Today on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The true test of our genuine maturity in Jesus Christ. Are you ready? It's how we treat our enemies. Let me ask you, how are you doing with that person who betrayed you?
How do you deal with that person in a way that honors God and brings about change? That's today. Don't miss it. In the book of Romans, Paul lays out one of the most demanding and most liberating instructions in all of Scripture. What to do when someone has genuinely hurt you.
I'm Dave Druy, and today on Living on the Edge, Chip Ingram brings that teaching to life through a story from his own freshman year in college that put every one of Paul's principles to the test in real time. It's raw, it's honest, and it just might be the most practical thing you'll hear all week. We're starting in Romans 12, verse 14 for today's message, how to overcome the evil aimed at you. I want to break down very specifically and practically what it looks like. to bless those who persecute you.
And the command is this. Bless them that persecute you. That's what you're called to do. And there's three components here. The first component of blessing others is forgiving them.
And so the process of forgiveness is a choice. Second, forgive, forgiving is a process. And then forgiven. Is it's done. And here's how you know when it's done.
You can spontaneously rejoice at blessing in their life. And so that's the positive side. Bless those and notice who persecute you. They're after you. The second command is a negative one: don't take your own revenge.
Verses 17 through 20. Don't take your own revenge. I mean, it's just a command. Do not repay evil. For evil.
And then he's kind of like in a following world. He says, be careful, circle that word above it. Literally, it's take thought. New American Standard says respect. but it's right in the sight of all men.
If possible, as far as it depends on you, live with peace with everyone. And then he goes on to say, just wait a second, don't take your own revenge, but leave room for God's wrath. He's the one who's going to be the judge. He's going to mete out justice. Here's the point.
Personal retaliation is a prohibited response for God's people. Personal retaliation. In other words, they did evil to you. You get them back. They did this to you, you say bad things about them.
And if you're a Christian and you have some experience, you can do it in such passive, aggressive ways. and you add a verse to it. Throw in, it's a prayer request. It works, believe me. And you just go left-handed like this and you whack them.
Because your real goal is revenge. It's payback. You use your power, use your intellect, use your relationships, you use nuances. And you go like this. One more drink of poison, please.
It's going to kill him sooner or later. But it doesn't. Never. Pay back evil for evil. Instead, take thought and consider how people think.
Respect and realize that they don't have your values. They're not going to act the same way.
So the field is not level. They're really focused on them.
Sometimes I hear Christians get all upset about non-Christians living like non-Christians. Uh Ha ha! That guy's really greedy. She's so sexually immoral. I can't believe that, I mean, he just drained the whole company and all the employees.
Oh my.
So what were we like before Jesus? was controlling the interior of our life. Take thought for how people think. It will help you live in harmony with them. Personal retaliation is prohibited for two very important reasons.
One, it usurps God's role as judge. Vengeance is mine. God says, Look, I'm just. Yes, I'm holy, I'm compassionate, I'm slow to anger, but I'm just. And the word justice is rooted in a concept.
You know the scales of justice. Justice is rooted. in a very clear concept of retribution. Retribution is simply this. When you do evil stuff, Evil consequences.
When you do good stuff, reward. Every man will get what they deserve.
So you just need to say, I need to take the ball of judgment. Hand it to God and say, I'm tired of trying to figure out all the ways in my anger fantasies and different ways to get back at my boss or my ex or one of my kids or the person who abused me. And I'm going to put that ball in your hands from now throughout eternity. And I'm going to trust that since you are just, that you will do what's right. I will never get a raw deal.
But I'm stepping out. You own it, God. I release it to you. You're fair. You're just.
and either on this side of heaven or on this side of after death. The scales will be absolutely and perfectly balanced. You can release that wound and that hurt and your desire for payback. Because he knows all things. He knows all the wise.
He knows all the circumstances, and you don't. And you can give that to him. But there's a lot of us, if you demand to be the judge, then God doesn't get to be the judge. And when you judge people, and you decide you're going to pay them back. You reap what you sow.
The second reason that personal retaliation is prohibited is because it's an ineffective means of bringing about peace. See? When you tit for tat, evil for evil, evil for evil, you know what it's like? It's like there's a little fire brewing. It's like taking, you know, one of those big fireman hoses and instead of water coming out of it you fill it with gasoline Okay.
And this is what people do. They do it in their families, they do it in their marriages, they do it with their in-laws, they do it at work. They did this, I did this, we did this. Sit in some coffee shop. Just sit in a coffee shop sometime this week.
This is sort of raw to say, but and listen to other people. I mean, you can't help it because they're so close, because usually you try and concentrate. And see how many conversations, I bet it's in the 80 percentile of when people are talking. That they're talking about someone that's not at the table about your mom did that and she did that. I can't believe your sister and she did that.
And you know, Bob, who's the supervisor, can you believe they're doing that at work? Right? And then they carry this attitude. and they poison their own soul. And I would say it's really true of a lot of us.
And Paul says don't do that. It's ineffective. In fact, he goes to the other extreme and he says: in fact, if your enemy's hungry, I mean the person who's wounded you. Help them. Give him give him some food.
If they're thirsty, give them a drink. In so doing, you heap burning coals on their head. This picture of burning coals is not, as I said, it blows out their brains. It was an Egyptian ritual. In the time.
Ancient Near East. If a person in Egypt In this culture, they realized that they had offended someone, there was an argument, and they were wrong. Then they would build a fire and they take the coals out of the fire and put it in a pan. And then they would take a towel and put it underneath the pan, and they would put on their head. and they would walk through the village.
Symbolizing I'm burning the bad thoughts out of my mind. I was wrong. We would use the word, I repent. I have a metanoia. I've had a change of mind.
And see, this is what you see happen in Scripture. This is when you do good for people, and they know deep in their heart and their psyche that they don't deserve it.
Well, it brings about a shame, even in evil people. This is a picture of David. And David's running for his life, and all has he done is won battles and cared for Saul and cared for the king of Israel, who was Saul. And Saul really went off the deep end, and he was chasing David, and he's trying to kill him. You know the story?
And so, you know, he's running, running, dodging, dodging.
Well, finally, he gets surrounded and he finds himself. And there's this cave.
So he and his men are all the way in the back of this cave. And Saul's got him surrounded and it's like, man, guys, this is kind of it. We're done if they find us. And lo and behold, Saul comes into the cave, and the Bible's pretty graphic, he relieves himself. And I don't know, maybe he took a nap afterwards.
I don't know exactly how it all happens. The text doesn't say. But David's buddies, they go, hey, God's delivered him. This is it? Nail him.
And David says, See, David gets this. I'm not the judge. I will not touch the Lord's anointed. His buddies were saying, God's put him right here. I mean, this is an answer to prayer.
Knock him out. David says no no. But He gets close to Saul. He gets out his knife and he cuts a little section off the bottom of his robe. Saul leaves the cave, goes down, peace.
There's a ravine. It's on the other side of Ream. David steps out from the mouth of the cave. Saul!
So Why? What have I done? God brought you in this cave and he holds up Look at your robe. I could have killed you. And then he makes this very interesting statement.
He says, let God be the judge between us. If you are more righteous than I, then I accept full responsibility. May God take me out. But what have I ever done? See, he gave good for evil.
And then very interestingly, Saul begins to weep. It's like in this flash, in this moment, he realizes the truth. See, when people do evil things, They repress it, then they go into denial. And there's demonic stuff that happens with people that do progressively evil things to where they don't think they're doing anything evil, and it's addictive. And in this moment of grace, Saul, he weeps and he says, David, you are more righteous than I.
Unfortunately, it's a very short repentance and a temporary repentance. But can you imagine If we said, you know what, God? I'm going to forgive so-and-so. And then you started on the journey of praying for him. And then maybe even anonymously doing something good for them to bless them.
And even, you know, we tend to demonize people when they've hurt us. Have you realized that? Is that, you know, they've really hurt us, so everything they do is terrible, and everything we do is good. And we kind of reframe the whole story. Most stories aren't quite that clear.
Does it mean they didn't do something terrible? But what would happen? What would happen just where we live? If we loved our enemies. If we bless them.
If we said, God, you be the judge. If we were free.
Well, here's the supernatural result. is good We'll overcome. Evil. Uh You're listening to Living on the Edge, and Chip Ingram will continue today's program in just a minute. Today's message is part of Chip's series God's Dream for Your Life, and you can hear it anytime at livingonthege.org.
Whether you want to revisit what you've heard today or pass it along to a friend, this message and hundreds more are available online. You'll also find small group resources and opportunities to help you live out God's dream for your life. It's all there at livingonthege.org.
Well now here's Chip.
Now I realize that what I've said so far For some of you. Is there still a little bit of a You don't really understand. You can't possibly grasp what I've been through. And you know what? I don't.
But some lessons you learn later in life and some early. And this lesson I learned as a very young Christian in a powerful way that shaped my future. I came to Christ in the summer right after high school. I went away to play basketball and a basketball scholarship. I was a freshman and if you could do pretty well you could make the traveling team and A guy came in, it was supposed to be the big hero, came from inner city, New York.
He'd grew up in the projects, he'd been to Vietnam, he'd been in prison some, he was supposed to be this rehabilitated drug addict and drug dealer. And the reason he came, I played at a smaller school, the reason he came to our school was because his nervous system was kind of damaged. His reflexes were just, I mean, they weren't terrible, but they just weren't all that good. He had a 40-inch vertical leap, and he was about 6'7 ⁇ , 6'8. I mean, there's times where I thought, man, that guy's going to just knock his head on the rim.
And so something happened in his life. I don't know if it was Vietnam. I don't know if it was upbringing. But he hated Christians. I don't mean he disliked or had a...
He hated Christians. And I'm like six months old in the Lord, okay? I mean, it's we're in basketball season now. I'm just brand new. I'm just reading my Bible in the morning.
I haven't even made it all the way through the New Testament. But I've decided I'm going to, you know, this is, He's my Savior. I'm going to walk with Him. And.
So this guy finds out I'm a Christian and he starts, he knew a little bit of the Bible and he would quiz me on that and then it got to just humiliation. If you've ever been in a locker room, you know what guys talk about and all that. He liked to say my name in a way that sounded like a cuss word. Cheer up. Chip, come here.
That's the way he talked to me. And then it was, I became, when you're a freshman, you have to do whatever the older guys, so I kind of became his slave.
So it was like, put my bag on the bus, and then I'd come back. You know what? I want my one shoe out of that. I'd go back, get the shoe, you know, I don't really want that shoe. And he would just mess with me.
And at the training table, go get me a Coke. Get me a second helping a meat. And then he would just ridicule, like the coach would walk out the door, like before he goes, hey, we got a big game. I wonder if this skinny little white virgin's going to be helpful. You know how them Christians are.
And guys, multiply 10x what I just said, and you'll get to where we really lived. And I hated his guts. And so my answer was, my hero was Pete Marabich, and so I did all those drills for years and years and years and could handle the ball. And so in warm-ups and things, behind the back as hard as I could because I knew his reflexes weren't very good, bam, right through his hands, into his face, you know, and then I'd be on the break and I'd slam one through my legs and I'd watch it come right up and the coach would yell at him and, you know, no look pass. You know, it was really fun.
Because you know. And he was humongous. I mean, I hated him so much that I mean, honestly, I would have done this like... Hey Jerry. Come on.
You want some of this? But it was like, it would be like a three-second moment. And I'm smarter than that.
So let me finish the story, because there's a major point where I learned about this passage. 'Cause it gets real serious. I'm coming in from the gym. And here is a is a room. And across the hall from mine, and I just crossed to get to mine, and the door's a little bit open, and there's all this smoke, you know, greenish-blue smoke coming out of it, and everyone's smoking dope.
And he's in there.
Well If he gets caught even s smoking grass, He's on probation. He'll go back to prison. And I didn't think of that, but I just walked by and I was unlocking my door, and I felt this one back of me. And he turned me around, and he grabbed me underneath the neck, and he lifted me up against the wall.
So I could be up where he is. And he got about this close to me, said, if you tell anyone, what you just saw. I will kill you. And I've killed a lot of people and it's not that big a deal. Do you understand?
And you know, I'm 18 years old. I just came to play basketball in college. And I'm scared to death because there was no bluff in this guy. And I started getting like ulcers in my stomach, and I couldn't sleep at night, and I had anger fantasies. Yeah, you know, I mean anger, like really bad.
You know, like doing something that you would regret the rest of your life. And it dominated my life. I went to my uh There was a guy that was making disciples and I was in a Bible study and I just shared the whole story. He said, do you want help? I said, are you kidding?
Yeah. He says, well, what I'm going to tell you is really hard, but I guarantee it'll work. I said, man, I'll take anything. He grabbed a Bible. He opened to Romans 12.
He read verses 14 to 21, and he explained what I just explained to you. And I looked at him like Are you on drugs? Bless this guy, I want to shoot him. I said, you said you're willing. And he said it's not a feeling, it's choice.
So at this table right now, you need to forgive him. Because God wants to forgive him. I said, I don't think God, okay, yeah, okay, I'm sure God really does want to forgive him. I just don't. And I willfully chose to forgive him.
And he says, now you need to bless him.
So I prayed for him every day. And then Jerry, for the next four months of our season, never had to ask for anything because I got his back. Jerry, you want this on the bus? Jerry, you need anything else? Jerry, you need another Coke?
Hey, ha. What can I do for you, Jerry? I mean, I'm here for you. When he would go in the shower, his all his dirty clothes, you had to put him in this mesh bag. And I took all the sweaty stuff, gave him to the trainer, took his clothes, folded him, put his shoes next to it.
Didn't say a word. I just blessed him and blessed him and blessed him and blessed him, and when he said stuff to me, I just By the grace of God, I didn't didn't say anything back. No more behind-the-back passes, no more no-look passes. Jerry, good shot. And after, you know, like after a month or so, he's going.
You trying some Christian trick on me? I said, no, I'm just, you know, Jesus said. that I'm to love everybody and I'm just doing my best. Chip. Disgust.
Well, I'd like to say, you know, this is one of those stories where Two and a half months in, he walked in the locker room, knelt down, oh Jesus, please forgive me. That story ain't going there.
Okay, because that's not this story. Two months, three months, nothing changed. He just ridiculed me all the time, except one thing. About a month into it, I changed. My hate was gone.
My fear was gone. I got out of prison. I actually saw, I wonder, I mean this guy was brilliant. He used to wear this skull cap. He was an amazing artist.
And I actually got to where I could say, I wonder what happened to this young man, where he came from and where he's been. He'd take his shirt off, he had a scar that went from here all the way around to here. I had no idea what he'd been through. And I had no idea how other Christians treated him. All I knew is I got to the point where.
I actually cared about him. Why? I blessed him. I prayed for him. I did good.
And when you do that, God does something in you. We closed the season, and we always closed with a big tournament in a major city, and at a big Coliseum, and all the teams in our conference would come, and you'd play a bunch of games, and we were eliminated. And I mean, you gotta remember, this is like. Mid-70s and So it's uh Jerry and I, you know, I'm only six foot tall, so I've got my platforms and my Blue leather jacket and my apple hat, and you know, I'm sort of strutting. And Jerry is, you know, he's like 6'7, 6'8, so he's got his platforms and his fro and his hat.
So he's like 7-2, you know.
So this was just the world we lived in. And it was real windy, and I remember him. I just, you know, those images in your mind sometimes? I remember him. Taken his leather coat because it was windy and put it up here.
He turned to me and goes, Chip. I said, yeah. He said, you know, there's only two people I respect on this whole team. I've been messing with these guys' minds. They are so punks.
He said, me, because I am evil and I know it, and if there's a hell, I'm going there. And you. Because I disagree with everything you stand for, but you actually live it. And I would never ever want to be a Christian. But if I ever even thought about it I'd be one like you.
And he said, you know what? I'm done with you. It's no fun to diss you anymore.
So you're done, kid. Get out of here. Cheer. Yeah. And here's what I want to tell you.
God wants You to love your enemies. For your good. And for his glory. This is Living on the Edge Chip Ingramram. Today we learned what it actually looks like to love an enemy.
Not as a theory, but as a daily choice that costs something. And Chip's conclusion says it all: God wants you to love your enemies for your good and for His glory. That's the heart of God's dream for your life. If today's message is one you want to come back to or pass along to someone who's in the middle of a painful situation, you'll find it anytime at livingonthege.org. For over 30 years, Living on the Edge has been committed to one mission: helping believers understand what it truly means to follow Jesus.
Not religious activity, not trying harder, but relational, practical, measurable Christianity that transforms every area of life. Teaching like this reaches people every single day because listeners choose to support this ministry. If Living on the Edge has been a source of growth and encouragement for you, we'd be so grateful for your partnership. Would you join this mission today? Give online at livingonthege.org or call us at 888-333-6003.
You can also mail your gift to LivingOnthege, P.O. Box 3007, Atlanta, Georgia, 30024. And if you haven't already, subscribe to the Living on the Edge podcast and check out the new Chip Ingram Sermon Podcast, featuring Chip's complete unedited messages just as he originally preached them. Subscribe wherever you listen.
Now, a final question for Chip. In light of all we've heard today, how do we as the church respond to all the injustice we see in the world? We as the church need to be not doormats. But we have to give good for evil. We have to follow what Jesus commanded us, what Paul tells us here.
And by giving people what they don't deserve in the power of the Holy Spirit to bless them, to pray for them, to actually do good for those that persecute, who hurt us, that's how injustice gets solved. My prayer is that literally tens of thousands of the Living on the Edge family will dig into this series, share it with others, do it as a small group. and say We? are gonna be the kind of people that are just like Jesus. Father, forgive them.
They know not what they do. and we will do good in his power. because good is more powerful than evil. Amen. Let's do it together.
I'm Dave Druy, and we'll see you next time for more practical, insightful Bible teaching, Monday on Living on the Edge. Wow. Uh Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge. Uh
