Evangelical Free Church of Embarass

Our Father, I pray that we would make the most of this day. I thank You for the people here who have decided that they would start this day in Your house with Your people, worshipping You and hearing from You. And Father, I pray that You would now speak to us. Challenge us and also prepare us, Father, to come before Your table. I thank You, Lord, for Your salvation. I thank You, Father, that when You come into a life, You’re able to transform that life, make it different, make it new. And I pray, God, that You would teach us a little more about that kind of life today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Please take your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Romans again, chapter 12. We are going through a series verse by verse in Romans 12 and 13. The series is called “The Transformed Life.” As a review this morning, I want to start by reading the first part of verse 2. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” That’s how this pair of chapters begins with the instruction to, rather than being conformed to the world, be transformed. And then the rest of chapter 12 and all of chapter 13 involve Paul giving us examples of what that kind of life would be like – the transformed life, the life that is different. We’ve already looked at verses 3-8, and there we found that the transformed life that we live every day at work, at school, in our communities is a life where we are thinking rightly about ourselves. In verses 3-8, that right thinking about ourselves includes these thoughts:

I’m part of a body. As a Christian, I’m part of a group, the Body of Christ.
I need the others in that body. Interdependence. We belong to each other. We need each other.
The thinking that I am gifted by God for the purpose of serving the others in that body.

That’s the right way of thinking in the transformed life.

Then we went on to verses 9-10 last week. We saw 4 more instructions about the transformed life.

We’re to genuinely love each other. Not pretend.
We’re to practice family love toward each other because we are brothers and sisters in the Lord. God is our Father.
We are to practice a family devotion and loyalty to each other.
We are to honor one another. To express to one another their value. To express appreciation to one another.
We are to abhor evil and cling to what is good.

That’s the transformed life. That’s the different life. It abhors evil, clings to what is good.

Now we’re going to continue through the list today. Verses 11-13. More instructions. Adding to the picture of this transformed life. And there’s going to be nothing glamorous about this. In fact, let me read it to you and you’re going to see that it’s nothing new. You’ve heard it before, but you’re also going to notice that it’s very practical. Verse 11, “Never be lacking in zeal but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” Some short instructions that add to the picture of the transformed life. Again, it’s not glamorous, it’s not fancy, it’s very practical. It’s what the transformed life is like in the trenches of everyday living.

But we have short memories don’t we? I find that many of us as Christians, when it comes to the things of God, His instructions, we have short memories. It’s easy to forget. It’s like this older couple who was having problems with their memories. One night at 11:00 the husband woke up, had to use the bathroom. He’d already been sleeping 3 hours. So he got out of bed and as he was getting ready to leave the bedroom his wife woke up. And she said, “Honey, I think I’m hungry. While you’re down, would you get me a bowl of ice cream? That would be nice. And maybe you should write it down so you remember.” The husband said, “Write it down? I don’t have to write it down. Ice cream. I can remember.” She said, “Good! And you know what? I would really like some chocolate on that ice cream. That would be so nice! Maybe you should write that down in case you forget.” “I won’t forget! Don’t worry! I don’t have to write it down.” And just as he’s going out the door she calls behind him, “And if you could put a cherry on top, it would be so nice. And if you have to write it down so you remember.” And again, the husband says, “I don’t have to write it down. Ice cream, chocolate, cherry on top. No problem.” So he goes down to use the bathroom. 20 minutes later he comes back into the room and places in front of her a plate of eggs and bacon. And she looks at the plate and she says, “Dear, you forgot the toast!” J (Some of us as couples are already going through that, aren’t we?) But we do have a hard time remembering. We forget so easily, and that’s true of our Christian lives. When it comes to the things of God and His instructions, it’s amazing how we can hear them over and over again, we can read them over and over. They’re not new to us, and yet we forget them quickly. So today as we go through these very quickly, it’s not going to be new to you. I just want to impress them again on your minds of how important these little instructions are because they’re part of the transformed life. You want to be different? You want to live this different kind of life that God has for you? Then here are some of the practical things that need to be part of that life.

For instance, verse 11. We’ll take it one verse at a time. Three little instructions in verse 11. “Never be lacking in zeal. Keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” I think all three of those kind of flow together. It’s talking about serving the Lord and how we are to do that. First of all it says, “Not lacking in zeal.” We’re not supposed to fall behind or be lazy in the area of zeal, eagerness, enthusiasm. But we are to keep our spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. There’s to be a passion about serving the Lord. In fact, the word that’s translated “fervor” here is from the Greek word for “hot, on fire.” So what Paul is saying is don’t fall behind in your zeal. Keep that spiritual fire serving the Lord. How are you doing in that? Do you still have that passion to serve the Lord that you once had? That’s what this is talking about. It’s talking about passion, zeal, fervor. Passion is that strong desire and commitment, that strong devotion, that eagerness and enthusiasm toward something. And here Paul is saying in the transformed life, there is a passion for serving the Lord, and he says don’t lose that. Don’t fall behind in that. Keep it going as you serve the Lord. I was at a ballgame the other night and a lady sitting down from us made the comment that she couldn’t sleep the night before, she was so excited about the game. That’s passion, that’s anticipation, that’s zeal and fervor to the point where you can’t even sleep. You’re so eager. Do we have any idea of what that’s like in the context of serving the Lord? Have you ever felt that kind of passion for serving your God? I’m afraid that so many of us as Christians live a passion-less life with God. There’s really no passion there at all. We just kind of go through the motions. We’re not on fire at all, and yet the Bible says right here, don’t fall behind in the zeal. Keep the spiritual fire serving the Lord. We should have as much eagerness, we should have as much anticipation and excitement about opportunities to serve the Lord as we do about a ballgame, as we do about that high school sweetheart, as we do about that career that we’re pursuing. We should have that same zeal and fervor for serving the Lord. That’s the transformed life, and that’s different. So the first three of these instructions kind of go together and we can write the statement summarizing them as: Serve the Lord with passion. The transformed life involves serving the Lord with passion. That’s different in this world. These three scriptures point to the same thing. Psalm 100:2, Matthew 22:37, Colossians 3:23,24.

Now let’s look at the 3 instructions in verse 12. I’m going to suggest that they also go together. In verse 12 he says, “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” Three short instructions. He’s talking about hope, affliction and prayer. In the hope you’re to be joyful. Have a hope that causes joy. What’s hope? It’s that confident expectation of a future good. And hope brings joy. Then he says be patient in affliction. Persevere, hang in there, stand in there in affliction. Affliction is a pressing in. It’s the idea of a great weight. Your Bible might say tribulation. And the instruction is be patient in affliction. And then he says be faithful in prayer. Keep praying. And in putting those three phrases together, keep praying in those times of affliction. Keep praying. Hang on to hope which will give you joy even in that affliction and be patient and persevere through the affliction. Now, if you put all those together, the summarizing statement could be: Go through affliction with hope and prayer. Everyone in the world goes through affliction. That is not just a non-Christian thing or a Christian thing. Everyone experiences affliction, those things that just press in on them, the pressures of life, the things that weigh us down. We all experience it. But God’s people are to live a transformed life and there is to be a difference between how God’s people go through affliction and how those who are apart from Him go through affliction. There should be a difference. In the transformed life we go through affliction with hope and prayer. Is that how you travel through affliction? Is that how you’re traveling through the affliction right now in your life, that very difficult thing that you’re facing right now? Are you going through it with hope, confident expectation that God will work it out for good? Are you going through it faithful in prayer, seeking the Lord every step of the way? Or are you conforming to the world and letting it just blow you out of the water and turn you into the kind of person you don’t like and other people don’t like being around. That’s how the world handles affliction. We’re to be transformed and we’re to walk through the affliction with hope and prayer. That’s different.

Verse 13 has two instructions and I’m going to suggest that they, too, go together and I’ll explain why. Verse 13 says, “Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” So here we’re coming back to the theme of last week, the idea of loving each other genuinely, the idea of honoring each other above yourself. Putting them first. The idea of family love, that kindred loyalty and devotion to each other. And part of that involves sharing with those in need. At any given time there are usually people in the Body of Christ who have a need of some kind. And part of the transformed life is being sensitive to that and being willing, however you can to share in the meeting of those needs. But specifically in this verse, I think the need is hospitality. He says, share in the needs of others. Practice hospitality. Actually in the original here, and maybe if you have a King James Version you have this word, it’s the idea of pursue. Pursue hospitality. It’s a strong word. It’s the idea of going after something as though it’s your very calling, to look for opportunities. Pursue hospitality. Paul isn’t talking about being hospitable because I have to or being hospitable because it’s on the calendar for the last Sunday of the month. He says pursue hospitality. It’s supposed to be a pursuit as though it’s a calling. You’re looking for opportunities to love people that way. Hospitality comes from “philaxeno.” It’s a combination of 2 Greek words. Philos which is brotherly love and xenos which is the word for strangers. So hospitality is the love of strangers. Sometimes I think we get a little narrow in our idea of hospitality and we think hospitality is just having our best friends over now and then, the people we’re comfortable with, the people who are in our home often. That’s good and that’s probably a form of hospitality but the word itself is the love of strangers, people you don’t know, people you don’t know very well, people who are different from you. That’s the actual word, so it’s far more than just once in a while having our best friends over. It’s actually using our home to show love to people we don’t know, to people who need our hospitality, to people we don’t know very well, to people who might be different from us. That’s the actual idea of hospitality and we’re to be practicing it, pursing it as a calling.

In those days when Paul was writing, this was a need. So contributing to the needs of the saints and sharing in their needs did include hospitality. There were many traveling preachers at that time going from city to city, church to church, and meeting with these church groups. And these preachers needed hospitality. They needed a place to stay. Traveling was hard in that day. There wasn’t on every block a Day’s Inn or a Motel 6 with the light on. There were just a few inns, not many. They were very expensive and usually the people who stayed there were the riffraff, you could say, of society. So it wasn’t even a safe place to stay. And as these traveling preachers went around from church to church, the believers needed to practice hospitality and share their homes with these people they didn’t even know and love them in that way.

Also at this time it was very common, because of persecution, for many Christian people to be banished from their homes, from their families, from their neighborhoods just because of their faith in Jesus Christ. So you had a number of homeless believers, and there was a need to practice hospitality, to take these people in, even if you didn’t know them, but they were part of the family. They were fellow believers. They had a need, and a way to love them and meet their need was to share your home with them. So this was a great, practical need at that time among the believers. Here are 3 other scriptures that also teach hospitality. Hebrews 13:2, 1 Peter 4:9, Matthew 25:31-46. In Hebrews, it says we’re to practice hospitality because in the past it says some people entertained angels without knowing it. You never know who you’re sharing your home with. In 1 Peter 4, it says to be hospitable without grumbling. Men, without grumbling. Ladies, without grumbling. “Well, I guess we HAVE to. Be better to just stay home tonight alone but ….” No! It’s without grumbling. We use our homes that God has given us to express love to others, especially those we don’t know or don’t know very well, the love of strangers. You think God gave you your home as a private little sanctuary and refuge for you. He didn’t. He graciously gave you that home as another tool you can use to love people and serve them. Pursue hospitality. That’s part of the transformed life. That’s different. When we kind of seclude ourselves in our home as our own personal fortress and refuge and we don’t share it with anybody, we’re conforming to the world, because that’s the mentality in the world. The transformed life says God has given me this home and I want to use it as part of serving others and loving them. So who is it that I don’t know? Who is it that has a need for a meal, has a need for a bed? I’m looking for opportunities. I’m pursuing hospitality. In Matthew 25, Jesus talked about a time when he will say to people “You’re blessed because when I was thirsty you gave me a drink. When I was hungry you fed me. When I needed to be visited, you visited me. When I needed clothes, you clothed me.” And the people will ask Jesus, “When did we ever do that for you?” Do you remember what Jesus said? “When you did it to the least of these who belong to me, it was like doing it to me.”

Since 1999, the nation of Jordan has had a new king, Abdulla, son of the last king, Hussein. This new young king in Jordan has started a practice. He will, on a regular basis, disguise himself and go out into the cities of his country and walk among the people in the markets and in the offices and in the business places. His purpose is that he wants to listen to the people, he wants to hear what they’re saying, what they’re thinking. But he also wants to check up on the civil servants, the people that work for the government in different areas and are supposed to be serving the people. So the king, Abdulla, goes out in disguise so that he can check on how his workers are treating the people of Jordan. In the last 2 years, word has gotten out that this is what the king’s doing, so everybody is aware that somewhere, sometime their king will be walking among them. And they say that in 2 years time a transformation has taken place. Business, civil servants, all these people are starting to treat others like kings. Why? Because you never know, it just might be the king. So we’ll treat them all like kings. Jesus said, “When you show love to the least of My people, you are loving Me, the King.” If you share your home with somebody you don’t know or you don’t know well, somebody that’s different from you, you’re showing love to Jesus. It’s part of the transformed life, to be in tune with the needs of one another, do what we can to share in the meeting of those needs and to pursue hospitality as part of loving one another and meeting needs.

That’s as far as we’ll go today, adding to the picture of a transformed life, what it looks like when a Christian is willing to step away from conforming to this world and be different, be transformed. It involves serving the Lord with passion. It means going through affliction with hope and prayer, and it means sharing your home and possessions with those in need.

Are we able to connect this message, this next section in Romans 12 to our observance of the Lord’s Supper? How can this passage, Romans 12:11-13, prepare us for coming to the Lord’s Table. When we come to the Lord’s Table, we’re thinking about Jesus. We’re thinking about something He did. And as our thoughts go to Jesus, we think of a person who came to this world and served God passionately. He came to do the will of the Father and He served the Father’s will passionately. When we think of Jesus, we think of someone who went through His afflictions with hope and prayer. “For the joy set before Him…” That was hope. And just remember the garden of Gethsemane as He went through His affliction and the prayers that He prayed. He went through affliction with hope and prayer. And when we think of Jesus, we think of someone who served the needs of others, even strangers. “While we were yet sinners – His enemies – Christ died for us.” Talk about loving strangers. Talk about loving people who are different from you. While we were yet sinners, enemies, Christ died for us. He gave up his LIFE to meet our needs. So yes, we can connect this message with the Lord’s Supper. You see, if it wasn’t for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the salvation it can bring to a life, you and I wouldn’t be able to live the transformed life. We couldn’t even live this kind of life without the salvation that Christ has provided for us through the cross. I couldn’t. I couldn’t serve the Lord with passion if He hadn’t died for me and provided salvation. I don’t think I could go through affliction with hope and prayer if Jesus hadn’t died for me and given me his salvation when I trusted Him. And I don’t think I could go very long on my own meeting the needs of others with my home or possessions if it wasn’t for Christ’s death and the salvation that I am experiencing from that that empowers me to even want to do that. Yes, there’s a tie-in. This prepares us to come to the Lord’s Table. You can’t live the transformed life without Jesus, without His salvation, because you can’t do it on your own. The transformed life is so different. It is so hard. It goes against the wind. It goes against the current of this world. We can’t do it on our own. We need help and that help comes from Jesus Christ after we have trusted Him for the salvation He made possible in his death on the cross that we might be forgiven. So, let’s pray.

Thank You Father, for the power You have to change a life, the power you have to come in and, by Your Holy Spirit, help us to live a different life, a life that pleases You and honors You. And yet, God, we realize that there’s no way we could do that without Your salvation, without knowing you personally and that was made possible through Jesus’ death on the cross and the forgiveness of sin and the reconciliation with You that comes as we trust that work, as we trust that Jesus. Prepare us to come to Your table and to offer our thanks. In Christ’s name. Amen.