Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

           When my boys were younger, there was a toy that was popular. Of course, they wanted it. I still think they are available. The toy came in several models. It was a car or truck or some kind of motor vehicle. So it could be pushed along the floor. But, then, that toy vehicle could become a person—not just a regular person, but a super-hero type person. The boys would fiddle with the vehicle. Pull a few things. Push a few things. And presto. It changed. Those toys were called, interestingly enough, transformers. If a thing changed from a car to a person, I guess that would be a transformation.

           That’s a transformation that would be easy to see. How about transformation in the life of a real person? What would that look like? We have all heard the cliché that actions speak louder than words. I find myself wondering if the world—this age to which we are not to be conformed—listens much any more to what the Church has to say. Maybe we need to consider new ways of speaking. The life in process of transformation, the community of faith in process of transformation, speaks very loudly—I think.

           I remember back in high school John and Mr. Hallgren. John was a classmate. Mr. Hallgren was a social teacher. Every Tuesday morning at 7:00, there was a Bible study at Brooklyn Center High School. Optional, of course. Mr. Hallgren and another teacher were the leaders. Two different groups. I attended my senior year. So did John. We were in Mr. Hallgren’s group.

           It was a surprise when John began showing up. You see, John had been, well, incorrigible—which was just a fancy way of saying he was delinquent. He was fairly big

and strong, and a bully. He was the kid who cut in front of you in the lunch line. He cut in front of me a time or two. Know what I did? Not one thing. Just kept my mouth shut. And not because I was a nice guy, either. You just don’t argue with the delinquent. John knew quite well the way to the principal’s office. He could walk there blindfolded. Detentions and suspensions were a way of life for him. He and Mr. Hallgren had their share of run-ins.

           Then he showed up one Tuesday morning at Bible study. Mr. Hallgren asked him what he was doing there. John said he had accepted Jesus as his Savior. Said he wanted to learn the Bible. I was certainly among the skeptics. He was just there to explore new, more creative avenues for being disruptive. I think Mr. Hallgren was a bit wary.

           But John had changed. Suffice it to say his days of making trouble had come to an end. He made several apologies. He became a new person. A servant. Humble. And I remember one Bible study session when Mr. Hallgren shared how God had spoken to him through John’s changed life. It wasn’t that John was speaking all the right Christian words. It was his life. Many people listened to his life.

           Jesus once healed a man who had leprosy. The man with leprosy said to Jesus that if he was willing, Jesus could make him clean. Jesus said he was willing. He reached out his hand and touched the man. The man was made clean. What did Jesus do next? He told the man not to tell anyone, but to go and show himself to the priest. Why did Jesus tell him not to say anything? Well, many have offered many answers. But maybe Jesus simply knew the man’s cleansed life would speak more eloquently than anything that man could have said.

We learned last week that chapter twelve of Romans begins Paul’s practical portion of the letter. He wrote in the first eleven chapters that we are saved by faith. We are saved by faith alone. Our salvation is all about God’s grace. Let’s never forget that.

           Chapter twelve, then, is our response to that. We give ourselves—our whole selves—to God. And we maintain that commitment to God by not conforming to this world. But this lack of conformity is merely the fruit of a more dynamic process taking place in us. And that process is the process of transformation. The power of God is at work in us making us into new creatures. As Paul said in another of his letters, “If anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation. The old is gone, and the new has come.” We are being transformed.

           Okay. Transformed from what into what? What does this transformation look like? Well, verses nine through twenty-one give us some detail as to the characteristics of transformation. Actually, we could back up to verse three. And I wish we had the time to go into all of this in detail. We don’t.

           But the key to the life in process of transformation is found in the first four words of verse nine. Love must be sincere. Love must be sincere.

           Here is an understatement for you. The apostle Paul was big on love. Probably because Jesus was big on love. We tend to focus on many of the other great lessons in Paul’s epistles. But in every letter he wrote—at some point in each letter—he paused or interrupted himself to remind his readers of the necessity of love for one another.

           The best example of this is found in First Corinthians. We are familiar with that. Paul wrote a couple of letters to the church in Corinth. That was a church…well, let’s say it bluntly—it was a pretty messed up church. They had all kinds of issues and difficulties. And Paul wrote his first letter to kind of straighten them out. He addressed the issues. In chapter twelve, as you know, he talked about the issue of spiritual gifts. He talked about the church being one body—the body of Christ. He continued that discussion in chapter fourteen. But he interrupted himself with the very well known thirteenth chapter. The love chapter. He was telling them that if they did not love each other, then it did not matter how gifted they were—or even how much faith they had. Remember how Jesus said if we had faith the size of a mustard seed, we could move mountains? Paul wrote that if we had that kind of faith—the faith to move mountains—but had no love—we would be nothing and it would not matter.

           And in this twelfth chapter of Romans—in describing the transformed life—Paul again talked about the church being one body—verses three through eight. He talked about using our different gifts. And then he said, Love must be sincere. Sincere.

           In the twenty-third chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus was pretty upset with the Pharisees. Six times he called them hypocrites. Now, why would I bring that up? Well, when Paul said love must be sincere, he used the same word Jesus used for hypocrite. Paul was literally saying we need to love without hypocrisy.

           We tend to think a hypocrite is a person who says one thing and does another. Partly true. In Jesus’ and Paul’s day a hypocrite was an actor. That is what the word means. It refers to a person who plays a role. You know, we go to a play and see a person playing a part. But it is not who they really are. I am no actor. I have friends who have acted out roles in plays. Good actors—because I have watched them, and I know that who they are on stage is not who they really are.

           So where is all this leading? Well, what does the transformed life look like? It looks real. It looks authentic. See, giving ourselves to God and then following Jesus is not just a role we are playing. This Christian life is not play acting. It’s for real. And it has got to be who we are—all the time—in all we do. Being a church—a community of faith—is not something we dabble in—you know, for an hour on Sunday and maybe a few other times during the month. We are the church. We love each other, and we love all those for whom Jesus died, all the time. And we love sincerely.

           We do not see this in this world to which we are not to be conformed. People don’t love each other. They mostly just play at it. And because love in the world is not without hypocrisy, we don’t see people practicing hospitality or living in harmony or blessing those who persecute them.

           But we are being transformed. This church is being transformed. We must love each other. We must love each other sincerely. Then we will find ourselves practicing hospitality. Sharing with those in need. Blessing those who persecute us. Rejoicing with those who rejoice. Mourning with those who mourn. Living in harmony. Serving each other in all humility. Not taking revenge. This kind of transformation will speak more loudly than anything we could say.

           Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.