Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
7 sermons cite this verse
… Remember, don't forget the Lord your God intersecting with another text in the New Testament, Romans chapter 12, verse 21, which tells us our response. Okay, it's great to remember, hey, freedom has a price tag and encourages a constant. It's great to remember all those things, but what should our response be? How does it affect me? What should I do? Because here's the phrase that pays. You ready for this? What we remember determines how we respond, and how we respond determines what we remember. Let me say that again. what I remember determines how I respond and how I respond determines how I remember Deuteronomy 8, you can look it up later, but remember Romans 12, 21, but response. Here's what the apostle Paul said. You ready for this? Don't let evil conquer you. Don't. Evil is trying to conquer you and you and you individually and collectively on a micro level and a macro level. Evil is coming after us. No doubt about it. And if you don't feel it, something's wrong in your life. …
… No, if your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. And then I love this last line. I want you to say it with me. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. This is the Christian strategy for winning. This is the Christian strategy for defeating evil, not giving in to the evil and becoming the evil itself, but instead overcoming the evil with good. This was Paul's strategy. This was Jesus' strategy. This is the strategy that we have. Today, we are suspicious of Muslims. We just have to admit that. After 9-11, we experienced a great pain in our country, and we still haven't figured out how to get over that. I was in New York City with my mom last week, two weeks ago. We went to the 9-11 Memorial. If you've never been there, it's an amazing, the architecture, go ahead and show that slide if you would. This is looking from above where the two trade centers once stood and the museum in between them. …
… on the contrary if your enemy is hungry feed him if he is thirsty give him something to drink in doing this you will heap burning coals on his head do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good it gets a little sideways when it says you're heaping burning coals on people's heads heads. That's just an expression of the day that talked about the heat of shame that your enemy would feel if you did good to them and they didn't deserve it. So it's not saying you're actually going to do bad to someone, but look at this list. Keep it up there for a minute, if you will. What's the Holy Spirit speaking to you? What's stirring in your heart? What's the thing that is grabbing you? Obviously, none of us are going to reach this to perfection. We're not going to be able to attain this perfectly all the time? Of course not. But there is someone who embodied this to perfection. His name is Jesus. And we are under him and in him. And we have the power to be this. Maybe we're not doing it like checking it off, but we can be this church. …
… I love how the apostle Paul says this, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. which leads me back to Jesus' words from the Sermon on the Mount. He said, you have heard that it was said, you must love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who harass you so that you will be acting as children of your Father in heaven. That's the Republicans, that's the Democrats, that's the liberals, that's the conservatives, that's the undocumented immigrants who are here and that's the ICE agents who are there. How do we practice those words of Jesus? Now on this Dr. King weekend, I want to pause to consider a few ways that fear has played a role in racial segregation. So this week I was working on my sermon on Tuesday night, and I was reading something that Alvin Brooks had written. Alvin Brooks, some of you know him, he's 93 years old, one of the leading civil rights figures in Kansas City. …
… For in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. So when evil comes at you, don't let it overcome you. You overcome that evil with good. People have recently been saying to me, you're getting pretty hammered on the internet. People attacking you and assaulting you. Are you going to respond? Yes. The only thing I can say is I want to bless those who persecute me and not curse. I never want to pay back evil for evil to anyone. As much as is possible, as far as it depends on me, I want to be at peace with all men. So you can't pick a fight with me. I'm not going to fight. But what about the wrong they're doing? Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." You think God doesn't know? You think somebody's getting away with something? …
… For in so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Again, this teaching comes to us not from the cumulative wisdom of ancient sages, but it is the wisdom that comes from God Himself, who understands all things and who does all things well. Let us, as his children, receive it as such. Please be seated. Let us pray. Again, our Lord and our God, we invoke Your presence in our midst as we endeavor to sit at the feet of the apostles whom Thou hast anointed and given Your Word for our edification, our instruction, admonition, to the end that we might live by the light of that lamp that You have set before our feet, so that in the finalist analysis, Christ may be glorified through the obedience of His people. Be with us now as we contemplate the matter set before us in this chapter of Romans, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. …
… For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. The Word of God for his people. Please be seated. Let us pray. Father, even now as we contemplate these exhortations and injunctions that come to us from the pen of your anointed apostle, we pray that we may feel the weight of these mandates, that they may grasp us in our hearts and in our souls. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. This portion of chapter 12 indicates another shift in the literary style of Paul's writing in the very middle of this passage, where he has been throughout the book giving us lengthy, weighty concepts of the doctrines of grace spelled out with long sentences and paragraphs, and last week we looked at the responsibility on how people are to use the gifts that God gives to them in the church. And now it's like we get some staccato shots from the apostle, almost like bullet points in a power presentation that we might be familiar with in our day as he sets in pithy style in a terse manner one after another of these ethical injunctions that we are to make manifest in the Christian life. And it's almost as if Paul had been a stenographer at the time Jesus preached his sermon on the mount, but we know that Paul wasn't even there. But so much of the information communicated by our Lord there in his sermonic material is recapitulated in brief form here in chapter 12. It also reminds …