Romans 12:9-21
I was in a Super Walmart a few years ago and I noticed a young mother trying to make it through the store with her four children. She had one in the buggy, another on her hip, and two who kept circling the cart, bringing first one thing and then another that they wanted to add to the items already there. I ran into this family several times as I did my own shopping, and each time the children were whining louder and the mother was walking faster, I guess trying to keep the two children on foot moving too quickly to pick up anything else. Finally, she’d just had enough. She took hold of her little boy by his shirt collar and stared him in the eye and said, “Do you need an attitude adjustment?” He may not have known exactly what those words meant, but he definitely got the message. And he quit whining.
Moses at the burning bush needed an attitude adjustment. He was so busy looking at how small he was and how great the task was that God had called him to, that he forgot to consider how big God was. He needed to remember that, with God on his side, he could do anything. And remember the story of David and Goliath? When the soldiers in the army of Israel saw Goliath, they thought to themselves, “He is so big that we can never kill him.” But when David saw Goliath, he said to himself, “He is so big that I cannot miss him!”
Maybe you and I could use an attitude adjustment from time to time. Sometimes we get kind of whiny and obnoxious. Sometimes we get greedy and want to grab everything that looks interesting and put it in our shopping cart. Sometimes we get angry and hurt and begin carrying a grudge. But if you want to know the kind of attitude that you should have, just read this passage from the letter that Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome. He reminded them of how Christians were supposed to live.
These Christians in Rome needed this reminder for a couple of reasons. For one thing, they needed to focus on following Jesus more faithfully because that is what Christians are called to do. But just as importantly, they needed to remember that their lives were a witness to others about the Christian faith. Christians were a small minority in Rome and there were all sorts of misconceptions and rumors and accusations going around about them. Paul wanted the church to make a good impression on people, to be a positive testimony to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to attract new believers by the lifestyle of its members.
First, Paul described what our relationship with God should look like. There are things we should be doing, or not doing, in order to create a strong, healthy, vital relationship with God. Some of those have to do with attitude. We should love sincerely. That may sound easier than it is. There are lots of ways to love someone. We can love someone because of what we hope to gain from them, with some kind of ulterior motive coloring all aspects of our friendship. We can love others in a selfish way, taking what we need or want from the relationship without giving much of ourselves to the other person. We can talk about love without actually having love in our hearts. But sincere love is not like that. Sincere love is love for the other person because they are children of God, too, and because of the way God loves us. Sincere love means wanting what is best for the other person. Apparently the Roman Christians were good at putting this attitude into practice. A first century Roman scholar named Aristides was trying to describe Christians to the Roman emperor Hadrian, and wrote, “They love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who will hurt them. If they have something, they give freely to the man who has nothing; if they see a stranger, they take him home and are happy, as though he were a real brother.”
Then Paul said that we must hate evil and cling to what is good. That would be so simple, if only we could tell which was which in every circumstance. Sometimes the evil comes wrapped in packages that sparkle and good comes disguised as pain or suffering. We have to consider in each situation whether we are associating with people who might lead us astray, or if what we are doing will glorify God. We have to do the right things for the right reasons.
Paul addressed another attitude that may require a change, and that is pride. Paul said that we should honor others above ourselves, and not be proud or conceited. We have to put our egos out of the picture. If we love others sincerely, then we will put their needs ahead of our own. But pride is a tricky thing. Just when you think that you have mastered it, just when you feel that you are truly humble, you realize that you have become proud of your own humility and have to start all over again.
Paul wrote to the Roman Christians that they must have spiritual passion; they had to have zeal and spiritual energy. To me that means living with enthusiasm. That means having joy and love in our hearts no matter what situation we may find ourselves in. We are called to a great adventure, a life of taking risks and embracing the unknown with confidence and hope. The earliest Christians lived in dangerous times when the threat of persecution was very real. But they found strength in their faith, in the passion that they felt for Christ and for the gospel. Their lives were infused with the Holy Spirit and they had energy that moved them beyond the walls of their meeting places and out into the streets where the people were. That same kind of spiritual passion should be a part of our lives today. That kind of energy will move us beyond the walls of our church into our community, where there are people that need to see us living out the good news that we say we believe.
Then Paul said that we are to be joyful in hope and patient in affliction. Christians can be joyful in hope and optimistic about life because we know that the best is yet to come. This world is not all there is. There is life beyond this life. And we get through the tough times we may have in this life by remembering God’s grace, which is sufficient for every circumstance, and God’s strength, which is made perfect in our weakness. People can’t control what happens to them, but we can control how we react to those things. The composer Beethoven became deaf, and yet he was able to say, “I will take life by the throat,” and he continued to write beautiful music. Good, bad, or indifferent, life happens. We have to deal with it. And it is easier to do so when we are able to practice hope and patience.
Paul then reminded the Roman Christians to persevere in prayer. Sometimes it may seem as if we are just too busy to pray. But Martin Luther wrote, “I have so much to do today that I must set apart more time than usual to pray.” He realized that nothing would get done well in his busy life if he did not first go to God in prayer. In the middle of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln wrote, “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for the day.” We get energized by God who has all the power. We should be communicating with God every single day.
The second area that Paul addressed was how Christians should relate to other Christians. We are members of a family. We are part of a community. That carries certain blessings. For one thing, we are a part of a caring congregation; people really do rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. That multiplies our joys and divides our burdens. Because we are family, we love each other and do whatever we can for one another. I like the term Paul used, to live in harmony with one another. We won’t always be alike; we won’t always agree. But the only way to have harmony is to hear more than one note. The idea is for all the notes to sound good together; that is what makes harmony. And that is how it should be with us. We should, as much as possible, be at peace with each other, and appreciate the gifts that each of us brings to the community of faith.
And finally, Paul wrote of how Christians should relate with those outside the church. We are to be humble as we deal with others. We should be willing to associate with people of low position. The way the world judges a person is not the way God judges, nor the way that we are to judge. The world’s standards and God’s standards are very different. And we are meant to follow God’s standards. Being faithful has absolutely nothing to do with status or wealth or class.
Another way that are live in a different way from the world is in the way we treat our enemies. Paul said that we are to give food and water to anyone who needs it, even to our enemies. It is not up to us to get revenge when someone has done us wrong; revenge is something that belongs to God. We should not repay evil with evil, but overcome evil with good. That doesn’t make us doormats. It takes more courage than attacking our enemies. Plato said that a good man will choose to suffer evil done to him rather than to do evil to someone else. The perfect example of that is Jesus. He was hurt and insulted and mistreated, but he prayed from the cross for God to forgive those who put him to death.
Do you need an attitude adjustment? Of course. We all do. Our community watches us and listens to us. They have an impression of the Christian faith based on what they see and hear. What do people see when they look at you? Are you living like a Christian? It makes just as much difference now as it did when Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome. The world needs us to show them another way of life, a way that leads to life. So let’s show them how to be a Christian.
