Pastor John Crocker - What it Costs to Live at Peace.
“THE HIGH PRICE OF PEACE” Romans 12:9-21
Dr. John Crocker Crossroads Church, Albert Lea, MN. August 14-15, 2010
Getting along with people is probably life’s toughest on-going challenge. Humans have a horrible track record in relating to one another.
G.K. Chesterton wrote, ‘We talk of wild animals; but man is the only wild animal. It is man that has broken out. All other animals are tame animals; following the rugged respectability of the tribe or type.’ (Orthodoxy)
The human race was radically corrupted when the first humans disobeyed God and fell from the glory of innocence.
It doesn’t take much effort to convince people that human depravity is real.
A few people seem to be a little lower than the angels, but many behave just a little higher than apes.
In our relationships with people we enjoy our finest pleasures and we also endure our worst aggravations.
You have probably heard Edgar A. Guest’s little rhyme: Let me be a little kinder, let me be a little blinder to the faults of those around me.
· Why should we be kind to people? Because people are worth it!
When evil invaded God’s creation in the beginning, mankind fell from purity and innocence. Sin alienated mankind from our holy God.
But God paid an incalculably great price to bring people back into a relationship with himself. That price was the atoning death of God the Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross.
Christians are people who are reconciled to God by faith in Jesus Christ.
But that doesn’t make relating to people an easy matter.
We still live in a society that emphasizes rights and privileges more than understanding right from wrong.
President Eisenhower warned, ‘A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.’
· One of the primary characteristics of the Christian faith is kindness, even to people who are unkind to you.
But we’re not very good at this, are we? I can think of three ways people typically respond to unkindness or cruelty.
Are you having a hard time dealing with someone who did something to hurt you? Are you seething with resentment as you hold onto a grudge?
Or are you struggling with guilt because you did something to get even, and it made you feel wretched?
· A church is a community of Christ’s followers. That’s us. We’re supposed to set the example for the world in relationships.
Each of us has to play a part in building a culture of peace and love in our church.
· Let us read what the Apostle Paul wrote about this:
9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.
11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.
12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
13 Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.
15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.
16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.
18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.
20 On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
In Romans 12:9-21 the Apostle Paul sets out the requirements for each person to build a culture of peace and love into the church, instead of a culture of fault finding and disunity.
I. INTEGRITY Romans 12:9-12
Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside me.’ (Reply to the Missouri Committee of Seventy, [1864])
I call that a commitment to integrity. It’s about who you really are—down deep inside.
9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
The Greek word Paul uses for love here has found its way into the jargon of the church—agape. Up to this point in his letter he has used agape only of divine love. Now he applies it to God’s people.
· And he says, don’t let anything evil intrude into your relationships: Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.’
It’s a love that must be sincere.
The word translated sincere is anupokritos. There must not be even a smidgen of hypocrisy in it.
· Integrity is more than honesty. You may say to somebody, ‘I can’t stand you. Get out of my life.’ That’s ugly honesty; it’s not Christian sincerity or integrity.
There’s no way you can use Paul’s words as an excuse to hold a grudge against another Christian.
Saying, ‘I have to love you, but I don’t like you,’ is hellish nonsense.
Through his Apostle, God commands us to love one another sincerely—even someone you believe has wronged you.
There’s a story about a sergeant who experienced the power of sincere love. It happened many years ago in Egypt. His company had traveled from Malta to Egypt and turned in for the night. Wet and muddy from rain, the men went to bed exhausted.
One private quietly knelt beside his bunk to pray. His sergeant took offense at this display of devotion and struck the private on the side of the head with one of his muddy, rain-soaked boots. The soldier’s face stung. He was humiliated.
It wasn’t until after the exhausted sergeant and all the other soldiers fell asleep that the young soldier paid him back.
When the sergeant awoke the next morning, he found his boots, clean, beautifully polished and standing neatly beside his bunk.
As the crusty sergeant later told the story, he said, ‘That was his reply to me, and it just broke my heart.’
That was the day the sergeant ran up against the awesome power of genuine love. His life was changed by the sincere, sacrificial love of a young Christian.
That’s a compelling example of how we should relate to people who are not Christians. And even more so, to fellow Christians who may have been unkind to us.
10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.
We are members of God’s family. Our love for each other is supposed to be indestructible.
I belong to you and you belong to me as brother and sister. We may not see eye-to-eye on every little matter, but we can walk arm-in-arm together.
11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.
12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
Zeal may peter out. Commitments that sizzle tend to fizzle.
What means a lot to you today may mean little tomorrow.
· Paul says, don’t let that happen in the way you serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Keep your zeal and fervor up.
What does that look like? You will be joyful in your Christian hope, patient in hardship, and faithful in prayer (12).
Wow! That would make for an amazing church! Everywhere you turn you’d find joy, patience, and faithfulness to God.
· This is what it takes for our church to stay focused on its purpose.
The purpose of Crossroads Church is to prayerfully introduce people to Jesus, grow them to be like Jesus, care for others, minister to others, and to glorify God.
I pray that every one of you will have a holy zeal that refuses to let anything or anyone turn this church away from what our Lord has called us be and to do.
That’s integrity—actually being what we say we’re committed to be as a church.
II. GENEROSITY Romans 12:13-15
Generosity is an attitude that plays out in the way we treat people. It means being generous with your possessions when a fellow believer has a need; it means being generous in the way you deal with mean-spirited people when you’d rather smack them; it means being generous with your emotions by coming alongside people in times of sorrow and times of joy.
13 Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.
In her journals Katherine Hathaway wrote: ‘After an injury one must do something, not to the person who injured you; but make an action as strong as the action which injured you, and proving your strength as much as retaliation would.’
That’s exactly what Paul calls for. Do something powerful that is the very opposite of retaliation—bless!
· Notice that Paul does not say “Ignore those who persecute you.”
Don’t pretend that you haven’t been hurt by cruel words or unfair treatment, while you’re actually seething inside.
If you do this, you’ll become defensive and you will shut people out of your life. You won’t be able to “bless.”
Most of you know that I spent my boyhood in South Africa. In school I had to study South African history. When the Voortrekkers, the Afrikaner pioneers, set out from the Cape of Good Hope and traveled north they encountered bands of Bantu people intent on stopping the invasion of their territory. When the Bantu attacked, the Voortrekkers quickly drew their wagons into a tight circle called a “laager” to defend themselves. When the attack passed, they opened up the formation and moved on.
· People sometimes do this sort of thing.
You can spend most of your life in the laager formation, afraid to open up lest someone attack you and hurt you. So you stay closed up really tight, and nobody gets to know the real you.
But you don’t move out either. You don’t experience the richness of loving, trusting relationships.
It costs a lot not to close up and take shots at people who have hurt you.
15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.
You can rejoice and mourn with people you love and who love you. But what about people who are cruel to you? I think Paul still had those people in mind when he wrote this.
If you resent the good fortune of others or take delight in their misfortune, you’ll become an angry, bitter curmudgeon.
· God Himself is the consummate definition of generosity. He loved so much that he gave.
None of us merited any love from God; we deserved condemnation.
Because God paid the price and gave so generously, we can have peace with God—and with one another.
III. HUMILITY Romans 12:16-17
Some goof offered this definition of humility: ‘Humility is the ability to act embarrassed while you tell people how wonderful you are.’
Pride is the opposite of humility. Pride destroys relationships.
People who act superior to others usually have a pathological craving to feel important. They don’t have healthy relationships, because they’re not able to care about others.
16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is our perfect example. As the sovereign master of the whole universe he did not shrink from setting aside the splendors of his glory to take the curse of our sins and die in our place to save us from eternal damnation.
Acting superior to anyone contradicts Christ’s example and is absolutely incompatible with authentic Christian faith.
· Conceited people like to put others in their place. Humble people are inclined to be patient with difficult people.
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.
· If everyone in a church is humble in this way, the congregation will be known for its love and peace.
IV. NOBILITY Romans 12:18-21
Nobility is excellent moral character.
Nobility is being what you’re supposed to be on the inside, and that governs how you behave in your relationships.
18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
Peace isn’t always possible. You can’t force people to make peace whether they like it or not.
People are fragile. If you deal with people with warmth and kindness, instead of with coldness, then they may be willing to open up and begin to love each other and live in peace.
19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.
There’s an old Chinese saying, ‘If thine enemy wrong thee, buy each of his children a drum.’
Now that’s revenge of a particularly nasty sort.
Much of society acts on the principle that one good kick deserves another.
· But we must be gentle, and leave room for God’s wrath.
Why must we leave revenge to God? Because God’s vengeance in God’s time is always righteous.
Ours is unrighteous because we attempt to “even the score” or to “get even.” We want to cause some hurt, make the person suffer.
I found this piece of good advice: ‘The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you.’ (John E. Southard)
20 On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."
This is a quote from the Book of Proverbs (25:21-22). The last part of the verse seems to contradict the first part, doesn’t it? How does it help someone if you heap burning coals on his head?
If someone fed me and gave me something to drink, and called that burning coals on my head, I’d think there was poison in the food or drink.
But this is clearly about responding to evil with good, instead of evil. Paul told them not to repay anyone evil for evil (17).
Paul’s readers understood this idiom. The “burning coals” metaphor was something that does not do harm to one’s enemy. But it was something that would have a huge impact upon a person and lead him to repentance.
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Bitterness over of an injustice will conquer and control you.
Someone said, ‘Anyone who nurses a grudge has a monster for a patient.’
If God’s word tells us to do something that is difficult, he will provide the strength we need. But we must ask for it. Then we can overcome the evil with good.
This is what it will cost each of us to develop an ethos of peace and love in the church, instead of contributing to a culture of fault finding and disunity.
Is there someone with whom you need to be reconciled? Make a resolution before God to do it.
Are you a person who says, ‘I’m not a hypocrite. I just don’t like some Christians and won’t pretend that I do.’? God doesn’t allow his children that kind of unholy indulgence.
Maybe you come to Crossroads because it’s a big enough church where you can just slip in and slip out. But you’re hurting spiritually.
Perhaps you feel drawn to God, but you don’t want to connect with Christians. Maybe some Christians have hurt you badly. Frankly you’re quite bitter about it and you don’t want to have to deal with it. As you can see, that’s not okay with God.
Each of us has a part in building a culture of peace and love in this church so that Crossroads can be what we’re supposed to be and do what Christ has called us to do.
instead of contributing to a culture of fault finding and disunity.