Well, evil is coming, and evil is going to come to you, and you will have to overcome that evil with good. That's what we're going to learn about from the book of Romans. And so, I invite everybody to open your Bible and turn with me to Romans, chapter 12, verses 14 to 21 that we'll be looking at together, Lord willing, over the next four weeks. And these verses are going to equip you that when evil comes to you, you can overcome it with good. And so, I want you to be prepared. I want you to be ready. And so, I need you to open your Bible and turn with me to Romans, 12:14-21. And there's a handout there in your bulletin if you want to take some notes. It's also got the verses printed there if you don't have a copy of the Bible, so you can read it with us. Because I see two different attitudes among Christians these days. One is this attitude of victory, like, they just talk about the triumph we have, and all the winning that we have in Jesus. And so, we're just, it's kind of like, everything is awesome. We're going to take over the world kind of mentality. And then you see other Christians who are like, no, there's so much evil, and look what's happening in our country. Look what's happening to the young people. And it's almost this attitude of defeat. It's kind of like, well, those people, they're just false positive and I'm realistic, and things are not going well, and it's looking really bad. And I want to help you not think in either one of these extremes, because either one of these extremes, they only deal with half the truth. Yes, we have victory in Jesus. Jesus has overcome the world. But what did Jesus say? “In this world, you will have what tribulation.” There are going to be trials, there's going to be evil, and it's going to come to you. And so, what we need to have is this mature perspective where I can see that I have victory, and I can also see that there is evil, and I can overcome evil because of the victory that I have in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, maybe I'm talking to you right now because maybe you're trying to be like, it's all positive, when it's really not all positive, or maybe you're kind of going towards a negative perspective. But can I read these verses for you? Because this is how you need to learn how to think. This is Romans 12:14-21. And out of respect for God's Word, I'm going to ask that we would all stand for the public reading of Scripture, and I hope you'll give this your full and undivided attention. This is a rare mindset among Christians these days, yet it's a mindset we all need to have, and so I hope this will renew your mind here tonight, please follow along as I read starting in Romans, 12, verse 14.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 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. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
That's the reading of God's Word. Please go ahead and have your seat now. It's been some time since we've been in the book of Romans, since before the summer season, and so I just want to kind of pick up where we were. If you look back at Romans 12:13, the last thing we talked about was money at church. I don't know if anybody remembers that. Right? We're going to contribute to the needs of the saints, and we're going to seek to show or practice hospitality. And then this next verse, verse 14. It says, “Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them.” Okay, so this is the first thing that we need to overcome. If you come the next four weeks, we're going to get a different evil every week that you need to overcome. And the evil we're here to talk about tonight, is persecution, okay? And you can see even from the tone of this verse Romans 12:14, it's like, “Bless those who persecute you.” It's like, persecution is expected. It's like, if you're a Christian, well, you should expect people to come against, or follow after you, or run at you. That's the idea. It's often translated persecuted, but this is a really interesting use of this Greek word. In fact, here's what I want to do, is I want to throw the verses in Greek up here on the screen. So, verse 13, where we left off, verse 14, where we're picking it up. And then I want you to see that the same verb shows up in both of these verses, and it is diakonos. It comes from this root, dioko. And so, this idea is often translated persecuted. But if you look back to verse 13, I understand you can't read Greek, that's okay, but look at the English here in verse 13. Well, notice how it says, “seek to show hospitality.” That is the same word for persecution. So, it's telling us we're going to seek out strangers, and we're going to seek out those strangers in love. You should follow after people you don't know. You should run at people that are strange to you, and you should welcome them in. But guess what? Here's what you should also expect. The world is going to run at you, and they're not going to welcome you in the world. They're going to come at you in a way where they're coming at you, to get you, where they're coming at you, to hate you. See, you're supposed to run after people you don't know and love them. Well, the world is going to come at you, and they are going to hate you, and guess what this verse is telling you? When the world comes to hate you, you should bless them. You should be good to them. You should say something good about them. You should pray for good upon them. Don't curse them. Don't ask God to judge them. No, when they come and do evil against you, bless them. That's what this verse is telling you to do.
Okay, so we're going to have to really think this through, because you and I are living in a country where we act like we're not being persecuted for Jesus, and yet the Scripture is describing that we will be persecuted for Jesus. So how are we supposed to think about this? Turn with me to 2 Timothy chapter 3. If everybody could go over to 2 Timothy chapter 3 in your Bible, I want to just set the stage about persecution. I don't want to assume that you understand what persecution is. In fact, I think some of us might be deceived into thinking that we're not persecuted here in America. And so, let's just see, what does Jesus teach us? What does the Scripture teach us should be our biblical expectations; not our cultural expectations, but our biblical expectations about persecution. And so, if you pick it up with me here in 2 Timothy 3:2-4, it's going to set the whole stage for the times that you and I are living in. “Understand this, in the last days, there will come times of…” what does it say, everybody? Difficulty. “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” Does that sound familiar to anybody? Is anybody seeing that in the local grocery store right there, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power? Avoid such people. And then it goes on to describe some of the people who had been acting that way at that time. And then look at 2 Timothy3:10, when Paul's writing here his last letter to his true son in the faith, Timothy, he says, here in 2 Timothy 3:10-12, “You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be…”, what does he say? Right there, everybody will be... What? Persecuted.
Okay, so let's get this down for point number one, if you are taking notes: “Persecution is coming.” Persecution is coming. Okay? And we could talk about that on multiple levels, like, is there going to come a day where in the United States of America, they will declare persecution towards Christians, it will somehow become illegal to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, we could speculate about what's going to happen in the future, but this says that everyone… this is one of the promises of Scripture that doesn't make the cute little books of the promises of Scripture right? Because this says, look back there at verse 12. Let's make sure we understand it clearly. “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be…” What does he say there? Persecuted. So, is Paul acting like he's some super exception. Is Paul acting like, well, Timothy, you'll probably be persecuted because you're a pastor. Is Paul thinking in any way that only some Christians get persecuted and the rest of the Christians, they get to skate through and get by without getting persecuted? No, if you really want to live for God, you are promised that you will be persecuted. And then he even says this in verse 13, “while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” If somebody tells you, everything's awesome, everything's fine, we just have victory in Jesus. There's no problems. That's not what Paul wrote in his last letter to Timothy. He said, it's bad. It's going to get worse. The deceivers will deceive. They will be deceived. And everybody who wants to live a godly way? You want to know God, you want to live the way of God? You will be persecuted. So, you should expect persecution to happen to you in your life. That's how the Bible would teach us to think. And if you're somebody who's like, well, I don't expect persecution to happen to me. You are not thinking in a way that is consistent with the Scripture. You're thinking in this kind of new way of Christianity that we've made up in America, which is the land of the lukewarm Christian, okay, the thing that you should be afraid of is not being persecuted, because if you never get persecuted, what does that mean about you? You're blending in with the world around you, and they don't need to hate you because they don't see any difference in you.
And so, if you are desiring to live a godly life, well we can say you need to bless those who persecute you, because we're expecting that you will be persecuted. So, we’ve got to start with that truth from this passage in 2 Timothy 3. And write that down next to point number one. Make sure you get this verse down 2 Timothy 3:12, is a promise that if you want to live for God in this world, persecution is coming your way, and if it hasn't happened yet, it will come if you're really desiring to live a godly life.
Now there are two reasons they're going to come and persecute you. Go over to 1 Peter chapter 3. 1 Peter, chapter 3 is similar to what we're going to learn in Romans 12:14-21. And some of us learned this as we went through 1 Peter during the time of COVID. And 1 Peter was written when the believers were scattered in a time of persecution. And so, he gave them some instructions in how to think about being persecuted. If you know how the church worked in Jerusalem, it was a mega church. Thousands were being saved, people were being baptized, testimonies were being shared, the name of Jesus was being exalted. And eventually, there arose a great persecution against the church. And they persecuted the church in Jerusalem so that they had to scatter, so that they had to spread out. And then Peter wrote to the believers who were scattered, and he wanted to teach them how to think through what was happening to them. And so, he says this. Look at 1 Peter 3:8 and see how this is very similar to what we just read in Romans, 12:14-21. 1 Peter, chapter 3, verse 8, he says, “Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.” This is very similar to what we're going to preach next week, that we need to all not never think too highly of yourself. Never be wise in your own sight, live in harmony with one another. And then he says this 1 Peter 3:9, “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing.” Here it is, what we're supposed to do in Romans 12:14, when you get persecuted, what are you supposed to do in response, everybody? We're learning it here tonight. You bless. And so, he says, look, people are going to revile you. They're going to accuse you falsely. They're going to say evil things about you. And when people are talking trash about you, you know what you should do? Say something good to them. That's what you should do. You should bless. For this you were called that you may obtain a blessing. And now he's going to quote previous Scripture. “For, Whoever would love life and see good days must keep their tongue from evil and their lips from deceitful speech. They must turn from evil and do good; they must seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” Don't get caught up in what other people are doing to you. Make sure you're on the right side. Make sure you're on the Lord's side. Turn away from the evil other people are doing to you and do what is good. And then he says this 1 Peter 3:13-14. “Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer” and then underline this circle this, “for righteousness sake, you will be blessed.”
So, point number two is the two reasons that we get persecuted, the two reasons that you should expect persecution to come to you. Reason number one is what we just read: “for righteousness sake.” And this is so simple. This is so easy right now. It is not hard for anybody here in this room to get persecuted. We got people going back to school this week. If you're a student going back to school, all you’ve got to do is not complain about your teacher. All you’ve got to do is have a good attitude about doing homework. Just go to your workplace, go to your school, don't cuss, don't say a bunch of negative complaints about what's going on. Be a generally happy person who doesn't take the name of the Lord in vain. And it won't be long till your coworkers, your classmates, are looking at you like, what is your problem? There's something weird about you. Man, why aren't you dissing on the authorities like the rest of us? Why aren't you complaining about the work that we all knew we were going to have to do when we came here today? Why aren't you complaining about that with the rest of us? See, when you do what is right, you shine like a light in the dark. When you don't complain, but you give thanks in all things, America will not understand you. That's all you’ve got to be is on the righteous path, and it will bother other people around you, and they will start calling you goody two shoes. They will start speaking bad about you to each other behind your back. They'll start saying it to your face to see if they can get a rise out of you. Because why are you over here doing what is right? What's your problem? That doesn't fit in around here? So, this is how Peter's breaking it down. Hey, you should if you do what is good? Who's going to come after you? But verse 14, even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, because you're doing what is right, you're now suffering where other people are coming to say something rude to you about it. Well, don't worry about what other people are saying, because you will be blessed. In fact, have no fear of them, nor be troubled. But in your hearts, honor Christ, the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.
Yet, do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, not if you are slandered. When you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame, for it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins. And it goes on to talk about how Christ suffered, and he was the righteous one. He suffered for us the unrighteous. So, this is a realistic scenario that's going to happen to many of you in the days and weeks to come as we get going into the fall season of 2024 here's you whistling while you work. Here's you doing all things for the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's you not cursing, not spreading, complaining, and somebody's going to be like, hey, why are you like this? And that is your chance to say, I'll tell you why I'm like that. Because I have hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we're supposed to be ready to do, where we're supposed to be so ready that people are going to question our righteous behavior, our good conduct, that when they do ask us that question, we are like, I'm so glad you asked. I've been waiting for this, and I want to tell you why I act this way, because I'm doing it for the Lord, and that's going to be your open door. That's going to be your opportunity to bless someone when they persecute you. And so, are you ready for that? I mean, I'm confident that there are people in this room right now that you hear dirty jokes at work. You hear people talk about other people in a gossipy way at work, you hear slander. And I wonder when you hear those things from people you're around, do you participate in those things, or is it clear to those people that you're set apart, that you're not like that? But there's something different about you.
See, it would make sense why some people, perhaps, are not being persecuted, if you're not living for righteousness’s sake, if you don't have good behavior in Christ, well, then why would people get mad when you're doing what's right and they're doing what's wrong, if you're joining them in what is wrong? So, see this idea that maybe you have in your mind, well, it's okay. I'm not getting persecuted. I'm not saying that anybody here should leave here praying like Lord, please persecute me. I really want to be persecuted. But if you're not being persecuted, what does that mean about your conduct? Does that mean you can blend right in when the world's doing sin? Because if you're standing apart and doing what is right, they're going to ask you why. They're going to say something to you about it.
Now, he's got more to say about this, if you jump down to 1 Peter 4:12, he gets back to this idea, and he says, “Beloved, do not be surprised.” Hey, don't be surprised “at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you.” Hey, you need to take note to this sermon. You need to take this to heart, because when somebody starts saying something evil against you or questioning you, you shouldn't be surprised when that happens. You should rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted, look what it says if you are insulted for the name of Christ, “you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.”
So, here's the second reason. The second reason you would be persecuted. One is because you're doing what is right. Number two, it says is: “the name of Christ.” Because you're associating yourself with the name of Jesus, you're claiming to be a Christian. See, here's another way, if you're never being persecuted, if no one's ever saying anything bad about you, if no one's ever coming at you, well, my question to you would be, have you turned your Jesus volume all the way down? Just real simple, you don't want to get persecuted? Just never talk about Jesus. Hey, what'd you do this weekend? Never tell people you went to church. Never tell people you saw people get baptized. Never tell people you're saying Amazing Grace. Never tell people you learned about how they're going to persecute you someday, and you're prepared for it. Just keep all of that private. Keep all of that. Just buy the lie that religion is kind of a personal, private thing, and I shouldn't share it with anybody else. And just stop telling people that you're a Christian, you love Jesus and you can't wait to go and worship him again. Just turn all of that down. And yeah, you may not get persecuted, but wear Jesus as a badge of honor and they will come after you. Jesus made this very clear. “If the world hated me, they will…” what, everybody? Do you actually want some of the hate that the world has for Jesus, because that means you're with Jesus, and you want to be with Jesus. You want to be known as one of his people. You want to suffer in the name of being a Christian. And are you trying to be like an undercover Christian, or are you like, yeah, I'm ready. I'm not ashamed of the name. If they're coming after Jesus, they're coming after me too. How are you conducting yourself? Because we have bought this lie that there's no persecution in America. Are you kidding me? Right now, let's just have a conversation where you hang out with unbelievers in your neighborhood or at your workplace, let's have a conversation about sexual ethics, and you're not going to get persecuted after that conversation? Just go and tell somebody how much you love Jesus and how you think Jesus is the most important thing, and if everyone would turn to Jesus, everyone, without exception, needs Jesus, and you don't think you're going to be persecuted. No, the environment of our nation is ripe for persecution, and if you're avoiding persecution it could be because you're avoiding righteous conduct, or you're avoiding the name of Jesus Christ. Those are the two reasons they will come after us, and there are plenty of our fellow Americans who do not like us talking about what is righteous, and they do not like us talking about Jesus. And if you're ready to live those things out and share Jesus with people, someone's going to revile you. That's the basic way persecution works. In the Scripture, they will revile you. They will do evil against you. They will accuse you of things falsely. This is persecution, and it will happen to you.
Now, I need you to really think through this, because I have the title of the sermon, Is Persecution Coming to America? And I think people start running into this speculation territory of what if? What if so and so gets elected, and what if this law gets passed? And what if there comes a day where they outlaw Christianity, and what if they say we can't gather together anymore in the name of Jesus? And I've seen brothers and sisters jump like two or three steps ahead into the future playing this what if game. What's going to happen someday, if the FBI is coming to my house to arrest me because I'm a Christian. Okay, well, let's think that through. The FBI pulls up in a bunch of white vans right outside your house, and you can see them out the window, and they’ve got the vests on, and one of them has got like that rod that they're going to break through your door, and they’ve got little headlights, and somebody's making the fingers, and they're coming over towards your house. Here they come. The FBI is coming to arrest you. You shouldn't be afraid if they come to arrest you. You know what? You should be afraid of them going right by your house because they don't even see you as a threat. There are people in this room right now you associate with Christianity, but no one else associates you with Christianity, and that's not real Christianity. Christians are people who do what is right no matter who is around. Christians are people who claim the name of Jesus no matter who is around.
Is there enough evidence to convict you of being a Christian? You shouldn't be afraid of being persecuted. You should be afraid of not being persecuted. You should be afraid that you're not making a difference and you're not leading anyone to Christ, and no one thinks you're different than everybody else. That's what we should be afraid of, and that's what we've come to think is normal for Christians in America. And this passage, this simple phrase, “Bless those who persecute you.” If your first thought in response to that is, well, nobody's persecuting me. That should be a concerning thought to you. Are people not seeing you as someone who lives for righteousness sake? Are people not seeing you as someone who claims the name of Jesus? Are you so insulated and isolated from the world around us that non-believers don't even know who you are. How could you be out there in America in 2024 saying, I want to do what is right, and I believe Jesus is the only way, and not have somebody revile you. That's normal Christian expectation. We will be persecuted, and these are the two reasons they will persecute us. And so, he's saying, here, I love this. He's saying, verse 16, “If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.” Jesus started his most famous sermon, the sermon on the mount with the Beatitudes. Let me tell you who's blessed. Let me tell you who's happy. And the last one he gets to is blessed are those who are what, everybody? Who are persecuted, blessed are you when they revile you and they insult you, and they say all kinds of evil against you falsely. You want to know why you should be happy about that. You want to know why you should rejoice when you get persecuted because somebody can tell you're with Jesus, and there's no other place you'd rather be than on the right side of history in the victory of Jesus Christ. And so, you're supposed to be happy with that. That's why we do this thing around here. You get persecuted. Come and tell me, I will buy you a cupcake. We will celebrate it. Literally. I've done this with people, like, there's a store right down here. I know where the cupcakes are. It's like, you mean somebody came at you for being a Christian, praise the Lord, man. Praise the Lord that they could see you as somebody who knows Jesus.
But our passage is not saying that. This is where I want to try to take us a little further and thinking through persecution than maybe we've talked about before at our church, because we have talked before about if you get persecuted, you should actually see it as some kind of reverse compliment, because they're seeing that God's doing a righteous work in your life, or they're seeing that you claim the name of Jesus, and it's actually something you should be happy about, because people are seeing Christ in you. So, you should consider yourself blessed, but that's not what our verse is saying. Go back to Romans, chapter 12, verse 14, because our verse is not saying that you are blessed if they persecute you. Our verse is telling us that we need to “Bless those who persecute you.” So, it's not just talking about how you should think about yourself if you are persecuted. And we're suddenly finding out that it's actually a happy thing to be persecuted, because that means you are with Jesus, and it can have this actually confirming thing in your life and this assurance in your soul from persecution, there is a blessing attached to it. But this isn't saying that you should be blessed. It's saying that you would bless your persecutor, that family member who comes at you for being a Christian, or who distance themselves from you for being a Christian, that coworker who takes jabs at you for being a Christian, that neighbor who has those comments towards you for being a Christian, that you shouldn't get your feathers all ruffled up because of that person. You shouldn't try to avoid that person. You shouldn't try to be like, well, just wait till judgment day to that person. You should actually bless that person. What a radical concept that, when somebody insults you and reviles you and says something that's maybe not even true about you, instead of standing up for yourself and instead of claiming your right for fair treatment that you would actually consider that other person rather than yourself. This is a radical way to think. This is how you overcome evil with good.
Here's what you need to understand. It was never meant to be a fair fight. It's never going to be a fair fight between us and the world. That's not how it's supposed to work. It's not like they strike us and then we strike back. That's not how it's supposed to be. Jesus is literally going around teaching people, if they hit you on one cheek, what are you supposed to do, everybody? It's not supposed to be a fight, strike back kind of a thing. They hit me. I hit them, right? I mean, that might be the American way, but it's not the Christian way. And a lot of Christians these days are getting that confused. Well, it's okay for me to do this, because they already did it. This passage is saying the opposite of that. No, when they come at you with evil, don't play on their level. Don't get down on that. No, they're going to come at you for evil, and you come at them with a blessing. This is the way of Jesus Christ. Nobody else is like this. Only Jesus. Jesus has all the authority, all the power. Jesus can say, I am he. And the whole mob that comes to arrest him falls over like a bunch of dead men, and then Jesus patiently waits for them to get back up and allows them to arrest him. Jesus, the Lord of heaven and earth, was willing to be mistreated, to be persecuted. And what did he do? He did not curse. He did not call down judgment upon them. What did Jesus say when they're shouting at him on the cross, when they're mocking him on the cross, when they're saying all kinds of mean nasty things about Jesus? What does Jesus say? Father, what does he say, everybody? “Forgive them.”
See The idea here between blessing and cursing, it goes all the way back to the law of Moses, and if you obey what God says, then you will be blessed, but if you disobey what God says, then you will be cursed. And so, your enemy is coming at you for being a Christian. They don't like your righteous conduct. They don't like you claiming the name of Jesus, they're doing something evil to persecute you. Because you're a Christian, you have to see that person as who they're going to be on judgment day. That's what it's saying. Like, okay, so that person's coming at you for being a Christian today. Well, do you want that person to be cursed. Do you want that person to be damned? Do you want that person to be judged because they're coming at you? Or do you want God, in all of his mercy and grace, to save that soul, just like he saved you? So, do you want to bring blessings upon them, or do you want to bring curses upon them? And the Scripture is commanding you to bless. See, here's the mentality that we're going to learn over the next four weeks is when there's evil going on all around me, evil in my government, evil in my neighborhood, evil in my workplace, evil at my kids school, I'm surrounded by evil. Guess what? God's still on the throne. Can I get an amen from anybody on that? The evil that is all around me does not determine what I think say or do. My God that I believe in, he determines what I think say or do. And God wants everybody here to hear, “Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord.” God is going to judge. God is going to make everything right. That's not your job. You don't have to worry about that. You don't have to strike back. You don't have to try to make it right. You don't have to get all offended. This isn't the way I deserve to be treated. Yes, exactly. You don't want to get treated the way you deserve to be treated. You're not being treated the way you deserve to be treated because God has been so gracious and so merciful to forgive you for your sins in Jesus Christ. When we were God's enemies, he, what? Loved us, sent his Son to die for us. When we were ungodly, when we were sinners, when we were enemies, did God curse us, or did God bless? Go and do likewise. Treat your enemies the way God treated you when you were his enemy. That's what this verse is actually saying. And what this verse is saying is what Jesus was saying. This is like Paul riffing on the teaching of the Lord Jesus.
And you could go back to Matthew 5. And you could see Jesus say this there. But turn with me to Luke chapter 6, everybody. Go with me to Luke chapter 6, because this is not as famous of a sermon here that Jesus preaches in Luke chapter 6, but it's a sermon I want to draw your attention to here, because it really expects persecution, and it's Jesus preparing his people in how to respond to that persecution. And so, Jesus here you notice he's on a level place. It says in Luke 6:17, is kind of where this sermon begins. He's on this level place. Maybe you've heard on the Sermon on the Mount was another version of it, sometimes called the Sermon on the Plaine here, and he gives some of the “Blessed are those,” just like the Beatitudes. In fact, look what he says in verse 22. Luke 6:22, “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and they revile you.” So, the government doesn't have to outlaw Christianity for there to be persecution. According to the Lord Jesus Christ, when people hate you because you're with Jesus, that's persecution; when people exclude you because you're with Jesus, that's persecution; when they revile you and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of Man, you should rejoice in that day, and you should leave for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven, for so their fathers did to the prophets. If anybody accuses you of being a Christian and comes after you for your righteous conduct, you are now in a long line of people that God loves, and you should consider yourself just blessed to be associated with all the people who have died and been persecuted in the name of Jesus. So that's the first part. You're blessed if you're persecuted. But now he has this whole woe section that he gets to that not everybody's going to be blessed. Some are going to be cursed. And woe to these people. Woe to these people. And then look at what he says in verse 27. “If I say to you who hear, love your enemies.” So, you might want to write these down here, because these are commands from the Lord Jesus Christ to anybody who's got the ears to hear. If you're building your life on the solid rock, you're hearing what Jesus says and you want to do it, well, here's what Jesus says to do: Love your enemies.
I want you to leave here tonight, and I want you to think about that family member, that coworker, that neighbor that has taken cheap shots at you or excluding you or reviling you. And I want you to think, how can I love this person? I want to love them. I want to “Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you.” Can you imagine? Well, let's make that a T shirt. I'm praying for people who abuse me. Some people in America are going to be like, there's something wrong with you for saying that right there. That is the word of Jesus Christ. See, he has a radically counter cultural way to think that when people are doing evil against you, you pray for God to do good to them. When people are coming after you, you pray that God will be merciful and gracious to them, in the same way that God has been gracious and merciful to you. I love that line right there. “Bless those who curse you.” They're saying judgment against you, and you're praying salvation for them. That's what Jesus says to the one who strikes you on the cheek. “Offer the other also. And from one who takes away your cloak. Do not withhold your tunic, either. Give to everyone who begs from you and from the one who takes away your goods.” Do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. Listen to this logic right here. Luke 6:32-36 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Does anybody want to say, Amen to that here tonight?
And what a radical way to think that Jesus is saying. See, a lot of people, they're going to hear this part of the sermon, even though I was just reading the words of Jesus, people are going to act like that sounds weak. I don't think Christians are meant to be weak like that. I don't think we're meant to be passive. I don't think we're meant to take it on the cheek. I think we're victorious. I think we're conquerors. I think we're meant to win. See, Jesus is telling you what conquering looks like. What conquering looks like is you don't get down on the world's level, because you're thinking in the same way as God. Mature people can be unloved and still love in return. Mature people don't get caught up in their own feelings, but they can care about other people even when their feelings are being hurt. That's what mature people do. And we don't have a lot of those people around here these days, and you want to be one of those people. You want to walk in the way of Jesus, and you want to know how merciful Your father has been to you. You want to see how merciful he's being to all the people who are against him. You want to talk about people insulting you and using your name in vain. God is getting it worse than all the rest of us put together; people are making a mockery of God and his Son Jesus EVERY SINGLE DAY all across America. And look at God's patience, look at God's kindness, look at God's forbearance, and let your father in heaven set the tone for how you're going to look at your fellow Americans. That's what Jesus is saying, Be like a Son of the Most High. Be like a daughter of the Most High. In fact, in Matthew 5, he puts it like this. In Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” What does that mean? It's mature. It's complete. It means that a mature person doesn't let other people set the tone for their conduct and their attitude. Mature people let the throne set the tone for their conduct and their attitude. We live in the way of God, not in the way that other people treat us. I want to treat other people in the way that God has treated me, even if they're not treating me well. That's what Jesus is teaching here in Luke chapter 6. That's what Paul is just bringing up. Hey, don't worry about how it's going to work out on the day of judgment. God takes care of the judgment. You just bless them. Don't curse them. You don't need to call judgment upon them. Bless them. That's what Jesus is saying here.
Okay, so there are two responses. Two responses. When you get persecuted, the person who persecutes you, this enemy that's coming against you, this reviler that's saying bad things about you, you have two options. One is you can respond to them “With judgment,” and you can start making this big case in your mind about how wrong they are and how not fair it is, and how it's not right, and how you deserve to be treated better, and all of that may be true, but it's missing the point of what the Scripture is saying. The Scripture is saying, yes, it's not fair, what's going on, it's not right, what's going on. Do you want to respond to them in judgment? Do you just want them to be cursed? Do you just want them to be damned? Or you could respond to them with Jesus, because that's how Jesus responded to them. He responded to them with “Father, forgive them.” Not Father, condemn them. Jesus responded to them with love. Jesus loved his enemies. He loved them to the bloody end. Jesus he even saved one of the people who was mocking him on the cross next to him when that guy changed his mind and said, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” What did Jesus say to that guy? “Today, you will be with me.” What? Hey, well, too bad buddy, because you already were mocking me earlier. So sorry. No, I'm going to hold something against you because you were saying what they were all saying a minute ago.
Man, would it be awesome if, someday, when you're worshiping Jesus in a white robe in heaven, if you look over and that neighbor, that family member, that coworker, is worshiping Jesus right next to you, and would it be great if you not only had the blessing of being persecuted, but if you got to see your persecutor be blessed. Wow. Talk about praising God for his glorious grace and the riches of his kindness and his love for us in Christ Jesus. Man, if somebody is coming after you because, like, out of all the wrong things in the world, they want to come at you because you're with Jesus. And that person is blind. That person they don't really know what they're doing. They're not seeing things clearly. They're not thinking straight. That person is deceived. That person's thinking is twisted. That person is under the god of this age. That person is believing the lies of Satan, that person is going the way of the world. They live in absolute darkness. They're on the road to perish apart from God for all of eternity. And you want that to come upon them? No, you don't want that to come upon them. You want to bless them. You want to pray for mercy to come upon them. You want to pray that they could know the awesome salvation of God, just like you get to because God was merciful to you.
Go with me to Luke chapter 9. It's just a few pages over from where we are, and this is my concern. I think some of us, we were zealous, but we're zealous in the wrong way. Here in Luke chapter 9, Jesus sets himself to go to Jerusalem, and he knows he's going to die. So, this is the perspective of Jesus. He knows he's going to, he keeps saying it to the disciples, I'm going to be handed over to the religious leaders of the Jews, and I'm going to suffer, and I'm going to be mistreated and I'm going to be killed. So, Jesus, in his mature perspective, that's meant to be an example to us, he is willingly going into persecution. That's his attitude. And the disciples, they don't fully understand this. In fact, look what happens here in Luke 9:51, “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Here's Jesus. I'm all in, I'm ready to die, I'm ready to suffer, I'm ready to go. And then, and so they sent messengers ahead of him who went and entered a village of the Samaritans. And if you know, there's a lot of tension between those who are Jews and those who are Samaritans, there's a lot of racial division at this time, and so the quickest way to go from the north in Galilee down south to Jerusalem is to go through Samaria. But look what happens in verse 53. “But the people did not receive him because his face was set towards Jerusalem.” Oh, you're going towards Jerusalem. Well, then you can't stop in our Samaritan town, because we don't associate with people who are going to Jerusalem. And so, look what happens here in verse 54. “When his disciples, James and John saw it, the sons of thunder, they were called, when they saw it, they said, Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them? But he turned and what does it say Jesus did to these guys right there? I wonder if there are people here this week, you were watching some of the things our fellow Americans were saying, and you were thinking, fire should come down and consume them, when maybe you're supposed to be blessing them and not cursing them. Maybe that's how we're actually going to overcome the evil of this world is not getting on the same level of people who are against us, but treating them in the way that God has treated us.
And so, I wonder if there are some disciples of Jesus who are zealous, but perhaps need a good rebuke that, hey, if they're persecuting you, if they're coming against us, how should we respond to them? Should we curse them, or should we bless them? Well, Romans, 12:14, is telling you, “Bless those who persecute you.” The way that you will overcome evil is not with evil. The way that you will overcome evil is with good. Don't worry. God is on the throne. God is going to judge. We're going to get to that. In fact, go back to Romans 12. Let me just give you a preview of where we're going, because it's going to tell us, don't repay evil for evil. It's going to tell us, don't avenge yourselves. It's going to tell you a lot of things that may not feel comfortable to you, because you have this instinct that you want to stand up for yourself and you want to claim your rights. And it's going to say, actually don't repay evil for evil. Actually don't avenge yourself. Why? Because “Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord.” In fact, Romans 12 is going to go right into Romans 13. And there's so much talk about politics and the government right now. Look at Romans 13:1, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.” Here's a thought for us to be thinking, for there is no authority except from who, everybody? From God, who's above all the authorities of the governments, who's above all the evil persecutors, who reigns supreme. Are you going to think evil's taking charge and evil's going to win? Or do you know that God is on the throne, and therefore when evil comes at me, I don't have to get my own back, because I know God's got my back. And so, you come and persecute me, I want to actually bless you rather than curse you.
See, I hope that you actually do get persecuted, because that would mean you're living for righteousness sake. That would mean you're claiming the name of Jesus, and when you do get persecuted, not only do I want you to know that you are blessed, but I hope in that moment, you will bless the one who persecutes you, and that you will get to see God show mercy upon them in the same way he showed mercy upon you. Let me pray right now.
Father, I just come to you, and I'm concerned for all of us that what we're going to learn in Romans 12:14, and the following verses, is so different than our American mindset, I'm concerned that some of us might actually go against the words of Jesus. And I just pray that all of us, the one who can hear that we could hear what Jesus is saying, and we could consider what Paul is bringing up, that when it inevitably happens that evil comes to us and people insult us, exclude us, hate us, revile us because we're doing what is right, or we're doing it in the name of Jesus. I pray that we could think the way of Jesus and not the way of judgment. I pray that we will bless those who persecute us and not curse them. And so, Father, will you please renew our mindset? Will you please help us to be mature in the way that we would think? Help us to think according to your Word. And Father, there is evil. That's why Jesus taught us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” In fact, there's even the devil who is behind the evil. So, Father, please don't let us be naive and act like everything's fine, everything's just victory. No, help us to be mature and to see that there is evil that is coming, and we need you to rescue us. We need you to deliver us. And when that evil comes to us, we don't need to rescue ourselves. We don't need to stand up for our own rights. We don't need to protect our other cheek. But when evil comes for us, we need you to rescue us. We need you to deliver us. We need you to show that vengeance belongs to you, and you will repay. You'll decide who gets blessed. You'll decide who gets cursed. You're the God who is able to judge, that's not our job. We're just here to pass on the mercy that you have given to us. And so, Father, please let us not think that we need to defend ourselves, but let us pray that you will deliver us from evil. Father, we know that you delivered Paul, who was very persecuted, who wrote these words, that you rescued him from every evil, and you brought him home to your heavenly kingdom. And so let us have that same mindset, that we need you to rescue us, and you're the one who will keep us safe. You're the one who will get our back. You're the one who will bring us home to be with you. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.