Marked by God’s Genuine Love
Righteousness Revealed: An Exposition of Romans

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Good morning, church; it’s good to see all of you here this morning! We’re closing up chapter 12 today in the book of Romans. We’ve been in the book of Romans for the last 10 weeks; today, we will be finishing up chapter 12. Today’s message is entitled, “Marked by God’s Genuine Love.” What a great way to finish up part three of this series. We still have part four remaining. There are four more chapters in the book of Romans. We hope and pray to get to those in 2022; as we say up in the hills where I come from, “Lord willing and the creeks don’t rise,” we’ll get to it next year.

How do you want to be remembered? How do you want to be known? Many people would say that it would be great to be known by what a hard worker I was or I built this great business; it has my name on it. Or maybe, I was a beautiful woman or I was intelligent. It would be great to be known by one of these.

The bible teaches us that christians are to be known by their genuine love. That’s the mark of how you would know that they’re a follower of Jesus. If you think about people that have gone on to be with the Lord, maybe it’s a grandparent, a parent, an uncle or some other loved one, probably what makes you remember them best is how they loved you unconditionally, They really loved you; that’s the part you remember. We tend not to remember all of those other things.

As we conclude chapter 12, we’re talking about what it looks like to be a believer who has fully given themselves to the Lord and have offered their body as a living sacrifice to the Lord, no longer being conformed to the way the world thinks, but being transformed by the renewing of the mind. They have been able to know the will of God. This is where we’ve been in chapter 12.

Because you have this renewed mind, this transformed life, here’s what it looks like as it regards your relationships with others. We’re going to be talking about these three categories of relationships and how God’s genuine love should be the mark of how you relate to these three categories of relationships.

In the twelfth chapter, the apostle Paul writes to the Roman believers, saying that because you’ve been transformed by the renewing of your mind, here’s what it looks like to genuinely love others. I believe that we can have this genuine mark of God’s love in our relationships.

As we look at the text today, I think we’ll see how this works itself out. Let’s look at chapter 12, verse 9through verse 21.

Romans 12:9-21 (ESV) 9 “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 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.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemyis hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” This is God’s word. Amen.

We can let God’s genuine love be the mark of… 1. Our relationships with fellow believers.

As we’re looking at verses nine through thirteen, I think Paul is really talking about fellow believers here. You’ll notice in verse 13, he talks about the saints; that’s us. So he’s talking about fellow believers in these verses. In these verses, he gives thirteen exhortations.

As we were studying earlier this week, we commented, You know what? We could preach thirteen sermons; every verse is its own sermon. So, get your seatbelts on because we’re not going to do that. We’re going to do it all in one sermon. We’re going to go through these verses and look for what genuine love looks like.

The first category is with fellow believers. In these verses nine through 13, he uses three of the four Greek words for love. Now, in the English language, we just have one word for love. We say, I love my dog, I love chocolate and I love my wife. We just throw that word around.

In the Greek language, it was more precise, more accurate. They had four different words and Paul uses three of the four. Let me just show you a chart because you guys know I love charts, right? Here’s four Greek words for love. The first one is “eros,” which is passionate or sensual love. That’s the only one he doesn’t use in these verses. He does use “phileo,” which is friendship or brotherly love. He uses “agape,” which is selfless, sacrificial or God’s kind of love. He uses “storge,” which is affectionate or fraternal love, affectionate love. He uses three of the four because he’s talking in every way he knows how to talk to us about God’s genuine love.

1 Corinthians:13 is the love chapter; it’s the masterpiece, perhaps, in all of English literature or anyone’s language in literature. It’s like the mountain top description of God’s love. Romans 12:9-21 is possibly the most concise and practical listing of what God’s genuine love looks like.

Let’s look and see what Paul says; he gives us a title. It was really easy to title this message. It says, “Let love be genuine,” in verse nine. So what are we talking about? Is it God’s genuine love? He gave us a title to this message, right? In the first verse, Paul talks about God’s genuine love. The word, there, is Agape or selfless, sacrificial love. It’s God’s kind of love. “Let love be genuine.” In other words, don’t let it be hypocritical; let it be sincere. Let it be the real thing; let it be true and not a hypocritical love. There’s a kind of love that says, I love you, and it’s just words, it doesn’t really mean anything.

Then, Paul surprises us. Before he even finishes the sentence, he says, “Abhor what is evil.” So, he can’t talk about love without talking about hate in the same verse. Before he even gets started, he says to hate what is evil.

As we look at this, we shouldn’t be surprised. Tim Keller writes in his commentary, “We cannot love rightly without hating rightly! This is closely linked to being “sincere.” Real love loves the beloved enough to be tough… any love that is afraid to confront the beloved is not really love.” It may seem strange to tell someone to love and to hate in the same sentence, but that is what Paul does. What do you think of that? You can’t have genuine love without also having this aspect that love hates evil.

Are you a good parent? Are you sincere in your love of your children? You will discipline them because you’ll have tough love with your children, not just this sugary sweet love that says, Go do your own thing. You’ll love them enough to protect them from evil. You’ll discipline them. .

If you have a real love for a friend, or a christian brother or sister, will you just let them go off and get into trouble and hurt themselves? If you really love them, you will practice tough love. He can’t talk about genuine love here without also saying that we are to hate evil. This is God’s kind of love. It’s not the kind of sugary sweet, sentimental kind of love we see in our culture today. God’s love is made of sterner stuff.

Paul says, “ Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good.” The idea here is like cement to be glued to what is good. That’s what I want for those that I love. I want good for them. I hate for evil to happen.

Paul is leading us here to remember this, in verse 10, “Love one another.” We have two “Love one another” kind of passages here. We have, first of all, to love one another with brotherly affection. Paul uses more Greek words here; he says, “Love one another” and he uses the Greek word, philostorgos. Love one another with a fraternal love, a brotherly love phileo is brotherly love; he puts them together like a compound. We are, as members of the body of Christ, members of God’s family. We’ve been adopted into God’s family and we’re to love one another with that same kind of brotherly and sisterly love. It’s a command here; it says, “Love one another.” Then, to make it even more certain, “with brotherly affection.” We know this Greek combo of words here. There’s a city in our country named Philadelphia. So it has “phileo,” which is fraternal love and “( ),” which means brotherly love. The city is nicknamed, “the city of brotherly love.” Paul, literally, says the word, “philadelphia,” is right in the Greek here, Love one another with “philadelphia,” with brotherly affection. We’re to love one another in every kind of way.

Then, Paul says that we are to outdo one another. Now, this is the one place where this kind of love should actually have a competition. You should have a competition to show more honor to the one that you love than they honor you. It might bring to mind the one place here where you would say, No, I honor you more, I praise you more, I respect you more. Just think about that; if you’re going to outdo anyone that you love, let this be the category. Outdo them in praising them and honoring them; put others ahead of yourself.

The word, honor, could be translated as respect, to give credit to, to count them as precious to you and to praise them. Does that come easily to you? Are you easily able to do that? A lot of people, myself included, are pretty driven. I have to be very careful not to be overly critical of others or of myself. If you’re driven, then you are often critical of others . There’s a good aspect to that; there’s a tough love aspect to that, but then, there’s too far in the other direction. The bible says to be quick to praise people and to outdo one another in showing honor. I need to apply this; I really need to hold that one close to myself and ask, Am I blessing people with my words? Do I outdo others by showing them honor and praise? Paul is talking to us about how to show this genuine love.

Paul continues in verse 11, “Do not be slothful in zeal.” Don’t be lazy in your passion. Zeal has the idea to be on fire for something; be fervent. There’s another burning word he’s talking about, a burning kind of love. It should be passionate; it shouldn’t be lazy. It should be fervent. Here, he points it towards serving or worshiping the Lord.

We live in a time in our country and in our generation, when I would say that we are marked more by fatigue than any other time I’ve ever observed. There’s just a fatigue about life. There’s just kind of a slothfulness, a laziness. I really don’t want to get out of bed today. I really don’t want to leave the house today. I definitely don’t want to go to work today. We have an attitude of malaise of slothfulness.

Paul says here, that genuine love, God’s kind of love, doesn’t allow that attitude to pervade our thinking in our hearts and that we do something about it. We don’t just become slothful in our zeal, but we remain fervent in the way we worship the Lord and serve the Lord and in the way we love one another.

How do you do that, though, when you feel tired? Apathy is the other thing. The mark of this generation might be apathy. There’s just so much wrong with the world, I just don’t care anymore. Paul says that that’s not genuine love. Genuine love stays fervent in spirit; it’s not lazy in zeal. What do you do about that?

Over in 1 Timothy, Paul told his younger brother in the Lord, his son in the Lord as he called him, to fan into flame the calling that was on his life. Remember who you are and fan it into flame.

I don’t know how many of you have a fireplace or build a bonfire, , but it needs oxygen and so you fan it. You get the embers to fire back up again and get it hot again. Fan into flame your zeal.

In 1Thessalonians, chapter four, it says, “do not quench the spirit.” In other words don’t put out the spirit’s fire. The spirit is always on fire. The spirit is always full of zeal. We want to say, Holy Spirit, fill me with fire; fill me with zeal. If I’m feeling too tired, a good verse to remember is, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” Remember what David did, in 1 Samuel, when everybody, even his own men, turned against him? The scripture says, “David encouraged himself in the Lord.” You can do that; we can do that. We can encourage ourselves and say, Lord, why do I feel so tired, so blah today? This is not right. This is not what genuine love looks like. Lord, fill me afresh with your Holy Spirit. Set my soul on fire . I need zeal today. Do you ever think like that? You can live a life full of passion and fire. This is what genuine love looks like.

Verse 12 says this, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” This is a kind of love that, when it goes through suffering, it goes through it patiently, literally long suffering. You have a long fuse; you can hang in there.

“Be constant in prayer.” In other words, dial up the Lord and don’t ever hang up. Just keep talking to Him. How does that look? I referred to this earlier, but 1Thessalonians, chapter four also says, “Pray without ceasing.” How do you do that? Just just make it a practice of talking to the Lord all the time. You might find it strange, but, even now as I’m preaching to you and talking to you, I’m also talking to the Lord. As I breathe, as I think of the next sentence, I might be asking , Lord, I’m thinking this right now. What do You want me to say? Who is here that needs me to say something different than I planned on saying? I don’t know. You know how to do this. Even as I’m driving a car or having a conversation at the point where they’re talking and I’m listening, sometimes I’m also talking to the Lord, asking Him to help me listen better. Oh, wait a minute. I don’t understand what they’re saying. Help me understand what they’re saying. Do you know how to do this? You can learn how to do this. “Be constant in prayer,” always talking to the Lord, always drawing on Him and don’t ever hang up. You don’t have to hang up; dial Him up and stay on the line.

Then, he says in verse 13, “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.” Who are the saints? If there is a saint in the house, lift your hand. Okay, some of you willingly lifted your hands. Some of you are thinking, I’m a little bit of a saint. Some of you don’t know. If you have received Jesus as your Lord and Savior and you’ve given your life fully to Him, then His holiness has been attributed unto your account. No one has to vote on whether or not you’re going to be a saint, You don’t have to die to be a saint. The moment you receive Christ’s righteousness as your own, you become a saint.

So, who are the saints? The saints are the believers. This is the category of people that Paul is talking to. He’s talking to the saints; this genuine love that we have, we give to the family of God. We should be contributors, who give of our time, of our talent and our treasure.

Verse 13 continues, “and seek to show hospitality.” This is another Greek word for love, philoxenia. He puts together two words here that translate hospitality, but it might surprise you. The two words, it’s philo, which is brotherly love, but then, the compound that attaches to this word is xenia. And it’s where we get the word xenophobic, which means to be afraid of strangers. Xenia has to do with stranger and philo means love. So this word hospitality, literally in the Greek, means to love strangers. The idea is that you would open up your house, your heart, your stuff to people that aren’t even related to you. You would show them hospitality; that this genuine love would be so huge in your life that even people you don’t know, you’re ready to love them before you even meet them. You’d show them hospitality, you’d be a giver.

This is the first category; we’re to show genuine love to fellow believers.

Jesus says, in John chapter 13:34-35 (ESV) 34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” How will people outside the church know that we belong to Jesus? Will it be because of what we’re against? Will it be because of our political posts on social media? Jesus says it will be because of one thing: love. They will know that we’re Christ followers by the way we have love for one another. Let this be the mark of our church: genuine, real love.

1 John 3:16 (NLT) “We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters.”

What is real love? What’s genuine love? We know what real love is because Jesus gave up His life for us, so we also should give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. This is the kind of love we’re talking about; God’s love is sacrificial love. It gives over to others. It puts others first ahead of itself.

I heard a story about a woman that was really zealous for her Sunday school class. She had a children’s Sunday school class and she was driving a little church van around different neighborhoods trying to recruit for her Sunday school class near the church. She encountered a little boy who was out playing in the yard and she said, “Would you like to go to our Sunday school tomorrow?” He replies to her, “No, I already go to Sunday school.” She asked him, “Where do you go?” and he told her. She says, “Well, that church is clear across town. Our church is just right around the corner. In fact, there are several other churches really close here and they have really good Sunday schools. Why don’t you consider ours? Why don’t you go to one closer?” He tells her, “You don’t understand. I’m sure there are others that are just as good, but they know how to love a feller over there.” The reason he was going to that church across town is because “they know how to love a feller over there.” Oh, may it be that, wherever you come from today to this place, that you know we love you. Others might say, You know, that church that bought that old movie theater ain’t all that and a bag of chips. I mean, it’s kind of a mess sometimes and they don’t always get it right over there. But you know, “they know how to love a feller over there .” Let that be the mark of this church. Let that be the mark of who we are, that we know how to love people.

Would you want that to be the mark of your life, that you know how to love others with the love that Jesus has given us? That’s the first area, the first relationship. It’s the relationship with God’s people. Here’s the second; it’s kind of a general category.

2. Our relationships with other people.

This could mean with other christians, but it’s kind of a transition between where he’s going to get, because when he gets to verse 17, he’s going to talk about people that don’t like us. There’s kind of a sprinkling of that in verses 14 through 16 here, but it’s other people and maybe people outside the church. Maybe it could be people inside the church, but other people, too. So we’re looking at versus 14 through 16; there’s nine exhortations here. We had thirteen in the first segment. Now we have nine more and we’re working through them. We’re talking about how to love other people.

14 “Bless those who persecute you.” Bless those who have done you wrong. My wife will tell you that she has heard me do this, but she will also probably tell you that my motives may be questionable. If I’m in traffic somewhere, trying to get somewhere and somebody cuts me off, I will say out loud, Well, God bless you. You know, God bless that brother. Now, she is questioning my motives at that point and she’s probably right. At least, I’m not cussing him out; I’m kind of “blessing” them out. I don’t know if you all say stuff like that. I didn’t grow up here. I grew up in south southwest Virginia. My mama used to say, I had to bless him out. Now , I think she meant something different than what the bible means here. I bless people out sometimes in traffic. I’m trying to grow; the Lord’s still working on me.

Here, in verse 14, it says to bless those who persecute you. The word, “blessing,” is an interesting word in Greek; it is eulogeō. It’s where we get the word eulogy, to say a blessing over people when they offend you and from the heart. How do you do this? You can’t. Only God can; you can’t do it. It’s only by offering yourself fully to the Lord that you can learn to repay someone with a blessing. Bless and do not curse them. Ouch, this is what genuine love looks like, to bless people and not to return curse for curse.

As Paul continues, he gives us real practical information about how to work with other people, regardless of where they’re at. 15 “Rejoice with those who rejoice.” There might be someone who’s really celebrating something, they’re fired up. They are so happy, but you’re not. It’s a day where you’re not doing so well and you feel like “popping their bubble.” The bible says, if you really love them, you’ll try to match their attitude. If they are rejoicing, rejoice with them.

I was gathering with some other pastors earlier this week for a monthly prayer breakfast. These men are pastors here in Wilson County. I asked everybody, “What are you doing for Christmas?” They talked about different things, some are having Christmas plays, one is going to have an orchestra… We were praying for each other and it came to my heart, maybe it was because I was studying this passage this week, I said to the other pastors, “I rejoice with you brothers. I rejoice with you when your churches grow because we’re all preaching the gospel and we’re all trying to love people into the kingdom. I could see all the faces of my fellow pastors and they replied that they were rejoicing with me too. There’s a camaraderie, there’s a feeling that comes when we can just say, “touchdown,” “high five,” “I’m glad it’s going great for you.” If you really love someone, you won’t try to pull them down when they’re rejoicing.

The rest of verse 15 is, “ …weep with those who weep.” Somebody might be saying, I’m kind of an optimist. If I see somebody that’s down, I just try to cheer them up. Sometimes that’s appropriate, but often, what’s important is to try to figure out where they are and ask the Holy Spirit to help you. To really listen and, if someone is down to go ahead and weep with them.

I remember when my father died; my father died when I was eight years old. My mom and my siblings would gather together, when no one was in the house but us, and tell stories about my dad. We would love to do this in the evening especially. We would start talking about him and maybe we would cry a little bit or we would laugh. We loved to talk about him; we didn’t want to forget him. Every time we thought about him, we would cry a little bit. Now, if other family members, extended family, were over, they felt kind of nervous when that would happen. We would be crying a little bit and we were sad. Our friends and family would try to cheer us up and try to change the subject. We didn’t want them to because we wanted to talk about our daddy, even if it meant that we cried a little bit. I think that was a gift, in a way, to me so that I understand, to this day, that when somebody is hurting, it’s not my job to cheer them up all of the time. It’s better to go ahead and match where they are; be quiet with them and listen to them. Be empathetic. The Holy Spirit can help you do this. He can help you match where they are and really listen. I know I can’t do it by myself, but He helps us do this. That’s what genuine love does.

Then, the scripture says, 16, “Live in harmony with one another.” Live in harmony with one another . If you sing harmony, you’re not singing the same identical note. You’re singing a note that sounds good with another note. That means you don’t have to be identical. You don’t have to think exactly the same, but live in harmony with one another. That’s the third “one another.” If you see it one time, you should take notice. If you see it twice, you should highlight it. If you see it three times, you better get on it. That’s the third one. The first two were in verse 10, “Love one another with brotherly affection.” “Outdo one another in showing honor.” Now, we have to live in harmony with one another. Friends, you can’t do “the one anothers” without one another. You can’t do “the one anothers” without one another. You can’t do them at home by yourself. This means you have to get with other people and worship the Lord. Get with other people and practice these “one anothers.” You can’t do “the one anothers” without one another. He’s given us the third one here in this passage.

Then Paul says, continuing in verse 16, “Do not be haughty.” That means, don’t be “big headed;” don’t be “all puffed up.” Verse 16 continues, “…but associate with the lowly.” Who are the lowly? They’re often the ones that are maybe a little socially awkward; maybe they don’t have it all together. Well, Gary, you are practically talking about everybody in the room just now. The lowly are the ones who don’t always fit in. I can tell you who definitely are the lowly; they are the little people called our children. They are lowly; they are low of stature. You can tell a lot about a person by the way children react to them. You can tell a lot about a person whether they pay attention to children or ignore them, if a person gets down on one knee to talk to a child face to face and puts their words on the child’s level. Now, if I get down on one knee, I’m showing sacrificial love because I have these new knees. I haven’t broken them in yet.

The scripture says, “Do not be haughty but associate with the lowly.” Stop hanging out with the wealthy, the cool and the beautiful; instead, the love of God in us, the love of Christ in us causes us to go towards those that are lowly. The love of Christ in us causes us to go towards those who are hurting; those who are awkward and don’t fit in perfectly. It’s like God gives us “radar” to look for them. What that might look like is, when you attend church on Sunday instead of just going and talking to your usual “click,” go look for someone who is by themselves. No one is talking to them. Love them with a genuine love; associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Stop being a “know it all;” be humble.

Every verse in this passage is full of instruction. I could talk about each one, but I have to keep moving. Verse 16 continues, “Never be wise in your own sight.” Verses 14 through 16 is general instruction. How to deal with people with genuine love: I think the point is humility.

Philippians 2:3-5 (ESV) 3 “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” What is “this mind?” It’s the mind of humility that thinks of others ahead of yourself. That’s how you would know whether to laugh or cry with someone based on where they are. That’s how you would know, not to brag on yourself, but to praise others and outdo others by showing them honor; to put others ahead of yourself.

This past week, my community group decided, because Thanksgiving was coming, that we would go out to eat. So, we went to Cracker Barrel. We sat in the rocking chairs out front for an hour and five minutes. I am “type A;” it’s been an hour and five minutes. They finally called our names, fortunately we had the rocking chairs and we had each other. I did fairly well because I was with God’s people. We were seated next to a couple that I took note of because the fellow was facing towards me at this other table with his wife. He had white hair and a big white beard. And I turned to one of the members next to me and said, “Look at that fellow over there. He looks like Santa Claus.” My friend told me that this person grew up in this area; he is the “go to” Santa Claus in Wilson County. He has been Santa Claus for years now. He named the guy. A little girl left her table and went over to him; he had a pen and a piece of paper and he was writing something, I asked my friend, “What’s he doing?” He pulled something out of the little girl’s ear and my friend says to me, “He does magic tricks, too.” While he did the magic trip, the little was jumping up and down. Then, he took something out of his wallet, wrote something on it and gave it to her. Her mother comes over and they have a photo taken. The couple is here for dinner, but his wife is sitting there patiently. A line was forming; among them was my buddy. This fellow, who looked like Santa Claus, kept a smile on his face the entire time. I started believing he really was Santa Claus after a little while. Do you know what it was? It was his humility, it was the way he dealt with those little children that came over to his table when he was really just out with his wife eating a meal.

You can tell a lot about a person, whether or not they really love with a genuine love and how they treat the lowly, how they treat children, especially.

3. Our relationships with those who offend us.

This is the place, I would say more assuredly than any other place, you can tell if you have Christ’s kind of love. It’s how you deal with those who have offended you, those who have offended us, those that would count us enemies. How you respond to them will reveal whether or not you really have the genuine love of Christ within you, how you respond to those who mistreat you.

Now, we’re in verses 17 through 21. 17 “ Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.” If someone is evil to you, don’t pay him back with the same currency. Don’t repay evil with evil. Instead, it says, “give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.” In other words, be aware of your testimony. Be aware that you’re a Christ follower and respond to them honorably. That’s a hard one right there. I mean, it’s been pretty hard but that one is near impossible, isn’t it? Some of us would say that that’s not even manly. You need to hit them back. If they hit you, hit them back. Here, though, it is this kind of love of Christ, this genuine love of Christ is not to respond with the same currency of evil. If they’re evil to you, you should respond to them honorably. That’s hard.

How can we do that? I have to keep reminding myself that the scripture says, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” It’s His love within me that teaches me to love people even when they do evil to me.

Notice here, it says, “if possible, verse 18, so far as it depends on you live peaceably with all.” You can’t make them be peaceful with you, but you can decide that you are going to do all that you can do to live peaceably with them. You are not going to be one who goes around picking fights. You are going to do your very best to live peaceably with them by the love of God that dwells within you. You’re not going to be a troublemaker, you are going to be a peacemaker.

Then, Paul says, “beloved.” Look at verse 19; all of a sudden, he’s calling us “beloved.” That’s the Greek word, “agape.” My loved ones. He’s giving us a hard one. So he calls us “beloved” first. That’s how, you know, he’s getting ready to give us a hard one. “Beloved, never avenge yourselves.” Don’t take revenge. Don’t try to get your own justice. Be reminded of what God says in His word, Romans 12:19, “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay,” says the Lord.”Somebody might be sitting here thinking what I thought the first time I read this .

What does Paul mean by this? He says, 19 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.” Wrath is anger, but God never has uncontrolled anger. His anger reacts to sin because His love, on the flip side of the coin, hates evil. His wrath is under His control; another word might be his judgment. Rather than me judging them and trying to get vengeance, let Him do it. It’s not like I was hoping for in my flesh; it’s not like He’s going to knock them out. It’s more like He’s going to judge them in just the right way. That gives them the best opportunity to repent. He’ll bring their sin to its harvest so that it allows them to turn because He really loves them and it tests me to see if I really love him too. Do I really want them to repent and get right or do I want God to “get them.” The correct attitude is I’m not going to repay evil with evil. I’m not going to judge them. I’m going to let God handle it.

When I was growing up, my mom would say to me, “I have had all that I can take from you.” When I was a teenager, I was pretty rebellious. I didn’t have a daddy, so my mom tried to be my mama and my daddy. She got to where she didn’t know what to do with me. I was a head taller than her, I was bigger than her and I was stubborn. She would say, “Gary Wayne, I’m going to turn you over to the Lord .” I would reply, “Oh come on now mom. Do anything but don’t turn me over to the Lord.” That used to scare me to death. I didn’t know what that meant, but it was scary. I think she got it from this passage because my mama loved me. Oh, how she loved me and she loved me even when I was a rebellious teenager. “I’m going to turn you over to the Lord.” “Oh my goodness, mama don’t do that. What do I need to do to keep you from turning me over to the Lord?” I knew what she meant. I didn’t want a spanking from the Lord.

Here’s the way to do it; give it to the Lord. Don’t try to take vengeance. Verse 20 says, “To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink;” What? Serve your enemy? That’s what genuine love looks like. It’s what it looks like. If you can do that with your enemy, you probably can do it with your spouse. Some of you got it finally.

Serving is this genuine love; it serves the other, even if they’ve mistreated you. Verse 20 continues, “for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” This is how I was looking at this; if I give my enemies something to eat and something to drink when they’re thirsty, it’ll be like heaping burning coals on their head. s Then, I started studying and it didn’t work out the way I wanted it to either because I think what the scripture here means is it brings them to repentance. If you treat them with good, when they treat you with evil, it’s like it catches their head on fire.

I tried to look up this idiom he’s quoting for the first time. It ever occurs in the bible in Proverbs 25: 22. It comes from there, but even there, it doesn’t explain itself. And then I found a couple of commentators who said that it may have described an ancient Egyptian practice of carrying a pan of coals on one’s head as a sign of contrition. I didn’t know that, but that’s what some suggest. I think it has the idea that if you treat an enemy honorably and you serve them, it has the potential to let God work in their life and change their heart to repentance. Well, it’s not what I was hoping for. I was hoping it was going to catch their head on fire, but that’s not what genuine love wants.

Paul closes the passage with this, 21 “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Mark Twain says, “The best way to get rid of an enemy is to turn him into a friend.” You don’t overcome evil by doubling down on evil. You’ve just got more evil. You overcome evil with good and then good wins. The word, “overcome,” is the Greek word, nikaō. It’s the word that we put on our sneakers. “Nike” means to overcome, be victorious and a conqueror. You overcome evil with good. You overcome evil with love.

Jesus taught this in Matthew, from the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:43-48 (NLT) 43 “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. 44 But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! 45 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. 46 If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. 47 If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. 48 But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” You’re to have genuine love even for your enemies because that might be the surest mark that you have given your life fully to Christ is how you treat those who mistreat you.

How do you respond to your critics? How do you respond to those that offend you and persecute you? It really exposes your true heart. Consider Christ on the cross. There were seven last words from Jesus on the cross. If you go through the four gospels, there are seven last words recorded. Among those seven is this, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Who is this Man? Who is this Jesus that loves us? “But yet while we were sinners, Christ died for us.” Who is this? This is the One who loves us.

For eleven chapters of Romans, we’ve been hearing about His love and His gospel, the good news. Now, in chapter 12, we hear how we can live it out just like Him because we are the body of Christ. Will you let His genuine love mark your relationships with fellow believers and with other people? Especially, with those who have offended you. Let’s pray.

Lord, we can’t do this, but You can do it through us. Lord, I pray first of all, for that person who came in without You today. I pray that they will leave with You. Is it you my friend? did you come in apart from Christ but you would desire to know Him as Lord and Savior today? You can make that happen right now, by receiving Him. Just talking to Him. You can pray with me right now, right in your seat. Pray with me, Lord, I’m a sinner. I’ve been living life on my own, but I want You in my life now. I believe You died on the cross for me. that You were raised from the grave and that You live today. Come and live in me, forgive me of my sin and make me a child of God. I want You as my Lord and Savior. If you’re praying that prayer, believing, He’ll save you. He will change your life . He will transform your life and give you a renewed mind and the ability to love like you’ve never loved before. Others are here, you know the Lord Jesus, but you’ve stumbled into some bad practices. You’ve allowed your zeal to go cold. You’ve had a hard time forgiving someone who’s hurt you. Lord, show us the face of that person right now that we need reconciliation. Lord, make us tenderhearted towards others, especially those who have offended us. Lord, help us to love the way You love, with genuine love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.