Hebrews Lesson 164 June 25, 2009
NKJ John 17:17 "Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.
Just by way of reminder and review, the last two or three lessons in Hebrews we've look at this verse in Hebrews 10:24 that begins with this command "to consider one another in order to stir up love and good deeds."
As I've pointed out in the past, the verb here is a present active subjunctive in the first person plural which in the Greek has the idea of an imperative. This is a command, not a suggestion, even though it is expressed in a way that's a little less strong than a straight military command. It still has that idea that we are to do something. We are to consider or we must consider or we should consider. This is not an option. This is something that is part of our spiritual life as members of the body of Christ, and the focus is on one another.
Now this is one of numerous commands in the Scripture that are directed to the believer in relation to responsibilities we have within the body of Christ. The body of Christ is formed of every person who has put their faith alone in Christ alone. When we believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, at that instant the Scripture says that we are baptized by means of God the Holy Spirit. That is a one-time action that takes place at the instant that we're saved. It's not experiential. It's not something that we feel. We don't get the rosy glow. We don't get all emotional. It is a forensic action or a judicial action that God the Father causes to take place. Actually all three members of the trinity are involved. God the Son uses the Holy Spirit to identify us with His death, burial, and resurrection and to place us into His body so that we are baptized into one body as 1 Corinthians 12:13 says and as Galatians 3:27 says that we are baptized into Christ. So we are all equally members of the body of Christ. We all get there the same way by trusting in Christ as our Savior. Nobody else has anything going for them that somebody else doesn't have.
But as members of the family of God as members of those who are in Christ, we have certain responsibilities to one another. We began looking at this several lessons back. Of course last week I missed because of the flu, but we'll review. I think we've made it through the first 4 points, so we'll review those briefly.
- The Greek word is allelon, which means one another. The idea is that members of the congregation have certain responsibilities to others.
That doesn't mean that an individual believer has the same involvement in the life of every other believer. That's just not possible. We can only really get to know other people, a small sphere of individuals, in any kind of relationship. We all have certain people that we know with whom we have a fairly intimate involvement. We have spouses, family members and extremely close friends.
Then there's another circle of intimacy that are people we know. Perhaps we see them every day. We work with them. We know more about them as it were, but we don't necessarily have the open or the intimate confidences with those people that we do with others.
Then there are those that we see on a somewhat casual basis. We see them on a weekly basis, maybe two or three times a week, maybe at church. Maybe we've known them for a long time, but we really don't get too deeply involved in their lives or them in our life. Then there are others who we know just by name or by general recognition.
So you don't take somebody who's out there in a greater sphere that you barely know or whose name you hardly remember and suddenly treat them as if they're someone that you know on a deep intimate level like your best friend.
People allow us into their lives for various reasons. Some people at sometimes don't want others involved in their lives. They just put up a wall of privacy. People are different. Some people are very private. It takes them a long time to open up to other people. They just want to come into a congregation and sit back in the corner back there, like with Gene. Gene doesn't want to know anybody, never talks to anybody. Somebody like that's a real wallflower. But seriously, there are people who are like that. They just want to come in anonymity and sort of put their toe in the water as it were until they get adjusted. Then they'll stick their foot in. Then maybe after a year or two they might start getting to know other people and come to the family nights or something like that. It just takes some people time. You have to give people the freedom to be different.
I remember when I was in seminary. It often struck me that the view that a lot of Christians had was that one-size-fits-all and that everybody was supposed to do things a certain way. You'd have professors who would talk about how they would have personal Bible study with their wives. It was like "everybody ought to do it the way I do it." But there are a lot of different people and a lot of different personalities and circumstances and not everybody can do it that way. There are other people who are very outgoing and they like to meet people and they're very open and outgoing people. But other people just aren't.
So these commands toward one another are really (as I've stated before are) expressions of how we carry out the broader command of loving one another and they give different instances.
So we shouldn't understand the word "one another" to necessarily mean every single believer you run into in life. Now in some sense we may run into somebody who we hear has a problem and so you want to encourage them, things of that nature. But for the most part there are a lot of people that to get in their face as it were with a level of intimacy that they haven't really opened themselves up to makes them uncomfortable. It's a matter of violating their privacy in the good sense.
I want to say something about that term because when you look at the Scripture we have this idea of the privacy of the priesthood, the privacy of the believer. We have to recognize that out of what I would call good manners and good sense, whatever anybody is. You shouldn't get involved in other people's lives and other people's business when there's not a warrant for that. What I mean by a warrant for that is that if they haven't allowed you to be in their life at that level of intimacy. Otherwise we're making somebody feel very uncomfortable. We are putting our nose in somebody else's business when it doesn't have any reason to be there.
But on the other hand if you have somebody who is a friend and you've known them for a long time and you see that there is something going on in their life, to ask them about it or to say something to them in privacy where you say, "I've noticed that there seems to be a problem" or "you seem a little different" or making some observation like that; then it's not violating somebody's privacy. Some people get the idea that if you even say hello to somebody you don't know that it has somehow breached some spiritual truth. That is just not the way the body of Christ is supposed to work. It's a family.
When you get up in the morning. That's probably not a good illustration. Some of you aren't morning people. But you know after you get passed the normal, after you've had your third cup of coffee and you get up in the morning and you come into the kitchen and there's one of your children or a sibling (a brother or sister), you don't just ignore them. You shouldn't.
You should say, "Hello. How are you? What's going on? What's your day?"
You talk to them like a family member. It's somebody you know and you care about. So the body of Christ is based on certain relational principles. It calls for some people a certain amount of maturity to handle that because unfortunately we have too many people in our society and in our culture who've grown up in (and I hate the word, but for the lack of a better word) dysfunctional families where they never learned good manners. They never learned how to talk to people. They never learned how to express legitimate care and concern for other people. So that's going to be part of their growing process. The Bible assumes that people know basic standards of good manners and how to have a relationship with somebody without being overly intrusive in their life.
So the basic idea in this word is to express the idea of how believers within congregations, within the body of Christ, should treat other believers in that congregation. That would also extend by application to any other believer, someone who's another member of the body of Christ.
- Now the second point was to emphasize the fact that the basic command toward one another is to love one another. It's expressed 15 times in the New Testament. John, Peter and Paul each mention this as a command. As I've stated each of the other 18 "one another's" all I think relate to different facets of what it means to love one another. They're descriptions of what that love should look like.
Love is an extremely difficult term to define. I remember over the years working on doctrines, working on manuscripts, trying to come up with a definition of love. If you go to a standard English dictionary (American Heritage Dictionary, Oxford English Dictionary, any of the standard Webster Dictionaries), you will find that the primary meaning for love is expressed as an emotion. But that doesn't work. That is a purely human viewpoint experiential-oriented shallow concept of what love is. The Bible actually doesn't really define love; it pictures love in passages like I Corinthians 13:1-7. That gives a description of the characteristics, the qualities that you have in love. You also have other pictures that Jesus uses, stories that He told like the story of the Good Samaritan, other pictures that He uses to exemplify and illustrate what love is because it's a very tough concept to try to reduce down to a definition.
So what we have in the New Testament are various commands addressed to one another. They show us what the different facets or aspects of love are. We looked at the main command, John 13:34 -35. This is the new commandment that Jesus gave us that we love one another as He loved us.
- The third point that we looked at was that we are to encourage one another. We spent a lot of time on this last time looking at Romans 1, 1 Thessalonians 4 and on into Romans 12 on some of these passages. Encouraging one another has the idea of coming along side. That's the root meaning of the word. It has the idea of comforting, encouraging, strengthening, helping someone who provides assistance. The noun form of the verb that's used here is used of the Holy Spirit. The verb here is parakaleo in Romans 1:12. Paul says he's encouraged with one another or we are to encourage one another. 1 Thessalonians 4:18, we are to comfort one another, parakaleo. 1 Thessalonians 5:11 – "therefore comfort each other and edify each other". These words indicate that idea. The word kaleo, the verb kaleo means to call. The preposition that's a prefix to it is para meaning along side or together. So it's the idea of somebody being called along side or working with somebody to produce something. The noun form is parakletos, which is the noun used of the Holy Spirit. Usually it is translated comforter. Some later translations translate it encourager. It has the idea of someone who is an assistant, someone who comes along to help. I think that some translations call it a helper. All of those ideas come together. So we help each other. One of the ways that we see this is, for example, in 1 Thessalonians 4:18. This follows the section on the rapture, but it's talking about or Paul is giving the answer of what happens when a believer dies that we don't grieve like those who have no hope because we believe that Jesus died and rose again and that He's going to come again. So at the time of physical death we're to comfort one another with these words. So the focus of comfort here isn't the idea of putting your arm around somebody's shoulder and giving them a hug; not that there's anything wrong with that. I don't want to put that down as if there's something wrong there. But that's not the idea of comfort. Comfort comes from content, not just from warm fuzzies. I mean there is nothing wrong with the warm fuzzies as long as that's not all there is. So we are to comfort one another and build up or edify one another.
- The fourth point I think this is what we spent time on the last time that we are members of one another. We looked at two passages in Romans 12. We'll come back and look at Romans 12 again because there are 4 or 5 times in Romans 12 that Paul uses the phrase "for one another", the word for one another. So we are members of one another. That shows that there's interconnectedness within the body of Christ.
As I pointed out last time, this is a different idea for most Americans. As Americans, part of the American consciousness is that we are fiercely independent. We are going to carve out our own destiny. Or at least that's the historical view that most Americans have. Now most Americans think that the government should do that for them. But that's not what made America great. What made America great were people who had this fierce independence that they were going to go out into the frontier and their life was going to be what they made it, recognizing that it was up to their volition and up to their responsibility to make it or break it. It was not anybody else's responsibility to take care of them. Their job was to carve out their own destiny by the strength of their own will and the power of their own labor.
But the Bible says that this kind of fierce individualism isn't a primary characteristic within the body of Christ. We are members of one another. We're not just a bunch of isolated Christian islands out there going it alone.
- Now that brings us to point 5. Again we're back in Romans 12. So turn with me to Romans 12. We'll be in Romans 12 for this point and the next point. Romans 12, as I pointed out last time, is a shift from the teaching content of Romans 1 through 11 to drawing out the implications and application of the doctrine that's developed in those first 11 chapters. And so we come down to verse 10, and in 10 as well as in 16 we're going to see this phrase "for one another." So let's look at the context. Verse 9 reads in the New King James:
NKJ Romans 12:9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.
Now it's a strange construction because there's actually no verb in the Greek. There are just nouns. The verb is left out. It's implied there that this is a command because of the context. Once again it's talking about love. It tells us that in the first sentence. That's the topical sentence for the paragraph that goes down to about verse 21. So it's going to talk about what love looks like that is genuine biblical Christ-like love. It abhors what is evil and it clings or focuses on that which it good, that which has intrinsic good.
Then the next verse gives us another aspect to it.
NKJ Romans 12:10 Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love,
That's a pretty descent translation of the Greek. It's kind of an odd verb there. It's the only time we have a word of this type in the Greek. It's a compound word of sorgeo plus phileo. The verb sorgeo expresses the kind of love that a stork shows for its baby birds, baby storks in the nest. It covers over them with her wings, takes care of them. So it has that affection that's there. Also the word phileo or the Greek philos has that same idea. It expresses the sense of: it's not a distant sort of care and concern. It involves knowledge. It involves a relationship with a person.
in honor giving preference to one another;
So that's really the phrase that I'm looking at on this fifth point is the second half. In honor we are to give preference to one another. That means that you should put other people first, not be self-absorbed basically. There are some people who are so concerned about their own problems, their own difficulties, their own circumstances in life, that it's very hard for them to pull their head up and look around and actually notice that there are other people who have other problems that might even be worse than theirs. So we are to focus on others and not just have this self-oriented focus that's the product of arrogance and pride. This relates to the concept of honor, honoring other people, respecting them and caring for them. So it's a focus on other people and putting them first over our own needs.
Years ago I had several people in my congregation that started the formulation of a doctrine I always refer to as the Doctrine of the Vampire Christian – one of my favorite doctrines. Every congregation has a vampire Christian. Now I don't think that ours does, not that I've noticed. But I have had them in the past.
Now think about a vampire. Y'all have seen Bram Stoker Dracula movies. A vampire only operates at night, right? He can't function during the daytime during the light. So the first characteristic of the vampire Christian is he walks in darkness not in light. He doesn't walk in the light of God's Word. He walks in darkness, lives in carnality. The second aspect about a vampire is when a vampire looks in the mirror; it can't see its own reflection. So when a vampire Christian looks in the mirror of God's Word, he can't see he own reflection. It always applies to somebody else. It never applies "to me" because "I'm perfect." So a vampire Christian always thinks that the Bible always relates to somebody else. Then a third characteristic is that in order for the vampire to survive he has to suck all of his nourishment out of some host. That's what these kinds of Christian do. They come to a congregation wanting to know how that congregation is going to take care of them, how that congregation is going to solve their emotional needs, how that congregation is going to minister to them. Then after two or three weeks and nobody says hello, nobody says hi; they say, "That's just a cold stuck up…they don't really care." That may not be true at all.
What I've often found as a pastor over the years is that the people who scream the most about a church not being caring are the people who walk into a congregation and they expect everybody to notice them and to immediately walk up to them and say, "Oh, I'm so sorry that you're hurting. You've got this problem."
They expect to get all that attention because they are walking through life completely and totally self-absorbed. The issue in the spiritual life is to that we are to take our attention and focus completely off of self and put it onto Christ. Because of that, we put it onto others who are also in Christ. So Romans 12:10 we are to give preference to one another.
- Now that takes us to the sixth point. The sixth point is that we are to have the same mind towards one another. There are three passages that we can go to here: Romans 12:16, Romans 15:5, and Philippians 2:3. I'm going to take a look at each of those. Since we're in Romans 12 already, we're there to begin with. Then we'll go to 15:5 and then over to Philippians 2:3. But the verb that we find in each of these passages is phroneo. Phroneo has the idea of thinking. Sometimes it can be thinking with discernment so that has the idea of judging or evaluating. This isn't judging in terms of being condemnatory toward somebody. But it's judging in the sense of evaluating something, evaluating a situation, being able to think through the issues, and to think critically. It means to give one's mind to something. In other words, sometimes it's used to have the idea of focusing on something, to set your mind on something. So it's a thought word—that we are to have the same kind of thinking.
Now when it comes to the body of Christ, if we just had the number of people that were in this room, it would be pretty difficult on our own to think the same way about things because we're all different. We come from different backgrounds. We have all kinds of different ideas and opinions on things. But when you have the Word of God and the Word of God is the ultimate authority; then we can come together. And when we start with the Word of God, we can then work out from the Word of God and we can come to learn that there's only one opinion. That's God's opinion.
What you often find is when people have problems and difficulties, when you have personal problems that occur often in a marriage and 90% of the time when I have gotten involved in marriage counseling situations; one or both are completely disoriented to the authority of God in life. What they really want from the counselor is validation or absolution. They've made their decision already. They've decided who's right and who's wrong and they want you as the pastor-counselor to come in and validate their opinion. They want you to rescue them from the other person and to straighten out the other person. That's it about 98% of the time. It's just a basic problem of a lack of authority orientation.
I can't tell you how many times in marriage counseling situations I've had to address one or both and say, "You know until you decide to submit to the Word of God, you're never going to be happy, you're never going to solve any problems in your life. You're never going to have any kind of decent family life or marital life because you're in rebellion. You don't want to hear what God has to say even though you've wrapped it up in all kinds of language that makes it sound like you're so concerned about spiritual things."
That happens. Why we disagree with one another ultimately is because somebody is off-base in terms of the Word of God. So when we have this command to be of the same mind to one another, the passages relate to humility and humility always when it comes to the Christian life, always relates to subordination to the authority of God – always.
That's why Jesus said that Moses was the meekest man in the Old Testament. Some translations get it correct and translate it "the most humble man in the Old Testament."
Often we think of humility or meekness as somebody who's been taken advantage of, somebody – you know, they're fairly wimpy and people can push them around. Moses wasn't that way. Moses was trying to herd two and a half million disobedient rebellious Jews through the wilderness. He wouldn't have lasted two days if meek or humble meant pushover. It means somebody who is oriented to the authority of God. What Jesus is saying is that nobody in the Old Testament was more oriented to the authority of God than Moses. Because Moses was under the authority of God, that made him a picture, an example of humility and of meekness. So that's what humility is. That's how we can be of the same mind is because we both subordinate our wishes, our opinions, our ideas to God's opinion which is expressed in the Bible.
So the first verse to look at is the one we have in this chapter, Romans 12:16.
NKJ Romans 12:16 Be of the same mind toward one another.
In other words, think the same way. We could paraphrase it and say, think in terms of biblical truth toward one another. Think in terms of biblical virtues toward one another. Then Paul is going to explain what he means by that.
Do not set your mind on high things,
…in other words, being inappropriately ambitious or competitive.
but associate with the humble.
The contrast there between the high things and the humble when we understand humility to be authority orientation toward God, then setting yourself on high things is the idea of arrogance or pride where we're trying to do that which we want to do as opposed to submitting to God. We are to associate with those who are submitted to the authority of God. Then he goes on to say in verse 16:
Do not be wise in your own opinion.
Once again self-absorption, arrogance, pride. Don't focus on yourself. Don't be thinking that you're right and others are wrong. Subordinate yourself to the authority of God's Word.
Now the next verse is in Romans 15:5. So just turn over a couple of pages or so, depending on the fine print in your Bible and we'll look at Romans 15:5. Now Romans 14 and 15 – 15 kind of brings to a conclusion at least the first 5 or 6 verses bring to a conclusion of a discussion on the law of liberty and the law of love dealing with the weaker brother in chapter 14. As he wraps up that conclusion, Paul says beginning in 15:1:
NKJ Romans 15:1 We then who are strong
By that he means mature believers.
ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves.
…in other words, taking into account other people. Didn't we just see a verse on that back in verse 10 of chapter 12 that we are to in honor give preference to one another? So you are honoring someone who perhaps has a different view and not making an issue out of something that is a minor thing and it's not really a major issue?
NKJ Romans 15:2 Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification.
So one of the criteria is, is this appropriate and does this lead to the maturity, the edification and spiritual growth of this other person? Then we have an example. Notice that the example is from Jesus Christ.
NKJ Romans 15:3 For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, "The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me."
What this is a reference to is that Jesus Christ could have pleased Himself and He could have decided to blast away at the Roman guard that came to arrest Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. He could have completely destroyed the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin and Pontius Pilate with just a thought. But rather than pleasing Himself and taking a path that would bring comfort to Himself, He was willing to take on the reproach of sin and the punishment of sin for our sakes. Christ is used as the illustration here of humility.
NKJ Romans 15:4 For whatever things were written before were written for our learning,
"Written before" would refer to the Old Testament Scriptures.
that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.
…confident expectation in the future.
Now verse 5:
NKJ Romans 15:5 Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus,
Okay, let's note a couple of things. First of all, this is expressed as a blessing or as a prayer, a wish.
grant you
…focusing on two aspects of God's character: patience and comfort.
to be like-minded toward one another,
Then the next thing I want to point out is he says:
according to Christ Jesus,
This is the preposition kata in the Greek, which means according to a standard. So the standard is reiterated as Christ. Who do we look to to learn how we are to carry out this idea of the same mind? We look to Jesus Christ.
Then verse 6 says:
NKJ Romans 15:6 that you may with one mind and one mouth
That is the unity of the body of Christ.
glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The only way that a body of believers can have real unity is when they're submitted to the Word.
We live in an era today that goes back to at least the 1960's (if not the 50's and maybe earlier) when unity has been promoted at the expense of truth and content. Unity is supposed to be a vacuous sort of content-less thing. We're all going to share in our emotion and for the sake of having unity we're going to throw out all conviction of truth, all absolutes in Scripture and we're just going to have a great big group hug. We're going to have unity and all agree so that there's no sense of any kind of disagreement.
This is typical liberal superficial thinking that comes out of 19th century religious liberal ideas that God is the father of everybody and God just wants to love everybody and snuggle up to them and give them a big warm fuzzy hug and that's all we need to get through life.
The Bible doesn't talk about that at all. That comes out of a truly human viewpoint concept of love and God. And 19th century religious liberalism completely rejected the idea that the Bible was the Word of God. It imposed its own concepts on the Bible—psychoanalyzed Marxist social gospel ideas.
So the Bible says it's different. We have one mind because we have a common basis. We're all going to agree that this is true. When we agree that everything in this is true and agree on what it says, then we can have unity.
Ephesians 4, Paul says:
NKJ Ephesians 4:13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;
It's the unity of the content of doctrine. That's where we have unity. You don't believe the Word of God and you don't believe what the Bible says, we can't have unity. You need to go. That's what the Bible says. It's not unity at the expense of what the Bible teaches; it's unity on the basis of what the Bible teaches. So we've seen this development here in Romans 12 that we're to be of this same mindedness as related to humility.
Romans 15 focuses on Christ as the standard and that's related to what Paul says here in what happens at the cross. But it's Philippians 2 where we really get the full understanding of what that means in terms of single mindedness or same mindedness as Christ. So turn over to Philippians. You have Galatians, Ephesians and then Philippians. Now Romans was written a long time before Paul wrote Philippians. Philippians was one of the prison epistles that Paul writes after he's made his third missionary journey after he goes to Jerusalem and then he goes to Rome. Romans was written quite a bit before this, so we sort of looked at this in terms of a temporal development where Paul stated these same ideas in Romans. But now in Philippians 2 he unpacks the idea in a little more detail. He expresses the foundation in the first four verses of Philippians 2.
He's drawing a conclusion and he sets it up with a therefore. Then, he's going to state his assumptions. His assumptions are expressed in these "if" clauses that we find in verse 1. These are expressed as certainties even though they're expressed through an "if" clause. So they're understood and are first class condition. Unger said you could even translate it as since. You normally wouldn't necessarily translate an "if" as a "since" in the first class condition; but it does work in some places. It and gives you the idea. He's saying:
NKJ Philippians 2:1 Therefore
Because this is true.
if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit,
This rapport that believers have with God based on the Holy Spirit and its consequent fellowship rapport with other believers.
if any affection and mercy,
So you have four concepts that he sets there as a foundation, because these things are true.
Now he gives a command. So these four things are absolutes that we have in Christ. He gives a command in verse 2.
NKJ Philippians 2:2 fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
This is an aorist imperative. It's a second person plural so that means it's a "y'all. He's addressing the group, the congregation as a single unity but as a whole.
He's saying y'all. You know the plural of y'all is all y'all. So he is saying, "All y'all fulfill by joy."
It's not an option. It's a command. Because it's an aorist imperative, it's indicating its priority. Now Greek's kind of a little different from English in that in English tense always refers to time; but in Greek the tense only has a time dimension in the indicative mood. When it's an imperative mood or subjunctive mood it just focuses on what grammarians call aspect or the kind of action. So when you have a present imperative, it's not talking about doing something continuously. It's not doing something now. It has the idea of aspect, how you do it continuously or should be a characteristic of your life. When it's aorist tense, aorist tense is usually a past idea of an indicative. But when it's an aorist imperative, he's emphasizing it. He doesn't have boldface type so that's what he's doing with the grammar. An aorist imperative says this should be a priority for you now.
In one place you might have a command that's expressed to one group of Christians as a present imperative. What Paul would be saying, what the writer would be saying to that group is this needs to be a characteristic of your life. Now he may be addressing another group and uses the same verb. But to this other group they've got a problem because they're not doing it at all. So they need to make it a priority. So addressing another group he may use the same verb, talk about the same thing, but now express it as an aorist imperative and to that group he's saying you need to make this a priority. These are not contradictory ideas; it just depends on the circumstances, the person that the writer is addressing.
So because there's this problem of divisiveness in the Philippian congregation he expresses this as an aorist imperative meaning they need to get their act together and they need to make this a priority to quit being so self absorbed and to start thinking the same way.
We see an example of the divisiveness later on in chapter 4 when he has two women Euodia and Syntyche. They are having some kind of personal conflict.
But here he's talking to the congregation as a whole. He says, "You need to be same minded."
That's further developed as having the same love. So their love is set up as an expression of being what? Having the same kind of thinking. So love is expressed not as an emotion, but as part of thinking, part of objective thought. That's where Americans tend to run on rough ground when they're thinking about love. We tend to think that the dictionary has it right. The dictionary just reflects usage. Most people think that love is an emotion. But the kind of love that God has is related to thinking.
NKJ John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
It's not an emotion. It's an action. It is thought. It involved planning. It involved the plan of salvation. It involved thinking through all the details that needed to be resolved in order for the sin problem to be solved at the cross. So love is a thoughtful concept. We think objectively based on God's work.
So Paul says:
NKJ Philippians 2:2 fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
Then he goes into verse 3 and he says:
NKJ Philippians 2:3 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit,
So there's the same contrast we've seen between being self absorbed, focusing on yourself, focusing on your own need, you own hurt, your own plans and agenda versus focusing on the Word of God and the body of Christ and the plan of God.
but in lowliness of mind
Now he's going to explain that. That's not this kind of pseudo-meekness that people often think of. It's the opposite of thinking more highly of yourself, which is the phrase Paul uses in Romans 12.
let each esteem others better than himself.
The concept of esteem there is that same idea of giving honor to one another over in Romans 12. So the key verse there for one another is that we are to esteem one another better than himself. So it's being of the same mind toward one another.
NKJ Philippians 2:4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
It's not saying ignore. This isn't some sort of asceticism where you say, "Oh well, I don't need anything." But it's saying don't just focus on me, me, me. It's not all about you. It's all about Jesus Christ. It's all about the plan of God.
Now we get an example of this in verse 5. In verse 5 Paul gives another command. He says:
NKJ Philippians 2:5 Let this mind be in you
Or we could translate that, "Let this mentality, this kind of thinking characterize you."
which was also in Christ Jesus,
So this sets up our pattern. This is what Paul was saying over in Romans 15:5 that we are to think according to Christ. Now this is how Jesus Christ exhibited humility. Verse 6 describes the eternal person of Christ.
NKJ Philippians 2:6 who
The "who" refers to Christ Jesus.
being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,
Now that Greek word there is often debated just exactly what it means. The concept of "form of God" morphe was a word that was often used in Greek philosophy to refer to an ideal or the essence of something. So when it's used of the form of God, Paul is saying that Jesus Christ existed in the essence of God. He was true God. He was fully God. He had all the attributes of God including eternality. He is the eternal Second Person of the Trinity. Even though He was God, even though He's the creator, even though He has the right to the obedience and the worship of every single creature, rather than emphasizing that and emphasizing His rights as God and saying, "Well, that is exactly what I deserve is to be worshipped as God and to be recognized as God"; He did not consider it something to be emphasized literally, to be equal with God. .
He's not going to emphasize that. But instead, verse 7:
NKJ Philippians 2:7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.
Literally it has the idea that He humbles Himself. He's not going to emphasize who He is or the worship that is honestly due Him. But rather He takes on the form of a bondservant. He puts Himself in the position of having the nature of a servant.
He says:
NKJ Luke 19:10 "for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
So He came as a servant in the likeness of men. He took on full humanity at incarnation when He was born.
NKJ Philippians 2:8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
He humbled Himself, how? By becoming obedient to the point of death. Humility functions through obedience. It is recognition of authority. Jesus humbles Himself under the authority of God the Father and is obedient to the point of taking on the reproach of sin, humbling Himself to taking on all of the suffering that came as God the Father punished Him for our sins and poured out all of our sin upon Him. The very nature of that was completely abhorrent to Him.
NKJ 2 Corinthians 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
So He humbles Himself taking on all of the reproach all the judgment all the condemnation upon Himself even to the point of death on the cross. Therefore the result is that God exalts Him. When we put ourselves under the authority of God, God then becomes the one to exalt us. We're not into self-exaltation. So rather than being self absorbed, when we become absorbed with God, focused on Christ, occupied with Christ; then the result is that God is the one who elevates us. God is the one who then takes care of the problems in our life. He is the one who exalts us at the right time just as He exalted Jesus Christ at the ascension with the result that in the future…
NKJ Romans 14:11 For it is written: "As I live, says the LORD, Every knee shall bow to Me, And every tongue shall confess to God."
So we're to be of the same mind to one another has to do with humility. That is the illustration that we are to have the same kind of thinking which is the humility that Jesus Christ had on the cross.
- That brings us to our 7th point. The 7th point is we are to build up one another, Romans 14:19.
NKJ Romans 14:19 Therefore let us pursue
The idea there is an imperative. That's why I've inserted the exclamation point after the verb pursue. This is a command for us.
the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.
Let's just look at the context so we pick up what Paul was talking about there in Roman 14:19. Again this is a section dealing with the problem of a weaker brother. Now a weaker brother is an immature brother, a brother who is another believer who may have problems with something that is perfectly legitimate to be engaged in. This can involve any number of different activities. Many cultures have different taboos. Many religious groups have different taboos where they say you just can't do this and be holy, or you can't do that and be holy. And it has nothing to do with the Bible.
In the ancient world, many times there were problems with, for example with the Corinthians. They had meat that had been sacrificed or offered to a god in the pagan temple. Then it would be sold in the meat market and then people would go down there and buy the meat. And it was some of the better meat because it was offered to the god or goddess. Then they would bring it home to eat it. There were some people who this bothered their conscience.
So the issue was, well what do we do with situations like this? What do you do with these kinds of circumstances? We have our own set of taboos in 20th century, 21st century American Christianity. Often these are just values set up by the culture or sometimes they're set up by legalistic form of Christianity. It doesn't have anything to do with the Bible or grace whatsoever. But because we understand that somebody is coming out of this background, somebody has this kind of problem; we're just not going to make an issue out of it. That' the idea related to the law of liberty as we have the freedom to participate in some things, but because of the law of love that's described in this chapter as well, we choose not to, so it's not an issue until this other believer can become a little better educated in spiritual truth.
It used to always bother me when I was younger that it seems like everybody is always concerned about this weaker brother and putting a stumbling block in front of him. There were two things that always stuck with me. I remember Dr. Ryrie made a comment on this, and I think I heard him speak about a year or two before I went to seminary.
He said, "For somebody to stumble, they have to be moving."
Most of the legalistic Christians that are out there that make an issue out of some sort of gray area aren't moving. Their feet are stuck in the concrete of legalism, and they're not going anywhere. So as soon as you have a good Scotch, have beer, sit down and enjoy yourself or whatever it may be that violates their standards; you haven't caused them to stumble. They're like a Pharisee. They're just looking for issues. They're not going anywhere.
Then I also remember a cover on Moody Monthly. Moody Bible Institute produced this monthly journal called Moody Monthly. The cover said Grow Up Weaker Brother. And both of those comments pointed out the fact that most people, who claim to be the weaker brother, aren't weaker. They're not younger immature Christians who are going to somehow stumble in their Christianity. They're Christians who should know better and have chosen a path of legalism and are making issues out of nonissues and acting like they're weaker when they're really not.
But the point in Romans14 recognizes that there truly are people who have certain problems and that if you engage in certain kinds of activities or behaviors that are completely legitimate in front of them, they can't handle it. They will use it as an excuse to go too far. For example, one that I think is a moral overt example would be is that it is fine according to the Bible to partake of alcoholic beverages. But if you sit down with somebody that you know has a problem with alcohol and can't control alcohol and you sit down and say, "I'm going to give him a beer so they can understand I'm grace oriented" – that's a violation. You are putting a stumbling block in front of that person. You know that's a problem. That's the idea that we have with the law of love.
NKJ Romans 14:14 I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.
So even though they have a screwed up scale of values, we need to take that into account because of their spiritual condition.
NKJ Romans 14:15 Yet if your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died.
NKJ Romans 14:16 Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil;
NKJ Romans 14:17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
In other words, don't major on minor things. Don't make issues out of what you eat and what you drink when that's not the real issue. The focus is on righteous and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. In other words the fruit of the Holy Spirit is spiritual growth.
NKJ Romans 14:18 For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men.
NKJ Romans 14:19 Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.
The word there for edify means to build up, to strengthen somebody spiritually. That's the idea in edifying one another is being engaged in those conversations, those ideas, those actions that strengthen someone in their spiritual lives encourage them to go forward rather than create some sort of a speed bump on their road to their spiritual advance.
Okay, that's the first 7 points. We'll start with point 8 next time which will be to accept one another, Romans 15:7.
Let's bow our heads in closing prayer.
Illustrations