Love without Hypocrisy

Romans 12:9- Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

Let's look at the second part of this verse first

Romans 12:9- “…Hate what it evil; cling to what is good’’

There is an objective, universal and defined good and an objective, universal and defined evil.

What is actually and truly good and what is actually and truly evil does not differ from person to person, from culture to culture, from generation to generation- God defines.

Good and evil is not defined individually, and relatively, by us- it is defined by God.

What this means is that good is not necessarily what you like or what you want to be good. Evil is not necessarily what you don't like or want you want to be evil.

In fact, we are inclined in our sin to hate what is good and to cling to what is evil.

John 3:19-20- This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

That's our inclination; our nature; in sin we love the darkness; we cling to evil; we hate the light.

Romans 12:9- ‘’Hate what is evil…’’

Don’t make the mistake of making a distinction between evils in your mind that you use to rationalize and justify your own personal collection of evils. Don’t suppose that some kinds of sin are self-destructive, but do not affect others. That’s false. Evil of any kind dishonors God and hurts people. There is no victimless sin or sin where there is but one victim. So, let’s be convinced of this; that evil of any and every kind is bad for us, and we would benefit to flee from it.

Paul chose his words very carefully and deliberately in verse. 9.

He does not say in this verse merely 'choose good over evil'- so it's not about your willpower- your resolve to come into the light, overpowering your will. He says 'hate what is evil (other translations say 'abhor' or 'loathe' what is evil) and cling to (cleave to; embrace with the deepest intimacy) what is good'.

In other words, and I find this to be incredibly good news, it is not that you find the strength within yourself to overpower your will and to choose good over evil, it is that God acts and God helps and your heart changes in such a way that you desire the goodness of God and you run to it; you loathe the evil of sin and you flee from it.

God works in us to draw us to Himself.

Earlier in chapter 12 of Romans;

Romans 12:2- Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world (loving what is evil, living in darkness), but be transformed (how?) by the renewing of your mind. (that is the work of the Holy Spirit on the believer). Then you will be able to test approve what God's will is- His good, pleasing and perfect will.

So, we ask, ‘Holy Spirit, work in us and help us to feel the same way as you do about that which is good and that which is evil. Renew our hearts and our minds in order that our lives might be transformed for your glory’.

That renewal doesn’t happen instantaneously. It’s not that God ‘snaps his fingers’ and all of a sudden we, as lovers of darkness and haters of light, become haters of darkness and lovers of light. Renewal is a life-long process that God initiates in us and completes in us. But hopefully, if you are born again, you can recognize evidences of this process taking place in your life- dissatisfaction with sin and darkness and a longing for Jesus and the light- a change of heart and a change of mind.

Now, to the first half of the verse- Romans 12:9- ‘'Love must be sincere…’’

(The New American Standard Bible says ‘Let love be without hypocrisy’- that’s a better translation, I think)

So, what is hypocrisy? And what would love look like without it?

Simply put, hypocrisy tries to make the outside look better than the inside. So, hypocrisy puts forward what looks like loving behaviors that do not really actually and accurately represent, and even hides, what we are feel inside.

Jesus said to the religious leaders; Matthew 15:7-8- ‘’You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘'These people honour me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.’’

The outside is not complimented by the inside. That’s hypocrisy.

Be warned- ‘man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart’.

It’s great that you’re singing; it’s great that you’re serving; it’s great that you’re giving- but where is your heart? Because singing, serving, giving etc is only worship when it comes out of the overflow of a Christ-exalting heart. Otherwise, it's just works.

So, we ask, ‘Holy Spirit, help us to love you and to love others without hypocrisy Renew our hearts and our minds in order that our lives might be transformed for your glory’.

Now, if you've read this far, let me point out that ‘let your love be genuine’ and ‘hate what is evil, cling to what is good’ are not two separate, detached thoughts. On the contrary, there is a clear, distinct relationship between our love for God proving to be sincere and without hypocrisy and our hatred towards that which is evil; our desire for that which is good.

Our hatred towards what is evil and our desire for God and that which is good is what proves our love for God to be sincere, genuine; authentic; without hypocrisy.

Jesus said;

John 14:15- If you love me, you will obey what I command

That isn’t a manipulative statement. I know that’s how you read it. But this isn’t Jesus manipulating you in order to get you to obey what he commands. It’s a statement of truth and consequence. The truth is that the consequence of a genuine love for God that comes from Him drawing us near to Him is obedience, in that we hate the evil that He hates and we cling to that which is good, because our desires have changed on account of Him. Then, our attitude becomes like David in Psalm 40:8- ‘’I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."

A change of Heart

Proverbs 4:22- Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

Your life is like a river and everything that flows down the river of your life comes down-stream from your heart. So, just as if there’s pollution flowing down a river, you need to go upstream to find its source in order to clean it up, so it is with sin in our lives; we need to go upstream to our hearts and deal with it there.

Jesus taught this explicitly.

Matthew 23:25-26- Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

Mark 7:20-23- "…What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean. For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'"

Jesus taught that we sin because our hearts are sinful and upstream from every area of our lives; sin comes out of the overflow of our heart and manifests itself in various ways. We sin because our hearts are sinful and because our hearts are sinful we love and desire sin.

John 3:19-20- This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

So, the verdict is in- and it's not the one that we wanted. Our inclination; our nature, the orientation of our heart in sin, is that we are darkness-loving and light hating. And if we are to come ‘out of the darkness and into the light’; if we are to ‘hate what is evil and cling to what is good’; we need a change of heart.

That’s why this work of regeneration is so wonderful and so important.Because aside from the work of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit in us to give us a new heart and a new mind with reformed desires, we will not come into the light- we love the darkness too much.

Jesus plainly teaches this in John 3, and then he goes on to say in verse. 21- ‘But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done (i.e. living by the truth, coming into the light) has been done through God.’

So we come out of the darkness and into the light because God begins and will complete a work in us to draw us to Himself.

That this work in us has begun is assumed in Romans 12, where Paul says;

Romans 12:2- Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world (loving what is evil, living in darkness), but be transformed (how?) by the renewing of your mind. (that is the work of the Holy Spirit on the believer). Then you will be able to test approve what God's will is- His good, pleasing and perfect will.

That renewal doesn’t happen instantaneously. It’s not that God wriggles his nose and all of a sudden we, as lovers of darkness and haters of light, become haters of darkness and lovers of light. Renewal is a life-long process.

But hopefully, if you are born again, you can recognize evidences of this process taking place in your life- dissatisfaction with sin and darkness and a longing for Jesus and the light- a change of heart and a change of mind.

Paul calls for our heart and it’s feelings and our mind and it’s attitudes to come into conformity with God’s word and will in such a way that can only be achieved by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 12 calls us to live and think and act and feel in a way that goes far beyond superficial deeds and towards the radical outworking of a transformed heart- and only God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, can truly and totally change our hearts in this way.

A quick lesson from my first leader, Phil Hutchinson

Romans 12:10- Be devoted to one another in brotherly love….’’

He does not say ‘in view of God’s mercy, tolerate each other…put up with each other’- he commands us to do much more than that.

1 Peter 1:22-23- Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

So, the will of God for his children is not just to do good things for each other, and not just to pray for each other or speak decently of each other or to tolerate each other- but to love each other from the heart.

Some of you will be thinking; ‘’I see that God wants to me love my brothers and sisters in Christ, but there are some that I honestly don’t love. I want to be obedient to God in loving them but I know that God sees my heart and I don’t want to be a hypocrite. What do I do?’’

First and foremost, pray.

Pray that God, the Holy Spirit would move in power on your heart and work the miracle that neither you nor I can work on our own. Pray that God would change your heart. Pray that you would see your brother or your sister through your Father’s eyes.

I still remember this lesson that I learnt from my first leader; Phil Hutchinson. I had just become a Christian and He discipled me early on. He had his work cut out for him.

I remember I had a major problem with a girl in the church. I hated her. To me, she was the problem with the church- the reason that it wasn’t growing. I told Phil about my feelings and I was sure that he was going to agree and expel her from the church. To my surprise and to my disappointment, he instructed me to ‘pray for her’.

Pray for her??

Not pray about her??

Not pray against her??

Not to pray that she would change, but to pray for her good??

So I did and the most miraculous thing happened; she didn’t change at all, but my heart towards her did.

Prayer works- if there is somebody who you are struggling to love, particularly if they are your brother or your sister in Christ, pray for them and pray for the Holy Spirit to help you to love them in the way God calls you to.

Parameters for gifts

Romans 12:3-8- For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

Here’s the big picture- in view of God’s mercy, serve one another with your gifts with humility. That is what Paul is trying to achieve in this passage; that, having tasted grace and mercy from God, we would all extend grace and mercy from God to each other in various ways.

In this passage, Paul identifies the parameters for the operation of gifts of all kinds in the church- humility. Verse. 3 sets up and carries through the entire passage.

Romans 12:3- For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment…’’

In another conversation about the operation of gifts within the church in 1st Corinthians, he identifies these parameters more broadly as being ‘love’.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3- If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

As soon as we step outside of the parameters of selfless humility and love in the operation of any gift, pride threatens to spoil the act of using our gifts and the outcome of our using our gift. Gifts operating outside of the parameters of selfless humility and love often lead to spiritual abuse. So, Paul says, ‘to every one of you: begin to operate in gifts; but before you do, and as you do, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment’.

A person with sober judgment acknowledges that they are fallen, but doesn’t stop there; they ultimately rejoice in Christ and exalts Christ and lives by faith in Christ. Sober judgment consents to do great things for the Kingdom of God, yet in the knowledge that the strength to do these great things comes from God and we are utterly dependent on Him to do them. So, Paul says ‘keep in the front of your minds always and in all that you do who you live by faith in, who you depend on and where your gifts come from’

James 1:16-17- ‘’Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father…’’

Paul continues in verse 6; ‘’…We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.’’

God, in His grace, gives gifts to you, not for you, but for others.

1 Peter 4:10- Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.

So, amazingly, we have the opportunity to be used by God to ‘administer His grace in various ways and forms’ in, though not limited to, the church.

Paul continues;

Romans 12:4-5- Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

Paul also uses this analogy of the church being a body whose members belong to each other and depend on each other in 1 Corinthians 12, which, remember, is also a conversation about the exercising of gifts within the church.

1 Corinthians 12:14-21- Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!"

The simple point of this is that as members of His body we belong to Him and we belong to each other; and that we need each other, in order for the body to function, as it should.

We are all different. Paul call’s for diversity in this passage in verse 17 ‘If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?’

So, we all, who belong to the one body, have different functions and different gifts according to and governed by God’s grace and arrangement And the idea of God’s arrangement is for our various functions and gifts to operate in such a way that the body is served, cared for and built up.