In his sermon titled 'Abhor What Is Evil, Cling to What Is Good,' Scott Brown delves into Romans 12:9, emphasizing the simplicity yet profoundness of the Christian life. He explains that love must be genuine, and true love involves abhorring what is evil and clinging to what is good. The sermon highlights that these principles form the foundation of a holy and fulfilling life within the church community. Brown encourages believers to take inventory of their lives, ensuring they are not embracing what God despises. He stresses the importance of individual holiness and its impact on the church body, advocating for a culture of holiness that begins in the home and extends to the church. The sermon also critiques modern parenting and societal norms that contradict biblical teachings, urging Christians to adhere to God's commands and pursue what is truly good. Overall, the message is one of cultivating a life centered on God's truth and love, which leads to a transformative and impactful church culture.

Turn your Bibles to Romans chapter 12 and find verse 9. I'll be reading the section that we will be focusing on for the next several sessions in Romans. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil.

Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for these words to continue the alterations of our lives that you so desire that we would be holy as you are holy.

Oh Lord that you would continue to work the likeness of Jesus Christ in us as we read these words that are meant to direct us to all things that are holy. Thank you, Lord, for your holiness. Your holiness is our greatest hope. Amen. Please be seated.

Abhor what is evil and cling to what is good. This is a general summary of the Christian life and the whole work of sanctification that God is operating in our lives. And what's remarkable to me about this phraseology is that the Lord, the Lord's ways are simple ways. In this case, hating evil and clinging to what is good. And what's so remarkable and helpful and beautiful and life-giving about this is that Even a little child can understand this.

You don't have to be a highfalutin theologian. You don't have to go to seminary. You don't have to be old. You can be very young. You can be very simple minded.

And you can acquire the wisdom that's here in this passage. And there are two positive commands, things that you do to create a wonderful life in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what Romans 12 is all about and that is how to create a culture of holiness in the church and what God has for the church is such a wonderful thing there's no culture like the culture of a biblical local church. The commands are so good and so wonderful. And a part of that is because, you know, the Christian life is repentance from dead works.

It is cleaving to Jesus Christ and everything that is good. It's believing that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. It's believing that he's the good shepherd, he's the true vine, he's the fountain of life. You know, he's the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and then he keeps taking away your sin progressively as you grow in him. And he's the bread of life.

He's the Redeemer. He's a Savior. Saved from what? Saved from everything that would hurt you. And so these commands are all I think under the category really of the the beauty and the goodness of Jesus Christ toward all of his children.

God never commanded anything that was bad for you. And what we find here is that it's truth and it's love that shapes the culture of a church. And it begins with the idea That the church is a group of people who presented their bodies a living sacrifice Holy and acceptable to God and they're no longer conforming themselves to the patterns of this world, but they're being transformed By the renewing of their minds and as a result God brings together a family we are members of one another we are one body in Jesus Christ we affect each other profoundly and and frankly your holiness has an effect on my holiness Our holiness together has an effect on one other. It really matters what you do individually because it spills over into the life of a local church because we are members of one another. So all of these things are so interconnected.

These things begin in the home and then they extend in the church to hate what is evil and to cleave to what is good. Now, You get the flow. I'm focusing on just this very short phrase, to abhor what is evil and to cling to what is good. But note, or we must remember what went before it, we spent the entire time on it last Sunday, let love be without hypocrisy. And in this verse, we need to understand what love is.

Love is not the world's kind of love. God's love and our love includes abhorring things that are evil and clinging to what is good. And frankly, you know, so many of you are raising children, it's really important that you, you're teaching your children what love is and love is abhorring evil and clinging to what is good and this is a such a wonderful and very very simple principle here's here's how helpful it is It's like the litmus test for everything. You don't need to figure out all the latest fads. You don't need to understand all the latest problems that are going on in the world.

Read the simple words of the Bible. It's so simple. The normal believer has all the treasures of heaven before them, and I heard a pastor once say, all you need to know is a few simple, straightforward sentences to save you from many of life's traps. And this sentence is really one of them, actually. It'll free you from a thousand errors.

So What I'd like for us to consider as we walk through these thoughts here is to take inventory. Is there anything in your life that God hates? Take inventory. Is what you are clinging to good? What is good?

It's what God describes as good. By the way, you know, our church embraces the Baptist Confession of 1689 and it has a section on what is what our good works and it's a great section. You ought to go read it. But basically, I'll just summarize it. What is good is what God says is good and those are the good works that God would have us walk in.

And you know as you take inventory walking through these things you know, you know as as parents you know as husbands and wives are you saturating your families with good things? Is your, does your playlist have songs in it that God hates? Do the movies that you watch have things in it that God hates? Does your playlist honor God? Do the movies you watch honor God?

And so this is the thing that is addressed here. Are there things that you should be clinging to? These are actually the two paths of life. It's the narrow way and it's the wide path. And so these words give a tremendous vision for all of life, including life at home and life in the church.

But remember this is all about love. Let love be without hypocrisy. This is the first principle that governs genuine love. And what is love? It is to abhor evil and to cling to what is good.

So you see the logic? He's defining aspects of love. Here's what it means. Love is discriminating and what the Apostle is saying, there's a version of love, it's a false corrupt version of love that can be hypocritical. There's a hypocritical kind of love.

Love, love so called, can be hypocritical. Love is hypocritical when it embraces evil. That's what it means to be hypocritical in love. Love can wear a mask. Love can wear the mask of hypocrisy by embracing what is evil.

And love is hypocritical when it does not abhor evil. I know that might sound like a strange thought but that's exactly how God would direct his children. So let's take a look at this. Abhor what is evil. There, this message has two points.

Abhor what is evil and cling to what is good. So let's look at it. Abhor what is evil. Paul, Paul is actually making it very plain that there is such a thing as objective evil. Everything you think and feel might not be right.

There is something that is objectively evil. We live in a world of relativism. That's not God's world. One of the commentators, Lee Ann Morris said this, we should be clear that love is quite different from sentimentality. True love involves a deep hatred for all that is evil, for evil can never benefit the beloved." And so Paul's using very clear language.

It means to dislike. It means to have a horror of God would have you be horrified at particular things. Love is not always sweet and soft and nice and compliant and nuanced, hence the kind of thing that we see in evangelicalism all the time. Love actually can hate, Love can be horrified. Love hates what is contrary to the goodness of God, to the very character of God.

In Psalm 97 verse 10, we find this theme all through the Bible. You who love the Lord hate evil. Amos 5 15. Hate evil, love good, establish justice in the gate. It's pretty simple.

You know what? I was talking to Deborah about this earlier today and she said, Scott, you're not gonna tell these people anything they don't already know. Well, that's true every Sunday because God wants to remind us of things. We're gonna take the Lord's Supper. How many times have you taken the Lord's Supper?

God wants you to remember what Jesus Christ did for you. And it's all tied together. So we were discussing this in men's Bible study on Tuesday about hating evil and then afterward one of the men texted me, he had gone home, you know what, we have men's Bible study because we want people to go home and teach their families and get ready for the sermon. But so he went home and he was talking to his little kids and he was trying to teach his kids what it means to abhor what is evil. And he said, it's like to hate, it's to have Disgust and then his three-year-old son said it's like trash Yeah, there you go.

It's like trash You know there is There's such a thing as trash and even a three-year-old Can understand it You should go home and talk to your three-year-olds about the sermon, because there's stuff in it for them for sure. Psalm five, five through six. For you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness. You hate all workers of iniquity. You shall destroy those who speak falsehood.

Proverbs 8 13, the Lord hates pride and arrogance. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil pride and arrogance and the evil way. Proverbs 6 17 there are six things that the Lord hates yes that are set there are seven that are an abomination to him. A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that are swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren. The Lord hates those things.

Well, and so should we. In ourselves first. Isaiah 1, 12 through 14 says that God hates fake worship. He says your incense is an abomination to me. My soul hates your appointed feasts and your new moons.

They are a trouble to me. I'm weary of bearing them." And then he says, wash yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your doings. Cease to do evil and learn to do good. To hate evil is a very powerful thing in a person's life.

When you hate evil, you have more freedom Than you have than when you love evil because then you are in bondage, but I'll give you another illustration of this When I was 16 and I got my driver's license I Had so much freedom. You cannot believe how much freedom my parents gave me. But the reason they gave me freedom is because they knew that when I got in that car by myself at age 16 they knew I wasn't chasing evil They knew that car was going to chase good. They knew that and it was true not perfectly. I was a 16 year old, okay but in my heart I wasn't when I got in that car and turned that wheel I did not want to turn it in the wicked way I didn't want to and so as a result I had tremendous freedom Because if you desire holiness in every part of your life, there's tremendous freedom.

I think it was Luther that said, love God and then do whatever you want to do. To hate evil means a number of things. We live in a world right now where there are many false ideas about raising children. One of them is called gentle parenting. Have you heard the gentle parenting movement?

It's actually based on a very false assumption of human nature. And I had a guy give a message on it in my last conference. But it's the idea that you don't really need to be directing your children. Just ask them questions, let them flop on the floor and throw tantrums, you know, just kind of guide and direct them. In other words, do not say stop that.

Do not say stop acting like that. Because to hate evil is actually to parent with moral authority. You know, parents have been given a charge to take moral authority, you know, in their homes. And not... The big mistake of Eli was he confronted his son's sins but he didn't stop it.

He didn't restrain it and parents are often reluctant to stop behavior. Stop your whining. That's not right. Stop complaining. Complaining is sinful.

Parents have to deal with out-of-control emotions because kids have out-of-control emotions and instead of letting them run and hoping that someday they'll just sort of disappear isn't gonna work. And then as a result, you're gonna have intolerable children when they're young because they won't be quiet when they're supposed to be quiet and they're not nice when they're supposed to be nice and they don't look at you in the eye and say yes and thank you, yes and please. So to hate evil is to actually as a parent to see it in your children and graciously and kindly and firmly say no we don't do that around here. We don't scream and flop around, we don't throw tantrums, that's wrong. Okay, so there are some very bad ideas about hating evil that are alive in the world.

It includes rooting out ungodly desires in ourselves. We have many of them. It includes helping friends with ungodly desires. There's a book that was written recently called The Sin of Empathy and he was really he was talking about how how people actually they forget what God has said and are empathetic to sin. And it's like when your friend has fallen into a hole, into a trap, and instead of pulling them out of the trap with the word of God, you just jump right in there with them and you cry with them instead of saying, no, that's not right.

You know, there's a great example of this in the book of Job. You know, terrible things happen. You can understand the devastation that Job and his family experienced. And then his wife says, curse God and die. Now he had every reason to jump into the hole with her and just say, yes, let's just curse God and die.

But he didn't do that. He said, you're speaking as a foolish woman. That's what he said. He did not embrace sinful empathy at that time. He was trying to rescue his wife.

It's been described as someone's drowning out there and instead of you anchoring yourself to the truth and throwing them a line, you jump in there and drown with them. So this, God, God hates evil and what Christian parents ought to do is to deal with it and not embrace a lot of these ridiculous parenting ideas that are around today. But God at the same time, God loves and he hates at the same time. God loves sinners and he sent his son to die for them. We're commanded to love our enemies.

In other words, we will have enemies, ungodly enemies, and we're to pray for those who persecute us. You know, there are over, I think there are around 20 in precatory Psalms that speak of God's hatred of the wicked and how do you how do you teach your children on the one hand to hate what is evil but also to love those who persecute you. How do you do that? Well the Bible tells you to do both and I think that what's so critical that we always understand what is harming people and praying for them on that level. But there's actually kind of a high-flutin doctrine that describes how God can love and hate at the same time.

It's the doctrine of the simplicity of God, where God is simple. All of his attributes are complementary, and again our confession speaks of this, that God is invisible, he has no body parts or changeable emotions. And that his attributes, all of his attributes define him. Love, wrath, joy, and even hatred. And there's no variation or shadow of turning in God's attributes.

He is immutable and as a result God is love, God is wrath, God is wisdom. Now the problem that we have is when we see that God is angry we think about the way that we're angry. We're angry terribly affected by the flesh. You cannot necessarily compare your anger with God's anger. His anger is a holy anger.

Our anger is hardly ever completely holy. So in order to abhor what is evil, we must do what the Apostle Paul commanded the Thessalonian Church. Test all things. Well that's what I'm asking all of us to do. Test all things.

Hold fast to what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. And all of this really has to do with becoming like Jesus Christ To be to be holy for I am holy as Peter says in first Peter 116 The Apostle Paul was telling the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians 6 17, he said, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord, do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you. I will be a father to you and you shall be my sons and daughters says the Lord Almighty. You know we live in a world where often you'll find Christians clapping for celebrities.

The Bible says do not rejoice in iniquity. Laughing at their jokes, oh yeah maybe they're funny but they're not really funny. Love does not celebrate with ungodly celebrities. The love of God would not cause a person to play songs that exalt adultery, which almost every secular song does. Love does not rejoice in the impure films that we have today.

Almost every relationship is an adulterous relationship in modern film. Almost every one of them. The devil hates marriage, the devil hates family, and that's why the Apostle Paul told the Corinthian church, flee immorality. Hey, abhor is a really strong word. It's actually one of the strongest words we have in this chapter.

Isaiah said, woe to those who call evil good and good evil. So keeping yourself in the love of God means hating evil. So we've laid that down. It also includes clinging to what is good. He uses a really interesting word like glue.

You know, we have all kinds of glues today. There's super glue, there's gorilla glue, but you know, cling to what, like get yourself gorilla glued to what is good. He's using the same language of marriage in Matthew chapter 19. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. In other words, cleave or to be glued to his wife.

It's that strong and that graphic. You remember Ruth and Naomi? You know, Ruth said she was clinging to her mother-in-law to cling to what is good. You know, in two weeks we're going to be having our annual Father Daughter Retreat. We've been doing these for 20 years and there's a real reason we've been doing them for 20 years, because The devil hates womanhood.

The devil hates femininity and babies and marriage and home life. And so for 20 years, we thought we should get our girls together and talk about the beauty of holiness for womanhood. Same thing with men. The hey the world is assaulting manhood like never before so that's why we do a father-son retreat as well. But we're trying to We're trying to counteract a feminist culture that's totally gripped our society.

Feminism is the great enemy of Christianity. And it's the greatest enemy to the Christian family, it's the greatest enemy to your marriage, to manhood and womanhood, and the church has just capitulated to it. I have a book in my library that I was just reading last week, the end of women, how smashing the patriarchy has destroyed us. The writer says, what secular feminism has done instead of empowering women has erased women. And now we're asking the question with a straight face, what is a woman?

Now I'm tempted to talk about the manifestations of feminism all over the place including including MAGA feminism which wants to make every woman an authority more on that later at another time but at the father here's what I'm trying to say at our father-daughter retreats we've we've focused on clinging to what is good. We've tried to cast a vision for the beauty of femininity. And you know what? I think pretty much our girls got it over the last 20 years and I'm super thankful for that I think they're clear about it but here's what's really important to recognize to cling to what is good what does that mean Let me just say it a different way. In the kingdom of God, in God's family, in God's scheme in the Bible, there is no scarcity of good.

No scarcity of good to focus in on. Think about the Garden of Eden. There were all these trees and bountiful, lush provisions that God had made and there was only one that was prohibited. Eden was a place of bounty and the goodness of God is a place of bounty too. There is so much there.

There's way more bounty than there is for prohibition. And that's why Paul taught the Thessalonian Church, hold fast to what is good. In Romans 12 2 we've already covered this that by presenting your body a living sacrifice wholly acceptable to God you're proving what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Your life actually becomes a proving ground of what is good when you when you cling To what his good I loved what one of the commentators said John Murray check this When the good is the atmosphere of our life we suffocate the paths of iniquity and the counsels of the ungodly. Make it your ambition to suffocate the worldliness of the world.

Suffocate it. Starve it. You know one of the things that I that I always want to tell men who who have gotten themselves addicted to pornography, I tell them look you have to starve that dragon. If you starve him, you can emaciate him. You probably can't kill him, but you can make him really, really weak.

Starve that dragon and cling to what is good. How do you starve that dragon? Well, people often, they play games with that dragon, and they hang around him, and they watch this movie that isn't that bad but it just lights a little fire. They listen to this cool country song that just has some adultery in it and some chick in a pickup truck okay. It's just a little, it's not that bad But what happens is that dragon grows immeasurably with just a little bit of food and you should starve him.

Cling to what is good. Get yourself glued to what is good and don't let anything get in between you and God. I think that's the whole idea. David said it in Psalm 101, I will set nothing wicked before my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away.

It shall not cling to me. The work of those who fall away, the unbelievers of this world and their songs and their films and their, you know, their philosophies, they shall not cling to me. That's what David says. You know, a companion actually, interpretive grid or a commentary on this is what Paul told the Philippian Church. By the way, I don't know if you've noticed, Paul taught this to every single church.

You go and look at his letters and he's always saying this type of thing, to abhor what is evil and cling to what is good. Well in Philippians 4.8 you know that, many of you have memorized it. Finally brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there's anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. That's how you cling to what is good. You fill your heart with every good thing, And there's an abundance out there.

You know David said in Psalm 103 about God, and this is why You should follow God with all of your heart. He satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. You know, we sing that song, Rock of Ages, and it talks about the double cure. Save from wrath and make me pure. That's the Christian life.

That's what God has done. That's why the Christian life begins with baptism. Because you go under that water and it's a symbol of washing, washing away of the filth of your life and the opening up of a new world where Jesus Christ is continuing to work in your life to sanctify you. You know, the apostle Paul to the Corinthian church talked about this washing. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived, neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor homosexuals nor sodomites nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you." In other words, you put those away, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus by the Spirit of God." So the Christian life is the pursuit of the fullness of God. Now there's something that can happen with someone who's been delivered particularly from demonic influences. Jesus talks about it in Matthew chapter 12 where you have a person who cleans up his life, he gets his act together, but he doesn't fill it. He doesn't fill it with the glory and the goodness of God.

And the returning demons made his life worse. And this is like the person who becomes a Christian. And they confess Jesus Christ, but they don't clean up their playlist and they don't clean up their films and they don't clean up the things that they're pursuing. And it won't be well with them if they don't clean those things out and get rid of them. You know when Paul prayed for the Ephesian Church in Ephesians 3, he prayed that they would be filled with all the fullness of God.

Of God and of course the fullness of God is found in Jesus Christ and his word. There was a practice among the Jews. They would take leaven and they would sprinkle it all all around their house on the floor. Leaven was a symbol of corruption and sin. And they would sprinkle it all over their house and then they would go back and they would sweep it all up to make sure they got every morsel of leaven.

And they took that leaven and they threw it out. And I think that's what the Apostle Paul is saying, abhor what is evil, throw it out and then cling to what is good and exist in this abundance of God's goodness. So, you know, is there anything that needs to be removed in your life? You might wanna make a list of things that you're clinging to. Is everything you're clinging to good?

Do you have things in your life, you know, it's usually some kind of entertainment or Is there an influencer in your life that's softening the glue? You know, are there things that you've just been doing that have been softening the glue? And you know, the problem with this is it catches up with you and all of a sudden wham, something happens, it's not good. Are there things in your life that distract you from what is good? Because often it's lawful things that distract you from the very best things.

You know, we live in a world where there are books, you know, directed toward women to corrupt them. Most novels are marketed to women. Most of them want to make women feel dissatisfied with their life, particularly feel dissatisfied with their husband. And, you know, tempting them to throw off the life that God gave them. Most secular women's books, that's what they're doing.

And they don't tell the truth about evil. The heroes and the heroines are usually immoral and they proclaim that you can be happy if you disobey God. And you should, you know, you Husbands, you need to understand what your wives are reading. You need to know exactly what they're reading. Because your wife, I've seen wives gotten swept away from everything that's good because of them.

And husbands, you need to protect your wives. You know there's a book I've seen destroy, just throw a wrecking ball on many families. It's a very popular book. I read it when it first came out, and I think it was 1990. It's called Boundaries by Henry Cloud.

It's one of the most corrupting books for a Christian family. The scripture that they use is misused. The verses that they quote don't actually teach what they're teaching. And what this book actually teaches you to do is to contradict every law of love of God in your relationships with your husband, with your brother, with your grandmother, your grandfather. The Bible teaches you to have patience and to forgive.

The Bible breaks down boundaries. It doesn't cause you to raise them up. And I've seen this destroy so many families. A woman gets hold of that book and there's probably a divorce somewhere in the future. I've just seen it happen so many times since that book was written, 35 years ago.

Be careful. Cling to what is good. So abhor what is evil and cling to what is good. This is just that simple three-year-old Christian life that God holds out to all of his children. The Lord's ways are simple ways and they are applicable by all of us.

Praise the Lord that the goodness of God is in abundance. There's so much goodness to embrace and that's what the apostle is saying to this local church in Rome because the Apostle Paul knew something about this church in every church that he wrote to and that is if the people don't understand what love is, then they'll fall apart. And they won't have a real church. So. It's very interesting that this chapter ends with this.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Just take a couple moments for meditation to search our own hearts on all these matters. Lord, you are a fountain of blessing. You are the way, the truth, and the life. Your ways are pleasant ways.

All your paths are peace. Lord, You are a tree of life to all those who embrace you, and all those who cling to you will be blessed. Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation kept secret since the world began. But now made manifest in the prophetic scriptures, made known to all the nations according to the commandment of the everlasting God for obedience to faith, to God alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.