Romans 12:14-18 - Being a blessing

Introduction

Let’s read Paul’s words to the Romans from chapter 12, verses 14 to 18:

Romans 12:14–18 CSB

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud; instead, associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Give careful thought to do what is honorable in everyone’s eyes. If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

Context

Remember that we can’t make sense of anything in the Bible without understanding the context. So where are we exactly in terms of this passage? Well, as we’ve said in previous sermons, we’re at the very beginning of the part of Romans that starts to put into the theology of the first eleven chapters into practice. We can summarise Paul’s theology in those first eleven chapters with two passages:

Romans 3:10–12 CSB

as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.

And:

Romans 8:1–4 CSB

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. What the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Paul explains to the Romans that: bad news—we’re all failures and rebels and can’t find our way to God, but: good news—we can all receive Christ’s sacrifice which gives us victorious life without having to have earned it or being able to achieve it! Given that reality, how, then, should we live? That’s what chapters 12 to 16 explain and model.

So far in chapter 12 we’ve found that we need to offer ourselves as living sacrifices, letting go of our walk “in the flesh”—our focus on our own desires. And then we need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds—we need to participate in a radical transformation that takes us from self-centred, shallow, this-world-centred creatures to God-focused, thoughtful, eternity-oriented worshipers. We found that God has given, and continues to give us gifts to achieve this. And he also asks us to do this together, with one another.

And now we come to today’s passage, where Paul continues to unpack this radical transformation as he looks at how we should be relating to those who are difficult, those with whom we have conflict. Let’s reread that first verse:

Romans 12:14 CSB

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.

This seems fairly straightforward until we start to think about how it works out in real life. What is persecution? How do we bless someone? Why should we bless rather than curse, after all, they are persecuting the children of the Most High God, right?

Persecute (διώκω)

First, let’s just get the meaning of “persecute” out of the way. Interestingly, the Greek word actually means “to run after someone.” Perhaps in English we can understand how that base meaning can include persecution when we think about “hounding someone.” So if we used that English, the verse becomes,

“Bless those who hound you; bless and do not curse.”

How might this “hounding” happen? Many commentators consider this part of Romans to be addressing the relationship between Christians and non-Christians. However, at the time that Paul wrote this letter, those relations were relatively cordial. Nero had just become emperor and it was a time of peace and relative prosperity. The terrible persecution of Nero’s later reign was maybe a decade away. In contrast Paul has made clear the tensions that existed between the Jews and the Christians, and even between the Judaisers who were Christians who wanted to keep the Jewish customs and the Christians who focused on grace. It seems more likely to me, then, that Paul is thinking of all forms of persecution, including that of brother on brother. In fact, throughout history, Christians have certainly persecuted one another with great vigour and persistence.

So, given the context, it seems likely that those who persecute us could be anyone, whoever is hounding us and preventing us from living lives of service to God.

So now let’s look at what blessing is.

Bless (εὐλογέω)

There are three things we need to be aware of in terms of blessing.

1. Blessing seeks the good of the one blessed.

The TDNT says:

The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament A. εὐλογέω and εὐλογία in Greek Literature.

Literally εὖ λέγειν means (both in form and content) “to speak well.” either in the sense of “to speak finely” or “to speak well of someone.”

So we can’t give a half-hearted blessing, or a barbed blessing. A blessing is a genuine intent to bring good into someone’s life. Now good may be experienced as painful in someone’s life, especially if they are in rebellion against God, but it is nonetheless genuinely for their eternal benefit.

2. Blessing involves God

In ancient religions, and even in some modern hyper-Pentecostal belief systems, a blessing was a sort of magical incantation, invoking the power of the universe to bring good into someone’s life. But for the Jews and Christians, our universal power is personal, and He gets to bless as he determines. So for us, blessing expresses a profound faith in God, and a great confidence in the fact that we are in step with God and His purposes. The TDNT says:

The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament D. εὐλογέω and εὐλογία in the NT.

Hb. 11:20 f. tells us that Isaac blessed Jacob (Gn. 27:28 f.) and Jacob the sons of Joseph (Gn. 48:15 f.), and that they did so in faith. The NT author cannot but think that the transmission of the blessing from the ancestor to the descendant took place in unshakable confidence in the great promise of God to Abraham. The one who blesses confidently gives those blessed by him into God’s protection.

When you realise that we’re blessing those who have hounded us, this idea of giving someone into God’s protection is quite confronting, isn’t it?

3. Blessing assumes love

And so, To desire someone’s benefit, even at our own cost, requires us to truly love that person, so blessing our persecutors requires us to love them, just as Jesus commanded us to do.

The TDNT again brings out the radical nature of this blessing, explaining the contrast between even the Jews and the followers of Christ:

The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament D. εὐλογέω and εὐλογία in the NT.

The righteous of the OT had a natural fear of cursing like the Greeks. They were also aware that they ought not to curse (→ κατάρα). This is finely expressed in Job 31:30. But it is rather another matter when Jesus gives to His disciples the command which completely overcomes cursing: “Bless them which curse you” (Lk. 6:28; Mt. 5:44).

What is this love?

Which really raises the questions, what is this radical love that Jesus demands of us? How does it work, what does it look like? The next few verses amplify this for us.

First, Paul points out that love completely identifies with someone, it involves true empathy—empathy that is not just a “strength,” but a deliberate choice.

Romans 12:15 CSB

Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.

Second, Paul emphasises how our thoughts are to be completely aligned with one another—as our minds are renewed, so we cast aside our fiercely competitive individualism and relax into the harmony of people who genuinely value and enjoy each other.

Romans 12:16 CSB

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud; instead, associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own estimation.

It’s helpful to note that the words “do not be proud; instead, associate with the humble” are literally “don’t think highly, but let the lowly lead.” Here the lowly are likely people like slaves, the lower social classes. Christianity is so disinterested in the world’s categories that we view each other as equally God’s children, no matter where we come from, no matter what our education or station in life. And that final sentence, “Do not be wise in your own estimation,” that is literally, “don’t think too highly of your own thoughts.” We might say: don’t overvalue your own opinions.

Then Paul emphasises how impossible it is for love to desire to hurt anyone, to curse them, when he says,

Romans 12:17 CSB

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Give careful thought to do what is honorable in everyone’s eyes.

Even when someone has done evil to us, we cannot trade in evil ourselves. Instead, Christ’s love in us spends its time thinking of how we might do good to others in a way that is evident to anyone. What a contrast! Someone does evil to you, and in response, instead of stewing over it, thinking how you can get them back, you ponder how you can do good for them!

And, finally, Christ’s love is expressed in a state of peace—a state of healthy relationship. At least from our side, although if the other side is determined to be at war with us, there’s not much we can do.

Romans 12:18 CSB

If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

How can we live this out?

The question, of course, is how we can live this out.

Do we have anyone that has hounded us, that has hurt us, that has done evil to us? How can we bless them? What good can we do them?

I think many of us would recognise that we’ve recently been through an experience where some of us were hounded and persecuted at Mosaic. It may seem ungracious to say that, but I think it’s important to recognise the reality, otherwise we cannot properly respond. And how are we to respond? Well, certainly Romans 16:17-18 give us one course of action, which we’ve already taken, and that’s a corporate action.

Romans 16:17–18 CSB

Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who create divisions and obstacles contrary to the teaching that you learned. Avoid them, because such people do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites. They deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting with smooth talk and flattering words.

But on a personal level, the guidance of Romans 12 teaches us to seek blessing. Blessing is an act of God, and we apprehend it, we apply it mostly by prayer. So that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to work through the process of praying for our enemies, those who persecute us, those who have done evil to us. I’m not saying that this is only people at Mosaic, but for me that is the most immediate and pressing application. I should also say that I don’t view anyone there as my enemy because I’ve made them that—as far as it was and is possible for me I am at peace with everyone—but I cannot deny that some people have made themselves my enemies. A blessing is my response to that.

So let’s move into our time of prayer, where we have the chance to actually respond to and obey God’s word to us today.

The way this is going to work, is if people can divide up into small groups of three or four, and then pray through the topics on the screen. You’ll see a little countdown on the screen, and when it finishes the next screen will pop up, which we can then pray about. When the screens prompt us to come back into a group, we can come back together and share together in prayer with some of the prayers from our groups which are appropriate for the larger group. In total we’ll spend about twenty minutes. Then we’ll finish worship with our final song.

Let’s pray.