Fervent Service: Understanding Romans 12's Call to Action

We're going to go ahead and dismiss our kids to NBC Kids Church.

They're going to go ahead and head on out and learn about Jesus.

And we're going to learn about Jesus in here.

And so if you're staying with us, we're going to be in Romans chapter 12.

You can turn there with me.

Romans chapter 12.

We're looking at verses 11, 12, and 13 here this morning.

The title of the sermon is God's Love in Action.

It's a practical application of the love that God gives us.

Last week we looked at verses 9 and 10, and that was all about the character of Christian love, what it looks like on the sense of the definition of it.

So we talked about agape, we talked about Philostorge, which was the.

The family love.

We talked about Philadelphia, which was the brotherly love.

And we saw that there's different aspects to that love.

And really, it all boils down to a choice that we have to make.

We're going to choose to love the Lord.

We're going to choose to love our fellow brother or sister in Christ.

And with that choice comes sacrifice.

And.

And with that sacrifice comes challenges.

But through all that, we have the bigger picture that it's because that God has demonstrated his love toward us.

That's what Romans chapter 5 says.

Romans chapter 5, verse 8 says that God demonstrated his love towards us in that the fact that we were sinners and the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

And so because God demonstrated His love for us, we are called to demonstrate the love that he gives us to others, that we come across in our daily walk.

So God doesn't merely give us love for the feeling of love, even though there's emotions that come along with godly love.

But godly love is more than just a feeling.

It's a love that acts, it's a love that serves, it's a love that endures, it's a love that prays, it's a love that gives, a love that welcomes, it's a love that sacrifices.

And so the question becomes not, does God love me?

Because I think the answer to that is very clear.

Yes, God loves me.

But then the question should be this.

What does God's love look like when it gets lived out in my life?

And that's what we're going to be looking at here this morning.

So let's go ahead and open up with a word of prayer.

And then we're going to dive right into love in action.

Lord, I pray that you be with us here today as we look into your word.

We're thankful for the love that you have demonstrated to us in our lives.

And I pray that that love can not only change us in the fact that it saves us, but also, Lord, that it grows us and that it sustains us and that it gives us a hope that we can only find in you.

Lord, I pray that today that there might be people here that are struggling with understanding your love, maybe struggling with giving your love.

Lord, I pray that today can be a day in which we can have our hearts open and broken to you, Lord, and to your will and to your way in our lives.

And I pray that you can remove any distractions from our minds and from our hearts and allow us to see your word clearly here today.

And we ask all these things in Jesus name.

Amen.

So we saw Last Week verses 9 and 10 all about authentic love, all about love being displayed within the body of Christ.

And we see in verse number 11 this new phrase, it says, not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.

And so the Bible tells us that we are to be busy about something.

Oftentimes in our life we can be very busy, but not busy for the right reasons.

And so I want to ask a few questions as we start out here.

As we look at verse number 11, what are we busy with in our lives?

What occupies our time?

What receives our attention?

What are we focusing on?

You know, everybody is busy with something.

And what happens is, is that what we're busy with in our lives usually is what we love.

It's usually what we're putting on a pedestal.

You know, if there's things in my life that I love, I'm certainly going to spend a lot of time with it.

If there's things in my life that I love, I'm going to give all of my attention to that.

And here in verse number 11, he says, don't get slothful or apathetic or lazy in the business of loving, in the business of ministry, in the business of serving the Lord.

He says, we're called not to be slothful, but to be fervent in the Spirit serving the Lord.

And so the challenge here is that we should not get lazy or apathetic and allow that to steal away our purpose.

Slothfulness or laziness can cause us to neglect what God has called us to do.

Apathy can cause us to know what needs to be done.

Apathy can cause us to sit in a service and agree with what's Being said to read something and agree with it and.

And understand what needs to be done.

But then what apathy does is that it makes us lose our urgency to live it out.

How many times as Christians have we understood what we're supposed to do, understood what God calls us to do, but we lose the urgency to be busy about it.

We get slothful in our Christian walk.

And so he says, don't get slothful.

Don't get lazy.

But in verse number 11, fervent in the spirit, and that phrase is so interesting, that word fervent in the original Greek carries over the idea of something boiling or being on fire.

Essentially, what God is saying is, be on fire for my cause.

Be on fire for the gospel.

Be on fire for the love that I have called you to love within the church.

Be on fire for serving me and serving others.

That idea of fire is such an interesting thing.

We were at the Peach festival last week, and we had our tent with our church, and then we had next to us our Trail Life tent.

And we were.

Obviously, you're always trying to figure out ways in which people will come over the tent.

So this year we had a spinning wheel.

And that spinning wheel, for whatever reason at our tent, caused people to come over.

They heard that clicking, and they're like, oh, they're winning something over there.

So they walked over and it was just a great example for us to bring them in and then give them the truth of the gospel and invite them to church and.

But I'm going to tell you what the Trail Life guys were doing.

They had these little sticks that caused it to be sparks to spark a fire.

And they were asking, particularly young boys walking by, hey, do you want to start a fire?

And you know what?

Most of the young boys that were walking by were like, yeah, I'd love to start a fire.

So they're throwing out these sparks, and I don't know the safety of all that, but I'm pretty sure nothing caught on fire and no one got hurt.

But there was something to be said about that, the fire being sparked.

And a lot of times in our life, we have things that happen that whether it be God working or someone preaching or something, that I've learned that.

That there's a spark, there's.

That there's that instance in which we're excited about something.

But oftentimes things of this world, distractions, pain, suffering, whatever it might be, just laziness, as this verse says, can cause things to basically stop that fire, maybe just lower it or get it to a place in our life that it's not glowing, that it's not boiling, it's not on.

On a place where it's overflowing.

And that's what he's saying here.

He says, don't get stuck with all the distractions of this world.

Don't get lazy, don't get apathetic.

And so the question is, is, are we on fire for the Lord?

I heard someone recently say, you know what, Pastor?

I'm not where I need to be in my spiritual walk.

And I think we all understand what that means, but I think all of us, to some degree, by way of testimony, should say that I'm not where I need to be.

Because all of us can be growing and our love and our zeal for the things of God, even if we're better than we were yesterday, the.

The true test is not where we are today, it's going to be where we are tomorrow.

And so here he says, don't get lazy, don't get apathetic, don't get stuck in a rut, because why God's love should produce a heart that is eager to serve others.

And really, that's how God's love is proven in our lives.

Number one, it's through obedience.

Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments.

And part of his commandment is in first John, is that we are to love one another.

He says that if you say you love me and you don't love your brother, you don't have the love of God, you're lying to yourself.

So he says here in this passage, don't get lazy in business.

Be passionate for the Lord, in the spirit, serving the Lord.

And I want you to see that motivation in the mission.

Really, oftentimes if we think about loving others and serving others and, and it's all about them, and then they don't act the way that we expect them to act, or they actually are rude to us or they reject our help.

Oftentimes we can lose that passion for the Lord.

But you see that the mission is not necessarily only to serve others, even though that's the way that it's seen.

He says at the end of verse 12, or, excuse me, the end of verse 11, it's serving the Lord.

So when I'm serving somebody else, if.

When I'm loving someone else, ultimately I'm serving the Lord.

Oh, we are to rejoice or be joyful in the hope that we have as Christians, we are called to be joyful.

I can point you to many Passages of scripture that speak to a growing Christian is a joyful Christian.

Look at the book of Galatians.

Galatians, chapter 5.

One of the elements of the fruit of the Spirit is joy.

Philippians 4.

4.

Rejoice in the Lord Alway and again I say rejoice.

Now, when Paul wrote Philippians, Chapter four, some of you know where I'm going with this.

Where was he at?

He was not in a place that we would all want to be.

Paul was in prison for doing the right thing.

And if anything, we would expect Paul to say, man, my life is bad right now.

I tried to serve God, but this is what happened.

Let me tell you all my problems.

Let me tell you all my excuses.

But what does he do?

He says in Philippians 4, verse 4, rejoice in the Lord always.

And again, again I say rejoice.

There's an emphasis for the Christian to have joy and to show that joy to others around them.

Christian joy is not dependent upon everything going well, though sometimes it's.

It's easy for all of us to be joyful when things are going well.

Like you get a raise at work, your children obey you that day, you get your favorite meal, whatever it is.

We can find a reason to be joyful in circumstances.

But a person who does not have Jesus can understand that principle.

The biblical type of joy is not ultimately found in our circumstances.

Why?

Because circumstances can change.

Our health can change, our finances can change, our relationships can change, our life in general can change.

But one thing does not change if you are a believer.

Your hope in Jesus Christ does not change.

So that's the best thing to place your joy in is the hope that you can find in Jesus Christ.

Now, what's our hope in Jesus Christ?

Or our hope is found not only in Jesus Christ, but also in the person in work of Jesus Christ that He has offered us a hope in salvation.

He died for us.

He conquered death through the resurrection.

And through that we can have everlasting life.

Through that, we can have a relationship with Him.

Through that he equips us and he serves us, and that he strengthens us and gives us all the opportunities to live abundant lives here and now and for all eternity.

Biblical hope is not what the world's hope is.

What's the world's hope?

Well, I'm going to just cross my fingers and wish something's going to happen.

Like, for example, I hope that my team wins today.

I don't know if my team's going to win today.

I might wish that they win I think that they might win, but I don't know for sure if they're going to win.

That's the type of hope that we see within the world.

Biblical hope is something different.

What's wrapped up in the definition of biblical hope is a confident expectation that God will keep his word.

It's basically trusting in the Lord.

Hope is not just wishing that something will happen, but it's knowing that God will do what he says he will do.

Why?

Because we know that God is faithful.

We know that God is faithful.

Therefore, a Christian can rejoice even when the circumstances are difficult.

Well, how can I have that type of hope?

Well, you have that type of hope because of faith.

Let's go to Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1.

Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1 tells us the definition of faith.

And in this definition of faith comes the understanding of why we can have hope and comes the understanding of why we continue to go back to the Lord in the midst of the struggles that we face within our life.

So God's love brings us to this hope.

Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1 says, now faith is the substance or the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, or the.

The conviction that I find in my life.

That's.

That's really what he defines.

And so faith gives substance to what we hope for.

Our faith rests upon God's promises.

So I'm only going to have faith in the one that I trust.

I'm only going to have faith in the one who has given me promises.

And then what happens is, is that we can either put our faith in someone who is here on this earth, or we can put faith in ourselves, or we can put faith in our government, or we can put faith in Hollywood, or we can put faith in something and guess what?

They have made promises to us.

But those promises are not sure promises.

Why?

Because they failed us before.

And the one thing that we can be sure of as believers is that God has never failed us.

And so our circumstances may change.

But our reason for rejoicing does not have to change because our reason for rejoicing is in the promises and the assurance to know that God is going to keep his word and that I have a hope that bigger than this earth.

If this Paul talks about this in another passage of scripture, he says, if this world is all we are living for, then that's a very hopeless life.

To think that even if I get a hundred years, even, even if I'm the richest person on the planet, even if I have all the people in the world loving me, that's still a very miserable existence because it's final.

It's over.

And even that, we've seen people that have all the money in the world still live with hopelessness.

We see people that have all the fame in the world still live with hopelessness.

Why?

Because this world is not enough.

This system that has been created here on this earth through the enemy, that's all about materialism.

It's all about fleshly lust being fulfilled.

These are all going to fall short.

The Bible says that the only true hope can be found in the constant.

And that constant is found in knowing and living and abiding in Jesus Christ.

So he says the type of love experienced and the type of love seen in busyness for the Lord and service for the Lord will produce a rejoicing that is found in hope.

But with that rejoicing in hope, with that hope that we have, that confident expectation, it can give us the fuel to be, as the next phrase says in verse 12, patient in tribulation.

Now, if we were writing this, we would say rejoicing in hope and everything goes okay.

And our prayer for each other usually is, I hope everything works out for you.

And I understand why we say that.

But the reality is, is that it's not all going to be perfect in our life.

We will face tribulation.

And that word tribulation there just means trials or test doesn't necessarily mean sin in our life, or it doesn't necessarily mean that people are actively persecuting us.

It might mean that, but it just simply means that we're going to face tribulation, we're going to face tests, we're going to have trials in our life.

So he says, when you understand God's love and when you're walking in service to him for the right reasons, you're going to then have that joy found in the hope that he has given us.

And in that hope we are going to have that endurance, that patience in the tribulations that are to come.

I think another really great verse or verses to look at is in Romans chapter five, where we started this morning.

He talks about being justified by faith, declared righteous by our faith.

In verse one, he says that we have something called the peace with God.

And a lot of people are looking for the peace of God.

That's what Philippians chapter four says, the peace of God which passes all understanding.

And we want that in our lives.

But we cannot have the peace that is of God in Philippians chapter four, unless we have the peace with God, which we see In Romans chapter 5, Peace with God means I'm aligned with him, that I've submitted myself to Him.

I put my faith in him.

And so we can have the peace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

That's verse one.

And then he says, by whom also we have access by faith, so we have access to God.

He doesn't shut us out.

He gives us grace.

And that's where we stand in we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

We see that theme here.

Paul says, we're rejoicing in something, but we're rejoicing in the hope that God gives us.

And then he goes on to say in verse three, and not only so, but we glory or rejoice in tribulations.

Those are trials.

Knowing that tribulation worketh patience.

So he says, hey, tribulation is teaching us how to endure things in our life because we have that hope and patience, experience and experience.

Hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad and in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.

So we see it's this beautiful cycle that when we rejoice in the hope of God, we're able to go through various trials in our life with patience.

And that experience gives us more hope.

And that hope then produces the patience that we can find again.

And that happens over and over again in our life.

So Christianity doesn't promise life without trouble.

But what the Bible does promise us is that when tribulations come, and we assume that they will, we know that they will, that God will give us the hope and the strength and the endurance to go through these things, knowing that he is with us.

Our hope in Christ gives us something greater than our present circumstances.

Because we know God is faithful.

And because ultimately that Romans 5 progression, that as we go through trials, we're experiencing those trials, but we know that God gets us through those trials.

And as he gets us through those trials, then we can understand that there is more hope in him and we can trust in him more.

And then as that hope comes, we're able to experience God's love more and more.

He says that at the very end of verse 5 of Romans 5, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.

So this is how we can see it.

As we.

As God allows us to go through trials, he is there with us through it.

And as he's there with us through it, we can understand him more.

We can trust in his promises more.

And therefore, we are able to experience his love more.

Now, you might say, I don't understand that.

I don't get that.

Basically what he's saying is, is that we aren't really going to experience his demonstration of love until we go through it.

Where that is going to be tested when we're put to the fire, when the rubber meets the road, however you want to say it, folks, if we live in a life of comfort constantly, that we are trying to create for ourselves, and we're not trusting in God to get us through the trials, we're never going to grow in our trust for him when more trials come our way.

And that's what he's saying here in this passage.

So hope produces joy, and joy produces endurance or patience.

Christian endurance is rooted in confidence in God, not confidence in ourselves.

So one way you could put it is that the love of God produces endurance in our life.

We're able to face the trials because we experience the love of God.

We don't endure because we're naturally strong.

We endure because God is faithful.

As we saw at the Peach festival was that last Saturday, there was this 5k and a bunch of people from our church were running it.

And I was out there and I was trying to run it, but it was more like a jog slash, fast walk, fast slash catching my breath.

And it was a lot of endurance.

And, you know, when we're not.

When I wasn't running a lot, it seemed like it was.

I thought I was gonna die.

I really did.

I was like, this is it.

I'm not gonna make it.

And I was stopping, checking my phone, and I.

The worst thing was I had to watch on that.

Told me how far I was running.

And I was like, no, I don't want to look at it.

I don't want to look at it till it's one mile.

I'm gonna look at it one per mile.

And I was running.

I'm like, I have to be at two miles by now.

And I was.

I was just.

My lungs were on fire.

Everything I looked down, and I don't even want to tell you what it said.

It said.

I'll tell you what it said.

It said, 0.4.

It wasn't even a half mile yet.

I said, this is not good.

And then.

Then you start doing this weird mental gymnastic math.

Like, I've got to do this five more times, six more times, and it's a struggle.

And that's sometimes how we face the Christian life.

If we're not in it if we're not doing it, that trial might feel like it's, this is done, I'm not going to be able to make it through this.

But there was a time, believe it or not, that one mile was like the warmup.

Okay, I ran a half marathon like two years ago.

Right.

And that didn't come overnight, I can tell you.

That was day after day of running.

And when you are able to experience those things in your life as a Christian, it doesn't mean that the hardship is any easier to go through, but it's that you know that God is there with you and you've exercised yourself to trust in him in those moments.

And so that's what he's talking about here.

He's not saying that trials are just something that get easier.

It's just that I'm able to withstand them in the endurance that God produces in my life as I go through these things.

And then he talks about what we would consider to be one of these spiritual disciplines.

He says, okay, patient and tribulation through continuing instance in prayer.

So how do we strengthen ourselves?

How do we get to a place in our life where we can tap into the strength that God provides for us?

What he says here, be persistent or constant in prayer.

You can endure today's trials because you have hope in tomorrow's promises.

But then how do I grow in my knowledge of who God is?

Well, I go to His Word and I communicate with Him.

Any relationship is based upon good communication.

How do I communicate with God?

Well, it's through prayer.

So prayer fortifies the Christian life.

Prayer is not an emergency button that we turn to when everything falls apart, even though we can use it that way.

Prayer should be an ongoing connection between God and the believer, between the believer and God.

That's why the Bible says pray without ceasing.

That's why the Bible says to be instant or constant in prayer.

That's why this passage of scripture tells us it's so important to be in that state of prayer throughout our lives.

Prayer is connected to our faith because we pray because we believe God hears.

We pray because we believe God cares.

We pray because we believe God will and can can act upon our behalf.

We pray because we trust God's wisdom, even when his answers don't always line up with what we expect.

We go to God in prayer because we trusted Him.

If we don't trust in God, we're not going to go to him in prayer.

If we don't believe he can do anything for us, we're not going to go to Him.

So that's why he's been talking here about that faith, that hope, because that hope ties us to that need for prayer.

So trials should not drive us away from God.

What he's saying here is that trials should drive us toward prayer.

And so the love of God will bring us to a place that if we love him, we'll go to him in prayer.

And when trials come, he keeps us grounded in his hope.

Prayer keeps us connected to the one in whom our hope rests.

So he says, continue, don't quit praying.

Don't become discouraged, even if the answers aren't coming right away.

Part of loving God and loving others is by is through seeing experience, through praying for others.

I don't know if you've ever prayed for someone for an amount of time and they didn't do what you were praying they would do.

Sometimes the temptation is to quit on them.

But if you love them, you'll keep praying for them.

If you love them, you're going to pray and then put feet to those prayers.

And that's what he's talking about here.

He says, if you want to demonstrate the love of God continuously pray for those that are around you.

Pray for those who are in need.

Pray for your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Don't let God's what we would consider to be silence, but God telling us to wait, to get us to a place where we quit on him, where we quit on those that we love.

So what he's saying here is that when life gets difficult, don't worry more, just pray more.

And the way that we can trust in that is by experiencing his love.

And then it's all brought together.

Here in verse 13, he says distributing to the necessity of the saints given to hospitality.

So he says, if we're experiencing God's love and we're walking in his work and his mission, and if we're rejoicing in the hope that he has given us and we're patient and growing in our endurance and tribulations, we're constantly in prayer.

We're constantly going to Him.

What is that going to look like?

Well, it should look like distributing to the necessity of the saints, meaning give to those people who are in need.

Distributing to the necessity of saints means that we are to meet legitimate needs in fellow brothers and sisters lives.

Christian love notices needs.

Christian love doesn't simply say, well, you know what, I'll pray for you and then forget about them.

Christian love says, yes, I will pray for you.

And then if there's something that I can actually do, I will do it.

So God's love moves through generosity.

And as it says, they're given to hospitality, that's practical care.

I know that for me, one of the areas that I struggle with is thinking that if I do this for somebody, I am going to miss out on something or I'm going to lose something, and I'm not sure if I have enough or I'm not sure if I can actually afford to give to that person.

Well, that's a very selfish way to view it.

It's not a model of Christian love.

Model of Christian love means I can do this for somebody.

I can help this person in need.

And we saw this in the Good Samaritan story that I am willing to sacrifice for that person.

I'm willing to give up something for that person.

I'm willing to pursue them.

And that's really what that phrase there in verse number 13 says, given to hospitality.

That, that word, that phrase there, given to hospitality in the Greek actually carries the concept of not just loving those that we know and that love us, but actually loving strangers, actually helping those that we don't know if they're going to ever help us back.

Biblical hospitality isn't just having people over for dinner, even though that's part of it, but it's intentionally opening our lives to people who are not naturally part of our lives outside of the circle of the faith.

And actually the Greek word has a nuance to it that talks about pursuing somebody in this hospitality.

I know for me, where I struggle.

And again, I don't need to confess to you, but I'm going to share with you because maybe it'll help you in some degree.

For me, a lot of times it's, hey, I'll help you.

If you need anything, just let me know.

That's how I sometimes come across.

And I truly mean that.

If they would let me know that they had a need, I would love to meet that.

But that's not always sometimes how it works.

What sometimes has to happen is that we have to pursue and help, even when a person might not even know what they need for their own help.

And that's what he's talking about here.

He says, given to that hospitality, pursuing someone, we pursue opportunities to demonstrate God's love.

It's not just if it pops up, we will help.

He says, as a Christian, we're actually called to look and pursue opportunities to show the love of God to someone.

Maybe it's a fellow brother or sister within the church.

Maybe it's Someone in my neighborhood, maybe it's someone at work.

But really we're called to look for the person who needs the connection and not just the connection with us.

Ultimately, it's the connection with the Lord, because we know that the Lord is the one who can change someone's life.

So the most loving thing that I can do for someone is introduce them to a relationship with our Savior, because I know what he has done for me, I know what he's done for this person over here, and I know what he can do for someone if they just submit to Him.

And that really is where we see love becoming action.

We go back to verse number nine.

He says, let love be without dissimulation.

That means don't let it be hypocritical.

Real Christian love isn't something we feel.

It's something that we do, and it's something that we pursue.

There's a passage of Scripture in Ephesians, chapter four that speaks to pursuing or endeavoring to keep the unity of the church.

I think one of the things within churches that we should pursue is to pursue unity because it's not going to be the natural thing.

It's not going to be the norm.

The norm is everyone in the church becomes divided over little things that don't really matter.

But on top of that, the Bible tells us in this passage that we should pursue love because love is not going to be the norm.

I'm not going to naturally want to love someone who's different than me.

I'm not going to naturally want to love someone who has a different ministry than me.

I'm not going to naturally want to love someone who isn't loving to me.

But the Bible says that's something that we have to pursue.

We have to intentionally wake up and make a choice.

I'm going to choose to seek unity today.

I'm going to choose to seek love.

I'm going to choose to sacrifice.

And so that's authentic love.

That's hypocritical.

Love is, well, I love you, if it all makes sense to me.

And I. I'm there for you, but not this time.

And I'm there for you, but not this time.

Now, obviously, our love has limitations.

Now, let's say this past year, I was.

I went to Rwanda.

Yeah.

I'm six hours ahead, thousands and thousands of miles away.

And one of you called me on the phone.

You.

You got my, you know, number, and you called me and you said, hey, Pastor Josh, I really need you right now to pick me up at this Place I would tell you I love you, I want to be there for you, but I can't be there for you right now.

I physically can't.

I'm limited now.

I could maybe help someone else get you where you need to go or be there.

That's the reality of the limitations of our love.

And so as a Christian, sometimes we feel guilty that we can't do everything for everyone.

We cannot do everything for everyone.

Why?

Because we are always limited.

Some are more limited than others.

But then we refer back to the love that God has for us.

And God's love is not limited because I could be in Rwanda and call out to God and he can hear me and meet my need.

And you can be in Middletown, Delaware, and you can hear.

He can hear you, and you can call out to him and he can meet you in your needs.

And that's the beauty of knowing God, is that God is not limited by anything because his love is abundant.

And so it's not just about for us as Christians.

Well, I feel for that person, but I can't really do anything for them.

It's.

I feel for that person, and I want to meet them in the need that God has provided to.

For my knowledge to know.

And then how I can help, I don't know.

But I'm going to try to do my best to help.

And so it's putting God's love into action.

So as we get to this place, here at the end of this portion of Scripture, he's talked to us about what biblical love looks like on the concept side of things, the character side of things.

But now, verses 11 through 13, he tells us, really, what does it look like in a practical sense, being lived out?

And remember Romans, chapter 12 on for the rest of the book is all about living out what we believe about God.

So if I believe that God loves me, this is what it looks like to love others.

Well, it says, serve them and serve the Lord with fervency, with passion.

That's verse number 11.

So the question that could be tied to that point is, what am I doing for the Lord and what am I doing for others?

There's always a place in our life that there's room for evaluation.

Sometimes evaluation is a hard thing.

So sometimes evaluation is not a pretty thing because we always want to think of ourselves as, hey, everything's going well.

But evaluation sometimes is identifying areas that need to change, identifying areas that we need to add to, identifying areas that we need to pull out of our life.

And so the question would be Are we serving the Lord and serving others with a passion or a fervency?

But then we see number two, rejoicing in hope.

What am I trusting God to do in my life?

Where am I finding my joy?

Where.

Where am I spending those intimate moments?

Am I spending it with others?

Or am I spending it with my.

My hobbies or my entertainment?

Or am I spending that with the Lord?

Am I rejoicing in the hope that God has given me?

Because that's true love.

True love is spending time with people.

True love is.

Is.

Is giving over to them.

Preferences.

So, for example, we saw this in another passage of Scripture.

Preferring one another.

That means getting someone else to a place where they're taking first place.

Are we putting God first?

That's essentially what we see here.

Biblical love can get us to a place where we're enduring tribulation.

And so the question would be asked this way, how am I responding when life gets hard?

Do I still rejoice in the love of God when things are difficult?

Am I pointing other people to the love of Christ in the midst of their difficulties?

Then we see there's the idea of prayer.

Am I staying connected with God?

Am I praying for others?

Does my love look like a time in which I am going to pray for others in need?

Or all my time that I'm spending in prayer about me?

And certainly there's a time and a place to pray for your own personal needs.

But biblically speaking, we should take up time to pray for others that are in need around us.

And then lastly, as we saw in verse 13, distributing to the necessity of the saints given to hospitality.

How am I putting God's love into action to those around me?

How am I proving God's love?

And so you could wrap it all up in this main thought.

God's love is not meant to remain in our hearts as a feeling, though there will be an emotional appeal.

You know, I can't sometimes, I can't explain it, but sometimes a song that we're singing in church will just hit me in such a way that I think about the phrase that we just sang.

Or there'll be a time in which a preacher's preaching and I'll hear an analogy, and that love of God just boils over and we can't express it other than the fact that we're just overwhelmed with joy or overwhelmed with the love of God.

But it can't stop there.

It's meant to flow through our lives as action.

Just as God demonstrated his love towards us, we are called to demonstrate his love towards us and then our love towards him by loving others and serving others.

So you could put it in a phrase like this.

God's love is it should be in us, but God's love in us should produce God's love through us.

And that's really the way that we can see Christians understanding and growing in the love of God.

I can't gauge your heart.

I can't look at you and go, hmm, do you love God?

Well, you're in church, so you must love God.

That person who's not in church, they don't love God.

That's not really a great standard of understanding whether or not someone loves God.

I can know your heart, but what I can see is that the way that God's love is changing you, God's love is growing you, as God's love is convicting you, as God's love is bringing you to a place where you're wanting to show other people that love.

That would be a good indication that God's fruit of his love is being seen in our life.

And so this gives us a connection, really.

In Romans, chapter 12, he starts out in verse number one by telling us that we are to present our bodies a living sacrifice.

So that's the directive.

Be a living sacrifice.

And then he says, the way that you do that is don't be conformed to this world.

Don't live like the world.

Don't think like the world.

Verse two, he says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind to follow the will of God.

And then he says that we should live a certain way, talks about us being humble.

He talks about us loving the Lord and ultimately loving others around us.

And then he says that we're all gifted in certain ways.

And then we went through that study in our spiritual gifts.

And please, I would encourage you.

One of the steps to understanding the way that God wants you to live out your life is by understanding the way that God has gifted you.

Because that way you're able to walk with the knowledge of, hey, you know what?

This is something that I can do and that I enjoy doing for the Lord.

And that motivation can be very helpful in the process of ministry.

But then he says, okay, we've all been gifted a certain way.

This is how we're supposed to live out these gifts with other brothers and sisters in Christ.

Verses 9, all the way to verse 13, tell us how we can deal with other Christians in love with what God has gifted us.

Then we're going to come back next week and we're going to talk about something I think even more difficult and that is doing good unto others who aren't part of the family of God or maybe others that have wronged us.

How do we deal with forgiveness?

How do we deal with someone who is persecuting us?

How do we deal with anything that we might consider to be evil that is done in our life?

Are we supposed to get back even with them, or are we supposed to do something different?

Well, he says we're supposed to be different not only in the way that we treat one another, but how we treat others that are outside of the church.

And I'm encouraging you to come back and continue on with this study because I do believe that some of the hardest things for us as Christians to do and I think for anyone is to love someone who is not being lovable, to sacrifice for someone who is not sacrificing, to forgive someone who has wronged us.

And we're going to come back and talk about, I believe, the biblical model in which we are to do that in accordance to Romans chapter 12.

And so I hope that this has been an encouragement for you as we've studied the love of Christ, and we talked about this last week.

But I do think it's helpful for us to understand this again, is that when a pastor or anybody says we're supposed to love other people, the world's concept is this.

Well, if I'm supposed to love someone, that means I have to agree with everything that they do.

And the way that the world tells us is that Christians aren't loving, because Christians say that some things are wrong and some things are right, and that's not love.

What love is saying is like your right is your right.

Your choice is your choice.

And I'm going to tell you here today, just because I love someone doesn't mean that I condone every action that they commit.

I can, I see.

I saw that even more so when I had children because I can love my children abundantly.

But I don't agree with some of the things that they do.

When they talk back to me, I can understand that that's wrong.

Okay.

When, when they're not listening, that's, that's, that's evident for me that if I love them enough, I'm going to tell them the truth.

To say that's not going to help you in life.

That's, you're going to have to learn this very early on in life because if you get older and have the same model, there's going to be A lot of problems.

And so loving somebody is not condoning their evils.

Loving someone is identifying that they are someone who is in need of Christ, identifying that you want to do what's best for them.

And doing what's best for them sometimes is explaining to them that they need to change.

Sometimes it's just sharing, hey, this is what I believe about the Lord.

This is why I believe this about the Lord.

And I hope that one day you can see this as well.

So.

So love is patient, love is kind, love is gracious, but love is truthful.

And so when we say that we love somebody and we're called to love other Christians, that doesn't mean that if I'm even within a church setting and someone does something wrong to me that I go, well, I'm supposed to love them, so I'm supposed to overlook what they're doing.

No, that's not what it is.

And we don't want to buy into the way that the world tells us and conform to that model.

We can.

We are renewed in the way of thinking to say that love is about truth.

Love is about sacrifice.

Love is about doing good unto others so that people can see Jesus.

One of the verses that I quote almost every sermon, and one that we quote within our house quite frequently, is that we don't want to just be good, to be good so that people call us good.

Matthew 5:16, Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven.

So I tell my kids, hey, it's not just about being a good kid, because I appreciate why people do this.

But, you know, we drop our kids off somewhere, and they're like, man, your kids were so great.

And I'm like, what kids did you have?

I mean, like, this is.

They were so respectful.

And I'm going.

And then so the kids hear that, they go, I'm a good kid.

It's like, well, again, you know what?

You might be relatively good today, but you're not good.

There's none good.

No, not one.

And so what we want our children to understand, and what I want to understand, what I want everyone to understand, is that we don't do good things within our Christian life just so people will say, wow, look how amazing that person is.

Look how.

Look how much of a testimony that person is not for himself.

It should be.

I'm trying to live differently so that people can see the love of Jesus in me, so that they can experience that change.

It's all about reflecting it to him.

So there's ever an individual that says, look at me, look at me, look how great I am.

That in that very moment we see that he or she is not doing what God has called us to do.

Now Paul does say, follow me as I follow Christ.

But again, it's following Christ.

It's not following a person and then it ends there.

So to love someone is not.

Well, I'm loving them and I hope someone saw that.

Sometimes in my life I've tried to learn this.

My dad used to tell me this.

He says, hey, sometimes it's good that no one sees what you do for the Lord.

Because then it's like, hey, you know what?

I get my praise one day in heaven and I don't, I don't need to have this notice right now.

And that's what it's about with the love of, of Christ.

The love of Christ is not a self seeking thing.

It's not the, the mission is not, well, look at me, look how much I have.

It's about, look how much God has done for me and how he has changed me.

That's the motivation.

And so I hope that we can all see the love of Christ is a different type of love.

The love of a brother and sister in the Lord is a different type of love.

We talked about this last night at our fellowship here.

We had different generations represented, we had different cultures represented, we had different backgrounds represented.

And you know, that could look at from the outside, they could look like, how do all these people come?

Why do all these people come together?

Why does someone from Florida get together with someone from Philadelphia?

Why does someone from this country get together with this person?

How, how old people and younger people get together?

What, what is that?

What's the purpose of that?

You don't have anything in common.

Well, we do know that we have something in common.

What's in common is our love for Jesus Christ and the love that God gave us and the transition from being a port, a really portion of the world, a product of the world, to being now renewed in our walk with Christ.

And so that's why we can come together.

That's why we get together on Sunday mornings and celebrate and rejoice.

That's why we can say that there's hope beyond this world.

That's why we can say that there's something bigger and that we should sacrifice one for another.

Because on paper it doesn't make sense to come together on a Sunday morning.

There's a lot of places that you could be right now the weather's nice.

You could be a lot of places.

It doesn't make sense on paper to give to the church or to sacrifice for someone else.

I could save that for me.

That would make a lot more sense if I kept that in my own pocket and used that for my own good.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to help someone in need if they're not going to bring anything back to you.

But what it does make sense is that what God has done for us, he says at the end of verse number one, it is our reasonable service to do everything that he's asked us to do.

Why?

Because he has given us so much.

And I encourage you as we close here today, if you're struggling with understanding the love of God in your life, go back to the cross.

Go back to what he has done for you.

Go back to who you are and who he is.

What does the Bible say about us?

Ephesians, chapter two is a good place to look.

Romans, chapter three is a good place to look.

Romans, chapter six is a good place to look in and of ourselves.

We are not worthy of anything.

The Bible says we are not good.

We are of flesh.

We are children of this world.

But what Jesus did is he died on the cross for us so that we don't have to be stuck in that.

That we're not in the bondage of sin.

He's brought us from darkness into marvelous light.

That is what God has done for you.

He has changed you.

He is.

He's equipped you.

He hasn't left you alone.

And if that's not something that you can say has happened, the only way that that's happened, as we saw in Romans chapter five, it's by having peace with God.

How can you have peace with God?

Well, it's only through Jesus Christ.

It's only through trusting in Him.

It's not about works.

It's not about performance.

It's not about any membership of any church.

It's about coming to Jesus Christ in humility, saying, I cannot save myself.

I can only look to you for my salvation.

And the Bible says, the one who knew no sin, the only one who walked this earth that was perfect, gave himself up for us.

He became sin for us.

He paid the price for our sins.

And he offers that gift of salvation.

And this morning, it's just about receiving that gift and believing in Him.

Now there's steps to come after that.

But that's not about salvation.

That's about understanding your salvation and growing in the grace that God has given you.

And then knowing that it's only respectable, it's only honorable for me to turn back and do everything I possibly can for him.

And so this morning, if you need Jesus as your Savior, we're going to have a time for you to respond.

But maybe you've trusted in Jesus Christ as your Savior, but you've lost sight of the grandeur, the infinite nature of the love that God has demonstrated towards you.

And maybe you've had some struggles loving somebody else.

Maybe you say, well, Pastor, it's not that I don't like them, it's just I have no desire to reach out and to love anyone else.

I would encourage you today to go back to the well that never runs dry by understanding the love that Jesus Christ had for you and let that fuel you for your love and for your service as you go about your daily walk.

Not slothful in business, but fervent in spirit.

Serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope.

Maybe some of you have just lost your joy.

I don't want to judge anyone here today, but I've been there where my joy has just been depleted.

I wake up in the morning and truly, if I was honest with people around me, I would say I don't have a reason to be joyful today.

But that's such a travesty to what God has done for us because the Bible says that we have every reason to be joyful.

So if you've lost your joy today, go back to the hope that you can only find in Jesus Christ.

Endure those tribulations through his strength.

Go to him in prayer for every need, and then allow that to drive the way that you love and serve others around you.

I'm gonna ask if you're able to to stand with me, every head bowed, every eye closed as the music plays.

This morning we've talked about a lot, but ultimately it's wrapped up in this love in action.

God's love was proven by his action.

Does our love for him manifest itself by the way that we live?

By the way that we act?

By the way that we respond?

Do we need to just be reminded here this morning about the great love that God demonstrated towards us?

Are you lacking in the joy?

Are you lacking in the hope?

Are you lacking in the confidence?

Well, maybe it's just about going back and finding more of an in depth relationship with him.

Of course I'm not going to trust in someone who I don't know.

But the more you know God, the more he will prove himself to you that he is trustworthy.

That he will never fail you.

He will never leave you.

He will never forsake you.

If you need Jesus Christ as your personal savior we'll have some people up front you can come forward and see in the Bible what it means to trust in Jesus and have the salvation that can never be taken away from you.

But maybe this morning you just need to be reminded and renewed in the love and in the hope of who Jesus Christ is to you.

I pray that today can be that day where you can go back to that place where that spark, that fire started and made that fire begin to grow in your life and your heart and allow it to be seen by others around you.

Let's never be ashamed of being excited for the Lord in our life.

Lord I pray that you be in the time of invitation working hearts and lives.

We thank you for all that you do pray that you can work in conviction and comfort and confidence here this we ask all those things in Jesus name amen.