True Love

Well, good morning. My name's Gareth. I'm going to do the Bible reading this morning. So, if you'd like to turn in your Bibles, look up in your app, Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

And we're going to read from verses 9 to the end of the chapter, verse 21.

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer.

Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep.

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil.

But give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.

To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

For by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Good morning, everyone.

Let's ask for God's help as we come to consider his word. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that we can gather here this morning.

Thank you that we are free to meet, to sing your praises, to encourage one another.

As we turn our minds to your word now, we ask that you would help us to focus on it.

Please enable me to speak clearly and truly.

And we pray that you would encourage and challenge each one of us.

We thank you for your love and we pray that it would resonate in our hearts and in our lives.

In Jesus' name, amen.

If you were to sum up Christian ethics in one word,

you know, just a single word that captures all of how God wants us to be and what God wants of us,

one word that best sums up the example Jesus gives us,

one word for Christian ethics,

I'd hazard a guess that the majority of us would come up with the same word

and that word is, of course, love.

The Christian gospel is the story of God's love for us.

A sacrificial love.

Romans 5 verse 8,

Romans 5:8

God shows his love for us in this,

in that while we were still sinners,

Christ died for us.

An unbreakable love.

Romans 8 verse 39,

Romans 8:39

nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God,

which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The gospel is the old, old story of Jesus and his love.

If the gospel is the old, old story of God's love for us,

Christian ethics is the ongoing story of God's love in us.

See the difference?

The gospel, the story of God's love for us.

Christian ethics,

as Sarah so wonderfully illustrated in the kids' talk,

the story of God's love in us.

Romans 5 verse 5,

Romans 5:5

God's love has been poured into our hearts

through the Holy Spirit he's given us.

Christian ethics is about God transforming us

so that we learn to love as he loved us.

And so when we come to the book of Romans,

Romans chapters 1 to 11 are about the love God has for us,

Romans 1 · chapter mention

and Romans chapters 12 to 15 are about the love that God works in us.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

But in the words of the 1984 Howard Jones rock ballad,

what is love anyway?

Or maybe that should be,

what is la-a-a-a-a-a-of anyway?

Okay, two people laughed.

What is love?

Now that's too big a question to be answered by a single passage of Scripture.

And so we've got lots of texts in the Bible

that help us see what love is in different ways.

If someone were to ask you,

you know, what is love?

Show me in the Bible what love is.

You might take them to 1 Corinthians chapter 13.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

That beautiful poem about love.

Love is patient.

Love is kind.

It does not envy.

It does not boast.

You might take them to 1 John chapter 4.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

God is love.

And in this is love.

Not that we loved God,

but that he loved us

and gave his son,

sent his son as a propitiation for our sins.

You might even take them to Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

Husbands, love your wives

as Christ loved the church

and gave himself up for her.

Now those are the kinds of passages we think of

when it comes to love.

What is love?

And they're the kind of passages I get asked to preach on

when I'm asked to preach at weddings.

I've spoken on each of those passages

multiple times at weddings.

No engaged couple, though,

has ever asked me to preach on Romans 12 verses 9 to 21.

Romans 12:9–21

Yet it has as its heading,

let love be genuine.

Do you see that at the start of verse 9?

Let love be genuine.

Actually, the word let isn't there in Greek.

If we were to translate it literally,

it's just genuine love.

Kind of like a heading.

I mean, I think let is implied,

but as written, literally,

genuine love.

Or maybe even more literally,

unhypocritical love.

In other words, true love.

And that heading of genuine, unhypocritical, true love,

that hangs over all of the rest that follows.

Like as a banner.

So let's think about this in some context.

In context, Paul has already introduced

the latter chapters of Romans.

In chapter 12 verse 1,

in this way,

I appeal to you, brothers,

by the mercies of God,

to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,

holy and acceptable to God,

which is your spiritual worship.

Paul has introduced this part of his letter

as a response to the mercy of God,

given all that Paul had shown

about God's love and his mercy

in his first 11 chapters.

How do we respond?

And in verse 1 of chapter 12,

he says,

well, we respond by giving,

by offering God everything.

Our bodies as living sacrifices,

everything we are belongs to God.

It's all his.

That's our spiritual worship.

We hold nothing back.

Okay, but what does that look like?

Well, that's what Paul unpacks

in the rest of chapters 12 to 15.

And what it looks like,

Paul says in chapter 12 verse 9,

is love, genuine love.

And that's another thread

that ties together these chapters.

It's there in that heading of sorts

I just mentioned in verse 9.

Paul returns to it in chapter 13 verses 8 to 10,

where he, as Jesus did,

he says,

all the commandments of God

are summed up in the command

to love our neighbour.

And it underlies an exhortation

or a theme Paul's going to develop

in chapters 14 and 15.

In chapters 14 and 15,

Paul draws the Roman believers' attention

to a specific issue among them,

a failure of love that he wants to address.

But the passage before us this morning,

chapter 12 verses 9 to 21,

it's kind of less focused

than, say, chapters 14 and 15,

or even chapters...

It's less focused than those later parts.

What we've got here

is this rapid-fire sequence

of exhortations

where Paul, it seems,

jumps abruptly from one idea to another.

The flow of thought's often unclear.

One commentator called it,

I was reading, spoke of it,

an apparently haphazard arrangement.

Now, how do all these ideas connect together?

Well, on the one hand,

I don't want to sort of over-systematise

what I'm saying here.

We do have a collection of ideas here

and we need to sort of let each one stand

with its own integrity.

Nevertheless, Paul does hang over it

this heading,

let love be genuine.

So, in some sense,

Paul is still articulating

what it means

to be a person of true love,

who loves unhypocritically.

So, let's think about each part.

I'm going to see how I go for time.

We might not get through the whole passage,

but we'll get through as much as we can

with the time available.

So, first, let's think about the heading itself,

let love be genuine.

Why did Paul even need to say this?

Like, why does Paul need to say to them,

let love be genuine?

He needs to say it

because once you have a society

where love is prized as the chief virtue

and where love is sort of elevated

as the heart of ethics,

it's inevitable that counterfeits to love will emerge.

If love isn't highly valued,

and love wasn't the centre of ethics

in the wider Graco-Roman world,

but if love isn't highly valued,

then no one will bother feigning it.

You don't have to pretend to love

if people don't really care about love.

But once love is the centre,

as it was as soon as the church sprang into existence,

that love was at the heart of Christian ethics

from the very beginning,

once love is the centre,

once it's the highest virtue,

then there's a risk of pretense.

And that was so for the church

from its early beginnings.

It's the same, I would say,

is actually true today

for our wider society as well,

because such has been the profound impact

of Christianity on Western culture

that love is still seen as the centre of ethics,

not just in the church now,

but in all of our society,

of ethics,

of any form, I should say.

So just about,

what that means is just about everyone today,

both in the church and in Australia

and in Western countries in general,

just about everyone today

will claim that

whatever they're doing,

they're doing because of love.

I mean, think about that, right?

You hear people say,

now, yes, I know sometimes people say things like,

you know, speak of hate and so on,

but generally people will

justify whatever they're doing,

whatever it happens to be,

as being loving.

And that can be,

you know, whatever the issue,

whatever stance they take on the issue,

whatever side of politics they're on,

whatever their behaviour,

whatever their methods,

they'll claim to have love on their side.

Love is so highly prized in our society

that self-deception

has become a significant risk.

We can think we're loving

when we're not actually loving.

We've become skilled at convincing ourselves

that that is so.

So what was a potential problem

in the first century,

what was a potential problem

in the early church,

just the problem of counterfeit love,

is now a problem everywhere

in our whole society.

But Paul exhorts believers,

don't be those who fake love

or who kid yourselves

that you are loving

when you're not really loving.

Let love be genuine.

And the first thing you need

for love to be genuine

is what Paul says next.

In the second part of verse 9,

he says,

Abhor what is evil,

hold fast to what is good.

Genuine love, Paul says,

is grounded.

It possesses,

it's grounded in reality.

It possesses moral discernment

and moral conviction.

You can't love other people

if you don't know what is good

because love is seeking

what's good for others.

If you don't know what's good,

how can you seek it?

I have a friend

whose mother,

when he was,

I don't know,

12 or 13 years old or something,

his mother introduced him to marijuana

and encouraged him to use it.

And that started for him

an addiction

that enslaved him for years

until finally Jesus freed him from it.

Now perhaps that mother

thought she was loving her son,

but in reality

she was doing him great harm.

In order to love people,

you need to know

what is good for people.

And here we find ourselves

in a really strange place

in the 21st century.

Because on the one hand,

Western culture

is indebted to Christianity

for elevating love

as the chief virtue.

But on the other hand,

Western civilisation

is in conflict with Christianity

because it has untethered love

from its grounding.

See, in Christian thought,

what is good

good is objective?

It's grounded in reality.

In philosophical terms,

good has an ontological basis

in reality.

Now,

if you think about it,

there are two parts,

there are two main parts

to reality.

There's God

and there's creation.

Everything that exists

is either God or creation.

There are two parts of reality.

reality.

And reality determines

what's good.

So,

good is defined,

on the one hand,

by God himself,

by his character,

and on the other hand,

by the kind of creation

he's made,

the moral order

of the universe,

the nature

and the purpose

of things

as God has created them.

And if good

is grounded

in reality,

then evil,

by corollary,

is just defined

as anything

that's contrary

to reality,

that contradicts,

it's against the character

of God

or it's against

the good moral order

of creation.

But,

you see,

while our society

is held on to love

as the key concept

when it comes

to ethics,

it's untethered

love from reality.

It's untethered

love from the existence

and character

of God.

It's untethered

love from the nature

of creation

as creation.

And so,

from any

true basis

for good and evil.

And so,

now many

in our society

are saying

good and evil

are subjective.

You know,

they're subjective

to the individual.

There's no basis

for really working

out what's good

except for individual

feelings

and preferences.

So,

even in 1984,

in that song

I referenced earlier,

Howard Jones

sang,

maybe love

is letting people

be just what

they want to be.

Now,

if that's what

someone was singing

in 1984,

then here in 2026,

you know,

we're 40 years later

down that path.

Maybe love

is just

letting

people be

just what

they want to be.

There's,

there's no longer

a reference point

for what is good

in external reality.

The only reference point

is our own desires

and preferences.

whatever we want.

Now,

we know the end

point of that,

don't we?

You know,

we know where

that's brought us

as a society.

It's brought us

to the point

where,

you know,

if someone

says,

I wish I was

born in a

different body,

we'll give them

drugs with

permanent

harmful

consequences

and mutilate

their bodies

and do it

all in the

name of

love.

Moral

confusion

reigns.

But if you

want to be

someone who

truly loves,

someone of

genuine love,

you need

moral discernment.

You need to

learn what's

good and

learn what's

evil.

And that

means you

need to

get to know

God and

his character.

and you

need to

learn from

him what

his creation

is, how

it's ordered,

what he

designed it

for, who

you are, what

it means to

be a human

being, what

you're made

for.

And to

learn these

things, you

need to

meditate on

his word.

You need

moral discernment.

But actually,

moral discernment

on its own is

not enough.

You also need

moral conviction.

Verse 9

doesn't say,

know what is

evil and know

what is

good.

It says,

abhor what

is evil and

hold fast to

what is good.

They're strong

words.

We need a

passionate

attachment to

what is good

and we need

an abhorrence

and horror

concerning evil.

In a famous

poem written

in the aftermath

of the First

World War,

William Butler

Yates described

the moral confusion

of his day

with these

words,

the best

lack all

conviction,

the worst

are filled

with passionate

intensity.

It's no

use if we

know what's

evil but

don't abhor it.

It's no use

if we know

what's good

but don't

cling to it.

We can't love

if we're

casual about

good and

evil.

without moral

conviction

we won't

be stirred

to act.

We need

conviction

to rouse us

from our

slumber

so that we'll

step in love

towards others.

May God

teach us

to abhor

what is

evil

and to

hold fast

to what

is good.

Okay,

I've spent

a lot of

time on

verse 9.

The

remainder of

the passage

I think we

can divide

up into

three

sections.

Verses

10 to

13

loves

dimensions,

verses

14 to

16

loves

adaptations

and

verses

17 to

21

loves

victory.

So

loves

dimensions

verses

10 to

13.

Verses

10 to

13 are

grouped

together

by a

distinctive

and repeated

kind of

arrangement

of words.

It's kind

of hard

to see

in English

translation

but these

verses

they all

lack

finite

verbs,

that is

the normal

kind of

verbs

you'd

find in

sentences.

In

Greek

they all

begin

the same

way

with

definite

articles

and

they're

all

these

short

punchy

lines

that sort

of roll

from one

line to

another

with this

poetic

rhythm.

Let me

try and

demonstrate

it as

closely as

I can

with an

alternative

translation.

This will

come up on

the screen

and I'll

read it

out.

So you

can get

a feel

for a

little bit

of what

this feels

like,

this section

and how

it holds

together.

Can we

grab that

up?

Okay,

here we

go.

So this

is a bit

what it

feels like

reading it

in

Greek.

In

brotherly

love

devoted

to one

another,

in honour

going

before one

another,

in zeal

not lacking,

in the

spirit

fervent,

the Lord

serving,

in hope

rejoicing,

in affliction

enduring,

in prayer

persisting,

for the

needs of

the saints

sharing,

hospitality

pursuing.

I think

Bible

translators

would even

be justified

in laying

out these

verses as a

poem as I

have there,

but you can

see they're

grouped together

in pairs

and triplets.

We've got

two pairs,

pairs in

verse 10

and 13,

triplets in

verse 11

and 12

in the middle.

And the

reason I've

called this

section

love's

dimensions

is because

the pairs

on the

frame,

they're about

love on the

horizontal

plane,

but those

two triplets

in the

middle,

they introduce

a vertical

dimension in

our relationship

with God.

So let's

think about

each of these

four verses.

I'm going

to go back

to the ESV

translation

so we can

take that

down,

Luke,

but we'll

go with

the ESV

translation.

Let's

think about

each of

these four

verses.

Firstly,

brotherly

love in

verse 10.

Love one

another with

brotherly

affection.

Outdo one

another in

showing honour.

Now in the

ancient

Greco-Roman

world,

it was an

honour-shame

culture.

Honour

was a core

value.

It's honour

that was sort

of elevated

above everything

else.

Honour

was a core

value and

honour was

perceived as

a limited

good.

So there

was a limited

supply of

honour.

That means

if someone

else got

more honour,

you kind

of went

down in

honour.

One

scholar

describes it

this way,

nearly every

interaction

with non-family

members has

undertones of

a challenge

to honour.

Essentially,

especially if

you're a man,

relationships

between most

men in the

ancient world

were competitive.

relationships

between

friends were

at best

mercantile.

There was

this sort

of,

there had

to be a

balance of

give and

take.

But

relationships

between

brothers were

different.

That was the

one place

where there

was kind

of no,

well at

least in

ideal,

there was

no competing,

there was

no rivalry.

Of course,

in practice

it may have

differed,

there may

frequently have

been rivalry,

but that was

the ideal.

So here's

how one

moralist

and essayist

philosopher

named Plutarch

writes about it

in an essay

called On

Brotherly

Love.

He says,

a brother

should not

like the

pan of a

balance,

incline the

opposite way

and be

lowered when

his brother

is raised.

You know,

it's like

scales.

He's saying

with brothers

it doesn't

work that

way.

So normally

in relationships

it does,

like honour

goes up

and down,

but not

with brothers.

Not with

brothers.

Instead,

Plutarch says

brothers are

like two

numbers

multiplied

together.

Like two

numbers

multiplied.

If you

increase

either of

the numbers,

the total

increases.

So in

the ancient

world,

in the

ancient

Greco-Roman

world,

for a man

to have

a brother,

that was

probably the

closest relationship

you'd have

in life.

It was a

kind of

oasis,

this one

purely

non-competitive

relationship

in the midst

of a sea

of rivalry

and competing

for honour.

The one

relationship

where you

wouldn't be

diminished

by the

other person

being elevated,

where you

need not

concern yourself

with trying

to win

honour from

them,

but you

could rather

seek to

bestow

honour upon

them.

And it

was the

rarity

of that

relationship

that made

it so

special.

If you

were fortunate

you might

have one

or maybe

two

brothers.

But the

Christian

church did

something

radical.

Jesus said

to his

followers,

you are

all

brothers,

you're

all

brothers.

With

those words

he subverted

and inverted

the society

of his

day.

In

church

relationships

where you

bestow

honour

rather than

compete

for honour

became not

the rare

exception

but the

norm,

the rule.

You're

all

brothers.

The second

line in

verse 10

captures that

inversion

of society.

Outdo

one another

in showing

honour.

If

there's to

be any

competition

it's not

to get

honour

but to

give it.

Now as

we've moved

away from

Christianity

in our

world our

culture is

becoming

more and

more

competitive

and more

and more

vicious

when it

comes to

honour

and shame.

And a

lot of

it's bound

up with

identity

politics and

so we

see the

kind of

dynamics we

see in

our

society

is

that

people

they

identify

with a

particular

subset

of

society

and

they

want

to

see

their

identity

honoured

in the

cultural

marketplace

honoured

in sports

and in

media

and on

the

screen

and in

the

arts

and in

politics

and

alongside

that

wanting

to see

their

identity

honoured

there's

this

vicious

side

that

we

see

operating

in

our

society

where

whatever

identities

we feel

to be

in

competition

with

our

identity

we want

to see

them

shamed

and so

there's

this

nasty

delight

we see

when

people

fall

and

others

pile on

and shame

them

and cancel

them

and

with this

ugly

and

self-righteous

glee

we've

become

that

well

we're

becoming

that

honour

shame

culture

again

competing

but

it's

not to

be that

way

among

us

for

we're

all

brothers

and

sisters

in

Christ

if we

are to

compete

let it

be in

showing

honour

in

lifting

up

one

another

in

celebrating

others

in

serving

others

Lord

God

by

your

grace

make

this

church

an

oasis

of

brotherhood

in

the

midst

of

a

vicious

world

but

what's

going

to

sustain

this

brotherly

love

for

one

another

well

verse

11

Paul

says

what

sustains

brotherly

love

is

zeal

verse

11

do

not

be

slothful

in

zeal

be

fervent

in

spirit

serve

the

Lord

we

need

the

vertical

dimension

to

fuel

the

horizontal

dimension

now

more

often

than

not

when

I

when

I

personally

when

I

fail

to

love

when

I

am

being

unloving

often

it's

for no

other

reason

that

I'm

feeling

weary

and

jaded

and sick

of the

effort

required

when

zeal

falters

love

fails

when

I

was

a

kid

some

of

you

will

remember

this

some

of

you

won't

but

when

I

was

a

kid

there

was

an

ad

on

TV

for

Duracell

batteries

and

they

had

a

bunch

of

pink

bunnies

playing

the

drums

does

anyone

remember

that

ad

yeah

a few

do

great

and

you

know

the

pink

bunnies

with

ordinary

batteries

they

all

just

sort

of

petered

out

and

stopped

playing

drumming

they

ran

out

of

juice

but

the

battery

the

bunny

that

had

a

Duracell

battery

well

it

kept

on

going

our

relationship

with

God

is

the

battery

we

need

for

love

we

need

to

draw

close

to

God

if

we

are

to

keep

drawing

close

to

one

another

I

think

spirit

in

be

fervent

in

the

spirit

it's

sort

of

in

parallel

to

Lord

the

Lord

Jesus

in

the

third

line

there

of

verse

11

be

fervent

in

the

spirit

serve

the

Lord

so

the

second

line

saying

let

your

heart

be

set

on

fire

by

God's

spirit

that's

what's

going

to

sustain

our

zeal

let

your

heart

be

set

on

fire

by

God's

spirit

and

if

that

sounds

a

little

abstract

how do

I

even

do

that

how

do

I

let

my

heart

be

set

on

fire

by

God's

spirit

well the

third

line

makes

it

more

concrete

serve

the

Lord

focus

on

Jesus

the

Lord

Jesus

his

example

his

teaching

what

he

wants

what

he

commands

Jesus

said

in

John

14

if

you

love

me

you'll

keep

my

commandments

and

he

said

in

John

15

this

is

my

commandment

that

you

love

one

another

if

we

want

zeal

that

does

not

falter

and

hearts

set

on

fire

by

God's

spirit

we

need

to

keep

looking

to

Christ

and

being

renewed

in

our

love

for

him

we

need

zeal

for

love

well

if

verse

11

addresses

one

reason

our

love

can

fail

which

is

when

we're

spiritually

running

on

empty

it

seems

to

me

that

verse

12

might

address

another

reason

why

love

can

falter

and

that's

because

of

suffering

verse

12

rejoice

in

hope

be

patient

in

tribulation

be

constant

in

prayer

now

when

the

storms

swirl

around

us

it's

hard

to

see

beyond

our

own

trouble

when

we're

stooped

over

with a

heavy

burden

we have

little

strength

left

to help

our

neighbour

with

his

but

in

verse

12

Paul

gives

us

three

things

we

can

do

when

we're

suffering

the

first

thing

we can

do

is

we

can

rejoice

in

hope

we can

rejoice

in

hope

when

you're

suffering

rejoice

in

hope

every

awful

thing

you're

facing

whatever

it

is

every

awful

thing

you're

facing

whether

it's

sickness

or

poverty

or

loneliness

or

grief

or

malice

or

slander

whatever

awful

thing

you're

facing

you can

look at

it

straight

on

and

say

to

it

you

are

temporary

you're

with me

only a

little

while

soon

you'll

pass

whatever

it

is

for

our

hope

is

certain

we

have

the

promises

of

God's

word

we

have

the

first

fruits

of

the

resurrection

of the

Son

of

God

from

the

dead

we

have

the

deposit

of

God's

spirit

guaranteeing

the

inheritance

that is

to

come

the

night

of

tears

is

brief

the

day

which

is

dawning

is

everlasting

even

in

suffering

we

can

rejoice

for

we

have

hope

no

even

more

than

that

in

suffering

we

learn

to

rejoice

in

hope

for

suffering

teaches

us

to

hold

more

lightly

to

what's

temporary

and

to

look

to

what's

eternal

it's

the

first

thing

we

can

do

we

can

rejoice

in

hope

second

thing

we

can

do

we

can

be

patient

in

tribulation

we

can

endure

when

we're

afflicted

God

is

simply

calling

us

to

wait

to

wait

for

what

is

good

well

then

let

us

wait

and

keep