Everything he did failed unless
you are willing to believe on him. You know what he did right
there? He went from having God up here and a sinner down here
and he put God down here and he put the sinner up here. And
he said, it all depends on you. You mean to tell me God can't
make that hurricane come up the coast and destroy the Bahamas
without you giving him permission? God can do whatever he pleases.
He doesn't need your permission, and He doesn't need us to make
it effectual. When He does it, He accomplishes
it. And that's what He did. You see, He has to give us life. He has to give us life. It's
not of Him that willeth or Him that runneth. It's of God that
shows mercy. We're not born of the will of
the flesh. We're not born of blood. We're
not born of anything anybody else does or anything we do.
We have to be born of God. Just look at it like this. What
do you have to do with your first birth? Nothing. And you don't
have a thing to do with the second birth. You say, well, and this
is what they say, they say, well, but now you have to, you can
either accept him or reject him. Did you have the option of either
being alive or not being alive? When you were born, did you have
the option of either breathing or not breathing? You did what
a living person does. You breathed. And you ate. And you grew. Because you couldn't
do otherwise. And that's what happens when
He gives you life. You're going to do what only a born again
sinner can do. You're going to come to Christ
and believe on Him. And it's all of God. It's to
His glory and His praise. Now Paul spent 11 chapters preaching
these 3 R's before he gets to this 12th chapter. and he's going
to start applying this to us now, but if we haven't preached
Christ crucified, if we haven't declared how that he declared
God just and the justifier, if we haven't preached this righteousness
of God and shut sinners up in their sin, we failed to preach
the gospel. Our message is an entire failure.
I don't care what the subject is, this is what we need to preach
every time. Just like Paul did here where
he preached 11 chapters on the doctrine of Christ and then he
gets to the application, that's what we need to do. We don't
have to wait till the end. You can mix it in as you go or
however you want to apply it. But we've got to preach Christ
and Him crucified. We've got to preach Christ and
Him crucified. Now, in the remainder of this,
Paul calls for a response. He calls for a response, and
that's what we're to do. Now, only God can apply the message
in your heart. But he told Ezekiel, command
them dead bones to live. Didn't he? He said, you apply
it to them. You apply to them what you've
declared now, and tell them to live. And we're to apply what
we preach, and God'll make it effectual the way he's gonna
make it effectual. When I say apply it, I mean,
Teach what the outcome's going to be. Answer the questions a
sinner's going to have. You know, when you hear a message,
you're sitting there going, well, how does this apply to me? Answer
that for them. You know, when Peter preached
at Pentecost, when he got through, they said, what shall we do? And he answered that for them.
Repent and be baptized, confessing that Christ has put away all
your sin. And so we're answering that question. So Paul beseeched
us, therefore, by the mercies of God to present our bodies
a living sacrifice to God. And then he exhorted us to humility
and love, to use the gifts that God's given to us to serve one
another. And now today, he says, verse
9, let love be without dissimulation. Let it be without hypocrisy.
and abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good,
be kindly affection one to another with brotherly love, in honor
preferring one another." So our subject is love. And here's one
thing that's certain. When a sinner's born of the incorruptible
seed, as surely as God gives faith in Christ, He also gives
love in the heart for God and for our brethren. And the first
brother that we're going to love when He gives us love in our
heart, the first brother we're going to love is the firstborn
among many brethren. It's Christ, our elder brother.
And we love the rest of our brethren in Him and because of Him. And this is an unfeigned love.
If we didn't have sin with us in our nature, in our old nature,
we would love perfectly. Because the love he creates is
unfeigned love. It's not hypocritical. The hypocritical
part comes from our flesh. comes from our flesh. So, our
love for one another, first of all, is to be without hypocrisy.
Paul says here, let love be without dissimulation. That means without
hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil, cleave
to that which is good. He's using the strongest language
he can use. And the majority of the commentators
say that the sense of this is, let love be sincere, Strive to
avoid what is injurious to you, brethren, and earnestly endeavor
to do what's kind and useful. Now, there's some in religion
whose heart has not been made new. Their heart hadn't been
made new. They look like believers as far
as they come and they assemble and they hear the word and they
say amen and claim to rejoice in the message and what have
you, but their heart hadn't been made new. And so everything they're
doing in religion, and they may make great sacrifices, but everything
they're doing It's dissimulation. It's hypocritical love. They're
doing it to be seen of men so that they can be bragged on as
being something they're not. That's why they're doing it.
So everything they're doing is vanity. It's of no use. It's all hypocritical and it's
vain. And our Lord said, the man who
prays to be seen of men, he's got his reward. That's his reward.
That's the only thing he'll ever receive. Men bragged on him and
said, boy, can't he pray pretty? That's it. He got his reward.
The man who gives to be seen giving, he got his reward. Men bragged on him. They glorified
him. But that all is love that's solely hypocritical because it's
coming only from the flesh. It's coming only from the flesh. You remember Ananias and Sapphira? Here's an example. Here was this
husband and wife and they're in Acts and they sold a piece
of ground and they claimed to have given all the money to the
church. And everybody's going around bragging on them about
how, oh, what a sacrifice it was. They gave all the money
to the church. The truth was, they didn't give all the money
to the church. And that fact proved that what they did, they
kept back some of that for themselves. And that showed what the whole
work was about. What they gave, they only gave
for themselves. They gave it to be bragged on.
And what they kept back, they kept back for themselves. The
whole work was a selfish work. It was all hypocritical. And
that's why God removed them from the church. He took them away.
Took them away. But Christ makes those that He
justifies. When He comes and creates us
anew, He makes us an entirely new creation. an entirely new
creation. He creates a new man, a new nature
within us in sanctification. 2 Corinthians 5.17 says, If any
man be in Christ, he is a new creation, a new creature. Old
things are passed away, behold, all things are become new. The
old dominating power of our sin nature, which made us slaves
to sin, passes away. Now, understand what I said.
The sin nature doesn't pass away. That's with us till we die. But
the old dominating power of that sin nature that made us slaves
to sin, it passes away. You still gonna sin? We still
do sin. We have sin, we hate, and we
can't, it just seems like you just, you do it and you don't
know why. And you're going to have that
old sin nature with you, but Christ now has taken up the reign
in the heart. And He won't allow sin to dominate
us anymore and to reign over us anymore. And Romans 6 tells
us that's a just thing because He died for us and put away our
sin. And so it's just that He reign in His people and keep
us from falling away. It's the only way we can believe
is because Christ's power brings us to believe. The only way we
can repent is because Christ changes our heart and our mind.
Everything that we do in this new man is because Christ is
the power. He said, without me you can do
nothing. And so this helps us to love one another with unfeigned
love because we know Christ dwells in our brethren. He dwells in
our brethren. What I do to them, I'm doing
to Christ. And we know this because Christ
dwells in us too. And then, not only that, the
old way of knowing men after the flesh passes away. When we're
dead in sins, the only way we knew anybody, the only way we
regarded men was according to the outward appearance. That's
it. We looked upon men and we said,
well, that one's a Jew, that one's a Gentile. You're a male,
you're a female. You're educated, you're uneducated. You keep the law, you don't keep
the law too good. This is how we judged people
was just by the outward appearance. Now we still do this in a terrible
way and if you're born of God, you hate that self-righteous
man in you because that's all he does is judge after the appearance. But there's a new man within
us now that judges righteous judgment. We know that it's not
whether a man's a Jew or a Gentile that makes him to differ from
the rest of sinners. It's not the color of a man's
skin that makes him to differ from another man. Before God,
I'm talking about before God. It's not if a person's a male
or a female. It's not if they're the circumcision
under the law and doing a good job of keeping the law or if
they're uncircumcision, if they never even had the law and they
don't they don't appear to keep the law. That's not what makes
a person to differ. It's when God has created Christ
in the heart so that Christ is all to that sinner. God's the
only one that makes us differ from another and He does it by
making Christ all unto us, all our salvation. And when he's
done this, Paul said, we no longer judge men after the flesh anymore. That old way of judging men has
passed away. We're not just looking on the
outward appearance now. God's people receive one another
because We profess to believe on Christ and we profess that
He's all in our salvation. And this is the only thing that
makes the difference. That's how we know one is a believer
and another's not. He gives all the glory to God,
confessing Christ is His wisdom, His righteousness, His sanctification,
His redemption, and His flesh has nothing to do with it. It's
like what Paul said in Philippians 3, we're the circumcision. We're
the true Jew which worship God in the spirit. We don't worship
God in our flesh. We used to look on it that way,
like everything you did in your flesh, that was the end all be
all of your religion. No, we worship God in spirit.
We rejoice in Christ Jesus and we have no confidence in the
flesh whatsoever. This is now how we discern between
brethren and those that aren't brethren. We don't judge after
the flesh anymore. And so this helps us not to be
hypocritical in our love because we're not judging based on appearance
anymore. And then thirdly, the old way
of living for ourselves passes away. Now we still, to a great
degree, do live to ourselves. And you grow in this grace, just
like you do in all graces. When a believer starts out, he's
going to live to himself more. But as God grows him, if God
grows him, he will live for God more than he lives for himself. But we're not just living in
this world for ourselves, we're living for those that Christ
died for. And that's what helps to make
our love to be unfamed love is that we know now that Christ
loved us and He gave Himself for us and we want to live under
Him and the way we do that in this world is by living for His
people and doing what we do for His people. Why do you work? Why do you work? You work just
so you can give your kids the best and have a nicer home and
drive a nice car. Is that why you work? That ought
to be way down the list. Our first purpose ought to be
so we can serve Christ and His people and His cause. That ought
to be preeminent in everything and that's the purpose of it.
That's the purpose of it. That's unfamed love. Now secondly,
our love for brethren is to be the same as our love to our physical
family members. Our love for our brethren is
to be the same. or the kind of love that we had
to our family, our natural physical family members. He says there
in verse 10, be kindly affection one to another with brotherly
love. Turn over to Ephesians 4. Each of us that are born of God,
we're brothers and sisters who were born of the same heavenly
Father and we're one. were one. Look at this, Ephesians
4.1, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that
you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called, with
all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one
another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace. Now here's that unity. Listen,
there's one body. Christ has one body. We're members
of that one body. There's one spirit. We've all
been born of God. We've been born of one spirit.
Even as you're called in one hope, one hope if you're called,
we all have the same hope. One Lord, one faith. There's not multiple faiths. This thing of denominations,
that's not in the scriptures. It's just one faith. There's
just one. one baptism, one God and Father
of all, who is above all and through all and in you all. All you that are born of God,
God our Father, you're born of Him and He's in you. And Paul
said there in Ephesians 3, he said there in verse Verse 3, he said there in verse
15, he calls us the whole family in heaven and earth. The whole
family in heaven and earth. Named after God our Father and
our Lord Jesus Christ. We're one family. There's some
of our brothers and sisters already in heaven. Some of them are here. But it's one family. And this
is eternal. This is eternal. I was talking
to somebody not long ago and I spoke of a brother down in
another state and they said, we don't know them. And I said,
well you ought to get to know them, you're going to spend eternity
with them. That's your brother. Now lastly brethren, so we love
each other with the same kindness and same love as we would our
physical family members. That relationship is going to
pass. and end. But this relationship that I'm
talking about, brothers and sisters in Christ, it's eternal. It never
ends. So this is our true family. These
are true, our true family. Now lastly, in love, we're to
set an example for our brethren. He says in verse 10, at the end,
he says, Romans 12, 10, he says, in honor preferring one another,
Now, most teach this as an exhortation to humility. They teach it as
what Philippians 2 says. It says, let nothing be done
through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, let
each esteem other better than themselves. And that's true. We should esteem our brother
and our sister better than ourselves. And if we have been given God-given
humility and meekness, we will do that. We will esteem our brethren
better than ourselves. We want them to have the best. We want them to be looked upon
in the best light. And so we do what we can to give
them honor and to set them up because we want them to be regarded
with great favor by all men. But that's not what this verse
is teaching. This verse right here, the word
prefer means to go before, to lead the way for others, to set
an example. That's what it means. It's, he's
saying, when he says in honor, he's talking about in all these
things he's been talking about. in using the gifts God's given
you, in presenting your body a living sacrifice, in loving
your brethren with unfeigned love, and all the things he's
going to talk about further on. He's saying in honor, in these
things that are honorable, prefer, go before your brethren. Go before
them, setting an example for them. Setting an example for
one another. That's what he's saying. Paul
told Timothy in 1 Timothy 4.12. He said, let no man... Timothy was a young preacher.
And Paul told Timothy, let no man despise thy youth, but be
thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in
charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Be an example. Be an example. And that's what
he's saying here. The same as you and I look up
to older brethren and you follow the example of older brethren,
well there's somebody who's younger than us that's looking to us
to set an example for them. to set an example, so we're to
do that for one another. And our chief example is our
Lord Jesus Christ. He not only came and accomplished
the salvation of His people, He set a perfect example for
us. He said, after He bowed down
and washed the disciples' feet, and when He got finished, He
said, I've given you an example that you should do as I've done
to you. Bow down before your brethren. Take the lowest spot
and be willing to take the most menial task to serve your brethren. Go over to 1 Peter 2 and we'll
end with this. 1 Peter 2. He says, verse 19, he's talking
about suffering wrongfully. And he says in 1 Peter 2.19,
he says, for this is thankworthy if a man for conscience toward
God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it if when
you be buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently,
but if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently?
This is acceptable with God. For even here unto where ye called,
because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example,
that you should follow his steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile
found in his mouth. Nobody could accuse him of anything
wrongfully. If anybody accused him, it was
wrong, because he had no sin. But look, when he was reviled,
he reviled not again. He knew he was being accused
wrongly, but he didn't revile back against them. He says, when he suffered, he
threatened not, but committed himself to him
that judgeth righteously. He committed it all to God. He
knew God's going to work it all out. He knew God, when it was
time, would raise him up and justify him before all men. And
he did all this, his own self, bearing our sins in his own body
on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness. Should live unto righteousness.
That's what Paul is instructing us in in all these applications
from Romans 12 to the end of the book. He's instructing us
how to live unto righteousness. by whose stripes you were healed,
for you were a sheep going astray, but are now returned to the shepherd
and bishop of your soul. All right, brethren, let's stand
together. Our gracious Father, we thank
you that you tenderly teach us and correct us and that you make
it effectual in our hearts Lord, increase us in love. Make
us to love without pretense and without dissimulation. Make us
to love sincerely in truth and in spirit, most of all setting
the gospel forth for one another. Make us live unto you by living
unto our brethren. Thank you Lord for Christ Jesus
who accomplished our salvation and put away our sin and in the
process set such an example for us to follow. Don't let us look
upon our brethren and discredit them because they may not live
as we think they ought to live. But let us love one another and
love them that be taken in a fault restoring them and not thinking
of ourselves more highly than we ought. It's easy to love somebody that's
easy to love. Make us to love those that are
not so easy to love. We ask you to do this, Lord,
in the name of Christ. Amen.