CCC Livestream - It's All About The Gospel - Romans 12:9-13

Live Worship Gathering: 11/02/2025

Preaching: Jason Purdy

Marks Of Christian Living Part 1

Jason Purdy

It’s All About The Gospel / Romans 12:9–13

I invite you to turn with me to Romans 12.

We will be looking at verses 9-13 today.

Kids, I hope you have one of our children’s activity sheets to help you follow along as well.

Have you ever been with a person or a group of people who are talking about something, and you know you have absolutely nothing to contribute to the conversation?

I experienced that at elder meeting this week, we were talking about the 2026 financial ministry plan, and some of the guys were talking something about how people can move their stocks into some non profit something or other in order to plan for giving to the church or something.

Like I said, I had no idea.

Not only did I have no idea, I didn’t even try to understand it.

That’s not my expertise, so I just blindly trust the other guys in the room who knew what they were talking about.

And my fear as your pastor is that you would approach the Bible, the gospel, and living out the Christian life the same way that I approach those finance conversations.

You come and listen to me, but you see me as the expert and that you have nothing to contribute.

Listen, there is no such thing as an expert Christian, or an expert in the Bible, or an expert in the Christian life.

While it is true that there is great depth in Scripture, and some things that are harder to understand, the gospel is not hard to understand.

In fact, the gospel is very near to each one of us, if we understand that we have all sinned against God by loving ourselves more than we love God and others.

Our sin deserves God’s punishment and death.

But while we were still sinners, God loved us so much that he sent his son to take the punishment and death of our sin in our place in order to save us from the wrath of God.

So, the gospel is not difficult to understand.

In the same way, the commands of God that come together to make up what it looks like to live the Christian life are not difficult to understand either.

And now that we have come to the twelfth chapter of the book of Romans where we are look at a lot of commands from God, the most important thing to remember is it took until chapter 12 for Paul to transition from what God has done for us in Christ to how we are to respond in Christian living,

Because Christianity is all about what God has done to save you in Christ, it is not about what you can do for God.

Yet, in saying that, once you truly understand and believe in what God has done to save you in Christ, God empowers you by His grace to begin to obey Him and live the life He has called you to live.

Another way to say it is: you do not live out the commands of the Christian life in order to earn favor with God.

You live out the commands of God once you understand that Jesus earned the full favor of God in your place and He is now empowering you by his grace to become more like Jesus as you trust in His perfect love toward you.

At the beginning of the chapter, Paul summarized the whole of the Christian life as offering ourselves as a living sacrifice in light of the great mercies of God toward us.

Last week, we began to talk about what living as a sacrifice looks like as we live a life of worshipful service in the context of the church through our spiritual gifting.

And just like Paul does in other places in the New Testament, he moves from the idea of serving with our spiritual gifts straight into the ultimate motivation of service which is love.

Would you follow along as I read God’s word:

Romans 12:9–13 ESV

9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

There are eleven points today because our verses have eleven commands, so let’s dive in:

1. Love Genuinely

It is does not take a PhD to understand what the Christian life is to be.

The Christian life is offering yourself in worshipful service as you love genuinely.

Love is a wholehearted commitment to the good of another.

1 John 4:9–10 ESV

9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

1 John 4:16 ESV

16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

These verses show us that the only way to understand what true love is, is through understanding and receiving the love of God through Jesus Christ.

And for all who have experienced the love of God through Christ and been born again to spiritual life now have the grace of God to empower them to love genuinely.

The word genuinely speaks to the fact that our love must go far beyond simply outwardly being nice to others.

A genuine love is a true commitment of the heart.

We see Peter describe genuine love in the same kind of way in

1 Peter 1:22 ESV

22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,

And when you are genuinely and wholeheartedly committed to the good of another, you abhor what is evil and cling to what is good, both for yourself and for others.

2. Abhor What Is Evil

In order to truly love and desire the good of others, we must abhor what is evil.

Growing in Christlikeness is simultaneously growing  to love the good and growing to hate evil.

And what is evil?

Proverbs 6:16–19 ESV

16 There are six things that the Lord hates,

seven that are an abomination to him:

17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue,

and hands that shed innocent blood,

18 a heart that devises wicked plans,

feet that make haste to run to evil,

19 a false witness who breathes out lies,

and one who sows discord among brothers.

So, in Christ, we grow to hate pride, hate lying, hate violence toward the innocent, hate wicked schemes, and hate those who sow discord and disunity amongst God’s people.

While I understand and resonate with people who say that as Christians, we want to display what Christ is for not just what He is against.

The truth is: we cannot do one without also doing the other.

Are you growing to abhor what is evil?

Hatred toward the tearing down of others?

Hatred of sin?

Hatred of injustice like the taking of innocent life?

Hatred of dishonest gain?

For if we truly love, we will hate anything that seeks to kill, steal, and destroy ourselves and others.

I encourage you to pray as I pray often, “God, teach me to truly hate my sin that seeks to destroy me, and hate sin that is seeking to destroy others.”

This is why true love is willing to confront a brother or sister in sin, for true love hates the evil that destroys those we love.

Abhor what is evil.

3. Cling To What Is Good

Genuine love does not only abhor evil, but it also clings to what is good.

The Christian life is not just about getting rid of sin and learning to hate sin.

The Christian life is just as much about filling your heart, your mind, and your life with true goodness as defined by God, and growing to love what is good.

Jesus said that a young man will leave his father and mother and cling to his wife.

Paul uses the same word here about clinging to what is good.

Paul writes a very similar thing in:

1 Thessalonians 5:21–22 ESV

21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil.

One way to think about goodness is to simply reflect on what pleases God.

For God is good and loves goodness.

Paul will go on in Romans to say that it is good to obey and respect proper authority, that we are to do good toward our neighbor and all people, and down in verse 21 we will read that as followers of Jesus, we are even to return good for evil.

You see, you don’t just fight sin and destruction by learning to hate it, you replace it and drown it out by filling your life with goodness.

It’s like I have said the past few weeks as these passages have gotten practical:

If you live to please God through providing for your family, loving your spouse and any children God gives you, and giving yourself to a life of service through his church and his mission, you aren’t going to have time or energy for much else, and that’s a good thing.

What do we always say kind of tongue and cheek when we talk about being busy?

We say, “At least it keeps me out of trouble. There’s a lot of truth to that.”

Don’t just learn to hate evil. Replace it by clinging to good and fill your life with work and activity that pleases the Lord.

Cling to what is good.

4. Love One Another With Affection

Verse 10: love one another with brotherly affection.

This speaks to a familial kind of loving affection we are to have toward one another in the body of Christ.

Paul speaks of the body of Christ with the language of family in other places as well.

1 Timothy 5:1–2 ESV

1 Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, 2 older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.

Robin and I tell our kids often that we are a family.

And in a family we support one another, pray for one another, bear with one another’s weaknesses, forgive one another, and seek to build one another up.

And whether you were born into a family like that or not, if you are in Christ, you have been adopted into the family of God with spiritual fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers.

You see, God’s commitment of love toward us goes so much further than doing right by us.

His love for us is wholehearted, intimate, sincere, and warm.

He is drawn toward us.

That’s why we don’t just call Jesus’ death in our place His work, but we also call it his passion.

Because he has passionate love toward us, and we are called as a family of God to have passionate love toward one another.

Passionate to forgive and be gracious, passionate to maintain unity, passionate for other’s good and flourishing.

Love one another with affection.

5. Outdo One Another In Showing Honor

For those of you who have a more competitive nature, here is something you should be competing in for the rest of your life:

Seek to outdo one another in showing honor.

You like to outdo and one up others? One up them in showing honor.

When Paul speaks of having the mind of Christ in Philippians 2, he uses the same greek word that is translated there: count others more significant than yourselves.

It’s a way that we live in stark contrast to the world around us: when we show honor to one another.

How easy and natural it is to our flesh to tear down and speak negatively of others.

How supernatural and godly it is to build others up and speak well of others.

Seeking to outdo one another in showing honor finds its foundation in the truth that every human being is equally valuable as one made in the image of God.

So, we honor our elders, we honor our peers, we honor our spouses, in a way, we even honor children.

Now, of course, we are proper authorities over them, but that does not mean we talk down to and demean them.

Be on guard, the language of the culture is oftentimes so dishonorable, and the culture even seeks to call good evil as though men are not to show honor to women by being protectors, providers, and one’s who open doors, give up their seats, and use proper language in addressing them.

Honor others by giving them time, giving them a listening ear, talking more about their needs and concerns than you do your own.

Honor one another by not making negative assumptions but by believing all things, hoping all things, and enduring all things.

Honor one another by asking for clarification when you perceive an offense.

Honor one another by giving preference to others’ needs and interests.

I’m about to honor some in my family by sitting through a good amount of romantic Christmas movies over the next two months.

Honor others’ service and gifting.

Honor your aging parents and provide and care for them as they did for you.

Honor those who are in authority over you even when they are not watching or hearing you.

The Christian life is an honorable life.

It is a life of showing honor and living in an honorable way.

For while we were destitute sinners, God honored us by giving His son, raising him to life, and giving him the place of honor seated at his right hand, and in salvation, Ephesians says God has seated us with Christ in the heavenly places, a great place of honor.

Outdo one another in showing honor.

6. Be Zealous In Service To The Lord

Verse 11: Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.

Do not be lazy, but instead, be zealous in service to the Lord.

Be fervent in spirit.

The original language gives the idea of boiling over in the spirit.

I grew up in a Christian culture where people would say that someone was really on fire for Jesus.

And, of course, they don’t mean that the person needs to stop, drop, and roll.

It means they are excited and energized by their relationship with God, and they are motivated in their service to God and his mission through the church in the world.

I want you to know that I am including myself in what I am about to share.

I find that for the most part, none of us are talking about being on fire for Jesus anymore, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.

Almost down to the man, how do we describe ourselves these days? We are busy, and we are tired.

A generation ago, it wasn’t just the pastor who talked about God’s calling for ministry.

Not long ago, Sunday school teachers would speak of being called of God to teach the fifth graders the Bible, and they would do it like fifty Sundays per year.

And, by God’s grace, we have some here who teach our children God’s word every Wednesday night and we have Children’s church teachers, and so many others that is a huge blessing.

This is the most service oriented church I have ever been a part of, and I don’t take that for granted.

But, for most of us who are my age or younger, too many of us consider ourselves too busy and too tired to more than once per month in a ministry of the church.

What’s the difference? Truth.

Our screen time way out paces our Bible time.

We give our rest time to screens that bombard us with the world.

You used to be an expert in something if you went to college for it, but now, you have to listen to the podcasts on the subjects every day to keep up.

You used to be concerned with your community and church, but now, 24 hour news and our phones tell us to concern ourselves with all the things of the world everyday.

The amount of pressure on our young people to perform in school and athletics.

Call me old school or whatever you want, but in order for us to obey God’s command to not be slothful in zeal, but fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, we must limit our scrolling, our streaming, and our children’s striving in school and athletics, and we must read our Bibles, pray, and serve God’s mission through His church.

One way we are going to look different than the world in this generation is that we are going to miss out and not be in the know of all the things of the world.

It may take some radical steps beginning today in order to follow this command.

I’m already thinking of some for myself.

Be zealous in service to the Lord.

7. Rejoice In Hope

Verse 12 is a wonderful life verse and certainly one to cling to in the midst of everyday life:

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

Paul writes in Corinthians that the Christian life is permeated by faith, hope, and love.

If you are in Christ, your whole existence is permeated in hope.

In Christ, you cannot escape from hope.

For no matter what trials you are experiencing today and what trials you will meet throughout the rest of your life on earth, your future of perfect hope is totally secure.

What will separate you from the love of Christ?

Romans 8:18 ESV

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

That’s your future in Christ.

Peter said it this way:

1 Peter 1:13 ESV

13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

If 100% of your hope is wrapped up in the day that you see Jesus face to face and the glorious eternity that is in store for you, how much of your hope do you have to place in your job, in your possessions, in everything needing to turn out a certain way in this life?

None.

If you are in Christ, you don’t need one more thing to go right for the rest of your days on earth in order to be 100% filled with hope.

Rejoicing in our hope drives us, motivates us, fills us with patient endurance, gives us the ability to forgive, and love, and serve, and not lose heart.

How much time are you spending filling your mind and your heart with the hope you have in Jesus?

How often are you reminding yourself that the hardships you experience here are not going to be worth comparing to the glory you will experience when you get there?

Rejoice in hope.

8. Be Patient In Tribulation

Some other versions read: endure in affliction.

Be patient in the midst of trial, hardship, and distress.

It is so natural for us to believe that we should desire a life of ease separated from tribulations.

To the world, suffering and hardship seems so meaningless.

Yet, in Christ, we know that every trial is totally meaningful.

Romans 5:3–5 ESV

3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

See, our trials and sufferings are used in God’s providence to wean off of the false hopes of the world and to set our hope more and more fully on the future eternity God has planned for us.

Be patient.

As my daddy always said, this too shall pass.

Rejoice in hope that all suffering and trial have an end date.

Be patient in tribulation.

9. Be Constant In Prayer

Some versions say: Devote yourself to prayer.

One of the greatest reasons to wean off of the things of the world and get used to missing out on the things of the world is for the sake of our prayers.

We should devote time to times of prayer, praying the Lord’s prayer, prayers of praise and confession, thanksgiving and asking of our requests,

But then their is another aspect of prayer that should be constant.

It is a practice of the presence of the Lord where you realize that your Heavenly Father is always near to you, He never despises you, and his ear is always inclined to hear your prayer, so you are in constant communication with Him from your heart.

You pray to God little one sentence thoughts all throughout the day.

You share one phrase thanksgivings for the blessings you see all around you.

You pray one phrase confessions as you are aware of indwelling sin.

You pray, “God help me in this.” “God, be merciful” as you witness someone else's needs and shortcomings.

You enjoy communion with your Father as you tell him anything and everything on your mind and heart as you drive down the street or stand in line at the pharmacy.

Oh, that we would be rid of the fear of missing out on the world so that we would be constant in prayer!

10. Contribute To The Needs Of The Saints

The church in Rome that Paul was writing to would have had members who had lost their livelihood by confessing Jesus as Lord.

The book of Acts tells us that the early church were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, to any who had need.

Now note, the Bible does not say this is how government works, but it does say this is how the church works, this is how a family works.

We provide for one another. We sacrifice some of what we have to ensure that no brother or sister in Christ goes without what they need.

In the church family, the one who has distributes to the one who is in need.

1 Timothy 5:8 ESV

8 But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

While this certainly applies to blood relatives, it must also hold application for the family of God.

We live in a culture where finances are a very private matter.

But in the family of God, it is imperative that we contribute to the needs of the saints.

What that means is that a crisis of physical need for one of our members is a crisis of need for us all, and we should meet it together as Christ has met our great need.

Remember the verses last week, having gifts, let us use them: the one who contributes, in generosity.

So, if you have a true need, it is good and right to let your church family know, so that they can meet it.

And none of us should hold a debt over the head of one to whom we gave for

Romans 13:8 ESV

8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

I’m not saying Christians cannot make business deals with other Christians.

I’m talking about in a case of urgent need.

Church member, do not go without food, shelter, or clothing as a member of Christ’s church and bring shame on the name of Christ whose brothers and sisters could have helped you provide for that need.

Their may be times where the church can provide things life financial counseling to set someone up for longterm financial health.

Church members, be ready to contribute to the needs of the saints.

11. Seek To Show Hospitality

There were no Hampton Inn’s in the early church.

When a Christian would arrive unannounced from another place, it was imperative for the Christian community to welcome them in and show them hospitality and provide for basic needs.

The spirit of hospitality is bound up in the friendly and generous reception of guests, visitors, and strangers.

It is an open handed spirit of welcoming others into your spaces and your circles.

Something that brings a joy filled tear to my eye is when the visitors of Christ Covenant Church tell me how friendly and welcoming this faith family was to them.

Oh church, may we never take that for granted.

May we continue to welcome others as Christ has welcomed us.

May we not only welcome them into our services but into our lives and our homes when appropriate.