Serve Like Jesus

This morning we're in Romans 15.

All right.

So we're talking about this relationship that we have with one another in the church and how love shapes and forms and builds structure around what that looks like in our relationship with one another.

I was reminded though of this story.

So in World War II, there is a plethora of heroes in World War II, right?

There's no shortage of stories we could tell about men and women who went above and beyond and developed this kind of persona of a hero throughout all those hard times that happened.

But there's this one story about a man named Desmond Das.

Desmond Das was a Seventh-day Adventist.

And in 1940, the uh United States put forward a law that people could enter into service under what they constituted conscientious objectors.

Right?

We've been talking about conscience a lot over the last few weeks.

And so what you were allowed to do is you were allowed to enter into service as a conscientious objector, meaning uh that if you were against taking the life of another, they would let you serve in non-combative ways.

So he uh really valued what the war was trying to accomplish.

He he he wanted to be a part of it, but he had it taken a vow as a Seventh-day Adventist to never take anyone's life.

So he entered in uh to the military under this conscientious objector uh uh uh law.

Now, when he entered in, it made it really hard for him.

Uh no one wanted him there.

In fact, as he was going through boot camp and training, uh the uh one documentary of his life said that they made it hell for him.

Uh some of the stories were that they would actually, as he was praying, throw their shoes at his face while he was trying to pray.

They they made it very certain they didn't want to, they tried to get him transferred out of their uh battalion because they didn't want him a part of it.

In fact, his own general said that he didn't want him, or his own captain said he didn't want him by his side if he didn't have a rifle.

It's stated in the documentary that uh his captain, Jack Glover, uh said this to Doss, uh, or Doss told him, so Doss speaking to Jack Glover, don't ever doubt my courage, because I will be right by your side, saving life while you take life.

Uh Glover, his captain's response, I'll edit it for the room, uh, was you're not going to be by my side if you don't have a gun.

So he entered into this battle as in Okinawa, Japan, and it's famous, it was made into a movie recently called Hacksaw Ridge.

The ridge of the edge of the ocean where they were entering into enemy territory was very difficult terrain to climb.

On the top of that ridge was going to be an army of Japanese soldiers ready to unleash hell in all intents and purposes.

That's what was going to happen.

Uh, and they it was an onslaught.

Many of our men died.

Desmond Doss walked up that ridge.

Uh, he climbed to the top of it, and he saved 75 men's life without a gun.

What he did is he carried them as they were wounded or shot or so forth.

He would carry them to the edge of the cliff.

He would tie a rope around them, lower them down to medics who were below, helping those injured soldiers.

So 75 men were carried in their infirmities and weaknesses to the edge of this cliff by this man, strength, lowered down for their help.

And one of those men was Captain Jack Glover.

He was rescued by Desmond Doss in the weakness of Glover and in the strength of Das.

Doss carried him to his rescue.

This morning we're looking at what it means for us who are strong to carry the infirmities and to carry the weaknesses of those in our community.

This is exactly what Paul starts off this passage to talk about in 15.

He says that those who are strong, we who are strong, have an obligation to bear the infirmities, to bear the weaknesses or failings of the weak.

So if we look at the summary of verses one through three as we try to unpack this, what we're gonna see is that ultimately what Paul's calling us to do is that we serve for the good of others.

We serve for the good of others.

Paul says we are strong, have an obligation.

This means a moral responsibility.

We are morally bound.

If we find ourselves as the strong ones in community, uh, then we are morally bound to do this, uh to act this way, to posture ourselves toward those in our midst who would be considered weak.

What are we morally bound to do?

We're morally bound to carry the weak in their infirmity.

Literally means in their powerlessness, uh in their sickness, so forth.

We are to carry them.

Those who are strong are to carry them along in biblical community.

Uh this is in contrast, Paul says, with seeking to please ourselves, right?

Uh this is this is what Paul is establishing, a kingdom culture that is counterculture.

He's saying, those of you who are strong, you are to humble yourselves, take the posture of a servant, so that you might in your strength carry the weaknesses of your brother along with you.

You're to uh carry them in their infirmities.

What that is counterculture to is that typically in society, those who are strong oppress the weak to serve themselves.

Right?

If you if you look throughout history or if you even look in modern day, uh the strong ones typically do not humble themselves to serve the weak.

The strong ones oppress the weak to serve themselves in their own pleasure.

Uh we're we're we're seeing that in all different types of spaces in society today, but we've seen that throughout history, that the strong ones prop themselves up even higher, typically on the backs or who are considered weak in society.

Paul's saying that's that's the culture of this world, the culture of the kingdom, is that the strong would humble themselves to serve those who are weak around them, not to try and have the weak serve them in their own pleasure.

In fact, both of us, Paul says, he he kind of changes tune in verse two.

He says, Let each of us, so he's talking about the strong brother, right?

The one who who has understanding of the gospel.

That understanding has created in him the freedom to partake in more liberties that the gospel brings through the through the cleansing work of Jesus.

And so he's considered the strong one in his faith.

Then there's the weaker brother, those who do not have as much understanding about what the gospel has accomplished.

Their conscience is bound by what they consider as unclean, even though Jesus has made it clean, and their faith is weaker, smaller than the others.

These are the two people that Paul's been continually speaking about over the last several weeks and passages.

So in verse 2, he says, Let each of us then, both of us, the stronger and the weaker, seek to please his neighbor.

Seek to please his neighbor.

What we see here is that the extension of our service, the extension of our humility, stretches out beyond the church walls and the community of faith that we find ourselves in, and it actually finds itself in the homes of our neighbors.

So all of us are called to lower ourselves in humbleness and humility, serving one another, but even allowing that to flow out into the homes of even our neighbors.

You see, please, Paul says, when it says to let each of us please his neighbor for his good and to build up, please means to render service.

It's an action.

We're to actually serve our neighbor uh to this end.

And Paul gives us what in that looks like.

There's two realities for their good and their building up, right?

So when we as a people render service, trying to please our neighbor, it's not that we please them in their desires.

It's not that we uh fulfill all of their commands or whatever their wishes might be, we make sure that we lay ourselves down to please them.

No, it's that we're rendering service to this end twofold.

Number one is for their good.

We have to posture ourselves in servitude for their good.

We we put a functioning definition around good a few weeks ago.

And let's refresh ourselves on what that looks like.

It means this that our desire for good becomes the measure of good we also desire for others.

Our desire for good becomes the measure of good we also desire for others.

So so what are we to do?

We're to humble ourselves, to take the posture of a servant, to please, render service to those around us in such a way that our desire for good becomes the very measure of the good we desire for them, and secondarily, Paul says, to build them up, to strengthen them, to edify them.

We we see it look like this uh our posture is of lowly service, so others are built up around us.

Our posture is of lowly service so that others are built up around us.

You see, we live in a culture where where this is uh uh not a part of their value structure.

Uh it is that you do everything you can to build yourself up.

And so you choose relationships that build you up, you choose uh careers that build you up, you you choose workout plans that build you up, you choose everything that you possibly can to build up yourself, and so everything becomes expendable or everything becomes an object that you use for what?

Your own self-pleasure and gain.

That's the culture that we live in.

You are to use everything for your own pleasure.

Paul's saying, no, that that might be the culture of the world, but that's not the culture of the kingdom.

Uh, you use everything that God has given you as giftings and as strengths to humble yourself, serve others for their good.

That's the kingdom culture.

And so this is what Paul's calling us into.

And then he gives us this beautiful why.

In everything that we do, we have to try to work to understand the why.

If we can't explain why, then we're gonna have a lot of inability or shortcomings and trying to get people uh really rallied behind it, right?

If you tell somebody, you ever have parents, I'm sure you've you're you told your kids, hey, do this, why?

And then the worst one in the world is because I said so.

That doesn't fly.

You know that doesn't fly, but you you're just struggling yourself to understand why sometimes you're like, I don't even know why, but I said it and I I can't go back on what I just said, right?

So, so so when we help them understand the why, uh it allows them to have motivation and reasoning for doing certain things.

So Paul's gonna help us understand the why behind this instruction and command.

Why should we live in such a way that we lower ourselves and not seek our own pleasure but serve others for their good and edification?

It's because of Jesus.

It's because of Jesus.

This is what is so critical about being a gospel-centered church.

The gospel is not something that just begins our Christian faith and our Christian life and then we move on from it into deeper things.

No, the gospel is the depths, right?

The gospel is what we plunge ourselves into, of the unending depths of the beauty of God, that we might discover his grace, his mercy, and what we are called to conform ourselves to.

And so the gospel informs our worldview, it establishes our behavior, and it brings transformation for the ability and desire to obey.

Let me say that again.

The gospel does three things it informs our worldview, so it tells us what we should think, it also establishes our behavior in light of what we should think.

This is how we should live.

And it brings transformation for the ability and desire to actually obey to that.

And so the gospel is the reason that we do anything at all.

It is the ultimate why?

Because of the gospel.

That's why we have to strive to be gospel-centric in our preaching, in our lives, in the ministry that we do, uh, because it is what informs every piece of our Christian life.

Now, how did Jesus not seek his own good?

It says this, if you look in uh verse 3, for Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, he's talking about Psalm 69, 9 here.

Uh it says that the reproaches of those he reproached, you fell on me.

The reproaches of those who approached you fell on me.

Ultimately, Jesus did not seek his own good because he took the scorn and the baseless charges that were made against the Father by his image bearers, and he was crushed beyond underneath of them.

That's how Jesus showed this.

All of the scorn and the baseless charges that were made against the Father by his image bearers, Jesus took upon himself and he was crushed underneath of them.

Jesus took the posture of a lowly servant for our good.

When we look at verses four through seven, what we see is that our relational harmony empowers our worshipful harmony.

Our relational harmony empowers our worshipful harmony.

He says this in verse 4 for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction.

What we have to see, church, is that the whole of Scripture is for our good, right?

From Genesis to Revelation, the whole of Scripture is for our good.

If we realize this, the Old Testament is about three-fourths of the Bible.

And most of us as New Testament believers, as Christians today, we want to take that and be like, nah, and set it aside.

That's three-fourths of the revelation of God that we want to set aside because we don't understand it, because we don't want to take the time in understanding it, because we might separate it out as, oh, that was for Israel, this is for us, or that was God's old promises, these are God's new promises, but but that's not actually the way that the scriptures work.

It's that all of the entirety of the scripture is for our good.

We have to understand, when the epistles were being written and the instructions were given to the New Testament church, you think they were using the gospel of Matthew to do that?

No.

They were using the Torah, they were using the Pentateuch, they were using the law and the Psalms and the prophets.

That's what they were doing.

And Paul's going to do this beautifully.

He's going to walk us through these Old Testament passages to help us do what?

Help us see Jesus.

Because when we look at the whole of Scripture and we understand that it's for our good, then we're reminded of the promises made by God for his people.

We see them all then fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus.

And then in the New Testament, we're shown how they're meant for us and applied to us as Christians today.

And Paul helps us understand that this is the means of God to give us hope as a people.

So all of a sudden, in the middle of this text, Paul inserts this little prayer.

And he's going to close with a with a pretty similar prayer, but he says, May God grant you endurance and encouragement through the scriptures that you might have hope.

This endurance means perseverance, that you might be sustained.

As you've started this race, may you also be carried in this race to the finish line.

He prays that that would be granted to you.

But then he also prays that you would be granted encouragement.

Encouragement through what?

Through the scriptures.

That you would be able to see the beauty of Christ and the fulfillment of God's promises in the personal work of Jesus, that you might have what?

Hope.

And then the beauty of what Paul does is he prays this prayer and then he says, Oh, by the way, God is this for you.

Verse five is the prayer.

May the God of endurance, or verse five is the illumination on this prayer.

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another.

When we look at endurance, perseverance, we can look at this as being carried.

Literally, we can look at this as God carrying us in this Christian walk that we have.

We at Sacred Mission Church, we believe in the perseverance of the saints.

What that means is that God carries us along in our salvation.

He is the author and the finisher of our faith.

He who began a good work in you is faithful and just to see it to completion.

There is nothing that can take us out of the hand of Christ for all of those whose love has been, his love has been poured out on, whose promises our faith, the faith given to us, has been applied to, that there is nothing that can take us out of the will of God because He perseveres us.

He is the one who carries us through.

In our weaknesses, in our infirmities, what do we see the hand of God do?

The very thing that He's calling us to do to one another, carry us.

And then we look at the encouragement of the Scriptures.

This is the beauty of what God is, is Paul Paul's helping us understand in this passage.

When we look at the encouragement of the scriptures, this is ultimately what he's trying to say.

God never makes promises he doesn't or can't keep.

Just look at Jesus.

When he's trying to tell you to be encouraged by the scriptures, this is ultimately what he's saying.

The God you serve, the God of all creation, never makes promises that he cannot or will not keep.

If you want evidence of that, just look at Jesus.

If you want evidence of that, just look at the empty tomb.

If you want evidence of that, just look at the New Testament church.

If you want evidence of that, look at a trial and persecution and tribulation.

It has tried to take out the church and it constantly just comes back up, thriving in greater ways, because there is nothing that can shut us down.

The gates of hell cannot persever or cannot cannot shut us down, persevere against us, right?

When you're when you're really on like this mode and you're going and then a word slips your mind, it just hurts.

But the gates of hell shall not prevail.

Come on.

Somebody better preach in here.

The gates of hell should not prevail.

Why?

Because the mighty hand and outstretched arm of God does what for his church?

It carries us.

It carries us.

God is the source of perseverance and promises.

Paul prays that these things might cause us to live in harmony with one another, no matter our strengths or our weaknesses.

Why?

It's so that our relational harmony empowers our worshipful harmony.

I love this.

He says in the back half of verse 5 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.

You see how relational harmony is empowering worshipful harmony in that text?

It's one voice glorifying God.

The church united, not uniform in their song, there's diversity, there's distinction, there's every tribe, nation, and tongue.

They're not unified in their song, but they're you but they are united in their singing.

Why?

For the glory of God.

So we also, Paul says, should be eager to welcome then one another.

Jesus has not barred us from fellowship with him, but by grace he's welcomed us to the table of fellowship.

All for the glory of God.

In verses 8 through 13, then we see that our hope is found in Jesus' promise-keeping power.

Our hope is found in Jesus' promise-keeping power.

Jesus came to serve us so that the promise of God would be fulfilled through him.

And the fruit of that service was the culmination of the church.

When we look at the finished work of Christ, one of the very first things that we're going to see and understand is the culmination of the church.

Because when Christ returns, all of those who are in him will either be resurrected from the dead in physical form to be united with him physically, or will be called up with him to be united with him.

I don't care really, well, a little bit.

I care a little bit about your view on um uh um what do you call that?

Eschatology.

Eschatology, but then you fly in the air.

Uh rapture.

There we go.

Lord, I didn't have enough coffee this morning.

Uh I I don't care a whole lot about your view of rapture, but here's something that is true the church will be caught up with Christ.

In such a way that the entire scope of the cosmos will be able to look and see who are his and who are not.

The culmination of Christ, or the finished work of Christ as he ascends down to earth, is that he will call up his church to be united with him so that the unbelieving world left will look up and see that we are his.

When as Paul says we will be caught up with him, it's actually talking about in his descending, his coming down back to earth to establish the new heavens and new earth, that the dead in Christ will rise and us, the church, will be called up with him, so that the world may see who are his.

It's the culmination of the church to have both Jew and Gentile brought together in united harmony.

Paul points to the unity of the unity of the church through a unity of promises.

It is one church of both Jew and Gentile, united by Jesus, who are confirmed or certified by the promises of God that were made through Christ Himself.

And then Paul's gonna help us walk through Old Testament passages to unpack this.

He uses the OT to demonstrate his point.

In the first section, he points out Psalm 1849.

And what we see here is that the worship of God is actually made known to foreign nations here.

The worship of God among his people is made known to foreign nations.

Then secondly, he points out Deuteronomy 13.43.

Then the nations in that passage are invited to join in the song.

So first one is that the worship of God is made known to foreign nations.

Second one, the nations are invited to join in the song.

In Psalm 117, 11 or 117.1, the third passage, the nations are then commanded to sing.

They're not just invited into the singing, but now they're commanded to.

And then the fourth one in Isaiah 11:10, the nations will find their reason to sing in Jesus.

Isaiah 11:10

You see, we're bringing what Paul's doing is helping us walk through the unfolding of the scriptures, the unfolding of the promises of God, and the fulfillment of them in Jesus.

The fruit of this one church is united harmony.

Who raise their voice in the worship of God, their eternal King.

Paul then closes out this section of the text with a prayer.

He prays that through belief in the gospel, the promises made, the promises fulfilled, and the promises applied, we would be filled with joy and peace.

Why?

So that through the Spirit we may abound in hope.

You see, we should be a people who can have deep and settled hope because we're able to look at the promise-keeping power of Jesus.

We should be a people in this society, in this culture, in this world who have the greatest hope because of the source of our hope.

All we have to do, Paul says, is look at the passages, look at the promises that God has made to his people, and then look and see them fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus.

And then watch them be lived out among us today.

Is there not anything, anything in all of our existence greater to put our hope in than that?

You see, this should cause us to be a people of joy and a people of peace.

It is the gospel that makes the way to have fellowship with God and with one another.

And if we look at Jesus in comparison to Jesus and ourselves, we find ourselves as the weak ones.

Jesus is the true strong one.

We find ourselves as the weak ones.

We're the ones who were hopeless in the infirmities of our sin.

We needed a stronger brother who would not seek his own pleasure, but serve us by carrying us in his own strength.

And so ultimately, Jesus carries the weak to the table of fellowship.

Jesus carries the weak to the table of fellowship.

The church exists because Jesus is the stronger brother.

Because Jesus was the stronger brother who carried us to be reconciled with the Father.

We're all brought to the one table of fellowship, united through his strength and the blood that purchased us.

This should also, as the church, cause us then to be united in our singing also.

It's a train.

It's coming.

No greater strength can be discovered than Jesus who bore in himself the failings of the week.

If we look at the failings as in verse 1, this is going to get super loud, y'all.

If you don't know, just for the for everyone here in the live stream, you can be made informed of this.

That's a county road right next to us.

So they he's not a jerk.

He actually has to blow his horn as he crosses this road in case there were people there.

He's relaxing.

He's had his sandwich this morning.

He's cool.

This happens once every every blood moon.

So it's better just let it ride.

Can we reset the clock for me?

I feel like I at least five more minutes, right?

I mean, minimally.

All right, we can dive back in.

So what we're talking about is Jesus being the stronger brother that we need who carries us to the table of fellowship.

Uh what we have to realize is that serve in verse one that Paul talked about, uh, or I'm sorry, the the weaknesses that Paul talked about in verse one that the stronger brother was obligated to bear or to carry.

It's speaking of infirmities and powerlessness.

There's no greater powerlessness that we could have experienced but us being in our sin.

There's no greater infirmities that we could have experienced than the curse of our sin, than the sickness and disease of our sin.

In fact, Isaiah 53 uh uh talks about this, and it's reiterated in 1 Peter that he bore the stripes on his back.

By his stripes we are healed, the Bible says.

Now, some of us want to take that and apply it to uh sickness and disease, but if we look at the context of what he's talking about, both the prophet Isaiah and 1 Peter in his epistle, he's talking about the infirmity of sin, the disease that has plagued humanity and our rebellion and hard-heartedness.

Jesus carries us in that.

And so the church united has a song to sing because of his finished work.

They have been carried, redeemed, and rescued by what?

Strength.

How do we see this?

The Bible talks about this.

A mighty hand and an outstretched arm is the strength of our God.

This is the song of the church.

If we look at Deuteronomy 26, 7 through 9, we we see this.

Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.

And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders, and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Jesus rescued the church out of Egypt, the oppressor.

But our Egypt was our own sin.

That was our wicked ruler.

And how did Jesus do it?

By stretching out his arms on the rugged tree to bring us, carry us to the land where his table is prepared with for us to feast.

How foolish and arrogant will we be to ever imagine that we sat down to eat at his table by our own strength.

Yet often we don't respond to the beauty of the gospel with humility or gratitude or the posture of a servant.

Because we're gripped still by selfishness and desire to be served rather than to serve.

Because ultimately we are a people who are after our own pleasures.

Some of this we do this by we tear down instead of build up.

Some of us we tear down instead of build up.

We live in a culture where weak ones demand that everyone else becomes weak too.

We can't stand the thought of others being stronger than we are.

So we make the demand that they become weak with us.

We tear down instead of build up because nobody should be better than we are.

We fail to celebrate strength, victories, prominence, ultimately because it threatens our identity.

And it threatens ultimately what we desire to obtain, but we can't.

We're gripped by a selfishness that would rather see others brought low to our weakness rather than to use even the least bit of strength that we have to edify our neighbor.

Ultimately, we seek to be served through others being brought down to our level so that we're able to now find pleasure in our weaknesses.

That's the culture that we live in today.

Some of us, though, we seek our own pleasure instead of our neighbors.

We may be strong, but we use our strength to cause others to serve us for our pleasure.

We see people simply for what they can provide for us.

We objectify them rather than as ones made in the image of God who are called to serve for their neighbors' good.

You see, often with strength comes narcissism.

And with narcissism comes the belief that others should serve us.

We fail to walk in humility and find ourselves unwilling to bend low to carry our weaker brother.

Because we see our weaker brother in their powerless state.

We often disregard them as being able to bring anything to our benefit.

Nothing to offer us.

So we disregard them or we oppress them and we try to get out any bit of morsel of strength they may have for our gain.

Rather than to humble ourselves to offer to them what we have.

If we have strength, we do not have it for our own gain.

We have to use that strength for the weaknesses of our brother.

We have it to work for their good and not simply for our own.

But the beauty of the gospel is where we fail, where ultimately both parties, the weaker and the stronger, are working to have their own pleasure met.

What we see is that Jesus became the weak one who was carried.

Though he is infinitely stronger than we who are made in his image, Jesus emptied himself to become weak as we are.

He robed himself in flesh and took on himself the fullness of our infirmity of sin on the cross.

There, the one who actually built up the heavens and the earth was torn down in his flesh by whips and nails and a spear.

At Calvary, the ones who were intoxicated in their own strength beat down and killed the weak lamb of God.

He humbled himself to not seek his own pleasure, but to bring us into the eternal pleasure of his blessed presence.

And then he was carried.

Christ himself, his lifeless body was taken down off the cross, and he was carried into a tomb.

They carried his body to be buried.

And with it, all of our pride, our selfishness, our narcissism, and our false strength was put to rest.

It was removed from our very presence.

And then with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, the stone was rolled away.

He rose from the grave to build up his church, to give them the pleasure of being united to him and with one another.

And he went forth to gather us, to pick us up, and to carry us to the table.

Amen.

This is the hope of the gospel that we have.

Even in our failings, when we strive to tear down one another because we're insecure and we realize that we are the weak one, or when we feel like we are the strong one and we try to oppress others to serve our own pleasure, when we fail to be what Christ has called us to be, Christ becomes that very thing for us.

That's where we can put our hope.

And so what should we do in light of it?

First off, we should be carried by Jesus.

Be carried by Jesus.

Man, the gospel is this beautiful reality that the hand of God perseveres us, causes us to endure.

It carries us.

How many of y'all still struggling because you're still trying to use your own strength to get to the table of fellowship that Christ carried you to?

You're still trying to work your way to God.

You're still trying to make him love you or make him be happy about you sitting at his table or give you favor that he has.

You can't do it.

You have to stop.

You just have to allow yourself to be carried by Jesus for once.

This is the beauty of the gospel, that it doesn't matter what you do or don't do ultimately.

God loves you.

God purchased you by the blood of his son.

God carried you to the table of fellowship in spite of you.

You think that you're going to be able to keep your seat reserved by all the good things you did?

What mockery, what shame are you making of the finished work of Christ when you think that way?

Was Christ's work not sufficient to guarantee your seat, to pick you up in your infirmities and weaknesses, to carry you there, to sit you down, to put the spoon in your hand so that you can feast?

That's Christ.

That's the beauty of his finished work.

And most of us we're okay with the gospel getting us saved, but we're really not okay with the gospel keeping us there.

And so we want to continually try and earn in our own strength that right standing, or at least sustain it in our own strength.

Church, rest.

Realize you're not that strong.

We all discovered this yesterday at the men's event.

We ain't that strong.

We all thought we were a lot stronger.

I can guarantee you that.

We came in talking smack and we left hurting in every aspect of our being.

Pride, muscles.

We're not that strong.

Can we for once rest in the finished work of Christ and allow him to carry us?

Because he is the one that causes us to endure.

He's the one that causes us to persevere.

We also need to carry others in their weakness.

This demands a few things.

This demands that we are known in community.

This demands that we are identified, known, and to some degree vulnerable with those who are in our community so that they can have the opportunity to carry us.

Some of y'all are so hurt and wounded, but you try to muster up strength and not show anybody that you are.

And what you're doing is you're preventing your brother from being able to do for you what he's called to do: carry you.

You want to act like you're strong, but you're literally, as soon as they turn around, you fall to the ground and you keep on bleeding out.

In church, we got to be in our brother and sister's business to some degree.

We have to care.

We have to be known in community so that we can actually carry one another in our strength, right?

We we got to serve our brothers and sisters.

We have to humble ourselves that we might carry them along.

If they're struggling in sin, what are we gonna do?

We're gonna carry them along.

If they're struggling with doubt and disbelief, we're gonna carry them along.

If they're struggling to have joy and peace, we're gonna carry them along.

That means we're gonna be patient.

You ever tried to you ever tried to carry dead weight?

Let's shoot.

We tried to do this yesterday.

It's way harder than you would imagine.

It is so challenging to carry someone else's weight, what strength it takes, what endurance takes, but we realize sometimes you gotta stop and take a break.

You gotta get your breath back, and you gotta recoup, and then you can keep carrying a few steps.

So that means sometimes we're just gonna have to be patient with one another.

So many times we want people in our life to be at the same place that we weren't a year ago.

We're so impatient with a brother's walk, with a sister's stumbling.

We're so impatient that they're not at places that we want them to be when if we were honest with ourselves, we weren't there a year ago.

Praise God, he was patient with us, that he carried us.

God is going to conform us to the image of his son at his own pace, not ours.

You know why?

We make bad holy spirits.

God knows exactly what he's doing in the brothers and sisters' lives that we have community and fellowship with.

Our job isn't to change them, our job is to carry them in the places they can't walk on their path to change and the transformation that the Holy Spirit provides for them.

Lastly, let our worship be carried to the world.

One thing I love about what Paul helped us understand as he was unfolding the promises of God and their fulfillment in Christ was that the first passage he used was to show us that the worship of God was made known to foreign nations.

You see, you see, they weren't invited to sing in the song before they heard the song from the mouths of God's people.

We have to be a people who carry that worship to the world.

We should be a people who live lives of worship, worshipful lives that impact every sphere of our existence, that impact our homes, that impact our neighborhoods, that impact our workplaces.

There should not be a person in your life that hasn't heard that worshipful song from the way that you live your life, so that you might then invite them into that worship one day.

But we want to be undercover Christians.

We don't want people to know we're afraid of the consequences of these things, of living lives of worship.

Does not God clothe the lily of the field?

Does he not feed the birds of the air?

You're worried about your HR department?

No.

Step out, sing aloud, let your worship be known among foreign nations, so that God can do what He's promised He would do through you and begin inviting them into the singing.

And then hopefully the fulfillment of that fruit is that they get their reason to join with you in that song as they see the glory and the majesty of Christ and His gospel.

That's what we should hope for as the church.

Church, we are called to serve and love one another.

In humbleness, we're to lower ourselves.

To serve for what?

The good and the building up of one another.

Whether we're the weaker brother who wants to tear everyone down around us to our level, or we're the stronger brother who wants to oppress everyone around us for our own good and pleasure.

Let us look to Jesus.

Let us realize that in light of him, we are infinitely weak.

That we had to be carried by his strength, not our own, so that we might be united to what he has purchased with his blood, the church.

And we have a reason to worship.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's pray.