Romans 15:14

Paul writes this.

"'I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, "'that you yourselves are full of goodness, "'filled with all knowledge, "'and able to instruct one another.'"

That's our verse for this evening, and I wanna walk through it in two points. Point number one, what is needed in order to instruct? What is needed in order to instruct? And point number two, instructing one another. Instructing one another. So let's go ahead and dive into point one. What is needed in order to instruct?

What is needed in order to instruct?

So again, Paul, I'll read it again. He says,

I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge.

So notice here, they're filled with two things. Paul says they're full of goodness, and similarly he says they are filled with knowledge. So these are the two things, taking this Roman church as an example, these are two things that we also ought to be filled with if we are to be able to instruct one another.

Now, we need to sort of define what Paul means here. These are two very vague words, right? These are goodness and knowledge. These are two very vague words that can mean all sorts of things, so we need to sort of hone down a little bit and see how Paul is defining these.

With the word goodness, it really is very simple. This is actually the same exact word used in Galatians 5 with the list of the fruits of the Spirit. Many of you know this list well.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,

and then we get to goodness. The same word.

And really what this is, we can sort of substitute it for holiness, righteousness, godliness. It's sort of just this catch-all term for Christian virtue. So that's what Paul's talking about here with goodness. Substitute in godliness, holiness, whatever word you want to use.

That's what it's referring to. The next word is knowledge. Now this word can be used in all sorts of ways, but here it really is a saving understanding of the Christian faith. A saving understanding of the Christian faith. So it is intellectual. There's an intellectual component with the mind. It's understanding certain doctrines and certain truths, but it's understanding them with believing them as well. That's what's described here as knowledge.

And it's these two qualities that made this church in the first century in Rome competent to instruct one another and to build one another up. And Paul is commending them for these characteristics, which means this early Roman church, which by the way, not to be confused with the Roman Catholic Church, totally different thing, this early Roman church is therefore an example for us to follow. Paul is commending them, and so we ought to take after their example as well. And the example they set for us is being full of both of these qualities. goodness, meaning righteousness, holiness, godliness, and then knowledge.

Now, the spirit of our age is contrary to being filled with both of these. The spirit of our age, our culture, our society, it sees these two things, godliness and knowledge, as sort of just complete opposites. Here's what I mean. Our culture tries to pitch the idea that someone could either be sort of a cold, ivory tower intellectual that really doesn't have a whole lot of feelings, they're just analyzing, or you could be sort of this warm-hearted, pious, not really into a whole lot of doctrine, you just wanna love Jesus. Those are the two options that our society gives us. But the Christian faith demands that we reject that divide, that we reject that contrast. The Apostle Paul here, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he's lifting up the Roman church to say to us, look, you can and you should have both. You can have knowledge and godliness, and you should have knowledge and godliness.

As I was trying to think of a way to explain this, I thought of an example when me and Shauna have gone to Missouri before to visit her grandma, and you have to pass the famous St. Louis Arch. And many of you know what this is, this just huge, tall, but thin structure that's just this massive, tall arch. And you think, it's so thin, it's so tall, how does it not just crumble? Well, the answer is, amazingly, that actually each side is lifting up the other. The left side of it is actually architecturally holding up the other side. The right side of it is holding up the left side.

This is what goodness and knowledge do in the Christian life. We do not have to choose to either be that warm-hearted, pious person or that cold intellectual. We don't have to choose between having deep experience with God and having deep knowledge of God. In fact, we're commanded to have both. And this makes sense when you think about it.

Take my relationship with my wife, for example. If you were to come up to me and you were to say, do you love your wife? I'd say yes. And then if you asked me, why do you love your wife? What do you love about her? And if you ask me, what do I love about her, and I really don't have a whole lot of very specific things I can point to, that's a problem, right? That's a big problem. If I can't point to specific things I know about her personality, her beauty, whatever it is, that's a problem.

Because in order to love my wife, I need to know all sorts of things about her. And in fact, actually, the more I learn about her, the more my knowledge deepens of my wife, the more I love her. Friends, our increasing knowledge of God makes us love him more. And as we love him more, we want to learn about him even more.

This knowledge, this intellectual life of the mind of a Christian actually supports the heart, and the heart supports the mind. So, as an application of this, I want you to think, which side are you more inclined to take? Goodness, knowledge, they're not opposed to each other, but the problem is we tend to be sort of wired to choose one and neglect the other. Some Christians have lots of warm-hearted love, zeal for God, but it lacks the maturity and the stability that deep knowledge could give it. And some Christians are full of knowledge about doctrine and scripture, but they're prideful and actually ungodly about their knowledge. They have all the right theological opinions, and yet they are ungodly in the way they express them.

But friends, until you're able to be filled with both, you will be hindered in your ability to instruct others. That's why Paul's commending them for having both of these qualities. It's only then that you're able to effectively instruct one another.

If you're full of goodness and you lack knowledge, you may be compassionate to your brother or sister in need, but you may really, really struggle to know what truths to give them, to know what truths about Scripture and about God would help their soul in that moment. If you're full of knowledge but you lack godliness, well, you may have a right answer for them, but it may come off as cold, distant, and unhelpful. So how do you get both of these? How can you be filled with both goodness and knowledge?

And I think what we can take as an example here are really all of the letters of Paul. All of the letters of Paul, including this letter to the Romans, begins with just grand declarations of Christian doctrine and deep truths. And yet then it's always balanced by a switch in the letter where Paul then starts to apply these doctrines to life. We should take that as an example. No matter which side you tend to veer towards, take Paul as an example. Read through his letters, see how he goes deep into doctrine, but then he goes deep into the application of it, and there's no contradiction between the two.

Another thing as well, if you incline towards maybe accumulating lots of knowledge and yet neglect godly virtues, there's multiple parts of the New Testament that you really need to learn. One of them that stands out is in the book of James, where James is talking about this dead faith, and James says,

even the demons believe.

Does he mean even the demons have saving faith? No, he means even the demons can understand the deep theology that you do, and yet it's not helpful to them, because it's not paired with love for the Lord. Paul as well, 1 Corinthians 13, many of us know this passage well. He says,

if I understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I'm nothing.

It's nothing to have all knowledge, to understand all mysteries of the faith and to not have love.

Instructing one another

Well, that leads us to point two, instructing one another. So Paul ends this commendation of the Roman church by stating that they are able to instruct one another. We need to sort of define what this word instruct means as well because it could be very helpful to us to really understand what's going on here.

This is not the instruction of a university professor. That's not the instruction. It's not a lecture type instruction merely. It's also not just a sort of high school football coach, do better. That's not the sort of instruction going on here either.

This word here, instruct, it's actually the same word elsewhere. It's translated as admonish. And I think that sort of gets to maybe a better angle of how to view this word, admonish. It's the same word. And it carries the idea of giving knowledge for the purpose of changing one's way of life. It's teaching knowledge for the sake of holiness.

And brother or sister, if you are a member of this church, that right there, admonish, give knowledge for the sake of holiness, increased growth in holiness, that is your job. That is your responsibility as a member of this church. The Bible has given you a job description as a member of Christ's church, and that is to instruct one another. God has, at a certain level, entrusted you and entrusted every member of this church, at a certain level, with the souls of all of us. You were responsible to care for your fellow brothers, your fellow sisters. You are not on the sideline. You are on the field. You have responsibility for this.

How does that change our daily life?

So we see we have responsibility to instruct one another. For the rest of our time now, I want to just consider how this responsibility that all of us as members of Jefferson Park have, how does that responsibility change the way we ought to live? The fact that we're responsible to instruct one another, to care for one another's souls, to provide knowledge that would lead to more holiness in each other's lives, how does that change our daily life? Here's the first thing. I think it should change the way we approach our devotional life.

If you have a responsibility to grow in holiness and knowledge so that you can instruct others in the faith, then your personal daily devotions, they're actually not just about you. Your personal time alone with God in the word, where you feed your soul, and yes, you do need to feed your own soul, but that time is actually not just about your own soul. That time is so that you can grow in your knowledge and in your godliness to be able to instruct your fellow members of this church. It is not just for you.

And how would that change the way you approach your devotional time? When you wake up in the morning and you're really struggling to want to go to the word, how would that change the way that you approach it? Well, maybe you would change it by you saying, Look, I really don't feel like doing this right now, but I love my brothers, I love my sisters at this church, and one day they will need me to give them encouragement that I might just learn in this passage this morning. And so I'm gonna dig into this word.

So that's the first thing, it can change our devotional life. The second thing is it can change our approach to church. Here's what I mean. Our society trains us to be consumeristic about everything. We don't often realize that that's the air that we're breathing. Everything really in our society is just training us to think, what can I get out of this? How does this benefit me?

And it's so easy to fall into this with church life as well, isn't it? Coming to church Sunday morning and really only thinking, how am I going to be benefited from this morning? but our responsibility to instruct one another, it should change the way we roll into church on Sunday morning. Yes, we do need to desire to be fed ourselves through the means of grace provided for us, but if we have a responsibility, we should walk into church ready to serve, ready to provide what we have, whatever knowledge we've received, whatever's encouraged us this past week, we should be ready to provide that for others. We should walk into church thinking, how can I provide for this body what I have? So this responsibility we have, it destroys this consumeristic approach to church.

You don't know what to say

The last thing I wanna address here about instructing one another is what happens when you don't know quite what to say? I'm thinking of maybe situations here, maybe a brother or sister is in deep, deep suffering that maybe you've never been in before, and they come to you and they're sharing your burdens, and you just don't know what to say. Well, the first thing I wanna say about that is that's okay if you don't know what to say. And in fact, there are actually many times where it might be better not to try to provide advice in that moment.

James touched on this a little bit in one of the devotionals a couple weeks ago, but at moments where you just don't know what to say, you don't know what advice to give, what to instruct your brother or sister in their struggle, one thing you can always do is you can pray with them. And actually praying with them might provide greater instruction than any words you could have ever spoken to them.

If they're stuck in sin, show them by praying with them, show them by your prayers how they ought to pray for deliverance from their sin. If they're suffering, show them by your interceding on their behalf. Show them how to come before the throne of grace and receive mercy in their time of need. And if they're needing wisdom that you don't know how to give, show them how to go to God who gives wisdom generously. That may be far more instructive for them than any advice you could have given them. Many times, simply praying with them will go farther than anything we could have said. Well, let me conclude by just saying that in the words of Christ,

the harvest is plentiful.

What I mean by that is look around.

We all have needs, brothers and sisters. We all in some way, shape or form, need advice, we need encouragement, we need good spiritual counsel. All of us, the harvest is plentiful. And so let's dive into the word and into prayer and let's fill ourselves with knowledge of God and then let's apply that to our lives to grow in holiness so that we're able to humbly give, humbly receive instruction until we all arrive safely home. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for your word where we receive instruction and Lord, we just pray that every one of us would be able to grow in a love for you and a knowledge of your word. And Lord, let us be a church who instructs one another faithfully, humbly, so that we can all be built up together. In Jesus' name, amen.