“Friends, do not avenge yourselves; instead, leave room for God’s wrath, because it is written, ‘Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord.’ But ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For in so doing you will be heaping fiery coals on his head.’” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We’ve all been there. Someone comes along and does something that makes you mad. What’s more, they meant to do it. Now you are left with a choice: How are you going to respond? Do you get them back? Do you let it go? Do you express your displeasure in some unmistakable way? If we’re being honest, for most of us, our first instinct is to start plotting how we can get revenge in some way. That’s normal. It always has been. And if there’s no God, or if we can’t trust the gods to avenge us, that kind of thinking makes sense. But if there is a God as is revealed in the pages of the Scriptures, it doesn’t. Let’s talk about it.

While many of the commands in the Scriptures only make sense if God exists, that’s not the case for all of them. Several of the commands Paul gives here in this litany of instructions for practical ways to live out the Christian faith, for instance, could be worked out by reason. Take the first command from last Wednesday as an example. “Do not repay anyone evil for evil.” Gandhi said something pretty similar. Of course, much of his nonviolent approach to resolving conflict was inspired by the Sermon on the Mount rather than anything inherent to Hinduism, so maybe that’s not a good example, but perhaps you get the point. There is much in the Scriptures that is general knowledge, not things that are specific to the Christian faith.

What Paul writes here sits emphatically in that first category. The idea that we shouldn’t avenge ourselves when we have been wronged is about as counterintuitive of an idea as you could imagine. I mentioned this the other day, but just think for a minute about how many movies and TV series center on the idea of revenge. Avenging ourselves seems like it should be a natural right. If we have been wronged, we have a duty to right that wrong. If we aren’t going to do it, then who else will?

Perhaps the State? If someone hits your car while it is parked in a parking lot, the government says it is the responsibility of the person who hit you to make amends for their negligent driving by compensating you fairly for the damage he caused. This is accomplished by the government’s mandating that all drivers have a license, and that one of the requirements to receive a license is to provide proof of insurance. That is, you have to have a means of paying for the damage you might cause to someone else’s vehicle or property if you are going to drive legally.

Okay, but the State doesn’t always get that right. Things fall through the cracks. Trying to get the State to avenge every little offense and squabble is expensive too. You can always sue someone in small claims court, but then you have to pay court costs. And the judge may not agree with you about the proper resolution for the offense. She may not even agree with you that it was an offense warranting the State’s involvement in the first place. At some point, we are on our own to avenge ourselves.

At least, that’s the case if there is no God. If God doesn’t exist, then we really are on our own, and it’s up to us to make things right in the best way we know how. Of course, the ways we “know how” have a remarkably consistent tendency to not finally resolve whatever the issue is. We either don’t go far enough or we go too far and wind up with the other person now seeking to avenge himself against us. When we try to get justice for ourselves, we mostly just make a mess. We make a mess for us, and for everyone else around us. It’s just not a good solution to the problem. But again, if there is no God, it’s all we’ve got.

But if there is a God who is just and holy and righteous; who is passionately committed to the good of His people; who is compassionate and kind and gentle; who is omniscient and omnipotent; who is patient and generous; who loves us perfectly and without condition, then everything changes. If there is a God who declared that vengeance is His, this takes the load of avenging ourselves when we have been wronged off of our hands entirely.

Okay, but what vengeance is His exactly? Well, Paul is quoting here from Moses’ farewell address to the people of Israel that is our book of Deuteronomy. The line comes from near the end in what is called the Song of Moses. Moses sings a song of Israel’s history to that point in their journey. He sings about how God found the people and raised them up from nothing to be His special people. But the people rebelled in spite of all of His goodness He revealed to them. As a result, God let their enemies have at them as a punishment for their rebellion and rejection. They wanted to go it alone, so He let them. The problem with their wanting that is they weren’t a big enough or strong enough people without Him to successfully go it alone.

But they were still God’s people, and when their enemies went beyond what God had sanctioned them to do, God declared once again His passion for His people. He would right the wrongs that had now been done to them. “Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay,” He declared. They would not have to fight their own battles. He would be the one to make things right. They could trust in Him.

And that’s the key here. If this God exists, then we can indeed trust in Him. Sure, but that was a promise made to Israel. Haven’t you made the point over and over that the promises made to Israel were for them and not for us such that we can claim them whenever we please? Yes, but there are two things wrong with that here. Number one, this is Paul claiming the promise on our behalf at the prompting and direction of the Holy Spirit, not our claiming it for ourselves. Number two, Paul is not presenting this as a promise for us to claim, but rather as a description of the character of God.

The God we serve is the God who avenges His people. That’s the vengeance He is talking about here. God is talking about righting the wrongs done to His people by their enemies. This is not some blanket statement that every single thing you perceive to be an offense God is somehow going to rectify to your satisfaction on your schedule. God is not your personal security force. When you have been abused or treated unjustly by the world in your pursuit of Christ, you can trust that He will make sure that wrong is addressed properly.

Now, the timing on that is going to be His, not yours. God’s promise here doesn’t mean that you will see the satisfaction you are seeking for some offense come to pass right when you want it. God’s vengeance will happen on His timing and it will come by His wisdom. You are going to have to be willing to trust Him. But if you have committed your life to following Jesus, shouldn’t that be par for the course?

If you have declared yourself to trust Him sufficiently to make Him your Lord, then trusting Him to right the wrongs done to you according to His wisdom and timing is only a matter of course. To refuse to do that is to indicate that you don’t actually trust Him at all. It is to reveal that you consider Him to be your God-on-retainer. He is there to serve at your beck and call, and not the other way around. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Either He is God, or He is not. There is no in between.

Okay, but what about all the little hurts and offenses we receive in the course of our lives? Does God not care about avenging those? Are those somehow beneath Him? Not at all. But, we have to evaluate carefully what offenses are really offenses, and what things are just our choosing to be offended about something that probably shouldn’t offend us. Is the offense the result of an actual sin against us, or are we just being selfish and stubborn? Did the person actually hurt us, or did we simply not get our way? Those are not the same thing. God is not our personal attack dog to be sicced whenever we please…or rather, whenever we are not pleased with someone else.

Even here, though, the invitation is still to trust in Him. If we perceive something to be a real offense and not just a bit of selfishness on our part, then we can trust that God will right that wrong when the time is right. We don’t have to worry about making things right ourselves. We do not have to avenge ourselves. That is not a weight we have to carry. We can leave it all on God’s shoulders, trusting that He will bear it with wisdom and justice.

What leaving all of this weight on God’s shoulders does is to free us to love. It frees us to forgive. It frees us to pursue reconciliation and restoration with the people around us. It allows us to simply be kind to everyone around us no matter what they do to us…kind of like Jesus did. And, as Paul notes by drawing on some wisdom from Proverbs, this is actually one of the most effective responses to our enemies. “If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For in so doing you will be heaping fiery coals on his head.” The best vengeance, it would seem, is kindness.

Why? Because by responding with kindness, we highlight the evil of the offense against us. The light of our goodness in response will make the darkness of the offense all the more noticeable. Our offender will look all the worse by comparison when we remain rooted in the goodness and kindness of Christ. They will either recoil at the light and leave us alone entirely, or they will come into the light, at which point they become a brother or sister in the Lord, and we win anyway. God’s kindness is what draws us to repentance, and if we are the vehicle of that kindness, we could be a part of drawing someone else to repentance as well. And, if they respond by leaning into the evil and doubling down on the offense, we can still trust that God will make things right. That’s the kind of God we serve.

So, the next time you are offended, trust yourself into the hands of the God who is good and righteous and holy and just and loving. Let Him worry about setting things right, and focus your efforts instead of living out His goodness to all of those around you, and especially those who have hurt you. That path will lead to life far more surely than any other you might walk.