From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: We'll continue this evening our studies in the 12th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans, and we are now dealing with this subsection that starts in verse 9. Let me read therefore verses 9, 10, and 11. "Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another; Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord."

Now we began our consideration of this section last Friday evening. And here we indicated we are dealing with the Apostle's injunctions and instructions to us as Christian people in our general relationships as Christian people, both with other Christians and with those who are not Christians. Until this point, he's been dealing chiefly with the gifts which are given to believers by the Holy Spirit as they are manifested in ministry in the church in various ways. But now he moves to a wider sphere.

And we saw that in the ninth verse, he lays down the two great controlling fundamental principles that govern and control the whole of Christian conduct. We've always got to start with these. If we don't, we shall go astray. And it seems to me so often that we do fail as Christian people in our conduct and particular behavior because we approach these problems directly instead of indirectly.

We start with a particular problem instead of starting with these two fundamental principles. And they were, as we saw last Friday night, this great principle of love. "Let love be without dissimulation." Love of God, love of our neighbors. "Love is the fulfilling of the law." If we but loved as we should and without dissimulation, we should be keeping the law. Love is the fulfilling of the law.

And our Lord, you remember, in His teaching summed it up in the same way. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." If only we always remembered that and did it, how different the church would be and how different the world would be.

And then the second great principle is this one about, and it follows of course from the first, "Abhor that which is evil." Not only don't do it, but hate it. "Ye that love the Lord, hate evil." As Christians, we are not to be negative. We are not just to be nice little people who don't do things. We are to be filled with a positive hatred of evil.

We are to abhor it with the whole of our being. It is to be as hateful to us in our measure as it is to God Himself. And on the contrary, we are to cleave to that which is good. Hold on to it, be glued to it, be such that we cannot be separated from it. Now there you've got the two principles that govern the whole of this question of Christian conduct.

But the Apostle, as is his custom, never stops at just laying down his general principles. He was a great teacher, this man, and he knew his people. And he knew that it wasn't enough just to lay down principles and go on. He comes down to details and he deals with them. And now that is what we have got to proceed to do.

Now I suggested in my general analysis of the section last Friday night that in this 10th verse, he is again dealing with our general relationship to one another. I'm putting it deliberately as general because once more, he's going to come down to certain particulars. And he puts it in these words as they are translated in the Authorized Version: "Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another."

Now let's deal with the exact statement first before we come to consider how we can do this. A better translation probably would be this: "In brotherly love to one another, loving warmly, or with warmth." Now that is so because of this word that is translated by "kindly affectioned." It's a most interesting word, and it's a word which in the root and original meaning conveys the whole notion of natural affection.

Not an affection which is produced or called forth by circumstances, but something which is there innate because of the relationship in which we find ourselves. In other words, it is the word that is used to describe the love you have for your relatives, for your kindred. That is the word in its original meaning. It is the kind of innate instinctive love which we feel towards those who are members of the family to which we ourselves belong—the natural love of kindred.

So what the Apostle is saying is this: that our brotherly love as Christian people in our relationships as Christians with one another, in the church and elsewhere, he says that this brotherly love of ours is not to be something merely superficial or official. It's not merely because we are associated together in the same church or something like that. He says it must go beyond that.

He says your brotherly love should really take on something of the character of the love that you have to members of your natural families to which you belong. Now this is a most interesting and a most important point. That is really what he's saying. Somebody therefore translated it like this: "Love the brethren in the faith as though they were brethren in blood." And I think that brings out the meaning very well.

The brethren in the faith, that's brotherly love. Now he says you must love your brethren in the faith as if they were brethren also in blood. Now the question that confronts us at once is this: What does this mean? You notice it is a command. "Let." All these things. "Let love be without dissimulation. Be kindly affectioned to one another with a brotherly love."

I think I indicated last Friday, I can't quite remember, that I have almost been amused at some of the commentators in the way in which they handle this whole section. They seem to say, "Well this, of course, is all quite obvious. We needn't stay with this." I was reading an article by a man in another country on this very section about three weeks back, and he actually said this. He said these things are so obvious, we needn't go into details here, we needn't wait with them.

Now I've only one comment to make about that: that's a man who hasn't understood the section at all. Of course, I know it's a very easy thing to do. You can read this, you say, "Quite obvious. Let love be without dissimulation." But what's it mean? "Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good." All right, it seems obvious. But how do you do it? That's the question. And the same with this: "Be kindly affectioned to one another with brotherly love."

But you stop and you say, "Well, now am I doing that? Is that true of me? If not, why not? How can I conform to this?" And the moment you do that, you find that it's not quite as obvious and as simple as you thought it was, because there is one thing we cannot do and that is to create feelings. You can't produce feelings. It's just impossible. And sometimes the more you try to do so, the more bereft you are of feelings.

And yet here we are confronted by a commandment. Let your love of the brethren in the faith be as though you were brethren in blood. Can't you see how different the life of the Christian church would be and would have been throughout the centuries if only everybody had practiced this? Well, how do we do it? How can it be done? Now here is the great question.

And to me, there is only one answer once more. We saw it last week, we see it again, we'll go on seeing it with every one of these separate injunctions. The only way to be sure that you are kindly affectioned to one another with brotherly love is this: to pay attention to and to respond to the exhortation in the first verse of the chapter. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God." You work that out, the "therefore" and the "mercies of God."

And you can't do it otherwise. In other words, you don't approach the question of feelings directly. That is almost fatal. Feelings are always the result of something else. And feelings are the result ultimately of understanding and of thought. So what the Apostle is exhorting us to do here is not to try to put on some cloak of feelings which we don't have and which we don't feel, which would be sheer hypocrisy.

He's saying face these things in such a way that you will find that you do love your brethren in the faith as if they were also brethren even in blood. Well, how do you do it? Well you see, the answer is this: You've got to work out your doctrine. And you work out your doctrine like this: You realize that as a Christian you are born again. You've got a new nature.

And you realize that the same thing is true of all other Christians. You have started a new life, you've been born into a new life. Yes, but you've also been born into a new family. So has every other Christian. So now you see that you and every other Christian are members of the same family, that you really are related to them in this extraordinary manner.

Now let me put this plainly to you by showing you how our Lord dealt with this and how the same Apostle does it at greater length somewhere else. Take our Lord's teaching, for instance, as you find it in the 10th chapter of the Gospel according to St. Mark in verses 29 and 30. "And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life."

Now there it is. What He's saying is this: Because you've become followers of Me, it may mean that you'll be ostracized by your family. You may lose in that sense your husband or your wife, your father or your mother, or your children, or your relatives. They'll have nothing more to do with you because you've become a Christian. Well it's all right, says our Lord, you'll get brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers and husbands and wives.

You won't lose; it'll all be made up to you. You'll have many more than you had before. Why? Well, because you've now entered into this amazing family of God. And there you have these relationships. And then you get the Apostle Paul, of course, putting the same thing in that well-known statement at the end of the second chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians. He is writing to Gentiles.

"Now therefore," he says, "you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God." You are members of God's household. You are members of God's family. Now that's the thing that's at the back of the teaching of the Apostle in this verse that we're looking at here in the 12th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. We do belong to the same family as Christians.

Now this is not something merely in thought. I know we must be careful not to materialize it overmuch, but the term "regeneration" and "rebirth" does carry a real meaning. There is something new, there is a new nature, and we do belong to a new family. And what he's saying in effect therefore is just this: that you should feel therefore with regard to your fellow Christians what you did feel and still feel perhaps in the natural sense to your brothers and sisters, because you do belong to this spiritual family in as great reality as you did to the physical family. And therefore, you should feel for them this same feeling that you know so well in the natural and in the human realm.

Now, you see, you have to work this out, and that is what he's exhorting us to do. He is not saying just be polite to your fellow Christians because you are now members of the same society or of the same institution or of the church together. He says no, no, it must be altogether deeper than that. You must feel this bond, this relationship to them, that you're brothers and sisters.

I think I've often pointed out this before. This doesn't just mean that you begin calling everybody "Brother." That's the negation of it and at any rate as far as I'm concerned, it always makes me feel least brotherly. That's not what he's talking about. That's that this superficial something, that's dissimulation, that's pretense, that's playing. That's not it at all.

But what he does mean is that having realized the truth and the doctrine, well you begin to be conscious of this, and you mustn't be content with anything less than that. And so, you see, it works out in practice in this way. What do we do as natural human beings? Well we're always ready to do things with regard to our relatives that we won't do with other people. We are ready to correct other people's children for doing certain things which we don't correct our own children for doing.

That's human nature. You defend your own, you make excuses for your own, you're always on the defensive for your own. You can always understand what they're doing. Now what he's saying is that should be equally true of your relationship to one another as Christians. You should feel this same innate desire.

Now this works out, of course, all around. Take another way of putting the same thing. This whole analogy of the body that he's been using and which is elaborated in 1 Corinthians 12. There, you remember, the Apostle says if one member of the body suffers, all suffer with it. And that is true of us as Christians, and it should be more and more true of us.

Because of our consciousness of this family relationship, we suffer together, we rejoice together. Nothing can happen to any one of us but that we're all in it. Why? Well because we're not only members of the same body, we're members of the same family. And then if we find certain brothers and sisters difficult at certain times and certain points and do things which we can't quite understand, well we don't condemn them as outsiders, we treat them exactly as we would treat natural relatives if they were doing the same sort of thing.

And it is in that way, you see, that the life of the church is harmonious. It is in this way we all together minister to the glory of God and show to the world our relationship to one another because of our relationship to Him. Now let me add just one other note to that. You notice that what he says is that our brotherly love is to show itself in this way.

It is important that we should draw the distinction between liking and loving. Even in the natural sense, you don't like each member of your family as much as you like others. Now I'm not here to justify this or to criticize it. I'm just saying it is a fact that though you may be in exactly the same relationship to two people, you don't of necessity like them to the same extent.

You are to love them to the same extent, but you're not ever commanded to like them to the same extent. And we're not told here that we've got to like every other Christian, but what we are told is that our brotherly love to every Christian is to have this quality in it that characterizes our natural love and affection to those with whom we share the same family and its likes and dislikes and its privileges and so on.

Well, the way to do that is, as I say, to realize that this is the truth about us. And it becomes a very good test, of course. What do you feel about your fellow Christians? Are you conscious of this quality coming into your brotherly love? It's a very good test of our whole position as Christian people. As I say, you can have a polite relationship to your fellow members in a church; that isn't enough, says Paul. That isn't what I'm talking about.

Are we aware of this kinship, this relationship? I've sometimes even put it like this: Can you say quite honestly that you have a deeper affection for and a deeper understanding of your fellow Christians than you have for your natural relatives who are not Christians? That's a proof of your regeneration, and it is also a proof that you've paid heed to this exhortation and that you are putting it into practice.

A Christian should feel a closer bond with another Christian than he feels with a relative who is not a Christian. It's true of necessity. The new nature is in us. We are all children of God. We belong to the family of God, and it's a relationship that's not only going to last while we're in this world of time, it will last throughout eternity. There will be no end to it. Now then, says the Apostle, make certain that this quality is being manifested in your brotherly love one to another more and more.

And that is the way in which that happens. It is by meditation, by grasping the truth, by applying this "therefore," by reminding yourself of all the doctrine that's gone before and realizing that this is true of you, and you pray that the Spirit may not only so enlighten you but may so fill your heart with love—love to God and your fellow human being—you will find that this becomes increasingly true.

Very well, there is the first part to the statement. But then he goes on and adds to that. He says, "In honour preferring one another." Now this again appears to be obvious, but it's the more you analyze it, the profounder you will find it to be. "Honour." What is honour? What's he mean by honouring? Well, it's a word that was used, again, the original meaning is this: It is the price that you fix for an object after you have taken the trouble to evaluate it.

That's the root meaning of this word "honour." Think of anything you like—a watch, a vase, anything. You examine it, and then as the result of your examination and investigation, you assess its value. You put a price upon it. And you do that as the result of this examination. It's a kind of price fixing. Well now, that's the meaning.

So you take it up and it means this: It is your evaluation of others. It is what you think of others, and this in turn becomes the respect that you show one to another as the result of your estimation of one another and of the gifts that others have. That's what he means by "honour." "In honour preferring one another." It carries the idea, if you like, of reverence and of respect. It is your whole estimate and evaluation of others, and that of course in turn determines your behavior with respect to them, how you treat them, and especially how you treat them in terms of yourself.

Now this is a very important matter. Again, you see how the failure to implement this exhortation has so often wrought such havoc in the church. I read to you 1 Corinthians 4 at the beginning because the Apostle had to deal with it there. There the trouble was mainly the way they were quarreling amongst themselves because of their respective evaluations of Paul and Apollos.

That's bad enough. But when it becomes trouble as the result of their evaluation of one another and themselves, well, it is still worse. Honour—that's the meaning. Well then, what is the meaning of this word "preferring"? Here the commentators make two points, and undoubtedly both are right. The word really means to go before, to lead, to lead the way, if you like.

And that can be interpreted in two ways. One is this: that he's saying that sometimes we show our respect for others by walking before them, as it were, and showing our deference by as it were leading them forward, opening doors for them. Preferring them. We are going before them, and we're showing our respect by doing this. We don't walk after them and let them open the doors and so on. We go before them and prepare the way for them, and we're respecting them and paying honour to them, and that is one of the ways in which we do it.

That is a part of the meaning undoubtedly. But it also has another meaning, another possible meaning, and I believe that the two things are surely involved here. There are those who say that it means this: Give a lead to one another in this matter of respecting one another. In other words, make sure that you're always first in paying honour and respect to one another.

Go before others in this matter of showing respect. Not in the kind of physical mechanical way that I've been describing, but that it's a kind of metaphor. Go ahead of one another in your desire to be showing respect and honour to one another. In other words, it's this, you see: Here we are as members of the Christian church, and we have already seen in the earlier part of the chapter that we've all received gifts from God.

As he says earlier in this chapter, "I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith." And then he goes on in verse 5, "So we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy" and so on.

Well now then, here we are. We've all got these gifts. And what he's saying is this: Learn to evaluate these aright and give respect and honour one to another. Go ahead of one another in doing that. You see, the two ideas can be mingled together. And it comes therefore to this: What is our attitude to one another? And our attitude to ourselves, of course. You can't separate these two things.

Well now, here it is. And once more, how foolish are those commentators who say this is so obvious we needn't stay with this, we're going on to something more important later on. More important? There's nothing more important than this. There is nothing that has done so much harm in the life of the Christian church throughout the centuries and still does harm in the Christian church as the failure to put this into practice.

It's in the New Testament, you see it in the subsequent history of the Christian church. But again I ask, how are we to do this? Each one of us has got to give a lead to the other and to all others in showing honour and respect to the gifts that we have received and that others have received as well as ourselves from God. What is this? Is the Apostle inculcating a kind of mock modesty here? Is he teaching us to be a succession of Uriah Heeps?

Well, of course, the whole suggestion is just ridiculous. Now that fourth chapter I read at the beginning is to me one of the most fascinating ones, and of course on this particular subject, it is the classical passage because the Apostle deals with it in his own exhaustive manner. What are the principles? Well you can say this at once: To lead one another and to prefer one another in the matter of giving honour does not mean for a moment that you abandon your canons of judgment.

Now that is the false modesty—to say, "Well of course, I'm nobody, I'm nothing." You know the type of person who does that. They're often the most conceited persons alive. "I'm nothing, I'm nobody." You know they don't mean it and it isn't true. You are to have a true evaluation. For instance, here is the Apostle, you see, in this chapter, 1 Corinthians 4, working out this great principle.

But then towards the end of the chapter he says this: "I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you. For though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me." Well how can a man who says "In honour preferring one another," and includes himself in the injunction, how can he at the same time say "Be ye followers of me"?

Is he contradicting himself? Of course he isn't. You see, it isn't a matter of pretense. You don't do away with facts; that's quite ridiculous. For the great Apostle in that sense to say that he gives greater honour to some insignificant member of the church at Corinth is just to be ridiculous. You notice that because of their utter folly, he uses sarcasm in teaching them.

He says, "I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong." Now that's nothing but sarcasm. Don't lose sight of that. That is sarcasm.

He didn't mean for a moment, he cannot mean that they are strong whereas he is weak, that they are honourable and so on, and he is not. No, no. He's dealing here with the impression that they're giving, the attitude and mentality that they have got into. So he reprimands them. He is the Apostle, he is their father, he is their teacher, and he doesn't take that away. And he handles them as such. He instructs them and he leads them in this particular manner.

Very well then, I say it doesn't mean that you abandon all standards. For instance, if a man happens to be unusually gifted with brainpower and understanding, this injunction does not tell that man to keep quiet and not to give his opinion but to allow some poor man who is equally a Christian with him in the matter of regeneration, but who hasn't been gifted by God in the same way, it doesn't mean that a man like Paul sits quietly while somebody who hasn't got the capacity and the gift to expound some Old Testament passage in the church at Corinth.

That would be to make the thing ridiculous. It doesn't mean that. And if we pretend that, well then we're not only not using the gift which we have, we're bringing the whole of the teaching into disrepute. No, what the Apostle, you see, is really inculcating here is this: He is really saying that there is to be no room nor place for pride in the Christian life.

That's what he's concerned about—that we must be never guilty of pride. It's another way of putting what our Lord put in one of His beatitudes about meekness and poverty of spirit. "Blessed are the meek." Now that's really what it is. Or take the way in which our Lord has put it very plainly in a bit of teaching that is recorded in the 14th chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke.

Let me read to you verses 7 to 11. "And he put forth a parable to those that were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them, When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee."

Now I believe that that is the teaching that the Apostle is putting before us here. Or let me put it in terms of the Apostle's own statements. He has said some extraordinary things. This is what he means here. Take 1 Corinthians 15:9. Take verse 8 first. "Last of all," he's dealing with the resurrection appearances, "last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of Christ."

When the Apostle says that, he means it literally. That is exactly and precisely what he felt. Mark you, he says, and here you see you get the balance, he says in Galatians that he's not inferior to any one of them, that he went up to Jerusalem to see whether he had run in vain and had preached in vain, and he went there and he listened to these, he said, and he discovered that he was not inferior in any way at all. There's no contradiction there.

He knows the gift he's received, he knows the ability he's been given, and he cannot make little of that because he'd then be criticizing the gift of the Spirit. But as to his own attitude towards himself, well there it is in those words. But take it again as you get it in Ephesians 3:8. "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ."

That's not mock modesty; that was exactly what the Apostle felt. That's a kind of exposition of this phrase that we're looking at together. Or take it in those words which I have often felt are perhaps some of the most poignant words in the whole of the New Testament where he's writing in his first epistle to Timothy and in the first chapter.

He talks about anything which is contrary to sound doctrine, "According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus... howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting."

Now then, that's the thing that the Apostle is saying: "In honour preferring one another." How do you do this? Well, you do it, you see, by starting by having a true estimate of yourself. Self is the greatest curse of all. It's the source of nearly all evil—self, a wrong view of self. So when you're told "In honour preferring one another," you don't start by looking at them, you start by looking at yourself.

You will never be right in your evaluation of others until you've made a true assessment of yourself. You've got to start with yourself always. Now again, go back to 1 Corinthians 4, and here it is, the Apostle puts it so plainly. He was aware of this quarrel in the church at Corinth about Apollos and himself.

But he puts it like this: "With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self." "I know nothing by myself"—he means by that that he can't justify himself—"yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord." The man has finished with himself. He's not sensitive, hypersensitive, always waiting for an insult.

Isn't this the curse of life? It's the most prolific cause, I say, of all the troubles in the church and in the world. This overestimation of self and underestimation of others, which is the exact opposite of "In honour preferring one another." Now this is the answer: verse 7 of 1 Corinthians 4. "Who maketh thee to differ from another?"

Answer that question. You're pleased with yourself, you say "I've got wonderful powers, that other person's beneath contempt." But answer this question: Who's made you different? How do you explain the difference? "Who maketh thee to differ one from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?"

Can you answer that? There's nothing to be said, is there? And we just all see that we're not only unworthy and shameful, but on top of it all, we are just fools. We haven't an answer to those questions. Now, what is the teaching therefore? What is the doctrine that is put before us in these various verses that I have read to you? Well, here it is. This is how the Apostle clearly works it out in his own case.

He marvels at the fact that he's a Christian at all. And we all ought to marvel at the same thing. If we ever lose our sense of wonder at the fact that we have ever become Christians, we're already victims to this disease in a sense. We must never lose this sense of wonder. Why are we different? Well there's only one answer: it is entirely the result of the grace of God.

Furthermore, the Apostle is amazed and astonished that he of everybody should ever have been called to be an apostle. It's nothing in him, he hasn't done it, it isn't because of his wonderful achievements or his great insight and understanding—it's all in spite of him. It's all the grace of God. "I am what I am by the grace of God." He's the chief of sinners.

And you see, the more spiritual you become, and the more knowledge you have of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit, the greater you will see your own sinfulness and the depth of evil that is in you. The trouble with people who don't see this and who have a high conceit of themselves is that they're ignorant of God and ignorant of God's character and of His being.

The Apostle is the chief of sinners, and he really felt that. Again it's because, you see, he can't imagine anybody to be a greater sinner. So he's got nothing to boast of. Boasting is excluded, as he's so fond of saying. All that he'd boasted of he's seen to be dung and refuse and entirely useless. So you start with that.

And when you've started with that, you're already 75 percent on the way to the solution of this problem, "In honour preferring one another." Once a man has really seen himself as he is as the result of the Fall and his own actions, once a man gets to know something of the plague of his own heart, he's down, and nobody can ever say anything too bad about him. He can say worse things always about himself than anybody else ever knows. What he says is this: "Thank God they don't know all the truth about me."

There's your starting point. But then you go on to the second point, which is your gift for service. Here are these foolish Corinthians comparing Paul and Apollos as if they were two actors on a stage, using their own natural powers and faculties. "Don't you realize," he says, "that I and Apollos and all others, we are only what we are because of the gift that has been given to us?"

One's been called to plant, and the other's been called to water. One's been called to lay the foundation, others called to build upon it. But it isn't us at all. It is the Great Master Builder. He's the one that counts, and we are nothing. We can do nothing in and of ourselves. We can only do harm in and of ourselves. We've been given gifts. We've not produced them, we've not generated them; they're entirely given, as he's been showing in the earlier part of this 12th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans.

So for a man to boast of his gifts is in a sense almost to deny the gift. It is so ludicrous, it is so ridiculous. Now, as we realize these things, you will find that inevitably you are in honour preferring one another. And add to it this third and last consideration, if you like. Look at your service, let all of us look at our service. What a poor service it is. You see, you can only boast of it when you're not really examining it, you're looking somewhere else.

But examine your service. Realize exactly its character and its quality. When you realize the gift of the Spirit to you, when you realize the character of the work, what is it? You remember what our Lord again said. He put this thing right once and for all. His teaching was this to the disciples who were always ready to boast and to compete with one another and so on and to be animated by these wrong and ugly and false feelings: He tells them do everything you can, and then having done it all, say to yourselves, "We are but unprofitable servants."

Having done everything, you're still unprofitable servants. Oh, I've often tried to put it like this from this pulpit. The danger is always to compare ourselves with people whom we think have inferior gifts and qualities. The thing to do, my friend, is to compare yourself and contrast yourself with the saints of the centuries, with the men depicted here in the New Testament, and above all with our Blessed Lord Himself.

What pigmies we are. What small creatures we are. This is the best antidote to this false feeling. It is the best way to encourage what the Apostle inculcates in this phrase, "In honour preferring one another." Read, I say, about the saints. Have you ever heard of what Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said about his own preaching? That great preacher who preached for all those years here in London in the last century and whose name they've almost forgotten, whose principles they've certainly denied almost every one of them, though they still use his name.

Do you remember what he said about his own preaching? He said he wouldn't cross the street to listen to himself. And he meant it. When a man has a true conception of this gospel and sees what it is and what it's worthy of and what it deserves, he's bound to feel that his best efforts are so unworthy, they're so poor, they're so feeble. Charles Wesley, he was a great singer, wasn't he? I mean as a poet.

And yet, you see, this is how he says: "O for a thousand tongues to sing!" He'd only got one, and he felt it was so feeble, this "poor lisping, stammering tongue," as his contemporary puts it. O for a thousand tongues! What is adequate? What ever can be? Now then, as you view it all in that way, you begin to see that you in a sense are nothing. You've got nothing to boast of.

You're less than the least of all saints. And once you feel like that about yourself, well, it follows. "He that is down need fear no fall." Nobody can insult you. You know that perfectly well because they never know the worst about you. You alone know that, so they can't insult you. It's impossible.

But not only that, you feel sure that no one can be quite as bad as this, no one can have the ugliness within that you have. And you see the gifts that God has given. And so you maintain this perfect balance. You never say anything derogatory of the gift you've been given, but you always have this view of yourself.

And when you're tempted to boast and to despise others, you say, "What hast thou that thou didst not receive? What maketh thee to differ from another?" And it's not you at all. It's God. And He's the same God who's given to others as He's given to you. And you glorify God by recognizing His gifts in others and paying honour and respect and reverence and deference to them. Now, says the Apostle, realize these things and give one another the lead in respecting the gift of God that you see in one another. Well, God willing, we'll go on with these great and mighty and all-important injunctions next Friday evening.

O Lord our God, we thank Thee that we can come to Thee. We've been examining ourselves, and we have seen the ugly sight. We have seen the folly. O Lord, we thank Thee that with Thee there is mercy that Thou mayest be feared, else we know that we would all be entirely undone. God have mercy upon us, and so reveal Thyself and Thy love to us, and so shed it abroad in our hearts by Thy Holy Spirit, that we shall all be filled with such a love to Thee that we shall hate ourselves and love one another, and see nothing in one another but Thy love and the marks of Thy Blessed Spirit. Lord, hear us. And O, we pray, so fill us with Thy Spirit that we shall indeed in our brotherly love have this fondness for one another, and at the same time in honour prefer one another. And now, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit, abide and continue with us now this night, throughout the remainder of this our short and uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage, until we shall stand before Him entire and complete without spot or wrinkle or any such thing or any imperfection, but glorified in His holy and eternal presence. Amen.