WWUTT 1346 Bless Those Who Persecute You (Romans 12:14)

We read in Romans 12, 13, contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

That's how we deal with one another in the body of Christ. For those who are not in the body, we bless and do not curse when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We come to our study in Romans chapter 12, and I'll start out here by reading verses 14 through 21.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome, 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 heap burning coals on his head.

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

This first line that we have here in verse 14, bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them.

The previous instructions that we've received involved how we relate to one another within the body of Christ.

Let love be genuine, love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer, contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

We need to actively look for ways that we can show love and kindness and charity to one another.

Don't let it be the sort of a thing where something pops up and when that happens, then

I'll do something nice for somebody. As things come up, I'm not going to turn somebody away. No, find ways that you can do kind things for other people.

I almost feel bad when somebody comes to me and says, hey, is there anything I can be doing for you? I wish

I could give them something, I really do, because I think that what they want to be able to do in asking me that question, they want to bless me somehow.

And I want to give them the opportunity to do that. The apostle Paul, when he wrote to the

Philippians, he thanked them for the gift, the money gift that they had collected and sent to Paul.

He says to them in chapter four that he didn't need it, but he's accepting it from them so that they would have a cause for rejoicing in being able to contribute to the ministry that Paul was doing while he was under house arrest there in Rome.

That was why he took the gift from them. But he said to them, I know what it's like to be in need and I know what it's like to have plenty.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Yeah, that verse isn't about running a marathon or winning an

NBA championship. It's about knowing how to endure in times of plenty or in times of want.

The apostle Paul had all his needs provided for, but he accepted the donation that the

Philippians made to him so that it would bless them. And sometimes I think we have this attitude like we don't want to receive anything from anybody because that's the humble thing we're supposed to do, right?

I want to show that I am self -sufficient. I don't want to inconvenience you in any way.

So if you're going to ask me if there's something that you can do for me, I'm going to take the high road and say, nah,

I'm good, I'm fine. When the loving thing to do would be to give that person an opportunity to be a blessing to you.

I mean, can you really grow in showing your love for other people when those people that you're trying to show love to are constantly shutting you down?

So yeah, I think we need to be a little bit more open to letting others serve us.

Sometimes we, I don't know, I think we have this pride that would be wounded if we were to let somebody else serve us in that way.

But you need to be willing to bless others and let them bless you as well.

Several years ago, I traveled around with a guy who used to be a linebacker in the

NFL and during the fall season, we would go into public high schools.

This was back when I was in Christian Radio and we did this for several fall seasons where he would come into the area, this was all over the

Midwest, and we would go to various public high schools and he would do school assemblies teaching the kids to stay away from drugs and alcohol.

Sometimes we would do two or three assemblies in a day. We might do one in the morning, two in the afternoon, or something like that.

Or we would do one in the morning, one in the afternoon, if it was a weekend, if we were hitting like Friday, we would do two school assemblies and then we would invite everybody to a big thing on Friday night.

And that was where we would do more gospel sharing. The guy that I was with, he would do that anyway.

We would tell the schools we're coming in to tell the kids to stay away from drugs and alcohol. The school would go, oh, well, that would be great.

So he comes in and he gives that speech. Then he also throws in abstinence, save yourself until you're married.

And then he would also throw in the gospel. I think we got talked to twice. There was two occasions anyway, where like the principal or superintendent or somebody came to us and said, yeah, don't do that.

You know, sharing the gospel like that, we're not supposed to do that to us. It was like, oh, well, we we did it anyway.

Anyway, so what was my point? OK, we were he was talking with me one time about how people would come up to him occasionally and they would just try to hand him money, like five dollars, ten dollars or something like that.

Now, this was a guy who played in the NFL. He was used to seeing big paychecks, so he didn't like the ten dollar gifts.

He would tell them he would tell them to keep it and say, I think you need this more than I need this. And he thought that he was doing something kind for those persons when he would do stuff like that.

But I remember the second or third year that we got together and we were doing this, I noticed that he started taking the money.

And so somebody would come up to him and say, hey, here's ten dollars for your ministry or something like that. And he would take the ten dollars.

So I asked him about it one time. If I recall when we did this last year, you weren't taking the money.

You would tell them to keep their money. And he said, yeah, I actually I had a little old lady tell me off one time for doing that.

She was offering me twenty dollars and I tried to do that same thing. I gave it back to her and I said, ma 'am,

I think that you need this more than I need it. The Lord has taken good care of me. So you use this on you.

And she pulls out my hand, this little old lady grabbing a big football player's hand, and she pulls it right down and she sticks the 20 in my hand and she closes my hand around that 20.

And she says to me, sometimes you need to let others be a blessing to you.

And he said, from that day forward, if somebody wanted to hand me a 10 or a 20 or something like that, I'm going to take it so that it would be a blessing to them.

They have that opportunity to be a blessing to somebody else. So sometimes we need to do that.

Be open, be willing to let someone else bless you.

Maybe even have some things that that you can you can tell somebody that they can do for you.

Somebody says, hey, how can I help you? Well, I need my house painted. I don't know. I'm just throwing that one out there.

We don't need our house painted. That wasn't a hint that I was dropping there. Anyway, we need a house.

That's that's where we are right now. We're looking for a house. So seek to show hospitality, as is said here in Romans 12, 13, actively look for ways that you can show hospitality.

You can show kindness and charity and love and contribution to another people, but also be someone who is willing to receive that from others.

We go on here to verse 14. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them.

I kind of rabbit trailed there. The point that I was making in all of that and going back through verses nine through 13 is all those instructions had to do with how we as Christians are to love one another, how we are to care for each other in the body of Christ.

That's not a comprehensive list. There's more that could be added to it than that. But you get kind of a bare bones basics there on how we are to show genuine love for each other.

When you get to verse 14. This is not necessarily about people in the church. I mean,

I guess it could be blessed those who persecute you. There are going to be people within the church that that look like their brothers or sisters, and they may not actually be.

And they instead become accusers of the brethren and they beat their fellow servants.

The story of the abusive servant, the unmerciful servant that Jesus gave there at the end of Matthew, chapter 24.

So maybe they're like that. Maybe it's something like that. I guess this could happen in a church. But generally, when we're reading about persecution, we're talking about this coming from outside the church, people who hate

Christians. They hate the pursuit of godliness. They hate everything that you stand for. Peter says in first Peter, chapter four, that they will malign you just because you don't join them in their flood of debauchery.

So it's not even the fact that you're trying to preach the gospel to them and they hate the gospel that you're proclaiming. They just hate the fact that you're not involved in the same sin that they love.

So when someone persecutes you, the apostle Paul says, bless them, bless and do not curse them.

In other words, the words that come from our mouths toward those who are persecuting us needs to be a blessing to them and not cursing them, not condemning them because that's not up to us.

We don't know what the eternal state of that person's soul is going to be for the time being.

If the wrath of God were to come down on them now, then they're probably going to perish in judgment.

But overall, who can say what's going to happen to that person later on down the road? So be a blessing to them and let the

Lord deal with that person as it would seem fit unto God. Jesus said in the

Sermon on the Mount that we are to love those who persecute us. This is Matthew chapter five, verse 10, still in the

Beatitudes, it says, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. They hate you just because of your righteousness.

Verse 11, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Now, this is something that we as Christians, particularly Christians in America, we don't handle this very well.

We don't do well with this at all in the whole thing with with being reviled by others and returning blessing onto them.

What is generally the way that you see a Christian in America respond to somebody who reviles them?

What you see is they revile them back. Right. And and I'm convicted in saying this because I've certainly not been perfect in my responses to this either.

Some of you have witnessed the way that I respond to people on social media. And for the most part, you would say

Gabe does a great job of treating people graciously who who treat him not so graciously.

And I think that I have a good enough reputation in that way. And I've I've made enough of a public presentation of myself that I am not somebody who's generated a reputation for being deliberately quarrelsome or throwing out put downs or things like that.

But I'm not perfect at that. And there are places where I could certainly do better at that.

In fact, I could tell you that on the other side of the computer, sometimes when somebody is throwing something especially hurtful at me and maybe they just hit me the right note, the right time on that certain day.

And it really gets me more than other comments get me. I know that for my public witness,

I need to respond a certain way. And so the way that I respond is going to be as God honoring as it should look.

But internally, I'm screaming at this person. I cannot stand what this person has said.

And man, I know the perfect comeback and I really want to give them what for. And I'm seething over it.

So what you see is a response that, well, Gabe was really kind toward that person, though they were not so kind to him.

But no, on the other side of my computer, I'm going, oh, I really I really want to say this.

But I know that wouldn't be the right thing to say. That's not every occasion. I'm just saying sometimes that happens.

Now that I've told that story, if you're ever seeing me interact with someone online, you're going to go, oh, OK, I know

Gabe is actually screaming in his office right now. No, that's that's not what I'm saying is sometimes in my heart,

I'm not as kind as I probably come across. And that's an area where I need to work on that.

Even in my reaction, in my heart, I want there to be a desire for this other person to repent of their sin and come to Christ.

Not a desire to want to tear this person down because they just tried to do that to me.

And so we need to have an attitude of heart that is going to be gracious to people, even in the moments when we are insulted, persecuted, reviled, the moment when that happens, we're not thinking about how we can get revenge on this person.

What we're thinking about is how we can be a blessing in return. And being a blessing in return may may mean that you're not responding to them at all.

So what they want is to get you riled up. What they want is the attention that you would probably give to them by continuing to respond to the hurtful insults that they are throwing at you.

And probably the most charitable thing that you can do for that person in that moment is to not reply, because otherwise it would just escalate the situation.

It would increase tensions. And where does that go? Who comes out better for that at all?

What ends up happening is that you get down in the mud and you wrestle with them. You both end up dirty.

And the person who was throwing the dirt in the first place likes it. It's the old adage that goes, never wrestle with a pig.

You both get dirty and the pig likes it. Jesus said this another way in Matthew seven, six, do not give dogs what is holy and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

Sometimes there may need to be a discernment in the sense that we know where not to engage.

If I were to get involved further in this particular situation, it's just going to get worse.

And that's going to be a poor witness for the faith, especially in front of unbelievers.

So we need to bless those who persecute us, bless and do not curse them. One of the number one ways that we become a blessing to those who persecute us is we pray for them.

Remember what Jesus said about how we respond to our enemies. Matthew five, forty three.

You have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven, for he makes his son to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

And if you greed only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the

Gentiles do the same. You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

Because our heavenly father has received us and we were enemies of God, were we not?

Yes, we were. And Jesus prayed for us. He prayed for his enemies.

When you read the high priestly prayer in John chapter 17, he prayed for others in the world who were going to come out of the world and into Christ, into his glorious kingdom.

Romans 5, 8 says God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

We were once enemies of God. He gave us his son by faith in Jesus. We have now become friends of God.

So as God has shown this kind of love to us, so we are to love even our enemies, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

So one of the first ways you bless those who persecute you is to pray for them.

So that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven, bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them.

Who knows what will happen to that person later on down the road? And I think something that ties in with this as well,

Romans 12, 14 is a verse that comes later on 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. We should hope that the person who persecutes us would repent of their sin and come to Christ and be saved.

Why would we ever want to wish hell on anybody? The wrath of God burning for all eternity on a person.

We should not want that for the person. What we want them to do is repent and trust in Christ and so be saved.

Bless those who persecute you by sharing the gospel with them. If that opportunity is there and if it is

God's will that that person not turn from their sin, but they actually continue in their rebellion, a rebellion to their own destruction, vengeance belongs to the

Lord. Do not take the matter into your own hands. All things will be made right by God in the end.

Let us pray. Heavenly father, we thank you for this good word always. And I pray that we heed these instructions, that we understand what it means to contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show to show hospitality and how we deal with one another in the body of Christ.

But yet we also understand this for those who hate us and persecute us. We are to bless them.

We are to bless and not to curse them. For you have blessed us with the salvation that we have in your son, with the fellowship we have with God through Jesus Christ, our

Lord. May we be able to extend that blessing to others who have need of the forgiveness of sins and rightfulness with God.

Thank you for the blessing you give to us daily. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. You can find a complete list of videos, books, devotionals, and other resources online at www .utt

.com. Thanks for listening. Amen.