We are called to love the church and the world. We are to love the saints by displaying sympathy and humility. We are to love all of God’s children without partiality. We are to love our enemies by refusing to retaliate against them and purposing to do good to them.
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How To Love Saints and Enemies
Romans 12:14-21
We come this morning to the final paragraph in Romans 12, verses 14-21. Admittedly, this paragraph is a bit confusing. Paul starts out by talking about how we should respond to those who persecute us. Well, obviously, Paul must be talking about unbelievers here. True believers don’t persecute other true believers. Paul says in Galatians 4:29, “But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also.” 1 John 3:13 says, “Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you.” So, when Paul writes about those that persecute the church, I take him to be talking about unbelievers persecuting God’s people.
Now, this is where things get a little strange. We would expect that Paul would continue to discuss how the church should respond to the world who hates them and persecutes them. But, I don’t think that’s what he does. I believe Paul switches gears a little bit in verse 15 and 16, and tells us how we should relate to one another in the body of Christ. Why do I think Paul is talking about how we should relate to believers, rather than unbelievers? Well, it is because of what he wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:25-26, “so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.” Now, it is readily apparent that this is a parallel passage to Romans 12:15-16. In Romans 12:15, Paul tells the church to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. Well, here in 1 Corinthians 12:26, he tells the church to suffer with those who suffer, and rejoice with the member who is honored. Romans 12:16 says that we should be of the same mind toward one another. But 1 Corinthians 12:25 says we should have the same care for one another. I believe that these two passages are parallel, and that they help to explain one another.
So, what does all this mean? If I’m right in my interpretation of this passage, it means that Paul starts out by telling the church how they should respond to unbelievers that persecute them. He will continue this line of thought in verses 17-21. But there are two verses that don’t fit this theme. They are verses 15 and 16. I believe Paul started off talking about believers responding to the persecution and evil of the world, but switched gears in verses 15 and 16, and then went back to his previous theme and finished it off in verses 17-21. I frankly confess that I don’t know why he switched gears for a little while before going back to his main subject. Perhaps after he dictated verse 14, he remembered that he wanted to say something about how the church is to relate to one another, and so he dictated those two verses before getting back to the subject at hand.
Now, all that to say this – this morning we are going to meditate on how we are to love the saints and how we are to love our enemies.
Now, as we break verse 15 and 16 down, you will notice that Paul tells us that we are to relate to one another in two ways – with sympathy and with humility.
1. Loving The Saints
1. Sympathize With The Saints
Rejoice with those who rejoice. Now, this exhortation is not always as easy as it seems to obey. When someone comes to you and says, “I’m so happy! I just got a promotion and a raise!”, it may not be easy for you to rejoice if you’ve been stuck in the same dead end job for years with no hope of a raise or a promotion. Imagine that you are lonely and would like to be married, but you have no prospects and no women interested in you and another brother comes up and says, “I just met the woman of my dreams. We’re engaged!” It’s not going to be easy to get excited with this brother is it? Why not? Because of envy and our tendency to be self-centered.
I have had opportunity to be tested in this regard. One of the guys who used to work for me bought a similar business to mind. Our companies are almost identical in terms of size and revenue, so we have a little friendly competition. We will text back and forth, asking each other how business is going and comparing notes. There have been times when we were not doing well at all, and he was doing great. Now, God’s Word to me is “rejoice with those who rejoice.” I should be genuinely happy for him. The only thing that would keep me from being happy for him is that I am not the one receiving the blessing. But that is to be self-centered, instead of others-centered.
When I hear of other churches that started up around the same time our church started, and have grown very large with many conversions, that should make me ecstatic. If I’m not ecstatic, it can only be because I’m envious of their success, and wish I could have had the same. “Self” is our main problem when it comes to relating to others in the church. If we could just remove our own personal desires, and longings and aspirations out of the way, the love of God could flow through us to others in a much greater way.
Lou Brock retired from baseball in 1979 as the all-time stolen base leader with 938 stolen bases. However, soon Ricky Henderson began to pile up more and more stolen bases. Lou Brock realized that Ricky was going to break his stolen base record. How did he handle it? Weeks before Ricky broke his record, Lou Brock said, “I’ll be there. Do you think I’m going to miss it now? Rickey did in 12 years what took me 19. He’s amazing.” This kind of rejoicing and honoring of others is what should be happening all the time in the family of God.
To sympathize with someone is to share their feelings. Brothers and sisters, when someone in the body shares their joy with you, fight your inclination to compare their blessings with yours. Just be happy for them. Just rejoice with them. Enter into their joys.
Weep with those who weep. God is calling us to enter into the pain and suffering of others in the church. When someone is weeping, grieving, or suffering we are not to stand aloof. Rather, we are to feel their pain and weep with them.
Notice, we are not told to “counsel those who weep” or “preach to those who weep.” No, we are to weep with those who weep. When Job was grieving and suffering deeply, his counselors just made matters worse when they tried to give him advice. Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do for someone who is suffering is to just weep with them. Many times you don’t have to say anything. On August 8, 2004 a chaplain showed up on our doorstep at 9:00 a.m. We were going to leave to drive to someone’s home in Sonora to have church like we always did on Sundays. But on this Sunday, the chaplain gathered us all together and told us that our son was dead. The rest of the church canceled the meeting, and all of them came over to our house. What did they do? Well, they didn’t do much of anything. They were just there. That day is a blur in my mind, but I remember praying together, crying together, and just being quiet with very little talking for several hours.
God’s Word to us this morning is to enter into the pain and suffering of other believers. If we really love one another we will hurt when someone else is hurting.
“A sorrow shared is but half a trouble.
A joy shared is a joy made double.”
There is a story of a little boy who had an elderly man for his next door neighbor. The elderly man had just lost his wife. When the little boy found out, he went over to the old man, climbed onto his lap and just sat there. Later his mother asked the little boy what he had said to the old man. “Nothing” he replied, “I just helped him cry.”
Someone once said, “Sympathy is two hearts tugging at one load.”
May God help us to enter into the joys and sorrows of others in the body of Christ.
2. Humble Yourself Before The Saints
Be of the same mind toward one another. What does Paul mean by this? I think he explains himself in the rest of the verse, “do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation.” I believe when Paul says “be of the same mind toward one another,” he means have the same care, love, and concern for all of God’s children in spite of their position or status in the world. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:25 “have the same care for one another.” The same care as what? The same care for each child of God as you have for other saints.
Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. In other words, don’t play favorites in the church. There should be no cliques in the body of Christ. There should be no caste system. In India, there are definite and distinct castes, and a person in one caste is never to associate freely with someone in another caste. Well, if we are not careful, we might make the same mistake in the church. The church is made up of all who love and trust in Jesus. You might have some who are important members of society like congressmen, doctors, lawyers, judges, and police chiefs. And then you might have others who haven’t worked a job in years. Some in the church may be well off financially, while others are homeless and helpless. Some have PhD’s and doctorates in universities, while others never graduated from high school. Then again, you will have some people from different races and nationalities.
The tendency will be for you to hang out most with those that are like you. You will gravitate towards those from the same economic status, work status, educational status, and nationality as yours. And in gravitating toward these, the net effect will be that you spend less time or none with those that are not like you.
“Be of the same mind toward one another” means to have the same care for every member of the body of Christ, no matter how lofty a position he has in society or how lowly he is. Don’t play favorites. Treat every member of the body of Christ with the same love, concern, dignity and respect as every other, because all of them have been made in the image of God, and all have been redeemed at the price of Christ’s blood.
In Acts 6 we find that the Greek speaking Jewish widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food. Now, I’m not sure if this was happening by accident or on purpose. I do believe that the Greek speaking Jews who were being overlooked might have concluded that the native Hebrews thought they were better than them, and that’s why they weren’t making the same effort to make sure they had daily food. This situation could have led to division in the church if it were not corrected immediately. But the apostles had the wisdom to appoint 7 men who would make sure that all the widows, whoever they were, were lovingly taken care of.
We need to be very careful that we give the same love and consideration to all of God’s people, whoever they are. It would be tragic if all of the Hispanics at the Bridge only talked to each other, or if the African-Americans only fellowshipped together. We need to be very careful of not slighting or neglecting certain people in the church because they are very different from us. They are the very ones we should make an effort to reach out, love, and seek to understand.
It could be very easy for someone to get the idea into his head that he was better than someone else, because of his position or success or status. “Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly!”
Do not be wise in your own estimation. Leon Morris has written, “The person who is wise in his own eyes is rarely so in the eyes of other people.”
Proverbs 26:12 says, “Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.”
So, the apostle Paul is calling not only for sympathy, but also for humility. He is saying we need to get off our high horse, and love and serve all of God’s people, whoever they are. We are to repent of being wise in our own estimation. We are to associate with the lowly and make them feel welcomed. We are to have the same attitude towards all of God’s people no matter who they are.
2. Loving Our Enemies
How are the people in 12:14, 17-21 described? 12:14 – “those who persecute you.” 12:17 – those who do evil to you. 12:20 – our enemy. It’s hard to imagine that Paul has in mind fellow believers here. It’s much easier to conclude that he is talking about unsaved people who persecute us, do evil to us, and are our enemies.
1. Refuse To Retaliate Against Your Enemies
The desire to get even is one of those sinful tendencies that is so common to us. It seems it is the basic motivating force behind street gangs. If you hurt one of us, you’re going to get hurt worse. If you slash one of our tires, we’ll steal one of your cars. Some believers find it easy to slip back into those old patterns of behavior. However, followers of Jesus Christ must adopt a completely different style of relating to our enemies. Jesus said in Luke 6:27-29, “But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either.”
Romans 12:14b “do not curse.”
Romans 12:17 “Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men.”
Romans 12:18 “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.”
Romans 12:19 “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.”
Romans 12:21 “Do not be overcome by evil.”
All of these verses are emphasizing the same thing – don’t take revenge! Don’t retaliate! That is what the world does, but you are not of the world. You are different. You are Christ followers, and must follow His example. When Jesus was being persecuted, and He was beaten, spat on, scourged, and crucified, how did He respond? Did He take revenge? He easily could have. He could have called on 12 legions of angels to deliver Him and destroy them. 1 Peter 2:23 says, “and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously.”
So, brothers and sisters, never take your own revenge! If someone says something insulting to you because of your Christian convictions, don’t hurl an insult back. If you end up getting fired because you won’t lie, don’t sue your old company. If you decide you can’t attend a same sex marriage, and you end up being called “judgmental” or “intolerant” or “unloving”, don’t hurl accusations back at them. If you feel police are deliberately doing evil to you or your race, don’t take matters into your own hands, and burn down the police building, or riot, steal, and plunder as an act of revenge.
2. Determine To Do Good To Your Enemies
It’s one thing to refuse to retaliate against our enemies. It is another thing entirely to actively do good to them. And that is exactly what the Word of God commands us to do. Let’s look at the passage again.
Romans 12:14 “Bless those who persecute you.”
Romans 12:20 “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Romans 12:21 “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
What’s the point here? We are to go out of our way to be kind and do good to the one who has done us wrong. This is impossible for us to do in the flesh. It is not natural. It is supernatural. Anyone can love a person who loves them and does good to them. But we are to be different. We are to love those that are doing us harm. Notice Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:44-45, “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
What does Paul mean by “heap burning coals on his head.” He probably means something like by this unexpected and undeserved kindness, your enemy’s conscience will burn with shame and remorse for how they have treated you.
So, do the unthinkable. Do what your enemy will never anticipate. Reach out to him and do good to him. Dirk Willems was converted to Christ as a young man in the Netherlands in the 16th century. Because of his baptism, and the baptism of several others in his home, he attracted attention by the Roman Catholic church, who had him arrested and imprisoned. Dirk was able to escape from the prison by making a rope made of rags tied in knots. He climbed out of the prison onto the frozen moat. A guard noticed his escape and chased after him. Dirk was able to walk across the thin ice of the frozen pond because he had lost so much weight living on prison rations. The guard, however, was not so fortunate. He fell through the ice and cried out for help. Dirk, stopped, went back, and saved the life of his persecutor. This action led to his arrest, and he was eventually burned at the stake on May 16, 1569.
Brothers and sisters, I believe Paul is speaking about our enemies in the world, but we can make application to anyone who is hostile to us.
Enemies in our Home. From time to time, your spouse may be your enemy. He or she may do or say things that hurt you, or embarrass you in front of others. How should you respond? Not by cutting him or her down and saying something that will embarrass them. 1 Peter 3:19 says, “Not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead.” Look beyond the irritation to the need. Find a way to minister to his or her need. Decide on a way that you will do good to your spouse who is acting toward you in an adversarial way.
Enemies in our Church. Sometimes we can even have an enemy in the church. Someone may divulge a confidence, or gossip about you, or hold themselves aloof from you, or slight you. How do you respond? It would be natural to just avoid that person, or tell others how badly they are treating you. The result will be that you will be overcome by evil. Rather, look for an opportunity to speak well of that person. Find out what his or her need is. If they are having trouble paying their rent, help them. If their car breaks down, help them get it fixed. Turn that enemy into a friend, by overcoming evil with good.
Conclusion
Church family, relate to one another with sympathy and humility. Relate to your enemies by refusing to retaliate and even purposing to do them good. In this way, you will glorify God and be a blessing to all!
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