Overcoming Evil With Good 3

so the message this morning is part
three of a little series that we have
been doing on these concluding verses in
the Book of Romans Romans chap 12 uh the
verses 17-
21 we've been looking at four practical
steps that the Apostle Paul says God's
people need to take if they are to live
in relational harmony with each other so
far we've covered three of the four this
morning we want to try to pick up on
number four to make sure that we're all
caught up let me just quickly review
steps one two and three so that we're
all on the same page first of all Paul
says if we are to live in relational
Harmony we need to resist the
temptation to get e even when we are
wronged verse 17 do not repay anyone
evil for evil be careful to do what is
right in the eyes of everybody and as
we've seen returning evil for evil
typically starts a cycle of Tit for Tat
which quickly gets out of control and
which poisons our own Souls we are to
resist the temptation to get even number
two we are to
realize our
relational
limitations Verse 18 if it is possible
as far as it depends on you live at
peace with everyone try as we might we
will not always live in harmony with all
around us many reasons for that but one
reason is we've been seeing in the past
is that according to the Book of
Proverbs there are three kinds of people
there are wise people there are foolish
people and there are evil people wise
people you can engage in meaningful
conversation reach a conclusion foolish
people tend to think they are wise in
their own eyes they do not listen
typically to other people they need to
experience life the hard way and evil
people they're just dangerous they're
out to do you and the Bible says stay
away from them in as much as it depends
on you if possible live in peace with
all people and then thirdly we need to
trust
God to vindicate us when we have been
wronged verse 19 do not take revenge my
friends but leave room for God's Wrath
for it is written it is mine to avenge I
will repay says the Lord to take revenge
is to take justice into your own hands
God doesn't want us to do that he wants
us first and foremost to trust the
authorities that he has established to
exercise Justice and when they fail as
sometimes in fact often they do he wants
us to put our hope and our trust in him
because at the end of the day he is
Judge of the living and the dead and he
will even all the scores I love the way
the Lord Jesus puts it in Luke chapter
18 when he says concerning the the Widow
who is crying after the unrighteous
judge who doesn't care about her needs
but then finally responds because she is
troubling him so much here is what Jesus
says concerning the Widow he
says if we can have Luke 18:7 and 8 up
and will not God bring about Justice for
his chosen ones who cry out to him day
and night will he keep putting them off
I tell you he will see that they get
Justice and
quickly when there is nobody to look
after us God himself will take action
that's what faith calls us to and that
is why through scripture throughout
scripture God is known as the god of
widows and
orphans the more helpless you are the
more keenly interested God is in
stepping into the situation and he wants
us to learn how to trust him and that
brings us this morning then to the
fourth practical step that he invites us
to take and that is that we are to
overcome evil with good verse 21 do not
be overcome by evil but overcome
evil with
good notice it's not good
enough just to not do the negative it's
not good enough to not be overcome by
evil but God wants us to go a step
further he wants us to overcome come
evil with good now one of the advantages
of being away in holidays for a couple
of weeks as it gave me a chance to catch
up on some reading and one of the books
that I was able to read uh is this book
called think no
evil and it's the story of the shooting
of the 10 school girls in nickel mines
Pennsylvania back back in
2006 some of you will remember the news
story it was Monday October the 2nd when
a man by the name of Charles Carl
Roberts uh entered a school
building
and heavily armed with three
um let the boys go let some of the
adults go and then tied
up uh the remaining 10
girls barricaded himself in the
schoolhouse and then as the police was
closing in had took his gun and he shot
girls the result was that miraculously
five survived one is alive today with
serious brain injuries but five of the
girls died and you will have seen uh you
will perhaps remember the story you'll
certainly have seen some of these images
here's a picture of The Little
Schoolhouse uh as the helicopter was
taking off
evacuating uh the wounded girls here is
an overview of what it actually looked
like from the air you see how small uh
that school is and you see all the
emergency Vehicles parked there and in
this image you see the burial of one of
the girls in Amish Country and uh it was
an horrific story all the more because
the Amish are a very peaceloving people
I've said before last summer Michelle
and I spent a week or so in Lancaster
County and uh experienced a lot of that
life of the Amish community it was a
horrific horrific
event and what do you do when you are
confronted by that kind of horror well
the Amish have a long tradition of being
pacifists and they have experienced a
great deal of persecution in the course
of their life in fact one of their
Heroes uh is a is a is a Dutchman by the
name of Dirk
Williams and they have
A500 page book describing the history of
Martyrs in the Amish tradition the Amish
part of the anabaptist tradition and
during the period of the Reformation uh
they are the ones who rejected infant
baptism and adopted Believers baptism
and that caused a huge stir and both
Catholics and Protestants hated the
anabaptists and persecuted them
viciously
well in
1569 a man by the name of Durk
Williams uh was captured by the
authorities imprisoned in uh a a castle
of some sort but managed to escape by
tying together the proverbial bed
sheets and he let himself down out of
the
window and crossed a moat which was
lightly frozen over he was a slight man
himself
he didn't fall through but when the
guard chasing
him came after him tried to cross that
same moat he fell through the ice and
desperately cried out for dirk Williams
to save him now put yourself in that
situation what would you do I know I'm
sufficiently ungodly that I would have
kept on
running but Williams didn't he went
back Paul pulled him out of the ice the
guard was inclined to let him
go but the burgo master was standing
there watching this and he was yelling
at the guard you let him go let me
remind you of your sworn duty to uphold
the law I want you to arrest this man so
that's what the guard
did so Dirk Williams was
rearrested
tried sentenced to be burned at the
stake and that sentence was carried out
now to his great Misfortune there was a
strong wind blowing the wrong way when
he was being when he was being fried in
the fire and it took forever for him to
burn up on the sake it was a terrible
terrible
story uh and so finally one of the
military people took pity on him and and
killed him so that he wouldn't have to
keep on suffering 70 times or something
like that he cried out to the Lord God
for God to have mercy as he was being
persecuted that's the Amish
tradition and so with that kind of
tradition and that kind of culture
they're firmly
established in resisting evil and so the
Amish community of nickel mines
Pennsylvania not very far from Lancaster
I made the collective decision that they
would practice what the scriptures
preach and they would not be overcome by
evil but they decided they would
overcome evil with
good and that became a huge news story
as time went on because it is so
counterintuitive and so contrary to what
most of us would do naturally and that
of course is God's exert for you and me
this isn't just for the Amish this isn't
just for people who are pacifists this
is true for all those who name the name
of Jesus do not be overcome by evil but
overcome evil with good so the question
of course is how in the world do you do
that because have you ever been in a
situation where you have been wronged
and who of us
hasn't then you
know how tough it is not just the
resisted temptation to Stew about it and
to fret about it and to get agitated by
it but how difficult it is to return
good for evil when you have been so
wrong so how do you do it well there are
really two steps biblically that we keep
coming back to and in the time that
remains I want to talk to you about
those not because you haven't heard this
before but because sometimes it's good
for us to hear it again and again and
again until by God's grace we learn to
practice these things in the
nitty-gritty of everyday life the first
key of course is to practice the artart
of
forgiveness now
forgiveness is releasing the other
person of the debt they owe us Jesus in
The Lord's Prayer says forgive us our
trespasses or our debts as we forgive
those who have
trespassed against us or who are
indebted against
us to
forgive is to dis
discharge what somebody owes us on the
basis of what God has done for us in
Christ Jesus our lord Ephesians 4:32
bear with each other and forgive
whatever grievances you may have against
one another forgive as the Lord
forgave
you Ephesians 4:32 be kind and
compassionate to one another forgiving
each other just as in Christ
God forgave you now we've talked about
this before but one of the problems in
Christian Community is that we tend to
Short Circuit the process of forgiveness
we tend to say well I know that I'm
supposed to give forgive and I will
pretend that I have forgiven but in the
meantime it lingers and it comes back
and we don't really get rid of that it
comes through in conversations it comes
through in the stories we tell the
people that we talk to the irritation
that arises when we see certain
individuals in a certain context one of
the reasons for that is that forgiveness
isn't simply a single decision or a
single step forgiveness is a process and
I know that we've talked about this
before a number of years ago it's also
written up in a number of books that I
wrote but I want to take a few moments
and walk you once again through this
chart that outlines the process of
forgiveness it's one of the most
brilliant expositions of the process of
forgiveness uh that I have ever
encountered I can say that because it's
not original with me uh I borrowed it
with permission from somebody else but
it outlines to a te what happens and
what needs to happen in order to really
come to the point where forgiveness is a
reality so let's just watch through it
as quickly as we can it begins of course
as it always does with an offensive
event you step in my toes I step on your
toes we create hard feelings in the in
the nickol story what was the offense
well 10 young girls age 7 to 13 were
curly shot by a 32ye old man a married
man the father of three uh a man who
killed himself after he had shot the
girls that was the offensive event what
happens when somebody sins against us we
experience hurt and hurt produces anger
and the degree of hurt and the degree of
anger that we experience is conditioned
by two sets of factors one on the part
of the offender and the other on the
part of the person who is being offended
against on the offender part just
quickly severity acknowledgment of wrong
intentionality frequency what made it so
difficult for the omish community
following that
shooting was that this was a man who was
known in the community he
wasn't uh part of the Amish community
but he was a milk truck driver and so he
went around from day to day to all the
Farms Gathering milk for the dairy and
he was extremely well
known what made it also very difficult
is
that that this was carefully planned
this this was not just a a spir this guy
had been planning this for weeks nobody
had a clue what was happening with him
and clearly his intentions were very
Wicked so that's one aspect the the more
severe the things are that are done
against us the more often they happen I
mean it doesn't get much worse than
having your girls shot and killed one
family lost two girls in that shooting
and another family now lives with a girl
that is brain damaged for life because
of the shooting that that's that's
that's bad I mean that would make
you have nightmares would it so the
other factor that enters into the
picture then is as I said the the
factors on the part of the person who
was sinned against and I said earlier
the the Amish community has a long
history of pacifism that is turning the
other cheek they don't believe in
military engagement they're
conscientious obors when it comes to the
military there's a long history to that
they've had a long history of
persecution they've been driven all over
the world trying to find places where
they can live in peace to pursue their
particular lifestyle we may agree or
disagree with our lifestyle but they are
a godly people who seek to walk with God
as best as they know and how they
understand it so they have a lot of
community
support and that helped in that whole
grieving process because you can imagine
the pain uh coming out of this was just
incredible incredibly intense they have
this long tradition of turning the other
cheek they have this long tradition of
knowing that God is Sovereign nothing
happens outside of his least permissive
will and they know God is on his throne
and he's going to use it for uh their
good and for his glory so offensive
event leads to hurt leads to anger and
then leads to information gathering what
happens whenever there is a natural
disaster
or an accident of a major proportion
they bring in the
investigators and they begin to examine
what really caused this we have a very
difficult time living in a world not
knowing what caused a particular thing
because it fills us with uncertainty and
fear uh just this past week down in
Pennsylvania ironically uh a train wreck
you heard about that perhaps train flew
off the tracks going 170 kilm an hour in
a Bend where the speed was 80 kilometers
an hour they're trying to figure out
what happened the engineer has no
recollection now the new stories that
are coming forward is that three trains
were either shot at or had rocks thrown
at them and now question is is that part
of what caused this particular accident
we don't know yet but there's always an
investigation there's always a
searching and you can appreciate that in
this Amish
community there was a tremendous amount
of soul
searching about what's really going on
here first of all why did he do
this why did he go to the lumber store
and get all kinds of boards and 2x4s and
2x sixes
he had 600 rounds of ammunition with
him why did he barricade himself in this
Schoolhouse why did he let the boys go
and why did he hold on to these girls
well more likely than not and this is
the strong
suspicion uh is that he had actually
planned to sexually assault uh one or
more of those girls and when they fought
back and he knew the police were outside
he lost his cool and that's when he
shook them but a terrible
situation but then again what brings him
into this particular place in life well
it turns out that 9 years earlier he uh
his his baby girl had been born
premature and she died and it was a
death though he had three kids later on
it was a death he never got over and in
his suicide note to his wife or in his
note to his wife describing uh what he
was planning to do he referenced the
fact that he could simply not get over
the death of his girl and before he shot
the girls he said he was going to make
them pay imagine that he was going to
make them pay for the death uh and his
sense of loss historically a terrible
thing but you can imagine the questions
that were uh going through the minds of
that community so you've got information
gathering you probably won't be able to
see it but information gathering leads
to anger leads to hurt and the cycle
continues from hurt to anger to
information gathering and more to hurt
if if you're the parents of one of these
children and you hear that he was
planning to do some very nasty things to
your children you're going to get
angrier the more you know isn't that
true and here's what I want us to
understand about this this process C is
often short circuited in the community
we tell each other get over it forgive
forget go on with life it's not that
simple those questions need to be
answered those uh searches need to be
completed and the issues need to be
clarified so that you can bring issues
to a rest that's why I've got so many
kids who have been adopted out for
example who in their you know teenage
years or later on in life they they
begin this search for their parents
because to be ruthless not ruthless but
rootless to not know where you come from
or who you are has a great bearing on
where you're going in the course of your
life and so information gathering is
such a part sometimes we find answers
sometimes we don't find answers but the
cycle of information hurt
anger and around and around it goes
until the process comes to a measure of
completion how do you know when it comes
to completion you know that it comes to
completion when you get to a place
called reframing let me enlarge that for
you information gathering here leads to
reframing
reframing means that you begin to
understand
and what actually happened and why it
happened up until then you have a lot of
questions you may think it's my fault
it's his fault it's her fault
information gathering helps you sort out
which is which and now you can come to a
place where you can actually reframe the
truth and for the folks in nickel Minds
reframing meant they came to an
understanding that this man was
profoundly mentally
Disturbed it lived below the surface
nobody not even his wife who by the way
is a devout Christian woman who went to
a prayer meeting the morning that he
went to do this awful deed in the
school
and for reasons
unnown he just
snapped and that's how this horror
came to be they could stop blaming
themselves how come nobody saw it come
how come nobody could
prevented and
reframing uh helps you get to the place
where you know what your part in
something was what somebody else's part
was you learn you don't have to take
responsibility for what somebody else is
doing I mean imagine this
Widow of the shooter how tough it is is
to go around the community knowing that
your husband is the one who who killed
uh these girls that's that's a terrible
burden to live with and she's remarried
now by the way and we'll talk
about uh that more in a moment but
reframing means I know what my part was
I know what wasn't my part what your
part was I can't do anything anything
about what my part was I could take to
the Cross thank God for the cross I can
receive forgiveness and I can leave it
behind and go on with my life how do I
know that process is completed
well it shows up in a desire or in an
ability to release the desire to
retaliate to retaliate again is to get
even and getting even is the most
natural natural of all human
conditions to ear is human as the saying
goes to forgive is
divine and so as we go through this
process of learning to forgive all the
things that we've just been talking
about how do you know you're getting
there you're starting to lose your your
hurt is getting healed your anger is
starting to evate your questions are
being answered and now you can come to a
place where you have reframed not only
but where you can come to the place
where you can actually start leaving it
behind and you start
losing the desire to retaliate very
counterintuitive it is contrary to how
most of the world operates which is why
this community gained so much publicity
in this whole process because it was so
at odds with what the world expects but
it's rooted and grounded in the
character of
God and if we are his
children we are expected to manifest by
faith in Christ through the power of the
Holy Spirit his characteristics Jesus
talks about that you might recall in
Matthew chap 5 profound verses you know
them
well let's read them
from sometimes things disappear in cyber
land it's a
mystery Matthew
5 uh this is part of the sermon of the
mount and Jesus says you have heard that
it was said love your neighbor and hate
your enemy but I tell you love your
enemies and pray for those who persecute
you that you may be sons of your father
in Heaven he causes his son to rise on
the evil and the good sends rain on the
righteous and the
unrighteous and if you love those who
love you very interesting verse if you
you what reward will you
get are not even Tax Collectors doing
that and if you greet only your brothers
what are you doing more than others do
not even pagans do that and then verse
48 powerful verse I think be perfect
therefore as your heavenly father is
perfect the word word is be complete be
mature and Jesus's argument is very
simple your father who is in heaven
looks over all creation and He blesses
the good and the bad the Sun Shines on
the righteous and on the unrighteous the
rainfalls in the good and on the evil
and he says if you are your father's
children then he says it is your
responsibility to manifest that same
character
in your heart and that then is the
collective
decision that this Amish community made
wasn't easy they were just as human as
you and I they grieved
intensely but they also knew that as
followers of the Lord Jesus they were
called upon to forgive from the heart
you and I likewise are called to forgive
from the
heart if we expect to receive God's
forgiveness for all our deeds and that's
why the two are always linked together
to take you back for just a moment to
this chart on forgiveness you see over
here is God's intervention and prayer
and fasting because at the end of the
day this doesn't come naturally to
anybody some people would say well you
know the Amish were just that kind of
people and it was easy no no no no no no
no they're just as human as you and I
and Sons and Daughters of Adam we don't
vary much at all what it takes is the
grace of God the experience of our own
forgiveness God's work in our heart and
God's work in our
relationships and so for the Amish they
took some very concrete steps uh what
they did is they um let me see if this
is where I want to mention that
yes
gathering and in that Gathering they had
about a hundred of the Amish families
gathered together with the Widow of the
shooter and they had this incredible
reconciliation
service where
whereby uh they released her and they
blessed her and they did what they could
to provide for her needs and they also
took it upon themselves then to go to
the funeral of this shooter and show
solidarity with her family and that
takes us back then to the point that I
skipped over actually and I want to come
back to that for a moment is that if the
first step is to do good is is to
forgive from the heart then the second
step is to do good to your enemy listen
again to how Paul puts it if we can get
that verse up if your enemy is hungry
feed him if he is thirsty give him
something to
drink if your enemy is hungry feed him
if he is thirsty give him something to
drink that's a quotation from the book
of
Proverbs
and uh it
is God's invitation to you and to me to
put into action what we've just been
talking about where the character of God
is to bless even Saints and Sinners and
he is inviting us to do exactly the same
kind of thing what
happens when we step into that and we
actually return good for evil very
quickly in the time that remains want to
touch on three things that I think are
profoundly important number one we might
win over our
enemy we might win over our enemy if we
can get that slide up uh verse
20 the verse that we just quoted if your
enemy is hungry keep that verse up if
your enemy is hungry feed him if he is
thirsty give him something to drink and
then notice how that passage ends in
doing this you will Heap burning
coals on his head very interesting
expression and there's a lot of
different
interpretations as to what that might
mean uh some of which are way out to
lunch
but I take it at face value and I think
it
means your returning good for
evil gives an opportunity for that
person to be shamed in his wickedness
and to come to repentance Proverbs says
a gentle answer turns away wrath but a
harsh word stirs up
anger what happens when you aggressively
address somebody they almost immediately
become defensive do they not and it just
goes tit fortat and before you know it
the relationship disappears into
conflict and confusion but what happens
when you're the least what happens when
you say I'm really sorry I take
responsibility for my part in this
particular situation what very often
happens is that now you make it possible
for the other person to come along and
say well I was was wrong to and I'm
sorry and the reason for
that is that the reason people are
mean is almost inevitably because they
feel
threatened and they're afraid of power
because their experiences that
power can be hurtful and
destructive and so immediately we become
defensive in the presence of power that
by the way is why God who could have
used power to bring us to to himself
chose instead to bring us to himself by
the power of the
Cross because in bringing in showing his
weakness he makes it possible for our
hearts to open up and to respond to him
and so when you and
I are not overcome by
evil but
instead return good for evil we create
an environment that if there is anything
at all in that person's heart that is
still good and that can can long for
restoration of life and relationships it
will bring that out and it will make it
possible for that person to to be one
over and to repent of uh where he or she
has found himself this powerful example
of that in 1 Samuel chapter
24 where David is being chased through
the Wilderness and you will recall uh
Saul's kingship was rejected by the Lord
because of his
Disobedience Samuel had anointed David
to become the king of
Israel and Saul found out about that and
he was determined to kill David a whole
bunch of riffraff had joined David and
every opportunity Saul had uh he was
trying to kill David and capture him and
his troops and then in 1 Samuel 24 you
have this beautiful situation where
David and his men are
hiding deep in a cave and Paul comes in
to go to the bathroom remember that
story fascinating story and David's men
are trying to encourage him here is your
opportunity to kill Saul and get rid of
all this
persecution uh but David knows that he
cannot do that because Saul is God's
anointed and he cannot kill the anointed
of God so what does he do sneaks up on
Saul going to the
bathroom and cuts off a piece of his
robe remember that story fascinating
little story and then when Saul's all
done and he leaves the
cave uh David calls after him and he
says look look Saul recognize this
little piece of cloth look at your robe
uh I was close enough to do you in but I
chose not to do that uh and here here is
the evidence and Saul's response
illustrates this principle that we're
just talking about if we can get these
verses up he says in 1 Samuel 24:17 to19
you are more righteous than I this is
Saul speaking you have treated me well
but I have treated you badly you have
just now told me of the good you did to
me the lord gave me into your hands but
you did not kill me when a man finds his
enemy does him does he let him get away
unharmed may the Lord reward you well
for the way you treated me
today and uh for the moment at least
Saul called off the chase didn't last
long because when there is evil in your
heart evil has a way of coming back up
to the surface
and again and again Saul tries to kill
David until Saul himself gets killed in
battle against the Philistines but as I
said one of the reasons for the
cross is that God shows us his
weakness so that we will not be afraid
of his
power but that instead we will come to
him trusting because he has demonstrated
his heart heart and you and I overcome
evil with
good when people can
see that we come with nothing in our
hands we
have nothing to
prove but our love for people around us
not an easy thing to practice and it's
not easy to practice when our emotions
run high but it needs to be
done there's a second thing that happens
when then we practice what scripture
calls us to do and that is we will
experience God's
blessing we will
experience God's
blessing it's very interesting In this
passage that
when the Apostle Paul quotes from The
Book of
Proverbs he leaves
off the last part of that verse here's
the quotation goes if your enemy is
hungry give him food to eat if he is
thirsty give him water to drink in doing
this you will he burning coals on his
head and then the part that Paul leaves
off are these words and the
Lord will reward you the Lord will
reward you and that's almost
identically uh identical to what Peter
says in 1 Peter 3:9 do not pay evil with
evil or insult with insult but with
blessing because to this you were called
so that you may
inherit a blessing at the end of the day
what guarantees success in life is not
our own ability to make it
happen it is our relationship with God
through faith in Jesus Christ and when
we walk before him in obedience
and we do his
will and we experience his
Blessing that is all that
matters and so even though it may look
like we're going to suffer
loss and it looks like we're the PSIs
because we're not returning evil for
evil but overcoming evil with
good God can more than make
up for what we are losing out on because
you see if he is pleased with us what
else
matters because he can more than
compensate what is being taken away from
us and our responsibility then is to
make sure that there is nothing between
God and us that gets in the way of his
blessing and I want to make one more
reference to the story of David before
we bring this to a close this morning
because this principle is so powerfully
Illustrated in his encounter with
Abigail anybody here remember who
Abigail
was Abigail was the wife of a dude by
the name of
nabal and nabal was a very Wicked but
very rich
man with huge possessions a lot of sheep
and he was just a big grancher dude and
had a lot of servants and a lot of money
and while David and his men were on the
run all the
time they protected his men
from uh you know people that would would
harm or steal their property or their
possessions and never expected anything
in return so now David and his men are
in a situation where they have some
needs so David says a sends a delegation
to nabal and he and this delegation says
to him look we've been there for you how
would you like to provide us with a
picnic lunch for all these 400 people
well nabal is a rude dude and he laughs
at them and he says no way uh and he
sides with King Saul uh as opposed to
David and these this delegation comes
back to David and David may be a good
softs spoken dude but he's a warrior and
he is is livid remember the story he is
just he is going to take his men and
he's going to teach nabal a lesson he
says I am not going to leave one of you
alive in this Camp well Abigail is
nabal's
wife she hears this story and she's a
smart cookie because she knows trouble
is
brewing and so she gathers all these
possessions together uh all these
supplies and she goes out and she meets
David and here's what she says to him
and and we'll be done in just a moment
let me read you this because this is
such a powerful story uh this is 1
Samuel 26 beginning at verse 28 let no
wrongdoing be found in you as long as
you
live even though someone is pursuing you
to take your life the life of my master
will be bound securely in the bundle of
the living by the Lord your God I love
that expression your life will be bound
securely in the bundle of the living by
the Lord your God but the lives of your
enemies he will hurl away as from the
pocket of a sling when the Lord has done
for my master every good thing he
promised concerning him and has
appointed him as leader over Israel my
master will not have on his conscience
listen to this
The Staggering burden of needless
Bloodshed or of having Avenged
himself here's what she's saying God's
going to make you King when you become
king you don't want to have to live with
a guilty conscience of having returned
evil for evil it's your job to return
good for evil because God is on your
side and so then David responds in verse
33 he says may you be blessed for your
good
judgment and for keeping me from
Bloodshed Bloodshed this day and from
avenging
myself with my
own
hands what
happens when we return good for
evil we may win our opponent over not
always but sometimes
but even if we don't win the opponent
over we will experience God's blessing
in our own lives and at the end of the
day that is all that matters there's a
third thing that happens we'll come back
to that perhaps Lord willing next Sunday
on Pentecost Sunday but the question for
each one of us is this number one are
there
places where evil has overcome
us and we have allowed bitterness
resentment
rejection to enter into the core of our
hearts that's a very dangerous place to
be because it is a place where the devil
can stir up a lot of murderous
Instinct the antidote to that is to
forgive freely from the heart so here's
the question are there place
in our
relationships where we yet need to
practice the process of forgiveness so
that we can come to a place where we can
truly forgive from the heart how do you
know when you're there you're there when
you no longer have joy in trouble that
your opponent experiences you're there
when you know that you can bless the
other person and you can truly
rejoice when it goes well with
them not an easy place to get to it
takes the grace of God in Christ Jesus
our lord and so third question is are
there
places where you need to overcome evil
with good are there places where you and
I need to step into relationships and
say we're going to let bygones be
bygones I forgive you from the heart and
I'm going to use my time talent and
treasure to bless you in ways that honor
God that's what God's after in Christian
Community that's what it means to be
called a child of God none of us is
going to do it perfectly we're going to
fail many many
times but will we grow up in Christ to
become more and more like him so that in
a world that is torn apart by violence
torn apart by evil and
wickedness that somehow or another God's
people can be the salt of the earth and
the light of the world because as they
are and that's what we're going to look
at Lord willly next
Sunday the power of evil will be broken
not by might nor by power but by God's
people people living in the spirit of
Jesus what a
challenge but what an
opportunity because of the resurrection
spirit