Loving One Another - Part 4

So, let me invite you To turn to Romans 12. Romans 12 for our time of study in God's word, allowing him to speak to us. this morning, And the title of the message is Loving One Another Part 4. We're looking at a pretty dense section of Romans 12, beginning in verse 9, where Paul is explaining for us, the characteristics of love.

one of the things that I've noticed over the years is that love is notoriously difficult to define. in fact, I don't know that I've ever read a succinct definition of love that I've thought, wow, that's it, that nails it. Love is, almost impossible to define. It's like life.

How do you define life? I remember a number of years ago, reading through a biology textbook, and in chapter one, the writers of the textbook struggle with that question, what is life? And they basically conceded that it's impossible to provide a succinct definition of life. But what they did is they said, here's seven characteristics of living things.

And a living thing has some or all of these characteristics. So They basically said we can't define it, but we can describe what living things do. And it's the same with, with love. There's nowhere in Scripture where, in the Older New Testament, where there's even an attempt made to provide a succinct definition of love.

But what we find in passages like 1 Corinthians 13, and here in Romans 12, is we find love being described. Here's how love behaves. Here's how someone walking in agape love lives his life and relates to other people. And that's, that's what we find.

In our passage, this morning. And let me just, start off by reading from Romans 12, beginning in verse 9 from the New American Standard. Paul says, let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good, be devoted to one another in brotherly love, give preference to one another in honor. Not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer.

Contributing to the needs of the saints, and practicing hospitality. Just to help us with this section, what we've been doing over the last few weeks is, is looking at a more literal translation of the passage so that we can get an idea of how this is structured. Paul begins in verse 9 with the word agape. That's the first word out of his mouth.

And so the word agape, it's one of the key Greek words for love. Paul is establishing that this is his topic. And he's saying Agape is or agape means, and then begins to describe, here's what agape looks like, no hypocrisy, hating the evil, clinging to the good, devotedness to one another and brotherly love, leading one another in honor, in diligence, not lagging, in the spirit being fervent, for the Lord serving. And then today we're going to focus on these two descriptions, in hope, rejoicing, and tribulation, Persevering.

And that's as far as we'll get today. I'll have to say that when, like over the years, when I would read through Romans 12, and I would come to, verse 12 and see and hope, rejoicing, and tribulation, persevering. I, I used to tend to think that, OK, Paul was talking about loving each other, and the church, loving one another, but now he's backing away and just generically talking about dealing with the hardships and the trials of life. But as I've studied this passage, this time around, it seems, pretty clear.

that Paul is still speaking of love, as John Scott says beginning in verse 9, Paul gives us his recipe for agape love. These are the ingredients. And I think to understand verse 12, we understand it best, in the sense that Paul is continuing to describe agape love and the way that someone behaves who is walking in agape. And part of what would indicate this is If you read 1 Corinthians 13:7, Paul says love, hopes all things, and then endures all things.

And that word endures is the same Greek word that is translated, persevering here in Romans 12:12. So in Romans 12:12, we have hope, and then persevering in that order. And then in 1 Corinthians, Paul is describing love, and we have hope. And we have perseverance, again, in the same order.

And so, I want us to understand, These descriptions that Paul gives in verse 13, not as just generically living in hope, going through the hardships of life, and persevering through whatever trials may beset you. I want us to understand these two statements of Paul, in the context of what it means to walk in agape love. And so this again, this is as far as we're going to get, we've already learned 8. Characteristics of agape love, 8 things that we ought to do by way of showing agape love to one another.

Today, we're just going to add to that list 2 more ways that we are to show true agape love to, each other. And the first of these is this, if you really want to walk in agape love, and if we as brothers and sisters in the Church of Jesus Christ, want to really love each other the way that God wants us to, then we need to, in addition to the other things we have been learning, we need to be rejoicing in hope for one another. We need to be rejoicing and hope for one another. Paul says in verse 12, rejoicing.

In hope. And again, in 1 Corinthians 13:7, Paul says love, hopes. It's just something love does. Love hopes.

For those whom one is seeking to love. If you want to be a lover of other people, Then you must have hope for the people that you are seeking to show love to, you must become practiced in the art. of this thing called hope. Think about it, guys, like, what's the opposite of hope?

Despair, hopelessness. I, I discovered that after much research this week that the opposite of hope is hopelessness. but despair also is a great word. Think about it.

If you, if, if you have hopelessness and nothing but despair for someone, how can you love them?, imagine trying to love someone with total despair regarding them. You go to someone, you've made them a meal, and you show up at their door, they answer the door. And just imagine you standing there and saying, what, I brought something for you, but I just want you to know, I've been thinking about you a lot this week. And, and honestly, I have no hope for you.

You, you, you're never going to grow. You're never going to change. You will always be what you have been. You will always be what you are today.

I frankly can't think of anyone in my life that I have less hope for. But I brought you a meal, and I'm giving this to you as an expression of my agape love for you. What do you think they're going to do with that meal? Are they going to eat that meal?

No, you will be eating that meal as they shove that thing down your throat, right? they, they don't want anything from you. They don't want that love that is given in a context of despair. That's the love we don't want, either.

And so really, guys, if you want to walk in agape love, you've got to be someone who knows what this thing called hope is. And you are exuding hope towards those that you love, especially your brothers and sisters in the church. And keep in mind that the context here is in our relationships with one another in the church of Jesus Christ. You say, well, honestly, I'm I'm more lean towards the despair side of things.

I don't have an awful lot of hope just flowing out of me. Where do I get this hope? Again, and I'm going to keep saying this till I'm blue in the face. Paul would say, now why I spent 315 verses giving you gospel before I even came to this instruction.

Because part of the purpose of the gospel is to nurture and generate hope within you. And it's striking as you read like Romans 4567, and 8, how you see the theme of hope, showing up. For example, in Romans 4, Paul is talking about how God told Abraham that I'm going to make you a father of many nations. And all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed in you.

And Abraham looks around and he's like, what, I'm married, but my wife and I are elderly at this point. We're past very likely childbearing age, and my wife is barren. I look around and I see a bunch of other people who seem to have a A whole lot of children. My wife and I have never had a child.

And it's not humanly likely that we will. And so God made to Abraham an impossible promise. And in Romans 4:18, Paul says in hope against hope, he believed. That's amazing.

There's nothing humanly that Abraham could have looked around and drawn any hope from. But God made a promise that you're going to be the father of many nations. And I'm going to use you, Abraham, to bring blessing to every people on earth. And Abraham, Hope against hope.

That God's promise was true. And guys, we are the recipients of salvation today, in the 21st century, because the man thousands of years ago hoped against hope. And one of his descendants was Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Through whom blessing has come to the ends of the earth.

Paul moves on in Romans 5. And up to that point, he's talked about justification, how when we believe in Jesus, God forgives us of all of our lifetime of sins, and, and he declares us righteous with the righteousness of Jesus and determines that he will forever think of us as righteous with his own righteousness. And Paul in Romans 5, after explaining what justification is and how it happens, why it needed to happen, And so forth. He comes into Romans chapter 5.

And he says, therefore, having been justified by faith, we appease toward God. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we are continuously exulting in hope. of the glory of God.

what he's saying there? He says, as a justified one, I'm loving being justified. I'm loving being able to face towards God and have a close relationship with him. I'm loving this present grace.

But what I'm also doing is I got my eyes on the future, my future glorification, and I know that whom God justifies, he glorifies. And I'm already celebrating my future glorification. That you can take it to the bank. It's absolutely certain.

I am on my way to glorification. And I'm not worried about celebrating too early. I'm celebrating now, exulting now. And then he goes on to say, and not only this, but we're exulting in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about endurance.

Perseverance, he says, and perseverance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. And hope doesn't disappoint because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. So not only does our hope survive in the midst of tribulations, but our hope only waxes stronger in the midst of trials and the difficulties of, of life. Paul goes on in Romans 8 to talk about how we're living right now.

In an era of the not yet, where all of creation is groaning and travailing in the pangs of childbirth, anxiously longing for the revealing of the sons of God. But Paul says the creation was subjected to this futility. Because of him who subjected it in hope. He goes on to say that the creation itself, here's the hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Paul is saying there is a day of glory coming for those of us who know Jesus, and that's not only going to be good news for us, it's going to be good news for all of creation. And that day of glory is coming because those whom God justifies, he glorifies. He goes on to say, in hope, we have been saved. In other words, we have been saved into hope, we have been saved into a state of hope.

He then explained something about hope, hope that is seen is not hope. So we've not yet seen the full realization of the things that have been promised, for who hopes for what he already sees. But if we hope for what we do not, yet see with perseverance, we wait eagerly for it. You just see hope all over the place here.

Part of the purpose of the gospel is to nourish a robust hope within us so that we can then bring this hope into our relationships with one another. So we thought Paul was just loving on us and giving us all this hope that we have in the context of the gospel. But now he turns us towards one another and says, now here's, here's how to love. Take this hope that the gospel generates in you and start rejoicing in that and love out of a centeredness from the fountain of your rejoicing in this hope for yourself and for your brothers and sisters in Christ.

We can infer 3 things from just what we've looked at so far. Someone who walks in Agape love, and who's living in hope is someone who, #1, is a realist. They're realists. again, as I said, like someone who has hope is someone who realizes that there's still room for hope because everything has not yet been fulfilled.

We are living in the era of the not yet. There has not been a complete fulfillment of all that we long for. Our bodies have not been glorified. There is still the presence of sin within me and within all of you.

And so sin still taints our relationships with, with one another. We still live in a fallen, broke, Broken world. And so there's struggle as a result of that that exists even in our relationships with one another. And the longing is there.

Someone who is rejoicing and hope is someone who they're a realist, they see that they don't, they're not looking for relationships with perfect people somewhere. Because they know that all has not yet been realized and fulfilled. people who rejoice and hope are people who, understanding the era in which we live, not having experienced full fulfillment of the promises of God, and complete glorification when they're looking for a church, they're not looking for a church full of perfect people.

To love.

They're not looking for a church where there's no groaning, and there's no longing, and there's no presence of sin anywhere. And there are people that will hop from church to church to church. And at the first whiff of sin and brokenness, And this groaning, they're off in search of that other Paradise Church that doesn't exist. But someone who's rejoicing in hope is someone who knows that all has not yet been fulfilled, but someone walking in agape love is also someone who has a gospel shaped optimism regarding himself.

Someone who can look at himself in the mirror and say, what, I am not yet all that I should be, but one day I will be clothed with glory and immortality, and all sin will be removed. All brokenness will be removed from my life. One day, I will be in the presence of Jesus, in every way, what it is that God wants me to be, and that I long to be, and I know that whom God justifies, he glorifies, and of that, I'm absolutely certain regarding myself as a justified one. And someone who thinks this way also realizes, what, they're optimistic about their ability to love other people.

They don't say, oh, I can't love other people. I'm just not a good lover of, of other people. No, they realize I've got the Holy Spirit inside of me. God has given me his love, the Spirit is pouring out God's love inside of my heart.

Therefore, I got something to give. I got a lot of learning and growing to do. But what, I can make a difference in the lives of other people. I have hope for myself that I can grow to be an effective, powerful lover of My brothers and sisters in Christ.

And I also know there's a future inheritance, magnificent, infinite, that is awaiting me. And I am so certain of that reality that that energizes the love that I show to others even more. In fact, it's interesting the grammatical connection that shows up in Colossians one. Between loving other people, and hope.

Listen to what Paul says, talking to the Colossians, he says, I'm thanking God for you guys because I've heard of your faith, he says, and I've also heard of the love which you have for all the saints. I've heard about how you guys love your brothers and sisters in the Lord. But now notice what he says. He explains where this love comes from.

He says, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You guys, you love your brothers and sisters in Christ. And part of what energizes that love is the things that are not yet fully realized in your life, but you have confidently set your hope upon. You are so certain of your future glorification.

You are so certain of your future inheritance that is coming your way. You are so certain of your future glory that you're already living out of that and loving other people from the overflow of that confident realization. Does that make sense? Like, just think for a minute.

Imagine that I came to you this morning after the service and And I said, I just want to let that a week from tomorrow, so next Monday, a week from tomorrow, $1 billion is going to be deposited into your bank account. All right, and you're like, well, I don't believe you, Pastor Milton, and I show you paperwork and you read through the paperwork, you make a few phone calls, and by the time you're done researching it, with absolute certainty that what I'm saying is true, that a week from tomorrow you're going to have a billion dollars deposited in your bank account 8 days from now.

Here's my question. With the knowledge of that, that is coming to you 8 days from now, make any difference at all in the way you live your life over the next 7 days?

Would it? It's OK to admit it. Like, like, would it affect your outlook? Would it affect your mood, your disposition?

Would you be an easier person to get along with, when your car breaks down maybe this week and there's a $700 repair, the way that you respond to that repair, would it be in any way shaped by What's coming a few days from now. someone comes to you and says, hey, I've got a need, and you, you become aware of that need, and they need $500 from you with the way that you process that and meeting that need in any way be informed by the fact that you have a billion dollars coming to you a week from tomorrow?

some of you would probably this week already go shopping. Maybe you wouldn't buy anything, but you're checking out because I know when the money comes, I've got some plans.

Some of you may even start buying things this week on your credit card, knowing that the money will be there to pay your credit card when the bill comes due. I don't think there's any question that that billion dollars windfall coming 8 days from now would profoundly impact just about everything about you. And that's what Paul is observing is happening to the Colossian Christians. You guys are so confident in the hope of who you are becoming and what you will be in glory and the inheritance that is coming your way, the magnificent, infinite windfall of your inheritance in Christ, the future glory.

You guys are so confident and excited about that, that it's already making a difference in the way you live your life, and what your outlook is, and the way that you go about loving other people, you're loving other people. Out of the generous overflow of what is coming your way. And so someone walking in agape is, is they're a realist. They're also optimistic in a gospel shaped way regarding themselves, but they're also someone who has a gospel shaped optimism regarding their fellow Christians.

See guys, part of the reason Paul gives us all this gospel stuff. that gives us great cause for hope. In Romans 8, for example, Romans 5 is not so that we can just look at ourselves and have hope for ourselves, but so that we can turn to our brothers and sisters and say, Well, that's talking about you too. You are destined for glory, whom God justifies, he glorifies.

That means one day you will be glorified. Paul wants to shape the way we look at each other so that we don't just see each other as we exist now, but we're looking at our brothers and sisters as they will be in glory. That's what Paul is after, in part. Guys, the day is going to come when you, if Jesus, you will be an everlasting splendor.

An everlasting splendor. And so much so that CS Lewis says that like if I could see right now, what you will appear to be in glory, if I could see that with my frail human eyes right now, what you're going to look like in glory. CS Lewis says I would be sorely tempted to bow down and worship you because my eyes have never seen anything like it before. And when that day comes that I see you in glory and all of the magnificence that you are clothed with.

I will look at you and say it was such a blessing to have had any role in that person's life. I'll go up to people and say, look at that person right there. Look at Brian Qug. That's his name.

Look at him. And they'll be like, wow. I said, what, I was one of his pastors. I got to be one of his pastors.

The day is going to come when we look at each other in glory, and we're going to, we would long for the opportunity to come back and love each other better. When we were here on Earth. Paul is letting us in on this now because he wants, he wants this to shape the way we treat. One another.

He wants me when I look at you to not just see you for what you used to be, and not just see you for as you exist right now, but to see you as you will be in glory. He wants us to look at others in the church and say, what, those faults right there? Yes, they're real. In fact, they've even hurt me at times, but those faults, they're temporary.

The good that I see in this brother or sister, that good, that's permanent. That's a part of their eternal permanent identity in Christ. And so it's not that we turn a blind eye to what's wrong, but that we don't lose sight of who we will be and our brothers and sisters will be in glory. And Paul says someone walking in agape love not only has this hope, but they rejoice in hope.

In other words, they, they're already finding joy in what their brothers and sisters are going to become, and they're rejoicing. So they're giving expression to this joy, to this hope that they have in a way that other people are hearing. So they're going to their brothers and sisters, and, and they're giving voice to this hope. Paul does this throughout his letters.

there's an abundance of examples and 1 Thessalonians 2, Paul is speaking to the Thessalonians, and he says, who is our hope, or joy or crown of exaltation? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus that is coming, for you are our glory and joy. Paul says, what? You guys, when I, when I see you, I don't just see you as you exist right now.

I see you as you will be on that future day in glory in the presence of Jesus, and I'm going to be singing and exulting over you. You will be my crown of exaltation. And I'm already thinking about that day. When I look at you, I see you as you will be on that day.

And what, you guys got problems. In fact, I'm right. In this letter to deal with some of those problems and your relationships with each other, some of your theology and eschatology needs, needs some fixing. So there are some issues with you guys, and I see that.

But I just want you to know that when I look at you, it's not just these faults that I see. I see who you're going to be in glory, and I want you to know that. Paul is speaking to the Philippians. And in Philippians one, he says, I'm confident of this very thing that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

So hey, Philippians, when I, when I look at you guys, You've got problems. In fact, I'm writing this letter because there's some things I need to deal with, and There's some warnings that I need to deliver, and some of you are getting conceited, and I need to help you and give you some instruction to look to Christ and to follow his example in lowering yourself in relationship to other people. And I know that there's some of you that are having conflict, you're not getting along with each other, and everyone in the church sees it and knows about it.

And so I'm gonna have to give some direction and even name some names, but I want you to know up front that when I see you, that is not all I see.

I know that Christ is working in your life. And I know what you're going to look like in glory. I'm already in on that secret. And in writing this letter and saying what I'm going to say, I'm just participating in that journey that I know that you are taking to glory.

If there ever was a church that would have posed a challenge to Paul's gospel optimism, it would have been the Corinthian church, and yet somehow he found a way to look beyond the present. And he says to them, in 1 Corinthians 1:8, the Lord Jesus will confirm you to the end blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a messed up church, so many issues, theologically, ethically, ecclesiastically, Relationally are going on. They're getting drunk at the church potlucks, taking each other to court.

Some of them are involved in immorality. On and on the list can go. They're competing with one another with selfish ambition and pride and breaking up into the cliques. If there was any church that Paul had reason to say, I'm done with you, it was them.

And yet Paul reaches out to them in a letter, and he also says, Hey guys, when I, when I look at you, yes, I see the problems, and we're going to deal with those things. I'll be mentioning those things, but I want you to know that I believe that the day will come when you will be blameless. I see a day of blamelessness in your future. And I want you to know that I'm rejoicing in that right now.

As I am relating to you through this letter. This is the way we need to think. We need to do way more rejoicing and hope for one another than than we often do. And you may say, Well, yeah, I know, I know my brothers and sisters.

I know this person that I'm having a conflict with. Yeah, I know they'll be glorified. I know that. That's not, not news to me, but are you rejoicing in that?

Does that person feel that rejoicing that you have over who they're becoming as messed up as they may be? Unfortunately, we don't convey this vibe to our brothers and sisters or to our husband or our wife. One spouse may think about the other, what, my spouse is never going to change. My husband is never going to change.

I've had hope before, but that hope is shot. he's never going to change. He's a Christian, but I'm ready to give up. I don't believe change is possible anymore.

And then I've seen it happen to where that's basically the disposition of the spouse towards their other, towards their husband, for example, and then maybe the husband starts to change in a few weeks, there seems to be some growth, a fragile growth in that husband's life, and the wife's attitude is, yeah, but that's not real. That's not real. Just wait. That's not the real them.

And then after a few weeks or months, the husband may trip up and the wife is like, that's it, that's the real them. See, I told you, I knew it all along. And they say to their spouse, you always do this. You always do this.

And even beyond the context of marriage, guys, we should never reach a point where we look at a brother or sister and say, you are who you are, you are who you've always been. And I have no hope for you, no hope for you. In fact, we, we use in our culture today, the expression falling in love, where a guy and a gal fall in love with each other and, and then there's falling out of love, which is just such a misnomer. generally, when someone falls in love with another, they're not really falling in love with that person.

They're falling in love with their fantastical notions that are attached to that person. They're falling in love with this airbrushed, naive, simplistic rendition of that person that exists only in their mind. And so they then get to know that person and weeks and months, maybe years go by, and they get to know the real individual. And if that person fails to live up to their fantastical notions, they may say one day, I'm sorry, I've just fallen out of love with you, when in fact they never love that real person ever in the first place.

They only love their idea of them, which was never reality. But I love what Timothy and Kathy Keller do in their book, The Meaning of Marriage. They, they go ahead and embrace that expression falling in love, but they say, here's the, here's what it means to fall in love. And they say the essence of it is you look at the future version of that person and who they will be in glory.

And you allow Your love for them to be shaped by who they are becoming. In fact, listen to what they say. I know I read this a few months ago, but, I just want to read it again. They say within the Christian vision for marriage, here's what it means to fall in love.

It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of the person God is creating and to say, I see, I see who God is making you, and it excites me. I want to be a part of that. I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to His throne. And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, I always knew you could be like this.

I got glimpses of it on Earth, but now, look at you. If Paul were to read that quote, he would say, Dude, that's how I feel about all my brothers and sisters. In Christ. This goes beyond just marriage.

I'm excited about what God is doing in the Philippians and Thessalonians and Corinthians' lives as messed up as they are, they will be incredible specimens of glory one day, and I already see that, and I am just blessed to partner with them in the journey that they are taking to glory. And as I minister to them with all the mess, I just keep telling them this is what I see, this is what I see, this is what you are becoming. And I minister to them from the fount of that hope that I rejoice in.

Guys, in your relationships with, with your brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Just act like something. act like you're in on a secret. develop a knowing smile. Yeah, I see this right now, but I know what they're becoming.

I know where they're headed. I know what their glory selves are going to look like, and I know they're going to be blameless one day in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as you minister to them, in the mess of it all of the present time, that you don't lose sight of that. May your smile, may that knowing smile that you have towards your brothers and sisters in Christ be an early ray of an approaching dawn of glory that is coming.

May they find hope for themselves that they can cling to inside the hope that you have for them. True love, true agape love, rejoices and hope. For one's brothers and sisters, and that leads to the 2nd. The way that we are to go about expressing true agape love to one another, and that is to be persevering through love's tribulations rather than giving up on one another, to be persevering through love's tribulations rather than giving up on one another.

Paul says rejoicing in hope, and then he says persevering in tribulation, persevering in tribulation. Love endures. All things, love perseveres. If you walk a path of love, you're going to encounter tribulations on that path, and true love remains underneath those tribulations rather than bailing out.

Bailing out Now, as I said at the outset, we see the word tribulation here, and we might tend to think of just generic trials from living in a fallen broken world. I'm sure it includes that. But I think in the context, Paul is talking about relational Tribulations The difficulties, the pressures, the frustrations and the hurts that we experience on the path of loving one, another. This word tribulation speaks of external pressures that create inward feelings of distress.

And in the context, I think he's talking about those pressures, those difficulties, frustrations, and the hurts that we experience in relationship with each other. It's interesting in the New Testament, the occasions where Paul actually uses this word tribulation in clearly a relational context. For example, in Philippians, Paul is in prison and he observes and he's heard reports that there are some who have become more bold in preaching Christ because Paul is now in prison. But Paul also has heard reports that indicate that yes, some are preaching Christ from pure motives.

And there are others, believe it or not, who know Jesus who are saved. And there's a motive that seems to be giving energy to their preaching of Christ. And it's a motive to stick it to Paul. And to cause him envy and jealousy and some unhappiness in his imprisonment.

Is that possible for Christians to have such motives? Yeah. And Paul says some proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me tribulation. In my imprisonment.

So Paul would say that even a believer who's doing something like this with faulty motives created within him the temptation to be inwardly distressed. Paul rebuffs this, but I'm sure it did not just come instantly. He had to make a choice. In 2 Corinthians 2:4, Paul reaching out to the Corinthians.

It's really amazing all of Paul's effort. He wrote at least 4 letters to the Corinthians. When you put all the data together, he paid a visit to them, which is often referred to as the painful visit. When Paul was among them planning the church, they never gave him a dime for all of his labor among them.

They never gave him the respect as an apostle that they gave to other apostles. Some were even bragging about how they are of Peter or they are of Apollo or they are of Christ and distanced themselves from, from the apostle Paul, and some of them critiqued Paul as a speaker and even his physical presence. Paul in 2 Corinthians basically says, I've heard what you guys have been saying about you, about me, because some of them, he quotes them as saying about Paul that his physical presence is unimpressive.

And his speaking is contemptible.

I can't imagine here at Cornerstone, like after preaching on a Sunday, someone shaking my hand and saying, your physical presence is totally unimpressive, and, and, and your message, just the way you speak, it's just contemptible to me. Have a nice week. I can't, I can't imagine that, but that's the stuff Paul was hearing from the very people that he's loving and reaching out to, and he says in 2 Corinthians 12, he says, the more abundantly I love you, it seems the less you love me.

So Paul is being hurt as he is reaching out to them.

And he says in 2 Corinthians 2:4, it's out of much tribulation and anguish of heart that I wrote to you with many tears. This is tribulation that he's experiencing. Paul could have just bailed out on the Corinthians and said, Forget you, but he doesn't do that. Paul moves towards them in love, and the closer he got to them, the more tribulation he experienced.

how about the relationship of husband and wife, the closest human relationship possible. Paul says, 1 Corinthians 7:28, if you should marry, you have not sinned, and if a virgin should marry, she has not sinned. Yet such will have tribulation in this life, and I'm trying to spare you guys. Paul says a lot more about marriage than this, but in this passage, in this context, he stands at the gate of the institution of marriage and says to any naive people that come into that institution and say, you walk through this gate, you will have tribulation.

You enter into the closest possible relationship that two people can have on this planet, you will have trouble. You are a sinner, they are a sinner, and being that close to one another, living with each other day by day, month by month, year by year, decade by decade, you're going to experience tribulation. It's inevitable. And so Paul uses this term tribulation in relational context like this, and it's, it's basically love's tribulations, guys.

When we choose to move towards another person and choose to love another in that moment, what we're doing at the same time is we are choosing to accept and embrace the vulnerabilities to suffering that come with that. When my wife chose to love me and publicly committed herself to loving me till death do us part, she was in that moment. She didn't express this in her vows out loud, but in that moment, she was publicly embracing any suffering and any tribulations that she would encounter on the path of loving me.

And what, I've given her plenty of tribulation.

Through sins of omission and commission, I've wounded her, I have hurt her. I have seen her heave with sobs over hurts that I have caused. That's a part of her journey of loving me. All of us in our relationships with our spouses and with one another, if we're going to live a life of agape love, there will be tribulation.

That we encounter. Paul uses this language, elsewhere and communicates it through different terms to the Galatians. He says, I, I'm so concerned for you guys and I'm hurting for you guys that I feel like I'm going through the pangs of labor for you. My heart is just being wrenched in two.

In 2 Corinthians 11, he speaks of the daily pressure upon him. of concern for all the churches. He says in verse 29, who has led into sin without my intense concern? In 2 Corinthians 12, he says, If I love you, the more am I to be loved, the less.

That could be understood as Paul making a statement rather than asking a question, wherein he's saying, the more I love you, the less you seem to love me in return, and that hurts. You reach out to someone, you try to love them and help them, and they seem to hate you for it, or they love you less because of it. And the more you move towards them, the less their love for you becomes. Paul was so concerned for the Thessalonians and how they were doing because he had been run out of town through persecution.

and he ends up making his way, I believe, down to the city of Corinth, and he's down there, and weeks and months go by and he's just dying with concern for how the Thessalonians are doing, and he uses words like we could endure it no longer when I could endure it no longer. I sent someone to find out about your faith for fear. Like he had anxieties and fear for them. Paul was a man who, who lived his life walking on the path of agape love for other people, and his life was enormously made complicated because he lived in agape love.

And you may look at Paul's lifestyle and say, I do not, I can't, I can't imagine living that life. That just looks and feels like a mess. To me, who would want this life? Who would want these kinds of tribulations that come with, with loving other people?

But you may say, well, deep down, I know I'm supposed to do this, but Pastor, you're going to have to help me to get to a place where I actually want to love other people and embrace the suffering and the tribulations that come with it. Because you guys know that's true, don't you? The call to love one another. is a call to suffer.

It's a call to render yourself vulnerable to the hurts and the suffering that come on the path of love. And so don't, don't be surprised when you love other people, and there's hurts that you encountered. That's, that's just part of what goes with the territory of relating to other people in a spirit of agape love. But what is it that could motivate us to actually step towards people and love them in this way?

What is it that upon having done that and experiencing pain and hurt and difficulty, what is it that would keep us from removing ourselves from that tribulation and saying forget you and to live a simpler life of having nothing to do with that person. How do I get to a place of walking and agape love in these two areas that we've looked at, where I'm ready to love and embrace love's tribulations? Let me just give you three things real quick and we'll wrap this up. Number 1, fix your eyes on Jesus, guys.

Again, don't look at these descriptions of love saying, man, I just, I'm really blowing it. I'm not living up to this. I would encourage you to just start exulting in the fact that you are saved today because someone already did this. Jesus already did this.

and Hebrews 12:2, it says, for the joy set before him, Jesus did not just see us in the mess that we were in, only he saw what we will be in glory in relationship with Him. He had that in front of him, and for the joy set before him, he endured the cross and counted the shame and the suffering as nothing. Jesus Christ came into this world to show us love. And how did that go?

How did it go? He suffered rejection again and again and again. He realizes that he will die for the sins of mankind, these rebel sinners that we were in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was in agony to the point of death, but he embraced the cross.

And he stuck with it. And he didn't bail out on the journey of loving us. Jesus before his death, guys, he, the works that he did, the apostle John says the whole world could not contain. All the things that Jesus did.

And yet here he is in the Garden of Gethsemane and the Father says, Son, I need you to do one more thing. I need you to die. I need you to die. Jesus had every reason to say, I've done enough for these people.

Instead, he says, I'm, I'm willing to die. I'm willing to embrace love's tribulations. And he did, and we are saved as a result of Jesus Christ and what he did. We are daily the recipients of a salvation that comes to us, because we have a savior who rejoiced in hope.

And also endured, remained under rather than removing himself from the tribulation on the path of loving us with agape love. And by the way, even bringing us to the point of conversion from then on, we've not been a piece of cake, have we? we're still a mess. And in Ephesians 4:30, we're told to stop grieving the Holy Spirit and implied in that is the sobering reality that we are still capable of bringing grief to the heart of God.

And you think about that in any detail, and you realize I must grieve the heart of God every day. God being omniscient, he knew that when he entered into a relationship with me. So, and he never walks away from me. He never gives up on me, even upon having saved me.

Because he sees where I'm heading and what he's making of me. When you start thinking of Jesus and, and celebrating who he is and how he has lived this out, you then turn to your brothers and sisters who are as messed up as you are. And you realize how can I walk away from them when I have a savior who refuses to walk away from me. Peter even said to Jesus, go away from me, Lord.

I'm a sinful man. And, and Jesus basically by his actions said, I'm not leaving you, Peter. I will never give up on you. And then we look at our brothers and sisters in Christ and realize Jesus is never going to walk away from them.

How can I walk away from someone and say, I'm fed up with you? I don't want any more tribulation from you. No more grief from you. I'm done with you.

How can I walk away from a brother or sister that Jesus Christ refuses to walk away from? Turn your eyes upon Jesus. And that'll help put you in a frame of mind to walk in this agape love that's always rejoicing and hope. And enduring in tribulation.

Secondly, know that love's tribulations do you much good. When, when, when you love other people and move towards them and render yourself vulnerable to hurt and pain as a result of your relationship with them, It's not just, well, I got to cope with that because it's for their good, and I'm loving them for their good. That's Agape Love, and I hope they benefit from it. No, the genius of all of this is that even the mess and the tribulations that come on the path of agape love, God is not only using those to do the people you're loving good, God is using love's tribulations to do you a whole ton of good.

And that's why Paul in Romans 5 says we are exulting in our tribulations. We're exulting in love's tribulations, knowing that they're even doing something in us. Paul saying, I know that as I'm loving other people and, and I'm experiencing the mess and the hurt and the tribulations that God is using those very things to produce in me endurance. perseverance, and proven character, and hope, and love.

And so I, I embrace love's tribulations, because God is forcing those tribulations to pay tribute to me, and to do good to me and shaping me, day by day into the image of Christ. And then the last thing to do is, guys, if, if you're thinking, I, I, I'd rather not deal with all the hassle and the tribulation of loving other people. I would just say ponder the alternative. Ponder the possibility that you just walk away from all people saying, what, who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

As the great theologian Tina Turner said, and I will never have my heart broken again. I will never be hurt again, and so we remove ourselves from people. What life is that? What life Is that CS Lewis says, love anything, love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.

If you want to make sure of keeping your heart intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries. Avoid all entanglements, lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, your heart will change.

It will not be broken. It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be. Vulnerable.

In fact, you want safety from the tribulations of love. Lewis in another place says the only place outside heaven, where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and tribulations of love, is hell. And that is how To be so removed from relationships and from agape that you have completely protected yourself from the tribulations and the dangers of love. As one poet has said, if in your fear, you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure.

Then it is better for you to cover your nakedness and to pass out of love's threshing floor. Into the seasonless world where you will laugh. But not all of your laughter you will weep. But not all of your tears?

In other words, you'll live. But you won't live fully. You will have cheated yourself. Out of living life on the edge, living life to the fullest.

The life of Agape Love. Me ask you to bow your heads. If you're here today and you've never known this love, you, I'm just so excited to be able to tell you about this Jesus who, with a heart of rejoicing, was willing to endure so much in order to bring you into relationship with himself. I would call you this day to move towards Jesus, to embrace Him as your Lord and your Savior.

And then join with us or some other church full of imperfect people who are trying to figure out how to like live this out in relationship with each other. We got a long way to go, but If you think you're a Christian, and you think you love God and love others, then my challenge would be to join yourself to a local group of saved sinners and not just do it for a week or two weeks, and not for a month or even 6 months or a year, but Hang with them for the long haul. And love them day in and day out through the tribulations and the blessings and the joys that come with walking in Agape, and you will discover and others will discover soon enough.

if you really know anything of agape, Lord, we come to you in prayer right now.

We have so much to learn. We, we stand here as kindergartners who have so much to learn, so much to learn. Romans 12 is, is. It is so humbling.

And yet the beauty of this is, is I'm realizing we're not done with the gospel. The gospel is everywhere in Romans 12, because all of these things point to Jesus. We're staring at Jesus reading these descriptions, because he lived all of these. All of them, and we're saved because he already did this.

This is the gospel. And it's believing in him, cherishing him and admiring his beauty that we can find ourselves being transformed to live this out more fully. Help us God, grow us. And teach us the way of agape love.

We thank you for the opportunity to give up our offerings to you, Lord, receive these offerings that we give and do much with them for the glory of Jesus. We ask these things in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said, Amen.