Day 30: Romans 12:9-21: Love In Action

Christian love is shown through humility, mercy, and how we treat people- especially difficult ones. 

Paul now describes what genuine Christian love should look like in everyday life. Not fake kindness. Not surface-level religion. Real love. He tells believers to:

• honor others
• serve faithfully
• be patient in hardship
• bless those who hurt them
• live in peace when possible

Then comes one of the hardest teachings: Do not repay anyone evil for evil.

Instead of revenge, Paul calls believers to overcome evil with good. The gospel creates a different kind of people- ones shaped by mercy instead of revenge.

Transcript

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Happy Friday. We've reached day 30. 30 days of reading the book of Romans together. Today, our passage is Romans chapter 12, verses 9 through 21. Our theme is love in action. I love where we are. We are rolling here. We've gotten to the practical, applicable part of Romans, where how this applies to our lives. And as I've been preparing for these devotionals, I have been so convicted myself. And I'll be happy to share some of that, but I'm just so excited for our group to have reached this point in our study. Our reflection questions today are how do you normally respond when someone hurts, frustrates, or disrespects you? And why is overcoming evil with good so difficult and so powerful? As we get into our text today, I also thought that the little title above our passage today was good too, and that is Christian Ethics. Let's start reading together. Let love be without hypocrisy. Detest evil. Cling to what is good. Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters. Take the lead in honoring one another. Do not lack diligence and zeal, but be fervent in the spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in affliction. Be persistent in prayer. Share with the saints in their needs. Pursue hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud. Instead, associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Give careful thought to do what is honorable in everyone's eyes. If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Friends, do not avenge yourselves. Instead, leave room for God's wrath, because it is written, Vengeance belongs to me, I will repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for in so doing you will be heaping fiery coals on his head. Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good. Amen. That's the word of God. Paul is now shifting from spiritual gifts and community into everyday relationships. And this section becomes very practical very quickly. He starts even with a phrase, let love be genuine, meaning real, not performative, not just words, not outward politeness hiding bitterness underneath. In the Roman world, relationships were often transactional. People showed honor to gain their own status, favor, influence, or social advantage. Love was frequently tied to what they could get in return. I help you because it benefits me. But Paul is describing a different kind of love, a completely different kind of love. It is a love shaped by Christ. And then he gives rapid fire examples of what that looks like. It looks like honoring others, serving faithfully, being patient and suffering, helping people in need, practicing hospitality. These aren't flashy things. They're everyday ways the gospel reshapes people. And then Paul moves into something much harder. Bless those who persecute you. That would have sounded extreme, because Roman culture valued retaliation and honor. If someone insulted you, you responded. If someone harmed you, you defended your status. But Paul says followers of Jesus operate differently. Not because evil is okay, but because vengeance belongs to God, not us. And this gets misunderstood sometimes. Paul is not saying Christians become passive doormats with no boundaries. He's saying we don't answer evil by becoming evil ourselves. We don't let someone else's sin shape our character. Then he says, Do not be overcome by evil, but become be overcome with good. That's one of the hardest actual commands in scripture because our natural reaction when hurt is usually one of two things revenge or withdrawal. Either striking back or completely shutting down. I can do both. But the gospel creates another response. It's a response of mercy. It's not pretending pain didn't happen or excusing what was wrong, but it is refusing to let bitterness take root. And this reflects Jesus directly. Because on the cross, Jesus absorbed violence and hatred without returning it. Now, I want to be clear that this doesn't mean that justice doesn't matter. It means that love becomes stronger than retaliation. And practically, this is where Christianity becomes visible to others, not just in the way we sing our worship songs or the way we study our Bibles, but in how we treat people when they disappoint us, frustrate us, or wound us. Anyone can love when it's easy. Paul is talking about spirit-formed love, the kind that reflects Christ in difficult moments. And honestly, you cannot do this consistently through willpower alone. This kind of love is produced through transformation. The more you understand the mercy God has shown you, the more mercy begins flowing through you. And that's Paul's vision here: a community so shaped by the gospel that even their relationships look different from the world around them. And I will tell you, I was reading this passage, this devotion, and our next couple of ones, and thinking about my sister in our group and my cousin in our group, and the people who just know me very, very well. And so I thought I would take this time for a moment of confession. I think for a long part, a long part of my life, I felt justified in returning evil for evil in a social interaction style way. And what I mean is I used to say this as a I would say, yeah, you know, I really want to get along with people and be nice to people. But if you are rude to me, I will outrude you. Almost as like, now that you've opened up this box, let me show you what you're doing to me, and feel very justified and giving it back to you, the if not worse, than what you gave me to make a point. And I think I felt justified for a long time because it felt like, well, if you are doing that, then I have the right to defend myself. And it was almost like a default, ingrained reaction. So much so that as I began being convicted of it more recently, it's been hard to realize like how much of a lens that can be, and how much of my life could be a response in that way without even realizing it. One of the things that convicted me was just the fruits of the spirit. Because the fruits of the spirit are gentleness and self-control. And I definitely was not displaying that. Um, I think our passage today hits it more on the head, right? That it is more a sign of our fruit and uh a witness to Jesus if we can not treat people based on how they're treating us, but by the Holy Spirit that's leading through us and our lives. I wanted to share that with you. I guess one just for transparency and honesty, and for our community, um, is something I'm still working on. I am a defender. I defend myself less than I will someone else, I would say. Like I'm the oldest of all of my siblings, and if someone says something or gives them attitude, it's very hard for me not to be like. Excuse me, I don't think so. But uh the Lord is still creating a new thing in me every day. And even though I've known Christ and surrendered very young and was raised by wonderful parents in the church and studied the Bible younger, I spent a long period of my life from I would say after high school till I don't know, even through my 20s, where I knew what I believed because I was raised in it, you know, it was ingrained to me. I had a relationship with Christ still, still serving in the church, but my daily walk wasn't there. I just really was not in the word like I should have been. I think it's easy for those of us who are in my shoes like me who are raised with it to think we know it already and uh start reducing the importance of continuing to be in the word. So when I started reading the Bible again daily and actually like studying it from an adult's perspective, now I've really sinned in ways that I have experienced shame more so than when I was seven, right? And also reading it from just sometimes I read verses and I'm like, I've known this story my whole life, but I God is speaking to me now in a fresh new way through this passage, or just with maturity and life experiences, I understand things I didn't before. And it wasn't until I became back into the word that I really feel like I started experiencing these types of convictions of like I really need to work on that. I am not being a good representative of a person who claims to follow Jesus when I am so willing to go after someone who I think deserves it. Um and so I I think that to conclude today, I know it's running longer than normal because of my confession, um, that it's so important for us to be open to correction of the Holy Spirit. And often that really does come through his living word. And that's the only place we can find real truth that can really convict us, right? Not people's opinions or reactions of us, but God's word. So just an encouragement that, you know, conviction can feel uncomfortable, but it is actually God's love for you. His love comes from correcting you, he wants to keep you in the palm of his hand and he's seeing what's coming and pulling you back. And I want to encourage you today to continue to be in his word every day so that you can allow the Holy Spirit to create something new in you because he has plans to use you as a living, breathing testimony of how he works so that you can bring other people to Christ. Not for them being on our team, not for any other reason that it is for their salvation, the best gift that we could offer anyone. All right. I can't wait to talk on the chat. Would love to hear any of the rest of your confessions since I'm out here on the soapbox. Um, but we'll see each other next week. We only have about a week left uh or two weeks left of study, and then we'll get together in person and on Zoom for a nice dinner. So check out the chat the chat because we've been talking about dates for that. Love you guys. See you Monday.

unknown 12:15

Bye.