In his sermon titled 'Be Kindly Affectionate Toward One Another', Scott Brown focuses on Romans 12:10 to illustrate the nature and practice of love within the church. He emphasizes that the church is a spiritual family characterized by brotherly love and kindness, which creates a distinct aroma or atmosphere of love. This aroma sets the church apart as a counterculture to the world. Brown explains that cultivating this love begins with one's relationship with God, as loving God naturally leads to loving others. He stresses the importance of actively pursuing this love, which involves both natural affection and deliberate action. The sermon also cautions against the pitfalls of self-centeredness and highlights the need for patience, prayer, and hospitality in building a loving community. Brown encourages congregants to reflect on how they can grow in love, reminding them that the church, as a community of believers, is called to embody a culture of love as defined by God.

Open your Bibles of Romans chapter 12 and find verse 10. We have a laser beam focus on a very helpful and powerful phrase in verse 10. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for giving us such clear and simple direction for a simple people in need of such a directness and truth. Lord I pray that you'd come and shepherd your flock, that you would feed your sheep, that you would lead them to green pastures and quiet waters. Amen. Go ahead and be seated.

So this verse and actually the entire chapter in Romans 12, really has its focus on the doctrine and the practice of the church. And what you learn about the doctrine of the church is that the church is a family. Well, it's many other things. It's a building and all kinds of other wonderful metaphors that help us understand what God is doing in his church, but it is also a family and what God has done for his people is that he has given them two families. He has given them the family that they grew up in, and he's given them a spiritual family.

And so This phrase that we're focusing in on is really an exposition of the nature of the church as a family. But it's even more than that because it's a picture of love. So it actually is a declaration of the church as a family and it's also a declaration of the doctrine of love and what love actually looks like. And And there's another way of saying this. There's an aroma to the church.

You know, every home has an aroma to it. You can walk into a home and you might be able to just sense the tension. Or you might walk into a home and you might just sense the peace and the loving kindness that exists in that home. But every home has an aroma and every church has an aroma as well and this phrase is such a beautiful description of the compelling aroma that God desires in his church And we must never forget about what's happening in a local church. We are doing something that is great really in the eyes of God.

We have our hands in God's institution, which he loves, so says Micah. And we're building a world of love through the brotherhood and the sisterhood of the saints. God is growing a community of love. I think it's easy to recognize that churches are different than the world. The church is a counterculture.

And what Christians do when they're saved is that they end up creating a counterculture. It's an alternative culture to the culture of the world. And of course the Word of God defines that counterculture and he gives us what we need to create that counterculture. It's not a far-off, it's not it's not unattainable at all. I was reading this week in Psalm 68 where it says the God of Israel is he who gives strength and power to his people.

God empowers his people to create this kind of culture and and but the truth is you know we all we all come into the church in a different condition some come in you know well well inculcated doctrinally, some come in well adjusted emotionally, and others don't. This is the body of Christ. We all come in in the state that God found us and so you have people that come into the church at various levels of understanding of what the culture of the church is all about. But when they come into the church that's where they learn how to create this culture of love. Now what I love about this, the whole passage, the whole chapter, this is not a bunch of highfalutin theology.

This is really simple. It's very easy. Even the littlest child can understand these verses that are here. But the verses also, they definitely very clearly have a congregational focus and the Apostle Paul is writing to a local church in the city of Rome and so this is a this is a local church kind of a message here. And what you find here is that there is an aroma that God desires to have in his church.

You know, what does this church smell like in a way? You could say it like that. Albert Barnes commenting on this, he says that the Spirit of God diffuses abroad. He says, those that are Christians shall diffuse large and liberal and constant blessings on their fellow men, or as Jesus immediately explains it, that they shall be instruments by which the Holy Spirit shall be poured down into the world. And so the apostle here is describing what that aroma is, what the diffusion of the aroma looks like in real life You know you can't see an aroma, but you can see what love looks like in real life And that's what the Apostle is dealing with he already said let love be without hypocrisy and then he said to further define love, abhor what is evil, because love abhors what is evil.

Love isn't just lovey-dovey about everything. Love actually hates evil. And you can't really love right unless you hate right and but then he says to cling to what is good so that's verse 9 love be without hypocrisy in other words not fake a poor what is evil cling to what is good and then in verse 10 he says be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love in honor, giving preference to one another. So that's the focus. To be kindly affectionate to one another in brotherly love.

Now I'd like to pull back just for a second and get sort of a 50, 000 foot level view of this passage to see where it all goes. So open your Bibles to Romans 12 if you didn't keep them open. And find verse one, because I want us to see the flow of what God is teaching this local church in Rome, what the Christian life looks like. And of course in verse one he says, I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly unacceptable to God. In other words A Christian is a person who has given his whole body, his whole mind, everything about him to God.

He's the kind of person that wakes up in the morning and says, oh Lord, take my life, take my hands and let them move, you know, take my mind, take every part of my life, I am yours and to be set aside as holy to live differently in the world. And then he says it's acceptable to God in other words you can actually be acceptable to God you will not you won't be perfect but you can be acceptable to God I think that's so wonderful to rest and often you know people think oh I could never be acceptable to God, that's not true. Even Christians, of course we struggle with our weaknesses so much. And we recognize how poorly we do everything. And real Christians might even say, I don't even know if I'm a Christian.

I'm just not as holy as I should be." Well that's true. You know, holy, acceptable to God. And then for what? That you are proving what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So the Christian life is really a proving ground for what is good and acceptable and the perfect will of God.

And you do that in the context of a local church. Then the Apostle Paul in verse 3, he changes the subject. He starts with giving yourself to God to be being saved. And then in verse three, he talks about the life in the body. Verses three through eight are about body life.

But he starts out by saying, don't think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. Why? Because we are members of one body. We are all connected to Jesus Christ and as a result we're connected to one another. Everybody has a particular function but we don't all have the same function.

There are many gifts, there are many different kinds of contributions, there are many personality types but all have the same responsibility type and that is to serve the Church of Jesus Christ. And then when we get to verse 9, you get these general principles for all of life. We covered them last week. Let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. That's just sort of a general principle of the target that a Christian has in front of him.

And you know love doesn't include a foolish, naive, blind, soft-mindedness. Love actually does hate evil and it holds fast to good. You know there's a very twisted view of love that people have in their heads. It's a love that judges nothing, that corrects nothing, that is always nice, that is not offensive to things that are truly evil. It's love that wants you to pursue your own will, which is always the biggest disaster, instead of the will of God.

Doesn't include repentance, doesn't include holiness, doesn't include obedience. That's not love. That's what the Apostle's saying. But then in verse 10, we get to these governing dispositions that really focus on love, it's an expansion. You know, love doesn't just hate evil, it's kindly affectionate to one another in brotherly love.

And so then he addresses how you respond to different kinds of circumstances. You know, everybody's walked in here with a lot of different circumstances going on. Various troubles, various sorrows in this room today, various failures, and how to respond to the different circumstances verse 12. Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. This is a picture of a steady solid people in the midst of trials and tribulations.

They are rejoicing in hope because they know God's in control. This is the people of God. The people of God are not running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off panicking about what's going on in the world. You know, there's a lot of turmoil in the United States of America right now. I don't know if you've seen the news.

Hard to know, you know, which are AI generated news or not. I don't know. You see these crowds of people protesting these cities. I suppose they're real. I don't know.

But there's a lot of turmoil going on in America right now. And in the major cities, even our own city here in Raleigh. But we rejoice in hope, we're patient in tribulation, we're continuing steadfastly in prayer. We know what to do, we're not freaking out. And then he makes it very personal about how to respond to different kinds of people who aren't responding nicely to you, verses 14 to 16.

Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. In other words, there's a way that you deal with your enemies. You don't have to figure it out yourself. You don't have to pop off.

You know what to do. And then you rejoice with those who rejoice and you weep with those who weep and you're of the same mind toward one another and you're not wise in your own eyes. That's how you respond to different kinds of people. And then he sort of escalates this to those who have actually wronged us in verses 17 through 21. Here's what you do when somebody wrongs you.

Here's what you do when somebody offends you who says something that they shouldn't have said to you, maybe they said something stupid to you, and it hasn't occurred to them to repent yet. Repay no one evil for evil. By the way, we'll really dive into this later, Are these evil people outside the church? Is this evil outside the church or inside the church? He's talking about inside the Church of Rome.

So there will be people in a church who will speak to you from evil. So count on it. Don't sweat it. It's going to happen. It happens in every local church.

So that's why it says repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible as much as it depends on you live peaceably with all men. Beloved do not avenge yourselves but rather give place to wrath for it is written vengeance is mine. I will repay says the Lord." In other words You don't have to go around repaying everybody God will take care of them Therefore if your enemy is hungry feed him if he's thirsty give him a drink for in so doing you'll heap coals of fire on His head do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil With good so that's the argument that the Apostle is making For this for the building of this culture in Rome Because God is building a culture in the cities of the world through the church of the Lord Jesus Christ And so we get to this phrase be kindly affectionate to one another in brotherly love that's part of the culture of a church.

God has given to every person in a local church to help build that culture and and so here we are. So it's very interesting the words that the Apostle uses. He uses two words kindly affectionate. He's really speaking of family love. I'm gonna read straight out of a Greek dictionary It means mutual love of parents and children and wives and husbands loving affection prone to love loving tenderly the reciprocal tenderness of Parents and children so he's making an analogy He's he's talking about the kind of love that you experience in your family.

Now all families don't experience a lot of love, so we understand that. But he's talking about that natural connection of love that we have in family. That's the kind of love to have in the church. Why? Because the church is a family.

The church replicates the family and the family in some ways replicates the church in obedience to God's commands. And then the other word is really the word Philadelphia, brotherly love, and it implies the the affection that brothers and sisters have toward one another. You know how that works, you know, you can tell your brother that you're an idiot, that he's an idiot, but if somebody else calls your brother an idiot, they're in trouble. Because there's something different about family. And so this is brotherly love.

And the language that he's using conveys warmth. Now there are two parts of this. It's like, first of all, the natural affection of a family. It's not like an official professional relationship. It's not like being part of a civic organization or a sports club.

It's not like that at all. There's affection. We are brothers and sisters. We belong to the same family. The disciples asked Jesus about who's a brother and a sister.

Jesus says, whoever obeys me is my brother and sister. But so it's a natural affection that you have. If you are in Jesus Christ, you love Jesus Christ, something happens, a switch is flipped, and you have affection toward other believers. It's miraculous. You can go anywhere in the world and meet a believer and there's a connection that's even deeper than some of your unbelieving family members because God does it work in the heart to actually connect you with people.

But it's also, it's not just a natural thing that he's talking about. These words really imply that you take action toward love. In other words, you are aspiring to love more. So this is, it's something that happens, but it's more than that because there's a command. He says, let.

In other words, you need to do this. So we haven't fully grown in our ability to love one another. That's the idea. We have room to grow in love. Do you have room to grow in love?

I think that's the force of this. Be kindly affectionate to one another. Let your love be kindly affectionate brotherly like family love is what he's saying. Because it's the in the language of a command, here's what it means, it's something that you need to pursue, It's something that you need to pursue. It's something that you need to cultivate in your heart.

It's something that you need to persevere in because that's what we need. And it's not, this is not the same thing as fabricating a bunch of fake feelings It's something that you pursue you you have a desire you know that you ought to love your brethren and so you should so you should go for it and activate that love. Put it into action. So it isn't just passive, it's something that you actually do. Matthew Henry said it like this.

It signifies not only love, but a readiness and inclination to love. The most genuine and free affection, kindness flowing out as from a spring. He says it is natural, it is unforced, it's unconstrained. Such must be our love for one another. So he's talking about this thing that God does in the heart of the Christian.

And it's the thing where the heart wants to love, the believer, but there are challenges and sometimes we don't love. And so we are commanded to love. We're commanded to do something is not natural to us. So it's a very interesting mix of language here because he speaks of it as something that is natural but it's not so natural that you don't have to get to really get on it and go for it and to actually grow in love. You know what that means, what that means for me and what that means for all of us together in this church, we got a lot of growing to do in love.

There's room to grow in love in this church. And so I'm here just to ask all of us, in what way? In what way do I need to grow in love? In what way do you need to grow in love. That's actually the assumption of this whole passage.

You have these people in Rome, they got saved, and they're walking with the Lord, but God's not done with them. And he wants their love to increase in that church. You can find the same idea all over the New Testament. The Apostle Peter was telling the people that he was writing to in First Peter 1.5, he says, give all diligence, add to your faith virtue and virtue, knowledge, self-control, self-control, perseverance to perseverance, godliness, and then he says, to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love. He's talking to believers who need to grow in love, and he's saying give it all diligence.

I like what Oswald Chambers said about this. Listen to this. He said, be diligent, concentrate. No one is born with character either naturally or supernaturally. We have to make character.

We are not born with habits. We have to form habits based on the new life God has given to us. So love is something that we ought to grow in a church. I think we have a church, I think we have a loving church, that's my opinion, but I don't think we've arrived. I don't think I've arrived and so you have these appeals for love.

I think that there's a way that we also must love by faith, even when we don't know very much about the person we're with in the church. And here's why I say that. In Hebrews 13, verse 1, it starts like this, Let brotherly love continue. Good. Let it continue.

Do not forget to entertain strangers. Okay, so love strangers. But then he says, for by doing, for by so doing, some have unwittingly entertained angels. Who knows, have you? I don't know if I have.

But we should love the brethren by faith, even if we don't know very much about them. I'm gonna give you a bunch of applications. Because what God has done with his church is he has created a community of love. And he defines exactly what it is. But I want to give some applications.

Here's the first application. How do you cultivate affection toward one another? How do you do that? Well, the Bible tells you so, how you do it. The Bible makes it very clear that the pathway to loving your brethren is loving God.

1 John chapter 4 verse 7, Beloved, let us love one another, for 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 Beloved if God so loved us we ought to love one another In first John 4 7 it's very clear that loving God generates love for one another. So that's where you begin. If you lack love, here's where you start. You start with the love of God. How do you warm your affections?

I'm quoting Jonathan Edwards. He wrote a book called Charity and its Fruits. It's a commentary on 1st Corinthians 13 and he has a section in there about loving the brethren but he asked this question, how do you warm your affections? And he answers it by saying warm your affection toward Christ. 1st John 5 verse 1 talks about how to cultivate affection for people.

It's by cultivating your affection for God. Whoever believes that Jesus Christ is born of God, I'm sorry, whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and everyone who loves him who begot also loves him who is begotten of him. See the connection? If you love God, you will love those who are begotten of God. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments.

So the first the first application is How do you grow your affection toward one another? You start with your affection toward God. You open up the word of God and he changes your heart. Maybe you take the words of God and you pray for your brethren Maybe if somebody who you're having a difficult time loving and you pray for them fastest way to Destroy hatred in your heart is to pray for someone because then you realize they're really no different than you are. Here's another application.

These words here should really set our expectations. You should expect that there's somebody in a church who won't be kindly affectionate toward you. Someone will lose their sense of tenderness and compassion towards somebody else in the church. It might be somebody who actually took the church covenant, which promised that we would love one another. And they lost it.

They lost their compassion. They promised to keep the covenant and then they broke it. And when this happens, if this happens to you, I hope it doesn't happen to any of you, But if it does, you need to snap out of it, because love is of God. And there's nothing that defines the church more clearly than love. It's the summary of all the commandments.

Every law of God is a law of love. And so to break the laws of love is to break all the commandments. It's very serious when we do that with one another. Hey, maybe that's happening with you. Maybe somebody here is in that boat.

You might maybe maybe you should go to one of your brothers and sisters and say, I'm having a pity party. Would you please pray for me? I'm not doing well. Can you help me through this? Can you help me out of it?" The problem with pity parties is that it dulls your usefulness and it hampers kindness.

It always constricts love. That's what pity parties do. Because you're all turned in on yourself. But then God is here to say don't be turned in on yourself. Be kindly affectionate to one another.