Romans 12:9-21
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.
mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Back in June, we began a sermon series on the book of Romans. And Paul has been, we've been walking through what Paul has to say over this time. It begins with a message about the grace of God, that we are saved not by following God's law. We're saved by grace, through faith on account of Christ, and that no human being can ever please God by doing anything. Then it moves to the question that obviously follows that, if we're saved by grace, what do we do with our behavior? Right? Can we do whatever we feel like? Paul says, No. He tells us that in our baptisms, we died with Christ and rose with him, so that we have a new life, a new nature in Christ, so that we can walk in, in love forever. That section ends in Romans chapter eight, where St. Paul declares the amazing promises of God, that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, not even death itself. So it leads to another question. If nothing can separate us from God's promises through Jesus, what do we do with God's chosen people from the Old Testament? The Jews? Paul's answer for that is that the faith has always been passed down by the word of God, that people have always taken it up of their own, that there is no genetic relationship to the faith, even in Judaism. And so, we get to Romans chapter 12, where St. Paul calls the Christian church, a body, bound together by the body and blood of Jesus, bound together in love created by him, both here in this place, with this union that we have, and with all Christians all over the world. And so he says, 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. His words go on. As he sort of mentioned, it's kind of like a grab bag of good things that Christians should be doing. There's a whole lot there. And if we wanted to be here all day, I could talk about each and every one of them. Good thing we have all day, right? You don't mind a four or five hour sermon. Someone out there wanted I like it. Now, instead of nailing down each and every one of these, what I like to do is talk about the love of God at work. Because I see the love of God at work in lots of different people. I don't think I as a pastor have to point my finger at you and say, be loving. Why? Because the love of God comes to you through Christ. And the power of the Holy Spirit makes you want to love. That is simply how God's grace works. It is not something I have to threaten you for. It's not something I have to shake my fist and pound on the podium, like some old school German preacher. This is what happens when Jesus Christ comes to his people. He puts love in your hearts and makes you like him. And it's what I see all around us. Paul explains it in Romans six. When he says we were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Being connected to Christ by baptism, united with Him in His death and resurrection means that you have his love. Second Corinthians chapter five that says something similar. For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died. And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him, who for their sake, died and was raised To make it short, we could say what John says, We love because he first loved us. And so today, what I'd like to do is encourage you to live out that love by talking about the many stories of God's love in action that I've seen in this congregation over the last. What is it 19 months that I've been here now, still pretty new. So I probably have missed a few. The first I'd like to talk about is the love that Kristin and I feel here. I have to admit, I have never felt loved and supported, like I do in this congregation. You might I might be struggling here. It began, the moment we got here, Christian and I spent three or I forget how many days driving across country from Chicago all the way to California. We went along the southern route, so we got to see a whole lot of flat. My parents drove the giant U haul truck. Kristin and I drove our itty bitty car with a bike on the back. And we got here and 20 or so people were standing in our driveway. We were here ready to unload that giant truck. And we're like, okay, it's gonna take a few hours, we can do it. Sweaty, hot. Here we go. And it took 20 minutes. In fact, it was they unloaded so fast that I didn't get a chance to tell them where all the stuff went. They were it was too much. You didn't do that? Because you knew us. You didn't do that. Because you thought Kristen was so amazing. You did it because you love God. Because you love his word. Because you were happy to have a pastor. Even more importantly for us, was what Warren Did you remember Warren Goodrich? Well, maybe you do. Maybe you don't some of you knew him well. I live in his house, or what was his house. And when he died, he donated a whole ton of money to the congregation that allowed us to continue living in California. Without him, that would have been a big question mark. And without you putting up just a little extra money to make that happen. That would have been a question mark for us. And the love and support that we felt. And the investment that you made in us is overwhelming. And you did it not because you think I'm amazing. You didn't do it. Because Kristen is an awesome triathlon coach. You did it because you love Jesus. Because you care about his word, and you want it to be proclaimed to you. That's what the Holy Spirit does. And a group of people in a congregation. I see it also in the many people who make our congregation function. Like I said, I've only been here just short, just shy of two years. So I might not know all of the amazing things that people do. And I'm, I'm going to do some listing here, which means I'm going to miss someone. But know that there's a lot of people who work behind the scenes to make our congregation function. A lot of people who show up during the week. Nobody knows they're here. And they do a number of things. The gardeners who trim away every Wednesday morning and I go up and I try to distract them by talking about all sorts of other things. And they hand me their their grass clippings and their stuff to go in my compost pile. There's our sound people who sit in the back and you don't see them. But make sure that you can hear every Sunday. The people who come in on Wednesdays to put together the slideshows that you see are people who change the lightbulbs. Count the offerings rehearse in our ensembles. People who write notes and answer emails, or even just the prayer list. The Board of Directors the board of elders are quilters. We never see them. When we put out our prayer quilts. They're not standing behind the table going look at me, right
There are so many people who make our congregation function who work without thanks. And we can only gather here together today because they are all behind the scenes making it happen. sharing the love of Jesus. And it's joyful, and wonderful. And here's what happens when Christ comes with His Holy Spirit, to work in the hearts of God's people. So that they do it with joy. Not out of compulsion. Another story, we had a funeral here not too long ago. As sad as it was, I looked and I saw something joyful in that. I've done many funerals back in Chicago for elderly people. Usually what happens is you get just this small group of family, you know, the kids and a couple of grandkids, about 20 people in the pews. Often quite sad, actually. Pretty rare where I come from, for congregation members to come to funerals like that. Which is why it's so amazing when I came here, and I saw a pretty packed house. I saw people who hadn't seen him in a while, but loved him nonetheless, who came here to remember our dearly departed loved one, and support the family. This is what happens when Jesus Christ binds his people together as a body when they come together in love, when the body of blood of Jesus Christ that we take together makes us one. We show that kind of love and support. And it's joyful. And it's wonderful. And I give thanks to God, but you're a congregation that does that. One of the reasons that I decided to come here is another example of the joy and the love of God at work. It's the moms at 2911. But those of you who might not know or need a reminder, 2911 is a maternity home that welcomes in moms who need housing, and all sorts of help during it through their pregnancy and beyond. And this congregation offered up the house that's on our property as a place for them. It was the Blue House and then the White House and now it's the maternity home. Right. One of the reasons that convinced me that this was the place to be was that you had done that, that you had offered up that house for almost nothing as a place to care for women, so that they can make the choice to keep their babies alive. So that they could raise their babies in the faith. And even better was what happens on these Wednesday nights when all those moms come in for our soup and suffer our soup and supper worship services. You know, we all have during Advent and Lent, soup and supper and we do a worship service. And the moms come in with all their babies and the noise and it's just great. It's it's so wonderful. And all of a sudden, there are 20 different grandmas who want to pass around baby Asher. Right? You remember baby Asher? cutest little baby on the planet. Right? There was one story one night when Asher was getting passed around, Mom was off eating pass around and one of the other kids little Jason was running around interacting with everybody. And he saw baby Asher in the wrong person's hands. Like this wasn't his mom, and he goes, he's not yours.
But there's so much joy and love welcoming strangers into that congregation. There's so much joy in seeing people passing around babies, welcoming children into our congregation, welcoming the noise and the buzz and all the things that come with it. Because they too, are part of the body of Christ. Because they too are one with us. And you did it with strangers. What a joy. These are the things that Christ does by the power of His Holy Spirit. What he does when he gathers His people around his body and blood, what he does when he he fills us with the spirit and gives us His love. And I think these are the things that can encourage us as we continue to keep going following this path of love St. Paul says Let love be genuine. outdo one another in showing honor. Love one another with brotherly affection. In Jesus name, Amen.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai