Through Thick and Thin - Romans 12:15

Intro

Olive Garden verses Your grandmother’s kitchen

OG: “We treat you like family.” Treated like a first time guest every week. Write your name down every time because they don’t know you. You never meet with CEO. You come in and eat and go home. Every exit on the interstate has one just like it. No mess. No drama. No commitment. No discomfort.

Grandmother: come through the back door, not the front. Immediately hugged and kissed. You help her cook and set the table and clean up. You get aggravated hearing the same stories and dealing with the same issues. But, this is family. You've said things to each other and forgiven one another. You've been through things together and stood by one another. You're family; you've got heritage. You've got history. At the table, you can talk about hard things and past struggles and things that you're facing. You're family! Nothing will separate you. One generation sits together, and reminisces about the stories of what used to happen, and just one wall over is the next generation dreaming of who all of them are going to become. The younger love the stories of the older, and the older love the admiration of the younger. This family has seen men off to war, and sent their children off to college. They’ve sat at weddings together and cried together in funerals. They’ve ooed and ahhed over new babies that were born, and they’ve wept over babies that passed too young. There have been years in which the marriages have been shaky or someone’s health hasn’t been good. Oh, but then there’s that kitchen. That beautifully ordinary kitchen, where the family gathers with all of her scars and all of her baggage and all of her troubles to come together and laugh again. And find strength again. And to remember again that we aren’t alone and that we’ve been called to be a part of something greater and grander and more beautiful. Oh restaurants just won’t do!

God’s Word

We can’t settle for OG. We can’t settle for a weekly, inspirational experience with a bunch of strangers. Jesus has purchased and called us into something far more beautiful and messy and joyful and painful and wonderful than that. He’s called us into a family — a family that goes through thick and thin with one another.

Family is through thick and thin — the first people that you call when you get the promotion and when you find out that you have cancer. That’s the type of family Romans 12:15 envisions.

Romans 12:15 (ESV) 15Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

Instructions for How We Are to Minister to One Another (Headline)

Respond to each other’s “experiences” as if they were your “own”.

Two exhortations. We’re going to look at them together and then separately. We’ll see the big picture principle, and then drill down to see how they address two impulses that are embedded within them.

Romans 12:15 (ESV) 15Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

“Rejoice” and “weep” describe both what you feel and how you show it. To rejoice is to feel joy and then express it. To weep is to feel sorrow and show it. So, we should understand Paul’s command to encompass both of these aspects.

This is what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves. It’s to feel the experiences and joys and sorrows of others with the same intensity and zeal and weightiness as we feel as we feel our own experiences. It’s to feel them so strongly that the energy that they create comes pouring out in the expression of our face and the actions that we take. How would you respond if you had been diagnosed with cancer? How would you respond if you and your husband just had a baby after years of infertility? You wouldn’t just hear the news. You would shout over it. You wouldn’t just read the doctor’s report. You would weep. “Rejoicing” and “weeping” are words that don’t hold anything back. They’re full bore, all-in, energetic, zealous words. So, included in this concept of being a spiritual family is to respond to the experiences of your brothers and sisters with the same emotion and intensity and energy and expression as you would your own.

ILL: Jesus weeping over Lazarus - John 11:33–36 (ESV)33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35Jesus wept. 36So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

Why would Jesus weep if He knew that He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead? Effects of sin and the brokenhearted of his beloved.

v. 33a - Jesus saw the experiences of those He loved. The sorrow of those who grieve is always a tangible picture of the painful effects of sin.

v. 33b - Jesus felt their sorrow.

v. 35 - Jesus expressed it with the same intensity as they did — weeping. (Note: Jesus annihilates any notion of stoic masculinity.)

APP: Your response to the experiences of others is a litmus test of your love for them.

Indifference isn’t an option for love. Indifference would be a mark of insincere, hypocritical love (v.9). Love climbs up to the top of the mountain with you and shouts in celebration. New baby. Marriage. Graduation. Promotion. And, love rappels down into the pit to share in the darkest nights of your soul. Loss. Divorce. Funerals. Addictions. Job loss. Depression. It can’t be indifferent.

This is family. Who loves you? Who celebrates with you when you do well? Who does your smile cause to smile? And, who climbs down in the pit with you? But, let’s take the plank out of our eyes as we think of all those who haven’t called or wept and loved. Who do we celebrate with? Who do we climb down into the pit with? It’s not just who do we feel sympathy for or excitement for, but to whom do we show it and share it?

Transition: Embedded within Paul’s command are two impulses he’s seeking to address. There’s a why behind every positive command, and it’s a negative tendency. So, we can rephrase what Paul has written from this other perspective. First,

Resist the impulse to “resent” each other’s “joy”.

Romans 12:15a: “Rejoice with those who rejoice”

Why does Paul have to command us to rejoice with the rejoicing of others? It’s because we are tempted to respond with jealousy and resentment instead. The impulse of the sinful heart is to resent the goodness in the lives others rather than to celebrate it.

We’re tempted to build a ceiling for our joy.

This is an invitation to climb to the top of the mountain with one another so that we can celebrate together, but too often, we put a ceiling where God intends a ladder. We take an invitation to joy and turn it into fuel for bitterness. The gifts that others receive often serve as reminders to us of what we haven’t received. The wins of other often seem like they highlight our own losses. The success of others often fills us with feelings of personal failure rather than joy for them.

ILL: Chase and I grew up like brothers. We both always wanted trucks. He got one first. What a great opportunity for me to be excited for him! I didn’t even want to ride with him. Wouldn’t it be nice if we outgrew that type of thinking?

We have this same attitude all the time. their baby = my infertility, their marriage = my singleness, their promotion = my under-appreciation, their ministry took off = mine is floundering, their wealth = my scraping by, their success = my failure. What should have increased our joy actually makes us more miserable. Our joy has a ceiling that is tied to our own experiences.

Two ways this invitation calls to shatter the ceilings of joy through the gospel.

We’re a part of a good family.

Gospel put us in a family: “We (6x’s) also REJOICE in God through our Lord Jesus Christ” Romans 5:10-11 - Family out of enemies. God turned his enemies into his children. He turned us away from our individual lives to one another. Philemon/Onesimus used to be slave/master, but now they’re brothers.

Family expands our capacity for joy. If I rejoice when good things happen to me, I’ll rejoice some, but there will be other days without it. But, if I can rejoice every time you do, then there’s something to rejoice over every day! Think of it like a dad watching his son play baseball. Dad will never again know the joy of hitting a homerun and the rush that comes with it and the sense of success when the crowd shouts. If his joy is dependent upon his experience alone, then his opportunity for joy played out 20 years ago. But, what if he can join in the joy of his son when his son hits a homerun? What if he can rejoice when his grandson has the crowd cheering for him? His capacity for joy is expanded! In fact, you might even say that the father and the grandfather have greater joy because they can appreciate the same event from a different perspective.

Our church family gives us the opportunity to shatter the ceiling of joy in our lives. Celebrate the wins of every season of life regardless of what season of life we’re in. Heather/Derrick/Chad/Rebekah having a baby. Michael/Ansley getting married. Tony retiring and going fishing. John leading a teenager to Christ. I get to share in these because the gospel has made us a family. Let’s rejoice!

We’re a part of a glorious Kingdom.

In other words, the good that we see in the lives of each other are intended to serve as further proof of what’s to come. Every good gift is a glimpse of the Kingdom and an opportunity for us to rejoice over the grace that will be fully enjoyed one day. These glimpses are intended to draw out from us a heart of praise toward Jesus, regardless of where we see them or whom is experiencing them.

John Piper: Good things are supposed to cause us to think, “God is like this, only better. The Kingdom will be like this, only more glorious.”

The good of others isn’t meant to make us feel worse about the bad in our lives. It’s meant to sustain us another day until we’re with Jesus. Rejoicing over the good that other know is rejoicing over the certainty of the Kingdom. It’s rejoicing over the hope that you have.

Resist the impulse to “avoid” each other’s “pain”.

Romans 12:15b “Weep with those who weep”

Our impulse is to de-stress and un-burden out lives.

Paul commands us to weep because our impulse will be to get off an exit before we come upon the accident so that we can avoid the inconvenience. We pretend not to see their hardship like the panhandler on the street. Very often, we go out of our way to choose indifference toward the pain of others. The last thing we want to add is another burden, more stress.

FB: “De-stress your life by cutting out the dramatic, stressful people in your life.” But, if we cast off every person who burdens us, who’s left?

A step away from one another is a step away from Jesus. He saw the crowd and had compassion on them (Matthew 9). He wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19). His heart is gentle and lowly (Matthew 11). He bore our burdens upon himself until is was finished! We want to follow Jesus to heaven without following him to the cross.

Our desire to connect is often overwhelmed by our impulse to de-stress and unburden.

ILL: At conference guy says: “Having kids will ruin your life.” Thank you, Mr. Optimism! But, the point is taken well enough. Family adds stress to your life. It adds pain. It’s sleepless nights.

Family comes with burden. Connection comes with burden.

The deepest connections happen in the darkest valleys.

Most of the people that I’m closest to in our church are the result of divorces and deaths and losses. It’s because I was with them at their lowest, or they were with me at mine. Pain galvanizes brotherhood like a foxhole does soldiers.

APP: Just be there.

“Weep” Don’t speak. Don’t advise. Don’t give answers. Don’t make everybody nervous. Just be there. Cry with them. Sit with them. Allow yourself to join in the pain of others.

Hospitals taught me that every day is the best day and worst day of someone’s life. I’ve passed funerals on the way to weddings. Families join one another on both. Let’s not settle for OG when we’ve been called to our Father’s table.