The Relationship of Christians to All Men
Romans 12:14-16 · Unknown · Mar 2, 2025
Romans (2022-25), No. 113
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261938327654

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Romans chapter 12. I'm going to start at verse 9. Paul writes, Love must be without hypocrisy. Detest evil. Cling to what is good. Show family affection to one another with brotherly love. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lack diligence. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in affliction. Be persistent in prayer. Share with the saints in their needs. Pursue hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Be in agreement 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. Try to do what is honorable in everyone's eyes. If possible, on your part, live at peace with everyone.

So let's look at, we're going to look at verses 14 through 16. And I like, this is, the next chart is a chart I So this is like a high-level overview of chapter 12. So basically, chapter 12, when we looked at it, we saw the first two verses talked about the Christian, the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ's relationship to God. Just a wonderful, that we present our bodies a living sacrifice, that we We're not conformed to this world, but we're transformed by the renewing of our mind. Just a wonderful relationship of the believer to the Lord Jesus Christ. Then the next section Mike covered a couple weeks ago, talked about the relationship to the gifts of the spirit. There's other parts in there too, but mainly the gifts of the spirit, how the believer in the Lord Jesus relates to that. And then last week, we talked about the Christian's relationship to other believers.

It seems like for the most part in nine through 13, But today we kind of move into a little bit different section. And I kind of took the, and this was from J. Byrne McGee. This part, actually some of these verses look like they probably are definitely to unbelievers, but some are to believers. So we kind of have a mixed bag here. Some are, some are not. So you could say that it goes all the way from fellow Christians to enemies. We're going to see down towards the end of the 20 and so on. He talks about your enemies, or the ones that persecute you.

So Paul is giving us instruction for what the Christian life should look like in terms of our relationship to other men. And we're going to see that, as Jim mentioned, it's really Christ's life that's on display here, not our life. If it's our life, then we're on the wrong track. It must be His life. So let's just do a quick review here. account, you could actually count 13 separate exhortations of our new life in Christ. So this is again what Christ's life is to look like.

So it starts off with, let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor or loathe what is evil. Cling or stick fast to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. You know, as we go through this list, you begin to realize, you know, I can't do this. I often said that one of the revelations of the Christian life is to realize that you can't live it. You cannot live the Christian life in your own strength and power. It must be Christ living it through you. So we continue on, giving preference to one another and honor, not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, persevering or being patient in devoted to prayer, contributing to the, or being a share in the needs of the saints, and then practice in hospitality.

I've got so many things on my screen here. I can't see everything that's going on here. Okay. All right. So let's go on to the next chart here. So actually, you know, after looking at those, you say, well, how, and this is kind of a reiteration, just kind of get our feet in the ground here.

How are we to accomplish these exhortations? Is any, Is there anything in scripture, and there's a lot, that tells us how is the Christian life to be lived? You know, one of my favorite verses I like to go to, to try to answer that question, is this verse right here. At first glance, you're gonna say, well, it doesn't talk about, very much about living the Christian life right now.

So it starts off with the salvation of a believer. Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. So we've got to put our thinking caps on here, So how did we receive the Lord Jesus? You received him by faith. Simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, faith in the person and the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. That's how you received him.

So what's neat about this verse is it says it doesn't change. You don't go to law, you don't change the game plan like they do in football games at halftime, they change their entire game plan to try something else. The Christian life, the game plan stays the same, first and second half. So the game plan in the second half, you're now to walk by faith.

And one of the great verses about that is in Galatians 5.16, by saying, walk by the Spirit, and you will not, and you will absolutely not, in the literal life, absolutely not carry out the desires of the flesh. So the Christian life is lived by walking in the Spirit, Allowing Christ to live his life through us and a verse that kind of speaks to that is in Romans 6 4 Kind of talking about how it how we were identification with Christ Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism. We've been immersed into his death so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father so we too white might walk in newness of life and So that's that wonderful newness of life that we have, not our life, but Christ's life.

So all these admonitions, all these instructions, if we take them and start making lists, you know, I like it when you watch the football games, you'll notice the quarterbacks will have this on their left wrist if they're right-handed, they'll have this whole list of plays and they'll flip them out and they'll say, what play am I doing next?

I'm doing a pass, I'm doing a run. Well, if we do that with these instructions, we're missing the boat. We're on the wrong path. We're to walk by faith in this newness of life. Just a wonderful, wonderful encouragement for us. So let's jump into the next set here.

So here are the three verses I'm going to do. I was going to do verse 17, but then I looked a little bit, and I looked ahead to chapter 13. We're going to get into about human government, and actually the last part, 17 through the end, kind of is a nice parallel or contrast to 13. So I backed away and said, let's just do three verses today. So we got the first verse is verse 14.

Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not be haughty in mind, but associated with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. So it's good to identify who's he talking to in each of these verses. So here's my take on it.

Verse 14, this talks about he's speaking to a believer. How does a Christian handle persecution? How are we to handle persecution? That's what he's addressing in verse 14. In 15, he talks about sharing or rejoicing. Seems like a Believer could be an unbeliever possibly and then definitely down in in 16.

He talks about You know, God is so interested in us. He wants us to think like he thinks he wants to think like God God blows your mind. How can I think like God? Well, he tells us how we think like like him we read his word and he says in one place We have the very mind of Christ and it's our our thinking toward one another fellow believers and to oneself. So that's kind of a bird's eye view of each of these verses. Now we're going to jump into each of the verses and kind of go through the details here.

Okay. So the first part of verse 14 is, bless those who persecute you. Well, if you know me, I'm not satisfied with the usual translation. I like to go, and the reason I go to the other translations is to help me understand the verse. And this is the interlinear word for word from the original. So the you is implied here.

You bless the ones persecuting you. That's a literal translation from the original. So blessed is the subject supplied. Blessed is a verb. And this big one persecuting you is a direct object. It's receiving the action of your blessing. So there's some really interesting things to go through here. So the key question is, what does blessing mean? And what does persecution mean?

In English, that's not too hard to handle, I don't think. So Paul is talking about the Christian's reaction to persecution. Not a pleasant subject. I mean, I can't say I've been persecuted much in my life. I've been very fortunate. I didn't have anybody beating on me, so to speak, either verbally or otherwise. Pretty sheltered life, but many Christians are persecuted terribly.

So let's go on here. So persecution is the word literally to pursue, and it's present tense. So if you remember your Greek tenses, whenever you see present tense, the action involved is the continuous action. So we have, what's happening here, the picture of this verse's painting is that you have this continual persecution. And you might say, I can take a once in a while persecution, but continually, wow, that's a whole nother story. It's saying that the persecution is continually going on. So what's our response to that to be? So as a Christian, you are continually being persecuted. I repeated myself a little bit. So what's your response to be?

That's the first part of the verse. You're to bless or this is the word that we have our English word eulogize to speak well of to compound Greek word well and word to invoke a blessing upon a person and we come to our first kind of head-scratcher you say If I hear what you're saying Roger this I'm being continually persecuting and you're telling me I'm to speak well of my persecutor and Wow, that doesn't sound like something I would like to do. I'd like to maybe punch him in the nose.

Anyway, and what's interesting is, you're not just blessing him one time again, you're blessing him continually. So you have continual persecution, and our response is continual blessing. Wow, pretty incredible. It's an imperative, God's will, it's active voice, you're to do it. So how are we to understand speaking well of a persecutor?

And McCauley really helped me out here. I kind of knew the answer, but I wasn't sure. So he kind of goes into options, option one, option two. Option one is to take to speak well of in the sense that you're going to praise him, give thanksgiving to him.

Well, you think that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I'm going to praise him for possibly his wrongdoing, his slanderous words, his words of persecution. I'm going to praise him and give thanksgiving to him? That doesn't seem like that really fits. Option two I like a lot better. To speak well to someone, rather than of someone, to someone.

So the case here is that we're speaking to him in the sense, and we'll see, of God's action in their life. We're desiring that they see what God wants to accomplish in their life, their salvation, basically. We're assuming, making some assumptions here. So to speak well of, I think, is the picture, and Constable kind of summed it up, blessing involves both wishing God's best on people and praying for them, and that makes That makes sense. That fits Christ's life in us, where I can see.

We want the best for them. We want their salvation. We realize that Christ died for all men, whether they're railing against God, whether they're railing against us. Praying for their well-being and salvation is what we should be about. Okay, so let's go on. A couple more things. So here's interesting, and Jim picked up on that really good.

So we see this same instruction in the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount says, Matthew 5, 44, but I say to you, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. And then in Luke 6, 28, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. So, being hopefully a good Bible student, you say, well, the Sermon on the Mount, I don't think that's for the church. Isn't that for the, Isn't that the picture in the millennial kingdom and Christ on the throne? Boy, it'd be a lot easier to bless them when I have Christ on the throne. So, being a good student, you want to say, okay, well, what's happened here? And Jim hit it right on the head. Paul has now applied it to the church age. He's taken these instructions that Christ said and we applied them to the church age. But he's added a little additional point, the last half of the verse here.

You bless. and do not curse. So in your blessing, you don't curse. And you can almost see the tension setting up here. If someone's on your case 24-7, constantly persecuting you, you may occasionally say something maybe you shouldn't have said against them. You may occasionally do that. And he says, don't do that. Don't go there. And you realize that you probably can't do that. And you know you can't do it in your own strength.

It's literally a blessing. And it's actually, what's interesting is, The verb tense here is that the action is already going on. You already have succumbed. You're cursing. So he says, stop cursing. Paul's assuming the action is already going on. So the admonition is to stop cursing. Don't curse. Bless and don't curse.

And curse here is the idea of a pretty strong word to pray against, to wish evil against a person or a thing. Pretty strong word. But Paul says, even though that persecution is all the time, you're to stop any thought of cursing. So pretty incredible verses, and we see just like those 13 we saw from last week, we see this is something that Christ's life in you has to be performing this, because our tendency would be to strike back at him, to curse him. Okay, let's go on to the next verse,

15. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Again, to the inner linear, you, Supply you rejoice with the rejoicing ones. Rejoice is Carol, to be glad. It's originally from the word for grace. Again, another present tense. So we're to be continually rejoicing is the idea in the sphere of hope. And actually we saw this back in 1212. Continually rejoice in the sphere of hope.

Another verse we have here in Philippians 3.1. I'm trying to present other verses that kind of carry this idea across. As for the rest of my brethren, be constantly rejoicing in the Lord. So the idea of be constantly rejoicing is part of our life in Christ. With those, the rejoicing ones, so we're rejoicing with the rejoicing ones. A couple more verses that I found.

Now I rejoice at the coming of these men, It turns out this is a case where we have a couple of men I couldn't pronounce their names. So I believe you can check me out. I had a note about this. Anyway, this might be an exercise for the student, as they say. Stephanas and others. Okay.

Now I rejoice that the coast deposit others for they refresh my spirit in yours The next verse is I sent a path for Titus So that when you see him you may May rejoice. So here's some examples of places where you're rejoicing with others because they're coming to to be with you to encourage you and Okay, so let's go on here. So now the second half of the verse, you had the positive side, if you will.

Now we're gonna have not the negative or maybe the harder aspect, but still needed, weep with the weeping ones. The side is to weep, to wail, to lament. Not only shedding of tears, this is from Vine, but also the expression of grief. So this is really identifying yourself with the weeping ones.

And that's what the Christian life is about. We do that with our brothers and sisters when we see them, if they're having issues. I thank you for all that you're identifying with me and my sciatic pain. You identify with your brothers and sisters and what they're going through.

Present tense again. So we have a lot of continuous action going on here. You're weeping. continually identifying yourself weeping with those who weep, with the weeping ones. A couple of verses I offer here, and this is kind of neat, when the Lord saw her, he felt compassion for her and said to her, do not weep. Another verse in 1 Corinthians 12, 26, and if one member suffers, all the members suffers with it. And that's our identification, our weeping and identifying with our brothers and sisters.

Now Philippians 4.14, all the same, you did a beautiful thing when you made yourself fellow partakers with me in my tribulation. Oh, very beautiful verse. You made yourself partakers while you partook, not of a glorious thing, of my tribulation, my trials.

Well, that comes many times talking with people. I know we go to visit some people in the hospitals. It's tough. It seems like they just can't hear God's word. And you try to identify with that, and it's very difficult. It's a difficult task to weep with those who weep. Okay, so let's go on to verse 16. And I really like this section. Really, I like this idea of God talking about our minds. He says, be of the same mind toward one another.

So again, in the interlinear it has, you be thinking the same thing toward one another. So let's kind of dig down in that a little bit. Oops, wrong direction here. So thinking is this word phoneo, to think, have a mindset or to be minded. So he's interested in our thinking and how we think. He wants us to think the same thing.

And this is interesting, this is a word kind of two words together. It's the idea of coming to an agreement. Generally, it means the same, not different, but it's actually the idea of agreeing. It's thinking with the idea of agreeing. And it's toward, with respect to one another. It has a direction. We're thinking in respect to one another. So let's just look so a couple of comments is we Scott we will will Cite several people he quotes from Danny is one of his favorites.

He said toward one another points to the idea of loving Unanimity, you know nimity harmony is what that word means So it's he's God is looking for harmony among believers But each of us this is from Guilford, but if each of us so enter into feelings and desires of others as to be of one mind with them. So God is very much interested in our minds being in agreement. And you think about that.

How in the world is my mind going to be in agreement with my brothers and sisters? How is that possible? Many times we come from different backgrounds, different countries, and our brother Miles comes to be with us. How are we to do that? It's only by God's Word that we have a focus and on our Savior, the Lord Jesus. That's how that can be accomplished.

I like this comment by Alfred. It's not uniformity. God's not seeking uniformity. He's not seeking cookie-cutter Christians, I'll call it, that we all look alike, talk alike, sound alike, laugh alike, have the same cars. We've heard all those different examples. He's not looking for uniformity. He's looking for unanimity. He's looking for harmony. Harmony is God's goal. We're in harmony with the Lord, in harmony with our brothers and sisters.

And so the next one's gonna talk about more this idea of same-mindedness or how to think the same way. So we have some verses I'm gonna offer here along that line. Romans 15, five. Now may the God who gives us perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Jesus Christ. And like so many other things in the Christian life, you know, Macaulay likes to have this, he paints this picture of this triangle. You listen to it and you say, well, we have a triangle.

You have two believers interacting, but in essence, it's always according to the Lord or in the Lord. Our relationship is always through our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how we can have any relationship on the horizontal level. We must have this relationship on the vertical level. So it's according to it, the same mind with one another, according to Christ Jesus.

Then Philippians 2.2, actually I'm going to have it quoted twice here. I liked it so much.

Philippians 2.2, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintain the same love, united in spirit, intent upon one purpose.

And then lastly, Philippians 4.2, I urge you, Eudeke, I urge you, Syndike, to live in harmony in the Lord. Remember, that's the case we went through, Philippians, and that's the case where there was some issue with these two ladies, and Paul's admonition, live in harmony, live in same-mindedness. That's how, living with a mindedness focused on the Lord, harmony on the horizontal level.

Okay, so let's go on to the next part, the B part of the verse. Not thinking the high things. So now we're given some, so now it kind of goes to the negative side. We're given some warnings. He says, I told you, I want you to be thinking in a harmonious way together. And now I'm going to tell you, here's some warnings about things, a path you shouldn't go down. Don't go down this path. These negatives will introduce the clauses to follow from Denny, things that will destroy our harmony, our unanimity. Things that would prevent that from happening.

So here we go. First one is not thinking the high things. High things here is this idea to highly esteem haughty. In fact, New American Standard translates to haughty, I think. I'm pretty sure it does. So we're not to be, boy, this is a tough thing in this world.

People are admired many times by their their grasp of the language or science or whatever it might be. They think the high things. Oh, this guy is really smart. He thinks high things. But the connotation here, this is things that they don't realize who God is. They don't realize it. And there's a verse that shows that. And here it is right here, Luke 16, 15b.

I don't think he's saying that you shouldn't gain knowledge in your life, you shouldn't study as hard as you can and try to understand everything in your field you know the best. But he's saying when that turns into putting it, exalting yourself, Exalting yourself among God in comparison with God you got a problem It becomes detestable in his sight. You know, God will not share his glory with anyone many verses that talk about that then Romans 3 2 9 12 12 3 Mike taught this a couple weeks ago for the for through the grace of God given to me I say to you say to everyone Not to think more highly of himself as he ought to think That's so key. We study and we study. I've got this down pat. I understand it totally. Well, maybe you do, but there's always room for more understanding and more growth. The humble approach is much more