OTHERS

Read Romans 15. 

If God is our Father, that makes all His children to be our brothers and sisters.  We are in the same family and are to relate to each other in love.

Those who are strong ought to bear with the tender souls of the weak.  “We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification.” (Rom.15:1-2). We are not to drive the sheep like cattle, but lead them like lambs.  Those mature in faith are not meant to be arrogant and indifferent to the immature, but to lovingly lead them.  Our concern is to build others up in faith.

Those whom Christ has received need to be received into the church. “Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.” (v.7). The compassion of Christ has reached out to sinners with grace and mercy, and He has embraced us.  Even more, He has come to dwell in us.  When we receive others, we receive Him.  This, in turn, brings us into the purpose for which we have been redeemed—to glorify God. 

Those God has brought together in His family are meant to admonish one another. “Now I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren, that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another.” (v.14). To admonish is to inform and correct, or as some translations render it, “instruct.”  As we grow in moral goodness and Biblical knowledge, we are meant to help others do likewise.  Someone else in the body is always farther along than us and can instruct us, while someone else is behind us and we can instruct them.

Those in the church can be at peace through the presence of the Prince of Peace. “Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.” (v.33). Here is the source of our unity.  The God of peace who has given us His peace can now enable us to abide in peace with one another in the church.

The Christian life is about others, not about me.

UNITED WE STAND

For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation….  (Ephesians 2:14)

In this chapter, Paul is giving a graphic portrayal of fallen man’s condition apart from Christ, and the transformation occurring from entering a personal relationship with Him.  These verses describe sinners as orphans and outcasts.  All that changes when we meet Jesus.  Sinners become saints—and the result is we become part of the family of God and the estrangement we had from God and His people comes to an end—united with Christ and one another.

The church is a BROTHERHOOD (Eph.2:11-14).  The world loves to think of itself as a great community where all are one.  The reality contradicts such utopian nonsense. Man’s brutality is graphically displayed on the news each day.  The only way true peace comes is when the Prince of Peace brings it!  Our peace with others is predicated on our peace with God available through Christ.  It is through this connection that God becomes our Father.  We may have black skin or white skin; we may be Methodists or Baptists; we may be Jews or Gentiles—we have the same Father and belong to the same family.  Sinful humans like to build walls, but God is in the business of demolishing barriers!

The church is a BODY (Eph.2:15-18).  As a body has many different parts, connected and working together at the direction of the head, so is the church.  God fashioned Adam’s body from the dust and breathed into man His life in the original creation.  In the new creation, He took such unlikely material as we are and molded us together, breathing His life-giving Spirit into us—and the church came to life!

The church us a BUILDING (Eph.2:19-22).  I’ve often heard—and said—that the church is not a building.  That depends—if we mean that the church is not an edifice constructed of bricks and mortar, we are correct, but the church is a spiritual temple constructed by God of redeemed men and women.  The picture is of an architect fitting many different components into a structure—and thus God is the Architect of His church and we are the pieces He puts in place.  The foundation of this temple is Christ the cornerstone and connected with Him, the apostles and prophets, who shared His Gospel in establishing the church.  On that foundation, God is raising the frame.  We are the material He is using.  How exciting that what God is doing in our local church is part of the great eternal temple He is building!

You can be my brother or sister—if God is your Father.  No longer need you be excluded—an outcast without hope—you can be reconciled to God and enter His forever family!  If you have not received Christ—do it NOW!

Those who belong to Him need to employ the unique giftedness He has placed in us for doing the work in this world He wants done.  No more fighting with each other, we are family!  No more laziness, we are the Body of Christ to be His hands to help and feet to go and mouth to speak!  No more complacency in thinking the church is “OK” when He wants the building ever expanding!  Why would we want to build a chicken coop on the massive foundation of Christ’s work which He designed for a heaven-reaching and global-encompassing structure?