WWUTT 227 Not to Please Ourselves?

There are going to be different levels of maturity among the members of the body of Christ, and those who are more mature should set aside their own needs and their own interests, what they think the church should do for them, for the purpose of building up the other members.

Of the church, when we understand the text. Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When We Understand the Text is an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty.

Visit our website at www .utt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Thank you, Becky, and greetings, everybody. Thank you so much for letting me have the week off. In case you hadn't heard, a member of our congregation had passed away on Sunday of last week. I found out about it on Monday morning, so I had already recorded the devotional, and you would have heard that on Monday.

I decided I needed to take the rest of the week to focus on the congregation and get things ready for the funeral, which was just yesterday, and you can hear the funeral service on our website. If you go to firstsouthernbaptistchurch .org, the funeral is there, and then also the guest speaker that we had at church on Sunday, his sermon is on there as well.

Margaret Rainwater was a very influential woman in our congregation. She had been there since 1976, was baptized in our church in 78. She had a wonderful testimony, loved the Lord, shared the gospel, had even endured some false teaching during her Christian life.

Her first husband had fallen in with a cult church that still exists in our community, and they convinced him to leave his wife. But she remained steadfast in the Lord, faithful to her church for all of those years, and really was one of the pillars of our church.

It was very heartbreaking to lose her, but at the same time, we rejoiced knowing that cancer was no longer destroying her body, but that her spirit is forever now with the Lord. So again, you can hear that funeral service at our website, firstsouthernbaptistchurch .org, the sermon that I delivered at the funeral just yesterday.

Romans 15 and the Call to Bear With the Weak

Well, we're going to pick up where we left off. I can't even remember really what I said last week. I know we're in Romans 15, and we pretty much just covered verse one, so we'll move on from there. Let's look at this again, and this will be the focus of our devotional today, tomorrow, and Thursday.

Romans chapter 15, verses one through seven. 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. Going back again to verse one, we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.

And again, as we look at these two words, strong and weak, these are not being said to build up those who are mature in the faith and tear down those who are not as mature. Well, you're weak. Okay, these words are being spoken with much grace.

Those who are strong need to be humble, because we've read previously in chapter 12, verse three, by the grace given to me, I say to everyone not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

So if a person has any strength in their spiritual maturity, it is not boasting in themselves, but boasting in the Lord who has saved and keeps us saved and grows us in that process of sanctification as well.

So that word strong is to give glory to God and no other. We who are strong in the faith have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, those who have not been Christians for as long, or perhaps the Lord has not blessed them with a mind that is a quicker wit that they might learn information and store it and grow according to those things at a fast pace.

Some people just retain knowledge better than others and will grow according to that knowledge, but it doesn't make that person any less a member of the body of Christ. As we've read previously, when we were looking in first Corinthians chapter 12, is that even one of the lesser members of the body of Christ, what we would consider to be a lesser member, according to what we view in the flesh, they are the greatest in the kingdom of God.

And so let us work and labor for those who are weak in the faith for their benefit, not because we're great, but because God is great. We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak.

And again, not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up. And always come back to Philippians chapter two verses three and four, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. And remember that as we do these things, as we're looking toward the interests of others in the body of Christ, we are doing this for the benefit of the body.

The entire body grows together when it is knit together in love. We read this in Ephesians chapter four verses 11 through 16, that God gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

So when we are considering others' needs ahead of our own, when we who are strong bear with the failings of the weak, not to please ourselves, but we please our neighbor for his good, to build him up, when we do those things, we are building up the body of Christ.

The church is growing all the more. And as we talk about the church being a family, you look at the way that this dynamic works in a family, your family at home. If you as a husband decided to pursue your own hobbies and your own interests all the time, would your family grow?

Would your wife grow? Would she be receiving the encouragement and the nourishment spiritually that she should be receiving from her husband? Are your children growing? Are they receiving quality time from daddy?

Or are they perceiving from their father that all our pursuits are really selfish and you should just go on and do your thing? And though they want your attention now, a day will come when eventually they want to pursue their own thing just as they watch their father do.

Or should a father put his particular interests and hobbies aside most of the time so that he can show attention to his wife, pray with her, read the Bible with her, so he can show attention to his children, playing with them and also teaching them how to pray and read their Bibles.

As a father, a husband neglects his responsibilities to his family, so his entire family suffers. And so this is the same in the way that we engage in the body of Christ. When we pursue our own interests, when the church exists for us to do something special for me or even fulfill some sort of religious obligation that I think that I am bound to, then we are not benefiting the church.

We are only existing in the church to benefit ourselves. We are not building one another up. We're just building ourselves up. And so the body, the body of Christ is not growing up in love because we are not considering others' needs ahead of our own.

We are not holding fast to the head who is Christ from whom the whole body is knit together and builds itself up in love. We're holding fast to ourselves. We're doing what is benefiting us instead of out of service to Christ.

So if everybody is bound to Christ Jesus from whom the whole body is knit together, then it builds itself up in love. But when a person is just pursuing their own interests and is not holding fast to the head, then there is no benefit to the church body as we are supposed to be.

So we are to consider one another in the body of Christ ahead of our own needs and ahead of our own interests, not pursuing our own goals, but rather the purpose of growing the body of Christ. You also had the illustration there in Ephesians chapter four of of growing beyond being children so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine.

So, again, this comes back to the family analogy of how children are growing in their understanding because they are being taught by their parents. And so we who are strong in the faith, who have that parental responsibility within the body of Christ, need to teach those who are the children, who are the least mature in the body so that they might be kept and protected from being pulled away by every wind of doctrine and and human cunning and craftiness from deceitful schemes.

We are a benefit of the body of Christ when we are teaching and growing the body in this way, protecting it from false teaching. The reason why churches fall into false teaching is because there weren't people in the body to protect them from that false teaching.

So we must put others needs ahead of our own for that very purpose, to grow them in love. Verse three, for Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.

And we've also read in Philippians chapter two, where I was a moment ago, the hymn of Christ, where it says that Jesus did all things for the glory of God, the father, as it says in Philippians to 11, leaving his throne in heaven, taking on the form of a servant, being obedient to death, even death on a cross.

And in these things, he did it not to please himself, but to the glory of God, the father. So just as Jesus put his needs aside for our benefit, so we must do the same for one another. We must follow the example of Christ Jesus when it comes to considering others needs ahead of our own.

Verse four, 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. And coming back again to that passage that we just read in Ephesians chapter four, verse 11, where it says he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers, particularly the apostles and the prophets.

How did God give those? And how do we rely on their wisdom today by what is written down in the scriptures? It was given for our instruction. And to this day, we still submit to the authority of the apostles and the prophets to whom God gave his word that we might hear it and grow according to it, to the glory of God.

So let us understand these things and continue to benefit the body of Christ, putting the needs of the people with whom we fellowship ahead of our own, building up in love. Our great God, as we kind of wrap up this lesson today and we consider the things that have been spoken to us by the apostle Paul, I pray that we would be submissive to the authority of the apostle, submissive to the authority of the word of God, that we act not to please ourselves.

We exist in the body of Christ, not for our benefit, but for the benefit of our neighbor, our brothers and sisters with whom we fellowship, just as Christ laid down his life for us to the glory of God, the father.

So let us lay aside our own individual selfish pursuits for others, for the betterment of others, that we might protect the body of Christ from false teaching, continuing to guide one another according to the soundness of the instructions that have been written down in your word, according to sound doctrine from which flows the gospel of Jesus Christ that is nourishing the entire body and building us up in hope for the future, that we are looking forward to your eternal kingdom that is soon to come.

And we pray and ask these things.

In Jesus name. Amen. Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find out more online at www .utt .com.