Life in the Father's House #3 - "A Culture of Mutual Care" (Romans 12:12-21)

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I have tagged the text that's before us this afternoon a culture of mutual care, a culture of mutual care.
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Back in 2018, I had the privilege of getting to go for my first cruise.
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Um, not really the cruise type, never, well not really the cruise, not that I'm not the cruise type,
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I've never had cruise money, we'll put it that way. And so we got to go on a cruise, it was my parents -in -law's,
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I want to say 40th anniversary, and so they very graciously said, hey we're taking the family on a cruise to celebrate.
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It was a great and wonderful time but the experience was interesting for me, again I've never been on one of these things before, so after a couple of days
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I started noticing some stuff that was not bad, just different. For one thing, if you've ever been on a cruise you know that they basically just ply you with food all the time, it's just there all the time,
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I have no objection to that, so that was interesting. But yeah, we'd leave during the day, we'd go do excursions and all of those wonderful things, um and we come back and as if almost by magic, the room that was not necessarily the tidiest when we left it was nice and clean when we got back.
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Throughout the, I think we were on it for about a week or so, throughout the entire time people basically existed to serve us.
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I got to know some of the folks who were serving us pretty well, there was one guy his name was Ogun, he was from Thailand, he would be in the hall where we would have dinner every day and every time he'd see me he'd be like,
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Mr Kofi how are you? Oh I'm fine, after he knew what my name was, learnt it first time, Mr Kofi how are you?
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Oh I'm fine Ogun, how are you? Every time he'd see me, do you need anything, can I help? Like it was a great experience and then we got off the boat and I have to admit,
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I got kind of spoiled by that because I got used to for a week basically getting whatever
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I want, whenever I want but that's what a cruise ship is designed to be, isn't it?
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It's basically a pleasure boat and it's not a bad thing, it's what it's made to be. I contrast that with I've had the privilege,
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I'm a big history buff and so I've had the privilege of visiting a number of decommissioned warships, anyone had the privilege of seeing any of those?
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If you have, they are very different to a cruise ship, they're both ships, they're both built to accommodate people on water but the function and the purpose is very very different.
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I've had friends who served in, I'm from the UK, had friends who served in the Royal Navy and when they talked to me about life on ships and some have served on subs even, when they talked to me about like Kofi, it's very different to a cruise ship because on a cruise ship, people are there primarily to be served on a battleship or a sub for the most part, everybody's got a role, everybody's got a job and that's a very different experience to when you're on a cruise ship and basically you don't have a job, your only job is to enjoy and have fun.
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Kofi, where are you going with this? Well I start with this because I want to ask a question, which one is a church supposed to be?
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Is a church in the mind and design of God, is a church designed to be a cruise ship where people come, they are served, they don't really have to do anything, it's a handful of people in, well in proportion anyway, a handful of people doing all of the work for the majority, is that was that what church is designed to be or is a church designed to be something more like a aircraft carrier or a sub?
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Is it designed to be a place where everybody is serving for the good of everyone?
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That's the question that kind of came to my mind as I found myself in our passage for this afternoon in Romans chapter 12, allow me to reorient you or if you're visiting to kind of give you a picture of where we are in Romans chapter 12.
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You remember that I said that Romans chapter 12 is essentially asking the question after Paul has spent 11 chapters explaining all the glories of the gospel, he's dealt with the depravity of man, he's dealt with justification and sanctification, he's dealt with the faithfulness of God to his promises to Israel, whatever that looks like, this is not the time for that debate, but he's spent 11 chapters serving the glories of the gospel and then he comes to chapter 12 and in chapter 12 he really starts to unpack what does this look like?
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What does this glorious gospel message look like when God's people come together?
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And so verse 1 and 2, you remember I said a couple of weeks ago for those of you who were here that in verses 1 and 2 you kind of have the foundation of this, that we lay down our lives as living sacrifices and we're not conformed to the world but we're transformed by the renewing of our minds, verses 3 through 8 the role of the
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Holy Spirit is mentioned where he enables and he empowers us to be the kinds of people that God desires for us to be and then we come to the passage that we've been in for the last couple of weeks, verses 9 through 21.
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And you remember that I said that in verses 9 through 21 you've really got three major themes that we're thinking about. So two weeks ago we began with really what is the foundation?
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Christian love in verses 9 and 10. And then last week we looked at the subject of zeal and zeal in the
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Christian life, what it is, how we can cultivate it, what our role in that is. And now we come to verses 12 through 21 and I initially said that the theme of this little section is service but it is service but I think it's very specific what kind of service.
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Tagged this message a culture of mutual care because the service we give to one another is to care for one another.
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In one sense this is the logical result, this is what should happen if Christian love is present and there is genuine spiritual zeal.
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Because after all Christian love is sacrificial love, it's love that seeks to give its all for others and where there is zeal for the
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Lord there's going to be zeal for that which is closest to his heart, which is his people.
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So really what we're talking about here in verses 12 through 21 makes perfect sense if you paid attention to everything he said just before.
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And so that's we're going to spend our time this afternoon looking at verses 12 through 21 and what a ministry or a culture of mutual care, what that looks like.
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Now allow me to give you a heads up, there's going to be quite a bit of content here compared to usual and even that I'm really scratching the surface, there's so much more that could be said about each of the things that Paul says here.
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So let me encourage you, you got a note sheet when you came in, use that to jot down some questions, things that may be like I'd like to hear more about that or I have questions about that.
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Wednesday night at seven we have our midweek gathering, it's an opportunity to really ask questions and to dig a little bit deeper into the themes from the sermon.
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So I encourage you if you're able to be there and bring your questions. For this afternoon, what does it look like when a local church, not just this, take our local church out of the equation for just a moment, any local church anywhere in the world, what does it look like when a local church has a genuine culture of mutual care for one another?
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What does that look like? Can we say when we look at a church, no this is a church that's identified and marked by care for one another?
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Well that leads to my big idea for this sermon. My big idea for the sermon is simply this, a culture of care seeks to apply the gospel in the context of real -life relationship for the glory of God.
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A culture of care seeks to apply the gospel in the context of real -life relationship for the glory of God.
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That's really all we're thinking about here, how it is that we who have come to know the gospel and experience its power in our lives, what does it look like when we actually apply that in the context of real -life relationship with one another for God's glory?
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What does it look like? That's what we're going to take our time to consider this afternoon.
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And so for the rest of our time, I want you to consider with me both the principles behind as well as the practice of a culture of mutual care.
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Two points I have, principles and practice. Let's think about the principles behind a culture of care as well as the practice of it.
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So let's start with the principles then, point number one in our message. What are the principles for a culture of care?
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What are the foundational principles that we need to think about and have in mind when we think about a culture of care?
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What are the principles for a culture of care? And it's good that we start here because as human beings our temptation is often to jump straight to the practical.
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It means you jump to give me a list of things to do so I can go do them. Now that's not always a bad thing.
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However, the Bible thankfully frees us from jumping too quickly to what do we need to do by forcing us to think before we act.
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The Bible thankfully forces us, and I say force because I think as human beings we don't naturally do this, but the
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Bible forces us to consider the why and the what of our obedience before we jump straight to the how of our obedience.
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And as you, I would argue as you come to verse 12 of Romans 12, Paul is giving you some foundational principles, some foundational ideas and concepts that need to be in place if this local church or any local church is going to be a place of mutual care ministry to one another.
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So look at verse 12 with me. What does Paul say there? He says, Rejoice in hope, be patient in affliction, be persistent in prayer.
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What's interesting is that all three of those commands are present active participles. I try to avoid grammar as much as I can in sermons, but this is important.
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These are all present actives. In other words, these are ongoing things. These are not just things you do one time say, oh good we could take that off the list.
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No, these are to be at the foundation. They're to be constant in the life of a local church.
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Three principles here. I've given them easy headings just so we can follow along. First of all, there is the principle of what we can call a joyful hope.
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The principle of joyful hope. So he begins in verse 12 and he says, Rejoice in hope, literally in hope be rejoicing.
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A culture of care begins with having the right hope. Now if we're going to talk about hope, let's make sure that we know what hope is.
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For some people, hope is basically the spiritual equivalent of, I've often, some of you who've been around Redeemer a long time have heard me use this phrase, being a spiritual
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Pollyanna. You know, just everything's going to be great. Everything's going to be wonderful.
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You know, always look on the bright side of life and related phrases. Here's the small problem.
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I don't think that's the Bible's definition of hope. That might be our culture's definition of hope, but it's not the
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Bible's definition of hope. I think the biblical expectation, the biblical understanding, excuse me, when we talk about hope, biblical hope has behind it the idea of a certain expectation that's based on solid promises.
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Let me say that again. Hope in the Bible is a certain expectation that is backed or based on solid promises.
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It's a certain expectation based on solid promises.
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Now we can agree that there is an unseen element to hope when you read it in the
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Bible. If you're taking notes, Romans chapter 8 verses 24 and 25, Paul says, now in this hope we were saved, referring to the hope of the new creation.
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Now in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?
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Which is a good question. Eddie is sitting right there. If I can see
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Eddie, I don't say, well I hope I can see Eddie. No, Eddie's sitting right there. I don't have to hope that I will see
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Eddie, he's right there. If I was to say, man I hope I get to see my brother Joshua, that's hope.
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Why? Because Joshua lives 5 ,000 miles away. So Paul's question is a very logical one.
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Who hopes for what he sees? Verse 25, but now if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.
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So yes, hope does have an unseen element to it, and yet this unseen but very real expectations, why
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I use the word certain, this unseen expectation is backed by the guarantee of what
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God has said. That's why I said it's backed by solid promises. God speaks and hope, as we understand it, is our certain expectation.
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Lord you have spoken, I haven't seen it, but I know you're going to do this because that's who you are.
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You keep your word, and since God keeps his word, that's just the promise of God is as good as anything you can see.
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Okay Kofi, great, wonderful. Why do we need to talk about this when we're talking about mutual care? Well, very simple.
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You see, a culture of care begins with the reality that though we live in this world, this world is not the final destination for us.
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Now, hear me well when I say that. When I say this world is not our final destination, that doesn't mean that we kind of sit on our hands, kind of, you know,
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I'm waiting for Jesus to come and get me. I'm not really going to do anything. I'm not, well, there are whole sections of the Bible that say don't live like that.
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Far from it. We live in the world, we seek to glorify in it, we glorify God, excuse me, we take our vocation seriously, whatever
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God has called us to, whatever area of life we find ourselves in, we take that area seriously.
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So, yes, we are waiting for Jesus to come back, and yes, we are waiting for a sure and future hope, but all that we do, we do rejoicing in the sure expectation that one day we will see
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Christ, that one day we will see his kingdom established and his reign on the earth, that one day we will more fully enjoy the eternal life in that day that we enjoy a foretaste of now, and that's what fuels the kind of others -focused care that Paul's going to talk about in the rest of this passage.
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In a very real sense, it's understanding what God has said about our future that gives us ability to rejoice in the here and now, even when things are tough and things are difficult.
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So, that's the first foundational principle he gives us, this principle of a joyful hope, but secondly, he gives us a principle of patient suffering, of patient suffering.
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So, again, look at, if you're not back there already, Romans chapter 12 verse 12, rejoice in hope, be patient in affliction.
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This follows on quite nicely from the idea of hope. You need to be patient in suffering, and the reason you can be is because properly grounded hope gives you perspective in the face of trials.
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It's knowing what your hope is, even though you can't see it yet, that in the mystery of God's working with us, is designed to give us perspective in the face of trials.
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I don't know about you, but isn't it all too easy to lose your head when a trial comes? Isn't it tempting to kind of run around like chicken little, proclaiming the sky is falling, the sky is falling, when it seems like the sky is actually falling?
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And while we may often be surprised by our responses to trial, isn't it a good thing to know that God is not surprised by our responses to trials?
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That we are not doing anything that God has not seen before, and so thankfully he gives us in his word the info that we need to prepare for trials.
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A few passages, so James chapter 1, James chapter 1 verses 2 through 4,
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James begins his wonderful letter, what's been called the Proverbs of the New Testament, and he says, Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
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And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.
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Further down, James 1 12, he says, Blessed is the one who endures trials, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.
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That's why 1 Peter 1 6, we can rejoice even though for, as Peter says it, for a short time, we suffer grief in various trials.
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I don't know about you, but I know there have been times in my life, even recently, where I've been tempted to ask
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God to put a rush order on whatever trial I'm going through. Like, yeah,
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I'm going through a trial, Lord, but can we make this quick? Like, this is, this feels like it's been going on a little long.
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Like, can we expedite this a little bit? You know, can we treat this like Amazon Prime? Can I get two -day delivery?
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And God in his providence says, no, you can't. And that's where patience comes in.
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That's where faith comes in, and trusting God comes in, and that's where preaching the good news of the gospel to yourself regularly comes in.
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It's as we remind ourselves that God is using our trials, and our sufferings, and our weariness in life.
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He's using all of that in your life, and that is so needed. And so what we need when those moments come is to be patient.
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As my mom is fond of saying, God's time is the best time, so let's wait for God's time.
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That is so needed. It's needed for us as individuals, and it's definitely needed in the context of body life, if we're going to care for and serve one another well.
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So hopeful joy, patient suffering. There's a third principle that he lays out in verse 12, and it's the principle of persistent prayer.
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The principle of persistent prayer. So end of verse 12, rejoice in hope, be patient in affliction, be persistent in prayer.
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Now I won't dwell here long, because you know, long time Redeemerites know, corporate prayer is something of a hobby horse of mine.
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I don't need much motivation to talk about that, but allow me to just make one observation.
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Just one observation, one application real quick. So that phrase, be persistent, at least in the
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Christian standard Bible, it's translated be persistent. That phrase appears in a few places, one of which is
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Acts chapter 2 verse 42. If you don't know that verse, I encourage you to memorize it, it's a great verse. Acts chapter 2 verse 42, this one verse snapshot of the life of the local church.
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Acts chapter 2 verse 42, it says that they devoted themselves, same verb, they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer, literally the prayers.
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It's not an accident that Paul will use the exact same language in encouraging the church in Rome to be persistent in prayer that characterized the church in Jerusalem at their outset.
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Why? Because prayer was not incidental to the life of the apostolic church, not like it is sadly in some churches where prayer is very much incidental.
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You see, if we're going to be a culture of mutual care, if we're going to be a culture of, if we're going to have, excuse me, a culture of caring for one another, healthy churches, churches that care for one another, those churches, they pray, they pray together, and they pray often.
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They pray, they pray together, and they pray often. I mean think about, think about this with me for a moment, what more caring thing could we do as a church than to bring each other's cares and concerns before the throne of grace?
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Is there anything more caring we could do? I don't think there is.
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I don't think there is. So, joyful hope, patient suffering, persistent prayer.
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Those are the foundations, the core principles of a culture of care in a local church,
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I'm going to argue. Everything else we're about to talk about flows from this. So, since we've now got some core principles in place, let's talk real quickly, number two, about practicing a culture of care.
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Practicing a culture of care. And someone verses, if verse 12 gives us a foundation, verses 13 to 21 give us the structure on which this foundation, give us the structure, excuse me, on which we build.
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So, what does it look like for us to practice genuine mutual care as a body? Well, first of all, it starts as we share life with one another.
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It starts as we share life with one another, verse 13. So, again, look at verse 13 in your
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Bibles, what does Paul say? He says, share with the saints in their needs, pursue hospitality.
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See, a culture, a commitment, excuse me, to a culture of care is a commitment to a shared life together.
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I've poked fun at the, you know, in church life, church with a big C, we have these phrases that we use, some of which honestly just sound kind of weird and we don't use them anywhere else.
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And so, as you know, occasionally I like to poke fun at some of them because they do sound kind of weird. One of them that I've heard a lot in recent years is the phrase, do life together.
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Have you ever thought about this? We don't use that phrase anywhere else. And I poke fun at it because, one, it's just very weird grammar.
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You don't do life together, you live life together. I'm not much of a grammar Nazi, but that's one grammatical, that doesn't, that's just weird, no, doesn't really, doesn't sound right on the ear.
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But as much as I like to poke fun at that phrase, there is very, very, very real truth behind what people mean when they say that phrase.
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Because the reality is we do live life together as the people of God. And so Paul says that we are to share, first of all, with the saints in their needs.
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The phrase share with the saints is an interesting one. Share is from the same root that we get the word fellowship from.
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Those of you who were here in the summer when we worked our way through Philippians, remember we talked about this idea of partnership and we said that that's probably a better way to render that word?
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Partnership. You see, we care for one another by partnering with each other in our seasons of need.
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Whether that's material need or spiritual need. Whether it's a kind word, whether it's getting together for a cup of coffee, whether it's helping a family move, whether it's just something as simple as listening when someone shares what is going on with them and taking an interest.
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These are all ways in which we share with, we partner with one another in our needs.
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And regardless of whatever we end up doing specifically, let's pause for a moment to get very practical about this.
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Regardless of the how, this is going to require some work, isn't it? For one thing, it's going to call you to be involved in the lives of one another above and beyond what we do on Sundays.
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Can I pause for a moment? I'm a pastor's kid, which means I've been around church pretty much my entire life. Been in churches that are really big, churches that have been really small.
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Having grown up in church my entire life, it's very interesting what people's perception or people's expectation,
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I should say, of a church is when you start talking to them. You ever notice that?
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People have very specific ideas of what church is supposed to do. And of all the expectations
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I've heard, some reasonable and some I'm just like, I don't know what planet you're on. Sorry, that's just not going to happen. Of all the expectations
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I hear, one of the biggest is, sometimes it's unspoken, but the way that people carry themselves tells you this.
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We kind of expect Sunday to carry the load for everything in the life of a church. So, if you don't talk to me on Sunday, that means you don't care about me.
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Well, what if I try to call you during the week? Well, I'm busy during the week. Sunday's the time I have for church. Well, sorry, if we're going to share with each other's needs, here's a point of application, that might require a little more time than just what we do on Sunday for an hour and a half.
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It would be akin to me saying that, you know, I live with Laura, I love Laura, I want to get to know Laura more and more, but hey Laura, you will get 90 minutes of my week to get to know me.
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I would hope that those of you who've been married a while will pull me up and say, okay little man, let me teach you something real quick. That's not how a marriage functions, but somehow we think that's okay when it comes to getting to know one another in the church.
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The reality is, if we're going to share in life together, if we're going to share with each other in our needs, that's going to call for us to be involved in each other's lives above and beyond Sundays.
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And it's not just getting to know people, it's not enough to just know what is happening, but to be willing to step in and help when you know something is happening.
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To give us an example, to help us with this, Paul gives us a simple example. So he says, share with the saints in their need, and he gives you an example, pursue hospitality.
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Ah, I wish I had time, there's so much I'd like to say about hospitality. I think it's one of those friends that, one of those words, excuse me, that suffers in the hands of its friends.
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I'll be honest, for years I thought when we had to do hospitality, especially growing up in a pastor's home, that that was when the house had to be more clean than ever, you know, especially as kids.
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And I grew up in an African family, which meant that basically when visitors came, you were expelled to your room, like you don't exist, bye.
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Which meant I really didn't like when people came around the house, because like, this is my house, why are you kicking me out of my own house?
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You know, the real good plates came out, the ones that we were never allowed to use. And quite frankly,
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I think due to unrealistic expectations, and frankly, middle -class Western assumptions, hospitality has gone from something we should love doing to think about it, it's become a chore.
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And so since it's become a chore, we're kind of glad to not have to do it if we don't. But Paul says, essentially,
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Paul doesn't just say do hospitality, he could have said that and it would have been absolutely right, but he says you pursue it.
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Not only should you do it, you should be going out of your way to find opportunities to do it.
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I think part of that comes from if we can just rescue this word from the definitions we've given it, and reclaim a biblical definition, it might be helpful.
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You should never just define a term in the Bible just by breaking down the words. I've got a couple of men here who know more
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Greek than me, that's a fallacy, probably not a good way to handle language. But I think on this one we might be okay.
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The word that's translated hospitality in your Bible comes from two words, word for love, and love for strangers.
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A love for strangers, okay, I'm getting an odd, so okay, I didn't make that up, good. It's the word for love of strangers.
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You see, biblical hospitality is simply demonstrating love for people and welcoming them into our lives.
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Biblical hospitality is simply demonstrating love for people. In fact, in my notes, I put love for people who are not our family, they're strangers in that sense, and welcoming them into our lives.
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It's not throwing a complex dinner party, it doesn't require bells and whistles. I love what my pastor, the man who in a lot of ways taught me about ministry, what he used to say when he would try, he was trying to encourage our very young church to practice hospitality, he would always say, guys pizza will do.
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He's like, you don't have to make the pizza, order one, it's fine, because that's not the point. The food is a means to an end.
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What's the end? The end is welcoming people into our lives. Really, we're talking about the difference between hospitality that's done from the motivation of grace versus the motivation of drudgery.
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Drudgery says, I guess I have to, I mean the Bible says so, I guess I should, and you know, if I'm going to do this, we all know that people are coming, they're going to judge me, you know, the house isn't put right,
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I didn't use the right place, all the rest of it. So, you know, we have to do this, but let's make sure we do it well, so we don't have anything to complain about.
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They come, they leave. That's drudgery. Nobody wants to do that. No, done from the motivation of grace, our hearts say,
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I get to do this. It's imperfect, but I get to welcome somebody else.
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Oh, and by the way, that puts some responsibility on the person who's receiving the hospitality. Why? Because you get to say,
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I'm being welcomed into a life, just as God has welcomed me in Christ. I mean, it makes sense if you realize that hospitality, like everything else in the
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Christian life, really isn't about you, it's about the other person. If we understand that,
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I think hospitality moves from being a chore that we have to do to something that we're just going to fall over ourselves trying to find opportunities to practice, and so a culture of care looks like sharing the needs of one another, but it also looks like, verse 14, helping one another to respond well to hostility.
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Respond well to hostility. So verse 14, Paul says, bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse.
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It's a fun little play on words here, because the word for pursue, when he says pursue hospitality, and the word for persecute, they're the same word, different voice, but same word.
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Why would Paul insert this, verse 14, in a section about mutual care and service? Why would he talk about blessing those who persecute you?
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Aren't we talking about caring for one another? I'd like to think no one in the church is persecuting one another.
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If that is happening, please stop, but I think
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I can safely say that's not happening. It might seem a little bit out of place, but remember who
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Paul is writing this to. I'm going to emphasize this a few times. Paul is writing not to an individual, he's writing to a church.
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Okay, Kofi, where are you going with that? Real simple. Paul puts this here because the church's role, and when we say the church's role, let's not make that the pastor's role.
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No, the church's role, your role and my role, is to encourage one another in doing this.
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As citizens of God's kingdom, Jesus calls us to find joy in persecution. Remember what he says in Matthew 5?
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Blessed are those who persecute you for righteousness' sake, because for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil about you because of me. Be glad and rejoice.
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Why? Because your reward is in heaven, for that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
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Jesus calls us to that, but let's be honest, hearing those words and actually living in light of them are two different things, aren't they?
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It's one thing to hear those words, but maybe it's just me. Isn't it hard to actually live those words out sometimes?
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Like wait, you want me to do what for who? And that's where sometimes we need to help one another in this.
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Remember when this is being written? This is written in the days of the new testament. The church wasn't exactly the most liked entity in the world.
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Empire -wide persecution hasn't started yet, but there are pockets of persecution, mostly from the Jewish people, as this new message starts to spread.
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The church knew what it was to be persecuted by people, and what's the temptation when we are attacked?
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The temptation is often to respond in anger, in vitriol, in one way. Yeah, let me pause for a moment.
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Let's talk about our own situation here in America for a second. I think we can all agree that Christianity is becoming increasingly unliked in our culture.
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We've kind of moved from a world where people were neutral towards Christianity or even saw some positive benefits where people generally do not like Christianity.
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Just yesterday I was scrolling through that great Twitter and I saw a tweet from someone where they were complaining that I was in my house enjoying my
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Saturday afternoon and Christians knocked on my door trying to tell me about Jesus. How dare they? And they actually used the phrase, the privilege that Christians have in this culture.
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I'm an atheist, I could never get away with that. I saw it and I was like, you mean like all of the atheist
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YouTubers and podcasters who take every opportunity to attack Christians every chance they get?
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You mean like the guy from my side of the pond, Richard Dawkins, who still has a job at Oxford?
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Okay. For a moment I almost, I thought of all the really biting ways I could respond and I had to remind myself, hold on Kofi, hold on Kofi, you'll get to do that.
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For some Christians the way that they've sought to answer what they see as an increasing persecution of Christians is self -preservation.
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Whether it's a political means, you hear people talk about this whole thing of Christian nationalism, that's a whole other debate for another time.
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Let me just tell you this much, I don't see that in the Bible. I don't. But when you talk to a lot of these people as I talk to a lot of them, it's very clear self -preservation is the thing here.
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It's like, I want to ensure that I live in a culture where I am not persecuted.
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News flash, you're going to be persecuted as a Christian. So you need to think about your response now before it gets really bad and you don't have any time.
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We don't respond in anger and vitriol, we don't respond in self -preservation. How do we respond?
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Well we respond graciously. We bless those, we speak well of, or we wish well of those who persecute us.
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We don't curse them, speak evil of them, we bless them.
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We respond the way that Jesus responded when he was persecuted. So remember what
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Jesus says, not Jesus, excuse me, what Peter says about Jesus, 1 Peter 2 .21. In fact this one
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I want you to see, turn there with me, 1 Peter chapter 2. This one I want you to see with your own eyes. 1
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Peter, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter in the New Testament, 1 Peter in chapter 2. Beginning in verse 21,
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Peter's talking to slaves in households about submitting to their masters, not only to the good ones, verse 18, but also to the cruel.
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And he gives a foundation for how and why you should do this in verse 21. 1
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Peter chapter 2 .21 Peter says, for you were called to this. To do what?
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To endure suffering, knowing it brings favour with God, verse 20. You were called to this because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps.
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He did not commit sin and no deceit was found in his mouth. When he was insulted, he did not insult in return.
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When he suffered, he did not threaten, but entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.
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He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that having died to sins, we might live for righteousness.
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See the reality is we all have a role in reminding one another of truths like this.
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I think the church with a big C has a job to do, not trying to seek political power, but trying to remind each other that, we have always been a pilgrim people.
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This world is not our home. We're finally just catching up with what the rest of the church around the world has known for quite some time.
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And we have a role to play in encouraging one another and saying, you know what? Yes, this is what this world does to us, but our response is not to get into the gutter with them.
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Our response is to turn our eyes heavenward and then to look at the world out there and to bless the world out there, even when they persecute us.
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This is the way that the gospel transforms our perspective on suffering.
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And we have a job to play in reminding each other how to respond well, when the inevitable hostility of this world comes knocking at our door.
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Because guess what? If you follow Jesus, it will come. And so we care for one another by sharing life together, by responding well to hostility.
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Thirdly, we care for one another when we sympathize with one another.
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When we sympathize with one another. So come back with me to Romans chapter 12.
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Romans chapter 12 and verse 15. The verse that I'm sure is familiar to many of you, you've more chance than not heard it.
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Verse 15, rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep.
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This is a really simple point. I don't plan to be here long. Part of caring for each other is acknowledging and stepping into the world of others, both in the highs of life and in the lows of life.
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One of my favorite verses when we think about body life is 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 26. 1
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Corinthians 12, 26. Paul says, so if one member suffers, referring to a member of the body, if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.
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If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
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I mean, think about it in your own body. We would know something is very wrong if you had parts of your body that lost feeling when the rest of the body is feeling.
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We would recognize something's not right. I need to go get looked at because why? This happens a lot in my house.
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I work a lot of late nights and so late in the night I walk into my bedroom to go to bed.
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It happens more nights than not. I will stub my toe. It happens in the same place. You think I'd know where the thing is in there.
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But when I stub my toe, it's not just my toe. I have to remember Laura's asleep so I can't yell. But why?
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My mouth won't yell. My brain is saying, wait a minute, you stubbed your toe. This is supposed to hurt. I immediately try and grab my foot to look at the thing.
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I don't have that much balance so I try not to like grab it. But why? One part of the body suffers and the whole body feels it.
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And what's true of our physical bodies is true of the spiritual body of the church. And again, for this to happen, it requires both knowing people, and catch this, here's a responsibility we often don't talk about, desiring to be known.
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It's one of the reasons that, again, as a pastor, people will come to me and they'll say things like, you know, I'm out of church but the church isn't friendly.
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Now, let's be clear, there are some churches that are really unfriendly. Let's not pretend that that doesn't happen. But when people come to me and they say that, my first thought is to ask them, and I usually do, well, are you trying to get to know people in the church?
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And sometimes the answer is yes, and people are just not, at that point
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I'm like, okay, I understand, that's not great, let's think through this here. But sometimes, as happened in my church in London one time, a lady was visiting our church,
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I'd been visiting for a while and then stopped and then came back and, you know, I was like, this church is not friendly.
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I'm like, okay, are you trying to get to know people? No, as soon as the service is done, I go home. Maybe that might could just be a little bit possibly of the problem.
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The reality is if the body is not working to get to know itself and people are not making themselves available to be known, this can't happen.
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The reality is that this kind of what Paul describes here, of rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep, that takes time.
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You've got to build relationships with people. That might start 10 minutes after church on Sunday, but that's not where that ends.
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That might be an entryway, but it takes time, it takes effort, it takes openness, it takes opportunity and that won't happen solely here.
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I love it, it's work, but it's glorious work. Why? Because when those moments come where we need each other,
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I pray that this never happens here. I pray that we're never a church where when people need us, we are spiritually
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AWOL. You know what I mean when I say AWOL? Absent without leave. We don't get leave from being there for one another, but that can't happen if we aren't getting to know one another.
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Like I said, I'm not going to dwell here long because we'll have other times to talk about this in our series. So we need to share life with one another, respond well to hostility, sympathize with one another.
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Verse 16, choose humility over pride. Choose humility over pride.
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So Paul says, verse 16, live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, instead associate with the humble.
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Do not be wise in your own estimation. If you're the Bible marking type, which
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I encourage you to be, you might want to circle or underline or whatever it is you do in your Bible to that phrase, live in harmony. Live in harmony.
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What's interesting there is if you're here in the summer, you might remember this because we talked about this in Philippians 2. If you need a reminder, let me read it to you.
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Philippians chapter 2, verse 2, after Paul says, if there's any encouragement in Christ, consolation of love, fellowship with the
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Spirit, affection and mercy, he says, make my joy complete by thinking the same way. The sentence structure is exactly the same as here in Romans 12.
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Essentially, Paul is saying here, think the same way with one another. And it's interesting, both in Philippians 2 and here in Romans 12, it's in the context of humility.
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Think about it, even God knows you can't get any group larger than one to think exactly the same way when it comes to the content of what we think.
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I mean, what's the saying, if you put 10 people in a room, you get 50 different opinions? Even God knows that, but that's not what the
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Bible is talking about. It's not thinking the same way in terms of you think the same content. It's talking about a mindset.
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And the beautiful thing is that the Spirit can and will, excuse me, work in us to think the same way in terms of mindset.
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What mindset? The kind of mindset that is not proud, but instead associates with the humble.
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The kind of mindset that is not wise in its own estimation. I mean, we've all met people like that, haven't we?
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People who genuinely think they are the smartest person in any given room. I don't know about you, it takes triple, not even double, triple the amount of grace for me personally to deal with people like that.
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There's just something about people who think they are the smartest given person in a room that I find difficult.
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You might be the smartest person in the room, but that means you should be the most humble person in the room. The person who is the smartest person in the room and acts like it,
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I have a problem with sometimes. And Paul says, that mindset, that thinking that you are better than somebody else, that can't work here.
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You see, the mindset we need to have is one that prioritizes humility and the benefit of others over pride and the benefit of self.
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And if you need a model of how this works, look no further than our own God. Think about how he deals with us.
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First Corinthians 1, 26 through 31. Remember what Paul says? Not many of you are wise from a human perspective.
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Not many of you are powerful. Not many of you are of noble birth. What does God choose?
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God chooses what is foolish in the world. He chooses what is weak in the world. He chooses what is insignificant and despised, what is viewed as nothing.
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Our God has, think about it, even when Jesus came, you ever thought about this? When Jesus came,
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Jesus didn't come to Jerusalem and was born in Bethlehem. He wasn't born in Jerusalem in king's palaces.
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He didn't immediately, once he was old enough, book it to Herod's palace and say, hey Herod, let's bring this kingdom thing together.
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Come on, let's get this working. There's no way it does. Jesus comes and he associates with the lowly.
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He associates with those that the world will look at and say, they're nobody. That's nothing.
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I mean that, that's what you want to associate with? That's not particularly spectacular, but that's who our
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God chooses to associate with. And as people who have benefited from that experience of grace, we are called to turn around and do the same with one another.
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So we share life together. We respond well to hostility. We sympathize with one another.
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We choose humility over pride. Bless you guys, you've been wonderful. Oh, I'm actually doing good on time. We might actually get this done early.
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One more thought I leave with you. What does it look like to practice a culture of care?
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Ultimately, it looks like remembering the mission field. It looks like remembering the mission field verses 17 to 21.
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I'm going to treat this as a unit, so I'm just going to read it and then come back and look at it a bit more closely. So verse 17, do not repay anyone evil for evil.
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Give careful thought to do what is honorable in everyone's eyes. If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
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Friends, do not avenge yourselves. Instead, leave room for God's wrath because it is written, vengeance belongs to me.
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I will repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him.
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If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For in so doing, you will be heaping fiery coals on his head.
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Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good. A few observations and we'll be done.
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First thing I want you to notice, and by the way, those of you who were at the Cornerstone Lectures yesterday, remember those three categories that Dr.
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Glad talked about when it comes to the New Testament use of the Old? Quotation, allusion, and parallels. For those of you who missed one of the best
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Bible studies ever. Three categories of how the New Testament uses the Old Testament. Sometimes it will directly quote, other times it will allude to the
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Old Testament, and sometimes it will establish a parallel. As I studied this passage, it became apparent that, whoa, there are a bunch of quotations and allusions here.
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So I put a table together as in your study guide. If you don't have a study guide in front of you, I put them up on screen.
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So in verse 17, where Paul says, do not repay anyone evil for evil, that's an allusion to both
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Proverbs 20 .22 and 24 .29. In verse 19, when
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Paul says, do not avenge yourselves, instead leave room for God's wrath, because it is written, vengeance belongs to me,
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I will repay. You've got an allusion and a quotation. So the allusion comes from Leviticus 19 .18,
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where you are not to take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community.
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And then the quotation is Deuteronomy 32 .35. By the way, anyone know where this verse comes up again in church history?
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Deuteronomy 32 .35? It was a text for sinners in the hands of an angry
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God by Jonathan Edwards. This was his text. Vengeance and retribution,
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Deuteronomy 32 says, belongs to me. And then in verse 20, he directly quotes
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Proverbs 25 versus 21 and 22. The question becomes, okay,
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Paul, what are you getting at here? Because again, he's talking about a culture of mutual care, culture of mutual service.
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So why is he mentioning all of this? You may think, okay,
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Kofi, you've had your Bible nerd moment, that's wonderful. What's the point of this? Well, I see your question and I'll raise you a question.
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What does the world tell you to do? I asked this question before, but let me ask it again. What does the world tell you to do when you are wronged?
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When someone or something wrongs you, what does the world around us tell you to do? Growing up in England, I had to read
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Shakespeare because that's what you do at school. I believe it was the Merchant of Venice where the famous phrase,
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I want my pound of flesh comes from, where he literally wants to kill the guy and he wants a pound of his flesh as like a trophy of killing this guy.
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What are we taught to do when someone wrongs us? In a word, we want justice.
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Now, is that a bad thing? No. We read it even in the Psalms. God is the
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God of justice. That's not a problem. Justice is a good thing and it should be pursued.
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But the Bible seems to indicate to us that there are times where we might want to slow our roll on that justice talk for just a moment.
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Because when just, when a legitimate desire for justice crosses the line into wanting vengeance, the
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Bible says we have to say no to that. You see, earthly wisdom sometimes conflates justice and vengeance as being kind of the same thing.
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That's what earthly wisdom says. But there is another wisdom we could listen to. A wisdom that says
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I could take vengeance, but vengeance is not mine to take.
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There's another wisdom that says I have to trust God to handle this in his own time and in the best possible way.
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There's a wisdom that reflects what the martyrs say in Revelation chapter 6. John sees in the vision these martyrs who are under the throne and they're like,
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Lord, how long? And the answer is basically not yet.
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Why would we choose that? Why would we not seek vengeance?
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But in fact, did you catch this from what Paul says? He says don't seek vengeance, but in fact, quoting
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Proverbs 25, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
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Why would you choose that? That is completely backwards to everything we are taught.
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Why would you deliberately choose to do that? Because that's the mission field.
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The people who persecute us are the very people we are called to reach. And at times we can be prone to forget that.
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We can start to think that the people around us are the enemies to be conquered, not souls who need to be one to Christ.
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But before you jump on that bandwagon, can I remind you of a couple of realities real quick? First of all, my
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Bible says, Paul says, 2 Corinthians 10, that though we live in the flesh, we don't wage war according to the flesh, since the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh.
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So actually, the enemy is not the people around us. Yes, they may do things that we definitely oppose, and as Christians, we should speak out against.
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I'm not saying don't do that. Please do not hear me say that. Remember, your enemy is not physical.
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If that's true, then since our enemy isn't physical, secondly, the methods that we use shouldn't make sense from a physical perspective.
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It doesn't make sense that the person who might kill me, because that was the reality for these folks in the first century, the person who might kill me,
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I'm going to feed, knowing that he might use the energy he gets from that to kill me.
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There was a famous civil war that took place in Nigeria in the late 60s. It was also known as, it's called
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Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War. During that war, the Minister of Finance for Nigeria at the time,
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Obafemi Olo, famously said that starvation is a weapon of war. Why should I feed my enemy for him to grow fat and kill me?
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What an example of worldly wisdom. But that's not how we operate. And again, remember,
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Paul is writing this to a church. Why? Because we, once again, have to remind each other of this.
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You see, a culture of care is not just, you know, giving people a hug, rubbing them on the back, telling them everything's going to be okay.
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Sometimes, like Leviticus 19, which is interesting, that's the allusion, care looks like reminding your neighbor of the truth.
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Might not be comfortable, it might not be what they want to hear, they might not be happy with you, but it's reminding your neighbor, come back to the specific point he's making here, reminding your neighbor that we need to have the heart of Christ towards the world.
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It's remembering that the savior of the nations was willing to feed people. John 6, you remember this?
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He fed all these people and the vast majority of them walked away. It's keeping in mind that he did a lot more than just offer a drink.
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Bible says he offered up his own life for his enemies. In reality, what we're talking about here, when we think about a culture of care, a culture of care begins with keeping our eyes, ultimately, on the great shepherd of the sheep who cares for his own with everlasting love, and as we do that, we are able to look at the world out there, to remember that the world out there is the mission field.
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The world out there is not, yes, people will do things that are evil, and yes, we should seek to see people rightly punished by the relevant authority.
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I'm not saying that we turn a blind eye to evil in the world, far from it, but remember this, that the reason that we are here as the church of Jesus Christ is to be missionaries to the world out there, and ultimately, that's not going to happen unless we have a culture of care that includes not just caring for each other internally, but reminding each other of our responsibility out there.
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Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we are reminded as we come to your word of the reality of our need for mutual care of one another, our need for concern for one another.
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Father, we're reminded that we are a community of your people who function in a very different way to the world around us.
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Father, help us that we would indeed be that community that cares for one another, both in knowing one another and seeking to be known, and in reminding each other of the truths of your word, the truths that gird us and ground us, even when we don't want to be reminded of them.
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Father, help us to remember that the world out there is our mission field, and for every one of us whom you have brought to know you, your desire is for us to turn around and to share the good news of salvation found in a man named
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Jesus with all you give us opportunity to interact with. May we be faithful in that.
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And Father, as we think about life in the Father's house, may we be conscious of seeking to see others come and find life in the