Revival '26 Session #4: The First (And Only) Avenger (Romans 12:17-21) | Louis Azuma

Speaker: Well, students, it's the last night, and, uh, we are here to talk about

how we respond to God's justice, how we live in light of God's justice, right?

So I hope you've got your Bibles.

Uh, we're gonna be in Romans chapter 12, okay?

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

But first, um, while you're making your way there, I wanna show you a verse

from the Gospel of Matthew, all right?

Before we're in Romans 12, I wanna show you something from the Gospel of Matthew.

In Matthew chapter six, here's what Jesus says.

He says, "If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly

Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive others their trespasses," right, their sins, "neither

will your Father forgive your trespasses."

Maybe you read this before, right, Sermon on the Mount, you know what this is.

You don't think this is too crazy of a statement, but I want

you to, to think about this.

Your willingness to forgive other people, when, when someone sins against you,

right, someone, someone does something wrong against you, someone hurts you, your

willingness to forgive them, what Jesus is saying, says a lot about your heart.

In fact, your willingness to forgive them is so important, it reveals

whether you're right with God

If you're unwilling to forgive someone, Jesus is saying there's no way

you've experienced God's forgiveness.

No way.

Not a chance.

Doesn't say, "Oh, well, sometimes if you forgive people, then God will

forgive you."

Doesn't say, "Well, every once in a while, if it's not that big of a deal and you

forgive them for small things, but for big things, it's okay not to forgive someone."

What Jesus is saying is that if you are unwilling to forgive other

people, you will not go to heaven.

That's crazy because as you probably feel, maybe even some of you this

week have felt, when someone wrongs you, you want to get back at them.

You want justice.

You want a response.

You wanna do something to, to get even, right?

You, you need some- something to happen to fix it

But what Jesus is saying is if you are unwilling to forgive other people,

your sins will not be forgiven.

The God of judgment will hold your sins against you.

So your willingness to forgive other people really is a matter of faith, right?

Do you trust God or do you not?

If it's hard for you to forgive other people, I, I would want you

to consider tonight, have I really experienced the forgiveness of God?

If it's hard for you, if you're someone who holds grudges, who gets bitter a

lot, who it, it's easier for you to, to just lash out and get back at other

people, I want you to ask yourself, "Do I really know God's forgiveness?"

Because that's what Jesus is saying.

Jesus is saying is that your forgiveness of others says a lot about whether

you, in fact, have been forgiven.

So we're gonna be in Romans 12 tonight.

Romans 12, we're gonna start in verse 17.

All right, Romans 12:17.

Romans 12:17

I'll put it up on the screen for you.

The Apostle Paul says, "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."

And we'll start there.

So what he's saying is if someone does something evil to you, if someone

hurts you, if someone sins against you, don't pay them back, right?

Don't, don't get back with them.

Instead, what he says, he, he gives a different command.

He says, "But instead, give thought to do what's honorable," right?

What, what other people should think is, is good, right?

Treat them well when they treat you poorly.

And then verse eighteen, "If possible, as far as it depends on you," right?

Do everything you can to live at peace with other people

What's happening here is, is normally we think, "Oh, when

something bad happens to me, right?

Someone's wronged me, someone's hurt me, my job is to get back at them, right?

I need to, I need to make things even.

I, I need to, to, to figure out how to right this situation."

What Paul's saying is that's not your job.

Not your job.

Your job is not to worry about how do I fix this?

How do I make them feel what I'm feeling?

How do I get even with them?

How do I fix the situation?

That's not your job.

What Paul's saying your job is, is to, to live peaceably with them.

To, to have peace, forgiveness, right?

Restoration, love, those type of things.

That's your job.

And so that's counterintuitive to everything that, that you and I

probably feel initially, right?

When someone wrongs you, you feel like the number one priority is,

"I gotta fix, fix that," right?

When you feel like injustice has been done, right?

Maybe you feel like the wrong team won revival or maybe you feel like

someone cheated in the games or maybe you feel like someone hurt you.

Your-- Normally, your first priority is, "I need to fix it.

Something's ba- something has to be done about that."

What we're seeing here in our passage is what has to be done is you need

to take responsibility for being at peace with them, not getting justice.

So our first point tonight, nice and simple, take responsibility

for peaceful living.

Take responsibility

Right?

Your job when someone sins against you, and people will.

People have sinned against you this week.

People will sin against you maybe even tonight.

People might sin against you when you're trying to go to sleep.

People might sin against you when you wake up tomorrow morning.

People might sin against you in the car ride on the way home.

Your job is not to get back at them.

Your job is to live peacefully with them.

That's your job

I was listening to Tom Brady talk about how he became such a

great quarterback, and he said it actually started in college.

He said what made him such a great quarterback actually started

when he was at the University of Michigan, and he was on the bench.

He was like the third-string, fourth-string quarterback at, in college,

and he was like, "I was pretty bad."

Uh, but he said, "What was worse than my football skills was my attitude."

So he went to the sports psychologist that they had at the university and,

and what happened was the sports psychologist, which I was impressed

because normally this isn't something you get at the psychologist, the psychologist

told him, "Your attitude stinks

You're, you're worrying about, "Oh, well, I'm, I'm so much

better than the other players.

Why do they get more playing time?

Why do they get more practice time?

Oh, I have to play with the backup receivers 'cause I'm a backup.

If they put me out there with the starters, I would look so much better."

Right?

It was, "Oh, the coaches, they don't call the right plays for me."

He was blaming everyone else.

Oh, it was the coach's fault, it was the receiver's fault.

It was, uh, it was everyone else's fault but him.

And the psychologist, what he told him is, "You need to do

your best with every rep you get.

Maybe you only get five, five tries at practice.

You know, maybe you only get to try out for third string receivers, but you

have to do your best with what you have.

That's what you're responsible for."

Right?

You can't control what the coach does.

You can't control what the receivers do.

You can't even control whether they catch the pass or not, Tom Brady, right?

And what he told him is, "You need to take responsibility for what you can control."

And I do think that's a really helpful picture of what the Apostle

Paul wants this to do here, right?

You can't control whether people sin against you.

You can't control whether, whether someone wrongs you.

But what you do control is how you respond to that situation, and that's

what you're responsible for, right?

Your number one priority in a situation where someone sins

against you is, "How am I going to honor the Lord in this situation?

What am I going to do?

What does God want me to do right now?"

And what He wants you to do is to live at peace with this person.

He wants you to, to respond in a way that is, is peaceful, right?

Not, not angry, not harsh, not unkind, but loving

And when you think about this, this is even in, in our verse, right?

He says, "Give thought to it."

And he says, "As far as it depends on you."

It's almost like you can feel the, the stress it takes to do this, right?

This is hard.

This is really hard because it's counterintuitive to

the way you and I are wired.

We're wired to look out for me.

We're wired to look out for what I want, what I feel.

This type of response, to respond, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna

be at peace with this person.

I'm gonna forgive them.

I'm gonna love them," that type of response, it doesn't come naturally.

It comes supernaturally, right?

It comes from God working in you to give you God's love.

Like, that's how God responds when people sin, right?

If you think about it, imagine if God treated you the way you

treat the people who wrong you.

What if God treated you how you treated that person you got really angry at?

What if God was as impatient with you as you are with your siblings?

What if God said the things about you that you say about

your parents behind their back?

What if God talked about you the way you talk about your teachers?

What if God treated you the way you treat the people you really don't like?

And you say, "Well, it's fine 'cause they wronged me.

They hurt me.

You don't understand, Lewis.

You don't know what they've said about me.

You don't know what they've done to me.

You don't know how they've hurt me."

Well, guess what?

We've talked about this already, but think about what your sin has done to God.

Right?

Our sin, my sin is so bad that God had to kill His Son to take it away

Our responsibility is not to say, "Well, it's their fault," or,

"Oh, well, they, they hurt me.

They made me look bad."

Our responsibility is to say, "God's honor is more important in this situation

Your goal in life is not to look out to, to, to right the wrongs against you

When you became a Christian, if you're someone who says, "I follow Jesus," when

you signed up to follow Jesus, you made that your main responsibility in life.

You-- If you call yourself a Christian, your main responsibility

in life is to follow Jesus.

It's not to look out for you.

Right?

When I signed up to be a Christian, when I said, "God, I confess my sin.

I trust you with my life.

I need you to save me," I had a, I, I had a new job description for my life.

And, and you see that right here in Matthew sixteen.

Jesus told His disciples, "If any would come after me, let him deny himself

and take up his cross and follow me."

If you're a Christian, following Jesus means I'm not in this world, I'm not

in this life to look after my rights.

Have you ever thought about that?

You've given up the right to fight for your reputation.

It's gone.

It doesn't matter anymore.

That's not your responsibility.

Your responsibility is not your reputation.

Your responsibility is God's reputation

He says, "If anyone would save his life, he'll lose it.

But whoever would lose his life for my sake will find it."

Right?

Losing your life is a very unpleasant process.

All right?

This isn't a very rainbows and butterflies and unicorns

mission statement from Jesus here

There's something about following Jesus that is really undoing yourself.

Following Jesus is antithetical, the opposite of being selfish.

Following Jesus means you die.

Your rights, your reputation, your honor, your dignity.

When you sign up to follow Jesus, you say, "I'm done with that.

I'm not looking out for me anymore.

God will take care of me.

My job is to follow Jesus

And so when we're angry in response to sin, it's usually

because we're looking out for us.

Think about it.

Most of the time when we're angry, it's because we're trying

to build our kingdom, right?

It's because, well, they hurt me.

They made me feel this way.

I need to do something about that.

It's always about us.

And what Jesus is saying is, is you need to put th- that to death.

You're not building that kingdom anymore.

You're building God's kingdom

So your job description has changed

My wife works really hard, and she crushes it at her job.

And her manager has absolutely no idea what she does.

So her manager said, "I need you to make a job description of what you

do, because I don't know what you do."

Which, great managing, right?

But so she made this job description, and I thought it was fun, because

I got to learn all about what she does every day and everything.

But, um, it made me think about it, what if you made a

job description for your life?

What if you made a job description for what do I think are my most

important things I do every day?

What are my most impor-important priorities this week?

What were your…

What, what was your job description for summer camp that you had in your mind?

Maybe you didn't write one out.

Was it to have fun?

Was it to enjoy yourself?

Was it to make friends?

Was it to win all the games?

What, what, you know…

You had a, you had an idea of what you thought was most

important to you this week.

Or think about h- maybe at, at school.

You have an idea, a job description.

You're like, "Here's what I'm doing at school.

I'm getting good grades.

I'm hanging out with my friends.

These are the things I do at school."

Well, what about when you follow Jesus, your job description is no

longer, "Well, I need to get what is best for me out of my life."

You see all the first person pronouns I used there, right?

I, me, my.

When you follow Jesus, those, those go out the window.

It's He, right?

It's Jesus.

It's His honor, His name, His glory.

What is His plan for me?

What does He want from me?

So your job description changes.

And here's the thing, is that the thing that, that Tom Brady learned, and the

thing that I hope you learn, is that you and I are responsible for our response.

When someone wrongs you, they don't force you to sin.

My mom, she, she used to, to really to, to nail me on this every time.

Whenever I said, "They made me angry," she'd be like, "No, they didn't.

You chose to be angry

No one forces you to sin.

Doesn't matter what they do to you.

Sure, they can make it easier for you to sin.

Absolutely.

They can make it really hard for you not to sin.

But no one forces you to sin.

No one forces you to say unkind words or to think angry thoughts.

You and I do those things on our own.

We're responsible for those things, right?

So you and I, what we need to do is we need to stop blame-shifting.

We need to stop saying, "Well, they did this to me, so I just, I just happened.

It just came out."

Well, those thoughts, those words, those feelings, they come from somewhere.

They don't come from outside, they come from inside.

They come from our hearts because we're looking out for us.

We're saying, "I need to get back at this person.

I need to fix this.

I need to do something about it."

What we're doing there is we're saying, "Well, my job is to look out

for me, not to look out for God."

And really the root of this problem, right?

The root of the problem is that we're selfish, right?

We, when we're angry, it's usually because we want to do something for us

And so what really this, like, this whole umbrella of unforgiveness shows is

that my biggest concern is me, not God.

When you don't wanna forgive someone, it's because you care more about

what you want than what God wants.

That's really what it is

And so what a lot of us need to do when this happens is we

need to fight with our feelings.

You need to, you need to really just, just have a fight with how

you feel in that moment, right?

Someone sins against you and you, you get upset.

What do you do?

You need to…

That's, that's a, that's a battle that you just stepped into, right?

That's not just like a, "Oh, I didn't know this was gonna happen.

I didn't think anyone would sin against me today."

Right?

You just stepped into a battlefield, and you need to fight, right?

You need to fight your feelings of, of, "Well, I, I just need to

get back at them, and I need to do something about it right now."

Maybe you need to, maybe you need to do something really practical like, like

take a deep breath or count to 10, right?

But there…

Anyone can do that.

An atheist can do that.

You need to fight your feelings and say, "You know what?"

I wanna care about what God cares about.

What is God's job description for me in this situation?

Well, it's to, to live at peace with this person.

And me fighting fire with fire is not gonna add peace to the situation.

It's gonna make it much worse

And the more concerned you are about yourself, the harder it

is to, to be a peaceful person.

The more concerned you are about yourself, the harder it is to be a peaceful person.

Because if you're concerned about yourself, when something happens

to you that puts you down, you've got to fight to climb back up

And what Jesus is saying, and what Paul is saying in the book

of Romans is when someone puts you down, that doesn't matter.

What matters is God's glory, God's honor.

And so yeah, I can deny myself.

I can let myself be put down.

I can let myself be made fun of.

I can let myself be hurt by someone.

I can let them get away with something that maybe people think

they look great and I look bad.

Because I don't need to worry about me.

I'm not trying to make myself look great anymore.

Doesn't matter.

I'm gonna try to make God look great.

So when that person keeps making comments about you or making fun of you, you

don't need to fire back because you…

Well, whatever.

So what if people think I'm, I'm lame or, or people believe

something that's not true about me?

Not that important, because I'm not that important.

God's the one who's important

And so when someone wrongs you, what you're responsible for is how you respond.

That's way more important.

Way more important is for you to be loving and forgiving and kind

and gentle than for you to fight back and, and fight for yourself.

And that's what God cares way more about.

He cares way more about your attitude, your heart posture, your

words, your tone, your emotions than you getting even with them

And the reason that we can let this go, the reason you can do this is because

of what Paul says next in verse 19.

Look at verse 19, chapter 12.

He says, "Beloved, never, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath

of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay,' says the Lord."

Verse 19 starts with that word beloved, which I think is interesting, right?

We're talking about justice, we're talking about anger, we're talking about

vengeance, and he starts with beloved.

And I think part of this is he's saying, "Look, God loves you.

If you're in Christ, God loves you.

Why do you need to worry so much about fighting for your reputation?

The King of the universe, the God of all creation loves you

He loves you Why, why does it matter what other people think about you?

But then he goes on to, to, to say a promise, right?

"Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath

of God, for it is written."

What gives you the ability to say, "You know what?

I don't need to fight for myself right now.

I'm gonna take responsibility to, to love this person who's hurting me,"

is you can trust God for justice.

You can trust God to exact vengeance.

You don't need to worry about it.

Not your job.

Your job is to live at peace.

God's job is to be the judge.

So point two, leave vengeance to God.

Leave vengeance to God

This is pretty much a, a blanket statement, right?

Never avenge yourselves.

Never.

Nice and simple.

Black and white, right?

I, so I know some people, they love, they love nuance, they love the exceptions,

they love the, "Well, you know, sometimes you don't have to do that,

sometimes you don't have to do this."

Well, pretty much this passage says it's never appropriate

for you to avenge yourself.

That's all it says, right?

So you never have to worry about getting even.

You never have to worry about fighting for justice for yourself.

Blanket statement.

That's God's job

And so really what this is about is you don't wanna steal God's job, right?

Your job is point one.

I'm supposed to live at peace with this person as best as I can.

My job is, is to love this person, be kind to them, be gentle to them.

That's my job.

God's job is to be the judge.

And quite frankly, you'd rather God do it than you, right?

Who would you rather exact justice for you?

You or God?

You would much rather have God judge that person anyway, right?

When someone sins against you

You want something bad to happen to them.

Well, would you want you to do it or would you want God to do it?

I'd rather have God do it.

Right?

Think about God's judgment.

Well, we- all we've learned about this week.

God knows everything.

He saw everything.

God actually knows what happened better than you do, because he

doesn't just know your heart and your head and your feelings, he

knows their heart, their motives.

He knows how long they spent thinking about it.

He knows how they felt about it.

He knows exactly how sinful it was, better than you do.

God will judge it perfectly

He won't under- under-judge them.

He won't over-judge them.

He will judge them perfectly.

And so we can say, "God, I want you to judge them."

Leave it to God

He'll do it better anyway, and you can trust Him to do that, right?

You might forget.

You might not do it perfectly.

You might not do it exactly the way you want it to.

But God will do it the best way.

All right?

When we take revenge, really what that's saying is, "I want to be God.

I wanna be the judge."

When you try to get back at someone who sinned against you, you're

essentially saying, "God, I got this.

Let me do it."

All right?

We're saying, "God, I want to be you

So what does it look like to, to give vengeance to God, to leave

something to the wrath of God?

Well, first it, it means you have to actually believe that who--

he is who he says he is, right?

"Vengeance is mine.

I will repay," says the Lord.

He said it.

You have to believe him that he's gonna do it.

And so partly forgiving other people is, again, an expression of your trust in God.

Do you trust God enough to say, "You know what?

I don't have to get back at them.

I'll let God handle it."

Right?

Some of our games, I was at the, in the Team Olympics, I was at

this, this pool noodle game out here with the Frisbee, right?

And it was funny to see different teams because on every team there's a couple

like coaches, you know, that are like, "No, no, no, you gotta do it like this."

Right?

Like, "Make sure you're holding it here," and there are people screaming

out directions and, and it was really funny to see that because

the, the different responses, right?

I remember, uh, one of, one of the teams, I can't- forget who it was, but, um,

someone was giving them instructions and they were just like, "I got it."

Right?

No one wants to be micromanaged, right?

No one wants to, someone to be like, "No, no, no, you gotta do it this way.

You gotta do it this way.

You gotta do it that way."

'Cause sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes what that, what

micromanaging and, and helicoptering shows is I don't trust you

Man, as I don't think you're gonna do it right, so I need to give you like

ten million instructions to do this

Right?

Don't micromanage the author

Don't, don't tell God, "Well, you know, God, you really need

to get back at this person.

You don't know what they've done.

You don't understand.

You don't know what they said."

It's like, God knows.

God knows exactly what they said.

God knows exactly how they felt when they said it.

God knows exactly what they meant by what they said.

You can trust God to handle it.

He's got it.

And that's such a great thing because it, it's really, really freeing to do that.

It's so freeing to say, "You know what?

I don't need to, to worry about getting even."

Imagine if you tried to get even with every single person who wronged

you, but also not to get, like, over even, but just, like, exactly even.

That would be exhausting.

About all the people that have ever wronged you.

You can't do it.

So you say, "You know what, God?

I'll let you do it."

And then you can focus on, "You know what?

I'm gonna focus on loving this person, and I'll let God deal with the consequences."

If you wanna look at an example of what it looks like to give your justice to

God, your desire for vengeance to God, you can go to sa- uh, any of the Psalms we've

been reading this week in the DVR, right?

But Psalm 35 is a great one.

You can write that down

And honestly, I would even encourage you, if, if you feel like you've

been wronged you should pray through one of these psalms.

Use the psalm as a template for your prayer and pray this psalm out to God.

That's why God gave us so many of them.

That's why there's 150 of them

What this psalmist, what David is feeling in this moment is these

people have wronged me, right?

Verse one of Psalm 35, "Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me."

There's people who are fighting me, God.

Please fight back.

Now, David knows my job isn't to fight back.

God's job is to fight back.

So he says, "God, please do that.

Fight against those who fight against me.

Take up your weapons," in verse two and verse three.

And then he asks God in verses four through six to do something about

it, to exact vengeance for him

And that's fine.

You can trust…

That's an act of trusting God.

All right?

You pray to God and say, "God, please do this.

Please be who you say you are

And sometimes what that looks like is you need to talk to yourself and

tell yourself, "God will do this, and I'm gonna trust the Lord to do that."

And again, all of this comes down to, do you really believe

that God is who He says He is?

Do you really believe that God is a just judge and that He will fight for you

If you don't trust God, you're not gonna do it, 'cause you're g- you're the one

who's looking out for your kingdom and your desires and your reputation, and so

you have to fight for yourself because you've got your hands on the wheel

So if you're someone who, who really struggles with that it's really hard

for you to let things go, you always have to look out for yourself ask

yourself, do I really trust God to be who He says He is to take care of the

things He says He will take care of?

And the reason God wants us to let Him be the judge is because of what's at stake.

What's at stake here?

Look at verses 20 and 21 here

So instead of avenging yourself, to the contrary, verse twenty, "If

your enemy is hungry, feed him.

If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

For by doing so, you will heap burning coals on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

And that's our third point tonight, overcome evil with good.

There's a battle going on whenever you are sinning against

Whenever someone wrongs you, there's an opportunity for

evil to win or for good to win

And you are responsible for how that goes

You are responsible for whether evil wins or whether good wins

See, if someone sins against you and you sin back

Now evil has won because evil has conquered you.

You've fallen for the trap, right?

Think about this.

If Satan knows, "Oh, they're gonna sin if I just get someone to, to sin against

them," what do you think he's gonna do?

Get someone to sin against you, right?

If Satan knows, "Oh yeah, I'm just gonna give them a really annoying younger

sibling, and they're gonna sin all the time," guess what he's gonna do?

Give you a really annoying younger sibling, and guess whose fault it

is that you're sinning against them?

Yours.

It's not their fault.

It's not your parents' fault.

It's your fault.

Because Satan knows that you're vulnerable.

Satan knows that you're the type of person who's gonna say, "I'm

more important than God, and I need to get even, and I need to-"

So if, if that's you, maybe that is you, maybe you're the person with the, with the

annoying younger sibling and, and you're always fighting back at them, right?

Neither of you are winning.

Satan is winning.

Satan might be winning in your home.

Satan might be winning in one of these bunk rooms if you're sinning

against each other and fighting back.

There's a real battle going on, good versus evil, right?

And if, if Satan can get you to sin just by getting someone

to annoy you, that's easy.

You're just, you're just giving him what he wants

And if you claim to be a Christian, you are making Jesus' name look really bad

Because we're saying God is patient and God is merciful and

God is forgiving and you're not

And you're making it really hard for people to believe in that God

Because think about it this way.

If you're a non-believer and you're sinning against someone and they're

fighting right back, what are they gonna think about when they sin against God?

Oh, God's just gonna fight right back and he's not gonna want me

So there's, there's a, there's a lot at stake here, right?

Overcome evil with good.

Like, you're not just-- W- when you don't retaliate, right, you're not

just fighting for, for God, right?

You're, you're fighting for the team, right?

You're fighting for the name of Jesus

The, whenever, if you ever watch football, you know that the

announcers, they always talk about this with the, when, when there's a

retaliation sort of penalty, right?

It's always the second guy that gets in trouble, right?

Maybe someone's trash-talking, and then the guy gets mad

and, and he pushes him, right?

Who gets in trouble?

The second guy, not the first guy, right?

It's always-- In any sport, it's always maybe, maybe in, in soccer or whatever,

someone does something that's a little, a little rough, and then the other

person comes in and lays him out and oh, second guy's gonna get in trouble.

It's always the second person

It's kinda like that in life sometimes, right?

But the point is, the person who gets the, the penalty, it isn't just

they fought for themselves, right?

They said, "I'm gonna get back at this person," but

they let the team down, right?

They lost 15 yards for their team, or they got thrown out of the game, and now

their, their team is down a player, right?

When you lash out in anger against someone, you're

letting the team down, right?

Jesus' name is at stake.

His honor, His glory, and His reputation, and you and I decide to be selfish

and say, "But I need to fight for me."

The name on the back of my jersey became more important than the name

on the front of my jersey, right?

And this all comes down to who am I concerned about?

Am I concerned about me or am I concerned about God?

But it's not just not retaliating.

He doesn't just say, "Don't do anything."

Right?

You ever heard if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it?

That's not in the Bible though.

What is in the Bible is love your enemies

Verse 20, if you look back at that, "If your enemy is hungry, feed him.

If he's thirsty, give him something to drink."

Maybe you're wondering what the burning coals are.

There's two, two options there.

One of them is you're making your enemy feel more guilty, right?

Because you're, you're killing them with kindness, because you're

loving them, a- and they're, they're feeling more guilty 'cause they're

like, "Oh, I've hurt this person.

They're so nice to me.

I just can't do it anymore."

That's one option.

The other thing is they're even more guilty before God now.

You're actually heaping up more of God's wrath for them.

That's the other way to look at it.

But either way, not a good situation for them.

But the point is that we're supposed to love our enemies if we're Christians,

because that's what God did for us.

I want you to turn in your Bible to Luke chapter 6, okay?

Luke 6 · chapter mention

Everyone, get in your Bibles.

Turn over to Luke chapter 6

Luke 6 · chapter mention

I wanna take a moment and really dive into what it looks like to love our enemy

'Cause being nice to people is different than Christ-like love for our enemies.

So we're gonna start in verse 27.

Luke chapter 6.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

To the left, right?

Over, I hear all the pages.

This is, I ha- I miss this sound.

The, the pages turning and it's a good sound.

I love it.

I'll stall for a bit till you get there.

Luke chapter 6.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

I want everyone's eyeballs on Luke chapter 6, all right?

Luke 6 · chapter mention

So Jesus, he's-- what he's doing in this whole section here is he's talking about

the difference between just keeping the surface level commands of God

and really loving God from the heart.

That's what he's doing in this section of Luke.

And so in verse twenty-seven, he says, "I say to you," Luke six

twenty-seven, "love your enemies.

Do good to those who hate you.

Bless those who curse you.

Pray for those who abuse you.

To the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.

And from one who takes away your cloak, don't withhold your tunic either," right?

Give him your shirt.

"Give to everyone who begs from you, and from the one who takes away

your goods, don't ask for them back.

And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them."

Maybe you've heard that before.

This is totally the opposite of how normal people work.

Normal people do not do this.

Right?

Go to the, go to the four-year-old class on your church on Sunday

and watch what-- One four-year-old hits another four-year-old.

What happens?

Bam, they're right back or they're crying, right?

One of the two.

This is counterintuitive, right?

No normal human being when they get hurt says, "I love you.

I care about you.

Can I pray for you right now?"

That's not normal.

No normal people don't do that, and that's because normal people are selfish.

Normal people care about themselves more than they care about God

So the standard is not just, "Well, I'm not gonna retaliate."

The standard, the responsibility that you and I have as Christians is to love

our enemies, just like God loved us.

Look at verse thirty-two.

This is, I think, the best part of this whole section.

Verse thirty-two: "If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you?

For even sinners love those who love them."

Verse 33: "And if you do good to those who do good to you,

what benefit is that to you?

For even sinners do the same."

Atheists love people that love them back

Gnostics, agnostics, Muslims, Hindus, everyone loves people that love them back

because everyone loves themselves, so they love people that love them, right?

Loving someone that loves you isn't really that loving.

It's actually kinda selfish, right?

If the only reason you love people is because they love you in return,

or the only reason you do nice things to people is because you want

something from them, that's called using people, not loving people.

'Cause what you're saying is, "Really, I just want this person

so that they give me something."

What God does, right?

'Cause think about this with God's love.

Does God need anything from you and I?

No.

God doesn't need us to love Him.

God doesn't need us to sing worship songs to Him.

God doesn't need us to obey Him.

He doesn't need us to do anything for Him.

But He loves us because He does.

God is love, and so He overflows with love, and that's what He does.

He, He loves.

He's not trying to get something back from us.

He didn't say, "You know what?

I'm gonna save Lewis because I really need Lewis to preach

two sermons at Revival 26."

God doesn't need anything

He says, "I'm gonna love Louis because I love him.

That's who I am

When we love our enemies, it shows everyone that we don't just love

people when it works out well for us.

We don't just love people when it's convenient.

We don't just love people when we benefit from it.

We love people because God's love has been poured into us, and so it overflows

into other people.

We love them then, even people that hurt us

The only way you can do this is if you have experienced God's love for you.

Because God loved His enemy

God loves enemies like me

If God only loved his friends, we wouldn't be here

Romans 5, "While we were sinners, Christ died for us."

God loved you before you loved Him back.

And God didn't love you so that you would love Him back 'cause He

doesn't need you to love Him back

And so if you're someone who only loves people who love you back

You're not showing Christ-like love.

If you only love the people that, that you like to hang out with or that you feel

like are in your friend group or, or have the same hobbies as you or, or do the same

things as you, or if you only love the people that look like you or are from the

same background as you, that's selfish.

And so what I want you all to think about is when it's hard for me to love someone

Who am I doing this for?

When it's easy for me to love someone, who am I doing this for?

Because the only way for us to love our enemies is to have God's love for us.

And so the best way you can overcome evil with good is to start with God, because

this is a, this is really a gospel issue.

The-- Not just intellectually, right?

If, but if you-- Your lack of understanding of the

gospel is gonna impact this.

Not just mentally, "Oh, I could explain the gospel to my leader.

I could pass the go- gospel test and partners," or whatever.

But do you feel it?

When it's hard for you to forgive people, it's because you don't really feel the

weight of God's forgiveness for you.

You don't really feel the weight of God's love for you.

So it all starts there.

It starts with the gospel.

Right?

The best way to overcome evil with good is to start with, with you and God.

God's love for me, and that motivates my love for others, and it also motivates my

lack of self-concern because God's love is incredible, and God is not just a God of

justice like we've talked about all week.

He's a God of love

And one of the reasons that we love is because we know that God will handle the

justice, and so I can love other people.

So let's pray together, and we'll talk about that more

Father, we are amazed

Your love is really the greatest thing

Not for your love.

We wouldn't know you.

You wouldn't

So I pray that you help all of us to have a deeper understanding

Break for

So taking up their

Living for your honor

Experience your love

Way that maybe they've never thought about it or felt it before, and that you

would help them to, like the psalmist says in Psalm 90, be satisfied by your

steadfast love, that your love would be better than life, that they would

rather be loved by you than sail-

Pray for the

That you love him

Your love is what

That your love is not conditional.

Your love is not based on how good we, we are.

Your love is not even based on who we are.

In fact, you made us

Pray for students who have a hard time believing

Say you are and that you invented love

faith and receive it rather than trying to work for it.

And I pray for the students here who don't care, who just wish this

was over and they could go have fun.

I pray that you help them to see that one day they will stand before you,

the Almighty God, the Judge of the universe, and, and they will be utterly

embarrassed and ashamed, and they will experience the worst day of their life.

And I pray that you help them to, to, to sense the reality of your judgment

how great it is that they can have

yours.

So thank you for this time.

Thank you for this week.

I pray that you help us to be changed by what we've