Overcoming Evil With Good (Part 2)

Let me have you turn to Romans. 12, for our time of study in God's word, this morning. We're in a section of Romans 12 where Paul is teaching us how to Overcome evil with good. And so if you want to give a title to the message, it would be Overcoming Evil with Good Part 2.

Last week we looked at verses 17 and 18, and today we'll be looking at verse 19. Paul is giving us a strategy here on how to respond when wrongs are done against us. Let me begin reading in verse 17, and we'll reread through this section. Of Romans 12.

Paul says, never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God.

For it is written, Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, You feed him. And if he is thirsty, you give him a drink.

For in so doing, you will heap burning coals upon his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. When Paul makes the statement that he makes or gives the counsel that he delivers in verse 21, I don't know that he's really adding something tremendously new. As much as he's providing for us a summary of what he's been doing in verse 17, and following, Paul would tell us what I'm trying to do in this section is to give you a strategy on how to prevent yourself from being overcome by evil and instead, to overcome evil that is done against you with, with good.

In fact, the Greek word that is translated overcome twice in verse 21 is the Greek verb nikao, nikao, and you see that basic word all the time. If you see a swoosh, the company Nike, basically all they did is they took the Greek word for victory and overcoming and said that's going to be our company name. And what that word Nike means, it's a noun that means victory or overcoming. And that's what Paul is talking about in this passage.

He says, I want to teach you how to be victorious in the face of evil. He says, do not be nika by evil, but instead, nikao evil with good. I want you to be victorious over evil by using good. See, guys, the victorious life as a Christian is not a life wherein no wrongs are ever committed against you.

If somehow you could arrange your life to where no one can ever hurt you anymore, no one can ever do wrong against you anymore. That's not a life of Nike. A life of Nike is a life where wrongs are done against you. But you have learned to follow the strategy that Paul gives in this passage to actually overcome those evils that are done against you with good.

So what we'll be looking at in our passage is in verse 19 is essentially 3 more ways, 3 more ways to Overcome evil that is done against you with good. We learned 3 ways last Sunday, and we're going to learn 3 more ways, this morning. Just by way of reviewing last Sunday in verses 17 and 18, we learned, that the first way The first element of the strategy of overcoming evil with good is number one, do not retaliate against people with evil for evil. When somebody does wrong against you, don't respond to their wrong by doing wrong against them.

And guys, we all just need to be honest and admit the fact that we do respond with evil for evil. This is a natural instinct, and we do it in ways large and small, do we not? Someone gives us the silent treatment, so we give them the silent treatment in return. Someone lashes out at us verbally in a moment of anger, we lash right back at them.

We know in the moment that it's wrong, but we give them a taste of their own medicine. Someone curses us, we curse them. Back, someone snubs us, and we greeted them and said hi to them and they didn't respond. so we judge them for not responding.

Maybe they didn't hear us, but we're not even thinking about that. How dare them not respond to me, or say hi to me. And so the next time they see us and say hi to us, we just ignore them and act like we don't hear. Someone who lets us down and doesn't do what they should have done in their relationship with us now entitles us to let them down.

And we're thinking, I know I should do this for this person. but what, they're not doing what they're supposed to do. So what, I'm not going to do what I'm supposed to do. The list can go on and on.

Paul says, if you retaliate with evil for evil, you've already lost, you've already lost. And you've given that other person and the evil that they did the ultimate victory. A second piece of counsel that he gives to overcome evil with good is we learned last week, premeditate the doing of right in the sight of all men. basically, he's saying in the face of evil, do right.

But he's saying more than do right, he's saying do that which is morally good and beautiful. But he's saying more than just do what's morally good and beautiful. Literally, it's prethink what is morally good and beautiful, premeditate, think about this, and execute the plan that you've been pondering and thinking about rather than stewing over the wrong they've done. Or stewing over and meditating over what you wish you could do to them in retaliation, prethink, premeditate the doing of good.

And Paul goes beyond even just saying premeditate the doing of what's morally good and beautiful. And he says, ponder, premeditate, prethink the doing of what's morally good and beautiful in the sight of all men. What he's calling us to do is not just think about what is right in the sight of God. We always need to think about that.

What is right in the sight of God? That's the one thing that we ought to care more about than anything else. But this God that we want to please is telling us here, I want you to also think about what is right in the sight of men, including those in the sight of those who have wronged you. Give thought to what is morally good and beautiful in their sight.

And whatever that is, go there and prethink that and do that by way of showing love to them. And in this way, you do all that you can to be at peace with everyone. what, guys, when there, there's different ways that people may do evil against us. Someone may just outright wrong you as an individual, but But there are times where there are people in our culture that do wrong against God's agenda that we're seeking to follow.

And we're trying to believe the truth and be advocates for the truth. And there are those that will position themselves against us and against everything that we stand for, and speak out against us and speak out against the truth. Such individuals are doing wrong against God. And against us in the process.

Paul would say what I'm saying here applies. And that is to give thought to what you and your opponent, even your non-Christian opponent deems to be morally good and beautiful. Go there and do that. last week, I showed you this diagram.

And I'm showing it to you again because there was a typo down at the bottom corner speaks of those who have the law of God written in their hearts. I had Romans 5, that should be Romans, I'm sorry, Romans 2:5, and it should be Romans 2:15, which you see now. But the black circle represents those who are in darkness, those who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ, the yellow circle represents the values that are held by those of us that are believers. And while so much of what we may stand for is diametrically opposed, the teaching of the New Testament sustains the fact that there is overlap.

There are things that we and non-Christians together esteem to be morally good and beautiful. And Paul is saying give thought to this, do those things that both God and, and the values of God's word, and even nonbelievers esteem to be beautiful. And then leave the results to God, but seek to love people from that position. Of common ground I was reading to my children this week, the story of a woman, Rosario Butterfield.

Maybe you have heard of her. She was a professor, about a decade and a half ago at Syracuse University. she had declared herself, I believe, at the age of 28, publicly to be a lesbian. she was a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church.

And her ministry was, as coordinator of the welcoming Committee, which was essentially a gay and lesbian advocacy group. She was the keynote speaker at various gay and lesbian pride marches. And I give you that backdrop to just ask you, if you had an opportunity to speak to such a woman, what would your disposition be? Towards her.

Would you find any common ground with this woman at all, something that both she and you esteem to be morally good and beautiful, and from that basis of common ground to minister the grace and the truth of Christ. This woman on top of the description I just gave, A decade and a half ago, I'll let her tell you, she says, I was doing initial research and writing for my second book, a study of the rise of the religious right in America and the hermeneutic of hatred that the religious right uses against their favorite target, queers, people like me.

And so she's putting her efforts into doing this research and writing, and during that time period, she wrote an editorial in the local newspaper at Syracuse about the Promise Keepers movement and she blasted them for being patriarchal and for their gender. Politicking that she thought that they were guilty of and after that editorial was published, there was a variety of responses.

She said, I received a batch of mail hate mail and fan mail. I received so many letters for this little editorial that I kept empty Xerox paper boxes on both sides of my desk, one for hate mail and one for fan mail. So a letter would come in. Someone's just bashing her for what she said.

She'd put that in the hate mail. Someone writes in and says, great job. I agree with everything you said. She put that in the fan mail, and that's both of those stacks were getting higher and higher.

She said though that in this batch of mail, I also received a letter from Pastor Ken Smith, then pastor of the Syracuse Reformed Presbyterian Church. It was a kind and inquiring letter. It encouraged me to explore the questions that I admire. Questions like, how did you arrive at your interpretations?

How do you are right? Do you believe in God? He didn't argue with my article. He asked me to explore and defend the presuppositions that undergirded it.

I didn't really know how to respond to Ken's letter, but I found myself reading and rereading it. I didn't know which box to file this letter in. And so it sat on my desk and haunted me. She goes on to share how over the next week she hated a messy desk, and so she kept trying to figure out what do I do with this letter, which box do I put it in?

And she said she threw it away a handful of times, but at the end of the workday before she went home, she went back to the recycle bin and she would fish that letter out and put it back on her desk. She couldn't get rid of this, this letter. What was it about this letter? That drew her to it.

She said it was the kindest letter of opposition that I had ever received. At the end of this letter, this pastor pleaded with her to call him. After a week had gone by, she was talking to one of her colleagues who said, call them, it'd be great for your research. So she called this pastor and they had a conversation over the phone.

He then invited her into his home so that he and his wife could have her over for dinner and they could, they could talk about whatever. She accepted his invitation. And it's interesting the way she unpacked what her thinking was at that point. She says, what, I was a very hospitable person, and I loved having people into my home.

So when this pastor invited me into my home, it really meant a lot to me. I appreciated and respected that. This woman was also a vegetarian, and, and so, She thought that eating meat was an act of violence, and she was blessed that when she went into this pastor's home that they served a vegetarian meal. Also, she didn't like air conditioning because she believed that it was bad for the environment.

And she looked around when she came in and duly noted that though it's a hot summer day, they're not running the air conditioner. In fact, they have fans around their house to keep the house cool. So she's noticing these things that are putting her at ease, and she's realizing, man, maybe we have more in common. Then I thought.

They had a great dinner and with that meeting in this pastor's home that began a two-year journey of conversations in his home, in her home at Syracuse University, in the coffee shop, and she began asking questions and they conversed in earnest. They found out a lot more that they had in common. They both loved a lot of the same literature. And the basis of their dialogue got broader and broader.

She began reading the Bible voraciously from Genesis to Revelation in massive doses, and God began to work in her heart, and two years later, this woman turned to the Lord Jesus Christ, and embraced him. As her Lord and her Savior and began a life of daily repentance and healing that all of us are on. Amen. This woman's story is told in the book, The Secret Thoughts of an unlikely convert, and she tells these details and many more.

But I appreciate the approach of this pastor who reached out to her with respect and with kindness, and the Lord used that ultimately to draw her to a saving knowledge of Christ. I don't share this with you to say, hey, just be nice to everybody, be kind and beautiful and everything you do towards the lost, and automatically they're going to change and fall all over themselves and believe what you believe. That's not my point. Some will be touched, and God will find that useful.

Others may hate you all the more. But whatever the results may be, God commands you. to prethink what is morally good and beautiful in the sight of God and in the sight of all men. Whatever the results may be, you need to obey Scripture.

And as I mentioned last Sunday, we are called in the church, as Francis Schaeffer says, to be not only right, but beautiful. And we leave the results to God. So in the face of evil, that is done against us or done against God's agenda that we are seeking to be advocates for. Paul is teaching us, don't retaliate with evil for evil, but give thought to what is morally good and beautiful in the sight of all men and seek.

As much as lies within you to be at peace with all men. There's a 4th. way to respond to evil. in a way that helps you to be an overcomer of evil with good.

And let's put it this way, never take your own revenge, no matter how just it seems to do so. Never take your own revenge, no matter how just or how righteous it seems to do so. Look what Paul says in verse 19. He says, Never take your own revenge, beloved.

OK. Now, on the surface, it seems like Paul is saying something almost exactly like what he just said in verse 17. In verse 17, he says, never pay back evil for evil to anyone. And now it sounds like he's just saying the same thing in a different way.

Don't take your own revenge, beloved, why would Paul repeat himself? Well, in a way, There is some overlap here between the ideas, but Paul is actually saying something quite different than repaying evil for evil. Let me explain it this way, that the verb that is translated take revenge is not a bad word. The revenge or vengeance that's being spoken about is not a bad thing.

It's actually the verb ek decao, and that ek just simply is an intensifying prefix added to the verb. Dekeo is that root word that we find throughout the book of Romans that is almost always translated as righteousness. So it's a good word. It speaks of justice.

retributive justice, justice by way of retribution against those who do wrong. This is good. In fact, we're going to learn in just a moment. It's so good that God says this justice belongs to me.

And what Paul is saying here, though, to you and to me, is, don't ever let yourself be your own executioner of retributive justice. No matter how right it seems, don't give in to this instinct. Now in our day to day there are times where we are wronged in profound ways. Some of you have been wronged in horrifying ways growing up and even at the present time, and your heart is screaming out for justice, for ek decao that doesn't seem to be coming at all or coming quickly at all throughout church history.

When you read a passage like this, you want to, at least in your mind to just imagine yourself sitting alongside of Christians over the last 2000 years who have been horribly persecuted, suffered horribly, and they're reading passages like this. Their hearts are screaming out for justice, and yet they're being told, do not take your own revenge. They're Christians today in the Sudan. Christian men who because they claim the name of Christ have had their hands cut off, so that they cannot work, their feet cut off so that they cannot walk.

They're Christian women who have had their breasts cut off so that they cannot nurse their children. And imagine sitting next to them, reading a passage like this, don't ever be your own executioner of retributive justice. Richard Wormbrandt in his book, Tortured for Christ tells about An incident where a Romanian Christian pastor Pastor Florescu. would not turn over names of leaders in the underground church.

And he had to stand there and watch the communist guards beat his son to death, because he would not renounce Christ and turn over the names of his brothers and sisters in Christ, he had to watch his son be beat to death. Richard Rembrandt also tells about a wedding ceremony where a bride and a groom, they were about to begin the ceremony. The bride was dressed for the occasion. And the communist guard showed up, which he said they love to do at a Christian wedding.

Before the ceremony began, they came and they took the bride, they handcuffed her, and they led her away. And over a period of 5 years they raped and they ravaged. And they horribly treated this woman, and after 5 years of using and abusing her, they handed her back to her groom. And to her family.

Such a sister in Christ, we sit next to her as we read verse 19. Never Never take your own revenge. Our hearts cry out for justice to be done. That's not a bad desire.

We want justice to be done for the wrongs that are done against us and against others. And Paul is saying, my counsel to you is you are not to be the executioner of your own retributive justice against those who have done wrong to you. In Proverbs 20:22, Solomon says, Do not say, I will repay evil. In Proverbs 24:29, do not say, Thus I shall do to him as he has done to me.

Very consistent with what Paul is saying here. Never take your own revenge in the face of wrongs that are done. You want justice to be done. And God is saying, you are not to be the one who brings retribution upon those who have done wrong to you.

If you want to be an overcomer of evil with good, Then you need to keep these things in mind and make sure that you do not take your own revenge, no matter how just or right it may feel to do so. There's a 5th thing that you want to make sure to do in the face of wrongs that are done against you, if you want to be an overcomer of evil with good, and that is remember that you are loved by God. Remember that you are loved by God. Paul says in Romans 12:19, never take your own revenge, beloved.

Now we would miss that if we're reading quickly through this passage, but I believe this word beloved is actually the hub that makes this whole section of Romans 12 work for us. At the core of what Paul is teaching here, is the standing reality that we are loved, that we are loved by God. And Paul would say, now why. I waited until this point of the letter to give you this counsel here.

I've spent Romans chapters 1 through 12 explaining to you how amazingly loved you are. And in the context of that love being loved by God, I now can give you this counsel and you have the resource to actually carry it out. Indeed, in the gospel, we learned that we are loved by, by God. In Romans 5:8, Paul says God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Guys, look at, look at what Paul is saying in this passage. You want justice to be done. How's this for justice? You were once an enemy of God, having sinned against God, and yet God demonstrated his love towards you and that while you were yet a sinner, Christ died for your sins.

He died for you. He died in your place, so that you would not have to. In our moments where our hearts are crying out for justice upon all those evildoers who wrong us, we do well to remember that one of the key ways that God has shown love to us, who are beloved ones, is that He had His Son Jesus Christ bear his wrath and die for the sins that we committed. Christ was innocent.

And yet Christ died for us and for our sins. Paul in Romans 8 unpacks the love of God for us in amazing ways. Romans 8:28, we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to His purpose. So God's, we just need to realize that in moments where we're being wronged, whatever our circumstances may be, we need to understand that these circumstances have been providentially allowed by God, only because they serve his gospel purposes in me, and God will because he loves me.

He will cause everything to work together for good, including this wrong that is done against me. In verse 31 of Romans 8, we learned that God is for us and if God is for us, who can be against us? Verse 32, he who spared not his own son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? Verse 35, who will separate us from the love of Christ?

Let people come and do what they want. Let them wrong us, however, they might choose to wrong us, there is nothing they can do ever that will separate us from the love of Christ. Amen. Even if they come with a sword.

And cut us in half and kill us. The next moment we awaken in the presence of the Lord Jesus still in His love. No one can separate us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God.

In fact, it's in this certain knowledge. Look what Paul says, verse 37. It's in all of these things that we overwhelmingly conquer. Hupernikao.

All right, we experience Nike and not just Nike, but super Nike through Him who loved us. It is in the certain knowledge of the love of God for us that we can Be victorious, overwhelmingly experience victory in the face of evils that are done against us. And he says in verse 39, there is absolutely nothing at the present time or in the future that could ever separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And Paul, just with having elaborated on all of those things and more, comes into chapter 12.

And all of that is packed inside this one word, beloved. You're being wronged. Just amongst the other places I'm going to tell you to go in your mind, I want your mind to go here. And that is that you are loved by God.

You say, well, if God loves me, why would he allow evils to be committed against me? what, there's some answers to that, but a lot of that is shrouded in mystery. all I can say. I ask you the question.

Of everyone who has ever lived in human history, who has God the Father loved more than any other? His Son Jesus Christ. And yet Jesus Christ was the greatest recipient of the greatest evils ever experienced in the history of the world. And yet, what, he overwhelmingly triumphed through them.

And Christ held on to that knowledge of being loved by his father. And even with his dying breath, he was entrusting himself to his Father and surrendered his spirit to the care of his father. And we can rest in this certain knowledge as well. We are loved by God.

Interestingly enough, Paul, he reminds us that we're loved, but then he goes to another place that may be surprising, and gives us a 6th piece of counsel, a 6th thing that we need to do as a part of the strategy of of overcoming evil with good. And let's word it this way, leave room for the wrath and the perfect justice of God. Leave room for the wrath and the perfect justice of God. Look what Paul says.

He says, never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance or retributive justice is mine. And I will repay, says the Lord. So Paul says, hey, in the face of wrongs done against you, think about the love of God, but also ponder the reality of the wrath of God in such moments. Paul says, leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written.

And Paul is quoting here from Deuteronomy 32:35, at least in part, where it says, Vengeance is mine and retribution. In due time there the wicked, their foot will slip for the day of their calamity is. Near and the impending things are hastening upon them. God is affirming here that vengeance, justice belongs to him, and he will repay, though it may not seem like he is, he will, though you may not see the judgment coming upon the wicked, it is hastening upon them.

Paul turns our thoughts to the wrath of God. You want to respond properly in the face of evil, you need to have a robust understanding, not only of the love of God, but also of the wrath of God. I want to encourage you guys to be thinkers, to be students of theology, students of scripture. If you got this understanding of the gospel, and a shallow understanding of God's love, and you have no or a shallow understanding of the doctrine of the wrath of God, you will not have the resource to respond rightly to even the smallest of evils that are done against you.

Paul talks about the wrath of God here. We can define wrath as the anger of God, the anger of God against sin. This anger is born out of his love, and out of his righteousness. And the wrath of God includes not only the idea of his anger, but the expression of that anger in the form of just or righteous retribution.

It's born out of his love, his love for his people. His wrath is birthed out of his love for his Son, his love for the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. It is birthed out of his love for righteousness and for truth and for holiness, how deep the love of God the Father is for such things, that's how deep his anger and wrath is against anything that is contrary. To these things that he loves.

You may say, wow, I, I'm uncomfortable here. I was having a good time in the service to you brought up the wrath of God. Pastor Mel, I, I just don't believe God is a God of wrath. I don't want to believe in a God like that.

I believe God is a God of love, and A God of love and a God of wrath is mutually exclusive. So I'd, I'd rather just think of him as a God of love and not a God of anger and wrath. Well, the scripture says that he has wrath, and I could point to that, but I could also just ask you a question. If you don't want a god of wrath, I would just ask, do you really want a God who has no wrath?

You really want a God who never Feels any righteous anger. You really want a God who can look at what was done against millions of Jews in the Holocaust and feel nothing but benign tolerance. In the face of such evils, You really want a God who can observe a terrorist hijacking a plane full of people and running that plane into a building, killing everyone on board and people, thousands in the building itself. You really want a God who feels no wrath, no anger.

Against such evils, you really want a God who can see 7-year-old girls that are sold by their parents in Southeast Asia to sex traffickers, and these girls are drugged and they are used and abused often by the thousands over a period of years. do you want a God who can behold such things and feel no anger and no wrath? I, I don't think upon careful thought that you would want such a God. in fact, honestly, guys, if you take away the wrath of God and say, I don't want a God of wrath, I just want a God of love.

So you eliminate the concept of a God of wrath, what you've just done. You're now left with a God who's not even love. I love my 4 children. If I walk out of my house one day and there's someone who has come by our neighborhood and they're just Doing something terrible that's injuring one of my children in my front lawn and they're just hurting them in some way and I just stood there and beheld that and felt nothing but benign tolerance and said, well, they're obviously operating according to their value system and that's their truth and that's right to them.

It's not to me, but who am I to judge? And if I felt nothing in my heart, in terms of anger and wrath against the evil that is being done against my child, my child would have every reason to look at me and say, you don't love me at all. And any of you would be able to look at me in such a moment and say, you don't even know the beginning of the meaning. Of love.

If you really love Then however deep is your love, that will be how deep your wrath and your anger is against anything that is contrary to that, and God loves His Son. He loves the Holy Spirit. He loves truth. He loves righteousness.

He loves the world. And however deep that love is, that's how passionate and deep is his wrath and anger against sin and deception and lies and The evils that are done. In fact, as Becky Pippert says, I love this. She says anger isn't the opposite of love, hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference.

And God is anything but indifferent to the evils that are done. So let's get rid of the notion that a God of wrath and a God of love are mutually exclusive. No, both of those are beautifully presented in Scripture, and we see them in the same breath. Paul so comfortably goes from talking about the fact that we're loved by God in the book of Romans and even in this verse to talking about his wrath.

They belong together. You eliminate one, and you eliminate the other with it. This is also not the first time that we've seen God's wrath mentioned in the book of Romans. You can develop quite a theology just from the passages in Romans, wherein God's wrath is mentioned.

In Romans 1:18, Paul says the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. And a part of the demonstration of his wrath is handing people over to their sinful, lustful desires. That is an expression of his wrath, letting people go deeper and deeper. And to sin.

In Romans 2, Paul says, because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself and the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. But to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath, and indignation is what awaits them. In Romans 3:5, Paul says, the God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is he? Of course not, is the answer.

In Romans 5:9, Paul says, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. In Romans 9:22, he speaks of God demonstrating his wrath. Don't try to write all this down, but you can, you can start making some theological statements about the wrath of God just from these passages. You can observe that God's wrath is being revealed against ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

So his wrath is against sin. But not only that, but we learn in chapter 2 that his wrath is expressed against people who are stubborn, unrepentant, and who disobey the truth. In Romans 2:5, we can say that infer from this that God's wrath will be fully expressed in a future day of judgment. From chapter 3, verse 5, we observed that his wrath is fully righteous.

It's not some whimsical tirade, where God says and does things that are wrong and careless. No, it is a perfect flawless wrath. Now you and I, we can't really hardly ever get angry and express that anger without sinning in some way. God's wrath is totally righteous, both in where it comes from and how it is expressed.

We also can infer from Romans 5:9 that God's wrath is something that we need to be saved from. You realize that part of our message is to those outside of Christ we can come to them and say you have a big problem. And I love you enough to want to tell you you have a big problem. Well, what's that?

Your biggest problem is God. You have a God problem. You need to be saved from God. God's wrath is real.

And it's righteous, and it's against sin and against those who do sin. You need to be saved from His wrath, and I'm here to tell you that God has sent His Son into the world. He has initiated this action on your. On behalf, and he sent His Son into the world, to live a perfect life deserving no wrath.

And then on the cross, God's wrath fell upon Jesus Christ. He bore the wrath of God that you deserve for your sins. God then raised him from the dead and seated him at his own right hand where Christ reigns from on high right now. And if you would simply look to Jesus and see your bankruptcy and believe in him, God says, I promise you, here's the deal, you believe in my Son, I forgive you of all of your sins, and you will escape forever my wrath.

It will not fall upon you because it fell upon Jesus. God's wrath is something we need to be saved from, and it's something that Christ actually does save us from those of us who have believed in Him. But coming back to verse 19 of Romans 12, Paul says, leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance or retributive justice is mine, and I will repay. God is saying justice belongs to me.

The reason I don't want you, paying people back and being an executioner of justice is because that's my job. And I will do my job perfectly. I will repay. God says.

What he's affirming here is a very sobering truth, that every sin that has ever been committed throughout the history of the world will be punished. It will be punished. And for those who do not believe in Jesus, they will bear in their own persons for all of eternity, that justice, that retribution, for those who do believe in Jesus, that justice falls upon Jesus. It's absorbed by Jesus.

But their sins are paid for. They're just paid for by Jesus. God says justice is mine. And I will repay.

We can say it this way, guys, that the right to deliver, retributive justice, according to a passage like this, combined with one other, I'm going to point you to in just a second, that the right to deliver retribution and justice belongs to God alone. And to those to whom he bestows it. The right to execute retributive justice belongs to God alone, and to those whom he in Scripture bestows that right. I want to have you look at a passage, a verse in chapter 13, just a few verses from here.

A couple of weeks ago, I was called in for jury duty and parked in a parking garage downtown Riverside as I was walking from the courthouse after I got dismissed, I walked by this monument. You guys have seen it, and I believe it's a police officer holding a child and there is a A verse of scripture. on this monument, and it's a quotation from Romans chapter 13 verse 4. By the way, I took that picture with my iPhone.

But I, I don't know if, if that's real clear. This is a quote from, I think the King James Version. So let me just read it from the New American Standard Translation. This is the quote that's downtown Riverside, representing the power that is vested in Our local government, it says for it, the government is a minister of God to you for good.

But if you do what is evil, be afraid. For it, the government does not bear the sword for nothing, for it, the government is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. Now, no government is perfect. Our local government, our police department is not perfect.

Our federal government, The state government is not perfect in the way that they go about exercising this right that is given to them by God, but to the degree that our police department, our courts, our state, federal government, and our military, to the degree that they are fulfilling their calling. And being an avenger who brings wrath upon those who practice evil, they are actually fulfilling their mandate that is recorded here in Romans 13:4. That word avenger, guys, is the same word that is found in Romans 12:19.

Same word.

So God is the one who executes retributive justice. and we need to leave that to him. We should not just be our own little vigilante, executing justice on people who wrong us. And so we need to leave that to God.

But then God tells us just a few verses later, that vengeance is mine, to repay, but I bestow that upon governmental institutions as imperfect as they are. And whether it's the police, or the courts or the judges, or our military, they, when they do what they're supposed to do, they're actually agents of God's retributive justice on those within our society who are practicing evil, and those outside of our society who are seeking to do evil against us and against our nation. In fact, I don't know if you guys have ever seen this bumper sticker.

It's a Marine Corps bumper sticker.

It's God's job to judge the terrorists. It's our mission to arrange the meeting. You ever seen that? actually, whoever made this bumper sticker is selling the Marines a little short here because according to Romans chapter 13 verse 4, it is the job of the military, it is the job of our police, it is the job of our court system to actually engage in that judging.

To do the avenging. Against those who practice evil. And so I just point this out so that we have a balanced perspective. I know there were questions even raised last week., obviously if someone's trying to break into your home and do you harm, we're not talking about retribution.

We're talking about acting according to the law of love, and I'm going to protect myself and I'm going to protect my family. I'm going to love my family by protecting them. That's not doing evil for evil. That's showing love and protecting.

But once an evil has been done, It is poison to your soul. If you allow a spirit of vengeance to come inside of you, and you will settle for nothing less than you being the executioner of justice and retribution on those who do evil against you. You need to realize I'm loved by God. He's taken notes, he's taken names.

Nothing has escaped his notice. When I stand before God on Judgment Day and see how he has perfectly executed justice, I will praise him for his love of justice. And I will praise him for how he has executed that retribution upon those who practice evil. I will find no fault.

I will not say, what, Lord, you did a great job, but, but there was something you missed back in 2013. Someone said this to me and did this to me, and I, I don't, I don't think he handled that well. That's not going to happen. We're going to be blown away by how much God loves justice.

When, when all is said and done, we will see how much of a lover of justice and righteousness God is. And so we leave that to Him, knowing we're loved by Him, and that there is such a thing as the wrath of God. That we also ponder, we leave that to him and to his agents and government to execute that and ultimately, even if our government fails, we leave that to God on judgment Day. let me, let me close with this.

There are people who say, That, Christians, you, you guys should not believe in a God of wrath or a God of vengeance. To believe in a God of wrath and vengeance actually foments violence. It makes you violent people. it's a contributor to violence.

It's interesting they would say that when in this passage, Paul actually points to the wrath of God. And the vengeance of God. To motivate us to refrain from violence. See, an understanding of God's love and God's wrath and God's justice, if we understand those things and have a robust comprehension of them, they actually are preventatives.

to violence. But imagine there were no God. Imagine we could not say to you, That there is a God who will repay. Imagine you did not have that assurance.

what you would do? You'd do the same thing I would, and that is, well, if there's no one. Who's going to take care of that, then I'm going to take care of that. Listen to what Timothy Keller says in his book Reason for God.

We'll close with this. He says, If I don't believe that there is a God who will eventually put all things right, I will take up the sword and will be sucked into the endless vortex of retaliation. Only if I am sure that there is a God who will right all wrongs and settle all accounts perfectly. Do I have the power to refrain.

From violence, from retaliation. Paul points us to these realities. To help us to respond rightly in the face of evil, and to not be overcome by evil, but instead to overcome those evils with good. Let me ask you to bow your heads.

Again, guys, if, if you don't read your Bibles, you don't think through these things, and your understanding is shallow of, of these realities, you're just, you're not going to have the resource to respond properly when you're wronged. ponder this passage and what is contained here, memorize it, go deeper. The deeper your understanding is of these things of God's love for you in Christ and His wrath and his love of justice. the better you will be able to sustain.

A response of peace and love and grace toward those who wrong you. Lord, I pray for any who are here today who have never entered into your love, I pray that you would just love them, Lord, by opening their hearts to you. They're surrounded by people, including me, Lord, we're, we're no better than they are. We're not here because we're more righteous than anybody else.

We're just here because there's been a point in our lives where we saw our need for you and we saw our bankruptcy and We knew we needed a savior, and we looked to Jesus and called upon Him to be our Savior. And that's it. I pray that you would draw them to you today, Lord. draw them away from their sin and saving Knowledge of and relationship with Jesus.

Lord, we live in a world of wrong. Wrongs are done in the church. Wrongs are done outside of the church. But we want to be victorious.

We want to experience Nike. And you're telling us how. And we thank you. Thank you, Lord.

Thank you for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you, Lord, receive these funds and do much with them for the glory of Jesus. And all God's people said, Amen.