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2 Timothy 3 .12 says that those who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Not you might be persecuted, we will be persecuted. But we worship a God who encourages us and helps us endure through that persecution.
When we understand the text...
This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will. Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. Posted a brand new blog yesterday at pastorgabehughes .blogspot .com. It's about Christian radio. Trevin Wax of the Gospel Coalition wrote an article a couple of weeks ago after listening to two hours of K-Love and offered a critique.
Well, at the end of that article, he asked six questions and those questions have answers. I spent more than 20 years in radio and so I offer answers to Wax's questions and that makes up the blog. An inside look at Christian radio and even answering the question as to why it's so bad.
Why most of it's so bad anyway. So again, pastorgabehughes .blogspot .com. We're in Romans chapter 15 again today, looking at verses 1 through 7. Let's begin in verse 1. We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.
Let each of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.
May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Let's come back to about verse 3 here where it says,. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.
Looking at the first portion of the verse here, For Christ did not please himself. And we read in Philippians 2 verses 6 through 11, the hymn of Christ. Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.
So that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So though Christ was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.
He emptied himself and became a servant, did all of these things to the glory of God the Father. So as we come back to chapter 15 verse 3 here of Romans, For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.
Christ did these things for our benefit to the glory of God. And when we are maligned for our faith, when we are ridiculed, and even when we are persecuted, these things happen not because a person hates us, but because they hate God.
This quote here in verse 3 comes from Psalm 69, and I'm going to go ahead and start at the beginning of the Psalm here, where David writes, Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire where there is no foothold.
I have come into deep waters and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying out. My throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause.
Mighty are those who would destroy me, those who attack me with lies. What I did not steal must I now restore. O God, you know my folly. The wrongs I have done are not hidden from you. Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, O Lord God of hosts.
Let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel. For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach. That dishonor has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother's sons.
For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach. When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them.
I am the talk of those who sit in the gate, and the drunkards make songs about me. But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me in your saving faithfulness.
Deliver me from sinking in the mire. Let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters. Let not the flood sweep over me or the deep swallow me up or the pit close its mouth over me. Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good.
According to your abundant mercy, turn to me. Hide not your face from your servant, for I am in distress. Make haste to answer me. Draw near to my soul. Redeem me. Ransom me because of my enemies. So the point that David is making here is that I am hated because they hate you.
So God, in your faithfulness, rescue me from my enemies. It's in verse nine in particular where we read, For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.
Our zealousness for God, for his word, for godliness, for being more like Christ is what will make people hate what it is that we stand for and the faith that we have. The reproaches of those who reproach you fell on me.
And so we know that because Christ did these things not to please himself, that he entered into suffering for our sake. So we suffer for the cause of Christ. We are counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ.
And we know that we have an advocate who associates with us in our weakness. In fact, Jesus goes as far as saying, Whatever you have done to the least of these brothers of mine, you have done it also to me.
As we read in Matthew 25, where he says to those who did not care for the brotherhood of Christ, what you have not done for the least of these, you have not done it to me. In Acts chapter nine, when Jesus appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus, Saul who would become the apostle Paul, he said to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
And Saul responded to him, Who are you, Lord? And Jesus replied, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. Now Saul wasn't directly persecuting Christ. Jesus had already risen from the grave and ascended into heaven.
But Saul was putting those who worshiped Christ in chains, throwing him in prison and even putting them to death as was the case with Stephen who became the first martyr. But Jesus associated himself with those that he called his own brothers and sisters to the point that when they are persecuted, it is the same as if Christ himself is being persecuted.
So when we are suffering for the name of Christ, even when we are ridiculed for the name of Christ, understand that we are sharing in something that Christ went through and the reproaches of those who reproached him has fallen upon us as well.
We should not be surprised by these things, but rather rejoice that we would be counted worthy for suffering for the name, to suffer for the name. So in verse four, then as we go on here in Romans 15, for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction.
We've already talked about that as we've looked at various scriptures and how this pertains to the followers of Christ that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope no matter what befalls us, no matter what suffering we go through, whether this is ridiculed for the name of Christ or we just suffer the general things of this world, the struggles that a person goes through because they are in this flesh and live in this world.
We are suffering just as Christ himself suffered and he has sanctified suffering. So it is producing something in us great when we are sharing in something that Christ went through, when we are tempted and we resist that temptation, we know and realize that Christ himself was tempted and resisted temptation.
So we share in suffering that Christ himself went through and is able to relate to us or to sympathize with us as is talked about in the book of Hebrews, because he himself was tempted. Though was without sin.
So when we struggle with temptation, when we are still battling with these desires of the flesh and we surrender those things to Christ, we're sharing in something that Christ himself went through and what was written in the scriptures for us is for our instruction so that we might know what is evil and what is pleasing to God and doing what is pleasing to the Lord.
That through endurance and through encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. The apostle Peter wrote that we did not follow cleverly invented stories, but we were eyewitnesses to his majesty.
What we are reading in the scriptures comes from those who actually witnessed Christ's life and ministry, his suffering, his death, his resurrection from the grave and his ascension into heaven. In the case of the apostle Paul, Peter also writes of Paul, this is in second Peter chapter three, where he says that Paul's writings are so heavy that the unstable and ignorant will distort the scriptures to their own destruction.
So therefore we must be sound in our judgments of what the scriptures are saying and how is it that we understand what the scriptures say, but we read these things in context, we attend church, so we hear what the teaching is that comes from the pulpit and also how we might encourage one another in the faith through our different levels of maturity and experience in the faith.
This is what we talked about when we opened up chapter 15, when we read, we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak. So seek out those in your church who are strong in the faith, who might be able to guide you and teach you so that you don't fall into the error of the unstable and the ignorant who twist the scriptures to their own destruction.
Let us not manipulate the scriptures to a degree that benefits us or fits our biases, but rather we desire to know what the Holy Spirit truly means to communicate through His word. These things have been written down for us in former days for our instruction so that we might have hope, the hope of the promise that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Paul says in verse five, may the God of endurance and encouragement, okay, these scriptures written for our endurance and through encouragement and God is the God of endurance and encouragement. This is God's word.
He is the one, this is the very God who gives us the ability to endure by His spirit that is living within us. And in that we are encouraged. He is the God of endurance and encouragement and grants us to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus to whom we are all held fast and knit together, growing in love as we talked about yesterday when we were looking at Ephesians chapter four.
So we'll come back to this verse again tomorrow starting in verse five and we'll finish up this section verses five, six, and seven as we bring this study in Romans 15 verses one through seven to a wrap up on Thursday.
Our great God, we thank you so much for these scriptures that have been given to us for our instruction that we might be encouraged, that we might endure, that we might have hope. Lord, whenever we are falsely accused of things in this world because of the faith in Christ that we have, may those accusations not cause our brothers and sisters to stumble, but rather they too would be encouraged and would endure through hardships because the reproaches of those who reproached Christ has fallen on us as well.
But we know that Jesus is sympathetic toward us and the things that we suffer for His name and also the temptations that we might be faced with but resist because we have stored up in our hearts the word of God that teaches us and guides us.
So help us to learn by these things and keep us steadfast in the faith for you are the God of endurance and encouragement. In Christ Jesus our Lord in whose name we pray, amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.
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