Romans 12:9-21

1:05And during this period of history, Anne Atwater, a black single mother, became well-known, a well-known civil rights activist. She made a name for herself in Durham fighting for fair housing for her neighbors because slum lords would charge high rent and offer only shacks with very little functioning Facilities in them. And this was only regulated for white people because blacks were considered second-class citizens. In fact, much of the language that was used to describe our brothers and sisters cannot even be repeated today because it is so vile and degrading, but it was normal conversation then.

2:01In 1969, just a few years before, Ms. Atwater was at a city council meeting, and a man named C.P. Ellis stood up to speak his mind on the uprising of the civil rights movement in Durham. C.P. was the president of the Klu Klux Klan in Durham. He was the exalted cyclops of the KKK. I don't even know where to go with that title. During this council meeting, Ms. Atwater reached into her purse and grabbed a knife.

2:40She said that she was going to wait until C.P. walked by and she was going to grab him by the back of his head and split him ear from ear. Thankfully, her pastor happened to see her grab the knife and talked her out of it. The tensions were so high in North Carolina that the governor sent out an order to integrate schools, but they were all very concerned about how this was going to go down. They were concerned that there was going to be bloodshed. So they put together what was known as a charrette.

3:18It consisted of an equal number of black and white citizens, an equal number of appointed members, and an equal number of random members in the community. And they were to meet and decide when and how Durham school systems would integrate, if at all. And then the charrette, once it was finished and complete, they would take their suggestions to the governor. But each suggestion had to be passed by at least 75% of the governing members. Now you can imagine Ms. Atwater's anger when she was appointed co-chair of this charrette with none other than C.P. Ellis.

4:05This man that she wanted to kill, and this man that wanted her dead as well. This man who thought that she was slightly better than a dog. In fact, the very first meeting of the charrette, Ellis brought a machine gun. And showing it off, he brought it, and Ms. Atwater said, Why do you have that? Here. And he said, just in case I need it to do the talking for me. And for some reason, Miss Atwater pulled in that same purse, pulled out of her purse that she pulled the knife out of a Bible.

4:44And she said, Well, CP, I let this do the talking for me. CP responded and he said, Well, I read the Bible, I go to church every Sunday. She said, Well, then, C.P., you should know the same God that made you made me. Something dawned on Miss Atwater. She realized that if she was going to be really true to the Bible and walk as a Christian, then she had to love her enemies and wish the best for them. In this case, she understood that she had to work with CP for the betterment of education in Durham for both white kids and black kids.

5:33So she sought to love her enemy, and she vowed then that she would share the gospel with CP every time she was able. She would point out the similarities between them and rejoice when CP when CP was happy and was saddened by the things that CP was saddened by. At every community meeting, they would end up singing gospel music. One time, Anne noticed. CP was trying to clap, but was clapping out of beat. So she grabbed his hands and helped him with the beat.

6:10During this process, CP's heart began to soften. But Miss Atwater knew that if CP, for CP to become her friend, he would have to renounce everything that he believed in, and he would renounce his community. He would renounce everything that held him there. He'd be giving up everything that he held dear. His business would go bankrupt because nobody would buy from him. He'd have to find a new church. His family would be threatened and persecuted. And eventually, he would have to deal with wanting to live because he's so ostracized.

6:53But Anne knew all of this, and still she pursued CP. At the very end of the process, the charrette process, CP stood in front of his peers and deciding to vote on integration, renounced the KKK. He voted for integration and publicly stated that he was wrong for ever thinking that his black brothers and sisters were less than human. And Atwater recalls that during the charrette, she was able to call CP friend, and after the charrette, she was able to call him brother in Jesus.

7:26And that began a lifelong friendship that lasted until both. Both died. In fact, Anne Atwater gave the eulogy at C.P. Ellis' funeral, and C.P. Ellis' son gave the eulogy at Ann Atwater's funeral. Atwater could have continued in her hatred of this racist man. It would have been normal to do, and everybody would have understood it. She could have hated him out of sheer self-defense. No one would have blamed her. But Miss Atwater understood that something that Christians today hardly grasp or even really practice.

8:10She knew that as a Christian, she was defined by love. Love of her community and her neighbors, those close to her, those that went to her church, but also those who hated her and those who were her enemies. Last week we discussed Romans 12, verses 1 through 9, and we saw that as a result of God's mercies, meaning the work of Christ on the cross for us, were given gifts to use to build up the church. And this is by grace of God.

8:48Ephesians 2:10 says, For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which are prepared beforehand that we should walk in him, in them. It is through God's grace that we receive. Receive through Jesus that we are given these gifts to build up the church. We're to look different. We're to see the world differently. We are to approach the world in a different way. If you'll look at the screen behind me at Galatians 5, 16 through 23, it says, But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

9:32For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.

10:31So, Paul tells the Galatians once, we viewed the world to gratify our flesh, but now we're led by the Spirit, so we do the opposite of what our flesh wants to do. As Paul says, the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. And we'll see in this morning's text that there is no possibility of obedience to God's Word outside of the Holy Spirit's help. We cannot do it on our own. So, we are changed by the whole Trinitarian God. God the Father has mercy on us by sending His Son Jesus to be a sacrifice for us. And it is through Jesus that we can offer our mind and our body as a living sacrifice, walking in the fruits of the Spirit, building up the church, ministering to one another, and ministering to the world around us.

11:25Let's look at our text this morning, beginning in verse 9. Paul tells us how we as Christians should live with one another, starting in verse 9. Let love be genuine, abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good, love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor, do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. That's quite the list.

12:08Look at what Tony Merida says on the screen behind me. He says: if you think about it, the old mind, or the mind conformed to this age, wants to do the opposite of these instructions, leading one to fake love. To support and do that which is evil, to show no affection, not to honor others, to be lazy or to be cold and apathetic to the things of God, to serve self, not the Lord, to get mad in trials, to turn inward in self-pity, not to rejoice, not to pray, to be greedy, to be inhospitable, to want to retaliate when persecuted, to ignore the hurting, and to get jealous when others succeed. To live in disharmony with other brothers and sisters, complaining, criticizing, gossiping, and creating division, and to be arrogant towards others. This is why we need the gospel. This is why each of us needs a renewed mind. This is why we need the Holy Spirit to make us different. We need hearts that are saturated in grace to live out these instructions.

13:21It would be easy to look at this list in Romans 12 and begin to check it off. Well, I hate evil. Check. I have affection for the people in my church. Check. I'm not lazy. Check. That's why Paul starts these commands with: let love be genuine. Isn't it easy for us to see a list, and soon we concentrate more on the list of the commands than the reason for which the list was created in the first place?

13:59So we might be able to give the appearance of living by these commands, but without love, we cannot be genuine in doing them. We would be doing them under false pretenses. Or we would not be able to do them at all. Without the grace of God, we cannot love genuinely. I mean, look at what the world defines love to be. Have you ever stopped to think why there are so many divorces in our society? If you ever troll your social media, you would find at least one meme or gif that would say something like, You need to follow your heart, and you should do or be with whoever makes you happy.

14:50Now, look, I'm crazy about my wife. I love her deeply, and she loves me deeply. You know why? Because we both realized a long time ago that love has nothing to do with our happiness. It has nothing to do with our comfort. The second that you turn love into doing something that belongs to you is the second that you fail to understand what love is. Trust me, I fail Dana all the time. If Dana's love were conditional upon me and what I do, or her love, or my love for her, was conditional on her and what she does, our marriage wouldn't make it past the first year.

15:35That is what the world says. It tells us that love is conditional. It's a quid pro quo. The world will tell you that love makes you feel warm and safe and comfortable, or it sexualizes it and makes it all about the physical. And if it's lacking in any way, you should go find real love and take it and leave what you have behind. In fact, there's a concept out there that many Christians think about, and it tells us that we speak love in these different languages. And basically, we feel loved if we're loved in these specific ways. Or at least that's how most of us end up interpreting the message of that book. Instead, we should interpret that as.

16:31Using the love language concept to help us love others, we turn that language. Instead, we turn that language around and try to tell others how we are to be loved. We should turn it around. We should turn that upside down and let the Word of God define love for us. Because love will always cost us something. It is meant to be given, not taken. Look at the screen behind me at 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians 13 is usually thought about in the context of husband and wife, and love in general is usually thought of in the context of a male-female context or in a romantic sense. And I just put that in context for you as well with my marriage. But the love in this passage in 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4 through 7, is different than a physical love or a romantic love. It's a supernatural love.

17:311 Corinthians 13, starting in verse 4. It says, Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. The Greek. Word for love in 1 Corinthians and Romans is agape. It can be translated as charity, something that is meant to be given, not something to be taken. C.S. Lewis explains it this way: if we think that perhaps love is not worth the sorrow and pain, then we are more pagan than Christian. Though the fall has invited such selfishness to linger heavy in our culture, ours is the gospel charge to go to the nth degree to love those who are broken, not for some vague humanitarian effort, but to make disciples of all nations.

18:40So, when love is genuine, we abhor evil and hold fast to what is good. We have brotherly or familial affection for fellow believers, that we can outdo and we can outdo one another in showing honor to each other. Love will not allow us to be slothful in zeal or eagerness, but instead we will be eager to serve the Lord. When the world is in despair, we can rejoice in hope. And when we are in trials and tribulations, we can have patience to come through it knowing that it is literally going waiting for us on the other side. What is waiting for us on the other side is nothing but glory.

19:31We can be constant in prayer because we are grounded in the one who is love. And we know that our prayers are heard and answered. And we can be generous with other saints because we genuinely care for the needs of our brothers and sisters. And we can show hospitality giving food and drink and company to other people. And none of this can be possible without love. And if you think it's hard to love fellow saints in this way, you're absolutely right.

20:15But it is absolutely impossible to do with people who do not like you. People who wish you harm, who want to destroy you. And these next verses solidify that we are not able to do these things without the Holy Spirit changing us and helping us. Go to verse 14. It says, Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.

20:58Now, it's one thing to be committed. To love those who have a commonality of being born again. So it's hard sometimes because we don't always agree. We don't always see eye to eye. Sometimes we still hurt one another. But it's easier because we all know the goal is the same. But here we have commands for us to bless those who persecute us. Really? It says bless. Do not curse. Now, if this isn't countercultural, I don't know what is.

21:44With all the tensions in our country, political, racial, we're even at each other's throats on how we should avoid a virus. None of the solutions that the world is putting forth tells us to bless those that want to ruin us. That's what made Ann Atwater's approach so different. That's why this worked. Because she put the knife away and sought the good of the person who literally wanted to kill her just because she was born the way that God had created her.

22:34First, we need to finish up before we go any further how we are to live with one another as Christians. And verses 15 and 16 wrap that up and how we are to treat believers. It says, To rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. And when I look at this, I have to ask the question: what in the world does it mean to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep? I mean, there's a lot of people in this room, there's a lot of people in this church, and in order to do this, I'd have to do both at the same time.

23:11In this gathering right now, today, there is someone who has cause to weep, and there's someone who has cause to rejoice. Does it really mean to physically weep, to physically rejoice? I think the verses above and the verse after, live in harmony with one another, helps us to put this in context. What it's saying is, love cannot be detached from our brothers and sisters' joys and sorrows. This is what Christian community looks like. We are known and understood when we are singing with joy, and we are known and understood when we are weeping with sorrow.

24:01But we all deal with joy and sorrow in different ways. The point here is not crying or shouting for joy, but that you are seeking to understand where your brothers and sisters are at. Again, this scripture says nothing about what you are to receive, but what you should give. These commands are commands of action, not a list of inactions. In other words, Paul is telling us: doing, doing, these things mark you as Christians, not receiving. Don't get me wrong, in the doing, we should receive.

24:54I mean, John tells us that we love because Jesus first loved us. And we are part of the church. So we should be all recipients of this. But when we begin to be more concerned about what we are getting than what we are doing, then we have completely missed the point of living in a Christian community. And I'd like to add this too. In many ways, it's easier to weep with those who weep. It's much harder to rejoice with those who rejoice, especially when we're in the midst of sorrow ourselves.

25:40And this happens all the time in our lives, doesn't it? We can be in the midst of deep sorrow, and there's someone in our lives who is in the midst of celebration and joy. You know the saying, misery loves company. It's true. But Paul is saying here that we should be able to rejoice with our brother and sister because we love them, even when we are in our own sorrow. So we have to put away self-pity or jealousy in order to rejoice with those who are rejoicing. Finally, it tells us to live in harmony with one another. That literally means to think alike.

26:32As a saint, you live in a community and in agreement with other saints because you have a renewed mind and your body is a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. We are not to be haughty or think of ourselves more highly than we should. We should not above anyone else. But even more than that, we're Supposed to associate or accommodate with the lowly, the poor, the scarred, the overlooked. Do you see the pattern? This is about reaching out, not pulling in.

27:17It's about giving, not receiving. The last part of this passage, Paul gives us four commands, and they all say the same thing, but in a different format. He gives us what not to do, followed by what we should do. He tells us, Don't do this, instead, do this. He says, beginning in verse 17: Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, 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. When someone acts in an evil way, Way towards you, we are not to repay it with evil, but repay it with being honorable in the sight of all. I know this is hard to believe, but I don't like to be dressed down or verbally degraded, especially in front of people.

28:49My automatic reaction is to fight back, to cut back with my words, to give you exactly what you have given me. And honestly, because I'm kind of a larger guy and I have really dark eyes that can be really full of expression, especially anger, I can appear somewhat threatening. But I was given some wise words once, and I was told, don't let your reaction overshadow the person's actions done to you. In other words, think before you react and react in a way that is honorable, not hostile.

29:35It doesn't mean that you have to take wrong and say nothing. It just means you have to behave honorably. Your reaction shouldn't overshadow the wrong that is done to you. Paul tells us to live at peace with all men so long as it depends on us. We should seek for peace. Peace, not discord or chaos. We provide kindness instead of revenge because we are fully aware, and this is important, that God's vengeance is so much more than our own.

30:17And in all honesty, if it's not for the blood of Christ, we would be under that same wrath. We are not to overcome evil by evil, but rather overcome evil with good. Look at what John Stott says about this on the screen behind me. He says, A stark alternative is set before us. No neutrality, no middle way is possible. If we curse, repay evil for evil, or take revenge, then because all these things are evil responses to evil, we have given in to evil, been sucked into its sphere of influence, and been defeated, overcome, even overpowered by it.

31:06In just a few minutes, we'll pray together the Lord's Prayer. And in that prayer that was given to us by Jesus, it says, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. This is one of the reasons Paul says in verse 12 to be constant in prayer, so we are not overpowered by evil. Church, I know that none of this is really natural to us. Every influence around us seeks to define who we are and how we are to react to the world around us.

31:47And Romans 12 shows us that we're to view the world differently. Our definition of love is different than our culture's definition. Our reactions to each other's brothers, as brothers and sisters in Christ, is different than the world reacts to us. And the way we interact with our enemies, the way in which we go to war with our enemies, is different. It says, Thought says, it's a stark alternative set before us. Now, we can only love each other and our enemies because Jesus first loved us.

32:28He did all of these things. He stepped down out of heaven. Philippians 2 says, He humbled himself by becoming human by associating with the lowly. You and I are the lowly. He condescended to us. He lived a perfect life. He came under the law and fulfilled all of its demands. He was tempted in every way that we were tempted. He was betrayed by a brother, a friend, who he had poured into. He was beaten and mocked, but he never responded.

33:22Instead, he willingly went to the cross and was crucified for us. In Revelation, John sees the living resurrected Jesus, and he hears the worship of all the world saying, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. He is our living sacrifice. So we can be a living sacrifice to God. He goes before us, and it's through him that we can live in such a way. Friends, every time I read this passage, I'm reminded of my need for Jesus and my need for repentance.

34:10God's Word says in 1 John 1:9 that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's all it takes. Repent and have faith that the Holy Spirit. And renew your mind so that you might love your neighbor, to love each other as the church, and to love your enemies. Let's pray. Gracious Father, we offer ourselves as living sacrifices. We confess that we have lived selfishly with each other. We confess that we have repaid evil with evil.

35:03And we repent and believe that you can renew a right spirit within us. So we are able to love one another with a godly love that is empowered by your Holy Spirit and is able to build up your church and save men and women from eternal wrath. We cannot do this on our own, Father. We need your help, and only through you can we do this. Give us strength. Help us to love each other and our enemies.

35:44To you be all glory, honor, and dominion. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.