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This evening’s passage is from Romans chapter 15. Romans chapter 15, we will be reading from verses one through seven. You can find this on page 1,128 in the New Testament. Romans chapter 15, verses one through seven. 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 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.
Let us pray. O Lord, as we read your word and as we hear the exposition of it, I pray, O Lord, that you would work in our hearts, that the Spirit would make our hearts alive, that we would draw closer to you, that we would love your word more and that we would love you more. And I pray, O Lord, that you would draw us closer together. this evening, that you would cause us to love one another more, that you would cause us to love one another more than we love ourselves. In Christ’s name we pray, amen. You may be seated.
A well-known psychologist in the 1900s whose name is William Powers wrote that The childhood of the human race is far from over. We have a long way to go before most people will understand that what they do for others is just as important for their own well-being as what they do for themselves. A more modern psychologist wrote regarding his words, I couldn’t express it any better.
Why should we help people? Because it’s good for us. We all thrive when we help each other flourish. Helping others might well be the ultimate act of selfishness. In an increasingly secular society, we often hear people advocate for being kind to one another on the basis that it helps us in some way. People will say, I give to philanthropy because it makes me feel better. Others will say I volunteer at the local homeless shelter because it makes me feel like I am a good person.
In a way, this is sinful man’s subconscious way of trying to justify himself in his own eyes. When people say this or think this, they are perhaps unknowingly attempting to balance out the evil that they have done in their life with this small good that they have done.
Yet the scriptures, and more specifically, the Apostle Paul, in our passage this evening, teaches us that we are not to help those who are struggling for self-centered reasons. Or as Paul says it in verse two, please your neighbor for his good. The world teaches us to be so self-centered that we are to view even the good deeds that we do for others as a good deed for ourselves. But Paul gives us these three commands in our scripture this evening to help us rightly care for those who are considered weak.
And the three commands are that you are to bear the failings of the weak in order to build them up, you are to bear in mind the scriptures, and lastly, you are to glorify God with one voice. An even broader roadmap of the passage this evening is simply the command that is to bear one another’s weaknesses and to build one another up. And the reason for that command, which is the example of Jesus and all of scripture and the unity of our worship. Let’s now consider the first command that is to bear with one another’s failings so that they are built up.
Paul writes the following in verses one through two. 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 and to build him up. Now who are the strong and the weak that Paul is referring to in our passage this evening?
Is he referring to those who lift weights and can carry boxes for the rest of us who have never seen a gym or entered one? I don’t think so. That’s not what he’s talking about. Clearly, what he means is not people who are physically strong and people who are physically weak.
Romans 15, one through seven, comes in the middle of a broader discussion that Paul is giving regarding how we are to treat one another in the church. Let’s read just a small portion of chapter 14 to get a better idea of what Paul is talking about here. Let’s read verses one through four, chapter 14, verses one through four. As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.
One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. And going down to verse 20, do not for the sake of food destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine or to do anything that causes your brother to stumble.
The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves, but whoever doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever from faith is sin.
In Paul’s day, when he was writing to the church in Rome, the church was still very young, and both Jews and Gentiles were coming to the church. According to Paul, there were some Jews whose conscience was still bound to the Old Testament, and there were others, the Gentiles mostly, whose faith had grasped the full reality and freedom of the new covenant, and they, would eat things that the Jews thought were abominable. So Paul’s concern in chapter 14 is that the saints would not allow these non-gospel issues, these non-primary issues, to become the source of division in their church. While those who still followed the holy days and dietary laws of the Old Testament were not correct, their misunderstandings did not produce sin.
Thus Paul tells those who are stronger in the faith, i.e. those who had fully grasped the freedom in Christ, do not pass judgment on those who are weaker in the faith and had not fully grasped this reality. In other words, Paul is telling them, do not attempt to violate your brother’s conscience if it does not pertain to matters of sin or to matters of the gospel itself.
So then in chapter 15, the weak ones are those who are weak in faith and the strong ones are those who have matured in their faith. This is not to say that the strong are stronger in their faith in every sense. Paul is speaking of those who are stronger than others in certain respects. Most of us have certain areas of our life where we have matured and other areas where we are weak.
But Paul uses the same language of weaker brother, but has broadened his discussion from those who are weaker in a specific sense in chapter 14, for the specific sense of following the old dietary restrictions. to in chapter 15, he’s broadened the discussion to any weaknesses that can be observed in our brothers. Paul is saying that you must bear them up. In other words, in chapter 14, Paul is discussing this very specific topic that he was dealing with at Rome. And in 15, in verses one through seven, Paul is laying out this broader principle on which his reasoning in chapter 14 lies. That is that those who are stronger in the faith are to bear up the burdens of those who are weaker in the faith and build them up. Now bearing here in chapter 15 does not mean that we are to merely live with or tolerate the weaknesses of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
At one point growing up in my household, there were three brothers and one sister in a 600 square foot home. There was much tolerating of each other’s quirks and annoyances. When my brother would get on my nerves, I would merely go to the other corner of the house and try to forget about whatever problems he was causing me. But that’s not what Paul is saying here. I was not truly bearing the weaknesses of my brothers.
The word literally here means to cause to come to a higher position or to sustain a burden. In other words, Paul is saying that when you notice the failings of your brothers and sisters in Christ, you are not merely to tolerate or to not get angry. You are actually to actively come alongside of that brother or sister and to help carry that burden with them. When we are serving in the church and when we are fellowshipping with fellow believers, there are often those who struggle in areas of their walk with Jesus that we do not. Sometimes those weaknesses are very obvious to us but seemingly oblivious to that person. When this occurs, it can be difficult for us believers to interact with them or to even be around that brother or sister.
But the correct response for the stronger believer is, of course, not to get angry at the brother and not to put him down, but it’s also not to just merely put distance between that brother and yourself, assuming we’re not dealing with some extreme circumstance, that is. Paul is clearly saying here that the answer is not to get angry, The answer is not to judge or to merely tolerate, but that you are to come alongside that brother or sister and to notice his weaknesses and to encourage him in those weaknesses.
You are to actively engage with him and seek to encourage him, and thereby building him up in the word and in prayer. But we are not to do this because it makes us feel better. As Paul says in verse two, let each of us please his neighbor for his good. We are to do so because we love our fellow believer and desire his good.
You do not do charity to stack up good deeds in your life. and you do not go to the local homeless shelter to stack up good deeds in your life to outweigh the evil that you have done in your life. We know that our justification is based solely on the work of Christ and not on our good works. So likewise, do not help your brother and expect to outweigh the evil that you’ve done in your life by helping him. You should also not help your brother or sister for the sake of glory for yourself. As Jesus says in Matthew 6 verse 1, beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
Likewise, Paul in Galatians 1.20 says, for am I now seeking the approval of man or of God, or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. If you seek the good of your brother in order to receive praise from others, Jesus and Paul say clearly that you will not receive blessing from your Father.
When you bear up the weaknesses of your weaker brother, when you look to please your neighbor, you are to do so out of love for him, to build him up and not for your own pleasure or your own gain, but truly for his good. The fundamental posture, according to Paul, from one believer to the next in all interactions is to be that of love. You are to be willing the good of the other over the good of oneself. And Paul goes on to give two reasons why we are to heed this command.
The first reason that he gives is the example of our Savior, Jesus Christ. He writes in verse three, for Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. Now, when Christians speak of Jesus as our example, Some of us can feel maybe a little bit uncomfortable because liberalism has reduced Jesus to merely being a good example. While Jesus is not merely a good example of a human being, he is certainly the greatest example of a human being that we have. Thus Paul and the other writers of the New Testament continuously point us to Christ to know how to live our Christian life. So what has Christ done for us that would require us to bear the weaknesses of our brothers and sisters in Christ? Here Paul quotes from Psalm 69 verse nine. And I’m gonna quote the full verse in verse nine. It’s not all here, but. Psalm 69 verse 9, for zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.
These words were originally spoken by David, but the New Testament makes it clear that these words were ultimately fulfilled by Jesus. That is to say that they refer to what we would call the humiliation of Christ. That is, is being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God and the cursed death of the cross, and being buried and continuing under the power of death for a time. The key to understanding the motivation of Jesus comes in verse nine, right before what Paul quotes in Romans 15. and that is that he did it out of zeal for his father’s house.
Jesus did not humiliate himself because it brought him joy to be humiliated. It was not because he was crowned king by those on this earth. In fact, his creatures, when he arrived on this earth, meted him with hatred, with scorn, with torture, and ultimately his creatures met him with his death on a cross. But why would Christ do this for us?
Ultimately, Jesus did it for the glory of the Father, according to the psalmist. The ultimate end for which Jesus emptied himself and came to this earth was the glory of his Father. In other words, Jesus’ actions in being humiliated were not to bring glory to himself, but to bring glory to his Father. The scriptures also tell us elsewhere that Jesus did it for a second reason.
As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8, verse 9, for you know that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor, so that through his poverty, you might become rich. He did it because he loved us. He loved you and I, and so he sought our good. That good was to bring us out of a state of sin and misery, and to bring us into eternal life.
And this is why verse one says that we are obligated to bear the weaknesses of our weak brothers. The word in verse one is literally that we owe it to our weak brothers to bear their weaknesses. You may think to yourself, well, I don’t owe anything to anyone. But Paul here is trying to help us understand that we owe it to Jesus. We are indebted to our Savior for what he has done for us. And thus we must, just as Christ has done for you, do for the weaker brother in our midst.
And Paul goes on to remind us that it’s not just Psalm 69.9 that teaches us this fact.
It’s all of scripture that teaches us this reality. All of scripture points us to the fact that Christ died for us to give us new life. all of Scripture points to Christ. As he writes in 2 Timothy 3, all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work. It’s not just enough to remind ourselves in our own heads about the gospel. We must be continually seeking the scriptures and challenging the weaknesses in our own lives and in our own hearts. Because it’s the spirit of God of the word that produces endurance in us and that encourages us to do what is right towards our weaker brothers and sisters.
But why does all this matter so much? Paul gives us one reason that it’s because Jesus has done it for you. But he gives us a second reason. And that reason is because it affects our relationship with God. Paul goes on in verses five through seven to give us this second reason. Let’s read verses five through seven.
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. Paul understands that like justification, sanctification is not possible unless the Spirit is working in us to regenerate us and to purify us. And so he blesses them with these words. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus.
If the church is to truly seek unity in mind and in spirit, we must first seek the blessing of God. God is the one through the work of the spirit that convicts us, that reproves us, that encourage us, and that unites us. So we must be praying that the spirit would indeed work in us to unite us. that he would work in us to see the weaknesses of others and to be able to bear those weaknesses for them. And this unity that God brings us is not just a surface-level unity that can be broken with the slightest offense, but it is true unity, as Paul says, in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And then Paul goes on in verse six, and he says this, in order that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It’s a curious thing that Paul does not use the word worship here. He uses a broader term that is to glorify. You may think to yourself, well, what’s the distinction between glorify and worship? And the answer is that while glorifying the Lord certainly includes the worship of God, it is not limited to that.
The body of Christ does not just function as a body on Sunday for three hours. As Paul says in Romans 12, for just as we have many members in one body and all members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. We are the body of Christ and we are united to him and to one another by faith. And it’s not just on Sunday for three hours, it’s every day of every week.
Thus, we are not living disparate lives that do not affect one another. The literal meaning of verse six is that in order that with one mind, you with one voice may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, we are not just to be unified in our outward appearance. When we glorify God as his people, especially in the corporate worship of our Lord, we are to be unified outwardly in our voices and inwardly in our minds.
And according to Paul, this can’t be done if the weaknesses of our brothers and sisters are being ignored or suppressed so that they cannot be seen. For a long time, I myself did not understand the importance of the corporate nature of public worship. When the pastor was praying, I would be praying my own prayers internally with whatever came to my mind instead of praying with the pastor. When the church sang hymns and psalms, my mind would often easily slip to think about other things.
Yet the scriptures are clear that worship is to be done as a whole by the body of Christ. When the minister is leading prayer, we are to be praying with him, lifting up our prayers and petitions with one voice. We are to sing praises to God together with one voice and one mind as the body of Christ. Paul drives this home, this point home about the need for unity in passages like 1 Corinthians. Please turn with me there. 1 Corinthians 12, verses 14 through 26. 1 Corinthians 12, verses 14 through 26.
For the body does not consist of one member, but of many. does not consist of one member, but many. If the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body.
If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts in one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow the greatest honor. And our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty. which are more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving great honor to the part that lacked it. And there may be no division in the body, but that members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together.
When we understand the importance of viewing our own and our family’s lives in light of the broader church, the broader body of Christ, we will understand why Paul is so emphatic. According to Paul, if one person in our body is hurting, the whole body hurts. And going back to Romans chapter 15, six, Paul is saying that when the body is hurting and weak, our worship is affected as well.
When there is anger and division, when there is hurt, the worship of our Lord becomes disjointed and disunified. Instead of one united voice, it becomes several distinct voices praising God. And this strikes at the heart of the goal of the church, The primary goal of the church and the ultimate goal of the Christian life is to worship God.
And when there are those who are hurting and cast aside, we are not as effective in carrying out this goal. This strikes at the very heart of the purpose of our lives. began this evening with a quote from a psychologist who said, that for humanity to grow up, it must understand that to care for others is to be truly selfish. This quote shows us the fundamental self-centered attitude which unbelievers and sadly many of us believers struggle with. We only want to help others if it’s not too difficult for us. We only want to come alongside of those who are struggling if it doesn’t negatively affect us too much. We get frustrated easily because we fundamentally still struggle with seeing ourselves as the center of life. But it’s not about us.
It’s about what Christ has done in all of us and what he is doing through us for others and what he is doing through others for us. You must be willing to bear the failings of the weak and to build them up for their good. You must do so by reminding yourself of what Christ has done in your life and what he has done for you on the cross. And you must do so by searching the scriptures daily as the spirit leads to encourage you and convict you. Lastly, you must remember that when one of you, a weaker brother or sister is struggling, it affects the whole body and it affects our worship.
Therefore, as Paul says in verse seven, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, we thank you for who you are. We thank you, O Lord, that you are a righteous and a holy God. We thank you, O Lord, that you do not allow sin into your presence. And yet, O Lord, you are also a merciful and kind and loving God who sent his son to die on the cross for our sins.
He bore the reproach that we were to bear, that we should have borne, the pain that we should have borne so that we could have new life in him. We thank you, O Lord, that through faith we can be unified in Christ. that we have a relationship with the second person of the Trinity. Through faith, we are united to him. And through faith, we are united to one another in Christ. Lord, it’s so easy for us to forget this reality, that when one brother or sister is struggling, the whole body hurts.
O Lord, convict us through the reading of the word and through the remembering of the gospel that we are to bear the weaknesses of our brothers and sisters, that we have a responsibility in our daily lives to care for and love our brothers and sisters in Christ. And I pray, O Lord, that this example of love for one another would shine as a light to those who do not yet know you. I pray, O Lord, that they would desire to have that love that was in your Son, Jesus Christ. I pray, O Lord, that they would come to know you, that they would come to know your love. In Jesus’ name, amen. Please rise as we sing hymn 161, 161.