How to Love Someone Who Hurt You // Romans 12:10-21

All right. Have you ever heard this saying, I can walk and chew gum at the same time? I'm sure you have, right? This is how people say these days. I'm not an idiot. I can do two things at a time. Well, I like to say it myself. You got to pick. I can either walk or chew gum. Because I am terrible at multitasking. Uniquely bad at this. And I'm not really in the right life stage for this severe deficiency that I have. Because I've got three little kids. And these situations will happen kind of all the time. Like breakfast time, for example, right? Like, we all just woke up. And my five-year-old's like, hey, dad, can you help me get some syrup? It's like, OK, yeah, buddy. I'll help you get some syrup. And my seven-year-old, she's like, dad, can I get some candy? I'm like, wait, no, we just woke up. You can't have candy. And as I'm turning around to address her, I see my two-year-old. He's on the counter. He's like trying to take his diaper off. And I'm like, oh, guys, fur the love.

We just woke up, right? And I've stopped getting the syrup at this point. And then my wife, who I love, my wonderful wife, I love her with all my heart, she thinks it's a good time to say, hey, babe, if you're at the store today, and I'm like, the walls are like closing in on me. Like, do you guys plan this? This is a setup, right? There's actually an all seriousness. There's a rule in my house. If my wife has more than two things for me to do, it's like, don't even tell me, just text me. Just text me. And then sometimes she'll text me a list of three things to get at the store, and I come home with two of them. I mean, I do, I don't know why, I don't know how to explain it. I just, I'm terrible at multitasking. I am terrible with a list. Well, bad news for me today, because what we have in Romans 12, nine through the end of the chapter, is a list of 30 different action items. Look, I'll show you, if you have your Bibles at all of our campuses, Romans 12, starting in verse nine, I wanna show you this. It's a list right here at the beginning. Let love be genuine. I have whore, what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another and showing honor.

Don't be slothful, do this, don't do that, be like this. And if you're a list person, maybe you love this. But if you're like me, I mean, you can't even hold the first two verses in your head at the same time. It's honestly completely overwhelming. So I wanna start today by helping out people like me who struggle with a list, okay? I wanna start a little bit more meta, by just talking about how we should interact with a list like this as we come across it and as we're just reading our Bibles. So first of all, why the list? Why is Paul doing this? Well, this type of list, there's actually a name for it, it's called a parenthesis. This was a common teaching tool at the time, 2000 years ago. There's actually dozens of these in the New Testament. And a teacher would use a parenthesis at the time because it was an oral culture back then. And a list of these kind of short, punchy moral phrases was more memorable in that culture when they would just hear letters read than like the three hour long form podcast, right? And when Paul is giving this list here, a parenthesis, it's not so much a checklist as it is a sketch of like a portrait. Paul's drawing us a picture here, right? So how should we interact with a list like this? How are we gonna interact with it today? Well, we're gonna do that.

We're gonna just view it as a portrait. Don't view this as a checklist, okay? Don't go home this week and try to do all 30 of these things. You'll be completely overwhelmed. Instead, secondly, the second thing you should do is let the Holy Spirit be the highlighter. Start by saying, hey God, there's honestly a lie here. Like, encourage me somewhere. Help me get what you want me to get to out of this. So we're gonna do that. I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna pray for us and then we're gonna dive in and see what he has for us. Okay, would you guys pray with me? Father, I simply ask that that your Holy Spirit that indwells your saints would be the highlighter. Individually, for each person, we all come in here from a different situation, God. At all of our campuses, so many people, would your Holy Spirit individually shine on the exact area for each person that they need this morning? We submit to you in what you have to say in your work. We love you. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so Paul is your honest of picture here. He's sketching us a portrait of a new type of person, like the heading and some of y'all's Bibles say marks of a true Christian. These are the marks of a new type of person,

a new creation, a Christian, right? And as he draws here, he starts by drawing the new heart and the new mind. I'll show you the new hearts right at the beginning. It says verse nine. Again, it says, let love be genuine. That's a new heart. The heart of a real Christian loves genuinely. And by the way, all of this is only the work of the Holy Spirit, right? Like, can you make yourself love genuinely? You can't really make yourself do that. It's easy to pretend you love somebody to be kind of fake nice, especially here in the south, but to love genuinely from the heart. No, this is a transformation of the Lord. Or what about the new mind? Then he says, "Abhura, what is evil? "Hey, what is evil and hold fast to what is good?" Can you make yourself do that? Like, can you make yourself hate evil? No, you can't do that. Like, honestly, apart from Christ, it's like you love evil, right? You love getting away with bad stuff apart from the Holy Spirit. Me too, right? You can't make yourself do this, meet either. But this new mind that the Christian has is able to discern morality clearly

so that it can hate evil correctly and love good correctly. In other words, the new mind has moral clarity. Okay, let's talk about this a little bit because there's a whole lot of moral unclarity out there in our world. And let me just be super clear what I mean when I say moral clarity. When I say that, I just mean that you are able to discern what is truly good and what is truly evil. And this is literally what it's talking about. We talked about it last week at the beginning of the chapter where I'm kind of paraphrasing but Paul says, submit to God, he will renew your mind and then you will be able to discern what is good. Otherwise, like you're definitely gonna miss it. Everybody misses it on their own. You're not gonna miss it in every way you could possibly miss it. You get, there's common grace. You get it right sometimes but you'll miss it in some important ways. Here's how this works. I want us to understand how this works. It's very important. There's this theological category called self-deceit and here's how it works. Very important. Apart from Christ, your mind gets trained by your sin to act as a defense attorney representing your heart's evil desires.

And it's a good attorney actually. You end up convincing yourself, you're doing the right thing when you're doing the wrong thing but it's self-deceit. But these things end up seeming right to you and the Bible even has language for this. Proverbs 14, there is a way that seems right to a man but it's wrong and it's end is the way to death, right? Your mind gets bent around your sin apart from Christ. My mind gets bent around my sin. We both convince ourselves sometimes that we're doing the right thing when we're doing the exact wrong thing and you get the picture. When all society is doing this for themselves, the end result is actually complete and total moral chaos. So you have this internal attorney working against you but then you also have society working against you. If I just be honest about this, our American culture, our modern American culture with the intense emphasis on kind of personal freedom of the individual, it encourages this chaos. It encourages the individual to do whatever seems right to himself. Even if those things are unusual or bizarre or sinful, it won't condemn those things as bizarre but it condones them as bravery actually. I've got a lot to say about this, I don't have the time, we gotta move on

but I just want us to understand that culture's working against us too. The expectation, the current of the culture is that we approve of each other's sinful decisions. But I don't wanna just preach to the culture, I wanna preach to the church. So what about us? Like, do we have any blind spots? Do we have complete and total moral clarity everywhere as a modern church? Or do we have some blind spots? Well, unfortunately I think we do have some blind spots. I'm not gonna talk about all of them but there were two things that stuck out to me as I started to think about this. I'm gonna call them the two Gs we struggle to see. It's a little bit silly but hopefully that helps you remember, okay? Two Gs, gossiping and greed. Like if I could just be honest, some of you guys struggle mightily with gossiping but to be fair to you, you actually have no idea 'cause you have a good attorney. Like, that attorney has convinced you that you need like 10 different safe spaces to kind of just blow off steam and get things off your chest and basically just gossiping slander your husband to other moms on the playground, right? It's like this is gossiping but can we see it?

What about that second G, greed? Did you guys know that that late great pastor Tim Keller, I can't preach a sermon without talking about Tim Keller, okay? That he famously said about his church in New York City, thousands of people over decades in New York City, no one ever came and repented to him of the sin of greed. Like in New York City? Okay, do you think nobody in his church was greedy or might that possibly have been a blind spot? And guys, I mean, this one might be more for the guys, like some of you guys are honestly like kind of greedy and stingy and not very generous. But again, to be fair to you, you have no idea because you have a good attorney that's convinced you that, oh, I'm just trying to provide for my family. I'm just trying to take care of my family. It's like, well, your family's doing great and more than great and in reality, you're just trying to provide for yourself and take care of yourself, but you're self deceived and you lack moral clarity. So I don't want to just beat us up, okay? How do you get moral clarity? I want to help us. How do we get moral clarity? It's actually fairly simple. There's two things you need to do. It's simple to understand. Two things you need to do, first, this is the most important, submit to the Word of God. You just need to submit completely to the Word of God.

If you want moral clarity, here it is, read your Bible. If the Spirit convicts you, repent, ask about it. Don't go immediately after and like find an article that says the exact opposite of the thing you just read written by a Christian. No, no, don't do all that. Just repent, that's moral clarity, submit to the Word of God. That's the first thing. But if you're serious about it, you need to do the second thing, submit to wounds from a brother, because your Christian brothers and sisters can help you get moral clarity, because look guys, we all got blind spots. I have blind spots, it's not fun to get introduced to your blind spots. But if a Christian brother or sister who knows you and loves you is brave enough to have a conversation with you about how you view money and gives you like five different examples, it is possible that you're greedy and self-deceived at the same time. And it's very hard for him to have this conversation with you, right? So if you're serious about it, you need to give out a few, what I'm going to call hunting licenses to some trusted friends. Here's how this works. You give out a hunting license and you say, hey, it's open season in the wilderness of my life. And if you see any sin in here, you can go hunting, like you can say something and you can pull the trigger and let's kill it. And you've got to be explicit when you give these things out. Don't just be like, oh, man, I got good friends. They'll say something. They know, they can talk to me. It's like, no, they don't know, actually. Like, think about it. Do you feel super confident approaching some of your even closest friends?

If they haven't explicitly invited you into that? No, so you need to explicitly invite people into this. And then if a friend uses the license, you can't get all defensive, right? And be like, ah, I'm out of here. No, they're not trying to kill you. They're trying to kill your sin. They're trying to help you get moral clarity. So these wounds from a brother can help us get moral clarity, right? The Christian mind has moral clarity. Paul's drawn the new Christian here. He's talking about or the true Christian, I should say. He's talking about the new heart and the new mind. And then after this and for the bulk of our texts, he basically just talks about relationships after this. And then it starts to just get super practical because honestly, what even is life, if not relationships? He starts with Christian relationships inside the church. And then he starts to talk about our relationships outside the church. But we're going to start inside the church like he does these Christian relationships, Christians with Christians. First, he starts with identity and then he moves to activity. It's like we have to understand who we are to one another. And then we just act out of that identity, right? Look, I'll show you. Verse 10, "Love one another with brotherly affection." Guys, this is huge. I could preach a whole sermon on those six words right there. Love one another with brotherly affection. It's unbelievably profound. You're like, that sounds nice, but it's like not that profound.

Oh, yes, it is. Okay. First of all, why is Paul saying that we should treat each other like we're brothers because we're actually brothers? Like this is the identity. Paul's saying, hey, guys, act like your family because you're actually family. You still might not think it's after found, but let me just talk about this for a few minutes and maybe we'll get there. Okay. Christians are bound to each other in a covenantal relationship for all eternity. Like when God saved you, he made a covenant with you to be your father forever. Like past death forever, you're a child of God. And when God saved me, he did the same thing, child of God forever. So if you're a child of God forever and I'm a child of God forever, the implication for you and me is we're brothers and sisters forever. It's a covenantal relationship, we're in. All right. I just threw out a term there and let me be super clear with what I mean when I say covenantal relationship because there's not too many of these left in our modern culture, but there is still one that exists. The husband wife relationship, right? That's a covenant and our culture's kind of watered that down incredibly too. But biblical marriage is a covenant. It's two people, a husband and wife, covenanting together. They aren't going anywhere till they die, right? Till death do us part. This is a covenant. Now, look, I'm going to make a statement that I think is going to shock some of you guys, but I think it's, well, I actually know it's biblically supported. You ready for this?

Some of you guys aren't ready for this. The covenantal bond that holds Christian brothers and sisters together is stronger and more enduring than the bond that holds a husband and wife together. [BLANK_AUDIO] They do part like that's the end of it unless of course They were also a brother and sister in Christ in which case they will continue on for all eternity as a brother and sister in Christ So I'm saying this idea that we're family is a big deal And for some of you guys are like 50 people in your head and you're like, uh-oh Right family forever, baby. That's the identity. Okay. What activity flows out of that. What does family do? The next few verses just describe it and they feel a little more obvious if we get the identity Let's go back to 10. I'll read a little chunk here. I'm gonna start pulling out themes. There's just so much here Verse 10 love one another with brotherly affection Outdo one another and showing honor. Do not be slothful and zeal be fervent in spirit serve the Lord Rejoice in hope be patient in tribulation be constant in prayer. Okay. Look. There's a lot here I just got to start pulling out themes, but one of the themes here is endurance When your family you endure here look I'm gonna show you again verse 11. It says be zealous be fervent 12 says be hopeful be patient be persistent. That all takes endurance When your family you endure like do you give up on your family? I Hope not. I mean some people do right, but like you shouldn't but Christian brothers and sisters I mean honestly sometimes we give up on each other for minor petty reasons like Sometimes someone will jump to a different community group or jump to a different church I'm not saying it's never right to go to a different church or something But I think that sometimes a Christian will do this under a false premise Like they'll have a disagreement and you think I'm just gonna figure out a way to never see her again And the false premise is that that's a possibility Right like look if God is our father and heavens are eternal home And we're gonna live there with him for the next 10 billion years It's gonna be pretty hard to just keep avoiding Sally for the next 10 billion years

Right like you can avoid eye contact with her at Publix But it's gonna be hard when you're sharing the same house for all of eternity to avoid her You're gonna have a reconciling conversation you will like Jesus already made this decision You might as well just go ahead and try to have it right Look church. It's such a profound truth There is a sense in which we need to apply the truth of Romans 8 we talked about a little bit ago Not just vertically to our relationship with Christ, but horizontally to our relationships with each other Specifically what I'm talking about is it's like everyone's favorite verse right neither height nor depth nor anything in all creation can separate me from God Like yes amen But if that can't separate you from God and that can't separate me from God. It's kind of like We're pretty connected for a pretty long time Family forever baby and family indoors So we have to forgive and we have to dig in and we have to have the conversation That's what family does family indoors. What else does family do? Family has each other's back Brothers have each other's back tangibly and emotionally first tangibly here. Let's look in verse 13 Attribute to the needs of the saints the saints are the family That's Christians contribute to the needs of the family and seek to show hospitality Brothers have each other's back tangibly. We help meet each other's practical needs in a unique way church We open up our lives our homes even our wallets to each other in a unique way and I've seen you guys do this I mean we have such an amazing church I've seen I've seen someone being a crisis and people falling over themselves to like bring meals Door dash gift cards watch kids hang Christmas lights. I'm gonna have seen amazing things Some of you guys have hosted two cities interns in your homes over the summer Right to be clear the world does not do this right bank of america employees do not host the summer interns in their homes over the summer It's different with family right the church's family. I've experienced this in a ton of different ways for example christmas eve 2020 Middle covid you guys remember that it's like dark times so here's what happened my one-year-old daughter is walking in front of fireplace and um she pulled on the stocking and We have nails now, but we used to have you guys know those huge hunks of metal weighted hanger things a little hook

Yeah, you know where this is going Directly center of the forehead. You know how forehead wounds are it's like blood everywhere. It was an absolute mess Oh, yeah, I forgot it says and like we all had covid At the time so we were coordinated we couldn't take her in because we had covid well one of you guys who is a doctor You know who you are you left christmas eve dinner with your family And came over to my house and in full medical ppe. I mean we were a scene. We all had covid you glued up her forehead on my And emotionally. Second part, brothers have each other's back emotionally. Let's read this. This is verse 15. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Brothers support each other emotionally, rejoicing with rejoicing, weeping with weeping. So my two-year-old son, he's had some health issues for honestly most of his life. And he's doing okay, but there's a lot of things that have been kind of confusing. And anyways, a couple months ago we were, we had this big appointment at the National Institute of Health in DC and trying to find some answers. We were kind of anxious about this appointment understandably. And I was sharing that, that this appointment was coming up with a friend of mine, who's one of your elders actually. And um, anyway, I was sharing that with him. And then fast forward a few weeks, that same friend of mine who I was talking to, finds out on a Wednesday that his five-year-old son has a brain tumor. And it's bad, it's urgent. Same day, he's in the car, driving to Duke, surgery the next morning, like he, he's underwater, right, totally life upside down, all of a sudden. Next morning, his son's going back into surgery. I'm texting him, just trying to encourage him, you know, praying for it. I mean, what he even said, right? And he texted me back, he's like, hey, thanks. Hey, how was your son's appointment a few weeks ago at the NIH? I told him, I'm like, you know, we got good news. He's doing good. I'm not sure why we got good news and you got bad news. And then he texted me back, I'm rejoicing with your rejoicing. You're mourning with us in our morning. Guys, to be clear, he was sitting in a waiting room at Duke, his five-year-old was having brain surgery, and he was checking in on my kid. And then he was happy for me when, when he heard that he was doing good. As a brother, that's what it looks like. A true brother can celebrate your miracle with you when he's waiting in the dark on his own. That's a Christian. Brothers have each other's back emotionally. What else do brothers do? One more thing. I love this one. Brothers don't impress each other. Verse 16, look at this. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty but associate with the lowly.

In other words, brothers don't try to impress each other. They can't even do it if they try. Like, you know, you might be dominant in whatever career you're in, but it doesn't really impress your big sister, right? It makes me think of that Netflix documentary. They're following some NBA kind of superstars around, and they're highlighting Anthony Edwards. If you don't know who that is, young NBA, big trash-talking superstar, right? He's Ant-Man, right? Anyways, they go inside the walls of his house for this documentary on Thanksgiving Day for Thanksgiving dinner, and the family's trying to start dinner, and Ant-Man's nowhere to be found. They find him in his bedroom with the lights off playing Fortnite, and they're talking to his big sister about this. It's like, first of all, dude, didn't you know Netflix was coming over to make a documentary? I'm like, what are you doing at your bedroom playing video games? Well, the talker's big sister about this, and she's, she's not impressed at all, right? Like, she's a great big sister. She's super happy for all his success, but she's like, it's not Ant-Man to her. It's just little bro in his bedroom playing video games, right? And in the same way, church, here's my point, we don't try to impress each other. We just, we're brothers and sisters. So some of you guys are a big deal actually out there in the world. We have some successful people around here. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. This is what the verse says, right? Don't try to use that to impress people. Works in the other direction as well. Some of you guys feel kind of insecure about what you might be out there. It's like when you come in here, we're brothers and sisters. We're brothers and sisters. And don't be one of those community groups where you're just like all trying to impress each other, being impressed by each other. Don't think like country club for community groups. Think campfire, right? We're brothers and sisters. We're family. This is the identity. And if that identity gets into your bones, it's like you almost don't even need the list of commands that Paul gets afterwards. It just kind of flows out of that identity. So Paul has drawn the new heart, the new mind. He's drawn the picture of what Christians look like to each other as family, as brothers and sisters. And then he's going to spend the rest of the time drawing the picture of what we look like to the world, particularly to difficult people in the world. And if you thought some of the stuff you talked about earlier was hard. It's just like get ready. The stuff we're about to talk about is truly radical. Actually, I'm going to throw a warning label on this. Don't even try to do this if you It's not going to be possible for you. When Paul talks about what true Christians look like

to a difficult world, to enemies in the world, he basically just says the same thing over and over again. Look, I'll show you. He basically just gives us something not to do and something to do, okay? The first thing is the thing not to do. Don't seek revenge. I'm gonna jump around a little bit, but I want you to see how much he says this. Verse 14, he says, those who persecute you, do not curse them. It's like, don't seek revenge. 17, repay no one evil for evil. Don't seek revenge. 19, never avenge yourselves. He just keeps saying the same thing over and over. Why does Paul have to keep hammering on this? Well, possibly because it's incredibly difficult to not seek revenge immediately when you're getting actively attacked. I mean, it is, right? Think about the last time you were insulted or belittled in some way. Isn't the instinct for revenge just kind of impulsive? It's so natural. I mean, I have to teach anybody how to do this, right? This plays out in my kids all the time. Take your pit kind of among all three of them. It's like, kidda accidentally bumps into kid B. Kid B immediately screams out in anger

and what he says is interesting. You did it on purpose, right? Automatically assumes the worst intent. Interesting, just kids though, right? We don't do that just the kids. No, right. And then after that, it's like, well, I definitely just need to punch you now. Is this just my kids? Has anybody else seen this? Anyways, it's just very instinctive, right? Why is this? Why is the impulse for revenge so instinctive? Well, actually I went down the rabbit hole a little bit and I gotta share it with you 'cause it's super interesting. It's biological. They've done these neurological studies that show that the same parts of your brain light up when you're being bullied, belittled, this type of thing, as light up when you have acute physical pain. Yeah, it's interesting. And then the same reflex happens biologically as well. Like adrenaline fills your bloodstream. Blood pressure spikes, your body gets ready for a fight. So like when you're driving home from class and you're just boiling with rage at the girls who are mean to you, like this is a biological response. You're ready for this fight, right?

And it feels like you got bit by a snake. And then revenge biologically, it actually gets worse because just imagining taking vengeance hits your brain's dopamine reward system. So imagining the conversation with those mean girls and not actually having it kind of feels like taking a drug to do that when you win the conversation in your head. Biological, it's very interesting. Or we're supposed to not take revenge. When we grow up though, unfortunately we don't grow out of this. We just grow sophisticated in a couple of different ways. The first way is we grow patient. Because imagining revenge feels like a hit of dopamine, people get perfectly happy for a long time, simply just playing it out in their head without actually doing anything. People get very patient and calculated with their revenge. And this plays out in terrible ways in all kinds of relationships, marriage for example. A spouse will save up a record of wrongs that her husband has committed against her. And she knows the most painful, hurtful ways to articulate that record of wrongs to her spouse, but she doesn't say it. She just knows the perfect way to say it. She's patient. And she loads those examples like bullets

into a proverbial gun. And she waits for when she might need to use it. And then if she ever feels like she needs to use it, she takes out the gun and unloads calculated vengeance. People do this in all kinds of relationships and friendships, roommates do this, group chats, people screenshot text thread, save receipts. People get patient and calculated with vengeance. The second way that revenge gets sophisticated is people get indirect. This happens all the time, like in the modern workplace, I see this happen all the time. Somebody gets belittled by somebody else in a position of power and they have the social awareness to not lash out at this person, the position of power in the moment. They go quiet, but then indirectly, slowly and conversations on the side with peers, they start to ruin his reputation. Or they start to utilize, how about this? The weaponized CC email? You guys know what I'm talking about, right? Some of you guys do. Anyways, don't get revenge. This is what Paul says. I'm trying to explain how difficult this is to do. But Paul just says, don't do it. This does not sit well with people. People don't like this. They're like, that is not fair.

Isn't God just? Yes, God is just and his mechanism for justice isn't you. This is the truth. Look, very important verse, verse 19, watch this. He's just, leave it to the wrath of God. It is written, vengeance is mine. I'll repay him, says the Lord. God's like, I'll pour out my wrath. Payment will be demanded and that doesn't sit well with people either. People get mad at God on the other side. They're like, whoa, God, wrath and vengeance, like, relax. Why's God so mad? And all this just proves how incapable we are at administering justice for ourselves, right? We get mad at God on the one hand for being too nice and then mad at him on the other hand for being too mean. And God's like, hey guys, respectfully, you're just a human being with a few years of experience being sentient. It's like, you can't even hold yourself morally accountable. You're twisted in ways you're not even aware you're twisted. I've been around for a while. I've been doing this a long time. Why don't you just let me handle the execution of cosmic justice for all humanity? But this gets people tied up in knots. So let me just try to simplify this and freeze some of you guys up. It's a hard pill to swallow,

but if you can swallow this pill, this will free you up, okay? Here it is, in the end, like in the end, at the end of all things and the life to come, not in this life, okay? In the end, the righteous one will right the wrongs. All of them. All of them. Each person will either himself pay in full or have a substitute named Jesus Christ, pay in full. This is true for you and the difficult people in your life. So you don't seek revenge. That's the thing not to do. What's the thing to do? There's something to do. Do seek restoration. Let's look back at verse 14, and then we'll look at verses 20 and 21. 14, bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them. 20, to the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, it's like we'll do something, feed them. If he's thirsty, we'll give him something to drink. For by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Look, it's not enough to just not retaliate, to just walk away. We're called to do something, to take initiative and do something, to do kindness to our enemies. Two ways, first, we're called to say kind things.

Look again at 14, say kind things. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them. It's like, how do you bless with your mouth? Say kind things about them. Now, don't lie about them, obviously, but here you go. Keep your mouth shut about all the bad you could say and open it about any good you could say. So often we want to do the exact opposite, right? Open it as wide as possible about all the bad we could possibly say, but obscure or just not really talk about any of the good we could say. But no, Christians, a true Christian, bless, do not curse. And if there's nothing good you can think of to say, just bless them in your heart to God, pray for them. That's the way you can bless somebody. Say kind things. Secondly, do kind things. Verse 20 again, if your enemy is hungry, feed them. If he's thirsty, give them something to drink. It's like, meet their needs. Do kind things for your enemies. Guys, look, I know this is so difficult. This is so hard. Only by the transformation of the Holy Spirit. I'll say it again. Can you do any of this? But I have a friend who I've seen do this, and honestly, just a remarkable, radical picture

of the gospel. This friend of mine, when he was growing up, his older brother did some terrible things to him. Light, terrible. And suffice it to say that his older brother's life choices have put him in a place now in his mid-30s, where he's been in some moments of serious need. And because of the grace of God and my friend's life, like he's in a different situation, he's doing pretty good. And he has every right to rub his brother's face in it. But in a shocking, radical display of the gospel, when he's been indeed the older brother, my friend has opened up his home and let him live with him and his family, shocking, radical display of the gospel. And look, I hope that most of you guys have not had the things done to you like my friend had done to him, but just in a church our size, honestly. Some of you guys have had people that have been nasty to you. Like some of you have been hurt badly. [inaudible] you haven't gotten revenge, you've just gone completely quiet, and I get it, it's self-protection mode, I totally get it. But what would it look like to do the second part, to go out of your way, to do kindness to them? What would that look like? There's so many specific situations. I don't even know how to talk about all of them. The best way I know how to talk about it

is to point us to the words of Christ, actually. In Revelation three, where Jesus says, "Very famously, behold, I stand at the door and knock." Okay, question. Who's on the other side of the door? His enemy. He went to his enemy's house, and he stood at the door, and he knocked. "And if anyone hears my voice," Jesus says, "and opens the door, I will come in "and punch him in the face." No, get my revenge. No. I'll bring over a meal, I'll come in and eat with him. If my enemy is hungry, I will feed him. This is what it looks like. This is the posture of somebody doing everything in his power to seek restoration. Our Savior did this, right? Think about somebody you're at odds with, somebody who's wrong to you. Some of you guys, you haven't think about this person in the last 10, 15 minutes. Get that person in your head, and then just ask the simple question, what would it look like for me to stand at the door and knock? What would it look like for me to stand at the door and knock? And then if they open the door, it's like, "Don't get your revenge, don't say your peace." No, seek restoration, bring over the meal.

Why should we do this? I mean, this is what Christians do. That's what Paul's saying. This is what a Christian looks like. Why do Christians do this? Do we do this because it's fair? No, obviously not, we already addressed this, right? Like, this is to be clear, this is not fair, to be clear, right? Do we do this because they'll repay us later, hopefully? No, like in most of these cases, they probably can't, right? Even if they tried, they can't repay you later. So why should we do this? A Christian does this, you do this because this is what Jesus did with you when you were his enemy. Didn't he do this with you, you were his enemy? Like think about all the ways you've wronged him. Think about all the ways you've wronged him. Did he come and get his revenge? Or did he come and just absorb the consequences of all of your foolishness and sinfulness in himself on a cross? Did he wait for you to realize everything that you did to him and come to him or did he take initiative and go to you? And then when he came to you and you opened the door, did he sit you down and say, "Hey, here's a record of wrongs." Like, "I deserve an apology for all this stuff." Like, think about all the ways you've wronged him.

Have you explicitly apologized to God for all of the sins you've committed against him? No, of course not, it's like there's so many of them. You don't even remember them all, but Jesus didn't hand you the record of wrongs. He nailed the record to the cross. But then some of you guys turn right around and hold something against somebody and you've been holding on to something for so long and it's like, they don't even know what they've done. Like, they don't even remember anymore, they forget. Christian, it is to your glory to overlook an offense, to be like your savior and overlook an offense. It's Proverbs 1911, if you want a verse. Little known verse, it's to your glory to overlook an offense, to simply overlook it and move on because Jesus did that for you, you can do that for them because you have experienced being on the other side of the self sacrificial love of Jesus Christ. Well, now you can go give it. I mean, this is what a Christian is. A Christian is the new person resulting from being on the other side of the self sacrificial love of Jesus. Now, because you know from experience what that's like, you can go give it. All right, church, we need to respond together. Talk about a lot, there's probably so much we need to respond for, just talk about a couple of groups of people,

and some of you, Jesus has been knocking on your heart store for a long time, and you haven't opened it yet. And like, you know the verse, and when I said, And if that's you, it's like you need to come down here and respond. Don't miss it. If that's you, don't miss it. He's not gonna sit you down and scream at you. He's gonna offer you forgiveness in relationship. If that's you, don't miss it. Don't miss it. Others of you, you long for relationships with Christian brothers and sisters like I described, and it just doesn't even come close to describing what you have. And you're like, you don't even know where to start. And you just need to come down and talk with the Lord about that. Talk with the Lord about that. Say, Lord, help me to put myself in situations where I can have these types of brother-sister relationships. For some of you guys, it's like today you need to sign up for the weekender and get in a community group. Like you need to do that today. I don't know how else we do that at this church. This is how we do it. It's community groups. And then the last group, this might be the biggest group. I don't know.

But some of you guys need to calm down here because you have been holding on to something for so long against somebody. And you're being patient, but you're being calculated. And you're just slowly loading bolts into a gun. And you need to calm down here and release it. You need to lay the gun down here and like, don't take it with you back to your seat. I was debating whether or not I was gonna say this, but I'm gonna say it. It's not for everybody. It's for somebody though. Some of you guys, the road you're walking down, you are headed toward divorce. He doesn't know it yet, but you do. You're resolved in your heart. And you're just waiting. Waiting until you feel like you have enough in there to justify it. You need to release it. Some of you guys, it's like it's dad. It's like, you haven't talked to him in six months. That's how you're punishing him. He deserves it. He deserves it. He's called you twice. You haven't called him back. Christmas Thanksgiving, they're coming up. You're gonna figure out a way to not see him this year.

The road you're walking down, it's only gonna get easier. You're never gonna talk to him again. Release it. You need to calm down here and release it and get free. By the way, last thing. Why do we ask people to come down here? Couldn't you just do this at your seat? Couldn't you just sit right there and pray in your heart and you could. God would hear you. God doesn't need you to come down here. Like, I don't need you to come down here. You need you to come down here. This is for you. Sometimes you need to say with your body what you're saying in your heart so that you believe yourself. Like, you need to watch yourself walk down here and leave something down here and not take it back to your seat with you. So that Tuesday afternoon when you're mad as can be because he did the same thing again and you're tempted to put another bullet in the gun and you're like, no, no, I don't even have it anymore. I laid it down at the altar. I don't do this anymore. This is for you, this moment's for you, okay? I'm gonna pray. I'm gonna pray courage for some of you guys.

Some of you guys need courage to do what you need to do. I'm gonna pray and then you respond as the Holy Spirit leads. Would you all pray with me? Holy Spirit. I'll end the same way I've started. Be the highlighter. Shine on the exact thing that needs to be shined on in each heart right now. Illuminate the spot that needs the illumination. And then I also pray that the same heart you shine in you give courage to do what it's asked to do. God, where you shine, no nose today, God, all yeses. Wherever there's illumination, let there be bravery, God. All yeses in here, God. This is your time, work. We love you. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Would you all stand with us and then respond, however you need to. (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]