Getting Along with People
Rom 12:9-21

1. A couple of years ago we were in a Bible study which had for one of the members a nurse. We were studying first John and the emphasis on loving other people. Growing out of the conversation this woman had a problem with one of her patients at the hospital. The patient was a woman of the street who was described in many ways as being repulsive. The nurses' question: how do you love someone who is repulsive? This may also be a problem for you. There are people you don't like, and just outright bug you. How can you bring yourself to love them? This seems to make the command to love your neighbor somewhat irrelevant, doesn't it? Or, does it? Loving your neighbor is a little more difficult, if it turns out that you have made an enemy out of him. What kind of crazy command is this?

.The answer comes in this way. I told the nurse that she was confusing two words: loving and liking. When the Bible talks about loving someone such as your enemy you don't have to like the person. Love becomes so misunderstood. There are three kinds of love, erotic or romantic love, brotherly love and then divine love. Romantic love is never commanded neither is brotherly love, but divine love is commanded and that even for one's enemies. When the nurse saw the difference, that she could love this unlikeable person, it made a difference in her attitude toward her in the hospital.

2. Loving someone means that you are concerned for their vita1 well-being. Loving means that you not only wish that no ill come upon a person, but you will that positive good come his way. Loving a person means that you desire that a transformation take place in their lives to bring them to a warm relationship with Jesus as Savior. Loving means to have a helpful attitude toward anyone who heeds help. Return now to our attitude of liking vs. loving. I love all of you, but I don't like all of you. Liking is based upon commonness of mind, hearts, and goals. Liking is a spontaneous experience and is borne out of friendship. There are some people I meet and instantly a camaraderie grows up and blossoms and I like that person immediately. Others have less in common and friendship has to be cultivated and gained. Illustrate it another way by two people who fall in love, or really liking one another. Why do we have the friends
we do, or the spouse that we do? There is something significant
about this. Nobody told us to like or love this person.

3. Genuine love is important for it has the power to
transform every relationship.

I. Love means to live peaceably with all men. 16,18

1. There are a number of statements relating to this main point: 1) live peaceably with all men, 2) as far as it depends on you, 3) live in harmony with one another (16) 4) don't be haughty, but associate with the lowly, never be conceited, (6) practice hospitality. Perhaps others can be seen in the passage, but there is sufficient to encourage getting along with people.

2. How can we do this? Several things come to mind: A. Outdo one another in showing honor. In your encounter with people, act civilly toward them. In spite of differing views you are to be kind, considerate, and friendly. This does not mean that everybody has to be an intimate friend. You can be a lady or a gentlemen toward everybody.

B. Respect their choices and culture. We American’s have gained the name of the Ugly American because we have not learned to appreciate what others like, and have come to accept.
Differences of opinions on many items need not separate people
if they are sincerely held. One day I was in a stock brokers
office and two old gentlemen were in there checking up on their
stocks. Shortly after the reelection of Nixon they were debating
the war again. The arguments was carried along on a very low level of hot air, crude language, loud replies, and a general disregard for the feelings, reasons, and personality of each other. We live in a pluralistic society where diverse ideas are held. We are not told that we have to agree with everybody around us, but we are urged to live peaceably with all men. We can't do this without attempting to be a Christian and act Christianly in all things.

C. Don't be haughty. This is particularly a problem in denomination differences. We have Christian brethern in many areas. Genuine doctrinal differences must be held sincerely by each. We must not look down our nose because the Salvation Army uses a different type of music than we do. We must allow for matters of taste where doctrine does not divide. We must not become haughty because we feel we are in God's care and others are out of God's care.
We must not be conceited.

D. Practice hospitality. You have been gracious toward me and my family. But how goes it go with the world? Are you practicing hospitality in an effort to draw a circle of Christian influence around your life and those you touch? Some people don't know what a Christian home is all about. Your graciousness and kindness can open a new world to closed minds.

3, A minister was riding on a plane just before Christmas. His conversation with another man turned to the subject of gifts. The businessman asked, "Would you like to know what I am going to give my boy for Christmas?" As the minister nodded, the man reached into his wallet, and gave the man a small card on which was written. "To my dear son, I give you one hour of each week day and two hours of my Sundays to be yours, to be used as you want them without interference or interruption of any kind. The minister silently reflected on how the boy would feel on Christmas morning when he read the card. If he were just an ordinary boy, he would probably be disappointed, but if he were an unusual lad, he would realize that his father had given him something which he would never be able to repay. "Tell me,” said the minister, "how did you happen to
think of giving him such an extraordinary present?" The business man said, “The other day a young man whom I had not seen since he was a young fellow came into my office to borrow some money. His face was drawn, and his whole appearance bore the tell-tale marks of idleness and dissipation. I asked him, with his fine family background, how he ever allowed himself to get into such condition, and he said, "Well, sir, I had often heard it mentioned that my dad was a fine man. All his friends told me so, but I never got to know him. He was always so absorbed in his business and in his clubs that I only saw him occasionally at meals. The fact was that I never got to know him. After hearing his heart-breaking story, and seeing what had happened
to that boy, I resolved to give my son a gift that money could not buy."
4. There are people who have heard about Christians, but they have experienced so little. It will take time to make it possible for you to get along with people.

II. . Love means: never avenge yourself. 19.

1. Paul was aware that you are not going to succeed always in trying to live peaceably with all men. In fact, you are going to say many times, "I tried to get along with him, but he was impossible. Not only did he not want to get along, but he became very obnoxious and threw dirt in my eyes." This seems like a hard saying. I am inclined to find a sympathy for a conversation of Confucius who was asked by one of his questioners: "What you think of repaying evil with kindness?
He replied, "Then what are you going to repay kindness with”?
Repay kindness with kindness, but repay evil with justice." Or, there is the famous line of Kruschev who replied to the idea of turning the cheek--If someone slaps me on one cheek ,I will try to hit him so hard he won't want to slap me on the other."

The problem of avenging oneself is reflected in the story of the little boy who came bounding into the house crying as if his heart would break. “What the trouble?” his father asked. Jimmy punched me, wailed the lad. Then why didn't you punch him back? The boy glared at his father, "because then it would be his turn again.”.

2. Things Paul did not say... Paul has not written a prescription for the weak, but for the strong. It is the easiest thing in the world to take revenge. Paul did not say we are not to oppose evil in our world. Paul did not say that we are to ignore evil around us. Paul did not say that we should not defend the weak, the helpless, the aged, and the infirm.
Paul did not say that the family should not be protected. Paul did not say that we should not defend ourselves. He did say, don't avenge yourself. Vengeance starts with a hurt, which becomes a subject of meditation. We mediate upon the humiliation, the injustice, the unkindness, and delightfully contemplate how we can get even. I would like to be big so I could beat him up. I would like to be powerful so I could fire him. I would like to meet him hobbling on crutches down a dark alley. Then as this poison permeates us, we thrust in the knife here and there, indulge in character assassination, sly digs, incriminating insinuations, and all the whole bit.

3. Tom Attridge, a test pilot, flew his Grumman F-IIF supersonic fighter out over the Atlantic near Long Island. He climbed to 13,000 feet at 880 miles an hour , then went into a shallow dive and fired two four-second bursts from his 20 millimeter cannon. In the midst of the dive, the canopy over the cockpit suddenly shattered. “I didn't know what hit me,” said Attridge. "At first I thought it was a bird. The pilot headed for an air strip near Calverson, but then the engine comked out and he had to make a crash landing in a wooded area. Three
shell hole s were found in the crashed plane and a cannon slug of the type Attridge was firing was lodged in the engine. What happened? When the cannon shells left the barrels they were traveling at least 1500 ft a second faster than the airplane. The bullets, however began to slow down because of air resistance and the drag of gravity caused them to follow a curved trajectory toward the water. The jet, meanwhile, maintained or even picked up speed as it went into a slightly steeper dive. Two or three miles from the point where the guns were fired the path of the shells and the plane crossed--and Mr. Attridge scored a direct hit on himself.

4. This is what happenes when we attempt to avenge ourselves.
We score a direct hit on ourselves. We fire off a salvo at the enemy, but somehow we are the ones who really get hit. Vengeance destroys the person who seeks it. Paul knew this, and deep down we can see it sometimes always in others, but not so easy in us.

Ill. Love means: bless those who persecute you.14,17

1. . To bless means--"to speak well of, "to praise" and it is used in a fashion of "to pray for."
There are two reasons why Christians are to bless those who
persecute them. A) The fruit of the Christian life is to do good to people. The Christian cannot have two fountains coming out of his existence--one of blessing and the other of cursing. The Christian is supposed to build up the quality of life and anything less-such as vengeance--is to contradict this life.

B) The Christian is not to take vengenace, because vengeance belongs to God. During the rebellion in 167 BC Mattathias exhorted exhorted his sons, "And you must gather about you all who observe the Law and avenge the wrongs of your people. Pay back the heathen for what they have done.” (I Macc2:67-68)

We Christians can't do that. God has called us for different purposes. Moreover, justice involves a certain equity of punishment, but vengeance means we overdo things.

C. To bless, instead of persecuting, means that we see the transformation possibilities in love. There were some wretched people in Jesus day. There was a scandalous 'woman who came to Jacob's well to draw water, despised by the villagers of Samaria, but Jesus saw in her the makings of a godly woman. Zacchaeus, the brazenly successful tax collector who overcharged, and made his fortune with the help of Roman legions, a man despised and hardly worth a second glance, but Jesus saw a man to whom salvation might come. It can be said truly that love alone enables a man to see what others might become. This is particularly true for an enemy. This is illustrated
in our writer who persecuted a man named Stephen, and held his garments while Stephen prayed for forgiveness of his persecutors. Paul was blessed rather than cursed, and we are debtors to him.

2. Blessing your enemy in love means to help him in his needs. If he is hungry, feed him, if thirsty, give him water. Thus you will heap colds of fire upon his head. This means to make him ashamed by meeting his hostility with active kindness and good will. This is the way to overcome evil.

Concl:
1. You may be saying to yourself this morning that this hardly sounds like the gospel of Christ. This is not a salvation message, but it is part of the New Testament. We cannot be content merely with getting people to make a decision for Christ. New life begins there. But we must also go on. We must press on to the mark of the high calling
in Jesus Christ. If a man says he loves his family, but has no time for them, then he really doesn’t love them. If a man says he has love for his wife, but has no time for her, then he contradicts the meaning of love. If a man says he has love for his neighbor, but has no time for him, then love is just a word.

2. Do you know that keeps these words from being impractical? Romans 8 answers it. God is at work in us by his Spirit who lives in us. If you lack in these areas, God can help. But you musrt recognize your need and pray for his help.

3. Today, you are here without a real relationship to Christ. You can begin today.