I am honored really to be here. I love Justin. I love Megan. I love their family. I'm excited to be here with you and everybody who's watching online. We have a long history as he's shared. I'm definitely not going to repeat that. We have gone way back and we've done a lot. I was a pastor in Canton for 10 years, and we partnered with his stance and a lot of stuff with you guys. So I'm really, really, really honored and feel very privileged to be here filling in for Justin. I promise I wouldn't share any really bad negative stories. So if you want to come back later and ask me about Charlie Brown or when he played the uh William Cupbert and the nerd, uh, let me say that correctly. Um we could talk about that. Anyway, he did say I could go as long as I want, and since I haven't preached the year, I've got 14 points. So everybody hold on. We're gonna be good. Um sometimes sounds like some people are nervous. No, I actually have one. I only have one real main point for today, and that is this. I'm gonna give it to you now, because I want this to sort of inform everything that we're going to read in the book of Romans. And this is it, lead with love. That's it. That's that's the main idea, right? That's the main point. Lead with love. In fact, as you're taking your Bibles out, if you've got your phone or device or whatever you're using online, turn to Romans 12. You guys have been in Romans for a while. We're gonna pick up kind of where you've left off and and and look at several verses that one of my favorite passages in all the Bible because it it provides this gauge to check whether or not your heart is truly truly changed. And I love it because Paul is consistent. It's not something he just wrote in this one letter. He writes it in Galatians 5, he writes similar in Ephesians 4 and 5 and Philippians 2 and 1 Corinthians. We see this this pattern of Paul trying to explain what love really looks like and how we're supposed to lead with love and our response to everyone around us, including the people who are hostile against us. Now, I don't know if you take notes, I don't know if you have a way to jot stuff down. If you do, I would encourage you to write some things down. We're gonna go through uh a fair chunk of this, uh really through the end of the chapter, so verses 9 through through 21. And I'm going to give you some insight or try to provide for you some explanation as to what is being said, all wrapped around the idea of leading with love. But you can, if you if you write, write this stuff down, as you if you go verse by verse or or even break it down uh in the way that we'll kind of break it down, you could almost use it like a like a checklist. You could almost use it like an assessment, so to speak. You could write it down, you could go back and say, how how well am I doing at this or or that or or this one, and go through, and then and then even at the end, we as we look back and and and respond to what it what it really looks like to lead with love, we can say, okay, well, I can see very clearly from Paul's letters and and and what's right in front of me of where I might need to immediately focus some some attention. All right? We good? So we're gonna jump right in. Uh I'm just we're the the scripture, it teaches itself, so go to Romans 12, go to verse 9, and we're gonna start right there. I want because I know that uh that you you've been in Romans for a while and and you've been studying this for a good while, and I and when I think about what we're about to read, and I think about the fact that Paul writing this to citizens, even in prison, writing this to people who are being persecuted by by the government and and and writing to them, telling them to lead with love. This is a this is a gentleman who is is is imprisoned, he he's beaten, he's tortured, he's ultimately murdered by the Roman government. He's he's writing this letter to tell these people like this is what the gospel looks like, and ultimately, this is what the gospel it looks like lived out in you. That if you truly want to overthrow, like if you truly want to beat the system, right, if you want to fix what is broken, this is how you do it. This is the blueprint, the roadmap to make it all work the way it's supposed to work. So at the start of the chapter, when it says, by God's mercy is right, that's that's the title of the series. In light of all of this, we're gonna lead with love. That is our living sacrifice, that is our act of worship, loving God as he first loved us. So we go, verse nine. Let love be genuine. Let love be genuine. And that that word, which in the Greek is ani pokritas, it means it means sincere, it means unhypocritical. It means to love the way that love is intended. Right? And you can read 1 Corinthians 13 and see where Paul said, love is patient, love is kind, it doesn't boast, right? It never fails, it keeps no record of wrong. You can go through that list where Paul talks about love specifically, and you can bring it back and see what it looks that ultimately Paul is saying it to love rightly, to love genuinely, to love unhypocritically, it is to mirror God, because God is love, right? That's 1 John 4, 8. And in fact, John tells us that if you don't know God, you don't know love. And the reverse is true, that if you don't know love, you don't know God. So it is on us to love genuinely. So let's be honest for a second, because we got to know that there's a difference between loving pizza, loving your wife, right? That can't be the same kind of love, right? It should, it shouldn't be. Okay, I'm just gonna say that. That there's something deeper here, and we and the the the Greeks had several words for love, right? We're gonna see Phileo love, that brotherly love, that community love here in a minute. But it means that a smile isn't gonna cut it. It means that a little bit of generosity, some transactional platitudes, that's not what we're talking about. That to have a pleasant persona portrayed for all to see, while on the inside there is bitterness and contempt, that is not genuine love. Right? Love must look like God. Now, I'll go ahead and warn you, I'm gonna say love a lot. We're gonna see it over and over again. And I'm saying that because we need to get a picture of the kind of love that God has shown us because he is love, and what it ultimately looks like for us to mirror that kind of love. And so when we see what God has done for us in the person of Jesus and what he did all the way to the cross, is that he loved us in a very sacrificial way. There was action, there was intention, there was authenticity. It wasn't just speak, it wasn't just words, it was it was it was action. So to mirror God, to to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. That's the greatest commandment, right? To love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And then when it says love your neighbor as yourself, that is that is taking an understanding, a grasp of the kind of love that God deserves because of the kind of love that He first showed us, and then demonstrating that same kind of love to others. That's bearing the image of God, that's that is mirroring God. Because here's the deal if on the outside we pretend and on the inside we hate, that's mirroring the enemy. And that's not genuine love. And it's fitting that Paul starts with this because it sets the precedent, it's it sets the stage, the foundation for everything else he's gonna talk about. So let's keep going. The second half of that verse, verse 9b, the second half there, it says, abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good. Now you could cherry pick that verse without any context of what was first said, and you go, There, there's there's a good excuse to finger point, right? Because I want to hate what is evil. And that's where people will step in and say, Hey, you're doing something that's evil, and my you know, it's not as evil, so I'll classify it as good, and so I'll finger point, and that's not what's being said here. In fact, what he's talking about is how far love is willing to go. But love isn't just saying it, right? It isn't just feeling it on the inside because of that action that's oriented, that also means that you're going to have to confront people with truth that you don't want to confront. You're going to have to deal with hard challenges to say something to someone or to love someone that you don't want to love to give them the truth that they need to hear. Now, I I don't know about you when I when I was growing up, my I got I got I got uh I got spanked. Can I say that? Anybody else? All right, I had my dad had a my dad had a paddle, it was uh it was streamlined, had holes drilled in it. I think he used like tennis wrap on the handle, he held it up uh on the wall, had a sign above it that said the punisher. You know what I'm talking about? Like that's the kind of thing that's not really true. That's just how I remember it, right? Because my dad would, you know, when he would spank me, he would say this phrase, we could all probably say it together, right? Like, I'm I'm doing this because I love you, right? And I'm going, I don't know what kind of love you're trying to teach me, but this is not a lesson I feel like I need to learn. Like, this is not good. And then something happened. I had children, okay? And I and I remember my two-year-old, my who's now much older than that, my two-year-old who can barely form his words, is is messing with stuff that he doesn't mean. I'm like, hey, stop, don't, don't touch that. And he's just standing there looking at me, and he's just like, like, I know that. Like, okay, there has to be a consequence somewhere. Like, I became a parent, and all of a sudden, it's like, okay, because I love him, I don't want him to put his hand in the fire, right? Because I love him, I don't want him to play in the street with with with uh with busy cars. In fact, it would be completely unloving for me to say, no, I let my son play with the alligators because he wanted to, and I didn't want him to love me. And so, this is how, you know, this I hope that he'll love me by doing no, no parent would do that. No one who actually loves someone would let someone do something they know is gonna harm them without saying, yo, this is gonna harm you. Because love is willing to lose someone if it will help them. Right? So when Paul says abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good, he's not saying point a finger. He's saying that love is not afraid to confront. And if it is afraid to confront, it's not love. In fact, loving the feeling of love is selfish. That's self-centered, not selfless. So let's keep going. Verse 10. Love one another with brotherly affection. Now, Paul's saying that you've got to love your neighbors, you've got to love the people around you, like their family. Now, I don't know about you, but sometimes I have a hard time loving my family, right? And I also know that there are people not in my family that I have an even harder time loving, right? That it's tough. So to hear this command from Paul, love one another with brotherly affection, it's it there's a little pushback, like, okay, well, how far? How far do I need to go? Well, he actually, it's it's really interesting to me because in the Greek, the love one another, your your your translation may say be devoted to, is uh Philostorgos, which which is a a type of communal love, a connection, and then and then when it says brotherly affection, it's the Greek word is Philadelphia, right? The city of brotherly love. He's saying that if you're going to truly love like a like a brother would, then you have to love them like they're an actual brother. You're going to have to bring them into your community and your family. And then I ask the question, because I read it, it's like, but that how? How, God? How do you expect me to do that? You you do realize that my sister can be obnoxious. You do realize that I've got neighbors that complain about me, my watering my yard, getting too close to their yard. I mean, you know that these people are crazy, right? God, how am I supposed to love them? It's hypocritical to act loving if you just despise someone on the inside, right? It's also unrealistic to insist on heart change before loving. So, what's really being said here? How we do it? We look to the gospel. We look to what God has already done for us. We are not loved because we are worthy of love. We are loved despite our loveliness. That's Romans 5.8, right? That while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. While we were steeped in our mud and muck and grime and grossness, God still said it's worth it to save them. And then what does he do? We come to him in faith, and he adopts us into his family. He makes us heirs to all that is his. The kind of bunch up. No, I'm sorry. Verse 10b. I skipped one. The second half of verse 10. Outdo one another in showing honor. Now, this is connected to the love one another with brotherly affection. I'm separating it because it's it's still more action-oriented. I can I can feel love and I can have compassion towards someone that's hard to love. But now he says, outdo one another in showing honor. And we had a motto in Canton that fits this perfectly, and that's prove God's love. And I love this idea because it almost creates like a competition. Where, in fact, I remember there was a there was a guy that uh uh taught a seminar and he made this uh uh this I can't remember what it was exactly, but he just told people that when you respond to an email, you should always be the last person to like you should always be the last person to a letter. This is a while ago. I'm dazed myself up. When you respond to someone, you should always basically write back. So you're always the last person to respond. And I remember hearing that, and and I I remember my my father uh took it, took, just wanted to see if the guy was legit. And so every time that he would send something, my father would write something back and send it back to him, and my father would get something back in the mail. And they exchanged this. I mean, it was just like, thank you, you know, you know, peace out, like the very short, but it was always this back and forth, back and forth. Just just seeing if if one of them would quit, right? Just seeing if one of them would stop. Because he what he did was living by what he what I think my father was the one who actually stopped. It's like he's legit, he's legit. Could you imagine? Right? Could you imagine if if that is how we we showed love? It was just not as a competition trying to one-up each other, but it was just, oh, you did, well, I'm gonna do something else bigger. And then someone did something bigger for you, and it's like, well, now let's let's go. I'm I'm trying to, not even, not a boastful sense, but just out of a zeal to honor God, we outdo one another and how we love and serve each other. What if every Christian, every believer saw every other person as infinitely important and valuable? What if all of us, what if just, what if just in this room, what if just the center section, like what if just a few roads today said, you know what? I am for the rest of my life going to view every single person as infinitely precious and important. What would happen? There'd be more listening, there'd be more serving, there'd be more learning from, empathy, there'd be more compassion, help, shared needs, resources. We'd be doing exactly what we're talking about here. Because real love is not selfish, it is selfless. Now let's get to verse 11. Verse 11. Lumping verse 11 and 12 together. Be not do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. I mean, you could take any one of these things, and I mean there's like 14 points in here, really. And Justin, Justin, if you're watching, you can have you could make 14 whole other sermons and just point to each one of these. And these right here could be broken up and be focused on all by themselves. But together, when I read that, Paul is saying, look, we're talking about how important this is. And now I'm telling you that there needs to be some level of commitment. Be faithful in your love. Now, on the surface, when you read that, again, if you're if you're pulling this out by itself, do not be slothful in zeal. We just sang a song about it. Be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. It's like, yeah, okay, I'm gonna be faithful in my devotion, my commitment to God. But in the context of what is, he's talking about other people before this, he's talking about other people after this. So I'm I'm betting, okay, that Paul is talking about other people here as well. He didn't just like all of a sudden write something and say, hey, be faithful and committed to God. Well, actually, it's it's both and, because the most faithful commitment to God you can give is, in context, seeing other people the way that God sees them, loving them the way that God loves them. Our greatest service to the Lord is to have hope, to be patient, and to pray for those that we refuse to give up on. Okay, that should be everyone. Now, verses 13, 14, 15, and 16, again, could totally stand alone. But I read them as an extra support to this idea of being faithful in your love. Faithful in your commitment to love the way we're supposed to, to lead with love, right? So if you look at verse 13, it says, contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Love with your stuff. Put your money where your mouth is, put your money where your love is. In fact, the word contribute, kononeo, means to partner, to become a shareholder. And this is hard. But Paul is actually giving something to us that we can do, that every one of us can do, that is within our power, immediately within our power. Might be uncomfortable, might be challenging, you know, we might want to think, okay, well, I don't have as much as so-and-so, so I can't give as much as so-and-so. No, no, no. Go back systematically through scripture and see how Jesus pointed to the ones who had very little and their sacrifice was so much greater. Because you have clothes, you have food, you have a home, you have time, you have all of these things at your disposal. And if there is someone in front of you that is in need, there's someone that you know that needs love. Paul is saying that contribute. Buy in. Love with your stuff. Look at verse 14. Bless those who persecute you. Bless those and do not curse them. I love that it says bless twice because it's it's love doubly. Double the love. Now, Jesus talks about it in Matthew 5 where he talks about that that when someone comes to you and asks for your code, give them your tuning too, right? Someone asks you to go one mile, go an extra mile. You've heard that before. And that's what he's really referring to here. Bless those that persecute you. It's not an eye for eye. In fact, here's what's interesting to me: the word for persecute, dioko, is the same word in verse 13 for show. And so it's as if Paul says first, contribute to the deeds of the saints and seek to show hospitality, and then bless those who don't show hospitality to you. So go show hospital with whatever you have. And those that don't return it, give them more of it. Go love like Jesus loved you. And when they're hostile towards you and they don't want anything to do with you, take it up to 11. Spinal tap? Anyone? No? Or whatever. Okay, let's go. Let's keep going. Look at verse 15. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Love with your time. And the truth is, you might be hearing this, you're like, you know, I'm good. I don't think my relationships are good, and I don't necessarily need to be loved right now. But one day, you might hit hard times. One day you might be dealing with frustration or doubt. And you're going to need a church community that loves genuinely, that leads with love, to come alongside you and encourage you and pray for you and contribute and weave with you as you're weeping. Or rejoice with you when you're rejoicing. This is one of the greatest verses on empathy. We all want someone to love us like we want to be loved, right? Verse 16. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associ but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Love like Jesus. Love with your stuff, love doubly. Love with your time. Love like Jesus. Our faithfulness to others should look like his faithfulness to us. So as Paul says, to be faithful in love, we do so with all of our resources and all of our time and all of our motion. Again, it's the same pattern of loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Because if we if we get that, if we're doing that, then we're going to love what God loves the same way. And then we're bearing his image the way he intended. Now at this point, there's a shift from how we deal with people around us that maybe are in the community with us, or people that are neighbors, and people that maybe are hard to love, but now he's going to shift to people who make it almost impossible to love. People that are actively hostile or specifically against us. How do we love people who are actively against us? Anyone want to guess? It's the same, just in case you're wondering. It's the same. That's right. It's not a that's right. There's not an exception, right? Look at verse 17. Repay no evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. What does that look like? Forgiveness? Showing grace? Being kind. It's not loving to be like they started it. It's not loving to be to be like uh I tried. I've been that as a pattern, I've been down that road. I've done all I can do. It's not loving to look at adversaries and say, I just avoid them. Because avoidance really is just another way to avenge yourself. And look what he says next. Never avenge yourself. I skipped another verse again. This is what happens when I'm reading too much because I got lost in my place. He says in verse 17, do what is honorable in the sight of all. In verse 18, he says, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. And to avoid living peaceably, to avoid dealing with those that are hostile, is a version of revenge. It's your way of just pushing it off. I don't need that. Look at verse 19. Never avenge yourself. But leave it to the wrath of God. And that's quoted, it's quoting Deuteronomy 32, 35. He says, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. So Paul said ultimately, these people make you mad, they make you angry. Their political views, their habits, the words they use, the actions they take, it's so frustrating. But Paul is saying, and quoting from Deuteronomy, not to worry about it. See, I my wife sent me a quote the other day, she said that we like to lawyer up, right? Or we we love to be the lawyer when we're dealing with our own mistakes. But we're quick to be the judge when it comes to other people's mistakes. We're looking at people that have offended us, that have hurt us, wounded us deeply. Paul is saying, you gotta let it go. You gotta, you, you, you gotta put, you've gotta lay that at the feet of Jesus and say, hey, I'm just gonna be bitter. I'm gonna have hatred in my heart if I don't if I don't give this up. So I need you to deal with it. And and God said he would. In fact, going back to Matthew 5, that's what Jesus said. He said, look, justice is coming. God will pour out his wrath on everyone who deserves it. If you read the Psalms, you get to some of these challenging Psalms where they're like, they're praying curses, right? These purgatory, they're they're praying for their enemies to die, to have to have their crazy things happen to them. Strung up and beaten, wounded, swords to the throat, like crazy stuff. But almost every time that psalm is written at the end, the author's like, but I know God, it's on you, and I trust you, you can handle it. Because what they're saying is, these people have made me mad. And I'm just voicing my frustration. Because I want the same thing to happen to them to happen to me. Because that's what seems fair, that's justice. And by the end, once they've got it out, once they've released it, they go, but it's not for me. That's for you, God. I'm just gonna trust that in your time, you're gonna deal with it rightly. Not have to worry about it. You know what happens when you can do that? You can go love those people the way they need to be loved. And then verse 20 says, instead of trying to avenge yourself, he says, to the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If your enemy is thirsty, give her something to drink. For by doing so, you will heap burning coals on his head. So instead of looking for revenge, instead of trying to avoid it, instead of running and throwing your hands up, being mad, yelling at the TV screen, whatever it is. On the contrary, go find them and go do something that blesses them. And the Bible says they're not gonna know what to do with it. Now, sure, you can you can set up your protest on the other side of the street and try to counter protests, but you can also just go and talk and love and learn and bless in some way. And Paul is saying it's gonna frustrate them more than they'll know what to do with. Heat burning coals in their heads, like, why are they so loving? I'm doing all these things to make them mad. And they just keep blessing me. Right. Because we're gonna do what we're gonna do to others what God has already done to us. This this action of do the contrary is Paul saying, you don't get to sit back. You love is not passive.

Right?

You don't get to Monday morning quarterback at armchair quarterback, whatever the right idiom is. You don't get to do that. Because God moves towards, we move towards. There's a great story, there's a great story, and I'll just do this really quickly. Ananias uh is is is comes to God. If you remember, there's Ananias in Damascus. Paul is on his way to Damascus to arrest all these Christians. Like he's got legal documents, he's gonna arrest them, he's gonna uh uh they're gonna torture them, maybe kill them. And he goes, and so God shows up and God speaks to Ananias and says, Hey, there's there's this guy, uh, Saul of Tarsus, okay? I've I've I've I've spoken to him, and he's blind at the moment, and I need you to go heal him. I need you to go take care of him, I need to bring him into your house. I need you to put him up in your bed, I need you to feed him, I need you to take care of him, and I need you to do this until he is better. Now, Ananias is like, come out. Uh, all right. I heard you say Saul of Tarsus because if I remember correctly, you know, and we don't have we don't have any good news sources in Damascus at the moment, but if I remember correctly, Saul of Tarsus is a terrorist towards believers. He is coming to round us up, to throw us into jail, to possibly kill us. And you're telling me that what you want me to do is contrary to revenge or running away or avoiding it. You want me to take him into my house? And God says, absolutely. Because that's what I did for you. And you doing that is going to help him become something no one saw coming. The last verse. Do not overcome, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. And I know that there are situations where you're around something that is abusive, you're around people that are the wounds, the hurt just keeps coming. It doesn't stop. And here, Paul is telling us it's okay to create boundaries. Right? Go back to verse 9, right? Abhor what is evil. The best good might be for you to stay away, right? Because you, if you're in an environment where you're trying to conquer evil with evil, you're just gonna, you're just gonna let evil win. That's the that's the Lord of the rings, right? J.R.L. Tolkien, you guys remember, if you can't fight off, you can't take the ring because it if you even if you're good, it'll make you evil, and it'll defeat evil with evil, not just defeats the whole purpose, right? You can't you can't beat evil with evil, evil still wins. But we should help ourselves, create boundaries. Jesus did. He took time away, he sent people off, he he hid to pray. He did what he had to do so that he could continue to love rightly. Because love longs to help, not hurt. So even the most abusive person, even the the darkest human being that you've ever come across, do we just give up on them? Because nowhere in this this entire chapter, this book, really, does Paul say that there are exceptions or excuses to not living this way. That if you believe everything that he talked about up until this point, that by the God's by the mercies of God, but in light of all this, this is how we're supposed to live. There is no hurt too deep, there is no wound so great to not lead with love. And we all probably have stories of someone like I never thought that person would change. I'm gonna tell you a story about a tree. You guys have paintings of trees all over this place. I love that history, I love the paintings, I love all of that. So I thought it would be appropriate to kind of close with a story about a tree that I just learned about just the other day. In Oklahoma City, there was a bombing in 1995. Many of you probably remember that, right? Domestic terrorist attack, Timothy McBay. And if you see the pictures of the bombing, a lot of people lost their lives. Very devastating, huge, huge ordeal. But in the parking lot, it's kind of hard to see. But in the parking lot, there is a tree. Still only tree all over anywhere. So people would come close by to this building. So people try to park there to get shade. Right there, out of the front door of that explosion, right where it happened, the tree is burnt to a crisp. It's lost all its vegetation. It's done. It's dead, it has to be. Four block radius, uh, like earthquake-level seismic tremors that cause damage. Four block radius in this city. The tree right outside the front door, they bring in an arborist to see if the tree can be saved. Arborist is like, there's no way. It's dead, it's nothing on it. It's too much too much damage to the root system, it's gone. But the people in the community said, no, no, no, no. Not giving up. So they they file petitions, they come and they water it, they prop up its its limbs, they prune it, they wrap it, they care for it day after day after day. And in the spring, it sprouted buds. And this is what it looks like today. I should not be getting emotional by a tree. All right, so let me tell you, let me tell you what the tree represents. It represents you and me. Because sin did that to us. It charred us, scorched us to our core, broke us to the point of absolute death. And Jesus stepped in and he pruned us and he wrapped us up and he watered us and he cared for us and he gave us life. And there are people in this world that don't know that truth, that are still scorched and burnt and broken, and they need Jesus, they need us to love them like Jesus loved us. Because if in light of all this, that is how we found life, then in light of all this, let us lead with love and see what it can do. Let's pray, Father. It's not enough to say thank you, be remembered for all that you have done, all that you're doing, all that you've promised to come. But when we lean into that, when we remember what we just celebrated in communion, that you were willing to have your body broken for us, that you would pour out your blood for us, that you were willing to go to the ends of the earth, sacrifice everything for us. How can we possibly reject someone that we know needs them? Father, teach us to lead with love, to love genuinely, to love like you loved us. Help us to lead with love. And we pray all of that in Jesus' name. Amen.