In Scott Brown's sermon, 'The Imperatives for a Local Church,' he explores Romans 12:9-13, emphasizing the application of gospel truths in the life of a church. Brown describes the structure of Romans as having two main parts: the doctrinal 'indicatives' (chapters 1-11) and the practical 'imperatives' (chapter 12 onwards). He highlights the transformative power of the gospel, which not only redeems individuals but also shapes a countercultural community rooted in love and service. Brown stresses that love in the church must be genuine, going beyond feelings and natural inclinations to include a commitment to serve and honor one another. The sermon outlines five circumstances requiring specific responses: rejoicing in hope, patience in tribulation, steadfastness in prayer, meeting the needs of fellow believers, and practicing hospitality. Brown critiques the 'gospel-centered movement' for promoting a privatized faith that neglects public obedience and engagement. He urges the church to embody the gospel actively through diligent service, fervent spirit, and sincere love, reflecting Christ's lordship in all aspects of life.

Bibles to Romans chapter 12 and find verse 9. Romans 12 verse 9. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God. Verse nine, let love be without hypocrisy Abhor what is evil? Cling to what is good Be kindly affectionate to one another and 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. Father we thank you for these great victories of the gospel. We thank you for creating this kind of world for us to live in in your church. And Lord, I pray that you would give us all great energy and strength to create what you have loved.

Amen. Please be seated. Of course, we're in the midst of the flow of thought in the book of Romans and the the flow of that thought in the first 11 chapters begins with the power of the gospel the Indicatives of the Christian life that it's like a it's like a mighty flowing river This is not like a hallmark card. This is like a roaring river that breaks the power of sin. It puts to death the condemnation that sinners deserve.

And then it's like it bursts over the hill, you know, going over the dam, and then it arranges everything else in your life. And it changes the landscape of your life. This is the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so it's helpful to remind us of the structure of this letter. The first 11 chapters of the doctrinal portion of the book of Romans where we find what are called the indicatives, the realities, the truths of the gospel.

And then in chapter 12 verse one, the gospel goes on the road. The gospel hits the street. The gospel transforms the church. The gospel reinvents your life and the way that you live it. And that's why you have these various therefores in the book of Romans.

In Romans 12.1 you have Therefore, that's one, but there was a therefore in chapter eight, one, and five. The apostle Paul is working through a logical chain of thinking about it, and it all really begins with chapter 1 verse 16 where he says I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it's the power of God unto salvation And then that you know, the bad news is communicated Really in these first 11 verses but the solution also the new birth that Jesus Christ comes and he redeems sinners. And so the first part, the doctrine, the second part, the application of the doctrine. And as we've entered into chapter 12, we realize that sin has not been totally eradicated in our lives Yeah, we we we are we are those lepers that have been cleansed but there's some ongoing medical treatment that we need and and this medical treatment is actually against our natural inclinations. In other words, God wants to change you and he wants to change me.

Been trying to change me for a long time. But as one of the dictionaries of New Testament words, when we speak of this word love, which is really the theme of the verses that I just read. The church learning how to love one another and what love looks like. And love isn't just necessarily a feeling, it's not primarily even a feeling, it elicits feelings. But this dictionary says Christian love, exercise toward the brethren or men in general, is not an impulse from feelings.

It does not always run with the natural inclinations. Got that? Love doesn't always run with the natural inclinations. It does not spend itself only on those for whom we have some affinity. So All of this, you know, is being told to a local church in Rome and God wants to change the culture of Rome, beginning in the soul of a converted person and then expressed in the life of the body of Jesus Christ.

And the gospel creates a counterculture. It was creating a counterculture in Rome. Just like it did when the gospel went to Crete. You know remember what they said about Crete all Cretan's are liars and lazy drunkards, okay? God wants to transform culture, but it was a little bit more difficult complex in Rome because in Rome you had these Romans who'd become Christians, some of them were actually working for Caesar, and they were in the church.

And you also had these Jews who'd been brought up on the law. It was like oil and water. There was controversies. Things those old Gentiles were doing were so offensive, you know, and also things that those Jews were doing were so strange. And how do you bring these people together where you have the offensive and the strange together?

And that was the case in Rome. And so here in this chapter the Apostle issues by my count 25 distinct exhortations in this commands, imperatives that all really come under the category of what life in a local church should look like. That life is what this local church should look like as well. We're casting a vision by the Word of God for the culture of this local church. And it kind of reads like an employee manual, do this, do that, but actually we're not employees.

We're slaves. We're bond servants. We're not getting paid that way. We're doing this out of love for the Lord Jesus Christ. And We're not sleepwalking in the church.

That's really what is being addressed here. What these exhortations do, and you can't miss it really. For one thing, they're so simple. But think about the beauty of relationships that it creates. What kind of relational fabric do you want in your life, in your church?

These are so, these are wonderful. And these elements of culture actually are meant to be extended into our home and also the way that we treat with other people. I mean think about this one, bless those who persecute you. Is there any command that runs so far counter to the way that we want to operate? In other words, God wants to change the way you deal with, think about, treat the people who persecute you.

And so we've been walking through this chapter and So this all begins By presenting your bodies a living sacrifice to God That's really the beginning of it all none of this works unless a person has presented himself to God Then there's no reason. No, there's really no other reason for it unless a person has said, I want Jesus Christ to be my Lord, I want him to run my life, I want to obey him, I want to submit to him because he forgave me of all of my sins. That's how it begins. But then this life in the church is exercised by faith. And that's what you find in verses three through eight.

And God gives faith so that we would express the various spiritual gifts in the church. We exercise our gifts not by force, but by faith. And that's what verses three through eight in this chapter are focused on. And then the third section really speaks of how the gospel shapes a culture of love in the church. And it begins in verse 9.

We're just going to go from 9 to 13. Runs all the way to the end of the chapter in 21. And so this whole section just carries the weight of what the apostle Paul told the Ephesian church. He said that his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand that we might walk in them. And you know, life in the local church is a walk.

We're walking together through this wilderness wasteland on our journey to heaven. And all of it has to do with love. The Apostle Paul said to the Corinthian church, he said, without love I'm nothing. And then that's really true. Without love, you ain't, we ain't nothing in this church and not us individually and not we individually either.

Now what you find in Romans, in the book of Romans is What happens on the inside that's verses one through chapters one through eleven? And it's reflected on the outside What happens on the inside? Is reflected on the outside and if it's not being reflected on the outside it never happened on the inside. That's really the force of what we have. You know we have this idea and actually it's a tendency that we all have.

We really like the sound doctrine. We'd like to keep it right in our heads without making that doctrine visible. We stop with the indicatives. We stop with the things that are true. Yes, Jesus Christ came to save sinners of which I am chief.

Thank you so much Lord. Justification is by faith alone. These are the indicatives, But often you find a stop at the indicatives. And you can go to whole conferences in evangelicalism and be so thrilled with the Indicatives and nobody ever gets to the imperatives. It's pretty remarkable And so that's what you find here.

We'd rather have an intellectual faith then have a gospel that shakes up your life because actually God does want to keep shaking up your life and we'd rather preach the gospel and enjoy it than listen to it. You know there's here's an illustration. Something happened, something unusual happened around the year 2000 in evangelicalism. It came very quickly to be called the gospel-centered movement. You're familiar with that term.

Everything was gospel-centered. Gospel-centered church, gospel-centered discipleship, gospel-centered family, gospel-centered parenting, everything was gospel centered. Gospels centered church, gospel centered discipleship, gospel centered family, gospel centered parenting, gospel centered teens, gospel centered cheesecake, gospel centered every, whatever anybody did, it had to be gospel centered, okay? And this actually was a really new idea in in in many ways on the one hand it was it was actually I think a helpful correction because actually the gospel had been suppressed in our culture in different ways so I think that there were some good motives but it actually it actually took hold that what what ended up happening in many churches is that you would have mantras. There are mantras that came out of it.

The gospel is what Christ has done, not what we do. The gospel says done, not do. And by the way, those are half truths. They are just explicit half truths. The gospel is Jesus plus nothing is everything.

That's another one of the mantras. Well, those are half truths. And I'll quote Michael Clary on this. He said, it became a trap that convinced Christians to abandon the public square, shrinking the gospel to a private, individualized experience that neglects our true duty to engage the world. The definition of the gospel was too narrow.

Their definition was too, that was limiting to it, to individual conversion and private faith, and I would just add sound doctrine and it stripped away the gospel's public mandate to assert Christ's lordship over everything including the nations so I think that's correct the gospel centered movement did us no favors because it kind of created the legitimacy of a privatized religion. And frankly, some of you are in this room, you left churches that were embarrassed to call the church to obedience. You left churches that were too embarrassed to confront the congregation about what they were doing. And so there was no call to holiness, no call to change your life, and some of you are here because that happened and I blame it you know of course on our on our own sinful nature but the gospel centered centered movement was was no help and And it's easy to forget that faith without works is dead. I heard somebody say, I wish there was more self-righteous legalism, maybe somebody around here might take out the trash.

In other words, there's something about your faith that's meant to put you into action, actually have you do things and actually serve people in tangible ways. So the book of Romans does not allow that in the church. The book of Romans does begin with the with the indicatives. Now you have an outline in front of you and I I'm gonna try to work through it here. Verse 9 gives us two general governing principles of life.

Are you ready? We already talked about this. I'll just mention them briefly again. Let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. And this is not the same thing as, you know, put on your game face, try harder.

You know, it's not hypocrisy. It's not theater. It's not putting on your makeup. It's not play acting. It's not Instagram.

It's like, it's something that's real. It is love without hypocrisy. And of course, we talked about this, this term that the apostle Paul uses for hypocrisy is the term, hu-pah-cree-ton, which is a hypocrite, a play acting, faking. In other words, a church life is not fake it till you make it It's actually a work of the Spirit of God in your life. It comes from a real source It comes from God from the Spirit and then You have in in the next section verses 10 and 11, there's these general governing dispositions toward one another.

We covered some of these, but we'll try to finish them up today. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another and we took we took a detour when we hit the word honor and but we're back we're back to the exposition again giving preference to one another in honor, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. These are general governing dispositions to rule our relationships. And I think what you need to recognize, this goes far beyond the politeness at the coffee hour. This goes far beyond, You know, just strolling along in your Christian life, cruising, not pursuing, resting, lukewarm.

How about sleepwalking, as was mentioned earlier in our service? There's an aggressiveness about these general governing dispositions. And these dispositions are actually, this aggressiveness is meant to change us to to actually invigorate and incite us to these to these things He says be kindly affectionate to one another. In other words, this is the opposite of hardness toward one another. It's easy to develop a hard heart toward anybody in the church.

By the way, he's talking about church people. Church people can have hard hearts toward one another. Is that true of anybody here? If it is, you got a great opportunity right now to repent of hard-heartedness that you have against anybody in this church. What the Apostle Paul is mentioning here are the things that actually happen in local churches and we should expect them.

But he says be kindly affectionate to one another in brotherly love. In other words, the church is like a family. It's like brotherly love, like the way you would want to defend your brother. It's the kind of love, this family love, it gets pictured in the Church of Jesus Christ. And then there's a way that it's done, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit.

This is the aggressiveness of it. This is the outgoing perspective. The word that Paul is using is a word that says no hesitation, don't be weary, no sloth, no fear, no bashfulness, no reserve. I'm actually quoting from a Greek lexicon No hesitating Not lagging in diligence. That's the whole idea not being negligent, not being slothful.

I remember many, many years ago, I was in the Long Beach Sports Arena, and I was listening to Keith Green do a concert. This was a long time ago. And he sang this song, it's called Sleep in the Light, have you ever heard of that song and there's this line he just rang it out in that stadium Jesus rose from the dead and you can't even get out of bed. He says the world is asleep in the dark because the church is asleep in the light. Well what was true at that time is is always true in the church and individuals in the church always have to resist being asleep and sleepwalking.

This is a matter of diligence. This is the aggressiveness. To make haste, literally, is what he's talking about. And this word, diligence, is used all over the New Testament. Paul is urging Timothy, he says, he says, be diligent to come to me quickly.

In other words, I need you. Be diligent. The apostle Paul in Ephesians 4.3 is telling the church to be diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. It's something you gotta fight for. In 2 Timothy 2.15, the apostle tells Timothy, be diligent to present yourself approved by God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth there in other words be diligent in rightly dividing the Word of God.

The same word is used in verse 8 in Romans 12, he who leads with diligence. This is earnestness, diligence, urgency, speed. Is that you? Did I just describe you and You're the way that you love people in this church. Well, that's what the Apostle Paul is talking about Proverbs 18 19 goes after this matter of slothfulness He who is slothful in his work is brother to him who is a destroyer.

Ecclesiastes 9-10. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. You know, I'm supposed to stand here before this church today and urge the church to be urgent. That's my job, okay? Somebody has to do the job and that's my job and it's the Word of God that is really calling for it.

Jesus in the parable of the talents, in that parable, God is saying to this lazy servant, he says, you wicked and lazy servant. So we don't want to be, we don't want to be there. We want to be people who are redeeming the time. And notice it's fervent in spirit. That's sort of, this means to boil, to be aglow, to be hot, to be fervent in spirit.

You know, it's difficult for a person like me to even deal with things like this because I'm a fairly calm spirit. You know, I'm not around waving my arms and yelling and jacking everybody up, motivating, I'm not just, I'm not a great motivator, but the words of God here are actually designed to do that very same thing and you know, you know, how does the mild-mannered reporter do this in a church? Well, you use words like fervent in spirit, okay? So be fervent in spirit. I exhort you by the word of God.

And that means pursuing brotherly love might be hard won, it might take diligence. You have to go after it. It doesn't happen sitting on your hands. We like people to come to us. God likes you to go to people.

We want people to pursue us. God wants you to pursue people. That's what he's talking about. So you can see here how the doctrine does not lead to just contemplation. It leads to action.

And what's the motive? Serving the Lord. In other words, why? Why would you do this? Because of the Lord.

By the way, there are three words for serve in Romans 12. The first is spiritual service, a letruo, that's in 12.1. The second is in 12.7, diacone, a practical service like waiting tables. And the third word is what's here in verse 11 and it's Duloss, slave, that kind of servant. You are a slave of God, your life is not your own.

In fact, when you became a Christian, you followed Jesus because you did not want your life to be like your own. You wanted your life to be like His. And this is self-consciously serving the Lord. You are doing it for the Lord. You are doing it out of the wellspring of the Lord's work in your life.

Out of your life comes what you are before the Lord. It all begins with before the Lord. That's how you serve the Lord. You're responding to the Lord. You are acting out of what the Lord is doing in your life.

The Lord is doing something in your life. You're opening your Bible every day and God is shaping your spirit, shaping your ethics. He's shaping your actions. He's bringing you into conformity to his will. And you read the Word of God and it's designed to shape you and it's designed to deploy you, It's designed to teach you how to live.

When I open my Bible in the morning, I want to find one thing. You know, I'm gonna read four chapters, but I can't process all that. So I want one thing, one thing that'll change my life today. That's what I'm looking for. One thing that'll reshape me, because I need a lot of reshaping.

So God is teaching you how to live. You know, the Apostle said, let him serve in the strength that God supplies. That means this is not just like this is not putting on your game face. This is something that arises out of your actual serving the Lord from your loving the Lord. And then how to respond to different kinds of circumstances.

That's verses 12 and 13. And the Apostle is showing us how to respond to by my count five different kinds of circumstances you have them out there in your outline and in all of these are victories of the gospel in your life and Paul shows us how to respond to difficult circumstances. We should not be surprised by tribulations. They're a part of life. Part of growing up, part of becoming mature, is being able to ride through tribulations.

To recognize that something isn't really necessarily going wrong, God is ruling the universe, and there's a tribulation and it came to you and God uses all things for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. But the first the first circumstance that that we need to address is circumstances that require hope. There are circumstances in my life and your life that require hope. And here, God calls the church to rejoice in hope. That's not the same thing as pretending that nothing is wrong, But it's assuming that there will be hard things that will come into your life.

Paul assumes there are going to be hard things going through the Roman church. And as they're rolling through life together, there are going to be hard things. Hey there are a few hard things that have happened in our church over the couple decades we've been around and the Apostle is calling the church to rejoice in hope. I mean remember I mean these were disciples that got kicked out of cities. These are disciples that were beaten and left for dead.

These were disciples that got thrown in jail and by the way they weren't taking Prozac for it, okay. They were actually rejoicing in hope. The word actually means to be merry because there are things that will dampen your zeal. Anything dampening your zeal today? You know, whenever I come in here to preach, I know that there are different things going on in the room.

And some people are walking in and their zeal has been dampened. And other people are afraid. And other people are discouraged, a lot of times with themselves. That's the way it always is and God is calling us to get our eyes fixed on hope. And what should we do when we encounter situations that require hope?

We rejoice. We are rejoicing in hope. The believer cannot give in to hopelessness. Hopelessness is a form of unbelief and I know we're all tempted by it from time to time. Do not give in to hopelessness.

Nothing is hopeless. There's always a way through in God's providence and through God's wisdom. You know it's interesting. Yesterday I was out on my tractor for a few hours mowing and I listened to Romans 12 through 16. I don't even know, 80 times I had it on loop.

But I noticed how often the word hope comes up in the book of Romans. 13 times in the book of Romans. God is calling the people to hope. We have it right here, rejoicing in hope. You know, we could do a whole series on hope, but we won't.

In Romans 418, you know, Abraham hoped when he had no reason to hope. In Romans 5, too, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. In other words, that God's gonna take care of everything. In Romans 5, too, tribulation produces hope. In Romans 5, too, hope doesn't disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts.

That's all the series you're gonna get. There are several more. But in a church there's gonna be disappointment. You might have betrayal. Somebody's not going to respond to you the way you wanted.

Something's going to happen that you didn't like. There's a decision that was made that you didn't agree with. There are all kinds of things that can wreck hope. And so what should you do? Rejoice in hope.

Learn a new skill. Learn how to do something you never did before. Rejoice in hope. Usually you just wallowed in hopelessness. God wants to change your life.

Now I think that there is a progressive deliverance from hopelessness in the Christian life. The more you know of God, the more hope you're going to have. So seek the Lord with all your heart. The second circumstance, there are circumstances that are described by the word tribulation. Tribulation in Scripture is a pressing, it's a heavy weight, it's like the pressure of pressing grapes and squeezing out after compressing them.

And what should you do in tribulation? Be patient in tribulation. Remain on. Some people never learn how to remain on in tribulation. It's sad, but it happens.

Don't let that be you. He says be patient tribulation. You know what that means? It means you can make it. You can get through.

Our tendency to say is to say I don't need that, I'm done. God says you don't have to be a quitter. You don't have to quit. Stay on. You can become a patient person and with every command of God there is a power to energize that command.

That is the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. It means to hold out. Does anybody need to remain on and be patient in some tribulation in their life? God has a word for you today. Hold out, remain on, be patient.

It's not over yet. God has a plan. This is the, this is the the endurance that defies evil. And you know, this is really an energetic resistance to a hostile power in your soul to cause you to give up in tribulation. It's a hostile power.

There are lots of emotions that drive you to give up in tribulation. Most of those emotions are actual sinful emotions that you need to repent of. Like did you know anxiety is a sinful emotion that needs to be repented of, not coddled? Fear is another sinful emotion. If you're fearful you should repent of fear.

It's a sin. The drug you need for fear is repentance. Some of you need to go back and stop misinterpreting your tribulations because God has designed all tribulations for his glory. Some of you need to learn how to reinterpret your troubles and not be lost in the space of despair because of tribulations. Everybody knows how easy it is to do that but God wants to deliver you from that.

He wants to teach his church to be patient in tribulations. They're like no other people in the world, okay? These people break out of the psychological community and they're free and they're actually patient in tribulation. I Mean James he said consider it all joy When you encounter various trials for the testing of your faith produces patience. It actually is good for you.

You know, the people of God are not people who ignore their problems. You notice we sang a psalm of lamentation. There are several lamentations in the Bible. The church needs to repent, to lament in a biblical way. There's a way to lament and express sorrow and the Psalms actually teach us how to do that in a healthy way, not in an unhealthy way.

Last week I was corresponding with different pastors. I correspond with three pastors who got fired in the last few weeks and they don't have anything. They're going through it. How are they going to be patient in tribulation? Well, God has thrown something at them to help them learn something maybe they needed to grow in.

But how do you deal with tribulation? You have patience. Somebody a long time ago said, I read this years ago, don't give up in the dark day. The sun will come out again. And then there's a third circumstance, circumstances that require or demand prayer.

Look at the phrase, continuing steadfastly in prayer. And you know, I think he's continuing to elaborate on dealing with tribulation. What do you do? You're patient in tribulation, but you're also continuing steadfastly in prayer. Charles Spurgeon said, 10 minutes praying is better than a year's murmuring.

He said, on his knees the believer is invincible. Steadfast in prayer. Like that woman that kept knocking on the door. You know, make your knuckles numb knocking on God's door, being steadfast in prayer, keep on praying. It's like Jacob wrestling with the angel all night long.

There are things that actually require that kind of prayer. Spurgeon said churches without prayer meetings are grievously common. Believe me if a church does not pray it is dead. Instead of putting United Prayer last, put it first. Everything will hinge on the power of prayer in the church.

I wish everybody here believed that. And I wish I prayed more. I need to pray way more. And then the fourth circumstance, there are circumstances that create needs where people are short of necessities. Distributing to the needs of the saints, not the greeds of the saints, the needs of the saints.

This is entering into a shared life. This is a picture of the word fellowship, which is that common word koinonia, which means mutual sharing. In other words, we bear one another's burdens. My brother's burden is also my burden and you have the needs or the necessities of the saints. Not necessarily the wishes, not necessarily the wants, but the needs and the basic necessities.

Lloyd-Jones says, we must enter into fellowship and partnership with one another with regard to their needs. Some people are not always clear as to the difference between absolute necessities of life and wanting more than we need. But in the Church of Jesus Christ, no one should be going hungry. No one should be going without clothing. That should not happen in the Church of Jesus Christ.

Now if you have a person who's not working, if they're not working, they're worse than an unbeliever. And they shouldn't be taken care of if they're not working. But we bear one another's burdens in the church. And then the fifth circumstance are circumstances that require hospitality. And this has to do with love of strangers and And and and what are we to do we are to pursue?

Hospitality we to be given to hospitality. That's that's a that's and again the aggressiveness of the Christian life. We are given to hospitality. We're pursuing it like a hound dog on a scent. We're pursuing hospitality.

You see, the Apostle wants to light up the Roman Church with more hospitality, looking for opportunities. Well, Let me say it like this. When you're considering practicing hospitality, go with your impulses. Okay, here's what I mean. Sometimes people come to mind and you think, oh, We should invite them over, but then you don't.

And then you look back and you say, we should have invited them over. What was that all about? You know, there are times when you should just go with the impulse. Somebody comes to mind, you think you can minister to them, ask them, you know, ask them over for dinner. Now, he's talking about this is this is a word that means love of strangers and The writer of Hebrews speaks about this opportunity in Hebrews 13 2.

Let brotherly love continue. Do not forget to entertain strangers for by doing so some have unwittingly entertained angels. Peter says be hospitable to one another without grumbling. There's much to say about hospitality from the Old and the New Testament of strangers, Leviticus 19 33, if a stranger dwells with your land you shall not mistreat him you shall treat him as one of you. Deuteronomy 10 18 he administers justice to the fatherless and the widow he loves the stranger giving him food and clothing.

Therefore love the stranger for you are strangers in the land of Egypt." I don't think that applies to people who are here illegally necessarily. I think it applies to people who actually have been displaced and come into a country. The writer of Hebrew says do not forget to entertain strangers and there are many many examples of this. There are various hospitality values in the Bible. You know Alexander Strouk wrote a book about it called the Hospitality Commands.

We have about 20 of them back there if you want to take one. They're back in the in the book rack in the hallway. But God gives many instructions about hospitality. Let me quote Alexander Strouk. He says, hospitality is a concrete expression of Christian love and family life.

Giving oneself to care for God's people means sharing one's life and home with others. An open home is a sign of an open heart and a loving sacrificial serving spirit. A lack of hospitality, is that you? A lack of hospitality is a I'm quoting Strout a sure sign of selfish lifeless loveless Christianity. Well maybe that's convicting to someone.

I hope it is. That's why I read it. But God has a particular culture that he has designed in his church and These are imperatives. It's not the same thing as a checklist to get back on track It's really it's really a call to be transformed by Jesus Christ It's a matter of Christian responsibility and we should pray for its increase in our church What you find in the Christian life is that grace in the heart multiplies grace in the Church of Jesus Christ. And this kind of love is stoked by the truth and by the power of the Holy Spirit being energized first of all by the power of the gospel when a person presents his body as a living sacrifice to God.

Faith without works is dead. So there you have it. Now the next time I preach in Romans we're gonna take on the the the next section where Paul is dealing with how do you deal with different kinds of people who happen to been treating you very badly. How do you do that to be continued? Let's pray.

Father we thank you, thank you for your word. It is living, it's active, it penetrates into our very hearts. Lord I pray that you would give us all grace to be an obedient and vigorous and aggressive people for the things that you love, that you have actually commanded us to be these Lord things we know they're not options for us. They're the things we need to change and the things we need to do because we love you, because we so desire to serve you in this world. Amen.