OIKONOMICS

By Bobby Blakey on January 20, 2025

Romans 15:1-3

AUDIO

OIKONOMICS

By Bobby Blakey on January 20, 2025

Romans 15:1-3

Peace. Amen. Go ahead, grab a seat. I invite you to open the Bible and turn with me to the book of Romans, chapter 15. Verses 1 to 3 will be our text together this morning. And wow, what a service we had last Sunday at nine o'clock, sending out the people to Long Beach. Talk to me now, yes or no, was that an amazing service we had last week? Who was here last week for that service? I have never experienced anything like that in my life. After this service, particularly the nine o'clock I walked up to a grown man in public, and he grabbed me in his arms, and we both openly wept together. Was that weird to anybody else? I didn't just do it with one brother in Christ. I'm just walking around the room seeing my friends, the people who I've been a part of this church family, and now they're going to Long Beach to plant a new church. And we're weeping together because we love one another. We're going to miss each other. And that really was profound to me. These are relationships we have here at the church. They matter, and we're going to miss them so much. And so, when you when I get to read to you right now these verses here in Romans 15, you will see how perfect this text is for us now, the week after that. What does Jesus want us to do here in Huntington Beach? We just sent out a whole team. What is the purpose of us being here together at church? I want to read this to you, and out of respect for God's word, I invite everybody to stand up for the public reading of Scripture, and I encourage you to give this your full and undivided attention, because this is the Word of God. Please follow along as I read these three verses, Romans 15:1-3.
We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.”
That's the reading of God's Word. Please go ahead and have a seat. You know, for me, this season of sending out really began five months ago when my son went off to college for his first time. First time we sent him out of the house. And right around that same time, we announced we're going to send out a whole team, one hundred and thirty adults, two pastors, they're all going to Long Beach. And so, I've never really been in a place where one of my kids gets sent out of the house. Like some of you are very used to that. Some of you, it's still coming up. And let me just warn you, it's horrible. It's absolutely terrible. Like, for eighteen years, I've made sure this kid was alive every single day for eighteen years. I go into his room every single day to make sure he's okay. I read him stories. Sometimes I read him the same story over and over. A ridiculous amount of times. I try to teach this kid the Bible. I try to teach him the way of Jesus. Eventually, he keeps growing up. He becomes his own man. He comes into my room and starts telling me things, and we have this bond, me in him, and now I’m supposed to just send him out. And, oh, it's great. He's just out there doing who knows what, but it's fine when, for eighteen years I've been like, what's he doing? He’d better be home by this time. Like, what? Now I'm just like, on find a friend like, stalking him. Where is he right now? How is this going? There's something about this whole sending out thing, these brothers, that if I just walk up to them, grown men will start crying right here in a public place. And now we're just sending them out, and we're supposed to be like, yeah, I won't see that bro anymore. There's something about this that has been bothering me personally, and it's not just that I love them and I'm going to miss them. No, it's actually something deeper than that. It's actually what it says right here in Romans 15, verse 1, it says, “We who are strong, we have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.” See, what I realize is, yeah, I want to invest in my son's life, but in the end, I want that investment to work out for me. Yeah, I want to have brothers in Christ that we invest in, but then I don't really like seeing them leave, because I want them to be here with me.
See, it's not just that I love these people. Some of it I've had to realize is this selfishness in my own heart. And see what this verse is saying is that's not the point. The point isn't how is this going to work out for ourselves. Look at verse 2, each of us, we're here to please the neighbor. Each of us is here to please his neighbor, the person next to you, for his good. And then here's the key phrase, “to build him up.” See, am I here to build my house? Am I here to build my church? Am I here to build my life, or am I about building other people up for the Lord Jesus Christ? See, that's what this passage gets to and that's what I've needed to hear, because I kind of want it to work out for me, when really it has to be all for Jesus. So, this phrase right here “to build him up,” well, throw the Greek word up here on the screen. It's oikonomics. And this is where we get the idea of economics. Okay, maybe you've heard of economics. My son, going to his second semester, he's taking economics. Anybody know about scarcity? Anybody know about supply and demand? Right? Economics, how goods and services are produced and how they are consumed? Well, oikodone is about house building. Oikos is the Greek word for house. Dome is the idea of the building, the structure. So, the study oikonomics is the study of, how does Jesus build his house? How does Jesus build his church? That's what we're going to begin here in Romans 15. We're in the real practical part of the book of Romans.
Everybody turn to Matthew 16 with me. If you go over to Matthew 16, this is where, really the whole idea of oikonomics begins, in what Jesus says in response to Peter in Matthew 16. Matthew 16 is a very important passage in the Gospel of Matthew. This passage is actually also in Mark and in Luke, because this is the passage where Jesus takes his disciples away, and they have this real important conversation about who he actually is. And this passage has been so important for us here in Huntington Beach, planting this church that I really want to read it in its entirety here to everybody from Matthew 16, starting in verse 13 all the way to verse 18. So please follow along as I read Matthew 16:13-18. This is like a turning point here in the Gospel of Matthew when Jesus has this conversation with his disciples. “Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’” Right answer, Jesus is God's Anointed One. Jesus is the Son of the Father, yes, yes. Jesus answered him in verse 17, “’Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’”
So, the word here, this is the verb form, and we'll throw it up here, oikodomeo, that's the verb where Jesus says, I will build. He says it in the future tense here, and the answer, there's a little word play there, because the name Peter sounds like the word rock in Greek, as we sing Peter, that's right, I am the Christ. I am the Son of the living God. And when people hear the name of Jesus, when people come to understand who Jesus is, when their eyes are open to see that Jesus, he is the one that God sent to save us. He is God's Son. When people see that, that's where he'll build the church, on the foundation of who he is. And so it is this very statement of Jesus, it is this promise that Jesus makes that led some of us to come and plant this church in Huntington Beach, and it's now why we've sent some people out to go plant a church in Long Beach, because we believe that Jesus is going to build his church, and not even the gates of Hades can prevail against it. Can I get an amen from anybody on that? That's what we believe.
Okay, so that is the foundation of oikonomics. This right here what Jesus said he's going to do. Jesus promised to build something on planet earth. What does that look like? Well, now we go back to Romans 15. Now we're going to get deeper into that study. How does it actually work out? How does this church, which is not just a promise for us to believe, to inspire our faith, but practically now that's where we're at in the book of Romans. We're coming towards the end of our study of the book of Romans, and so chapter 15 gets very practical. Here's something not to do, here's something to do, and then here's the reason why you should do it. Those are our three verses. Those are our three points.
So, we start right here in verse number 1, where we say, we who are strong, and the word here for “strong” is really, we who have power, we who have ability, is the idea. Those of us where God has done his work in our lives, where we now have faith in what God is able to do, well, if you have faith in Christ, and you now have the power to live a new life. Well, we who are strong, we have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak. Hey, Christianity is not an individual sport. Christianity is a team thing. You can't just say, well, I'm strong, or me and my spouse are strong, or me and my family are strong, so we're good. No, no, no. It says you have an obligation. There's something else you ought to do. You need to bear with those who don't have that same power and ability that you do by your faith in Christ. You can't just come to church to please yourself. You can't be a consumer of what the church has to just give you. You have to actually be here for the other people. That's what he's getting to here, we can't come to church to please ourselves.
Now, if you want to take notes here on the sermon, there's a hand out there in your bulletin, and if you are taking notes, look at the three verses on the top right hand column there, and circle the word “please” in all three of those verses, because that's the theme of all three of these verses. Verse 1 says we're not to please ourselves. Verse 2 says we're to please our neighbor. And then verse 3 talks about Christ coming and how he didn't come to please himself. So, that's the clear flow of thought in these three verses. It's about who are you going to please and the person you cannot please, you are not to please. The wrong way to think about Jesus building the church, the wrong way to think about economics would be to be in it for yourself. I mean, this was a big week for our church, sending out the team to Long Beach. This is about to be a big week for America. Tomorrow, January, 20, there will be the inauguration of our next president, who's already been a President before in these United States of America. And perhaps the most famous thing ever said on January 20 was in 1961, when it was said to our fellow, to my fellow Americans, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country now.” Let's just make that about church. Ask not what your church can do for you, but what you can do for your church. That's what Romans 15 is saying. That's not what we're saying today. It's like, publicly acceptable. Hey, why do you go to that church? I go to that church because it works out great for my family. I go to that church because I like the music. I go to church because it's convenient, because it's close to my house. Like, if you just ask people, what do they go to church for? They'll tell you, I go to church to please myself. I go to church because it works out for me. Romans 15:1 is saying, wrong way to think. That's not how economics works, that Jesus isn't building his church through your selfish interest.
Let's get that down for point number one: “The church is not built by selfish interest.” The church is not built by everybody asking what their church can do for them. That's not what's going to build up the Church of Jesus Christ. Now I understand we've got a lot of people here this morning, Sunday at nine o'clock. I understand that some are just coming, and you're just learning about who Jesus is, and you're just even figuring out if you want to build your life on the foundation of Jesus, if you want to repent and turn from a life of sin. And if you want to put your trust in the fact that Jesus died for you and rose again to give you a new life. Some of you are just trying to figure out who Jesus is, and we're so glad you're here. We want to welcome you here this morning, but some of you have been coming here on a lot of Sundays at nine o'clock, and you're like, I'm a Christian, but I’ve got to ask you, do you come for yourself? Because you're not supposed to think of church like that. That might be how we're doing it in America these days. That's not how Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote to the saints in Rome. Don't do it to please yourself. And this is what has really convicted me about sending my son off to college, about sending my friends off to Long Beach. It really convicted me, because I realized at the end of the day, I still wanted to work out for myself. See, I moved here to be a part of this church, and I'm like, Yeah, I want to see Jesus build this church. And there's been a lot of hard things that have happened. Some people, they just don't want to believe in Jesus. And then some people, you think they are believing in Jesus, and then they fall away. Sometimes people, even they cause division, they start accusing other people of things. It gets really complicated, but I'm like, no, Jesus is going to build his church, and I'll go through all the hard things when it doesn't work out. But this is a situation. And where it did work out. This is a situation where, wow, look at all these people that got saved. Look at all these Christians willing to serve. Let's send them to Long Beach. And this feels like, oh, this is good. Jesus is doing it. But then I'm like, why do I feel so bad about it? If Jesus is doing it, because I'm going to miss my friends. It's not just that I love them. I want them to be here to love me. And so I've become very convicted, and I want to share this with you that, even in seeing Jesus build his church, even all the way to the end where we get to plan a church, is there still a part of it where I'm in it for myself, because that's the warning here, don't do this to please yourself.
Now I want to make sure we're very careful how we define people-pleasing. Go to Galatians. Chapter 1, verse 10. Everybody Turn to Galatians 1:10, because we already heard in some of the testimonies from our young people here this morning, that people-pleasing can be a real evil thing, and it can really consume your life. When you become something where you just care what other people think about you, it can lead to anxiety and depression, and it can get very intense. And so, this idea that we're not to please ourselves, but please our neighbor, I just want to make a clarifying statement here that the Bible does talk about people-pleasing like it's an evil thing to do. Galatians 1:10 here is an example of this. Look what Paul says to the Galatians. Here he says, “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Okay, so what was Paul's name before he met Jesus? His name was Saul, and he was a leader of the Jews. And here in the book of Galatians, the Jews are like, oh, you want to be saved? You’ve got to get circumcised and become a Jew. You’ve got to honor the Sabbath like we do, and you’ve got to have the same diet that we do. And so, the Jews are putting pressure on other people to conform to them being Jews. And Paul's trying to say, I can't keep pleasing the Jews, because now I'm living to please Jesus. And so, he's turning away from being a people-pleaser. In fact, he's drawing a contrast. Here's your choice. You're either going to please people and try to get them to like you, or you're going to please Jesus and live for him. Which one is it? Okay? So, this kind of people-pleasing that he's calling out here in Galatians 1:10. Let's write this down, if you're taking notes: “people pleasing is evil.” It's going to come up here on the screen. “Pleasing people is wrong when it is about them liking you.” Pleasing people is wrong when it's about them liking you. When I'm just trying to gain I think we heard acceptance and validation. When I want people I'm pleasing them so that they'll have their attention on me. That's evil. And because Paul stopped pleasing the Jews, the Jews persecuted him. The Jews hated him. The Jews wanted to kill him because he wouldn't conform to their ways anymore. So, Paul turned from that kind of people-pleasing, where you're doing what other people want you to do just so you can fit in, just so you can be one of those people. And so that's not what we're supposed to do. Ever.
Go over to 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2, and you'll see another place where Paul draws this contrast. And this is usually when you hear this idea of pleasing people. It's going to be like this, like Galatians, 1:10. Or 1 Thessalonians 2:4 is another example where Paul talks about going into Thessalonica and how he preached the gospel in there. And the Thessalonians, they had such a powerful response to the gospel. It's like the gospel rang out from them. It's like the gospel echoed from them. And he says, as he's talking about how much he loves them in chapter 2. Look at chapter 2, verse 4, he says, “but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.” So here he is again, drawing the contrast, right? “I didn't come into Thessalonica to say what you wanted to hear so you would like me. I didn't come trying to give a message to scratch your itching ears so you would agree with me. I came to say what I know God wanted me to say. I came to say the word of God. I came to preach Jesus. I didn't care what you would think about me. I cared about what God would think about me.” So here Paul's drawing this distinction. Okay, you could choose to please people, or you can please God, and that's the testimonies we heard. I thought Elizabeth spoke so well, yeah, I was over here living to please these people. But now look at me. I'm up here talking about Jesus, and I don't care what anybody thinks. Right? Well, praise God for that.
Okay, now go back to Romans 15, and look at how it says it here in verse 2, because it's now going to tell us to please somebody, but it means it a little bit differently, because here the contrast is, are you pleasing yourself, or are you here for other people? So, in verse 2, the positive thing that we are supposed to do is we're supposed to please our neighbor, and which not here in the context. We're talking about not just your neighbor where you live on your street or in your apartment complex. We're talking about here, your neighbor that you do church with, the people that sit next to you in the service, the people that are in your fellowship group, the brothers and sisters that you get to know. Are you here to please his neighbor for his…what does it say there, everybody? For him what good to build him up? So, see, this isn't what is this neighbor? What is this brother or sister at church going to think about me? This is no I want them to be built up in Christ.
First of all, I want them to be on the foundations of Jesus through repentance and faith. I want them to have a strong foundation in Christ. And then I want them to mature in Christ, to become complete in Christ. I want them to know so much about Jesus that they could go and tell somebody else about Jesus, so that person could know about Jesus. So, people-pleasing as we're talking about it now in Romans 15, we'll put the second line up here. “Pleasing people is right when it is for them to love Jesus.” Pleasing people is right when it is for them to love Jesus. That's what Romans 15:2 is saying. It's saying, you're here, not for yourself. You're here for other people because you care about their good and what's good for them, that they would be built up in their faith in Christ, that they would stand firm on the foundation of the gospel, repentance, and faith, and that they would grow up, that they would become less like themselves and more and more like Jesus. That's what's good for them. That's what we're building them towards.
So, there's this word that I want everybody to write down. It's called “altruistic”. Alright, I don't know if you've ever used this word before in your vocabulary, but this is how we're supposed to come to church. We're supposed to come to church for other people's advantage, even if it's to our own disadvantage. Altruistic is when you care about other people, and there's not a selfish motive in why you care about them. You'll care about them for their good, even if it hurts you. That's what we're seeing here in Romans 15, that when my attitude towards church…And remember, church isn't a building, it's not a service time, it's not a corporation. The church is sitting right next to you right now. The church is all of us, the people of Jesus. And when I come towards these people, I come not for myself, but for them, because I want to build them up. Now, can I just take a moment to say that's not what's happening on a macro level in America. In fact, a lot of churches are even now trying to cater to people feeling like they're being pleased. People-pleasing is even happening on a church-wide level, where churches are doing what will please people, in the effort that people will keep coming back because they're pleased, when the Scripture is telling us, don't go to church to please ourselves. Go for the other people, to please your neighbor, to please the people who you find all around you, for their good, to build them up. So, this is how Jesus is going to build his church when we stop being selfish and we really start caring about other people.
Let's get that down for number two: “Jesus uses you to build his church by putting others first.” Jesus uses you to build his church. You can be a part of the building process. You can build people up. You can please your neighbor for his good, but you’ve got to care more about your neighbor than you do about yourself. You’ve got to stop pleasing yourself so that you can please your neighbors. So practically, this is what we want to challenge everybody with. This is the step that we want to take in 2025 as we begin now this new era here in Huntington Beach, where we sent out the team to Long Beach, and really, there's a lot to pray for as we get back to fellowship groups, because there's some fellowship groups, we just sent their leader to Long Beach. And so, there are fellowship groups even here right now, people are sitting at this service right now. They're not sure what fellowship group exactly they're going to be in moving forward. Would you please pray for them? There are even some fellowship groups we're asking, hey, could you go to a different night of the week? Because that'll really help us welcome people into the church. And so, fellowship groups are even thinking about moving to a different night of the week, and that could be unsettling for some people. So, if you could pray for everybody during this time of transition and realize, yeah, there are some people, they're having to really change what they're doing. Went here at our church so we could send out that church to Long Beach. And it's really great time for us to think, why do I even come to this? Why do I even gather with everybody here? Why do we assemble? Am I doing this so I'll get something out of it, or am I actually a part of Jesus building his church? Am I a builder? That's the question. If you're my brother or sister in Christ, then are you actually a builder? Because that's what we're here to do. People think that the church should have all these programs already packaged, already ready, already looking shiny, and those programs should work for them. That's the modern American definition of church.
The biblical definition of church is, grab a shovel, put a hard hat on, we're all on the construction crew, and just when we get this place feeling nice and feeling really mature, then we're going to send about a hundred and thirty of them to somewhere else. So, it's never going to really be about me feeling like it's all the way I want, because it's endless building. It's construction. It's helping people become like Jesus. And the more people we get like Jesus means the more people we have who can make disciples. Means those people are going to spread out and do that. And so that's the mentality. We need to have, a real altruistic attitude, where I'm not coming here for myself, for my spouse, for my family; I'm coming here for my neighbor, somebody who starts out being a stranger and becomes my dearest friend, so that when I'm saying goodbye to them, I'll cry and I'll weep because I love them so much, and then I'll actually go and start over with somebody else new, because I'm a builder, because I believe Jesus is building his church.
Go with me to Ephesians, chapter 4. Let's get real practical about point two. What can you do to build this church? If this is your church here in Huntington Beach, what can you do to build? You know, again, we’ve got to go against some of the common thinking, because some of the common thinking is, hey, if I'm going to build, give me a name tag and I'll go do something official. That's how a lot of people think in the church these days. Okay, but here's the thing, and there are things to do, like we just heard Pastor Taylor say we sent out 25 people of our kids ministry team. It takes 100 people on the kid’s ministry team to do these three services every weekend. 25 of them just went to Long Beach. I'm not super great at math, but I'm pretty sure 25 of 100 is like 25%. Is anybody else with me on that? Right? So, like, that's one out of four leaders just went to Long Beach. So that's a very specific thing that we could use help doing. But here's what I need everybody at our church to see, is we can all be builders. If you are on the foundation of Jesus, and if you know other Christians, you can build your neighbor up for his good. Look at how it says it here in Ephesians 4, start with me in verse 15. I just want to give you these two verses Ephesians 4:15-16. “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” Verse 16 just made it very clear how many of us should be a part of building up the body of Christ, all of us, every one of us, each part of us, this is not building. The church is not for professionals. Building the church is not for pastors. Building the church is not for the people who are the leaders of something. Building the church is for all the people of God.
Every single one of us are here to build Okay, well, then what does that look like? Go back to verse 15. It's very simple. Underline this. Write this down in your notes. “Speaking the truth in love.” Speaking the truth in love is how we're going to build this church. And I'm not talking about just preaching a sermon like this. I'm trying to preach the truth to you, and the reason I'm saying these things is because I love you and care about you. But this isn't talking about the formal gathering and the preaching of the Word. This is talking about us talking to each other, one on one, us talking to each other in the small group, two of you having a conversation right after this service, where you say something that God has put on your heart from his word by his Spirit. You say something about the truth, and you say it to that person because you care about them, and then that person hears what you're saying, and they see the work that God's doing in you. And then they're like, yeah, this is what I was thinking. And now, like, iron sharpening iron, we're like, getting built up. We're getting strong. Uh, yeah. God's teaching me something. God's teaching you something. We're sharing it together. That's how we get built up. No Name Tags required; no positions required. All you’ve got to do is have God's Word burning on your heart and share it with somebody else, and then they're like, yes, and then they have something to share. And people get fired up about living for Jesus. We spur one another on to love and good deeds. We come alongside and encourage one another, and that builds this place. So yes, there are specific things we could definitely use help doing, because so many people went to Long Beach. But the essential thing that we need everybody to do at this church, if you want to be a builder here, we need you to speak the truth in love, which means two things. You have to have God's Word on your heart to say something true, and you have to actually care about the other people to say it in love. And so that if you go to your fellowship group this week and you say, hey, this is what God's really putting on my heart, I realized that even when I come to this fellowship group, sometimes I'm coming here for myself to please myself, and not for you, and I just need to confess that to this group. And I ask that you guys pray for me. I guarantee you go say honest, open things like that at your fellowship group this week. Guess what? The other people are going to feel, built up, strengthened, encouraged by your honesty, by your openness. Somebody else comes in, wow. I'm so excited about being built up that I wanted to start going through Partners, or I wanted to start reading this book, or I'm actually reading more in the Bible than I ever have been before. And I’ve got to tell you guys what I'm learning. It's so exciting. And they just come in passionate.
Have you seen somebody who you can just tell God is changing their life, and maybe you've been a Christian way longer than this person, and they are new, but they're fired up and they're learning. Can even a new Christian build up people who've been a Christian for much longer than them? Can even young people build up Christians who are much older than them? Can any Christian build up any other Christian when they speak the truth in love? The answer to that is we are all meant to be builders. And I don't know what kind of church you came from, and I don't know what kinds of things you've done, but this right here, this speaking the truth in love, this is what we need to do now, in 2025 here in Huntington Beach. There will be two kinds of people at this church. There will be people building this church who do this, and then there will be people spectating what God is doing. You don't want to spectate. You want to participate. You want to show up ready to share something, because God is working on your heart, and you care for his people. So, if you can know if you're here to please your neighbor for his good, if you're a part of the oikonomics of Jesus building his church, who are you speaking the truth in love to? Who do you care about and what truth is God teaching you to share with them? That's building the church. That's what we need everybody doing.
And so, I want to really encourage you, if that's not the way you've been approaching fellowship here at the church, this is a great time to change our mind. The number one way we need everybody to step up, as we sent out the people to Long Beach, is we need to get together with our one anothers and we need to speak the truth in love to one another. That's how we're going to grow up into Christ. Now go back to Romans 15, because all of that was just the warm up. This is the real sermon right here in verse 3. Okay, there's something we're supposed to not do, which is, please ourselves. There's something we're commanded to do, and that's a command, please your neighbor, please your neighbor for their good. Please your neighbor, because you want to see them built up in Christ. It's not what they think about you. That's the wrong kind of people-pleasing. No, the way you want to please your neighbor is I want them to be built up in their faith in Christ. But then this is what really cuts to the heart of it in verse 3, “For Christ did not please himself.” See? So, in this way, Christ is now an example, Christ has now set the tone for oikonomics. How does the church get built? Well, let's think about it. How did Jesus do it? Well, he didn't come for himself, the Son of Man. Even the Son of Man did not come to be served. But what? To serve and to give his life away as a ransom for many. So see, verse 3 now gets to the heart. It gets to the motivation. Why would I want to spend my life not coming to something for myself, but coming to something for the other people there for their benefit, for their advantage, even if it's to my own disadvantage? Why would I want to do that? Oh, because that's what Jesus did for me.
And look what it says. It quotes Psalm 69:9, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. Reproaches like some kind of accusation, some kind of mockery even, or some kind of slander even. And so, people who would say accusations against God are now speaking against Jesus. And so, Psalm 69:9 is the reference here. Let's all turn to Psalm 69 so we can get the full context. Everybody, if you've got a Bible, please grab it and try to find the book of Psalms and go to Psalm 69. This is Psalm 69 is written by King David of Israel. And King David sometimes would write these psalms that are absolutely amazing, because David, who lived a thousand years before Jesus, David writes these psalms where he's going through something and he describes it. But it turns out that what David wrote actually applies to what's going to happen to Jesus thousand years later. So, these are prophecies. These are Messianic prophecies, where David, as God's Anointed One, the king of Israel, is writing about something that's going to happen to the future Anointed One of God. Maybe you're familiar with Psalm 22 where David says things like, they have pierced my hands and feet, or they're casting lots for my clothes, or they're wagging their heads and mocking. All things that David wrote in Psalm 22 that happened to Jesus when he's on the cross thousand years later. Psalm 69 is also one of those prophecies where David is going to write things that Jesus is going to feel and say and do thousand years later. Look at the verse 9. Look at what got us here. Paul wanted to quote this verse about the reproaches. Why? Well, we have to come back and get the full story here in Psalm 69:9, look at the verse. “For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.” Who's ever heard that line before? “For zeal for your house has consumed me.” When did Jesus say that? When he's clearing out the temple. That line comes up because he's like so zealous for the worship of God. It's supposed to be a house of prayer, and they have made it a robber's den, right?
And so, okay, Paul's quoting this verse, And Jesus also quoted this verse. Go back to verse 7. Let's get this idea of reproach, “for it is for your sake that I have born reproach.” So, David's writing here, I'm doing this for you, God. And people are accusing me, people are coming against me, but I'm in it for you. And then he says that “dishonor has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother's sons, for zeal for your house, has consumed me. The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach. When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them. I am the talk of those who sit in the gate and the drunkards make songs about me.” so I don't know how familiar you are with the accounts of the Gospels. When Jesus is up there, nailed to the cross, that people are mocking him, that people are reproaching him, that people are saying they're reviling him, they're saying things like, you saved others. Why don't you save yourself? They're like, hey, come down from the cross. We'll all believe in you, then. I mean, Jesus is suffering, He's in agony, he's in pain, and people are just reproaching him. Wow. What is that like for Jesus? Look down just a few verses to verse 19. This is the part that really hit me. Let me read it for you. Psalm 69:19-21 “You know my reproach, and my shame and my dishonor; my foes are all known to you. Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.” When I read that line right there, it immediately took me in my mind to John, chapter 19, where John, an eyewitness to Jesus on the cross, says, “Jesus said, I thirst,” and they literally bring him, not water, not something refreshing, they literally bring him sour wine. And I'm like, wow. David wrote this a thousand years before it happened, and then they actually bring the sour wine to Jesus.
And so, this tells me what it was like for Jesus to be on the cross, paying for my sin. What was it like for Jesus to be cursed and nailed to a tree, bleeding out for me? Well, here's the description, right here. Verse 20, “Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair.” Here, I'm looking for pity. Will anybody feel bad for me? There's no pity. I'm looking for comforters. Who's going to come and care about me? Who's going to come and comfort me? No one. They gave me poison for food. They gave me sour wine to drink. So, if you're a Christian, if you're here to follow Jesus, if you're here to deny yourself to take up your cross and to follow Christ, let me ask you, did it all work out great for Jesus? I mean, I think it did when he rose from the grave. I think it did when he's right now at the right hand of the Father. I think it's going to work out pretty good for Jesus when he comes back, riding on the clouds, and every eye sees him, and every knee bows, and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is the Lord of heaven and earth. But it didn't work out very good, right here, right now, not in this life, not when he's up there, bearing the weight of all of your sin and shedding his blood so that you could be forgiven. What was it like for Jesus, heartbreak, despair, nobody cared. No comforter came, poison, sour wine, and here I am so selfishly motivated that I'm sad about sending out my son or sending out my friends when I'm doing all right. And look at what Jesus did for me. Look how far my thinking is from the thinking of Jesus. See, here's what Romans 15 is really saying. You want to come to church the way Jesus came for you.
Let's get that down for number three: “Come to church like Jesus came for you.” Jesus was all in. Jesus was laying down his life. Jesus, he's ready to do whatever it takes for your soul, for you to be saved, yeah, even if it hurts him, even if it breaks his heart, even if he is in despair, he's willing to do it. That's how Jesus came for us. That's why Paul brings up, hey, remember Psalm 69? Do you remember all the reproach that Jesus got? Do you remember what Jesus went through for you? Okay, that's the way we're supposed to come for one another. Is the same way that Jesus came for us. Jesus came to save us. Jesus also came to show us the way to go. And we can't say, let's do church a completely different way than Jesus. We need to follow in the way of Jesus as we come to church. And so, I want to live in an altruistic way where I come here for you, no matter what it's going to cost me, because that's how Jesus came for me. Can I get an amen from anybody on that?
See, it's been only in this season of sending out, where I've been bothered ever since we announced they're going to Long Beach, ever since my son went off to college, I've been bothered. Like, I don't like this. I don't wait. That's all we do. All of this just to send people out. Eighteen years invested in my son, just for him to go away. All these people answered a prayer. They got saved. They joined here with us, and now we're just saying, See you later. Like, is that really how it's supposed to be? And see, during this time, there's this line I've known pretty much my whole life, “For God so loved the world that he what, that he gave his one and only Son,” that the Father sent His Son. And then, you know, I've loved it “that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.” That's me. I believe in Jesus. That's me. I get to know God. I know his grace, his mercy. I know his truth. I get to know who God is. I'm so ready to receive from God, and I've thought so little about what God actually did to give. See, I've known that verse my whole life, but it's not until my son left the house, and even then, it's not like I'm sending him to die. It's not like I'm sending him to despair and heartbreak. I'm sending him to college. It's not that big of a deal, but I got a little bit of a sense of what it cost the father to give, to send his one and only Son for a wretched sinner like me, and I'm beginning to understand a little bit more of what it cost Jesus to lay down his life, not looking for what he's going to receive in return, but just genuinely giving himself away so that we could be saved, so that we could be built as the church. And even though I'm here at church, and even though we're sending people out, I realize how selfish I really am, that I'm still more prone to take from God, rather than to follow his way of giving to others. And so, I really want to invite everybody here to ask God to search your heart. Ask God to examine you. God, why do I go to church? Don't assume your motives are good. Ask, are you here to please yourself, or are you here to please your neighbor? Are you really coming to this church the way that Christ came for you?
Flip your hand out over. You'll see some questions we want to get to in our fellowship groups. We want to pray for those we sent to Long Beach. We want to pray for those that are now figuring out their place here in Huntington Beach. But we want to really come, and we want to share with one another. Why are we gathering together? Why are you going to your fellowship group? I want to encourage you to show up at your group, ready to speak the truth in love, ready to build up those other people? And if you don't have a group, if you're if you're new, we do have that Foundations class at one o'clock, and that'll really help you get brought into the fellowship here. But I believe that God had such a timely word from Romans 15:1-3 for all of us here today that this is the basics of oikonomics. Jesus is going to build his church, and you can be a part of it, as long as you get over yourself and really come for the other people, just like how Jesus came for you. Let me pray for us right now.
Oh, Father in heaven, I come before you, and Father, I just want to confess to you that I don't fully understand what it means that you gave your one and only Son, and I'm starting to understand it more. I'm starting to understand what this kind of love, this altruistic way that you are towards us, where you would give your Son, because that's the way that you would care about us, and that your Son would give his life, even in heartbreak, even in despair, no one pitying him, no one there to comfort him. And yet, there he is, all the way, he loved us to the end, to the bloody end. He cried out, it is finished. And he gave up his last breath. And he did it for us, so that we could be built up. He did it for our good, even when it killed him. And so, Father, I just want to confess for myself, and I pray for all my brothers and sisters, please show us if we're coming to please ourselves. Please show us if we're coming for our spouse or our kids or for our own advantage, for our own benefit. And please teach us the way of Jesus Christ, where we come to please other people, those next to us, those on either side of us. We come for their good. We come so they can be built up by the Church of Jesus Christ. We want them to know the same love that we know, that God loves us so much he would send out his Son for us. God, I pray that we could then operate here at church that same way. Please teach us this. God, let us all be builders. Do something amazing here in Huntington Beach, build something here among us, that when anybody comes in here, they would have to say, oh, wow, this isn't just like a church in America. This is the people of Jesus Christ. These people, they're not here for themselves. They're not consumers, they're givers. They're willing to lay down their lives. These people, they love one another, Father, please let this be a place where people know we are the disciples of Jesus, because we love. And, God, I just ask that the promise of Jesus would happen here in Huntington Beach. I ask that Jesus would build his church. I ask that even today, people would turn from their sin and put their faith in Jesus and stand on the foundation of Christ. I ask that all of us who come here that we wouldn't come here for how it's going to work out for me, but we would come here for our precious brothers and sisters, to build them up. Let us be the construction crew. Let us have a front row seat to what only Jesus can do, because he is the one that can build our life on the solid rock of his salvation. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen.

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