Romans 12 (Part 3) • Exhortations for Life

Open your Bibles to Romans chapter 12. If you need a Bible tonight, just put your hand up. We'll get you one so that you can follow along with the study in Romans chapter 12. This is our third installment of Romans chapter 12. And we're gonna be picking it up here in verse nine.

Romans chapter 12 verse nine. So follow along with me as I read through, we're gonna read through the rest of the chapter here tonight. It says, let 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. Be 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 do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave 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 so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Let's pray together. Father, as we get into these verses tonight, as we just look through them, as we unpack them, we pray for your Holy Spirit to move in our midst and we ask you to speak words of grace and life and truth. Lord, these exhortations are so powerful, so needful, so practical. And we ask you, Lord God, to help us to really hear what's going on here and help us, Father, then with the strength that only you can provide to walk these things out in our daily lives. We look to you, Father.

We look to you and to you alone for the power and the ability to walk out your word we ask that you would guide and direct our hearts in the authority granted us through the name of Jesus our Savior. Amen, amen. This whole chapter has been delightful, but this latter part of Romans chapter 12 is incredible in the sense that it's almost a sermon in every verse. I mean, you know, a person could probably go on for a month of Sundays just based on what we're seeing here in these last verses of the chapter. Put together, I actually counted how many individual statements that the Apostle Paul makes in these last verses and there's about, well, it depends on kind of how you count them, but there's somewhere between 12 and 14.

So you have like 12 and 14 to 14 messages that are going on individually in these verses and we're gonna do our best to kind of go through them and just see what the Lord has to say us. But what these are is these are exhortations. You know, we talked last week about the gift of exhortation and we talked about the fact that exhortation is to appeal to someone, to speak into their life and to encourage them and so forth. And this is what Paul is doing. He's encouraging us to live a godly life.

And so let's look at the first exhortation in verse nine. It is very simply, let love be genuine. And I think we probably all know what that means, but I always find it interesting to compare Bible translations because it gives a depth of understanding that we may not get by just reading one. So let me put them on the screen for you. You see that the ESV is let love be genuine, but the NIV says love must be sincere.

The New American Standard Bible says love must be free of hypocrisy. And the uncommonly verbose NLT says, don't just pretend to love others, really love them. And that's probably closer to the way we might talk today, you know. And it gets the essence of what is being said here to us, but what is probably the most important thing for us to consider here is that the word love. When he says love must be sincere, love must be genuine, the important thing to remember is that the word love here is the Greek word agape, okay?

And that tells you something very, very important about it. It's not only to be genuine, it is by its very definition. Also, it needs to be unconditional because you see, that's what agape love is. It's unconditional love. It is, I like to call it God's love.

I don't really think that we are born, to be completely honest with you, in the midst of our sinful nature, I, well, I'll just say this. I have my strong doubts that any of us are born with the ability to walk in agape love, apart from God and apart from the empowering of his Holy Spirit, you know, in our lives. So what we're seeing here, when Paul says, let your love be genuine or sincere or whatever word you use, is this is a very high calling. This is not a simple, hey, you know, you guys need to love each other. You know, it's not like that, hey, peace, love, man, you know, no, no, no, no.

This is the high calling of God upon our lives to truly show unconditional and genuine love. And here's the thing that you have to remember. It will exceed your ability. This calling on your life to love one another, this will exceed your ability to accomplish, okay? Just know that ahead of time.

And if you haven't already, you will face a situation where truly loving someone is just very simply beyond you, and I'm sure you have. Those of you, you know, that have been around a while, you know what I'm talking about. There's a person in your life who you know, according to God's word, you're called to love, but you just can't. Whatever they've done, whatever it is that makes them unlovable, you recognize they are unlovable to you anyway. And your only option is to cry out to God to give you something that you don't possess.

And I think that as often as we recognize the fact that we don't have the goods, it is important for us to admit that to God and say, Lord, I can't do this, but I know you can. And I know that you can even do it through me. I know that because your Holy Spirit lives in me. But personally, in and of myself, in and of this flesh, like Paul said, in my flesh dwells no good thing. And I get that, right?

So in order to really love this person, I'm gonna need you. Here's why we don't pray that prayer. We're afraid that God might just answer it. And he might just give us what we need to really love. And because you see, the reason we don't love many times is because we don't want to.

I simply don't want to love this person, right? So I don't even get around to asking. But you know, the apostle that had the most to say on the subject of loving, and loving one another, truly loving one another, wasn't Paul, it was actually John. And that was his message. In fact, in his first epistle, he explained that love was in fact to be the distinguishing mark of who we are as followers of Jesus.

Let me put it on the screen for you from 1 John chapter three. It says, we know that we have passed out of death into life because, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. In other words, he stays in that region of deadness. But he says, by this we know love, first of all, that he laid down his life for us.

That's how we even know what love is. And then he goes on to say, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. Wow. Wow. Talk about a high calling, right?

Talk about something that's beyond us, beyond you and me. To lay down our lives for one another, you would probably say, I could lay down my life for somebody that you love, but imagine somebody you don't love. Forget it. But that is our calling. Boy, when I really think about verses like this, all I can do is say, Lord, just enable me to love like you love.

It's really all I can do. Because I understand, I know Paul pretty well, this guy, and I know that I don't possess the ability to love like he's calling me to love. I understand that it's not in me, but it is in him and he is in me. And therefore, we can walk in the genuineness of love through the power of the Holy Spirit. Second exhortation is also in verse nine, where Paul writes, abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good.

I don't know how often you use the word abhor, but the NIV uses the simple word hate. It says, hate what is evil. And that's something that we're called to do as well, to hate those things in the world that are evil. But let me just tell you something about hatred. You can't live on a steady diet of hatred because it isn't gonna work.

Even if you're hating the right things, it isn't gonna work. But I want you to notice that Paul lays out a balance to hating that which is evil. He goes on to say, hold fast to what is good. And so you can see there's a balance there. We're not just to hate that which is evil, we're to hold fast and even exalt that which is good in this life and in this world.

I don't know if you've ever met a Christian who was defined by the things they hate. There are people like that. You talk to them and all they talk about is what they hate. They don't ever get around to really talking about what they love, and they don't ever even talk about loving the Lord. They just talk about the things they hate.

And it's kind of like, it's yikes. And that can take on the appearance of sounding holy. When somebody talks a lot about, well, you know, they're always talking about this world and the things, and they, you know, snarl and whatever. And you know, we can all do that. I mean, all day long if we wanted to.

There's enough things in this world to fill your day by talking about the things that probably ought to be hated. Until you realize that there's nothing they really love. And that's why Paul tells us to also hold fast to what is good. Recognize that which is good and hold fast to it. I think that's really important.

And it's important to see what God's word is not talking about here as well. There are people who are involved in evil in this world. There are people who support evil. There are people who rejoice in evil. But it is not the people that we are called to hate.

And we forget that sometimes. But it is the evil itself that we are called. He doesn't say, I want you to hate evil people. He says, I want you to hate what is evil. Okay?

So we have to keep that straight. And we got to be careful to keep ourselves in line with that because when someone in front of you is spewing hatred, it's really easy to look that person in the eye and think, that's the source. Well, it's not the source. They're just a tool to spew that hatred. We're to hate what is evil itself.

But in the next verse, verse 10, Paul does personalize this exhortation by saying, love one another with brotherly affection. And first of all, the Greek word for love here is different. This is not agape. Interesting. This word speaks of affection and devotion.

And the words in the ESV that are rendered brotherly affection are one single Greek word. Do you know what it is? Philadelphia. And that's why Philadelphia was named, the city of brotherly love, right? That's what they say.

Well, that's what the Greek means. And that's the word that is literally given here in the Greek. And so the whole emphasis of this exhortation is aimed at how believers ought to relate to other believers. And Paul says, rather than having what is common to our flesh, which is a self-centered spirit of competition or envy toward our brothers and sisters, we are to show brotherly affection. And what that means is we are to outdo one another in showing honor.

And that's what he goes on to say in that verse. Literally, if you're gonna be competitive, outdo one another, honoring one another, rather than being competitive in other more fleshly ways. The NIV simply says, honor one another above yourselves. And that's rather simple too. So rather than seeking honor for myself, I am to seek honor of other people.

I'm to seek their honor, right? Look for ways to honor other people. Sometimes it's hard to find, but we're supposed to look for those and to do it. Next is verse 11. He says, do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.

If I was exhorting you, I probably wouldn't say to you, now be careful about being slothful in zeal. I probably wouldn't use those words. What I would probably say to you is don't be lazy or don't get stagnant in your walk with Jesus. Instead, he says, be fervent in spirit. And again, we might not use those words.

I would say, hey, keep up your passion, man. Keep up your passion for Jesus, because those things can wane. And we all know that they can wane. And we can become lazy. We can become stagnant.

We can plateau in our relationship with God really very easily. All we have to do is spend a little bit of time avoiding the word of God, avoiding fellowship, avoiding worship together with other believers. And so what happens when you avoid the word is you're not pouring the water of the word on your heart, which keeps your heart soft. Your heart is kind of like a big lump of clay. And if you don't keep putting water on it, it's gonna get hard and brittle and things aren't gonna get in very easily.

And so the water of the word brings a softness into our hearts that is really, really important. And that's what Paul is saying. You need to make sure that you don't become lazy or stagnant. Here's my question to you. What makes you back away from your fervent relationship with the Lord?

Because we're all different. And we may have different things that distract us. Well, what is the big number one distraction in your life? What do you have to watch out for? It's important for you to know, because if you don't know, it's gonna blindside you every time.

But knowing what is a distraction and what is gonna pull you away from your time with the Lord, time in the word, and so forth, is very important to remember. There's this beautiful story about when Jesus made his way to Bethany, to the house of Lazarus, that Lazarus had a couple of sisters and they were Martha and Mary, and you guys know this story. And Martha, we're told, was very distracted by all the preparation of food and everything else that had to be done. And you know, it wasn't easy back in those days. There's no refrigerator.

You can't run down to the grocery store. There's a lot of preparation that goes into serving a meal and being a hostess. And she was very distracted by all those things. And Mary wasn't. Mary just sat at the feet of Jesus, to the point where Martha got so frustrated at her sister, she asked Jesus to intervene.

It's like, Jesus, tell Mary to get off her duff and help me out here. I'm doing this all by myself. What did Jesus say to Martha? He said, Martha, Martha, Martha, you're so busy and so distracted by many things. Let me tell you something.

Mary has chosen the better thing and it will not be taken away from her. You see, Mary knew. She knew all the things that had to be done and yet she chose the better thing. We know all the things that need to be done in a given day, but are you willing to choose the better thing? To take those other things and set them aside and say, you know what?

I gotta get back to doing my time with the Lord. I gotta get back, and however that works for you. You know, people ask all the time, what's the best way to have quiet time with the Lord? And I tell them, whatever works for you. Don't ask me what's better, because if you ask somebody else, you know what they're gonna tell you?

They're gonna tell you what they do. But that may not work for you. Some people have quiet time in the morning. Some people can't. Some people have quiet time in the evening.

Others can't. Others, you know, do it just by reading. Some do it by listening to the Word. You know, you gotta do you in that particular area of life. You gotta do what works for you in the sense where you are getting fed and you're spending that time with Jesus.

So. Pick the better thing, all right? He also says, serve the Lord. And when he says that, he's simply exhorting us to do the opposite of what the world preaches, which is to serve yourself. The world is very fixated on everything, you know, the universe revolves around you.

And Paul says, no, serve the Lord. Serve the Lord, take your time, give it to the Lord, right? So it's a call. You and I have a call in our lives to give our lives away for the Lord. Verse 12 goes on, it says, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

This is good, but you know what? I gotta tell you, I have to confess to you, I was raised on the NIV, and I kinda like it better. On this particular verse, let me put it on the screen. I've always liked the way it read. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

I really love that. Joyful, patient, and faithful. I can't think of any better way to define what ought to be our Christian life than joyful, patient, and faithful. I mean, those words are just, they hit at the heart of what we need to be as believers. Joyful in hope.

Why are we joyful in hope? Because we know there's a better life, there's a better world, that Jesus is coming, that he's gonna set things to right. We're patient in afflictions and trials, why? Because we know that God works all things together for the good of those that love him and are called according to his purpose. We are faithful in prayer, why?

Because we know that God hears our cries. So we are joyful, we are patient, and we are faithful. Verse 13 says, contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. And having been told earlier to love one another as a family, Paul now exhorts us to show that love in practical and tangible ways. Contributing to the needs of the saints and showing hospitality.

You know, this is one area where if people get connected to a church fellowship, and small groups are really important, too. You find that this happens organically. When people hear about a need, you know. If you're in a small group and you hear about a need and somebody says, hey, does anybody have any prayer needs or needs that are going on? And somebody says, yeah, you know, I'm gonna be moving this weekend to another place across town and I don't have anybody to help me bring my stuff over.

Hey, you know, the small group, they're not just gonna go, hey, well, we'll pray for you, man. They're gonna go, what time do you want us to be there? And this happens organically. People help each other out. As a pastor, I can tell you that there is nothing more exciting for a pastor to hear than that the body of Christ is meeting one another's needs and he finds out about it after the fact.

That delights a pastor no end. Somebody comes up to him and says, hey, I was part of, you know, my small group really pitched in and helped us move this weekend. We got all moved, they took care of it, and it was really great. Really, I didn't know you moved. Yeah, we moved across town, but our group took care of it.

Praise the Lord. Wonderful. That's where pastoral ministry really gets kind of spread out, you know, even into small groups where you get to know one another. You know your needs, and you can do what he says here. You contribute to the needs of the saints.

Now, this issue about hospitality, this has changed over the years. In Paul's day, hospitality was a greater need than it is today. In the first century, traveling was dangerous, inconvenient, and could be expensive, and, well, it can be expensive today, too. But there was a real lack back in those days of clean, safe places for people to stay, you know, when they were traveling. And so people were encouraged to take strangers into their home and make sure that they were safe.

And this is, it was kind of a Middle Eastern, kind of a cultural thing, to the point where they would even put their family at risk. This tweaks our kind of Americanized brain, but they would put their family at risk to take care of a stranger. And we see this, you know, in the book of Genesis when the angels show up in Sodom. And you remember what Lot did. He begged them to come to his home, and later, when the men of the city wanted to come and do unspeakable things to these men, he offered his daughters.

And, you know, people read that today, particularly as Americans, we read that today and we're like, ooh! What kind of a jerk was this Lot guy? That was the Middle Eastern way. Hospitality, when, even if you brought your enemy into your home, you would lay down your life to protect that person. So you see, hospitality, this whole tenor of hospitality has kind of changed a little bit.

Today, we have lots of options, you know. We can put people up in a motel or something like that. So it's kind of changed, but I think this is something that we should think about as it relates to how does this apply today? How can I show hospitality today, you know? What does the Lord want me to do, right?

But, you know, the essence of this is just be ready to help, be ready to help people when they need it. Because, interestingly, the Greek word that is used here for hospitality, it actually literally means love for strangers. Love for strangers. So it's not just helping out your friends. So the thrust is to pursue opportunities to help wherever you can.

Verse 14, bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. You know, when Paul wrote his letter to Timothy, he said that everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. It is unavoidable. It is unavoidable.

If you want to live your life for God, it is unavoidable that you will be persecuted. Good news, huh? Well, how are you going to respond when someone curses you? When someone curses you, Paul says, respond with a blessing. Don't curse them, bless them.

Can I just tell you that is not what the flesh, that's not what comes naturally from the flesh. The flesh does not bless naturally when it's being cursed. The flesh wants to punch someone's lights out. That's what the flesh wants to do. So we have to resist the flesh.

See, when Paul says, bless and don't curse, there's an assumption here that you're going to resist the temptation to do what the flesh wants to do. And you're going to choose instead to yield to the impulse of the Holy Spirit, to respond rather in a godly manner. And so the calling here, our calling here is clear. Bless and do not curse. Verse 15, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

The first part of this exhortation calling us to rejoice when others rejoice requires a heart that is not given to competition and envy. Because if it is, we're going to have a real hard time rejoicing with those who are having victories in life. And we're going to take it personally. We're going to say, well, should that happen to me? Why doesn't that happen to me?

Why isn't there a good thing? Why isn't God doing good things in my life? Because that's the natural self-centeredness that lives in all of us. And so we have to, once again, yield to the Holy Spirit and resist the natural impulse of my flesh to kind of get bitter because that person's being blessed and I'm not. The second part, weep with those who weep, that requires a heart of sympathy and compassion.

And that doesn't always come naturally either. Sometimes we look at somebody who's weeping and we think, well, you know, when a man sows, so also shall he reap. I guess they're going through a hard time because they deserve it. No, the Holy Spirit living in you and me wants to take a different attitude altogether. You know, we read these verses and don't you just kind of think to yourself, Lord, help me to be more like you.

Help me, please, Lord, to be more like you. Verse 16, it says, live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, and that word means prideful, but associate with the lowly. And by the way, the Greek idea that is behind that phrase, associate with the lowly. with the lowly means to accommodate yourself to lowly things, not just lowly people, but even lowly things.

I mean, lowly people are included there, but lowly things as well. So it might even be lowly positions of responsibility. In other words, be willing to do something that nobody's ever going to know about, nobody's ever going to hear about, nobody's ever going to thank you for. You know, we would have people from time to time who would serve in areas of the church, and then they would make statements like, you know what, I served for a year in this area of the church and no one ever came up and said thank you. No one ever once said thank you for the time that I put in.

And my response is, who were you serving? Who were you trying to impress? Obviously it was other people. You wanted the appreciation of other people instead of serving the Lord. The willingness to accommodate yourself to lowly things is all about not wanting or needing the appreciation of other people.

And that's not to say that giving appreciation is a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. It's not bad to appreciate people. It's not bad to say, hey, thank you. You served and you served faithfully.

Thank you for that. But that's not why we're, well, it shouldn't be why we're doing it. I'm not doing it so somebody's going to pat me on the back. We are to serve as unto the Lord. And that means if they need me to clean the toilets, then that's what I need to do.

And nobody's going to come up to me and pat me on the back and go, those toilets are spotless. Well done. But you know what? God saw. He saw.

He saw your willingness to accommodate yourself to lowly things. And then be willing to associate with people who are in lowly positions as well. You know? The end of verse 16 says, never be wise in your own sight. Or as it says in Proverbs chapter 3, do not lean on your own understanding.

It's really the same message there. Because, you know, and this is an exhortation we all need because, again, we're talking about the natural man. It is the most natural thing in the world for us to believe ourselves capable to think through a particular set of circumstances and to devise what we consider to be the best plan. And usually what we do is we pray and we tell God what we've decided is the best plan. This is, Lord, here's the need and here's what I think is the best way to handle it.

Right? We give God counsel. And yet again and again, the worst blunders that we read about in the Bible come from people who trusted their own judgment. You know? We see this over and over in the Bible.

It started when Eve thought she was smarter than God. And it has continued throughout history by leaning on their own understanding. You know, you read in your Bible Abraham and Sarah created Ishmael by leaning on their own understanding. Isaac nearly gave his blessing to the wrong son. Jacob resorted to deception over and over in his life.

David foolishly went to go live among the Philistines because he tried to figure it out on his own. Elijah ran for his life from Jezebel and got all depressed, wanted to die. And the list goes on and on. You could come up with character in the Bible after another where, you know, you can usually see it coming in the text. It'll say, and David thought to himself, I'm going to die one of these days.

Saul's going to catch me one of these days. I'm going to go live where he'll never look among my enemies. How'd that work out for you? Yeah. So we have to learn the lesson and usually we do after a period of time.

I know it came hard for me, but we have to learn something about our own ability to think through things and come up and devise a plan. We have to learn that we are flawed. There's a passage I love in Proverbs 2 that I'm going to share with you on the screen. It's from chapter 2, verse 6. It says, for the Lord gives wisdom.

From his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. You'll notice that it doesn't say Paul gives wisdom and from his mouth comes knowledge. It's all from the Lord. And we have to learn that in life and sometimes the Lord will allow us to learn that the hard way. He'll allow us to put our own plan into motion over and over again and to reap the consequences of doing that until we finally get to the point where we say, Lord, I've had enough.

I'm going to turn to you. I'm going to trust in you. I'm going to seek your face for how you would have me to go. And then we come to this final section of four verses here at the end of the chapter and it starts by helping us to know how to react when evil comes our way or as Paul would say, when the day of evil comes. And it says in verse 17, repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

You know what this is talking about? It's saying resist the temptation to give payback. I don't know about you, but I was raised on a steady diet of worldly movies, especially before I came to the Lord. And you'll notice that in worldly movies they always glorify that whole idea of payback. And we're all kind of waiting for it.

Somebody got wrong and so somebody, he's the equalizer. In fact, there's a movie by that very title, The Equalizer. The whole idea there is I'm going to bring payback to this situation. And you know why those movies are so popular? Because it appeals to our flesh.

And it's very satisfying to see somebody get theirs. And that's why even videos on YouTube are so popular that show what they call karma. Somebody rages at somebody else on the road and immediately they're pulled over by a police officer and so forth. And it's like, yeah, he got his, you know. Paul says, no.

When someone does evil to you, when someone does something to hurt you, don't repay in kind, but do what is rather honorable in the sight of men, in the sight of all men. And boy, that again, this is another one of those exhortations that Paul's not speaking to our flesh here. He's speaking to the Holy Spirit living in you. And he's saying you're going to have to resist the temptation for payback. And you're going to have to yield instead to the Holy Spirit so that you might respond in a way that honors the Lord and is honorable in the sight of all men.

Verse 18 says, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Now this is an interesting verse. If it simply said, live peaceably with all, it would have been entirely unrealistic. You know why? Because you can't live peaceably with all when they don't want to have peace.

Peace goes two ways. Peace always is a two-way street, right? And sometimes it's not possible to live at peace with people because they choose not to live at peace with you. You want to. You read this in your Bible and it says live peaceably with all men.

Okay, Lord help me to do it. I'm going to forgive them. I'm going to try to do good to them. I'm going to say good things about them. I'm going to do what I can to be true to what the Lord is telling me to do in this.

But he goes on to say, as far as it depends on you, what Paul is saying is, make sure you're doing what you're supposed to do so that even if that person chooses not to live at peace with you, you can go before the Lord with a clear conscience and say, Lord, I tried. I did my best. I did my best to walk in obedience to the essence of what you told me in your word, to live peaceably with all men. But this person has chosen not to live at peace with me. And so, you know, I put this in the hands of the Lord and that's okay.

When you can go to bed at night knowing you did everything you could, everything in your power to live at peace with all men and even though they chose not to, you can say, Lord, have at it. Do whatever you need to do. I lay this at your feet and if you will bring this person to a place of repentance, wonderful. If you choose to go a different route, that's up to you. It's your business, not mine.

My responsibility is simply to be faithful to what you've called me to do, and that is to live peaceably as far as it depends on me, right? But one thing you should never do is outlined in the next verse, verse 19. Beloved, never avenge yourselves. And again, this is kind of talking about the whole payback thing. But here he says, leave it to the wrath of God.

For, you know, the Lord said, hey, vengeance is mine. I'll take care of things. Do we believe that? Do we believe God's gonna really take care of things? We are to leave recompense to the judge of all the earth, and he made it clear it's his place, not ours.

Don't do that, don't step into my role. It's my role, not yours. I will take care of this. I will resolve this issue. And that means when we're wronged, we basically have to say, Lord, I leave this to you, I give it to you.

And I'm not gonna take up an attitude of retaliation against this person, even though my flesh wants to. I choose instead to say, no, I'm just gonna... Your deal, God. You're the judge, not me. In fact, Paul writes in verse 20, to the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, give him something to eat.

Feed him. This is talking about your enemy. If he's thirsty, give him something to drink. For by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. And by the way, Paul is quoting a proverb here, and it is Proverbs 25.

I wanna show you on the screen the full passage so you can see it there. In the proverb, it says, if your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat. And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you. And so obviously, the Lord is calling us to respond to our enemies with the opposite of what they are doing to us. That much is sure.

But what about this reference to burning coals? What's that all about? Well, you might be interested to know that this is a cultural metaphor. And we don't know what it means. Here you were hoping I was gonna tell you, weren't you?

Well, I'll tell you this. There are three popular theories, but I'm not gonna tell them to you. You know why? Because they're theories. And the Lord kind of taught me a while back not to waste my time with theories, because theories are just, you know what another good word for theory is?

A guess. And we're not to be involved in guesswork. We're to know what the truth of God's word is. And we don't know what it means to heap burning coals on someone's head. So please don't come up to me after the service and tell me you know what it means, because you don't.

And neither do I. And that's just the way it is. And you might say, well, I heard a pastor say it means, yeah, he was guessing. Or he was giving you his opinion. Because we, you know, hey, here's the deal.

Some cultural metaphors get lost with time. That's just the simple fact of the matter. You know, because a metaphor is a word picture. And this one's old. I mean, this is from the book of Proverbs, you know.

The time frame roughly probably of Solomon or shortly thereafter. And that's a long time ago. So, you know, in 3,000 years, a metaphor can get lost, and this one did. But what we can truly understand is the essence of what is being said here. And we can certainly understand the final statement that is given to us in verse 21, which is do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

And you'll notice here that, did you notice that Paul says he puts one thing in the negative tense and one thing in the positive tense? In other words, he gives us a prohibition and he gives us a command. And the prohibition is given in the negative tense, and that is do not be overcome by evil. And the reason he has to say that to you and me is because evil is all around us. Evil is everywhere.

Okay, I'm gonna really meddle with you here tonight. Evil is even within. Remember what Jesus said about, he was kind of talking to his disciples about that God would give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. And he used kind of a word picture. And he said, what father would give his son a stone if he asked for some bread?

Or give him a serpent if he asked for fish? And then he went on to say this, if you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, won't your father in heaven even more give good gifts to those who ask or give the Holy Spirit to those who ask? If you though you are evil, he just offended us. You know that, don't you? It's like, well, I never.

It's kind of that same thing when Jesus told the rich young ruler, no one is good but God. We go around saying all the time, oh, he's a good guy. He's a good guy. Jesus says, no, nobody's good but God. So don't be overcome by the evil that's around you or even the evil that is within because in my flesh dwells no good thing.

And we have to constantly resist the temptation to be overcome. And when I mean overcomer, when Paul means overcome, he's talking about becoming jaded, becoming angry. You know, it does that to some Christians. The evil in this world causes them to become angry. And we talked about this.

They're just angry all the time. And you know what I tell people that are always angry? I say, shut off the news for one thing. Start there. Don't watch the news anymore because that'll get you all riled up.

I mean, if you want something to raise your blood pressure, just spend your time all day long in the news because talk about the evil of the world. But you know, that's becoming overcome, being overcome by evil. Don't do that. Don't become bitter. Some people become bitter because the evil in the world touches them personally.

How many people do you know who have said to you, you know, I don't believe in God because, you know, would God ever do for me? That's a person who's become bitter. First of all, they think they deserve something. I mean, you could say, I wouldn't recommend it, but you could say to somebody, what do you deserve? Whoa.

But people will become angry and bitter at God because he didn't meet their expectations because we live in an evil world and there's evil all around us. And it does touch us from time to time. Paul says, don't be overcome by that. Instead, he says we are to overcome evil with goodness. Now, it's important to know that just because God is asking us to express goodness, again, it doesn't mean he's saying you are good.

We've already addressed that. Jesus made it very clear. No one is good but God. Well, if we're not good, how can he tell us to overcome evil with good? Well, here's the deal.

We have two things going for us. First of all, we know what goodness is. Do you know why we know what goodness is? It's for the same reason we know what evil is. Because our first parents ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And guess what they gained when they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? They gained a knowledge of good and evil. It didn't, you know what I'm saying? So we have an innate knowledge of both good and evil. We know what it is.

It doesn't mean we are good. It just means we know what good is. You can point to something. You can go, that's good, right? You can point to something or see something evil and say, that's evil because you have a knowledge of good and evil.

But we have something else going for us in order that we might overcome evil with good. And that is we have the Holy Spirit who is good living in us. You are a temple of the Holy Spirit if you are in Christ tonight. And we are reminded that one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit is goodness. So he who is good and who expresses his character in and through you and me is good and we then can be empowered through him to express goodness.

Therefore, we can overcome evil with goodness. In other words, we can become a conduit of goodness in this world. And that's one of the reasons Jesus told us that we are the salt of the earth. I believe that that's our role as the church, to be salt and light in this world, you know? In fact, I personally believe that we are what is holding back the decay of the world.

And that is one way that we overcome evil with good. By being who we are in Jesus and expressing the character of Jesus and the fruits of the Holy Spirit in our everyday lives. Have you ever had somebody swear in front of you and then look at you and go, oh, sorry. Because they know you're a Christian? You ever had that happen to you?

It happens to me all the time because people know I'm a pastor usually. Oh, sorry pastor, I'll let that one slip. You know, the worst thing you can say is, eh, don't worry about it. Because that's what you're there for. You're there to be that salt.

And you know what salt was used for in ancient days, don't ya? It was a preserving agent. It held back decay. And back in those days, you know, they didn't have refrigeration, so they figured out that if they treated a piece of meat with salt, they could get it to, it could literally stop the decay process or significantly slow it down. And they could preserve meat with salt.

So Jesus says to you and me, you're the salt of the earth. And so we are here as the body of Christ to slow down the decay process. And that's one of the ways that we overcome evil by expressing the goodness of the Lord, the goodness of the Holy Spirit, amen? So these are the exhortations that Paul gives us. And I don't want you to walk away from this study tonight thinking, whoa, I just really got burdened with a lot of things here.

You know, you gotta kinda look at these things and say, you know what, Lord? I don't, I'm not, I don't measure up to any of these things in and of myself. But through your Holy Spirit, I can do this. I can do this through your Spirit as you empower me, as you enable me. As I walk in the Spirit, resist the flesh, these are the exhortations that I can live by, amen?

Let's pray. Father, we do thank you so much for the opportunity tonight to gather in your name, to freely open our Bibles and go through the Word, see what it says, and just, we pray that you would be the power in our lives to live and to walk out the reality of these exhortations by the Apostle Paul. Lord, we recognize, as Paul said, that in our flesh dwells no good thing. But we also recognize that you live within us through your Spirit, and you can enable and empower us to be the witness in this world that you've called us to be. And Lord, these are callings, and all these things we've looked at tonight are things we are called to do and to be.

And I pray, my Father, that we would take them all to heart and that we would come to you regularly, that you might be the strength of our hearts to live for you, to honor you, to love you, and to love others. Be with us, we pray. Strengthen us, Lord, we ask. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and King and all God's people said together, amen. Amen, God bless.