Overcoming Evil by Doing Good

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, the sixth chapter.

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Jesus said, Be merciful, even as your father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged.

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Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you.

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A good measure pressed down and shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.

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He also told them a parable. Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.

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Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but you do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother,

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Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye, and when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye, you hypocrite?

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First take out the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. Hear again the words of our epistle text.

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Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

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Hmm. This sounds a lot harder than I can possibly imagine, because you're gonna note your sinful flesh and my sinful flesh, when somebody wrongs us, what do we want?

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Revenge. We want vengeance. We want justice, right? And unless somebody has acted criminally against you, and you'll note that much persecution and suffering that we go through at the hands of others who are our enemies, that it doesn't rise to the level of criminality, but we suffer nonetheless.

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And so the thing we want is we want vengeance. You punch me in the nose, I'm gonna break your teeth, right?

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I'm gonna show you my karate moves from when I was a young kid in the 1980s, right?

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I'm gonna let you have it. Isn't that really kind of how all of our hero stories go? You know,

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I think about the karate kid, he was bullied, he was picked on, and he learned how to fight back, and he finally got vengeance, but he got vengeance in a way that seemed like it was a little bit more like poetic justice, but all the same, you'll note that as Christians, we do not have vengeance in our bag of options.

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Vengeance is not the thing that we get to do, and as a result of that, we oftentimes are looked at as weak, as lowly, as somehow being a

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Christian means being a doormat. But I would note something here. By the

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Scripture teaching us that we are to overcome evil with good, that means good is greater than evil.

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Love is greater than hate. And I would note something here. When it comes to love, the opposite of love is not hatred.

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The opposite of love is apathy, not caring at all. Keep that in mind.

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So what we're gonna do, we're gonna spend a little bit of time working our way through the context of our

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Epistle text, and I have to warn you ahead of time, our Epistle text is 100 % law. And here's the thing.

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We will embrace this 100 % law, because having been forgiven by Christ, and knowing that we have not earned our salvation, but it has been given to us as a gift, we note that a proper use of God's law is to recognize that it shows us what our good works are to be, so we do not invent our own.

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And the third use of the law is only for Christians. It is not for the unbeliever, because the unbeliever would mistakenly believe that by doing good works that they can be saved by doing them, but we know better.

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So you'll note in chapter 12 of Romans, after Paul has spent chapter after chapter after chapter explaining and defending that we are saved by grace through faith apart from works, he then goes on to say to us

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Christians, let your love be genuine. I cannot think of something more cruel than a fake love.

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Of telling somebody, oh, we love you, we care about you, when in reality, you care nothing for them.

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The pretense of love is a form of cruelty. It is an absolute form of torture.

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And the people who eventually figure out that they're not really loved, it crushes them.

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And then you'll note we are also admonished in this section of Scripture to abhor what is evil.

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Yeah, that's right. You're to abhor it. You're not supposed to tolerate it. You're not supposed to enjoy it.

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You're supposed to abhor it. And we are to hold fast to what is good.

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Love one another, you Christians, with brotherly affection, and outdo one another in showing honor.

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This is a great section of Scripture, and I would note this would be a wonderful world to live in. This would be a great church to attend, right?

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And you'll note these are truly commands given to us by God the Holy Spirit through the writing of the

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Apostle Paul. We dare not take these words and just cast them aside and say, well,

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I'm not able to do that. That convicted me of my sin, so at least I'm forgiven. That's not how this works.

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Third use of the law shows us what we are to be busy about the business of doing. Do not be slothful in zeal.

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Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation.

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Be constant in prayer. Rejoice in hope, the hope that we have of the resurrection.

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Be patient in tribulation. Patience is difficult on any day of the week, at least for me, but I would note patient in tribulation, that's a legitimate form of suffering and an unjust one at that.

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This is when people repay your good works with evil. When they take the fact that you confess and believe the truth and make you suffer for it.

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And as a result of it, when we are experiencing tribulation, oftentimes our prayers are,

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God, please remove this from me and do so quickly. But you'll note that tribulation oftentimes stretches out.

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How long? Months? Years? Decades?

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Maybe even as long as your entire life. Could you imagine being a confessing

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Christian in a Muslim nation? Would there ever be a day in your life when you were not experiencing tribulation or fear?

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Right? So be patient in tribulation. And the next thing follows that pretty well.

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Be constant in prayer. And I'm not talking about decreeing and declaring, I'm about asking God. Constant in prayer.

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If you're in the middle of tribulation, that means you're constantly in communication with God regarding the tribulation you go for.

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And those of us in the Brotherhood of the Saints who are also experiencing tribulation, you'll note that being in the middle of tribulation gives you a keen understanding and awareness of things that a lot of people are not aware of.

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And as a result of that, being constant in prayer is the order of the day. Contribute to the needs of the saints.

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Seek to show hospitality. And then here we go. This is not a fun sentence.

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Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them.

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But I would note, those who persecute me, those who go after me, my sinful flesh wants to get back at them and get back at them hard.

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You punch me, I'm going to punch you harder. You shove me, I'm going to knock you down.

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That's what my sinful flesh wants. So we are instructed in Scripture to bless those who persecute us and to bless them and do not curse them.

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But why? Why? Why? Why? Because God's busy doing something.

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Have you noticed that the Christian church has been unleashed by Christ to go and proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus' name to all nations?

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And it is not God's will that any should perish. The any is going to include those who persecute you.

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And so when it comes to vengeance, that's God's business, not yours. And he has mechanisms for taking vengeance on the evildoer if they persist in sin and unbelief, but that is none of your business.

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It's God's business. He'll do it through the offices that he's chosen. And you are not in the office of vengeance.

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So we are to bless those who persecute us. Bless them and do not curse them. And then I love this next sentence.

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And the reason why I love it is because Christians are called to empathy. Rejoice with those who rejoice.

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Weep with those who weep. Think of it this way.

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You just got that promotion at work, right? Or maybe you got a raise. Or maybe you got a new puppy or a new kitten.

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Or maybe a baby has just come into your family. And what do you do? You get on your cell phone and you're texting everybody.

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You're in the family chat. You're making phone calls. And as Christians, when people call us and they have good news, guess what we are to do?

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Empathetically rejoice with them. Oh, that's the best thing ever.

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I'm so happy for you. And this is to be heartfelt. I can't imagine something worse than calling somebody because you're experiencing something that you want to share the joy that you're having and somebody going, eh, meh.

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Well, I'm at work. I got to get back to work. I'm busy. I'm sorry. Bye. That would be a horrible outcome, right?

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And then we are to weep with those who weep. In other words, have you heard that friends are there through thick and thin, through good times and bad?

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It's not just friends that are to be doing that. It's Christians in general. Rejoice with those who rejoice.

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Weep with those who weep. And live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly and never be wise in your own sight.

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There's a reason for this, by the way. You'll note that there is not a single thing that you have, whether it be a pickup truck, a nice house, or the ability to think in terms that are wise, that nothing that you have is anything that is a result of your own doing.

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It has all been given to you. So if God has graced you with wisdom, then you are not to act as though you didn't receive that from God, because you did.

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And if you received it from God, do you have anything to boast about? Like nothing.

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In fact, the Apostle Paul in other epistles says, why do you act as if you haven't received these things when you have?

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So there is no room for haughtiness as if somehow, well, I'm God's gift to wisdom.

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No, you're not. You've been gifted with wisdom. And if you think it's all about you, then you're actually a fool and you're not wise at all.

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If God has gifted you with wisdom, it's not for the boasting of your ego. It's for the purpose of serving your neighbor and loving them with it.

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So do not be haughty in your own sight. Never be wise in your own eyes. And repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

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And if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

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But if I do this, I'm going to be taken advantage of. If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to ask for what?

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A steak. I don't know. I forget how the story goes, right? But the idea, if I give the evil just a little bit, if I give them an inch, they're going to take a mile.

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They're going to take everything I have. They're going to just walk all over me. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

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Never avenge yourselves. Never. It doesn't say sometimes.

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It says never. Never avenge yourselves. But leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine.

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I will repay, says the Lord. So to the contrary, if your enemy's hungry, you feed him.

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I heard that you're struggling to put food on the table. I made you a meal. Is there anything else that I can give to you?

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What? We do this with each other here when we're struggling. But where's our enemy ministry here?

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To find our enemies and to feed them. If your enemy's hungry, you feed him.

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If he's thirsty, you give him something to drink. For by so doing, you'll heap burning coals on his head.

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He will be convicted of his sins. He will feel terrible for treating you horribly when you treat him with kindness.

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Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Tell me which is stronger, evil or good, hatred or love.

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Which is stronger? And so you'll note here, the way we think because of our sinful nature is that strength comes in doing evil, that people who are evil are strong.

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But I would note this. I think C .S. Lewis was on to something in the Chronicles of Narnia series because every one of the evil villains in the

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Chronicles of Narnia were always described in terms of being somehow thin, of somehow being less than full.

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In the book, The Great Divorce, this bus ride from hell to heaven, the damned are depicted as barely even real.

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So we need to embrace what the Scripture says here. Evil is not overcome with more evil.

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Evil is overcome by good. Now, a little bit of a note here. The Apostle Paul absolutely practiced what he preached here.

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And there's a story in the book of Acts that always when I hear it, I just sit there and go, what is going on here?

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Let me explain. In the book of Acts in chapter 16, Paul and Silas, they breeze into the city of Philippi.

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And after the conversion of Lydia, well, the story goes on to say in verse 16 of chapter 16, as we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination.

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A little bit of a note because every wingnut, wackadoodle charismatic will point out that this is a spirit of Python.

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That's not exactly correct. The Greek word is puthona. And this means that this girl, that she was somehow associated with the oracle at Delphi.

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And in being associated with the oracle at Delphi, she was legitimately demonized. And she brought her owner, so she's a slave girl, she brought her owner as much gain by fortune telling.

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Ah, it tells me something here. The demons are all about fortune telling. And when you see people basically doing fortune telling in the name of Jesus and the

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Holy Spirit, they're teaching doctrines of demons, shall I just put it that way. So she followed

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Paul and she was crying out, these men are servants of the most high

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God who proclaim to you the way of salvation. Now listen, when you have a demon doing

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PR work for you, that's not a good thing. And to the untrained eye, this sounds like a solid statement.

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Well, isn't God the most high God? No, he's the only God. And so you'll note there's a slight little twist in there.

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So this demonized girl is basically saying that Yahweh is just the highest of all the deities.

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And this still then would leave open the possibility for you to believe in and worship Apollo and Zeus and Athena and deities like that, which aren't even deities at all because they don't exist.

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So these men are servants of the most high God who proclaim to you the way of salvation. And this she kept doing for many days.

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Paul, having become greatly annoyed, I think that would be annoying, turned and then said to the

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Spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out that very hour.

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And when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, there goes their fortune -telling gig, right, they seized

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Paul and Silas, dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers, and when they had brought them to the magistrate, they said, these men are

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Jews, and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or to practice.

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And the crowd joined in in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off of them and gave orders to beat them with rods.

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Here's the issue. Paul and Silas are Roman citizens. And being a

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Roman citizen, this form of punishment is illegal. This is only to be practiced on those who are not citizens of Rome.

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But Paul and Silas said nothing at this point.

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They submitted to the beating. They are at this point practicing exactly what it means to overcome evil with good.

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They are not invoking their rights. Their mouths are remaining silent. And they would rather be beaten than to fight this in a way that doesn't give glory to Christ.

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So when they had inflicted many blows on them, which means these men are bruised, they are bleeding, and they have suffered unjustly, all for the name of Christ and doing a good deed in freeing a slave girl from a demon.

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Well, they threw them in prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. And having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

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So I would note prisons are not exactly known for being hygienic. This is a gross place to be.

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I'm sure the smell was awful, probably dank. Rats and things like that. And they're in the stocks.

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Their feet are in shackles. And what do Paul and Silas do? We want our phone call.

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We're going to talk to our attorney. His name is Saul Goodman. You know, you get the idea.

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And boy, once our attorney gets here, we're going to file a lawsuit, and we're going to own you people.

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Isn't that how this works? I mean, how many stories are there about people who have suffered unjustly at the hands of the police or a neighbor or whatever, and when it comes to light that justice wasn't properly done and the procedures that should have been in place weren't in place, what happens?

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Oh, we always hear the stories. They come out in the news, and they're not very long articles. It says something like this.

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Such and such a person settled with the police department for an undisclosed amount of money.

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Undisclosed means it is probably more than a million. Paul and Silas have every right to do this.

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But your note, what do they do while they are in prison? Verse 25.

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Midnight, Paul and Silas were praying, and they were singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.

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What is going on here? This is not how

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I would behave, and I say that to my own shame, but there they are singing hymns and praying and exalting the name of Christ, and everybody's listening to them.

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I would note prisoners don't normally act like this, and that explains why all the prisoners are sitting there going, what's up with those two?

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Well, they're overcoming evil with good now. So suddenly there was a great earthquake.

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The foundation of the prison was shaken. Immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bonds were unfastened.

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And we all know what happens next. Well, with everyone's bonds being unfastened and the doors of the prison being open, all the prisoners are all, prison break!

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Let's get out of here, dude, whoo! And they're out, the door, right? This is how this goes. And of course, guys who are in charge of keeping prisoners, if the prisoners escape, the punishment back in that day for that would be death.

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So everyone knows how this is going to go. Everyone's bonds are unfastened, all the doors are open, and so when the jailer woke and saw the prison doors were open, he drew his sword, and he was about to kill himself.

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Supposing that the prisoners had escaped, but Paul cried out in a loud voice, do not unalive yourself.

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No, that's not exactly how it reads. But do not harm yourself, for we are all here.

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How is that possible? Who restrained these prisoners from fleeing?

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How is it that Paul and Silas would restrain these prisoners and make sure everybody stayed in their place so that this prison guard wouldn't unalive himself when he's the guy who's the representative of the state that's wrongly persecuted them and beaten them even though they were

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Roman citizens? I would note everything about their actions is exactly what

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Paul writes about, overcoming evil with good. And so as a result of this,

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Paul cries out, don't harm yourself. We're all here. The jailer called for lights. He rushed in, trembling with fear.

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He fell down before Paul and Silas, and then he brought them out, and he said, sirs, what must

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I do to be saved? Huh.

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When did he hear the gospel? Probably in the hymns and in the prayers.

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He had paid attention just enough to know something else is at work here. What must

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I do to be saved? And so they said, you believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your entire household.

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And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and all who were in his house. And he took them that same hour of the night, and he washed their wounds.

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And he was baptized at once, he and all of his family, and then he brought them up into his house, and he set food before them, and he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.

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Is this not an example of burning coal being heaped on this fellow to where he recognizes his own wickedness and his need for salvation because Paul and Silas chose to overcome evil with good?

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Now, a little bit of a note here. The magistrates who had done evil need to be made aware that they had done evil.

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And so the next day, the magistrates sent the police saying, you go ahead and let those guys go. And the jailer reported these words to Paul saying, well, the magistrates have sent to let you go, therefore come out now and go in peace.

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Paul said to them, they have beaten us publicly. We were uncondemned men who are

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Roman citizens, and they've thrown us into prison. And do they now throw us out secretly? Now he plays the citizen card.

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But it's not to get vengeance. No, let them come themselves and take us out.

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So the police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were

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Roman citizens. So they came and they apologized to them, and they took them out and asked them to leave the city.

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Do you think Paul and Silas refused to forgive them? Of course they didn't.

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These men apologized rightly for the evil that they had done, but Paul and Silas did not seek vengeance, nor did they seek justice.

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They didn't file a lawsuit, and they didn't report it to the higher magistrates or the procouncils or anybody like that.

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They forgave them and moved on. And this is a testimony against them and a testimony for them of the goodness and mercy that is in Christ.

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And then you'll note from that point on, there is a thriving church in the city of Philippi, and they receive one of the most wonderful letters that Paul has ever written.

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Philippians stands out as a favorite among Christians to read in their devotional reading for good reason because it is the one that teaches us to rejoice in the

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Lord always. And so you'll note that is quite appropriate considering the fact that in the face of affliction and persecution and wrongly being beaten,

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Paul and Silas chose to rejoice and to praise Christ and to pray and to do good and overcome the evil that they had experienced by doing so.

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And who was the stronger on that day? They were, but I would note

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Christ in them was. And let me remind you that when it comes to us that Scripture tells us a wonderful story of how

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Jesus Christ overcame the evil of the entire world, your evil and mine.

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In Romans 5, Paul writes, while we were still weak, at the right time,

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Christ died for the ungodly. One will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die.

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But God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

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You'll note that God sends his Son to bleed and die for your sins and mine, not when we were at our best but at our worst, not when we were trying to do gooder or better, but when we were steeped in ungodliness and iniquity and we were enemies of God.

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God overcame our sinful, wicked evil by doing good, and that good was

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Christ laying down his life for a bunch of rebel enemy sinners like you and I.

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Since therefore we have been justified by Christ's blood, how much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God?

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For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, how much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life?

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More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

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Brothers and sisters, what Paul writes to us in Romans 12 is absolutely 100 % in line with the gospel itself.

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Christ practices what he preaches. The Holy Spirit practices what he preaches to us.

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He did not overcome the evil of this world by doing evil. He overcame the evil of your sin and mine by sending

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Jesus to bleed and die for us while we were enemies of God. And thus he overcame evil by doing good.

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And in our Old Testament text, you'll note then, this theme is not merely in the

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New Testament. It's there present in the Old. If there was ever a person who had right, a right to vengeance, of getting back at people who had wronged him, it was

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Joseph of the Old Testament. Now granted, as a boy, he was pretty stupid, okay?

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Stupid to allow himself to basically parade the fact that dad liked him better than the other boys, right?

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He wore that technicolor dream coat very proudly, and when God gave him prophetic dreams, he was stupid enough to share it with the family, and those dreams involved the other members of his family, including his brothers, bowing down to him.

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Well, this whole situation was so intolerable at this point that Joseph's brothers said, that's it, you're gonna die.

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And they came up with a scheme, executed it, put him in a cistern, and their intent was to kill him.

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But rather than kill him, they decided to sell him into slavery for pieces of silver.

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Hmm, that sounds familiar. And when he gets to Egypt, as a slave,

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Joseph does a great job as a slave. I mean, a fantastic job. So good that his owner doesn't even have to care about anything in his house except for his wife, and he should be worried about his wife because his wife is the one who is guilty of the very first recorded workplace sexual harassment documentation in all of human history.

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I kid you not, that's actually true. And so she has the hots for him, tries to bed him, he continues to rebuff her advances, and finally she flips the script, blames him for coming to her, and then

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Potiphar, in a rage, sends Joseph to prison. And he spends 13 years in prison.

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And the Psalms make it very clear that while he's in prison, he had a shackle around his neck that dug into his skin and hurt him horribly.

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13 years! That is a pretty good time to nurse a grudge.

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But he didn't. And then when he finally reveals to his brothers who he is, you know how the story goes, he doesn't mean harm to them, he means to save their lives because he knows full well that there's many more years of famine left.

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But here's the thing. After everybody moves from Canaan to Goshen, his brothers still fear this, that Joseph's true colors are going to come shining through at some point in the future, and that he will finally get vengeance.

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And they figure that he's putting on a pretense while dad is still alive.

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But as soon as dad is gone, they think, they calculate, that that means that Joseph is finally going to spring his trap and they're going to get what's coming to him.

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And so they concoct a flimsy scheme. They forge a letter from their father, a message from him that he did not write, or words that he did not give, begging them to forgive the transgression that they had committed.

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And they asked him to forgive them, and they even said that they were servants of Joseph.

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But Joseph wept when they spoke to him. He said these words. Do not fear, for am

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I in the place of God. Joseph, even before Paul wrote

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Romans, long before he wrote Romans, he knew full well that it was not his place to take vengeance on anybody, and it's not your place or mine.

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And as a result of it, he knew that this was God's business, vengeance. But God is in the business of saving sinners, like you and I.

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And vengeance will eventually be exacted by God when Christ returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, but only on those who persist in sin and unbelief.

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And you'll note that Christ has built for himself a kingdom over the last 2 ,000 years, a kingdom whose every citizen is a former enemy, a former blasphemer, a former person who hated

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Christ, whom Jesus bled and died for, and how many billions upon billions now have believed in Christ over the millennia and received from him not wrath, but forgiveness, pardon, mercy, and grace.

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The church is to be about the business of proclaiming this Jesus, the one who forgives sins. This is why it's out of place for us to take vengeance.

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This is God's business, not ours. Our business is proclaiming this Jesus, the one who laid down his life for his enemies, who overcame evil by doing good, in fact, taking the worst evil that humanity has ever committed and using that and flipping the whole thing to work our salvation from it.

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So, brothers and sisters, let us take heed then to what Paul says here.

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Because we are so richly forgiven, and undeservedly so, and because our

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God has overcome our evil by sending his son to bleed and to die for us, let us heed these words and note that vengeance is

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God's business, not ours, and that we are to be about the business of overcoming evil by doing good.

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In the name of Jesus. Amen. Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 We thank you for your support.

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