Living Transformed: Responding to Evil with Grace

Okay, I'm going to be using Romans chapter 12 and be focused on verses 17 through 21. This is what, January what, 25th? 26th. Okay. Get all that down to begin with. Paul is talking about the nature of what happens when a person enters into this relationship where God is in charge of your life. And the Holy Spirit comes and takes control of your mind, will, and emotions. He's talking about how this change is a rather dramatic change, a transformation. And verse 1 sort of, or these verse 1 and 2 sort of set the pattern for everything that happens in chapter 12. I urge you therefore, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. So Paul is talking about the transformation that the Spirit of God makes. So all of these things he's talked about in this chapter have two different kinds of dimensions. One of them is the way the world normally sees things, the way the world normally works. And the other is this transformed mind, the way God causes us to see things and circumstances. Now, Paul starts with verse 17 in this chapter. He's been talking about how people in the church treat each other. And some people think that verse 17 starts a different kind of idea, not necessarily a new chapter, but a different kind of focus. That he's now talking about people who are outside the church. And this focuses on that, but I'm not convinced that that's true. I think that the Bible's focus on this is that we treat people outside the community of faith in the very same way we treat people inside the community of faith. I don't think there's any difference in how we do that. Of course, it's more dangerous to treat people outside the Christian faith in a certain way because they don't necessarily respond to us in the same way. In other words, you expect a brother whose mind has been transformed, a brother or sister whose mind has been transformed, and the Holy Spirit is controlling them, you would think that then when you reacted to them, that they would be trying to react to you in the same way. And this is, of course, an ideal situation. In the church, if you know that all the people in the church are born-again children of God, they've submitted their life to God, they're trying to live in obedience to Him, then our relationship with them would be that the Holy Spirit that's governing our lives and our behavior is also governing theirs. And that's so critical, not only in the church, but it's also critical in a marriage, where you're sure that the person that you're connected to is listening to the same source that you're listening to with regard to all the issues that you face, with regard to all the problems you face. So, he's talking about here, I think, all kinds of people, people who are in that situation and also people who may be outside the church. He says, do not repay anyone evil for evil. And he's talking now about the reality of life, that people do not treat you well. It doesn't matter where you are, doesn't matter what the circumstances of your life are, there are some people who are going to treat you badly. He uses the language evil to talk about the kind of treatment that someone would give you. It's wicked, evil, bad, not simply a mild case, but something that you'd respond to. Now, whenever someone treats you badly in your normal human circumstances, what is the initial reaction that comes to you? If you're driving down the street and someone cuts you off, what is the initial reaction that you have inside of your mind? If you're doing business with someone and they don't treat you exactly right, what is your initial reaction? If you work in a workplace and somebody says things about you or to you in a certain way that's very negative, what is your immediate reaction to all that? We rise up inside of ourselves with anger, resentment, and bitterness. That's the first thing that comes to a human being. And I think we should understand that that's common to all of us, because temptation by Satan comes to everybody, and I mean even Jesus. When you see Jesus on the cross, you have the temptation to think that he's on the cross and he's sort of like in a chemical coma, spiritual coma, so that he didn't feel anything, he didn't think anything, and all he does is have wonderful thoughts. But you know when they're pounding the rugged nails in you, Satan brings all kinds of temptations to you, I would assume, and have it happen to me. So Jesus was in this situation and he knew he was being treated unfairly, he knew he was being treated badly, he knew he was being killed and his death was not really justified. He knew that what was happening to him was a result of lies, vicious character on the part of the people who were doing it. And when that happens to you, you have anger toward the injustice of all this, you have bitterness toward the people who are doing it, you feel anger toward your own disciples who've run away from you in your hour of greatest need. I mean, when you have the hardest time in your life you're going through, and your friends and family all abandon you, you just feel angry, you feel discouraged, overwhelmed. So all of us have the same reactions whenever this comes to us, and Jesus' life is no different than ours. So Paul is saying to us, whenever you have evil done to you, you should know what's going to happen. In your life, you will want to repay evil for evil. And usually, if you repay evil for evil, it's difficult for the two people involved in doing this to determine whose action is the most evil. For example, if you decide you're going to get even with somebody, and whether it's a friend or co-worker or family member, and they do something to you, and you say, boy, that's nasty, I'm going to get even with them, and you do something back, and then you say to them, now we're even, it isn't going to work. They will always believe that you got the worst lick in, and you deserve something back from them. There is not any way that you can equate evil by terms of pounds, ounces, inches, whatever else it is that might give you an objective standard for which this is done. So he's saying to them, whenever you get into the world, what you're going to find is people will do evil things to you. Your first reaction from the Holy Spirit in your life is, do not say anything. Do not do anything. That's the first thing that the Holy Spirit will tell you to do. If you're used to returning evil for evil, you'll quickly go past that. And it's only then, whenever the disaster occurs, that you discover you should have done something differently. When you walk in the house, and you say something, your husband or wife says something to you and hurts your feelings, and you say something back to them, and they say something back to you, and say back and forth and back and forth, and each time it gets a little bit more coarse and a little bit more anger behind it, till finally you're both so angry you can't talk. You just go your way. At that moment you realize, this wasn't a good road to go down. I should have somewhere along the line stopped this. But you also realize, I've been down this road lots of different times. Why do I keep going down this road? Because our human nature causes us to think that the proper reaction to an insult, or a slight, or some attack, is to attack back. And what we feel like at the time, the emotions in us, is if I attack back, then they'll back off. Like if one dog grabs another one, the second one grabs the other one and hurts them worse, they'll run off. But we're fighting dogs. We don't turn and run. We give it back as good as we get. So when you learn to live and think like God lives and thinks, and like Jesus lived and thinks, your mind should be transformed that whenever you get into a place where you feel you're attacked with power, the first thing you find God trying to do to you is do not respond to this. Now that doesn't mean it's going to stop. The people that are mad at you might keep attacking you at work, or at home, or wherever it is. They might keep yapping, and yapping, and talking, and talking. And it will tempt you to want to move past this stage. But this is a very important part of it. God says simply, this is a command, do not repay evil for evil. Because all it does is allow Satan to get more control of your mind, heart, and your will. If you've ever been in any of these exchanges, I shouldn't say that, all of us have been in exchanges like this. And when you're in exchanges like this, when it's over, you really feel terrible. Everybody does. You didn't intend for it to get this bad. You didn't intend to say some of the things you said. You may have believed them, or thought them, but you know it's not a good thing for you to say it. And so after you get down the road, and you stop, and you look back on this when you've separated from each other, you begin to think this was not a good thing to do. What God's trying to do in these situations is to stop the damage immediately. It's like if you're stuck with something, and you start bleeding. It's a good thing to stop when that happens, clean out the wound, and try to stop the bleeding. So when you are hurt by someone, your immediate reaction is to respond. God wants us to stop and say, that's not the reaction God wants from me. Then he says, the second thing you do in circumstances like this, the language you'll notice, be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. Now this is a really difficult thing to do. For whenever you're hurt by somebody, and you put aside your own normal human nature response to it, it's difficult then to do something that would be right. Because you feel that the other person deserves to be punished. And you've stopped this process, so you're not going to punish them. But now you're trying to decide, how should I respond to this person? Sometimes you can respond in ways that are nice, and they sound nice to the person who's saying them, because they're upset or hurt with you. I remember a lady one time that wrote me a letter, and she said, I want to forgive you, because when I was in the hospital one time, lived in a great van, you didn't come to see me, and I'm forgiving you. Did she want to forgive me? She wanted me to know that I failed. Now if I'd gone and talked to her, she would have said, yeah, I went to church. They said, you should forgive anybody that's offended you. And so I did. So I'm following God's plan. Now she didn't want forgiveness only. She wanted to let me know how my failure to be the pastor she thought I should be had injured her feelings. So if you were to take this plan to her and say, did you respond in a kind way? She would say, yes, I asked for forgiveness, and I wrote and told this guy that I forgave him. And if you were to take this to a group of people and let them read the letter, they would say, this is not forgiveness, it's real punishment. So you have to be careful when you're caught in this, because your mind doesn't always allow you to see things clearly. So what he's saying is, in the middle of this fight that you're in, or this quarrel, or this difficulty, you need to think about other people. And your thoughts in this process are to think, he says, be very careful. Think before you act, is what he really, is one of the ways to translate this. Don't be carried away. It's another way to translate this. Don't be carried away by what's right in your eyes, but try to find what's right in the eyes of other objective people who have no stake in this. Don't go to your best friend. Don't go to your family and tell them what someone did to you. One of the great problems you have a lot of times with young couples, especially as they get in a fight, and one of them goes to their mother or dad, and they get mad at their spouse, which is now their son-in-law or daughter-in-law, whichever one it is. And then the couple makes up, but they still got this person over here that's mad about it. Makes it really difficult. Think of everybody else. If this were a perfect stranger who were looking at this situation, is my reaction going to be seen as kind, considerate, and loving, or will it be getting even? So you might need to find a friend that you have who can be objective, and say, this is what happened to me at work or the other day, and I'm thinking about doing this or saying this. And for them to look at you and say, you know, if you do that, you're simply going to make it worse. What do you suggest I do? I mean, they don't have a dog in your fight, so they're just completely objective about it. And they can tell you sometimes exactly what's the best thing for you to say, the best response for you to make. Your response to the attack of evil is to be something that a perfect stranger, who heard what you say happened to you, would say the response that you're giving is not punishing, it's not getting evil, and they wouldn't take offense to it. That's what you're looking for. You're looking for a response that does not give an acceleration to what's taking place between the two of you. Be careful to do, think through this beforehand, so that you do what is right in the eyes of everybody else. Now, the Bible is not telling us that you're to do what's right in the eyes of the person you're in the fight with. Because there's an element of anger between both of you. If the other person thinks you need to be punished, or if you need to be told off, or you need to be hurt, they're probably thinking even what they said about you is not enough. They need to pile it on a little bit more, because they're mad too, because of all the things you said back to them. Or what you might have said, or they don't feel that they got the right answer. So it's not saying, okay, you go and you say, you can just say anything in the world you want about me, and whatever you say is right. That's not what he's saying. You go to someone and you say, this happened to me, here's what I'm thinking about doing and responding to it. And this person who's outside this can say to you, if you did this, this would be considered a kind thing to do. There is no punishment in it. There's no getting even in it. It's free of that. That's what you're looking for. I want to respond to the hurt that I've received in a way that everybody else who's neutral to this situation can see that my response is not an attacking response, or an angry response, or is a way of getting even in a kind way. A lot of times we have a nice way, like my friend who wrote the letter, you know, being Christian with a knife. I'm going to be real sweet to you when I stab you in the back. And what God wants us to do is be free from any kind of retaliation. Do not return evil for evil. This lady thinks I did something bad to her, so she is now going to call me to stage and return that bad feeling to me. That's what he's avoiding. You cannot restore and build a relationship when you're doing that. This is the new way of thinking that God has. Now he says, if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live in peace with everyone. Paul understands human nature. If it's possible, live in peace with all the people around you. Now the word peace is used throughout the scriptures to mean more than just the absence of conflict. The word peace is a word that's used to describe a state of life that is filled with joy, that is rewarding to you. The word in the Hebrew word that's translated peace in the Bible is shalom. It means to have the fullness of life, everything that life brings. If possible, have between you and the other people around you this relationship that is rich and full and rewarding to both parties. See, what God tells us we should do is love one another, which means put the other person's interest and need ahead of ourselves. So what I'm trying to do is to say, OK, this person's hurt me. They're hurt, and that's why they're attacking me. They think I did something. Somebody else has done something. I don't know what it is. Maybe they got a stomachache, a headache, or whatever it is. So I'm going to erase from this getting even, and I'm going to say, if I were in a person, if I were a person who believed this was true, what would I want someone to do in response to me? So self-denying sacrificial service is what love is. Self-denying, I deny my feelings and interests to attack that other person. I sacrifice. I'm willing to put myself in jeopardy by not responding and not defending myself. And the next step is I want to do something for that person that would help them in the best way I know how. So when he's talking about here, as far as it is possible, he knew, Paul knew it's not possible to please everybody you meet. So we're not talking about that. You're going to have some people in your life that you can never please, no matter what you do. But you don't have to retaliate, and you don't have to hate them. You can step back away from it and say, this is a circumstance where I can't ever please this person. I know that drives us nuts sometimes. We really want everybody to like us. But you just have to take the idea that that's not going to happen. When I was growing up, I used to read in the paper these stories, you know, that they'd write about politicians. And I thought, how could a person stand that, to pick up the paper and read all these things that people say about you? You read about it also in the athletic world. How can you pick up the paper and read all the things people are saying about the coaches or the football players or the basketball players? You know, I mean, they're just trying to do their best. And somebody's saying nasty and terrible things about them. How could you stand it? Someone would say, well, I don't read the papers. You don't have to read the papers. Other people help you. They read them for you and come and tell you what these people are saying about you. And yeah, that happened to you, too. You know, somebody say, well, I need to tell you something. So-and-so said so-and-so about you. And, you know, I just thought you needed to know. Well, you know, you can't, no matter what you do to some people, they're still going to be mad at you. They're still not going to like you. And so he doesn't say make everybody in the world like you. That's not the goal of this. He says, if it's possible, as far as it depends on you, you don't control the other person's attitude, mindset, or actions, but you do control yours. So you say to God, I want you to help me to do something in this situation that's right, and that is loving, and that is considerate and kind, regardless of what that person does back to me. So you do everything you can to live at peace with this person, to say, I want your life to prosper. I want you to do well. I want you to find peace in your own life. I want you to find fulfillment in it. As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Two people can fight, but when one quits fighting and has no anger toward the other, then there's no fight. There's one person railing at you, one person doing nasty things to you, but you're not fighting. You let it go. You drop it. Do not take revenge, my friends. That's his point. First you stop and you don't do anything bad. Then you look up and you say, okay, what can I do that would be a loving, kind act to this person? And everyone who's neutral would see it that way. And then you stop and say, okay, I don't want to take revenge. He's getting even. He knows that that's a subtle thing, that we want to get revenge. We feel good inside if it comes. We can even sometimes live this out to say, okay, I'm not going to do anything bad to this person. But when you look inside of your heart, you really want that to happen. You just don't want to have the blood on your hands. It'd be nice if they had the bad problems they were giving to me. I'd really feel good about that. He wants us even to erase that. He wants us to see other people in the need that they have. Every time you have a fight, somebody's hurt. Even the person that starts it's hurt. How can I help them be able to find in their life the fullness they're trying to find? Don't take revenge, my friend, but leave room for God's wrath, for it's written. Now, in this passage in the Greek text, the word God is not in there. So you'll find sometimes people will say this is not for God's wrath. Leave room for wrath. And the idea here is, I think in the scripture, that we leave this to God. Whatever injustice have been done to you, you say, okay, God, you take care of it. That's what Jesus was doing. He prayed for those who were crucifying him, for God's mercy and grace to be there, and he trusted that God would settle a score with him. It helps me a lot, whenever you get in situations like this, to understand that God settles scores in this world and afterward. And the idea behind this is, if I try to settle a score right here, it's like, you know, an amateur trying to play with a professional. If I just get out of the way, and I'm loving and kind, God will take care of all the punishment this person needs to have to get their life straightened out. Get out of the way whenever somebody is doing evil to you, and let God settle that score. The covenant promise he makes with us is, I will protect you. And part of his protection is to go after those people who are trying to hurt us. Now the transformation might be that this person would be changed their mind toward you. I've had people in the past that were really negative and nasty to me. Later in their life, they said, well, you're one of the best friends I ever had. God changes people's hearts, if you give them an opportunity to do it. So what he says is, get out of the way, leave room for God to settle this score on your behalf. He's promised he'll do it. For it is written, it is mine to avenge. I will repay, says the Lord. God has made a promise to us. This is a quote he's going to give from Proverbs chapter 25 in the Old Testament. If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heat burning coals of fire on his head. I was talking with someone just a couple weeks ago about this passage, and they were talking about being nice to someone that wasn't nice to them, and they did what a lot of people say. You know, I was nice to them back because then God's going to heat burning coals on their head, and they'll be miserable, you know, because of this. And so it's a way of thinking you're going to get revenge by being nice. And if you dream, okay, God's going to really make them suffer because of what he's done. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about that God will deal with them in a way to transform them. God's power is so strong and powerful, like coals, the heat of coals, to be able to transform someone. For the next verse tells you what he's talking about. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. See, that's what God's plan is. Overcoming evil with good. And when we go through this process, what he's telling us is, you will be in a situation where you'll be attacked, and evil will come to you. But the plan all the way through is that we will overcome what is evil by the love of God, or the goodness that God corrects to us. And that's the scheme that he's giving. It doesn't mean that every time it happens, the person will change and become a good person. That doesn't always happen. But he's saying to us that God deals with this in his own way. And if there's judgment to be found somewhere out there because of this person's refusal to do that, God will make sure that whatever crime was committed against you is satisfied properly, in the correct amount, and at the right time. God will settle scores. We are his children. And anyone who hurts the children of God has our Father in Heaven to deal with. And I try to think of it and say this to people sometimes. You know, when you try to get even with people who hurt you, it's like a four-year-old child attacking a 300-pound man. If you'll just move out of the way, the 600-pound God will take your place in this fight. Do you trust more your own wisdom and strength and power, or the wisdom, strength, and power of God to settle it? He promises us, I will protect you. He doesn't promise us we won't be hurt, or no one's going to attack us, but he promises that he will protect us. So when you're attacked by evil, don't allow the temptation of your human nature to destroy God's work in your life. Don't let the temptation of your human nature to do something that doesn't allow God to do his work in the life of the person who's attacked you. Instead, keep your own conscience clean and return good for evil. Do not take revenge. Return good for evil. Do something that in everyone's mind will be very, very loving and kind, and then God will either transform their mind or heart toward you, or he will give them their just dues. Let's pray. We're thankful, Father, for the promise you've given us, that you're going to be with us, not just in the good times, but in the bad ones, too. We don't want to leave a lifestyle of broken relationships. We don't want to live in our lives in ways that have pockets of bitterness and anger around us. We know we can't control the people who are around us, but we know that you can control us, our mind, our will, and emotions. Teach us how to treat each other, and teach us how to treat those people who are not a part of your family, that we might be able, as far as we're possible, to have peace with everyone who's around us. We want this to be a witness to the world of what you can do in the life of a person who thinks and acts like you do, and whose life is controlled, whose thoughts are controlled by you, and their action is controlled by you. We want them to see how you change people, and give peace and harmony to relationships. And Father, when we meet people who are in conflict, and we try to help them, we know that telling people without you this process will make them think we're stupid, because it makes no sense whatsoever. But when we're around the people who you control, help us to be able to help them to find ways to handle conflict, and being attacked, and treated badly in a way that would bring peace to them. In the name of Christ, we ask for this. Amen.