Romans 12:9-21
I read a story about a mother and father in Vietnam who had to pay six thousand and five hundred dong as a fine for having a fifth child. After having him, the parents named their child, Mai Phat Sau Nghin Ruoi, which translates to “Fined Six Thousand and Five Hundred.” Because the teen was repeatedly teased over the meaning of his name, his father finally agreed to help him change his name to something more traditional: Fined Six Thousand and Five Hundred’s new name is Mai Hoang Long, which means “Golden Dragon.”
I am not sure why
parents would name their child after a financial fine. The name this boy received would be the
equivalent of my naming my son One Hundred and Twenty-five dollars after
getting pulled over and receiving a ticket because I broke the speed limit trying
to get my wife to the hospital so that she could have our baby.
Today we will
discuss one of the words used to represent the vision we have for this church:
Engage. Before we get there, let’s first
discuss how God engages, or rather, pursues us.
One of my favorite songs,
which causes to me to reflect on the way God pursued me when I was running from
Him, is Toby Mac’s Love Broke Thru:
When love broke thruYou found me in the darknessWanderin’ thru the desertI was a hopeless foolNow I’m hopelessly devotedMy chains are brokenAnd it all began with YouWhen love broke thru
Toby Mac’s song reminds me of who I
was before I became a Christian: Blind. Hopeless. Foolish.
A salve. But then, love broke
through! Before becoming a Christian,
the Bible uses a collection of adjectives to describe who we once were:
But, through Jesus Christ, we have
received a new identity. Because Jesus
entered our world and engaged us where we were, we now have a new identity:
We were made for a relationship with
God. Our new life in him enables us to
love him and love people. Praying to God, engaging our communities, and
developing people who follow Jesus is the overflow of a new life rooted in
Jesus Christ. These reasons are why our
new vision statement makes so much sense: “We exist to develop a culture of
Jesus followers who prayerfully engage their communities with the gospel.”
Romans 12:9-21 is the application of
the first ten chapters about a God who pursues and engages lost sinners.
We are Loving because God Lovingly Engaged Us (v. 9)
The word that is used in verse 9 is
the Greek word ‘agape,’ which is the
word used for an unconditional love. Our
English translations make the word “love” in verse nine into a verb, when it is
really an adjective that describes the Christian. Verse nine should begin with the phrase:
“Authentic love”, but that would make no sense in English, so it has been made
into a verb: “Let love be genuine.” I
don’t want to make a big deal out of something that really is not a big deal,
but the point is simply this: Genuine love abhors what is evil and it clings to
what is good.
We were once spiritually dead, but now
we have been made alive in Christ. We
once followed the devil, but now we follow Jesus. We were once children of wrath, but now we
are children of the living God. We were
once an enemy of God, but now we are a friend of God. We were once unrighteous, but now we are
covered under the righteousness of Christ. We were once blind as we walked in
darkness, but now we are seeing as we have been called into the light! Why?
Because “God, who said ‘Let light
shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor.
4:6). The result is that we are now able
to love as we were made to love, and our new nature as Christians should cause
us to abhor evil and cling to what is good.
We Are Devoted to One Another Because God is Devoted to Us (vv. 10-12)
The next word that is used for love in
this passage is philio, which is a
brotherly love. If we have been
transformed by the grace of God, we also
