Calvary Road Baptist Church

“DISCERNING LOVE”

Romans 12.9b 

I think it fitting that God, in His providential watch care over our Church, brought us to our study of the subject of love at this time. What causes this lost and dying world to think about spiritual concerns, including love, more than the Easter season, except perhaps the Christmas season?

Let us understand that the love which this world ponders and considers so much during certain seasons of the year is not the love which is found in the Bible. Anyone with eyes to see can recognize that whatever focus on Scriptural principles and ideals that may have existed during the Christmas seasons, during annual Valentine’s days, and during Easter seasons of days gone by, have been completely replaced by an avalanche of humanistic propaganda that redefines the concept of love.

So perverse is the average person’s understanding of Christmas and Easter that he would think you and I are fanatical and weird for directing our children’s attentions upon the birth of Christ and away from that preposterous figment of human imagination known as Santa Claus, or for directing our children’s attentions on the resurrection of Christ and away from those preposterous figures of human imagination known as Easter eggs and Easter bunnies.

Even among Christians, the suggestion that Jesus Christ should receive a Christmas present of greater value and significance than the gifts that are given or received is met with a quiet response, instead of a good and hearty “Amen.” It seems that on Christmas day anyway, the person whose birthday is being celebrated should not have the place of honor and should not receive the choicest of gifts.

As well, on Easter Sunday, when the attention of real Christians ought to be on the glorious Son of the living God, raised from the dead in victory over sin, death, Hell, and the grave, children are instead distracted by colored eggs, chocolate bunnies, and such as that. People think such distractions from spiritual reality are good for kids, or at least benign.

But such is the world’s concept of love. And such is the Christian’s concept of love in too many cases. So it is a good thing that God has seen fit to teach us about this love of His for us, and to teach us of this love which He gives us to give to others. For if He had not seen fit to instruct us in the ways of genuine love, we would be very confused.

Out there folks think that love has to do with good feelings toward everyone. They think that love has something to do with feeling good about yourself so that you can feel good about others. They think that love is the emotional response that accompanies feelings of sentiment toward others and that mutual gratification is the key to really loving each other.

Shortly after I assumed the pastorate of this Church, I went shopping for a Christmas present. And I found myself functioning much like a robot. And as I stood at a counter, waiting to pay for something, I said to the clerk, “Do you know what Christmas is for most people?” And she said, “No. What is it?” Then I said to her, “It’s spending money you don’t have, to buy things you don’t need, to give to people you don’t like.” She smiled and pretended to agree.

What do you think would happen if you had gone to a shop or a store to purchase an Easter card or something to give a loved one on Easter and you asked another customer or a clerk what the meaning of Easter is? Do you think most people would make any mention of Christ’s resurrection from the dead when describing Easter?

Can I tell you something? Love that is completely disconnected from the birth of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and God does not love at all. It’s time we paid closer attention to what love is and began to love each other. Amen? Until we have sharper clarity about what love is, we will never be able to use these tools properly which God has given to us to serve Him, which we call spiritual gifts.

In the first half of Romans 12.9, in Paul’s first lesson explaining how love behaves, we saw that whatever love does do, what it does not do is use a mask of hypocrisy. When Paul directed his readers to “Let love be without dissimulation,” he was informing us that the love God gives to us to give to our brothers and sisters in Christ, and even to the lost people around us, is love that is always open and honest. It never hides behind a mask of pretense.

In this second installment lesson on the behavior of love, we will see why the world strongly opposes God’s kind of love. As you turn in your Bible to Romans chapter 12 and stand, think about this for just a moment. No one is opposed to love that is not hypocritical. So, on the surface at least, a fair proportion of unbelievers would join in agreement with Paul that love should be without dissimulation, love should be without hypocrisy, love should be honest.

But in the second half of Romans 12.9, Paul reveals an attribute of genuine love that so strongly refutes the world’s notion of love that virtually every unbeliever can be expected to balk at it. What does Paul state in Romans 12.9? He writes, 

“Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.” 

If real love behaves in this way, then real love has a characteristic that is unthinkable in the world’s concept of love. And what is the characteristic of love that is revealed by Paul here? Discernment. 

GENUINE LOVE REQUIRES DISCERNMENT THAT WILL, FIRST OF ALL, RECOGNIZE MORAL ABSOLUTES 

The thrust of this message is neither complicated nor particularly profound. But it is controversial. It does conflict with the world’s concept of love. And it does conflict with the concept of love that is promoted and practiced in so many Christian circles these days. In the realm of popular Christendom, love is pretended to be something akin to the genteel behavior of southern ladies and gentlemen who lived on plantations before the Civil War, who felt it was simply uncivilized to behave in a way that was uncouth or inappropriate.

But these same people who would never behave in an uncouth or inappropriate way in a social setting owned other human beings and bought and sold and bred them like so much cattle. So, you will excuse me if I find the notion of being a genteel Christian, who accepts without comment on the notion of moral relativity and denies by his lifestyle the existence of moral absolutes, repulsive. Christians who do not exhibit a recognition of moral absolutes make me sick. But more than making me sick, Christians, and everyone else for that matter, who do not recognize moral absolutes simply do not begin to comprehend an essential characteristic of God-given love.

What are the basic moral absolutes that are recognized by the love that comes from God, love that is genuine, love that is real love? There are two basic moral absolutes: First, love recognizes that there is that which is morally evil. You cannot relate to that which is “evil” unless and until you acknowledge and recognize the existence of “evil.” And this is not the “evil” of the moral relativity crowd that claims that “evil” is only “evil” in certain situations or contexts. No, my friend. That kind of thinking, while it may be popular even among the socially acceptable Christians of this world, is definitely, absolutely, positively, wrong and out of synch with the Word of God. According to God’s Word, “evil” is just plain “evil.” There is that which is by its very nature wicked, evil, bad, base, worthless, vicious and degenerate. And whether it be thoughts (such as James 2.4), works (such as Colossians 1.21, First John 3.12, Second John 11 and Matthew 7.23), words (such as Third John 10 and Matthew 5.11), conscience (such as Hebrews 10.22), conjecture (such as First Timothy 6.4), this world we live in (such as James 4.4 and Ephesians 5.16 and 6.13), or the Devil; if a thing is evil, wicked, mean, or vile, then it is always that way. The context in which the wickedness expresses itself in no way mitigates or moderates its character or nature. Wrong is wrong is wrong is wrong is wrong. Bad is bad is bad is bad is bad. And if you, personally, have a difficulty with that concept then this message is just for you, because God’s kind of love and the love that comes from God recognizes the existence of a moral absolute called “evil.” And what love recognizes to be “evil” is never, never, never, never, anything other than what it is . . . “evil.”

But the love which has God as its source is not all negative. In addition to recognizing that which is morally evil, love also recognizes that which is morally good. Now, stay with me. Everyone recognizes the existence of that which is “good.” Amen? But does not the very idea of “good” require that something be “evil”? In this world it does. But the unbelievers who insist on their moral relativity, who insist, for example, that fornication is “good” if you “love each other,” or that two people of the same sex can marry and form a family if they supposedly “love each other,” can’t really tell you what is “evil.” Oh, they conjure up notions of “evil,” such as being opposed to the freedom to express your same-sex attractions, the freedom to murder your unborn child or the freedom to display reprobate behavior in public. If you are not in favor of what they are in favor of, then you are “evil.” But such reasoning and such rationale doesn’t hold any water. No. One of the marvelous things about God’s Word and God’s explanation of reality, such as God’s explanation of what love really is, is that it’s the only explanation that makes any sense. There is absolute “good.” God is “good.” Jesus Christ is “good.” And those men who are reconciled to God through Jesus Christ can have “good” memories (First Thessalonians 3.6), “good” hope (Second Thessalonians 2.16), “good” consciences (First Peter 3.16), and can lay up “good” treasures (Matthew 12.35), as well as do “good” works (Second Corinthians 9.8 and Ephesians 2.10). The gratifying thing is that what God describes as being “good” in His Word is always “good.” God is always “good.” Jesus Christ is always “good.” And the “good” works which the Christian was saved to perform in service to God are always “good” and are never context dependent. So, to summarize: Love recognizes the existence of both evil and good. Evil is contrary to the nature and purposes of God. Good, on the other hand, is not at cross purposes with God, but in agreement with God, in harmony with God, in the likeness of God, and reflecting the nature of God. If you have love you will recognize these two realities. If what you have, if what you exhibit, if what you display, does not recognize these two realities it may feel good for a while, it may even be popular with many people, and it may seem superficially satisfying, but it is not love. 

THERE IS A SECOND OBSERVATION THAT IS TO BE MADE ABOUT GENUINE LOVE. NOT ONLY DOES LOVE PASSIVELY RECOGNIZE THE EXISTENCE OF MORAL ABSOLUTES BUT IT ALSO ACTIVELY RESPONDS TO MORAL ABSOLUTES 

If you think genuine love is repugnant to the immoral and licentious crowd for holding to the conviction of absolute right and absolute wrong, absolute “evil” and absolute “good,” then you can well imagine the reaction and the harsh and railing criticism that gushes forth when genuine love is properly expressed. For, you see, genuine love is not entirely passive. There is an active side to love. Love must be expressed for it to be real and genuine love. And, likewise, for it to be real love, it must be expressed both negatively and positively.

That there is a negative and positive expression of love does not in any way upset the unbelievers of this world who want to wallow in their sin. What upsets them, what sets them off (would be a more accurate statement), is how these expressions of love are shown.

First, genuine love is expressed in the abhorring of that which is morally evil. This word “abhor” appears only here in all the New Testament, and it is a very strong word. It means to react with revulsion. In my “Linguistic Key To The Greek New Testament,” this Greek word translated “abhor,” the word apostugountes, is explained by these statements: “To despise, to hate bitterly. It expresses a strong feeling of horror and the preposition compound placed in front of the word emphasizes the idea of separation.”[1] This surely doesn’t sound like what we normally think of as Southern California Christian love, does it? But if you look at the sentence before my text and the sentence immediately after my text, you will see that this sentence is bracketed by two statements that deal with love. This sentence deals with love, too, beloved. It’s just that we’ve been so brainwashed about what love is and isn’t that we have almost lost the true and Biblical meaning of the word. We are told by so-called Christian counselors that we are supposed to remain impassive and low-keyed in the face of wrongdoing and wickedness. But Paul shows us very clearly that real love for God, real love for the Christian, and even real love for the unsaved person, will be horrified by the thought of such sin against God, will be stunned that the child of God would and could despise his Lord in such a way, and will be sorely grieved by the toll that sin will take upon the life of even the unbeliever. Have we become so opposed to sentimentalism that we think love is unemotional? Then we are wrong. Love is not unemotional. It’s just not ruled by emotions. Love can be very emotional. But the emotions are properly ruled by truth and do not in themselves dictate behavior. Bottom line, Christian? You are supposed to get upset at that which is “wicked.” You are supposed to have strong opinions against “evil” and wrongdoing. And you’re supposed to express the wrongness of the wrong you are witness to.

But not only are you to abhor that which is evil. You are also to cleave to that which is good. This word “cleave” is an interesting word. Kollaomai is used in the New Testament to describe that which is supremely spiritual, that which is supremely sexual, that which is extremely intimate and loyal. The word means to glue or cement yourself together with someone or some thing.[2] In Matthew 19.5 the Lord Jesus Christ refers to a man leaving his father and mother to “cleave to his wife.” That speaks of a physical, emotional, and spiritual bonding together of husband and wife. In First Corinthians 6.16 Paul speaks harshly against the person who commits fornication because he has “joined” his body to a harlot, using the same word to describe the Christian who is “joined” to the Lord in the next verse. That person who has glued himself to the Lord has no legitimate right to glue himself to someone in an “evil” act of sexual activity with someone not his or her spouse by marriage. Then, in Acts 9.26, we see the newly converted Apostle Paul trying to “join” himself to the disciples of the Lord. And in Acts 17.34 some new converts “clave” to Paul as their spiritual leader and teacher. Intimate with him in a spiritual and godly way. Loyal. So we see how the word is used to convey the idea that although love is profoundly repulsed by “evil”, it seeks out and tries to cling to that which is “good.” Whether it be “good” works, “good” thoughts, “good” conscience, whether it be the “good” God Who is our Father or our “good” Master, Jesus Christ . . . if you really love you will seek out, and you will seek to attach yourself to, that which is “good.” 

I could end my message right here and would feel confident that I have discharged my responsibility in communicating to you what this portion of Scripture means. But I want to say a few words in closing to make application to your heart.

How can a simple statement “Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good,” reflect a characteristic of genuine love? I must say that whether or not we ever see a genuine application of this statement to love, the constraints of the context allow no other interpretation. Therefore, we simply must accept that this has to do with real love. But just a little reflection can help us all out a great deal. I’ve summarized that this passage shows us that real love is discerning. Let’s see how important discernment is to showing real love.

Can we all agree that God’s kind of love seeks to meet genuine needs, whether they are needs that are perceived by the needy person or not? The unsaved man needs Christ. He may not perceive his need of Christ. But never mind. His need for the salvation found only in Christ is his greatest and most profound need. To meet that individual’s need, you must love him. Not love as the world loves, for then you will persuade him on his death bed that he will go to a better place whether he has trusted Christ or not. Not love as the world loves, for then you will seek only to ease his pain as he slips into eternity, and you will care nothing for the state of his eternal soul.

But if you have a love that discerns like God’s love discerns, if you have a loving discernment that is unshakable in its conviction that “evil” is always “evil” and that “good” is always “good,” that “evil” is always to be “abhorred” and that “good” is always to be “cleaved” to, then you are in a position to truly meet the real need of that lost man.

Real love knows that it’s always right to do right and that it’s always wrong to do wrong. And if it’s right to seek the salvation of a lost man when he’s in good health, then it’s right to seek the salvation of a dying man on his death bed. If it’s right to preach the Gospel to the throngs when they are dry-eyed, then it’s right to preach the Gospel to the teary-eyed at a funeral.

Do you see it? Only when love is real does it have discernment. And only when love can clearly see the “evil” for what it is and the “good” for what it is, to recoil from “evil” and to “cleave” to that which is “good,” can you sail through the storm-tossed waters of life to your destination. When the storm is raging it is you and I who must remain steady. When the emotions are up, and the tragedy is great, we must recognize and respond properly to the “good” and the “evil.” This is because we are the only messengers of hope to a lost and dying world. Only we carry the message of the saving Gospel.

And only we, prompted by a discerning love that sees things the way they really are, that sees “evil” as “evil” and “good” as “good,” will persist in loving people truly and meeting their spiritual needs when all others simply show them affection and try to convince them that all is well when all is not well.

In closing, let me say this to you who are without Christ. Your sinfulness is abominable. Your wickedness is supreme. Even your good works are declared by God to be nasty to Him.[3] I do not say this to you to make you angry, but because it’s the truth, according to God’s Own Word. And God’s Word, further, says that you are hopelessly lost without Jesus Christ. Therefore I say to you; my Lord Jesus loves you. He died on the cross to save you from your sins. But He didn’t stay dead, did He?

Won’t you come Him and be reconciled to God, to be right with God, to be saved?

__________

[1] Fritz Rienecker & Cleon Rogers, Linguistic Key To The Greek New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Regency Reference Library, 1980), page 376.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Isaiah 64.4

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Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church