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(upbeat music) - Romans chapter 12 verses 15 to 21. - Welcome to our look
together at Romans chapter 12 in Daily Drive Time Devotions. We're in day five
of our look at this incredible chapter.

We started yesterday looking at what it means to love the kind of way that Jesus
loves. And as we pick up in verse 15 today, we see that Paul is continuing to
talk about that. Let me start reading in verse 15.

He says there, "Rejoice with those who rejoice. "Mourn with those who mourn.
"Live in harmony with one another.

"Do not be proud, but be willing to associate "with people of low position. "Do
not be conceited. "Do not repay anyone evil for evil.

"Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. "If it is possible, as
far as it depends on you, "live at peace with everyone. "Do not take revenge, my
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's 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.

" We started yesterday a list of the kind of actions that need to be a part of
my life if I'm going to truly love. We actually talked about seven of them. We
didn't count them off, but seven of them yesterday.

As we begin to look at verse 15, there is an eighth, and then a ninth, and a
10th, and 11th way that you and I can love one another. The eighth way in these
verses is to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. It's
easier sometimes I have found to mourn with those who mourn than to rejoice with
those who rejoice.

When somebody's hurting, I can hurt with them usually, but sometimes when
somebody is rejoicing, we think pride creeps in and we think, how come they got
that and I didn't? We never think that with sadness, by the way. We think it
with pride.

I know that this can happen even in the most important areas of our life. I can
remember when Shondell and I were waiting for children. I've been told by the
doctors that we weren't ever going to be able to have children at one point as we
waited, we saw other couples having children and there was part of me that
wanted to rejoice with them, but there was also part of me that struggled to
rejoice with them.

And what I want to say to you is, that struggle is worth it. Struggle through to
the point where you have some measure of rejoicing with those who rejoice.
Because if I couldn't rejoice, when I couldn't rejoice with them, that held a
part of God's goodness to me at arm's length.

God wanted to use the good that was happening in their life to minister to me
even as I was going through difficulties. How God did eventually bring not just
one, but three children into our lives. But part of what he wanted to teach us
during that time was to rejoice, even when it seemed like others were getting
something that we so deeply desired.

Rejoice with those who rejoice. Yesterday we talked about a traffic light, which
some of you might be driving by right now as you're listening to this. The red
and yellow and green.

How are you doing at this? Red, are you resisting rejoicing with somebody or
mourning with someone? Yellow, are you just neglecting it, just thinking about
your own life?

Or green, is this an area where, you're certainly not perfect, but at least
you're growing because of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. It's one of the
steps of love. Rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who
mourn.

A ninth step of love as we walk through these verses is to live in harmony with
one another. New century version says you live in peace with one another.
Harmony, I can understand that.

Harmony is not singing the same note, but it's also not just singing any old
note you want. If you had like three people or five people in your car right
now, and you just got a note in your mind and bam, you sang it as loud as you
could, oh, that would be bad. But if you had somehow a music leader there who
could tune you in to just the right notes and all of a sudden you sang them
together, if you could sing well that is, there would be beauty.

What I'm saying to you is we can all relate well because of the grace of God in
Jesus Christ. And he is the conductor, he is the director, he's the music leader
when it comes to our relationships. So if we're going to relate well to one
another, we gotta listen to him, we gotta look to him to get the downbeat, to
get the right tone, to keep on key, or else we'll be out of harmony.

When we listen to him together, then we're inevitably in harmony. There's a
creative power to our relationships when that happens. Live in harmony with one
another.

How is that going in your life right now? Are you in harmony with other or is
there a lot of discord? Is it red or yellow or green?

A 10th thing that these verses talk about is how you relate to people that you
might consider to be beneath you in some way. It says do not be proud, be
willing to associate with people of low position. How do you treat people who
are serving you?

How do you treat the clerk in a checkout line? How do you treat the slow clerk
in the checkout line? How do you treat the server in the fast food drive up
line?

How do you treat the guy who's blowing the leaves off of your office parking lot
as you walk in in the morning? God's reminding us here, you treat everybody the
same. Don't be proud, we're all creations of God.

You treat everyone as a creation of God, a fantastic, wonderful creation of God.
How are you doing at that one? You're resisting doing that?

Probably yellow is true for a lot of us here. We just ignore people. We don't
see them.

Or is it green or you're growing in that area recognizing everybody that's a
part of your life, treating them as a creation of God? There is, as we walk
through these verses, an 11th thing that God talks about. He says, "Do not repay
anyone evil for evil.

" Focusing on our enemy here. Now, who is our enemy? What is he talking about
here?

Is it someone who betrays you? Is it someone who hurts you? Is it an unbeliever?

Well, your enemy is whoever you make your enemy in your mind or whoever has made
themselves your enemy by some action that they've taken towards you. He's not
talking about a certain group of people. Here he's talking about anyone in your
life that you would say, well, for whatever reason, we have gotten on two sides
of a fence and there is a battle going on here.

And he reminds us here, be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.
What he's saying here is not that we should conform to the pattern of this
world. What he's saying here is everyone realizes, everyone can see when you as
a Christian are acting in bitterness towards another person and they all see
that that's wrong.

People in your life who maybe even aren't believers expect you to act like a
believer. Here's just something powerful about the fact that Jesus has
transformed your life. And one of the ways they see true belief, true love in
Jesus Christ is in the way that we treat our enemies.

Because one of the clearest ways that you see Jesus's love is in the way that he
treated his enemies. Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.

And so he says, you treat him with kindness. If your enemy is hungry, you feed
him. If he's thirsty, you give him something to drink.

And then that phrase, you'll heap burning coals on his head. And there's two
different ideas about that phrase. Some people think that it literally means
that.

It'll make them even more angry. They'll see even more the discord that they
have in their own life because you've been kind to them and it maybe will cause
them to change. There's others who see a picture here of a practice in that day
of putting burning coals on someone's head in order to warm them on a cold day.

That's a nice thought and that might be what the Bible means here. I tend to
think it means more that you help people to see really the discord between your
action and their action and to see, I need to be different. I need to be
different.

George Washington Carver once said, I will never allow anyone to belittle my
soul by making me hate him. That's what's at stake here, is our love for God. So
how's this one going?

Is it a red? I'm resisting loving an enemy. I'm resisting forgiving someone.

Sometimes you can resist for a long time. In fact, the harder you resist
sometimes, the harder it is to forgive. Or is it yellow?

I just put it aside. I'm ignoring it. I'm not thinking about it.

Or is this an area that you're growing in that God's making a difference in your
life? Now, what's the overall principle behind this kind of love? When it comes
to loving someone who might consider themselves your enemy, it's in verse 21, do
not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Three times in this passage, Paul stresses the fact we are not to return evil
for evil. That's one of the main ways that we show the world what genuine love
is like. Don't return evil for evil, but overcome evil with good.

A lazy person can return evil for evil. It takes true courage, spiritual
courage. It takes God's strength to, instead of doing evil back to do good.

Lincoln once said the best way to overcome an enemy is to make him your friend.
Well, Jesus said the best way to overcome evil is with good, by doing the right
thing, the good thing. Who is it right now in your life that is trying to do
evil to you?

And how can you overcome that evil with good? God understands the real world.
It's not as if he's telling you to just let people walk all over you.

Just let people do whatever they want to. You take your business or hurt your
family or whatever. That's not at all what he's saying here.

To overcome evil with good is not to forgive someone to the extent that you let
them hurt you again. To overcome evil with good is not to say that the evil is
not evil. It's to do good in the face of evil.

So when someone hurts you, instead of hating, you forgive, but you also hold
them accountable for what they've done with forgiveness in your heart rather
than hatred in your heart. To overcome evil with good is one of the most
courageous choices that I can make, that you can make in our lives. We're going to
make this choice.

We're going to relate to the enemies even in our lives as Jesus would have us to.
We need his strength to love. Let's pray for it right now.

As you pray, just say, Jesus Christ, help me to do these things that we've just
talked about. We're beginning with rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning
with those who mourn. And then going on to living in harmony with others.

God, forgive me, you might need to pray. Forgive me for my pride. Sometimes I've
just ignored people who I've even considered beneath me.

No one's beneath me. They may be serving me, but someday I might be serving
them. And so God, I pray that I'd be willing to talk to and associate with
people that are serving me.

And I pray that instead of pride, I would have love. God, help me to live at
peace with everyone, to not take revenge, but instead to trust you. I trust my
life into your hands.

And so I can trust into your hands those times when people try to do evil to me
or to my family. And I trust you right now. God, I don't want my heart to get
eaten up with unforgiveness and bitterness because of the evil that they tried
to do.

That would be a greater evil. So instead, right now, I choose to forgive. Thank
you, Jesus, that you can give me the strength to make that choice.

And I choose to respond with good, with hopes and prayers that this person will
come to know Christ. And if they already know Christ, they'll come to grow in
you. That their life will be transformed.

I don't wish them evil. I don't wish them good. The good that I've experienced
because of your grace.

And I ask that this would happen. I don't feel like it happening, but I ask that
it would happen in faith because I trust you, Jesus. In your name, amen.

Well, we ran through this chapter, Romans chapter 12, fairly quickly. I hope you
might take a chance to read this chapter back to yourself a few times during
this next week. There's so much here that we didn't even have time to cover.

But I hope that as we covered the high points of this chapter, this wonderful
chapter of scripture, it was an encouragement to you to think of yourself, to
think of other people, to think even of your enemies, and especially to think of
God and worship in new ways. And join us this next week. We're going to be taking a
look together at Romans chapter 13, which talks to us about how we can relate
even to the society around us and the government that is leading us in a new way
because of the grace of God and Jesus Christ.