Come to the end of Romans 12. We are shaped by grace, we serve by grace, and our love is to be fueled by grace. We look to the reading of God’s word. If you please join me in prayer. Heavenly Father, as we meet now in your presence, we ask that you would open our ears to hear your voice, that you would open our hearts to love you more and more, to open our souls to receive your word in its fullness, that your son, Jesus, the word made flesh, would be glorified and honored in our lives, for it is in his name that we do pray. Amen. Beginning in verse 9, But love be genuine. Abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good, love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, but fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another.
Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. ‘Believe it, never avenge yourself. Believe it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, ‘ says the Lord. ‘To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by doing so, you will keep burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. ‘ The word of the Lord. You’ve Let me say this before. If it were not for Jesus, there are people in this church that you would not hang out with. Personality differences, social differences, age differences, life interest differences, and all those reasons and others would likely keep many people apart. And yet here we are because of Jesus. The church is not a rotary club, not a political party, it’s not a shared hobby group, it’s not a self-help gathering. It It is, as one writer puts it, a supernatural fellowship.
And this fellowship, we are to share our joys and our sufferings together in the bond of love. From Ephesians 4, There is one body, one spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. And just like your family, you don’t get a pick who’s in the body of Christ. By grace, the Lord places us in at our conversion. And we are to serve one another in love with the very grace that has been extended to us. From the New Testament scholar, Christopher Asch, By grace, I am brought into a fellowship where I am surrounded by needs. Only by grace will I be eager to meet those needs as I am able as the early church did. We don’t want to be surrounded by needs. We want to be surrounded by people who we can actually come to and receive from, not have to reach out and extend ourselves to them, and to be eager to want to meet those challenges. That, too, is a work of grace. Burying the burdens of others is one of the great examples of love, and it’s one of the great challenges of love. How are we to do this? That’s why the church is a supernatural fellowship, because God’s love for us through Jesus, we are given love to us that we are to extend in the same way.
Our love is be fueled by his grace that we’ve received. We’ve already read several times, Do not be conformed. Don’t be squeezed into the world’s mold. But we are to be squeezed into Jesus this mold. And that mold looks like love. Love looks like something. And here Paul shows us what that love looks like, both inside and outside of the church. We’re looking first inside. We begin in verse 9. He says, Let Let love be genuine. That word love here is agape. Familiar word. Sacrificial love. Let love be genuine. I like how John Stott put it. He said, For love is not theater. Love is not theater, but belongs to the real world. See, hypocrisy, it’s opposite here, is pretense love. It’s love for show. He’s saying there’s to be no play acting when it comes to love. It’s genuine. With that, we are to abhor to abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good. To abhor something is a vehement dislike, it’s a loathing of evil. It’s not entertaining or dabbling at all in anything that’s tainted with that. It’s clinging to, holding fast to what is good and right. Then Paul says, Love one another with brotherly affection.
It’s a different word for love here. It’s a change in Greek. He’s expressing the love that’s normally received and reserved between members of family or really close friends. Some of you may be familiar with that. Storge love is devoted love in families, and then Philadelphia, brotherly love. He’s putting those together. He’s saying, be devoted to one another with this type of brotherly familial affection. And then he goes on, so that we would outdo one another in showing honor, putting others ahead of us. That’s the nature of love. Don’t be slothful, slow in zeal, but be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. That fervent be set on fire, boiling over. It’s a very intense word of action. A God given, a God-directed zeal. To serve the Lord, to love one another. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. It’s a great hat trick that flows out of our Our very foundation and confidence of hope in who Jesus is and his return that is expected. Now, to be patient in tribulation is to not grumble and complain about it. Suffering in trials without grumbling, without complaining. That’s the exercise patience. That’s what it looks like in the household of God.
And he goes on in this medley, this list of showing us what love looks like. Contribute to the needs of the saints. Show hospitality. Remember, by grace, I’ve been brought into a fellowship where I am surrounded by needs. Bearing one another’s burdens is a part of our life in Christ. The needs of others, it surrounds us. The body of Christ, the church is filled with needs. To help others in the needs of the body, the needs of the soul, it means to bear one another’s burdens. The death of our own selfishness comes in taking up the cause of my brothers and sisters, and this is to be extended as well to my neighbor. Immediately someone goes, Well, who is my neighbor? I really appreciate your response. One man said, he goes, My neighbor is the one who is directly in front of me at the moment. The one who has got eyesight with me right now is my neighbor. See how that changes wherever we are? And this is a shift now in what Paul is saying. He’s been looking inside the church describing this love. Now he shifts his focus outside the church. Now, these, of course, go back and forth.
But Paul is now expressing, Okay, this is what the body of Christ looks like here and in community outside. And immediately we hear the echoes of the sermon of the mount. And these are not unreachable, unattainable goals, but they’re expectations for God’s people. It should be that which directs our confession of sin when we don’t line up with it, and our own heart’s direction. He said, Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. From the sermon on the mount, Jesus said, Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. Or in Luke’s gospel, it’s something I refer to as a sermon on the plain. Jesus there says, Love your enemies. Do Good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. That’s amazing. You have heard this said that religion is man’s attempt to get to God, and Christianity is God’s attempt to get to us. There’s a difference, because if you search the religions of the world high and low to find this ethic, loving and blessing enemies, doing good for them, you will search in vain.
Now, there There are different forms of the golden rule, forms of treat others like you want to be treated. There’s forms of that throughout the globe. That’s you, treating others like you want to be treated. But what happens when someone mistreats you? That ethic changes very quickly. Do unto them before they get a chance to do unto you. That’s what we live by. That’s the ethic of the world. How do you treat your enemies? Jesus comes in and he tosses everything up on his head. Everything changes. Jesus is not only telling us not to retaliate, that’s hard enough. But he raises the bar to the unheard of height of doing good to those who hate you. And immediately, you go, this isn’t humanly possible. I remember sharing this with one young man. He goes, well, that’s just Jesus. Jesus can do that, but not the rest of us. That’s not just Jesus. It’s because of just Jesus. You and I, who have now entered into a supernatural fellowship, have been empowered and called to do the very same. When we were going through the sermon on the mount, you may recall this great quote from New Testament scholar, Joaquim Yermais, he said, The gospel proceeds the demand.
The gospel proceeds the demand man. Every word of the sermon on the mount was preceded by something else. It was preceded by the preaching of the Kingdom of God. It was preceded by granting of sonship to the disciples. It was preceded by Jesus’ witness to himself in word and deed. The gospel proceeds to the man. How is this humanly possible? It’s not. But we’re not left with just humanly possible. Paul explained back in Romans 5, For while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one, scarcely will die for a righteous person, though perhaps a good person will lay down his life, even dare to die for one. But God shows his love in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That’s why we call it good news. We hear it as well in that well-known verse that’s at more than just the back of kicking a field goal, John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. That’s what we have received in Christ. And so to ask God to bless them them, extending his kindness.
Why? Because God’s grace given to you fuels your love for other people, even your enemies. Now, what happens, though, when someone has hurt us, when people are against us, inevitably, we make a character of that person who’s wronged us. We run the event over and over in our heads, and we make that person very evil, and we see ourselves as very right. We give ourselves the benefit of doubt when we do things that are wrong. Well, of course, I’m complicated and a nuanced person. But they, they, and then you create this Disney villain. You The one-sided, one-dimensional person. That attempt to flatten them out is our trying to justify why we don’t have to love them. Well, you don’t have to love those people. Because they’re just evil. Well, my part, mistakes were made. Sure. We give ourselves the nuance, the understanding, but we don’t extend that to someone else. That’s a lack of forgiveness. It’s a lack of seeing ourselves rightly. Our Westminster Catechism does such a wonderful job of laying out the positive and negative side of the Ten Commandments. For each, we see what we’re not to do, the negative, like don’t steal.
And then it gives a whole list of things like that. And then it tells us what we are to do, the positive, giving and lending freely. It’s not enough to merely avoid evil. We are to do good. Every don’t in scripture carries a do. And that’s the problem. So often people look at and go, I haven’t done this, this, this, and this, and this. It’s like, well, have you done the positive side of that? Okay, I’m not cursing my enemy. Are you blessing him? Are you praying for them? Are you doing acts of kindness towards them? That’s where the bar is set. And it’s a very high bar. And it should drive us first to repentance, while we haven’t done it. And second, to the joy in that God has released us for. And Paul goes on, Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. We extend real sympathy, real empathy to other people because they too are made in the image and likeness of God. We know what it means to be human. We do not stand aloof and distant from their joys or their sorrows. From Stott again, Love enters deeply into their experience and their emotion, their laughter, their tears, and feels solidarity with them.
I like that. Love enters deeply into the experience and emotions of others because we care for them. Paul says, And live in harmony with one another. Don’t be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Just we saw earlier there as well, there are three verbs of thinking. Paul has done a lot to strike hard at our mindset. Living in harmony means thinking in the same way. Don’t be haughty. Don’t think too highly of yourself. Never be wise in your own sight. Don’t think too much of your own opinion. That is what we have been called to be. And certainly, when you do that, that is the makings of a peacemaker. You are able to come alongside and to bridge distance to make peace. When you You see other people as not beneath you, you’re not filled with scorn and contempt because that’s an act of pride when I look down on you. When you see someone else in equal, peace is possible. In the Book of James, he warns us, he says, What causes quarals? What causes fights with you? Is it not that your passions are at war with you?
You desire and do not have, so you fight and you quarrel. That’s the result of fighting. But when I am looking out for the interests of others, I’m not fighting to get my own way. I’m actually concerned about them getting their way. I’m living in harmony. Me because I’m not promoting myself. And Paul then ends out this section with four prohibitions that are all very similar. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all. How do you overcome evil? By not repaying anyone back, by not entering into vengeance. And again, there’s a thinking word used here. By giving thought, careful attention, consideration Because in a fallen and sinful world, it takes thought to know what’s the right thing to do in differing circumstances. It’s not always easy. And then he says, If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. There’s a real politic to Paul here. There’s a caveat to living peaceably, and he’s being very realistic about it. Not everyone wants to be at peace with you. You can’t change that. I know, just like you, I have tried to mend relationships with people who don’t want anything to do with me.
And that is so hard when you are wanting to reestablish established relationship. And they’re like, they’re giving you the arm bar. Instinctively, when it happens, what’s one of the things that happens? You get mad, you get upset, you want to cut them off. But Paul is saying, to live peaceably means you can’t cut them off. It’s like those hotel rooms where you have the adjoining suites together and there’s those two interior doors. He’s saying, You keep your door open. You can’t control their side. You can’t force their door open, but you keep your side open. That they can enter in if there indeed is a change of heart. That you haven’t shut it off. There hasn’t been an expiration date on your willingness to be in a relationship with them. Hey, I’m going to give my best effort. You snooze, you lose. I’m done. I’m done with you. You can’t say, I don’t want anything to do with you. That’s what we’re not called to do. Why? Because of a God who did not push us out and said, I want anything to do with you. Who sent his son while we were still sinners.
Now, at times, to be sure, you may have to restrict your relationship because they are actively harming you. True enough. But before we attempt to add any nuance or qualifications to this, just let the import to what Paul is saying have its full weight first. We can qualify things so well that we take away the actual weight of what’s being said and undo the very thing that Paul is saying to do. Yes, places and times, certainly for that to take place. But before you ever go there, have you cut them off simply because you’re hurt and mad? Have you shut the door because of the pain that you have felt? It’s active, it’s peaceful with them. It’s active. It’s opening the door. It’s extending the possibility of future relationship. And then Paul goes on. Beloved, never avenge yourself. Leave it for the wrath of God, for it’s written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord from Deuteronomy 32. Keep in mind, he’s telling us that speaking ill of people is still a form of retaliation. So even if you’re not actively doing something, when we’re speaking ill of somebody else for what they’ve done, you are exacting payment by trying them in the court of public opinion.
That, too, is a type of vengeance. God alone knows what each person needs. His judgment alone is perfect. God understands if there’s extenuating circumstances in somebody’s life. I don’t. And we need to be very careful in calling down God’s wrath on anyone. The last thing we want to ask God is, give me what I am owed. And in the same way, the last thing I want to do is to tell God, give them what I think they are owed. And there is a place to take our experiences of pain and hurt to the Lord, to be sure. The Psalms are filled with that. That we can take it. And you see some dark words in the Psalm. You’re like, oh, my goodness, that sounds terrible. Because you’re taking those thoughts of real emotions. And you’re laying them before the Lord. You’re laying them at his feet. You’re not taking them up yourself. Because we have done terrible things to one another. Some things that are unspeakable. We Where do you go with that? God doesn’t say, just stuff it. Lay it out before him. We have a means of doing that, of pouring our heart out there, leaving it to God so that God has room to work, not us.
We leave it to the one who knows all hearts. And it takes a genuine love to do this. Paul goes on to the contrary. He’s quoting from Proverbs 25, If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he’s thirsty, give him something to drink. And then a curious phrase, which is a little hard to understand. For by doing so, you will heat burning coals on his head. Now, that’s not straightforward in its understanding. It’s one of those things like, What does that exactly mean? See, some people see it like rubbing salt in a wound. Well, I’m going to be really nice to you. But that’s a form of retaliation that Paul just says we’re not supposed to do. I really think St Augustine has captured the sentiment really well. He said, For how can it be loved to feed and nourish someone in order to keep coals on his head if that means judgment of serious punishment? Rather, we understand that it means we should provoke whoever does us harm to repentance by doing him good. For the colds of fire serve to burn that is to bring anguish to his spirit, which is like the head of the soul, which is all malice is burnt out when one is changed to the better to repentance.
I think that’s a better picture of what that burning coals means. That doing those acts of kindness as someone who has done you a wrong is a means of provoking their spirit to repentance. To be able to see the kindness given to them, even when they know you’ve been like this. You know that in any relationship, you see it all the time in marriage, you see it in friendship. When you have treated someone in a way that is really abysmal and they respond kindly to you, it burns you. It ought to. They’re better than me right now. Sometimes it makes you mad. You poke and jab some more to get a response out of them because it’s shaming your behavior. That’s a burning. Paul’s saying, be kind. Do acts of kindness to them. That it would provoke them to repentance, to restoration. That’s the goal. It’s seeking the good of someone else. Paul then ends out this section, just how he began a little different differently than verse 9. But here in 21, he says, Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. You see, this is more than just getting by.
This is gospel flourishing. It’s more than avoidance of evil, don’t do. It’s bringing blessing. This is the part that you are to do. Bring blessing to people. We hear the echoes of 1 Peter 2 when he’s talking about suffering for the name of Jesus. There he says, For this you’ve been called to suffering because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you would follow in his steps. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threat him, but continued in trusting himself to him who judges justly. The very picture of what that means to not take vengeance of yourself, but leave room for God. Now, to be sure, Allowing people to keep on sinning against you is not good for them or for others. There are times when the right thing to do is to confront. Confronting may be a very great act of love for them. It’s not just saying be a doormat. But here’s one of these moments we use this phrase quite a bit to know which side of the donkey you fall off of. You need to know that. Love and justice go hand in hand.
And some of us lean more to the loving without confronting, and others lean more to the confronting without loving. Overcoming evil requires both. And how you do it is everything. You are doing this for their good and not just to make you feel better because you got to lick it. That’s a part of knowing who you are. Because some of us are a little more easygoing and you just let things roll off on you. I don’t get too worked up about that. There’s another way of looking at that. It’s cowardous. Or it’s actually a lack of love. I don’t love you enough to actually get in your way and confront you when I need to, or I’m afraid to do so because I don’t want you to not like me. That’s people-pleasing. And that’s one side we can fall off of. Now, the other side. Oh, I have no problem telling people what to do and where to I go, I’m a straight shooter. I just give it to them like it is. That’s abrasive. That’s judgment without love. None of us are balanced. So know which side you fall off of. Because the first thing that happens is you always take the other side like, Yeah, you mean people, or, yeah, you cowards.
Which one is applicable to you? What does it mean you to love, to step into that. But simply cutting people out of your life, that’s just retaliating. Nursing a grudge is letting evil win. Now, it’s not an outer vengeance in the inner one. Retaliation, grudges, they’re a hindrance to a life bearing the fruit of the gospel. And immediately, you just go, how does anyone do this? We are a supernatural fellowship because the spirit of the living God dwells in us. In view of God’s mercies, that’s what Paul has said, in light of what God has done for us, our love is fueled by the grace we have received. The gospel precedes the demand. If you really understand the love of God, supremely given and demonstrated you in Jesus, you will never demonize, you will never make caricatures of your enemy. But a true desire to see their lives transformed and changed. Even as we read part of our Declaration of Grace, Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin, to live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed, for you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and the overseer of your souls.
That is how good overcomes evil. That is how you take the full weight of what Jesus has done and accomplished to bring change into the world around us. It’s not just simply I’m not doing the bad things, I’m avoiding the bad things. It’s I’m actually working good into these situations because of the good that I have received through Christ. There There’s a whole lot of evil in this world that we all complain about. There are a whole lot of bumper stickers that describe this. I’m not sure how a bumper sticker has changed anyone. But loving someone who has been unlovely, that’s your half. Not lashing back when someone has hurt you, that sure has. Extending to someone else the benefit of the doubt. Because you know in your own heart there hasn’t been one, really. And yet God loved you. Because I have received this, I certainly can give it to someone else who doesn’t deserve it. That’s the beauty and the picture of the good news. This is what Jesus came for. This is not man made. This comes from the outside in. A God so in love with his creation, he didn’t walk away and cut off relationships in the garden.
He came, he spoke, and he pursued he viewed. He kept the door open. He came to us so that we would not have to be locked into patterns of violence and retaliation. What sets any of this free? Look at the headlines. You’re not a one of us have a solution for the problem in Israel. Not really sure how it’s going to turn out in Ukraine. Just go back through history. We’re just looping and looping and looping. Where does the loop get broken? When Jesus enters in and refuses to take up the weapons of this world but lays down his life, that is where power is found. That is where transformation takes place. And you and I have been called to this. And all those spheres that God has given to us, here with one another, in our families, our homes, our schools, our our workplaces, across the fence with our neighbors. The great opportunity for the guy behind you, honking just as the light turned, just to remind you, and you don’t respond. This is the beauty of the gospel people. This is to what we have been called to, to the praise and the glory of his grace.
Bring with me. Father, as we come before you this day, we just say thank you. We bless you. We thank you that your good news proceeds your demands. And Father, I would just ask Lord that you would enable us as your people to live out the calling to which you have given to us. And Father, that you would forgive us where we have failed. But we pray. We pray and ask that the very picture of love presented here would mark those who bear your name. We pray and ask this through Christ, our redeemer. Amen.
Discaimer: This sermon text was generated by an automated transcription service.