Our Old Testament lesson comes from Deuteronomy chapter 32. Deuteronomy chapter 32. Hear now the word of the Lord. Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak. And let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass and like showers upon the herb. For I will proclaim the name of the Lord, ascribe greatness to our God. The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he. They have dealt corruptly with him. They are no longer his children because they are blemished. They are a crooked and twisted generation. Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is not he your father who created you, who made you and established you? Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations. Ask your father and he will show you, your elders and they will tell you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. but the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob, his allotted heritage. He found him in a desert land and in the howling waste of the wilderness. He encircled him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions. The Lord alone guided him. No foreign God was with him. He made him ride on the high places of the land, and he ate the produce of the field, and he suckled him with honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock, curds from the herd and milk from the flock, with fat of lambs, rams of Baishan and goats, with the very finest of the wheat, and you drank foaming wine made from the blood of the grape. But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked. You grew fat, stout, and sleek. Then he forsook God who made him, and scoffed at the rock of his salvation. They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations they provoked him to anger. They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods that they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded. You were unmindful of the rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth. The Lord saw it and spurned them because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters. And he said, I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end will be. For they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness. They have made me jealous with what is no God. They have provoked me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are no people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. For a fire is kindled by my anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol, devours the earth and its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains. And I will heap disasters upon them. I will spend my arrows on them. They shall be wasted with hunger and devoured by plague and poisonous pestilence. I will send the teeth of beasts against them with the venom of things that crawl in the dust. Outdoors the sword shall bereave and indoors terror for young men and women alike, the nursing child with the man of gray hairs. I would have said I will cut them to pieces, I will wipe them from human memory, had I not feared provocation by the enemy, lest their adversaries should misunderstand, lest they should say, our hand is triumphant, it was not the Lord who did all this. for they are a nation void of counsel, and there is no understanding in them. If they were wise, they would understand this. They would discern their latter end. How could one have chased a thousand, and two have put ten thousand to flight, unless their rock had sold them, and their Lord had given them up? For their rock is not as our rock. Our enemies are by themselves. For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom, and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are grapes of poison. Their clusters are bitter. Their wine is the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps. Is not this laid up in store with me, sealed up in my treasuries? Vengeance is mine and recompense for the time when their foot shall slip, for the day of their calamity is at hand and their doom comes swiftly. For the Lord will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants when he sees that their power is gone and there is none remaining bond or free. Then he will say, where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge, who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you. Let them be your protection. See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. For I lift up my hand to heaven and swear, as I live forever, if I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand takes hold on judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and will repay those who hate me. I will make my arrows drunk with blood and my sword shall devour flesh with the blood of the slain and the captives from the long-haired heads of the enemy. Rejoice with him, O heavens, bow down to him, all gods, for he avenges the blood of his children and takes vengeance on his adversaries. He repays those who hate him and cleanses his people's land. Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua, the son of Nun. And when Moses had finished speaking all these words to Israel, he said to them, take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today. that you may be command them to your children that they may be careful to do all the words of this law for it is no empty word for you but your very life and by this word you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. This is the word of the Lord. Vengeance is mine says the Lord. the song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32, reminds us of God's faithfulness as he became Israel's father. When it speaks of Israel's creation here, it's referring to the Exodus, when God created the people and said, Israel is my son, my firstborn. Let my son worship me, let him go, that he may worship me. And yet, as you hear about in Exodus and Numbers, Israel did not. follow the Lord. They turned away and worshiped other gods even in Moses' own lifetime in the wilderness wanderings. And the continued rebellion of Israel in the wilderness is what Moses reflects on now in his song because God says that he will send his people into exile because of their sin, because of their rebellion, but he will vindicate them in the end. Do you believe that God will make all things right. Now, some things he may make right in your lifetime. Many things he will make right at some point in history, maybe in a few hundred years. All things he will make right at the final judgment. The Lord will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants. Our problem is we don't always agree with God's timeline. There are things that we think he should make right now. And we sometimes decide, God, you're taking too long. I'll take care of this myself. And quite frankly, as long as you think you can handle it yourself, he will let you try. How's that working for you? When we take vengeance into our own hands, it, I mean, I don't need to tell you about all the movies that have been made about what happens when you take vengeance into your own hand and the spiral that goes on forever and never satisfies. Right, we all know how that works. Well, many hundreds of years after Moses, God finally did what he said he would do and he sent his people into exile, because the people of Israel, even the sons of David, did not seem to learn the lesson of the wilderness. They kept trying to make things right, but they kept walking in ways that were not right. And our Psalm of Response, Psalm 94, comes from Book 4 of the Psalms. It's a collection of Psalms from Psalm 90 to Psalm 106 that comes from the period after the exile, Book 3, Psalms 73 to 89 are Psalms of the exile. Songs that reflect on what is God doing in sending us into exile? Book 4 is now, we're back in the land but there's no son of David on the throne. Things are not the way they should be yet. When, oh God, are you going to make things the way they should be? And pretty clearly, Psalm 94 remembers Deuteronomy 32, God's claim, vengeance is mine. And so the song opens, oh Yahweh, God of vengeance, oh God of vengeance, shine forth. You have said that vengeance belongs to you, so please do what you've promised and repay to the proud what they deserve. Paul will urge us to leave vengeance to God, so if you think about it, that means that Psalm 94 is a very Christian song since it leaves vengeance entirely to God and asks Him to take care of it. And if you heard from Deuteronomy 32, the constant refrain of God my rock, that's part of the reason why I'm convinced Psalm 94 is very much reflecting on Deuteronomy 32, the God of vengeance, God my rock, my fortress, my refuge, Our New Testament lesson comes from Romans chapter 12. Hear now the word of the Lord from Romans chapter 12. I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. If prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection, Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 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. 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 keep burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. This is the word of the Lord. Is it okay to be ordinary? In a world where everything is extravagant, special, amazing, and extraordinary, we need to remember that God calls us to faithfulness in the ordinary. When you look at Romans 12, there's nothing particularly extraordinary about it. Paul describes here simply the ordinary Christian life. I think part of our problem is that we're not satisfied with the ordinary. Part of it is we recognize that we have failed in the ordinary, and so we try to make up for it by doing special things. Ever done that before? I think we all have, where you feel like you've failed in the ordinary, so you try to make up for it by doing something special. And maybe that makes everybody feel good for a moment, but when you go back to the ordinary, nothing has changed. Some people may have the money to keep spending on special extravagant things, and they never come back to ordinary life, but my observation is that eventually, the ordinary always wins. You can't escape from the ordinary, the everyday, the normal. Why not? Well, think about those words. What does ordinary mean? It comes from the Latin, meaning customary, regular, orderly. This is just the, Regular, customary things that happen. Ordinary. Everyday. These are the things that happen everyday. We have meals, we sleep, we do the everyday things. Normal. According to the rule, the pattern, the norm. These are the things that happen regularly. And you can't escape from the ordinary, the normal, the everyday, because God really did make this world, and he made you. and he made you to live in this world. And so when things are not working in the ordinary, there is no escape. That doesn't mean there's no hope, but the only hope when things are not working in the ordinary is repentance. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but this is why Jesus came. Jesus came in order to be the sin offering, the atoning sacrifice that removes our sin and brings us to God in the ordinary. And now, this is where Paul started in Romans 12, because Jesus is the sin offering. Romans 5, Romans 8. Because he is the atoning sacrifice, the propitiation for our sins, Romans 3.25. Therefore, Paul said, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. So Jesus is the sin offering. So what does it mean that we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice? It means that we are joined to him in the peace offering. The peace offering that expresses the communion that now exists between God and man because of Jesus. And This is our rational worship. The word translated spiritual in verse one is the word logikos, from which we get our word logical. It might be better to translate it rational because so often when Paul talks about spiritual, he's talking about the Holy Spirit and our connection through the Spirit. But here, he's not talking about the Holy Spirit, he's talking about the rational, the logical. It is the rational, ordinary, everyday thing to do. to offer your body as a living sacrifice to God because you have been joined to the life of God in his son, Jesus Christ. Our ordinary life is a life lived in union with Christ by his spirit. And that means that you don't need to make up for failures in the ordinary through the extraordinary. The way you make up for failures in the ordinary is through repentance. I know I use the shorter catechism on repentance a lot, but until we actually get it, I'll keep doing it, so you can plan on hearing this for the next however long I'm here. Repentance unto life is a saving grace whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, does with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God with full purpose after and endeavor after new obedience. Repentance includes a clear recognition of how you've fallen short, as well as a grasping hold of what God has done in Jesus to deliver us from sin, that he is the sin offering. And when you clearly see your sin for what it is, and you clearly see God's grace and mercy in Jesus for what he is, then you will hate your sin for what it is and turn away from sin and turn towards God because of who he is. And thus, you will turn towards the ordinary life the way God calls you to live. And that ordinary life, as we've been seeing in Romans 12, is a life of genuine Unhypocritical love. And last time we went through that single sentence in verses 9 to 13, so let me read it to you again in a more wooden translation that will capture the fact that it's all one sentence. Let love be without hypocrisy. This is verses 9 to 13. Let love be without hypocrisy, detesting the evil, clinging to the good, loving each other affectionately with brotherly love, leading the way in honoring one another, not hesitating in eagerness, but seething or boiling in the Spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, enduring in tribulation, persevering in prayer, sharing in the needs of the saints, pursuing hospitality. This is the ordinary, everyday, normal pattern of life that must characterize us. And I call this the humility of love in your outline because Love is not proud. Love puts the other first. Love is more concerned with the good of others than with my own good. As Jesus said, the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. If he came to be the sin offering, if he came to humble himself and take our flesh and blood upon himself, then we are called to share that same mindset. If Jesus said from the cross, Father forgive them for they know not what they do, we cannot do other than he did. That's what Paul says in verse 14, bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them. I pointed out last time that the last phrase in verse 13, pursue hospitality, it's the same word as in verse 14, bless those who pursue you. And it's interesting that he would juxtapose those two things. Pursue hospitality, bless those who pursue you. The point being that Paul's obviously using it in two different senses, but you are to pursue love of strangers with the same zeal that you see in people who persecute Christians. Just you go the opposite direction. You pursue them with love and blessing. So when you are pursued, when you are persecuted, you are called to bless those who persecute you. Now, let's think about how this works. Because in verse nine, we were told that we must abhor what is evil and hold fast to what is good. So when somebody's persecuting you, just a quick question, is that evil or good? I think we can agree that's evil. It is not a good thing for people to persecute other people. So if people are persecuting you, You are supposed to abhor what they're doing. You are supposed to detest what they are doing. But we only detest that evil because we love. We love those who persecute us because they are made in the image of God. A few years ago, after the bombings in Egypt, one of the pastors in Egypt, a Coptic pastor, preached a beautiful sermon on how we love you, we forgive you, and we want you to join us in believing in Jesus. He plainly detested the evil that they had done, but he blessed them and prayed for their conversion. We love those who persecute us because they are made in the image of God, whom we love above all. And so when I look at my persecutor, I see one who reflects the God I love. And so in his actions, he's not expressing love for God or neighbor. And so I do detest him for that, but that does not give me the right to curse him. And Paul will circle back to this at the end of the chapter, but he's going to say right up front, bless. and do not curse. And if we think about how to bless others, it means to enter into their experience. As Paul will say in verse 15, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Love considers the interests of others ahead of our own, and so when others are rejoicing, I may not feel like rejoicing, but I will rejoice with them. When others are weeping, I may not feel like weeping, but I will weep with them. Now, since love abhors what is evil and holds fast to what is good, that doesn't mean we rejoice in evil. One early father pointed out, we make a clear distinction. For the joys of Christians are not to be linked with every sort of joy. For if I see people rejoicing because they've made a lot of money or acquired a lot of property or gained worldly honor, I ought not to rejoice with them because I know that sorrow and tears follow joys of that kind. But if we see people turn from error, leave the darkness of ignorance behind, and come to the light of the truth and the forgiveness of sins, we ought to rejoice with them. Likewise, we should weep for someone who is weeping for his sins, who after doing wrong is converted to repentance, and who is washing his error in tears. So we don't rejoice in evil. So if somebody is rejoicing over something that is wrong, we should not join in their joy. If somebody is weeping over what is good, we should not weep with them. But we should rejoice over that which brings joy to God and neighbor. And we weep over that which brings sorrow to God and neighbor. And so when our sister rejoices, we rejoice. When our brother weeps, we weep. And this expresses the harmony that Paul calls us to in verse 16. Live in harmony with one another. It reflects back on how earlier in verse four he had said, for as in one body we have many members and the members do not all have the same function, so we though many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. And the same theme now comes back. So we live in harmony with one another. Now, this verse is one where you'd never guess it from the English translation, but we're back to our thinking words. The root of phra-na-o, to think, is used three times in this verse. So, live in harmony is thinking the same with one another. Do not be haughty is not thinking the high things. and never be wise in your own sight is not becoming thoughtful in yourselves. That's a bit of an awkward way of putting it, but Paul says here that how you think is important. How do you think of yourself? He said back in verse three, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober thinking. Because what you think and not what you say you think, but what you really think is what will guide your actions. That's why I started with that discussion about the ordinary, because too often we try to ignore the ordinary and move on to the special. But what you think in the ordinary time, in the everyday time, in your normal routines of life, this is what guides your actions. You may say, oh, I believe in Jesus. He's my life. But if that's not what characterizes your ordinary life, then that's not really how you think. How you really think about yourself is expressed in what you do in ordinary time. Living in harmony with one another is only possible if we have the same mind in us that was also in Christ Jesus. In fact, In Philippians 2, Paul uses the same verb, the thinking language, to have the same mind, the same way of thinking in ourselves that was also in Christ, who took our form and joined us to himself. And living in harmony only works if we are thinking together. And it won't work if we're all thinking high things, thinking too highly of ourselves. That's why he warns us, do not be haughty, do not think too highly of yourself, but associate with the lowly, humble yourselves, and be ready to accept the advice of others. Do not be wise in your own sight, do not be thinking by yourself, but think together. When people around you say, hey, you're missing something, take them seriously, and thinking together is important. But what about What about when things go wrong? What about when others wrong you? When someone pushes your buttons? Ah, he made me so angry. Well, let's think about that. He made me so angry? Remember Jesus' words, out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks. I'm just gonna do this. I'll pick somebody who knows what I'm doing. If I take this glass of water and you bump my hand, oh. Why is there water on the floor? You might say, because he bumped my hand. Well, that may explain part of the story, but why is there water on the floor? What was in the cup? Whatever is in your heart is what will come out when you are bumped. That's why no matter how hard somebody bumped Jesus, he never sinned. Because there was no sin in his heart. Our problem is, the things that are in our heart is what comes out when we get bumped. So yeah, oh, he made me so angry. Well, Paul says, be angry and do not sin. When we take the idea that somehow we can justify our responses because of what somebody else did, no, no, no. We need to respond with the same love, with the same care that our Lord Jesus responded to us. And that's why Paul says in verse 17, Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. Others will sin against you. That's going to happen. And there's nothing you can do to make someone else change. I cannot make you live at peace with me, but I can live peaceably with you. I can love you regardless of whether you love me. This helps us understand what Paul meant when he said earlier, abhor what is evil. Oh yes, you hate what is evil, but you do not repay evil for evil. After all, if you hate evil, why would you practice it? If you hate evil, if you truly hate evil, then you will always respond with good to those who do evil to you. Because when you do evil to those who do evil to you, you're agreeing with them and saying, I like evil too. You think you're good at doing evil? Let me show you. No. Do not repay evil for evil. Rather, give thought. Paul's saying, think ahead how you can do good and what is honorable in the sight of all. You do not compromise on doing good. You are rather to think ahead for how you can make peace. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. If your life, if your ordinary everyday life, is characterized by that peace that passes understanding, if you are joined to the Prince of Peace, our Lord Jesus, then you will be capable of living at peace with everyone around you, so far as it depends on you. We live in a world at war, and when everyone seeks after their own interests, when everyone seeks their own happiness, then there is no peace. There is no shalom, no well-being. But there is nothing easy about this. After all, if I surrender my self-interest, then people will take advantage of me. Yes, they will. If I seek peace, then I will leave myself vulnerable to their attacks. Yes, you will. Why would I do that? Well, that depends. Do you believe in Jesus or not? This is the way that our master trod. And he called us to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him. or to use Paul's language 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. Do you believe that God is just? Do you believe that he will make things right? If so, then leave it to him. The code of vengeance in the ancient world was very strong. The Desert Fathers tell of a monk who visited Abba Sossoys and explained he had been wronged and could not rest until he had vengeance. So Sossoys said to him, my brother, let us pray. Oh God, we don't need you, we can avenge ourselves. At this, the brother fell on his face and begged forgiveness, recognizing that vengeance presupposes a godless world. The only reason why you would need to take vengeance is if you don't believe that God knows what he's doing. If God is in charge, then you can endure unjust suffering because you know that in the end, he will make all things right. Now, this is not saying that there's never a place or a time for seeking justice. That's not it at all. The point that Paul's making is that there is a fundamental point of you don't take vengeance. Seeking justice is not the same thing as taking vengeance. Seeking justice submits the matter to those who are responsible for maintaining the peace, maintaining justice. Vengeance would be taking it on yourself. And it's also important to recognize that when God says vengeance is mine, That doesn't mean that vengeance is wrong. God does not say vengeance is wrong. He says rather, trust me with vengeance. Vengeance is mine. Unjust suffering will not last forever. If you are called to imitate Christ, we recognize that as he suffered unjustly, so also will we, but unjust suffering will not last forever because vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. If we seek vengeance, we will not accomplish the righteousness of God. But if we reserve these things to the vengeance of God, he will, without doubt, punish them far better than we ever could. And so Paul says in 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. The picture here is killing him with kindness, as it were. I mean, he probably expects you to return evil for evil, but when you respond to his evil with good, this has the effect of showing the utter foolishness of his evil. And as you bless the one who persecutes you, you pray for his conversion, but as you bless him, as you feed him, as you show love to him, you are heaping burning coals on his head. He will have no excuse in the day of judgment because he witnessed A love that was authentic, a love that was without hypocrisy. Is our love a love that is genuine? A love that is without hypocrisy? Do we respond to evil with good? Insofar as we do, we show forth the love of Christ and thus overcome evil with good. As Paul says, do not be overcome by evil. That would happen if you responded with evil for evil, then you have been overcome, you have been conquered by evil. But overcome, conquer evil with good. We do not fight with the weapons of this world, we don't return evil for evil, but we do overcome evil with good. And this is the pattern that God has shown us in his own humility and conquest. I love the picture that God shows us, even in the days of Samuel. In the days of Samuel, the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines. Evil had conquered. The Ark of God was taken into the Temple of Dagon. To all outward appearance, Yahweh had been humbled, humiliated by Dagon, overcome, conquered by evil. But in the morning, Dagon lay on his face before the Ark of God with his head and his hands cut off. overthrew Dagon, not by sending a mighty army to smash his temple, but by coming all by himself, alone and unaided, and not just alone and unaided on a secret mission, but captured, defeated, humiliated. And yet, through his humiliation, through his defeat, through his being overcome and conquered, forced the God of the Philistines to bow before him. God's showing us something about himself. This is what he will do most powerfully and beautifully in our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who humbled himself, the one who, though he was in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled himself, taking the form of a servant. And when he saw that doing good would require him to lay down his life for us. When he saw that conquering evil would require him to be run over by evil, he did not swerve from that path, but he went forth to battle as the conquering hero, the divine warrior who humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. The person who appears to be overcome by evil for a time in fact, is overcoming evil, just as the Savior overcame evil, not by resisting it, but by humbling himself before it. Evil works against itself, and when it is overcome, it thinks that it's won. But that's precisely the moment that God uses. We know better. because Jesus did not stay dead he was raised from the dead and in his resurrection he was declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness and therefore God has highly exalted him and given him the name above all names that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So in our ordinary everyday lives Let us have that same mind that is ours in Christ Jesus. Lord help us because we are too often overcome by evil and we respond to evil with evil and we do not love the way you have loved us. Help us to hear your voice and to humble ourselves before you and to overcome evil with good by leaving vengeance in your hands because we know that you will make all things right and that you will deal with all these things in your time. So help us to keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus in whose name we pray. Amen.