Let's be turning to Romans chapter
15. When I found out that Brother
Art was not going to be here, I asked Greg about leading the
singing, and I was trying to sort of hint around. I said,
have you led singing before? He texted me back. He said, well,
not at this church. And I wrote him back and I said,
well, have you led singing at another church? And he texted
me back and said, no. I texted him back and I said,
do you think you can lead singing? And he wrote me back and said,
well, I guess we'll find out. Finally, I texted him, I said,
can you sing? Well, it's good to know we have
somebody that can fill in for Brother Art. And if Brother Adam
would have read about Moses being in the cleft of the rock, I think
I'd have had to preach from that text this morning. All right,
Romans 15. Romans 15. Verse one says, we
then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak,
and not to please ourselves, Let every one of us please his
neighbor for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself,
but as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproach thee fell
on me. Now, the apostle here is exhorting
believers to bear the infirmities of our weak brethren. teaching
us rather than to please ourselves, we should please our weak brethren
for their good to their edification. What does that mean? Well, say
a weak brother looks upon us because we're exercising our
liberty and he gives a critical eye and maybe he even speaks
something harshly. Paul says, bear his infirmity. bear his weakness, bear with
his error, and do so not pleasing ourselves. In other words, We might have
a tendency to want to exercise our liberty even though we know
he'll be offended. That would be pleasing ourselves. Or if he speaks a harsh word,
we might be prone to revile back or say something quick back to
him and that would be pleasing ourselves. but instead let us
please our weak brother for his good edification. Do what we
can to pursue peace. Pursue peace. Now brethren, we
all know and it's experienced someone speaking a harsh word
to us and how we respond almost with a knee jerk reaction. The
fact is it's impossible for you and I to do anything that our
Master commands us to do and do it in faith except by the
grace and power of our Lord. Christ restrains our flesh. You almost always Feel that flesh
well up in you. He restrains our flesh. And at
the same time, He strengthens our inner man by reminding us
that Christ is our righteousness and our holiness and our acceptance
with God. And so Paul uses our Lord Jesus
as the example here. And he says in verse 3, Because
even Christ pleased not himself, but as it is written, The reproaches
of them that reproach thee fell on me. Now let's turn to Psalm
69. This is where we'll be till we
come back to our text at the end. This is where Paul is quoting
from and this Psalm is quoted from seven or eight times or
maybe even nine times in the New Testament. It's quoted often. And we know from the places where
it's quoted that this psalm is Christ speaking. David wrote
it. David probably experienced some
sorrow like this. This is Christ speaking. This
is Christ speaking. When our substitute was in the
Garden of Gethsemane being tempted by the devil, we know some things
that he prayed. But have you ever wondered what
else he prayed? Whenever he was in Golgotha bearing
the reproach of men, what did our Lord do? What did He pray?
Did He revile back or what did He do? Whenever He was in Golgotha
bearing the fierce fury of God's wrath, did our Lord ease Himself
by coming down off the cross? What did He do? I've titled this,
Christ Pleased Not Himself. Christ pleased not himself, but
did all for the good of his elect to our edification. In nothing
did Christ please himself. He subjected himself to every
inconvenience He suffered pain and torture, even the shameful
death of the cross, and He did it for the everlasting salvation
of His elect. That's why He did it. He did
it looking only to the Father as He did it. So it's reasonable
that our Lord should command us to please not ourselves, but
to bear the burdens and the infirmities of our weak brethren. And to
do so, look into Christ alone. That's reasonable. Now I want
to show you three things here. Christ pleased not himself, but
number one, he restored that which he took not away. Number
two, Christ pleased not himself, but he made intercession to God
for his people. And thirdly, Christ pleased not
Himself, but He bore reproach for us. Let's look at these three
points. First of all, Christ pleased
not Himself, but He restored, or rather He restored that which
He took not away. It says here in verse 1, Save
me, O God. for the waters are come in to
my soul, are come unto my soul. Now you ever wonder what he prayed
in those three places? That's what he prayed. That's
what he did. That's how he responded. Save
me, oh God, for the waters are come in unto my soul. He says there, they come into
my soul. Do you remember what our Lord
said when He was going to Gethsemane? He said, now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father,
save me from this hour, but for this cause came I unto this hour. He takes Peter and James and
John with Him and the scripture says, He began to be sore amazed What was it that made our Redeemer
soar amazed? Have you ever seen a dust storm
slowly coming across a desert? You see it in movies sometimes
where a huge dark cloud, a dust cloud, a sand cloud, A sandstorm
will be coming across the desert and it's so thick and dark and
it just envelops buildings and they disappear as it goes. Our
picture in Gethsemane, our Lord Jesus seeing all the sins of
all His people coming upon Him like that big sandstorm. And I picture him seeing all
the fury of God's justice falling on him, slowly approaching. And he began to be sore, amazed,
and to be very heavy. He said to them, my soul is exceeding
sorrowful unto death. Meaning, he was so sorrowful
He could have died. He felt like he was about to
die. When our Lord told His apostles,
the flesh is weak, He experienced it. He experienced it. Oh, He's God. Don't make any
mistake. But He took the form of a servant.
And as a servant, He's dependent on the Father and He's experiencing
suffering and obedience in the place of His people. He's told them to tarry here
and watch and he went forward a little and he fell on the ground
and he prayed and he said if it were possible that the hour
might pass from him. And he said, Abba, Father, all
things are possible unto thee. Take away this cup from me. Nevertheless,
not what I will but what thou will. And Luke said, and being in an
agony, He prayed more earnestly. And his sweat was, as it were,
great drops of blood falling down to the ground. In Psalm
69, somewhere down here, I forget
where it's at, but he says, Verse 20, Reproach hath broken my heart. There is such a thing, a medical
condition where the heart will literally break so that it ends
up breaking the capillaries in the skin and a person can sweat
blood. That's a real thing. When he
said here, reproach hath broken my heart, he wasn't using that
as just a phrase like you and me make it. No, it had broken
his heart, really. Well, he continues praying in
our text here in verse 2. I sink in deep mire where there
is no standing. I am come into deep waters where
the floods overflow me. In that part of the world, there's
a mud, it's on the banks of the rivers that's like quicksand.
And if you get into that, you'll start to sink and the harder
you try to get out of it, the quicker you'll sink. And if somebody
doesn't come and take you out and deliver you out, you will
sink completely out of sight and die. Well, Christ our forerunner, went before
us into the deepest mire. He went into the deepest floods
that this world has ever known. And he did it for his people
so that his people won't have to. Those he represented will
never have to do this. He did it receiving what we deserve. What was it he suffered? The
eternal condemnation of God. He suffered in soul and body. He says there in verse 1, the
waters are come into my soul. And then in verse 3, he says,
I'm weary of my crying. My throat is dry. My eyes fail
while I wait for my God. He was suffering the wrath of
God on the cross, and it was soul suffering, being forsaken
of God the Father. And he was suffering the reproach
of his enemies upon his body. He says there in verse 4, they
that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine
head. They that would destroy me, being my enemies wrongfully,
are mighty. Now what I'm wanting to point
out to you here is how Christ bore incomparable pain, incomparable
suffering that He bore. And look what He accomplished
by His suffering. Verse 4 says at the end, Then
I restored that which I took not away. Christ restored the glory of
God of which he had not robbed him. Christ satisfied divine justice
which he had never injured. Our Lord Jesus fulfilled the
law which he had never broken. He restored righteousness that
he never took away. He made satisfaction for sins
that he never committed. And He did it all personally
for you who are His elect. So brethren, here's the point.
When we suffer painful trial, our comfort and our confidence
is that Christ, our forerunner, already suffered. for us the
eternal condemnation of God. So that there is therefore now
no condemnation to us, brethren. Beholding all the pain that He
suffered. Beholding how He restored that
which He took not away. We can be assured that in time,
in His time, He will deliver us from our light affliction. He delivered us from our great
affliction. That's done. He's already delivered
us from the condemnation of God. Whatever light affliction we're
bearing in this life, and no matter how hard it is, it's light
compared to that affliction. So no matter what we suffer,
He will deliver us from our light affliction. So brethren, when
we have to suffer reproach or weaknesses, just weaknesses of
a brethren or just a fault and infirmities or even the sin of
a brother, when we have to bear that, maybe it causes us pain. rather than seeing what Christ
did, how he didn't please himself, how he suffered to save me. Can
I not deny myself that I might bear a little pain, bear a little
suffering for my weak brother? I pray God will teach me that
and make me do that. I don't think any of us can do
that in faithfulness unless He makes us do it. Do you? Do you? When we're reviled, it's tough. It's tough. Now secondly, Christ
pleased not Himself but He interceded for us. Look here. Now He's the spotless Lamb of
God who knew no sin. Our Lord Jesus knew no sin. But when God laid the sins of
His people on Him, before God the Father, and to our Redeemer,
those sins became His sins. That's right. The shame of it
became His. The guilt of it became His. And
I'm convinced that when it says He was touched with the feeling
of our infirmities, He was touched with the feeling that all our
sins caused on the cross. But as our representative, do
you realize that He perfected even confession to God on our
behalf? Look here in verse 5, O God,
thou knowest my foolishness and my sins are not hid from thee. Now that's Christ speaking. He's
speaking this whole psalm. He owned our sins to be His own. It wasn't pretend. He owned them
as His. The shame of it was that sorrowful
to him. You know how when you're guilty
of something and you know you've let somebody down, you know it's
wrong, you know that it's offensive to God, you know how that feels.
The shame of that. Christ bore it for all the sins
of all His elect. But do you understand right there
in that verse? You know, there's no righteousness
in us. That means we can't even own
our sins before God and do it righteously. There's some little part of us
all the time, that old man of the flesh that's sitting there
thinking, it's not really that bad. We can't own our sins in
perfect righteousness before God. But He did it for us. We can't confess our sins to
God even in perfect righteousness. You mean, are you saying, preacher,
that there's enough sin in my confession of sin to send me
to hell? Yeah. That's exactly what I'm
saying. But Christ confessed sin perfectly. He's our righteousness in everything.
He's our righteousness in everything. And as He bore our sins, I want
you to see what He did here. I said to you, He made intercession
for us. Rather than pleasing Himself,
He made intercession for us. I want you to see how selfless
this is. Watch what He did. He's bearing
our sin and for His people, that see him in this sin-bearing
state upon the cross, for his people that see him there with
his visage marred more than any other man, for his people that
will see him buried in a tomb, he prays to God and asks God
to make it so they will not be ashamed and confounded for him
at him. Look at this. Verse 6, Let not
them that wait on thee, Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for
my sake. Let not those that seek thee
be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel, because for thy sake
I have borne reproach. Shame hath covered my face. I am become a stranger unto my
brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children. Now let me
ask you something. How will an elect child of God
be able to hear our sinless Redeemer owning our sin as His very own
and bow to the Word of God without being confounded? There's only
one way Christ intercedes for us. The only way is by the intercession
of Christ on our behalf. How can I hear the gospel and
not be ashamed of it and turn and go the other way in enmity? How can that not happen? Only
one way, Christ interceding for me. That's the only way. What's
going to make me behold Him confessing sin and calling it my sin What's
going to make me behold that and hear the scripture say He
hath made Him sin for us who knew no sin that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him? What's going to make
me hear that and not be totally confounded and try to explain
it away? It's going to take Christ interceding
for me so that the Spirit comes and gives me faith to believe. Do you see what selflessness
that is brethren? That there He is suffering this
and rather than pray or before praying that He might be delivered or rather than just getting off
the cross Himself which He could have done He could have summoned angels
to deliver him, he said, when they came to arrest him. Remember
when he told Peter, put up your sword? But rather than all of
that, he suffered, but instead of asking to be delivered, or
instead of delivering himself, he pleased not himself, but he
made intercession. He was worried, not worried,
but he was more concerned for us, his people, not being ashamed
at him than he was anything else, more so than he was about himself. So if it please God, brethren,
that we should bear reproach for our brethren, if it please
God that shame should cover our face, and all our brethren behold
us in shame, bearing shame, Let us not please ourselves by
defending ourselves, by boasting of some excellence in us and
trying to show that, oh, well, it's not bad like you think.
Rather than doing that, let us intercede for our brethren that
they might not be confounded and might not be ashamed at what
we're bearing. Isn't that what he did? That's
what he did. I pray God will give us that
grace, brethren. Only God can work that. Only
God can give our brethren a heart not to turn on us when they see
us suffering, reproach and shame. You know, if enough people turn
thumbs down on you, I can tell you this, there's going to be
a lot less folks that's going to want to have anything to do
with you. Ain't that right? We just naturally, sinfully,
we like who other people like. We go with the crowd usually.
What's going to make me stand with that brother when everybody
else is turning thumbs down on him? Christ interceding for me. So brethren, let us intercede
for one another that we not be ashamed or confounded by anything
we have to bear or anything our Savior has borne. Lastly, Christ pleased not himself,
but he bore reproach for us. Look here, this is where Paul
quotes from, verse 9. For the zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproached thee
are fallen upon me. He's praying to the Father and
he says, the reproaches of them that reproached thee, Father,
are fallen upon me. in zeal, in his great zeal, when
he saw the money changers in the house of God, he was filled with righteous
anger. It filled him with righteous
indignation. But he ran them out of there.
He made them get out of there because they had turned God's
house into a thing of merchandise. We see a lot of that in our day,
don't we? But you know what that brought
upon Him for doing that? Nothing but reproach. Nothing
but reproach. When He wept for our sins. Look
at this. Verse 10. When I wept and chastened
my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach. He wept over
man's sins. He wept over the hardness and
unbelief of the Jews that rejected Him. He wept for their profaneness
in polluting the temple with that merchandise. He wept at
the grave of Lazarus. He wept over the city of Jerusalem
because they had willfully rejected Him and were about to be ruined
and cut off. He wept in the garden, he wept
on the cross, he wept with strong crying and tears making supplication
unto God who was able to save him. And he did that for you
and me, his people. And it only brought him reproach
from men. He went without food because
he was ministering to sinners. That's why he fasted. He went
without food because he was ministering to sinners. He was traveling
long distances. He was preaching all day. He
was healing sinners. When he was tempted by the devil
40 days and 40 nights, he didn't eat that whole time. On one occasion, he had gone
without sleep the whole night before. And the next day he's
preaching and there's a crowd around him that's so thick that
he couldn't eat anything. And it says, his own nearest
family reproached him. It says, they went out to lay
hold on him for they said, and they said this reproachingly,
he is beside himself. Here he is starving himself to
death because he thinks he's somebody. When he bore the sin and shame
of his people, he says there, I made sackcloth also my garment
and I became a proverb to them. Look at Matthew 27 verse 40. Here's reproach right here. He's
hanging on the cross. Look at, I'm sorry, verse 39.
And they that pass by reviled him, wagging their heads, and
saying, Thou that destroyest the temple and buildings it in
three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come
down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests
mocking him with the scribes and the elders said, he saved
others, himself he cannot save. If he be the king of Israel,
let him now come down from the cross and we will believe him.
He trusted in God, let him deliver him now if God will have him,
for he said, I am the son of God. And then even the lowly
thieves, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his
teeth. Look at the next verse in Psalm
69, 12. What that means is all men did
this, from the chief men who sat in the gate judging, rulers
and religious leaders, all the way to the drunkard. They that
sit in the gate speak against me, and I was the song of the
drunkards. That means all men reproached
him. Now look at Luke 7. Look at Luke
7 verse 31. Now this was not reproach. This
was simply him stating truth. as only he can, Luke 7, 31, listen
to what he said. He said, Whereunto then shall
I liken the men of this generation? And to what are they like? They
are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling
one to another, saying, We've piped unto you, and you have
not danced. We've mourned to you, and you
have not wept. For John the Baptist came, neither
eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, he hath a devil.
The Son of Man is come eating and drinking, and you say, behold,
a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom, Christ our wisdom,
is justified with all his children. when reproached for the good
he was doing. Did our substitute please himself by reviling back? Did he turn and cast it back
in their teeth? What did he do? Verse 13, But
as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord. In an acceptable
time, O God, in the multitude of Thy mercy, hear me, and in
the truth of Thy salvation. He said when it's acceptable,
when justice is satisfied, when I can be taken off this cross
only after the law is fulfilled, justice is satisfied, righteousness
has been brought in, when it's that acceptable time, then in
mercy and truth, Lord. Verse 14, deliver me out of the
mire and let me not sin. Let me be delivered from them
that hate me and out of the deep waters. Let not the water flood
overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not
the pit shut her mouth upon me. You know, when we start suffering
pain, we usually cry out to God to get us out of it right now,
don't we? He said, don't do it till it's
an acceptable time. Don't do it till it's your time,
Father. Then he said, verse 16, Hear
me, O Lord, for Thy lovingkindness is good. Turn unto me according
to the multitude of Thy tender mercies, and hide not Thy face
from Thy servant, for I am in trouble. Hear me speedily. Now he can pray this. It's getting
right up to that point where it's the acceptable time. draw
nigh unto my soul and redeem it, deliver me because of mine
enemies. Thou hast known my reproach, my shame, and my dishonor. Mine
adversaries are all before thee. Reproach hath broken my heart,
and I am full of heaviness. And I looked for some to take
pity, but there was none. And for comforters, but I found
none. They gave me also gall for my
meat. There he was fasting on the cross, and they
gave me gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar
to drink. You realize, brethren, he had
to satisfy, he had to go to that cross fasting? Because in order
to fulfill the law, Because the law required that the children
of Israel afflict their soul on the Day of Atonement. That
means to fast on the Day of Atonement. He fulfilled the whole law, didn't
he? What was he doing there when he's praying this to God? Go
to 1 Peter 3. We'll try to close with this. 1 Peter 3. Now look at verse 19. I'm sorry. Verse Peter 2, 19. He
says, For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward
God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it if when
you be buffeted for your faults you shall take it patiently?
But if when you do well and suffer, you take it patiently, this is
acceptable with God. For even here unto were ye called,
you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for us,
leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps. Who did no sin, neither was gall
found in his mouth. Now when they accuse us, brethren,
and reproach us, what they say is probably going to be true
to some extent. We don't want it to be true. We want to live
in a way that it won't be true. But with our Savior, it was not
true. There was no sin in Him and no
guile in Him at all. But look at this, verse 23, who
when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered,
he threatened not. Here's what he did. This is what
that prayer was all about. But committed himself to him
that judgeth righteously. And what was he doing? who his
own self bare our sins and his own body on the tree. Everything
he was bearing was for us. He was suffering everything we
deserve. That we, being dead to sins,
should live unto righteousness by whose stripes you were healed. For you were sheep going astray,
but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls. We live in a day where everybody
wants to stiffen up their neck and poke out their chest and
talk about how offended they are and talk about their rights. There's only one that ever walked
this earth who had a right, and that's Christ. And he submitted
himself to suffer for you and me to put away our sins. to suffer
for his elect to put away our sin, that's what he bore. Now
he says, when you're trying to bear the infirmity of your weak
brother, and he turns to you and he says, you know, I can't
help but question you for having that glass of wine. A real believer
wouldn't do that. What are we going to say back?
bear his weakness. Just bear his error. He's wrong. He's wrong. Nothing that goes in the mouth
is you're not better if you have it and worse if you don't. The
worship of God is in spirit. Righteousness and peace and joy
in the Holy Spirit. So we bear it even if that weak
brother is unrighteously judging our motives. That's where we
mess up. We start judging why somebody
did what they did. You don't know their heart and
I don't know their heart. I can't say why anybody did anything. God's the one that looks on the
heart. I can't know your motive. Remember the reproaches Christ
bore for us and bear with that weak brother. Remember how he
bore it patiently without reviling again? And God help us not to
revile and not to threaten, but to bear it patiently. Remember
how Christ committed his cause to God the Father, and God help
us to commit our case to God. Look at verse, Romans 15, 4,
and we'll look, we'll be done. For whatsoever things were written
aforetime, all these things we've been reading and studying here
in Psalm 69, they were written for our learning.
God help us today to learn Christ, to learn Christ. They were written
that we, through patience of the Scriptures, for it teaches
to be patient. to patiently bear, waiting on
the Lord to come and deliver us, and comfort of the Scriptures
might have hope. Our comfort, brethren, is Christ
already redeemed us. He already accomplished our redemption. We're seated with Him at the
right hand of God. So whatever I'm suffering now,
He will deliver me from it. He's not going to let me fall
away because of it. He'll deliver me. He bought me.
I'm His purchased possession. That's my comfort. If it was
up to me and my strength, I wouldn't have any comfort. But I have
comfort in Him. He did all this perfectly. I
won't do this perfectly. If I don't say it with my mouth,
it'll probably end up being in my heart. And I'll revile in
my heart. Christ did it perfectly. And
He's my righteousness. And so we have a good hope, don't
we? Christ alone. I pray God will
bless that. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father we thank you. We pray
now that you'd make us to learn Christ. We pray Lord you would
teach us patience through the trial. Patience to wait on you. Lord, comfort us, make us to
truly know Christ shall deliver us because he already has. And
Lord, as you do this, increase our hope. that one day we certainly,
each one of your redeemed, bow before you, praise you, and in
that day, none of our infirmities will be there, none of our weaknesses
will be there, none of our disagreements will be there. We will be perfectly
one of one mind, and not anything on this earth will matter. It
won't even be a memory. Lord, teach us right now to live
this day of trial knowing that's how it will be in that day. In
Christ's name we pray, amen. All right, Brother Greg.