Bearing Others’ Burdens (Romans 14:19–15:13) — A Sermon by R.C. Sproul

0:00 We're going to continue this evening with our study of Paul's letter to the Romans, and I hope by the grace and the assistance of God to finish this section of concern, of love for the weaker brethren that we have been looking at for the last couple of weeks. And tonight I'm going to read again what I was not able to cover last week in chapter 14 beginning at verse 19, and I'm going to read all the way through chapter 15 verse 13 as if that would be some indication of where we'll be at the end of the evening. And I will ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God. Again, before you hear this, let me just remind you of something we always need to be aware of.

0:53 It really doesn't matter who's preaching as long as the Word of God is heard. And to listen to the reading of the Word of God in many respects should be enough for the soul. It's such a privilege for us to hear what God says. Hear then what He says. Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace, and the things by which one may edify another. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for the man who eats with offense. It is good neither to eat meat, nor drink wine, nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak. Do you have faith?

1:49 Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith. For whatever is not from faith is sin. We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification. For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we, through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope.

2:46 And now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us to the glory of God. Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy as it is written, For this reason I will confess to you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name. And again he says, rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people. And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles. Laud him, all you people. And again Isaiah said, there shall be a root of Jesse, and he who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, in him the Gentiles shall hope.

3:53 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. You've just heard the very Word of God. Please be seated. Let's pray. Again, our Father, we look to You for assistance in helping us to understand Your Word, helping us to receive that Word, and to receive it gladly, not grudgingly, that our lives may be brought more and more into conformity with the image of Jesus, whom we serve. For we ask it in His name.

4:47 Amen. As I mentioned earlier, Paul's treatment of this question of how we regard the weaker brother in things that are audiophorous, that is, of things that don't have any intrinsic or inherent ethical bearing, but which some people may or may not have scruples about was a matter so serious to the apostle that he dealt with it at great length here in Romans and also in his correspondence to the Corinthian church. Also it was part of the substance of his writing to the Galatians, and it was also very much at the center of the debate in the first century church of how the Jewish converts were to receive and deal with the Gentiles as the gospel was expanded to them, and they were given full membership in the New Covenant community. So this was a matter of great urgency to the apostle, And as we've seen already in chapter 14, that Paul reiterates the same point again and again, that you may find tiresome, but that he stresses so that we will indeed get the point that he is communicating. And so, let's again look at verse 19 that I went over briefly last week.

6:16 Therefore, let us pursue the things which make for peace, and the things by which one may edify another. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. First of all, there is a conclusion here that comes from his previous reasoning, and it is a call to action. It is a call to pursuit. pursuit. When we pursue something, it is something that we chase or at which we seek, not casually, but with a degree of earnestness. I remember when I was a little boy, maybe three years old, The most exciting toy I received for Christmas during World War II was this metal plane that you could sit in and pedal around the streets.

7:22 And it was called a pursuit plane. That was the first time I ever heard the word pursuit. But I understood from looking later at movies that pursuit planes had a mission to pursue, to search out and to destroy the enemy. And so that's the action that Paul is calling us to, to chase after this, to seek it diligently. And what is it that he's calling us to pursue? Let us pursue the things that make for peace." What's the opposite of peace? It's war. It's conflict. And the people of God are not to be people who are chasing after fights, that are constantly looking for conflict.

8:22 Rather, we are to be those who search for those things that make for peace. And as I mentioned before, not that carnal peace, the false peace, the Neville Chamberlain kind of peace, but the peace that passes understanding, the peace that Jesus Himself left as His legacy. You remember He said as His last will of testament, peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives, give I unto you. And it is not without reason that our Lord has been called the Prince of Peace. In fact, His ultimate mission, dear ones, was to bring for us peace with God, to reconcile us, we who were alienated from the Lord, bringing us together with Him.

9:33 Let us pursue the things which make for peace. And then he says, and the things by which one may edify another do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. Remember, he's already said that the kingdom of God is not in eating, in drinking. Now notice that there is a sharp contrast between two words here in this sentence and sentences that I've just read. There is the word that has to do with edification when he says that we ought to pursue the things of peace and the things by which we edify one another. And then later on in this same epistle he speaks again about those things which are done for edification. And in stark contrast to that concept of edification is the negative prohibition, do not destroy each other or the work of God over food.

10:42 Edify, destroy. in this room who is five years old or older has had etched in their memories the vivid pictures of what happened in New York City on 9-11. When we saw those planes crash into the World Trade Towers and we witnessed before our eyes the implosion of these magnificent buildings. We've also seen on other occasions when the work of demolition is done on large buildings, how the charges are set in such a way within the structure that once the charges have been ignited, the building implodes instantly. The thing you'll never forget about the Twin Towers is how quickly they fell to the ground.

11:55 Ever since then there have been plans and structures of rebuilding them. much longer does it take to build a building than it takes to destroy it. To edify, to produce an edifice involves building, the stark opposite of destroying. And here's what Paul is concerned about in terms of the manifestation of love in the body of Christ, of life in the Christian community, he's saying to these people, look, it's a lot easier to destroy than it is to build. It's so much easier to destroy your brother than it is to edify your brother. And yet what Christ has come to do is not to destroy us, but to destroy the works of the devil, to destroy the works of darkness, but in the same time to build for Himself a people that will manifest His own image. And that's what we are to find in the life of the church. And so we are not to be known for the way in which we're critical of each other and attacking each other and gossiping about each other. Slander, dear friends, is the principal work of Satan. That's why his title in the New Testament is the slanderer, the one who is destructive, the one who brings false claims to people to tear them down.

13:51 What we are called to do, says the apostle in the name of Jesus, is not to tear each other apart, but to build each other up. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for the man who eats with offense. It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine or do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak. Again, he is repeating this principle that we've looked at already intently of being considerate of our weaker brothers and sisters. And he said, if you have faith, that is, if you're not the weaker brethren, if you understand your freedom in Christ, have it to yourself before God. If you go to the marketplace and purchase the meat that had been offered to idols, don't flaunt your liberty in front of your weaker brother.

14:55 go home and have your meat. Have it in private. Have it before the Lord who sees all things. Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats because he does not eat from faith, for whatever is not from faith is sin. This follows again what we looked at last week about the danger and impropriety of acting against conscience or out of a bad conscience. And so he continues then in chapter 15 with the admonition when he says, We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification.

15:57 Let me just take a second here to go a little further later on in the New Testament to Paul's writing to the church in the Galatian community, where Paul uses some of the strongest language that he writes anywhere in his epistles about the Galatians because they have compromised the gospel. He says in chapter 1, verse 1, I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel, which is not another, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel as Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached, let him be accursed. Let him be on a tama. Let him be damned. That's strong language.

16:56 And we said before, so I'll say it again if you missed it the first time. If anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. Now notice how Paul follows up with this very, very sharp and strong warning. With a rhetorical question, for I do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. Now that seems to be in direct contradiction to what I just read to you out of Romans. where Paul talks about the business that we are not to be pleasing ourselves, but we are to be pleasing our brothers. And here he says to the Galatians, if he is pleasing to men, he cannot be a disciple of God.

18:08 Now he's obviously talking about two completely different types of pleasing of others. In Galatians, he's talking about a sin, a sin by which the church has been laid waste countless of times in church history, where the gospel of God has been compromised or distorted for the sake of man-pleasing. For we know that the gospel is foolishness for those who are perishing. We know that there's a built-in hostility in the heart of human beings against the truth of God. And if we seek that carnal peace by which we seek to avoid conflict at any cost, and if we seek to please men rather than God, we are enemies of the gospel.

19:17 So in the context of the Galatian struggle, Paul talked about man-pleasing as a dreadful vice, not as a virtue. And he talks later about those who give the service of sight. We talk about lip service in our language of people who say, oh yes, I believe that, when we really don't. But those who give the service of sight, meaning they're those people that will work diligently when the eye of the supervisor or the overseer is directed in their direction, then they work hard. But as soon as the boss leaves, as soon as the supervisor goes down another hall, then that person takes his ease and no longer gives forth any effort to do what is right. That's man-pleasing of the worst sort.

20:20 That's not what Paul was talking about in the passage that I just read in Romans. But rather, he says, we ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves. So it's not trying to please people for the sake of personal gain, but we are not to seek our own pleasure or the pleasing of ourselves to the hurt of our brothers and sisters. the principle in this whole discussion about being patient and forbearing with each other in the life of the Christian community. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification. And he goes on to give the supreme model for this, for even Christ did not please Himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on Me.

21:41 It is, Jesus' pleasure was not always to do what Jesus wanted to do. But the quotation here is from the Psalm, and let's look back at that for just a moment. It's Psalm 69 that the apostle refers to. In verse 19, we read, you know my reproach, my shame, and my dishonor. My adversaries are all before you. Reproach has broken my heart. I am full of heaviness. And I looked for somebody to take pity, but there was none. And for comforters, but I found none. They gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

22:50 And we see then that this psalm is a psalm of messianic future expectancy. In the beginning of that same psalm, in verse 5, we read, O God, You know my foolishness. My sins are not hidden from You. Let not those who wait for You be ashamed because of me. Let not those who seek You be confounded because of me, O God of Israel, because for Your sake I have borne reproach. For Your sake I have borne reproach. Shame has covered my face. I've become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother's children. Why? Because zeal for your house has eaten me up, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. That's the text that Paul quotes here. In the broader context of which the Messiah is known as the Lord Jesus was known later for His singular zeal for His Father's house.

24:06 Zeal for my Father's house has consumed me. It's eaten me alive. That's how Jesus is described in the Scriptures as one who was so passionately committed to doing the will of the Father, He was consumed by it. Rather than pleasing himself, his meat and his drink was to please the Father. Therefore the reproaches that were directed against God came upon him. And Paul now directs the Romans to the supreme example of Jesus, who was willing to suffer the reproach of this world and not to please himself that his people would be redeemed and would be edified.

25:16 How unlike our natural selfishness that is, where we want so much to please ourselves rather than to please others who among us has the grace so sown in their souls that we are consumed by a passion to put others before ourselves. I mentioned on another occasion of going into a maximum security prison in Minneapolis, Stillwater State Prison, which was the most ungodly place I've ever experienced, where human beings behaved like animals. It was beastly to behold. And I went in there with prison fellowship when I was on the board of that ministry, and another member of the board was a fellow by the name of Lem Barney who I believe was nine times selected All-Pro as a defensive back for the Detroit Lions. Here's a veteran of the wars of the National Football League coming in to an audience that in many cases was profoundly hostile, and these rough human beings were sitting there listening as Lem Barney stood up, and when he stood up, He started to sing.

26:57 He said, others, Lord, yes, others, help me to live for them. And you could have heard a pin drop. He sings a little children's song that captured the essence of Christian love, that we are called to live for others. You know the acrostic, joy, Jesus first, others second, yourself last. That's simple stuff. You don't have to have a PhD in theology to get that message. Jesus first, others second, yourself last. That's the recipe. That's the formula for joy. so that when we do what the apostle enjoins here to seek to please others to their edification, the byproduct for us is not loss but gain, not sorrow but joy, where we ourselves are edified in that process.

28:17 Whatever things were written before were written for our learning that we, through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. Ooh, I can't pass over that. Through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures. I know of nothing on this planet more comforting to the soul than the Word of God. When I am down, when my soul is cast down, and it is cast down from time to time, just as everyone is, in the midst of sorrows, in the midst of fear. If I need to have my soul raised again out of depression, there is no greater panacea for it than to immerse myself in the Word of God.

29:23 When Simeon, it's depicted over here, saw the Christ child be brought in for dedication, you recall he sung the Nuc de Minis because the Spirit had promised him that he would not see death until he would see the Christ child. And when he saw Jesus in the arms of his mother, he sang the Nuc de Minis, now let us, thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen. Not the Redeemer of Israel, not the Savior of Israel, the consolation of Israel. I used to trick my seminary students and say, you've all heard the title of the paraclete. which is often translated by the word comforter. And I said, in the New Testament, who's the paraclete? Who is the comforter? And they all raised their hand and said, oh, that's easy. It's the Holy Ghost. No, it isn't. I said, the Holy Ghost is the other paraclete, another comforter. And when you have another of something, that presupposes that there's at least one before that one. And the primary paraclete, the primary comforter of the New Testament is Jesus. And He bestows His comfort to His people through His Word.

31:06 And people have asked me why I fight so tenaciously to maintain the integrity of Holy Scripture in an age of skepticism and cynicism. I say, you want to take away from me my comfort, my consolation. Here it is in the inspired Word of God. You see, when God speaks, dear friends, even when He speaks in judgment, there's comfort. I've been asked, what's the difference between the accusation of Satan, where he calls attention to your sin, and the conviction of the Holy Spirit?

32:00 The difference is simple. When Satan comes to accuse you, he comes to destroy you, and there is no comfort in it. When the Spirit convicts you of your sin, as painful as it may be, He never leaves us destroyed. Even in His conviction, He brings comfort. He brings consolation, never leaving us without hope, but rather with the certainty of the forgiveness that is there for us. Here Paul speaks of the comfort of the Scriptures in order that we might have hope. You see, without the patience and the comfort that is delivered to our hearts by the Word of God, we would be like the rest of the world without hope.

32:59 hope. Look outside at the world that is perishing before your very eyes, and you see people parading with pride and eloquence and all of that, given thin disguises of their sad hopelessness. You're without Christ. You're without hope. But with Christ, you're never without hope. Now Paul speaks in terms of benediction. Now may the God of patience and comfort, whose word gives you patience and whose word gives you comfort. Now may that God of patience and that God of comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it'll be like in heaven.

34:16 and it won't be just like listening to Clarissa. But when we get to heaven, the saints there will be of one mind and of one voice together singing to the honor and to the glory of God. That's what the church in this world is supposed to look like.

34:41 Therefore, now we come to another conclusion. receive one another, just as Christ also received us to the glory of God. You see, when I receive you in your weakness, in your strength, and when you receive me in my weakness and in my strength, you don't just edify me. You don't just edify yourself. But when you do this, you do it to the glory of God. To the glory of God. When I receive you, I'm not just being kind to you, I'm glorifying God. I'm glorifying Jesus. Now, I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers, that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.

35:50 See, he brings it back to that question that he's dealt with throughout the epistle of the place and the function of the Gentiles in the kingdom of God in the new covenant. He's speaking now about glorifying God, and now he says that Christ became a servant to the circumcision, that is to the Jew, for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy. I confirmed the truth that God said to the Jew, and I poured out the mercy and grace to the Gentiles to the glory of God. And then he cites these several passages from the Old Testament, for this reason I will confess to you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. Again he says, rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people. Again, seeing the merger of Jew and Gentile coming together with one voice, with one mind, with one Lord, one faith, baptism. Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles. Laud Him, all of you nations." And again, Isaiah says, there shall be a root of Jesse, somebody that comes from the family of Jesse, from the seed of David, who comes centuries later, who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, And in Him that is in Christ, the Gentiles shall hope.

37:26 Now, again, may the God of hope fill you. with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope. You may be filled with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Just in passing, the slightest hint here of what Paul will elaborate in great detail to the Corinthians and to the Galatians of the fruit of the Spirit, that the Holy Spirit works in our hearts when He sheds abroad the love of Christ in us that produces the fruit of joy and peace and hope, forbearance, patience, kindness, goodness, humility. That's what the God of all hope does when He fills us with His love in the power of the Holy Spirit. And by that power, I finished the text tonight. And so we'll luck, God willing, next week at the rest of chapter 15 beginning at verse 14. Let's pray.

39:02 Father, give us... a desire to pursue peace with all men, that we may not be man-pleasers in the vicious sense but other pleasers in the virtuous sense, that again we may imitate Jesus who bore the reproach of the world upon Himself for our sake, whose zeal for His Father's house consumed Him. Give us that zeal, that passion, that ardor in our own souls that we may edify and not destroy. In Jesus' name and for His sake.