Episode Transcript
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Let's turn now to the letter of
the Romans. It's in the New Testament.
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Almost halfway through, I'd say,
Romans Chapter Twelve. Going to be
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preaching on versus fifteen and sixteen,
but I'll start reading from verse nine.
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Let's hear, truly hear, God's
word. Let love be genuine. Abhor
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what is evil, hold fast to
what is good. Love one another with
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brotherly affection. Outdo one another in
showing honor. Do not be slothful in
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zeal, be fervent in spirit.
Serve the Lord, rejoice in hope,
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be patient in tribulation, be constant
in prayer, contribute to the needs of
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the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless
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and do not curse them. Rejoice
with those who rejoice, weep with those
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who weep, live in harmony with
one another. Do not be haughty,
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but associate with the lowly. Never
he be wise in your own sight.
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This ends God, the reading of
God's word. Let's seal it to our
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hearts. You may be seated.
One of the great chapters of the Bible
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is First Corinthians Thirteen. Many any
people call it the love chapter because it
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deals with that subject and the word
love appears over and over and over again.
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It's exalted in a very highway and
it's also explained. It's the various
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aspects of love are described. We
have something very similar here in Romans,
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Chapter Twelve. These marks of the
true Christian in versus nine through twenty one,
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are all really surrounding this quality of
love. Paul begins in verse nine
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and he says let love be genuine. And you remember, too, when
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Jesus was asked about the commandments.
They all see what the commandments were,
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in the most important ones, you
remember what he said. He said Love
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The Lord, your God, with
all your heart, soul, mind and
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strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. That's what it means to live a
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holy life before God. It means
to love, to love. And so
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these various exhortations, these various things
that Mark True Christianity, mark and I
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help us to identify and show us
how. They tell us how to identify
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Christians and tell us, as Christians, how we ought to live. They
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all are sort of an exposition on
love, genuine love, sincere love,
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Christian love. Jesus wants us to
understand what our lives should look like right
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now, on the basis of the
love that he has changed us by.
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Jesus wants us to understand what our
lives should look like now, now that
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we have been forever changed by his
love. Jesus is love for us was
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genuine, wasn't it? Jesus is
Love wasn't an insincere love or a fake
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love or a showy love just to
get points or gain some kind of reputation.
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Know, when Jesus died on a
cross, he wasn't faking his emotions,
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he wasn't faking his desire or his
will. Jesus was born in the
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form of a man. He humbled
himself in obedience and obedience to the father,
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in going to his death because of
love, and he wants us to
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be marked by that, to be
changed by it. Jesus is love for
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us is genuine, not fake.
It's humble, not proud. It doesn't
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seek to be served but to meet
the needs of others. And these are
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all things that Paul has been describing
to us, these marks of the true
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Christian. This morning he focuses our
attention on another very important aspect of love,
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empathy. Empathy, he says in
Verse Fifteen. Rejoice with those who
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rejoice and weep with those who weep, but that empathy is strengthened by something
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else, what we read in Verse
Sixteen, and that's humility. Rejoice with
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those who rejoice, weep with those
who weep. Live in harmony with one
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another. Do not be haughty,
but associate with the lowly. Never be
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wise in your own sight. Now, this may be the first time that
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you've considered connecting these two things in
the broad category of love. Maybe the
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first time you've considered connecting empathy with
humility, but they are very much connected.
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We might say that we are to
love with empathy that's strengthened by humility,
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or that we are to be humble
in order to produce empathy. Either
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way, these are the things that
we get at. We get at when
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we look at versus fifteen and sixteen. Now, if you're reading the ESV,
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it's a little difficult to see how
these verses might be connected, versus
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fifteen and sixteen because of the way
that Verse Sixteen is translated, and it
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is a difficult verse to translate.
The ESV translates it as live in harmony
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with one another, and this is
not a bad translation. It gets at
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what Paul is saying, but the
connection is clearer in other translations. The
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connection between fifteen and sixteen. The
King James version is a good example of
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this. It translates the first part
of Verse Sixteen by saying be of the
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same mind toward one another, or
you might say something like have have the
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same mind in one another or with
one another. There's this sense of the
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word, the verb that's used there, has this sense of viewing, a
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viewpoint or a way of thinking,
a mind set, we might say.
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In Philippians two there's a sort of
a similar passage that deals with humility,
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and Paul starts that by saying have
this same mind with one another, which
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is yours. In Christ Jesus will
beans to five. I believe so.
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The connection is this, you might
put it this way. In order to
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have this harmonious living, in order
to live at peace with one another,
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in order to share the same feelings
with one another, we need to have
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a same mind together, and that's
really difficult if you're proud. It's really
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difficult to connect with someone in love
if you're separating from them in pride.
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Love is something that binds us together. This is what Paul writes, and
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Colossians when he says and above all
these put on love, which binds everything
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together in perfect harmony. Think about
people who love one another, whether it's
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a mother and her daughter, or
a husband and a wife, or even
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neighbors or friends. People who love
one another are people who are coming together.
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They share things, they share space. You know, we have a
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piece of furniture that we call a
love seat, right, because it's a
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small couch, it's smaller you because
it requires you to share space together,
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because that's what love does. It
shares things, love shares time, and
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we talked about those who are in
love, let's say a boyfriend and a
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girlfriend. They go on a date
together, they share time together. As
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an aspect of love, people who
love each other share money, they share
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ideas, they share all their share
their possessions, and so of course empathy,
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the sharing of feelings, is going
to be a natural part and important
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part of love. And of course
we know that is somebody who somebody who
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isn't, or two people who aren't
sharing feelings, aren't loving one another,
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even if perhaps they're doing these other
things. You might have people sitting very
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close together let's say on an airplane, and yet aren't really loving one another,
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they're just sitting next to each other
in very close proximity. Or you
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might have people, a tragic situation
where you have two people who are married
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and living together, sharing all these
things, time, space, money,
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children, and yet have no affection
for one another, no empathy for one
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another, no love, at least
in in that way. So this applies
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not just to our human relationships,
but are Christian ones as well. We
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are called to love one another,
to share our feelings with one another,
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rejoice with those who rejoice, weep
with those who weep. What does this
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look like? Well, it's probably
easiest or most dramatically understood with the weeping
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part. The word that's used,
therefore, weep, is is not just
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being sad, it's not even just
crying, but the word, as I
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think it is applied in the English
as well, there is, is this
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sort of visible display of sadness.
Right, if you describe a friend and
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you say maybe you're describing one friend
to another, and you said she was
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weeping, and you choose that word
instead of crying, you intend to communicate
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something kind of heightened. Right,
tears streaming down the face, audible sobbing,
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maybe even a wailing. It's the
word. It's used about Peter after
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he denied the Lord and the Rooster
crowde three times. It says he he
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wept bitterly. That kind, that
kind of weeping. It's used many times
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in scripture to describe various situations and
in all of them they disc hide this
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sort of very emotional state. When
you understand that in that way, all
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of a sudden this command, at
least to me, it seems very difficult
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to weep with those who weep as
not just to sort of feel a kind
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of pity for them. Boy,
they're going through a hard time. It's
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an involvement in an engagement, a
connection with a person that's on that same
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level to sort of share in their
distress or, alternatively, share in their
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rejoicing. I'm perhaps you parents know
both the the what this looks like and
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what it doesn't look like. I
know when one of my children comes to
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me and they're really excited and I
let's say, they've accomplished something, if
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I'm not really paying attention and I
don't have empathy, I don't really join
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in that excitement. I oh well, that's nice, good job, you
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know, and please don't bother me
that kind of thing. That's not empathy.
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It's not even empathy to say,
oh, that's really cool and sort
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of move on. To rejoice with
them as a totally different emotional experience,
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isn't it? To rejoice with them
is to be excited as they are excited,
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to celebrate in your own heart as
they are celebrating, and likewise,
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to weep with them when they're weeping
is to feel those emotions, to take
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it on as your own to cry
with them, not just because they're crying
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because but because you feel their pain, you feel their sadness. Now there
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are, of course, important boundaries
in all of this. What and how
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we share emotionally with one another will
depend on the kind of relationships we have.
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Husbands and wives will look different than
neighbors or long times, longtime friends.
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Wisdom matters a great deal here,
but it is in view of our
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relationship with one another in Christ that
we are called to this, without really
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a lot of qualifications, or any
qualifications. There are qualifications that we might
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take from other parts of scripture,
but my point is that's is a mark
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of the Christian life. It should
be in some way a part of us.
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The as we love one another.
It's not a mere distant love.
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It's not just pity, it's not
just sympathy, but it's empathy. It's
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rejoicing with those who rejoice. It's
weeping with those who weep. That relationship
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is founded and strengthened in two ways
I want to point your a tension to
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before we get to verse sixteen.
First, remember that we have unity in
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our image bearing and simply all being
children of God. From one human to
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another, we share a common goal, a common nature. We have common
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parents, we are under one God, we have we are under his same
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laws. We experience similar things.
This is why a person can travel halfway
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across the world and have can and
feel connected with people, even though languages
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and cultural experiences and food and all
kinds of things can be very different and
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separating. Yet you still people,
see people angry and frustrated and desperate,
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fearful and joyful, and we know
that. We know that. We know
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what that is and what that's like. It's why people from different families with
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different experiences, who grew up in
different places, can come together and fall
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in love, because there's a similarity, there a closeness that we share.
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And if that's true of just being
human, how much more so for being
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Christians, which isn't contrary to being
human, but is a kind of true
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humanity, to have our humanity lifted
out of the curse and into a state
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of blessing, to share the same
spirit, the same Lord, the same
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baptism, the same faith, to
share the same core set of principles and
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beliefs, to recognize, with people
that are very different from you, that
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you and me are pilgrims and citizens
of a heavenly kingdom, pilgrims here on
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Earth, that we share the same
status, the same inheritance, the same
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rules, the same blessing, the
same hopes, the same fears, the
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same struggles. It's what allows us
and to have a closeness with Christians that
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we perhaps don't even feel elsewhere.
Perhaps you've experienced this, perhaps you've met
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been, perhaps a old friend a
long time with someone who doesn't believe the
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same things that you believe, who
doesn't share in the life of Christ and
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then you meet a Christian whom you've
known for thirty minutes and all of a
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sudden you feel so much closer to
them in some ways because you share something,
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something very deep and personal. It's
on the basis of these relationships are
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being brothers and sisters, not just
in Adam but in Christ, that allows
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us to rejoice with those who rejoice, to weep with those two weep,
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to pursue that in love with a
real foundation. Empathy is possible because of
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these things. It's important and necessary. This love is necessary because of these
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things. That being said, it's
not always easy. Have you ever found
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yourself in a situation where someone is
rejoicing and you just don't feel like rejoicing,
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or someone is weeping in front of
you and you feel, man,
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I'm so cold. Shouldn't I feel
something about this? Perhaps you should.
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I know I felt in this I've
been in this situation and felt in this
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way, and it certainly seems like, as with all of these other marks
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that we've explored the some people seem
to be stronger in these than others.
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You might consider prayer, hospitality,
zeal, any of these other things we
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might say some people are very strong
or naturally gifted, and others of us
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a struggle. Nevertheless, it should
be a mark among us and something that
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we can go to God for help
and strengthen but why is it hard?
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Why is showing love in this particular
way hard sometimes? I think one reason
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is because we don't understand and or
we don't really apply that that first sentence
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in verse sixteen, to live in
harmony with one another or, as I
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said earlier, to be of the
same mind toward one another. When we
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are like minded with someone, isn't
it much easier to be empathetic, to
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love them in that way? Maybe
you saw someone upset once, maybe even
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someone that you're very close to,
and you say, you come to them
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and you say, why are you
crying? At this point you don't really
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feel empathy. Maybe you feel sympathy, you feel pity or you're concerned that
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they're upset, but you don't really
understand yet. You don't have a like
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mind with them, you don't share
the same mind yet and so rightly you
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ask them. You say, what's
a matter? Why are you crying?
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And then they tell you. And
as they tell you, you've got one
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of two options, as I said
earlier. You can sort of let it
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go in one ear and out the
other, or you can do what Paul
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says to do and that's to strive
to have the same mind with them.
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To use a phrase that we use, sometimes you sort of step inside their
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shoes. You you take on their
life as your own by listening, by
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imagining, by connecting with it.
When we do that, it allows us,
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in a much easier way, to
understand. This is why the power
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of stories is this is why stories
are so powerful, why Jesus uses them
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in his parables to help us put
ourselves in the shoes of others. It's
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why we are given history in the
Bible. It's why we are, I'm
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given not just principles and examples,
but real history and life examples. It's
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why we have the psalms, which
put on display for us and show for
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us the heart of someone, that
we might learn to share in those things,
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that we might be like minded.
John Steinbeck once wrote, well,
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paraphrase a little bit here, something
like it means very little to know that
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there are a million starving people unless
you know one starving person. There's truth
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in that, isn't there? There's
something about when you identify a particular person
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and know their particular struggles, how
the food was hard to get, why
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it's hard to get what is fear
scary about that why it makes them fearful
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the particular struggles that they have.
When you know a person like that,
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it changes everything. It's why anecdotal
evidence is so powerful, because we say,
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Oh, yeah, I knew someone
like that. We tell stories like
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this all the time. You know, somebody tells us about their you know,
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a heart condition or something, and
immediately, where does our mind go?
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Two stories, two examples, two
things and that we've experienced, because
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we've embodied those things, we feel
them deeply. It allows us to connect
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with that person to say, Oh, I know what you're going through and
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that's hard. When we don't share
that like mindedness and then we try to
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be empathetic, it's not a real, genuine love. Proverbs twenty points at
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this. Whoever sings songs to a
heavy heart is like one who takes off
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a garment on a Cold Day.
It's like vinegar on Soda. To sing
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songs to a heavy heart, to
say Oh, things are great when they're
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not great, is a hurtful thing, a hard thing. But on the
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other hand, when we speak in
a situation and help in a situation based
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on true empathy, when it's very
apt it's a wonderful thing. Proverbs Fifteen,
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twenty three says a man has joy
in an APP to answer, and
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how delightful is a timely word.
But it's really impossible to give an APP
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to answer, to give a timely
word, without empathy, or at least
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it's really hard. You've probably felt
this when you are, let's say,
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weeping and you're struggling and somebody comes
in and gives you three or four or
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five or twelve solutions to your problem
and part of you says, well,
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of course that makes sense. You
you say, well, I understand why
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I should probably do those things.
And yet the advice doesn't feel apt,
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it doesn't feel right. There's a
way in which you don't trust it.
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Why is that? I think the
answer is because of empathy. If somebody
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isn't empathizing with you and it's just
offering answers, well, it's hard to
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imagine that they really understand the problem, that the answers really fit the problem.
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But when somebody empathizes with you,
when somebody rejoices when you rejoice and
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weeps when you weep and then they
speak, then there's validity to those things.
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There's a trustworthiness that's been built.
There is love that binds that those
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two people together. That makes the
answer apt, it makes it truly wonderful.
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All this is really impossible, however, without this kind of likemindedness,
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sharing the same mind with one another. And that's why Paul says this,
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I believe, verse sixteen. The
obstacles to this follow after this. After
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he says be of like mind with
one another, he says don't be high
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minded, or, as it's translated
here, don't be haughty. Being high
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minded is the opposite of being like
minded. As I said earlier, love
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binds us together. But what is
pride do? It pulls US apart when
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we are high minded. Or why? Is? In our own eyes we're
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separating ourselves purposefully. We're separating ourselves
from someone else. I know what's right,
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I know what's best. I'm different
than you. And so Paul says,
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do not be haughty, but associate
with the lowly. Be connected with
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the lowly. Never be wise in
your own site. We are to come
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alongside each other by coming alongside each
other. There's like no other way around
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it. You can't shortcut to empathy
by being prideful. You can't love someone
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by separating yourself from them and saying
your problems are not my problems. Paul
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wants us, especially as Christians,
to say your problems are my problems.
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Think of the analogy that he uses
of the body. Paul describes the church
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as a body with many members,
head, fingers, hands, eyes.
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What happens when you smash your Pinky? Does your arm say, no,
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big deal, spinky's problem. No, every part of you says we have
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a problem. Full alert. Every
part of you sympathizes with the other part.
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It's like that in the church.
When one of us is hurting,
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if we are a true body,
if we are loving one another, the
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rest of us ought to hurt.
When one member is rejoicing and celebrating and
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happy for the blessings God has poured
out on them, we ought to rejoice
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and be happy. Pride undercuts this
when somebody is blessed with something and we
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said, well, I should have
been for me. They don't deserve that.
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That's separation right, it's thinking highly
of ourselves. It's not love.
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So we've heard the command we've heard
of the obstacles and sort of the way
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of fulfill me fulfilling it humility and
mortifying our pride, our highmindedness and these
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kinds of things. But what's the
remedy if you find yourself to be cold
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in your love, to not connect
with others that you know you should connect
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with, to not take on their
burdens and their troubles and are not even
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want to? How do we grow
in this way? I think we can
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start by being humbled by our own
needs. When we remember our own needs,
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when we remember that we're just like
them, that we have the same
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sins, the same fears, the
same struggles, that we're not above them,
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really it helps us. It helps
us not to be so prideful,
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to remember that we have these struggles
and these challenges, that we also rejoice
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and weep, and that we are
not sort of eternally strong and immune from
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all things affecting us. It reminds
us that we are very much like them.
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It's also reminds us that we perhaps
not out of part right now,
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in the moment, but in the
future may need what they need, that
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kind of empathy and love. In
addition to being humbled by our own needs,
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it's also critical, especially as Christians, that we recognize how those needs
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are met. When we find ourselves
in a low estate, when we find
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ourselves entangled up in our sins,
suffering under persecution, feeling the weight of
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the trials that God has placed in
our life, whatever it is, when
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we feel on those needs press on
us, how where do we find the
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support and the strength for those needs? Well, first and foremost and most
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importantly above all things, we find
them in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
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where our strength comes from, and
I might be even more specific when we
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when I say that we find them
in the love of the Lord Jesus Christ,
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the empathetic love of the Lord Jesus
Christ. How does Jesus Take Care
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of US as Christians? Does he
do so by staying up in the heavenly
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places, keeping his distance from mankind
and all their sinfulness and all their struggles,
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all their stupid mistakes, and they're
not listening? Is that what Jesus
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did? It's not, is it? The Bible says that Jesus humbled himself
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and associated with the lowly. If
you think you or associating with the lowly
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by going to some fellow creature who's
also struggling with the same things you're struggling
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with, imagine how much different.
Consider how much different it is that the
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god of the universe became man and
associated with the lowly association, there being
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an incredibly weak word for describing what
happened in the incarnation. This is how
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Jesus loved us. He came down
from heaven to become us. There is
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never been a greater and more,
I'll just say, greater expression of love,
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of empathy, if we can put
it in that category. And as
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Jesus does this, as he goes
to the cross, he takes us with
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him so that our sins would be
put to death, so that all that
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the blessings of the inheritance that he
earned for us could be given to us.
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That's our union with him, and
it all happens in this great love
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that he gives to us. And
in all this, Jesus actually changes us.
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Titus three, three through four says
we ourselves were once foolish, Disobei
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edient, let us stray, slaves
to various passions and pleasures, passing our
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days in malice and envy, hated
by others and hating one another. That
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was our old selves, before we
were before we were united to Christ by
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his work. That's verse three and
tightest three three verse, for says.
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But when the goodness and loving kindness
of God, our Savior, appeared,
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he saved US and changed us.
How is it that we changed? How
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is it that we became those who
are not just not hated by others and
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hating one another, but those who
are loved by others and loving one another?
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It's because of the love of the
Lord Jesus. And so if you
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find yourself, whether you're a Christian
or not a Christian, struggling to truly
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weep with those who weep, to
rejoice with those who rejoice. If you
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struggle and suffind yourself doing the opposite
things, separating yourself in pride, refusing
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to be like minded with them,
having a cold heart and protecting your own.
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The only way to be truly changed
is by knowing the love of Jesus
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Christ. That changes us, that
has the power to change us, and
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that's why we shouldn't we should and
must all go and start with faith in
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him. We have to put ourselves
before him and say, my heart is
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wicked, my heart is cold,
I need your help, I need your
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strength, I need you to identify
with me, because I am weak and
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struggling and when we and when the
Lord weeps with us and dies with us,
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we find that we are also raised
with him that we might rejoice with
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him. This is the message of
the Christian faith and this is, of
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course, the message which saves us. It's the promise God gives us that
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we that our hearts can be changed
and that we can be changed from people
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who hate to people who love.
It means that we don't have to manufacture
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feelings anymore, but that we can
feel true a true empathy toward one another
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or, as Paul says in twelve, verse nine of Romans, genuine love.
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And I'll finish by saying this,
when we as Christians who have experienced
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this love, who know it not
just at the beginning of our Christian life,
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but every day of our Christian life, as the Lord Jesus Christ intercedes
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for us and watches over US and
loves US and knows every struggle and every
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rejoicing, he knows every pain and
every moment of happiness. When we are
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living in this let it, living
in that life, and then we go
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and love others, we are proclaiming
him, we are showing people, in
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a small way, what he is
like and as we do that, we're
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offering them not only our empathetic support
and love, but we're offering them the
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salvation of Jesus Christ. When we
match our words to his actions, when
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we bear forth the fruits of the
Gospel that is proclaimed, people will learn
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to see the love of Jesus being
manifested in us as people who are changed,
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who as people who are changed both
in love and to love. And
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so that's my exhortation to you,
from the word of God. Let us
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learn to love one another in all
the ways that we've heard thus far in
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Romans and in this way as well, and let us do that through the
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love of the Lord Jesus, proclaiming
him whenever we do, let's pray
