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Pleasing Others - Sermon for Advent II

My sermon yesterday, based upon the Epistle reading for The Second Sunday in Advent, Romans xv, 4f.

I don’t know about your family, but my sister and I just could not get along. While it is especially hard to examine your motivations from 50 years distance, I am nevertheless certain that I was not without my own guilt in our relationship. Indeed, I can remember doing and saying things that could not have been very well received by my sister, and I have since apologised to her for it.

It is very sad that brothers and sisters in our families have such problems getting along with one another. It is not a complicated thing. The Christian life is simple enough for a child to live. One need only love Jesus enough to follow the Golden Rule; to think about how to make others happy instead of only thinking about whether others are making you happy. That goes a long way in any relationship. A child that can wake up in the morning and start thinking about how to please his brother or sister, or his mother or father, has indeed started to become an adult, spiritually if not physically. How many grown-up Christians rise from their own beds each day and think that way, or go to their work places or come to church, considering how they may please others instead of themselves? I do not know, but one has to wonder at times.

The thing is that this is very important, for it strikes at the very heart of the gospel of Christ itself. If we say we believe the gospel, then we know we should live according to the gospel. And, as I’ve stated above, it’s not that complicated. Even a child can do it. Having received Christ into our hearts by faith, we begin to live like He did, by the power of His Spirit within us. And how did He live? Well, the passage we read in the Epistle earlier in our service tells us. The Epistle actually starts in verse 4 of chapter 15 of Romans, but let me read for you verses 1-4 and then lead us into reflection upon the rest of the Epistle. St. Paul writes:

1: We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.
2: Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification.
3: For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me.
4: For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

Now what do we learn about Jesus here? Well, for one thing, we learn that He lived according to what the Old Testament said would be true about Him. He lived as it was written about Him. The reason this Epistle and the Gospel are read on the Second Sunday in Advent is that they remind us of the importance of the Bible for Christian faith. The second Sunday in Advent is called “Bible Sunday”, for we remember on this day that the whole Bible, both Old and New Testaments, are the basis of our belief. Jesus came as it was written of Him. In both testaments we learn of who Jesus was and what He has done for us and how we are to receive Him by faith and give our lives wholly to His worship and service. It is fitting for us to consider such things at Advent as we seek to examine our hearts and prepare to celebrate His coming.

But the particular thing we learn about Jesus in this Epistle is that He did not please Himself. The Old Testament had said that He would come doing things that would be unpleasant for Him, even the suffering of death, so that we might be redeemed and have eternal life. Therefore, when He rose from His bed each day, He did so thinking of others. Indeed, it was written that He would come as the Servant of the LORD, serving the people of the LORD, meeting those needs that only He could meet. As Paul says later in the passage, you will recall,

8: Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God….

That word “minister” in the KJV is the word translated elsewhere “servant;” we know it as the word “deacon.” As He said of Himself, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Now this is the gospel that we profess that we believe and that we proclaim to the world. If we do not live according to it ourselves, as Jesus’ disciples, then we deny the faith and we disqualify our worship. Yes, we Anglicans, that are so thankful for our wonderful liturgy, make it a mockery if we do not live to please others; if we do not follow our Lord in a life of service for one another. Let me read verses 5 through 7 again:

5: Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus:
6: That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
7: Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.

Paul does not mean in verse 5, where He wishes for the Lord to make us likeminded, that we are to always agree about everything. We should be growing together in our understanding of the Scriptures so that we are increasingly becoming more and more in like mind about its teachings, but this is not the main point here. Paul wants us to have the same mind toward one another according to the way Jesus was minded toward us. We are to receive each other in the same way Jesus received us. And how did He do so? He received us as rotten, ungodly, and ignorant sinners. He received us at our worst, as those who nailed Him upon the cross. Oh what love! Oh what a servant! Can we not, with His Spirit in our hearts, receive one another and seek to please one another, if He did this for us?

Beside that, we are not even as bad as we once were anymore. The very image of our God is renewed in us. We don’t even have to receive each other the way Jesus received us; it should be an even easier thing to do. But we are still bad enough to be a trial to each other at times. Nevertheless, if we would be forgiven, we must forgive. If we would profess this Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, we must follow Him and receive each other as He has received us. This is what we are to be likeminded about. We are to be mutually convinced that we must be loving and merciful to each other. We must be persuaded together of the imperative of Christian unity, so that, when we do gather to worship, we may do so with one mind and voice. Only thus may we truly glorify our God in life and worship.

It is our calling, as Gentiles, to bring glory to God in our worship because of what Jesus has done for us. The Bible also contains prophecies about us! Paul lists some of these, remember?

8: Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister… to confirm the promises made unto the fathers:
9: And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name.
10: And again he saith, Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people.
11: And again, Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and laud him, all ye people.
12: And again, Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust.

One of the main reasons we have been saved, one of the main reasons Jesus has served us and received us is so that we, even here today, may glorify God in our confession, in our praise, in our songs, and in our joy for our redemption in Christ. We must seek a charitable attitude toward each other if we are to do this, for we cannot worship God together if we are all out of sorts with each other because of differing opinions, or irritating habits, or because we hold grudges against each other over the petty affairs of our lives. God forbid! Our salvation is too great, our God too great, the promises of the Holy Scriptures too great to so trivialize and defile our lives and our worship.

Yet, unless God has mercy on us and is gracious to us, we will fail. In spite of all He has done for us, in spite of all the wonderful promises of Scripture fulfilled in His Son and in us, we will be grumpy, self-pitying, disgruntled people, at odds with each other. St. Paul, being one of us, knowing our temptations in his own experience, therefore twice, in this passage, writes a benediction. In verse 5, he says,

Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another, and in verse 13, at the close of this passage, he says, Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.

God must give us that heart-disposition to live as Jesus lived, not pleasing Himself, but pleasing others; not rejecting people, but receiving them. We do not live according to the gospel because we are not filled with the blessing of the gospel in our hearts and minds. We need God to give us the patience and consolation that helps us be likeminded toward each other. We need Him to fill us with His joy and peace and hope so that, having tasted it, we may wish it for others. Thank God, Paul does not write these benedictions in vain! This is the very purpose of God for us!

As I recently told you, we are to believe that these things are indeed ours and then act accordingly. At that time, I was emphasising how we are to believe the Word of God and live out the life He works in us, knowing, whether we feel like He is or not, that He is indeed doing so. As we thus live, trusting Him to fulfill His Word and obeying Him as He has commanded us, we will find ourselves enabled to be and do all that we are called to be and do.

Along that same line, today, I exhort us to consider this: if God wills all of us to have lives of love, joy, peace and hope, then let us live in such a way that we encourage love, joy, peace, and hope in each other. Let us not be so mindful of our own joy and peace but the joy and peace of others. Let us not rise from our beds each day thinking of whether we are going to be joyful or peaceful, but, instead, thinking of how we may help others to know and enjoy the love and peace of God in their own lives. Let us not only pray that the Lord will fulfill these benedictions of Paul’s in our lives, but let us also pray that He will do so in the lives of those around us and then get up and do what we can to work with God in the fulfilling of our prayers. Let us do what Paul says in verse 2: Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification. Let us build each other up in the faith by doing practical things that tend to their Christian edification. Let us not be stumbling blocks, irritating them, being selfish toward them, expecting them to please us. Let us instead be encouragers by following Christ in our own hearts. Refusing to think only about our own happiness, let us pursue the happiness and spiritual wellbeing of others.

If we do this, likemindedness about all we have in common in the gospel will thrive. Our joy and peace will grow. We will find it rather easy to gather together in worship, and, with one heart and voice, glorify God for the incredible love He has for us and has poured into our hearts, according to His promises declared in His Holy Word concerning Jesus Christ.

Amen.

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