The Book of Hebrews- Romans 12:9-13 Devoted to One Another
Romans 12:9-13 · Vern Peterman · Aug 10, 2014
Hebrews, No. 64
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926436341076

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

If you're here this morning, you're apparently not camping. And you may also be asking one other thing. This is part of the Hebrew series. As a matter of fact, Lesson 64 in the Hebrew series. What are we doing in Romans 12, 9 through 13? Wait a minute, I thought we were in Hebrews, right? So this morning's study in Romans is definitely out of order. Just so you know. On Campout Sunday, we cancel all the electives.

And we have a service here and at the camp out. So they've got a service up there. We've got a service up here. And now another old, old tradition that we've just recently begun on Camp Out Sunday is to select a passage that is topically related to the series, but from another book. So now we're in Romans chapter 12. That's how we got here.

This passage is very practical. That is, it's not hypothetical. It is not particularly about position, for instance, in great detail. It's more about our condition. This passage has to do with the mindset and the attitude of believers and the character of interactions among believers. It's largely focused on individual believers as well as the body of Christ.

What's interesting is that there are also no imperatives. Sometimes the English translations come across as if there were. There's actually no imperatives in this passage. There are actually verbs in action. Doing this, doing that. And one other thing to underscore here. This is one of those places where they use the word let. First of all, let is not in the Greek. And also let does not mean allow anywhere in the New Testament. Just so you know. So, do we have an ellipse? No, we have an ellipsis.

The Apostle Paul often wrote with what's called ellipsis, that is, things like verbs left out. He left words out for dramatic effect and for emphasis and also just to try to get some ideas across with brevity. You can imagine Paul being brief. He did that in this passage as well. So the passage is stated as mindsets and attitudes and the character of the interactions with other believers with ellipsis for emphasis, a dramatic pause.

Translators often smooth out the English, which is why you have verbs inserted, which is why you have it looking like an imperative. But what we'll do as we go through it is we'll look at what's the literal translation of each part. And so you'll see what Paul actually wrote as opposed to what the translators put in to smooth out the English.

Let me give you an example of ellipsis from Philippians 4 8 and this is in poetic pattern and shows the ellipsis This is one. You're probably quite familiar with but not in this form Finally brethren, whatever is true, and that's the last use of is Okay Whatever is true, whatever? Honorable, whatever right? whatever pure whatever lovely whatever of good repute If any excellence and if any praise, these things you must reckon, that is, or consider or figure on.

It's the exact same word and form as in Romans 6.11. Typically, this is translated like let your mind dwell on these things, but it's actually calculate it, figure it out, and make a decision.

It's not just sit there and let it hover. Make a decision based on these things. So this is an example of where the Apostle Paul used ellipsis. He dropped out the verb after the first is and just had this kind of dramatic pause in there with the is inserted back by a lot of our translators. Well, that's the case here.

Paul had spent quite a number of chapters on the position and the possessions, things that we have, of the believer, and that we are in Christ and in the Spirit, this is Romans chapter 8, and Christ and the Spirit are in us. What's interesting is Romans chapter 8 and other passages, we put together that the believer is in Christ, and Christ is in the believer, and the believer is in the Spirit, and the Spirit is in the believer, but even though that sounds the same, they don't mean the same thing. It means something different. Additionally, we are in the body of Christ by means of the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12.13 says the Spirit was the agent that placed us into the body of Christ. So these interactions between believers are because the Holy Spirit has placed us into the body of Christ. So the mindsets and the attitudes and actions flow from these things, and not from our own energies.

He's not suggesting that we try our best to pull it off. He's not suggesting that. And by the way, did I mention, let does not mean allow anywhere in the New Testament? Just so you know. Okay. Let's read the first part, and I'll actually kind of break some of the verses up into little parts so that we can see each part.

The English translation here from the New American Standard is, let love be without hypocrisy. And literally, it's the love, comma, sincere. Without hypocrisy, sincere. So the love sincere is a literal translation of those Greek words. Genuine love of the kind that the Apostle Paul here is calling for is an unconditional love that has God as its source. A sincere love is a love that is only unconditional love with God as its source. Anything else is not the infinite, unfathomable love of God.

It falls short. The next part is, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. This is what the English translation says. And by the way, you may be wondering, Vern, you don't have the usual amount of graphics in here. Usually I have more graphics and mooses flying across the screen and things like that. Nancy and I had two power outages last night and so that limited our ability to put time into this thing. And finally came to a choice between graphics and sleep. So I decide to sleep.

So it's the nature of who we are in Christ and who Christ is in us And as we mentioned previously from Romans 8, and we in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit in us to abhor and detest utterly the things that are spiritually and morally harmful. Is the Holy Spirit ever going to just settle with the things that are spiritually and morally harmful? No. Is Christ, is His life in you going to just settle and get comfortable with things that are spiritually and morally harmful? No. So it comes from our position and possessions as believers to detest things that are utterly the evil.

And it's literally that. Detesting utterly the evil. This is the case because a God is a holy and righteous God. That is His infinite and eternal nature. It's the sin nature that is drawn to that which is evil. As we walk in fellowship with God, abhorring evil will follow. So that's why as you look at this, this is not something we try to pull off on our own. We walk in fellowship with the Lord, and the Lord will, from His very character, carry this out. clinging to the good.

Consistent with the testing utterly the spiritually and morally evil things is clinging to the spiritually and morally good. We know what is spiritually and morally evil and good by the Word of God. One of the things that's become popular in this era of charismatic teaching is that people talk about having the gift of discernment or they talk about having a check in their spirit or some such words.

And the reality is it's by the Word of God, that's the measure that we use to determine what is good and evil, not, well it feels woo woo woo, right? None of that. It's not this. It is rather instead the Word of God that is the measure of what is good and evil. It's been revealed to us because God loves us. This calls for discernment on the part of the believer, measuring everything by what is revealed in the Word of God. We measure everything by the Word of God.

Remember the Bereans who were more noble? They even checked out Paul. How did they do it? Word of God. Here's Romans 10a. So a is meaning the beginning of that verse. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love is the translation. Now that sounds like it's an imperative, doesn't it? Be devoted, right? It's not. There isn't any B there, right?

It's again where the English translators have kind of smoothed it out. More literally, the family love to one another as cherished family. We earlier had this word, you know, agape, or if you took Greek and Texas like I did, agape, right? And so earlier we saw that agape form, right? This is a fileo kind that's built in here. In addition to that kind of love, this part here is calling for a family kind of love.

Sometimes called a brotherly love, but the truth is that it can be used of parents for children, or it's family affection is what we're talking about here. This kind of love recognizes the spiritual reality that we in the body of Christ are all spiritual family of a special kind. We're all Christ's brothers.

So Hebrews 12, 11. actually recognizes, oh wait a minute, that should be 211, correct that? The best proofreading happens either when I'm looking at it on the screen or it's coming out of the copier. Anyway, it should be 211. So it should be 211 there. one off the front.

So we are all Christ's brothers, which is why the Apostle Paul could repeatedly, and the other apostles and authors of Scripture, could write to brethren. Now, it's not quite like a human family. I think that's an important distinction. In a human family, there might typically be fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters-in-law and aunts and uncles and cousins. Ever have a second cousin once removed, but they're not really removed? I don't understand that.

Anyway, and cousins and grandparents and such, right? So you'll have all kinds of extended family relationships, and you get great-great-greats, and sometimes they're not that great, but anyway. God has none of these other kinds of typical extended family relationships. We are all of us Christ's spiritual brethren. There's the right reference.

Hebrews 2.11 there. So we're all of us Christ's brethren. God has no grandchildren. God doesn't have nieces and nephews, spiritually speaking, and neither do we. We are all Christ's spiritual brethren and not some other extended family relationship. We are also called all of us God's children.

Ephesians 5.1 is one of those passages where it recognizes we're God's children and calls us, this is a recognition of our position as children, and calls us to walk. So that's condition, right? Calls us to walk in that position that we have. 1 John 3, 2 is another one that recognizes our position as children of God.

So we are all children of God, not grandchildren, not nieces and nephews. We are all Christ's brethren. So here's Romans 12.10b. Give preference to one another in honor. And that also sounds like a command, doesn't it? An imperative. It's not. Here's how it comes across in the Greek.

The honor to one another, valuing more highly. In the Greek and Roman pagan culture in New Testament times, humility was not considered a virtue. One of the things that people are surprised about is some of the comparisons between modern culture and the Greek and Roman culture. We pointed out in studying through Philippians on Thursday night that it was considered beyond rude to thank somebody directly because then you would call down a curse from the gods because you're supposed to thank the gods for something. not thank somebody directly. So here's an example. Humility is not considered a virtue. It's rather a major character flaw. There's something really wrong with you. You're humble.

So the Apostle Paul often had to teach rather emphatically and repeatedly, and this was one of those places, to teach the believers to value humility because in their culture they did not. In their culture they did not. In contrast to the pagan culture, humility is a Christian virtue. And so you can imagine there was a major re-education when someone became a believer. Because the cultural inclination was to thumbs down humility. That was something wrong with you. Instead, to value it, and to look upon it as this is the way it ought to be, and this is the way the life of Christ gets lived out, and this is how the Holy Spirit is working in you, that was something radically in conflict and contrast with the culture.

Humility among Christians and honoring and valuing one another was quite unique. When someone would become a believer or come among believers and see this humility demonstrated and see it valued, it was rather a shock. Because the pagan culture had not only no value for humility, but saw it as a problem.

So here's Romans 12.11, not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. So now, literally it's the diligence not lacking. The diligence not lacking.

There are things in the Christian life and among ourselves in which we ought to be diligent. And some things are of a nature that they ought not to be just off and on now and then among us. I imagine most of you are pretty diligent at breathing, keep that up, and probably consuming some kind of food. I imagine you're pretty diligent with that, right? Well, that's the nature of many things in the body of Christ and in the Christian life. Here is Hebrews 6, 10, and 11a that we saw before, and this has to do again with the interactions in the church body.

It says, therefore, God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name in having ministered and still ministering to the saints. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence. So this ministering to the saints, he wants to see that as, yeah, I think I'll do that today, but maybe not this next month. But rather, it's something in which diligence is called for.

You have another slide that looks like this, Romans 12.8, he who leads with diligence, those who lead in the service, those who lead in teaching, those who work in various administrative and coordinative capacities in the church body, with diligence. With diligence, you keep at it. Here's Ephesians 4, 2, and 3. With all humility, again look at the emphasis there. Humility. Got to teach that. Why? It's not natural and native to the culture. Gentleness. With patience. Showing tolerance for one another in love. Being diligent to preserve.

Now notice that. Do we create a unity of the Spirit? We don't create a unity of the Spirit. We're to preserve it. That's different. The Spirit makes a unity of position between us, right? And so it is a matter not of creating a unity, the Holy Spirit has already done that, but of preserving that that is in our condition as a church body, right? In the bond of peace.

2 Timothy 2.50. You know, I'm just thinking about Ephesians 4, 2 and 3. I don't see the word church split in there. Anyway, okay.

2 Timothy 2.15. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. Accurately handling the word of truth. So the diligence here has to do with the word of God and our presentation before the Lord.

Okay, now, in 2.11, the spirit, fervent. That's what it means literally. The Greek word for fervent literally means hot. In the case of water, it's boiling water. It's used for that, boiling water. In the case of metals, it's white hot. So fervent isn't just kind of like a little warmed over. This isn't 30 seconds in the microwave. This is really hot.

So a word in Revelation that's related to this comes across as Jesus spoke through John to the church at Laodicea. At Laodicea they had across the valley hot water coming in from Hierapolis. They had upstream from Colossae cold water. But the hot water came through a pipe by six miles across the valley, and by the time it got to Laodicea, it was lukewarm.

So it goes like this, Revelation 3.16, so because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. God desires that we be spiritually fervent in and among ourselves, that there be an intensity among ourselves. Now then it says, the Lord serving.

The truth is that though we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies, spiritually speaking, we don't directly serve the Lord who is in heaven as if we were there in our new bodies. So when we talk about serving the Lord, can I take something up to heaven and present it to the Lord and come back? Do I do that? But not really. So what does serving the Lord look like? Serving the Lord looks like serving and ministering to others in the body of Christ. That's what serving the Lord looks like. The Lord takes that as service to himself.

I think it's a connection that we sometimes don't grasp. Remember when the Apostle Paul was on the road to Damascus and the Lord confronted him. Paul had been persecuting the church. He had been persecuting the church of God, the saints. That's what Paul had been doing. Christ, rather than asking Paul, why are you persecuting my saints? Christ instead, Paul, or Saul, why do you persecute me? The persecution Christ takes personally.

Same way here, as we serve one another, guess what? Christ takes our service to one another personally. Isn't that neat? That's cool. So it was in a negative sense with the Apostle Paul where he was persecuting the church, but for us, It's a positive demonstration.

We serve the Lord and Christ takes that personally when we serve the body of Christ. You ever heard, don't take it personally? When it comes to the body of Christ, Christ takes everything personally. He takes everything personally. As we carry out ministry to one another, meeting needs, and using our gifts to serve Him. That's what the Lord takes personally. Now let's look at verse 12. Romans 12, 12. Rejoicing in hope. There's one. Persevering in tribulation. That's two. And then devoted to prayer. Three. Let's take a look there. The hope rejoicing. We in the body of Christ are not just hopeful of a good outcome of events here on earth. But we have a fixed and certain and absolute hope that the Lord will come for us and we will be with Him forever. With Him forever. You get the difference?

We're not just hopeful. Boy, I think there's a good probability or a possibility of this turning out okay. Like we really, really wanted the Broncos to take the Super Bowl. We were hopeful. But did that come out? That didn't turn out so good. But that's being hopeful. This is not that.

This is a fixed and certain and absolute hope it is going to happen. We have hope, but it is not just hopeful hope. It's not probabilities and possibilities. It is absolute, certain, and fixed. It is going to happen. We have a fixed and certain absolute hope that the Lord will come for us and we will be with Him forever 100%. No decimal points, you know, with 99 even.

It's not there's a high probability, it's going to happen. The reason we would be rejoicing, because that's it, the hope rejoicing, the reason we would be rejoicing, the Apostle Paul writes to Titus, and he says, looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Titus 2.13. This is the way it comes across in the whole passage. Titus 2, 11-14 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus. who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds. And now, the tribulation bearing under circumstances. There are two main words for patience in the Greek language.

One of them means patience with people, as in Galatians 5.22, with the fruit of the Spirit. The Greek word that is used here means patience with frustrating or possibly difficult or even worse circumstances, bearing up under them and persevering faithfully and trusting God through them. So that's what he's talking about here.

And the next, the prayer continuing. The truth is we actively prayed constantly. Most of us would not get much else done. And who knows, we might even have more automobile accidents and things like that because we would be so focused on the prayer. Especially those things that require focus and concentration.

These words are a lot like pray without ceasing that we hear about in 1 Thessalonians 5.17. You got anybody that just absolutely does that all the time? Raise your hand. That's kind of what I thought. Me neither. The best way to think of the prayer continuing is at every opportunity. At every opportunity. It's essentially a running conversation with the Lord at every opportunity. I'm constantly focusing on prayer so much that I'm dangerous to drive.

And now finally the last one, Romans 12, 13. Contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. So literally, to the needs of the saints, sharing. Saints have various kinds and magnitudes of needs at different times and in different places.

That's one thing. There's no one-size-fits-all need. Each of us has different needs at different times and of different magnitudes and different characters. So those vary all over the place. And different church bodies will have different needs of magnitude and kind at different times and in different places.

The word for sharing here is related to fellowship. So we're fellowshipping in the needs is one way to look at it. At one point, the Apostle Paul had the church at Corinth, along with other churches, sharing the needs of the saints in Jerusalem. Now finally, the hospitality giving.

Hospitality is one of those overlooked words in the New Testament. The Greek word literally means to love, and this is the one, love as in family, strangers. To have a family love for strangers. That's what this word means. they have a family love for strangers while hospitality is a long-standing Christian character of quality it was especially important when Christians traveled in pagan lands in New Testament times where the publicly available places to stay were often quite degraded morally, spiritually, things of that sort and so to have a place to stay with other Christians But it was like a refuge away from the horribly, you know, pagan places that they had available to them. Here are examples of the use of the word hospitality or hospitable in the New Testament.

First Timothy 5.10, to look for the eligibility for church support for a widow if she has shown Love of strangers to strangers. Love of strangers to strangers. So one of the qualifications for a widow to receive church support is that she has shown, that means to demonstrate visibly and in practical ways, a love of strangers to strangers. Hebrews 13, 2, do not neglect to show hospitality, love of strangers to strangers.

For by this some have entertained angels without knowing it." What's he talking about? This is Abraham in the book of Genesis. Abraham sees some strangers come by, some men, and says, hey, you come here and we'll take care of you and show you some hospitality. And in fact, it was angels that he was showing hospitality to. So that's this instance here in Hebrews 13 too that we'll be getting to before long.

First Timothy 3.2, an overseer then must be hospitable. So one of the qualifications for a shepherd, a pastor, elder, an overseer, is that they must be hospitable. That is, they must be of a nature that they show love, a family love, for strangers. Titus is also told the same thing. The overseer must be hospitable. So those requirements are consistent between First Timothy and Titus. Those are kind of the two main lists of elder qualifications, elders, overseers, or shepherds. That they be hospitable, that they show love, family love, to strangers.

And 1 Peter 4.9, be hospitable to one another without complaint.

Is it possible you could be hospitable with complaint? Yeah, we were hospitable, but, boy, those people were really something else, and let me tell you... Okay, so, without complaint. Without complaint. Now, fortunately, hospitality has nothing to do with hospitals. The words sound, you know, real similar.

I'll sometimes jokingly say thank you for coming to our hospital, but Hospitality expresses that the Christians are family. Okay. That's the nature of it it is it is a care for strangers, a love of strangers, a family love for strangers, so therefore it expresses that Christians are family. That's one of the things that hospitality does. And so to have an elder have that as a qualification means that the elder recognizes that Christians are family in a practical way. Next, hospitality is one way of sharing in the needs of the saints.

We saw earlier, right? So having a love of strangers is a way to share in the needs of the saints. And particularly, it does so in a positive way and a negative way. It avoids them having to sometimes stay in a situation that may not be as good. In this particular case, it also recognizes the needs of saints who are perhaps traveling, moving on to different places.

Years ago, This was in Anderson Valley in Northern California. We had a 600 acre camp of the Moonies. The Moonies. This is the followers of Sun Myung Moon. And their training there was rather loud and intensive. You could hear it from some distance away. On through the night, you could hear it from some distance away.

Well, one time we were passing by the front gate And we saw that there were two people running, a guy and a gal, running for the front gate as fast as they could. And there was a car coming up behind them, pretty fast too. And so as they jumped over the gate, we stopped, had them jump in the back of our pickup, and we took off. And of course, since the gate was locked, it would take a while for the car to catch up. And we lost them. Of course, we lived like 13 miles away up a dirt road. You know, and so we got way out of the way. And so we had this couple and we say, you know, OK, you know, you're escaping. Yes.

And so we had them there for dinner and we called another set of Christians farther along the coast and arranged for them to get there and to be able to spend the night there and get breakfast and get get away from these moonies who would who would pursue them to try to keep them in their in their camp.

So this would be a way of showing hospitality quite unexpectedly. The hospitality also places a high value on Christian fellowship. It's an opportunity to fellowship with other brothers and sisters in the Lord, sharing where you're at spiritually, what you're learning, where you're growing, etc. Things that you're wrestling with. So these are some of the values and opportunities in showing hospitality.

So, as we look at these practical things, these are things that have to do with us individually and have to do with our interactions in the body of Christ. And next week, as we resume our study of Hebrews, we'll be on a similar kind of topic, and you'll even see some of these same words show up. And so these are things that are very real and very practical for us in the body of Christ. and are ways that show the very love and life of Christ in and among us.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for what you've spelled out here, this Romans passage and its harmony and compatibility and consistency with the Hebrews passage we'll return to next Sunday. And we thank you for that. We thank you for your love and care shown to us. and that it's shown to us practically, that as we minister one to another, you take that very personally. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.