Good morning. Please turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 15. We are continuing our series on spiritual disciplines. When we started this, I introduced you to this illustration of building a trellis—a framework on which your spiritual life can grow. The trellis helps the plant grow in a healthy way. It keeps it out of the dirt. It protects it from pests. And it gives it a structure so that the plant doesn’t just grow wild in all directions.
Spiritual disciplines are like that. They are habits that we build into our daily and weekly routine in order to give what God has planted within us a framework to grow on.
Some of those are things we say yes to. We call those habits of abiding. Some of them are things we say no to. These are habits of resisting. We talked last week about the first two habits of abiding, Scripture and Prayer. This morning we’ll talk about two more: Community, and Accountability.
As we prepare to receive communion together, we are going to look at what Romans 15 says about the discipline of Christian community. Read this with me, and if you’re physically able, please stand to honor the reading of God’s Word:
15 We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. 2 Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. 3 For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.” 4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. 5 May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7 Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
Pray with me…
We don’t often think of community as a spiritual discipline, do we? Is Christian community necessary? Our relationship with Jesus is personal, right? So do we really need anyone else? I can get just as close to God at the campsite, or in my bass boat, as I do at church.
Or some people might agree that community is important, but they aren’t all that invested in a particular community. What if they aren’t being fed in their church? Don’t they have the right to go somewhere else? What if someone makes them mad? What if they disagree with a leadership decision made by the staff or the pastor? They don’t owe the church anything, do they? As long as they are going to “a” church, they can church hop week in and week out, and not have to join one until they find one that meets all their needs. And if they never do, that’s ok too, right? They’re still reading their Bibles. They still listen to Christian radio. And now that you can watch any worship service in the world on YouTube, you can check off the “Worship attended” box and never set foot in a brick and mortar church at all, right?
But the Bible paints a very different picture of Christian the Christian life, and its one where we aren’t just responsible for our own relationship with God, we’re also responsible to our brothers and sisters. That’s why we are talking about community and accountability together. Romans 15 lays out three truths about community, and then we are going to end with two practical ways to build the habit of community and accountability.
The obligation of community (Romans 15:1-2,7; Hebrews 10:24-25)
We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.
Just to give you some context for these verses: In chapter 14, Paul talks about not becoming divided over trivial, non-essential things (in this case, whether or not is was acceptable to eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols). Paul knew that he had absolute freedom in Christ to eat whatever he wanted. But he also knew that for someone else, eating that meat would offend his conscience and cause him to sin. He deals with the same issue in 1 Corinthians 8, where he says, you know what, for the sake of my weaker brother, I’ll never eat meat again. Romans 14:19, “Let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.” And if that means giving up some of my personal preferences and comforts, I’m okay with that.
So that’s the context for his teaching in Romans 15. He says that we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak.
Now, the word “with” here is a little misleading, because it’s not in the Greek. So its not actually saying “Bear with the failings of the weak, like when you roll your eyes and tolerate someone. In the Greek, it literally says, “We who are strong have an obligation to BEAR the failings of the weak.” So you don’t just put up with your Christian brothers and sisters. You take some of the burden off their shoulders. You walk alongside them. And if you see them heading for even worse trouble, you love them enough to warn them.
When we were in staff meeting the other day, Mike told us about something that happened to him last weekend, while he was on his way back from his tree stand. He said it was dark, and as he rounded the corner in his little black truck, he saw that a big tree had fallen across the road. He said there was no way he couldn’t hit the tree, so he swerved in order to hit the smallest, skinniest part of the tree, instead of the fat trunk that was directly in his path. And his truck went off the road and into a ditch.
Mike got the truck out of the ditch, but then he had a choice. He could have said, “Whew! Thank you Lord for helping me with that. That could have been a LOT worse!” And then gone on his merry way.
But at that moment, Mike believed he had an obligation to anyone else that might be coming his way. So first, he called Mike Vineyard, because he wanted to let someone with authority know about the downed tree. Then, he pulled his truck into the middle of the road, put on his hazards, and stood in the road and waved his arms at every vehicle that came by to warn them of what was ahead of them.
And that’s a picture of what we are supposed to be doing as a community of faith. Those of us that are a little further down the road, we have an obligation to help those who are heading in the same direction. We warn them of things up ahead. And when they do go off the road, you know what we do? We get down into the ditch alongside them, and we push.
Are you beginning to see why it’s more than just choosing to show up for church instead of tuning in on You Tube? We don’t need you here just to sit in a pew. We need you in community so that you can help bear one another’s burdens. We need you here so you can do what Hebrews 10:24 says, which is to stir up one another to love and good works. To encourage one another all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
And you can’t do that on YouTube.
Now I get that some of you are compromised or caring for someone who is compromised. Some of you are anxious about getting back together in a group until there is a vaccine. And I get that. But a lot of you aren’t. A lot of you have just done what Hebrews 10:25 says NOT to do—you’ve gotten out of the habit of meeting together. You’ve fallen in love with the idea that you can orient worship to your schedule, and you’ve forgotten all about the community aspect of it.
Some of you don’t like being told to wear a mask. You don’t like the way it feels, you don’t believe it works, you don’t like being told what to do, or you think it’s a political statement. So you are staying away. Or you’ve asked for your name to be taken off the roll altogether.
Well, God love you, and we’ve honored your request. But here’s where I need to speak some hard truths to you: It’s not about you. Look at verses 1-2 again. Take out all the stuff about the strong bearing the weak, and here’s what you’ve got:
We … have an obligation … not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.
Underline that word please, please. The Greek word is aresko, and I want you to see what the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament definition is:
to accommodate oneself to the opinions, desires, interests of others.
What if you adopted the same attitude about masks that Paul adopted about whether or not to eat meat? Paul said that for the sake of his brother, he’d be okay never eating meat again. Giving up some of his personal preferences put him in a position to bear the burdens of a brother or sister in Christ.
We need you here. Your brothers and sisters are carrying a lot of weight. We’ve had four funerals in the last three weeks. There are families who are dealing with addiction, depression, anxiety, and loneliness. And if you pull out of community because it’s just too pretty a day not to play golf, or because it’s a lot more comfortable to watch the service from your couch, or because you’ve been asked to wear a mask and you just refuse to, then you’ve decided that the rest of the body of Christ can fulfill the obligation to bear the failings of the weak. And that means there is one less person to help shoulder the weight.
John Donne, the English poet, said it this way in his famous essay that begins with “No man is an island:” He said that each person’s absence diminishes the whole. “If a clod be washed away, Europe is the less,” the same as if an entire coastline were.
And our obligation of community actually illustrates the gospel. Look at verse 3
The gospel of community (Romans 15:3)
For Christ did not please himself…
Lt’s just camp on “For Christ did not please himself.” Why did Jesus come to earth? Why did He give up the glory of heaven in order to take on the form of a servant? Go back to the theological definition of pleasing someone else. It means to accommodate oneself to the opinions, desires, interests of others.
The blessing of community (Romans 15:5-6)
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.
The habits of community
• One meal each day with others
• One hour of conversation each week with others
