Episode Transcript
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Let's give our attention to God's word. If you're able, please remain standing.
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Let's hear Romans Chapter Twelve. We're
moving on carefully and through this section,
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but I'm going to I'm going to
be focusing on the on verse ten,
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the first part of verse ten,
but let's read nine through thirteen.
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Romans twelve, verse nine. Let
love be genuine, abhor what is evil,
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hold fast to what is good,
love one another with brotherly affection.
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Out Do one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal,
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be fervent in spirit, serve the
Lord, rejoice in hope, be patient
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and tribulation, be constant in prayer, contribute to the needs of the saints
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and seek to show hospitality. Ay
God bless his word to us. Please
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be seated. So, as I
mentioned, the focus for the sermon this
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morning is verse ten, the first
sentence of verse ten, and the English
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Standard version it's translated to love one
another with brotherly affection. If you have
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a different translations you'll see different versa
or different ways of expressing this. It's
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a little bit difficult to translate.
We'll talk about that in a moment,
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but the basic idea is really simple. We're talking about love. We're talking
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about love for the brothers. That's
what really a much of this whole section
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is all about. It begins.
Let love be genuine, sincere love,
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not faked, not pretended, but
love. And here Paul's giving us instructions
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on how we should think about each
other when we come to church on Sunday
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mornings or really any other time of
the week. But let's think about love
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for a moment. In English we
have a collection of words that allow us
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to express different kinds of love,
different loves that we feel and experience.
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Imagine, for example, there's a
young man who meets a young lady at
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Church. He strikes up a conversation. She's good looking, she's fun to
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talk to, she seems interested in
him. They go on a date,
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and another and another and another,
and you get you come up to him
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and you say, Hey, how
are things going? He says they're going
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well, but how well? Do
you ask? And now he has the
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some options right. How is he
going to express how things are going?
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What will he say? Is He
fond of her or is he in love
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with her? Does he highly esteem
her or does he adore her? Is
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he fascinated or captivated? Is he
affectionate or adoring or bewitched? We have
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a lot of fun terms, ways
to describe the ways that we feel.
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These words and many others like them
help us to express our feelings of love,
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help us to express the different kinds
of relationships that we have. Well,
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I point this out to say that
it's the same in Greek. As
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Paul writes here and throughout the New
Testament, he talks about love in different
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ways. Here Paul uses some specific
Greek words to help us understand how you
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and I ought to feel about one
another, but what our relationship is like
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and what are your relationship lot is
like with one another, how we should
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feel towards one another in the church. So what does Paul say? First,
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let me give it to you in
Greek, because I think it'll make
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the explanation easier. Paul says to
be Philostoregu to one another with Phil Philadelphia.
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Okay, he says be philos store, go to one another with Philadelphia.
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Those are our two words to be
thinking about now. You probably recognize
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Philadelphia. It's the name of one
of our great American cities and, as
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you may know, the Greek word
refers to love between brothers or sisters.
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That's why Philadelphia is known as the
city of brotherly love. But the word
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Philadelphia wasn't just restricted to blood brothers. Indeed, a city could be filled
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with that kind of love, and
we know from ancient inscriptions that the Greeks
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would use this term to describe any
kind of close family like relationship, even
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if it was outside of the family. So you might say of a you
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might belong to an association or have
membership in some group, and talk about
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these people as and there your relationship
with one another as Philadelphia. You might
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call them a brother or sister,
or call someone even a mother or a
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father in their relationship with the group. Now Paul uses the word in this
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way because he wants us to think
about this in this way. With the
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church. There are lots of differences
that we have between us. Some of
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us are related, we come here
as families, but we are many ways
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not related to one another, no
family connections. And yet he wants us
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to think of think about each other
as brothers. The love that we are
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to have for each other is like
the love of two siblings. We are
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to think about each other is being
close related, cut from the same cloth,
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even though we may have only recently
met. We don't know what the
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other person's favorite sports team is yet, we don't know what method of schooling
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they prefer. All of that sort
of goes by the wayside when we find
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out someone is a Christian, a
brother, a sister. Well, in
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the deficition to Philadelphia, Paul uses
a second word to strengthen our understanding of
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the family bond that we share in
Christ Philo storego. Now this word is
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not a noun, but it's it's
a participle. For you grammar of fiends,
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and it's functioning like a command,
like a verb, and sometimes translated
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heartfelt affection, and the ESV translates
that way. Translate its translates it that
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way. But really it's much more. It's much more than tender affection or
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heart affection. There's a classic article
by BB Warfield. You can find it
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online. It's called the terminology of
love and the New Testament. It's very
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good. What he shows there is
that Philistorgo or Phil Storegu or it's related
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words, has this kind of family
meaning. It's often used of a love
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that is natural and obligator or in
the closest of social bonds. So,
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for example, it's sometimes used in
a way to speak of a mother's love
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for her child or a father's love
for his child. It's a kind of
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love that you expect to be there
because of the relationships and your surprised when
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it's absent. So, for example, when Isaiah says can a woman forget
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her nursing child, that she should
have no compassion on the son of her
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womb, the point is that it's
not just that the child is weak and
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needy, but that it's hers.
How could she forget because it's her child?
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There's a natural loving obligation in that
relationship. Or, as Warfield puts
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it, it's not the word Phillistore
Goo is not precisely the strength or tenderness
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of love, but rather it's meaning
is found in its obligatoryiness, in its
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natural necessity under circumstances. This is
the term for love which cements social units
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together. It is the love which
is due from people one to another in
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those kinds of relationships. So when
Paul Rides be Phillistore Gu with one another,
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it or be Phillistore Goo to one
another, with Philadelphia. What does
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he mean, essentially Paul saying that
Christians are to love each other like brothers
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and sisters who not only feel a
loving fair, a loving association, but
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also a loving obligation. There's a
kind of natural connection that he wants us
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to feel together. These are family
members. We don't just relate to one
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another because we're similar, because there
are as great similarities, but there's obligation
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and duty, not just in a
kind of dry and boring way, but
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in a loving, loving way.
Sometimes young couples wonder will the Magic Go
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Away? How could I be committed
to someone thirty, forty, fifty years
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from now? What happens when our
interests change? What happens when the SKIN
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STARTS TO SAG? What happens when
our lifestyles and our circumstances change? How
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can we still be in love?
Because some in relationships are entered into because
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we love other really other times we
love because of the relationship. A man
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loves his wife because she's his wife. He has no other, he wants
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no other. She belongs to him
and he belongs to her. She is
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his love, he is her love. Parents and children, all kinds of
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examples you can think of. There's
nothing dry, there's nothing boring about that.
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It's wonderfully romantic, it's wonderful and
it's that kind of obligation and natural
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connections, cemented together with love,
that we are to be thinking about when
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we walk through the doors of the
church in the morning. We say,
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who are these people that I'm going
to see? I'm going to see my
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brothers be loving toward one another,
have that kind of heartfelt tenderness, family
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tenderness and connection to one another with
brotherly love. I think it's worth saying
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this idea is not just found here, but you find it out the Bible.
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Just focusing on the New Testament.
Listen to a few verses, Galatians
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Thirteen. For you are called to
freedom, brothers only. Do not use
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your freedom as an opportunity to for
the flesh, but, through love,
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serve one another or relation or a
hebrews thirteen one. Let brotherly love continue.
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First, Peter One hundred and twenty
two, having purified your souls by
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your obedience to the truth for a
sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly
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and from a pure heart. That's
Peter saying very much what Paul says about
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genuine love. Sincere love for the
brothers. Or listen to these strong words
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from John and First John Twenty.
If anyone says I love God and hates
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his brother, he is a liar, for he does not love his brother,
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whom he for. He who does
not love his brother, whom he
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has seen, cannot love god,
whom he has not seen. Over and
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over and over again, this family
language, family imagery, is used,
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the commands we read over and over. In fact, they're so common perhaps
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you've forgotten about them in a way, perhaps they've sort of slipped under the
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radar or faded into the background.
Is just part of the texture of the
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New Testament that we assume. But
here we focus it on the on it
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this morning is Paul draws our attention
to it. Love one another with brotherly
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affection, think about one another that
way, those ways. It's a good
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moment to stop up and ask ourselves, do we think about one another in
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this way and if we don't,
how might we more one way is thinking
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about the basis on which all of
this is true. Paul's not just throwing
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out terms or speaking in a overly
romantic way to kind of drum up support
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for the cause. He's talking about
a reality. We are brothers because we
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are brothers, we are sisters and
brothers and siblings with one another, because
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that's the truth. Why is that
the truth? Because we share a father.
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We read in God's word that it's
in Jesus Christ that we have become
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sons of God. Through faith,
when we believe in Jesus Christ, we
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become sons of God, adopted but
still owning and having to us all the
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rights of Sonship, all the rights
of belonging, and we have the right
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to know God and to call him
our father, who are in heaven.
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We belong to God through the Lord
Jesus Christ, through Jesus is work on
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the Cross, By God sending His
only Begotten Son, This Eternally Begotten Son.
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He has brought all of us into
this family. That's a reality.
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That's something that has happened in time
and space. Jesus Christ bought US and
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brought us into the family of God, and when we put our faith in
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him, we're no longer strangers and
aliens and children of Wrath, as Paul
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says in Ephesians. We become sons
and daughters of God. So Ephesians fought
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one five in love, he predestined
us for adoption to himself as sons through
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Jesus Christ, according to the purpose
of his will. And again, to
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refer to the Lord's prayer, remember
that Jesus doesn't sell us to pray my
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father, who are in heaven,
though that's certainly true. He says,
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pray our father. We're brothers because
we belong to one another. We are
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under this same father. And how
we came to share in the father is.
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Is this most precious truth. First, John Three one. See what
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kind of love the father has given
to us that we should be called children
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of God. And so we are
love the way John Puts that, beloved.
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We are God's children now, and
what we will be has not that
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appeared, but we know that when
he appears, we shall be like him,
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because we shall see him as he
is. Why shall we be like
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Jesus? Because he's our brother,
he's we are being made into his image,
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we are being brought into the family. Now some people may still want
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to protest this. They mays want
to say, well, I can see
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that we may have similar births,
that we might be associated to with one
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another, but can we go so
far as to talk about obligation. We
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can. One reason is because the
nature of the family of God is in
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some ways different from the nature of
our families here on earth. When my
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brother and I grew up together,
we live together for a time, but
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the ultimate goal was in some ways
to separate, to go out and become
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our own men, establish our own
families. We still keep in contact and
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in some ways we're even closer now
than we were when we were kids,
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which I thank God for, because
we weren't very close as kids. But
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Anyway, my point is is that
there's a way in which we which,
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in our human families, we separate
right brothers and sisters tend to spread out,
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not always but sometimes. But as
Christians there's no sort of next step.
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As sons and daughters of God,
we are eternally in this position,
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eternally children of the heavenly father and
therefore eternally brothers and sisters to one another
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in the household of God. Our
goal is not to gain independence from our
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father and become fathers on our own. Our goal is to me remain ever
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dependent children. That's a good thing. In the family of God, of
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course we want to grow up in
maturity and strength and all of that.
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But in this relationship sense we will
always, always, always, always,
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have God as our father, watching
over us, taking care of us some
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of us, some of us have
good fathers, some of us have bad
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fathers, some of us have deceased
fathers, but God is eternally good and
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eat and always an eternally living.
He's a father who will always be our
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father, and that means that we
will always be siblings. Our goal is
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not to go off and become independent
from one another, but to grow up
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together forever in this family, and
that creates a kind of obligation, a
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living to with one another, a
striving together under the Lord God. A
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second reason it has to go as
far as obligation is that the union we
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share with one another is not merely
relational, but it's spiritual. The Holy
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Spirit who unites us to Christ also
unites us with one another. So that
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means to break our bond with one
another or to deny it is to cut
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the cord of life. That's why
John Speaks in such strong terms. You
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can't say I'm born of God and
I hate my brother. They simply don't
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work. It's like saying a hand
is a part of the body that is
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cut off from the body. It
just doesn't work that way. The Union
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that we have with Christ through the
Holy Spirit is the same spirit that unifies
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us together in the bond of love. Our obligation extends to one another,
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because there's no life with Christ that
excludes his people, that excludes his body,
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that excludes his church. Now,
sure, some people resist this,
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but they resist reality. Branches of
a tree might pretend to be independent of
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one another, but they're not.
And one final reason why we're obligated to
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one another is the pattern of the
very son of God, the pattern of
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Jesus. His Bond of love toward
us must be present between us, because
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that's the pattern, that's the path
that he is set. Again, turning
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to first John, chapter three,
see what kind of love the father has
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given to us that we should be
called the children of God, and so
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we are. The reason why the
world does not know us is that it
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did not know him. Beloved.
We are God's children now, and what
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we will be has not yet appeared. John goes on to say that it's
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because of the Lord Jesus Christ and
what he came to do for us,
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because of his dying on the cross
because of his giving of his love in
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this way, that we should in
turn go and love brothers in the same
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way. How can you, who
is who have received this sonship with God
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through Jesus, now go and treat
your brothers and sisters in this poor way?
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I say all this in such a
strong way so that you have this
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lens that you can just drop in
front of your eyes when you walk through
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the front doors of the church,
when you're waking up in the morning and
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thinking about what it is you are
going to do, that you can have
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rightly set in your mind this biblical
framework that when we come together, we
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come together as a family. Now, sometimes that's great. We love being
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together as a family. We sit
down, we eat, we share,
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we laugh, we can lean on
one another, we can cry on one
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another, we can support one another
in difficult times. Other Times it's our
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real pain. It's a real difficulty
to deal with people you're stuck with that
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you don't like and are unfair and
they're mean and I'm noxious. But you
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know what, isn't it true that
a lot of our sanctification comes not by
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being alone, by ourselves, meditating
on a pillow somewhere in the forest,
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but by bumping up against one another. Is it true that we really learn
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patients not when we're all by ourselves, sitting quietly, but when we're dealing
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with someone WHO's trying us? Isn't
it true that we learn love when someone's
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not very lovable, that we learn
kindness and hospitality with people that are difficult
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to be hospitable with? Now,
of course, right now you're thinking about
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all those other people, but remember
you are sometimes the difficult person. You
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are sometimes the difficult person to host
and to get along with and to be
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generous to and all kinds of other
things. It's true, isn't it?
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But that's in some ways okay,
because we have a bond that goes beyond
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momentary circumstances and sometimes even see whole
seasons of life. In Christ we have
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a bond that is eternal and cemented
by the Holy Spirit, he himself,
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and in that way we can look
on people and people can look on us
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in difficult times, in trying times, and we stick together, we work
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through it, we work it out, not because we're merely associated with one
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another, but because there's brotherly love, sisterly love, heavenly love. Let's
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pray together, ask that God would
help us to grow closer to one another,
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that he'd pour out his spirit on
us, that we might be one.
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Let us pray
