God’s Love in God’s Family – Romans 12:9–10

PRAY

If you open your Bible to Romans chapter 12, it will help you visibly confirm and recall what I’m referencing in review of where we are in our study. Paul has transitioned in chapter 12 to the practical implications of the gospel doctrine from the previous 11 chapters.

And the first two verses are foundational: 

Living the Christian Life (Rom 12:1-2)

THE WHY: Motivated by God’s mercies in the gospel

THE WHAT: A life of total devotion to pleasing God

THE HOW: Continual transformation through renovated thinking

THE GOAL: A life pleasing to God according to His will

Then Paul reminds us that in the Christian life we are not flying solo. The Christian life is by definition something practiced in community. Verses 3-8 are marks of the Christian Community, emphasizing a couple of key features that are essential to our healthy function in God’s design for Christ’s Church. So we summarized the application as:

Christian community, humbly recognize mutual helpfulness and prioritize spiritual giftedness. (verses 3-8)

What Paul describes is individual responsibility to the collective good. Humility is paramount, and intentionality with our spiritual giftedness is needed for mutual ministry in the body of Christ.

What comes next, which we begin tackling today, are further implications of a life that is pleasing to God as a member of the family of God. The ensuing virtue list continues this thread with how we are to relate to one another and also to outsiders, but it remains tethered to the transformed life of verses 1&2, to discerning and doing the will of God by having our minds renovated according to God’s gospel in Christ Jesus.

And so, without further ado, we begin Paul’s rapid-fire list of ethical exhortations.

Romans 12:9–13 ESV

⁹ Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. ¹⁰ Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. ¹¹ Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. ¹² Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. ¹³ Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

Here’s what you should walk away with from the way Paul commences this list.

Begin with God’s love to behave pleasing in God’s family.

When we get down to the nitty gritty practice of living lives pleasing to God, where do we begin? We should start where the NT does, with love—God’s love. We’ll look at this in two parts this morning, to see that we must…

Grasp the centrality of God’s love as the fountainhead virtue and supreme ethic of the Christian life.

And because we have become God’s family, love between us is expressed in sibling-like devotion and honoring one another.

Make God’s love the central virtue and comprehensive ethic of your life. (verse 9)

Verse 9 serves as the introduction and heading for all the ethical commands that continue through verse 21. In fact, the first part doesn’t have a verb, it reads simply, “Sincere Love,” like a heading. But it’s still appropriate for our translations to supply a verb, because there’s no doubt Paul means this as an exhortation. Nonetheless, Genuine Love acts like the heading for all of these exhortations, not because every single one is explicitly tied to love, but because love is “the single most important criterion for approved Christian behavior.” (Moo, NICNT Romans, 2nd Ed.)

Love is the fountainhead virtue and ethic of the Christian life. A virtue is a positive character trait, while an ethic is a standard by which we can decide whether an action is right or wrong. God’s love received and reenacted in God’s people is the central ethic and virtue of the Christian life.

The two apostles who are most emphatic about the centrality and comprehensiveness of love are Paul and John, which is a passion they would have received directly from the teaching of Jesus.

John 13:34–35 ESV

³⁴ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. ³⁵ By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

When you think of Paul’s emphasis on love being central to the Christian life, your mind may go to 1 Cor 13, and rightly so. But here in Romans Paul will say in Romans 13:8-10 that love fulfills the law and sums up the law. Love is the fountainhead of Christian virtue and ethics.

Since this is the case, we must make sure we understand love as it is described in the Bible. First, I say this is God’s love with good reason.

-Genuine love is from God.

Another thing that both Paul and John teach us is that God’s love is a quality of his being and proceeds from his perfection. Our love is responsive and reflective—responsive to God’s love and reflective of his love. The source of our love is God (1 John 4:7-8), and the impetus of our love is God’s love toward us (1 John 4:19). The source of our love is God:

1 John 4:7–8 ESV

⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

The impetus and empowerment of our love is God’s love toward us:

1 John 4:19 ESV

¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.

Or Paul says here in Romans 5:5 that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” [repeat]

Again, God’s love is a quality of his being and proceeds from his perfection. Our love is responsive and reflective. Our love toward God and our love toward others flows from God’s love to us and our response of love for Him.

God’s love is like the sun’s heat and light, which proceeds from his very essence. Like the earth, we receive and reflect the heat and light of the sun. Intentionally receiving and responding to God’s love has that kind of impact on us. Our heat and light to warm and enlighten others is directly connected to our responsiveness to God’s love toward us.

God is the source and impetus (motivation and empowerment) of all true, Christian love.

But all of this begs an important question. What is love? We cannot do what we do not understand. (at least not as clearly and intentionally as we ought to be doing)

I’m sure you’ve heard at some point that there are several Greek words for love. The one not used in the NT is eros, which is erotic, sexual love. Apparently other words better capture the way we ought to love even in this form of love’s expression in marriage. A key word for love, used significantly in the NT and used very little outside of it in secular Greek, is the word agape. It’s the one Paul uses here and is used significantly in the NT apparently because it best expresses God’s love and the foundational way we must learn to love from God’s love.

Agape is the highest and most selfless form of love. It unconditionally and sacrificially seeks the well-being and best interest of others.

-Genuine love unconditionally and sacrificially seeks the well-being and best interest of another.

The preeminent display of our Triune God’s love toward us is the Son condescending to become a man and sacrificing himself for our good. Paul said in Romans 5:8 “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” [repeat] Agape unconditionally and sacrificially seeks the well-being and best interest of others.

You can also think of agape having its roots in the OT the Hebrew word hesed. Hesed captures the best essence of love in the Hebrew Scriptures, which is the loyal and steadfast covenant love of God. It is “a moral attitude dedicated to another’s good, whether or not that other is lovable, worthy, or [appropriately] responsive (see Dt 7:7–9).” (Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible)  Hesed is the loyal and steadfast covenant love of God.

Just so, agape is a moral attitude of decided commitment to sacrificially seek the highest good of others. Which means also that…

-Genuine love is active and true.

It is enacted in word and deed. It is not mere sentiment but is actively expressed. We do not possess a virtue that we do not act on. Love is not love which is not accompanied by word and deed.

And so when Paul says to let love be genuine (without hypocrisy), we mustn’t get too caught up in thinking that this is primarily about feelings. I say not primarily because agape is more about choice and action than about emotion. But that does not mean such love is without affection, which we see in verse 10. Since God cares about our motives, that plays a part in what it means to love genuinely. But that affection usually follows in the wake of our committed obedience, like the skier behind the speedboat.

What Paul says here could be translated more literally as love without hypocrisy. Love must be without falsehood. Surely this means we cannot love with ulterior motives. We cannot love where the goal is selfish gain instead of placing the good of another above ourselves. Am I wrong to suggest that everything else is worldly and fake love? What God has done for us at great cost to himself is love, and that is how we are aiming to love.

But I ask myself, how will we love sincerely, how can we sustain it? That’s where we are tethered to the importance of verses 1&2 here. By God’s mercies to us we keep renovating our thinking, so that we don’t slip back into the bad habits of our sin and the bad thinking of a wordly culture under Satan’s influence.

I have this little miniature top spinner thing in my office that someone gave me as a gift that is supposed to be like a stress reliever activity or something. Without some force acting upon it, it just sits there and does nothing. But when I spin it, it gets going pretty good and does its thing. But then gravity and friction immediately begin to work against it, and it doesn’t last long.

We do not have to worry that our love will grow dim or grow cold, because we have a constant source of love in God’s love, as we have said. However, God has seen fit to make it such that we must intentionally stay close to Him and dependent upon his love at work in us by his Spirit. Again, we are deliberately soaking up the heat and light of God’s love toward us to empower and sustain our love.

Remember from Rom 8:35-39 that if we are in Christ, no amount of hardship can separate us from his love. Instead, we are conquerors through him who loved us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. His love, and security in his love, empowers and sustains our love.

So genuine love—God’s self-giving love—heads the list because it is the fountainhead virtue of other virtues. Love is also the supreme ethic of the Christian life. Paul’s list is not haphazard, so I’m convinced that the second part of verse one is connected to the first part in showing how genuine love is the central ethic of the Christian life. It is the standard by which we determine right from wrong.

-Genuine love loathes evil but is glued to good.

It is not Christian nor loving to be complacent about evil, whether in us or in others, or about sin committed against others. It is not from God nor Christlike to be tolerant of evil. Being gracious toward sinners and compassionate toward sinners isn’t the same thing as tolerating evil. Isn’t it interesting how Satan has convinced a world ignoring God to think that it is a supreme virtue to tolerate every evil in the name of being loving toward that person’s individual autonomy? It is also tragic, and God’s people must not be party to it, beginning first with not being complacent about sin in our own lives.

Genuine love violently abhors evil. It passionately hates evil. God’s love for us is such that he absolutely hates it and his wrath burns against it. In his love he will not just let us go on destroying ourselves with the evil of sin but will instead punish our sin or purify us from sin by the perfect payment of Jesus taking the punishment for our sin. Even now before glory God in his love, by the Holy Spirit, is sanctifying us from evil and training us in holiness. THAT is loving, and that is what is for our highest good.

Be mindful then that we can only abhor evil if we know and love God. The more we know Him and love Him, the more we'll hate evil.

But in God’s love we are to fiercely hate evil and cling to or be joined like glue to what is good. Good means that which is of moral excellence. What is good is what pleases God. We must join ourselves to it inseparably. 

I’m reminded of Jerry Mertens teaching me to be so particular about binding wood glue joints together that it would be more likely that if the boards were to break, it wouldn’t even be at this joint. That’s how closely we are to cling to good, how tightly we must be joined to good.

And who defines good? God does. Therefore we must be saturated with God’s character and commands in his Holy Scripture.

By the head of Paul’s list here, we must make God’s love the central virtue and comprehensive ethic of the Christian life. That is how we begin with God’s love to behave pleasing in God’s family. And in learning to love as God loves, Paul shows us that within God’s family such love expresses sibling-like devotion to one another and in honoring each other above ourselves.

Love one another with sibling devotion and eagerness to honor others. (verse 10)

In verse 10 there are two different references to familial loving—philostorgos and philadelphia. Philostorgos kind of doubles up on the strength of natural affection within family. And philadelphia specifically refers to brotherly love, the strong bond between siblings.

In order to think more deeply about what Paul is getting at, I want us to consider what are some of the marks of familial love. There could be more, but these are the ones that come to my mind from Scripture: Familial love, sibling devotion, bears the marks of priority, protectiveness, and purity.

Love for family is a priority; it takes precedence over other things and relationships. In Galatians 6:10 Paul says,

Galatians 6:10 ESV

¹⁰ So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

And the Apostle John writes,

1 John 3:16 ESV

¹⁶ By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

We are indeed to love the lost with Christ’s compassion, but there is a priority of sibling love to be displayed in the family of God.

The second and third ones I mentioned are protectiveness and purity in familial love. Almost every single person in the room who has a sibling knows something about this protectiveness. Even if we should tease or pester our sibling mercilessly, if someone else should do the same, we are suddenly appalled by such unfeeling behavior and ready to tear their head off. Now of course we need more self-control and reasonableness than this, but the desire to protect is good and should be focused on protecting our siblings not just from harm but especially from evil. Our desire to protect needs to direct itself to promoting their good.

And purity. This is critical for the way we treat each other in the family of God. Peter says, 1 Peter 1:22

1 Peter 1:22 ESV

²² Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,

Although purity is sometimes horrifically broken in family relationships, by God’s design we know the familial bond and affection that is not tainted by inappropriate eroticism. In the family of God, we must take particular care to let God renovate our thinking so that we consider each other as siblings, especially members of the opposite sex. Rather than having impure and inappropriate thoughts and desires, I should long to protect my siblings from that kind of sin coming from me or anyone else.

And now there’s a second emphasis that flows from how to treat one another in this familial bond, which is less natural to us: eagerly honor others before yourself.

Go first and lead the way in honoring one another. Eagerly be at the front in terms of showing honor to others. Now this is just crazy backwards and upside down to what our sin nature wants and what the world system thinks is logical. Sell yourself and show your value to get ahead. The thing is, if we’re confident in belonging to God and God using us as he sees fit, there’s no need to make any efforts to promote ourselves. We just serve. So, even though its contrary to a desire to be recognized and appreciated ourselves, what is healthy and productive in the household of faith is to deliberately honor the value of those around you.

Sister, thank you for this kind, nurturing attitude. Or, wow, your organizational ability is just indispensible to us, and we really appreciate you. Brother, your service in this area is so valuable, and I don’t want you to think it is completely unnoticed. And it even has a positive impact on those who don’t know it benefits them or who’s doing it. But I do, and I think you for it.

So the reality is that we don’t have to assume that we are useless in order to appreciate and honor one another. And the people we honor don’t have to be perfect or do everything perfectly. We will sin and we will flop on our faces.

So think about how you can be the one who excels most at honoring others above yourself. What an amazing concept. I just love it. Jesus turns the world right-side up. This is love. To honor others in preference over seeking your own honor. I’m trying to figure out why this attitude and behavior is so vital and exciting to me, and I think it’s because it is so radical and so simple. And by simple I mean how easy it is for every single one of us to actively participate in it.

When we are doing this we will know that we have learned to…

Begin with God’s love to behave pleasing in God’s family.

As you have been loved, so you should love. Learn to love as God loves. That is genuine love. And genuine love hates evil and pursues the highest good, just as God himself always does. And because God has made us members his family, there is a unique bond and unique behavior toward one another which displays the love of God at work in us. We love one another with sibling devotion as a priority and in a way that is protective and pure. And one aspect of this family love which is so distinct from the world is that we are to eagerly honor others instead of clawing for self-honor. That distinction makes God’s love reflect brightly from us as his family that has been dramatically changed by his love.

PRAY

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