Prescription For A Christian Life
August 28, 2011
Some of you know that yesterday was my birthday. I truly appreciate all the cards, messages, Face Book greetings and other birthday wishes I received.
I am another year older today!
At 56 I seem to have reached the age where I take a lot of pills.
I take a pill in the morning to help me wake up due to my sleep apnea. Sleep Apnea means that I quit breathing while asleep and will jerk when I start breathing again. Even though I don’t awaken, my body doesn’t get the rest it needs during the night many mornings I wake up tired – so I take a pill to help me stay awake. I take another pill in the middle of the day to help me stay awake – again due to my sleep apnea. I also sleep with a CPAP machine that helps my continue breathing at night – again due to the sleep apnea. Doctors have warned me that I need to sleep with the CPAP machine every night – - or I might stop breathing and not start again. There are nights I feel I have to sleep with one eye open to make sure Sally doesn’t cut the machine off!
Besides my pills for my sleep apnea I take a pill in the morning to keep my uric acid level under control. The doctor tells me that if I stop taking it I will develop gout in my foot – and I have had that enough to know that I do not want it again! I also take 3 pills at night – one for high cholesterol, and two for allergies.
I also have to have a bottle of Tylenol handy for the aches and pains I seem to be prone to – especially in my right knee that I had surgery on several years ago.
Whenever I pack to go anywhere I have to pack a rather large bag – what I call my “medicine kit” for all my pills – plus a lot of room in my suitcase for my CPAP – which is one of the older and more bulky models.
Yea – I have definitely arrived at that age where my pills follow me wherever I go!
Maybe some of you feel like you have reached that age also. If you haven’t reached it yet, you just might someday.
Why am I talking about medicines and prescriptions?
Well, our passage before us today – Romans 12:9-21 – is actually a continuation of the passage Paul Abell preached about last Sunday – Romans 12:1-9. I am not sure exactly what Paul said last Sunday, but judging from the passage and his sermon title I am guessing he addressed Paul’s call to those who follow Christ to be “living sacrifices” and to live lives that are “holy and acceptable to God”. The passage before us today – Romans 12:9-21 – goes into some specific details for how to do that.
I like to think of this passage as a prescription for a Christian life.
Just like a doctor can give you a prescription for medicine that will help you live a more healthy life, here in Romans 12:9-21 Paul is giving you a prescription for how to live a more Christian life.
The prescription Dr. Paul gives begins in verse 9 with: “Love must be sincere.” In many ways this injunction is a summary of the entire list Paul gives in these verses.
The word Paul chooses to use for love here is agape. He had several other words he could have used that we would still translate love – most notably philios – or the love we might have for a friend – and eros – or sexual love – but he chose to use agape – a word which is difficult to translate fully. It does mean love, but that simple word in English hardly includes everything Paul has in mind here. Before Christians came along, the word agape was hardly used in Greek. Christians, however, took that word and began using it to describe the love of God, particularly to describe the loving action of sending His Son to die for our sins. In using agape Paul referring to a deep love that is parallel to the love God has for you.
How do you know that God loves you? You see it and understand it by God’s action of sending Christ to die for your sins. If you are truly committed to living the Christian life, the life God is calling on you to live, the first part of the prescription Paul is giving you for how to live it is for you to have a love that is expressed in actions – just as God’s love is expressed in actions. You understand God’s love by His action. If you are going to live the life God is calling you to live the first step in the prescription is to live a life that shows love in your actions.
This genuine divine love is something that will compel you to reach out to help and support those you see every day. George Bernard Shaw once stated:
“The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.”
Genuine divine love is never indifferent to the needs of others – but is always looking for ways to meet the needs of others with specific actions and words.
Is this the love you have for others?
Are you an example of God’s agape love to those around you?
Can it be said of you that you are always looking for ways to meet the needs of others with specific actions and words?
Or – is your love for others more along the lines of philios – a warm feeling of being a friend or a buddy — until there is a real need and you find something else to do instead of getting involved and meeting the need with a specific action.
If you want to live the Christian life, the first part of the prescription Paul gives is that your love must be like God’s love – a love that actively looks for ways to reach out to others.
OK – that’s the first part to the prescription Dr. Paul gives for how to live a Christian life.
The second part is in the second portion of verse 9:
“Hate what is evil, cling to what is good.”
Like the first part of Dr. Paul’s prescription, this part is a far cry from being indifferent to the temptations you will face as you strive to live the Christian life. No – like the active approach to showing God’s love to others Paul is prescribing in the fist part of verse 9, here he is prescribing an active approach to avoiding the things you have to avoid if you are going to live the Christian life. This is an approach to the Christian life does much more that just pay lip service to the things God wants you to do.
Again the Greek words Paul uses are important here. This is the only time the word Paul uses that is translated “hate” appears in the New Testament. It is a very strong word and means more than merely hate – it is used in other places to mean to hate strongly or abhor. Paul is not saying that you need to express a distaste for the things that pull you away from God and how He wants you to live, but Paul is saying that you need to take an active stance against those things – while also actively uniting with what is good. The term used here that we translate “cling” can also be translated as glue together. In other words, Paul is reminding you that being a follower of Christ means more than just hanging on to the things God wants you be doing, but it means gluing yourself – attaching yourself — to those things.
Does this describe your attitude towards the things God says are not good for you and the things God says are good for you?
Do you “hate” the things God says are not good for you so much that you strongly abhor them and avoid them at all cost?
Do you “cling” to the things God says are good for you so strongly that you become glued to them and can not be separated from them?
If you want to live the Christian life, part of the prescription Dr. Paul gives is that you need to hate – abhor – and avoid that which is against what God wants you to do – while you must cling – or be glued to – the things God wants you to do.
Next in Dr. Paul’s prescription is really a result of “gluing yourself” to the good things God is calling you to do. Paul says to “be devoted to one another in brotherly love.”
This time the word Paul uses that is translated love is philios. This is the Greek word used to show brotherly love or affection. Agape is the divine love that underlies the entire Christian life, but philios embodies the idea of affection for a brother or a sister, and in the New Testament, primarily an affection for a fellow believer.
If you want to live the Christian life, part of the prescription Paul gives is to love your brothers and sisters in the Lord – or what we can refer to as the members of the Church.
Can it be said of you that you love your brothers and sisters in the Lord here at Hopewell?
How well do you show love to others in the Church?
Part of Dr. Paul’s prescription for Christian living is to be devoted to one another in brotherly love.
The rest of the items in this prescription continue to clarify the way that how to live the Christian life.
“Honor one another above yourselves” sounds a little foreign to most people, but it seems that Paul is using a fancy way to remind Christians of the importance of humility.
A noted scholar was once approaching the dais when a loud round of applause broke out from the audience. He immediately looked around to see if someone else was behind him – it was simply impossible for him to even consider that the applause might be meant for him.
If you want to live the Christian life, be humble.
Dr. Paul continues:
“Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor.”
The Christian life should be a passionate adventure. When Paul wrote these words being a Christian was likely to cause a series of problems for believers, possibly even death, as it did for Paul himself. Only those passionate about their belief needed to bother to participate. The fact that Paul includes such a comment in this prescription for living the Christian life indicates that passion was something people in his day could have trouble sustaining, just as some people have problems being passionate about their faith today.
How about you?
How passionate are you about your faith?
How passionate are you about living the Christian life – and growing in your faith?
Can it be said of you that you are a passionate Christian – - or are you luke warm?
Dr. Paul prescribes for you to:
“Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor” if you want to live the Christian life.
Next in the prescription is “Serve the Lord.”
How well do you serve God?
Do you seize the opportunities you have to serve God and others?
If you look at your life you might find it easy to see the chances and opportunities to serve God and others that you have taken and rejoice over them. If you look at your life seriously, though, you will find opportunities that were lost because they were ignored.
If you want to grow in the Christian life, serve the Lord – take the opportunities God gives you.
Next we see that Dr. Paul has written:
“be faithful in prayer.”
It might be a surprise to find prayer listed so far down this prescription of how to live the Christian life. This might show that in the early church prayer was so central to the life of the believers that Paul thought it needed only a passing reminder to persevere in it.
How is your prayer life?
Can it be said of you that you are “faithful in prayer”?
Other pieces to the prescription Dr. Paul gives for how to live the Christian life include things such as sharing with those who are in need and practicing hospitality.
“bless those who persecute you”
and
“live in harmony with one another”
These two parts of the prescription Dr. Paul gives may be some of the most difficult – the “hardest pills” – for you to swallow.
When someone says something bad about you – what’s your first reaction?
Probably not to see how you can bless them – but say something bad back to them. But Dr. Paul says this is not the Christian way.
Blessing those who persecute you and living in harmony is not easy and takes practice. It is an example of that agape love God calls you to have – a love that actively shows His love to others – even those who don’t show love to you. I believe that you can’t incorporate this into your life without prayer – which may be why Dr. Paul lists prayer in his prescription before he lists blessing those who persecute you and living in harmony with others.
So – you have a lot of things in this prescription Dr. Paul gives you for living the Christian life. Things like sincere love, hating evil and clinging to good, being devoted to others, honoring others above yourself, never be lacking in zeal, serving the Lord, be faithful in prayer, blessing those who persecute you, and living in harmony with others.
The final piece to the prescription seems to encompass them all:
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
This is certainly not the way you might choose to live if you were living like you want, but it is the way God chooses for you to live if you are going to live like He wants.
This prescription Dr. Paul gives us is not simple – but it is simply the way that you need to live your life as a Christian. Amen.
