His Perfect Love

Guest (Male): Evil is all around us and on the rise, but how should we respond to it all? Here's Pastor Matt.

Matt VanderVen: God says very few times hate something, right? Hate, hate, very few times. We are to hate what is evil, he even says. We are to hate what is evil. There's no room or common place or mediation between them.

We're not to try to be around what is evil as somehow we're trying to flow back and forth. No, we're to be away from that. We're to have nothing to do with what is evil. We shouldn't be putting our foot in the water and tempting the spirit that way.

Guest (Male): The Lord intended for the Christian to be known by our love for one another, not the love that ebbs and flows with the tides of the sea, but a continuous love. We'll learn more about this constant flow of love today on His Perfect Love.

But first, we'll discover that we're to hate evil and do what is good. Now, imagine what the world would look like if we actually did that. Here's Pastor Matt VanderVen continuing our study of Romans, going deeper into Chapter 12.

Matt VanderVen: Please open your Bibles to Romans Chapter 12. Romans Chapter 12 this morning. Paul has been bringing us through Romans. If you remember Chapters 1 through 8, we're in the third section here, but Chapters 1 through 8 dealt with really the doctrine of the Christian faith.

We were all united in sin as we fall short of the glory of God. Paul declares that, we become very aware of it, and then we say, "What do we do? Now what do we do? We're without an answer." Paul's more than happy to declare Jesus Christ. He's our hope, he's our answer, he's our everything.

Then we made our way and then the natural question comes from after that. Chapters 1 through 8 in the second section we covered, 9, 10, and 11. Well, what about the Jew? What about those that the promise was made? The everlasting covenant was made.

Jeremiah 31:31 still has yet to be fulfilled. It's partially fulfilled and that a covenant's been offered, but not all of Israel has responded to that covenant. Has God certainly forgotten his chosen people? What did Paul say? Certainly not.

So what happens? What's our response? Well, that's what Paul spent 9, 10, and 11 going through, saying that God's everlasting covenant is still in effect. We ought to be praying for Israel, we ought to be praying for Jerusalem, we ought to be praying for those in Israel today that they would receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We have a family that's with us now that just spent the last 14 years in Israel on missions. Now they're here and they're fellowshiping and the Lord's brought them in and it's beautiful to hear what they were doing and how many Jews were coming to salvation, to Christ.

It's happening right before our eyes. It's happening. If you think about this just from a time period, before 1948, many were gathered back into that land as promised. Generation upon generation had waited for that hope when there would be the Northern and Southern tribes.

They would be gathered together once as Zechariah said. Together in one. No longer the North, no longer the South, no longer Ephraim, no longer Judah. Israel, governed by God. Jew and Gentile alike, grafted in, right? God's chosen people, the Jews.

Well, Paul then did that and then we came to Chapter 12 and that's where we are now. Paul begins in Chapter 12 saying, "What does it look like for practical living for the Christian?"

We spent time going through really verses 1 through 8 last week and we looked at whether it's ministry and our ministering, teaching and our teaching, exhorting in our exhortation, giving liberally, right? Leads diligently, mercy with cheerfulness. All these things that God is putting on our hearts, directing us.

Well, now in verse 9, he's going to go through and give us about 20 commands. He's going to break up the passage 9 through 13. They have everything to do with actions, our actions, as a matter of fact. How we're to conduct ourselves in the Christian walk.

Then as we go verses 14 through 20, it's our response. So when someone else, let's say, may wrong us, how do we respond? I often think verses 9 through 13 are a little easier because we lead with that and we can say, "Okay, brother, okay, sister, we're in the faith."

But then what happens when somebody comes to us with a different tongue, something maybe we don't like? Are we willing to respond back as disciples of Christ? I think 14 through 20 is a little bit harder personally. Some people might say, "Oh, I got 9 through 13 licked," but 14 through 20, wow. But God's convicting and exhorting us through this. This is what we need to walk out the faith.

All right, verse 9. "Let love..." This word love here in the Greek is Agape. Okay, we know there's different words, Phileo and different words in the Greek. This is Agape. "Let Agape love, in other words, let love be without hypocrisy."

Don't be hypocritical in how we love. Are we loving one way and expecting others to love us? Are we getting loved one way and not returning that love? Let there not be a hypocrisy. Let there not be a double standard for unconditional love.

Because after all, Agape love is unconditional. It's not conditioned based on circumstances, right? Our circumstances change, our God never does. Our love likewise should be unconditional.

Abhor, that word in the Greek means disgust. I'm sorry to do this to you right now this morning. Think of something that disgusts you. I mean to the point of disgust beyond disgusting. I'm not going to fill in the blank for you. I don't want to know what that is. You all keep that to yourselves. But whatever that is in your mind right now, think of that.

He says abhor. That word abhor, that means that disgust. We are to have such a disgust for what is evil. For what is evil. God says very few times hate something, right? Hate, hate, very few times. We are to hate what is evil, he even says. We are to hate what is evil.

There's no room or common place or mediation between them. We're not to try to be around what is evil as somehow we're trying to flow back and forth. No, we're to be away from that. We're to have nothing to do with what is evil.

We shouldn't be putting our foot in the water and tempting the spirit that way. He says abhor. Be disgusted by what is evil. Cling, that word in the Greek, the idea there, think of wood with glue. If you have wood, anybody carpenter, work with wood?

All right, think of wood, right? If you take glue, construction glue. Some of you saw the old commercial they used to have, the Liquid Nails and the guy had the helmet on, the yellow helmet. Remember he'd put the liquid glue on that and hang himself off a rafter? Poor guy, he had to give you a headache. But he's sitting there like this holding the thing, showing the strength of this.

This is what this word means in the Greek. It says this idea: cling. It's not something that we just go near. It's not something that we just even brush up against. No, he says cling to what is good. Glue, as though we can't be separated from it.

It's not something that allows, it's adhesion. We're adhered to what is good. It's not something that can be separated that way. It's not something that's duplicitous. One moment, it's not Velcro. One moment you're over here, abhorring what's evil, which you should, you'd hate what's evil, but you're over here flirting with what's evil, and then one moment back over here with what is good.

No, he says you're to hate and be disgusted with what's evil, and you're to cling to what is good. There is no separation from it. You're adhered to it. Do you see that?

Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love. That's the word Philadelphia, right? Brotherly love that way. In honor giving preference to one another. That idea of preference is actually putting one ahead of yourself.

Putting one before you, taking a secondary role or a backseat, if I say it that way, you know what I mean. It's literally taking someone and putting them in an honor or a position of honor. Giving preference to one another.

You know, it's one of the things I love about this fellowship. I was saying to the first service, it's not like we have two services here. Yes, we do, but we don't have two churches, right? Sometimes you go to some bigger churches and you can have multiple services and they feel like individual services. Here, we do have multiple services, but it's the body of Christ and we're all connected and we're all family.

People know people from first service and second service and they're intimately connected in their lives because we have Wednesday night and we have other gatherings like yesterday the Passover and other things.

As a church leadership, we're working diligently and praying diligently about things that we can do so that we all are together. So that there's a unity in the body. Because he says you need to do that. You need to have that Philadelphia, that brotherly love one to another.

Not lagging or lacking in diligence. Not lacking in zeal or justice. This even has an idea of justice with zeal. Many will translate this in the Greek, but if you look at it in context, it also connotes and can be used for justice with zealousness.

So being zealous for what is right. That's what it's saying here, not lagging in diligence of what is right, of justice that way. Fervent in spirit. That idea of fervent, what does that mean? Think of boiling over. You take a pot and you're going to make a sauce and a pasta.

We call it gravy in Italian. A pasta and a sauce, right? You're going to turn around and you're going to make that, right? Well, what do you do? You don't just take cold water and throw the pasta in. I pray none of you do that here. Please don't do this.

Boil your water first, add a little salt, right? Then you put your macaroni, your pasta in and you bring it to a boil until it's al dente and then you take... Okay, this isn't a cooking class, but you get the point, right? These are important things, practical living. We need to think about these things.

Well, what's he saying? He's saying, "Look, it should boil over." That's what this means here. When we look at this word and this idea here, this fervent speaks to a boiling over of the spirit. That it shouldn't be something that's contained.

You take your carbonated beverage, you put it in a glass, and if you pour it in, what happens? It begins to come over, it overflows. It doesn't just go, "I'm at the top and I'm going to stop now." No, it comes right over all over your table and everything.

Are we boiling over like that in the spirit? Because that's the example that God is given us here. That's what we ought to be longing for, that's what we ought to be seeking.

For what? Why do we? Is it all for us? Everything we're reading in this passage is all others-focused. None of it's about us in some way gaining something or our gain. It's all about everyone else and how we, in other words, how we love others, how we're fervent in the spirit to serve others, to minister.

He had been building on that already in Chapter 12, verses 7 and 8, because these gifts were all given for us or to serve other people. Other people, right? So look what else he says here: fervent in the spirit, boiling or in serving the Lord. That's what it's all about. Think about that in your heart. What are you boiling over with?

What was Moses boiling over with at times? What was Moses' thing he struggled with? Anger. Some people boil over with lust. Some people boil over with filth or dissension or contentment. What do you boil over with?

Well, Paul tells us that we should be boiling over with the spirit, in the spirit serving the Lord. Rejoicing. He says we're to rejoice and what? Faith is only as good as you place your faith in. What are we to be rejoicing in here? Rejoicing in hope. Hope.

What's that word, Elpidi? What is the idea behind that word? What do you place your hope in? Your hope is only as good as what you place it in. Is it in the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Because if that's where your hope is placed, you'll never find yourself lacking.

It's like water. Jesus says he's the water that never ceases, that never stops, that constantly flows. That no matter how thirsty you are, you will always be quenched because he's living water. He's not water that dries up, he's not water that changes. He's the ancient of days. There is no limit.

Like, you've received your limit today, get in the next line, right? Or, "I'm sorry, you've had too much water today." No, Jesus changed that. Under the New Covenant compared to the Old Covenant. Under the Old Covenant, you could only come as close as God would allow.

And what separated us? It was a veil from the presence of going into the Holy of Holies. God set the standard. The Father set the standard at that time because we were unrighteousness. Even though there was an atonement, only the high priest went in to do an atonement for himself twice that day, and then an atonement for the nation.

But no one could approach the altar, the ark, the mercy seat. That word in the Greek for mercy seat means what? Atonement.

It was a picture of Jesus. His presence being indwelling with us. That we couldn't go into that. But when Jesus, Messiah, when he was on the cross and he was crucified, it was torn from the top down. We know this.

And then we could enter into the presence. No longer do we have a barrier determining how far and how close and how intimate we can be with God. Now that's been removed and we can press into the Holy of Holies.

We can go into the altar, Revelation Chapter 4, forgive me, right into the throne room of God with Jesus. And we can go and our hearts open and just praising and worshiping and experiencing the very presence of God.

There's nothing anymore that limits us except ourselves. Except our flesh. Except our desire for the here and now instead of for the heavenly things. The temporal instead of the eternal. You see, God's given us that.

He didn't want us wrestling with the temporal. He didn't want us concerned and overwhelmed with the temporal. He wanted us focused on the eternal because he knew that's where freedom came, that's where victory, and that's where perfect love is. In the arms of our God. Amen. Nothing else.

So we see that here, you know, he's describing this rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation. How many of us are patient? Please circle that in your Bibles. Notice your Bibles say patient in tribulation. What does that mean?

You're going to travail. You're going to have difficulties, right? We don't have a Bible or a doctrine that says that if you lack faith, that's why you have tribulation. No. Our Bibles say that every single person will have tribulation but are to do what? Patient.

Well, that's a foreign concept. Now, I will admit I'm the biggest without in regards to being hypocritical. I don't want to stand up here, especially before my Lord, and in any way put on an air of hypocrisy. I am the biggest baby going. All of you know that.

When I get sick, I'm lying there whining. "Oh, I'm dying. What's happening? Lord, I'm coming." "You don't even have a fever. You're on an antibiotic. It's a side effect. You're going to be okay in a couple days." "No Lord, this is the one."

I mean, my poor wife and my children. Some of you guys know what I'm talking about because you're right there. And some of you wives know because you watch your husbands right there, right? We're like, "What's going on? I'm dying. Hold my hand, right? Hold my hand." My wife's like, "Get out of here, I got to do the dishes." No, my wife's beautiful. She's long-suffering, she's patient.

But we're living in such a day where we want microwave everything. Microwave ministry. People don't want to wait and watch the Lord transform them as they begin to step up and be prepared to serve. "No, I'm ready now. Pastor, don't you know? I'm sorry, the Lord didn't phone home.

I didn't get that message. No, you're the next gift to God's gift to the minute... Okay, you say so. All right. Where'd he tell you to go? What'd he tell you to do?" "Oh, I don't know." Well then, let's pray on it, let's wait on it, right?

What about life in our jobs, right? "What do you mean I didn't get that raise? I've been here three months. Come on. Don't they see what I am? Come on, man. Way I climb that ladder." What happened to working 40 years at a company and earning your way, working your way to the top?

You know, my father, he was injured. I remember when he was alive, he was injured. He was an ironworker. Back then they were crazy. At the end of Fridays, they'd run and jump on the ball, the crane. They'd run midstream and they'd turn around and run and jump midstream and catch the crane.

Not good. Not good. Now everything clear? Everything clear for you all? Not good, right? So you turn around, he would do that. But then he fell. Mom asked him to change an awning. Awnings used to be above the doors. Mom says, "Change an awning, eight foot off the ground."

Falls and breaks his neck. They turn around and send him to the Mayo Clinic. Put a steel rod, they fix him up, he comes home.

"What am I going to do now? All I know how to do..." My dad was big, he was a big boy. He was six-something, pretty heavy-duty guy. And he turned around, he carried these metal beams. He's just, "Man, I could balance that way. It's what I did."

Well, he ended up becoming a building inspector, codes officer. He would turn around for 40 years, the same thing every day. Very content. Very content with where God had brought him. Today, if people aren't moving up that ladder, they feel like, "What's going on? Am I forgotten?"

Well, what about tribulation? You know, we have all this modern medicine and science, and praise God for it. Many lives are saved because of the modern medicine.

But what happens if we're sick more than a week? Or we're suffering for a couple weeks, three weeks, four weeks. We're not getting better. You know, some of us guys, we get a little older, prostate issues, right? All these things that we go through. Four or five times a night you wake up. Whatever it is, our tents are failing.

He tells us be patient in your tribulation, be patient in your trial. Why? Because God meets you there. Don't pray yourself out of the trial, pray Jesus into the trial with you. Because that's where the growth and maturation is going to happen.

It's not when you get out of it, because when you get out of it, you're going to go right back to your old ways and you're going to have a lot of confidence and a lot of strength and you're going to do one of these things and you're going to feel great.

But when you're in that trial and it's difficult and you cry out to Jesus and you don't know how you're getting out of bed or you just got a diagnosis of cancer or you don't know what's happening and God meets you in that trial, you're never stronger than when you're weak.

Because he's leading and he's guiding and he's the one holding you up. And you know what? Everybody around you reads your life like a Bible and they see the strength of Jesus Christ right now in you. A living epistle written, read, and known by men and women, right? Second Corinthians 3:2.

That's what he says. Don't rush the tribulation away. I know that's easier said than done. Again, I don't want to have hypocrisy. Some of you know I've been working through some things medically with getting older.

God is just telling me, "It is what it is. My grace is sufficient." Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. I'm never closer to God than when I'm crying out for help. For simple things, for complex things.

We got to get rid of that mentality: I need to be better tomorrow, I need this tomorrow, I need to have more money tomorrow. It's always going to be something. Don't chase. Continuing steadfast in prayer, or steadfastly in prayer.

How about that? What an exhortation there, to continue steadfast. We want revival, don't we? Every week we come in as believers twice a week, Wednesdays and Sundays, and we say, "Lord, have revival, Lord. Please do another revival before you come. We know you're coming soon, Jesus. One more, Jesus, one more revival."

If you go back and study revivals, and I have, and you go back and you look through church history, every time there was a revival, there were people praying steadfastly. This means continually, constantly praying. Sunday nights we have prayer at 7:00 PM, corporate prayer.

I would love to tell you that this church is packed. A section of the church is packed. A section. Why not the whole thing? "Well, I'm busy. I have this going on. I have to get ready for Monday." All the things that we come up with. And yet we say we want revival. It can't be both ways, friends.

Guest (Male): Well, thanks for joining us today for His Perfect Love. You can hear this study from Pastor Matt VanderVen again when you visit hisperfectlove.org. Catch up on what you might have missed in Romans at hisperfectlove.org.

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We hope you'll visit us at Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore. Sunday morning services begin at 8:30 and 10:30. We have a midweek service too, Wednesdays at 7:00 PM. We're located at 28 North Locust Point Road in Mechanicsburg, PA. Go to ccharrisburg.org for more information.

Are you looking for a Christian school that offers a quality education and a nurturing environment for your children? If so, you might be interested in Calvary Chapel Christian Academy, a ministry of Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore.

Calvary Chapel Christian Academy is a non-denominational Christian school that serves students from kindergarten to 12th grade. The academy's mission is to provide a Christ-centered education that equips students to love God, love others, and serve the world.

The academy offers a rigorous academic curriculum, a variety of extracurricular activities, and a caring and supportive staff. The academy is located at 28 North Locust Point Road in Mechanicsburg, PA.

For more information, please visit our website at ccharrisburg.org/academy. That's ccharrisburg.org/academy. And then we'll come back to our study of Romans next time on His Perfect Love with Pastor Matt. See you then, and God bless.