SPB Sermons | Sunday 26 July 2026
More Than a Crowd
Any group of people can gather around a shared interest. What makes the church different is not the building, the tradition, or the order of service. It is the love — genuine, self-giving, Spirit-produced love — that holds it together and makes it visible to the world around it. Romans 12:9–16 shows us what that looks like in practice.
Any Crowd Can Gather. Not Any Crowd Can Love Like This.
There is no shortage of groups in our world. Sports clubs, community associations, political movements, support networks — people gather around common ground all the time. Even churches can become social gatherings held together by habit and familiarity rather than anything more. What Paul describes in Romans 12 is something categorically different. A community shaped not by what its members have in common, but by what has been done to them and for them — a people transformed by grace, and now called to live it out together in ways the world cannot produce on its own.
Let Love Be Genuine
"Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good."
The Greek word Paul uses here — anupokritos — means without hypocrisy, without a mask. Love that performs for an audience. Love that is convenient. Love that expects something in return. That is not what Paul has in mind. The love he describes is the kind that has been produced in us by the Spirit — a love that costs something, that endures when it is not returned, and that holds firm even when it would be easier to let go. It is the overflow of a life transformed by the gospel, not a social strategy or a church programme.
Genuine love is not blind: it hates what is evil and clings to what is good. It has discernment, not sentimentality.
Genuine love is not occasional: it is the shape of the whole life — in how we honour one another, serve, pray, and bear with difficulty together.
Inward
Devoted to One Another
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honour one another above yourselves. This is a community that competes not to be first but to serve, that celebrates the gifts of others rather than diminishing them, and that takes the ordinary inconveniences of shared life as opportunities for genuine love.
Upward
Fervent in Spirit, Faithful in Prayer
Never lacking in zeal. Keeping your spiritual fervour. Faithful in prayer. The love Paul describes does not run on human energy or willpower — it is sustained by a living, ongoing dependence on God. A church that prays together is a church that loves together.
Outward
Share, Welcome, Bless
Share with God's people in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you — bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. This community is porous — it reaches outward, opens its doors, and refuses to become a closed circle.
The Heart of the Sermon
The World Cannot Produce This — the Spirit Can
Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. It sounds simple. But how many communities can actually do it? How often do we struggle to celebrate someone else's good news without a flicker of envy? How often is sitting with someone in their grief too uncomfortable, too close, too costly? The love Paul describes is not natural. It is supernatural. It is the fruit of people who have been grasped by the grace of God and are now, imperfectly and together, learning to live it out.
This is what makes the church more than a crowd. Not our history. Not our building. Not our tradition. The love — genuine, Spirit-produced, self-giving love — that is only possible because of the cross of Christ and the life of the Spirit in his people.
What This Looks Like on York Street
Paul is not writing to an abstract ideal church. He is writing to a real congregation in a real city dealing with real tensions, real poverty, real division, and the real difficulty of living the gospel among people who do not share it. And we are the same. The love he describes is not for perfect people in perfect circumstances. It is for ordinary disciples in North Belfast, in 2026, who are learning week by week what it means to honour one another above themselves, to be faithful in prayer, to welcome those who are different, to weep with those who are weeping on streets not far from this building.
This is who we are called to be. And the good news is: we do not do it in our own strength. The same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead is the one who produces this love in us. We ask. We receive. We go.
Listen to the Sermon
The full sermon is available to listen to now. We hope it challenges and encourages you to live out the kind of love that makes the church more than just a gathering.
Join Us
You Would Be Very Welcome
St Paul's & St Barnabas is an Anglican evangelical parish in the heart of North Belfast, seeking to make Christ known and to love our city in his name. We are a church family learning — imperfectly and together — to be more than a crowd.
Join us in person on Sundays at 208 York Street, Belfast.
Let Love Be Genuine
A crowd gathers around common ground and disperses when the common ground disappears. The church gathers around Christ — and because of that, it can love in ways a crowd never can. Without hypocrisy. Without pretence. Without keeping score. That is the call, and it is only possible because of the one who loved us first.
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