What does it mean to truly love one another? Let's find out today on Changed by Grace. Welcome to Changed by Grace. I'm Pastor Steve Hereford. What does it mean to put others before yourself? We live in a world where most think of nothing more than themselves. But what does the Bible say about this attitude? Is there a way that we can truly honor God with this attitude? Well, let's find out today as we study together from God's Word. And he says there in verse 10, Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Give preference to one another in honor. As we look at this tonight, we need to understand a few things. First of all, Paul has just spent 11 chapters giving the Roman believers doctrine. And now in chapter 12, he focuses on the application of that doctrine. And he begins there in verse 1 by stating that since he has given them these grandiose truths, that they are to present themselves as holy and living sacrifices. To be a living and holy sacrifice meant that they must stop being conformed to this world. This, Paul says, was their spiritual service of worship to God. And then in verse 3, he builds even further by exhorting them not to think more highly of themselves than they ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. Now, why is it so important for Paul to say this? Why is it important for him to tell them to not think so highly of themselves, but to think so as to have sound judgment. I believe the answer of that is because they are part of the body of Christ and in that body exist many members. Just as we are the body of Christ and we are many members and as a body with many members, it has a function and the function is to exercise the gifts that have been given by the Holy Spirit and to exercise them accordingly. He begins down at verse six by saying, well, if you have the gift of prophecy, then you're to use it according to the proportion of your faith. Verse seven. If you have the gift of service, then serve. If you have the gift of teaching, then teach. If you have the gift of exhorting, he says, then exhort. And he just continues on in that list. See, the point is, is that God has placed you in the family of God. which is referred to here as the body of Christ, and you are members of that body, and as such, you are to treat each member better than yourself. And you do that by, first of all, how you think. He says that you are to think with sound judgment, not to think more highly of yourself. Now, if you look at verse 9, as he carries it down to verse 13, he focuses on what should be the motive of their service in the body. And he says the motive should be love. He says in verse 9, let love be without hypocrisy. And then, running down to verse 13, he elaborates on what he means. He says in essence that genuine, unhypocritical love will hate evil, it will cling to what is good, it will be devoted and give preference to the saints, it will not lag behind in diligence, but it will be fervent in spirit, it will serve the Lord, it will rejoice in hope, it will persevere in tribulation, it will be devoted to prayer, it will meet the needs of the saints, and it will practice hospitality. All of these things reveal to us the responsibility that we have in the body of Christ. And as we've stated at the beginning of this study, God has called us to Himself, God has placed us in the body of Christ, And the one and others reveal to us what life is like in the body. What is body life? So as we look at verse 10, we'll pick up two more of those one and others. And as we look at this, I believe that it will help us to see the bigger picture. House behind these two one and others is genuine, unhypocritical love. Again, he starts in verse 9. And he tells them to love without hypocrisy. And at that point, he elaborates on what that means. So he says, as you seek to love the brethren, do so in this manner. You'll notice there in verse 10, he says to be devoted and he says to give preference. In what way are we to be devoted and what way are we to give preference? Well, we're to do that with brotherly love. and we're to do that in honor. Let's go ahead and consider in verse 10 the first part of the verse where he says to be devoted to one another. He says, be devoted to one another in brotherly love. And according to verse 9 where Paul speaks of that agape love, that general love that Christians must have for all people, he now speaks of the more intimate love that we must have toward one another. That's why it's phrased in the NAS to be devoted to one another. The authorized version translates it this way, to be kindly affectionate. If you have the ESV, it translates it simply love, where it would read love one another with brotherly love. Now the word that Paul is using here for love or for be devoted or kindly affectionate, whichever version you have, it's just the same Greek word. translated in different ways by translators. It's the word philostorge. And it comes from two other Greek words for love, philalia, and it comes from storge. Philalia is that kind of love that's used for affection between friends. It's a friendship kind of love. In fact, the full word, Philadelphia, is where we get the city of brotherly love. And he uses that in the same verse, that very word. But philalia, it refers to affectionate kind of love between friends. But storge, when it's added to it, speaks of a tender affection among family members. It's kind of an instinctive affection. It's like that which parents and children feel toward one another. It's an attachment that is sealed by nature and blood ties and especially represents a mother's innate love between her children and between her husband. Here it implies, when it's used here in verse 10 in reference to believers, that believers should love in such a way that it involves intimacy, it involves understanding, and it involves acceptance. So we could translate Philostorge as tenderly loving or tenderly affectionate. So the devotion here that Paul is talking about is referring to a family sort of love. How are you to love one another? You're to love one another the same way that you love your family, your blood family. In fact, in many cases in the church, many are more closer to one another in the body of Christ than they are in their very home. But take that love that husbands have toward their wives and wives have toward their husbands and husbands and wives have toward their children and children have toward one another. That's the same kind of love he is talking about here when he uses storge with the word philia. He is talking about that we are to love one another in that manner, that kind of love. That's how intimate our love is to be toward each other. It's not that kind of distance that usually occurs at times when we come to church and we stare at the back of each other's head. The only relationship we have with each other is, hi, how are you doing? It's a lot more than that. It's like he says here in chapter 12, you weep with those who weep and you rejoice with those who rejoice because you're so interconnected to each other. Now, I know at times we say we don't feel connected, but folks, you don't trust feelings because fact trumps feelings. The fact is you are connected. Now, if you don't feel it, there may be a various amount of reasons why, but again, you don't live by emotion. And at the same time, we don't deny emotion either, but we have to make sure that we have that even under control. So in essence, what he's saying here, if we could re-translate that verse, we could do it something like this, in brotherly love showing family affection to one another. Or we could say, love the brethren in the faith as though they were brethren in blood. That kind of gives us really the idea. And we're to have this kind of love mainly because The church is a family. The church is a family. For some, like I said, people in church are closer to other people in church than they are their actual family. Some, and maybe some of you in here, experience this, where you may be the only believer in your family, and within your home, there are unbelievers, and they don't understand you, and they don't understand the church, and at times you get very annoyed that you're so committed to church and going and committed to the things of God or to read your Bible or to carry your Bible to work or any of those things. But they don't understand. They don't understand you because they haven't been born again. And you notice when you do have a family member who is indifferent towards you and God does save them, all that changes, doesn't it? But we are a family. And let me show you how we're a family. Who is our Father? God. He's referred to as our Father. Look with me at Romans 8, 15. Very beautiful verse that you find here. Paul writes to the believers here at Rome. He tells them you have not received a spirit of slavery leading again to fear. But you have received a spirit of adoption as sons, by which we cry out with that endearing term, Abba, Father, Papa, Daddy. That's what it means. You can go to God and call him Daddy. I mean, you pray. I don't know if I've ever heard anybody pray like that. But I've certainly hear people pray, Father, and addressing Him by that parental term. And rightly so, Matthew 6, 9, when Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, what did He begin with? Our Father who art in heaven. What links us is the common bond of salvation. What links us is the new birth and being placed into the body of Christ, God is our Father. And because of that salvation and because God is our father, we are brothers and sisters in Christ. Paul refers to believers as brethren 13 times in this letter alone. I thought that was really amazing, 13 times in the book of Romans. And then I got analyzing his 13 letters and I discovered that he used the term brethren 98 times. To speak of that endearing relationship that we have toward one another you and I are brethren you look around your brothers and sisters in Christ that's brethren and a very strong term that is used even in the verse here when he says brotherly love it's the word Philadelphia comes from again a compound word Philelia and Adelphos now he adds to that word and Adelphos is the word that's translated brother in scripture or brethren. And that term itself means coming from the same womb. You know, when I'm around. Certain people, and especially if we tend to look alike and they ask if we're brothers and we'll say something to this effect, we have the same father. You know. Not the same mother, but the same father. You and I, we have the same father. You and I are brethren. You and I are linked through that common bond. And as Paul writes to the Romans, as he starts out in chapter 1 and verse 13, he tells them, listen, I do not want you to be unaware, brethren. And he begins to inform them. He says, listen, I plan to come to you, but things have prevented that. But I still want to come. I still want to have fruit among you, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. But he addresses them as brethren. because that's what they were. We are to treat one another with Phileas Storge with that kind of affectionate, brotherly type of love, that family kind of affection. Why? Because we are family. And let me just say this as a footnote. As family, we don't want to hurt one another, do we? We want to love one another genuinely. We don't want to speak against one another, do we? We'll notice something else as a family. We do have a common bond and we have to go to Ephesians chapter four. I want to borrow the concept that Paul uses here in Ephesians four of unity that he mentions. And if you'll notice there he he tells the the readers to walk in a manner worthy of the calling by which they have been called and how were they to walk verse two says they are to walk with humility gentleness, patience, showing tolerance for one another in love. And then at that point, he tells us that that is the basis for unity. And verses 3 through 6, he uses a series of terms to indicate unity. He mentions unity in verse 3, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And then he uses another term that occurs in verses 4, 5, and 6, and it's the term one. He says there is one body and one spirit just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. We are all in one body and we're all indwelt by one spirit. We're called to one hope of our calling and we have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. that's true and that gives us a common bond we can fellowship with believers in other places because we have that common bond all through Christ and as I mentioned earlier that we all have been given spiritual gifts in order for us to function in the body if you look back in Romans 12 and he lists them in verse 6 and I just want to play on the first part of the phrase that he says in verse 6 he says since We have gifts. And that right there implies that there is no believer in the body of Christ that is without spiritual gifts. Now, you may struggle in trying to understand what your gift is. Some people really get into an analytical mode. They go for the computer printout deal that seeks to tell them what their gift is. And frankly, folks, I've never done that. And if you want to do that, that's fine. But I really don't believe a computer can tell you what your gift is. I think that other believers can help you with that. When we were doing our study on spiritual gifts earlier last year, there were two books that we were looking at, one by Robert L. Thomas, one by Leslie Flynn, both of them on the topic of spiritual gifts, and both of them addressed the issue of how to know what your spiritual gift is. And they brought up some good ideas. And let me just throw a few of them at you. If you're not sure what your spiritual gift is, first of all, go to 1 Corinthians 12. Go to Romans 12 and look and see, first of all, what the gifts are. Secondly, you need to discern through study which gifts are in operation now or which gifts have ceased. I believe that there are certain gifts in the list that have ceased. I am a cessationist. That's what that means, that there are certain gifts In the list, I believe it's the temporary sign gifts, the healing, the tongues, and things like that, that indicate, and we've done a study on this, and I would just refer you to that, that there is too much evidence there to show us, in my estimation, that they have ceased. But you need to go through the list, you need to know what they are, and then you need to understand what each of them are, how they define. And after you've done that homework, then you need to take a period of time, and one at a time, go through the gifts. You say, but there are 19 of them. Well, you're better off going through all 19 and maybe taking a year to do it than to sit back and continue to do nothing and to sit there in confusion not knowing what your gift is. But take a period of time, take the first gift, spend three months doing that. And then get someone that you can be accountable to that would be willing to give you feedback. Maybe do a couple people like that and say, listen, I'm trying to discern what my gift is. For the next three months or six months I'm gonna See if prophecy is my gift. Prophecy means to proclaim truth. It means to preach the word. I'm going to see if that's my gift. Pastor Steve might not let me get in the pulpit, but I'll just preach to you, you know. And either way, you know, have somebody that's willing to be honest with you and up front with you. And if that's not your gift, move on to the next one and just keep doing that. You say, well, if I get through all 19 of them and I don't still know what my gift is, I think you need to go back and start over because you've done something wrong there, you know. Maybe you haven't given it enough time. Maybe you haven't really listened to what some of the feedback is that's helping you there. But there is no one in the body of Christ without a gift. And I know it tends to be easy to see things in others, so ask other people, what do you think my gift is? And let them give you some feedback. I've done that before to many people. They've asked me, what do you think my gift is? They'll say, I don't know what my gift is, and I'll know immediately by just things that I see them doing. I tell you, in my life, one of the best ways that I have been able to discern to know what my gift is is just simply by this. What is it that I really enjoy doing for the Lord? And then I get involved in doing it. And that's really how I've done that in my own life. Maybe you might want to apply it in the same way. But we are to carry out these gifts. He says we have gifts. Now I'll mention more about that in just a moment but let me point out something else. We talked about as a family that we are connected together through a common bond. But notice also as a family we have responsibilities and all the one another's that we've been looking at so far and all the ones that will continue to look at that we haven't looked at yet indicate to us that we do have a responsibility to each other. You come in here and maybe you feel like you don't have a connection with somebody or maybe you don't get involved in somebody's life in a deeper way. That's no excuse. Whatever the reason is, it stops you from doing that. Maybe you say, well, I don't have enough time. Well, frankly, folks, you got to do it outside of our time together because there's just not enough time while we're here to do everything. And besides why you're here, you're being instructed. You go out of here and apply what you have been instructed in. So get with somebody. Get with somebody privately and say, listen, can we get together once a week or every other week? And can we sit down together and study and talk about the things of God? I want to challenge you to do that. Maybe your study would be spiritual gifts. But the fact is, is that we have a responsibility to each other. Let me just give you a few things that will help you with that. First of all, one of the responsibilities that we have is to worship together. When we came in here tonight, that's what we've been doing. That's what we're doing right now, we're worshiping together. When you forsake the assembly, according to Hebrews 10, you are not able to worship together. You've isolated yourself from the body. You're not able to carry out your gifts. You say, well, I'll just stay at home and watch it on TV, or I'll watch it on the Internet. But the problem is that you're not able to have that interaction with the body. And you need that interaction. How could you be accountable to a TV? How could you be accountable to the Internet? The Internet doesn't offer any kind of accountability. If it does anything, it destroys your accountability, right? You need accountability with people, bodies, people that you see, people that you talk to, people that you hear, that you listen to. That's the kind of accountability that we need. It's clear from the birth of the first church that the believers there worshiped together. Let me have you to turn to Acts chapter 2. On the day of Pentecost, The Holy Spirit came, drew the people together, and they thought that they were drunk in what they were hearing, but the truth was that they were hearing each of the apostles speak in the language of the people that were there. Peter stands up and explains what is taking place. He then preaches to them about Jesus Christ, whom they crucified. Verse 37 tells us, when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart. And they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off. And as many as the Lord our God will call to himself, and with many other words, he solemnly testified. And he kept on exhorting them, saying, Be saved from this perverse generation. And so then those who had received his word were baptized, and that day there were added about 3,000 souls. Very first day added to the church were 3,000 people. Most likely that this does not include in the count the women and the children, because we know in other areas where the people are counted, it doesn't include them. So it's most likely that there were probably 5,000 people at the birth of the church. But notice what they were Notice verse 42. Verse 42 gives us a lot of insight. It says that they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Their worship together included those four things. It included teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. And they did all these things together and they were accountable to one another. They worshiped together. Beloved, that's what we're to do. What should be at the top of our list when we come together? The Apostles' Doctrine. Should fellowship be at the top of the list? No. Should prayer be at the top of the list? Well, it should be way up there anyway, right? But folks, we've got to have the Apostles' Doctrine. We've got to have the teaching of Scripture. That is the primary emphasis of the teaching pastor. That's why he is called a teaching shepherd. He is to teach the sheep the Word of God. He is to teach the sheep the truth of Scripture. That is how he is to pastor. That's the substance of what he does. And the church here, if you notice, they, plural, all of them continued devoting themselves to this. These four areas. Now, every now and then somebody kind of gets off and they begin to get their priorities out of whack and they get them a little screwed up here and they put fellowship at the top of the list rather than having teaching at the top of the list. They begin to push teaching down and say, well, we're getting so much doctrine, we don't need that much doctrine. And then they begin to search out and say, well, we don't really have enough fellowship here. We need to go somewhere else where we can have more fellowship. And then they don't really consider the fact that they put teaching down on a lower level. And they sacrifice the teaching so that they can have some fellowship. I think that's just priorities out of whack right there. I think at the top of the list should always be the teaching. I mean, before I became a pastor, when I would look at a church, that's what I looked for in a church. If I got fellowship out of it, then that was a byproduct. But my first and foremost priority in attending a church was that it's teaching. I would go to a church and I would ask them for a doctrinal statement, a statement of what they teach. And then I would, you know, read that statement, take it home and read it. I'd go back and maybe talk to the pastors a little bit about that doctrinal statement. And then I would attend a service and I'm focused on listening to the doctrine that's being taught. But that was always the focus, not, you know, trying to make friends with everybody. Again, those are byproducts. But the main thing should be the teaching. And that was the main thing for the apostles. How do you think the church grew? They were evangelizing. They evangelized that day. Peter preached an evangelistic message. 3,000 souls were saved. Two days later, 2,000 more were added to the church through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That was always the priority of the early church. That's the priority that you'll find in the epistles. That's the priority that you'll find in the New Testament. That was Jesus' very priority. The first day He begins His ministry, it says that He was preaching the gospel. Putting Others First. That's the title of our message today and it's made available on one full-length audio CD. All you have to do to get your copy is call us at 904-651-3351. If you prefer you can visit our website at www.changedbygrace.org and download the free mp3. I'm Pastor Steve Hereford. I do want to thank you for listening and hope you'll join us again next time as we study God's Word. Hi, I'm Pastor Steve Hereford and I want to invite you to visit our website at www.changedbygrace.org where you can take advantage of many of our resources. One in particular is our scripture memory system. We use music to help you lock scripture into your mind. As you learn the songs, you automatically memorize scripture. Visit our site and give it a try at www.changedbygrace.org. You can also hear it on many of the online music platforms like Spotify. Again, thank you for listening and we hope that you'll lock the scripture in your mind.