Walk Boldly With Jesus

Love In Action (Part 4)

Episode Summary

Romans 12:17-21 “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Today we conclude out Love in Action series. This week we have taken a close look at Romans 12:9-21 and really spent some time trying to learn how to put love into action. Today ends with very good advice, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Let's all make that our goal this Christmas season! Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Episode Notes

Love In Action (Part 4)

Romans 12:17-21 “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.  If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.  Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.  On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

Today we conclude out Love in Action series.  This week we have taken a close look at Romans 12:9-21 and really spent some time trying to learn how to put love into action.  There are some interesting things in today’s verse.  Let’s take a look at it.  It begins by saying, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil.”  This is similar to what we talked about yesterday when it said to bless those who persecute you, bless and not curse.  Today it is telling us, not only can we not curse them, but we should not repay evil for evil.  This means we shouldn’t follow the saying found in Leviticus 24:19–20 which says, “Anyone who injures their neighbor is to be injured in the same manner:  fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury.”  The verse today is telling us this is not what we should do.  We should not repay evil for evil.  It explains what we should do instead in Matthew 5:38-42, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’  But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.  And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.  If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.  Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

This is calling us to a whole different level of interaction.  You may wonder why the Old Testament says, “an eye for an eye,” and the New Testament says, “Do not repay evil for evil?"  This is a great question.  I am not completely sure of the answer, but after having listened to the Bible in a Year with Father Mike for the past two years, I think it is because they didn’t have the Holy Spirit inside of them in the Old Testament.  Also, God was teaching them slowly how to come back to Him.  They had slowly over time pulled away from God and mixed in with those around them.  Many of their hearts were hardened and so God called them back slowly.  He allowed things that He didn’t like because of the hardness of their hearts.  For instance, he allowed them to get divorced because many people have dealt treacherously against their spouse.  The people were committing grave sins and because of this and the hardening of the hearts, God told Moses to allow for divorce.  

However, in the New Testament, Jesus gave us a whole new way to live and a whole new set of standards.  He didn’t just give us these new instructions and then go up to heaven and forget about us. He sent us the Holy Spirit to help guide us and lead us.  The Israelites had the Spirit leading them through the dessert, but they did not personally have Him inside of them.  Each and every one of us has the Holy Spirit inside of us.  The Holy Spirit gives us the power to answer this call to a higher way of living and loving.  We just need to rely on that power.  When someone does something unkind to you and you get the urge to do something unkind back, remember this verse, and rely on the Holy Spirit to help you bless that person instead.  

Next it says, "Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.”  I think we need to be careful how we read this.  One might read this and think this justifies people pleasing behavior.  I don’t believe that is what this verse is saying.  I think this verse is saying to be careful to not let you actions have the appearance of sin to anyone.  For instance, you may be doing something that is not a sin, but because of the culture or the environment, it might appear that you are sinning.  If so, don’t do that thing if it may cause others to sin.

The next line in the verse says, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”  We all know that we don’t have control of other people’s thoughts, feelings, or actions.  For this reason, we can’t guarantee that we will be at peace with everyone.  However, this verse is calling you to live at peace with everyone as much as you can.  What this means for us it to do our best to get along with the person we are with.  We need to do whatever is within our control to ensure peace.  This means we do not repay evil for evil.  This means we don’t hold grudges, and we don’t hold on to un-forgiveness. What do you need to do to live at peace with everyone?  Are their changes you need to make?  Do you need to rely on the Holy Spirit more?  If you find you are not living at peace with some people, look at the situation and see which of your actions are contributing to the lack of peace.

The verse goes on to say, “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” The beginning of this sentence is similar to when it says do not repay evil for evil.  It can be tempting to take revenge.  If someone hurts us we tend to want to hurt them, it is human nature.  However, God is calling us to rise above that.  God is calling us to trust that He will carry out any revenge that needs to happen.  What God wants us to do instead of taking revenge is to basically love that person that did evil to us.  

The verse says, “if your enemy is hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink.”  This sounds an awful lot like when he told us to bless our enemies  and not curse them.  Why doesn’t God want us to repay evil with evil?  Why does He want us to bless those who persecute us, instead of cursing them?  Could it be because He loves us and He knows if we return evil for evil our hearts will begin to harden?  Could it be He is protecting us from ourselves?  If those that are evil cause us to be sin by being evil back, they that hurts our soul, it hurts our relationship with God.  By God telling us to let it go, He is trying to protect us from sinning.  I love how God doesn’t just say be nice to those who have wronged you and everyone can live happily ever after.  God tells us that He will avenge the evil that was done, He will repay the person for the evil committed.  Isn’t it amazing that God is willing to take that burden on for us.  Our conscious can remain clear.  God is so good.

The one line I find the most interesting in this whole verse is when it says, “In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”  By being nice to your enemy you will be heaping burning coals on his head. I looked up what this meant online just to get a better idea.  There were a few different things.  One article said, “Our kind and gentle reaction to hatred spotlights the depravity of the one who treated us poorly and leaves the hurtful person alone in his or her hatefulness. Nothing pricks the conscience of a hateful person like a soft, forgiving spirit in the one he has wronged (Proverbs 15:1).  Another thought is that to "heap burning coals on his head" refers to a time when keeping one's hearth fire alive was a life-saving necessity. If someone could not keep their fire going, then they would go around the town, carrying some sort of container on his head, asking for hot coals to rekindle his fire. Putting coals in this container on his head would benefit him, fulfilling his need, and helping him.”  Either way, it sounds like by being nice to those who are not nice to you, you would be helping them to see how they should be acting and you would be showing them love, which is probably something they are lacking.  You know the saying, “Hurt people, hurt people.”  Your actions, good or bad, positive or negative will impact every person you interact with.  What do you want that impact to be?  

The verse ends with awesome advice, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  This is a great goal for us all try and obtain.  How great would it be if we overcame evil with good?  Do you even believe that is possible?  I have seen it.  I have seen people’s hearts change when they were treated with love.  I have seen people who had hearts that were hardened, people who had closed off their hearts to the world as a result of years of pain and suffering.  These people were rude and unkind.  They treated people badly because they felt bad and they wanted others to feel the way they felt.  They treated people badly because that is how they were treated and they didn’t know anything else.  Yet, when these people encountered the love of Christ, when their bad behavior was greeted with love and acceptance, their hearts began to soften and they began to treat people a bit nicer.  It is definitely not an immediate thawing or softening of the heart, but it does happen.  Who in your life could you try to overcome evil with good?  Is there a specific person that might just need a little love?  Is there someone that has been unkind to you that you could show kindness?  Let’s all make that our goal, especially over the Christmas season.  Let’s make it our goal to be kind to everyone, to overcome evil with kindness, and to spread God’s love to every single person we meet!

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, you are calling us to things we aren’t sure we can do, please help us.  Please help us to be kind to those who are unkind to us.  Please help us to not want to repay evil for evil.  Revenge is something that comes natural to many of us, please help us break the cycle.  Lord, we want to do all that you want us to do, we just need your help.  Help us to remember you gave us the Holy Spirit and Jesus and we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.  Help us to remember to ask the Holy Spirit to help us when we are too weak to do as you ask.  We love you Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!!

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you on Monday.  Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I.  Have a blessed weekend.