Weakest link

Introduction

Romans 15:1–7 ESV

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.” 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.

Two things that Satan uses to break the church.

Money

Have you heard the term money is the Root of all Evil. The key word there is Root.

There are two common misconceptions when it comes to money in the church that Satan will use to break a church down and divide US against each other . The first misconception that Satan will use as he will begin to speak in our ears and tell us you’re really sending money to that they’re really spending your money on that And see the problem with this statement is it’s not an inaccurate statement but it’s not 100 percent a correct statement either . Yes the church relies on tithes from the members of the church in other words we rely on your money to stay afloat however that’s not 100 percent either because the problem is when you give a tithe or an offering to God once you give it to God it is God’s it is no longer your money so you can’t say they’re spending my money on this because once you give it to the church it’s no longer your money and I’ll give you an example and this is something that we kind of get mixed up in because we don’t understand it as well but it would be the equivalent of you bought something at Walmart and you gave the money to them but when they painted the Walmart red you got upset because this is what my money’s for no you wouldn’t get upset about that because the 2nd the money goes to Walmart it is Walmart’s money It’s the same thing with the church. The only difference is instead of getting a product like Walmart the product you are getting as a sermon you are getting worship you are getting air conditioning you are getting many things that just might not feel the same way as purchasing something at Walmart . I asked the first misconception with money .

Now the second misconception with money goes in a different kind of course that I’ve noticed and we’ve run into throughout time of being in ministry And this common misconception usually has to do with the pastoral staff of the church and that is well I pay the pastoral staff salary therefore they work for me i’m their boss . However there is a misconception of about this because it goes back to conception number one into conception #2 You give money to the Lord and the Church pays the pastor However the pastor doesn’t work for the Church it is an answer to the Church there’s a 100 people it would be physically impossible to please every single person The pastor works for God That’s who the pastor’s boss is he is a man that works for the Lord the church is the church that pays for him but it’s not necessarily that the person pays his salary because the pastor works for God because here’s the deal If the church closed their doors because they could no longer pay the bills a pastor doesn’t say well that didn’t work out now I gotta go get a job at Walmart or I gotta go get a job somewhere else that’s you don’t stop being a pastor because a church is no longer a church the pastor would then continue pastoring or go to another church that the pastor would move you to and do the work there . You don’t stop being a pastor because it is a calling from the Lord he does not work for the individual person . And now these two things come together and create something that Satan will come in and use because what he’ll say is wow your church is really going to spend money your hard earned money on that Wow I can’t believe you’re allowing the church to have a pastor do something like that You’re the pastor’s boss why aren’t you telling him what to do And he will use these things to slowly start to break us apart and break us down but there is another thing that we’re going to hit on even more today that a pastor deals with that a church member deals with that every single person in existence have dealt with since the beginning of time and the thing that Satan uses is our weakness .

2. Our Weakness

Now if you’re like me you say pastor I don’t have it in weaknesses I’m pretty strong I’m resilient I bounce back I’m well known in my community my friends love me my family is with me I don’t have a weakness And if I were to listen to that the first thing I would say is I found your weakness you’re a liar . Because the truth is we all have weaknesses and some of them are deeper than others . Some of our weaknesses could consist of We stand in front of a mirror for two hours because if there’s one blemish or one outfit out of check and my fit doesn’t look right and my hair doesn’t look right and everything doesn’t look right people are going to look at me and judge me on how horrible I am that’s a weakness . Another weakness could be that I have a problem speaking and I stutter with a speech impediment because words are hard for me Therefore I don’t publicly speak I don’t go out and talk in person because I don’t want people to hear me . Then you might have the deeper weaknesses the ones nobody knows about the ones of I drank a little too much last night and blacked out or I couldn’t take the loneliness last night so I went to the strip club Or I went and bought drugs for my drug dealer and I tried that . Or my wife left I was out of town I felt a little lonely so I saw something a little provocative and decided to stop watching porn instead . When we really break it down and we look at it the truth is we all have a weakness We all have something about us that deems us weak that makes us feel small That has a negative reaction to the public with every single person has a weakness And what Satan does is he wiggles his way in and he will do one of two things 1 he’s going to exploit the weakness I’ll tell you how to explore the weakness and it could be as simple as saying wow you really don’t look good Every time you look in the mirror all you hear is wow look at that haircut Look at that big belly you really dressed that way today You can have a flawless outfit on and look on point but Satan can come in and say did you really put those on today Are you sure that was the best choice . Or you could come in another way and say it’s OK your wife doesn’t give you what you need emotionally She doesn’t give you what you need into mentally so just go look at **** you get it from somewhere else someone will give it to you your wife will understand . What he does is he attacks our weakness and breaks us down to doing it . So this brings us to our passage today and the thing is that what is Paul telling the church of Romans in his letter to them that we can really get out of this when especially when it comes to our weakness.

Romans 15:1–7 ESV

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.” 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.

We could stop at that first part right there we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the week and not to please ourself. We don’t have forgetting to the rest of the passage until we understand this we have an obligation to bear the failings of the weak

We Bear failings of the weak

What does that mean understand what this means here we don’t bear with the sin the person’s committing We don’t stand by and let it happen either In other words what it means is this if you are strong in a spot where someone is weak you have an obligation to pick them up where they are failing and come alongside them to make them stronger . Let’s break it down if someone is bad at speaking and cannot publicly speak we have an obligation to help them learn to speak so they can share the gospel properly because if they can’t share the gospel we don’t share the gospel This comes back to the church is one we are united together We bear with the shortfalls of them in other words if someone is into drugs we don’t okay it but what we do is we bear with it and say I’m going to help you get off of the drugs in any avenue I can i’m going to cope with you to counseling i’m going to go with you to struggling i’m going to struggle if you struggle I struggle if you give in I’ve given in I fail in other words your fault is mine . And this one is important because this first point here is important because it falls through the whole Church but I like to take this a step farther and say this falls on the men of the Church . Because the men of the church we have a moral obligation to lead our families the way that God called us to be so in other words when someone in our family fails we fail in the church we are all one family so men we have an obligation to bear the failures of the week if someone is struggling it is our job to jump in and help them where they need to be doing it the wake is odd designed us to be is leading the church where he calls us to go so if you are a man and you sit down and you do nothing while people in the church are struggling shame on you . Because men it is time for us to stop allowing the Church to be weak What happens when you’re a man and you’re weak you go to the gym you pick up weights you do a little exercise and you get stronger you do what you have to do to overcome the challenge that’s what men do that’s just kind of in our DNA I can remember being in the 6th grade not know a single thing about nutrition not know a single thing about weight lifting and thinking man I can’t wait till I can be stronger there is a chemical in our body called testosterone that literally tells our bodies we have to get stronger . This falls on us when the failings of the weak come on to play us as men our job is to come in and say how can I make you stronger that’s not necessarily giving you away but that might be sitting down and saying you guys are having financial issues let me give you some financial advice that might be saying that that home is fatherless let me show those kids how a man is supposed to because there’s not someone there to teach them . That might be saying i’m going to show what it’s like to share the gospel by people by being the man of my household and leading from the front . Men when we have events the men should be the first one signing up for them regardless of what they are it’s not a that’s an immense ministry thing i’m not doing it it’s I’m a leader from the front my family will be involved if I expect my family to grow and receive then I’m going to leave from the front and show them what it looks like We bear the failings of the weak.

We are not to seek gain in anything we do.

The second thing we get from this passage is this we do not seek to gain anything . If you are serving for the purpose of being recognized if you are doing ministry for the purpose of people to notice you if you are documenting social media on how a good Christian you are Shame on you . We do not come to do anything for gain It’s not about my glory it’s not about me it’s not about look how good I am it’s about how can I please and serve the glory of the living king who died on the cross for me who in my moment of weakness came in and picked me up Who in my moment of weakness came in and was there for me was an ear to cry on was someone that was willing to listen We are not called for game if you do anything in the church for gain it’s wrong . And I love this attitude because this point right here goes back to weakness number one which is money because if you give money to the church and the only reason why you’re giving money to church is tell people look how much money I give to the church shame on you because you’re seeking for an attaboy and in the church God doesn’t want to give you an attaboy your attaboy is you’re going to heaven it’s not an attaboy look how holy you are in fact we should not ever have to say look how holy that person is . Humbleness is the key to happiness God wants somebody with a humble heart to serve them not somebody that wants personal gain not somebody that wants an attaboy . You know when I grew up in Vegas one of the worst things that happens in that world Everyone is out to make you look bad so they look good When you are working in that world someone will slander your name even if you are the best employee the business has in order for them to look good . But you know what I noticed when you run into those people that are seeking personal gain one of those people that are trying to make you look bad so they can do those things their work is always crap . They either don’t have a work ethic don’t know how to do the job always relies on help from other people their work is always in a bad position . You know it’s the same thing when it comes to serving God if your work ethic is to get an anaboy and your work ethic is for people to notice how holy and spiritual you are You know what that says you don’t know the first thing about serving God . In fact some of us can even take it a step further and say if that is the only reason you serve the Lord and that is the only reason you walk with the Lord I would argue to go a step further and say you potentially don’t even know what it means to be a follower of Christ . We don’t seek gain It’s not about exploiting weaknesses what it’s about is using our shrink to lift us up to continue the mission forward there are 27,000 people in Fort Mojave and growing only 11% of them claim to be believers what does that mean there is a huge population of people that need Christ and are relying on the strengths that you have to get them to that point . God doesn’t want you because you’re all figured out God wants you because you were broken and He has what you need to be put back together and He wants you to share that same thing with the people around you .

WE are One in Unity

The final thing we can pull from this passage is this we are one in unity We are not here because we all agree We are not here because we all drive the same cars we don’t all wear the same clothes we don’t all get the same head cuts here’s the deal if we did all those things we would be one common label that we call a cult and that is not what we are we are here because we all agree on one thing and the fact is Jesus came to each and every 1 of us at the lowest point in our life for what we felt was the lowest point in our life and said I got you because I paid that price back on the cross thousands of years ago and you are mine as long as you make a commitment in a relationship with me That is why we came together. What does that mean i’m not gonna like every idea each one of you have You’re not gonna like every idea I have You’re definitely not going to like every idea the pastor has the direction the church is going to go but that’s not the point the point is the pastor’s job is to leave the church in the future and this as a church is called to be unified together in bringing the gospel to a community that God has placed us in for whatever the reason is we have we are unified as one . Where is your unity today For some of us we not might not be unified with God we might not have a relationship with Christ and we are at the weakest point of my life and I can say if you are at your weakest point let me tell you about a God who loves you who cares about you and cares about your weakness and he will pour into you and love on you and it’s brought not brought you here by accident but brought you here to show you that you are love and special and your weakness does not define you What defines you is being a child of God . Some of us might not be unified in the church to day because we don’t like the agreements of things the question I have for you is are you in agreement of one thing did Jesus die on the cross for you if you are in agreement with that then we are in unity together does not matter what else we agree in and we need to put differences aside to share the gospel There are many times where we see the apostles not agree In fact read the whole book of Acts they don’t agree hardly ever But many times they put their differences aside for one purpose and that is to share the gospel and reach the loss like Christ called us to do Is that you today.