Devoted to One Another

Morning. Our reading from God's word today comes from Romans chapter 12, verses one and two, and then we'll skip to verses nine to 21. Romans 12. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Now to verse nine. 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 honour. 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 honourable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live at peace. For I believe 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. Reading today came from Romans 12. Romans 12 represents a significant shift in Paul's letter to the church at Rome.

Paul's just spent 11 chapters of his letter to the Romans giving them some of his best theology. They're all about doctrines and beliefs that they need to know and trust in. But he's not so naive as to think that his theology, even if they choose to believe it, is going to change them, is going to transform them, is going to lead to any practical outcomes that will change their behaviours. And so at the beginning of this new section of his letter, in the opening verses that Clinton just read to us, Paul says in the words of the NIV, the New International Version, I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The kind of transformation that Paul has in mind here is about a change of mind, a change of attitude that leads to changes in our behaviours. This happens as we follow Him, as we prepare to live sacrificial lives, a living sacrifice says Paul. As we do that, as individuals, but also in community, in our families and in our church community as well. Real change, so it seems, only happens in the context of relationships, in relationships with one another.

Notice the strength of that throughout this chapter, in chapter 12. We didn't read it, but the next few verses that Paul uses in his opening of this particular chapter are about the body of Christ, about the church, and our part in it. But now to our text this morning, and Paul has just three things to say. How convenient. Three points for a sermon.

He talks to us about transformation that happens inside a community. Our belief, he suggests, has spin offs, consequences actually. They really do produce a change in attitude, a change in character, and they come to us through Christian practices or spiritual disciplines when they're lived out in community. In our text this morning, we can see the family love of the Christian community and how to action it, and then its ultimate source. Three points.

Family love in the Christian community, how to action it, and the ultimate source. First of all, the family love of community. In verses nine and ten, love must be sincere. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good, be devoted to one another in brotherly love. There are three words here, all different, in the original Greek translation, but all of our translations translate them into our one English word, love.

We can read the verse this way. Agape love must be sincere. Hate what is evil. Cling to what is good. Philostorgos love to one another.

In Philadelphia love. And there you have it. Three Greek words all referencing our one English word to love. Now there is a fourth word in Greek, but it's not used here or anywhere else in the scriptures for that matter. It's the word eros.

Eros refers to sexual love and doesn't even occur in the New Testament. None of the writers use it because it has an association with pagan behaviour in the unbelieving world. But here in these three verses, verses nine and ten, sorry, two verses, Paul uses the other three words. Briefly, the first word agape is a word that I trust many of us are familiar with. It's the word that's usually used to refer to God's love and for the love that Christians have for God and for one another.

We might describe it as a self sacrificing kind of love. It's a very generous love. It sees no merit or virtues in the person being loved because it's coming from a higher source within the individual who is doing the loving. Agape love, says Paul, must be sincere. And then the last reference to love, that Philadelphia love, the word philo meaning love combined with the word brother.

Brotherly love. To be identified as a brother or sister takes us back to one of the pictures that Paul has for the church, takes us back to a family where children grow up under a father and a mother. The middle Greek word for love is the one we're going to focus on this morning and it's a fascinating word. It adds strength to this picture of a family and again it's a combination of two different Greek words, philo and storgos. Storgos is often translated as fondness, devotion or affection.

And together the word means lovingly bonded, lovingly connected. In the King James version, be kindly affectioned to one another. In the ESV, the version that Quentin read from a moment ago, love one another with brotherly affection. And in the words of the NIV, be devoted to one another. They're all the same word, philostorgos.

Now what he's saying here is that you and I should experience some sense of family bonding. If you understand the gospel, if you're a Christian in church this morning, if you have the right belief system, chapters one through 12, then you will be bonded to one another. Of the three words for our English word love, agape, storgos and philo, storgos is different and let me tell you why. Agape and philo require some strength or some merit either in the lover or the lovee, that is to say the person giving the love or the person receiving the love. So for example, agape requires a certain selflessness on the part of the lover.

It's the ability you have to love sacrificially even as Jesus loved us and that implies a strength or a virtue in you or me. In philo love it requires some attraction, something strong, something mutually felt by both parties, something that merits your love one for another. But storgos love is different. Originally it is said that it meant the love of a mother for her infant, the love of an infant for its mother.

It was described as a kind of automatic, natural, instinctive, deep bond. This thing called storgos love. It's like biological, you might say, hormonal even. It's not even rational or volitional. That's the strength of the word storgos here.

It doesn't discriminate. Friends and lovers will say they are made for each other, but storgos is a bond between those who are most certainly not made for each other. Storgos love means that if you and I were not in the church community we would likely never have anything ever to do with one another. Perhaps you would never choose the people seated around you in church this morning to be your friends, much less to be devoted to them. Think of a family in this respect.

I'm familiar with a TV family that was very popular, I think in the seventies and the eighties. You might recall the Brady Bunch, the original blended family. Always happy, always smiling. Well, that's not the strength of this word storgos love.

We're not at all like the Brady Bunch. Reality means that life in a family is not always pleasant. For a start, siblings don't always get along with one another. Occasionally, teenagers might have an issue with their parents. Sometimes.

Husbands and wives don't always agree with one another, neither do they see eye to eye on everything. And if it were up to you and me, there are times when we would say, I would have never chosen to belong to this family, the family I'm growing up in. But this thing called storgos is there. It exists and there are people devoted to you. There are people who you are bonded to, and so you love them anyway.

Teenagers can feel this way about their family. It happens when they grow and they assert their independence, you know, and they say things like, hey mum and dad, I'm not a child anymore. And yet parents demonstrate storgos love more than ever, and for sure, the law says they are yours until they are 18 years old. But parents and even grandparents want to remain involved.

They're devoted. That is storgos love, even if the kids don't quite get it. Now Paul's not talking about a regular family. What he has in mind here is the church family, or a small group maybe that is operating within the church family.

That group is not a club. In a club you get together for a particular reason, you only have contact with each other for that reason. So let's just say that the new sign in front of the church says Open House Birdwatchers Club. And if you or I are in a birdwatchers club, well, you want to talk about birds, don't you? That's what you do when you get together.

And you can talk to each other freely about birds. But if you belong to a birdwatchers club and somebody comes up to you and says, what are you dating him for? Or why are you going out with her? Or he's not good for you? Or she's not good for you?

You're going to say something like, excuse me, that's none of your business. Let's talk about birds, please. Okay? Fair enough? But in a family, who you go out with, what you spend your money on, your choice of study, a career, your business, your job, all those things are not off limits.

In a family you talk about such things. The simple fact of the matter is this, that Christians around you are brothers and sisters and they have storgos love. They're devoted to you and me. And consequently, who you choose to go out with, how you are spending your money, what you do at work or on your days off. Of course, there has to be a certain amount of privacy that we have even inside of a family, but there is a limit to our privacy.

Why is this verse there in verse nine? Hate what is evil. Cling to what is good. And Paul says that in the midst of a discussion about living in community, about relationships in community and in family. You see Christians are supposed to be holding each other accountable for the truth and if they don't then they're not loving.

Don't love someone by letting them do something wrong. To have brothers and sisters around you means they have a claim on you and it means you can say to them hate what is evil, cling to what is good, and do that in every area of their life. Look at another verse, verse 13. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

That's us. That's the church family. That's what it means to live in community and in a small group. Storgos happens when you can say, though he or she is not my kind of person, she really is a good person. She really is good in her own way, and when you can say that about another brother or sister you know you've crossed the line and you've exercised the degree of spiritual maturity that is about being devoted to one another.

Storgos love. There's a line from C.S. Lewis, and it gets to the point when he said this famously, dogs and cats should be brought up together because it broadens their mind. Dogs and cats should be brought up together because it broadens their minds. The church then, including our own community, has to be marked by an incredible lack of snobbishness. We can become an incredible group of diverse and challenging people.

People of different temperaments, races, classes, age groups, bank accounts, and personal taste in whatever way they manifest. Because we have this thing working among us called philostorgos. Point two, the call to action. In the middle of this passage about being church family comes this very interesting exhortation. Verse 11.

Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord. Now if those words were somewhere else in the Bible, you might think that in some general way we should be all keeping our spiritual fervor. You know, we might say things like, we're staying pumped for the gospel or we're keeping our vitality or we're trying to stay enthusiastic about our faith. But these words are here in the middle of a section about brotherly love and in the middle of being bonded as a church family. So what this means is that what the Bible says about our relationships with one another means that often you'll find yourself exhausted, worn out, absolutely tired, emotionally drained, tired, even drawn to tears.

Consider verse 15 also in the same section, rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn. This is actually saying that we need to engage with one another to the point where we can identify emotionally with one another. It goes that deep to the point that whatever is happening to someone else affects you and me and in fact all of us. Notice the order. Rejoice with those who rejoice before we mourn with those who mourn.

And I think that order is intentional because rejoicing with those who rejoice is a lot harder. Have you ever thought about that? Like, for example, what if someone among us gets the job, gets the work, gets the new girlfriend or new boyfriend, has the baby or the grandchild, has the blessing of this or that happen to them, but not you? It's not happening in your family. You've never experienced it.

It's much harder to rejoice with Christian brothers and sisters who are doing better than you. I'm sure Quentin would love to have prayer points in the weekly bulletin that are a cause for celebration each week about the things that can call us to give thanks on our knees to God. Important as that is, more often than not, it's all too easy to come in at the morning level consistently, all the time, weeping with those who weep. And we think we're pretty good at that. It's the reason we have prayer points in the bulletin, isn't it?

So we can start weeping. You know there are people who consider themselves to be professional mourners. According to one website, you can actually hire professional mourners. And just when you thought you didn't have any friends, you can have them turn up at your funeral and make people believe that you really were that popular. According to one website, for forty-five dollars an hour, fake mourners can be rented to cry for the duration of the funeral service in order to swell the numbers.

That's not what Paul's talking about. What Paul has in mind is going to cost you emotionally, psychologically, relationally. In a balanced, healthy Christian family or in a thriving small group, we need both. We need the joy of celebrating with one another as well as the weeping of tears for one another. Consider what that costs you.

I know in a family it can cost. Only parents know how much energy that might involve. Loving, storgos love, demands a consistent devotion to our children at every level, spiritually, physically, emotionally, and relationally. Parents continue to love even when the bedroom door is slammed shut in your face. In our church family, we know that storgos love costs.

Our spiritual brothers and sisters, some of whom were our own leaders, have left us. They've resigned. They've walked away from us. And we mourn. And we should mourn.

It should bring us to their knees knowing how much they loved us and lived and worshipped and served among us. Storgos love. Family, whether we're talking a natural family or a church family or even a small group, we remain devoted with brotherly love. Therefore Paul says it's a wake up call. It's a matter of perspective.

Keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord. Remember what you do to these, you do as unto the Lord. Serve Him. Think about what might happen in a typical family. Parents who are lazy, parents who are burnt out, parents who have run out of energy.

They come to realise that their children are like a garden, really. Left to themselves, they grow up wild. They become feral. They go rogue. They're full of weeds without any pruning.

And it's a similar thing in a church family. Elders and those who lead small groups will know how much energy is required to invest in people. But it is how we are changed. It is how we are transformed. It is how we become those living sacrifices that Paul mentions right at the beginning of the chapter and it is how we do life together.

Now lastly, what's the source? Where do we get this kind of love? When any one of us says we are a family, we say that essentially because we're bonded together by blood and the advice we usually give to newlyweds is, or those about to be married is, that blood is thicker than water. So you don't want your family to become come between you and your partner. So at one level, it's blood that functions as the family tie that will keep us together.

And I wonder about that. There's a place in Proverbs, Proverbs 18, that actually says, An offended brother is more unyielding than a fortified city and disputes are like the barred gates of a citadel. The point being the offended brother or sister is harder to win back than even a well protected, well armed, well fortified city or the locked gates of a castle. So we need our beliefs. We need our doctrines.

We need our common convictions about the gospel. But more than that, we need someone. We need someone to bond us, to unite us more so than any human family can ever do. What we all need is more than a rallying cry from the pulpit or a preacher who's standing in front of you this morning with his fingers crossed hoping for the best and some good outcomes. We need more.

Mark chapter 3. We have Jesus saying something on record that is absolutely amazing. At that point in His life, His brothers were against Him. Even His own mother was against Him. His family had turned on Him and they were His blood, remember?

And there were those in the crowd who said to Him, what are you gonna do about that? And in verse 35, Mark chapter 3, Jesus gets up and says, whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother. Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother. It's that person, the doer of God's will, he or she is my family says Jesus. You know what Jesus is saying here?

He's saying blood has failed you. The human family has failed you. The church family has failed you. But I have something I have something I can give you. The storgos love, that unconditional intimate bond that you are looking for.

I can give you that. What is it? Well, here it is. Through the gospel, we've come to Jesus. We've come to His blood that was poured out for us on the cross.

Think about it for a moment. Jesus came to His own and His own received Him not. Jesus was denied. He was betrayed. He was handed over to death by His own brothers and sisters.

But today, His blood, His death and dying on the cross unites us, causes us to be family, causes us to have storgos love. Jesus did it voluntarily. He did it as our substitute. He came to pay all the penalties for our failures at loving one another. All of our selfishness, all of our stress, all of our pride, He came to pay the penalty with the blood that you and I are guilty of spilling.

Have you ever spilt human blood? Didn't Jesus say in the Sermon on the Mount, anyone who's angry with his brother is guilty of committing murder against him? Humble yourself even for a moment and think about the ways you failed to be a brother or sister even to your own natural family. And then think of the ways you failed to be a brother or sister to the people who are around you in this room this morning. And let that change you and me.

That is how our belief has consequences, in fellowship, in community. And that's the way we're changed, by the renewing of our minds, says Paul. Only His blood is grace for us. His blood demands that our Father in heaven forgive you and me. And we have that love.

And for that reason, we're bonded, we're devoted to one another. We are one spiritual family. You are my brother or sister in the Lord. In one of the most powerful descriptions of God's love in the Bible, God says this from Isaiah. Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has born?

Though she may forget, I will not forget you. See, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands. And what's God saying? He says, consider a nursing mother looking after her newborn child. It's storgos love.

It's biological. It's hormonal. It's not even rational or volitional, but it's strong. It's powerful. Right?

And yet, that's nothing compared to My love for you. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you that family was your idea from the beginning, that you created men and women to live in fellowship with you and any children you would give them. We thank you for families. Thank you that to some extent we're all part of a natural earthly family.

But we thank you more this morning for the creation of a church family and a real community. Because of what we believe and because of faith and because of Jesus, we confess that we are in relationship with one another. Help us, therefore, as brothers and sisters, as family members together, we pray. We know that we have not always been what we should be or could be, but we thank you that by reading your word, we can see what we one day will be. Help us to put that into practice, we pray, more and more so, and especially at this time in our own history.

We thank you for the love and the experience of being in community throughout many years gone by. We trust ourselves to your love and your care in community for the years yet to come. And we ask, Lord, that you would help us to live this out by the power of your Holy Spirit under the guidance of your word. And in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.