REVOLUTIONARY SIMPLICITY: COMRADESHIP AND CAMARADERIE

REVOLUTIONARY SIMPLICITY: COMRADESHIP AND CAMARADERIE Romans 12:9-21 August 17, 2008 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introduction Three thousand frightening feet above the ground, Soviet sport parachutist Yuri Belenko realized he was in trouble. His main chute had malfunctioned, and his reserve chute "barber poled" around the main, rendering them both useless. Kicking his feet to slow the natural spiral caused by the noisy whipping canopies above, Belenko yelled down to fellow jumpers on the ground. His jump buddies sprang immediately into action, grabbed a packing mat, and sprinted toward the impact point. All the way down Belenko yelled and tugged furiously at the static lines in a vain attempt to clear the two tangled chutes. Below, his friends stretched the mat taught and waited. Belenko plummeted into the canvas at bone-crushing speed, ripping the tarp from his rescuers' hands, and knocking them to the ground. When the dust cleared, Belenko lay gasping for breath and complaining of a sprained ankle. In addition to the injured leg, he suffered a few bruises. His jump buddies were there for Belenko at the moment he needed them most. Let me ask you, when you need it, who will hold the net for you? For Christians, the answer is simple. God designed the Body of Christ, the church, to be a care and nurture station for its members. That is, by design the members of His church are to experience among each other comradeship and camaraderie. That is, we take care of one another. This business of living for Christ in a world that is hostile to God can be a challenging thing. So much so that the apostle Peter could only describe it as living as aliens in a foreign land. Watching the Olympic teams in competition is a thrill for a number of reasons. But one of the most gratifying aspects is getting a glimpse of the way they encourage and support one another in the grueling process of world class competition. I was able to watch the women’s gymnastics team as they earned top awards. What deep fellowship they experienced as they comforted those who failed and celebrated with those who won! It was a study in mutual support and encouragement. Let’s review how the New Testament pictures the church, the family of God, as a team of companions in spiritual camaraderie. Turn to Romans the twelfth chapter where we find a most important series of instructions on Christian camaraderie. Of course, the Bible calls it “fellowship”—koinonia—the body of Christ ministering to itself strength and support as the members live out their faith in service to the King, the Lord Jesus. The Stuff of Fellowship We cannot forget that the whole idea of being in a strong fellowship of believers is MISSIONAL. That is, the fellowship we share with one another is not just an added blessing, or just a preparatory necessity for Christian living. Sustaining strong fellowship is part of our calling. In a hive of honeybees, a major part of the work these busy creatures perform is caring for one another in community. On a hot summer day about half the bees in a hive stay inside beating their wings while the other half go out to gather pollen and nectar. Because of the beating wings, the temperature inside the hive is about 10 degrees cooler than outside. The bees rotate duties and the bees that cool the hive one day are honey gatherers the next. Notice, all of the worker bees are involved in the work of production but they all do their part in protection too. So it is in the body of Christ. We are all called to serve the Lord in advancing the kingdom through our Christian service, each with his or her own peculiar God-given gifts. But we also have an important ministry within the hive, if you will. When you and I meet with fellow believers, especially in small group settings, we are to watch out for one another. Because life has been hard that week, or staying strong against temptation or trouble might have been particularly hard for one, the rest of the group picks up on the need for care, and they minister to the one who is “down.” And, when a member is rejoicing over some blessing they have experienced in the Lord or a victory they’ve won in their ministry that week, the rest of the members rejoice with that one. Verse 15 of our text actually gives us orders that we should minister to each other in these ways: Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. And there are numerous other passages that exhort us like this. For instance, 1 Thessalonians 5:14 – And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Caring for each other is part of our mission. But it is good to keep in mind that keeping our fellowship strong is also our big need. Though we try to demonstrate how strong we are, how ruggedly independent and tough we are—which is, by the way sinfully proud and spiritually counter-productive—we know we are all sinners and quite vulnerable in our Christian walk. There is high concern in the pages of the scriptures that believers confess their faults and shortcomings to one another, so the others can pray for them and help them to heal and grow. When you fail to humble yourself in the presence of the rest of the tribe, you are not strong and mature. You are weak and im-mature, and you are actually preventing not only your own personal growth in faith, but also impeding the health of the rest of the body. As verse 16 will command us, Do not be proud …and do not be conceited! May I add: do not be absent. Way too often, Christians demonstrate pride and spiritual arrogance by simply not showing up to opportunities for fellowship. In this way they say, intentionally or not, “I’m fine on my own. I neither need you, nor do I intend to serve you.” The third issue we need to be reminded of concerning our mandate to maintain strong fellowship is that it is COMMANDED of us. It is very hard to miss the stress in the New Testament on this point. The oft-quoted, seldom taken seriously passage in Hebrews 10:25 sums up a lot of that stress: Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another… Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Being too tired from other pursuits, too busy with non-kingdom business or just disinterested in Godly fellowship is a poor rationalization when stacked up against a direct command of the Lord. Remember, child of God, member of God’s family, integral part of the Body of Christ, if you avoid fellowship opportunities such as Life Groups and Sunday Celebration because you feel you “won’t get anything out of it,” you’ve missed the big picture. The real issue is “What might others receive from you?” We are called to be ministers of Christ, not consumers. Doing your part in maintaining a strong fellowship in the church is your mission, your need and your express command from the Lord. Rehearsing our Responsibilities Now let’s take closer look at Romans 12:9ff and put some meat on our skeletal picture of fellowship. I’m sure you’ll recognize that this text comes right after Paul’s pivotal teaching about the Body of Christ, and how we are all critically important members of that body. Verse 5 says: in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us… He goes on to itemize some of those gifts and how each one contributes to the overall health of the body. Those are the unique and several gifts. Each of us has one or more of those and we are called to contribute to the rest with them. But what follows are the universal responsibilities of all the believers—practical ways in which we strengthen one another. 1. Love must be sincere You know, we can pick our friends, but we can’t pick our families. Sometimes we are tempted to think as we look around the church family that we’ve been thrown in with a bunch of aliens. But two things are true: the more we genuinely get to know people the more likable they become, and God is in charge. That is, everyone with whom we are in relationship is someone God plans to use to develop Christ likeness in us. And it is His desire to use us in His program of developing Christian maturity in them. The key here is Paul’s use of the term “sincere.” The word anupokritos means without hypocrisy, or without play-acting. What your love must be is REAL, GENUINE. The English word “sincere” comes from the Latin sine (without) + cere (wax). When marble statues were carved in Rome, often there would be an errant chip in the stone. It was too expensive to just get out a new block of marble, so the artist would apply wax, shaping it just so and giving it the color and look of marble. But the value of that statue would drop significantly and it became “bargain basement” merchandise. The best and most expensive pieces, though, were those without wax and they were marked sinecere. Here we have a clue about what sincere love is—it is finding grace enough in our relationship with Christ to want the very best for others, and be willing to contribute to their well-being. With just a little maturity on my part, others will not look so distasteful to me. I’ll begin to see in them someone whom God loves deeply, someone who like myself is in process of becoming like Jesus. When we begin to see one another in this way, love is not waxy. It goes way beyond worldly ways of love: “I love you BECAUSE” and “I love you IF,” all the way to “I’ll love you IN SPITE OF.” In essence, we are called to love one another with the same quality of love with which God loves us. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. [webmasters note: John 15:12] Remember how He loves you: He doesn’t wait for you to measure up, to earn His love nor to be able to love Him back. Let your love be sincere. 2. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good (VS. 9) Hating what is evil decidedly does not refer to what we think is evil in someone else. Listen, there is plenty of evil in all of us, buried down in the carnal man, and sooner or later it is going to show. I would suggest that the evil Paul is telling us to hate is anything that comes up short of love in our behavior. This exhortation is way too close to the Let love be sincere command to mean anything else. We are not to focus on hating the wrong in other people—and certainly not to hate them when some of their evil shows. What we are to hate is our own tendency to so dislike what someone does to the point that we judge them as unworthy of our love. Say that again!? The is the heart of prejudice (pre-judge). It’s why Paul adds later that we should be patient with each other and not rush to judge and retaliate when something they say or do offends us. Stuart Briscoe suggests we try to follow a simple formula in which we reverse our perspective and our natural tendencies. I should concentrate on the good points in my brother and the bad points in me, rather than the bad in my brother and my good points. Example: another believer is upset and says something I take as obnoxious and offensive to me. Drawing on whatever grace I can, trying to be mature about the matter, I think to myself, “Ooh! That hurt, and what really hurts is knowing that I have acted just like that to others. Suddenly I have a deeper understanding of how I have hurt others. I hope they can forgive me. And, while I’m at it, I am going to overlook that out-of-character comment from my brother and forgive him from the heart. He probably has had a tough day. I will pray for him out of sincere love and forgive the offense. What I have done in this case is hated the evil action because of its destructive effects, and determined to not perpetuate evil by retaliating or holding a grudge. I cling to the good: forgiveness 3. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love The next word of teaching is the call to be devoted to one another in brotherly love. That is exactly the effort I just made in deciding to forgive the offense, isn’t it? Here’s the point: the mature brother in Christ decides to bring a quick end to the back-and-forth bickering that would have ensued if he had either reacted outright or started carrying a grudge against the errant brother. Those grudges always turn to poison—ruining relationships and keeping us miserable in the process. Oddly, something in our carnal nature wants to cling to the hurt, justifying our bitterness and just plain staying mad. We really do need to start hating this kind of evil and start clinging to the good. The King James version translates this as Be kindly affectionate to one another. Forgiveness is kindness, pure and simple. But Paul adds this word of counsel: Honor one another above yourselves. If I choose to hold onto the bitterness, keep the grudge alive, I will resent, dislike and probably eventually hate the offending brother. Do you know what that is? It is dishonor. In that case I have chosen to honor my own misplaced rights, and to NOT honor the other person. Paul teaches that we must make it a habit to honor others before ourselves. ‘You know what? We’ll be lot happier, more contented disciples as well when we honor others above ourselves. I have found that when I am nursing bitterness and holding grudges I am far less likely to worship God sincerely. I don’t listen to Him very well; I am lots less likely to seek out the truths of His Word; I’m in no mood to be especially nice to others, like my wife. Everything gets out of whack—all the wholesome things I really want, deep in my spirit. They are suddenly out of reach for me. But, wow! When I do obey God’s call to forgive the brother, rid myself of the grudge and move forward in honoring him above myself—man, am I ready to worship and serve and give and grow! Every time we win the small victory of doing God’s will as opposed to what our carnal nature urges us to do, we grow. Don’t miss the other nugget in this verse: when we devote ourselves to loving one another, we are again MISSIONAL. Loving one another is a major part of our commission. Remember the Lord’s words at John 13:35 – All men will know you are my disciples if you love one another. Work hard in the Spirit at loving each other, and fulfill your mission! 4. Maintain your spiritual fervor And the first thing we notice is we are spiritually regenerated. Look at verse 11, and see how beautifully this idea ties in to what was just said. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. You see, the apostle Paul knew just what he was talking about. When we let these wrinkles form in our relationships with others around us, and we don’t quickly iron them out, they wrap around us and smother our spiritual zeal. Worship is a drag, loving is hard, serving others is nearly impossible, we don’t hear the Spirit’s leading, getting excited about kingdom things is virtually out of the question. Do you want to live like that? Of course not! And, as a matter of fact, we are here commanded to NOT lose our spiritual fervor! We are directed in very clear and forceful language to keep our zeal for the kingdom of God at as much of a fever pitch as we possibly can. That means we must not ignore the little foxes that nip at our heels. Take care of problems the proper way: immediately, and in keeping with anything that keeps us spiritually strong. We really need to do a lot more forgiving, loving and honoring of one another, and a lot less carrying grudges, nitpicking others and basking in our rights. Conclusion I know what you’re thinking. This guy is going to go on all day! We’ve only covered three of his planned 13! Relax! Don’t bear any grudges; forgive me; Keep your shirt on; maintain your spiritual fervor. We’re going to break here and pick up next Sunday, the Lord willing.     [Back to Top]