Well good morning church – great news, my car is moving again - the clutch I mentioned that I destroyed last week has been replaced, and we are moving again. If any would like to purchase by brown baby parked outside, please feel free to make me an offer after the service.
The bad news is, my construction sites, have not been completed in the last week, they have a long way to go. We also, as we work our way through the books of Romans, are not quite done, 16 chapters in Romans and we wrap up chapter 12 today. 4 chapters left, we’ll be done in the new couple of months I imagine.
We have come a long way. Foundational stuff, verse by verse, Chapter by chapter. God's powerful plan of salvation, man’s standing without Christ and our standing in Him.
And, we said, a corner has been turned here in Chapter 12, many commentators note the shift from Gospel Instruction – so all that Doctrinal Foundation - to Gospel application - living this transformed life. Living a life of service, living in relation to others last week – living under government – that’s next week, Church unity, and more to follow.
This week is a shift within a shift – in the analogy of building a house. We are out the ground, we are now building on that foundation.
Last week was inside the house – direct instruction for communities and sharing and caring and one another new, within the Lord's people – I’m still waiting for my lunch invite, people, but I know you are still waiting for your invite from me…
This week gets into the outside of the house – verses up on the screen talk quite a bit about enemies, evil doers who would wrong you and persecute you - how do you approach them –
Last week Paul, said Hate EVIL.
This week, he’s telling his readers to heap burning coals on top of their heads! Oh boy, lets go, this is gonna be fiery…
Well, maybe not quite - Lets get into it shall we.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.
15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.
16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.[a] Do not be conceited.
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.
18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
19 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,”[b] says the Lord.
20 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.”[c]
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Anyone got any enemies? Actual people set on doing you harm? Really, people who are actively out to harm you? Maybe a difficult one to place into modern context…
Paul, as he writes… he and his readers seem to have these named enemies. The early church faces a level of persecution that we, in western, Christian culture might not relate to. Paul himself will wind up in jail and house arrest not too long - a few years maybe after the time of this letter.
We’re of course not in danger of being locked up for our faith – such freedom to live and believe as we see fit. And so we become very comfortable, we become unaware, unmoved, apathetic, if you remember last week.
But a couple of quick thoughts –
- There is a real enemy out there, he is named in Scripture, he has a clear agenda, he is actively looking to disrupt, to lie, to distract, to bring down anything that give Glory to God. To confuse and diffuse = to take that fizz out of your step.
- Secondly we are called to love people – but hate EVIL. Our battle is against
Ephesians 6:12 "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Distinction between the sinner and the sin, if you will.
- And thirdly, VICTORY, ULTIMATELY IS THE LORDS – He has overcome. The enemy, looking down the corridor of time, has been defeated. I’ll raise a banner because my Lod has conquered the grave
So, there’s good reason not to be hostile and adversarial and individual in your response to bad people. Those people that persecute you. Bless them. Don’t curse them. – live in harmony – verse 16. Live at peace.
You spot the disclaimer in verse 18 there – if it is possible, as far as it depends on you… live at peace with everyone – sometimes folks, seems true for Paul maybe true for us today, it just ain’t possible. But that’s not your problem. You do you – you do what you can do – you do what you should do, leave the rest.
How do you bless someone who actively brings you down? Must you lie? If someone has wronged you must you … you might not find it in yourself to hold back exactly what you think of that person… but here it says you must bless them – you must control the way you speak about them. You must watch what you say. Speak kindness. Try and understand….
Roy is saying nasty things about me? He just doesn’t know me well enough to know what I nice guy I am. His son is an all blacks fan. Would I call him rebellious and curse him, no – I must find it in my heart, and control this dangerous thing called my tongue and say, well, he knows this game of Rugby, and he finds great inspiration from that team and, you know, I love that for him. He’s so young, 16 last week – he also has a bright future ahead of him and he will grow, and mature, and by the time he’s our age, the springboks will have won like 8 world cups in a row and he has that beautiful conversion experience of becoming a bok fan to look forward to. So good for him.
Yes, the soft examples are easy…. But bless – speak well of those who persecute you.
Rejoice, mourn, live in harmony – live at peace – do what is right so that others may see –
Now see the call to community. Living connected with one another – if your people - are rejoicing, rejoice with them. Don’t be an old grumpy Gus. And now the hard part, when your people mourn, go mourn with them. Draw alongside them – real human beings. I often tell people, they come up to me say oh, wow, you’re such a talented guitar player, and wow, we didn’t even notice that David and Shekinah weren’t here this morning and you really carried the whole service on you guitar and thank you so much for your selfless acts of sacrifice…. Well, in my mind they say something like that….
But I like to remind people that strumming a guitar, is easy…. is hardly a sacrifice, it’s a whole bunch of fun… and not really an area of service that actually costs you all that much…
But being the guy or girl that gets that late night phone call when a brother or sister’s world is falling apart – that’s service – that’s ministry – that’s really building into people’s lives – that is what love in action looks like. Not to be the person that says, wow, sjoe that’s hectic hey, you should really mention that to Maurice hey…. To rather be the person that says, brother, put the kettle on, I am on my way, lets tackle this thing together.
Sarah and I watched a movie last week called Into the Wild (please don’t watch it with your kids – yikes), - but it’s that one were the guy gives up his college education and burns all his money and goes and lives out in the open, travelling this wonderful free lifestyle, from the trappings of society and all these pressures, and by then end of the movie he’s gone up to Alaska, and is living this wonderful life alone, against this picturesque backdrop of nature, and no rules or whatever, - and the movie does a great job of setting it up, life, wow, how inspirational – this call just to be independent and wild. But by the end of the movie, the man is dying – a horrible starving lonely death – with no-one around to help him, to care for him, to share this existence with and he writes in his journal ‘Happiness is only real when shared’. That the extreme solitude that this young man was craving – strips life of meaning. Paul would agree. how to live – a shared, communal existence . We fellowship with one another, and we fellowship with the Lord.
I was saying last week to Elder Grant here, this is pretty much what Medway really has going for it as a community… we are a mid sized group here – and you drove past several incomplete construction sites and probably a few different churches to get here this morning…. And you could have gone to that one – and they have a cooking worship team, even better than ours – just imagine…
Or that other one has just the best pastor, and what a dynamic speaker
Or that other one that has just the most organised youth group…
But you wound up here, and we’re grateful that you did, and part of that reason, we figured is to do with some sort of, real, human connection. A group of believers in community. Sharing and caring, Rejoicing and Mourning - our journey through this life that God leads us through. And you will never get that from sitting on your couch and flicking on the TBN channel. What did this early church have going in Rome – they had enemies for sure, and that didn’t have all that much – didn’t have a snazzy renovated building, didn’t have a worship team and data projector… but they had more than enough to be able to focus on the Lord and grow together in faith.
Connecting with real people – all the people, even the low position – you are not above anyone – you are not more spiritual, or more superior or more anything – don’t be conceited… in your clique and in your comfort zone – but rather connect – genuinely in real love with others.
On the flip side perhaps - the other theme in here is this idea of vengeance – Do not repay anyone evil for evil
Do not take revenge - Feed your hungry enemy give your thirsty enemy a drink
But, but, but that’s not justice is it – isn’t it only fair to give whatever is given to me by a person, especially an enemy who is mistreating me – give it back to him exactly the same, maybe even with a little bit of interest thrown in for good measure – isn’t that fairness- you reap what you sow. Karma comes back at you.
Well this isn’t Karma. This is Grace, Grace says
Matthew 5
Eye for Eye
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[h] 39 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
Why, well,
Repaying evil for evil doesn’t solve anything, it doesn’t bring about peace – it just adds more evil into the equation. In fact it’s the opposite of overcoming good with evil – it allows evil to overcome you. When you give in to that base desire to let – that person have it – evil wins that battle.
It also really doesn’t follow the gospel example of Christ (those were his words by the way), who we are all called to imitate – Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. He also said those words hey?
And thirdly taking vengeance yourself tries to remove God from the picture. Let me sort this out myself, I’ll get him. I’ll mete out justice and retribution – don’t worry God, I can do this myself.
He alone knows what true justice is, he alone is the judge, he alone knows how to execute perfect Holiness – not you.
And then, verse 20 there you run into this wonderful picture of heaping burning coals on someone’s head – aha finally, forget the lovely thoughts before, where can I get me some of these burning coals, I have a couple of people on my list..
In fact, maybe, as an object lesson if I could just get a volunteer (Roy maybe) and I’ll just fire up some burning coals and dump them on his head to illustrate the point… not so fast…
If that’s what these verses mean, if this is seriously about inflicting spiteful pain on your enemies, that just takes away everything we’ve just been saying about how to treat evil doers. That’s not turning the cheek – that’s not overcoming evil with good. That’s just harmful revenge. So let’s chew on this – some of these verses are more chewy than others - the verse is a quote of Proverbs 25 – and the view here is that this is not a form of secret retaliation, but it is actually is a metaphor of a guilty conscience being met with kindness and love, and goodness, that the reaction is one of shame. Remorse – the burning shame. A motivation for a behavioural change in the person, ultimately for their good – for refinement, conviction.
There’s a second loose potential connection, I am told, to an ancient Egyptian ritual of repentance involving a repentant person walking around a clay pan of hot coals on their head = symbolizing their remorse and sorrow…
Theres even a third reminder that in ancient times warm coals is actually life giving – a generous neighbour would give – even their enemy in an act of kindness, some coals from their fire – in an act of kindness – meeting their need. So again, aligning with giving in love and kindness rather that what it seems to present as. All very interesting stuff that makes you think – and it might make you go, oh really – I’m not so sure, and you know what? The very reason that it might be inconvenient to accept this understanding of this verse is…. actually exactly the problem – that our human nature is so aligned with what we would expect this to be in wordly terms.
We would expect an eye for an eye, we don’t think twice to interpret this verse as - ha, stick to those people who wrong you.
Giving kindness in reaction to wrong doing is not the way this fallen world of ours seems to operate- it’s not the norm. It’s not the survival of the fittest. Its Graceful, and its rooted in love. And, its unexpected, hard to wrap our hard around, and hard to genuinely put in practice.
Stuart made a good point when he closed last week (yes, sometimes it happens)
He noted – these verses up on the screen they are full of these instruction – do this do this, don’t do that? And like we said now, some hard asks.
How on earth are we supposed to follow these things?
By the Grace of God, that’s how
By the transformation that comes from the Holy Spirit
By the new birth that comes from faith in His name alone.
Thank You Jesus for the blood applied, thank you Jesus it has washed me white
People like to hear these snappy instructions – great rules to live by, they can put them on hallmark cards, tattoo the words on their bodies - but then they forget the source. Thank you Jesus
This isn’t just some cool things to say that Paul dreamed up because he want the Roman church to behave and stop fighting.
This is the Gospel applied. Love in action – this is the Fathers Love – for God so loved the world – in practice.
So when you read – Bless those who persecute you – who does that sound like?
When you read – be willing to associate with people of low position – who does that sound like? Who famously did that?
When you hear – do not take revenge – who really is that talking about, as a perfect example..
Who feeds the five thousand? Who gives us living water?
Who, as we remembered the cross in this small moment this morning – who has overcome evil, with good?
His blood, has covered my sin. I believe!
These are not guidelines for a good life – sure, follow them, they will help you.
But these are actually pointers to Christ. This is Gospel living that goes against what the world expects – an eye for an eye – crush my enemies – fight evil with more evil..
And says, Gods way is different. The Grace and love and mercy and kindness that we have experienced in our life can be shared, can be revealed and modelled passed on in a real, God honouring God glorifying way.
Last thought – what is happening here – as we read these instructions as seem not as old 2000 directives that can’t and don’t relate to me? But rather as true, and worthy of understanding and applying. And little by little we get a little closer to living out the Grace that God has shown to us. We sung earlier – Come thou fount of every blessing, tune thy heart to sing thy Grace – our hearts are being tuned into harmony.
I was here in the hall this week and we had a chap come tune the grand piano – it was absolutely torture to listen to. YOU know how many strings a grand piano has, like over 200 – my guitar – you maybe heard me tune it earlier, takes a moment – easy – just a few strings.
And I sat the whole afternoon while this guy – 1 by one – went ping … ding….dinnngnnggng and got the strings all to work together in tune.
Praise God for his patient loving kindness – that tunes us - I suppose he tunes us as well, but you know what I mean - he brings us into harmony – like vs 16.
Lets pray.
