Alba 5-15-2022
BEHAVE LIKE A CHRISTIAN
Romans 12:9-21
A lady was soaking up the sun’s rays on a Florida beach when a little boy in his swimming trunks, carrying a towel, came up to her and asked her, “Do you believe in God?”
She was surprised by the question but replied, “Why, yes, I do.” Then he asked her: “Do you go to church every Sunday?” Again, her answer was “Yes!” Then he asked, “Do you read your Bible and pray every day?” Again she said, “Yes!”
But by now her curiosity was very much aroused. At last the boy sighed and said, with obvious relief, “Will you hold my quarter while I go in swimming?”
Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone had the faith in Christians that this little boy had?
Lee Strobel was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune who began attending a church in the early ‘80s in an effort to appease his newly converted wife.
In Strobel’s insightful book, “Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary,” Lee recalls: “When I walked into church as a skeptical unbeliever, my ‘hypocrisy antenna’ was scanning the place for signs that people were just playing church.”
He continues: “In fact, I was aggressively on the lookout for phoniness, opportunism, or deception, because I felt that if I could find an excuse for rejecting the church on grounds of hypocrisy, I could feel free to reject Christianity as well.”
So, there we have it straight from a skeptic. He was looking for something real; something authentic. Thankfully he later saw the reality of faith and he became a Christian.
But we must be aware that there are people who have the uncanny ability to check out what is real and what isn’t.
Christianity isn’t something to do on the weekend, or occasionally. Our devotion to Christ and following Him isn’t supposed to be just a part of our lives, it is to be our lives, lived daily.
What people see us do is important. Christians not only need to “look good,” we need to “be good.” We need to behave like a Christian in a world that is looking for authentic faith.
How can we live a Christian life and not conform to the walk and way of the world? Romans chapter 12 is really a commentary on how Christians ought to behave.
Romans 12:9-21 calls each of us to take personal responsibility for our actions. The appeal is made based on all the mercies that we have received from the hand of a loving God.
Here is what we need to do to behave like a Christian. Turn to Romans 12:9-21.
9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. 10 Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; 11 not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; 12 rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; 13 distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. 16 Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.
17 Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. 18 If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. 19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.
20 Therefore “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
In these verses we find guidelines for living as a redeemed people in a fallen world. Since we have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ; saved by His grace and empowered by His Holy Spirit, we should do our best to follow these guidelines.
In these verses we are told to love, and not be hypocrites but show true brotherly love. We are to serve the Lord. We are to have hope even in times of trouble. We are to be people of prayer and care about others, sharing in their need.
As an example of Christ-like love we are to show kindness to those who mistreat us. We are to be humble, and not be high-minded.
Our intention should be to look for the good in all people, and strive for peace with others. And if someone does take advantage of us or mistreat us, we are not to try to get back at them. God will take care of that.
Instead if we do enough good to such people, scripture says that the good done will actually hurt them more. But be careful not to do that just to get vengeance. Remember, God takes care of it.
And overall, we will become overcomers when we do not act in ways that are un-Christ-like. Ultimately good overcomes evil.
In order to truly behave like Christians, we probably need to read these verses every day to remind us what Christ-likeness is. We seem to have poor memories don't we.
Most of us have learned to pretend to love others, how to speak kindly, avoid hurting feelings, and even how to show compassion, but God calls us to real, sincere love which requires concentration and effort.
Roy Weece, longtime campus minister at the University of Missouri, said many years ago in a sermon that, “We as Christians can act pretty good, but it’s how we react in a given situation that shows how much of a Christian we are.”
Problems can start when we are not patient in tribulation as it says in verse twelve, and when we don't feel like blessing those who persecute us as it says in verse fourteen.
Is there anybody here, who has ever been hurt by somebody, and as far as you know you did not do anything to deserve what was done to you?
Is there anybody here who would like to give someone a piece of your mind for what they said or did to you? Is there anyone here who has visualized in his or her mind what you would like to do to get even with somebody for what they did to you?
There is a story told about a mother who heard her six year old son wailing away in pain. She ran into the room only to see that her two year old daughter was biting her big brother’s arm.
She quickly separated the two and explained to her six year old son that his little sister was just two years of age and that she didn’t know that it hurts to be bitten, and then the mother left the room.
But before she got very far she heard her two year old scream out in pain. Rushing back into the room her six year old son said, “She does now.”
As followers of Christ one of the milestones we reach for is to get to the place where it becomes unimportant to hit back or bite back.
But if you have been hurt, remember this: Everybody here is going to hurt somebody sometime. Even when you are trying to do the right thing, somebody close to you is going to misunderstand you, and will be hurt by it.
And when you do something good for someone, someone else is going to be jealous of your actions, and feel hurt because you did not do the same for them.
There is no pass-through-hurt-free card in life. The future of our lives is often shaped by the hurt we experience as we go through life. But what’s even a greater factor in shaping our lives is how we choose to react to the hurt.
As followers of Christ we are not to entertain thoughts of vengeance or retaliation. To the contrary, we are to think of ways to show kindness.
People outside of Jesus Christ have always had difficulty buying into this approach to life. Nikita Khrushchev once remarked:
“The difference between Christianity and Communism is great. When someone strikes you on the face, you turn the other cheek. If you strike me on the face, I’ll hit you so hard your head will fall off.”
And politics is not much better. You know how they go negative, have “attack ads,” and do “opposition research” (digging up dirt on their opponent). In a 1991 interview, Al Gore reportedly said that to win in politics you have to "rip the lungs out of anybody else who’s in the race."
But if we stoop to evil, we have not overcome evil with good but evil has overcome good. Jesus said “Pray FOR your enemies…”
Do you remember the prayer that Jesus made while He was on the cross? Any body know what He said? (“Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”)
Forgive whom? Who was Jesus praying for? (His enemies) Why would He pray that kind of prayer? Because, the reason He was up on the cross, was to die for His enemies.
Romans 5:10 tells us “…when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son…!” You see, when Jesus died for you… YOU were His enemy. And when Jesus died for you… He also died for YOUR enemies as well!
When we pray for our enemies, that kind of prayer has power to change us. But it also has the potential of changing our enemies. It frees us up to actually show love to our enemies in ways that Romans 12 and other passages of Scripture tell us we should.
Several years ago, a woman wrote about a rather miraculous lesson her family experienced. During one of their family Bible readings as new Christians, they ran across the verse, "If your enemy is hungry, feed him" (Romans 12:20).
Their sons, 7 and 10 at the time, were especially puzzled. “Why should you feed your enemy?” they wondered.
The woman said, “My husband and I wondered too, but the only answer John could think of to give the boys was, 'We’re supposed to because God says so.' It never occurred to us that we would soon learn why.
“Day after day John Jr. came home from school complaining about a classmate who sat behind him in 5th grade. 'Bob keeps jabbing me when Miss Smith isn’t looking. One of these days, when we’re out on the play ground, I’m going to jab him back.'”
The mother said, “I was ready to go down to the school and jab Bob myself. Obviously the boy was a brat. Besides, why wasn’t Miss Smith doing a better job with her kids? I’d better give her an oral jab, too, at the same time!
“I was till fuming over this injustice to John Jr. when his 7 year old brother spoke up: "Maybe he should feed his enemy." The three of us were startled.
“None of us was sure about this "enemy" business. It didn’t seem that an enemy would be in the 5th grade. An enemy was someone who was way off... well, somewhere.
“We all looked at my husband John. Since he was the head of the family, it seemed only right that he should come up with the solution. But the only answer he could offer was the same one he had given before: 'I guess we should because God said so.'
“'Well,' I asked John Jr., 'do you know what Bob likes to eat? If you’re going to feed him, you may as well get something he likes.' 'Jelly beans,' he almost shouted, 'Bob just loves jelly beans.' So the family prayed about John Jr.’s enemy and about the Jelly beans.
“Then, they went out and bought a bag of jelly beans for him to take to school the next day, and decided that the next time Bob jabbed John Jr., John was simply to turn around and deposit the bag on his "enemy’s" desk. We would see whether or not this 'enemy feeding' worked.
“The next afternoon, the boys rushed home from the school bus and John Jr. called ahead, 'It worked, Mom! It worked.' I wanted the details: 'What did Bob do? What did he say?'
“'He was so surprised he didn’t say anything - he just took the jelly beans. But he didn’t jab me the rest of the day!' In time, John Jr. and Bob became the best of friends - all because of a little bag of Jelly Beans.”
The mother then wrote: “Both of our sons subsequently became missionaries on foreign fields. Their way of showing friendship with any "enemies" of the faith was to invite the inhabitants of those countries into their own homes to share food with them around their own tables.
She concluded, “It seems 'enemies' are always hungry. Maybe that’s why God said to feed them.”
There is always the danger that we will be conformed to the world around us; that we will be what we should not be. If that happens, then we have nothing to offer.
The opportunity we have is to relate to others in love and peace, and to demonstrate to the world the transforming power of the gospel.
We have the opportunity to shine as lights in the darkness when we behave like Christians.
CONCLUSION:
The owner of a large department store offered a prize of $5,000 to the one giving the best answer to the question: “How can my business be most speedily and surely improved?”
Many students of economics submitted different lengthy answers.
Roy McCardell received the reward, a check for $5,000, for simply writing on a post card, “Tell your clerks to say ‘Thank you!’ ”
Often just a simple thing can make a huge difference. We need to pay attention to the simple things that will make us more Christ-like.
What I hope for us as individuals and collectively as a church, is that as people observe us, their reactions will be positive.
We don’t want their impression of us to be, “Those Christians are uptight, rigid, judgmental, uncompassionate and isolated people.”
We would like their impression of us to be, “Those Christians are people with integrity, moral courage, they are compassionate, loving, kind, helpful and reliable.”
All these things leave the kind of impression that we want to leave.
All of them can, and hopefully will, cause people to praise our Father in heaven and say, “There is someone who behaves like a Christian.”
But let me say this, a Christian is not just someone who lives a good life. A Christian is one who submits to Jesus as Savior and Lord.
