"Doing Right When You’ve Been Done Wrong”
Romans 12:14-21
INTRODUCTION: 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.”
>>Is there a difficult person in your life? Someone undeserving of your favor? Someone deserving your wrath? Last week we saw from Paul the Apostle how spiritual revolutionaries love to live because they live to love. But what about those difficult people? What about those who have done us wrong? [READ 14-16]
Before we answer our question, we have to recognize ...
I. Two important keys to having a love that’s authentic (15-16)
A. Love involves empathy (15)
1. Following Jesus will mean that we will pass through a kaleidoscope of experiences in life. Christianity is neither denying life’s hardships nor dulling life’s excitements.
2. Our perspective of eternity in Christ can free us to enter into the full variety of living. Both laughter and tears are appropriate before God. Each has an important place in representing our feelings. Empathizing with the joys and heartaches of others is an important way to show them our love.
3. Yoda in the Star Wars movies makes less & less sense as the saga unfolds—is he Buddhist?
4. This is no stoic teaching, which held that an impassive detachment was necessary for the good life. Instead, we are to emote with passion: “rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”
B. Love involves humility (16)
1. In order to live in harmony with others, we cannot be proud or conceited.
a. People of low position are only identified as such by the world’s standards.
b. Christ thought they were worth dying for.
2. We cannot love if we are preoccupied with self.
C. ILLUSTRATION: In his book, Sources of Strength, President Jimmy Carter shared:
“After a personal witnessing experience with Eloy Cruz, an admirable Cuban pastor who had surprising rapport with very poor immigrants from Puerto Rico, I asked him for the secret of his success. He was modest and embarrassed, but he finally said, ‘Senor Jimmy, we only need to have two loves in our lives. For God, and for the person who happens to be in front of us at any time.’ That simple yet profound theology has been a great help to me in understanding the Scriptures. In essence, the whole Bible is an explanation of those two loves.”
>>Ok, so we’ve made sure our love is real. But what makes a real love revolutionary?
II. A revolutionary love REFUSES REVENGE (17-19)
A. ILLUSTRATION: In March, 2001, a little Jewish girl was killed in the tit-for-tat fighting in Hebron on the West Bank while she sat in her stroller. On a wall near where she died, there is a poem in her memory. According to the Chicago Tribune: It is an elegy to her pinchable cheeks, her sweet smile, her kerchiefed cuteness—and to the urgent need of revenge. "We will take revenge, we will scream for revenge in body and spirit and await the coming of the Messiah," the poem says.
That is how people thought of the Messiah in Jesus’ day, too. That is why they were so unprepared for a Messiah who preached repentance and faith, who paid scant attention to the Romans, who said he would win freedom by dying for sins.
B. The community of believers in Rome was a tiny segment, vulnerable to the edicts of pagan emperors and persecution by any who disagreed with them. Paul, aware of these realities, counsels them and us to avoid trouble by refusing to retaliate when persecuted.
1. By doing this, they would be obeying Christ’s words, for he said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44).
2. They would also be imitating Christ, who when he was on the cross, said “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
3. QUOTE: C.S. Lewis: “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.”
C. Refusing to take revenge avoids grudges and feuds. In human practice, revenge is repaying evil for evil, with interest. Because our personal demands for justice are mixed with wounded pride, hatred, and sinfulness, opportunities for revenge ought to be consciously turned over to God.
1. APPLICATION: This applies not only in dealing with enemies, but also in family situations. It is so easy to strike back verbally when a family member dominates, criticizes, or belittles us. Paul’s advice is to not act vengefully.
2. Vengeance, when taken into human hands, only serves to destroy the good it tries to defend and makes evil grow by feeding on itself. Paul challenges us to trust that ultimately God will ensure that His just vengeance will be given.
D. ILLUSTRATION: In the movie "The Interpreter" Sylvia Broom (Nicole Kidman) is an interpreter for the United Nations who overhears an assassination attempt on the President of the African nation of Mantobo, Edmond Zuwanie. Sylvia was born in Mantobo, and Zuwanie was responsible for the deaths of her parents when she was an adolescent.
When the Secret Service question Sylvia about what she has overheard, they doubt her story and suspect that she is actually the one who is plotting Zuwanie’s death. In this particular scene, Secret Service agent Tobin Keller (Sean Penn) is questioning Sylvia:
"How do you feel about Zuwanie? Never mind ’I don’t care for him.’"
"I feel disappointed," replies Sylvia.
"That’s a lover’s word," Keller responds. "What about rage? Of all the people that I have looked into since this thing started, the one with the darkest Zuwanie history is you. It was his land mines that killed…"
"Shhh," says Sylvia, as she places her fingers over his lips. "We don’t name the dead. Everybody who loses somebody wants revenge on someone. On God if they can’t find anyone else. But in Africa, in Mantobo, the Ku believe that the only way to end grief is to save a life. If someone is murdered, a year of mourning ends with a ritual that we call the drowning-man trial. There’s an all-night party beside the river. At dawn, the killer is put in a boat, he’s taken out in the water, and he’s dropped. He’s bound so that he cannot swim. The family of the dead then has to make a choice. They can let him drown, or they can swim out and save him. The Ku believe that if the family lets the killer drown, they’ll have justice but spend the rest of their lives in mourning. But if they save him, if they admit that life isn’t always just, that very act can take away their sorrow. Vengeance is a lazy form of grief."
>>But the true spiritual revolutionary doesn’t stop at just refusing revenge …
III. A revolutionary love GENERATES GRACE (14, 20)
A. 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. Paul was behind the fatal stoning 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!”
B. APPLICATION: When someone hurts you what do you do? Why not take the offensive: Pray for them. Show kindness to them. Generate grace where none has existed.
1. This is revolutionary stuff! These verses show the revolutionary nature of following Jesus. If we love someone the way Christ loves us, we will be willing to forgive. If we have experienced God’s grace, we will want to pass it on to others.
2. And remember, grace is undeserved favor. By giving an enemy a drink, we are not excusing their wrongdoing. We are recognizing them, forgiving them, and loving them in spite of their sins—just as Christ did for us.
C. ILLUSTRATION: Stephen Tschiderer, an army medic, met his enemy’s bullet before he met his enemy. While patrolling the dangerous streets of Baghdad in 2005, Tschiderer was shot in the chest by an enemy sniper. Although he was knocked to the ground by the impact, Tschiderer was saved by his bulletproof vest.
In company with the combat team that tracked down the sniper, the soldier discovered his assailant had been wounded. At this point, loving one’s enemy was no longer a theoretical concept. The enemy was directly in front Tschiderer, wounded and in need of prompt medical attention. Only moments earlier, the sniper had put Stephen Tschiderer’s heart between the crosshairs on the scope of his rifle and pulled the trigger, fully intending to end Tschiderer’s life. Tschiderer could have roughed him up. He could have simply walked away and justified his actions. Instead, Tschiderer treated and dressed the wounds of the man who had tried to take his life.
D. ILLUSTRATION: Watchman Nee tells about a Chinese Christian who owned a rice paddy next to one owned by a communist man. The Christian irrigated his paddy by pumping water out of a canal, using one of those leg-operated pumps that make the user appear to be seated on a bicycle. Every day, after the Christian had pumped enough water to fill his field, the communist would come out, remove some boards that kept the water in the Christian’s field and let all the water flow down into his own field. That way, he didn’t have to pump. This continued day after day. Finally, the Christian prayed, "Lord, if this keeps up, I’m going to lose all my rice, maybe even my field. I’ve got a family to care for. What can I do?"
In answer to his request, the Lord put a thought in his mind. So, the next morning he arose much earlier, in the predawn hours of darkness, and started pumping water into the field of his communist neighbor. Then he replaced the boards and pumped water into his own rice paddy. In a few weeks both fields of rice were doing well—and the communist was converted.
E. APPLICATION: Is there a difficult person in your life? Do you need to pour fiery coals 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?
1. “Dave, you don’t know what this person has done to me.” I don’t, but Jesus does, and Jesus is available to heal relationships that only He can heal. Whatever your need you can come to Jesus and find healing.
2. Bruce Cockburn: “Kick the darkness until it bleeds daylight.”
CONCLUSION: Our love becomes revolutionary when we REFUSE REVENGE AND GENERATE GRACE.
In a minute we’re going to bow together 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 to generate grace.
QUOTE: Frederick Buechner in "The Magnificent Defeat":
ß “The love for equals is a human thing—of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.
ß The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing—the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.
ß The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing—to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints.
ß And then there is love for the enemy—love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world.”
