WWUTT 1347 Weep With Those Who Weep (Romans 12:15-16)

Romans 12 15 says rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

Most often it's that second half of the verse that gets all the attention. But the point is that we as a church need to have the mind of Christ when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you Becky. We come back to our study of Romans 12 and I'm going to begin today reading verses 14 through 21 as I did yesterday.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome, bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them.

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep, live in harmony with one another.

Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

Beloved never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, vengeance is mine,

I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.

If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

We're up to verse 15 today, and this is a verse commonly quoted among believers when it comes to encouraging one another towards sympathy.

Look again at verse 15, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

Surely you've heard that quoted to you before, or maybe you've even said it to somebody else.

But there's only part of this verse that gets the emphasis. The other part we don't hear as often.

We don't hear rejoice with those who rejoice, right? More often than not, we hear weep with those who weep.

And it's almost as if, if there's anybody in the church who's sad, you need to be sad too.

Like the church just needs to be in this constant state of weeping. Don't start getting happy with one another if somebody's sad, you need to weep with those who weep.

What about the part of the verse that says rejoice with those who rejoice? Rejoice. We don't put as much emphasis on that one.

It's always whenever there's somebody who's feeling some anxiety, or there's some kind of a sadness, or maybe they're fearful somehow, never correct them.

Never try to be too up or too happy. You need to be sorrowful with them.

You know, sometimes people are sad over ridiculous things and they need to be told to get over it. I'm not saying that that needs to be our response every time somebody is sad.

I'm just saying not every case of sadness is automatically deserving of our sympathy.

There is clearly a context here, and it's not just some standalone comment that exists by itself.

People hang this one around, kind of like that sign that you used to hang in your kitchen that said, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

This is almost the equivalent of that. We'll hang this in church as if, hey, if anybody's weeping, you got to weep too.

If somebody ain't happy, nobody in the church can be happy. But let's consider the context.

Look again at the verse that we were reading yesterday, verse 14, bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them.

In light of that, we have verse 15, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep, but we got to keep going.

Verse 16, live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.

Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

And then where we go from there, the rest of that is about not avenging yourself.

There are people who are going to do wrong toward you. As Christians, we need to expect that because Jesus said, remember, when they hate you, they hated me first.

And John would say also that if we were of the world, they would love us. But because we're not of this world, because we are kingdom people of God and our destiny is stored up in heaven above where he is, then people who are of this world who are going to their destruction are not going to receive us because we are strangers to them.

And so we know that from scripture. We know that from our master whom we follow.

Our master was crucified. So surely the world that put our master to death, our savior,

Jesus, surely they would do the same to us as well. We need to come to expect that. And so that permeates this whole final section of Romans 12, verses 14 through 21, that there are going to be people who are going to hate us.

And here is how you as Christians are supposed to behave and act and live in their presence.

And so when we have verse 15, that follows verse 14, bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them.

Verse 15 is rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Here's how we need to understand that in this context.

There are going to be people in our church who are going to feel that pressure from the world more than others, especially those who are more evangelistic.

They go out with the gospel. They share the gospel. The pastor is another one, since he's kind of the face of the church.

More people see the pastor than anybody else in the church. And so there are going to be people who will attack the pastor more than they attack anyone else.

I have seen many, many pastors stand as strong shepherds defending their church.

A lot of times their own flock is not even aware of some of the things the pastor is doing to protect this congregation that he has been entrusted with shepherding.

And so he's going to take a lot, a lot of stuff from a lot more people than the rest of the church might take.

At the same time, there are people in the church that are living in the world, maybe more so than the pastor is, because the pastor has a full -time ministry position, and everybody in his church is likely working secular jobs.

And so they're now taking their faith into a secular workforce, and they're probably going to face more ridicule than maybe the pastor will get when he's working in a

Christian environment all the time. So you can have it that way on both ends, the pastor taking more than most, and then sometimes the people in the church are experiencing the heat of the world more so than the people who are serving in ministry in the church.

And then you also have missionaries who are leaving house and home, and they are going overseas and serving in a different part of the world, and they're going to face a certain kind of persecution where they are as well.

So in light of that, bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them. We then have verse 15, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

Here's how we understand that in this context. There are going to be times when the world is weighing down on members of our church more so than it's affecting other people.

The world is beating up on people in your church all week long, and then they come to church on Sunday, and church should be a haven for them.

It should be like an oasis. I've been walking through the desert all week long. I come to church to get refreshed and filled.

And when you hear the stories about the things that people have been through throughout their week, maybe it's not persecution because of the gospel or the godliness that they're pursuing or something like that.

It could just be the life that they're going through, but they're getting beat up by the world all week long.

They want to be able to come to church and be refreshed. And in those moments when you're sharing about the life that you've been experiencing, those who are going through deeper struggles, weep with them.

But don't neglect also those who have great stories about,

I've shared the gospel, and these persons have come to faith. Or you might even bring in these new converts, those who were part of the world.

Now they're convicted in their sin. They've heard the gospel. They believe in Jesus, and they're coming to church to learn. We're rejoicing together.

Rejoice with those who rejoice. Rejoice with those who are sharing their victories in Christ.

Amen. Praise God. Encourage those folks. But then those who are struggling and those who are dealing with weightier matters, those who have faced persecution this week, those who are getting beat up by the world or members of their own family are ostracizing them or whatever it might be.

Weep with them. Be in sorrow with them. Rejoice. Weep.

This is how we as a church share a like -mindedness with one another. Remember that we are to be of one mind, in one accord with each other.

We have the mind of Christ. Paul saying to the Philippians in Philippians 2 .5, let this mind be in you, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

We are of one mind with one another. Consider where we go from there. So we say in verse 15, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

Still keeping a context here, we have verse 16, live in harmony with one another.

Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.

These two verses, 15 and 16, are sandwiched right in between Paul talking about the fact that we're going to have enemies in this world.

As followers of Jesus Christ, the world is going to hate us. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them.

And then he comes back to that in verse 17, repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Those are verses we're going to get to tomorrow.

But right in between that, talking about persecution and doing what is honorable in the sight of all, even among those who may hate you, we have the instruction to rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

Let the church be that place that we're coming together as the body of Christ, and we're sharing our sorrows and our praises with one another.

Live in harmony with one another. You cannot live in harmony with the world.

Boy, I wish more Christians would get this right now, because I'm seeing just so many churches out there and so many evangelical leaders that are trying to appease the world.

You can't. You can never appease the world. You might find some sort of philosophical idea or something that you can latch on to that's going to make the world go, hey, there you go.

Now you're a cool Christian because you're thinking just like us, but you give it enough time, they're going to eat you up.

Then you're going to turn out to be an abuser of the brethren because you have been eating and drinking with drunkards trying to appease the world and beating up on your fellow

Christians with whom you're supposed to be rejoicing and weeping. Instead, you're trying to appease worldly people.

You cannot live in harmony with the world. So this instruction here, live in harmony with one another, this is most definitely talking about the church.

You're going to get beat up enough by people in the world. You in the church, brothers and sisters in the

Lord need to be in harmony with each other. Consider what James says in James 4 .4,

you adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world, friendship with the world is enmity with God.

Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

So you cannot live in harmony with the world. We're not meant to live in harmony with the world.

We're meant to live in harmony with one another. Consider this instruction that Paul gives to the church in Colossae in Colossians chapter three, verse 14, above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

That's something we as a church do all together. And it further elaborates on this perfect harmony that we're supposed to have with one another, even quite literally to a certain extent, because we're singing together and harmonizing with one another.

Verse 17, still in Colossians three and whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the

Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the father through him. You know, it would have been better for me to just go back to verse 12, read this, this whole thing is as one paragraph.

So let me do that. Colossians three, verse 12, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.

Verse 13, bearing with one another and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the

Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. If you have a complaint against another person, notice here that Paul doesn't say, if you have a complaint, complain.

No, that's not what he says. If you have a complaint, forgive. Don't even express the complaint if it's not necessary.

If it's not the sort of a thing where you're trying to confront a brother or a sister in sin and bring them back to righteousness, you know, like following a

Matthew 18 pattern of church discipline. If your brother wrongs you, go to your brother, talk to him just between the two of you alone.

If he repents, then you have won your brother. That's what Jesus says in Matthew 18, 15.

So it starts between the two of you. If you're not confronting a person in something like that, they have sinned, you're confronting them in their sin.

If it's a complaint that you have against this other person because they just did something you don't like, whatever it is, if it doesn't need a confrontation, then forgive, have an attitude of forgiveness in your heart as the

Lord has forgiven you. So you must also be forgiving. Praise God that he is not counting our wrongs against us.

The heavenly registry keeping track of all of our wrongs, our wrongs have been blotted out.

As Paul said earlier in Colossians, God has taken the record of debt that was held against us by its legal demands, and he nailed it to the cross.

So by the blood of Christ shed for us, he has paid the price for all of the sins that we've committed against God.

God has done that for us. And our sins have been blotted out, thrown as far as the east is from the west, and he remembers them no more, as it says in Psalm 103.

And so if God has done that for us, we need to be that way with each other. We're not keeping track of one another's wrongs.

As it says in 1 Corinthians 13, love keeps no record of wrongs. So we're not supposed to be that way with one another, being one another's registry, keeping track of each other's wrongs.

We are to be forgiving of one another, living in harmony with one another. That's in the church.

So again, you can't do that with the world because there is no harmony with the world.

Friendship with the world is enmity with God. Harmony exists in the body of Christ. And you need to look for ways that we can be in harmony with one another.

The world is going to contend with you. You don't have to go and try to find ways to contend with the world.

The world is already in contention with you because it hates God. It does not want to have anything to do with God's godliness and God's righteousness and those things which

God calls good. That's what the world calls evil.

Those things that God has called good, the world is going to speak of as evil. Those things that God has called evil, the world is going to speak of as good.

So there cannot be any harmony with the world. Harmony is within the church.

We who have been redeemed, we've been called out from the world, called out of darkness into his marvelous light.

As it says in 1 Peter 1, once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. That's in 1 Peter 2.

So we live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.

Don't think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. Just like Paul said to the Philippians in Philippians 2, don't be haughty.

Associate with the lowly. Associate with those who could not give you anything in return for your kindness and friendship toward them.

Don't just be nice to the people who can pay you back with kindness or make you look better because of the kindness that you showed to them.

Associate with those people you would get no recognition for associating with. Don't think of yourself too highly that you would not associate with them.

Associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. So never think like you know it all.

Never think like everybody needs to come to you for the answers. You've got people in the church you need to learn from.

And so humble yourself. We're all sanctifying each other. If you think that you're the guy who's got the sanctification and everybody needs to get sanctification from you, that's pride.

And you're bringing division into the church that way when you try to exalt yourself above everyone else.

The first will be last and the last will be first, as Jesus said. Those who try to exalt themselves at the highest seats at the table, they are in for a quieted awakening on the day of judgment.

So do not be wise in your own sight. Consider that you've got more things you've got to learn and you've got more sanctification to go, more holiness that you need to grow in.

And even the lowliest in your church is going to help you get there, is going to help to grow you in Christ likeness and righteousness as we all hold fast to the head of the body who is

Christ Jesus. So rejoice with those who rejoice, even the lowly.

Rejoice with that guy or rejoice with that gal. And if there's somebody in your church bringing some sort of a heartache, doesn't matter how lowly they are, or maybe they're even somebody in your church that is of a high status or high standing, weep with them, sit down and pray with them, listen to them, encourage them, rejoice together in the scriptures and the promises that we have in the

Bible that we are awaiting the return of our savior. So we may join with him in his forever kingdom, where there will no longer be all of this mourning and dying and pain and evil and and tears.

He will dry every tear from our eyes for all those things will be done away with.

The former things will have passed away. Behold, he is making all things new. Every single one of us in the church are all going through something.

The world is coming at us in different ways, every person in a different way. As a pastor, every single person that I have shepherded, to the best of my knowledge, every person that I have shepherded has shared with me to some degree somebody in their life who hates them because of what they believe more often than not.

It's a member of their own family, which is why I'm saying just about everybody that I've shepherded has shared this to a certain degree, somebody in their life hates them because they are a

Christian. That's a tough thing to have to deal with when it's somebody you love, a member of your family who is choosing the world instead of God.

And, you know, if they continue in that path, they're going to go to their own destruction. That's a difficult thing to deal with sometimes.

And it's in those moments we need to weep with one another and encourage one another.

But then when we have those stories that we bring in of of conversion or somebody coming out of a sinful lifestyle, hearing the gospel, repenting, coming to know

Christ as Savior, rejoice in those moments to rejoice, weep, associate with the lowly, live in harmony with one another, never be wise in your own sight, have the mind of Christ.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the mercies that you show us daily.

And may we likewise be merciful with one another. You have been so good to us.

May we echo that kindness to each other in the body of Christ, rejoicing with those who are rejoicing in God for the goodness that you've shown to them, weeping with those who are going through some difficult circumstances that we may encourage one another and continue to keep our eyes lifted and looking toward Christ.

May we have a harmony with each other that the world would even envy, seeing the kindness and the love that exists within the body of Christ.

Help us to not be too proud to think too highly of ourselves. But even those who are who are the most lowly within our churches and our congregations, we would be willing to associate with.

We are proud to call a brother or a sister in the Lord. Help us to never think of ourselves as being too wise.

But we all have things that we need to learn about you and your goodness, your grace, the doctrines that pour forth endlessly from your word.

And may we help one another in this walk of faith as we grow in sanctification, reaching to Christ until that day we reach his kingdom.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers, and offering commentary on the church and social issues.

You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com. Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's word when we understand the text.