How To Overcome
Romans 12:9-21
by Jim Westmoreland
A reporter was interviewing an old man on his 100th birthday. "What are you most proud of?" he asked. "Well, " said the man, "I don't have an enemy in the world." "What a beautiful thought! How inspirational!" said the reporter. "Yep," added the centenarian, "outlived every last one of them!"
Most of us have at least one relationship that gives us something to overcome. It could be at work, a relative, a neighbor or even someone at church. Paul has written a very practical book of instruction and advice in his letter to the Romans. It is filled with much practical insight and chapter twelve is one of those chapters that fits that description. Paul begins this section with the words, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, 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 renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect."
This mornings text is bracketed with Paul's words on how to overcome. In v. 9 he writes, "let love be genuine; hate what is evil. Hold fast to what is good." And, in vs. 21, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." In these two verses evil is offset by love and with good. Both love and good are not states of being but are simply the actions of love and actions which are good. The things and the people which would bring us down are overcome by doing good and by loving.
Love, if it is genuine, vastly exceeds feeling. It engages mind and will, directing and shaping our actions to reflect and develop that love, despite how we feel. This is the kind of love that requires great courage to allow those that we love to be, to grow, to change; and, it requires courage to risk our own change, growth, and loss.
For love to grow, we have to let go of living for ourselves. The art of genuine love is expressed in the radical giving of self, which requires a radical freedom from self. We learn this in our closest relationships--those people from whom we cannot hide. The more deeply we care about loving, the less free we are to live for ourselves. This is the love that is the opposite of control. It endures the pain of watching the beloved suffer and struggle, in a constant dynamic of embrace and release.
It is difficult to overcome the competitiveness, greed and self-interest that often exists within us. Dave Simmons tells the following story in his book, Dad, The Family Coach, "I took Helen (eight years old) and Brandon (five years old) to the Cloverleaf Mall in Hattiesburg to do a little shopping. As we drove up, we spotted a Peterbilt eighteen-wheeler parked with a big sign on it that said, "Petting Zoo." The kids jumped up in a rush and asked, "Daddy, Daddy. Can we go? Please. Please. Can we go?"
"Sure," I said, flipping them both a quarter before walking into Sears. They bolted away, and I felt free to take my time looking for a scroll saw. A petting zoo consists of a portable fence erected in the mall with about six inches of sawdust and a hundred little furry baby animals of all kinds. Kids pay their money and stay in the enclosure enraptured with the squirmy little critters while their moms and dads shop.
A few minutes later, I turned around and saw Helen walking along behind me. I was shocked to see she preferred the hardware department to the petting zoo. Recognizing my error, I bent down and asked her what was wrong.
She looked up at me with those giant limpid brown eyes and said sadly, "Well, Daddy, it cost fifty cents. So, I gave Brandon my quarter." Then she said the most beautiful thing I ever heard. She repeated the family motto. The family motto is "Love is Action!"
She had given Brandon her quarter, and no one loves cuddly furry creatures more than Helen. She had watched my wife take my steak and say, "Love is Action!" She had watched both of us do and say "Love is Action!" for years around the house. She had heard and seen "Love is Action," and now she had incorporated it into her little lifestyle. It had become part of her.
What do you think I did? Well, not what you might think. As soon as I finished my errands, I took Helen to the petting zoo. We stood by the fence and watched Brandon go crazy petting and feeding the animals. Helen stood with her hands and chin resting on the fence and just watched Brandon. I had fifty cents burning a hole in my pocket; I never offered it to Helen, and she never asked for it.
Because she knew the whole family motto. It's not just "Love is Action." The whole family motto is, "Love is SACRIFICIAL Action!" Love always pays a price. Love always costs something. Love is expensive. When you love, benefits accrue to another's account. Love is for you, not for me. Love gives; it doesn't grab. Helen gave her quarter to Brandon and wanted to follow through with her lesson. She knew she had to taste the sacrifice. She wanted to experience that total family motto. Love is sacrificial action."(1)
In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote, "Do not waste your time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor, act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less."(2)
Paul wrote in vs. 17, "Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all," and in vs. 21 "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." This isn't the easiest choice for us to make. It is not necessarily what we "want" to do. It is what we "will" or "choose" to do.
In The Grace of Giving, Stephen Olford tells of a Baptist pastor during the American Revolution, Peter Miller, who lived in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, and enjoyed the friendship of George Washington. In Ephrata also lived Michael Wittman, an evil-minded sort who did all he could to oppose and humiliate the pastor. One day Michael Wittman was arrested for treason and sentenced to die.
Peter Miller traveled seventy miles on foot to Philadelphia to plead for the life of the traitor. "No, Peter," General Washington said. "I cannot grant you the life of your friend." "My friend!" exclaimed the old preacher. "He's the bitterest enemy I have." "What?" cried Washington. "You've walked seventy miles to save the life of an enemy? That puts the matter in different light. I'll grant your pardon." And he did. Peter Miller took Michael Wittman back home to Ephrata--no longer an enemy, but a friend.
How do we overcome the things that would swallow us up? How do we overcome circumstances and people that can hurt us? Paul tells that we overcome by letting our love be genuine and by overcoming evil with good. What we have come to know as we follow the teachings and example of Christ is that we do not live our lives according to the changing barometric pressure of our feelings. That is too unreliable! To follow Christ is to make some choices, exert some discipline on our selves, confess our sins and shortcomings when we fail and then re-commit ourselves to following Christ. That is when we will be living the life that overcomes and finds victory through faith.
How do we overcome? Not by a half-hearted faith life and not by rationalizing our moodiness and lack of consistency. How do we overcome? Paul lived his own words for us, "Let your love be genuine," and "overcome evil with good." Now let our lives demonstrate that we are overcomers! Amen.
Century Christian Church, August 28, 2005 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland
www.centurychristian.org
1. Dave Simmons, Dad, The Family Coach, Victor Books, 1991, pp. 123-124.
2. Quoted in Our Daily Bread, February 14, 2005.