Living Story Grace

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.”  Romans 12:9-10

Let’s face it, love is tough.  It’s hard to know what it means to love in every situation.  The challenge of love keeps us on our knees, seeking the Holy Spirit’s wisdom and guidance for the loving words to speak in each situation, the kind actions to take.  Hear what Tim Keller has to say about Romans 12:9-10

First, we are told that our love must be true to our heart. Literally, the word “sincere” in Greek is an-hypokritos (unhypocritical). We are not to be phony in our dealings with people. We are not to be polite, helpful and apparently warm on the outside while on the inside despising them. This is so important because, within the church and any community which emphasizes traditional values, a culture of “niceness” can develop in which a veneer of pleasantness covers over a spirit of backbiting, gossip, prejudice.  There is a total lack of “tough love” in which people love each other enough to confront and be direct about problems and sins in oneself and in one’s friends.

Second, we are told, both negatively (hate) and positively (cling) that our love must be true to God’s will. We are told here that our love must “remember” and operate on the basis of the moral order of God. We must hate (literally to “be horrified” by) what God calls evil and we must cling (literally, to glue ourselves inseparably) to what God calls good. Why is this so important? Well, because when we love someone, it so often distorts our view of good and evil. Song lyrics capture the problem: “If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right!” “It can’t be wrong, if it feels so right!” In other words, if you love someone, your heart is bound up with the heart of the other. Their distress becomes yours and their happiness becomes yours. Therein lies the temptation to give the loved one what creates emotional joy, rather than what is best for them (but which may create emotional sadness or anger). It is an extremely common problem in child rearing. The parents don’t punish children consistently because they cannot bear their tears and anger. But the result of a discipline-less childhood is always disaster.

It may seem strange to tell someone to love, and then to hate in the same sentence, but that is what Paul does. We cannot love rightly without hating rightly! Now we see that this is closely linked to the “sincerity.” Real love loves the beloved enough to be “tough.” Real love “is so passionately devoted to the beloved so that it hates every evil which is incompatible with his or her highest welfare.” (Stott) God’s law reveals how our world and our souls were designed. To disobey God’s law is always bad for the beloved. Therefore, real love is concerned about truth.

Any love that is afraid to confront the beloved is really not love, but a selfish desire to be loved. This kind of selfish love is afraid to do what is right (toward God and the beloved) if it risks losing the affection of the beloved. It makes an idol out of the beloved. It says, “I’ll do anything to keep him or her loving me!” This is not loving the person — it is loving the love you get from the person. In other words, it is loving yourself more than the person. So any “love” that cuts corners morally or that fails to confront is not really love at all.

But true love is willing to confront, even to “lose” the beloved in the short run if there is a chance to help him or her. Here is a great quote that gets this across.

“Think of how we feel when we see someone we love ravaged by unwise actions or relationships… Real love stands against the deception, the lie, the sin that destroys. Nearly a century ago the theologian E.H.Gifford wrote: ‘Human love here offers a true analogy: the more a father loves his son, the more he hates in him the drunkard, the liar, the traitor.’ The fact is… anger isn’t the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference.”

– Becky Pippert, Hope Has Its Reasons

in Tim Keller’s Romans Study, available through http://www.redeemer.com

Ouch.  I’ve read it through several times in the past few days, trying to find a way out, around, or through some of the “love” language in Romans 12.  To make matters worse, in my ESV Bible, the heading reads, “Marks of the True Christian.”  Read it through slowly, carefully, reflectively, asking yourself — “How is it possible to love this way?”  My guess is you’ll reach the same conclusion I have — only through Christ working in us is this deep, abiding, strong, and compassionate love possible:

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. ¹¹Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. ¹²Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. ¹³Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

¹⁴Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. ¹⁶Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

¹⁷Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. ¹⁸If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. ¹⁹Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”^[d]says the Lord. ²⁰On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” ²¹Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Be forewarned (or encouraged:)  – over the next few days, I’ll post some thoughts from good thinkers about what it means to live out these verses.  Today, the rest of Peterson’s devotional on Romans 12 from Conversations:

“Another way we express our worship to God is by giving him our heart — our total heart, including the sinful impulses that reside there.  When people wrong us, for example, we feel resentful, and we have the impulse to hurt them in return.  We can do it directly, lashing them with our tongue or our fists.  Or we can do it indirectly through gossip, coldness, indifference or manipulation.  One thing is certain:  None of us have the impulse to bless the person who does us wrong.  We all have the impulse to avenge ourselves.  Worship means the reversal of the equations of hurt and revenge.  It means returning a blessing for a curse, forgiveness for revenge, peace for strife.

Worship isn’t a religious performance we sit back and enjoy; it’s an act in which we participate.  And as we participate, we’re changed.  Worship is the presentation of our bodies as a sacrifice to God so that he can act upon us.  Either the world shapes us or God shapes us.  Either we’re conformed to the world or we’re transformed by God.  And worship is what he uses to bring about that transformation.”  Eugene Peterson, Conversations

I love Eugene Peterson’s Conversations, which integrates The Message Bible and commentaries and devotions from Peterson.

Today I continue the examination of Romans 12 with his thoughts on worship:

“Here’s a basic tension:  We keep trying to confine worship to the sanctuary — to preaching, prayers, and parish announcements, to religious experiences.  But God is commanding us to extend it to home, work, neighborhood, and leisure.  Worship is the style of life in which our bodies become living sacrifices offered up before God.

People have different skills, different strengths, different sensibilities.  God has given us one another so that we may have a shared life.  None of us can live the abundant life as hermits.  Nor can we live to the glory of God if we carefully pick whom we’re willing to associate with.  All who live are God’s creation and parts of the body of Christ.  We’re members of one another.  We exist in a family, together, not alone.

And here’s how God wants us to live in such a family:  worshipfully.

Life is full of financial inequities, and worship involves a generous response to the economic needs of others.  This reverses the natural inclinations of all of us.  We sometimes convince ourselves that everything we have has come from our own hard work and achievements.  And with pride we then hold on to it all, and in moments of good, we’ll dole out a little to church or to charity.

But worship is meant to be more complete than that:  It’s the offering of our total economic selves to the glory and service of God.  It means a liberal and generous assessment of other people’s needs in relation to our own.  Income and earning capacity is God’s gift to us, too — and must be part of offering our lives.”

This is a great devotion from Peterson.  I’ll stop here and offer some more tomorrow.  But between now and then it seems like a good idea to reflect on the hard challenge put before us — how do we view our gifts, and how do we view our giving?

“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. 4Just 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.” Romans 12:3-5, NIV

Living with a westernized worldview, we struggle to understand what Paul means when he says to use the “measure of faith” God has given us.  Tim Keller, in his study on Romans, helps us with this thought.

Paul is saying: “All of you have been given your saving faith in Christ crucified, and that is how you are to measure yourself.”

That means we are first to realize we are all the same. Regardless of our background, abilities, etc., we are all saved in Christ. God loves us equally “in Christ.” So we should also think of ourselves. This is then a very direct command to start our self-appreciation by remembering who we are in the gospel. The first “measure” by which we evaluate ourselves is the gospel in which we believe.

Secondly, we are to think of ourselves as having distinct gifts and abilities within the Body of Christ. In other words, we are all different as well. We are not “clones.” Paul elsewhere says that “you are God’s workmanship, created in Christ for good works that God has prepared beforehand for us to do.” Isaak Dinessen put it: “Pride [good pride] is faith in the idea God had when he made you.” We have each been given distinct personalities and temperaments and histories and abilities that equip us for doing a particular set of good works in the world that God has created us to do. So the second way to get a good “self-image” is to get to work in ministry, find out what God has equipped you to do best, and do it with all your might!”  Tim Keller, Romans study

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.” Romans 12:1-2, The Message

I’m returning to this core verse about how we are to view and live our lives. Today Eugene Peterson offers some thoughts on what this means:

“Paul summarizes Christian living in a sentence: ‘Take your ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around-life — and place it before God as an offering.” (Romans 12:1)

God doesn’t throw out the past and tell us to forget about it. He uses all the material, but he rearranges it, and in his hands it becomes new. The vocabulary in Romans 12:1 uses the same words from the sacrificial system of the past: life and offering. But each of these words is given a radically new orientation.

Life. Substitute sacrifices will no longer do.  It’s your life God wants, and it’s mine. Cows, birds, goats, and sheep will no longer be acceptable.  It must be your life. By using the word life, Paul leaves no room for escape.  LIfe includes our whole self, the entire collection of feelings, actions, ideas.  Brain, nerves, muscles, drives, instincts, perceptions.  Life.  It is me that’s offered up — all of me.

Offering. The drama of the blood flowing out of a sacrificial animal was impressive in its symbolism, but the animal was worthless from that time on, except to be eaten. A short-lived usefulness.  This new concept is no less a sacrifice, but the blood stays in the veins and continues to nourish the life of the individual.  Thus, this new offering becomes an extended one.

This offering of the whole of our lives is a worshipful act that’s pleasing to God.”  Eugene Peterson, Conversations

Wow. Typing Peterson’s sentence brought this wild reality back to me in a new way — our life-blood is not shed as we become an offering — BECAUSE the blood of Jesus was shed for us, because Jesus was raised for us, because we are raised to new life in him.  It is love incomprehensible.  May we soak in the wonder of the offering God has made for us that we might become a living sacrifice for God.  To be continued tomorrow…