Before Pilate

Mark 15:1-15.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on February 28, 2021.

I am using the title Before Pilate with double-meaning.  Jesus was literally brought before Pilate who was the Roman governor, or better, prefect of Judea.  As the chief executive officer of Rome on the scene, Jesus was in Pilate’s hands and at his mercy.

However, Jesus is no mere man.  He is the eternal Word of God who had stepped down from the heavens into this world, taking on the nature of a human.  In this sense, Jesus is before Pilate in several other ways.  Jesus existed long before Pilate was ever born.  He was the eternal Son of God and Word of God, present with the Father before Creation began.  Thus, Jesus is before Pilate in time.

Jesus is also of a higher kingdom and authority than Pilate could ever be.  Thus, Jesus is before him in rank and station.  In fact, one day Pilate will be brought before Jesus and judged for his actions.  As the Scriptures tell us, God the Father has appointed Jesus as the judge of all who are alive and all who have died (Acts 10:42).  In 1 Peter 4:3-6, we are warned that the judgments of men only affect the flesh, but all men will stand before Jesus and give account for their life.  His judgment affects us eternally.

Jesus is brought before Pilate

We mentioned in previous sermons that there are actually 4 different events in the trial of Jesus.  He is first brought before Annas who is a previous High Priest while Caiaphas has the elders gathered.  Then, Jesus appears before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin.  The third meeting is only briefly mentioned and is what we have here in verse 1.  Up until now, everything has happened in the middle of the night.  The acts of the council must be done during the day in order to be official.  This third meeting seems to be a pro forma meeting in which the proceedings of the earlier interrogations and the gathering of witnesses is rubber stamped.

The real problem for the leaders is that Rome has stripped them of the power of capital punishment over their own people.  They want to execute Jesus, but they have to get Rome, Pilate, to do it for them.  Thus, shortly after dawn, they bring Jesus to the Praetorium, the headquarters of Pilate’s administration in Jerusalem.

Mark’s account is somewhat disordered in regard to a linear timeline, though it is not disordered in the sense of giving us an understanding of what happened in general.  These cultures were not as concerned with timelines as we are in the West today.  In the other Gospels, we are told that the priests bring Jesus to the Praetorium, but they cannot go in.  It would ceremonially defile them and disqualify them from participating in the Passover later.  Pilate comes outside and Jesus is formally charged by the elders.  Some questioning takes place outside, but then Pilate brings Jesus inside of the Praetorium to question him without the Jewish leaders.  Eventually they end up back outside for Pilate’s official decision.  Mark’s goal is not to establish an exact account of all that our inquisitive minds might want to know.  Rather, it is to establish the important facts of what happened. No charges are listed in Mark, but in Luke 23, we are told some of the charges made against him.

First, they say that the caught Jesus perverting, or twisting, the nation.  This is a general accusation and begs the question, “What was he twisting them towards?”  The second charge makes this specific.  They charge Jesus with forbidding people to pay taxes to Caesar.  This is a lie.  Just that week, Jesus had publicly declared that the Jews should give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.  Regardless, if it was true, Rome would have a vested interest in stamping out such influence.  The third charge is that Jesus says that he is the Messiah that Israel had been waiting for, which is to be the king of Israel.  Of course, these charges have nothing to do with why they want him dead.  Their real charge is that Jesus has blasphemed by claiming to be God.  However, such a religious charge would have no weight with Pilate, so it is left off.  Even with that, the real offense of Jesus is this: he testified that their deeds were evil, and they were too proud to repent.

Of course, we can infer the last charge from Mark’s description of Pilate’s question.  “Are you the king of the Jews?”  Kingship in Israel had been a messy topic ever since the exile.  They had been under the thumb of Persia, then Greece, and then Rome.  During this period, they were ruled by governors in general.  Even under the brief freedom of the Maccabees, they had been led by priests.  Herod the Great was appointed king of Judea by Caesar in 36 BC up to his death a couple of years after the death of Jesus.  However, Herod the Great was not of the lineage of David.  He had no right to the throne biblically.  After his death, the administration of Jerusalem quickly fell apart under Herod’s sons and Rome placed a governor over it.  If anyone was claiming to be the rightful king of Israel, and even the prophesied Messiah-figure, Rome would be keenly interested.

Before we get into the answer of Jesus, let’s look at his response overall.  In general, Jesus is not answering the charges against him.  Isaiah 53:7 says, “He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.”  Jesus had come to die, and he came to do it in a way that was not that of an arrogant, loud rebel.  How hard it would be to stand before godless men who are making baseless charges against you, and to simply trust God as your defense.

It is not that we should never defend ourselves in any way.  Jesus was fulfilling Scripture.  He needed to be silent before his accusers in general.  There is a time and a place for making a defense.  We see this in the New Testament with the Apostles, especially Paul.  However, we must never defend ourselves in such a way that we are desperate to get free.  Would I lie to get free?  Would I tell the truth about others to ingratiate myself to those who are charging me?  Would I use the time to vent and rage against injustice?  These are not the ways of Christ.

Yet, his is not an absolute silence.  Jesus does give an answer to Pilate, but it is a cryptic one.  Jesus literally says, “You are saying it.”  This is an acceptance that implies there is more to the story.  It is not a definite, “I am the king of Judea!”  In John 18, we are given more of the exchange between Pilate and Jesus.

“Are you the King of the Jews?” ³⁴ Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” ³⁵ Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” ³⁶ Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” ³⁷ Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” ³⁸ Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”

Clearly, Jesus takes some time to interact with Pilate, most likely because Pilate is unwittingly caught up in something that is a great evil and he could not begin to understand it.

Pilate comes to the decision that Jesus is not guilty of anything other than annoying the religious leaders.  He does not what to become their lackey in this matter.  I want to note a couple of other details that Mark leaves out.  We are told that Pilate’s wife had been tormented with troubling dreams.  She actually sent word to Pilate while he was sitting in judgment, saying not to have anything to do with this Jesus affair.  Later, Pilate would publicly wash his hands in front of the people and declare, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” (Matthew 27:24 ESV). 

Mark does tell us that Pilate tried to release Jesus through a custom that had been established.  Every year at Passover, he would release a prisoner as a show of good faith to the Jews and in recognition of their holy day.  We don’t have much details on this custom, but in this case, Pilate puts the judgment in the hands of the people by giving them a choice between two prisoners.  Perhaps he feels that this is a way of blocking the religious leaders.  If Jesus is only guilty of ticking off the leaders then the people will probably spare him.  Thus, Pilate finds a prisoner who had been involved in a rebellion that ended in murder.  Of whom, we do not know.  This sets the crowd and the religious leaders up for a classic choice.

Barabbas or Jesus?  I can’t be coincidence that the name Barabbas is Aramaic for “son of the father.”  This choice becomes a metaphor for all that is happening spiritually.  Will we choose Jesus who is the Son of God the Father, or will we choose Barabbas who is spiritually a son of a different father, the devil?  It reminds me of the prophecy that Jesus gave the religious leaders in John 5:43. “I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.”

In short, as a nation, Israel would reject Jesus as the Christ and later accept another who would not be the true Christ.  This other does not come in the name of God the Father.  He comes in his own name.  He is the anti-Messiah, the antichrist.  God works hard by His Spirit and through His prophets to get us to have a love of the truth, so that we will be prepared when we reach such moments of decision.  These moments are extremely critical choices that represented true spiritual state at the time.  In essence, we are choosing between good and evil, Jesus and Satan, God and the world.  O, how deceived people can become when they rebuff the attempts of God to give them a love of the truth.  On that day, the One who is the Truth stood before them.  Barabbas or Jesus?

If Pilate thought his actions would thwart the religious leaders, he was mistaken.  The crowd is stirred up by the chief priests to call for the release of Barabbas and the death of Jesus.  “Give us Barabbas,” they cried.  “What shall I do with Jesus?” Pilate retorted.  “Crucify Him,” they shouted over and over.  As the crowd is worked into a frenzy, Pilate realizes that it is better for this one man to die than to risk a bloody crushing of what would soon become an uprising.  Caesar would not be happy with such maladministration.  His abilities would be questioned and his position lost.

It is sad that those who are supposed to represent God can be some of the worst at stirring up others against His work.  How blind must those blind guides have been?  Do we not have blind guides in our own day?  How careful Christian leaders must be in the exercise of their authority, and how careful Christians must be in those they allow to be over them.  Guard your heart, friend, for out of it flows the course of your life.

At this point, Pilate yields, and, in true Roman form, we can say that the die is cast.  He orders Jesus to be crucified. 

We must understand that there is no going back.  There is only going forward.  This is our condemnation; the light came into the world and the world loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.  Our generation is not any different than that generation.  We too are an evil generation that pompously puts the followers of Jesus on public trial all the time.  We too have religious leaders who pretend to stand for God, but lead in opposition to Jesus.  They would crucify him in a second, if he appeared now in the same way that he did then.  However, Jesus is not coming back in the same way he came the first time.

When Jesus comes back, he will come as the One who is worthy to judge the living and the dead.  He will do so not in some sort of cosmic revenge, but in a sad recognition that no matter how much you love some, they want their wickedness more than they want you.  In fact, they will hate you just for existing because your existence reminds them of their wicked heart.

The die is cast, but believers in Jesus those who love God and are loved by Him, will hold fast their faith in Him, regardless of what lies ahead.  We know just how the cube will land and just who will be left standing in the end!

Before Pilate audio

The Path Ahead of Us

1 Corinthians 13:8-13.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on February 21, 2021.

Next week, we will pick back up in Mark 15 and walk with Jesus to the cross and the resurrection. 

Today, I want to talk about the path ahead of us as believers and followers of Jesus in the United States of America.  One of the devil’s tactics in these last days is to tempt believers to quit loving one another.  However, the love we are to have for one another is God’s love, and not love as defined by this world.  It is the same love that Jesus had for us when he chose to go to a cross for our sake, despite the world having rejected him, and believers who were slow to believe what they did not understand about him.

The disciples could not see how Jesus letting himself be arrested and killed would be the loving thing to do.  Peter even rebuked Jesus for even thinking of such a thing.  I am sure that Peter felt that he loved Jesus and loved Israel, but the actions of Jesus did not look right, did not look like love to Peter.  He didn’t exactly say this, but it is the same idea.  “Jesus, that isn’t love.”

In the days and months ahead, we must not be obstinate in fleshly concerns, but neither can we let the world, including worldly Christians, define for us what love is and what it would do.  We must learn to make the tough decisions of love as the Holy Spirit leads us in any particular situation.

We must not stop loving

In this section of 1 Corinthians, Paul is dealing with problems among the Christians in the Greek city of Corinth.  Their great desire for spiritual gifts was overwhelming their duty to love one another.  They were more concerned with the social prestige of exercising a spiritual gift than the people that God wanted them to bless with that spiritual gift.

This is why chapter 13 functions as a sort of parenthesis within a larger teaching on spiritual gifts.  No matter what Christians may think, they need to keep loving one another as a primary focus that is replaced by nothing else.

Our minds have a tendency to focus on the wrong things.  The believers in Corinth were focusing on the spiritual gifts that they had, and how “spiritual” that made them.  It functioned in their minds more like a badge of honor that was a gift to them, instead of being a gift to their church that would operate through them.  The over-emphasis on themselves was perverting the true purpose of the gifts.  They were not helping one another.  Instead, they were stirring one another up in envy, jealousy, and strife.

Spiritual gifts are not the only thing that can sidetrack believers.  There are whole groups within Christianity that do not believe the spiritual gifts are still in operation today.  Essentially, “God doesn’t do that anymore,” is their mantra.  They are more tempted to focus on the appearance of wisdom and knowledge to the expense of loving their fellow believers.  Again, wisdom and knowledge are good things if they are given from God and we are using them to bless others.  However, if they come from man’s attempts to look wise before others then we will be led astray.  Typically, we will only “bless” those who give lip service to our “human wisdom” and speak invectives against those who do not, even though they are believers.

We should always ask ourselves the question, “Will this make me and others more like Jesus?”  Whether I am exercising a spiritual gift in the assembly, or waxing in philosophical wisdom before other believers, I must always begin with the sacrificial love of Jesus.  He is the ultimate example to us of what God has called us to do, and what it means for us to love others by God’s definition. 

It is easy to say that loving one another is a primary focus, or purpose.  However, sometimes love has to make tough calls.  It has to run the risk of the other person, or onlookers, accusing us of not loving them.  Ultimately, God is our judge.  We will have to deal with the judgments of others, but they are not our judge.  If we allow the judgment of believers and onlookers to become more important to us than God’s judgment then we are not loving them as Jesus loved us.

Even right actions done for the wrong reasons can fail this question.  If my heart is wrong, or selfish, no amount of “loving actions” can make me like Jesus because the heart of Jesus was not wrong and selfish.  Our culture is lost when it comes to the proper judgment of actions.  We believe that the end justifies the means.  As long as someone is fighting for the right cause, their methods are rarely criticized.  Yet, at the same time, our culture has become extremely judgmental.  “If you do this thing then we know that you are that bad thing.”  Even this is hypocritical because of the first maxim.  If someone is working for the end that is deemed acceptable then they can do something all day long that others will be hyper-criticized for doing.  God help us to flee from such godlessness and receive a love of the Truth that only He can give.

Paul is reminding the Corinthians that a day will come when prophecies, speaking in tongues, and knowledge (i.e., spiritual gifts) will no longer be needed among God’s people.  This is described as when the perfect has come.  This perfect is describing the place that God is bringing us to.  At the resurrection, we will be clothed in glorified bodies that are immortal and untainted by the sin nature.  We will be a finished being who looks like Jesus, and we will be united with him never to be separated again.  It is in this perfect relationship that we will not need the spiritual gifts of this age anymore. 

Keeping that in mind, Paul’s main point is that love, faith, and hope will continue into the perfect age ahead.  The Corinthians were focusing on temporary things to the expense of eternal things.  That is never good.

This brings us to the relationship between love, faith, and hope.  Paul mentions that love is the greatest of these three virtues, but he doesn’t explain why.  From a biblical point of view, we know that love is described as an eternal attribute of God.  “God is love.”  (1 John 4:8,16).  In a way, faith is an internal, rational response to God’s love for us.  We believe because He loved us and loves us now, and we believe because we love Him.  We might call faith an aspect or facet of love itself.  When there is a separation of some sort in the relationship, love demonstrates itself in faith; it still trusts.

Hope is similar.  It is partly a rational and partly an emotional response to God’s love for us in regards to the future.  Because God is love and has promised His love eternally into the future, I need not fear the uncertainties of the future.  When we are united with Christ, it is not that faith and hope cease to exist or are no longer needed, it is just that they are less obvious.  We will dwell with Him ever able to see Him.  Perhaps this is why Paul calls love the greatest of the three.  It is simply the foundation of the other two.

We are in that tension between the now and not yet.  We have God’s presence now, but not as it will be in eternity.  It is God’s love for us that enables us to walk in faith (though we cannot see Him), and to have hope (though we cannot see the end result promised).  In a sense, we see Him with the eyes of faith, and our eternal future with the eyes of hope.  By the Spirit of God and by the Word of God, the love of God fills our hearts.  We need to daily refresh ourselves in the knowledge and experience of God’s love.  Even in times of discipline, we must see it as proof of His love for us.  The enemy does not want you to live out the love of God, to live this life trusting Him, and to joyfully trust your future to Him.  If he can, he will get you to focus on something else by undermining your faith in God’s love.

We have to spiritually mature to the point where we are not driven by our circumstances.  If something difficult happens, or persecution comes our way, we cannot fall into pity, thinking God doesn’t love us.  We must trust His love for us in the now and we must walk in faith.  We must trust Him with our future in such a way that we are filled with the hope and joy that comes when you truly believe that the Creator of all things is working it to your good (Romans 8:28).

With the Apostle John, let us rise up to the challenge of our day.  Faith is the victory that overcomes the world, and all of the enemy’s attempts to pull us off course.  Let us trust God by loving one another, and having our hearts full of the joy of those who belong to Him!

The Path Audio

The Omnipotent Love of God

Romans 8:31-39.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2021.

It is perhaps a bit crass to call the Bible God’s Valentine’s Card to us.  If there is anything good about Valentine’s Day, it has its roots in the foundation of God’s love for us.  The Bible is indeed the truth about God’s love for us.

Last week we looked at our duty of love to others, but today we are going to look at the omnipotent love of God for us.  It is not common to speak of God’s love as omnipotent, but I believe this will make perfect sense by the end of this article.

Our God is for us

Before we break into Romans 8:31-39, I need to remind us that the 3 verses leading up to this passage contain a powerful statement about those who truly love God.  In general, it says that God is working all things in this life to their good.  Specifically, God has foreknown those who would respond to His love and has predestined them in eternity past to be conformed to the image of His Son (in short, to end up being like Jesus).  Because of these decisions in eternity past, God has called us and justified us within time.  I hope you can recall that time when you heard the call of God in your heart, believed upon Jesus and were justified in that moment.  Lastly, Paul reminds us in our current moment that there is one more action that lies ahead in our future.  He will glorify those who truly love God at the resurrection.  He is the God who foreknew us, predestined us to become like Jesus, called us, justified us, and will glorify us.

It is important for us as believers to understand this eternal and wonderful love of God that began even before the worlds were created.  Now it is time to make this personal.  God foreknew you, predestined you, called you, justified you, and will complete His promise to glorify you with a resurrected, immortal body.  Wow!  How much He loves you.

Of course, verse 31 starts out with the conditional “if.”  This conditional reminds us that we can pretend before others, or even delude ourselves on this point.  Many who reject the Son of God claim that God is for them, and many who pretend love for Christ claim it too.  It is those who truly love God who find that His love for them began in eternity past and will not end even into eternity future.

All of this glorious declaration is summed up in the phrase, “If God is for us.”  The preposition translated “for” metaphorically translates a word that primarily means “over.”    Thus, the picture is that God has taken His stand over us.  He is not just rooting for us in our corner, but He has stepped forth over us and declared us to be His.

This picture is over and against the idea of someone trying to be against us.  Again, the preposition translated “against” has the sense of something that is coming down on top of us.  If God is standing over us, then who can come down on top of us?  This begins the picture that Paul wants us to see.  The omnipotent God omnipotently loves us.  Even if something tries to be against that, what can they do?  Absolutely nothing.

I’m reminded of the woman caught in the act of adultery (John 8:3-11).  The forces arrayed against her were many and mighty: the religious leaders who wanted to stone her, the spiritual forces who were stirring up the crowd, and even her own sin.  She knew she was guilty and had no defense.  It could not be said of her that she loved God, but Jesus took his stand by or over her and against those forces.  He saved her physical life that day to show her, and to show us, what could be, if we would just love God.

This God who has from eternity past been working for you up to this moment, and has a future eternity in mind for you, who or what in all of creation that might choose to be against us matters anymore?  Of course, all of hell can be against us, and the whole world can reject us, but God is over us.  So, what of it?  Yes, it might be a hard path, but it is always working to our good and to our victory, if we love Him, because He loves us.

Do you still doubt God’s love for you after that?  Paul then gives us evidence that was done on earth and in full view of men, that was witnessed and testified.  God did not spare His Son for us!  Let us dispense with the juvenile notion that somehow the cross represents cosmic child abuse.  Please.  Jesus was the eternal Son of God who had stepped into time in order to pay the price for whosoever would believe.  He may be the Son, but He is not a child.  He is not helpless and has actually chosen to do this thing; he is not forced.  However, he is also performing the Father’s will.  They are united in this action, and they are both choosing the grief and the suffering of such an unthinkable love.  Knowing that the one thing that could save us was the death of His Son, the Father did not hold back.  The most valuable thing in all of the cosmos was His relationship with His Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Yet, He did not hold back.  Yes, Jesus suffered on the cross, but the Father suffered too.  He had to allow the unthinkable to happen in order to demonstrate His love for us.

In light of this, Paul asks, “How shall He not give us all things with Jesus?”  This verse should never be used to somehow teach that we can have anything we want in this life, if we just believe for it.  First of all, it is qualified with the phrase “with Jesus.”  We will have everything with Jesus, not before him.  Second of all, Paul has God’s eternal plan that ends in our glorification in mind.  He is not thinking of how we can get a better bank account, house, car, job, spouse, etc.  If God has planned for us for an eternity past, and then sent His Son to pay such an awful price, then can you not believe that we really will inherit all things with Jesus when we are glorified in the resurrection?  If I stand to inherit all things then it does not matter if I do not have all things now.  They will be given to me at the proper time along with all who have believed in Him!

In verses 33 and 34, Paul brings in another issue, Justification.  Here, we see that the picture of the woman caught in adultery is even more appropriate.  He brings up the specific case of someone laying a charge of guilt against us.  There are people that do this.  Yet, even more, the accuser of the saints, Satan himself, is our ultimate opponent.  Jesus did not justify the woman that day.  She was not a lover of God and could not be justified yet.  However, the one who is the justifier shows us that justification is a two-edged sword.  Even when the accusations of our enemy are true, it does not mean that they are justified to accuse us.  Jesus most likely wrote in the dirt that day something like, Mene Mene Tikal Upharsin (from Daniel 5).  In Daniel’s day, the finger of God wrote on the wall that the King of Babylon was judged and found lacking.  His kingdom would be lost and divided between others.  Somehow, Jesus writing with his finger in the dirt reminded these men of their sinfulness and unworthiness to execute justice.  Jesus tells the woman to “go and sin no more.”  In short, she should turn towards God in love, the God who saved her when she didn’t deserve it.  God stood against her enemies, not because they were wrong in their judgments, but because they were wrong in their hearts.

When you are loved by the One who is the Justifier, there is no being in all of the universe who can successfully charge us with anything that would rescind his justification.  Remember, Jesus will only justify those who love him and through faith are following him.   If God has justified us then who can condemn us?  No one of any matter.

Let’s end with verses 35-39.  Here, Paul ends with the declaration that nothing on earth and in heaven can separate us from God’s love.  The omnipotent love of God cannot be overwhelmed by anyone and anything.  He loves us, He loves you, that much!  Of course, it is a mystery.  You could spend the rest of your life asking why and never find the answer.  It is just who He is.  He is the One who has loved us and nothing can come between us, except your own heart and choices.

Paul lists a host of things that could threaten to separate us from God’s love: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or the sword.  He even quotes Psalm 44:22, where the Psalmist is struggling with the difficult things they are experiencing and the love of God.  “For your sake we are killed all day long.  We are counted as sheep for the slaughter.”  Then the psalmist would next say, “Awake!  Why do you sleep, O Lord?  Arise!  Do not cast us off forever!”  It is easy to believe that God does not love us when we face the circumstances above, but these things cannot separate us from God’s love even when our mind tells us that they have.

Paul interrupts his list to make the statement that we are called to be conquerors, or overcomers, over these adversities.  Rather than separating us from God’s love, they are making us victorious warriors who are made to be more like Jesus through them.  Our faith in God and our love for Him conquers all that our enemy may throw at us, and even any discipline that may come our way due to our own sin.  Jesus conquered the cross, the hatred of death spewed out by his enemy, by trusting the Father and embracing it.  No matter how hideous it was, it was being worked to the good for him because He loved God!

The list then becomes almost poetic in nature.  Not even death or life, angels, principalities or powers, nor things in our present, or things to come, nothing in the highest place, or nothing in the lowest place, not any created thing can separate us from God’s love.  That is, unless we let it rob us of our faith.  Nothing can take your faith in God’s love away from you, but you can surrender to lies and deception and lay it down of your own accord.  Everything is created, but God Himself.  This categorically states that absolutely nothing that happens to us, or comes against us, can thwart God’s love for you and for me.  This is the amazing love of an all-powerful God.

Let us live this week, and ever onward, secure in the knowledge of His love for us, and give Him great love in return!

Omnipotent Love audio

The Most Excellent Way

Romans 12:9-10.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on February 7, 2021.

In Mark 12:29-31, Jesus gave us the two greatest commandments, which are really two sides of the same coin.  We are to love God with all of our being (heart, soul, mind, and strength), and we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Later, Jesus modified this second command among his disciples.  “Love one another, as I have loved you.”  That is quite the qualifier.  It is one thing to love one another as we think we should, but to love in the way Jesus did would be to love sacrificially and selflessly.

I say that these two commands are two sides of the same coin because the Apostle John challenges us in his first letter with this.  How can you say you love God, whom you haven’t seen, when you can’t even love your brother, whom you have?  Yes, it is easy to give lip service to loving God because he is not physically on this earth.  It is more difficult to test.  In fact, shouldn’t we see the second command as the litmus test of whether or not we truly love God?  I think so.

Let’s remind ourselves today to strengthen this duty that we have to love one another, the duty to love.

We are to love without hypocrisy

The command to love one anther is simple enough, but throughout Scripture, we are given qualifiers from time to time.  In Romans 12:9, it is qualified with a negative phrase, “without hypocrisy.”  Some translations have chosen to emphasize the positive implication of this phrase.  NIV says, “Love must be sincere.”  ESV says, “Let love be genuine.”  The NLT attempts to put both the negative phrase and its positive implication together.  “Don’t just pretend to love others.  Really love them.”

The reason that we need these qualifiers is because the actions of people do not always match up with their words.  There is an irony in our country today that, while we talk more and more of loving each other and being united, we are seeing more and more anger and hatred.  This is not a new thing.  There have always been those who said they were loving, but in the end they were not.  They weren’t sincere, or genuine.  In short, they were hypocrites.

The word hypocrisy, that we are not supposed to mix in with our loving of one another, was a word that came from acting in plays.  The New Testament writers took the word and used it to refer the moral evil of a person merely acting as if they are doing good.  Such people were wearing the acting mask of love, but behind that external mask, there were unloving motivations.

Acting is a powerful medium for getting a message across when people know that it is an act.  It helps us to think about the same situation as a group.  Of course, it can be manipulated to try and pressure the group to think certain things, which is itself a form of hypocrisy.  It pretends to open up discussion on a situation, but in truth is trying to force all to think the same. 

Let’s just say the obvious.  Christians are not called to make an amazing movie about love, whether on a screen or in our lives.  We are to be doing it, for real.  In other words, we are to live a life of love that is worthy of a movie, not to give a performance that people are willing to watch.  It is the difference between being an actor and being the real thing.  If Hollywood stars are any measure of actors, we know that actors are often empty of the good things that they portray, or at least fall very short of it.

Wearing masks with one another and having a superficial love is not God’s plan, and we need the help of the Holy Spirit to be brave enough to take them off.  Warning- when you try to take of masks, those who are still wearing them will be uncomfortable with it (even you will be uncomfortable with it).

Paul then describes what hypocrisy-free love looks like with two verbal phrases.  The first is “abhor that which is bad.”  While we love one another, we should be abhorring, or detesting, that which is evil.  Paul chooses a strong word here.  Christians are not to treat moral evil lightly.  In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul also writes, “love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth.”

Moral evil is defined throughout Scriptures, and it is all those negative vices and activities that God warns against, of which hypocrisy is just one.  This is not just an instruction for me about the other person and their sin.  Rather, it starts with me.  I must detest and shrink back from the tendency to be insincere, or any other moral evil, in my “love.”  I must fight the internal battle of keeping my heart pure towards God and my fellow man.

Of course, when loving others, we will have to face their imperfections and sinful tendencies (and they ours).  Love never means coddling that which is evil.  Our society likes to pick and choose who it loves and what evil is protected.  This must never be among Christians, those who say that they are following Christ, rather than our culture. 

An example of this has to do with public advice that is often given to people in difficult situations.  A case in point is a letter that was written to Dear Abbey.  A mother’s adult daughter, who had been raised to be a Christian, had embraced homosexuality.  The mom was struggling with what it means to continue to love her daughter when she was embracing something that was morally evil (by Christ’s definition).  Dear Abbey’s advice was a surrender to cultural influence in which she was counselled to embrace her daughter and the homosexual lifestyle she was living.  Ultimately, our hearts can be pulled into evil even out of a misguided love.  Loving someone in this situation is something Christians should do, but not in a way that embraces the harmful choices of the individual.  I know that this is 180 degrees the opposite of today’s “wisdom,” but we are followers of Jesus, not today’s culture (or are we?).

The second verbal phrase is the positive implication of the previous.  We must love while holding fast, or clinging, to that which is good.  Most people tend to one side or the other.  We can focus only on detesting evil, and it becomes an excuse to disregard and ignore people who God loves.  On the other hand, we can focus only on clinging to what is good, and ignore the moral evil that is piling up around us.  Christians are called to the hard road of truly loving others, as Jesus loved us.  It is hypocrisy to say that we love someone, but then not really face sin in our life or theirs.  It is hypocrisy to call this love, or to pretend that love calls us to overlook sin, or at least redefine it.  It is also hypocrisy to write someone off because of their sins and failures, and not try to lift that which is good.

This tension is mentioned by Paul in Galatians 6:1, “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently.  But watch yourselves, or you may also be tempted.”  Jude mentions this tension in verses 22 and 23 of his letter.  “Be merciful to those who are doubting; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by flesh.”  Even a person who is so destroyed by sin that they are essentially being thrown into the fire of destruction, we are to attempt to save, yet being careful not to be caught up in their sin.  This is a love that is tough on the person doing it and tough on the person receiving it.  However, it is only truth that can set you free.  Fake love helps no one, period.

We are to love as family

Another qualifier is given for our love in verse 10 of Romans 12.  We must love each other with the love that we would have for family members.  Christians are called the “household of faith,” “the children of God,” and we are destined to be the adult Sons and Daughters of God in eternity.  It is not that we pretend that the other is family.  In Christ, we actually are.  Paul uses two words that refer to this family love.  “Brotherly love” is the obvious one.  However, the “kindly affectioned” phrase is actually a word that speaks of the love between parents and children.

Our biological families are a microcosm of the larger family of God that we join when we become followers of Christ.  Even our local church is simply a microcosm of the larger family of God worldwide, and history-wide.  Like Israel coming out of Egypt, we are a part of a large nation of very different people who all will inherit form the same Father, who loves us all.  It is easy to forget that we are family in Christ, and that our Father wants us to learn to get along and love each other.  This is not a suggestion, or something that we can work on when everything else is done.  It is the litmus test of our love for God.  “Do you love me?  Then, feed my sheep,” aka, love my children.

Lastly, Paul speaks of humbly honoring others.  Sibling rivalry, or just family squabbles, are destined to happen because none of us are perfect yet.  Even those who are spiritual elders are not perfected yet.  It is easy to chafe at other believers, like siblings, and it is easy to have tensions between spiritual elders and young believers.  These things are a natural part of being family.  However, we are to work on them with the kind of attitude that takes the lead in honoring the other.  The NKJV translates, “preferring one another.”  This misses the mark in my opinion.  The word being translated has the concept of going ahead of others in this area of honoring.  The clash is that our tendency is to honor ourselves and “go ahead” by pushing ourselves above others.  If we are to “go ahead of others,” it is not to be in honoring ourselves, but in honoring them.

Honor has to do with value and worth.  We love what has value and worth to us, and yet, in our imperfection, we often value things that we shouldn’t and disvalue, dishonor, what we shouldn’t.  Believers have a value to one another that isn’t always understood by us because we get wrapped up in the thinking of our age.  Instead of seeing one another through God’s yes, and through His purposes, we can only see through the world’s eyes and its purposes, or our own selfish purposes.  The challenge to love in today’s atmosphere is only becoming more difficult.  This cannot be used as an excuse.  There are attempts from the culture to polarize and divide God’s people.  May God help us to resist these blatant attacks on God’s Church, and to remain in fellowship with the Spirit of God and His people.

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