Reflecting the Image

Scripture:

Romans 15:1–2

1 We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. 2 Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor. (NRSVUE)

Observation:

The Christian life is not about pleasing ourselves. This walk with the Lord is not a solitary adventure but one that is to be lived in community. Within that community there will be people at different places in their understanding and practice of faith. There will be differences of opinion and conviction, and sometimes we will simply find it difficult to understand one another.

Paul says that those who are strong are supposed to “put up with” the failings of the weak. Other translations use the language of “bearing with” the weak, and I like that image. Our strength is not given to us so that we can stand at a distance and point out the weaknesses of others. Our strength becomes a resource for helping to carry one another.

We are supposed to be looking out for one another. It’s not our job simply to please ourselves but to seek the good of our neighbor because we are to be engaged in the purposes of God, which include “building up the neighbor.” In the very next verse, Paul points us to Jesus: “For Christ did not please himself.” Christ becomes the pattern for the way in which we live together.

Application:

Far too often we see the Christian life as something that we do on our own. We are not meant to be solitary individuals but part of a larger community. The very life of the Triune God is a life of holy, self-giving love, and we are invited to participate in that life together. We link arms with those around us and engage in this Christian life together.

I’m afraid that we live in a very judgmental world. The algorithms that feed our social media seem to thrive on division. In some ways, we literally are not living in the same world. We don’t hear the same narratives, and the lenses through which we view events are often very different. For Christians, this ought to be a wake-up call. We should not allow the things of this world to teach us how to treat one another. Instead, we are to become people who look for ways to build up our neighbors, whether we agree with them about everything or not.

This doesn’t mean that truth doesn’t matter, or that there are never times for correction or accountability. Paul isn’t asking us to pretend that differences don’t exist. He is asking something much more difficult of us: What does love require of me when another person is difficult for me to bear?

Sometimes the person whose weakness is hardest for us to bear may be the very neighbor God is asking us to build up.

As the church, there are practices in which Christians have long engaged together. Worship, prayer, testimony, fellowship, the reading of Scripture, and gathering around the Lord’s Table are not simply things we do alongside one another. These shared practices can help form and sustain our unity even when we don’t agree about everything. They keep bringing us back into the presence of God and into relationship with one another.

When we come together, it’s not simply to please ourselves. I confess that it’s hard for me to hear people say they are leaving a church because it’s just not for them, or because it doesn’t feed them in the way they would like. But is it really all about you? What if the church is ministering to those who are new in their faith? What if the church is reaching your children or grandchildren? What if, at this stage in your Christian journey, God wants you to gather not simply because of what you will receive, but because of what you can give?

That would change our mindset on a Sunday morning. Christian maturity isn’t demonstrated by how little we need other people. Perhaps it is revealed in our growing capacity to give ourselves for the sake of others.

Another of our shared practices is corporate prayer. Yes, solitary prayer is good and necessary, but there is also something deeply formative about believers joining together in prayer. When I hear the cries of my neighbor’s heart, I begin to know them differently. I learn how to pray for them, how to support them, and how to help build them up. The person who might have been easy to dismiss from a distance becomes my brother or sister whose burden I have heard before God.

Maybe this is another way we get into the stream of the Holy Spirit together. We link arms and move in the flow, sometimes carrying one another when the journey becomes difficult. We are not all equally strong at the same moment, and maybe that’s the point. Today I may help carry you. Tomorrow I may discover that I need you to help carry me.

Today, you will encounter a neighbor. This may be a brother or sister in Christ, or it may be someone who has not yet experienced the love of Christ. What if the strength, grace, wisdom, or experience God has given you today isn’t simply for you? What if it has been given so that you can help build up someone else?

We are in this together.

Don’t simply please yourself. Look around and see whom God may be asking you to help carry today.

Prayer:

Lord, You have shown us what self-giving love looks like. You poured Yourself out for us, giving everything so that we might become part of Your family. Forgive us when we are more interested in judging one another than in building one another up. Give us grace to bear with one another, wisdom to know when truth must be spoken, and love that always seeks the good of our neighbor. Help us to link arms and faithfully participate in the life of Your Spirit together. Amen.