Love in the Face of Adversity (Rom. 12:9–21)

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Ray Ortlund
How can God bless with the felt presence of the Holy Spirit a church that plays the world’s games by the world’s rules, we are the kingdom of heaven, for crying out loud. So coming in among us and looking at us, watching us, should kind of look like heaven on earth. You

Sam Allberry
Welcome to You’re Not Crazy. We’re so glad to have you with us. Ray, welcome good to be with you. Thank you, Sam, we are going through Romans 12 to 15 in this season, and today we’re looking again at Romans nine, sorry Romans, 12 verses, nine through 21 we looked at these verses in the last episode looking at the love that is to be genuine brotherly affection for one another. We wanted to take another pass through these verses, because there’s a second dimension to what Paul talks about here, which is how we respond to opposition, hostility, persecution and conflict. And it’s interesting. Paul goes back and forth. You’ve got verses nine to 13, where he seems to be talking about the one another, life of the church. Then verse 14, he says, Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Verses 15 to 16, it sounds like he’s going back to the one another, life within the church, rejoicing with those who weep, living in harmony. Then verse 17, he’s back to repay no one evil for evil be a thought to what is honorable in the side of all and talks about responding to, again, hostility. And I’ve wondered why Paul keeps sort of going back and forth. And I wonder if it’s because, on one hand, again, that the Christian life isn’t is an ecosystem we can’t expect to be loving within the church and a tyrant outside the church, or someone who’s a lovely person to non Christians, but is is just very harsh to fellow believers. But also wonder too if, if Paul is giving us a heads up that sometimes, sadly, the opposition and hostility we might encounter might be within the people of God as well. Sometimes these are overlapping categories.

Ray Ortlund
I’ve never thought of this passage in that way that that reality doesn’t come at us in neat packages, but lots of fastballs are coming at us all the time from different directions. That’s how the chapter is written. I’ve never thought of it that way. Sam, you’re right. Well, it’s I remember

Sam Allberry
having this thought when I was going through the book of Proverbs and thinking, why doesn’t Paul put all the Proverbs about money in one place, all the Proverbs about friendship in one place? And I realize it’s because in any given day, you need little bits of wisdom about so many different areas of life. So we’re going to be going through these, these verses again. Ray, with but particularly thinking about how we respond to to discord and opposition you were mentioning just before we got going about verse 21

Ray Ortlund
he says, Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Huh? Okay, now I have to admit, there’s a lot about this passage that’s hard for me to accept and live by. But here he kind of sums up at the very end in verse 21 he sums up everything he has said thus far with this remarkable statement, Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. How is that realistic? How does that approach stand any kind of chance of survival? Well, the

Sam Allberry
very wording of it suggests, without doing anything, we will be overcome by evil, because that’s the default. Evil is so pervasive, it’s so powerful around us. But there is a way to overcome evil, not with, you know, by being even more evil, but by overcoming evil with good. So not just getting down in the mud and and out doing evil at its own game, but actually overcoming evil with with what is good. Paul wouldn’t give us that verse if we if we didn’t need to know it, because at times, it’s going to feel like good is never going to overcome anything. But the whole of church history is is littered with so many examples of of believers overcoming evil with good, and in our own day, we don’t need to despair when we see so much evil around us, we need to know, and Paul is going to show us how, in these verses, how we can overcome evil with good. But it’s not going to be fun for us. Is

Ray Ortlund
it possible to overcome evil with good by suffering an onslaught of evil? In other words, I’m thinking of Fred William Faber, the 19th century hymn writer, his amazing hymn, workman of God o lose not heart. Let me see if I can pull it up. Workman of God o lose not heart, but learn what God is like and on the darkest Battlefield, thou shalt know where to strike. So learn to strike. Born the praise of men, and learn to lose with God, for Jesus won the world through shame and beckons thee his road. Well, yeah, that phrase, learn to lose with God,

Sam Allberry
because the cross was Jesus losing, and

Ray Ortlund
we do not need to settle for the contemptible success, quote, unquote, of a short term gain. Our Lord is playing the long game, and the story of death and resurrection is the story we keep telling in our own lives by His grace for His glory. So to suffer loss magnificently is not suffering loss.

Sam Allberry
And similarly, to win the battle in a way that is haughty is actually going to be a loss for the gospel itself,

Ray Ortlund
huge setback. You know, Sam, I look at these verses in Romans, 12, verse 17, repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. And so forth. These verses, I can’t think of more relevant, timely verses for us American Christians than these verses right here in Romans. 12.

Sam Allberry
You know, it bears commenting that Paul is assuming we will find people who are doing evil to us in this world. That is, that is a normal part of life in this world. Verse 14, Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. But I’m struck with both of those verses that it’s not enough to not do the negative. Paul doesn’t just say, Don’t curse them. He says, Bless them. He doesn’t just say, repay no one evil for evil. But do what is honorable. Say it’s not just enough that I’m not doing something negative. I have to be pursuing the positive. If if someone is is persecuting me, it’s not enough that I’m not hitting them back. The gospel is calling me to bless them.

Ray Ortlund
This passage tests me and sifts me and shows me a little more clearly how little I trust God, because there’s only one way we can accept this and dare to live this way in the face of opposition and hostile hostility and adversariality and so forth, and that is if we deeply, deeply trust God can take anything, any mess, any setback, any injustice, slander, and bend it around in its opposite direction and use it in a redemptive way. Greg Beal calls these redemptive reversals, and God specializes in this. He keeps moving through the whole length of redemptive history, reversing evils into net gains as only he can, which

Sam Allberry
is why this, this section of Romans 12 through 15 is it’s not a, you know, you’ve got, you’ve got the main letter of Romans. And then this is a bonus feature, you know, tucked away for those who want a bit more this. This comes these chapters come to us with the same apostolic authority as as the previous 11 chapters. And the very, you know, authoritative doctrinal teaching Paul has been giving us about how, how God has found a way to rightly justify us. Is the same apostolic authorities saying, Bless those who persecute you. We this isn’t just. If you could be a bit nicer than that would be nice. This is, this is authoritative, apostolic command to us, non

Ray Ortlund
negotiable, non optional. You know, Sam, I’m I feel that around the year 2000 in that first decade of this new century, we Bible believing evangelicals in this country went through a sort of gospel Renaissance, I certainly did, and it was Tim Keller who, among others, really helped me. So many of us, I think, would say, you know, we rediscover justification by faith alone, imputation union with Christ and these glorious doctrines, they are truly glorious, clearly taught in Scripture, the very theological, robust theological substance of the New Testament just came alive to us as never before. We felt like we went through the wardrobe into Narnia, and it was wonderful. And we’re so thankful for the gospel coalition, and it’s very strong voice for gospel doctrine. But I just want to agree with you and echo what you’re saying that Romans one through 11, it’s not as though those are the serious chapters and Romans 12 and following those are the nicey nice that. Sort of a glaze of smiley niceness poured on the surface of robust Christianity. It is not like that. Excuse me, Romans 12 through 16 are just as weighty and have just as much gravitas, just as much authority and urgency as Romans one through 11. So let’s be thorough Christians. Let’s be Christians altogether. Let’s be doctrinal, but let’s also nurture gospel culture, because it has the same weight and glory. I would love to hear your thoughts on this, but you know, through the 70s, 80s and 90s, I saw American Christianity flourish through church growth. And I love churches that grow. I just I grew up in a huge church. A big church feels natural to me. It feels normal. I feel comfortable in a big church. And we saw a lot of churches grow in those decades. But that criterion alone, magnitude, can, by itself, become grandiosity. I believe we’re in a whole new time now where our culture does not look sympathetically at Christianity, but looks at Christianity with suspicion and mere outward success no longer cuts it in the eyes of the watching world. They have every right to expect us to be thoroughgoing Christians who believe what we believe and also display the beauty that those very beliefs are there to create, which

Sam Allberry
means, in one sense, sadly, in another sense, wonderfully, we need to do a lot of dying to self. Because in this very passage, Paul is, I mean, we were chatting just before this episode about you were saying that these are some of the, some of those verses you kind of wish weren’t in the Bible. That’s right, because when someone does evil to us, we want to hit back. If someone is snarky online, you want to be snarky right back. If someone writes you a snappy email, you want to you want to replay in kind.

Ray Ortlund
Reputational damage online is real and painful,

Sam Allberry
so we need to think through and all the discourse of particularly for those of us in the Western world, all the discourse around us is training us to fight back, to punch back harder. That’s how political discourse works. It’s been normalized now. It’s been celebrated now, and we think that is how you do things, that is how you that is how you win. And Paul comes along and says, No, Bless those who persecute you, don’t curse them, bless them. And to bless someone is to seek someone’s spiritual good. If I’m wanting to bless someone, I’m wanting them to come to know the undeserved favor of God, rather than thinking I want them to get what they deserve. And I have to come with that attitude, because I should have been cursed and God blessed me. So who am I to think? Well, someone else is less worthy of blessing than I was. If we

Ray Ortlund
believe in absolutes, and we do, we rightly do. How’s this for an absolute verse, 17, repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. Whoa. And I’m struck that it says, give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all, because we have to think it through. So I’m thinking of like an elder team or an elder board in a local church, and the church has been slandered online, perhaps, or there’s some chatter going about the church has been accused and humiliated in some way, and the elders are sitting there on a Tuesday night thinking it through, praying it through their with their Bibles open. How do we do what is honorable in the sight of all not what is merely advantageous to ourselves. But what is honorable? That is to say, I checked out the original text, what is beautiful in the sight of all, what is admirable in the sight of all, not just in the eyes of Christians, but there is because of we’re all created in the image of God. There is a some kind of a there is a common ground, an ethical, esthetic, common ground that we often share with people who don’t love Jesus as we want to love Jesus, and we take into account, and we consider respectfully What is honorable, beautiful and admirable in their eyes, and we relocate ourselves strategically from what would simply be advantageous and pleasing to us and oh so right to what would be honorable in the sight of all

Sam Allberry
which means, and because he says, give thought to it. We we can’t just react. We have to you. Uh, take a moment, think, reflect. We have, there’s a difference between a reaction and a response. And we’re, again, we’re trained culturally just to react. I’m struck by repay, no one evil for evil. Because I think we have a default setting of thinking, Yeah, most people I need to, you know, give the benefit of the doubt too. But then there’ll be some exceptional circumstance that I make, you know, the exception to the rule. And I think, well, that kind of person I can just come down on like a ton of bricks, because that’s a special category. But Paul says, No one repay, no one evil for evil.

Ray Ortlund
So this was written to the Romans. If I were a Roman Christian, it would be tempting for me to locate Nero outside this category. I can repay him evil for evil, Nero is so monstrous, so cruel, it’ll do him good if I can poke him right in the eye somehow. But that’s not what the Scripture says, repay, as you point out, right lay Sam, no one repay, no one evil for evil. But give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all, what would prompt, what kind of response from the Christian community would prompt even a Nero to think, Hmm, that’s surprising. I was expecting them to do this, and instead they’re responding in that way.

Sam Allberry
Well, we actually see this in the early church. I forget the particular emperor, but there was an emperor who wrote to his pagan priests saying these this Christian disease is spreading so fast because they’re caring for our sick, and it’s making us look bad. So he was trying to get his priests to kind of up their game a bit, because the Christians were responding so nobly to the needs of people around them, even as they were being persecuted at the same time it was so this. This does happen. This can happen. But that combination of no one and honorable in the sight of all means, if it’s the other team, I don’t get to attack them. And it can’t just be what’s honorable in the sight of my guys, it’s honorable in the sight of all and

Ray Ortlund
this is not because God doesn’t care or is passive, inactive, distracted, looking the other way, he says in verse 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. So leave it to the wrath of God. I think what that means Sam is here I am confronted with hostility by some adversary. I step aside and give room for God to respond. If somebody is going to hit back, God is great at hitting back with a perfectly measured, just right response, rather than my freaking out over reaction I have, the longer I live Sam, the less I trust my own moral fervor. As I’ve said before, I don’t trust anybody’s moral fervor, and especially when we have really been mistreated, it is hard to respond nobly and magnificently to being mistreated. We want to mistreat back. So we have to step out of the way and let God deal with that person who is truly unjust. And God is able to respond in a way. He’s also able to give that person time and space to see things in a new way and repent. Yeah,

Sam Allberry
that’s that’s his prerogative. I’m struck in that again, he says, Never, never avenge yourselves. This is not a general rule of thumb. This is a an absolute command, never avenge yourselves. And again, Paul is living in a context where he’s not talking about someone’s written a cranky letter to the church office. There’s, there’s real wickedness and evil and injustice being faced by Christian believers. But he’s, it’s interesting that it’s at the beginning of verse, 19 of all verses where he says, Beloved. Oh, how striking. So as those who are now undeservedly gloriously beloved, don’t avenge yourselves because you’ve you’ve received the love of God yourself. So don’t be so quick to rush to judge others and to pay them back when the Lord spared you what you deserved.

Ray Ortlund
And here’s what we can be quick to do verse 20 to the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For By so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil. With good by doing good reminds me of my dad Sam. He had a rough relationship with a certain group of Christians at one point, and dad and mom walked away from that experience kind of injured, and he said to my mom and we are going to be careful every day for the rest of our lives to pray that God will bless those Christians. In this case, it was Christian people with whom the brokenness had occurred. We’re not going to pray that God will discipline them. We’re going to pray that God will bless them. And dad was faithful to that. The reason why he did that is he read Job chapter 42 where God finally resolves all this, this lengthy disagreement between Job and his three friends, and God confronts them, and the text says, And when Job had prayed for his friends, that’s when God restored Job’s fortunes as before. So dad said, you know, we’ve suffered losses here, and obviously we want God’s blessing. We want to be restored. So we’re going to pray for the people who brought the losses about that God will bless them, and we’ll see what the Lord will do with that. That’s amazing.

Sam Allberry
And again, the theme we’ve seen throughout these verses is it’s not enough to not do the negative thing. We are to do the positive thing. So not repaying evil for evil, not avenging ourselves, but feeding your enemy, giving them something to drink, doing good to them. There’s an interesting phrase at the end there, right by so doing your heat burning coals on his head. That sounds like it might be hitting them through the back door, rather than directly. What do you think Paul means there?

Ray Ortlund
I’ve always assumed that it means there will be some kind of a ha moment that will come when the adversary thinks this is crazy. This should not be happening. Why is this ridiculous? Christian being courteous, respectful, thoughtful, attentive and so forth, and a moment of reconsideration and even perhaps helpful, embarrassment, godly shame. Yeah. So this is Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. The more evil our days become, Sam the more opportunity we’re going to have for good.

Sam Allberry
So for some of us, it might be family members who disdain our faith. For some of us it might be some part of the local community that just takes constant exception to the Ministry of our church and is always looking for ways to slander it. It may be people with social media campaigns against what we’re doing. In each case, we’re to think, is there some way I can serve these people. Is there some good that I can do them? Not in a posturing Pharisaical I’m doing this to look good, but actually, is there a way to, is there a way for my love to be genuine in that context

Ray Ortlund
and to win them over? Yeah, as friends, not

Sam Allberry
to withdraw from them in a, you know, self protective way, but to actually to move toward them in service. Okay,

Ray Ortlund
so Thanksgiving is not far away. Maybe there is someone in your city who has been unkind, perhaps even publicly, maybe they need an invitation to your home for your family Thanksgiving dinner, a sincere invitation. Come have Thanksgiving. Come meet the family. We would love to have you, and it’s always a great time, and we watch the Cowboys on TV, and we just have a great day together. We would love to include you. This is a good faith invitation. We’re not trying to. Nothing’s going to, you know, surprise you. It’s just not trickery. Just come be part of the family. Yeah,

Sam Allberry
I love that.

Ray Ortlund
If that’s Christianity, our world needs Christianity,

Sam Allberry
but that means that’s a lot of dying to self, because when we’ve been profoundly wronged, we want to pay back and we have to keep remembering

Ray Ortlund
Christ. Yes, what if Jesus had decided to overcome evil by letting us be damned to eternal hell. He literally said, over my dead body, he

Sam Allberry
overcame evil was good, laying down his life for his enemies. So how can we who follow Him do any less than that? Yep, I. Here’s the thing, though, right? I’m assuming, because God is so good with any of these things, painful though, they will be to do. If I don’t do it, I will be diminished. I will lose out. Yes, if I do do it, painful that it may be, I will be discovering, actually, this is I needed this. Not just they needed this, but I needed this. How

Ray Ortlund
can God bless with the felt presence of the Holy Spirit a church that plays the world’s games by the world’s rules? We are the kingdom of heaven, for crying out loud, so coming in among us and looking at us, watching us, should kind of look like heaven on earth.

Sam Allberry
Thank you as always, Ray for your thoughts and friendship and all of this. Thank you to those of you who are listening, particularly for those of you who are serving in difficult context right now, for whom this is not remotely theoretical. We admire you. We Well, let me, why don’t we just pray now? Ray for anyone who’s really going through suffering at this very moment, who would thank

Ray Ortlund
you? Would you do that Father in heaven, that friend who is knocked off balance by injustice, slander, undermining and truly suffering, lift them up by your mighty hand and show them a new way that they hadn’t noticed before, some new path of response that only Jesus could create. Give them that guidance and clarity and relief. We pray in Jesus name, amen.

Sam Allberry
Amen. Thank you.