Romans 12:9-21

I’m going to turn to God’s word together at this point—and turn to Romans chapter 12—and the text of our consideration this morning is the final passage in the three part division of Romans chapter 12. So, Romans chapter 12, we’re going to begin reading at verse nine.

“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Alright, what an amazing passage. What a countercultural passage. Frankly, what a shocking passage. Let’s be honest. What a frustrating passage This passage speaks to us. This is the word of God, it instructs us, it commands us, it binds us, it restricts us, it authorizes us, directs us, humbles us, chastens us. Context is so important. This coming Lord’s day, I am preaching in Atlanta and I am preaching the next to the last of the words of Jesus from the cross, as has historically been defined, “it is finished”. And what a glorious text to preach. “It is finished”. It’s a very short sentence. “It is finished”. Okay, what’s finished? Dinner? Carpenter making cabinet? It’s finished, there it is? Building a great building or an airport? You open it up, it’s finished, there it is? How about the saving work of Christ, God’s purpose to bring glory to himself through the salvation of sinners, through the substitutionary atonement of his son? How about that “It is finished”? The context is everything. The context includes the when is this said, the context of course includes who said this? Jesus speaking those words from the cross was making a declaration that splits history in two.

In this passage is the Apostle Paul, I mean in a way, doesn’t sound like the apostle Paul. It’s a passage which is resonant with much of what the Apostle Paul writes, and the apostle Paul writes constantly about love, and he writes about joy. He writes about the affective and moral dimensions of the Christian faith in ways we often don’t remember when for all kinds of reasons, and necessary reasons, I mean as necessary as the Protestant reformation, as necessary as the preaching and defense of the gospel, we find ourselves leaning in to the sections of the Apostle Paul where he’s contending for “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” as Jude will say, where he is very clearly dealing with the gospel doctrine, crucifixion, resurrection. “I proclaimed unto you what I received a first priority that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and that God raised him from the dead according to the Scriptures.” That’s honestly I think where Protestant Christians, and in particular, maybe even more so Protestant evangelicals, when we think of Paul, that’s what we think of. But Paul is a pastor as well as an apostle, and he is a shepherd of Christ’s people, and he’s a shepherd of the shepherds of Christ people.

The context here is also important because the very first text I ever preached from a pulpit, all eleven and a half minutes of it, was Romans chapter 12 verses one and two. As a 17-year-old I was so drawn to that passage. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” This is of course the great turn we’re witnessing in the epistle of Paul to the Roman church and to the church throughout all the ages. It’s practical application of the declaration, definition, proclamation of the gospel that was found in the earlier chapters of Romans. The gospel has consequences. The gospel produces a people. The gospel demands a certain way of life, “no longer conform to this world but rather transform by the renewing of our minds. But what does that look like? Well, it looks like a church. That’s what follows in the next paragraph of Romans chapter 12. Paul writes clearly two Christians in the context of the church: “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.”

What fascinating pairings you find there, leadership, zeal, acts of mercy, cheerfulness. All these are called forth in the body in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ as we encourage one another and serve together. But then there is the third paragraph and that’s our paragraph of primary attention this morning, the text of our primary concern. Because this is not just a thematic statement with a very clear discipleship demand as we find in the opening verses of chapter 12, and it’s clearly not just a reference to life in the church in the local congregation, which is that second section. I think we just need to say upfront and get ready for this last part of the passage, verses nine and following, just I’ll be honest, appears to refer to believers everywhere, and I mean not just all believers, I mean believers wherever we are in whatever context. That makes it all the more interesting.

This is a notoriously difficult passage to outline. It’s more like, it’s not a rifle with successive cartridges, it’s a shotgun. All the pellets come at once. I think the best way to get the measure of the text is just to slowly walk through it for a few minutes because this was meant to be read. Remember this is one of the letters of the apostle Paul. This was an epistle. It was sent to the church at Rome and would’ve been read to the church at Rome, so they wouldn’t have read it, they would’ve heard it and they would’ve heard it just in the sequence here.

First thing he says is let love be genuine. Evidently there’s a danger that it would be something else. There’s some kind of synthetic artificial substitute. No, the marks of the true Christian include the fact that our love is to be genuine. And then a command, “abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good.” Name things what they are. Evil and good right there. Love one abhor the other. “Love one another with brotherly affection and outdo one another in showing honor.” This can lead to elevator awkwardness. Happened to me this past weekend in Florida. I got on the elevator, it’s just me and like a 16-year-old boy and I really didn’t notice that he had headphones on. And we’re going from up high down to down low, and I just really feel like in a situation like that, I just want to say something friendly. And this kid looked really nice and friendly enough, but he’s completely unresponsive. I mean completely. And I’m thinking, okay, this is one of the rudest things I’ve ever seen. And then I noticed the headphones because they’re bigger than his head in one sense, and I am looking at it, and then our eyes meet, and he pulls out the headphones and he said, “Oh sorry, did you say something? Yeah, I actually said quite a bit, but nonetheless, “Hi”. And this was a hotel where everybody’s come from somewhere in the country. I said, “Where’d you come from?” And he said, “Charlotte.” “Well great.” And he smiled and was quite friendly and then he was embarrassed. I didn’t want him to be embarrassed. He seemed like a very nice young man. But anyway, our entire lifetime encounter came to an end when all of a sudden the elevator lands, the door opens, and I just said, “Have a good day”. And I was kind of waiting for him to get out. He’s going to move faster than I would, so just go. And he goes, “No after you.” And I could tell this was like an attempt of a sweet kid, at that moment, just to reflect the fact “I really blew the headphones but I’m going to get it right now. I know dad’s not here, but he could know about this.” It it’s just one of those things, that, you got to get this right and so you can get into this situation where it’s after you, no after you, no after you, no after you, no after you. Somebody’s got to get out of the door because that elevator’s leaving. But you look at that and you realize, wouldn’t it be wonderful to be a part of a church where that’s actually what the risk is? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be in a situation where the risk is there’s just a little too much honor giving here? And by the way, this doesn’t mean public commendation, it just means rightful honor, commendation. Do the senior adults in your church, do they sense the honor that is due them just by being there as senior saints? Do the mothers in your church, got so many different things they’re worried about right this very moment, and one of them might be right on her lap—are those mothers honored for the work that they are doing? Not just on behalf of their family, but on behalf of the family of faith? Are your youth workers honored? Are your young people honored? Or do we learn to give honor? It’s just such a wonderful thing, and Paul’s language is just so clear. “Outdo one another.” If the risk is you’re going to outdo it, then outdo it to the glory of God.

“Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.” Okay, here’s a question, what is the thing with sloths? Why is it in a truck stop? You’ve got sloth backpacks people are selling. The sloth is all of the sudden cool in our society. I’ll just state the obvious, he was slow to get there. But right now you go in a store, and for all I know, Walmart’s got sloths with the teddy bears and the rabbits. What Is it? What attracts us to sloths? Maybe it’s attractive to toddlers because toddlers can outrun them. I don’t know. But look, they’re part of God’s creation, they’re cute, but I was really struck in this passage by the fact that they’re not exactly held up as a model. I mean, they’re the animal full of which is doing nothing. Do not be slothful in zeal. So in other words, we’re to be energetic in zeal. It sounds a little bit repetitive but nonetheless it’s no more repetitive than the next phrase. “Be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord, Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation.” That’s hard. That’s very hard. I can be patient in calm. It’s harder to be patient in tribulation, but evidently that’s exactly when we should be patient.

“Constant in prayer.” There’s a material aspect to this. There are concrete acts that are called for: “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.” So hospitality, again, it’s a Christian gift, and one that isn’t exercised enough among Christians. Now we just don’t show much hospitality because we’re busy people, and evidently that’s something that’s important to the Christian Church.

Things take a significant moral turn in verse 14, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” This is getting personal, this is getting tough. How about verse 16? “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.” Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.”  “Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another.” Never be haughty. “Never be wise in your own sight.” Evidently those were things in the first century, so this is human nature, following human nature, all these things are realities, they’re all temptations. Let’s be honest, we know exactly what he’s talking about. We do not need an in-depth linguistic study to understand what’s been translated here. We do not need a lexicon. We really don’t need a dictionary. Let’s be honest, we know exactly what he’s talking about. Evidently in the first century this was an issue. How about in the 21st century? Can you imagine what would’ve happened to the Apostle Paul on Twitter—X? Just think of social media. I want to ask you a question: Why do Christians, who know this is the word of God, and who know this is the command of God, why do they act as they act in social media? I was just convicted looking at this, recognizing there’s no exit in this passage to say this is the way you are to be everywhere except on social media. It doesn’t say build your brand on social media. It doesn’t say act in social media differently than you would act face to face. It doesn’t say look for the opportunity for the smack down. Now let’s be honest, ideologically there are things I want to smack down. There are false claims, there are lies and ideologies and other things and the apostle Paul is the same Apostle Paul who doesn’t say surrender to the principalities and the powers and just tolerate the toxic ideologies of the day. But this is the apostle Paul who is being very clear. We do fight not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers the rulers of spirits of the air. That’s a distinction we need to make. In other words, we need to fight the idea, we need to fight the falsehood, we need to fight the false gospel at times, we need to be clear in our thinking, and we need to engage many of these issues, but we have to do it in such a way that doing the same thing in church would not bring church discipline. We need to do it in such a way that the people who know us and love us know that this is an accurate representation of how we are in person. And here’s the sad thing. The sad thing is that over time, I think we do know this becomes an accurate representation of the person. Because at the very least, you have become the person who in social media is this, does this, acts in this way. It’s good for us perhaps to think about this.

In so far, as it is possible, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’.” That’s a good thing for us to know. We don’t have to even the score. And by the way, we can’t. God does, God will. Not only that, to his glory, he reserves it to himself. Paul will defend his ministry, but the ultimate vindication of his ministry, he knows, is going to come on the day of judgment. There’s a sense in which there’s only so far we can go. And besides that, God’s vengeance is a holy vengeance. Let’s be honest, ours isn’t. “To the contrary, ‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink;” From the Proverbs, “for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Alright, I said this passage is notoriously difficult to outline, so I didn’t. Instead, I’m just going to share with you personally three lines from this list in the apostle Paul, three imperatives from this passage that speak particularly to me, and I think become kind of pegs on which the rest of it hangs. The first of these—and you may have thought, well, he went over that pretty quickly. Well that’s all right. I knew I was going back—The first of these comes so early. Verse nine, “Let love be genuine”—the next words—“abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.” So I’m going to take that statement as the first peg, the first nail, that I want us to think about for a moment. I think much of what surrounds this particular phrase in the passage is about the same point. But there’s a clarity in this I don’t want us to miss, where we are to love what is good and hold fast to it, but we’re to abhor what is evil. What is so helpful here, what’s so helpful, is the strength of this language, because this is the distinction between good and evil, and you’ll notice there’s absolutely no confusion of the two here. The apostle Paul is not a relativist. The apostle Paul is not a social constructivist. The apostle Paul is not an intuitionist. The apostle Paul is not an existentialist. The apostle Paul believes that there is an objective right and there is an objective wrong. There’s an objective good and there’s an objective evil, and that is established by the moral character of God. It is revealed in the word of God, and it is to bring forth from God’s people to different responses, and the words, frankly, are frighteningly powerful. We are to hold fast to what is good and that’s physical, right? I mean with the picture of it’s physical: we got to hold to it fast. We are to clinging to it, we’re to attach ourselves to it, we’re to be inseparable from it, we are to identify with it in such a way, it’s as if we are clinging to it like we are lost at sea and someone throws us a life ring and we are holding onto it. We need to hold onto what is good with the same desperation, with the same determination, with the same energy and frankly with the same, the same long-term endurance.

But that word that begins that phrase, abhor: hate, hate. We don’t use the word abhor very much, it nonetheless is immediately recognizable to us. We are to abhor what is evil. We’re not to dislike it. This is not just an aesthetic judgment. We are not to avoid it, only to avoid it as if it’s a proximate issue: we’re to hate it. I wasn’t allowed to use that word as a boy. If I said to someone, “I hate you,” there were consequences to that. I don’t remember saying it, but I remember knowing there would be consequences. We’re to love one another. We don’t hate, we don’t throw around the word hate. It is a biblical word. I’m not correcting my mother here, I’m simply saying at some point you got to learn that you can only be a faithful Christian if you actually do hate. It’s not people, it’s not people, we’re not called to hate people, but we are called to abhor, to hate what is evil. That’s morally clarifying, isn’t it? Isn’t it helpful? That’s theologically clarifying. We are to have loves and we are to have hates and they’re to be biblically ordered. One who has no hates is morally insane. We’re living in a world in which there is much to hate. There are ideologies not just to resist, not just to confront, there are ideologies to hate. There are sins at the top of the list we are to hate. We are to hate those sins, but we are to—you know the words—we’re to love the sinner. Indeed we are to hold fast to what is good, but we are to abhor that which is evil. That would clarify an awful lot in Christ’s church.

If we just follow that one phrase from this singular verse in Paul’s letter to the Romans, it would revolutionize the lives of many Christians and it would reform many churches. I also think—I talk about this often—I have a steady state, a steady state vision of the universe. And I don’t mean really physics, I mean morality. And what I mean by that is, is that I think wherever you find human beings, you’re going to find love and hate. I don’t think you’re going to find anyone who doesn’t hate. They may lie about it. I think it’s pretty steady. I think it can be inflamed here and inflamed there, but I don’t think it’s distinguished anywhere. I think it’s a constant in a fallen world. So is love because of God’s grace and mercy. Love shows up, love shows up among people who don’t expect to receive it. They don’t expect to give it; and I think that’s because—clearly—of God’s character, it’s because it’s He is the Creator of the cosmos. He embedded us as moral creatures. There’s a reason why a mother, untaught by the Bible, loves her child. There’s a reason why even without the touch of Christianity, there are persons who live together who feel some mutual obligation to one another, not only within a family and an extended family and within a kin system, but also just within say a neighborhood or a village. What Paul’s talking about is rightly ordering love and hate. That’s the point. It is to rightly order them, we’re to love what needs to be loved, whether that which is good and we’re to hold fast to it, we’re to hate that which is evil, and Paul uses that word in moral clarity and candor.

The second of these words I want to draw attention to is, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” And this of course is the last verse, verse 21. So, it looks to me like this is a pairing which is very common also to the letter writing pattern of the apostle Paul. Upfront, he says, abhor what is evil? Hold fast to what is good. But then he concludes, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. So that’s helpful because it’s not just that we are to hold fast to what is good and we are to abhor, we’re to hate what is evil, we are actually in the church as Christians, even in the world, to seek to overcome evil with good. Does sound overly idealistic to you? Does that sound like a pretty weak platform for overcoming evil? It is actually the only assignment that is given to us because the rest of it is God’s work. “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.” In other words, evening the score isn’t given to us. It just isn’t. I’m not saying we don’t tell the world that the score is going to be even, we do not warn the world of the judgment that is to come; that’s exactly our assignment, but we don’t get to bring that final judgment. We will just witness it. “Do not be overcome by evil”—I think we can understand the picture that’s in our minds. It’s very easy for us to be overcome and it would be very easy for us to be overcome by evil. And this means I think not only giving into evil, surrendering to evil, participating in evil, I mean quite frankly I think attitudinally, we can become way too defensive as evangelical Christians in thinking the evil’s winning more than it’s winning. So this text becomes the occasion for me thinking, “You know, I think I have this temptation, I want to name it.” I think I succumb sometimes to believing that evil is winning more than it is. I don’t want to minimize in any way the sexual and gender confusion of our day and the ideologies and the entire community, the entire activist community, the cultural elites and what they’re doing, but here’s something; the average person—I don’t care what they say—they really do know the difference between boy and girl. And no matter how much they say they want to buy into the entire thing, you put a 20-year-old man in a woman’s bathing suit and put it in a line, put him in a line, with the women swimmers on the University of Pennsylvania swim team, and you know what? One of these things is not like the other. I’m not saying we’re winning on this because that would be absolutely ridiculous, but I am saying that it turns out ontology does matter and it turns out that there are moral intuitions, and frankly just a creational instinct to human beings. Even the people who say that’s a woman, I don’t even think they think they mean it. We are not to be overcome by evil. We can’t cooperate; we must press back, but we overcome evil with good. Here’s one of the things in the context of that confusion in the context of that brokenness, in the context of those lies, we are, we better be, we are called to be, first and foremost, the only people on planet earth perhaps, who will turn to them, who will turn to every single human being on planet earth and say: “You are made in the image of God.” We’re not going to overcome evil with mere legislation. We’re not going to overcome evil with mere political action. I’m not saying we’re not called to that. I think we are. We’re not going to overcome evil by grabbing a megaphone and yelling into the public square. I’m not saying that you never do that. I’m just saying that’s not going to be the long-term strategy. The long-term strategy has to be overcoming evil with good. We Christ’s people, will be here to love you when the movement leaves you. We Christ’s people, are the people who love you enough to tell you the truth right now when everyone else is lying to you. But when everyone else leaves, we’re here.

Finally, I’m going back to the middle of the passage, the third peg on which I want to hang our understanding of this text is where the apostle Paul says, “If possible, as far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” Wow. Just look at those phrases very quickly and let’s start at the bottom. Maybe we will see things more clearly if we start at the end and then move back to the beginning. “Live peaceably with all.” Okay, Paul. Paul, let’s just remember your resume a little bit. Let’s walk through some of what we know about the apostle Paul’s life. It wasn’t exactly the peaceable kingdom, and I’m not even talking about his pre-conversion life, I’m talking about his post-conversion life. Galatians, he has to speak about the church so quickly preaching another gospel in Galatians two, he talks about staring down Peter face to face and there is conflict and it’s openly acknowledged. He confronts heresy, he confronts false teaching, he confronts immorality in the churches. Frankly, I think that’s the apostle Paul most of us think of first because those writings from the apostle Paul are so central to us understanding what the gospel is and how we defend the gospel and how we teach and preach the gospel. Paul’s extreme helpfulness in saying this is not the gospel, this is the gospel, and what is not the gospel is a false gospel, which we are to abhor, even as the true gospel we are to love. “Live peaceably with all.” Okay, that can’t be the entire verse. It’s not, don’t worry, it’s not. We already read it. But if you just take it out of context, live peaceably with all it sounds like not standing for anything at any time, not resisting evil, but before we go back to what comes first, at least we should understand the apostle Paul actually does—and remember this is the Holy Spirit speaking through the apostle Paul—the Apostle Paul actually does put the emphasis on live peaceably with all. So I mean before we go back and find some conditionals and they’re there, the conditionals set up the command live peaceably with all. If we’re not living peaceably at all, you know what? We better have a good reason for it as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. If where we are there is an absence of peace, then it better be for a good reason. And so we do go back to the beginning of this sentence, “if possible”, okay, if possible that grants the fact it may not be possible. The apostle Paul didn’t make an appointment with Felix or Festus or Caesar. He was dragged. The apostle Paul wasn’t looking for doctrinal problems; they came to him. He went to Ephesus; has to clean up a mess. It was messy. But here’s the big thing: on the other side of our ministry, is their peace? There are moments in which it isn’t possible. It just isn’t possible to have peace. Faithfulness means we’ve got to fight. Faithfulness means we have to contend. Faithfulness means sometimes we even have to divide. But on the other side of that, there better be peace. If we never get to peace inside the church, we have a big problem. If we never get to peace inside our fellowship, something’s horribly possible, and frankly, if we’re not agents of peace in our community, there’s a problem.

The first conditional is if possible, but the second is more pointed: “As far as it depends on you.” So that acknowledges two things, very quickly, number one, it does depend on us, but only so far. But so far it does depend on us. Beyond that, we’re not the moral agent of creating the problem. We’re not the moral agent of creating the strife. We’re not the moral agent for the absence of peace. If possible, insofar as it’s up to you, live at peace, live peaceably with all. Let’s face it, sometimes it’s not possible, but we better have a pretty good idea of when it is possible. And sometimes it does depend on us, other times it doesn’t depend on us. So here’s another point I just want to make: I am incompetent personally to judge where the line between possible and impossible is. I’m not competent to judge as far as it depends on me. So who do I need? Well, one means a grace would be a wife. Seriously, Mary will tell me the truth. If it depends on me, I think she’ll make that clear. If it’s possible, we’ll at least have a good discussion about that. I need the congregation of Christ’s people. I need the local church to say, “Brother, that was hot”. There are burn marks. I also need God’s people to say, “That was absolutely necessary”. Insofar as it’s possible, I think we want to develop the spiritual maturity to be pretty good at figuring that out, but we also need the spiritual maturity to know, we’re not capable of doing this alone. We need the means of grace. We need the restraining power of the word of God. We need the fellowship of the saints. And we need counselors and godly Christian friends and we need elders and churches.

If possible, as long as it depends on you, as far as it depends on you. In first Timothy chapter two verses one through three, Paul writes, “First of all, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God.” You wouldn’t know that, being around a lot of Christians. We should, right? And I’m going to be very honest, I want to tell you part of what makes me so happy about being here on this campus is because day by day I see how the Lord uses all of us, students, faculty, administrators, in such a wonderfully peaceful way to learn together, even theologically, what it means to hold fast to what is good and to abhor what is evil, but to also learn how to live, to negotiate and navigate in a world of so much confusion in such a way that insofar as it’s possible, so far as it depends on us, we live peaceable lives. I think it’s fair to say this is what we want in the dorms. Just saying. I think it’s fair to say this is what we want in the cafeteria. This is what we want in the gym. This is what we want in the library, quietly. This is what we want in the classroom. We want in every classroom to learn together, even just cognitively, what it means to hold fast at what is good and to abhor that which is evil—but we also want to learn in the classroom, and do, we do, what it means to live peaceably with one another.

Athanasius one of the most famous of the early church fathers, associated with him, and he is most well-known for, his defense of the truth concerning Christ, leading eventually in 325 to the Council of Nicaea. He was exiled five times by imperial power, and he just came back and said the same thing every time he came back from exile. But he’s associated with a statement with which I leave you, “Contra Mundum,” “against the world”. But he didn’t say “Athanasius is against the world”. Here’s the way he said it, “If the world is against Athanasius, then Athanasius will be against the world.” There are times you have to push back just to be faithful. And Athanasius had to push back against heresy, and we should be very thankful that he did. But he didn’t say Athanasius is against the world, therefore the world is against Athanasius. We’ve got to take the stand where we’re called to stand, but we got to get the order right. Let’s pray.

Father, we’re so thankful for all you have given us in your word. Thank you for this passage. Father, may this passage speak to every one of our hearts to conform us to the image of Christ, and it’s in Christ’s name we pray. Amen.