I invite you to turn tonight to Romans chapter 15. We have two chapters left in our study of the book of Romans, and tonight we are looking at verses 1 through 13 of Romans 15. Romans 15, found on page 1128 in the Bibles that are in front of you. Let's give our attention tonight to the holy word of the Lord.
"We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy, as it is written, therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. And again it is said, rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people. And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him. And again Isaiah says, the root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles. In him will the Gentiles hope May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope."
May the Lord bless the hearing of his word.
Well, I remember when I was out of college and these great truths of the gospel took root in my heart, I wanted to fight with all those who didn't agree with everything that I said. That was known as sort of what we used to call "cage face Calvinism," where you would take a young guy who had just learned all of this and put him in a cage for a while because he just needed to calm down, right? We used to laugh at that. But this is very important tonight because what we have is really some of the greatest teachings in the New Testament on the unity of believers. It's a beautiful section that way.
And if you know anything of the history of the church and you know anything of all the problems that we have faced in church life and the difficulties of people fighting and breaking unity, and we have looked at all of that, then you know how important a section this is. There are indeed things to separate over. Paul would say that elsewhere. "There need to be divisions among you to prove who is acceptable before God." That has to happen. But as you know, most of the time we're separating over all the wrong things. And Paul is concerned about how we handle ourselves in our differences and convictions. Very important. Very important section tonight.
He is still very much concerned. It's a long section here through chapter 14 into half of 15 about unity among Christians. He's even going to give a great section in chapter 16 on warning about those who cause divisions in the kingdom. I can't wait to get there. That's very important. He cares about this very much under the inspiration of the Spirit. Because Paul understands human nature. Paul understands how we are. And in general, people will simply conquer and divide each other without any charity or any love. And Christians can be no different.
On the issues of liberty, which is what we've been looking at we've been looking at real issues of Christian liberty, on issues where there is freedom within the bounds of the law of God. There's a lot of room there for us to walk and have our convictions. The same dividing and conquering often goes on, and people dig in their heels, and they break fellowship over convictions like this. The apostle tonight is helping us through this, and he is helping us to think more strategically and to have us think about how we are behaving and how we are to be motivated to love one another.
I always say this to people: they think, "Well, I'm going to go out and find the perfect church. Let me know when you find it." Well, We always have this idea conceptually, the grass is greener on the other side, when the very challenges that we face are the challenges appointed for us. This is the Lord constructing His church. Each church is individually fit together. And if people thought this way and understood this, they're going to look at the church differently. It's a freeing way to look at the church.
But most disputes that have ripped the church apart are over things that Christians should not be disputing over. And that's particularly what we're dealing with in this section. Paul is saying to us tonight, "Let me give you a proper motivation for this. I'm going to give you an angle on the sacrifice of Christ, a different angle on it, to prove my point and to drive you in the Christian life." That's going to be one of his great purposes in this passage. It's a very unique passage, a beautiful passage.
And I want you to consider how long-suffering he is to you. I want you to think about how patient he has been with you, to consider what he bore for you. And then you will see how important it is that you pursue the things that make for peace and joy in your walk together with your brethren.
Now, remember the context here. It's an important context. Paul has been helping us through issues of Christian liberty. And he's using this to help believers in the church in Rome who were really struggling with the differences in that particular local body. There were a bunch of Jews there and there were a bunch of Greeks there, and they had not learned to think, excuse me, sacrificially. You remember this. Greeks looked at the Jews; the Gentiles looked at the Jews, and they looked at their cultural differences and they looked at their cultural traditions and despised them for that, thinking that it impugned their own freedoms. And Jews looked at the Greeks and thought they were licentious in behavior and disregarding of all the old customs and traditions that they had, and they judged them harshly for that.
Paul chose words uniquely for this, and he said in the beginning of this section uh chapter 14 receive one another and don't dispute over opinions." That's a very important little line there. "Receive one another." Notice the beginning of 14. When you have no direct commandment from God on a particular issue, or there is something not very clear for people, or in the history of the church, or there are areas of church liberty, those are not to be separating points in the body. There are tertiary issues. There are issues that are of less importance in the kingdom of God. And some people cannot handle that. Some people cannot work through that.
The Pharisees struggled with that, remember. "You should have done justice, mercy, and truth, but you're straining out gnats and swallowing camels, getting all mad at people for not doing it like you do." This is important. I've seen it in my whole ministry that, even if one believes something is absolutely right, often we see nothing in the response of the Spirit in that person that should accompany the conviction. What are you trying to accomplish? This is really important. What are you trying to accomplish? That's a crucial question Paul's asking in this. Is it for you, your conviction, or for them? Often it's about us. We're one-upping.
Again, the weaker brother doesn't fully understand his liberty and tends to have a very harsh, judgmental spirit toward those who are freer. And the strong have a very despising spirit and look down on their weaker brothers. And Paul has addressed this along the way. "Stop it. Just stop it. Stop judging one another. You are not God. You all have the same Lord, the same Lord overall. You're not the Lord. You're not the judge. He is the judge. People answer to him, not you. So stop it."
That was his approach. But then last time he appealed to the strong, which was interesting. It was a Solomonic kind of wisdom moment, I think, that everyone thinks "Who thinks they're weak, right, in their convictions? They indeed are strong and they are weak, but who really thinks? Everyone thinks they're strong in their convictions." And it's as if he does something very brilliant here to the strong in this case: that since you have your freedom and since you understand your freedom, if you have faith, because that's how you please God, then you have the ability to let it go. If one believes that something for them is wrong, Paul said, it's wrong for them. So that kind of freedom makes people nervous. It makes controlling people nervous. "For them, it's wrong," he said. "They have liberty of conscience. You need to concede and keep your conviction between yourself and God. And you really don't have to do it anyway. The kingdom," he said, "is not about eating and drinking. It's not about these sort of issues. It's about righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." Remember he said that.
Now you think we get the point by now, but not quite. Last time he gave a final summary to the whole thing. And then he motivates us one last time now, then he motivates us with a powerful thought that we never really consider to actually pursue peace with one another. The driving motivation for pursuing peace with one another: look at verse 1 of chapter 15. "We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves."
That is an amazing verse. That is a really remarkable verse. There's an obligation on the part of the strong here, not to please ourselves. What he is going after here is that the strong tend to have strong opinions. The strong tend to always think that they're right. And the strong always have the answers, don't they? And the strong always want to let you know that. The strong are always on the verge of being Pharisees. That's just the reality. I want to say that we have to be careful even in our convictions, and I say this to myself, in our homes. We need to make sure we're not just raising good Pharisees in our convictions. What are we trying to accomplish? What are we trying to accomplish? Those who look down on everyone else? That's important.
The strong have a great tendency to pride. And Paul's checking that here. "Why do you believe what you believe, and why do you hold to what you do?" That's the question and the motivation here. "Who is it for, you or for them?" And I think this is how we have to learn to think as Christians.
People will come up and encourage me, and they'll say, "Well, pastor, we're so thankful for when you preach the Word of God to us, and God's given you a gift," and I always say, "Well, that gift is for you. That gift is for you." Whatever gift we have is for somebody else. Whatever conviction we have should be aimed toward helping somebody else. And that's really important in this. "Who do you think your convictions are intended to serve? God, yes, but your neighbor, certainly."
And Paul sees the solution here is belonging to those who are firmly grounded and convinced in the truth. "Here's what you should do: We have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weaker brother." It's a fascinating verse, isn't it? I want you to notice the verb here: "to bear with." It doesn't just mean, as we would hear that in English, "I just got to put up with these people." That's how we tend to think. "Somebody is weaker than us, what do we do? We just avoid that person. We stay away from those persons." Paul says, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no." "We trash those people, right? They don't get it. They're terrible people or whatever we might do."
Now, you have an obligation to actively do something with their failings, with their failings, and it should have the fruit of building up the body, he says, building up the church, building the structure. Our translation says "failings"; other, the older translations say "scruples." "Bear with the scruples of the weak," but "weaknesses" or "Failings" I think ours says weaknesses, failings is right. A wooden translation might be this: "We then who are powerful ought to carry the weaknesses of the powerless and not to please ourselves." That could be very wooden, you see? That's the intention of this. It means to carry that weakness, bear up that weakness. In other words, pick up that weakness, put it on your back, and carry it for them. And he falls up with denial of the self, doesn't he? When you do this, don't ever do this with the motivation to please yourself.
It's at Galatians 5: "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." Carry them. Now the scriptures address this in many different places, that the solution comes from the obligation of the strong. You could remember Paul writing to Philemon regarding Onesimus, and who had probably stolen and fled from Philemon. And Paul says, "Look, receive him back as a brother." And then Paul says this: "If he owes anything to you, this former thief, put it on my account. I'll pay it. I'll pay it." See how beautiful that is? So this is the sort of spirit that's behind this.
"Let each of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up." Think of "The Proverb 19. The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger and his glory is to overlook a transgression." What Paul does here is motivate us to this. Notice this in verse three: how he does this.
"For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who approached you fell on me. That's a mesmerizing verse 2. When we think of Christ, when we talk about the gospel, we always go to the cross. Amen. And we think about the excruciating death of the cross. And we think of him suffering in our place the wrath of God on the cross. But there's something we often don't think about. When it comes to division in the body of Christ, when it comes to squabbling, when it comes to Christians not getting along, Paul addresses a different aspect of his suffering. One we don't think about.
You see, he says, "Christ didn't..." Think about this. "Who is this? Even Christ didn't seek to please himself." Can you even ponder that? I mean, he is truly God. How so? How did Christ not seek in this life to please himself?
Well, he quotes a Psalm. Dr. Godfrey will be happy psalm 69: "For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brothers, for zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who approach you have fallen on me. When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach."
What was he doing? What was he carrying? Well, the Psalm is speaking of Jesus Christ. The Psalms do. They're his cries and they're his prayers. What you have in Psalm 69 is Jesus describing his agony in life. Now, what do you think of some of the biggest agonies Jesus had in life? And what we call his act of obedience for us. What is the agony the Psalter is describing in Psalm 69? He says from his brethren, he bore reproach. He bore all kinds of insults. "You know what they said of Jesus? Now, you don't like it when someone maligns you. You know what they said of him? He's a drunkard. He's a friend of tax collectors and sinners. He's a lawbreaker. He's lawless." They said this of him. His own brothers failed him. Everyone was constantly trying to catch him in a trap. They pinned him on him terrible things. They produced liars at his trial that lied against him.
On his back, now think about this, behind his back, all kinds of insults were hurled at him. All the time. Now, I don't have the power to stop that. He did. With one word, he could have made them go backward and drop these people into hell. But he didn't. "The reproaches, all those reproaches have fallen on me," says the Psalmist, speaking of Christ.
What did he do with them? He carried them. All those reproaches are your reproaches and my reproaches. And he picked them up and he put them on his back and he closed his mouth and he walked them right to the cross for you. All the way to Golgotha. How many offenses were made against him that are our offenses that he was carrying? How many wrong beliefs? How many things that were done? How many failings? He put them on his back.
See, this is at the heart of "he bore our sorrows. He carried our sorrows." Now, the tie is this: verse 1. "You ought to carry the failings of the weak, the weaknesses, their weaknesses, instead of hurling reproaches on your brethren." The hyper-judgmental spirit, you know this in the church. "These people are stupid. These people don't live right. There's all kinds of hypocrisy in that place. These people are just awful." Just go down the line. When you do that, you're not the one carrying reproaches. You're hurling the reproaches. You see?
When you judge or despise your brethren over their failings, you're heaping the insults. You're the one. Those are the reproaches your Lord carried on his back in AD 30 for you. See the tie? That's what he carried for you. He already carried them. He atoned for them. I can't get over the motivation of this. All the reproaches of your brethren are paid for. Jesus didn't hold those failings against them and he didn't hold your failings against you. Who are you then to pick them up and hurl them again? Instead, carry them. That's the spirit behind this.
And then Paul says something, and I've always been encouraged by all the scriptures: "Whatever was written was written for our instruction and encouragement, that we might have hope." You know what I hear in that? God wrote down all these things telling us it's about his Son so that we would be instructed and encouraged and have hope and pursue this that you would be encouraged that this pursuit is not in vain. Whatever God said in the whole Old Testament was written that we might learn and see Christ, and that we might see God's patience, right? And that he passed over sins previously committed to demonstrate his righteousness, and that we would be comforted that Christ did this for us. This is what he's saying. The Old Testament teaches us that our reproaches, our sins fell upon him, and the whole Old Testament testifies to this, and all those things that spoke of him were given that we might learn to live in the joy of that comfort.
So what's the response? Behold, "It's not a new covenant phenomenon. Behold, how good and pleasant is the sight when brethren dwell and unity. It's like precious oil upon the head running down on the beard the beard of Aaron running down on the edge of his garments. It's like the dew of Hermon descending upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord has commanded his blessing: life forevermore." In that place, where there is that kind of love and unity, that's where the blessing of the Lord is found. That's what he's saying.
So he encourages us. "This is the character of your God." So he pronounces a blessing: "May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."
And to seal the deal here, if you will, to make the strong case here, he wants to send you out with the kind of disposition that should be on the hearts and lips. How do you replace sort of bitter, reproach type people who do that? How do you replace it? You replace that with praise. And so he looks right at the Gentiles in this. And he says, "You Gentiles, have you thought of what God's done for you?"
Verse 7, he says, "Receive one another, just as Christ also received us to the glory of God." And he says, "For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promise given to the patriarchs, in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy." Christ became a servant for who? Well, to the Jews, to those of the circumcision, to fulfill the promise to Abraham. He didn't write them off who didn't get it. He saved his people. He always has. And then Christ pitied us, the Gentiles, strangers to the covenants of promise, aliens without God, without hope. He opened the door for us. And what should that bring? The greatest humble attitude of praise.
And he strings together a bunch of verses to make this point. "Therefore," Psalm 18, "I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name." Notice the progression. Then he cites Deuteronomy 32, 43, which Moses sang before his death. He envisioned a day when the Gentiles would rejoice with God's people. "Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people." Psalm 117: "Praise the Lord, you Gentiles. Laud him, all you peoples, for his merciful kindness is great toward us, and the truth of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord."
Then he concludes with Isaiah 11: "There shall be a root of Jesse, and he who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles. In him the Gentiles shall have hope." See what he just did? Gentiles. Celebrate, and look at your brethren differently. He did wonders for you. He brought you into the kingdom. And it should change your whole disposition to praise. You don't deserve this.
And this whole instruction ends with a beautiful benediction: "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace, believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."
What a beautiful verse, huh? God's desire for your life, beloved, is joy and peace. And this is what it looks like. That's the beauty of this. How good and pleasant is the sight when brethren make it their delight to dwell in this unity. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. So let us serve one another. And let us think about, instead of avoiding people and staying away from those different, to learn to think how to bear their weaknesses and failings. Carry them. Seeing what Christ has carried for you, that it might unite us together as his family more and more. And that we might rejoice that we all together, all these differences, it's a marvel what God has done. Rejoice that we are made members of the household of God by faith. Sons and daughters by faith. What a wonderful God He is. Rejoice in His work for you. And now may it spill over in how we love one another.
Let's pray. "Lord, thank you for such a text. Thank you for encouraging us. Grant us to be a people, Lord, who think more and more about carrying one another's weaknesses and failings. May we think deeply about what was carried for us by the Savior. A bitter, departing spirit far from the body is far from your design. Tear down, O Lord, those spirits and replace them with joy and peace by your Holy Spirit, and let us respond with gladness for what you've done for us in forgiving all our sins, having nailed them to the cross. In Jesus' name we pray, amen."