Bearing With Our Neighbors

Introduction

Good evening and welcome to our online service for Sunday Evening!

If you were able to view last week’s message, you will know that we finished up with Romans 14 and we are inching ever so closely to the close of the Book of Romans.

We have called this series the “Walk Through Romans” and it seems like it has been a LONG walk that has taken many turns as we have went along.

It has in many ways resembled our walk with Christ over the past year or so.

There have been ups and downs.

There have been sickness and death.

There has been victory and defeat.

But there has always been one thing that has remained constant.

And that one thing is the love and presence of God with us through it all.

Just this year alone so far we have seen so many things happen that we thought would never take place that it is mind-boggling.

And the reality is, there have been people that we have lost along the way.

And I am not talking about the dear saints that have went on to be with the Lord.

I am talking about those who have fallen away from God, who have abandoned their faith, who have been overwhelmed and overcome by the problems and issues of the world around them.

Those are the ones that we need to be focused on and we need to ask ourselves why?

Why did they fall away?

Why did they abandon the faith?

Why were they overwhelmed and overcome by the world and the sin that is in the world?

And the easy answer is “they were just too weak...” which is not true.

Strength and weakness has very little to do with it.

The real reason they have fallen by the wayside along the way can be attributed to a few things.

First, they were not rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ.

They had a surface level relationship with Jesus.

That is just a fact.

But just as big a factor is they had a lack of support from those of us who are supposed to be grounded and rooted in the faith.

No one was there to teach them how to be grounded and rooted in the faith.

No one was there for them when the early signs of their slipping away started to become evident.

No one was there when Satan came in and isolated them, got them all alone, and started speaking lies into their hearts and minds.

And as a result they fell.

So, if we were not there, where were we?

Well, some of us were too busy pointing the finger at them, passing judgement and condemnation on them for their actions.

Others of us were so consumed and wrapped up in our own problems and issues, that we forgot that part of our responsibility is to care for and lift up our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We were just “too busy” or we just had “too much going on” to care about others.

And it is exactly this problem and issue that Paul points out here in our passage for tonight.

So, tonight we are going to be looking at Romans 15:1-13 on the subject of “Bearing with our Neighbors.”

Paul starts out this way . . .

Scripture Focus

Romans 15:1–4 NIV - Anglicised

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbour for his good, to build him up. For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Bearing with Others

Now, I stopped with verse 4 here because that is the natural break and the overall point that Paul trying to make.

And what he is doing is actually building on what we looked at last week, which was the judgmental attitude that we sometimes tend to take.

Just to refresh us, the main point Paul made was then was . . .

Romans 14:13 NIV - Anglicised

Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling-block or obstacle in your brother’s way.

And of course those “stumbling blocks” are things that serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever, except to make us fall away from God and to fall from His glory and grace.

Those stumbling blocks originate from our judgmental attitudes that is always seeing ways to condemn rather than ways to lift one another us.

And Paul tells us in no uncertain terms that we are NOT to be doing that.

He plainly tells us to “stop passing judgement on each other.”

Stop spending every single moment of our time looking for faults in others.

Because guess what, it doesn’t matter who the person is, you will find faults.

None of us are perfect and all of us have issues.

Every single one of us, regardless of how well we try to hide it.

And as long as we continue to go down the road we are on wasting time looking for faults, that is all we will find.

And all that does is lead to a negative and pessimistic attitude toward everything and everyone.

Plain and simple, it just causes us to have a bad attitude and Paul says stop it.

And he uses this to build on what we should be focusing or attention and energy on instead, which is where is is going here in chapter 15.

So again, he starts out . . . .

Romans 15:1 NIV - Anglicised

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.

So, the first thing we need to be doing is an honest and sincere evaluation of ourselves and where we stand with God.

We need to figure out if we are in fact strong—because even though we all think we are, that may not be the case.

And if we, through the wise counsel of the Holy Spirit—notice I said Holy Spirit—not based on what we just “think,” determine that yes “I am strong in the Lord,” then we should be doing our part to “bear with the failings of the weak.”

Now before I go on I want to pause just for a second and think about our “strength” and being “strong.”

Each one of us is at a different place in our relationship with God.

And the goal is for us to gain strength, day by day, to “grow in the Lord.”

And along our journey, we will encounter people and will have the opportunity to mentor and help people who do not have the same level of experience, and have not gained the strength we have through our experiences yet.

This would make them “weaker” in the Lord than we are.

And our job is not to pass judgement on them.

Not to condemn them.

Not to spend our time wagging our fingers at them.

Our job is to help them and to lift them up.

So, you see all of us are strong and all of us are weak in the Lord.

There is always going to be someone else out there who has more experience and more strength in the Lord than we do and if we encounter them and they genuinely are trying to help us, then we need to swallow our pride and listen to what they have to say.

Because it is meant to help us grow in the Lord so we can be that same help to someone else.

See how it is a big circle?

That’s how it works, or at least how it is supposed to work.

So Paul tells us to “bear with the failings of the weak” or better put, “weaker” and to help them, instead of pleasing ourselves.

Or better put, chasing after our own selfish desires.

Or doing just what’s best for us and not thinking about other people.

Not considering everyone and everything else.

And he goes on . . .

Romans 15:2 NIV - Anglicised

Each of us should please his neighbour for his good, to build him up.

And that old question, “who is my neighbor?”

Well, everyone around you is your neighbor, so ask yourself, am I using the gifts and graces of God to “build up” my neighbor or am I just seeing the negative and trying to tear down my neighbor.

Am I being a good Christian witness to my neighbor or am I spending all my time making a list of my neighbor’s faults?

Am I helping my neighbor find a relationship with Jesus or improve their existing relationship with Jesus, or am I just out for myself?

Those are the questions we need to be asking ourselves and the Holy Spirit will tell us the answer really, really quickly.

And when the Holy Spirit convicts us, which I am convinced He will, we need to take the necessary steps to do something about it.

We need to stop messing around because time is short and we have a job to do.

And Paul goes on . . .

Romans 15:3–4 NIV - Anglicised

For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

And all Paul is really saying here is that Jesus showed us the way.

Jesus served to us the example of how we should be and how we should act.

He did not come here to please Himself and to look out for himself, but rather he took on everything there was to take on for OUR SAKE and for OUR BENEFIT.

Can we not at least do our part in helping one another out and lifting one another up?

That is what he is referring to here.

And then building on that main point, Paul goes on to now begin to offer us at least some encouragement.

He says . . .

Romans 15:5–6 NIV - Anglicised

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So Pau is preaching a message that we all need to be hearing.

Paul is telling us that we should have a spirit of unity.

All Christians should be united in our efforts to both endure till the end and also encourage and help others along their journey so that they may also endure till the end.

You see we are called to ALL be united through Christ and not divided in different sects or denominations.

We are all ONE IN CHRIST and we need to act like it.

It is not an “us vs them” game here.

But Satan is so good at distracting us and getting us focused on everything but the main thing, that we forget what our role and responsibility to one another truly is.

And thus we fail Christ in this way.

And we also fail each other as well.

He tells us that we are to . . .

Romans 15:7–12 NIV - Anglicised

Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy, as it is written: “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles; I will sing hymns to your name.”Again, it says, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.”And again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and sing praises to him, all you peoples.”And again, Isaiah says, “The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations; the Gentiles will hope in him.”

And he finishes up . . .

Romans 15:13 NIV - Anglicised

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Altar/Challenge

And that is where we are going to end tonight as well.

The challenge is are we going to continue the same way we have been going?

Or are we going to lift up one another?

It is as simple as that.

What will we do tonight?