Romans, Chapter 12

Episode Break Come and study, holy scriptures with us as father. Stephen DeYoung, teaches verse by verse on the podcast, the whole counsel of god, father, Steven is a former Protestant pastor and Bible teacher in the Reformed Church, but now an orthodox priest serving at Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette. Louisiana, St. Paul's Major Transition in Romans 12 so go ahead and get started and get started here in just a minute. We'll be picking up Romans 12:1. Ketchup will be quicker this time because last time we ended at a major transition point in st. Paul's epistle to the Romans, as I mentioned way back in the long ago time introduction to Romans had to say Paul's Epistles in general, he structures all of his Epistles sort of into major parts and the transition between those two parts is usually marked by in English, the word therefore, In the first part of his epistle, he'll lay out feel logical. Groundwork, do a lot of work with the Old Testament, sort of set up set the basis for what he has to say. Then he'll say therefore and move into a section of sort of more practical application of those things that he's just talked about. And the therefore serves to number one mark, that transition that now we're moving to a different part but also to connect T' that second part to the first part. So the basis for the second part is, is the first part Speaker 3 would be fair to say that? He's probably the first part in light of what he tends to Speaker 2 address. Right? Exactly exactly. Exactly. And so, in this particular, case of Romans we've seen that in the first part, he was talking about the relationship between Jewish Believers and Gentile Believers in the church, dealing with the issues created by Claudius having expelled the Jews from Rome and now their return. And so he's been dealing with that. It sort of a theological level. He's focused a lot on the patriarchal narratives in Genesis on Abraham Isaac, Jacob, Esau in particular Ishmael and shown how there's a clear pattern In how God has always been dealing with his people and that that pattern continues, it to the New Covenant. It's fulfilled in Christ and so it's the same pattern. But RIT larger and now including not only the nation of well not a nation right now, a province. But goodie not only Judea, but all of the nations in that one plan, in that one pattern. And so now, Based on having laid that out of the theological level, he's going to proceed here in the final chapters of this epistle, to the Romans to say, okay, here's what this means for you, in your Christian Community, in Rome and how how you live, how you're going to live together worship together and be a community Speaker 3 together in light of your shared confession of Christ. Offering Your Whole Life as Rational Worship so let's there any Speaker 3 questions or comments or And notes, footnotes Speaker 2 we're going to get started in 12:1, says, I beseech you therefore Brethren by the mercies of God, that you present, your bodies, a Living Sacrifice, holy acceptable, to God, which is your reasonable service. This verse is in very King, James E, I do this is the new King James, but this is still very King, James E English. You'll notice that therefore there Trans relation has gotten moved terms of the word order. But that is the therefore. So we've got, I beseech, you, therefore Brethren. So, based on everything I've just said, I beseech you by the mercies of God, that you present, your bodies, as living sacrifices, holy acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Reasonable service is probably the Oddest translation. There Speaker 3 it means more than logic and right and then goes on and I'll let you. Yeah Speaker 2 right. Right. Speaker 3 So Speaker 2 what he's urging first of all, he says, present your bodies, a Living Sacrifice notice here, he uses the word body we talked before about. We have We have to be careful when we read Saint Paul, to pay attention to his word choice, just like the Jews and Israel are not the same thing and say, Paul we talked before about how flesh and body are not the same thing. That when he talks about flesh, most of the time, he's referring to sort of the sinful aspect of our now mortal human nature. When he talks about our body, he's usually talking about our physicality right. Are Physicality and our life in the material world. Speaker 3 So it's a bit more than literally our body. It's it includes the material side of our existence, right? Our interaction matter. Speaker 2 Right? Right, and that for st. Paul is not negative. Right, he speaks of the Flesh in negative terms, right? The body. He does not speak of, it - Speaker 3 turns per se, Speaker 2 right? And that's that sort of the Gnostic reading of st. Paul fails to take that distinction into account, right? So when he says the flash, he means meat. Therefore there's this severed, right distinction, you have your soul, you had your rational part, which is good. And then you have the physical and material part that is bad, right? It a gnostic system is one of the basic features of all the Gnostic systems and that's not the case for st. Paul st. Paul makes a distinction there. This will become even more clear when we get into 1st Corinthians and he starts talking about the difference between our body now and our body in the resurrection. And which is the same body. But the way in which it is transformed the way in which it changes, namely that what he calls the flesh goes away, but our Speaker 3 physicality does not. Speaker 2 But so here, he's talking about presenting our bodies, Our physicality our life, in the world, as a Living Sacrifice, right? He's not urging suicide or human sacrifice, right? But Living Sacrifice doesn't just happy that you would think would be fairly obvious. But Living Sacrifice also means this is ongoing This isn't a one-time act, when you offer a sacrifice that is by its nature. A one-time act, whether it's an animal or not, right? Whatever food items it is, you offers a sacrifice, they're consumed that's it. So, a Living Sacrifice applies that this is going to be an ongoing offering of our material or material life to God. This might strike a chord with you for something. We repeat in every Litany at the end of every litany and the church, which is after we've called to remembrance the theotokos and all the saints, we say, let us commend ourselves at each other and our whole life unto Christ. Our God, this idea of offering everything. And, again, this is offering everything. This is not Saint Paul saying, I urge you to go and take 10%. Cheerio, like, and well-being and offer that to God, he's saying your whole your entire life itself at life of this world. Speaker 3 Now, in order Speaker 2 for something to be an acceptable sacrifice to God, Right. What is offered to God has to be holy. It has to be pure in the, in the Old Testament regulations, right? You offer an animal that's without blemishes. Can't have a broken leg, can't have you take your your best, you have to go. So that means that if we're going to do this, if we're going to on an ongoing basis, offer ourselves and our lives in this world to God, we have to keep ourselves. At our lives in this world, holy and pure. So they'll be an acceptable sacrifice these two ideas go together Speaker 3 somewhere. There's a phrase spotless and holy Speaker 2 yeah, Speaker 3 wear this Speaker 2 And then he finishes by saying, now notice the which is added, right? It just says, then it's translated here, your reasonable service, right? You could translate it rational worship. But the idea here, is that what he's done here is, he's also brought in the immaterial part of Speaker 3 ourselves, Speaker 2 right? He's brought into this, our soul, my arm, I And write the rest of ourselves. This is how this is, how we worship God, right? With our minds and our souls, not apart from our bodies. And, you know, again, we could talk about gnosticism but there's a certain level of if we want to call it analysis, if there's a level of this gnosticism, you know, that I think exists for all of us at least in this day and age of the western world with the separation of church and state. And these kind of ideas where we See a direct connection worship is something we do on occasions, right? And it's disconnected from sort of the rest of our life and our existence and what st. Paul is doing here is tying those together and saying they're Inseparable, they're Inseparable. You're not just worshiping God. When you're at the temple, bringing a sacrifice at the synagogue. Singing the song at the church, right? Offering the Eucharist. Celebrating the Liturgy celebrating another service. But for you to worship God, you have to be doing it with your whole life at every Speaker 3 point. Right? Speaker 2 Again, it's not about offering part. It's about offering the whole thing. So, in the ancient world where someone saying, Paul is addressing, is this idea that? Well, we worship god with our rational part with our soul with our mind. You know? And that's separated somehow from yes, day-to-day sort of thing. Yeah. But For the Romans, that was on point at that time for us that expresses itself more in the way in which we've said made it segmented Our Lives into these different Speaker 3 parts. Well, I think growing up Presbyterian, the strongest message I got was that religion was about getting rid of the body physicality itself, right? And turning your back on that and living. Totally immaterial life. This is very much my mother's personal as well, Speaker 2 right? The morality is about abstinence from various worldly things, and yeah, Speaker 3 and it's Always a size of your body dies, not important. So lives, I was raised Speaker 2 to Gnostic well. And and you know, even while most of our Protestant friends would say would want to say that they don't hold to that, right? Even a lot of the worship is framed in that direction. Yeah, right. You have iconoclastic, since you have a very simple and plain space, this is designed to direct all of your attention in one place as you sit quietly and listen, it sort of intake intellectually information, you know, Speaker 3 and highly verbal. Yeah. And so, there is Speaker 2 this, there is this segmentation, right? There's a segmentation and so it should be noted. There that offering your life and your body of yourself, as a Living, Sacrifice is an active thing also. It's not just a passive thing of abstaining, there are these certain worldly things that I'm not going to do in order to keep myself pure but it's an active. Speaker 3 The fact. Yeah, I'm talking about Calvinism in my classes. I made up the term. Have no idea. If it's a good one - asceticism asceticism in the sense of you don't do this and you don't do that, you don't do the other Speaker 2 right, right? And then you know, Speaker 3 anything positive right Speaker 2 right. Yeah. Speaker 3 It's not about it's not about how much you pray. For example, it's about how much you Drink dance play cards, Etc, right? Right. And Speaker 2 so the idea of giving your time, giving your material wealth, giving your attention to other people who are in need and that being a sacrifice, being offered to God, has in a lot of cases, sort of fallen out of the Speaker 3 out of the picture, Speaker 2 because, and it's largely out of a fear that if you allow for that idea, You'll create some kind of works righteousness where people think they're earning their Speaker 3 salvation. Yeah. Speaker 2 Which of course is it the case, right? The church condemned Pelagius a long time before John Calvin lived. Yes. Yeah, you could be just as much of a Pharisee about what you don't do is brag about what you do. Speaker 3 Yeah, so it's not effective. Discerning God's Will, Not Just Your Own And so st. Paul then goes on, he still now talking about the Mind, do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That you may prove what what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. It's important that he's talking about the Mind here, when he talks about being conformed to this world, he's not here. He's already talked about Behavior. He covered Behavior with the Living, Sacrifice idea and maintaining Holiness in order to be acceptable to God. Now, he's talking about the mind and the way in which the Mind thinks, and the mind values things, that's the word prove. There's functioning in that way. Speaker 3 so, this is proved in the sense of Testing right. Yeah, right. Like you. It's used in chemistry, I approve of metal or something like that, Speaker 2 right? And that so that you'll be able to discern what it is. Right? And we tend to talk about Discerning the will of God especially in America Christian circles in a different way than st. Paul is talking about it here. A lot of times we talk about Discerning the will of God in the sense that I'm trying to figure out if I should marry this person or I'm trying to figure out what to major in in college. I'm trying to figure out whether to take this job or not and we operate under the assumption that God has already made this choice for us. And if we make the wrong choice, Right? There's going to be all kinds of disaster. So we have to somehow write, we have to somehow Voodoo. What it is that God wants us to do and if we can't figure it out that we're going to be in real trouble, right? Which amounts to, and a lot of people who talk that way aren't even Calvinism but it, it amounts to kind of a really disturbing view of God that God has something you need to do, where you're going to be face consequences. You'll be punished for it, but he's not going to tell you. He's not, you're going to tell you, you have to figure it out. And that's, that's simply a skewed view. The Bible, for example, the classic passage is proverbs. 31 tells young man, the kind of woman, he should be looking forward to marry. So if you find a woman who is like that, that you would like to marry her, that is a good choice to make, but there isn't just this one person out there. Who God has decided you should marry and if you make a mistake and don't find her, another bird disaster is going to happen, right? The reality is God gives us guidance and he gives us wisdom through the scriptures but he hasn't encoded somebody's name in a Bible Code. He hasn't Speaker 3 And the appraised, this was in the Episcopal Church said that when we are thinking about, which is the right choice of these two things, God isn't really so much interested as to which we choose. That's what we do when we've chosen it and how we go about living that out. And you know, assuming it's not between Hatchet murder and Speaker 2 rightly not right there are things that the Bible All clearly tells us. Yeah. Speaker 3 He was using and whether to take this one or that one, but it's more the way you live after you've made that choice and what, what you do with that choice, right? Then the choice itself, Speaker 2 right? Right and, and there may come a time in your life when you're older and you look back and you say, well maybe I shouldn't have married this person, Speaker 3 right? Speaker 2 And that's where God is going to be looking at what you do with that thought. Speaker 3 Thought. Speaker 2 Yeah. Because some people will have that thought and follow it out and decide to go get divorced and try and find someone else. And some people will have that thought, say, you know what, this is, this is the person I married and I'm going to love them. And I'm going to stay with them for the rest of my life, you know? And the scripture certainly tell us which one of those is is the one we should opt Speaker 3 for Speaker 2 So yes, there's not God doesn't work through a Magic 8-Ball and that's certainly, not what st. Paul is talking about here. That somehow there is some kind of mine transformation that will come about and you'll make all the right choices in those things whether to take the freeway or surface streets because that's how you'll do it at are Wrigley. Once you have this this experience. What what he is what he is talking about is the will of God is what God is doing in the world. Right? The way the will is understood by st. Paul, and was understood in the ancient world. Is that everything that has a nature, has a will. So you'll find ancient writers like Aristotle talking about rocks having Wheels, right? The rocks will is to go down to the ground, right? But you know a tree has a will write that is causing it to grow into a tree. And so things have Wills based on their on their natures. And so the will of God is what is behind is the direction of the energies of God of gods working in the world and so st. Paul is talking about look, we don't go and look at the world the way the people of the world. Look at the world, we don't judge the things to be valuable that they judged to be valuable. We don't judge the things to be important that they Speaker 1 Judge Speaker 3 to be important. Right. Speaker 2 But we need to be transformed so that when we look at the world, we look at the world, the way God looks at the world. We see what God is doing in the world. And so for st. Paul, once he saw what God was doing in the world and that he's doing it through Jesus Christ, right? All of a sudden, his reputation is a rabbi is not important and the acceptance of his peers. In Jerusalem is not important anymore. All of these things that he thought, you know, how advanced he Is a Pharisee, the tassels on his garments, right? All these things, suddenly become become unimportant to him because he sees what God is doing and wants to become a part of it. Speaker 3 Problems with okay, is God willing all the evil, right? And I guess I don't need to explain more than that, right, Speaker 2 right. Well, this is, this is important because at its very root and it's very root American culture, especially is deeply calvinist. Deeply coughs. Even people who hate Speaker 3 Calvinism right? Speaker 2 Are deeply calvinist. So that's me and that's in that in that they are essentially what are called mon urges meaning. There's only one I was gonna say one person. But of course, they believe the Trinity, but only God is acting in the world. Oh yeah, right. Only God is acting. They will discover this will describe themselves as modern chess they made it. Usually sometimes they beat it over everything. They use. Mainly focus on using that word in regard to Salvation, right? Because from the classical Protestant and calvinist perspective. In terms of our Salvation, we do nothing, we contribute. Nothing we do nothing. God does it to us. But that thinking is deeply within American culture about everything. Exhibit. A we just had the anniversary of 9/11. Remember after 9/11 people like Jerry Falwell hated Calvinism becomes out and said. Here's why God caused this to happen. Yeah because of these sins of the United States, right? So hates Calvinism, not a calvinist but God did 9/11 in his in his thinking. And so As we have this thinking, we look at everything that happens in the world that we ascribe it to God, but this is not what Christianity has always taught. Certainly not what st. Paul teaches will see a very pointed example of that in Philippians where he says, we are usually translated. We are God's fellow workers or coworkers. It literally says CN are guy which is the opposite of modernism. It's synergism, right? He literally says that that we are working with God or Against him, if you work against him you're going to be destroyed. Yeah, you're gonna be destroyed in the process but you could you could try to do that. And so the teaching of Christianity has always been that God is working in the world, but he's working in the world. Against. Spiritual forces of evil and that that human beings are in this position. In our present age in between the two Speaker 3 in between the Speaker 2 two. This is a major theme. In first John, he talks about children of light and Children Of Darkness, and says, they're people, who are children of the evil, one Children of the devil and Children of Children Of God, most And subtract them, right? But the idea here is that we are going to be in this world agents of one or the other. We are going to serve one or the other. And we see this already the reason in first, John he starts with Kane. Is that if you read second temple, Jewish literature about Kane. He's seen his exhibit, a of this, on the evil Speaker 3 side. Speaker 2 Right through him, all this evil and murder and wickedness comes into the world through him, and his descendants just sort of snowballs, until you get to the flood. God wipes, the Slate clean and start over. But so, this is there are forces of evil who are seeking to destroy human beings, right? And Destroy God's creation. He would beings are cooperating, and doing that. And God is working in the world against that. Chiefly in the, in the person of Jesus Christ. And so, we know from the scriptures if you go to the end of the Bible and you get to the Book of Revelation. But even before that, in the gospels crisis, we know how this ends, right? This ends with the their destruction and when it talks about a - Eternal consequence for humans. Remember, it always says, they will go to the Lake of Fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Not for them read but because they've chosen to take that side. You know, if that's who you want to be with. That's who you could be with, right? But so so this is st. Paul's understanding. So st. Paul is talking about being able to discern and this is very personal for him because Christ came and died and rose again and say Paul missed it. Speaker 3 Yeah, Speaker 2 right. He didn't see what God was doing. In fact he thought that was not God doing it. He thought this was an evil thing that he needs to stop and stomp out of the world. So this is this is what he's talking about. We can go through life thinking the way the world thinks. Right? And valuing things the way the world values them and Miss, what it is that God is doing in the world. Miss what he's doing and end up on the wrong side of what God is doing, the way he did or right as he was renewed, in his mind we can we can by offering ourselves and Sacrifice by doing the things. He said first, that's how we experience this, renewing the mind we could come to see what God is doing in the world and then become a part Speaker 3 of it. That has become a part of it very helpful distinction between the motto. Just idea because I actually know better I've heard this but I keep falling back into, Speaker 2 right, right, that everything that happens is God doing it, right? And know sometimes we're doing it to ourselves Speaker 3 sometimes Speaker 2 but God connects to bring good out of it. Right? Even the worst of it. God can work act to bring good out of it. Yes, eventually. So yes, this is what it's about and being part of what God is doing in the world means, right? The energies of God, our love that he's pouring out into the world. We can become the vehicle through which God shows his love to people. And in the process of doing that, we are transformed ourselves, Speaker 3 right? And Speaker 2 all of all of the things God is doing, God is working to make peace, God is working all These things are things that we receive ourselves by participating in God bringing them into bringing them into the world, but to do that, the first step is we've got to be able to perceive what it is that God is doing. And in order to do that, we have to make our lives holy and offer them to God so that we'll be able to to discern that. for I say through the grace given to me to everyone who is among you, Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. Soberly Using Your Gifts in the Body But to think soberly as God has dealt to each one, a Measure of Faith. So a couple of things here, the first part seems kind of obvious, don't think more of your think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think soberly Speaker 3 It's God has Speaker 2 dealt to each one. A Measure of Speaker 3 Faith. Remember our right rubber Speaker 2 faith is not just, right? Like you need to have more faith. What does that mean? I need to yes, harder, yes, yes harder. Yeah, no, that's not but it's Speaker 3 faithfulness. Speaker 2 Right. It's faithfulness. Its loyalty it's trust and it's faithfulness in actions. Right? So when you're talking about a measure right, a good illustration is the one that Christ used parable of the talents, right? The one Services give it 10. Another servant is given five. Other one is given one, right? Or is it fits 5 2 & 1. Speaker 3 I doubled It Anyway, Speaker 2 five to play. But so yeah. So the first two servants both go at are both faithful with what they were given, right? Even though they were given different amounts and the right? And the third one is Unfaithful with what he was given, right? So right. He's not condemned for having a smaller amount, right? It's that he didn't. Do anything with it, right? Right. It's so he's talking about our own self evaluation. Write our own self evaluation. That's what he means by thinking. Soberly, right, being honest in our Judgment of ourselves rather than think of ourselves more highly. The opposite of that is not thinking poorly of yourself and denigrating yourself, right? Sort of a false show of human. Oh I'm a lowly worm, you know, I'm worthless. But right. That's not what right? It's but it's being Speaker 3 honest, Speaker 2 right? It's being honest. And according to that measure of faithfulness is Being honest about what we've done with what we've Speaker 3 been given. Speaker 2 Right, so we don't judge ourselves over against someone else. Right. Well, this person Is doing a b c. D. E f g. I've got I you know I've got nothing compared to that. So we think poorly of ourselves or conversely. This other person has been given less. We're doing a little more and so we think you know we're doing pretty good, you know rather than being honest Well, as we have many members in one body but all the members do not have the same function. So we being many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. So he makes this Members. Here is referring, literally two body parts, right? In this analogy says, so you've got your body has a whole bunch of different parts. They're not all the same, they're not always useful. They're not all is important. Some of them you can have. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You wouldn't want to get any of them removed, but there are some that would be worse than others. You could do better without a pinky than without a head, right, but they all have their functions, right? He says, so in the same way, right? We're Body in Christ. So he sang to the Romans, the whole Community is one body, right? See if they give it these different gifts, Speaker 3 connecting this to the talents, the pinky may be a guidance, but given less, right? And the brain is, when there's been given more, but each is each has the same responsibilities essentially to, to do its function. Right. Speaker 2 Right? Right to offer their service, their service, to God, because if we're one were one body in Christ, right? Remember Christ is acting in the world, right? How do we interface with the world and act in the world through our bodies? Right? So the pinky is called to do different things than the nose, all right? But each one has to be faithful to its own tasks and its own its own purpose. Having then gifts differing. According to the grace, that is given to us the grace here to literally means gift, right? The gifts that are given to us, let us use them. Now, you notice us use, let us use them. Is not actually, they're right, but it's conveying the idea. If prophecy let us prophesy in proportion to our faith or Ministry, let us use it in our ministering. He who teaches. And teaching he exhorts in exhortation, 's you who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he shows Mercy with Speaker 3 cheerfulness, Speaker 2 So he gives more concrete. Remember, we're in the second half so he gives more concrete examples, right after using his analogy. He says, look if you're the person who God has blessed with a lot of wealth, right? So the way you can help the community is by giving, then you need to give generously right? You did. Because that's what's been given to you and if you're a person who's good at public speaking, Right, that's exhortation right. Then you need to go and preach, you know, and do that to the to the best of your ability. If you're a person who's good at helping those who are suffering or morning than you need to go and do that and do it with cheerfulness, not with despair, right? Falling into despair. So, all of these things, right? Our concrete examples of things that are going on in the community and we could add piles. Piles more, right. Hating Evil, Not People: A Call to Love He says let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor, what is evil cling to what is good? so, that's Fairly straightforward, right? Easy to say let love be without hypocrisy is pointing to something very human where, you know, because basic Christian truth is that we should love our brother, we should love everyone. We should love our neighbor and everybody's our neighbor and love even our enemies, right? It's very easy to say, oh yeah, I love Speaker 3 everybody. Speaker 2 And what we usually mean by that is I don't have anything right now against anybody. That I'm willing to admit, right? And maybe maybe it is just that I don't have anything against anybody. I'm not holding any grudges, we very easily mistake, just lack of caring, just sort of benign indifference for love, which isn't what love is Fred. Love Is Love, is an active. And active thing that requires actions from us right to express that love and to show that love the marker isn't what I say that. I love everyone. The marker is if you asked everyone. I know. Would they say that? I love Speaker 3 them. Yeah. Speaker 2 What they say? What they say. I'm not Speaker 3 sure Speaker 2 what they say. Well what do you mean by love Bradley? What do you mean? He's never done. Anything bad to me? That's not love. So this is what he means when he said love must be without hypocrisy. Not just. Oh yeah, you say you love everybody but it needs to be an active thing. Where you're showing love to each other within the community and people are aware of it, you know that you love them. Yeah. Of course, hate what is evil cling to what is good. They use a poor because they don't want to use hate but it really says, Speaker 3 hate Speaker 2 really says hate, there are things that we are allowed to and supposed to hate. We're supposed to hate sin, we're supposed to hate evil. Those are not things that it is bad to Speaker 3 hate. I have trouble with that because I've gotten, Haha. Developed into a person who really wants to love everybody and wants to that is and not harm, anybody and everything. And so I have trouble with the idea that there are things that I'm allowed to, hey, Speaker 2 yeah, about people, right? Not people but things and this is important in terms. Terms of what it is to love Speaker 3 people. Yeah, the problem is when the person does the thing Making the distinction, Speaker 2 right? I'm not so much. Talking about actions here. I'm not making a distinction between people in actions, I'm making the distinction between people and what might motivate their Speaker 3 actions, Speaker 2 right? So, falsehoods false beliefs ideologies. Mental and spiritual sicknesses and illnesses, right? The devil demonic pact things that motivate people to do. The the evil and wicked things they do right? Those are the things we should hate because those are the things that are our enemies by our, I mean, human Humanities right there, my enemies there, that person's enemies. The fact that this other person has fallen prey to that. Shouldn't cause me to hate the Speaker 3 person. More, like, Speaker 2 right person has a disease, right? This person has fallen victim, right? Is being victimized by this thing, right? And so, what's right for me, is to join this person in battle against that thing. Right? And this is part of, right? This is this is part of, right? And we talked about how the church is a hospital for Sinners, right? This is what we mean we're here fighting disease that's it. That's in all of us but going back to Canaan again. McCain has first jealous of his brother. God comes to him and says sin is crouching at your door, right? Like it's a lion or a predatory animal, you know it wants to master you but you must Master it. You need to struggle with it. You need to win and he doesn't win. He Speaker 3 loses He loses when he gives it Speaker 2 but that's in was both Cain and Abel Zetas. Me and Adam and Eve and Seth and Speaker 3 right? And everyone Speaker 2 else. So there's a basic Truth here that say Paul is getting at right when we're looking at another person and we hate what is evil and we cling to what is good, right? Which is that which is the person God created, right? That we hold on to that. No human being is my enemy. Speaker 3 No human being is my enemy Speaker 2 all of us as human beings are on the same side. We all have enemies who are out to destroy us. We all have a God who loves us. We all have a lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for us, right? So we're all on the same side whether we know it or not but being a canny fo our enemies are very good at turning us on each other because A house divided against itself. Cannot stand turning human beings at each other, but part of loving another person is realizing that solidarity Realizing that we all share the same human nature. We all share it with Christ, right? And so, Speaker 3 you're a fellow Speaker 2 soldier in the same battle if you get shot down right and you fall in your gun goes off and hits me. That doesn't make you the enemy. Yeah. Right that makes you. So what I need to help more right in the struggle. And so this is, this is very difficult for us. It runs against again. The world's understanding, right? The world was to tell us, there's good people, and there's bad people and somehow everyone who says that is one of the good people, right? No one has ever said that and then identified themselves as one of the bad people and it seems to be just built into our world view that we separate everything into groups. You know it's Red vs. Blue our tribe versus their tribe. Right. Our country versus their country are right. Speaker 3 Out of nationalism, I swear to God I'll come to come up but it isn't natural for one nation to hate another. It is natural for us to identify US versus them and that can be men versus women, seniors versus fresh team against Speaker 2 our political party, or political party, or Speaker 3 But we always have this us Speaker 2 then, right, right? Where were pitted against against other Speaker 3 people? Yeah, we aren't, Speaker 2 right. And so that, that needs to be basic to us, loving our neighbor is breaking that Speaker 3 down. Speaker 2 Right. Coming to accept that. Another person, even though they're different from us is not another thing different from me, but it's another self like me. This is a person like me who has thoughts and hopes and experiences like I do, there may be different from mine but they have them. And so this is a person who is precious to God. Also, why is this so important for st. Paul, to bring up. I will remember the problem here. You've got Jewish, Believers and Gentile believers who are think and who are thinking of themselves as in terms of their differences, right? Here's the way they're not like me, right? And so love has to break Speaker 1 that down, we're all one. Listen, next time as father, Stephen DeYoung continues, his study of the scriptures on the The whole counsel of god, father Stevens, email address is whole counsel at ancient Faith.com that's whole council at ancient faith.com.