Romans

Welcome. My name's Pete Woodcock. I'm the pastor of the church. We're looking at, this little few sentences in Romans chapter 12 versus 9 to 13. We're working our way through this book.

We deliberately work our way through bible books so that we don't just choose the passages that we like, and miss the stuff that might be quite hard hitting. And, this is a pretty hard hitting passage, even though it's a few verse. Let's pray. Father, help us now, please, to hear your precious word, and that by your spirit, you would, enliven us to it, cause us to believe it to work on it, that we may be people that, project to the world and show the world. By our actions, the love of the lord Jesus.

We pray this in your name, amen. I don't know whether you've heard of the the little phrase It's a new modern phrase. It's called catching feelings. Catching feelings. It's all over the place.

Catching feelings. It's supposed to be a negative It's a warning. Be careful that you don't catch feelings. So just as you can catch the flu or you can catch a virus or a cold or chicken pox, you can catch feelings and you need to be very aware, be very aware of that. Actually, the phrase really comes from the the hookup Tinder culture, which tends to separate, the body and the bodily actions and the emotions and romance and feelings and love.

And, of course, the particular bodily action that hookup culture and Tinder is talking about is sex, and it's trying to encourage people to separate sex from feelings. So sex is really simply now just serving your body's needs. So you can hook up with someone you don't know, You can choose someone on Tinder that you don't know. You can do the deed, but don't have any romance. Don't have any feelings attached to that deed because it's the best way to live, not to not to have any feelings.

So sex, if you like, is a bit like going to a takeaway. You you your body your body's hungry. And you choose the type of takeaway that you fancy for that night. And, you go and served by an anonymous person and you eat, and you satisfy your hunger, and you're done. All you've got to do is to say, you know, perhaps, I'll have that Thank you very much, and goodbye.

But don't attach feelings to that. Be careful of attaching feelings to that. That's the warning. Catching feelings. You don't want feelings because if you have feelings that can bring attachment.

And if you have attachment, that might actually bring commitment. And if you have a commitment, then you're gonna get rid of your independence and therefore get rid of your your so called freedom. That's that's how it goes. Now it's very easy for us older generation to attack that phrase catching feelings. We had a a version of it Although we called called it falling in love, we had songs like, what's love got to do with it?

And then it was emphasized do with it. In other words, you know, you just hook up with someone. What's love, but a secondhand emotion What's love got to do with it? Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken? We had brilliant words like that.

Sung by a woman strutting her way across the stage. Who is rather a good singer, of course. Now I what I really hope to to show you here is I hope to show you in this passage. That love has everything to do with a Christian life. Absolutely everything.

What's love got to do with it everything. Is it a secondhand emotion? No way. No way. Paul is really telling us in this passage that you need to catch the feelings.

You need to catch the feelings for the church for brothers and sisters. Now I know feelings isn't a great word. I know love is way stronger than feelings, and I'll show you that in a minute. But I'm using that phrase in the sense of I want you to catch the feelings because I want you to catch attachment and commitment And I want you to give up your freedom and independence to catch what Paul is saying here. Last week, we were looking at versus, 3 to 8.

And we saw a number of things. And Paul, if you wanna put it in these terms, he's saying, catch humility. So, actually, you know, so have a renewed mind about yourself that you'll catch humility. And then he and then we saw that you've got a catch belonging. So have a renewed mind about the church that you catch belonging to the body and the whole body illustration.

And then we're to catch doing, using our gifts, our god given gifts for the service of others. Catch that And the way that you catch those things, you catch the feeling, if you like, is by what he's done in Romans chapters 1 to 11. He's given us magnificent, beautiful teaching about Christ and who we are in Christ and what Christ does done and how we're connected to the body and united with Christ. He's given us magnificent detailed teaching. And we've taken over a year, I remember how long we've been in Romans now, but just looking and revelling and enjoying that teaching.

But when you get that teaching in you, When that teaching begins to affect you and you live in the light of it, you're gonna catch the feeling for the church. That's what he's saying. That's where he's got us. Catch the feelings. Not a secondhand emotion.

It's real. It's alive, and it's wonderful. So we're gonna look at 10, and I'm trying to do it quickly. T I'm gonna boil it down to 9, actually, gonna put 1 together. But there are 10 aspects of love here.

And if you can see these aspects, this beautiful jewel, it's like someone holding up a diamond with 10 aspects of love. We'll go through them as quick as I can. I'll start off slower and I'll panic at the end, and, we're gonna see something of the aspects of this jewel of of love for the church. And the first 1 you see is, look, love must be sincere verse 9, first part. Love must be sincere.

Without love, there is no Christianity. Can we get that right? Christians must love. And love isn't just in the realm of words. And it's not in just the realm of sentimentality.

Paul is saying, I want you to catch love, but love is demonstrable. It you see it in action. It's not just internal. Love. 1 John chapter 3 verse 16 says, this is how we know what love is.

Okay? There's another song. I wanna know what love is. But his if you wanna know what love is, what is love? Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

And we listen to this. We ought to lay down our love at lives for our brothers. What is love? It's giving up. What is love?

It's catching the feeling and what is catching the feeling not to work on our feelings. You don't go on feelings. You go on giving your life. That's how you catch love. That's the aspect of love.

It's giving yourselves It's giving your life up for your brothers and sisters. The modern idea of love is just a feeling, of course, But actually, if you really want to love, you have to go against selfish feelings and you have to give your life just like Christ. Gave his life. That means giving up your freedom, giving up your independence. Love is not optional.

In the Christian life. You get it over and over again in the Bible. Listen to Peter. He says above all, love each other deeply. Because love covers a multitude of sins, and then he says offer hospitality to 1 another without grumbling.

Yeah? So love each other deeply. And what does love do there? It's not sentiments. It covers up a multitude of sins against you.

We forgive, in other words. It's extraordinarily powerful, and it's doing something. Paul, it's very interesting in 1 Timothy chapter 1. He's talking about false teaching. He's saying he's saying, you know, I command you against false teaching.

And then he says, The goal of this command, about not listening to false teaching, the goal of this command is love, which comes with a pure heart and good conscience and a sincere faith. Love is making sure brothers and sisters don't hear false teaching. Love is about deeply loving each other and covering up a multitude of sins. It's not looking, all the time, say, well, he sent me this email, and I've got this little detail about him. And I remember when Jesus says, By this, everyone will know that you are my disciple.

How will the world know that we are disciples of Jesus? By this, if you love 1 another, 1 another. So love is doing But it's more than doing. It's more than action. It must be sincere, says this little verse.

Love must be sincere, it says in verse 9. Sensarity means what you are on the outside is what you are on the inside. Be real. The English word for sincere is very interesting because the English It comes from 2 Latin words, which means without wax. So Paul is saying be without wax.

That's not saying, you know, do you wax your legs or anything like that? But, actually, it was a sort of tinker word. So the tinkers that sold pots and pans and stuff like that, you know, they'd go around selling pans and pots that if there was a hole or a crack in the pot, some bad tinkers would fill it up with wax and then polish it bit and blacken it a bit so that you didn't see the hole. And so you bought a pot in good faith. The first time you put boiling water in it, it just completely leaked.

So what happened was that they then started to put these 2 Latin words, stamp it, onto pots, which said sin sear, which means without wax. But the actual word that Paul uses here in in this is is the word hypocrisy. And hypocrisy, he's saying, have love that is sincere without wax. Without pretending to be something that you're not, and have it without hypocrisy. A hypocrite was an actor.

Actors were called Hippocrits because they pretended to be something that they weren't. They hid behind a mask So don't pretend, don't play act, have genuine love, don't just come out with words that say that you're a lover. Stop pretending. Don't look like a fine pot without wax, but as soon as there's something useful to be done you got a hole in it and you leak and you're useless. Stop pretending.

Be useful. Do something. Love. And then the word for love is the word Agapay, which is the word that is used of god's love. Divine I mean, this is a huge challenge to us at Cornerister that we have divine Christlike giving up our lives love, and that is a genuine sincere working out and being useful without having holes in us.

So catch, sincerity, catch non hypocritical love, start doing something. Get your hands dirty. Get your hands dirty in someone's life. Use them. Love.

Love must be sincere. It's challenging, isn't it? Isn't it? Obviously, you're not? Well, if not, I can I can I can put the pressure on, if you like?

Oh, it's interesting in in Titus. So I was just looking at Titus in Titus too, is is a wonderful thing how the church how the church works because it it just shows you how what a wonderful thing church is because you've got the older men and the older women being challenged to be examples and to teach and to love the younger ones. See how we can put this into action? She's some we're in this culture where it's all youth, youth youth culture. But, absolutely, the church says, older people, you have an amazing role an example, to love.

It's 1 of the reasons I love sitting there and I love opening the door with the kids. I I love talking to older people make sure you say something to the children in the church. Just say Jesus is good or something. If you can't think of anything else to say, love them like that, you know? So love must be sincere.

Well, I'm gonna try and go through these quickly. That was 1 of the longest. 2, hate what is evil, cling to what is good. Here's the second aspect of love. First aspect, love must be sincere.

Second aspect of love is hate what is evil, cling to what is good. Now isn't that strange? It seems very strange that Paul goes from love to hate. Did you notice that? Love must be sincere.

Hate, you wouldn't guess that would be his next word. But why is he doing that? He's because this is an aspect of sincere love. This is what real sincere love, sincere non hypocritical love hates what is evil and clings to what is good. It is not sincere love if it accepts and tolerates and allows evil.

It's not. That's why in church, you you you sometimes have to say some strong things to people that are not living love And and sincere love will not accept that. It will not tolerate it. The u the word that's used for hate is to have a horror of, and it carries the meaning of fleeing from separated from, that you need to separate from, you need to run away from, you need to be shocked at evil and what is evil? Anything that is opposed to god that is opposed to a gap a love.

So when there's gossip going on, we need to, you know, be shocked by that. We need to be opposed to that, run away from that, hate that. When we see a brother or sister that isn't living in on a Christ, then actually it should shock us. We should be opposed to it. We sort of wanna separate from it.

We're to catch the feeling of revulsion over evil. That's part of love. Isn't that amazing? We have been transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we catch the feeling of revulsion, but we cling to What is good? It's glue.

The word is glue. Be glued to good. We need to be glued to good. Yeah? If we see a good person, glue yourself to them, you know?

1 old preacher said this. We need to see the infinite beauty of holiness and the infinite damnability of sin. That's the second aspect of love, sincere, non hypocritical love, has a passion against evil and clings to that which is good. Here's the third aspect of love then. Be devoted to 1 another.

Be devoted to 1 another. This is where our version is really bad. I don't know. I've well, I do I have got a a a I think I know why they might have lived missed it out, but they shouldn't have. Verse 10 should read like this, be devoted to 1 another in brotherly love.

They've missed the word brotherly out. It's ridiculous in brotherly love. Paul is saying here that the local church is, in fact, your family, your brothers, your brothers and sisters and acts like they are. We we must act as if they are our family members. They're not strangers.

We're not to be strangers, They're not isolated units, and we're not to be an isolated unit. We're to be brothers and sisters because we have the same father god. We're in the 1 body, with the 1 head, with the 1 father. Christian, you are born again. You have a new nature.

This isn't just a institution or some kind of religion. You are born again if you're a true Christian. And so are other born again into a new nature, but that new nature has a new family. You're not just members of a club. This isn't sort of a an institution.

Paul isn't saying, oh, well, we should be polite to each other. You don't have to be polite. You're not polite in your family. Are you? You don't need politeness.

You need to be devoted in brotherly love. Sometimes that can be anything but polite, can't it, if we're honest? This isn't polite society. This is bonded together as brothers and sisters, catch the feeling of devotion to the family, blood brothers, bonded together by the blood of the lord Jesus Christ. We are blood brothers.

Yeah. In the family, more than comrades, brothers. Church is family. Do we get that? And that's where love is played out.

Doctor Martin Lloyd Jones on this, who was an old preacher from last century, he he He writes on this verse. Listen to what he writes. Pretty powerful stuff. I hope you hear it. He says I have sometimes even put it like this this devotion to, in brotherly love.

I've sometimes even put it like this, can you quite honestly Can you say quite honestly that you have a deeper affection for and a deeper understanding of your fellow than you have of your natural relatives who are not Christians. Then he says this. This is a very good test. Of your position as Christian people. It is a proof of your regeneration and it is also a proof that you have paid heed to this exhortation by putting it into practice.

In other words, he's saying the church is more important than blood, physical family, natural. That's what he's saying. It's more important. Do you have more of a commitment to those? That's a challenge, isn't it?

Who are not Christian? See how important church is to Paul. See how important it is to this apostle of the lord Jesus Christ So that's the third aspect of love. Fourth aspect of love, trying to build up this beautiful picture, honor 1 another, above yourselves. Aspect number 4, honor 1 another above yourselves.

The Greek sentence here literally is this. In honor 1 another, esteeming. In honor 1 another, esteeming, they're the literal words. The word honor in Greek means putting a proper price on something. That's what it means.

A proper evaluation you honored something, you got it tested by the experts, and there was a proper price put on the head of that thing. And and that's what he's saying. Put a proper price, honor brothers and sisters honor 1 another proper price. And what's the proper price of a Christian? They are blood bought by the blood of the lord Jesus Christ.

My goodness, isn't that amazing? You, if you're sitting next to a Christian, are sitting next to someone who has massive, massive value the value of the blood of Christ. Flip your eyes around without sort of me necessarily turning your head. Focus on a Christian. Focus on a question that actually might irritate you.

You can all look at me if you like. In fact, you are all looking at me. Yeah? On 1 that's the dullest person you could imagine or a rather boring person, look at them. If they're a Christian, honor them.

They are a son of the king of the universe. They are a blood bought heir of Christ. C s Lewis said this. He he starts talking about if you saw a Christian and what they're going to be like in glory. He says this.

Remember, I, and I love this. Remember that the dullest Sorry. I've now got mustn't comment. Remember that the dullest and the most uninteresting person you talk to may 1 day be a creature which if you saw now would be you would strongly be tempted to worship The dullest Christian you can talk to, and I know there are some. That 1 day, that person, if they're Christian will be so glorious in the new creation you'll almost fall down and worship them.

Proper value, honor. It is a massive honor to sit next to a Christian right now. In fact, you should witness like that. People say, what did you do at the weekend? You say, well, I sat next to royalty.

Did you? Yeah? Actually, I served royalty. Did you? Yeah.

I passed some wine and some bread to wild royalty. My goodness. Me. Wow. Yeah.

Who? Vira. Princess Vira. Oh, whoever it is. There's no VIRas here is a in honor, 1 another, a steaming.

That's the word honor. The word of steaming is a lovely word because a steaming means go first. It's to lead it's to lead the way, yeah, as you go first, you lead the way. You esteem it. And what it's really saying is honor the person have a right value of who they are there.

The blood bought people of the living Christ, but esteem them lead the way by honoring them. You'd be the first to thank. Don't wait around saying, well, no 1 thinks me. Yeah. Why doesn't he thank me?

I'm gonna wait for well, if he thinks me, I might thank him. No. No. No. You be the first.

You lead the way. You lead the way in in honoring them. In serving them. Be the first to serve them. Catch the honor.

That's the fourth thing. Fifth aspect of love. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the lord. The word here for zeal I know this is a word study, but the way it's written. The word here for zeal means speedy quick.

So you wanna be speedy about this as a quickness about it. The word for fervor means boiling Yeah? Bubbling, boiling. In other words, what he's saying is that you need to be keep up quickly, keep up the spiritual boiling point. Be quick.

Never lack in zeal, but, but keep your spiritual further, you're boiling for the lord. Keep doing that. Now the world is giving us warnings. You don't wanna catch feelings. You you you wanna be separate and Paul is saying, no, no, no, no, no, I want you to speedy be to the boil, passionate about people.

Ready to boil over in serving them for the lord. Yeah? It takes very seriously what the risen lord Jesus I said to the church at Leodicea when he said, I know your deeds. That you are neither hot nor cold. I wish you were either 1 or the other.

So because you're lukewarm neither hot nor cold, I'm about to spit you out of your, my mouth. Jesus doesn't like lukewarmness. He likes extremes. Hot is extreme and cold is extreme. That's what he's saying.

He loves extremes. He loves fervor. He loves boiling or freezing. He likes extremes. He wants you to be Don't give up on the extremes, never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor boiling up.

The law doesn't like Luke warm Christians. They're they're they're they're pallid in his mouth. It doesn't taste nice. It's not what he's about. Do you see that?

It takes devotion to keep up the heat, doesn't it? It takes constant commitment to keep up the fire. And what he's saying is out of all the things that take up your time and your energy and your responsibility in life, keep the pot of serving the lord boiling. Keep it at an extreme temperature. The picture is a kitchen.

Carl will know this. It's a kitchen. The chief chef is saying, Carl, you can chop the carrots, please. Yeah. Chop the carrots chop the onions, peel the bananas, take the milk out of the fridge, heat up the pudding in the oven.

I want you to do all of those things. Yeah. Do them all. But that paw See, this is what chief this is what the chef says. That paw Whatever you do or whatever you don't do, that pot must be boiling.

Keep the pot boiling. At the end of the day, if he says, ah, sorry. I I didn't keep the pot boiling because I was chopping the onions. He said, what did I tell you? Forget the onions, keep the pot boiling.

And the chief chef, if you've if he's ever been called that before, of the universe, is saying keep the pot boiling. Keep it boiling. Whatever life comes with all its demands and whatever circumstances. Whatever are important things for you to be doing in life, there is nothing more important than keep the pot boiling. In serving of the lord by serving other people.

I knew a bloke many, many, many years ago, he died quite a long time ago, he was that he was Professor Werner Wright. He's an extraordinary Christian man. You you know, don't you man well, you knew him. Professor Werner Wright He was a world expert on room rheumatoid arthritis. He was a world expert I mean, actually the expert at 1 time.

He was 1 of the busiest men I ever met in my life. He had 7 secretaries Now not 1, you know, after each other, but he kept 7 secretaries going. That's the amount of work this bloke could keep going in his life. Seriously. He had 8 children.

3 of them were adopted, you know, and and he traveled the world. So he was 1 of the busiest men I I've ever met in my life. Every Friday, He did the Christian youth work wherever he was in the world. He said, yeah, I can go and do this lecture, but you've got to get me back by Friday evening. It's extraordinary because that pot boiling was more important than anything else he did If he could do the other stuff and keep the pot boiling, he did it.

But if he couldn't, he wouldn't. So serve. Perhaps some things need to go. Perhaps you just can't cut the carrots and do do that as well. Well, shove the carrots.

We can eat them without being chopped up. At the end of your life, you'll never wish that you you never say something like, oh, do you know what? I served the law too long, too hard. It was too fervent. Yeah.

It's a shame. Just about to meet him and, I'll have to say sorry because I was too boiling. 6 aspect of love, trying to whiz through these to give you the big picture. You could spend a sermon on each of them, obviously, but Let's just go quickly. 6 1.

Be joyful in hope and patient in affliction. I've put those 2 together. Because they do go together, but be joyful in hope and patient in afflicts. And we have a hope you see. We are going to glory land.

Do we understand not gonna be here for that long. There is a much bigger picture than the here and now suffering will end pain will end. There is a joyful hope, a joyful hope. Listen to Jesus. This is what he says.

Jesus said to his disciples, truly, I tell you, at the renewal of all things well, that's a lovely little statements to start with, at the renewal of all things when the son of man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel. Don't worry about that bit. And every at the moment, and and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or fathers or mothers or wives or children, or fields, for my sake, will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. It's extraordinary, isn't it? You you'll he promises riches.

There's a hope Whatever you have to stop to keep the pot boiling in this life will be added to you. Jesus says this, seek first his kingdom, god's kingdom, and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. All of them Everything that you might have to stop in your life in order to boil the pots of service for god it'll be given to you. Do you believe Jesus in this wonderful hope? There's a joyous hope to come live in the light of that.

And patience, in affliction, if you suffer, there is a hope. We have some people in this church who are, who are who are joyful in hope and patient in afflictions, and we should take care of we should look at them and love them. They are wonderful examples of boiling pot. For us. I mean, really are.

They're bubbling away in their agony. With bodies that don't work properly, but there's this patience in a thick fictions. It's wonderful. Seventh aspect of love faithful in prayer. For us to do any of this stuff that we're looking at, we have to pray.

We have to pray to the father. We have to pray together to the father. We have to be committed to to the father. So catch faithfulness in prayer, please. Catch that.

The eighth aspect of love. Is share with god's people who are in need. There are all kinds of needs, all around us, and let's share they go from just a plain little encouragement. We have no excuse not to encourage people. You can email, you can text, You can phone, you can message, you can send something through, even through the post, a card.

You know? There's there's we could do it now. Just just a little encouragement. Share with god's people and need. There's people here that need just a little bit of sharing.

It's a wonderful thing. Financially, you may not be able to give March, but you can share something You could say, okay, I can only give the price of a coffee. I'll tell you what, I'll go without a coffee this week, and I'll put that I'll just share that money Brilliant. God will take it and use it. Emotionally, there are people going through all kinds of emotional things here.

We can encourage them and say, how can we help you or, you know, take them a pie or something. You know, I mean, that is a wonderful thing. I I was gonna say if someone brought me a pie, I'd be over the moon, and I'm not saying I want hundreds of pies now. Probably won't encourage my waistline, but well, it will, actually. Yeah.

I'll grow in the lord. But emotionally or practically spiritually. There's loads of ways to share with with god's people who are in need. We need to involve ourselves in family life. Somehow somewhere, look, find someone to do that with.

If we're all doing that, we're living like a family, aren't we? It's a wonderful thing, isn't it? The world is bent on getting. Christians should be bent on giving and sharing. Ninth thing.

Practice hospitality. Here's a ninth aspect of love. Practice hospitality. Christians, we are to be into hospitality. It's a command that's many or a number of times.

I think it's about 4 or 4 or 5 times in the new testament. Practice hospitality. You could practice it, work at it. We should be open handed and open honed. The the the the the place is not to be our, our home is not to be our castle as we're we're taught.

We took, you know, not pull up the drawbridge, we should put it down, fill up the moat that's around it, telling everyone to shove off. We should open and practice hospitality. William Tindle, who was the first translator of the Greek New Testament into English has this phrase. He he says we should that Christians should be harbor have a harborous disposition I I like that, if when you find out what it means, have a harborous disposition a harborous dis is a harbor. It's where a shit shit comes in to refill and refuel and rest and it's is where it's safe.

You know, those that you're going to to, guess who's coming to lunch, you should say thank you for having a harborist disposition. Thank your host for the harbor disposition that they have. Yeah? And do it with sincere heart. Don't drive away saying, well, I didn't like those beans.

You know, well, the meat was tough. What do you think I am? I'm a vegetarian. You know, don't do that. Do it with a sincere love.

You know, a harborous disposition. It's a wonderful thing. Allow the ship that have been wrecked and battered and hurt and and, bring them into your harbor. Practice. Practice.

Keep it going. If you practice it, you'll catch the feeling. You'll catch the action. You'll what it's hard at first, isn't it when you have someone around your home? And you don't quite know what to do.

We're all sitting, you know, oh, yeah. I said, would you like a biscuit? And, and then you see them chomping away and they're in biscuit all over your chair and kicking them orange juice on the floor and you're thinking you monster, you know, that that I've just bought a new car, put you monster. But after you've had 10 people kicking and spitting and and whatever they do, because they're so old and so forth, and and, then in the end, the carpet's so filthy. It doesn't matter.

You're you're actually pleased if they fill in the the nice clean hole with some splodge. Practice it. Practice hospitality. You begin to catch it. Now all of this, of course, sums up our savior, doesn't it?

This is our savior. He practiced hospitality. He was the 1 that loves the ships to come into the harbor. Yeah. He hates evil.

He has a sincere love. He's devoted to people. He honors and esteems people. He made us his children. There's a zeal in him.

It's the lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? But we're to be like him Let me just finish with this because we're going to take communion, and it's an opportunity for us to go through these words and think about where we need to ask the law to help us. This isn't just a show. We don't do this just for because it's a tradition. I mean, we do do it because it's a tradition, but it's much more than that.

This is where we can repent where we look at the lord Jesus, where we see he laid his life down for us. The early church took this seriously, It's why it turned the world the right way out. Here's a letter written by a philosopher to hadrian, the emperor hadrian. You know, he built hadrian's wall, probably the best thing he ever did, keep the Scotts out. But, practicing hospitality.

Here's a letter because he was inquiring about the church, what who are these people, this cult? Who are they? And so this philosopher, This Roman philosopher writes this. I can't read it all, but here's bits. Listen to him.

They do not commit adultery or fornication nor bear false witness or embezzle, what is held in pledge, the sorry, nor embezzle what is held in pledge nor covet. What is not theirs? They honor their father and mother, and show kindness to those near them And whatever they are whenever they are judges, they judge rightly. Whatsoever, they would not that others should do unto them, they do not to others. And then it goes on like this.

And their oppressors, they comfort, and make them friends. They do good to their enemies, and their women who king are pure as virgins, and their daughters are modest, and their men keep themselves from everything unlawful and from uncleanness. In the hope of recompense, to come in the other world. Further, if 1 or other of them have a bond man or a bond woman or a bond child, in other words, slave, if any of them have a slave, through love toward them, they persuade them to become Christians And then when they've done so, they call them brethren without distinction. They go their way in all modesty and cheerfulness, falsehood is not found among them, and they love 1 another.

They don't allow the widows to be unesteamed, but esteem them and treat them highly They deliver the orphan from him who treats him harshly. They're saving orphans. And he who has, gives to him who has not without boasting. And when they see a stranger, they take him into their homes and rejoice over him as a very brother for they do not call them brethren after the flesh, but brethren after the spirit and in god. And then it goes on and on.

No wonder the early church got the attention of the Roman world It's doing this. It takes the word of god utterly seriously as the word of god. And it puts it into practice, and what an impact? We're in a world that is so broken and so lonely Cornerstone church, can't we rise up to this? We wanna save this world.

Can't we rise up to this? Could we be brothers and sisters? But give our lives to each other, and the world will say They've been with Jesus. We know they're disciples of Jesus by their love for 1 another. Father god help us to take these amazing sentences and by your spirit, root them in our lives that we may catch the feeling.

Catch the love in Jesus' name, amen.