Perseverance and Encouragement of the Scriptures Gives Us Hope

Well, good morning. So Mike actually started last week on the first three verses of chapter 15. And this is just, actually I've had almost six weeks to prepare for this lesson. Scary, right? Going through surgery wasn't exactly... Anyway, my wife said, you ought to be ready for this lesson, Roger.

So we'll see see what you think it's an incredible You know this section is an incredible section and my kind of talked about that How this is such an interesting section because it talks about relationships between believer to believer and you know talks about this concept of the strong believer and the weak believer and So you know we all think you know Raise your hand if you think you're a weak believer.

Nobody's going to do that. Nobody's going to say, I'm a weak believer. But the scriptures say you are, that you can be. And it talks about the weak believer being one who is not as well taught or well understands the things of the Lord. So I kind of, in talking with Bonnie and with Mike and other people, I think in different areas we're all weak and we're all strong. So we kind of go back and forth. So sometimes we may be the strong, sometimes the weak. So the Lord's going to address In this lesson to both believers, both the weak and the strong, this is how we're to act.

So this talk, the title I chose here was Perseverance, Too Long, Perseverance, and Endurance of the Scriptures Give Us Hope. Just a tremendous section. So this is an outline from Constable, and we like Constable here. He's pretty good overall, and he does a good job. So this is kind of an overview of 14 and 15.

We're coming to the end of Romans, so In the early part of chapter 14, he talks about the judging one another. You know, one another is the judging. If you're strong, you judge the weak. If you're weak, you judge the strong. So it's that kind of idea. We talked about the evil of offending one another.

Then today we're, and Mike started last week, the importance of pleasing one another. And this is not so much about, you know, I'm going to come over and mow your lawn for you, invite you out to dinner, buy you extra presents, you know, just lavish gifts on you, which is not a bad idea. Can you imagine that? If everybody in the body just tried to outdo it, you know, I'm going to, no, I'll mow his lawn, no, I'll mow his lawn, no, I'll have him dinner, you know, we go crazy with that. That's not what he's talking about. We'll see in this verse what it's about.

Then we're going to see at the last part of the section, going through 13, accepting one another. He actually talks about the Jew and the Gentile. And then lastly, believe it or not, starting in 14, verse 14 of chapter 15, we kind of come to the conclusion of this book. Paul has a long conclusion. From 14 to the end of 15, all the way through 16, he has all these comments about his ministry. And actually some really neat stuff in there. So we'll spend some time in that. But this is, at 13, you kind of end what they call the doctrinal section of the Book of Romans. Okay, so let's get to it here.

So, you know, I had the privilege of being under Hal Malloy, and Hal Malloy just was a real student of the Word. He liked to identify, he liked to look at Scripture and say, well, what's the subject, what's the verb, what's the direct object, what's the modifiers? He loved sentence diagramming. And he could do it from the original. Well, that's not me. I can't do that. But I can kind of have the sense of that. So this is kind of not exactly doing sentence diagramming, but at least identifying subject and verb. And the whole goal is not to amaze you that I can do this. It's to saying, what's the verse saying? The bottom line is, what is the verse saying? What does it mean? What is it saying? So that's the goal here. So let's start out. And this is one sentence, verses 2 through 3 are one sentence.

Each of us, and in context I believe it's the strong or the weak believer, is to, the tense is present tense, so he's continually to please please and it says his neighbor but it has in the Greek the definite article which is the idea that it's a specific neighbor and I think in this context it's got to be his brother or sister in the Lord so he's saying each of us strong or weak is to continually please his brother in the Lord or sister in the Lord so that's a subject verb direct object so if you know anything about sentences and stuff, they're modifiers, right? So we have some modifiers here.

The first modifier, so he's continued to please his brother for his good, and it doesn't say in the Lord, but in context, I believe that's what it's talking about, you're to please his brother in the Lord, not in how many lawns he mows, how many dinners he invites him to, how many times he pats him on the back, and whatever.

He's in the things of the Lord. That's the first admonition. The second one, to his edification, or to his building up, And it's with a view to, you're to be encouraging him, building him up in the Lord. So we're to, for his good in the Lord, to his edification in the Lord. But this has a purpose, if you will, or reason. So the reason here is for another modifying, it goes into verse 3, a modifying passage.

He relates it, this is one of the few places even Christ Jesus did not please himself. And he says, as it is written, he's gonna quote from Psalms here. So what's interesting is he uses Christ as an example. And if you know anything about scripture, some people will try to teach this, what would Jesus do? But that's really not scriptural. This is one of the few places in scripture where he uses Christ as our example. Most often, and Paul does this just line after line, is Christ is our life. Christ is our life, not our example. But in this case, he's going to say, Christ didn't please himself.

And we know that while he did what the, he said, I always do what I see the Father doing. He pleased the Father in every way, even to his detriment. So he's saying, in our relationship with our brothers and sisters, We're not to look to please ourselves, we're to please our brothers and sisters. And look, look what Christ did to the ultimate.

And then he quotes this verse from the Psalms, kind of re-quoted Paul. Paul often does this, he'll take a verse from the Old Testament, he'll re-quote it and put in some really interesting things to tie it into the New Testament. And the verse from the Psalms is, the reproaches of those who reproached you, and in context it's God the Father, fell upon me, Christ. And reproaches here is the idea of to revile or dishonor.

I was thinking the ultimate reproach to a holy God is sin, right? So man by his fallen nature was reproached to God the Father. But what happened is his son, all that was laid upon the son, right? What a beautiful passage. The reproaches of those who reproached the father fell upon the son. Just a beautiful passage. Okay, so that's kind of the flyover of it. So here's just some additional comments, kind of restating some important ideas.

So as each of us is to plebe, aresko in the Greek, so as present imperative, its command denotes intentional, deliberate, continuous action, and it's actually sustaining or behaving properly toward one whom he is related to. And that's one of the reasons why I'm pretty sure it's brother, because this is Zodiates I kind of trust, and we're related to our brothers and sisters.

We have a closer relationship many times to our brothers and sisters than we do to our own families, our own flesh. We have a close relationship because we are all God's children, and we all have trusted Christ as our Savior. So we're brothers and sisters in the Lord. That's what he's pointing out here. so it's that's it that's the sense it were to please one another in the things of the Lord okay the second and it's for his good to his building up so for his good to his building up and we kind of renders a slight bit differently but remembering this exhortation to please our neighbor for his benefit unto edifying So Newell indicates a steady care for others, our brothers or sisters, laying aside our own preferences and pleasing them in every way that will be in the end a benefit to them spiritually. So the bottom line is all this pleasing and looking to our brothers is to build them up.

So if we're mutually doing this, It's got to be a good thing, right? If we're mutually looking to build each other up, we won't be so prone to saying, well, you know, I think this and you won't get into as many contentions because your desire is for them to grow in the Lord and see who Christ is.

So the third point Is this reference for even Christ did not please himself? So this is one of the few places I pointed out where Christ is our example. I didn't actually look to see how many more. If you guys offhand, I didn't do a search. There might be another one, but not too many.

But as I mentioned before, Paul's primary teaching is that Christ is our life, right? Christ is our life. And it's Christ in me, the hope of glory. It's no longer I, but Christ. And that's a wonderful teaching that Paul has throughout his 13 epistles. It's Christ in me, it's Christ's life, not my life.

So an example, you know, a different tack here in these verses. Okay, so let's go on to today's verses. So we're going to spend most of our time in verse 4, and just peek a little bit into 5 and 6. So it's one sentence, for whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. And then we have another complete sentence, 5, and Jim is right, it's 5 and 6 for one sentence, Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant to you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So with those six weeks I had time to do it on each verse. Each one I had a chance to spend the time to go through. So here's a flyover, subject, verb, direct object of verse 4. whatever was written in earlier times. So we're going to see this cool word in the original called graffi or graffo.

It's a word that's used three times in this verse and it's for written text and it refers many times to Scripture. Whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, and this is instruction. This is instruction, and it's our instruction, which is going to be key. It's the act of teaching. It's not focused so much on the content. It's actually the act of being instructed, and that's what scripture is to be our instructor. But boy, there's some hidden gems in here that Macaulay pointed out. Chester Macaulay, we use a lot here at Holly Hills.

The word graphy always refers to written text, never to spoken text, and by its very nature, you know, graphite, all the words that are kind of derivatives from that Greek word we use today in English. And our, this is an interesting word, hermatos, is something that belongs to you individually and personally.

Boy, this was just, when I got, when I went through that, wow. So this is a picture. Whatever was written to you in earlier times was written for our personal, individual teaching, if you will. It's personally to us, and it just kind of blows your mind. Here is God's Word. Your Bible is no different from my Bible. It's the same words, but in this sense, that's actually an adjective, I believe. It's describing text that is personally for us. the scriptures of Graphia belong personally to each believer.

That's from Macaulay. I never had actually realized that before. Maybe I had heard it before, but it just kind of rocked me. I said, wow, the Lord is so interested in us individually that we can think of his scriptures as written to us personally, individually. Boy, that's huge. To me, that's huge. He's talking to me and you individually as believers. That's huge. It's the same words, but they're individually to each of us.

Okay, let's go on. So that, with the purpose that, so subject-verb, so that, we might, and there's a definite article, we might have the hope, it's not just any old hope, it's not just I hope it doesn't rain today, this is a hope that is God's hope, that He stands behind. And there are two aspects here. through this hope is seen or understood or come to be part of you through this idea of perseverance or remaining under. And this is another one of these cool words. It's in the Greek. It's hupomone, to abide under. It's to be, to stay where you are.

I'm thinking of our brother's struggling with where they're going to go, remaining under, not walking away from it, staying under, under where God has them and moving forward that way. So perseverance, we're going to talk about that in detail when you hear it in a bit. The second one, and through the encouragements of the scriptures, the graphies. The graphie shows up three times in this verse, so we have this hope through this remaining under where God has us and through the encouragement of the scriptures.

Amen. Okay, good. Fantastic. All right. So let's go on. So now we're, if that wasn't deep enough for you, we're going to go a little bit deeper. We're going to get down to every word, right? Roger, every word? Okay, it'll go fast. Okay, for whatever was written in earlier times, So there's a conjunction. Paul likes to connect things. Macaulay is excellent at pointing this out. You can take the book of Romans and you can start circling all these connectors. Four, width, he connects every part with every other part across chapter divisions.

So Gar, this connects three and four together, for whatever is written, and this is kind of a cool idea, this particular word is the idea, it implicates what great things, for whatever is written, these great, whatever great things were written, you could translate it, was written in earlier times to write before So in the immediate context, he refers back to that quotation from the Psalms, and that quotation from the Psalms is what I read before, the reproaches of those who reproach you, God the Father fell upon me, Christ.

That's the immediate context, but I think, I believe you have to take in all of the Old Testament, you know, take in the entire Old Testament. You might also include the entire Old Testament, but I really think it's important, and I think it's nothing that you haven't heard here before at Holly Hills, that All of scripture is for us, every single word, all of scripture is for us. But Paul points out there are particular parts that are to us as believers in the church age, there are things that are to us exactly, about being baptized into Christ, of having a new life in Christ, Christ in you, the hope of glory, which was never shown in the Old Testament. So we have the scripture, all is for us, but some is directly to us. That kind of goes along with the fact that that we individually receive God's Word, we individually benefit by it.

Just tremendous thoughts here. Okay, so let's go on here. What was written for our instruction, again, that's the main verb here, is written for our instruction, the believer's instruction. So there's two words here I want to look at. This is the word Deloskalia. teaching, instruction, but actually there are two words, there's one for the content, that's dashki, I'm not doing a good job, and dashkaliah. The dashki is the substance, what's the substance of the teaching. What Paul's talking about in this verse is actually, as I pointed out before, is the act of teaching, the instruction. He's talking about this really special instruction, dashkaliah, that we're being instructed personally and individually by God's Word. So scripture is to be our personal teacher. Boy, what a special thing. What a special thing.

Okay, so then we're going to see the rest of the verses. We're going to talk about three important aspects of that. Three words that we're going to talk about. So that, we might have hope. With a purpose that. So Paul, includes himself, Paul and all believers might have hope. Hope is this really cool word in the original Elpis. And I like to define it, this is not exactly what you see if you looked in your vines or lexicon, but I think it fits.

It's the absolute assurance of what God had promised will happen. He absolutely has promised that the hope he has, I'm going to list about ten things, ten verses if you will, or maybe it's only eight. that say the hope of glory, the hope of this, the hope of that, that God stands behind every aspect of that hope. There's never a doubt that's not going to happen. So that's why I like to say it's the absolute assurance of what God has promised will happen. So this is from Vine. I found this list in Vine. It's a list and he takes it from the epistles and from Paul's things in Acts. And he has little comments that I included too.

So in Romans 5.13, I'm sorry, 15.13, it says we have a God of hope. He is the author of hope, not the subject of hope. He is the author of our hope.

In the New Testament, there are three adjectives Vine points out. We have a good hope, we have a blessed hope, we have a living hope. Boy, you start going through these and every one is more encouraging and more uplifting than the next one. Then we keep going. In Titus, the hope of eternal life, the full manifestation and realization of that life which is already the believer's possession you know we all know this so we all should know it at the moment we trust the Lord Jesus our Savior we have eternal life look at John John 17 we have eternal life but that it isn't complete right if you look carefully at scripture you'll see that there are three aspects I have been saved I'm being saved now and I shall be saved so this is a eternal life is it's a hope aspect and God is stands behind that hope of eternal life Okay, let's go on. Here's some more.

The hope and resurrection of the dead, the hope of righteousness, the believer's complete conformity to God's will, and the coming of Christ. We're already righteous now because we have trusted Christ, but that will be completed in glory. The hope of the gospel, the hope of salvation, and then lastly the hope of his calling, Just wonderful statements. We're going to come back to this at the very end. But this word hope, the absolute assurance that God will do what he has promised.

Just magnificent statements. Okay, so let's go on here. The last part. So a couple of the key words here. So next we're given these two ways that hope is to be produced in the believer's life. Okay, we saw this in the big overview. It's through the perseverance. And this is a noun form. is steadfastness or endurance. But the verb form is really neat. This is the exciting part.

The verb form is hupomeno, to remain or abide under. You know that meno, if you've looked any bit at Romans 6, it's used a lot, where he says abide in me and I in you. Meno is that little core word there. This is hupo. This is an intensified form of that. Hupomeno, to remain or abide under. So we're to remain under trials in a God-honoring way so as to learn the lessons that He has sent us to teach. This is from Weist.

Rather than attempting to get out from underneath them in an effort to relieve their pressure. I would say this is one of the hardest things in the Christian life, because who likes to be hurting? Nobody likes to be hurting. Nobody likes to see their loved ones hurting, or their children, their grandchildren, or a thousand things that can be in their life. But scripture, and this is a section that teaches that, that honors God, and not only honors God, it's the best for you. But sometimes it's hard to see. Sometimes it's hard to... I can't say I've always done that. I want to run away just like the other people do.

But God says this is what's best for you to abide under, to remain under where you're at. And here's the classic verse about this. This is so beautiful. In Romans 5, 3 through 5 into 6. I only have 5a in there. So here's the process. Not only this, but we exalt in our tribulation. When's the last time you exalted in your tribulation? You got excited about your tribulation. Oh goody, tribulation. I can't wait.

Knowing that tribulation, what does tribulation do? Brings about abiding under that tribulation forces you to abide under to remain under where you're at Lord willing and that abiding under produces proven character and proven character hope and Hope that does not disappoint and that hope again is that's that hope is God's hope not man's hope Just a beautiful passage that shows this process. So the first aspect of this hope that we have is through perseverance so the second one is through the encouragement of the scriptures. And scripture, I'm sorry, we already covered scripture before, but encouragement is, and this is a neat word too, parakalesis, a calling to one's aid.

Para is beside and kaleo is to call. And you ought to recognize this word because if you've studied about the Holy Spirit, this word is used about his ministry to us. He's a parakitas. I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that right, but close. So it's an act or exhortation, encouragement, comfort. Many times we think of this work as a person. It could be another believer. And many times it could be the Holy Spirit, God's Holy Spirit. So Zodiates has a comment here I thought was good. And back to scripture. All of scripture is actually a paraklesis.

Exhortation, admonishment, encouragement for the purpose of strengthening and establishing a believer in his faith. And then here's another usage of that same word in Hebrews. The writer of the Hebrews, I urge you brethren, bear with the word of exhortation, this encouragement, for I have written to you briefly. So there are the two words, perseverance and encouragement, and that gives us hope.

OK, so let's go on. So now we're just going to do a flyover of 5 and 6 just to get the flavor. I'm not going to do much in 5 and 6 today. So let's just take another look at the subject, verb, direct object. Hopefully this is not boring. Maybe. Hopefully not. It's not boring for me. I like to teach. It's good for me to teach this way. I enjoy doing it this way. OK. Enough about me. OK. So what's interesting is, this is really cool.

So he starts off with the subject of this big sentence from five through six is the God of perseverance and encouragement. Well, he just got through telling us that we get perseverance and encouragement through the scriptures. Then he turns right around and he says, you know, oh, by the way, That's a character of God. That's God's character. And they kind of go, whoa, wait a minute. You just told me I can have perseverance and encouragement. Then you say that it's the God of perseverance and encouragement. Man, that's just neat. He's saying this is Paul's desire, or Paul's prayer, the God of perseverance and encouragement, give or grant to you to think. He wants us to be thinkers, right?

We should have... No thinker is not allowed. How do you do that? Well, we'll cross through it. I can't phrase it the right way, but at the door, most churches say, don't come to think, just come to feel. I'm sorry, I hope I don't offend anybody. We want you to come and think. Please come and think here. If you don't think, it's sad.

We want you to come and think, and that's what the Lord wants you to do too. that God of perseverance and encouragement grant to you to think the same thing among one another according to Christ Jesus. And this word think is this really cool word Paul writes about it in other books, phreno is to be minded, to be like-minded in a certain way. We're to think that way. So God is not stamping out, stamp copies of Believers he's he desires that his body think the same way because they have the same life We have the very life of Christ were to think the same way That's what he desires and that brings glory to him with the purpose that you may glorify With this is cool with one accord and with one mouth the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ another tremendous verse the God of perseverance and encouragement grant to you or give to you to think the same thing among one another according to Christ Jesus that you may glorify with one accord and one mouth the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ just and that's his desire for a body of believers to be to be loving one another to be building up on another Just incredible, incredible section.

So we're going to stop there on this verse. Next we're going to dive into the details. So one more thing about hope. I want to end on a message of hope. Okay, so Chaffer, Lewis Barry Chaffer, comments on these verses, or actually comment on hope. So this is two aspects of the doctrine of hope may be noted, he says.

So Israel has a hope. Israel rejected the Savior, but God has not forgotten about Israel. Israel's hope, and they're in need of a physical hope now too, which they have as well. Whatever God's will will be accomplished, I'm certain. Israel's hope is their coming Messiah and his kingdom on earth.

But for us in the church, the hope for the Christians centered in the soon return of Christ so our hope for the Christian and if Jews are saved today they would be part of the church okay so their hope and so he lists seven elements he quotes this from somebody else so I didn't include that gentleman's name but seven elements when discussing Christian hope very similar ideas from what we saw before the return of Christ is is one of those wonderful hopes the resurrection the resurrection body being present and spotless before Christ our eternal rewards, deliverance from Satan, sin, and death, companionship with the saints, and the endless life with God. And then lastly, I thought this was really cool, the believer's hope, which operates as an anchor of the soul, is that we will one day join our great high priest within the veil.

Pretty incredible verses today. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we just thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for these marvelous verses that talk about your body, the body of Christ. That how we're to interact. Some are strong, some are weak. We're weak in some areas, strong in other areas, Lord. But your desire is that we just focus on you. As we focus on you, we can love and serve one another. In Christ's name, amen.