In the sermon 'Love Without Hypocrisy,' Scott Brown explores Romans 12:1-9, emphasizing the transformative power of genuine, unhypocritical love within the church. He discusses the dangers of conforming to worldly views of love and highlights the importance of humility and service in fostering a Christ-like culture. Brown categorizes different church cultures, such as 'country club' or 'program-driven,' and contrasts them with the biblical ideal of love. He provides biblical illustrations of hypocrisy, like Judas and the Pharisees, to show how outward righteousness can mask true faith. The sermon underscores the necessity of love in fulfilling God's law and its role in the maturity of believers. Brown concludes by affirming that genuine love is possible through the Holy Spirit, urging believers to examine their hearts and strive for sincere love, as it is the ultimate mark of a Christian community.

Open your Bibles to Romans 12 and find verse 1. We'll be reading there. Verse 1 to verse 9. Romans 12 verse 1. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter-than-honey word of God.

I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say through the grace given to me to everyone who is among you Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think soberly as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we being many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. If prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith.

Or ministry, let us use it in our ministry. He who teaches in teaching, he who exhorts in exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, He who shows mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be without hypocrisy. The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray Lord we thank you for your word Lord you have told us many things that are so helpful and wonderful this too is Helpful, I pray that you would use it to help all of us to love.

Amen. Amen. Please be seated. So there's a bit of a laser beam focus this morning on one phrase out of verse nine in Romans chapter 12. Let love be without hypocrisy.

You might have thought this already, but we're gonna be in Romans 12 for a long time. So linger there. I would encourage you to memorize this. Memorize Romans 12. It's such a pivotal text for the local church.

You know, last week, Trent Moody's sermon was really a one-point sermon. There's no partiality with God. Acts 10 28 but God has shown me that I should not call any man commoner and clean and it was a good introduction actually to this message here about impartial love, unhypocritical love. In other words, that love should be real. And you know unhypocritical love is a blessing because it really reveals the deficiencies of the world's view of love.

It actually contradicts it because the believer and the unbeliever, they see something that they've never seen before, and that is real love. People without an agenda, people who are not trying to put a number on one another, they're not trying to get what they want, they're not in it for themselves. They have been given a gift of God whereby he is extinguishing their hypocrisy in love. Because so much of our love before we came to the Lord was hypocritical. We were just out for ourselves.

But in the church you can actually see true love. You can actually see real humility. It actually exists in the world. And so Romans 12, as I've said before, explains this wonderful culture that God has designed for his church. And we should always be asking, what is the culture of our church and how am I contributing to the culture of the church?

Because everybody contributes to the culture of a church. There are many different cultures that exist in churches. We were at Men's Bible Study and somebody pointed out there's the country club church where everybody is focused on golf or sports or whatever. It's a country club. It's a place where people come with their common shtick in life.

Then there's the Cowboy Church. Somebody mentioned the Home School Church, which is the uniting factor for the church. There's the concert church. There's the program-driven church, where there's just something for absolutely everybody to do and everybody gets a title. There's the home church.

There's the doctrine church, which is basically an encyclopedia of theology, but there doesn't seem to be much love there. We talked about the personality church. This is a church that's united around a great personality, a great communicator who just wows he is such a wordsmith, it's amazing, everybody wants to hear him. There's the entertainment church, there's the there's the coolness vibe church, But here in Romans 12 are probably 25 commands, exhortations to create the culture of the church of Jesus Christ. Because There's no greater culture than the Church of Jesus Christ when she is an obedient church where the members are functioning according to the Word of God, where they're not thinking too highly of themselves.

And So you can see this outline in front of you. God's design for the church is transformation because all of us come into the church with a lot of baggage. And the word of God is meant to transform us. Actually, in this case, to root out remaining hypocrisy, well, particularly in this church, the Roman church that the apostle Paul is writing to, we should expect that this church full of new believers had baggage as well and they needed to get over a few things and all of us all of us are like that and that's what he wants to do here in this church he wants to us to get over our worldly views, and in this case, our worldly views of love. And so the very preaching of the word of God and the reading of a text like this is meant to change us.

Like Lloyd-Jones said, the purpose of preaching is to move a person from one position to another. And these words are really designed to move you and me from one position to another, from any remaining hypocrisy in our relationships with one another. And just just to remind you how critical this is to understand In Romans, the first 11 chapters are the doctrinal section. And what you find here is what God has done to redeem sinners, that man is hopeless without Jesus Christ. He stands condemned.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and there's really only one remedy and that is Jesus Christ to believe in him and to be relieved of of your guilt So the first 11 chapters are about the danger that sinners are in, but then when we get to Romans 12, we get to the transformation part of the book, how redeemed sinners are to walk with one another and how their lives are designed to mirror the power of the Holy Spirit. So that's the section that we're in. There's a great danger to be in a church, There's a great danger to be in a church. There's a great danger To be in Christianity actually and that is to want to stop at the doctrine To keep the doctrine in our heads to understand justification by faith. Thank you very much and but to leave it at that to leave it in the head and There it actually is quite a bit of really good doctrinal preaching, but that is not designed, that the intent is not to transform the life.

And the problem with us is we would rather have an intellectual faith. We would rather that no one would mess with us and the way we've always been living. This is actually one of the great things about marriage. You learn that God wants to keep messing with you. He wants to keep sanctifying you.

And justification is by faith alone, but it's never meant to be alone. And, but there's this tendency in our hearts to believe the gospel, but not do anything about it, not to experience the implications of the gospel. Let me say it a different way. There's a human tendency that does not want to acknowledge the therefore in verse one. Therefore in Romans 12 verse one.

And of course, this work of transformation begins with presenting your bodies a living sacrifice to God, and then to be transformed by the renewing of your mind and not to be conformed to this world. In other words, to stop living the way that you've always been living. In this case, stop loving the way that you've been loving if it's hypocritical. I think that's the focus here. And so Romans 12 is focusing upon the real change that God wants to make in a local church from the individual up and And why it says it right there in the text that you might prove.

What is that good and acceptable and perfect? Will of God so your life actually becomes a proving ground of the goodness of God and and We see it we see it in in our church all the time where the goodness of God is being demonstrated. And so, this section, it really speaks of the transformation of love. I was so glad for the song we sang just before the sermon, The Love of God. John said, God is love.

And this is why we should so desire the holiness of God in our lives because God is love. The greatest expression of the holiness of God is love and all of its meaning, which is not disconnected from the judgment of God or the truth of God or any other attribute of God. So there are there are at least 25 distinct exhortations and in each of them I think can be categorized under the category of love. We're told here in the verses preceding this verse that we are members of one another, that gifts have been dealt to us. And what that means is that God has put you here for the good of those around you.

And how important is it that we grow in love? We are profoundly affected by one another in the local church. That's why the Apostle says we are members of one another. We are members of the body of Christ making us all members of one another. And what does that mean?

It means that your maturity matters. It actually matters to everyone in the church. My maturity matters to you because we're connected to one another. And your maturity as a believer is partly the result of the collective maturity of the believers of your local church. It really matters what kind of church you're in.

Your maturity is a function of your dedication and your service and with the worship of God, your application of the teaching and your faithfulness in the fellowship of the Saints. Maturity happens as a result of those things and that really I think proclaims the value of what it means to be in a local church. How valuable is it when you are here and what happens when you are not here? You know, we have a church member class going on right now. And somebody described church membership, it's a little bit like a wedding.

You make a covenant, in this case, with the other members of your local church. And then there are everyday commitments. That's what marriage is like. You make one, you make a commitment to your wife, but guess what? You spend the rest of your life working that out and failing and recovering.

You continue to work that out and local church membership is like, in that way it's a little bit like a marriage where you make a covenant but then you learn how to fulfill that covenant. Nobody fulfills the covenant perfectly. All of us are working it out. So here the Apostle in verse 9 says, let love be without hypocrisy. Not fake love, not love for selfish gain.

The Apostle uses this classic word hypocrisy, hu-pa-cree-ton or hu-pa-cree-sus. It's where we get our English term, hypocrite, but it literally means to act out. It means literally to fake. The Greeks used the word for wearing a mask to pretend that you're someone else. You know, they would have gatherings, parties where people would wear masks.

They would wear all kinds of different masks to pretend that they were someone else, to project an image that was actually false. And here it says, let love be without hypocrisy. The ESV says let love be genuine. The NIV says love must be sincere. I think all those words help us understand the meaning of the word.

Years ago I read, Ray Stedman was commenting on this passage and he said that our English word sincere comes from the word sincerus which means without wax And he said that in the ancient world, Roman merchants would sell their earthen porcelain. They would set it out for sale. But if a crack appeared in it that they would fill it with wax and cover it over and so what some merchants would do they would they would code their pot sinceris which means without wax but if you held the pot up to the sun the wax would melt and you would know that there was a crack. So the word literally reflects what the Greek says, let love be without hypocrisy. The King James, I think, is let love be without dissimulation, but this is the idea of hypocrisy.

Well, There are many ways that hypocrisy works on us, particularly when we try to present ourselves more than we are, or different than we are. We're trying to create an image that isn't really real. It might mean saying nice things when you don't mean it. It might mean doing things in order to get something back. Will all of you children understand this completely.

You know this. When somebody takes your toy and you're mad and you're so angry that you hit your sister back and your parents say, say you're sorry and you say I'm sorry but you don't mean it at all. You know that. That's called hypocrisy. Now there are lots of big person ways that hypocrisy happens as well, but it's really the same thing when when your parents are asking you to be reconciled and you just say the words and you haven't really reconciled.

And this happens between husbands and wives. It happens between people in the church as well. There are people who say they're sorry and then they go away bitter and they don't change their disposition. This happens all through our relationships and it's so critical that we examine ourselves in this matter of love. It's a very convicting thing.

John says if you say you love God and do not love your brother you're a liar. So it's a very serious matter. The church should take this command, let love be without hypocrisy. We should take it very seriously. And notice he's speaking of the word love.

The Apostle Paul is actually engaging a teaching that makes it clear that love fulfills the law. The Apostle is expounding on the law of God. And of course the glory of the law of God is summed up you know in two in in two of the greatest commandments. Love the love of God that's the first table of the law and then love of your brother and that's the second table of the law. You could almost say that Romans is structured in the same way.

The first part is is the love of God toward man in Jesus Christ. And the second part from Trois-Voines is how men and women love one another. There's a great error afoot in evangelicalism to celebrate the law from love. Because the Bible says that every law of God is a law of love. And we could elaborate on that, but that's what the Bible actually teaches.

And so he's talking about loving relationships in the church. But there is the threat of hypocrisy. So I wanna give you some biblical illustrations of hypocrisy. We should go to the Bible to illustrate it. We will see these things in us, I suspect.

Maybe not in the first illustration. In the first illustration is of Judas. He served Jesus Christ. He administered the money box. He gave money to the poor.

He went out evangelizing with the other disciples. He participated in the Lord's Supper. He took the Lord's Supper. He did what everybody else was doing in the room, but his love was not genuine. And maybe that does apply to some of you today.

You've been going through the motions. You've been going to church. Everything looks good on the outside. You know when Jesus told the disciples in the upper room that one of them would betray him, do you remember what they they all said, Lord is it me? Because they knew their hearts, but it was Judas.

Because his heart had actually been given over to worldliness. The second illustration is in Matthew chapter 15. This has to do with giving that giving to the church can be a cloak for Hypocrisy, it's very commendable that people would give to the church but what we find in Matthew 15 I'll just read it to you and he answered and said to them why do you transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition For God commanded saying honor your father and mother and he who curses father or mother will be put to death. But you say whoever says to his father or mother whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift of God, then he need not honor his father and mother. Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect for the sake of your tradition." Hypocrites, same word here.

Well did Isaiah prophesy about you saying this people drew near to me with their heart with their mouth and Honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me and in vain they worship me teaching as doctrines the commandments of men what Jesus is saying is yes you are giving your money to the temple you are and you're patting yourself on the back but it's hypocritical because you're actually dishonoring your parents by not giving it to your aging parents to help them. You're a hypocrite to give it to the church, you should give it to the people that are closest to you, namely your parents. That's one form of hypocrisy. Diverting some measure of love in the wrong direction. Here's another illustration in Matthew chapter 23.

This is where the hypocrite looks so good on the outside. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, same word. For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence blind Pharisee first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish that the outside of them may be clean also. So this has to do with outward righteousness, which is a cloak actually of pride. And then another illustration in Matthew chapter illustration in Matthew chapter 7 in beginning in verse 1, Jesus said that hypocrisy can be cloaked in a proper evaluation of other people.

We like to evaluate other people. Judge not that you may not be judged for with what judgment you judge you will be judged and with the measure you use it will be measured back to you. And Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye and look a plank is in your own eye. Hypocrite.

First remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. This kind of hypocrisy is the kind that does not acknowledge his own sins. Usually when you have something to correct someone about you too have the same problem. I have found that to be almost a universal principle in my own life. Here's another illustration.

Charitable deeds that are actually a cloak for hypocrisy. Matthew says, take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them, otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory for men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

That your charitable deed may be in secret and your father who sees in secret will himself reward you only. And then he says in verse 5, and when you pray you shall not be like the hypocrites for they love to pray Standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they may be seen by men Assuredly, I say to you they have their reward. So you have these two manifestations one of charitable deeds and then praying praying in order to receive glory from men. Here's another illustration. Giving to the poor in 1st Corinthians 13 3.

You know it's interesting Paul said that even in giving to the poor it can be hypocritical, it can be sinful to give to the poor that way. He says though I bestow my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned and have not love it profits me nothing." And another illustration, despising others. In Luke 18 is another illustration of hypocrisy. Luke 18, 9, also he spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all I possess and the tax collector standing afar off, who would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, God be merciful to me. I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the one than the other for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Here you have a person who is doing all the things that the law commands him to do, and yet he thinks so highly of himself.

This is hypocrisy. You know, this happens in all kinds of situations in life you know you might have a husband who's not performing according to the standards that his wife wants him to And she's self-righteous and she's holding him accountable for every single thing that's not exactly right with him. I'm not talking about sin, I'm just talking about disappointing things that husbands do. And you have an exalted heart and so you you cannot appreciate that person. Here's another illustration.

Loving only those who love you. Luke 6.32, but if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you. What credit is that to you?

For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to receive as much back but love your enemies and do good and lend hoping for nothing in return and your reward will be great and you will be sons of the Most High for he is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful just as your father also is merciful." That's the hypocrisy of only That's the hypocrisy of only loving those who love you. So there are many illustrations of hypocrisy.

But man looks on the outward appearance but God looks upon the heart. It's one thing to have a reputation for godliness but it's another thing to actually be godly. Richard Baxter said that in a little bit different way. He said, woe to him that takes up the fame of godliness instead of godliness. Jonathan Edwards said that the natural unrenewed man would be glad to have something to make up for the lack of sincere love and the lack of real grace in their hearts.

Many do great things to make up for the lack of it and of course Jesus outlined those in these outward manifestations of hypocrisy. So how do you know if your love is hypocritical? That's really the big question because I think God has brought this to all of us to just continue to root out manifestations of hypocrisy in order that the love of God would be manifested in this local church in more ways than before. So 1 John 3 20 I think gives us, go ahead and open your bibles, first John 3 and then find verse 20. First John 3 20, what the Apostle is doing here is he's helping his hearers to understand how to discern the thoughts and the meditations of their hearts.

1st John 3 20, for if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. So, and I think it's very simple. It's more simple than you maybe think. Whatever we are doing, it's right to ask, does my heart condemn me of hypocrisy here?

Because I think the Lord is saying, I will let you know, I will let you know of the hypocrisy in your heart that I want you to know about I think it is true that Hypocrisy comes out slowly are all of our sins, you know, they are progressively sanctified I think hypocrisy is something that is also progressively Sanctified and I think that the on the on the real Christian the honest Christian will say Lord Am I am I hypocritical in what I'm doing Lord, I I want to love with gent with true love Lord, I want to be like Jesus Christ. I want to be like God who is love. You know David in Psalm 139, he said, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties and see if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the everlasting way. I think what the Lord is saying is that generally you know when you're being hypocritical.

And if you're a believer, your heart will condemn you. So it's right just to say, oh Lord, help me to love with genuine love. Help me to love without hypocrisy. You know David also said, he said, behold you desire truth in the inward parts. It's very interesting, you know, hypocrisy is a particular kind of sin.

It's a secret sin. Probably almost no one can know if your action is hypocritical and manipulative to try to get something or fake. But God knows. God knows all of secret sins. So let's also talk about just this other wonderful reality that genuine love is possible.

Genuine love really is possible. We know, we've been told in Galatians 522 that the fruit of the Spirit is love. So when a person is transformed by the power of redeeming love, then they receive the Holy Spirit. Every believer receives the Holy Spirit. A person now is living inside of them and the Spirit is bearing witness to the glory and the goodness of God.

And that's why the true Christian is always in a process of change Because of this the the work the person and the work of the Spirit of God so Genuine love is possible because the Spirit of God is real in the life of the believer. I don't think we need to despair because God will show us by his spirit and by his word. First John four, verse seven says, "'Love is of God, and everyone who loves "'is born of God and knows God. "'He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.

In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love has been perfected in us. And we know what love looks like because we need to learn what love looks like. It's not it's not hypocritical to attempt to obey the Word of God.

You know in 1st Corinthians 13 we're told the greatest is love and in other words we should be striving to love and we know what it looks like in 1st Corinthians 13. Love suffers long. Love is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself.

Is not puffed up. Does not behave rudely. We, you know what, genuine love is possible. Like you don't have to be rude. These are things that you can actually manifest with a genuine heart.

Love does not seek its own, is not provoked. Love thinks no evil. Love does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

If you doubt that you are unable to have unhypocritical love, know that the Bible teaches you how to have unhypocritical love. Here's one way in 1st Peter 4-8, love covers a multitude of sins Peter said above all things have fervent love for one another Be hospitable to one another without grumbling at each as each one has received a gift, to minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. John In John 13 verse 34 the Lord Jesus Christ says to his disciples, he says, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

By this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another." You know many years ago in the 1970s Francis Schaeffer wrote a little book called The Mark of a Christian, and he said that love in the church is the final apologetic for Christianity. Apologetic for Christianity. It isn't necessarily what you say, but it's how you love one another. So that's what Romans 12 really is all about. And I want us to ask, you know, what kind of church will we be?

Will we be that church where we are growing in love? Have you ever seen the word love in a church vision statement? But a church growing in love. You know a church can grow in lots of different ways. It can grow in talented people.

It can grow in wealth. It can grow in numbers of people. But what would you say is the most important way that a church should grow? And I don't think it's wealth and I don't think it's talented people. I think it's growth in love and That's what the Apostle Is advocating here How each person is growing for love.

Children growing in love. Husbands and wives growing in love. Teenage girls in this church growing in loves. Little boys, little girls in this church growing in love, deacons growing in love, elders growing in love, musicians growing in love, doing everything in love. Let all things be done in love because the greatest is love it never fails it's the fulfillment of the law let love be without hypocrisy Let love be without hypocrisy.

Let's pray. Lord, you have given us such wonderful commands. What life giving, what beautiful, what happy fine commands they are that there would be true love, that we would grow in love. Lord we need help to grow in love and so I pray that you would help us even even today that we would know if our hearts condemn us and that we would walk in love as we have been loved. Amen.