Live Peaceably with All, If Possible

From Gospel Translations

Romans 12:14-18

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.Never be conceited. 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

I mentioned lasttime that one of the reasons you might not rejoice with those whorejoice or weep with those who weep (v. 15) is that you are glad theyare weeping or mad that they are rejoicing. In other words, you areangry because of something they have done, and you want things to gobad for them. So if they do, you are glad. And if they don’t, you aremad.

We saw that this is the opposite of what verse 14 is calling for.“Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them.” God iscalling you in this text to be a different kind of person. Not one whowants your adversary to have trouble, but one who wants your adversaryto be blessed. And remember that this is radical inner change, not superficialexternal change. The issue is what you feel in your heart, not justwhat you do with your fists or your words. “Bless, don’t curse” means“from the heart want things to go well with them, both now and forever.”

Six Mores Reasons You Might Not Rejoice With Those Who Rejoiceor Weep With Those Who Weep

I mentioned that there are other reasons you might not rejoice withthose who rejoice or weep with those who weep and that I would talkabout them today. So here are six other reasons. I’ll just list themand then talk about how the root problem leads into the rest of thistext.

1. We are too wrapped up in ourselves to rejoice or weep with others. We are so self-oriented that what is happening in the hearts of others has no effect on us.
2. We feel above the emotional life of the ordinary person. Children laugh. Women cry. I’m a man. Or it doesn’t have to be male arrogance. It may be merely high-brow arrogance. To laugh with them or to cry with them would put me down on their level and I have a certain refined, aristocratic, high-culture status to preserve.
3. We are hypercritical and our main reaction when we see emotion is to analyze it and point out its distortions or excesses or bad tendencies or shallow roots. So our hypercritical analytical heart keeps us emotionally at a distance and prevents our hearts from empathy with others.
4. We are resentful or envious they have joy and we don’t. We feel gypped, passed over, given a raw deal. So envy makes it impossible for us to rejoice in their joy.
5. We are simply the kind of personality that doesn’t have a discernable emotional life. We don’t rejoice or weep over anything. And so we don’t weep or rejoice with others. It may be owing to parents. Or to a traumatic experience. Or to some physical condition.
6. We may be depressed and temporarily numb in our own emotions.
   

These last two have roots in sin, but are not more immediately sinfulin the way the other four are. I think we should have more patiencewith those struggles of personality and depression than with the otherfour.

As I have tried to penetrate to the bottom of these four reasonsfor why we wouldn’t rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with thosewho weep, it seems to me that the bottom is pride. The root cause ofnot being the kind of people who feel genuine empathy with the weepingand the rejoicing is pride.

Three Types of Prideful People

Pride has several forms. Consider three. They are increasingly blatantand they overlap.

First, there is the self-preoccupied person. This is theperson who thinks continually about himself. He might be a self-effacingperson, and so look in a way humble. But inside his cocoon all he isconsumed with is thoughts about himself. He may not even like himself. But he is still the center of his attention. His self-hate has no powerto produce humility, it just makes his pride pathetic and miserable.That is a subtle and deadly form of pride, and it doesn’t feel any outgoingempathy for those who weep and rejoice.

Second, there is the self-infatuated person. This personreally does feel quite good about himself. He is not only occupied withhimself, but likes being the center of his own attention and thinksothers would probably like it as well. He may or may not be outgoing,but he finds himself entertaining or intelligent or handsome or shrewdand enjoys preening himself, even if nobody is impressed.

Third, there is the self-exalting person. This person goesbeyond self-preoccupation and self-infatuation to active efforts todisplay his qualities. He does care if others see and admire. He wantspraise.

None of these people will have a heart that freely and naturallygoes out with joy to the joyful and with sorrow to the sorrowful. Thelast type of person—the self-exalter—may turn out to be a politician(in church or government or business) and learn that it is politicallyexpedient to weep with those who weep and laugh with those who laugh.But we know the difference between the tears of an actor and the tearsof a tender heart.

Two Possible Opposites of Pride

What is the opposite of this pride that kills sympathy and empathyand other-oriented joy and other-oriented sorrow? The opposite can bedescribed in two ways. One, of course, is to call it humility.Humility would be not thinking of ourselves all the time. It would benot being infatuated with ourselves, but finding others interestingand even superior in many ways. Humility would be not exalting ourselvesbut loving to exalt others. That’s one way to describe the oppositeof pride.

But there is a problem with that description of the alternative topride. There’s not God in it. There’s no Christ in it. Strictly speaking,this humility is atheistic. The biblical, Christian alternative to prideis not natural humility, butfaith in Jesus Christ, the creatorand redeemer of the universe. The Christian alternative to self-preoccupationand self-infatuation and self-exaltation is Christ-preoccupation andChrist-infatuation and Christ-exaltation. The Christian alternativeto thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to is faith—thatis, turning away from self to Christ. Thinking much and thinking highlyof Christ.

Why Faith Is the Alternative to Empathy-killing Pride

Let’s be more precise. The reason faith is the Christian alternativeto empathy-killing pride is that faith is—is, this is the essenceof faith, faith is—humbly resting in Christ. Faith is beingself-forgettingly satisfied with Christ. Faith is turning from selfto Christ as our all in all. So humility is not something merely addedto faith—its fruit grown from faith—but humility is part of what faithis.

Let me say this even more radically and more universally. Withoutfaith in Christ, there is not humility among men, but only pride. Forthis reason.If I cease be self-preoccupied and self-infatuated andself-exalting and become other-person-occupied and other-person-infatuatedand other-person-exalting but don’t bring Christ into the picture, Iam still locked in the prison of pride. Why? Because I am looking toother humans, beings like myself, for my joy, and not lookingto Christ, my Maker and my God, and the one through whom and for whomall things exist (Colossians 1:16). There is only one word for humanswho attempt to act humbly with no dependence upon their Creator andRedeemer and no desire that he get the glory. And that word is pride,no matter how other-oriented they appear.

So faith in Jesus Christ is not just the Christian, biblical alternativeto pride. It is the only alternative to pride. Because JesusChrist is the one and only Lord and Savior of the universe. If you wereto ask Paul, “Why didn’t you say all this in verse 15, if faith in Christis so central to humility?” I think he would say, “I spent 11 chaptersof this letter laying a foundation of God-centered, Christ-exalting,Bible-saturated, Cross-commending, blood-soaked, Spirit-empowered faithas the root of all your righteousness. I cannot say it again every timeI give another implication of how believers live. If Pastor John wantsto do that, that’s his call.”

Paul’s Two-Pronged Attack on Pride in Verse 16

Now the reason I have spent all that time talking about pride asthe root of our inability to weep with those who weep and rejoice withthose who rejoice is that verse 16 showed me that’s where Paul’s mindwas going. Verse 16: “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty,but associate with the lowly.Never be conceited.” So right next doorto verse 15 is verse 16, and it is almost entirely about pride and humility.That’s why I have lingered over this root problem.

All I would add to what I have already drawn out of verse 16 is topoint out that Paul attacks pride in two different ways here. He warnsabout pride’s attitude toward certain kinds oftasks andpeople. And he warns about pride’s attitude toward the self.The first pair of statements on pride in verse 16 are literally: “Don’tbe high minded, but be carried away with lowly things or lowly tasksor lowly people.” I think the clearest illustration of what he meansis: Don’t think changing a diaper is beneath you.1 Don’tthink running an errand or typing a report or sweeping the floor ordoing tasks that our culture may call menial or simple or lowbrow—don’tthink that you are above them.

Rather Paul says, “Be carried away with the simple, the lowly, theordinary, the tedious things, and with those who do them.” Let thismind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who though he was inthe form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be graspedbut emptied himself and was carried away with the lowly and the simplerole of a servant even to the point of death (cf. Philippians 2:5-8).To be a Christian is to become lowly in dependence on Christ, and inimitation of Christ.

Be Carried Away With Lowly Things and People (v. 16)

This phrase in verse 16, “but associate with the lowly,” is reallyjolting. Literally it is “be carried away with the lowly (things andpeople).” And the only other two places where the word “carried awaywith” is found is in Galatians 2:13, where Barnabas is “carried awaywith” Peter’s hypocrisy, and 2 Peter 3:17, where people are “carriedaway with” the error of lawlessness. In other words, Paul chose a wordthat would not only shock us, but underline how we need to be actedupon. We are not just choosing to associate with the lowly, weare we drawn. We are affected. We are moved. Something happens insideof us that sways us and carries us. This is what it means to be Christian.We don’t just make new choices. We are becoming new creatures. We arebecoming Christlike from the inside out.

This transformation—this wonderful, freeing, Christ-dependent andChrist-exalting humility in verse 16—leads us to think not mainly aboutourselves but about what is beautiful and honorable. And that bringsus to verse 17. (I will come back in the coming weeks to the part ofverse 16 that we passed over.)

Do What Is Morally Beautiful and Honorable in the Sight ofAll (v. 17)

But notice the second part of verse 17. After saying, “Repay no oneevil for evil,” he says, “But give thought to do what is honorable inthe sight of all.” This is what the Christian does who is freed fromself-preoccupation. He gives thought to honorable things. The word meansmorally beautiful, and therefore honorable. The Christian mind breaksfree from the lowlands and smog and disease-ridden mists of self, andrises—sometimes even soars—into the bright, clear sky of beautiful things,and honorable things. “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whateveris just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable,if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, thinkabout these things” (Philippians 4:8). That’s what the humble, free,Christ-dependent mind does.

When Paul says that we “give thought to what is honorable in thesight of all,” he doesn’t mean that fallen human beings become the finalarbiter of Christian virtue: if they don’t like it, we don’t do it.That would be the ultimate sell-out. He used this same language in 2Corinthians 8:21 where he said, “We aim at what is honorable not onlyin the Lord's sight but also in the sight of man.” In other words, theLord is first. What he thinks matters most. But we hope and plan andpray that, as Jesus says, “menwill see out beautiful works[same word as honorable here in Romans 5:17], and give gloryto our father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). The humble mind doesn’tdelight to offend. It delights to win over. And so it “gives thoughtto how both God and man might see something as beautiful and honorable.

If Possible, So Far as It Depends on You, Live PeaceablyWith All (v. 18)

And now you can see that we have arrived at the sober, cautious,measured, realistic word in verse 18 about making peace. “If possible,so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” Christ-dependent,Christ-exalting humility does its best. It thinks about what is honorablein the sight of all. It rejoices with those who rejoice. It weeps withthose who weep. It doesn’t repay evil for evil. It blesses those whopersecute. It loves peace. But in the end, we can’t guarantee that therewill be peace. “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceablywith all.” It may not be possible.

You may do all you can do in a family or in a small group or in achurch or in a denomination or in a city or in a nation within the limitsof truth and within the limits of what is “honorable,” but still notbe able to make peace. Jesus, the prince of peace, said, “Do you thinkthat I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but ratherdivision. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, threeagainst two and two against three” (Luke 12:51-52). The point here isnot that peace is not precious or desired or to be sought. The pointis that the truth of the gospel—the truth of Christ crucified and risenand reigning, and the necessity of faith in him—is more precious thanhuman peace. The gospel creates peace with God. And the gospel createslovers of humble peace and workers for peace. But the world that crucifiedJesus Christ does not always want the peace that he offers.

Accept the Terms of Peace That Jesus Offers

I hope that you are not in that category. But if you are, I inviteyou and urge you to accept the terms of peace that Jesus offers. Jesusis the one true Son of God and Mediator between God and man. He is theonly one who can give you peace with God. And when you have it, humility—theChrist-dependent, Christ-exalting humility—will put an end to self-preoccupationand self-infatuation and self-exaltation, and frees you to rejoice withthose who rejoice and weep with those who weep and to give thought forwhat is noble in the sight of all and to return good for evil and tobless those who persecute you. Oh, what a freedom when we have peacewith God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Come and accept his terms. Turnfrom self and trust the Savior. Amen

1 See Martin Luther’s thoughtson the relationship between faith and changing diapers:

Now observe that when that clever harlot, our natural reason . . . , takes a look at married life, she turns up her nose and says, “Alas, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, make its bed, smell its stench, stay up nights with it, take care of it when it cries, heal its rashes and sores . . . ?” What then does Christian faith say to this? It opens its eyes, looks upon all these insignificant, distasteful, and despised duties in the Spirit, and is aware that they are all adorned with divine approval as with the costliest gold and jewels. It says, O God, because I am certain that thou hast created me as a man and hast from my body begotten this child, I also know for a certainty that it meets with thy perfect pleasure. I confess to thee that I am not worthy to rock the little babe or wash its diapers, or to be entrusted with the care of the child and its mother. How is it that I, without any merit, have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving thy creature and thy most precious will? O how gladly will I do so, though the duties should be even more insignificant and despised. Neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labor, will distress or dissuade me, for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in thy sight. . . . God, with all his angels and creatures is smiling—not because the father is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith.

Luther’s Works, American Edition, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan andHelmut T. Lehmann, 55 vols. (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1955-1973),45:39-40.