Romans 12 (Part 5)

Let's go to verse 9, I think that's where we last left our meditation on this passage. To our visitors, we are preaching a series of horizontal sermons, because they refer to daily life, not necessarily vertical life in the sense of just the spiritual, God, things up there, but also things on the ground, on the earth. These things that have to do with daily life, the life of human relationships, character, the way we treat each other, attitudes, mental and emotional habits that we have, things that often make us stumble in the Christian life and that do not allow us to fully enjoy the blessings that God has for us. And we've been reading the first 8 verses. We have been meditating on these verses and this morning we are going to continue.

Let's go to verse 9. “Love be without pretense. Hate the bad. Follow the good. Love one another with brotherly love. As regards honor, preferring one another. Not slothful in what requires diligence, fervent in spirit serving the Lord, joyful in hope, long-suffering in tribulation, constant in prayer, sharing for the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.” Glory to the Lord. Bless Lord your holy word.

We have spoken, brothers, in the previous verses, we have spoken of the life of service. How to serve the Lord, in what spirit? So those verses tell us about service. Now I believe that these next few verses talk to us about, more especially attitudes, because although it refers in part to serving, but the focus on serving is not so obvious, it is more about what kind of attitudes we should have towards each other. So I would put the emphasis in this second section more on attitudes and less on serving.

And we had said remember that, however, there are attitudes that we must have: humility, awareness of our own limitations, esprit de corps, sobriety, all these things that are important in service. Now, think that in this section there's kind of a change. If you look it would seem that there is a change in verse 6 and further on it says: “if that of prophecy, use it according to the measure of faith; if of service, in serving; the one who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; the one who distributes, with liberality; the one who presides, with request; he who shows mercy, with joy.”

There is an obvious parallelism, in this sector from verse 6 to 8. However, brothers, when one goes to the original Greek, although it seems that the attitude of the Apostle has changed, which is more of advice, the style actually, They changed the Spanish translation more for elegance, for reasons of style, but something of that character of direction and emphasis and naturalness with which we must carry out the Christian life is lost, and I took the trouble to do a personal translation, of how I would write it, and forgive the pretensions. This is the Lion of Juda version, you know there is a Reina Vallera version, etc., for you to listen to. I tried to stay as faithful as possible to the original grammar as I could discern it, in the limited study that I was able to do with aids, of this. And it says rather like this, the Apostle continues in this way “... the one who distributes liberally; the one who presides, with request; and I would say like this: “...love, without hypocrisy, hating what is bad, clinging to what is good. In brotherly love, affectionate, affectionate; as for honor, putting one another before; as for diligence, not slothful; as for the spirit, fervent. When the opportunity arises, serving; in hope, rejoicing; in tribulation, resisting; in prayer, constant; in the needs of the saints, sharing; in hospitality, practicing it”.

So there's really this idea of: Hey, this is what you guys have to do, this is how you relate to each other. We are going to leave the decorations and we are going to what we came for, the bread, bread and the wine, wine. The word of the Lord is very direct, brothers. This is the way we have to live the Christian life, this is the way we have to relate to one another. It's beautiful, that way, that style that the Lord gave it. When God tells you to do something, do it. When you have to express an attitude, just express it. There is no need to be making excuses, but we must obey the Lord in the way we should treat one another. If we don't treat ourselves like this, we are in disobedience and our life is on trial.

What many people do not understand is that, brothers, that when God tells us; treat your brother in that way, if we don't do it like this we are sinning against God and ourselves, as well as sinning against our brother, and our life falls into judgment before the Lord and we are at a disadvantage. We have no alternative, we have to serve the Lord as God commands.

Always the mind of the Apostle Paul goes towards love, because love is like love encompasses everything. The Apostle Paul says, first of all, Lion of Juda Congregation, the love that you express to one another is, how? No pretense, so you have to love each other, we have to love each other. The original word in the Greek is fascinating, it's anupocritos. What word sounds there, hypocrisy. The idea "an" is a negative prefix, without hypocrisy. That's where the word hypocrisy comes from. Love be without hypocrisy. That is powerful. You see sometimes how good it is to understand the original because there are passages of Scripture that if one can go back to the original language, it is filled with meaning. It says: Lion of Juda Congregation, when you express love between yourselves, be without hypocrisy. Parents, when you express love to your children, be without hypocrisy. Husbands, when you express love to one another, let it be without hypocrisy.

The word the Apostle Paul uses is agape. The agape, the love that you manifest is without hypocrisy. Brothers, why is what the Apostle Paul says so important? Because love is the most beautiful thing of all the emotions that the human being can express, but many times it is colored and contaminated with other lower emotions. The Bible says, let's purify our love. Do you know that you and I need to purify our love? Our love is like gold contaminated with other metals and that love has to be subjected to the fire of the Lord in order to purify itself and rid itself of those lesser substances that affect and impoverish the gold of our love. When we enter the kingdom of God, God initiates a purification process of our love so that our love becomes more and more like the love of Jesus Christ and all our sufferings and adjustments and sufferings and struggles and experiences, God designs them to end. that our love is more and more like the love of Jesus Christ, because brothers, it is so easy to love out of interest.

The Apostle Paul says in the previous passage that “he who distributes should do so liberally, and the word was aplotes, which means with simplicity. It says that the person who distributes should do it with liberality and we said that liberality means with simplicity. When you share with someone that you do it in a simple way, not looking for how to get something out, or doing it with an ulterior motive, but when you share something from your life, do it with simplicity. Then forget who you gave to, just like a child gives, with that ease, with that simplicity. The idea was that when we give, when we give to someone, when we share something, be it a word of encouragement, be it money, whatever it is, we do it with simplicity. Well, here I believe that the Apostle Paul is saying something very similar. Because, brothers, many times the love of husband to wife is tinged with personal interest. I love her so that she gives me this, gives me that, takes care of me, cleans my clothes, cooks my food, this or that. She loves him, because he is a good money earner, a good provider, she marries him so that he protects her and takes care of her, because she immediately sees the big house and the luxurious car, she doesn't see him, he sees a car in front of him.

When we love we have to ask the Lord; Father help me to love in a vacuum, in a sense, to love not because he is pretty, or because he lifts weights and has firm muscles, or because he has a lot of money, or because he has a good sense of humor and is a people person, to love for love , to love because there is something that comes out of us and that we need to be with that person. In the good and in the bad, in sickness or in health, in poverty or in wealth. Love has to be there always, and we cannot walk with secret motivations, with hypocrisy.

Brothers, let us ask the Lord; Father help me to love as you love us. The word of God says that Christ, even when we were mired in our sins, came into the world to die for us. God sent it, when we were not kind and we did not deserve God to love us, God loved us so much that he gave his son for us, that is agape love, it is the love of God.

He says that your love is pure, don't mix it with all the crap of personal desire and personal gain and manipulation and oppression and that the other does this and that, and that he doesn't have or doesn't give you or he doesn't tell you, brothers, God says that your love be unmixed, that your love be pure, as much as possible. Love as God loves. Love freely, without interest. That is the love that we have to have with each other.

Brothers, that you love the yellow, the white and the black that is different from you. Love because he is different from you, don't love because he is the same as you. When we invite someone to our house, let's not invite him because he can give me something in return, let's invite him simply because love tells you, invite that person. With that simple love, that pure love of the Lord.

I ask the Lord, Lord help us to love like an angel, purify my love. Why don't we lower our heads now. Let's ask the Lord right now: Lord remove all impurities. We are going to leave it there. I am going to show my love to you by not boring you into too much meditation this morning.

I repent right now in the name of Jesus, of all the impurities that disfigure my love towards my wife, my daughters, my congregation. Sometimes I love those who love me, or those who flatter me, or those who give me. I want to love simply because the image of God is stamped on the lives of the people who come into my life. Purify our love, Lord. Help us to love as Christ loved. Forgive us for the many times in our life that selfishness gets in the way and bad words and hurtful things, Lord, and we do not love properly. Purify my love Lord purify our love, purify our love, Lord this morning. Help us to love as Christ loves, as Christ loved the Church, who gave himself up for her. Thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus. We regret selfishness, we regret when we expect something from people. Thank you Lord Jesus, we adore you, we bless you. Thank you, Christ. Praised and glorified be your name, Lord.