I have a guy that I'm so proud
of. He's like, I can fly. He's like,
I can fly. It's easy to help people. There you go. It's smothered, right? Yeah. Yeah. I got her hair cut. I got her hair cut. Thank you. Hey, how are you? Good morning. All right, let's
turn to Romans 15. Romans 15, and I want to look
at verses one through seven with you this morning. And this passage
is about believers exercising a spirit of love and willingness
to receive their brethren. even if it requires of them to
make sacrifices in their own personal liberty. And so the
Apostle here, he's moved by the Spirit to say these words, to
give us this admonition, and to encourage us in this, and
he reveals Christ to us. He shows us how that our Lord
did the same. He sacrificed for us, and he
bears with us. As long as we are yet in this
flesh, we are not yet what we shall be." And he's bearing long
with us now, even. And when he came in the flesh,
he bared with sinful man. And yet, in patience and in kindness,
he continued toward The goal, which was to glorify his father
and to bless his people by his own death and sacrifice and what
he accomplished for us and delivering us from our sins. To that end,
the apostle then raises up a prayer asking that our Lord bless us,
that he bless us and reveal in us a spirit that's willing to
bear long with our brethren and to receive those that are weak
in the faith. So I've titled this message Receiving
One Another, Receiving One Another. And so we'll begin here with
the first couple of verses where we see him tell us bear with
with the weak bear with your brethren all right so verse 1
he says we then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities
of the weak and not to please ourselves right so we're bearing
long with brethren that are weak, and what they're weak in is an
understanding of the liberty that we have in Christ. That's the weakness that Paul's
speaking of. They don't fully understand just to the fullness
of what Christ has accomplished for his people and in his people
by his glory and power. They're still growing. They're
still coming to a greater understanding of that. They have faith. Their
hope is in Christ. Their faith is in Christ. Their
hope is in Christ. But they don't fully understand
and appreciate the liberty that we have in Christ, not a liberty
to lawlessness and being sinful and rebellious against the word
of the Lord, but a liberty to know that it's not by the law
that we are justified, and it's not by the law that we are sanctified. We're sanctified in looking to
Christ. He's the one who separates us
and makes us holy. In looking to him, we actually
do fulfill the law. We don't break the law looking
to Christ. We fulfill the law in Christ, looking to him. All
right, so in Galatians 5.12, it actually, you know, while
they. The Judaizers and those that
did bind themselves with the yoke of the law, they troubled
the brethren. They tried to bring the brethren
who were looking to Christ under the law, under the law for righteousness,
under the law for their wisdom and their guidance and to know
how to serve and please the Lord. They instructed them to look
to the law. And Paul would say, I would that
they were even cut off, which trouble you. That was Galatians
5 12. I would that they be cut off
that trouble you and our own Lord Said of them every plant
which my heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooted up
Let them alone they be blind leaders of the blind All right,
so he's not saying to us bear along with those that continue
in their own self-righteousness, in their own labors under the
law to make themselves righteous before God. He's saying that's
You would speak to those, right? Those who speak like that and
say, no, we're still under the law. You'd speak to them, and
you'd declare the truth. You'd edify them with the truth.
We're not approving of those that continue in the law for
righteousness. But those that hear it and refuse
to receive it and continue in it, in their disregard for what
Christ has accomplished, That's not what we're doing. We're not
embracing them, but those that do believe on Christ, that have
faith in him and are trusting him for their salvation, though
they are weak in some areas and think that they're still, you
know, we're bound by certain foods or certain days, holy days,
or even other things, you know, other areas we looked at. But,
you know, those that, that struggle there, be patient with them,
he's saying, be patient, don't be so quick to cut them off.
I remember Pastor Fortner in one of his messages, I heard
him say that one day there was a woman who came into the congregation
and she was wearing a crucifix when she came, a crucifix. And
one of the members of the congregation went up to the pastor and was
like, we need to tell her to put that off, to stop that, that's
idolatry. And he said, Be patient. Don't say anything. Just let
her sit here and hear the gospel. Let her hear the gospel. And
sure enough, in about two months time, that crucifix came off
her neck of her own willingness, right? She was moved. She heard
the gospel and realized, I don't need this. I don't know what
she was wearing it for, whether it was a good luck charm or because
she thought it made her righteous or something, but the Lord teaches
his people in his time, he reveals that our salvation is not in
religious things, it's in Christ. It's in our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. So when Paul speaks here of we
that are strong, it's not that we're strong in ourselves. We
may not have many gifts, as men would count gifts. We may not
be very influential. We may not even be very likable. Though we see weakness in ourselves,
that's not what he's speaking of. In fact, it's when we're
most weak in ourselves, when we are going through trials and
sufferings and afflictions, and these things which reveal our
weakness in us, we're strong. we that are looking to Christ
in those things, because that's what they do. They drive us to
look to our Savior. They drive us to look to Him.
Paul actually would say, therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities
and reproaches and necessities and persecutions and distresses
for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I
strong. And when you think about it,
it's through those times that are hard. upon the flesh that
shake us out of our comfort and our ease. That's when we are
driven to the Lord, right? And it's in those weaknesses
that you're leaning upon your savior, right? You're leaning
upon him. And the harder it is against
you, the more you're leaning on him, the more weak your legs
and your knees are, and the more feeble you find yourself to be.
And so you lean, you're hanging upon the Lord, begging him for
help. for his grace and his mercy.
And so that's the kind of strength Paul's talking about. You that
are strong in faith, that is that your faith is fixed in Christ.
You're looking to him for all. And that's what the Lord does.
He makes Christ all to the believer. More and more he makes him all
to the believer so that he's everything. So that even if we
are, even if when at first we When faith is revealed in us
by the grace and the power of God, even though we may have
grave clothes and things of religion still about us for a time, our
Lord will strip us of those vain religious works, those empty
dead works, and he'll cause us to lean upon Christ, to see him
exalted before our eyes, and so that we hope in him and in
him alone, and we trust him. In that experience and in that
work of the Lord, we learn to look to Christ more and find
our all in him. And he that's looking to Christ
isn't looking to please his flesh. He's looking to please his Lord
and to continue looking to him. So Paul says we ought to bear
the infirmities of the weak. And that infirmity is found in
their immaturity of faith, as I was just describing. They may
not have a full understanding of how Christ has delivered us,
that it's not this partnership and this cooperation with the
Lord for our salvation. That's not how we're made holy
and righteous and sanctified. He's doing the whole work. He's
separating us more and more from carnal things, from this flesh.
and just trusting in our works to behold that he has accomplished
the work. He hath done it. It is finished
completely, entirely in him. And he's just bearing this out.
He's just revealing it in us, all right? And remember what
Paul said back in Romans 14, four, concerning your brethren
that are weak. He said, God is able to make
him stand. God is able to make him stand.
If you see weakness or something in your brother that you think,
boy, that really needs to go, the Lord's able to make him stand. He's able to teach them. And
before you just quick get in there and start fixing things
and tweaking things in your brethren, Leave it, trust the Lord. If
they're coming to hear the gospel, he's going to teach them. He's
able to make them stand. He's gonna do it in spirit and
in truth. They're not gonna put it away
because you said to put it away. They're gonna put it away under
the teaching of the spirit, which is effectual to the heart and
continues. It's a repentance not to be repented
of. And then he said in Galatians 6 too, bury one another's burdens
and so fulfill the law of Christ. All right, in other words, Let
the charity, the love in your heart that the Lord is revealing
in you, let that cover the multitude of sins, right? Just as our Lord's
love and charity toward us covers a multitude of sins. Our Savior's
blood covers our sins and has put them away and made atonement
for us. And he bears with us, as I was saying in the introduction,
we're not yet what we shall be, right? And we haven't seen him
yet. And when we are transformed like
him, but he bears with us, he's patient with us, he's long-suffering
with us in all our infirmities and weaknesses, all right? So
then verse two, Paul says, let every one of us please his neighbor
for his good to edification, all right? So it's not that we're
embracing those with a vain, self-righteous confidence in
their works and in their will, all right? It's not about will
worship. and works for self-righteousness. We see that clearly, that the
Apostle Paul spoke against that very clearly. Our Lord spoke
against it. I mean, he spoke to the most religious men in
the world, and the Pharisees, and didn't console or comfort
them. He preached, he edified them
with the truth. And so in declaring the truth
through the gospel, men and women hear it, and our Lord is able
to bless it. And he does, he blesses the word
to the hearts of his people and delivers them from error. So
it's not that kind of embracing, but you're bearing with those
who are coming, who want to hear, who believe the Lord and want
to know him and want to hear him preach. We bear with them
and encourage them to come and to see, right? Come and see,
come and hear this one, the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, so regarding
our liberties, In bearing with them, it's about a desire to
make them, our brethren who are weak in the faith, to feel comfortable,
to want to come and hear and want to to hear the Lord, because
that's ultimately who is precious, our Lord Jesus Christ. And so
to that end, we also work to make an environment in which
we can hear the gospel, that we ourselves aren't distractions,
but that we can hear of what Christ has accomplished for his
people, that his people would be comforted and encouraged. to seek him and call upon him
and feel his warmth and tenderness to us as revealed in the gospel
of his grace and mercy. So then Paul in verse three,
he brings us to Christ, which is what the Lord is always doing
through the gospel. He said, behold my servant, behold
my servant in whom I'm well pleased. the one whom the Lord has sent
to save his people. We exalt him, we declare him
because he's our true blessing. He's the one in whom the children
of God are blessed and are fed and nourished and strengthened
and comforted. He's the one who loved us and
gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity,
including a self-righteousness puffed up mind full of knowledge
and doctrine and things that men use to tear others down,
rather than use them in a profitable manner to build and edify their
brethren up. And so he says in verse three,
for even Christ pleased not himself, but as it is written, The reproaches
of them that reproached thee fell on me." All right, so we
know that Christ pleased not himself, right? And what it's
reminding us of is that when our Lord came into the world,
he came to glorify the Father, right? He came to glorify the
Father. He didn't take advantage of who
he is. He didn't take advantage of fulfilling
the flesh and pampering himself and finding ease and comfort.
He came for the express purpose to glorify the Father and to
bless his people in salvation, to deliver us from our sins and
that which separates us from God. to put away the bondage
of iniquity and sin to deliver us from that bondage under the
law and being shut up to the Lord or shut up from the Lord
so that we couldn't behold him and see him because we were in
darkness. And so that he by his seed has
borne us anew and given us light and life and liberty in him. And our Lord even said of himself,
I am among you as he that serveth. The Lord came not to be served,
but to serve his people, to lay down his life, to sacrifice for
them rather than have them sacrifice for him. We buy his spirit now
and understanding we make sacrifices and we desire to know him and
to serve him and to please him well, but it's in grace. It's
in his grace and mercy. So he did the will of his father
and once that earthly ministry began when he was baptized and
anointed of the spirit whereby John recognized him for who he
was, he forsook all earthly comforts. He had no place even to lay his
head from that point on. No permanent place of abode anymore. Right now, in confirmation of
Christ's suffering, Paul chooses a scripture from Psalm 69. It's
actually a few scriptures there, I believe it's from verses seven
through nine, he pulls them together and he says here in verse three
that he says, the reproaches of them that reproached thee
fell on me. And that whole Psalm 69 is Christ
speaking. The whole Psalm is Christ speaking.
It's not man and Christ. It's all of Christ speaking. It's his words. And when he said
these words, the reproaches of them that reproach thee fell
on me, that's first addressed to the father. He's speaking
to the father because what happened when Christ came, what did man
do? Man reproached God the father
who in wisdom and righteousness sent the son to save his people. And when man saw the Son of God
come and enrobed in flesh, he despised Christ. He despised
Him. He rejected Him. He didn't believe
Him. He refused to hear His words
in spite of the miracles and the truth of what He said. man
despised Christ. And in doing that, they were
despising God. They were despising the father
who sent him in wisdom. He did that. And so the reproaches
of man and man's enmity against the father for despising his
son, that all fell on the son. Christ bore those reproaches
in himself. And it's why man crucified him. It's why he crucified him. In
a fleshly sense, he despised him. He hated him. He hated the
truth of what he said. And in so doing, we know he fulfilled
the will of the Father to save his people from their sins. In
that sense, those reproaches fell on the Lord. And then the reproaches of us,
right, for our sin and for our iniquity, for our guilt and shame,
those reproaches fell upon Christ as well. They were laid upon
Him. When our sins were laid upon Him and He went to the cross
to bear the punishment for our sins, those reproaches were laid
upon Him as well. So we see our Savior's willingness
to bear that shame, that we might have fellowship with him and
know him and be brought into light and life and liberty in
the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, Isaiah 53, six, the
Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. And Peter says in
first Peter 3, 18, for Christ also hath once suffered for sins
the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being
put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit. All right, so, and then Paul
goes on to tell us in verse four, he says, for whatsoever, the
reason why I'm quoting this verse to you, he says, is that whatsoever
things were written aforetime were written for our learning,
that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might
have hope. And so our Lord, His Word has
given us His Word that we might see Christ. Paul affirmed the
doctrine that we should be patient and kind to our brethren in showing
us Christ and revealing Christ in His Word to us that we should
be encouraged and comforted to see our savior has done this.
He's done all the work and seeing him, we're comforted not only
for what he did for us, but we're encouraged to do the same for
our brethren, for others, to be loving and patient and kind
and not to be so hasty and demanding, right? The Pharisees, what were
they? They were exactors. They were exactors. They wanted
you to fall in line and do exactly as they did. And if you didn't,
they'd call you out on it and they'd shame you and they'd ostracize
you, put you outside of their congregation if you didn't fall
into line with them. But our Lord was so patient and
so kind. It just reminds me of when those
men were with Christ and left their homes and left their comforts
and had no food. No one made them food. And it
was the next morning and these men had labored with Christ the
previous day and night. And now they're going to synagogue
and they're hungry and they're going through a field on the
Sabbath day. And they picked grain and they
rubbed it in their hands just to get a little something in
their bellies. And the Pharisees came, being the exactors that
they are, and they charged them with sin. Christ didn't do it,
because he knew what they would say. He fulfilled the law perfectly.
And he just pointed them, he pointed them to David, right,
who ate the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat.
There's no getting around it. It was not lawful for him to
eat. But he showed them mercy. The Lord showed David, and he
was showing the apostles mercy. They were laboring and sacrificing
for the Lord. They loved the Lord and serving
Him, and now you're going to refuse them to eat because you
want to be an exactor, an exactor of the law. And how about mercy? The Lord will have mercy, not
sacrifice. And so be patient with your brethren. Be more willing to show them
grace and love. in the spirit of patience than
you are to be an exector of them. All right, so Paul raises a prayer
for his brethren. He says, five and six, now the
God of patience and consolation, all right, the God of patience
and consolation, is not the Lord patient with you? All right,
if you will not be patient with your brethren, why would you
expect the Lord to be patient with you? because it's his spirit
that teaches us patience and he's a God of consolation who
comforts us in the Lord Jesus Christ. You can look to the law
as hard as you will, but you'll find no comfort in the law. The
law doesn't make you righteous. The law reveals your sin to you
and should drive you to Christ, should reveal your need of Christ
when you see it rightly. But He says, may he grant you
to be like-minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus. All right, our Lord could easily
have struck every one of us down. He could easily condemn any one
of us because none of us is righteous in ourselves, but he reveals
his glory and his grace and mercy toward us in himself. He bore
our sin to put it away because as perfect as we might think
we are under the law, the Lord is is bearing with us. He's bearing with us. And if
you're his, he's even put that away, our sins and our folly
for thinking that we're something when we're nothing. All right,
in the prayer, he continues that ye may with one mind and one
mouth glorify God, even the father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Paul, I believe Paul really did
understand the infirmities of the flesh. And if we're honest,
we understand the infirmities of our own flesh, right? That
we're not perfect in this flesh. And this flesh isn't improving
and it isn't getting better, right? We may get, we may cease
to do outward sins, right? We may do them less and less
and not want to continue in those things which we know grieve our
Lord. But that doesn't mean that our
flesh is any better. It's no better. We still are
infirmed in this flesh and weak, and we ever depend upon the Lord.
In fact, as we grow, we see just how deceitful and cunning and
crafty this heart is of ours. And the Lord will show us that
so that we cease thinking we're something, you know, that we're
here and our brethren are here, and we see that, no, I'm the
sinner, right? And we see our brethren, in Christ,
right? So he does that, you know, we
do well to remember the mind that Christ had for us, right?
In Philippians 2, he was minded to be humble and to serve, to
serve his father and to serve his brethren and taking the least
place that we might know him. And then you find in Philippians
4, 8, right? Whatsoever things are pure and
lovely, Whatsoever things are good, that's how we see our brethren. You want to look at your brethren
in Christ. If you want to look at your brethren
through the law, you're going to find fault very easily. But
when we see them in Christ, we're much more willing to see what
graces our Lord has borne in them, has what fruit he's produced
in them in faith and in his precious word, all right? So that we may
with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ. So labor with one another according
to Christ Jesus, according to what he's done and accomplished
for his people, what our hope is in him, that he's working
in us, he that hath begun this work in us will complete it to
the end. And we know that he shall, for
he's faithful. He's faithful. Though we're not
faithful, though we're faithless and unbelieving at times, our
Lord yet remains faithful because he cannot deny himself. He can't
deny himself, all right? And that thought of being of
one mind, Paul has, it obviously was on Paul's mind a lot because
we see it laced throughout his other epistles. In 2 Corinthians
13, 11, he says, finally, brethren, farewell, be perfect, be of good
comfort, be of one mind, live in peace, and the God of love
and peace shall be with you. So it's good that we seek peace,
not over false doctrine, not over those that trust their will
and works and continue to boast in them, but to embrace our brethren
who don't yet understand what Christ has accomplished in us
and that he does deliver us from sin, right? Not looking to the
law, but looking to Christ, right? Ever looking to him, he teaches
us because if your eyes on Christ, how can you sin against your
brethren and not love them as we ought to love them, all right?
All right, and so to that end, he says in verse seven, wherefore
receive ye one another as Christ also received us to the glory
of God. So I pray that the Lord bless
that word and that he comfort you in Christ and that he continually
show us the Lord Jesus Christ and help us to be of one mind
in him and to be kind and gracious to one another. Amen. Let's close
in prayer. Our gracious Lord, we thank you,
Father, for your grace toward us in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Keep us ever looking to him, Lord. You know that our heart
and our desire by the spirit is that we would be holy and
pleasing and righteous to you. And so we ask Lord that you would
ever keep us in Christ and you would ever keep our eye looking
to him and you would be patient and consoling to us and that
we too would have that same spirit of patience and consolation toward
our brethren. that we would never think too
highly of ourselves, and that when we sin, Lord, that you would
not only forgive us, but turn us, Lord, from our wayward way,
and that we would be brought back to the love of our Savior,
and that we would be kind and loving toward our brethren. It's
in Christ's name that we pray this, amen. All right, brethren,
we'll come back in 15 minutes. It'll be a good time, so at 11
o'clock.