Transformation Over Attendance
4 Priorities for Gospel Saturation

Below is an automated transcript of this message:

All right, good morning, church! It’s good to see all of you here this morning. We’re continuing our four-part series entitled, “Four Priorities For Gospel Saturation.” When we use that phrase, “gospel saturation,” here’s what we’re talking about: “Gospel Saturation is the church owning the lostness of an identified people in a defined place, ensuring that every man, woman, and child has repeated opportunities to see, hear, and respond to the Good News of Jesus Christ where they live, learn, work, and play.” Simply stated, what we’re saying is that each of us are called to be mobilized to go out and tell people in our neighborhoods, in our families, in our schools and in our places of work about the good news of Jesus and to give them multiple opportunities. Because our church is in Wilson County and we have a campus in Nash County in Rocky Mount, we feel that God has called us to be responsible, to own the lostness of those two communities and to feel the responsibility. To make sure everyone gets an opportunity to hear the Gospel.

What we’re doing is just restating the Great Commission where Jesus said this,Mark 16:15 (ESV) “And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” We’re just restating that and we recognize that we, as believers, have been called to do that. How are we doing?

Last week, we talked about the status of the American church at large. Today, let’s get a little bit more specific. What about our church? Well, if you were here in January, we took a survey on a Sunday morning. We asked some pretty important questions. Here’s just a couple of the answers that you gave. We asked, “How important to you is the Great Commission?” You’ve been called to tell the world about Jesus. 252 people answered the survey. 85% said it was very important.

Yet, when asked, “How many people have you talked to in the past year about the good news of Jesus?” Very few people were able to say that they had talked to maybe one person. Then, the follow up question was, “How satisfied or how happy are you with your obedience to the Great Commission, that you, personally, are talking to people about Jesus? On a scale of 1 to 10, rank your happiness about your obedience to the Great Commission. The average was five out of ten. So, we believe in the Great Commission, but we’re not happy with how we’re doing.

That’s what you said, when we asked you to answer those questions in churches across America today. We’re hearing that they’re saying things like, ‘We’ve been going to church, but we don’t know how to pray, how to read the bible for ourselves or how to hear from God. We don’t know how to hear God speak through prayer and bible reading.’ We’re hearing Christians saying that they’ve been going to church ; they know how to do that, but they don’t know how to tell their “grace story.” What I mean by a “grace story” is the story of what Jesus did for you. You’re the worldwide expert on what Jesus did for you. But, people are saying, ‘I don’t know how to talk about that.’

Finally, we’re hearing people say, ‘I don’t know what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and I certainly don’t know what it means to make a disciple.’ So, we’re seeing people that are good at attendance; they’re attending, but they’re not being transformed. They don’t know some basic things like being able to read the bible for yourself and pray. People aren’t satisfied; they’re not happy with their own transformation.

Just to summarize, pop up a couple of slides. Maybe this is what’s gotten us into this situation. Here’s the first slide. This is the status quo of how the church has been doing “business,” if you will. This is what it’s been looking like; we’ve been trying to “collect” as many people as we can in one church. We’re good at collecting, but not so good at sending. We’re good at gathering, but not so good at mobilizing.

We talked about this last week. Today, we’re going to be talking more about this. We’re good at building an organization inside of our church, but we’re not so good at seeing transformation. We’re a competing culture. We see ourselves as in competition with other churches. That’s the way the church has been in the past.

Finally, we have to protect our assets. We must take care of our building and our “stuff.” Maybe this is what has gotten us into this situation; this kind of priority system, but there’s a better way.

Look at the next slide. We talked about this last week. Instead of just being a gathering community, we are one who are good at sending and mobilizing people. Instead of just being good at attendance, we are building disciples who have transformed lives. We are to stop competing, seeing other churches and saying, ‘Oh, we have the best pastor or we have the best program or we have the best worship team.’ Instead of talking like that, we begin to collaborate. We’ll be talking about that on a future Sunday, what it looks like to collaborate with other gospel-centered churches because we’ll never be able to reach this city by ourselves. We need to work together. Instead of being a place that just protects its assets, how can we give it away? How can we release assets in order to reach our community? That’s what we’re talking about; we’re working through those four shifts in focus.

This week it’s “transformation over attendance.” God wants His people to be more than attenders of church services. He wants us to live transformed lives that attract other people to Jesus.

Here’s a good definition of what we’re talking about: Transformation “occurs when God’s people are captivated by the gospel, empowered by His indwelling Spirit, and compelled by love to live holy lives.” Does that look like your life? Are you living a transformed life? When you think about this, would you say, ‘Since I’ve come to Jesus, my life has totally changed.’ Even better, would others say, ‘You’re not the person I used to know. You’ve really changed since you’ve become a Christian. You’ve really, really changed.’

What does it mean to have your life changed? Here’s what the bible really means by that: You’re becoming more like Jesus. If you read the Four Gospels, you read about Jesus, that you would be more like Him in your character and in your behavior. Have you made Jesus King AND Lord of your life? That’s where transformation begins.

Here’s what Neal McGlahon says, “Whatever the King touches, the King changes.” Have you been touched by the King? Are you living a transformed life ?

I think that one of the reasons that the American church is losing influence and is in decline is because we’re not seeing people that attend church actually live transformed lives. How about you? Do you want to live and become more like Jesus? Another way of asking is, ‘What kind of an old man or old woman do you want to be?’ Look in the mirror now, you can already see where the wrinkles are forming; are they worry or angry lines or or are they smile lines? What kind of wrinkles are you making? You’re working on what kind of old man or old woman you’re going to be someday. Right now, though, wouldn’t you rather have Jesus transform your life?

In chapter 12 of the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, he told believers that they could fully devote themselves to the Lord, that they could fully give themselves to the Lord and see their lives transformed by following Jesus.

I believe, today, that when we give our lives fully to the Lord, He will transform us. How is this possible? How can this happen? What are the marks of it? We’re going to look and see three marks of the transformed life in Romans, chapter 12. So let’s dig in.

Romans 12:1-13 (ESV) 1 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. 3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of of another. 6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; 8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. 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.” This is God’s word.

We’re looking for three marks of the transformed life; what it looks like to live the transformed life. The first mark is:

1. Total surrender to Christ.

Now, when I say “marks,” I do not mean steps. If I say “steps,” , that implies that you can work at something, at some sort of self actualization or legalistic path you can follow. You can’t do this, you cannot work your way to a transformed life. This is not a self-help manual that we’re talking about, where, if you do these five things or these three things, it’ll lead to certain results.

The only one who can change you, transform your life, is the Lord Jesus. The only way He can do that is if you surrender your entire life to Him. It has been said in the early centuries of the church, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries or maybe even later than that, when knighthood began, that it was fashionable among knights when they were baptized as they went below the baptismal waters, they would hold their right hand up out of the water because they wanted to make sure their sword hand was not baptized, so they could still do battle . Many Christians today do that; I’m giving my whole life to the Lord except for this, except for that. Maybe, one of the most fashionable things in America is except for my wallet, let me hold that up out of the water. I don’t want to baptize my finances. If it’s a single person, it may be his dating life. God, I surrender everything except that I get to choose my mate, my education, the house I live in, the car I drive… Anything that you withhold is the area you haven’t given over, totally surrendered, to the Lord.

Notice the language here in verse one, 1 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” To present, to offer your whole life and surrender to Jesus. Because here’s the truth, “God is either Lord of all or He’s not Lord at all. That one area where you’re still clinging to your own will and you really want to do it this way, that area where you’re still in control, you have not offered your bodies as living sacrifices. See, the problem with living sacrifices is they try to “crawl off the altar.” That’s what we do sometimes. Every day, we have to put ourselves back there and recommit. It’s often this process.

In fact, transformation is always a process; little by little you learn to trust the Lord with everything. You declare it by faith, I give you my whole life, but then, as time goes on, you realize, Wait a minute, I was holding this back and I didn’t even realize it. Maybe you did realize it and that’s why you haven’t grown, that’s why you haven’t become more like Jesus, you’ve been holding back notice a couple of things paul says, I appeal to you, he doesn’t command, he appeals and it’s because of this terrifying situation we as pastors find ourselves in, we cannot produce transformed disciples. No matter how well I preach, no matter whether I’m gifted or poor at it, it doesn’t matter the level of my ability to transmit the gospel to you. It will not transform your lives. Only God can do this. That’s terrifying for me; I’ve been in the ministry for thirty years, but I can claim not one transformed life that I have produced, including my own. If there’s any transformation in me or in you, it’s because you said “yes” to Jesus and you submitted your life to Him totally and you began to be more like Him. I’m called to make disciples that I can’t make without Him working in us.

Here’s what’s really terrifying. If you’re a mom or a dad, it’s true of your parenting. You can tell them about Jesus when they are 7, 8, 9 or 10 years old. You can teach them to the point where they want to be baptized and they get baptized, but yet, you still don’t know if they did it for you, for their friends or if it’s really their faith. You can’t know because you can’t touch a human heart. Only God can change the heart. It’s terrifying, isn’t it, mom and dad?

We sent our youth to a camp last week and I was praying like crazy, “God, I pray that the faith that they have, that their family and that their church has given them, would move from their head to their heart. Amen.” You’re the only one that can do that, Lord. I pray something happens to our young people.

All three of my children, now, are believers; praise the Lord. They’re married and they have kids. Now, we’re working on the grandkids. Several of them are still “pagans;” y’all pray for them. We’re still talking to them about Jesus. It’s terrifying though. There’s something about being a parent that causes you to pray. There’s something about being a pastor that causes you to pray. Only God can change your life.

Romans 12:1 says, “I appeal.” He doesn’t command. He says, I beg you, I entreat you, I appeal to you. Then, he says, “therefore.” Whenever we see the word, “therefore,” we should always ask, ‘What’s it there for?’ The reason it’s there is it’s like an “equal sign” in the text; whatever is preceded in the text equals what he’s about to say. There’s eleven chapters of Paul telling us how much God loves us. Whether you are Greek or Jew, He’s made you one family, through belief in Jesus and how Jesus died for you. “Therefore by the mercies of God.” God, in all of His mercy, did all of that for you. If He gave everything for you, then Paul is appealing to you that you would give everything to Him. “Which is your spiritual worship.” The word that’s translated, “spiritual,” there could easily be translated, “reasonable” or “logical.” In other words, it just makes sense. If Jesus gave everything for you, I appeal to you to give everything for Him. That’s what Paul is saying to us. Offer yourself as a holy and acceptable gift to God; offer everything to Him.

Stop being conformed to the world. The word “conformed” in the Greek is where we get the word “schematic;” “suschēmatizō” in the Greek. It’s where we get the word for something that’s pressed on you. It has the idea of outward; like something you pour into a mold. So, don’t let the world “pour you into its mold;” don’t be conformed to what the world says about you.

Instead, be transformed. Do you see that? Be transformed. It’s a cool Greek word (I’m full of Greek words today, aren’t I?) “metamorphoō.” What does that sound like? It sounds like the word, metamorphosis. Be transformed. I’ve got a cute little cartoon for you here, maybe you remember from biology class they used the biological term, “metamorphosis,” to describe the transition from caterpillar to butterfly. So here we have the caterpillar saying, “Is that you, Gladys? I hardly recognized you!” That’s what should happen with you when you give your life to Jesus, completely to Jesus. The people you grew up with should look at you and say, ‘Wow, what happened to you? You’re just so different!’ You should change; you should be transformed.

Now, when I say “transform,” I don’t mean like a cherry tree into an orange tree. A caterpillar is always meant to grow up to be a butterfly. That’s what God intended. That was his intent. They don’t look the same, it’s a transformation, but it was always His intent. It’s not like you’re going to change into something else; you’re going to change into that which He always meant for you. The best is what He wants for you and He wants you to be like Jesus. If you wonder what He’s up to, He wants you to be like Jesus . The transformed life is marked by this renewal of the mind. “Be transformed by the renewal;” He wants you to think differently. This new way of thinking will result in being able to discern what the will of God is. You see that in verse two.

Young people are often coming to me, usually when they’re trying to make some big life decision: Should I marry him or her? Should I take this job? Go to this school? Major in this subject? God’s not trying to hide His will from you. In fact, He wrote it all down right here. If you’ll trust Him with your entire life, no matter what He says, you’ve decided in advance no matter what He says to you, that your “yes” is on the table. You are going to do what He tells you to do. You will be surprised how quickly He’ll reveal His will to you. Where we get in trouble is when we say, ‘I want God’s will, but I love him and I’m gonna marry him, no matter what God’s will is.’ Then, we struggle, what we’re really looking for is not God’s will. We’re looking for somebody to agree with our will. You have to totally surrender your life in order to hear God’s will. When you do, you have a transformed mind, a renewed mind that can understand.

What does a renewed mind look like? Luke 9:23 (ESV) And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. It looks like self denial. It looks like taking up your cross and I’m not talking about that little gold or silver one that you hang on a necklace around your neck. I’m talking about the one with the splinters and the spikes in it. In other words, count yourself dead; the old life is gone and the new life has risen.



Paul says it like this in Galatians 2:20 (ESV) “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christwho lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” My whole life is dead, but the new life I live is Christ in me, living through me. That’s what the transformed life looks like. You surrender your life to Him and then you begin to behave like Him. You begin to take on His character traits.

When Paul was writing to the church at Galatia, he was worried about the fact that they were starting to fall into the flesh, into a “works based” kind of religion. He got worried about them. He wrote this in Galatians 4:19 (NIV) “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.” You can’t do this, but you can let Christ do it in You. It’s not about rules and regulations. It’s about submission to the Holy Spirit and to let Him do a work in you .

The American evangelist, D. L. Moody, often told the story of how the challenging words of the British revivalist, Henry Varley had affected him. Parley preached, “The world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to Him.” To which Moody responded, “By God’s help, I aim to be that man.” We know that God gave D. L. Moody a great gift.

William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, was once asked to reveal the secret of his success. After some hesitation, tears came to his eyes and he said, “I will tell you the secret. God has had all there was of me. There have been men with greater brains than I have, men with greater opportunities, but from the day that I got the poor of London on my heart and caught a vision of what Jesus could do with them, I made up my mind that God should have all of William Booth.” It wasthis which led Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman, the questioner, to remark, “I learned from William Booth that the greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender.” In other words, just not how high you can climb, but how low you can bow, that determines your greatness in the kingdom of heaven.

Have you surrendered all to Jesus? Are you holding something up out of that baptismal fountain and you’re saying, ‘Except for that; I got that.’ That’s the one area that’s kept you from experiencing the transformed life. Here’s the second mark:

2. True identity found in Christ.

If the first mark is total surrender, the second mark is that of who you are; your true identity is based on what Christ says about you. We are in verse three, “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” We’re talking about how you should think about yourself.

It’s the ”hot button” issue of this generation: identity. We have a whole month named on identity. There’s a whole alphabet of identities being celebrated this month.

Paul says here that there’s a way to find your identity.not think too highly of yourself. It’s an interesting Greek word, “huperphroneō;” it’s where we get the word “super” or “hyper.” Another way of saying this would be, ‘Don’t be so high minded, don’t be so prideful about who you think you are.’

Then, the scripture says, “think with sober sober judgment.” Think of yourself rightly. He’s not saying that you should think nothing of yourself. He doesn’t say, ‘stop thinking of yourself.’ No, you need to have an identity. You need to know who you are, but don’t think so highly of yourself. Think of yourself with this sober judgment, which comes from where? “According to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” There’s a metric.

You know, if I stand up. and I might be getting shorter now that I’m getting older, but usually when I stand up for a physical at the doctor’s office, the nurse looks up and says, ‘You’re six ft. tall.” I won’t tell you what the scale says, but I am six ft. tall. So, there’s a measurement of how tall I am.

Did you know that there’s a measurement or a metric by which you’re supposed to measure your identity? I think the best measurement is the mirror. Let’s look at it that way. What’s the mirror you should look into so that you know who you really are?

The book of James, chapter one says that God’s word is a mirror. So you should look there to find out who you are, but I think the centerpiece of God’s word, the part that’s really helpful as a metric, as a measurement is the gospel. If you look at the gospel, you look at the cross, which is the centerpiece of the gospel. You look at it and you say, ‘Man, that’s ugly. That’s painful. It’s horrific that He died for us.’ You see the ugliness of your sin, so that it pulls you down off of your high horse. You’re a sinner and that’s what your sin looks like, but then, you see His arms spread out and you hear Him say, ‘Father, don’t count this sin against them; they know not what they do.’ You see the love of the Father that put Him there. That lifts you up and you say, ‘He loves me more than anyone has ever loved me.’ The gospel gives you a right mindedness for your identity. You’re messed up; you’re a sinner, but He loves you anyway. That gives you a sober judgment according to that measure of faith He’s revealed to you through the gospel and through God’s word, so you can think right mindedly about your identity.

Socrates says this; this is his most well known quote: “Know thyself.” You’ve heard this, “Know Thyself.” Tim Keller describes three ways people look to know their identity: Outward, inward, or upward. Outward (the traditional approach), we get our identity by conforming to who our community tells us we are. Inward (the modern approach), as individuals, we decide who we are based on our own sense of self. Upward, finding your true identity in Christ. “What matters is not what society says about me, nor what I think of myself, but what God does” Tim Keller describes three ways people look to know their identity: Outward, inward, or upward. Outward (the traditional approach), we get our identity by conforming to who our community tells us we are. Inward (the modern approach), as individuals, we decide who we are based on our own sense of self. Upward, finding your true identity in Christ. “What matters is not what society says about me, nor what I think of myself, but what God does.” Keller says that we’ve looked in three different mirrors, if you will. mirrors is my word, not Keller’s word, but I’m still using the mirror idea. He says, there’s the there’s the outward, the N word and the upwards and the traditional mirror, if you will, the traditional view was outward. And so you let your community tell you who you are, your family, the school you grew up going to, and that’s that’s kind of the identity fashioning way that I grew up under, it’s not perfect. In fact, it’s very fallible. And if you grow up in a dysfunctional family or a dysfunctional community, you’ll be pretty dysfunctional because they told you who you were and it wasn’t right. And so maybe that’s why today the modern way is the inward mirror. You look inside and you identify yourself based on your own passions, your own feelings, your own desires; you look inward, but the problem with that is that mirror is warped with sin. You look in the mirror and you see a warped image of yourself and then you name yourself based on your gender, skin color or addiction. You say, ‘That’s who I am.’ Both of these are faulty because they’re both based on conforming to the outward sinful culture. It’s people on the outside, who are sinners, and they’re telling you who you are, but they’re sinners, and when you are looking in the mirror while you’re a sinner, there’s got to be a better way.

Paul says to look upward. You look up and He says to you, ‘I’m the one Who made you and I know what I’m up to, I want you to look like this. I want this to be your identity. Your identity is you’re a sinner, but you’re forgiven and you are loved. I made you for a purpose.’ This new identity, now, is wrapped up in who you are in Jesus. The scripture goes on to say what? It says that you are a member of a body; you have a new family. You’ve looked upward. Jesus tells you who you are; look around – you’re my brothers and sisters. I’ve got a new family, and not only that, I’ve got a new purpose because he says we’re different; we are individually different but members of one another. We’re all unique and he begins to list some of the gifts, this is not a comprehensive list, but he lists prophecy, serving, teaching, exhortation, leadership, giving acts of mercy … He’s not trying to give us a complete list, but he’s basically saying that now you have a purpose in the family. You have a job. These are identifying features of the new identity we have in Christ. He’s laying this out for us and he’s saying you’ve got a new identity and you are to find your new identity in this

I was talking to some of the youth leaders about the recent youth camp. The youth leaders said that they’ll play this little game with the kids: as they’re walking to the convention center or big meeting place, other youth groups are also walking up, but then there’s also just random people walking on the sidewalk, too. They will play a game: Is that group another youth group or not? Here’s how they decide and they get 100% right every time. Here’s what they look for. Are you ready for this? This is how you know it’s another youth group that’s walking up. It’s because the only explanation for that group of kids being together is if they’re part of a church group because one is dressed “goth,” one looks like he just came off the cover of GQ magazine… This is the only explanation because if you go to a high school or any other school, no way those kids are hanging out together. The only explanation for them hanging out together has got to be that they’re part of the body of Christ. I think that’s one of the best illustrations of what the church is. We are different; some of us are short, some of us are tall, some of us are male, some of us are female, some of us are black, white, yellow or red, some of us have this opinion and that opinion or this gift or that gift. But the truth is, what makes us one is this new identity that we have in Christ.

It’s the only explanation for why you’re even here today. Look around you, would you hang out with these people for any other reason? I’m not going to go through all the gifts. I’ve done that at other times and in other sermons. My purpose in this passage is to help you understand the key mark and that’s the new identity you have in Christ. We did preach through chapter 12 in three different sermons in November of this past Fall. You can go to the website if you’d like to dig in more deeply on each of those spiritual gifts, but know this, He wants to give you a new identity.

It says in 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 (ESV) 17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We imploreyou on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”

We’re called to be the reconcilers in this world. Your true identity is found in Christ. Would you look in the mirror of the gospel and find your identity there? There’s young people here right now that aren’t allowed to drive a car. They’re too young to get a driver’s license. Let’s make sure that they don’t get to choose their identity at this point in their life. Make sure you’re putting the word of God in front of them. Young person, listen to me. Don’t let outward pressure, peer pressure in your school and from the media from Hollywood pressure you into some false identity. This is so important. Find your true identity in Jesus Christ.

Now here’s the third mark:

3. Compelled by the love of Christ.

The first mark is total surrender. The second is true identity. The third is compelled by the love of christ. We are at verse nine, “Let love be genuine.” Circle that in your notes, “Let love be genuine.” Notice it doesn’t say, ‘have genuine love or do genuine love.’ It says, “let.” We’re back on this transformation topic again. You can’t produce agape love, God’s kind of love, but you can let it flow to you. Get rid of that fist you’ve been shaking at God and open up your heart and your hands. Let the love of God flow to you and through you to others, let it be genuine love, so that it can be like the title of verses 9-13.Paul put it like this, ‘love is my title.’ Now, let’s work out what that kind of love looks like; what this genuine love looks like.

Then Paul surprises us at the end of verse 9, “Abhor what is evil.” Before he even gets the word, “love,” out of his mouth, he says hate . What? Isn’t that the opposite of love? Paul is talking about agape love. He’s talking about real love. He’s not talking about this sweet, syrupy kind of love today that we use so loosely that it’s lost its meaning. He’s talking about the kind of love that hates evil because evil destroys and kills. He says, literally in the Greek, “Let love be genuine,” “Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.” Both participles are in the original; they are like verbal adjectives for the word love. They’re describing the kind of love that Paul is talking about. He’s saying, ‘Here’s genuine love: it hates evil and it loves, it holds fast to good. It loves righteousness. It holds it; it hangs onto righteousness.’ So if you really love your beloved, you’ll tell them, you’ll tell them if there’s something about to kill or something about to hurt him. If you don’t really care that much for him, you’ll probably say, ‘oh, you just be you . You be your truth. I’ve got my truth. You’ve got your truth.’ Well, that truth has no meaning, does it? Truth is not truth now; it’s just opinion and love is not love that talks that way, because Paul says genuine love, real love, the kind of love that flows to you and through you from Jesus, hates evil, but it loves good.

Well, we need to keep going here because Paul is not finished. He says, 10 “Love one another with brotherly affection.” This new family you’re part of, you need to love them. Look around; it’s hard, I know. Let the Lord do it. Some of you are going to have to let the Lord do a lot because it’s the person that you live with. Just look at them. Love one another, outdo one another in showing honor.

It’s a love competition. ‘No, I honor youN the most. No, I honor you the most.. I respect you. I respect you the most. No, actually, I honor you above myself.’ It’s like the little game my daughter and I still play. ‘I love you, daddy. I love you more. I love you the most.’ Whoever can get out of the room the quickest will say, ‘I love you infinity’ and run out.

Don’t be slothful in zeal. Don’t get lazy in your love. Be fervent in spirit, be passionate in your love. Let it motivate and compel you to serve the Lord. Husbands, how many of you are doing things around the house that, if you were a single man, you would never lift a finger to do? Some of the wives are saying, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I hope that’s not true. There’s something about love that will motivate you to do things you normally wouldn’t do. Serve the Lord, rejoice, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer, contribute to the needs of the saints, seek to show hospitality. This is the kind of love, this kind of genuine love; it looks like all of this.

Paul begins to start describing this love; I would say the chief mark of someone who’s becoming like Jesus is this genuine love. When people think of you, where you work, when you go to school or wherever you are, the main thing they think about when they think about you is love.

What kind of an old person do you want to be? I was asking someone that recently and he said, ‘I want to be a grandfather, where my grandchildren like to come to me for advice because they know I love them.’ I said to him, ‘Are you already on the road to do that?’ He got tears in his eyes and he said, ‘No, I’m afraid, right now, that I’m too grumpy and judgmental and I stay angry most of the time. I don’t want to be like that anymore.’ He said he wanted a transformed life. I told him that he can’t do it. He said to me, ‘Then, why did I come to see you?’ Well, I don’t know, I can’t do it for him . But I can introduce him to the One who can. If you’ll call Him King of your life, Lord of your life, submit to Him and find your truest identity in Him so that you want nothing that doesn’t look like Him. When you look in the mirror, you will repent of it and say, ‘I don’t want that in my life anymore.’ Then, you’ll become the grandfather you want to be.

Maybe, you don’t have to wait until you have grandkids. Maybe it could start today. What marks your life? Do you have this mark of love? You know, it’s been told by many of a soldier, who said that the reason this one risked his life, this one jumped on a hand grenade or jumped in front of another soldier, that it was for love of his country. Patriotism possibly, but maybe it was because of a brother next to him or because he loved his troop, I loved his fellow men. It was love that would motivate him to do what Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that he would lay down his life for his friends.” Love will cause you, it will compel you to live differently. It’s the greatest motivator.

2 Corinthians 5:14-16 (NIV) 14 “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view…” It’s because of His love that compels us, moves within us and motivates us. It causes us to live for Him fully as our King, but it also causes us to look at each other differently, as those He loves and, especially, those that are far from God and that disagree with us. Yeah, but Gary, they’re harder to love. That is why you have to let the love of God flow through you and to you to others. That’s the evidence; He says in John 13:35 (ESV) “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This is the chief mark.

This past Friday, June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court officially reversed Roe v. Wade on Friday, declaring that the constitutional right to abortion, upheld for nearly a half century, no longer exists. They have turned it back over to the state legislators.

How should we respond to this news this past Friday? First of all, I’d say we should praise the Lord as God’s people. We should praise the Lord because, who wants to be part of a nation that made killing the unborn the mark of our generation? So, let’s praise the Lord that we can now say in our nation that the Supreme Court’s turned it back over to the state legislatures. So, we should praise the Lord. But, let us in love and especially for those we disagree with, let us not take a “victory lap” and “go spike the football in the end zone” in front of them on social media and at the workplace. We prayed and the Lord answered. Some of us, for 50 years, have been praying and the Lord has answered, but it’s not over. There’s no reason for us to go around “patting ourselves on the back.” We would just anger those that disagree with us. We are to be ambassadors of reconciliation, so, let’s pray for them, befriend them and listen to them to find out why they believe the way that they do. We are to be humble and to love. So, praise the Lord and pray for others . Abortion is still legal in North Carolina to the 24th week, so, nothing’s changed here. The way we pray, the way we vote and those things, let’s do so with love.

Our church has been part of and supported the local pregnancy crisis center since our first year, thirty years ago. I’ve served on the board and many of you have served as board members and volunteers. We’ve been very active with the crisis center in both of our cities; Rocky Mount , as well. So, praise the Lord. Pray for God to continue to work and pray for the way we respond. Support the local crisis center because there’s going to be more women who are in a crisis; they’re not prepared for a pregnancy. Love will help them and love will give them real choices, better choices . Let’s be the kind of people that adopt children and foster children. If we’re not in a position in life to do that, maybe, we could help fund or pay for it. Let’s support.

Let’s, also, be aware of the many women, some of you are seated in this room right now and some of you are watching online, who’ve had abortions and regardless of the lie of the culture, it has shipwrecked your life and you’ve never gotten over it. Know this, you have a better identity in Jesus; that’s not your identity. You can be forgiven completely. Let us not be the kind of church that judges people because judgment is up to God, not us. Let’s tell them the Good News, as Christ’s ambassadors. God loves you and He wants to give you a new purpose and a new way of living. There’s a better way. Let’s be the kind of church that lives a transformed life.

Is your life marked by the love of Jesus? There are three marks. Have you totally committed your life to Jesus? Have you found your identity, your true identity by looking to Him? Is your life marked by His chief character, “For God so loved the world that He gave.” That kind of love. If we begin to see transformation in our church and the individual people in our church, we’ll have to build a wall around this church to control access! We will be overrun, because transformed lives reach other people.

Let’s pray. Lord, I pray, first of all, for myself. Lord, You know that You’re still working in me. Lord, I pray that You would continue to transform me as a father, as a grandfather and as a pastor, that people would see less of Gary and more of Jesus every day. Forgive me, Lord, in those places where they see otherwise. I humbly ask Lord, please do your work in me. Lord, I pray for that one that would pray with me about that right now. Would you do that ? Maybe somebody’s here and you’ve never given your life to Jesus. Right where you’re at, would you just pray with me? ‘Dear Lord Jesus, I’m a sinner. I came in the door far from You today, but Lord I want to follow You. I surrender my life completely to You. I believe You died on the cross and were raised from the grave and live today. I believe that. Come and live in me, forgive me of my sin. I want to be like You. Transform my life and make me a child of God. I want You as my Lord and Savior.’ If you’re praying that prayer, believing, He will do it. Believer, if you’re here today and like a living sacrifice, you have felt yourself “crawling off of the altar” in recent days. Would you put it all back? Would you say. ‘Lord, I recommit today. I want You to transform my life. I’ve been too angry. I’ve been wanting too much. I’ve been too greedy. I’m always thinking of how I can get more. I’ve been too much about myself. Lord, I surrender that to You. Change me, transform my life so that people see Jesus in me, so that Christ is fully formed in me.’ In Christ’s name, Amen.