Romans 15.1-13

When we began Connexion in 2014, one of the most consistent things people said about the church is that they came once because a friend invited them, and they kept coming back because of how they were welcomed. We were a much smaller church back then—for the first year, there were about thirty of us—and we held our services in the afternoons. After service, everyone walked back to the apartment where Loanne, Jack and I lived and had dinner together. We spent a lot of time together, and everyone was invited.

That became impossible to maintain pretty quickly: thirty people in our tiny apartment was unsustainable. And yet, we (and by “we” I mean you, the people who were here at the time) found ways to keep making people feel welcome. The welcome team here does an incredible job every week, not just setting things up, putting out coffee and tea, handling the logistics of the service, but also doing everything they can to make sure when people walk in the door, they are welcomed. I’m so grateful for the work they do, because it’s thankless and incredibly important.

That said, the fact that they do such a good job might give us the impression it’s the team’s job to welcome people. And it also might give us the impression that that’s all “welcoming” is: serving coffee and saying hello and making sure people get integrated into the church.

Welcoming people in the church is not only for the welcome team; it is not just serving coffee and getting people integrated; and it is not only geared towards people coming for the first time. All of us are called to welcome, and all of us—even those of us who have been here for years—need to be welcomed. Because it’s much bigger than what happens when you first join a church.

Essentially, this is what the apostle Paul has been bringing us toward throughout this entire letter.

In chapters 1-8, he talks about the gospel: how it works, how it applies, exactly what Christ did to save people who have sinned against him. (And if it’s your first time, just a reminder: when we talk about “sin,” we’re essentially talking about rebellion against God: our desire to be our own masters rather than letting our Creator rule over us.)

Then in chapters 9-11, Paul took everything he said before and showed how it applies to the particular people groups he’s been writing to: the Christians in the church in Rome, who were a mix of people from both Jewish and Gentile origins. He says that the gospel—the proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ—is not only for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles. These two groups that had been historically separated from one another (the Jews being “the people of God”, and the Gentiles being “everyone else”), Christ has brought together into one body, through his life, death and resurrection.

Then, starting in chapter 12, Paul zoomed way in, showing us what difference this unity makes on the ground—in the church and in the world. Paul ended chapter 14 by showing that those Christians who are more mature in their faith should sacrifice their own preferences for their weaker brothers and sisters in Christ: to not do anything that would make obedience difficult for others down the line, even if the thing in question isn’t sinful at all. It’s more important to love your brother, and make obedience easier for him, than doing whatever it is you want to do at that time.

That’s where we are at the beginning of chapter 15, and here, Paul’s going to start zooming back out again. He’s going to take what he said in chapters 12-14 and show how all of this practical obedience is actually rooted in something deeper. Essentially, Paul is going to bring us back to the same place he left us at the end of chapter 11: we’re going back to the big picture. And in that big picture, he’s going to point us to Christ, showing how Christ served us, so that we might understand how to serve one another, and why.

Christ Took Responsibility for Our Failings (v. 1-3)

He begins by continuing his thought from the end of chapter 14. This is similar to what he was saying before—about how we must be patient with the differences of opinions we might have, and sacrifice what we want for what will help our brother and sister grow. But here he makes it more explicit, and takes it even further. V. 1:

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.”

Now on the surface it seems like he’s saying exactly the same thing as last week—but there are some notable differences. First, he says we aren’t just to bear with the opinions of our brothers and sisters in the church, which we might not agree with, but with their failings, with their weaknesses. (Literally translated, he says we must bear with “the weaknesses of the powerless”, or “those who lack power”.) He’s not trying to create several different “classes” of Christians (it’s not the strong versus the weak); he’s merely stating a fact, and that fact makes total sense. I’m stronger than my son, not because I’m better, but because I’m older. He’s eleven, I’m forty-two, so I’m bigger than him; I can do things he can’t. In the same way, a Christian who has faithfully followed Christ for years will naturally be “stronger” than someone who met Christ last week—they’re not better, but the new Christian simply hasn’t had time to grow yet.

So we who are strong must “bear with” the weaknesses of our brothers and sisters. (And that goes both ways: we all have areas of strengths and weakness we need help with.) So far, that might not seem surprising—like he’s saying, “Be patient with one another, and love one another despite your weaknesses.” That’s not wrong, but he’s saying a lot more than that.

Two things show us that “bearing with” each other’s weaknesses is more than simple patience. The first is the word “please”—what does it mean to “please” your neighbor? If Paul is commanding me to do whatever makes you happy, then I’m in trouble: what if what makes you happy, in the short term, is horrible for you? What if I have two neighbors, and they both want two opposite things? We can’t “please” everyone all the time.

But the context reminds us that’s not what he’s talking about. Firstly, he tells us the goal : we are to please our neighbor for his good, to build him up. So “pleasing” here doesn’t mean making our neighbor happy, but rather doing what contributes to their good and their growth in the faith.

He’s making a contrast in v. 1, saying that we are called to act for our neighbor instead of acting for ourselves—we are to put them first, instead of ourselves.

Which brings us to the second way he shows us what it means to “bear with” each other’s weaknesses: we bear with each other’s weaknesses, instead of seeking to please ourselves, because this is how Christ acted toward us.

In verse 3, when Paul says, as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me,” he’s quoting Psalm 69.9. In Psalm 69, David is talking to God, saying that those around him who hate God also hate David, because of his clear association with God. They hate God, so they attack David. They’re wrong to do so, but it doesn’t matter: in their minds, David and God cannot be disassociated.

You see, it’s not so much a question of consequence, but of identification. David was identified with God so deeply that when his enemies wanted to attack God, they came after David. In the same way, Christ identified with his people so completely that when God’s righteous wrath was poured out against our sin, it fell on Christ instead of us.

When Christ was crucified, what did he do? He united himself to his people to such an extent that he took responsibility for sins he did not commit. He had committed no sin, and wasn’t remotely guilty of anything we have done or will ever do. Even so, he took responsibility for our sin, and endured the punishment for our sin, in our place.

Christ identified with us so completely that he bore with our failings—he took responsibility for us, though he wasn’t responsible for our sin.

This is a model for us—again, not of consequence, but of identification. We are not responsible for the weaknesses of our brothers and sisters; but we can—and we are called to—take responsibility for one another. To “bear with” the failings of the weak means to take on ourselves the work it will require to help someone grow from weak to strong.

When Loanne and I got married, I was still very much a kid—I hadn’t yet learned to be a responsible adult. I had significant debt from the two years I’d spent at university in the U.S., and I hadn’t been making my payments. When we got married, Loanne had to “bear with” my failings in this regard. She shared in the consequences of my lack of responsibility. She taught me to pay my loan payments, to do basic things that adults need to do (and trust me, that learning process was painful for both of us).

If we are in Christ, we are no longer separate from one another: weak or strong, we are all members of the same body. So we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak: if they don’t grow, the whole body is weakened. We share in that responsibility.

The great news here—the humbling news—is that this is nothing new. In calling us to bear with one another’s failings, and not just our successes, God isn’t asking us to do anything he hasn’t already done himself. Identifying with God’s people to such an extent is scary and painful and hard, but God has always been faithful to fulfill his promises and accomplish his good plans for his people. Christ is the proof of that: foretold in the Old Testament, fulfilled in the New.

Christ Unites Us by His Word (v. 4-6)

And this is where Paul goes next. It’s a bit of an aside from his main argument, but it’s an important one. He’s widening the scope once again: we take responsibility for one another because Christ took responsibility for us. In doing so, he fulfilled what was written about him centuries earlier, the prophecies with which the Jews had lived their whole lives. V. 4:

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.

Notice the “for” at the beginning of v. 4: he’s referring to what he’s just said in v. 3. When Paul quotes Psalm 69 in v. 3, he’s bringing the Romans back to Scripture, reminding them that what David wrote isn’t just an interesting coincidence. The Old Testament constantly anticipates, or explicitly foretells, the person and the work of Jesus Christ.

Why is this so important? Because if we know that God has fulfilled his promises before, we’ll have the assurance that he will continue to fulfill his promises in the future.

There are many things that Scripture prophesies, that have already taken place. The life, death and resurrection of Christ. The inclusion of the Gentiles into God’s plan. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We could keep going. These are things which, for the Christians in Rome at the time, were done—they were past fulfillments of the promises of Scripture.

But there are many other prophecies in Scripture which haven’t yet occurred. The return of Christ. The new heavens and the new earth. We still have an incredible number of promises for which we are still waiting today.

If God fulfilled his promises in the past, he will keep fulfilling his promises in the future. But in order to have that assurance, we need to understand what those promises are—what God’s character is like, what his plan is, what he wants for his people.

All of these things and more, we find in the Scriptures, the Word that God gave to his people for their instruction. This Word—which we find in the sixty-six books of the Bible—instructs us for three reasons, which we find in v. 4.

Firstly, it exists to help us endure. A lot of us count on our own feelings to help us endure. It’s easy to persevere in our faith when we really want to, and when our situation is making endurance easy. It’s not difficult to persevere when you’ve had a good night’s sleep, you’re well fed and you’re walking at a comfortable pace.

But there will be times when our feelings will pull us in the opposite direction. There will be times, like the times the Romans were living in, when we will feel like God’s plan has derailed. We may feel persecuted, not victorious. We may endure suffering rather than ease. We may feel like all of our prayers are bouncing off the ceiling. We may feel far from God. In these periods, in these moments, we must persevere, and we cannot trust in our feelings to get us there, because much of the time our feelings are begging us to just lie down and sleep.

The only thing which will allow us to persevere in that kind of a situation is the Word of God, because it is objective. It is written in black and white, we can hold it before our eyes, and we can see that what was written thousands of years ago was fulfilled. We can see the promises of God for his people, and we can look back at our own lives and see that—no matter what I’m feeling right now—God did these things for me. We can look back at events in our lives and remember that that did what God said he would do.

No matter how we’re feeling, if God fulfilled his promises in the past, he will fulfill his promises in the future. So we can persevere. We can keep going. Because we know that no matter what we’re feeling, his promises are assured.

Secondly, the Word of God exists to encourage us. When we persevere, and do the hard work of obedience even we don’t feel like it, we see the result of our obedience in our lives and—what do you know!—the result we see in our lives is exactly what God’s Word said it would be. We already saw this in chapter 5, verses 3-4: We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

Which, coincidentally, is the third reason the Word of God instructs us: that through the encouragement of the Scriptures YOU MIGHT HAVE HOPE. Remember, hope in the Bible is not a feeling: it is the assurance of a coming fulfillment. It is knowing that whatever we can see is not all there is, and it is definitely not what will be forever.

The people of God—the body of Christ—the church—is formed by the Word of God. And when we know that, the short prayer Paul gives in v. 5-6 makes perfect sense:

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.

Paul showed us earlier in the letter that God’s plan for his people was laid out in the Old Testament, long before Christ ever came. So his prayer here—that we, God’s people, might live in harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus—is a prayer that we as God’s people might finally experience what was predicted in Scripture: that all of God’s people, Jew and Gentile alike, might be united to one another and live united to one another, and glorify God with one voice.

Christ Serves All Peoples (v. 8-13)

Which is exactly what Paul brings back to our minds starting in v. 8. Remember, the Romans would have read this letter in one sitting. We’ve been seeing it over months, so it’s been a while since we’ve seen Paul insist on this to such an extent, but the context in which he is writing is that of the tension that existed between the Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome.

So in v. 8, Paul brings us back to the fact that the hostility that once divided these disparate groups of people has been removed in Christ.

V. 8:

8 For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, 9 and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written,

“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles,

and sing to your name.”

10 And again it is said,

“Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.”

11 And again,

“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles,

and let all the peoples extol him.”

12 And again Isaiah says,

j“The root of Jesse will come,

even he who arises to rule the Gentiles;

in him will the Gentiles hope.”

These verses are a succinct summary of what he said earlier, in chapters 9 through 11. Christ became a servant to the circumcised (that is, the Jews); when he came, his ministry was almost exclusively amongst the Jews. They were the ones he preached to, they were the ones he healed. Why? To show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs. The promises which foretold that the Messiah, the King whom God promised to send, would come to save his people.

At the same time, Christ’s ministry also ensured that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. The Christian church began in Jerusalem, under the ministry of the apostles (all Jewish), and grew out from there, to the entire Roman Empire—to the Gentiles as well as the Jews. Suddenly, people who were not Jewish were placing their faith in the Jewish Messiah, and being integrated into the church.

This too was a fulfillment of promises given in the Old Testament—several of which Paul quotes in v. 9-12. (In verse 9, he quotes 2 Samuel 22.50 and Psalm 18.49 (50); in v. 10, Deuteronomy 32.43; in v. 11, Psalm 117.1; in v. 12, Isaiah 11.10.)

All of this brings us back to where Paul left off in chapter 11—though the Jews were historically known as God’s people, Jesus Christ came in order to open the door to all the nations. The Gentile Christians had been grafted in to the historic people of God, whom the Jewish Christians still represented. They worshiped the same God the Jewish Christians did; they were no longer two peoples, but one.

Welcome One Another, as Christ Welcomed You (v. 7)

So you can see what Paul has been doing here—for three chapters he has been applying these glorious truths to the daily life of the church, teasing out many implications and showing them how they might live out these truths. And here, he brings the Romans back to the main point, reminding them of why they are to live this way.

Which is why, in v. 7, he gives his final, global application:

Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.

I held off reading this verse until now because it acts as a kind of pivot point in this passage. V. 1-6 provide the foundation for his command in v. 7 (this is why he begins the verse with “therefore”), and v. 8-13 deepen that foundation even further (which is why he begins v. 8 with the word “for”).

Paul has explained that Christ took responsibility for the sins of his enemies—because of his work, we have been forgiven, declared righteous, reconciled to God. This was the fulfillment of what the Scriptures said Christ would do, and we have received these Scriptures for our instruction, to produce endurance, encouragement and hope. We are now a people formed by the Word and united by the Word. We have been united to one another, as members of one body—if one member falters, the whole body falters.

So in the light of all that, how are we to respond? Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.

So now we see how this command to “welcome one another” goes far beyond saying hello to people over coffee on Sunday morning (though that is an excellent beginning). Welcoming one another as Christ welcomed us means several things, all of which we see in today’s text. It means treating the other Christians around us as members of the same body. It means celebrating in their joys, and persevering together in our failings. It means (as we saw last week) putting the growth and maturity of our brothers and sisters ahead of our own desires—even if it takes a long time and a lot of patience to get to that growth.

It also means moving toward one another, to help one another grow, and then moving together towards those people we don’t know yet, outside the church, because many of those people don’t know Christ yet, but they will. And we are called to welcome them into the family—to speak to them about Christ, to sacrifice ourselves for their salvation. It’s never one or the other; we are not allowed to choose between the edification of the body of Christ and the mission of the body of Christ. One does not come without the other. We grow in Christ, and we help each other grow, in order to move outside these walls and make disciples of all nations—to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the nations might glorify God for his mercy. (This is what we’ll be talking about next week.)

Can we just be honest and agree that what Paul is calling us to is a lot of work? I even joked about it at the end of last week’s service: Now I don’t just have to think about my OWN obedience, but also the obedience of the people sitting next to me? To a certain extent, yes! We can’t control what our brothers or sisters do; but we are called to help one another obey and grow, no matter how long it takes, no matter how annoying and painful and frustrating that might be.

It’s a lot of work. But here’s what we must remember, and this is what Paul has been getting at this whole time. If Christ has welcomed us, as sinful and fallible and inconsistent as we are, and if God’s plan was always to unite us together as one body for his glory, what excuse could we possibly have for living our life any other way? What Christ did and does for us is infinitely more difficult than what he is asking of us. So if Christ has welcomed us anyway, as monumental a task as that was, what excuse could we have for not welcoming one another, for not bearing with one another’s failings, for not taking responsibility for the other members of our own body?

What he is calling us to do is difficult, absolutely. But it is far easier than what he has done for us. And the good news is that we don’t have to do it alone.

Doxology (v. 13)

Which is why Paul ends this section with this simple and beautiful doxology—a final prayer to remind us that we cannot do this under our own steam…and we don’t have to. V. 13:

13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

This is the third time he has mentioned this final goal of our hope in his goodness and his plan (after v. 4 and v. 12). Our hope is that God will do what he promised he would do—that he would save us by the finished work of Christ; that he would give us a full assurance of our salvation and fill us with the incredible joy and peace which come from that assurance; that he would unite us to one another; that he would cause us to grow up into Christ together, as a body; and that one day, just as he promised, he would bring us home.

These truths, this assurance, are what should be in the back of our minds every time we come together to worship, every time we enjoy our community groups together, every time we read the Bible together, every time we sit down to a meal together. These truths animate our love for one another, our discussions with one another, and the sacrifices we make. These truths reorganize our priorities, remind us of what is truly most important to us—not our professions or our hobbies or where we live, but the people of God, saved and forgiven by the work of Jesus Christ, and united to one another for his glory. Nothing is more important.

We are one body, in Christ, and we are growing together in him. So let us welcome one another, as Christ has welcomed us, for the glory of God, and let us rejoice when we do it, because we know that we’re not doing it alone.