Kennystix's podcast
Let Love Be Genuine
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God Ministries is available at www.desiringGod.org. Let's begin with some thoughts here now from Romans about how to read a text like this in a way that changes us deeply. There are 13 exhortations in just verses 9 to 13. So, suppose you get up in the morning and you've set yourself like a good Christian to read your Bible before you head off to work, that's a good idea, you should do that. So you've set yourself maybe to read a few chapters or let's say Romans 12 is included, it may take you 3 minutes to read through Romans 12 which means that you give maybe 15 seconds to these 13 commandments, 13 exhortations, let love be genuine, abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good, love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another and showing honor, don't be slothful in zeal, be fervent in the spirit, serve the Lord, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer, contribute to the needs of the saints, seek to show hospitality, 13 in 5 verses, you've read them 15 seconds on them, close your Bible, pray off to work, how many of them can you even remember? I mean, are you now fired up and totally engaged and renewed in all 13 new areas of your life? Is that the effect of reading the Bible in the morning? It doesn't work like that, does it? So what are we supposed to do? Because Paul didn't write that just to tickle our ears, he didn't just write those things for nothing to happen. He really means all 13 of those exhortations to become reality and as we read them to become more and more reality and as we preach on them to become more and more reality, they aren't just there. So we need help for what to do with the Bible so that the Bible becomes powerful, changes us, right? This isn't written for nothing. So to get help, turn with me to chapter 15. I ask the apostle Paul, Paul, you've got any help for us here on how to read chapter 12? And Paul said, yes, it's here in verses 15 and 16 of chapter 15. On some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminders. Stop there. Just realize that the Bible for veteran Christians is mainly repeat. I will never read a new thing in the Bible. I've read the Bible dozens and dozens of times, every word of it, over and over again. I'll never see a new word in the Bible. I pray that I will see new reality, new truth, new power, new implications, but the words I've seen them all over and over again, reminder, don't ever begrudge a small group, a family devotion, a Bible reading, a sermon that is sheer reminder of what you already know, because God has things in those old familiar truths that you never saw yet. Things to change in you haven't been changed yet. So just be aware, the Bible is mainly reminder for old Christians. And that's crucial for living the Christian life. So Paul says, I've written to you very boldly by way of reminder because of the grace given to me. So know that the Bible is a gracious gift. Paul was graced to write it for us and don't neglect it. Verse 16, to be a minister, have this grace to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. That's us mainly in the priestly service of the gospel. So that, here comes the reason for writing this down and doing this ministry. Why do we read Romans 12, so that the offering of the Gentiles, so we're now treated like a worship offering, should remind you of chapter 12 verse 1, present your bodies living sacrifices, which is your spiritual service of worship. We are being offered up by the Apostle Paul as worship to God as we're transformed into the image of his son, God's son, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable. So Paul has written Romans so that you and I would become more acceptable. That word acceptable, Reney Bell, some chapter 12, verse 2, be transformed so that you may prove what is acceptable, embrace the will of God, acceptable. And when you do that, this is happening, the offering of the Gentiles, verse 1, offering worship, verse 2, transform to prove what is acceptable, this is happening by the writing of Romans. So when you read it, this should be happening, then comes the all decisive phrase, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. You know and I know reading the Bible has zero effect on our lives apart from the Holy Spirit. If in fact we try to do the Bible without the Holy Spirit, we become colossal legalists, counting our own moral resolve. I can do this. Watch me. Instead, what we need is the Holy Spirit. So now I have drawn out of these verses three things that help me read Romans 12 life changingly. I want to be changed by these messages. I want to be changed by verse 9, let love be without hypocrisy. I want to be less hypocritical after I read that phrase. How can I do that? What will make the difference for a word, a little phrase to suddenly have life changing powerful power to make me less hypocritical, more free and authentic and genuine and real in my love? Here are my three guidelines for how to read that, one, pray as you read. Because if the Holy Spirit is the one who takes the Bible and applies it to us so that it really produces an alteration in our whole demeanor, our way of seeing God and our way of treating each other, then we should ask him. So when you read, you pause, you say, "Oh Holy Spirit, come make this real in my life. Do whatever you have to do to make me humble, to make me authentic, to make me loving." That's the way you pray, it's real risky. Last night, just before we walked into the service, a band of us, several of us just gathered around in the choir room, downstairs, downtown, where I preached this last night. And we said, and there were our "Mm-hmm's" and "Amen's all around," as I said, "Lord, whatever it takes, death, loss of job, cancer, whatever it takes, take away my hypocrisy. Whatever it takes in this church, whatever it takes, do it. Because we want to be real, we want to be Christian, we want these words in Romans 12 to become reality. We don't just want to speak words and have love be in word only and not indeed and not in heart. So pray, that's number one. Pray as you read the Bible, do this in my life. Number two, look away to Jesus as you read the Bible. As you read Romans 12 and you hear, let love be without dissimulation, that's the old King James word, or let love be without hypocrisy. That's a good literal translation. Let love be genuine, ESV. When you read that, say to yourself, "No way, I'm going to pull that off. I am a born hypocrite, I love the praise of other people, I know I'm not perfect, I'm always putting up fronts, I want to be a loving person authentic, I don't want to play it love, therefore I look away from myself, I look away to Jesus." He was born and died to forgive all my hypocrisy. He modeled for me the perfectly transparent life. He has now taught me and given me a goal to aim at and he is my satisfaction, my forgiver, my model, my treasure. When you look away to Jesus, that satisfaction that comes from Him is the ground and root by which you become free from hypocrisy. So that's number two, look away in faith to Jesus, not to yourself. Number three, slow down and meditate on these words. I know this is tough because on the one hand you hear a message coming from this pulpit, read the Bible, read the whole Bible, get your discipleship journal reading plan and read the Bible all the way through in one year. Well, you're on a lickety split pace to get through the Bible and here I am telling you now, slow down and meditate on the first half of verse nine of chapter 12. Now what in the world are you supposed to do? Read through the Bible or meditate on verse nine. What do you want me to do? The answer is both and I don't know how. I just know I've got to read the Bible fast. I've got to read the Bible slow because if you don't read the Bible fast to get through it in a year or two, you can't get the big picture, you can't get the whole terrain and yet if you don't slow down, here's the analogy. This analogy has been with me ever since the first jumbo jet was made. You can remember that most of that in your lifetime, right? The first jumbo jet with the big hump on the front, off can they do that? A two decker plane, unbelievable. I remember that. So I pictured this thing flies about 560 miles an hour and it flies really high, you know, 37, 38,000 feet and I pictured it flying over Florida and all these orange groves. And you look down and you could just almost see the whole Florida and there's an orange grove and you say, wow, that's an amazing orange grove. Very nourishing, really tastes good, really gives me energy, wrong, it doesn't. You just, and that's the way we read the Bible. But it's good to see Florida, it really is, it's valuable to see Florida in the Bible. But if you never land that thing in Orlando and don't go to Disney World, go to the orange grove and just start walking through the orange grove, here's verse nine, first half of the verse, and you pause under the tree and you pick that one and you're looking at it, that's a beautiful thing, let love be genuine. I wonder what that means, would I love to be like that, I want to be like that. Holy Spirit, please, kill the disease of hypocrisy in my life, you've got to slow down, you've got to meditate, you've got to ask what does it mean, how does it relate to my life, how does it relate to the other parts of Scripture and all the while praying, oh, make a difference, make a difference in my life. So those are my three guidelines which I think are implied in chapter 15 verses 15 and 16. Word and spirit, word, verse 15, spirit, verse 16 of chapter 15, we read the Bible, we pray for the Spirit, we savor it, we linger over it, we look away to Jesus, the reason looking away to Jesus is so crucial is because the Holy Spirit according to John 16, 14 is given to glorify Christ. So if you read the Bible with view to doing it in your own strength, the Holy Spirit will keep his distance from you, if you read the Bible looking away to Jesus and saying, Jesus, I want you to be magnified, I want you to be displayed in the kind of loving person I become, the Holy Spirit kicks in with power because he's there to magnify Jesus. Let's go to verse nine now and do some meditating. By the way, while you're looking again, you just heard Scott read nine to 21, I would not dare to predict how many times you're going to hear this read in the next months. But I would draw this out lest you say, oh, there's that text again, begin to memorize this chapter. We are going so slow through this chapter. This is not a big challenge, memorize Romans 12. Let's just do that together as a church, okay? Just start memorizing it. And maybe by the time we're at the end, we could just say it, wouldn't that be great? Instead of having a person read the text, just say, all right, one more sermon on Romans 12, you know, 2007 or whenever it is. And we just all say it. So memorize Romans 12, your life will be changed if you memorize it prayerfully. Let love be genuine, literally let love be without hypocrisy. First question, is this a new section or is Paul continuing on with the list of the previous verses? Kind of, the answer I think is yes and no. It is a new section, every, all the versions break the paragraph here, right? So he just finished listing off the gifts, seven spiritual gifts, pause, now let love be genuine. And you know, there's another place in the Bible, he does that. Does that sound familiar, like spiritual gifts, now love, spiritual gifts, now love. Does that sound like anything you know anywhere? First Corinthians chapter 12, all about the spiritual gifts. And now at the end of chapter 12, now I show you a more excellent way, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I'm a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. Though I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and have all faith so I still remove mountains and have not love, I'm nothing, though I give away all that I have and deliver my body to be burned and have not love, I'm nothing. And so he moves from the spiritual gifts section of chapter 12 to the love section of chapter 13 in first Corinthians. Same thing here. Amazing. First, pause, got this thing in his head about, okay, we'll talk about spiritual gifts first and then we'll get the love fixed because those spiritual gifts can really mess people up if they're not loving. That seems to be the way his mind works. On the other hand, I'm not so sure that verse nine should have a big paragraph bake between it. In fact, I think verse three, don't think too highly of yourself, think with faith, the measure of faith that's God's given you, that is look away to Christ, trust in him and so let the alternative of big views of yourself, big views of Jesus, forget yourself, overflow with love to Christ so that people get blessed. I think verse three is flowing down all through verses five, six, seven, eight and in verse nine. So if you read, just pick up in the middle of verse eight, contributing to the, let those who contribute be generous and let leaders be zealous and if you show mercy, be cheerful and if you love, do it without hypocrisy. There doesn't need to be any break there at all. Not inclined to think there should be one, think of it this way, of all the things, this is one of the questions you ask when you meditate, of all the things he could have said about love, why did he choose to say, don't let it be hypocritical. Let it be genuine. I mean, he could have said, let love be great, let love be earnest, let love be joyful, let love be constant, let love be bold, good night. The list is on and on. He could have said, why did he say, let love be without hypocrisy, on you, you can even hear it in the Greek, right, on you, you, not hypocritical. It's because hypocrisy is the dread opposite of verse three. You think, hi, leave yourself, look away from yourself, forgetfully to Jesus and be enthralled with him. What's hypocrisy? It's just totally about me. I'm so concerned what other people think about me. I'm always in the energetic business of creating fronts and poses and postures so that they think this way about me and not another, it's all about me. And that's exactly the opposite of verse three. So he's just continuing right on with his application, be a humble person, be a Christ enthralled, Christ-exalting person, and be done now in all of your love with hypocrisy. So let's linger here. This is a model for you of what you have to do in your devotions, I think, if you're going to be changed. This is what I do, two ways that hypocrisy shows itself and then two goals that hypocritical hearts have and then a concluding comment about its application to Bethlehem. First, two ways that hypocrisy shows itself. The first is hypocrisy wants to make the outside of the cup, the outside of the life look better than the inside, because the inside's not so good. First Corinthians 13-3, "If I give away all that I have and deliver my body to be burned but have not love, it profits me nothing." That's an absolutely staggering verse. You can give away all that you have and present yourself as a person who throws yourself on a grenade for your platoon and be an unloving person. Isn't that staggering? Give away all that I have and throw my body on the grenade and you're saying I'm an unloving person. Yes, I'm saying you're an unloving person, which simply means it's possible to do behaviors that look loving and be a loveless person. Otherwise, verse 9 would be pointless, right? If it's impossible to conceive of hypocritical love, why would he say don't let love be hypocritical? Let love be genuine. It's because there's non-genuine love going on in the church. There's all kinds of behaviors happening. All kinds of external stuff that looks loving and it isn't. There's no heart of love behind this behavior. Oh, that's scary. In other words, God is really into authenticity. He's really into genuineness. He really dislikes fronts and artificial religion. Oh, Jesus, what a word He gave us. He's the great authority on hypocrisy, isn't he? Chapter 15, verse 7 of Matthew. You hypocrites, welded Isaiah, prophesy of you when he said, "This people honors me with their lips, their heart is far from me." So how are you doing? You got lip praise, but no heart praise, lip love, but no heart love. Jesus says it's pretty common. Religious people, Pharisee types, are really good at lip praise. Whoo, just do this thing. How's this? God sees this. God looks on this. What's going on inside? Is it real? Is it authentic? Or is it just lip love? He got really angry at this. Jesus got angry at this. Matthew 23.25, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you cleanse the outside of the cup and plate. But inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful. But within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. I went, listen up kids, I'm giving you an illustration. I went to Pizza Hut with Talatha. Talatha's nine. I went to Pizza Hut with Talatha yesterday. We do our date on Saturday and we ordered two lunch specials. She gets hers without cheese. You can imagine pizza without cheese, unbelievable. But that's the way it is with people who have allergies. But anyway, she got hers and we both get Pepsi cups and I said, do you know what hypocrisy is Talatha? Coming to preach my sermon and see if it works with a nine-year-old. You know what hypocrisy is? She thought, I'm not sure. I said, okay, I held up my Pepsi cup and I said, look, I want you to believe this is a really good cup for drinking out of it. I shine it up really good. But I don't tell you, there's dog poop inside. She said, ew, because we just had an accident with our dog in the morning, so that was why it was on my mind. I think that's the way Jesus would say it to a nine-year-old, don't you? I said, people's bones, uncleanness, greed, self-indulgence. Those may not work with a nine-year-old, but dog poop will work. Clean this cup up. I want you to drink. I use this cup. This is the cup I have. I'm a clean cup and there's dog poop inside. That's hypocrisy. So the first way that hypocrisy shows itself is it gets the outside of life all cleaned up. Real hard on that and doesn't really work here at all. Number two, the second way that hypocrisy shows itself is by drawing attention to other people's flaws so as to conceal your own and deflect attention from your problems. I get this from Luke 642. Here's what Jesus said, Luke 642. How can you say to your brother, brother, let me take the speck that is in your eye out and when you yourself have a log that is in your own eye and then he says, you hypocrite. So I know, okay, I'm on to hypocrisy here, you hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. So hypocrisy not only puts up fronts to conceal what's here, it draws attention to other people Tom Steller prayed for marriages back there and so I'm going to put a parenthesis in here. This happens mainly in marriage. This happens mainly in marriage and if couples could realize that they're constant harping on what they want changed in the other person and their emotional inability to let it go and to bring it up again and again and again and again, wife to husband, husband to wife, change, change, change, change, demand, demand, demand is really a concealing a deflection of energy from where it should be expended right here, right, right here, I'm the hypocrite, I'm the sinner in this relationship, yes you've got flaws but all I do is harden my heart against you as I constantly draw attention to these flaws and I just plead with you. Let love be genuine that is don't be a hypocrite that is devote your emotional energy by working on your own soul and let God work on the other and God will do miracles in your marriage. Those are my first two observations about hypocrisy and hypocritical love. It puts up fronts, it draws attention to the other, all designed to conceal the problem in here. Now why do we do this? Two answers from the Bible as to why we are so hypocritical, why we're bent this way? Why are we trying to accomplish when we do this? Number one, we crave the approval and the praise and the acceptance of other people. Way too much. We teenagers, you're in this, adults, you're in this, little children, you're in this, we all like to be praised. We all like to be accepted. It feels bad if people roll our eyes at what we just said, feels awful. We don't want that feeling and therefore we will strategize and do what we can do to get the front out there to get what we crave, namely the approval of other people. Listen to Matthew 6-2. When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. Verse five, when you pray, this would apply to me because I'm the one who will pray at the end of this sermon, say preach if you want to here. And when you pray or preach, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and the Baptist churches and on the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. So one of the deep motives of hypocrisy is I want praise, I want approval, I want commendation, I want to be accepted, I want to be extolled, I want people to talk about me well. The solution to that is not to be an effective hypocrite, I mean some people think that is the solution. I just succeed today in being a perfect hypocrite, I would get all the praise I possibly want and when I go to bed at night, I would sleep like a baby because I have totally deceived everyone and they think I'm absolutely great. Nobody will sleep well long term on that success. You can get really good at it, you really can. Some pastors have succeeded for years and then come crashing down because all their prayers were empty cloaks of another sin. So that's the first motive I see and the solution to it is to look away to Christ not to become more effective at hypocrisy. If you have a craving, a deep unsatisfied longing and craving and need and your whole behavior is being structured and guided by what other people think of you, you've got to get fixed another way and the way to get fixed is to look away to Jesus and say, "Why am I so craving at this? What's wrong with me? Why am I not satisfied in you? Oh, open my eyes that I would see you as my all satisfying Savior. May my relation with you and my hope of being with you be enough so that I can just be loving and be righteous and let the chips fall where they will who cares what people think of them about me. I've got you." That's where the solution is. So looking away, every time you read one of these thirteen commandments, hear them as a summons to trust Jesus more, treasure Jesus more. Here's number two, the second goal that we're after in hypocrisy. This one surprised me. I was just poking around in all the hypocrisy texts in the New Testament trying to figure out what it is so that I could get it out of my life when I try to love people. This one is different because I think we don't often realize that the fronts we put up are not really about the fronts sometimes, they're about a sin that's totally different than the front. Let me illustrate what I mean. So just to put it in a sentence, the second thing we're doing is we're hypocrites in order to conceal a kind of sin that is totally different than what the front is really about. For example, Jesus came to a synagogue one day and there was a woman and for eighteen years she had walked around like this and she couldn't stand up and he really felt sorry for her and it was the Lord's day, the Jewish Lord's day, it was the Sabbath and he reached out his hand and healed her and she stood up straight and it says she began to give glory to God and I can imagine the tears that's running down her face and all the godly people, the compassionate people, the loving people, all around her just say, look, this is awesome, this is glorious, thank you, thank you, thank you, God and whoever you are, Jesus. And this leader of the synagogue must have been a cesspool in his heart but very religious. He said, "There are six days in which work ought to be done, come on those days and be healed and not on the Sabbath day." It makes you want to throw up, I mean just imagine a woman bit over for eighteen years on the Lord's day with a word from the living God man stands up straight and this man has been out of shape about his rule. What's that really about? Not what you think it is, it's not what you think it is, let's listen to what Jesus says and he goes right to the heart of what it's really about. You hypocrites does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it end of the statement, he's done. There's not each of you on a hot Saturday afternoon looking at his possessions about to collapse under the heat of the sun, loosen them and take them to the water. You know what your Sabbath zeal is about, money, money. You've got this front on Sunday keeping the rule. No heart, no heart for people, your heart is off stone and you're in church every Sunday keeping the rule, making money, making money, loving your money, your donkey and your ox. That's what it's about, Jesus really got mad at people like that, really got mad. So that's number two. We're after the approval of other people, we put up fronts, it's deep craving and we've got these passions for stuff or maybe just use other pornography, a lot of pastors are into that and you do your rule thing, your religion thing on the Lord's day, not so much to win the approval of other people but just to keep this thing safe because if you really gave way to it, you couldn't do it anymore, you just let everybody know how much you love that ox, that portfolio, house, car, computer books, oh Bethlehem, I want us to be a loving people, not loving with hypocrisy but absolute genuineness and authenticity. So beware Bethlehem of making our religion a cloak for worldliness, liberals do this and fundamentalists do this. This is a word that cuts not between groups but through groups, all groups and through every human heart, liberals endlessly chattering away about the poor and about peace and about the environment and sleeping around on the weekend because personal morality is not where it's at, it's the big justice issues that count. That's a form of hypocrisy with a capital H and so evangelicals and fundamentalists have their way talking endlessly about the cesspool of modern culture and the godlessness of secular humanism and hiding away in their safe suburban and urban houses, surround sound, entertainment centers, driving their big $30,000 cars and not lifting one finger for the poor, there's a colossal capital H. So don't think that the issue of Christ's razor sword slicing on the issue of hypocrisy cuts between Republicans and Democrats, it doesn't, it cuts through Democrats and through Republicans and through Baptists and Catholics, the Episcopalians and Methodists and Presbyterians, it cuts through every heart on planet earth because they're not a person in this room who's not a hypocrite. And I'm mainly concerned about me and getting rid of my fakery. I want to make the hard calls on the telephone at a death or when I got to intervene in a marital situation like I did last Friday in Alaska. I want to make that phone call not, oh guess I'm supposed to do this, but rather what this marriage saved, I want the glory of Christ exalted, I want these two souls humbled and united in heaven, I really long for this because I have a real love in my heart, that's what I want, of course I want it for you too, but my battle is mainly John Piper, and if you could be helped by that I am thankful, cuts both ways. So here's what we want, I'm done, this is the closing. Love does not put up artificial fronts, love does not dwell on the flaws of others, love does not crave the praise of men and love does not act religious to hide different kinds of sin like love of money or love of sex. Love rather forgets itself by being enthralled with Christ. I count everything as loss for the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. Love treasures Christ, and then with that satisfaction spills over to meet the needs of others, let's pray, Father in heaven, we are all groping towards authenticity. We dress, we comb our hair, we put our makeup on, we drive our car, we walk a certain way, we sit a certain place, and we're thinking way too much about what others think of us instead of how we can bless other people. And so I pray, Lord, that love would be genuine at Bethlehem, starting here with me, moving out through the staff, the elders, make us an authentic church leadership who really love this flock, don't play games in religion, and then work out to the people so that they love each other, and then Lord let the world no longer call us hypocrites, make our love so genuine that the world would see, this is real, there's something here, they're attached to a reality that seems to satisfy their souls so that they are freed to give their lives away, make that so real that we would be a blessing to the world. Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Feel free to make copies of this message to give to others, but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission. We invite you to visit Desiring God Online at www.desiringgod.org. There you'll find hundreds of sermons, articles, radio broadcasts, and much more, all available to you at no charge. Our online store carries all of Pastor John's books, audio and video resources, you can also stay up to date on what's new at Desiring God. Again our website is www.desiringgod.org, or call us toll free at 1-888-346-4700. Our mailing address is Desiring God 2601 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55406. Desiring God exists to help you make God your treasure, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.
You can be a liberal hypocrite, and you can be fundamentalist hypocrite. But love is not that way.