Romans: Rooted in Jesus - Overcoming Evil

I had a neighbor who made life difficult for my family. She was a Christian woman, as she liked to say, who didn’t like the noise of my children or the weeds in my grass. She was convinced that the birds were eating the seeds of my weeds and dropping them in her yard. After hurricane Ivan, she kindly (?) collected all the shingles from my roof and piled them in my yard for me. When I got back from securing my family in Atlanta, I found piles of shingles just over the property line. She expressed her displeasure with my absence and the debris in her yard. That occurred just five days after we moved into our home in Florida. I knew then that this was going to be a challenging relationship. At the beginning, I was overcome by her unkindness. Emotionally exhausted, I was ready to exclude her from my life. After all, I had enough to deal with repairing my home, starting a new job, and all with my son Matthew due in just three months. By the end of our four years, God enabled me to conquer my resentment and move into her life with grace, but it took me a while.

How do we know if we are overcoming evil with ethical kindness? What are the signs that evil has not conquered our hearts? This is especially important for the people of God in the First Presbyterian Church of Rome as the Jew and Gentile believers were pressing on each other. Additionally, it’s an important text for the Roman church which increasingly faced persecution from the Roman culture. It’s an important question for us, who experience the mercies of God despite our offenses toward Him. Join us as we consider God’s kind response to our evil and the grace available through Christ to love people who make life hard for us.