Brick by Brick, Part 4
Romans 12:14-21
Let's open our Bibles to Romans chapter 12 and do a little practical study of God's Word tonight. I thank you for coming to be with us on this night. I know these are busy days with all of the holiday activities and all of the anticipation of friends and trips and visits and things like that and I...I cherish so much our time together in the Word because I think the world wants to crowd that out of us. And I'm so refreshed when you come with a hungry heart to study God's Word.
We're looking at Romans 12:9 to 21 and we've been sort of taking our time going through this text because of its great importance. And as I've tried to point out to you, although most people who study the epistle of Romans feel that it is the earlier part of Romans that is really the major point of the book, the great theme of justification, the actual purpose of the book is to bring the believer to this very point. Everything else is a buildup. That's not to say it's less important, the doctrines of justification and the doctrines of sanctification and those great truths regarding Israel and the Gentiles that we learned in chapters 9 to 11 are essential, monumental, glorious truths. But all of that, in a sense, is foundation for the way we live, for the way we act, for the way we talk, for the way we think, for the way we behave in every situation. And so it's not really until you enter chapter 12 and on then to chapter 16 that you come to the real purpose of the writing of this epistle, and that is to set the foundation for Christian living. And now we've come with our foundation laid to these matters of practical Christian living. And he gives us, first of all, the general look at this matter of practical Christian living from verse 9 through 21. It all begins, of course, with dedication in verses 1 and 2. We've gone over that. With a recognition of your special place in the body of Christ, verses 3 to 8. So first, we want to be ready to give ourselves to the Lord, and then to give ourselves to the church.
And then he comes to this practical instruction as to how we are live our Christian life. And from verse 9 to 21 it's as if he has a circle and that circle sort of embraces a theme and at certain intervals the circle widens to take in a wider group of people. It starts in a very personal way with verse 9, speaking only of the individual Christian who is to have love without hypocrisy, who is to hate what is evil, and hold fast to what is good. Practical Christian living begins with some priorities in your life, an honest love, a hating of evil, and a commitment to what is right. That's just simple basic truth.
And then we noticed in verse 10 that the circle widened to go beyond the personal to include the Christian family. And the Apostle Paul in verses 10 through 13, you'll remember, says the Christian is not only called to love with a pure love, to hate evil and stick to what is good, but to be tenderly affectionate to other believers and then to seek above all things to honor other Christians rather than to be honored himself. And then he goes in to talking about our service in verse 11 and says our service to Christ is to be total, enthusiastic, wholehearted, zealous, obedient, diligent service. As a result of that, verse 12 indicates we're going to have some trials and we need to rejoice hopefully in those trials, be patient during those trials and continue diligently in prayer through those trials anticipating the glory that awaits us and being sensitive not only to our own trials, but to the fact that others are having trials too. Verse 13 says we are distributing to the necessity of the saints and we're given to loving strangers.
So those verses sort of embrace the family, if you will, making sure we care for them, show love to them, meet their needs, serve them as we serve the Lord and so forth. So we've looked at the personal circle and the family circle.
And now tonight I want to come to a third and then a fourth circle, the third one sort of embraces everybody, it's sort of the all-people circle, if you will, in verses 14, 15 and 16. And here he widens the circle to discuss how we are to live in relationship to everybody unqualified whether they be believers or unbelievers. And he starts out with the worst of people that we may meet and he says in verse 14, "Bless them who persecute you, bless and curse not." And now he's gone just to a general statement, not particularly about the family of faith, but just in general. Anybody who persecuted you, you bless them and do not curse them. Now that's the way we ought to live. We are to live by blessing the people who treat us with evil intention.
That's not a new principle, by the way, that's a rather old principle in Scripture. It goes all the way back to the teaching of our Lord Jesus, do you remember it in Matthew 5:44, where Jesus said, "But I say unto you, love your...what?...enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you." And that verse is really a combination of Matthew 5:44 and Luke 6:27 and 28 sort of brought together from differing manuscripts and placed in our particular Authorized version. But it's a teaching that was commonly given by our Lord, bless those who persecute you, do good to those who are doing evil against you. And that is a very important principle.
Just for a moment we might look at the passage in Luke because it is a very important passage. Chapter 6 and verse 27, "I say unto you that...here He says...love your enemies." And the love here would be what kind of love? A genuine love, a heartfelt love that is not hypocritical, not a phoney love, not a fake love, not a superficial love, but a genuine one, the kind that all of us are to have as verse 9 of Romans 12 told us. "Do good to them who hate you. Bless them that curse you and pray for them who despitefully use you and unto him that smites you on the one cheek, offer also the other, and him that takes away your cloak, forbid not to take away your coat. Give to every man that asks of you and of him that takes away the goods, ask them not again. And as you would that men should do to you, do you also to them, for if you love them who love you, what thanks have you for sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to them who do good to you, what thanks have you for sinners also do even the same."
In other words, the world is going to respond to goodness with goodness. The world is going to respond to love with love. To show the distinctiveness of being Christians, we need to respond with love to those who hate us and with goodness to those who do evil to us. That is our distinctiveness. I remember, of course, not long ago when our nephew Tim Rea was murdered, a wonderful young man that many of you knew, loved the Lord with all his heart, was committed to serving the Lord and he went, of course, to work in the market...some of you remember the story...where he was employed. And a man came in to rob because of his need for drugs and when Tim came over to try to help the checker he was robbing, the man pumped bullets into him and took his life. And I remember the response of Duane Rea, his father, my brother-in-law, who's now pastoring in Washington, was then with us, and Duane had a great concern to see the man who killed his son come to know Jesus Christ, and that has ever and always been his prayer. And when he came down here some months ago for what was to be some legal activity regarding the case which is at this point still unresolved, his great concern was to get an opportunity to share Jesus Christ with his son's murderer. That is distinctively Christian, you understand that? That is distinctively Christian. The world does not respond to the murder of its loved ones with love, that is unique and that is what is called for in the Word of God.
Recently we had the unenviable experience in our home of being robbed. Patricia came home one day to our house and one of the kids had forgotten to set the alarm system. And she came into the house, we don't forget that anymore, this was a couple of weeks ago, and came into the house and she not only walked in the door but no sooner had she come in the door that she realized something was wrong because things were all over everyplace. She went into the kitchen and saw the window had been pried open and things were thrown around and she said to Marcy, "Let's go right out the backdoor, somebody's in the house." Went out and the police were called and we found out the house had been ransacked. And in their haste to go out the window wondering perhaps if they went through a door they might set off the alarm, not knowing what the system was, they went back out the window and on the way out they dropped a butcher knife that they were carrying in the event they had run into one of the children. And it had been just not long ago, in fact the very day before at the same hour that Melinda had been home by herself for a brief period of time and they were ready had that happened. By God's grace it was the day after that. And, of course, your initial reaction to that is very human, isn't it? And you go into your room and your privacy has been invaded and everything that you count dear is thrown all over and many things that are irreplaceable are taken. We don't have anything of earthly value but we do have some things that sentimentally mean something to us. And much of that was gone. Then all of a sudden something in your heart says, "But this is exactly where your Christianity is tested," isn't it? And can you demonstrate love for those who have invaded your privacy who have taken what is not theirs, who have done evil against you?
And that essentially is what is behind the thought of verse 14. The ones who come against you whether it's a spiritual persecution or whatever, the idea here is the word dioko, it's the verb dioko and it basically means to pursue someone with the intent of doing harm. And we are to respond to those who pursue us with the intent of doing harm with blessing, that is wishing them the best...wishing them the best, blessing them, desiring that God would pour out upon them His goodness and His grace and His mercy. It's what Jesus did on the cross when He said, "Father...what?...forgive them for they know not what they do," and magnanimously wanted grace to be bestowed on those who were taking His life. It is the spirit of Stephen in Acts chapter 7 verse 60 who laying beneath the bloody stones that are crushing out of his life...out his life, looks to heaven and says, "Lay not this sin to their charge." Don't hold them accountable for this, God.
And you'll notice it says "bless," it's in a present tense, it's the idea of constantly blessing. And to bless means to celebrate with praise to wish good will upon. It's a wonderful thing to see the example of Christ in this because it's such an unhuman and unnatural reaction. Peter writes about it in 1 Peter 2:21, he says, "Even here unto were you called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow His steps...here it comes...who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth, who when He was reviled, reviled not again. When He suffered, threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judged righteously." In other words, when they came against Him, He never retaliated. And there's to be no mixture. He says, "Bless them who pursue you with intent to do harm." And then he says, "Bless and curse not." In other words, there's no mixture of blessing and cursing to be tolerated. It isn't bless them in addition to cursing them, it is bless them and do not curse them at all. This is distinctively Christian living.
I read an interesting article last week that my wife gave me that comes to our home from the Berkeley...it's kind of a Berkeley paper, comes out of the University of California. And it is full of the latest discoveries of all the departments of the University of California, and all the science and all the studies they're doing on personality and psychology, and sociology, and so forth. And it was very interesting to me to note in there an article relative to the fact that people today have high blood pressure and they have all kinds of anxiety related diseases, and the study has shown that most of that high pressure kind of thing and most of that anxiety that comes out of the stress...and they use the word stress a lot...has nothing to do with long-term assignments. In other words, it isn't because you're overworked on your job, it isn't because you have a lot to do and a lot on your mind. Most people's severe stress is related to little things like you can't find your car keys, somebody takes a parking space in the mall parking lot that you wanted, standing in line to buy something, somebody cuts in front of you in traffic. Those are the things that precipitate stress that precipitates severe physical illness. It isn't the long-term difficult task. It is that short fuse. And that's all related, I believe, to an escalating egotism where people are literally consumed with their rights and have come to the point now where if you get in someone's way, they're just as likely to kill you as look at you.
I was driving home, I think I may have told you, and a man tried to punch out the windows of my car. Did I tell you that? Oh... He thought that I took his space on the road. So he pulled me over, had the whole family in it, it was after a Sunday morning service three weeks ago, and I was just...we were just talking and he thought I crowded his space on the road. And so he just pulled over and angled in front of me and so I just thought...well, I'll...I'll stop. I don't know what he's going to do, but I'm not going to argue with him and I'll try to be a peacemaker. And he walked to the car, didn't have a shirt on, I think he had something to prove about his macho image and he came back to the car and he said, "Roll the window down." So I did about that far.... I mean, he was violent and I could see it. And he started pouring out profanity that would curl your hair and I just looked him in the eye. And when he was all done, I said, "Do you feel better?" I said, "I don't know what this is all about but if I've done anything to offend you, I'm sorry." And then he reached back his fist and with all the power in his fist he hit the window as hard as he could and left a layer of skin on the window. And, of course, then he went, "Ohhh," and grabbed his hand. I mean, he was absolutely out of control because he thought somebody had invaded his space. And I just sort of blessed him by saying, "I'm very sorry and I wouldn't have inconvenienced you in anyway," and left it at that. And I said, "Maybe you ought to just get in your car and go on home," which he did with a very sore hand.
But that is the world's reaction and I'm telling you, people, it is frightening to be alive in this world today because you don't know what people are going to do. Egotism has come to the point where you can't invade anybody's territory without hostility breaking out. Is it any wonder that marriages don't survive, or any other relationships, for that matter? But Christians are distinctly unearthly and we do not give back that way. We respond entirely different. When we are pursued with intent to do harm, we do not retaliate.
Somebody might have said to me, "Why don't you get out of the car and deck the guy?" Or, "Why don't you do like they do in the cops and robbers and wait till he gets by the door, open it and kick it right into him, knock him down, do the whole number, right?" I haven't practiced that, you know, so I don't really... But I wanted to be sure that since I was studying Romans 12 I put it into operation when I was given opportunity. The Lord has had a way recently of giving me the opportunity to live through this passage. I will be very happy when I get out of this passage. I am anxious to get on to verse 15, if you don't mind.
In verse 15 he says, "Rejoice with them that do rejoice." And that's another distinctively Christian thing. That is that we enjoy someone else's joy. That is the absence of any jealousy, isn't it? I mean, that is a distinctly Christian characteristic, to rejoice at so