Expound: Romans 14-16 - Part B

To me, this is one of the key verses in the book of Romans. Certainly it is one of the key verses in this last fourth section of the book of Romans, the practical section. He's writing to believers, the church, average run-of-the-mill believer in Rome, attending a fellowship, and he says, there's something I believe in about you, and that is you are full of goodness, filled with knowledge, able to admonish one another. Scripture shows us that the Christian life is not meant to be lived alone.

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Call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Okay, we're in Romans chapter 15 today. As we get into the teaching with Skip Heitig, we then, verse one of chapter 15, we then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples, the sensitivities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. It's not about you. It's not about your rights.

It's not about what you can do. What about me? Let each of us please his neighbor for good, leading to edification. For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. Here Paul is quoting the 69th psalm, a messianic psalm, a psalm that predicts the suffering of the coming Messiah hundreds of years before Messiah was born. Psalm 69, a very notable messianic psalm.

So he is quoting that the reproaches of you fell on me. The point he is making is that even Jesus, when he lived his life, didn't live his life with his own rights in mind, with his own, my own personal passion in life is, my own pursuit is he lived knowing that there were others around him and he lived for others. In fact, he lived to please his father.

He said, I always do those things that please the father. It was Jesus who said the Son of Man did not come to be served. The Son of Man came to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

Think of how Jesus pleased others, served others, how he would teach crowds long into the night, long into the evening. Sometimes he would be doing miracles and sometimes teaching and when his family came to see him, they realized he's not even taking time to eat. He was serving others.

He was thinking about others. How he saw people with an infirmity and healed them. How at the Last Supper he washed his disciples feet, taking the role of a servant. And then, not only taking the role of a servant of the Last Supper, but he knew within a few hours he would be dying on a cross. So he was the one suffering. He was the one who would suffer.

He was already feeling the brunt of that. He said, now my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, he said to his disciples. And yet, he is thinking of others at that Last Supper washing their feet. When they put him on a cross, think of the things he said on the cross. Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing. To the thief, today you will be with me in paradise. To his mother, mother, receive your son. And let John thought of his own mother being taken care of in the future. Which is noteworthy because anybody who has ever suffered physically knows that pain can be so all-consuming and turn your thoughts almost exclusively inward on yourself. It's hard for you to think about others when you're suffering, when you're in pain. So here is Jesus, who would have every right to be totally consumed with his own trial, his own execution.

But he's thinking of others. The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. Back in 1896, I don't expect any of you here to remember that. But back in 1896, an author wrote a book. It became very famous. Still as famous today, though under another name. The book was called In His Steps.

The author was Charles Sheldon. And it was a story about a church, a group of believers who made a covenant with each other that for the next period of time, I think it may have been even a year, but it was at least six months. They decided that they would covenant together as God's people. That they wouldn't do anything. That they wouldn't make any decision.

They wouldn't make any action. Without first filtering it through the thought, what would Jesus do? What would Jesus have me to do here? What would Jesus have me to do there?

It's called In His Steps. Now that spawned the what would Jesus do bracelet movement, you know, that were popular. Are they still around today? They still are.

They're coming back. Okay, so these things kind of recycle. But that whole idea of what would Jesus do came from that. And so Paul is thinking, think of what Jesus did. Think of what Jesus did and what Jesus would do when you're dealing with your brother and sister in some of these dicey situations.

That you're not there to please yourself or exercise your own personal rights necessarily. So verse four, for whatever things were written before were written for our learning that we through the patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another according to Jesus Christ. That you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore receive one another just as Christ also received us to the glory of God. I've always loved verse four.

I've referred to it often. That everything that was written in the past and from this vantage point is everything written in the Old Testament. That was the scripture of Paul the Apostle.

Those were the scriptures for the Lord Jesus Christ, the Old Testament. Everything that was written in the Old Testament was written for us. This is why I think churches should teach not just the New Testament but the Old Testament. Because the New Testament teaches us God wrote the Old Testament for our edification and our learning. This is why I believe in teaching through all the books of the Bible. That's why after we're done with Romans we'll be in the Old Testament book of First Samuel. I told you that I've gone through this 90-day excursion through the scriptures where I have to read the Bible in 90 days, about 15 chapters a day. Kevin, you went through it.

A few of you did. I realized as I went through, I thought, man I'd forgotten a lot even though I've taught the Bible many times. There's a lot of parts I just keep forgetting.

I'm doing that 90-day plan again. I kind of realized there's a few things that I had forgotten about or that I had never seen before. Now I've read through the scriptures for my whole adult life and I'm still learning. All those precious lessons written. One of them is how patient God is. He's called here the God of patience. God puts up with a lot when it comes to people.

That's one of the lessons I'm discovering this time through. Man, God is so patient. He's never in a hurry.

We are. He wasn't in a hurry with Abraham. He didn't say, Abraham, we're going to have a baby like tomorrow.

He let him get to be over 100. God wasn't in a hurry. In fact, the longer God waited, the more the odds were stacked against Abraham ever having a child, especially Sarah.

She was, you know, getting up there too. So the odds were stacked so that when God finally came through with the promise, it was unmistakably from the Lord. And God got more glory. God was patient when it came to bringing Jesus on the scene. He predicted the Messiah would come. And it says, in the fullness of the time God sent forth his Son, born of a virgin, born under the law, that we might be redeemed from the law.

Galatians 4 tells us. God was patient. God is patient with you. I know that because God's patient with me. I have failed him so many times. I've fallen so many times. How many times he said, Lord, I'll never do that again.

Lord, help me, help me. For some of us, it's a daily prayer. He's the God of patience, that we through the comfort and patience of the, patience and comfort of the Scripture might have hope. He puts up with a lot. Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded. So if God puts up with a lot with you, why can't you put up with some stuff, scruples, sensitivities, issues that other weaker people have around me. You know, some of us think, no, I just really need to be around more mature Christians.

Either that or you just need to act more mature yourself by loving them. That we may with one mind and one mouth glorify God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore receive one another, receive one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God. Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision, that is to the Jewish people, the Jewish nation. He came as the fulfillment of Jewish Scripture. He came as the Jewish Messiah. He came to fulfill the promise made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, or Jacob, the 12 tribes, David, etc., etc. He came fulfilling that and when he came, he came in Judaism under Jewish law. He said, I didn't come to destroy the law and the prophets. I came to fulfill them.

Not one jot, not one tittle will pass from the law till everything is fulfilled, he said. So he came to serve them, came in line with the system of Judaism, servant to the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers. And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. Now he's going to pull out of the hat several Scriptures that God made to the Jewish nation. He came to serve them, Christ came to serve them, but also he mentions the fact that God's plan always included outsiders, not just Jewish people. That he wasn't just the Jewish Messiah, he was the Savior of the world and in God's mind, in God's heart, Gentiles were always on the plate.

They were always part of the plan. Now he has already covered that in 9, 10, and 11. Israel and the church, we've kind of covered that, but he's just sort of rehashing that, reinserting that now, that he came to serve Jew and non-Jew. For this reason, he quotes now Psalm 49, for this reason I will confess you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. And again, he says, now quoting Deuteronomy 32, rejoice O Gentiles with his people. So the nations, Hagoyim, Gentiles with his people Israel, together with them, that's the mystery of the church. And again, now quoting Psalm 117, praise the Lord all you Gentiles laud him all you peoples or nations. And again, Isaiah says, now quoting Isaiah 11, there shall be a root out of Jesse and he shall rise to reign over the Gentiles.

In him, the Gentiles shall hope. Here's what's interesting to me. There's a lot of things that are interesting to me, but one thing that interests me is that Paul the Apostle, when he wrote this, he's, I believe, just pulling these out of his head, out of his heart. He didn't have a cell phone to like Google where is that scripture. He didn't have a concordance at the back of his bound Bible that he could look up the verses. I don't think he pulled the scrolls of Isaiah and the scrolls of the Psalms out to find where those were. I think he knew those texts. He knew those texts.

They just came to him. It was a working knowledge of scripture. This is the value of reading through the Bible and again and again and again.

This is why we do what we do on Wednesday night. There is such value in combing through large swaths of scripture over and over again to just let it soak into you because you will find that when you're cut, you'll bleed bibbeline. When you go through a trial, it's just what comes out. You know, it's often said when you bump into somebody, whatever's inside comes out. It's like when you bump into a pail, whatever inside comes out. So if lots of swearing and cursing come out, that's what's inside. If scriptures come out and the will of God come out, that's what's inside. So put that inside. You know, invest inside you. Put that in your heart. Your word have I put in my heart, stored in my heart, that I might not sin against you. So I just love the fact that Paul just, you know, had that working knowledge. So the more we know the scripture, when you're cut, that's why I say you'll bleed bibbeline. I stole that from Spurgeon. It's not original.

Really nothing is. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren, that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able to admonish one another. To me, this is one of the key verses in the book of Romans. Certainly it is one of the key verses in this last fourth section of the book of Romans, the practical section. He's writing to believers, the church, average run-of-the-mill believer in Rome, attending a fellowship, and he says, there's something I believe in about you, and that is you are full of goodness, filled with knowledge, able to admonish one another. The word admonish is an important word. It means to instruct or to advise one another or to even counsel one another would be a better translation, better idea. I believe, Paul says, you as the body of Christ are able, competent, in fact the Williams translation says you are competent to counsel one another. The Greek word is nuthateo, and we get the word, if you've ever heard of nuthatic counseling, it's something that Jay Adams wrote books on. He wrote a book called, Competent to Counsel, based on this verse, saying that instead of selling out to secular counselors and secular psychologists, he believes, according to scripture, every gift necessary for the edification of the body of Christ is present in every local expression of the body of Christ, every church, and that we are competent to counsel one another. Well, you know, we don't deal with that here.

You're going to have to go to a professional counselor. No, we have mature people who can disciple you and get you through this. You know, I truly believe that people can get through life, no matter what issues they have, for the most part, through a church, number one, that teaches through the scriptures. If you have a Bible teaching church and the word of God is explained, expounded, unfolded, taught to people so they understand the principles over and over again, the whole counsel of God, number one. Number two, you break that up into small groups because sometimes we all run into hang-ups and messes and complications, and it's hard to know how to apply the scripture to our lives. So a small group really advances that. I would say 90 to 95% of anything you will encounter in life would be solved with that two-pronged approach.

Large group Bible study through the Bible and then small group application like our connect groups. I believe you'd be taken care of. Now, on occasion it might get a little bit more complicated. You need one-on-one counseling, one-on-one discipleship to kind of work through the issues and unravel things. We understand that, but I believe you're competent to do that. You're competent to counsel. You can admonish one another.

You can instruct one another and advise because of the maturity level that is here. Nevertheless, brethren, I have written more boldly to you on some points reminding you because of the grace of God or the grace given to me by God that I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles ministering the gospel of God that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Isn't it interesting that a Jewish rabbi, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, Paul called himself, a Pharisee, is the one God chose to be the apostle to the Gentiles. Paul had a very unique background. I'm not going to get into it tonight because of the lack of time. I want to get through this, but he says ministering, I've been made a minister, verse 16, and I am ministering, same word, the gospel of God and offering of the Gentiles that they might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

Let me unlock that for you. When Paul uses the word minister here or ministering here, he uses the Greek word leitourgos. Leitourgos. Leitourgos is where we get our English word liturgy. Ever heard of the word liturgy? It's an ecclesiastical term. It's a church word.

It means literally to perform a public act of service, leitourgos. It was used to the priests, the Jewish priests, in the temple. They would publicly minister before the Lord for the people by sacrifices.

That was their liturgy, their leitourgos. In the temple, Gentiles were kept out of that sacrificial process. The priests did not offer the sacrifices for the nations but for the people of Israel. Gentiles were kept in the court of the Gentiles.

They didn't participate in the liturgy. It's interesting that Paul uses the term liturgy here. It says that you Gentiles who are excluded from God are made a special offering to God. That really unravels the meaning of those verses.

It's beautiful. Those who are excluded, God includes and makes them a special offering. Paul is the officiating priest that when he leads a Gentile to Christ, he's offering that Gentile as a liturgical sacrifice to God who accepts that sacrifice. Isn't that beautiful?

Think of that. When you lead a person to Christ, when you witness for the Lord and you lead another person, an unbeliever, to faith in Christ and you are offering that person to God as a sacrifice, as part of the liturgy, I love that, part of worship. That wraps up Skip Heitzig's message from the series Expound Romans. Now here's Skip to share how you can keep these messages coming to you while connecting others to God's word. As believers, we're called to encourage, teach, and share Christ with one another.

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Again, that's 800-922-1888. Coming up tomorrow, Skip Heitzig shares about Paul's beloved community and how God values all people, including you. The great lesson this chapter shows us is that Paul was not a lone ranger in ministry. He always had a team, a large team, and if you want to look at the reason Paul was successful, look no further than the team that was around him. Connect with Skip Heitzig. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.