Resentment and Revenge
Series: Sermon on the Mount
June 27, 2021 - David Stockton
We’re going to talk about resentment today. Yeah. Resentment is where we’re going. We’re going through the Sermon on the Mount. We’ve talked about anger. We’ve talked about lust. We’ve talked about divorce. We’ve talked about deceit. And really how prevalent those are in our lives, even as believers in Christ, followers of Christ — and how those really are the things that Jesus wanted his guys, his followers to be paying attention to, even more so than other things that society might want to pay attention to.
So today we’re talking about resentment. We’re talking about what to do when you’ve been wronged. Resentment meaning bitter indignation at being treated unfairly. Have you ever had a breath or a sip of resentment? Have you ever had that moment where you feel bitter indignation at being treated unfairly? That’s resentment. And resentment is something that Jesus wanted to talk to his guys about.
Right now, in our current societal moment, cultural moment, it definitely seems like resentment has become the marketers’ tool of choice. It’s a powerful, powerful motivator. It’s a powerful, powerful unifier. If I can find other people that feel the same resentment, there’s an immediate, deep bond that I have with them. And, if that can be used to motivate me, it’s a very, very powerful motivator. It seems like in society, our political left, our political right, they’re using resentment.
Even racial relations in your life. You should probably go listen to two weeks ago, when we talked bout the deception thing. That might be a good little refresher for you. Then come back to this one.
But basically, we’ve just got to measure those kinds of resentment, bitterness, and see what Jesus would say to us in that space.
On a little bit more serious note, you know, this week we received the sentence of Derek Chauvin, the 22-1/2 years that he was sentenced for his part in the killing of Mr. Floyd. That stirs up a lot of different things in people’s hearts and minds. I read the response of his siblings and family. Interesting enough, they were pretty across the spectrum. Some feeling that this was a really great sign of justice, some feelings it was a great injustice. I haven’t heard anything from the Chauvin family and what their take on all of this was. But you can understand, there are real, real situations in society that are very, very, very troubling and hard and difficult.
I spoke on the phone with a guy last week that I haven’t talked to in literally twenty-two years. And we spoke for an hour and forty-five minutes as he shared to me all of the pain and the resentment and all of that that’s been in his life over the last twenty-two years, because his marriage of twenty-two years just ended. He wasn’t at all trying to say that he wasn’t at fault. He was just unloading years and years and years and years of pain from the marriage that he had had and no longer has.
And there’s just tons of realities in life. We’re always finding ourselves in situations where resentment has a chance to prosper and grow.
And today we’re going to hear from Jesus, what he prescribes when we find ourselves hurt by evil or by an evil person. Matthew chapter 5.
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’
Jesus, again, is on the side of a hill in first century Israel, outside of Jerusalem by the Sea of Galilee with a number of people who had been gathered to him. He’s talking to them about the Torah, he’s talking to them about the Levitical law. And sure enough, if you read Leviticus, Deuteronomy, oftentimes you come across this idea of God telling the people that the way that they’re supposed to judge situations is eye for eye and tooth for tooth. It was actually a good law that God had given his people to help govern them.
It didn’t mean that, if somebody comes and like, you know, cuts my leg off, I’m supposed to go cut their leg off. If somebody cuts my leg off, we’re supposed to go to the judge. And the judge, who has the authority, would decide between the two, what was the right recompense, or right judgement in that situation.
And so this is what Jesus is saying. It was a good thing. It was something God gave to his people to kind of give them a little bit of fear in the way that they would act toward one another. It gave them a little bit of pause before they would do something to hurt someone, knowing that the law of the land was that if they did that to someone, it could be done to them.
But the people, like always, they were manipulating and twisting it in a way that God didn’t intend. So Jesus was trying to get it back on track. And so he said:
39 But I tell you…
What God was trying to produce and create in society by that law.. was that you would not…
…resist an evil person.
I hate this verse. I don’t know if you’re allowed to hate Bible verses, but if you are, I hate this verse. And so I dug in to the Greek and commentaries, and all the people who have done ethics writings and all, just, okay, what is this really saying? And their words, those who did it with nuance and clever thinking and spinning, they were able to kind of really make this say something that is much more palatable.
But then there were a lot of others that were basically like, “No. It just sucks. It’s just a really hard, hard, hard thing that Jesus was teaching his followers. That you are not to resist an evil person. That translation is actually pretty good. It’s pointing us in the right direction. And when you know Jesus, he said audacious things, right? He was a shocker. And it seems very inline with Jesus, that he would say it just like it sounds as I’m reading it. “Do not resist an evil person.”
And Jesus didn’t say this because he’s foolish or he’s trying to wax eloquent. He was saying this because he really believes this is the best way. This is what will cause the kingdom of heaven to show up in your life and in your society. This is the most powerful thing you can do. This is not passivism, where you’re just supposed to lay down and die. This is some sort of passivism where you are pacifying the evil. You are actually not resisting them, but pacifying them with your righteousness.
And it’s a challenging thing for us, and we’re not first century Jewish people living by the Sea of Galilee, who actually, every single day of their life, experienced completely unfair treatment. They were in absolute bondage, hard, rough, oppressive bondage to the Romans in their own homeland. They were considered less than the Romans, less than human. They were taxed to where they could basically make no real progress in their life. They were hated, they were despised and, even within their Jewish community, they were bottom of the barrel. Fishermen and shepherds. Tax collectors. They were hated and despised because of what they did and where they were raised. And they knew the sting. They knew that bitter indignation at being treated unfairly. That’s all they had ever really known in their life. And now Jesus is saying, “Don’t resist an evil person.” And then he goes on to say…
If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.
Now, this is actually speaking specifically to a Roman law, where the Romans were able to say at any time, “Hey, boy, come carry this for me.” Or, “Hey, I want you to go with me so you can take this thing back for me,” and if you don’t do it, there are actual legal ramifications for you and your household.
So Jesus is saying, “If they come to you and say, ‘Hey, I want you to carry this thing a mile,’” he’s saying, “I want you to go a little bit farther, at least far enough to where they’ll notice it. And then the last one:
42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
Now, again, this is in reference to the evil person. All of this is in reference to the evil person. This isn’t, “Hey, if there’s somebody that’s really cool and you like them a lot and they ask you to borrow something, be like, 'Hey, what’s up man…” He’s saying if that same evil person comes to you and says, “Hey, could I borrow something,” you give it to them.
Now, just like we’ve been talking about with anger, lust, divorce, all these things. Super heavy. Super intense. Super challenging. But Matthew 7:28, which is the verse that just comes after the Sermon on the Mount, it says that all the people who heard the words of Jesus were amazed. And they were amazed because he spoke as one having authority, unlike the Pharisees.
And what they were meaning by that was, after the heard the words of Jesus, after these heavy, challenging, no way, impossible words of Jesus, they didn’t feel pushed away by Jesus. Instead, the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes, whatever it was, he brought this message across to where they though Jesus really could get them to this place. They were basically hearing from Jesus, “Hey, if you take my hand, and if you stick with me long enough, this is what’s going to show up in your life.”And they believed him.
And sure enough, those disciples that followed him, we get to follow their stories, and that’s where they ended up. And the message for us, as you hear this, it’s not, “Oh, man, this is impossible. No way. I’m out. Forget this. Jesus can never…” It’s if you will stick with Jesus, not strive in your own strength or read a bunch of self-help books on resentment, but if you will literally take Jesus’ hand and walk with him and let his words abide in you and his Spirit abide in you, you will find this being the fruit that ultimately comes out of your life. This will be the heart that beats inside of you, as we follow him.
This is very heavy. It’s very intense. We’re more familiar with revenge, retaliation, recompense, retribution — these are kind of the prescriptions that are being offered in our day. Although those things have a place and all of that, it doesn’t seem to be the thing that Jesus is prescribing.
We also have this natural thing built in to us, literally, biologically, the fight or flight. So when we’re hit with this trauma, when we’re hit by these hard things, when evil shows up and hurts us, we have these responses. Some are fight and some are flight. Some of you are fight people. It doesn’t matter what happens, you’re just like, “Aww” and you want to tear someone apart. You want to come at them. And you’re kind of going, “Heh.” And the people next to you are going, “Heh, heh.” Because they know it. And it’s intense. And it’s a reaction. And I get it. It’s something that’s there. It’s biological.
But then, for other people, there’s this flight thing, where, basically, when this stuff happens you just want to run. You want to hide. You want to hide. You want to medicate. You want to substance abuse. You want to do all these things. You just want to stuff, stuff, stuff, and you’re like, “Oh, look, there’s a little part over there. Jam some more down there.” And you just stuff and you just stuff and you just stuff. And, honestly, you’re the most scary people. Because every once in a while you explode.
And Jesus is wanting to teach us another way. That fight or flight that’s there to serve you in those intense situations, but it’s not supposed to be the action that you live off and live on in to. He wants to teach us to forgive. Forgiveness is a huge part of this kingdom. It’s one of the biggest attributes or virtues in the life of a follower of Jesus:
1) Receiving forgiveness from God and
2) Forgiving others as we have been forgiven.
So how can we get there? Well, Jesus said it, so we should try and live into it. We should take his hand and allow him to lead us into it. But here’s biblically some other reasons why I think it’s so important for us to learn to walk in this way.
The first one is that God has promised he will avenge. Now this sounds really weird for Christians. It’s funny — when we talk about the character of God and the nature of God and the name of God in Exodus 34, he’s abounding in love and faithfulness and merciful and kind and slow to anger and he sheds mercy and faithfulness to thousands of generations. But the very last line of that same whole thing is, “Yet, he will not leave the guilty unpunished.”
It’s just so funny because we always sing about the nature of God, but that line is never in any of the worship songs I’ve ever heard. “Yeah, Lord, you’re so good and you will not leave the guilty unpunished.” Just one time I want a song that’s got that in there. And I’ll be like, “Yeah, now we are seriously worshiping God in Spirit and in truth.” Because that is a reality to our God. He does not make any bones about that. And, honestly, if you’ve been the one on the wrong side of evil, you really long for God to do something about it. You want someone to fight for you. And this is what God says in Deuteronomy 32:35:
It is mine to avenge; I will repay.
In due time their foot will slip;
their day of disaster is near
and their doom rushes upon them.
In Psalm 94:1
The Lord is a God who avenges.
O God who avenges, shine forth.
2 Rise up, Judge of the earth;
pay back to the proud what they deserve.
You can find countless scriptures about this. And just in case you think these are all Old Testament, Hebrews 10:30
“It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”
God will not leave the guilty unpunished, not even for a second, not even for a day, not even for a lifetime. He will always do what is right. He is the only one that can actually execute justice. He’s the only one that knows.
I love what Dallas Willard says:
Anger and condemnation, like vengeance, are safely left to God. We must beware of believing that it is okay for us to condemn as long as we are condemning the right things. It is not so simple as all that. I can trust Jesus to go into the temple and drive out those who were profiting from religion, beating them with a rope. I cannot trust myself to do so.
Any time we take matters into our own hands we’re basically pushing God aside and saying, “God, you don’t know what to do. You can’t be trusted.” And God wants you to know, consistently throughout the whole of scripture, that he takes these matters very seriously, and he will make things right. He is a God of vengeance, but always in the perfect way. Because he’s the only one that can see perfectly.
So we need to let go. We need to release. We need to trust God with all of these things, because he’s the only one that can truly handle them correctly.
The second reason why we should try and live into this and trust God in this way is you will gain a blessing. We’re Christians. We love the blessing. “Oh bless this. Bless you, child.” We’re just all about the blessing. We’ve got songs called The Blessing. We just sing them over and over and they never end. We just keep singing it and singing it and singing it. Just blessings all over. Bless you and bless them and bless everybody. And it’s awesome. It’s good. Because there is a lot of blessing in following God.
In 1 Peter 3:9 it says:
9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult…
Ugh. I’d have to just erase my whole junior high years right there. Didn’t do a great job of that. And some of you need to go close your accounts online right now.
…On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.
Literally, Peter is writing to encourage the people he loves and cares for who are going through great persecution — loss of life persecution. He says to them, “Repay evil with blessing.” Just like Jesus said, “Because to this you were called as a follower of Christ and you will inherit a blessing.”
So what is the blessing? Psalm 37:5-6
5 Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him and he will do this:
6 He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,
your vindication like the noonday sun.
I forget which prophet it is, but he writes and says, “I will be patient as the Lord punishes me for the wrongs I’ve done against him. Because after that he’ll take my cause and he’ll bring me to light and to justice for all I have suffered.”
The blessing that God promises is that there will be. Day when everything will be revealed and your righteousness will shine forth if you walk in this way, and your vindication like the noonday sun. You will get to stand in that day and you will be honored and you will receive all that God has for you if you walk in this way. You will gain a blessing.
And then, the third reason, so God will avenge so you can give it to him and trust him. Then you’ll gain a blessing, because we all want a blessing, and at the last thing, and I think it’s the most important, is that you’ll put God’s glory on display.
Matthew 5:14-16
14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
This is what he says as an intro to set up his teachings on anger, lust, divorce and now vengeance. He’s saying, basically, If you’ll walk in this way, it will be like this light that shines in society. And it’s true that some people hate the light. But it’s also true that there are some people who are getting sick of the darkness, and when they turn and they see the light, they long for it, and they run to it, and they’re saved.
We have a story about that with Paul, right? Paul and Silas were in prison, totally treated unfairly, unjustly, and an earthquake comes and shakes everything up. And all the shackles are off. They’re set free. The doors are open and they’re just hanging out and they just keep singing. And the jailer comes in, the very one who put them in those bondages and whatever else he did to them. And he’s just about to kill himself, and Paul’s like, “Hey, man! We’re all just hanging out. What are you doing? Why you getting so serious over there, all emo?”
And the guy looks over and he’s like, “What’s going on?” And he says, “We’re just praising the Lord and we think he’s with us and he could be with you, too.” And they bless him and the guy ends up saying, “What can I do to be saved?” They pray for him and he and his whole family get saved. He was tired of the darkness and when he saw this light it was like, “This seems very different. What is this?” And as they explained it to him, he was able to receive it and the light came.
Then John 21:18-19, Jesus is talking to Peter after the resurrection. Peter’s asking him some questions about what’s coming and he says:
18 Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” 19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”
Basically Jesus was saying, “Hey, Peter, it’s going to be tough, man. You’re going to go through a lot of injustice, even to the point of being killed. But Peter, you need to know that, if you can bless and not curse, if you can walk in this way that I’m teaching you, this way that I’m walking and have walked, then your life is going to glorify God.”
Now, we need to understand what that means. For us, when he said, “Hey, your life can glorify God,” I don’t know how that hits you. But the way it’s supposed to hit you is as the most important thing you could ever do with every part of your life. The very fact that you have a beat in your heart or a breath in your lungs, the very fact that you have any resource at all, mentally, physically, everything that you have has one purpose in mind. It has been given to you so you can glorify God. That’s the whole thing. That’s why you exist and move and have your being.
And Jesus is saying to Peter, “Look, Peter, you will achieve the end to which you have been created if you’ll walk in this way. You’ll continue to release that resentment, that bitterness and continue to bless and not resist the evil person. Your life will glorify God.”
And, sure enough, we’re still talking about Peter all these days later because his life glorified God. And his words have authority because of that. And at the promise that we have is if we will walk in these ways, if we will release these things to God and bless instead of curse, then our lives will glorify God in a significant way.
We have got to get to a place where we understand that our lives are not about our gratification. That is a lie from the devil that has taken root in America and in the American church. Your gratification is not what God is most interested in. It shouldn’t be what you are most interested in. What God is most interested in is your life bringing his glorification. And that’s where our lives need to get to, where we understand that glorifying God is the ultimate. It is the highest achievement, the greatest gift. It is the blessing.
On this side of eternity, I know it’s hard for us to really grasp and understand — but I know on the other side of death we’re going to get it immediately. Everything we did to glorify God will be all that matters in that economy. So we’ve got to make this shift. If we do this, we will glorify God in heaven. There can be no greater thing at all.
So those are some reasons why we should do this. I know this is a complicated ethical issue, so I have some rules of thumb. Like how do we decide when we’re supposed to resist or fight, or what are we supposed to do. The great theologian, Mike Phifer, who’s my brother-in-law, we were debating this when we were young and trying to solve all the world’s problems. And yet, what he said has stuck with me. Because we’re looking at Jesus’ life and he never fought, but then there’s got to be some time we’re supposed to fight. So this is just helpful. This is not gospel, it’s not in the Bible. This will just help you. He said, “It’s only right to fight as long as it’s not for yourself.” So as a rule of thumb, a little helpful guide.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he got to a place as an ethicist, as a pacifist originally, someone who had a brilliant mind, he determined the best thing he could do to serve God was to try and assassinate Hitler.
I read Dallas Willard’s quote, basically “I can trust Jesus to go into the temple and drive out those who were profiting from religion, beating them with a rope. I cannot trust myself to do so.” We’ve got to let him do it.
Instead of trying to really solve all those problems, and if you do have any kind of challenge or any kind of thing to process together, you can email me at BrittanyStockton@livingstreams.org/ Just kidding, David@livingstreams.org. Because I’m trying to learn and process all this as well. But the best way to get what Jesus intended when he said these words I think is to just look at the example of his life.
So we’re just going to take a moment now and do that. When Jesus was hit on the cheek, literally, when Pilate ordered him to be beaten in hopes that he might confess some sort of sin that he could punish him for, he sent him off with the soldiers, and in one account of the gospels they just took their fists and started punching him in the face and they actually ripped out his beard. In another account they took sticks and put a bag over his head and started hitting him in the face with these sticks, beating him, saying, “Hey, you’re a prophet. Why don’t you tell us which one hit you?”
And in the face of that, Jesus responded with, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”
And then the very next example he gives us, “If someone wants your shirt, give them your cloak.” And there Jesus was, dying on the cross and they had stripped him naked. The only thing we know happening with his clothes at that point is that there were soldiers at the bottom of the cross and they were casting lots to see who could get his cloak. And Jesus looked down on them and said, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”
Then, instead of walking a mile or two miles like the Romans said, he was told to carry his own cross beam. And he didn’t just carry it a little way, he carried it until he literally couldn’t carry it anymore and he collapsed under the weight. And his response to them was, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”
Then, as he stood there on that cross, and he was weighed down by the sins of all of humanity, the sins of those there who were crucifying him, the sins of those who weren’t there, you and I, our sin was put upon him in that moment. The wrath of God was poured out on him that should have been ours. And we will never know how much it cost. We will never know the full extent of what Jesus went through on that cross. It was way more than the physical pain. And he did that because of us. Yet, we are told by him, “If you come to me and you confess your sins, I will be faithful and just to forgive your sins.”
We who have no right to even come to him and say, “Hey, will you forgive us,” because we were the ones who actually did the injury. Yet, when we come, he says that he forgives us freely and completely and justifies us as if we never sinned before. He sends our sins as far as the east is from the west. And he forgives us not just past but present as well as future. So generous and kind. This is what Jesus did in the face of evil. This is what he’s asking his followers to trust him and to take his hand and to walk into.
Let’s pray. If you want to grab the communion cup, we’ll make this part of our prayer time.
When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he taught them to ask the Father to forgive them for their sins, but also to do that as they are forgiving those who have sinned against them. So somehow in this communion there’s a combination that’s supposed to happen. One is we receive forgiveness for our sin, but in the same breath, the same moment we then release forgiveness for those who have sinned against us, whatever it might be. To kind of get our minds around that, there’s this guy, Voddie Baucham, Jr. who’s been teaching me some things. In regards to forgiveness, he says:
If we refuse to forgive, we have stepped into dangerous waters. First, refusing to forgive is to put ourselves in the place of God, as though vengeance were our prerogative, not his. Second, unforgiveness says God’s wrath is insufficient. For the unbeliever, we are saying that an eternity in hell is not enough; they need our slap in the face or cold shoulder to “even the scales” of justice. For the believer, we are saying that Christ’s humiliation and death are not enough. In other words, we shake our fists at God and say, “Your standards may have been satisfied, but my standard is higher!” Finally, refusing to forgive is the highest form of arrogance. Here we stand forgiven, and as we bask in the forgiveness of a perfectly holy and righteous God, we turn to our brother and say, “My sins are forgivable, but yours are not.” In other words, we act as though the sins of others are too significant to forgive while simultaneously believing that ours are not significant enough to matter.”
– Voddie Baucham from Joseph and the Gospel of Many Colors; Reading an Old Story in a New Way
And Jesus, we are so sorry for the way we have treated your forgiveness, that we have accepted it and not extend it. We are so thankful that you came when we were rejecting you. You came when we wanted nothing to do with you. And you gave yourself freely and allowed your body to be broken so we could be made whole. And, Jesus, we receive that right now. Fill us with your forgiveness, Jesus. And Jesus, we thank you for your blood that was shed to wash away all of our sins, past present and future. We pray that, as we receive your forgiveness once again, we would really be able to release forgiveness to those who have hurt us. We can’t do it without you. But with you all things are possible.
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