just kind of blew through the information. I'm really not doing it justice. I'm going to review what we looked at before at the very end. I think I took about three or four minutes to cover about 30 minutes worth of stuff. But we'll wrap that up and then come to this new lesson today. So turn in your Bible to Romans 12. Romans 12 is where we are, and we're just, instead of reading that whole section, we'll come to read the next section here in just a moment, but let's just look at verse 12. Romans 12, verse 12 is really our verse for this next section. So just kind of a running start into this, the first two verses of Romans 12 deal with the responsibilities of a justified man toward God, and that is absolute surrender. That's what we've been considering. Then we looked at verses three to 13, and that's where we are now. We're gonna look at verse 12 here in just a moment. But three to 13 really deal primarily with its focus on our responsibilities to those inside the body of Christ, to our brothers and sisters in Christ, to other Christians. And that responsibility is summarized in really verse 10, be kindly affection one to another with brotherly love. And so our responsibility is love to the brethren. And we looked at the fact that we love them with humility, a right view of self, verse three, not thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but to have sober and right framed thinking without hypocrisy, not with dissimulation, it says there in the text. Also last week, we spent most of our time considering the fact that we're to love one another with our spiritual gift. And so we looked at the various spiritual gifts that are mentioned specifically in these verses, and then we come to verse 12, and I've summarized that under this main heading, and so it's Roman numeral three in the notes that you would have from before. Love the brethren with a faith-filled heart. And what I'm emphasizing there is the three parts that are in this verse. First of all, rejoicing in hope. And so we're loving the brethren with hope. are rejoicing in hope, the hope of eternal life, the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And I was emphasizing last week the fact that in our thinking, in our attitude toward the way we deal with one another, not to be negative, not to focus on the doom and gloom and, oh, did you see the news? Everything is so awful and everything's so bad. But no, we as believers, we live our lives in the context of a sovereign God in heaven who is ruling and reigning over all things. It's not that we're ignorant, we turn a blind eye to the problems of the world, but we understand the problems in the world. as being under control. Nothing has gotten out of hand. There's no chaos in the mind of God. There is no need, there's no reason for us as believers to live lives that are anxious and worried and negative about everything that's going on. We are not to be prophets of doom and gloom, if you will. But no, we rejoice in hope. God wins this thing. We are on the victorious side as we are in Christ. And so we rejoice in the hope that we have of eternal life, the hope of heaven, the hope of glory, the hope that we serve a sovereign God. And we also love the brethren by exhibiting faith through difficult trials. And so you see in the middle there of verse 12, patient and tribulation. Patient. And so that particular word there has the idea of enduring or standing firm through tribulation. We all face great difficulties and great tribulation. You love the brethren when you present a testimony of faithfulness and endurance through difficult trials. And we use some illustration and example of that last week. But then the last one, faith in prayer. And so you see at the end of verse 12, continuing instant in prayer. You love the brethren by praying for the brethren, by entering into the needs of the brethren, by interceding for the brethren, by being aware and conscientious of the troubles and difficulties that your brethren face. Some public, some private, some known only maybe to a small circle, whatever, but you're praying for them. You're lifting them up before the throne of grace. And that is an aspect of us demonstrating our love collectively for our brothers and sisters in Christ. And so that brings us to this next part, starting in verse number 14. And so 14 to 21, so the end of chapter 12. So let's just read that together. And what we're coming to now is the new notes for today. And that is our responsibilities toward those that are without, those outside the body of Christ. So we read here verse 14, bless them which persecute you, bless and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another, mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirst, give him drink. For in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. And so, again, there's, well, not again, because I've not said this yet, but there is a lot of overlap, obviously, in what we have in 14 to 21, how we deal with those outside the church. We obviously have this same attitude toward those in the church, but we have somewhat of a different focus in these couple verses. This is dealing really in general with those that we know outside the body of Christ. It may be someone you have an ongoing relationship with. So this may be a next door neighbor. This may be a unsaved coworker that you have dealings with quite frequently. It may be a much more casual relationship. one person in particular I think of at Harris Teeter, that if I see her checkout line, I normally try to go in her checkout line. She does a good job, she's efficient enough, and she's a little weird, but that's okay. But she gets the thing done, and I normally, if she's there working, I try to get in her line. And we chat from time to time. And those are just very casual type relationships that we might have with other people. The question is, how are we to behave ourselves specifically with regard to these kinds of people? Well, you might think, well, this is a silly question. We all know what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to be good Christian people. Well, in one sense, it really is not more complicated than that. If you look in your notes, as I put it here, I want to propose to you from these verses that your responsibility toward those outside the body of Christ is to do good. That's it. It really is that simple. And that summarizes, as best as I'm able to do anyway, what Paul is saying to these Roma believers. Do good. Now, We get all theological here and make things confusing, but we know from the Bible that it tells us that there's none that doeth good, no, not one. And so how can we do good? Well, I think we all understand what we're talking about here. When the Holy Spirit has done a work of grace in your heart and you've been changed, then you are able outside of selfish motives to do good to those that are around you. I say this good from two different perspectives. We do good in an effort to glorify God. And so why am I kind to my neighbor? Well, it's not to get anything from them. An unbeliever can be kind to his neighbor in order to get something from his neighbor. Well, we can be genuinely kind with no expectation of anything in return simply because we are being kind in a sincere effort to glorify God in our lives. And so we seek to obey God. And in that sense, what we're doing there is an act of worship to God. We are obeying the God of heaven. We also do good for the purpose of pointing others to the glories of the God that we serve. And in that, we can say that's an act of evangelism. And so you see that just at the end of that second full paragraph there in your notes. So our doing good is an act of worship to God, and it is an act of evangelism toward our neighbor, because we want to live our lives in such a way that others would want to emulate. Why do you act this way? Well, because I'm a follower of Christ. The Lord has changed my heart. The Lord is, I used to not act this way. I used to be this and this and this, but the Lord has done a work in my heart. He's changed me. And this is the way I do. This is the reason why I do what I do. And so in that, it's an act of evangelism toward those that are outside the body of Christ. And so as we break this down a little bit more specifically, we have really five categories. And so I want to try to summarize this into five different categorical statements. And the first one you see in your notes there, don't seek revenge. And so we have that really in four different verses. We can plug into this overall summary statement, don't seek revenge. So verse 14, bless them which persecute you, bless and curse not. Verse 17, recompense to no man evil for evil. Verse 19, dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. And then the end of verse number 21, be not overcome of evil. And so if you look at verse 14, where it says, bless them which persecute you, bless and curse not. It's difficult for me to think that when the Apostle Paul wrote that, he didn't have, at least in his own mind, echoes of what he had heard from those that were present there, that he had heard from the other apostles present at the Sermon on the Mount. Because if you listen to what Christ says in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. And so Paul here is really just saying in so many words what Christ had already preached in the Sermon on the Mount. The word bless, we don't really use it that way. We, I think we use this word more in the negative way. And so, euphemistically, if we're talking about someone cursed me out, there's the saying, they blessed me out, or I blessed them out, which you ought not ever do. But we use the word that way. Well, the word bless, as it's used here, means to invoke God's blessing on those who have done wrong to us. We bless God. We use the term this way when we pray for our food, right? We say the blessing over our food. Well, what we're doing is we are invoking God's blessing on this that we're about to partake of. We're acknowledging God's goodness in him giving it to us. And so when we look at this in verse 14, that we are to invoke the blessing of God, we are to, in essence, pray for God to bless those that have persecuted us. We are to pray for God's blessing on them as opposed to cursing them. That's what it says in verse 14. So we are to pray for God to prosper them rather than pray for God to hurt them. Well, you think about that and you know instinctively that is so contrary to the flesh. because that is not the way we normally think. We normally want retaliation. We normally want to get even. Someone's done something wrong to me, well, I want something bad to happen to them. I want them to get what's coming to them. You know, we see this in James and John. You remember they were nicknamed the sons of thunder. In Luke 9, Christ sent messengers out before him into the villages of the Samaritans, and the Samaritans were not receptive. And James and John were quite upset that the Samaritans were not receptive. And we read in, was it Luke? Yeah, Luke 9 54. And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them? Well, that's kind of human nature. Somebody's done us wrong, or we perceive that we've been hurt, or some injustice has been done to us. And so human nature is to seek revenge, to retaliate against. but the Lord directly forbids us from seeking those things. And so the point from these verses in Romans is, if I can say it in this kind of bombastic way, we're not to call down the wrath of God on our enemies. Now I use the word enemies there, that may be something of a strong word to use. I was trying to think in my own life, I don't, I can't remember, I don't know that I've ever had an enemy in that sense. I don't know that I've ever had any real conflict with someone that I would go all the way that far and say this person is my enemy. I mean, they may have thought about it that way, but I can't think of any situation that I've had in my life where I would say this person is an enemy to me. So that may be a little bit of a strong word, but I can illustrate what we mean, or what I mean here. If you take a stand for the Lord in your workplace, and I've had conversations with some of you about things at your jobs or whatever, and you take a stand for the Lord in your workplace, and there's another coworker that takes exception to that, And they give you a hard time. They're antagonistic toward you because of some particular stand you've taken for the Lord or something you won't do at the workplace or some event that you won't enter into and participate with or participate in because of, well, no, that would go against what I believe and stand for as a Christian. You may have a situation with extended family like that, where you're a believer, you go to church on Sundays, you take a stand for the Lord, and with extended family, they're wanting to plan things on Sunday, or they're wanting to do this, or just an antagonism even inside of a family. Those kinds of situations, maybe it's a neighbor that just is cantankerous and hard to get along with and seems like every time you guys ever have any conversations with one another in the yard or a walk or whatever, it seems to just be friction. It seems to be difficult to deal with. Well, this is the kind of person I think would fit into this category that I'm using this word enemy that might be a little inflammatory in its connotation, but that's the idea. With these kinds of people, how do we deal with them? Well, We don't seek evil for them. We don't seek harm for them. We don't seek their hurt. We bless them in that we invoke the favor of God upon them. God alone is the judge of all men. So verse 19, avenge not yourselves. And so you've heard the joke. If a vegan and a crossfitter walks into the room, which one do they talk about first? They're always trying to convince you of one of the two things that they're so passionate about. Well, it is OK to be right without telling anybody. You can be right just because you are before the Lord and you don't have to fight for your position as right. You don't always have to prove the point that you're right. You can be right before the Lord and let it go. You don't have to avenge yourself. You don't have to always prove the other person wrong to make yourself look good. And so avenge not yourselves. It says here in verse 19. And then it goes on. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord. Maybe the situation is such. That. Some bad thing ought to befall this person that has done you wrong. Well, it's not on you to bring that about. That is on the Lord. If the Lord decides to Avenge you, then let the Lord do that. Leave it in the Lord's hands. And it's very difficult to trust the Lord because human nature is I want to protect myself, I want to defend myself, I want to make them look bad so I look good. But no, Paul here is saying when we deal with people that give us a hard time, even people that have legitimately done us wrong, Well, we don't seek revenge against that. Let it go. Avenge not yourselves. The Lord says vengeance belongs to him. He will repay. And so if we take the responsibility of meting out vengeance, then what are we doing? We're taking to ourselves something that doesn't belong to us. Because to whom does vengeance belong? It belongs to God. And so if we steal it from him, then we're playing God. We're taking a responsibility that's not ours to have. It's God's responsibility to sort out the inequities of this life. God will deal with it. So we don't want our enemy or those antagonistic to us to stumble and fall. We don't want bad things to happen to them. We want the Lord to bless them in that if the Lord blesses them, then inevitably in that is the Lord changes them. The Lord saves them. The Lord changes them. So move on to number two, be sympathetic to other people's needs. So verse 15, rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. And so, now obviously this is something that belongs inside the body of Christ as well. I mean, that's an obvious thing. But even outside of the body of Christ, this is something that is difficult for human nature. Obviously we don't rejoice in another man's evil. but we rejoice in their noble accomplishments. We rejoice in the blessings of common grace that they enjoy. I was trying to think of illustrations of this and I often use illustrations of the workplace and there's not many of us in this church that have a traditional workplace environment. And so those illustrations may fall short, especially if you're self-employed and like you're your boss. And I don't get along with myself sometimes. So I have to have a company meeting and put myself right. And you know, I ought to fire myself a lot of times, but I don't do that. But You say in the workplace, you apply for the same promotion. And this other guy that applied for the promotion, I think we can all understand this, right? You apply for a promotion, and some other co-worker applies for the promotion. And you know this other co-worker. You know they lie. You know they lie. you know, some things about their home life, and they're just a bad apple, right? They're just not a good person. But they get the promotion, and you don't get the promotion. Well, it's hard to be happy for them, but yet you're supposed to. You're supposed to rejoice with those that rejoice. To do so, demonstrates love for them. Now, I'm overlapping. Obviously, there's overlap between these two sections because our primary responsibility toward those in the body of Christ is loving the brethren. Well, that's not to say that we don't love those outside the body of Christ. We do. But entering into rejoicing with someone is to demonstrate love for them. So what's the opposite? The opposite of this is to envy them or to have some malice toward them. And so, you know, when another person gets the promotion that you were hoping to get, human nature is to become envious and angry and upset and complain and gripe and all the rest of it. Or when another person has a turn of good fortune. They receive some blessing or some good thing that you've always wanted, but you didn't get and they did. Well, it shows love to your neighbor to rejoice with them, but also to enter into sorrow. Now, you think about this, I think it's easier at least in my way of thinking, I think it's easier to weep with those that weep than it is to rejoice with those that rejoice. So when something bad happens to your neighbor, it's easier to enter into that grief and to, you know, I'm really sorry that happened to you. It's easier because we don't want anything bad to happen to people that we know. But deep down, we don't really want anything good to happen to them that's better than happens to me. If something good's gonna happen, I want it to happen to me. If something bad's gonna happen, I want it to happen to them. And so when something bad happens to them, man, I'm really sorry that happened to you. But when something good happens to them, it's like, man, I wish that had happened to me. And so it's easier. But yet envy and malice in that sense, it is a sin. We're to do good to people ultimately in an effort to point them to Christ. Remember earlier I said we do good as an act of worship to God and as an act of evangelism to our neighbor. And so, in an act of evangelism to our neighbor, we do good to them for the purpose of seeking to point them to Christ. Now, consider Christ just for a moment here. When Christ was at this wedding, at the marriage in Galilee, he was rejoicing with those that rejoice. but yet you come to John 11 and you see Christ there weeping with those that weep. And so Lazarus had died. Mary and Martha were sad that Lazarus had died. And Jesus wept with those that wept, even in the literal sense, Jesus wept. Now, you find that striking. I've often found that striking in that the Lord absolutely knew that like in two minutes, he was gonna say, Lazarus come forth and Lazarus was gonna raise from the dead and everybody's happy again. He knew what he was gonna do, but yet still he entered into the moment of sorrow with his friends and he wept with them. He wept with their weeping. And we as Christians, of all people, ought to do the same. And so when we see discouragement and hurt around us, we enter into that and we seek to help them. Let's do three, we'll stop here. Be humble. So if you remember, humility, was one of the main points that we considered when dealing with those inside the body of Christ. And so we looked at verse three, for I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. And so humility is, a crowning virtue of a believer. Humility is that virtue that should permeate the life of everyone who claims the name of Christ. If you understand anything at all of the grace of the gospel, it demands humility. Pride and an understanding of grace are really completely incompatible with one another. Spurgeon, if you ever read anything that Spurgeon has to write about the doctrine of election, basically everything I've ever read. that he writes on the doctrine of election. He emphasizes that it brings about a heart of humility to understand that what you have in the gospel is nothing that you have earned. What you have in the gospel is all of grace. It's all a gift of grace, and you deserve nothing It puts you in your place of humility. A proud person is a person who does not understand grace. And that's just the facts of it. But look at verse number 16. Here we have a verse that emphasizes this. Be of the same mind one toward another, mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. And so that phrase in verse 16, mind not high things, means don't have high thoughts. Now, I'm not gonna get down in all the technical stuff of the Greek, but there's a way a Greek translation, or the way the Greek grammar works, it really leads us to the translation of stop having high thoughts. And so there's a way in Greek grammar to insinuate that something has been going on and you're put to put an end to what has been going on and do something different instead. And that really is the grammar under here. And so it would mean stop having high thoughts. Well, the implication is Paul understood that human nature is that we do have high thoughts. And he says, stop thinking that way. Stop thinking naturally and think biblically, which are two different things often. It's a negative particle here that has that forceful command of stop doing something that was a previous practice. Stop having high thoughts. we are naturally prideful, that's human nature. We naturally think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. And Paul's already addressed that. Like I said, back in verse number three, he's already guided our thinking in how we're to deal with other people there in verse three. And he comes back and he reiterates that in verse number 16. But when we are full of our own pride and self-worth, We don't, we can't minister to other people in the way that the Lord would have us do. And so the alternative is set before us to stop acting that way. The words in the text here, also have a different connotation of what we're used to, where it says in verse number 16, but condescend to men of low estate. We use the word condescend in a negative way. You know, somebody will say something to you and you just, you know, don't be condescending. That means to talk down to someone. But the word condescending here really has the idea of associating with the lowly. associate with men of low estate. Now, maybe some context is helpful here, just context for perspective. Paul is writing to the church in Rome. These people in Rome would have been more sophisticated city dwellers than you know, maybe some in the outlying areas. From time to time, they would have opportunity in the marketplace, et cetera, to be around the less educated, the less sophisticated, and whatever. And here, Paul is saying not to be high-minded, a better-than-thou attitude when we deal with other people. Humility has to win the day. and remember the admonition is all in the context of doing good. We'll summarize and stop here. It's in the context of doing good as an act of worship to God, if you go back to the first page of your notes, as an act of worship to God and as an act of evangelism. It's very difficult to evangelize someone if they have no respect for you because of your attitude toward them. And an attitude of humility goes a long way. So we'll close there and we'll ask the Lord to help us as we come to our worship service here in a moment. Let's pray. Father, we do ask today that you'll take up your word from these verses. And we know that so much of what we've dealt with today is contrary to human nature. We thank you for a level of sanctification and grace that you have done in our hearts here in this place. And we thank you for a body of believers that demonstrates so much of what we've been talking about today in practice. And we see a love for one another and a love for our brethren, but we pray that you would continue to work these things on us. We pray that in our obedience to what you have written to us in the scriptures, that we would do these things as an act of worship to you, the God of heaven, that you would give us humility of heart and a right thinking about ourselves and our neighbor, and that we would see these as lost souls in need of a savior, and that you would teach us the things that we need to do. We pray that you'll calm our hearts and help us in this worship service that's to follow. Pray that we would know a word from the scriptures to our own souls to minister to us and help us as we continue to walk with you. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.