Why Authentic Faith Requires Real Community

Thank you, Father, that all Scripture is God-breathed and

is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in

righteousness. Open our hearts to

receive your Word, that we may know you better and

be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Through your Son,

Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Simeon's stylites wanted to devote himself to

pleasing God. And in his mind,

the best way to do this was to remove himself

as much as possible from the world.

He joined a monastery, but he found that too distracting.

And so instead, he built a pole 18

metres high and decided to live on top of it.

He lived on this pole for 37 years,

enduring the heat of summer, the freezing winter, rain, wind.

Simeon used his time to pray and occasionally preach to all those who

were below him until

his death in 459 AD.

Simeon Stylites started a movement in which

people thought that the godly life required

removing yourself from the world and sitting

on top of a pole. Was Simeon

right? Does pleasing God require

sitting 18 metres above the world, disengaged?

Well, actually, we see today that the answer is no.

Pleasing Jesus requires engagement,

not separation. So as we look at Romans 12:9-21,

Romans 12:9–21

it'd be good to have your Bibles open there. We need

to remember the context of the book of Romans. We are

saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ who died

on the cross for our sins, in our place,

for our sin. Romans 5:8, but God

Romans 5:8

demonstrates his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners,

Christ died for us. The Christian life,

it's not about us doing good things and earning salvation.

Jesus makes us right with God, and then having been made

right with God, we can now live out who we are in Christ.

And it's important we understand this, because if we don't understand it,

we will live with the burden of thinking that we have to live up to

God's standard, which we can never achieve.

So instead, we trust in Christ. And when we do that,

we have the assurance of forgiveness, we have the promise of eternal life,

and then we also have the freedom to be able to live for Jesus.

Last week we saw that we are to be living sacrifices,

not being conformed to the pattern of this world but having our minds transformed

by the renewing work of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit applies

his words to our hearts and minds. So that we

would know how to live for Jesus. And we saw one particular

area where we are to live the transformed life was in verses 3 to 8.

It was the way we use the gifts God has given us to serve

the church and not ourselves.

Well, today we see more of the transformed life,

and verses 9 to 21 contain lots of exhortations about

how we are to live lives that please God.

And none of them suggest isolation but engagement.

The first 3 areas of engagement we're going to look at are in the

family of God. And so in the family of God,

we are to engage with love. Verse 9, love must be

sincere. In the church, there is no room for hypocritical

love, only genuine love. Judas, when he betrayed

Jesus with a kiss, That was a hypocritical show of love.

He looked the part, but in his heart was betrayal.

Instead, with a sincere heart, we are to love like

Jesus loved us. And this love is a discerning love.

Hate what is evil, cling to what is good.

As our minds are transformed, we will love what God loves,

we will hate what God hates. We will love righteousness

and good, but we will hate sin and evil.

And if it happens that we find ourselves loving and desiring sin

and evil, we need to seek forgiveness from God and ask

God to transform our hearts and our minds.

Then in verse 10, our love will be directed towards each other.

Be devoted to one another in love.

The love mentioned here is brotherly love, family love. The church is

a family. We're more than just a collection of individuals.

We are a family, Jesus's family,

and we are to love one another, faults and all.

Now, this side of heaven, you're never going to find the perfect church

because the church is made up of people like you and me with

all of our faults, with all of our sin, all of our character

flaws. We're not perfect. And yet

through faith in Jesus, we are being transformed by the grace of God to

each day become more and more like Jesus.

And we are called to love each other,

an imperfect bunch we might be.

We're not called to climb a pole so that we can't love,

but love as a family. And this is hard.

Particularly when someone is being unlovely.

But that is what Jesus did for us when we were unlovely,

when we were his enemies. Jesus went to the cross and

in love died for our sins.

And so by the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, we follow the example of

Christ and we seek to love others.

Not necessarily easy, It'll be trying,

and yet there's the exhortation from God to

love one another. So we are to engage in

the church family with love for one another. We're also to engage with

zeal. And now there are a few other commands in here

that I am actually skipping over about how we are to live as a church

family, like honor one another.

But I think all of those ones that I am skipping are captured in that,

the love.

Loving each other though isn't the only goal of our church family.

It sits alongside serving the Lord with zeal.

We are to have zeal for serving the Lord in verse 11.

Our zeal is best described as great energy, enthusiasm, or passion

for a person, cause, or goal. In this case,

our energies, our passions, our enthusiasm is to

be directed towards serving Jesus. Pleasing him

is our goal. A zeal is

not what— lack of zeal, I think, could be

best described maybe as the way that some people would look forward to a soggy

bowl of Weet-Bix in the morning. You might like having a soggy bowl of Weet-Bix,

but it's not your greatest passion or desire. And if it

is, well, maybe we can chat later. I'll be curious to hear. But I think

zeal is more like Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes. It's a cereal to get excited

about because it's covered in sugar and nuts. And in our house, it only

happens on holidays, and there's excitement there.

Well, we are to have zeal for serving Jesus. There's to be an

excitement, an energy. Now, zeal is not

something that we create in and of ourselves. It's not something we conjure up,

but zeal is actually something given to us by Jesus as we reflect on him

and what he's done for us on the cross. If we want to increase our

zeal for serving the Lord, we need to go back to the cross.

And it's not something we do individually, although individually

we should be zealous for serving Jesus, but actually also as

a church we should be zealous for serving Jesus.

A newcomer should be able to walk in and go,

oh, this church is zealous for serving Jesus.

So we engage in love, we engage with zeal, but we also together engage

in trusting God. In verse 12, we are to

be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in

prayer. Church family life won't always be

easy. The Christian church in Rome had afflictions.

In verse 14, they were persecuted. In verse 17,

they had enemies. And in those hard times,

we're to look to the hope that we have in Christ, the hope that

will not disappoint, the hope that brings eternal

joy. And so we're— as we go through

hardship, we are to be patient and we are to trust God.

We are to be faithful in prayer, trusting our Heavenly Father.

I was having a chat with someone this week and they asked me the question,

what would happen if God answered

every single prayer you prayed this week with

yes? What would look different this

week if God answered every single prayer that you prayed?

It's a challenging question because it puts a big spotlight on your prayer life

individually But also as a church.

Would— are we praying for transformed lives among us?

Would we see a full, thriving church?

Would Rockhampton be completely different?

I'll leave that thought with you.

We also see that as we depend on God,

we are also to be caring for one another through these hardships, sharing with each

other in verses 13. In verse 15, rejoicing with

those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn. We are to do life together

through the highs and the lows.

There are lots of commands in this section about living together as the family

of God.

And this is how we are to live a life pleasing to Jesus.

We live in a very individualistic world where

we read, as we did in the Gospel reading today, Take up

our cross and follow Jesus. And we think about that in terms of me,

what I need to do. And that's true. Each person is called to put their

faith in Jesus. Each person is called to deny themselves and follow Jesus.

But when we do that, we are made part of the family of God.

So part of taking up our cross and following Jesus is actually living

as part of this family of God.

It's not like being— by like

being Simeon in the starlight and withdrawing, but it's actually by

engaging in the messiness of church, in the messiness of

the relationships with imperfect people,

loving other imperfect people, knowing that we are

sinful and we need Jesus.

We serve Jesus with zeal, yes, individually, but also

together as a church. We love our brothers and sisters in

Christ together, encouraging one another, serving one another, honouring one another,

being there for one another. And Jesus

himself models this for us, doesn't he? Jesus did not spend 3

years of his ministry on top of a pole.

He spent his time with people.

He spent his time with slow-to-understand disciples,

teaching them, showing them the kingdom of God.

The temptation for us is to disengage

when something doesn't go our way, when we feel

slighted or dishonored. The temptation

is just to pull back, and that's exactly what the devil wants

us to do. But actually, as God's church, we ought

to engage, to love sincerely, to be

devoted to one another in love. So a transformed life

lived to please Jesus engages with the family of God,

but the love doesn't just stay in the family of God. It flows

out to even those who

are hostile towards us. And so the

next point that we'll look at is when we will engage with love for our

enemies. Paul's teaching in verses 17

to 21 echoes the Lord Jesus.

This teaching first acknowledges that there is evil in the world,

evil done against us, where we want justice,

where we want revenge. Jesus' teaching

then was countercultural as it is countercultural today.

Don't seek revenge.

Revenge, I think, for many people is second nature. It's an automatic

response. You keyed my car, I'm going

to key yours. You ignore me, I ignore you. You hit me, I hit you.

You hurt me, I hurt you. You wronged me,

I wrong you. It's payback time.

It's the storyline of most action movies. The hero wants revenge.

In our polite, civilized society, maybe our desire for revenge stays in

our hearts and minds and doesn't get acted on,

but the desire is there.

And there is something about this that is right.

Injustice should anger us. Evil done against us should anger us,

and it should move us to action.

But the action is not revenge.

What do we read here in God's Word? Do not repay

anyone evil for evil, verse 17, and do what

is right. Live at peace with everyone, in verse 18.

Do not take revenge, verse 19.

And we will be able to do these things as Jesus

transforms our heart by his Spirit.

If we are to engage in our enemies, it is to be from a position

of seeking to love them. Now that's countercultural,

but we can do this and we can do it for 2 reasons.

We can love our enemies firstly because we're not sweeping their actions under the carpet.

It's not like we're saying that the evil thing that they have done doesn't

matter because we have turned the other cheek.

No, it's actually the very opposite. We can do it because we know that their

actions do matter, and their actions also matter to

God, and God will act.

Loving our enemies is an act of trust in God. It's a display of faith.

Verse 19, do not take revenge, my dear friends,

but leave room for God's wrath. For it is written, it is mine

to avenge, I will repay, says the Lord.

We trust that God will deal with the injustice,

that God will make all that is wrong right.

God is not going to just let an injustice go unchecked,

whether it be by nations committing war crimes or people in

your life committing evil against you. We trust

that God will act like the psalmist who cries out

to God, deliver me from my enemies, in Psalm 3.

And we have evidence that God will act. As we look at the

Old Testament, we see that God regularly punishes and judges sin.

He's promised a time when Jesus will return and

all injustice will be judged.

And here is the thing, we don't need to act on God's behalf in this.

God will mete out his justice and judgment fairly

with the exact right amount, and he will do it more perfectly than we ever

could. See, when we take revenge, we get caught up in

anger, we get self-focused, we think of ourselves highly,

we do a poor job of justice.

We try and take God's place and we don't do it well, but God

will. God, in his perfect character,

with the right amount of mercy and compassion, will execute

his justice so that all the wrongs in this world will be righted.

So that's the first reason we can love our enemies— God will judge.

The second reason we can love our enemies is because we've had our evil and

injustice forgiven by Jesus.

We too deserve his wrath, but Jesus died

on the cross, taking God's anger upon himself in our place.

No matter what evil we have done,

Whether we've wronged others and maybe we have been the cause of

other people wanting to seek revenge.

On the cross, Jesus takes the

justice that we deserve upon himself so we

can be right with God, so that we can have forgiveness through faith in Jesus.

And it means that instead of seeking revenge,

in verse 20, If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he's

thirsty, give him something to drink.

Don't show anger, show love.

Don't show enmity, but show kindness. Give them exactly

what they do not deserve, not because what they did isn't

evil, but because God will repay. God will show his wrath.

See, God's wrath is not a temper tantrum like a child might throw.

Sometimes even an adult might throw, but it's our holy

God's measured response to human sin and rebellion.

We can trust him. Now, part of the way that

God brings justice is by using the government of the land.

We'll have a look at that in more detail next week, but it's

not wrong to rely on the government to bring about justice.

What is being spoken of here is revenge.

Personal justice crusades. Now, this is not saying

that if you're in a situation of evil that you need to stay there and

endure it. It is appropriate to leave evil situations.

It is appropriate to call on the authorities when needed.

But we do want to make sure that we're not seeking revenge.

Now here is the twist. If we love our enemy like Jesus

suggests, we're told in doing this you will heap

burning coals on their head in verse 20.

Responding in kindness to evil, trusting God

to judge and not meting it out ourselves, is like pouring

burning coals on someone's head. It's quite

an image, isn't it? It leaves it to God.

God is more likely to be able to prick their conscience.

But we don't do this action of love with a heart seeking only

revenge. I'm going to give you this drink and

I want to see burning coals poured on your head.

I don't think that's the attitude that Jesus is encouraging here.

But rather, as we love,

as we seek to turn

the other cheek, as we seek to copy Jesus,

God can use that. And we're trusting

that God will bring about his justice in his timing.

And the person who has wronged you might be frustrated by your response.

They might be baffled by your response. It might

bring in them guilt. They might completely ignore it.

But God will judge. You will be showing them Jesus,

showing them the transformed life that Jesus is working in you.

Verse 21 sums it up, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome

evil with good. The best way to deal with evil

is through good. So Jesus didn't climb

a pole to escape the messy world. He engaged.

Ultimately, he died on the cross so we could be forgiven.

But he also leaves us with this example. We need to get down off our

poles, if we're on one, and engage.

We need to engage in the church. We need to engage by loving

our enemies. I want to

leave with you just a couple of questions for you to think about.

And they're just kind of application questions.

Is there someone here in church this morning that

you can love?

Is there someone here that you need to honor above yourself?

Is there someone at work or in your circles that

you need to forgive?

Is your prayer life this week something that you need to work

on, expressing your dependence on God?

Maybe we can pray that

our love would be sincere, that we would hate what is evil and cling to

what is good and be devoted to one another in love. Let's do

that now. Heavenly Father,

we thank you for Jesus. We thank you that he came and died

for us so that we can be forgiven, so we can have eternal life.

And that we are now, by the power of your Spirit at work

in us, able to engage in your church,

engage with each other as a church family. So, Lord, help us to love

one another sincerely, to hate what is evil and cling to what is good.

Help us to be devoted to one another in love. We ask,

Lord, that you would increase our zeal for serving you, that you would increase our

dependence upon you,

And we also ask, Lord, that you would help us as we seek to love

our enemies and to not seek revenge, but to

trust your, your good judgment.

Help us this week to live lives that honor Jesus. And we pray this in

his name.