The Church Is an Island of Hope (Rom. 15:1–13)

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Sam Allberry
You end up communicating, you got to become like us, to become a Christian, which then undermines justification by faith alone, and contradicts this amazing thrust in the Old Testament of all peoples coming together, nodding, not in cultural uniformity, but in all their cultural difference, coming into worship the Lord through Christ

Ray Ortlund
And the joy of seeing surprising converts, improbable conversions, is immeasurably greater and richer than the smug satisfaction of having my church my Way.

Sam Allberry
Welcome back to you’re not crazy. We’re so glad to have you with us. I’m Sam as always. Ray, good to see you.

Ray Ortlund
Great to see you. Sam.

Sam Allberry
Ray, we’re thinking about Romans 15, one to 13 in this episode. And Paul brings us to the example of Jesus, and how the example of Jesus is, is the motivation for us to to bear with each other rather than trying to please ourselves. You may remember Ray 25 years ago or so, one of the big fats in the Christian life, for a season, was WW, JD, bracelets. Did those? Did Ray Orland ever wear Christian bracelets? What would Jesus do?

Ray Ortlund
I did not. Yeah, and of course, it’s unarguable in one sense. It’s right here in Romans chapter 15, but it’s not where the Gospel begins. It’s not what we do in response to Jesus, but what God does for us in our place that we could never do what he does through Jesus, and we receive him with the empty hands of faith.

Sam Allberry
And I remember, I did wear one for a while, because it was everyone was wearing them, and I was a sheep. And there was a there was a good part of that. It kind of kept me thinking, am I? Am I being a Christ, like example, in whatever I’m doing? But it also I did thinking on it more deeply there. There are times where we’re not supposed to do what Jesus did, or where we can’t do what Jesus did, but it does make the times when the Bible does call us to follow his example all the more significance. Yes, and it’s actually not many places where we’re explicitly told follow the example of Christ, but this is, this is one of them, and we’re still in the context of bearing with with one another. Paul says in verse one, we, who are strong, have an obligation to bear with the failings of the week and not to please ourselves. And I’m struck there that Paul is acknowledging there are failings of the week here. It’s not that we’re all equally right, and we’ve just got to adjust. There are some people who are who know less and some people who are more mature. But the point is, we’re not to please ourselves. Verse two, let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up, For Christ did not please himself. Yes, so this, this is very striking, and reflecting on this, I it’s made me realize how much I need church not to be going my way the whole time.

Ray Ortlund
It is beneficial to be displeased. Christ did not please himself. A healthy church is not where I get things my way. A healthy church is not a pushy, demanding, conformist culture, but a healthy church is where the example of Christ sets the tone and sets the pattern and each of us walks in willing to be disappointed in some ways, willing to be displeased in some ways, willing to lose some debates. And oh, for example, Oh, I did. This just occurs to me. I pastored First Presbyterian Church of Augusta, Georgia, some years ago. True story in the 1830s as I recall, the congregation was trying to decide whether or not to buy an organ. It was controversial, because the question was, Is it okay to worship God with machinery? And some in the congregation said, No, that is not okay. Where’s that in Scripture? Others in the congregation said, Of course, it’s all right. It will help us. Well, the ones who were pro organ won the vote, and so the church decided to buy an organ. The man who led the charge against buying the organ, and the man who led the charge for by buying the organ met one day on Broad Street in downtown Augusta, and the man who had opposed the organ said to the man who had favored it, you know, you’re raising funds. For the purchase of the organ, you haven’t come and asked me to make a contribution yet, I wonder why have you not done so? And the man who was fundraising for the organ said, Well, I knew how strongly you felt against buying it, so I I didn’t want to, you know, ask you for such thing. And the man who had opposed the organ purchase, said, but we as a body have made a decision, so I put my personal feelings aside, and I want to support the purchase of the organ as much as anybody else. Wow. Now that’s not only Christian, it’s actually very Presbyterian as well. And their their understanding of what it means to be a church together. It’s the very kind of thing Paul is talking about here. I don’t want this wretched organ in church, but I’m going to help buy it. Why Christ did not please himself.

Sam Allberry
So it’s interesting. We often think, well, if church isn’t pleasing to me, that’s the reason I stopped going to it. I think Paul is saying, If church is not pleasing to you, that’s the reason to go to it. Because that’s, that’s, that’s the gymnasium in which we learn to become more like Jesus. We strengthen our our Christian muscles by being in an environment where we’re not trying to please ourselves, but trying to please our neighbor for his good.

Ray Ortlund
And then he goes on in verses four and five, to pull us toward the center where we can all come together and and continually be strengthened to live together with some relational beauty. And that is the Scriptures. He says in verse four, for whatever was written in former days, was written for our instruction. It’s meant for us today that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. So we don’t drive down to church on Sunday morning with dread. We drive down to church on Sunday morning with hope, expectancy and so forth, may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice, glorify the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. The scripture gives us the encouragement, the incentive, the vision for living together with a real demonstration of beauty.

Sam Allberry
And the scriptures Paul is talking about here was, would have been the Old Testament. I mean, they didn’t have the New Testament as we have it now. So when Paul says, whatever was written in formulas was written for our instruction, he’s he’s actually saying this, this old what we call the Old Testament, is a Christian book for Christians, which is interesting because, as you know, there was some language in recent years from a particular Christian leader who was talking about unhitching from the Old Testament. We will make the Christian life harder without the Old Testament than it would be with the Old Testament, because the Old Testament is is here to help us in the Christian life.

Ray Ortlund
So that member of first pres Augusta, could look at the organ and honestly not enjoy it, but then he would look down at his Bible and at his brother’s Bible and rejoice and say, That is why we’re here.

Sam Allberry
And if it’s doing good for my neighbor and I don’t like it, I can rejoice. So it’s interesting, isn’t it, that again, as Paul reflects on how much this matters. He’s, he’s already given us so many reasons in the last couple of chapters why bearing with one another another matter so much. At this point in chapter 15, he’s, he’s raised the issue of the scriptures, and he’s now going to show us how there’s, there’s just extraordinary biblical precedent for working at together, coming together to glorify God and all of our differences.

Ray Ortlund
And you know, there’s a common pattern among us Christians in in this country today, where we church shop and church hop, and, of course, finding a church that that we believe will be the most edifying for ourselves and our family. I get it. There’s nothing wrong with that, but once we settle in, we should, by God’s grace and for His glory, resolve to stay and adapt and make the relationship not just work, make the relationship as beautiful as it can be. Now, if the church departs from the scriptures, that might be the game changer, to move you to another church, but if the church simply hacks you off, as inevitably happens to every single one of us, that’s a great reason to dig deeper. And stay longer, Sam, I deeply believe that one of the testing points for us in our generation is, can our friendships, our church memberships, our partnerships, our fellowship, can it last?

Sam Allberry
Yes, which is another way of saying, how, how powerful is the gospel.

Ray Ortlund
By the way. Sam Allberry

Sam Allberry
Oh, dear mind trouble.

Ray Ortlund
Let’s decide, as I believe we already have, very profoundly, you and I, for Jesus sake, are going to remain friends until we die?

Sam Allberry
I hope so. Yeah, I intend so.

Ray Ortlund
Yes, we do intend so you will have to put up

Sam Allberry
A little while longer

Ray Ortlund
You’re stuck with me. Then he says in verse seven, therefore, welcome one another, as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God, some of our translations say, accept one another, and that’s not a wrong translation, but I could accept you conceivably with an eye roll, yeah, but I can’t welcome you.

Sam Allberry
Exceptions can mean tolerate, yeah, learn to live with welcome is a natural embrace.

Ray Ortlund
Let me give you a hug. Yeah, and mere tolerance, it doesn’t work, because Christ has not just tolerated us. He doesn’t accept us with an eye roll. So the inner logic of the verse itself requires the stronger word, welcome, therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, Christ has pulled us into his very heart.

Ray Ortlund
So where can the glory of God be seen? In Nashville, Tennessee, for example, we don’t have to drive out to Arizona and look at the Grand Canyon to see the glory of God. We can get in our cars on Sunday morning and drive down to a church that lives in the welcome of Christ and we’re going to see and experience and feel the presence of God’s glory in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ll give my life to that, Sam.

Sam Allberry
That’s amazing in the next few verses, in verses eight and following Paul, Paul shows us this isn’t just something. This is not just his spin on it. This is not his his new idea, but he gives us a string of Old Testament quotations that kind of show the whole Bible has always been leading to this reality. He says in verse eight, For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy. So one of the things that has precipitated this whole discussion over these chapters is the tensions and awkwardness of having Jewish and Gentile Christians together with differing sensibilities, differing sensitivities, and Paul is wanting to show actually God had always planned this scenario to happen, that actually these groups would be together, worshiping the Lord as one people. So Ray, you were Old Testament professor for many years. So help, help us with some of these Old Testament texts.

Ray Ortlund
Well, it might be wrong to misread the Old Testament as if this document is a monument to excluding the Gentile nations from the community of God. That would be a misreading of the Old Testament. Paul is giving us the hermeneutical key to the Old Testament here, when he says the Old Testament is a literary monument to drawing together all the nations and consecrating both Israel and the nations to God with the same holiness, true holiness. So we’re going to see more of this in the next chapter. When Paul talks about his ministry, He even calls it a priestly ministry of bringing the nations consecrated to Christ. But it’s very important to realize that from the beginning, God has been building a kingdom that will welcome in all human profiles on the face of the earth with equal joy and equal grace and mercy. That’s the Open Sesame to make sense of the entire Bible from cover to cover.

Sam Allberry
I mean, we see that even in the where these Old Testament quotations come from, we’ve we’ve got second Samuel, Psalms, Deuteronomy, Isaiah. So Paul is quoting from the Lord the prophets and the writings. So he’s giving us a representative sampling from the whole of the Old Testament. He’s not cherry picking, no, this is the whole Old Testament. Has this same thrust, the same OH. Ultimate vision. It’s not one. It’s not an obscure kind of sidebar in one little Old Testament text. This is, yeah, these, these texts are representative of the whole of the Old Testament.

Ray Ortlund
So the Old Testament itself is not saying these, this small number of Jewish people, they’re kosher in the sight of God. The Old Testament itself is saying everyone can be kosher in the sight of God through Christ and His cleansing, his justification.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, putting it another way, Ray the message of the Old Testament is therefore welcome one another as Christ is welcome.

Ray Ortlund
For the glory of God. And that vision, I don’t know what else to call it, but a way of seeing reality, that glorious Gospel vision creates a community of hope and expectancy and confidence and welcome here in this angry world. So Paul says in verse 13, and this is one of my favorite verses in the Bible, may the God of hope, what a remarkable way to refer to him. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. A healthy church is a community of hope. It’s an island of Hope surrounded by a sea of rage and tension in this world. A healthy church is a beacon radiant with hope and joy and peace in believing, he says, By believing the Gospel and by miracle, ongoing miracle, the power of the Holy Spirit.

Sam Allberry
Again, looking at this vision of of the two, the new humanity coming out of Jew and Gentile together, in Christ, Paul writes that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. So the the church in its unity, in diversity, as you said, all those different human profiles now together, united in Christ level playing field at the foot of the cross, glorifying God. Do you see? Do you use the phrase blown the raspberry in America. No, what do you call this noise? Oh, that we call it that, yeah, okay, the church is God going to the powers and authorities, because it is the church that shows the wisdom of God, because it is only the church that can bring together those that the world separates. So that the very presence of a church where this mutual welcome for the glory of God is going on is a demonstration to all the principalities and powers that actually the gospel can do something no one else can do, which is why it is so significant that we bear with one another and welcome one another and when new human profiles are added to our church family, and there’s awkwardness because of that, maybe there’s a we get some traction with a particular ethnic group in the in the city, and wonderfully, we start to have people coming from that background to the church, but they they have A different way of singing a different style of worship. And so there’s there’s awkwardness around that. What a great position to be in. Yes, we actually are having an opportunity to better display the manifold wisdom of God. Wow.

Ray Ortlund
And getting my own way at church, my own rigid, selfish, self centered way becomes small and petty and contemptible in my own eyes.

Sam Allberry
Brett you, you told, told me a couple of times in the past about the the guys at Calvary Chapel and the Jesus awakening, and if I remember rightly, that you know that this fairly buttoned down congregation suddenly found all these hippie surfers turning up, and had to kind of there was a cultural adaptation that had to take place.

Ray Ortlund
Chuck Smith was the pastor at Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa. I was on the phone with him once to verify this story. He showed up at church one Sunday morning, and there was a sign out on the front sidewalk, shirts and shoes, please. Wow. Because kids were coming to church as the Holy Spirit was moving, they were coming right off the beach with Sandy feet. They and the church had just built this beautiful chapel, and they put a lot they’d sacrificed, you know, and new carpets and new pews and everything. These kids were messing it up. They didn’t know church protocols. They they never went to church in all their lives. They didn’t know how, how you’re supposed to behave in church, and and, and so the church was distressed by its, you know, perfect little sort of scenario being tarnished by these dopey teenager. Hippie surfer kids coming in who don’t know how to keep their Sandy, dirty feet off the pews. Well, Chuck saw the sign. He took it down, and after the morning service, he met with the leaders of the church and said, Look, if our new church, our carpets and our pews, keep one kid from Christ, Let’s tear this carpet out. Let’s remove these pews. Let’s get rid of it all. Let’s give this church to Christ. And to their credit, they all agreed, and the church blew up, and kids of my generation, who were daring to put their hope in Christ, realized there was a place they could go, where they would not be rejected, but they would be rejoiced over and welcomed and embraced, because Jesus was there, he was setting the tone. And God moved in power through that church when they gave it all over to the Lord.

Sam Allberry
That is an amazing commentary on not pleasing ourselves, but pleasing our neighbor for his good, and thinking, well, because otherwise, what you end up doing is you, you end up you end up communicating. You got to become like us, to become a Christian, which then undermines justification by faith alone, and contradicts this amazing thrust in the Old Testament of all peoples coming together, not in not in cultural uniformity, but in all their cultural difference, coming into Worship the Lord through Christ.

Ray Ortlund
And the joy of seeing surprising converts, improbable conversions, is immeasurably greater and richer than the smug satisfaction of having my church my way.

Sam Allberry
One feature of this text I can’t help but notice is that twice Paul prays in this passage. Verse five, may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another. Verse 13, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing so that the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. I think that must mean this is not going to be easy. This is not going to be automatic. We we need, we need help from above. I’m sure so many who are listening to this are in churches where there are tensions over cultural differences, tensions over stylistic preferences, all these kinds of things. And maybe a pastor has been dealing with this for years and years and years, and there just seems to be no end in sight. The fact that Paul has to stop and pray twice while talking about not pleasing ourselves, I don’t know. I find that encouraging, because he can that it can only happen by by a work of God and by dependence on him.

Ray Ortlund
I’ve never noticed that before, Sam, that’s insightful. Exhaustion is a very real pastoral dynamic. In fact, sometimes you know that that opening battle scene and Saving Private Ryan yes on Omaha Beach on D Day pastoral ministry can feel like that. Yeah, it can be very hard to bear, yeah. And we need the gospel. We need gospel doctrine, but we need more, and we have more. We have the direct and immediate power of God in answer to prayer. And maybe the most profound pastoral prayer, or a prayer of any Christian, is that moment by moment, Lord, help me. Help me. Right now, I remember my dad telling me about a dinner he had once with the leader of an International Christian ministry back in the 1970s when there was some tension within the highest levels of leadership there in the ministry, and this man told dad that he had lived by faith for many years, but his growth edge at that time was learning to love by faith. Wow. And what he meant by that is so he walks into a room and he sees 15 feet away from him, one of those leaders in the ministry with whom the relationship has become difficult. Loving by faith meant for that guy, he’s going to shoot up a prayer to God right then and there. Lord help me, and in the five seconds it takes to get from where he is at the doorway to stretching out his hand and shaking hands with that brother with whom he has an awkward relationship, he’s going to trust the Lord that by the time he gets there, he’ll have the personal wherewithal, sincerely to embrace and welcome that Christian friend. Wow, that’s loving by faith.

Sam Allberry
That is that is doing this.

Ray Ortlund
Well, there’s always a way that God gives for us to do the right thing, that next step.

Sam Allberry
God never calls us to do something he won’t empower us to do right?

Ray Ortlund
Yeah, that’s right. So as it says, He’s the God of hope. Let’s put our hope in God. We are weak. He is strong. We are inadequate. He is all sufficient. We always have a reason to say yes to him and take the next step.

Sam Allberry
I’m also struck ray with with the wording of verses four and five. So talking about the scriptures written for our instruction that through endurance and encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. Then he uses the same language. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant need to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Jesus Christ. In other words, what we’re seeing this just beautiful match up between what the Scriptures do and who God is. We have endurance and encouragement through the Scriptures, and we pray to a god of endurance and encouragement. He has given us His scriptures to help us keep going, to keep encouraging us on this path, and he’s given us himself as the one who is the encouragement and the endurance that we need.

Ray Ortlund
You know, I was with David pelisson, our dear friend, at Westminster seminary some years ago, and he gave me some advice that really helped me. Let me pass it along. He said, Okay, Ray. He said this to Janie and me. He said, You guys are going through a hard time, and this is going to take a while. So here’s my recommendation. Why didn’t you ask the Lord for a promise in Scripture that will give you endurance and encouragement, and when that verse, that promise, leaps off the page at you, grab onto that verse and wallpaper your whole reality with that verse, with that promise. And we thought, well, that’s a great idea. So we did. We prayed about it. And wouldn’t you know about two weeks later, Jenny’s reading first, Peter, chapter five, bam. Verse 10 leaps off the page at her. She says to me, Hey, Ray, listen to this. The verse says, And after you’ve suffered a little while, the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you. She read the verse, And I said, oh my goodness, that’s our verse. So we did. Jenny wrote it out on three by five cards and scotch taped it to the inside of the kitchen cupboards, so that when she would open a cupboard to get a plate or something, there was the verse to remind her. I put it of the visor of my pickup, to remind me of its presence and wisdom and hope at a red light. We prayed about it, we memorized it, we talked it through. And Sam to this day, that was 17 years ago. To this day, not a week goes by, but some evidence of grace lands on us. And Jenny and I turn to each other, we say, first, Peter, 510, there you go. It’s still happening, so maybe a listener to the podcast right now would like to do that very thing, as David pelason recommended to us, ask the Lord for an encouraging verse that will give you hope that will put steel in your spine and and and spring in your step to help you keep going. And the God of endurance and encouragement will help you through His Word, and he’ll be true to His promises.

Sam Allberry
Amen. Thank you, Ray. Thank you, those of you listening, we’ll see you next time.