Are you familiar with the classic story of Don Quixote? It’s the tale of someone who spent so much time reading romantic stories of chivalry that he stopped being able to see the world like everyone saw it. For 50 years, the hero is a boring nobleman, but suddenly he decides he is a knight on a quest for glory. Where others see windmills, he sees dragons to attack. Where others see a prostitute, he sees a princess.

One of the things that makes the novel so interesting is that it’s not always clear whose vision is actually truer. Is Quixote mad? Or is there something in what he sees—for example is the prostitute just a prostitute? Or is there a realer sense in which she is indeed a princess?

We are in a day when anyone with even a drop of idealism is seen as foolish, when wisdom is equated with the ability to see through stuff like that. Are there heroes? No, there’s always a dark side—we prefer the anti-hero. Earnest longings and desires?—so cringe! High hopes for the future with a dream of what could be—reality check! There is no higher meaning or higher purpose or great future that lies before us. There is just what we see. That’s sanity. That’s reality.

But is it actually? If you’ve been with us for this series on Romans, perhaps you might remember that Romans takes a decidedly different stance. Its unapologetic claim is that beyond what we think we see, there is truly greater cosmic reality; beyond this moment of bleakness there is a good future to which this world is most certainly heading. And the fact that these things are true—that human history is actually part of a great and beautiful story means that even the small, seemingly mundane details of life have actually extraordinary significance.

Our passage is addressing something that would seem quite mundane. As we’ve been saying, in the church in the Jewish Christians are having a difficult time getting along with the Gentiles. They’re offended because the Gentiles don’t feel the need to eat kosher or observe the Sabbath. Meanwhile the Gentiles are frustrated with the arrogant judgmentalism of the Jews. There are hurt feelings, unkind words, people not speaking to each other, petty tensions—the stuff of normal life. From our human perspective this is dumb, small, pedestrian stuff. 

But that’s not how Paul sees it. The struggle they are engaged in is something bigger, something extraordinary, if only they can see. 

Our passage begins with an instruction: verses 1 and 2. “We who are strong” (that is, if you’ll remember from previous verses, the Gentiles who have a better understanding of the gospel) have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak (the Jews), and not to please ourselves. 2 Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. Paul says, “Rather than focusing on what you want to eat or do in the moment, you need to watch out for those who are struggling. Be willing to do what is truly good for others (that’s the idea of pleasing the neighbor—it specifies, “for his good”), even if it’s costly to you. 

Why? Verse 3: “Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.” Here he’s quoting Psalm 69, a psalm that prophetically describes Jesus as he approaches the cross.

If you’ve ever read Paul’s letter to the Philippian church, this will sound familiar. He says there that we who are Christians “should do nothing from selfish ambition, but in humility consider other’s interests above your own.” And then he goes on to say that this is the pattern of Jesus, who being in the very nature God became one of us to serve us, to die for us. He sets the pattern for us to follow. That is our calling: to set aside our own private desires and seek the good of others like Jesus did. And that’s basically what he says here.

But let’s be honest here for a moment. Perhaps we will agree that this sounds right, that this is the kind of community we want to be, where each of us is more attentive to the good of others than our own personal desires. But can we also agree that what Paul is calling us to doesn’t feel particularly desirable? The example he’s pointing us to imitate, the cross, is perhaps the most famous symbol of suffering. I mean, if we’re being honest, this instruction of forsaking what we want to care for others is often unpleasant, hard, and even painful.  

And here’s where Paul’s different vision becomes relevant. The key here, the way to be able to live as we are called to live, to love sacrificially and accept loss comes as we gain a different vision of reality. You and I need to see who we are as Christians, and what it is that we’re actually doing when we love like this.

Who We Are

Notice the way Paul begins: “We who are strong,” or perhaps even more accurately, “we who are powerful.” He’s not talking here about people with political power or impressive physical gifts. He’s talking to people who have understood and accepted the gospel; accepted it in such a way that they are secure in their faith and confident in their hope. The power he’s talking about is secure and confident hope.

Let me return to that quote from Psalm 69 in verse 3, a Psalm as I said, that is speaking about Jesus. Perhaps you noticed that right after this quote, Paul suddenly starts talking about hope—did he just get distracted? No. It’s because he’s thinking about Psalm 69. You see, Psalm 69 is important, not just because it reminds us that Jesus suffered as he loved; it tells us HOW he was able to do this.

Have you ever thought about that question? No human being ever faced a more difficult life than Jesus. We shouldn’t think that because he was the Son of God that he was somehow immune to the pain of rejection and loneliness, to the difficulty of facing unthinkable humiliation and suffering and death. He had the power to escape this. How did he remain faithful? How did he continue to love when it cost him so much? 

Psalm 69 tells us. It’s a prayer amidst ongoing suffering when all seems wrong. And it is also a prayer of hope. In this prayer the Psalm says, I might not see it now. But I know that God loves me and hears my prayer. I know that he will rescue me. He will make everything right. And so, knowing that, I can remain strong.

The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus endured to the end, he endured the cross because of the joy that he was confident lay on the other side of death. Jesus endured suffering because of secure, confident hope. Jesus’ greatest demonstration of his power was at Gethsemane, when, facing the reality of the agony that was before him on the cross, he arose to go it. And he did this, because of hope—of confidence in his God. That’s power.

And if you have come to understand the gospel; if you have trusted yourself to Jesus and have come to know that you are loved by God and secure—if you have tasted of this hope, you need to understand something. You in this hope, are powerful. “We who are powerful” Paul says. He’s talking about you.

We’ve already mentioned how we live today in a rather cynical age. A rather hopeless age, you might say. Sure, there may be some who are optimistic, but optimism is just a rather blind belief that things will get better because they always do, right? Whereas hope is a confidence rooted in reality. A conviction that despite how things might appear, there are deeper forces at work that will in the end ensure that what is good and right will triumph. 

I don’t see this conviction much in our day, do you? People look around at what’s going on and ask, “Is this ever going to get better? Will we ever get beyond the political fighting? Will we ever find a way to live in harmony with each other, where nobody is left behind or exploited? Will we learn to, will our kids learn to live wholeheartedly rather than distractedly, joyfully with purpose, rather than aimlessly? Is it going to get better? People look around at what can be seen and, perhaps understandably decide, no, it’s not going to get better. 

And so is it any surprise that we’re experiencing so many challenges as a society? Without hope of a better future, why make sacrifices now? If this is all there is and there’s no reason to think things will get better, isn’t the smartest thing just to find a way to protect myself, get what I want, and enjoy the moment? Without hope, we are weak.

But there is great power in hope. The gospel is powerful, because it reveals to us a deeper reality. That there is a God of love who is actively at work. And this God is in the process of rescuing people from all over the world, bringing them into his kingdom through Jesus. And one day, because of this God, YES, it is going to be better, so much better. All will be right.

And if you have been blessed by God with the awareness, the conviction of that deeper reality, then you, like Jesus, have power. However it might feel, however it might look, if you have the security that the gospel brings; if you have the conviction of hope in God, you are far more powerful than you realize By this hope you can endure challenges, knowing that in the end it will be okay. By this hope you can forego things right now, you can make sacrifices in the moment, because you know God will make it all worth it in the end. By this hope, you can love, even when it’s costly.” 

But why should we? Even if we have the ability to sacrifice like this, why does it make sense to do so?

Temple Building

Here’s where we get to the second aspect of the vision of reality that Paul wants us to have. Paul doesn’t just tell us what we are. He also wants us to understand what we are doing. When we love with sacrificial love, it’s not just that we’re losing out. We are doing something of extraordinary significance. We are participating in Christ’s extraordinary project of temple building. 

Returning to Psalm 69, this Psalm doesn’t just show us how, through the power of his hope in God, Jesus was able to suffer in love. It also shows us something else: why he suffered—what he was accomplishing. The part of the verse Paul quotes “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me” is the second half of the verse, developing the first part. What’s that first part? “Zeal for your house has consumed me.” Why did Jesus undergo the suffering he did? Because zeal for God’s house consumed him. Jesus’ chose to endure suffering because of his commitment to something extraordinary: to the temple project. 

Let me take a moment to explain—I promise, this will ultimately be relevant to what we’re talking about. One of the central, most fundamental teachings of the Bible is that humanity’s greatest problem—the gaping wound in this world that every other problem flows from, is that we have become deeply, and unnaturally, disconnected from God. One of the foundational teachings of Christianity is that this world was made in such a way, and we were made in such a way, that everything only works, and we are only truly healthy, when we know God, love God, and experience his love for us. Why are we so confused and sad? Because of our disconnection from God. We are we so cruel, why do we treat the world poorly, why can’t we stop fighting each other? Because of our disconnection from God. As much as we might try to treat the symptoms, until this primary problem of disconnection from God is dealt with, the world will never get truly better.

If that’s the sickness of this world, then the temple is an image, a symbol for the cure. Perhaps you know that the temple of Israel was an impressive building first constructed by Solomon according to God’s instructions. But from the very beginning, when it was first constructed, it was always understood to be something more a tangible symbol of something greater, something cosmic. At certain distinct moments in history: first to Abraham, later at Mt. Sinai, God had reached down to the people of Israel and spoken to them and said, “I am going to love you and be your God,” and the people of Israel, in their best moments said, “Yes, we will be your people.” And the temple was a symbol meant to represent the connection point in that relationship—a kind of palace for God, showing his choice to live among a people and their acceptance of him as king. It stood for the beginning of a restoration of the broken relationship between God and humanity; a beginning connection meant to expand and bring healing to this world.

The prophet Ezekiel describes a vision of what the temple would one day be. In this vision a river flows out of the center of the temple, and wherever this river from the temple goes, it brings healing. It flows into the Dead Sea, a lake so filled with salt that nothing lives in or around it, and as the river touches the Dead Sea, it becomes fresh, suddenly filled with all sorts of fish. Along the banks of the river, which were once dry and lifeless, beautiful trees now grow, trees, it says, that will bear fruit every month because of this temple river, and their leaves will be like medicine, bringing healing for sickness for whoever eats of them. 

This vision shows the goal of the temple project. It says that when the temple becomes what it’s meant to become—when a lasting, true connection between God and humanity truly is made, then the world can truly begin to heal. People can begin to become whole. Communities once at odds can be brought together.

When Psalm 69 says, “Zeal for your house consumes me,” it’s passion for this temple project, this connection between God and humanity that brings life—that’s what is being talked about. And it’s describing Jesus. 

There was a time that Jesus said something that completely confused the Jewish leaders—he did that a lot. He has just in very clear ways shown that the earthly, physical temple has some major problems—that it’s not the connection point with God that God intended it to be. And he goes on to say to the leaders, “Destroy this temple and three days later I will raise it up.” They thought he was talking about the physical building, but he was talking about the deeper reality, the connection with God to which the temple pointed. He was talking about himself. For Jesus, God become flesh, is God’s connection to humanity. Jesus was telling these leaders of the only way that would truly lead to the world’s greatest wound being healed, the only way that God and humanity could become truly reconnected. When you reject me and kill me and I die on the cross, three days later I will rise again, and in that moment, new life, a new relationship with God will begin.

And do you know the verse that John mentions when describing this moment in the gospels? It’s Psalm 69: “Zeal for your house consumes me.” God’s house, his temple, is what Jesus was about. He suffered, he let go of his own personal preferences, he endured unimaginable loss because of how passionate, how deeply committed he was to build the true temple that would lead to the world being eternally healed. 

And here’s the reason I’m highlighting this. The New Testament tells us that our high calling—the great work that we are given to do with the power God has given us—is to join with Jesus in this ongoing work of temple building. Because while Jesus has accomplished what he set out to do, his resurrection in some senses only acts as the foundation for this new, true temple.  The New Testament tells us that every person that he rescues who comes to trust in him and become a Christian, each of us is like a living stone in this truer temple, being stacked upon each other to build this glorious house of God. Together as the church of God we become a place where the connection between God and humanity is being remade and where healing happens.

And that means we have something important to do: “Do you not know” Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “That you, the church, are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells among you?” And then, a few chapters later, Paul applies that. He says, “With whatever gifts and power you’ve been given, use those things for the BUILDING up.” Paul uses that language of building up quite intentionally. He’s saying that in the way we care for each other, we are joining with Jesus in the project of temple building.   

Now, look with me at verse 2: “let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up” or, more accurately—for the building up. Paul is saying, when you concern yourself with the needs of your fellow believer, when you make sacrifices to see his strength, do you know what you’re doing? You’re joining in the project of temple building. You’re joining with Jesus, the one who experienced suffering because zeal for God’s house consumed him. 

And the outcome of this work is described in verse 6: as believers do this hard work they become a community so united in their love for Jesus that the world around us is able to see the beauty and glory of God. That’s why, he says in verse 7, we welcome each other as Christ has welcomed us: for the glory of God.

Do you see? When Gentile Christian believers in Rome who loved their steak choose for a time to go vegetarian so that their Jewish fellow believers wouldn’t be tempted to go against their conscience, this small but difficult little sacrifice was actually an act of temple building with Jesus, participating in God’s cosmic plan of salvation. And the same is true for you. You and I as part of this church will find encounter many choices that will seem small but inconvenient. Times when people can be awkward in a way that’s hard to know what to do with, and we have the option either to avoid them or to welcome them. Times when someone will be in need, and we have the choice between comfort and kindness. Times when someone will have hurt us, and we have the choice between resentment and forgiveness. So often each of those moments will feel mundane and insignificant. But the reality is, when we welcome, when we give of ourselves, when we forgive—when we love even as it costs, you and I are sharing in the work of our great king in building the temple. We are participating in God’s beautiful work of healing the world. 

Am I being Don Quixote? Am I seeing something that isn’t there? I guess that’s something you’ll need to decide for yourself.

But let me close with these words: first to Scott, Dwayne, and Michelle (did you think I forgot?). You have not just taken on roles that are sexy or flashy by the world’s standards. You will be on the frontlines of our church in seeking to care for people often when loving them is most difficult. I want to encourage you to see this role differently—to see it with the hope and security of knowing that you are participating in something much more significant and glorious than might appear to earthly eyes, and that God actually works through your efforts to bring about his healing.  

And to the rest of us, the people of Trinity. I want to invite you to join with me in seeing this morning of commissioning and ordaining as part of something bigger. God is doing something in us, and as we learn to join with our diaconal team in the difficult work of love, he is doing something through us. There is a river, a river of God’s grace that flows out even from us into our community and our workplaces and our homes, and as it flows, it brings life and healing. 

This is the calling and the dignity we have in Jesus. Let’s turn to him now.