”Putting Coals of Fire on Difficult People”
Romans 12:14-21
When someone hurts you how are you to respond? With revenge or love? Before Christ the Old Testament law was “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Jesus brought a new level of ethical law, the law of love. The word “revenge” has no place in the life of a Christ follower.
There are some people who live for revenge. For twelve years we lived in Taylor, Michigan a suburb of Detroit. I served as founding pastor of a new Free Methodist Church. We started a pre-school and Christian School during that time. A mother and her son started coming to our church. The father was a paving contractor and I visited him from time to time to encourage him to seek the Lord. He told me that his brother was a Nazarene preacher. His brother had hurt him and since that time he refused to speak to his brother.
I talked to him about God’s love and the need to forgive just as Jesus forgives sin. He said, “If my brother goes to heaven, I don’t want to go there. I would rather go to hell than be where my brother is.” This man had a hard and bitter heart.
I. Christ Followers are called to a higher calling.
How are you to treat people who hurt you? Do you seek revenge? Is your attitude - “I’ll get even or else die trying?”
God’s Word makes it clear that Christ followers are called to a higher standing of morality than the standards of this world. Romans 12:17-21
Years ago James Patterson and Peter Kim wrote a book titled, “The Day America Told the Truth.” The goal of the book was to get at the moral views and ethical disposition of Americans. The results of their research concluded that the majority of Americans lack moral integrity.
• 74% of those surveyed said they would steal without regret.
• 64% said they would lie if it was to their advantage
• 87% said the 10 commandments have no moral validity
• 86% of those who participated in the survey admitted to lying regularly to their parents and 75% say they lie to their friends.
• 74% say they can steal without remorse
The Ten Commandments and the teaching of Jesus call us to live a life of integrity. Christ’s love is to be evident in your daily life 7 days a week. Christ followers are to live at a higher standard than the standards of this world. Jesus tells in Matthew 5:38-44---how love is to be lived out in the real world.
A man went into the preaching ministry, worked for seven years, then resigned to go back to medical school and become a doctor. He came to the conclusion that “People don’t want spiritual health. They just want to feel good.” He said that after working as a physician for seven years, he again resigned, this time to go back to school and become an attorney. He said, “People don’t want spiritual health. They don’t even want physical health. They just want to get even.”
You know people that are consumed with revenge. They have been hurt and live to settle the score and get even.
The Apostle Paul tells you how to get even with people who hurt you – put coals of flame on their heads. Romans 12:17-21
What is Paul talking about? Heaping coals of flame on a person’s head doesn’t seem too kind. When you return kindness and blessing to those who hurt you, your acts of kindness magnify their sense of guilt. Your love and kindness may drive them to repentance. Paul is saying that your returning good for evil will bring “burning pangs of shame and contrition” on the one hurting you.
No Christian is to seek revenge. To seek revenge is to take the work of God out of God’s hand. God has reserved vengeance for Himself.
# A young Christian Irishman was once hit on one cheek and then he turned the other. The other guy hit him so hard the Irishman was knocked down. The Irishman got up and beat the stuffing out of the other fellow. A by-stander asked why in the world he did what he did. “You turned the other cheek; why didn’t you leave it like that?” “Well,” he said, “The Bible says to turn the other cheek, and I had only one other cheek to turn. The Lord didn’t tell me what to do after that, so I did what I thought I ought to do.”
When you think of seeking revenge, think of Jesus. He was unjustly accused, whipped, inflicted with pain, yet when he hung on the cross; he did not seek revenge. Jesus demonstrated that God is love. Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing?”
Are you dealing with difficult people? Put coals of fire on their heads.
2. Take the Offensive in showing love to difficult people.
In working with difficult people take the offensive. Romans 12:21 “Don’t let evil get the best of you, but conquer evil by doing good.”
The Apostle Paul had experienced first hand how doing good can overcome evil. Paul saw in the life of Stephen, the truth of Romans 12:14 carried out. “If people persecute you because you are a Christian, don’t curse them, pray that God will bless them.”
Paul was behind the stoning to death of Stephen. He witnessed the response of Stephen as he lay dying as Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Lord don’t charge them with this sin!”
When someone hurts you what do you do? Why not take the offensive. Pray for them. Jesus said in Matthew 5:44, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Go out of your way not to avoid them, but to speak words of kindness and words of encouragement.
Remember Romans 12:18, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” You can only do so much so don’t heap false guilt on yourself if you have done as much as you can to show kindness. Don’t be a glutton for pain, God gave you two legs to walk away or run. There are some people you have to just agree to disagree with and press on. Respond with kindness and heap burning coals on their head. Acts of kindness are unexpected and may move them to burning shame for what they have done.
Returning hatred for hatred only increases hatred.
Booker Washington said, “I will not allow any man to make me lower myself by hating him. The only why to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.”
To deal with difficult people respond with the higher law the law of love. Take the offensive! Return good for evil. A third way to respond is to offer forgiveness with acts of kindness.
3. Offer Forgiveness with Acts of Kindness
Romans 12:20, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.”
2 Kings 6 is the story of the prophet Elisha responding with kindness to the King of Syria.
The King of Syria was warring against Israel. The King of Syria thought he had a traitor in his camp because the King of Israel seemed to know his every move. He called all his military together and looked for a spy in his army. One of his servants said in 2 Kings 6:12, “None of us, my lord the king, but Elisha the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom.”
So the King of Syria decided to eliminate the prophet Elisha. The spies of the king located Elisha in Dothan, about sixty miles North of Jerusalem. 2 Kings 6:14-23
How are you to treat your enemies? Bring them together and give them a banquet and then send them home. Kill their spirit of hatred with kindness and love.
What Elisha did would be like gathering all the terrorists in Iraq and praying that God would strike them blind and then take them to Jerusalem, give them a feast and send them home.
What is your plan of action when people falsely accuse you or say hurtful things about you? Do you heap burning coals of fire by responding with acts of kindness or gossip about them and assassinate their character? Do you rejoice when bad things happen to them or pray for them and do what you can to help meet their needs?
Forgiveness is the hallmark of Christian love. We forgive because Jesus has forgiven us. We pray in the Lord’s prayer, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Matthew 6:13
The movie, THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, chronicles the work of a group of soldiers, imprisoned by the Japanese during the Second World War. These soldiers were forced to build a railway across a very difficult section of mountains between Burma and Siam.
Eric Lomax, a British soldier, is a real life survivor of that group of prisoners. Throughout his imprisonment, Eric and thousands of other British soldiers were starved and tortured, and many died. When the Japanese officers suspected Eric of having a secret map of their camp, they beat him with the shaft of a pickax, breaking both his arms. Then, he and other suspected men were forced into cramped bamboo cages. They were repeatedly tortured. Many men died. For almost three years, Eric survived these conditions, until the camp was liberated and the war ended. But freedom did not bring Eric peace. Although his faith in Jesus sustained him throughout his ordeal, Eric couldn’t seem to fight the psychological and emotional effects of what he’d been through. He had terrifying nightmares, and his marriage suffered. He had particular trouble forgetting the face of one Japanese man, an interpreter who had supervised Eric’s interrogations. Eric was determined to find the man again and make him pay for what he had done.
Through an Army chaplain, Eric found out the name of the interpreter, Nagase Takashi. Takashi had spent the years since the war doing good for his fellow man. He had built a Buddhist temple of peace to atone for his crimes during the war, and he involved himself in many charities. But Eric Lomax could feel no mercy for Nagase Takashi. In 1989, a friend passed on to Eric an article from a Japanese newspaper about Takashi. The article portrayed an old man who had spent much of his postwar life doing good deeds, in the hopes of atoning for his treatment of prisoners of war. According to the article, Takashi remembered one prisoner in particular, a British soldier who had been accused of making a secret map. He still had horrible visions of torturing this young man. With shock, Eric realized that Takashi was talking about him.
In 1991, another friend passed on to Eric a book called CROSSES AND TIGERS by this same Nagase Takashi. Takashi wrote in detail of his participation in wartime crimes, and detailed the harrowing torture of Eric Lomax. He wrote about his deep remorse over his crimes and his belief that he had been forgiven. But Eric Lomax would not give Takashi that peace of mind. He wrote to Takashi and told him that he had not been forgiven. Takashi wrote back a sad, gentle letter, expressing his desire to meet Eric again someday. This letter spoke to Eric’s heart. He couldn’t hold onto his hatred and anger anymore. The two men met again that year at the old prison camp where their paths first crossed. Nagase Takashi expressed his deepest sorrow over his actions in the war, and Eric Lomax was able to forgive him. After their visit together, Eric’s nightmares dwindled away. By facing their old enemies, both men had finally found peace.
Is seeking forgiveness and receiving forgiveness worth it? Sure it is! Forgiveness brings peace of heart and mind. Forgiveness brings a restful night. Revenge is not only harmful to your spiritual relationship with God it is also harmful to your physical body.
Dr. Granger Westberg, the founder of Wholistic Medicine, Inc., Chicago, Illinois, asks this question when he talks to nurses, doctors, and pastors: "What is the healthiest hour of the week?"
How would you answer that question? Dr. Westberg surprises many people by answering, "The hour of worship on Sunday morning."
Why is that true? In order to answer that question we need to consider two other questions which Dr. Westberg often puts to his audiences: (1) What is the major factor in sickness? and (2) What is the major factor in health? How would you answer those questions?
One medical study shows that the major cause of sickness is revenge. Dr. Westberg quotes a survey of stroke patients most of whom admitted that there was someone against whom they felt a significant amount of revenge. In many cases, that revenge is a repressed feeling, an attitude instead of an expressed action. That same medical study shows that the major factor in staying healthy is gratitude. The psalmist had the right idea: "Praise is comely for the upright."
Worship at its best offers the opportunity to resolve conflict through forgiveness and to express feelings of gratitude through praising God for his acts of grace and mercy. At its best, the church is a healing community.
That’s what we want for the Willow Vale Community Church – a healing community where all attenders are encouraging and praying for each other.
Is there a difficult person in your life? Do you need to pour coals of fire of kindness on that person? Is there someone you need to forgive? Is there someone you need to give words of encouragement and acts of kindness? Jesus is available to heal relationships that only He can heal. Whatever your need you can come to Jesus and find healing.
In the Gospel of (Mark 5:24b-34) we see the compassion of Jesus at work. An anonymous woman with a twelve-year-old hemorrhage suddenly appears on the scene as Jesus is on his way to heal Jairus’ daughter. Just as suddenly, she disappears, never
to be heard from again.
This woman is a "nobody" with an indefinable female complaint. Jesus takes her out of the crowd and puts her on the center stage as an example of faith. She thinks, "If I can only touch the hem of his garment I will be healed." Jesus takes her as she is and heals her. Amazing! Encouraging!
Encouraging? Yes, because Jesus begins with her where she is. He feels her fingertips on his robe in the midst of a whooping, shouting, shoving crowd of people. He has the Kingdom of God on his mind - how to win back the world to his Father, a strategy for salvation of the human race, the immensity of his task, the anticipation of his excruciating suffering and death - yet he is aware of the touch of her trembling, outstretched fingertips.
Nothing - no one - is too small for this Creator of the universe. Story after story in the gospels tell of this same amazing individuality. Jesus sees each person as a child of God. With Jesus there is no such thing as a crowd; there are only individual children of God who have come together. Therefore, this is an encouraging story.
Apparently the woman heard a rumor about Jesus the faith healer. She had tried many others. She was desperate. Nothing had worked. She would try anything to get healed.
Many people say: "I would like to come to God, but right now I am too down. Let me get my act together first. Then I will become a Christian. If I come now, it will be because of my desperate need." Jesus takes you just as you are and leads you forward.
Let’s bow in prayer. Allow the Lord to examine your heart. Is there anyone you need to contact and ask for their forgiveness? Is there anyone you need to offer acts of kindness? Is there anyone you need to call or write a letter? Is there anyone you need to give a special blessing? Determine to do it now – take immediate action.
