To build him up.

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.”

Obviously there are situations that we can easily recognize how we are to bear with the failings of someone who is weak: we would not knowingly had a bottle of whiskey to a known alcoholic. It’s in the finer details of relationships that we are to be sensitive, and willing to lay aside our own preferences for another, and to actively seek ways to build him up. For Jesus laid aside his glory, “thinking it not robbery,” to become one of us, to take on the weight of sin in the world to go to the cross and to shed his shed blood, to be “the way, the truth and the life.” We are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, we are to be, as one of my favorite teachers says, “Energetic in goodness!”

We thank you that you have not abandoned us even when our own hearts are given over to evil and darkness; that you have saved us, not by works of righteousness we have done, but by your great mercy, by the “washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.”

ESV Lectionary