Transcribed by Beluga AI.
Amen. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your stories. It’s been a great first year of marriage, not without some bumps along the way, but to say at the end, this is the best year of my life. That is an amazing, amazing confession and quite different backgrounds, but reaching the same conclusion that I need Jesus.
Isn’t that so true to life? Doesn’t matter what past you are from. We all need Jesus equally. So thank you for sharing. I will read one verse and then we will proceed.
1 Peter 3:9.
9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. (1 Peter 3:9, ESV)
Okay, let’s pray.
Father, we want to understand how to bless instead of curse. We want to bless those who curse us, who abuse us, who persecute us. Help us to have your heart toward them. Give us understanding how to use our mouth to bless and to display the heart of God toward enemies of yours who will once, one day, hopefully become your children. Thank you, Lord. Be with us in this time. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
What does it mean to bless? What does it mean to bless? And are you good at blessing? Obviously, we can bless those who are good to us. We can bless our spouse, we can bless our children. But are you good at blessing those who are not good to you? How do you react to them? That’s what I want to talk about today.
So it says in Romans 12, there’s a few verses I want to bring your attention to.
Romans 12:14. It says,
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
So we know the first step of blessing is what not to do. Don’t curse them. Don’t curse them. That if you’re a young Christian, maybe that’s not easy and your old nature is just easily triggered. And so when somebody cuts you off on the road, you just curse them. When somebody is rude to you, when they’re taking your order, you curse them under your breath.
So if you’re unsanctified, if you’re young in your faith, it is not easy to obey this first verse of not to curse. But if you are a Christian and you have been walking this faith journey for a while, we know it’s not right to curse.
So instead of cursing, what happens? Well, other than blessing, that’s the right answer. But are there other answers? Like, we might not verbalize it, we might not actually curse somebody, but what do we do in our heart when somebody consistently abuses you, persecutes you, and does evil against you?
You get angry. Okay. Okay. You get angry. What else? What else happens? Angry that persists for a while. Does it stay anger? Yes, Tim. Okay, there’s annoyance. Yes. Yes. Complain. Yes. Ask help for Jesus. Yes, Sophia. Pardon me. Frustration. Yes.
All of these are emotional, emotional responses. But I think it progresses this. Instead of cursing, complaining, frustrated, all of these emotions, eventually what happens is, at least for me, I turn off my emotion and you become indifferent.
God is a loving God. And the opposite of love, we think, is hatred.
But I think something a little bit more evil is this hidden hatred called indifference. When you shut your emotions off to somebody and you say you consider that person dead to you, it’s like they don’t exist. They’re dead to me. Isn’t that the same as hatred? Isn’t that the same as murder?
When we are indifferent towards somebody who is in some serious trouble, spiritually, they need a blessing. And we might be the only person on earth. And if they’re our family member, it is our divine responsibility to pray a blessing over them.
But instead of blessing them through prayer, we shut off our hearts. We preserve our hearts, and we don’t want to injure ourselves, so we turn off this emotion.
In some sense, hatred is better than indifference because at least there’s emotion, and this emotion can switch. So if you have emotion that is hating somebody and you curse that person, at least your emotions are functioning, and it can be turned toward love.
But if you turn off your emotion because you’re consistently bothered and irritated by somebody who is doing evil against you, can we just turn on emotion toward God and love God and worship God and thank God when half the time our heart is off? Is that how our heart works? It’s like a switch?
The book of James says in James 3:7.
7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. (James 3:7-12, ESV)
So it’s my contention, my argument, that if you are readily, maybe not cursing people, but your heart is turned off and you’re apathetic and indifferent toward people, can that same mouth and that same heart flip a switch and bless the Lord and love the Lord and thank the Lord and worship the Lord? No. We need to recognize once we reach this point of indifference, there’s something quite broken in us that the Lord has to heal. So not cursing, we already know, okay, that’s wrong. And so you know the Bible, we will not curse.
It is even worse, in my estimation, to turn your heart off and to say, that person is dead to me, I cut them off. It’s not my problem. That is, I would say, worse than hatred.
So what do we do? It says in Romans 12:17.
17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. (Romans 12:17, ESV)
So they might curse us. They might do all kinds of evil against us.
We don’t stoop down to their level and return the same evil toward them, but we give thought to what is honorable. So is it honorable to go to somebody who abuses you and keeps abusing people and say thank you? Is that appropriate? Is that honorable in the sight of all?
If they are still abusing people, still ruining people’s life, is it honorable to publicly thank them? No, I don’t think that’s honorable. Because you might be okay with them. But what about the hundreds of people that they’re still damaging?
That is not honorable in the sight of the Lord. We don’t repay evil for evil. So they might say things. We don’t say things.
So what should we do that is honorable in the sight of all? Even victims? What is honorable in the sight of all?
And then we keep reading. Romans 12:19.
19 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.” (Romans 12:19, ESV)
And I think here we’re starting to see something very simple, significant being communicated to God’s church.
God doesn’t want us to take vengeance. Every fiber in our being might suggest that we need to take matters into our own hands. We need to fight for the person who is being hurt. We need to. We need to put this person in this place. I don’t know if you’ve ever prayed this. I’ve prayed this. Cursing people and shutting down ministries, because I think that is what God should do. God should judge them now, sooner than later, because they’re hurting people. But God says, no, vengeance is mine.
Eventually, if they don’t repent, they will have to deal with me. It is not your place. Because if we take the place of God, and we judge and we curse the fig tree because we saw Jesus do it, and now we’re cursing this ministry and saying this ministry is false, it’s just shut down. I think in so doing we are being overcome by evil.
When we take that stance of judge, then there’s only one judge.
And we try to avenge ourselves and all the people who are hurt, and we curse people and ask God to shut down certain people if they don’t repent. I think we are getting darkened by that heart, and we are being overcome by evil.
And that’s why he says two verses later in Romans 12:21.
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21, ESV)
So this heart of vengeance, this heart of I need to shut this person down, shut this person up. This person is hurting people.
I need to make sure they know that what they’re doing is wrong. And if I take this stance and I take matters into my own hands and I act as if I am the judge, it says I’m being overcome by evil. I’m being overcome by evil.
And we need to overcome this evil with good. So what kind of good is this? What is the best thing you can do to somebody who consistently shows evil toward you, is not repenting, who is false, who is hurtful, who is frustrating, who is not changing?
What should we do that is good, that is honorable in the sight of all?
Luke 6:27 gives one answer in verse 28.
27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. (Luke 6:27-28, ESV)
So the opposite of love. We think right away it’s hatred, but I think even worse than that is indifference. But let’s look at a few verses. The opposite of love, at the very least, hatred. 1 John 2:10.
10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. (1 John 2:10-11, ESV)
In 1 John 3:11-12.
11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. (1 John 3:11-12, ESV)
1 John 3:15.
15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. (1 John 3:15, ESV)
So the same way that Cain plunged a knife in the heart of his brother and killed him. He was a murderer. Hatred is the same as murder and indifference. I would say when you say somebody is dead, to me, I cut them off. I will never do anything for them. It’s as if they don’t exist. you’ve already killed them.
So love, the opposite is hatred. And another form of hatred is indifference. I think that’s a case I want to make today.
So instead of being hateful, vengeful, indifferent, what does the Lord want us to do to people who are treating us wrongly? He wants us to bless them instead of curse.
Specifically, what does it mean to bless? We are to pray for them. We are to pray for them. The fact that you know somebody who has hurt you and is continuing to hurt people, and they are unrepentant.
And maybe there’s someone in your family. Maybe it’s your spouse, maybe it’s your parent, maybe it’s a child, somebody who is doing evil against you, and you’re tempted to be annoyed.
You’re tempted to eventually grow hard into the person and just shut your emotions down to the person. Instead of doing that, that is the same as murder.
What should we do that is good? How do we overcome this tendency for evil? We need to bless them by praying for them.
And what is the best prayer that such a person needs who is unrepentant, blind, and going the wrong direction toward hell? What is the blessing of and what is the prayer that we bless them with?
We bless. Yes, Tim, yes. We bless them with Jesus. We bless them, Lord, please open their eyes, please soften their heart, please open their ears. Please take away the deception. Please save them, Lord. They’re headed to hell. If they don’t repent, they will end up there.
And if they’re a family member and I cut them off and I was indifferent to them, the Lord will say to me, why did you not bless them? Why did you cut them off? Why did you murder them and not give them a chance? Maybe it was you that God is waiting for to bless them and to pray them into the kingdom.
So the best thing we can do to people that we’re hateful toward, vengeful toward, indifferent toward, is to pray for them.
The best prayer is, Lord, please save them. Jesus, please meet them. Father, draw them to your son. Jesus, please meet them.
And I want to end with a verse that we started at the outset. 1 Peter 3:9.
9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. (1 Peter 3:9, ESV)
Your translation might be a little bit different. At the end, it may say, you may inherit a blessing. And that is the original word. It means to inherit.
And we know that if you want to be blessed in this life, you are called to bless. And if you want to receive blessing, you must do this. If you do not bless people who curse you, you’re cutting off blessing in your own life. So it is a selfish thing that you bless those who curse you. You will receive more blessing. You will receive more blessing. Don’t cut them off. Don’t harden yourself toward a spouse, toward a parent, toward a family member, toward a church member, toward a church leader that you once knew.
Don’t harden your heart toward them. Instead, soften your heart, repent. Bring your defective heart to the Lord. That emotion has been turned off to so many people and also turned off to the Lord.
Let’s ask the Lord to fix our heart, to restore the right emotion, to pray a prayer of blessing so that we may be blessed. And possibly, since it’s talking about inheritance, possibly, not only will we be blessed, but may this be blessed and extend to the children, extend to the next generation as they also learn to bless those who curse them.
Okay, let’s pray.
Father, this is a simple message. But, Lord, as we hear it, we know there’s a lot to repent of.
We might be a letter. We may obey the Scripture to the letter of the law and not actually curse people and be. And keep our lips sealed and our mouths silent and closed. But Lord, that doesn’t mean that our heart is right.
If emotions have been turned off and we’ve become indifferent, isn’t that worse, or at least the same as hatred? We’ve murdered that person in our heart. They are dead to us.
It’s as if that person doesn’t exist. But we witnessed something in that person. You showed us something. They did something to us. It was evil. We’re not sweeping it under the rug. We recognize it as evil. But Lord, you’re inviting your people when they are cursed and evil is done to us. We need to overcome evil. Instead of losing to evil, we need to overcome it by blessing, by praying a prayer of blessing and salvation for those who wrong us. Forgive us, Lord. We didn’t understand your heart. We didn’t understand your assignment.
We shut off blessing to ourselves and to our children and to the next generation by closing off our emotions, by closing off our heart. Simply so wicked. Lord, forgive me. Forgive all of us, Lord. It’s not right. We lost to evil. Help us to overcome evil by doing good. Even if it’s hard for us to pray for such people, it is your commandment. We must bless them. It is for our own good. It’s for our own protection. We are not the judge. It is commandment.
It is so that we can be blessed even more by you, by blessing those who curse us and do evil against us.
Lord, we want to start this day. Even if it feels forced. We’re doing it begrudgingly. But we must start on this day, today. We want to start by blessing those in our family, blessing those in the church, blessing every man, woman, and child on earth to be saved and live for Jesus.
Even if they ostracize us, hate us, persecute us. Lord, we respond by blessing every man, woman, and child on earth. It is your heart to bless this world, to save this world. We want to join you. We want to know your heart more and more, Lord. Change us, Lord. Change our emotions. Change your heart. Forgive us, Lord.
Please meet us as you partake in the Lord’s Supper. Our heart is broken by the truth of your word. We pray that you would fix it, Lord. Give us a new heart. Not a heart of stone, but a heart of flesh. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.