Romans 12:14-21

Bless, Weep, Rejoice

Romans 12:14–21 NIV

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Do verses 14-15 fit together? My first thought for this morning was to take these verse separately. But as I sat with them and did some studying and reading it seemed to me that they do fit together and should be studied together in the context of what Paul is saying here.

How do these verse fit together? Consider this; what would be one reason that you would not weep with those who weep? One reason could be that you are glad that they are weeping. In others words maybe you were angry at them for the way they treated you and then something bad happened to them and you were glad. Does that have anything to do with verse 14: bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.

What are some other reasons that we may not weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice? Here are 6 that I borrow from John Piper:

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Sermons from John Piper (2000–2014) Live Peaceably with All, If Possible

1. We are too wrapped up in ourselves to rejoice or weep with others. We are so self-oriented that what is happening in the hearts of others has no effect on us.

2. We feel above the emotional life of the ordinary person. Children laugh. Women cry. I’m a man.

3. We are hypercritical and our main reaction when we see emotion is to analyze it and point out its distortions or excesses or bad tendencies or shallow roots. So our hypercritical analytical heart keeps us emotionally at a distance and prevents our hearts from empathy with others.

4. We are resentful or envious they have joy and we don’t. We feel gypped, passed over, given a raw deal. So envy makes it impossible for us to rejoice in their joy.

5. We are simply the kind of personality that doesn’t have a discernable emotional life. We don’t rejoice or weep over anything. And so we don’t weep or rejoice with others. It may be owing to parents. Or to a traumatic experience. Or to some physical condition.

6. We may be depressed and temporarily numb in our own emotions.

What do you see that is common between these 6 possible reasons for why we might find it difficult to do as Paul is instructing us here in Romans? Could it be pride? That pride is the root cause of not being the kind of person who feels genuine empathy with those weeping and rejoicing.

Which brings me to verse 16: “do not be proud.” Virtually all the commands found in verse 14-21 assume that something I would radical has happened. These commands are rooted in a freedom from self; self-preoccupation and self-infatuation and self-exaltation. The void left by the abscense of self is replaced with Christ; a Christ-preoccupation and Christ-infatuation and Christ exaltation.

This is the case that has been made repeatedly now from Romans 12:1 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” That what flows out of chapter 12 is the fruit of this view of God. And that is a right understanding to have. In beholding God we are transformed- we are no longer conformed but we are transformed.

See how Paul is prepping us for the commands that are to follow; bless those who persecute you. That is the result of transformation; because to be conformed is to curse those who curse you, not to bless them.

So, now going to the root of the problem; pride, Paul says in Romans 12:3 “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” I think we talked about this some earlier in the year and I intend to come back to it next week so we won’t spend much time on it here now but we need to see the role that pride plays in keeping us from the commands to bless, weep and rejoice and how the transformational work of God in us obliterates pride. It removes self and is replaced by Christ.

The alternative to thinking to highly of ourselves is to turn the mirror, in which we have been consumed with looking at ourselves, into a window through which we see the glory of Christ. That is what faith does. When faith stands in front of the mirror, the mirror becomes a window and sees on the other side the glory of Christ. Now with eyes beholding Christ and set free from self we meet three types of people; those who persecute us, those who rejoice and those who weep and Paul tells us with God’s authority how to treat them: bless those who persecute you, rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.

This is radical behavior in proportion to radical transformation. It does not simple say; “do not retaliate.” You might be able to use your will power to do that. But its about more than just behavior, the point is your heart.

These words are a partial quotation of Jesus from:

Luke 6:27–31 ““But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” “bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

Matthew 5:43–44 ““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,”

Slide 3- Pray for You

Here is one interpretation of what Jesus is saying

Jesus calls us to a way of life that is focused on heart transformation, not just behavior modification.

The word pray shows that behavior is not the only issue. Prayer is the expression to God of what you long for. So blessing someone is not just the behaviors you exhibit toward them its the longings that you have for them. And Jesus says that those longings are to be for good, not longings for a curse.

So the Christian life is radical; it requires radical transformation which is a work that Christ does; cutting at the root of who we are and what we long for. Faith in Christ involves turning from self; it is necessary in order to live these commands out. If we have died to self then threating this self with belittling speech or with pain or even death is no longer an ultimate threat. That old self is not our life so we are free from the raging impulse to retaliate.

Here are 3 ways that looking to Christ motivates us to bless our adversaries and make us tender hearted to those who weep:

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Sermons from John Piper (2000–2014) Bless Those Who Persecute You

First, the Christ that faith beholds and embraces blessed those who cursed him. As he hung on the cross he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (

To that last point notice who deals in justice; Romans 12:19 “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.” God is the one who deals out justice and He will- either your adversary will pay his debt in hell or he will repent and trust Christ, so that his debt was paid on the cross.

God takes care of the justice; what are we to do; Romans 12:20 “On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.””

Shifting gears just slightly to make application for the International Day of Prayer For Persecuted Christians; we have grown accustomed in the modern western world to take for granted that we have the inalienable human rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and to assume that our rights should be protected by law and by force if necessary. We are outraged when we perceive that our rights have been violated.

Such rights do exist largely because of a Christian worldview that once permeated the western culture, but those rights were not assumed in the 1st century. Persecution, potential death for saying Jesus is Lord was the world in which the NT was written which is why Peter says in 1 Peter 4:12 “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” It was not strange to be persecuted. What is strange historically is that we are not.

So, we are urged to pray for the persecuted church around the world. John Piper says, “These are our brothers and sister. We are more closely linked to these loved ones than to our unbelieving American neighbors and colleagues.”

Slides 4 & 5