Hope in others

I have a problem and it is my unique problem but it sounds like not a problem, but it’s a problem. I have a good friend. He is part of us and helps whenever I ask and gives good advice. He will even help minister to other people. Remember when we did the ministry to the homeless. He was there! Are you wondering what my problem is, you still should be, because He is great. His name is Jesus and I am so thankful for Him. He is so helpful and so smart and so willing that I can ask him to help me, minister to just about anyone.

When someone texts me or calls me for help, I know I can get his help so I get a text from someone and I know Jesus is the guy for this so I reply to the person looking for help,

“Let me text Jesus and see if he can pick you up.”

And this, this is my problem. I really got this text back once

Bill, Come on Man.

And that is hilarious.

Because if you have spent any time around people in the church who wanted to appear good but get away with selfishness they will get super spiritual about your problem. Perhaps you’ve done it yourself. You hear about someone needing food or a phone call for encouragement and the reply is, “I will pray about that.”

It’s really common outside of church too. People will get silent or encourage people to do things like go to others for help. They even encourage people to manifesting or speaking it to the universe. I call that a prayer to unknown gods but you will see people walk away.

But it gets back to a vital, most important topic when it comes to Hope. Which is how. How does God provide hope.

Today you might come needing God to be there and I don’t want you to miss it so you need to see how God gives Hope. Others might feel very dry in your spiritual walk. You might believe God and wonder why you don’t see him at work. We all need to be reminded of this kind of hope from God in our daily lives.

Once again, I am going to start in a weird place, the first words about creation being not good was it was not good for man to be alone.

Genesis 2:18 NLT

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.”

It’s wild because man isn’t alone. God is right there. He created the universe. Yet God says because there is not someone like him, a helper, he is alone. The helper of course is human but in the overall context of all of the whole Bible you will see that doing all of this together is exactly the way God designed this to be. In the center of God’s will is not God alone, but others with God. Moses - Aaron, Elijah - Elisha, Jesus even showed us the way in that He, God incarnate, God on earth, took up friends through the disciples.

But friendship is not as easy as it sounds. I work in an elementary school and even there friends hit each other, push each other, and by the time people keep getting older the differences that were once accepted and ignored are now the reasons children ridicule and value others as more important.

So let’s look at God’s plan through the directions given to the Romans as they were given directions on how to do what we are doing, being church. This gets right into the issue.

Romans 15:1 CSB

1 Now we who are strong have an obligation to bear the weaknesses of those without strength, and not to please ourselves.

I like this verse because it allows me to learn so much about my own understanding of myself. It is a quick Rorschach test, you know those inkblot tests where they ask you what you see in the picture? Let’s see how you do.

Read this verse again

As you read this verse

who do you identify with? “Now we who are strong have an obligation to bear the weaknesses of those without strength, and not to please ourselves.”

Are you the strong or the weak? Why?

I can’t say why everyone identifies with who they identify with or even for those who didn’t identify with either but felt they were on the outside looking in but I can tell you what is being talked about and it might surprise you. Nothing to do with your ability to lift, or your physical endurance.

This is an example that when reading the Bible we have to read in what is called, “in context” knowing what comes before and what comes after.

So I have to do the netflix recap before we go on. Do not skip.

The recap - This part of the Bible is at the end of a long letter to the church in Rome in which the whole letter talked about the importance of God’s unmerited favor, also known as

God’s grace

God’s grace is the fact that we are forgiven by God not because of what we have done but because God himself, did it all as Jesus died on the cross for our sins, so we are made right with God when we act with faith that Jesus was God, died for us, rose again and we commit to following Him.

Jesus did a lot for us, for us who are not Jewish and for those who were Jewish. He reset what it meant to be right with God. If you are reading through the Bible in a year, with those of us who are doing the Bible Recap, we are in the middle part of the law, the rules that say all the ways that the Jews had to worship, what they could and couldn’t do. The law is way more than the 10 commandments but they’re in there. It includes all the sacrifices people had to give, when people would be considered clean and unclean and so much more. One purpose of the sacrifices was to show that sins were punished, but they had to keep on doing them.

Jesus was the perfect sacrifice.

Hebrews 9:26 CSB

26 Otherwise, he would have had to suffer many times since the foundation of the world. But now he (JESUS) has appeared one time, at the end of the ages, for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of himself.

But after Jesus died and rose again some who were following Jesus, were so use to the old Jewish way of sacrifices and the law, didn’t think believing in Jesus was enough. They felt they still needed to do everything that they did to be good Jews. They had a very hard time being around non-Jewish people called Gentiles because one of the ways that Jews had maintained their right and wrong was by being away from other groups of people. But Jesus came to save the Gentiles too. And those Gentiles got to remain eating what they ate, they got to not become Jews.

Therefore in the letter right before this part it says,

Romans 14:13–17 NLT

13 So let’s stop condemning each other. Decide instead to live in such a way that you will not cause another believer to stumble and fall. 14 I know and am convinced on the authority of the Lord Jesus that no food, in and of itself, is wrong to eat. But if someone believes it is wrong, then for that person it is wrong. 15 And if another believer is distressed by what you eat, you are not acting in love if you eat it. Don’t let your eating ruin someone for whom Christ died. 16 Then you will not be criticized for doing something you believe is good. 17 For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Basically, to go all the way back, a person who can live their life accepting God’s grace and not concerned with what rule they were breaking was the strong one.

The person who thought they had to keep every rule to make God happy was the weak one.

Yet a person isn’t strong if they going around only thinking about how they live and what there relationship with God is like when they amke decisions.

My friends we still see this today. You will meet someone who believes they are more Godly because of the things they boycott or the things they don’t do. Or the amount of religious things that they do. Sadly I have seen those people believe there ability to do or not do things is there strength. We are strong by faith in Jesus, we are the strongest we can be.

If someone where to believe that they can’t have a television in their home as this would cause their family to sin. The person with that belief would be the weaker brother. They need some extra rule to maintain their faith. It would be just as weak and wrong to show up at their door with a 70” inch flat screen as a gift. If someone felt that all alcohol was sin it would a further sin to invite them over for drinks. Peer pressure is not supposed to be part of the body of Christ. It is even wrong for people to go around flaunting who is weak and who is strong. Truly Jesus is the strength and we are all weak. Our jobs.

We actually submit to each other, hold each other up.

Romans 15:2–3 CSB

2 Each one of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. 3 For even Christ did not please himself. On the contrary, as it is written, The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.

This bold and underlined part is a quote from Psalm 69. Those of you who know the story of Jesus’ crucifixion might recognize another part of the psalm, a prophecy that was lived out,

Psalm 69:21 CSB

21 Instead, they gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

This is the prophecy about Jesus that Matthew cited

Matthew 27:34–35 CSB

34 they gave him wine mixed with gall to drink. But when he tasted it, he refused to drink it. 35 After crucifying him, they divided his clothes by casting lots.

Word for word Jesus was humiliated on the cross as it was described 1,000 years earlier.

Matthew 27:39 CSB

39 Those who passed by were yelling insults at him, shaking their heads

Jesus took not only the beating but he took these further insults as well.

So here in the letter to the Romans the fact that Jesus humbled himself to be humiliated, beaten and placed on a cross for us is brought back.

You know how when your mom, brings up your birth and says I was in labor 25 hours or I had surgery after 9 months, I couldn’t sit up for 6 weeks, I still can’t feel the lower part of my body.

Jesus has that all topped.

Romans 15:3 CSB

3 For even Christ did not please himself. On the contrary, as it is written, The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.

But Jesus doesn’t cash it in for himself, It’s not a call to love God even more, WE are reminded to love others in the way He already did for us. We are reminded to love in relationship, to put others before ourselves.

In our day and time we think we have learned a lot about being in relationship with other people, We do something we think is right.

We mind our own business.

Let there problems be there problems. Leave them alone. But that isn’t what God is calling you to do.

God doesn’t tell us to mind our own business

Remember what everyone said together before I started talking, look out not only for your own interests but also for the interest of others.

We help others.

Here we see the same heart, the same way of thinking

Romans 15:5–11 CSB

5 Now may the God who gives endurance and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, according to Christ Jesus, 6 so that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one mind and one voice.

These two scripture are almost written like a special education goal. See as a teacher I have to write unique goals, that guide students. When we write them we first write things that will help the students with stuff they need to accomplish the goal, like if it is a math goal maybe I will say, given a number line, then I will say what the child needs to do, given a number line, Susie will add two numbers, and maybe I will write what this will allow them to accomplish, like adding 5 problems on one page.

That’s how I read verses 5 and 6.

Given endurance and encouragement from God

In the amazing love of God we receive the encouragement. This is a given. God will keep pouring this encouragement out on us, no matter the circumstances, even if you are in the valley of the shadow of death you can be encouraged that God is with you but this endurance and encouragement is not to make us feel better or to get back to doing whatever, it has a purpose

To live in harmony with one another, according to Jesus, to glorify God … with one mind and voice.

All that encouragement, all that endurance that God gives, just like accommodations in my classroom, they aren’t just to have, it is for us to use, but use with other people. It’s so we can glorify God together. Yes, we can all sing to God together, we can pray together, I want to be a church of people stopping each other and praying for each other. We can continue to be the church that read scripture together, we can serve together. We can work with each other to love others. Sharing our needs, yes trusting others with our problems and our celebrations so that others can join us in service and celebration.

This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus, it means to be a person interested in others.

Romans 15:5–11 CSB

7 Therefore welcome one another, just as Christ also welcomed you, to the glory of God.

As your pastor, I want this to be your theme verse everyday. Welcome as Christ welcomes you, notice that it is all for the glory of God. Some of you know that you can welcome evil into your life, you can seek after others liking you, even as older adults we can be afraid of rejection of not being listened to, but will we welcome others to the glory of God. Will we stand with the right so that others can see the glory of God in us. Will we welcome those not like us and remain like Jesus as we welcome them.

Yes, welcoming in your everyday life is really, really hard. So work on it here while at church. I grant you all the same rules here as I do in my classroom for my staff, if you come back after the first day, you’re an expert. If you come back to New Day you can go out of your way to welcome people. If this is your second time, then you are a greeter. You can go out of your way to know others names. We are such a small community that everyone should know most of the people here.

Look at the verse. That is the simplest and easiest way to interpret that. The church is not to be a place that bends over backwards for us. It isn’t supposed to be a restaurant, amusement park, or business that serves us. It is supposed to be our family that allows us to serve each other. To welcome each, because Jesus was insulted for you on the cross so we can go out of your way and welcome others. Sometimes you’ll be welcomed and sometimes insulted but let us find the hope, the encouragement, the glory of God. Where will we find it?

By welcoming each other and how better can we do that than to know who each other are.

This is an easy application, look around the room, there are people here whose names you don’t know. Perhaps you’ve seen them so often that you are embarrassed that you forgot to know there names. I get it. I get it.

Can we take on the humility of Christ to welcome each other and in so doing create the atmosphere of faith, hope and love?

We can! We really can but we have to treat others how Jesus Christ treats us. He went after us. We can learn names, we can go beyond names and get to know each other.

I have seen it by hearing about lunches you have with each other, rides to doctors and hospitals, phone conversations. Seeing pictures of events together. I am so excited when you celebrate each other. What a way to welcome as Jesus welcomes. I am also excited when you minister to each other. This is how we do it. Keep going after it, and keep going after it with people not like you.

We look very different from the way Jesus looked. The overwhelming majority of people in here are not Jewish. We sound different, We live differently, but Christ demonstrated his love for us in that He loves you whatever race you identify yourself as, whatever abilities or disabilities you have, your age, your gender, Christ welcomed you to follow Him. That is a dramatic change. No other major world religion allows you to remain in your culture and practice the faith, except the one truth, the one way to God, the one who came to us.

Romans 15:8–11 NLT

8 Remember that Christ came as a servant to the Jews to show that God is true to the promises he made to their ancestors. 9 He also came so that the Gentiles (anyone not a Jew) might give glory to God for his mercies to them. That is what the psalmist meant when he wrote: “For this, I will praise you among the Gentiles; I will sing praises to your name.” 10 And in another place it is written, “Rejoice with his people, you Gentiles.” 11 And yet again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles. Praise him, all you people of the earth.”

When it says Gentiles realize that to the person first reading this, that was shocking. It was saying rejoice withe people so not like you. Who never understood who God was and is, welcome them to worship God with you.

We are to be a welcoming people in this we will receive a new hope

Romans 15:12–13 NLT

12 And in another place Isaiah said, “The heir to David’s throne will come, and he will rule over the Gentiles. They will place their hope on him.” 13 I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

You were given this joy not just for you, but to share, to love, to welcome others, way different from you for the glory of God just as Jesus welcomed you, who are way different than him.

Hope in the welcoming of others.