God's Harmony

Luther, one of the great proponents of Christian liberty, declared, a Christian man is a most free Lord of all, subject to none. A Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, subject to all. This is the truth we're studying today, that Christians are the most bound and simultaneously the most free. We think about the freedom first because Christians are free from the power of sin. Christians are free from the power of death. But when we exchange that Lord of sin and Satan and death, and we go from the domain of darkness and we're transferred over into the kingdom of light, we now have a new Lord. We become dutiful. We are bound. You see, this is the difficulty with sin. When it's your master, you rarely recognize it. But it's tyranny. It's destroying you. And you rarely realize it. But when Christ is your Lord, it's clear because He speaks. And there's commands. And His Holy Spirit testifies. Christian, we are free from the power of sin. We are free from that cruel master. To submit. to the Lord who loves us, who gives us commands that are for our good. We are now called to duty. We're called to service. Last week, we looked at chapter 14 of Romans, and we're going to continue to go through Romans. And this is really the second sermon on Christian liberty, weaker and stronger brothers. Last week we looked at that big picture, and we're gonna look at it again. The church is called to be a community of charity. If you love one another, you give one another liberty. Love promotes liberty. Last week we looked at the particular call not to judge the weaker brothers with their sensitive consciences. They would add rules, and then they would take these personal convictions, and they would make them opinions, they would impose them upon other people, and Paul's saying, no, if it's not clear in Scripture, it's not a universal command for all the church. The big picture is love, that love provides liberty. We're actually looking at the other side of this, in that your love also restrains your liberty. If you love someone, your liberty is restrained. Since Jesus is your Lord, you actually have no rights. He has the right to be worshiped. He has the right to be obeyed. That's the right we should be most concerned about. Christian, let me give you a real principle here for relationships. You often have to choose between being right or being reconciled. In your Christian relationships, you have a choice. Be right, win the argument, or be reconciled, promote grace and love. Christ, Christ came to help us see that we now have an obligation to promote His love, to promote His name. As we look to the weaker brother, we saw that the personal convictions, they're not what Paul corrects. It's when they universalize. Paul is not saying, weaker brother, get rid of these personal convictions, or stronger brother, make sure they realize that these personal convictions are wrong. That's actually what he doesn't say. He says, don't do that. He simply says, do not impose your personal convictions and judge others. Let's back out a little further from just last week's sermon on Romans 14, verses 1-12. The bigger picture of Romans is this. Romans 1-3, it establishes that God is just to judge the licentious sinner and the legalistic sinner. The one who says I have a license to sin, I'm gonna sin as much as I want, and he's gonna judge the one who's a legalist. I'm going to promote my own self-righteousness. The clear teaching is that no one will have an excuse before God. Then chapters three and four, the other half of chapter three. By faith we are saved because Christ came to pay the penalty of our sins. because of our sin, because of our self-righteousness, when we believe in Christ, God's wrath is satisfied in Him, we can be forgiven. Romans 5 and 8 declares the benefits we have in Christ. We're reconciled, we're free, we're no longer condemned, we're loved. Nine through 11 declares the sovereignty of God's grace to the Jew and to the Gentile, and then Romans 12 is that great transition. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God. Nine through 11 was the key mercy. Because of God's mercy, I appeal to you, worship. It's your duty. It's your reasonable service. to be transformed by the Word of God, to not be conformed to the world, so that you may know what is right, what is excellent, and commit yourself to it. If you look at what the worship looks like after chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, it's all about relating to other people. Let love be genuine. Be at peace with all men. Love your neighbor. That fulfills the law. Romans is not just a big theology book. He's writing to a particular church to help them with a particular problem with the gospel. And chapter 14 is the very precise problem he's writing about. So let's back up again like we did last week. When Paul writes to the Galatians, he scolds them. It is not a friendly book. He scolds them. because they have forsaken the gospel. They've adopted legalism and they're putting the gospel in danger. So Paul scolds them. How dare you forsake the gospel of grace? You don't welcome those who are perverting the gospel. To the Corinthians, he again gives them a very strong correction. You're letting someone be in the good fellowship of the church who's living a life that denies the gospel so that everybody who sees this man, who's living with his father's, or his mother's, his father's wife. Sorry, I got a little confused there. How dare you, church, let the gospel be corrupted because of licentious sin? Again, he scolds them. Here, Paul's not scolding the Romans. He's correcting them, and he's correcting them with the gospel. And the problem is there are people quarreling, Jews and Gentiles, over secondary issues. Again, we're talking about how to talk about gray areas. Now, I know that doesn't sound real interesting, but most churches divide over gray areas. This is important. This great, deep theological work that Paul has given us is to get to this point on how to actually show grace, give liberty according to love. So what we're seeing here, Paul is talking about welcome the quarrelers, welcome those who are causing trouble, but not to quarrel with them. It's not like the Galatians, it's not like the Corinthians. Now, if you're not a Christian here this morning, you're going to hear a lot of correction for the church. And if you're not a Christian, well, this is what you need to hear most of all. This is the message for you. This is what I want you to hear. One is a sinner. Everyone in this room is a sinner. Everyone in this room has refused to trust God, to honor God, to give thanks to God. That is the heart of sin, rebellion. And instead of God putting His wrath upon everyone, He sent His Son to live the life that honored God, give thanks to God, and worship God. In that son, he died on the cross, a perfect righteous man, but he was treated like a sinner. The wrath of God came down upon the one who had no sin. This is why. So that whenever we who believe in Jesus, Call upon that name. God no longer sees us in our sin. He's punished our sin in Jesus. Our sins were put upon Him so that the wrath of God would be satisfied, so that we could be forgiven. Now you, you can believe in Jesus. If you do not believe in Jesus, your sin sticks to you. Your sin is still upon you. It still is your master, it will still be judged, and you will be judged with it when you see God. But today, you can believe this message. I'm a sinner. Christ died for my sins to forgive me. He rose again to give me new life. You can believe that. and you can be a new creation in Christ. Please do not leave here today without talking to me or someone else about that message. Christians, we're going to think again about how we live together as the community of charity. Welcome is the controlling command of our passage. If you turn with me in Romans 14, That can be found on page 948 of a Pew Bible. If you didn't have a Bible, please take that with you. Page 948 of a Pew Bible. Notice there, chapter 14, verse 1, as for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him. Why would you welcome him? Look at the end of verse 4, for God has welcomed him. If we take this to the end of the message of this whole section, chapter 15, verse seven, look at how he ends. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. So everything fits under this declaration, this great command to welcome. And the grounding is because you've been welcomed. This is why we sang earlier, I'm accepted because he was condemned. We've been welcomed because of the blood of Christ. Now if we look at this, he says welcome without quarreling. Quarreling takes place when we try to impose our personal convictions universally. Quarreling takes place when we want to tell people no, you can have freedom, you don't have to do this. Quarreling really is a pride issue. It says this, pride. causes quarreling when it says, my convictions must be better than yours. Pride says, I have nothing to learn from you and your convictions. Pride says, I'm going to separate myself from you because we disagree. Humility says, your convictions may be better than mine. Humility says, I want to see how I can learn from your conviction so that I can learn to love Christ more. Humility says, come closer so that I can learn how to love Jesus. So we gather to hear about how we can be more welcoming in humility. Here, the word of the Lord, I'm going to read chapter 14 in its entirety through chapter 15, verse 7. As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains. Let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind, the one who observes the day, observes it in the honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats it in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God. while the one who abstains, abstains in the honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, Christ died and lived again, that he might be both Lord of the dead and of the living. Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God, for it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Verse 13 is where we pick up today. Therefore, let us not pass judgment on another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, But it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. Do not for the sake of food destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith, for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. 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. For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement I grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you have welcomed us. When you should have shown your wrath to us, you welcomed us in the name of Christ. by His blood, by His death and His resurrection. I pray that we as a church will learn to welcome one another according to the way of Christ. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Our outline this morning for chapter 14 verse 13 through chapter 15 verse 7 is this. Welcome according to kingdom priorities Welcome according to kingdom priorities, that's 13 through 19. Welcome according to personal conviction, that's 20 through 23. And then welcome according to Christ's example. That's chapter 15, verse 1 through 7. Welcome is a key word, key command. According to kingdom, according to personal convictions, according to Christ. As you heard the passage read, especially 13 through 15.7, I want you to see it's very redundant. It's circular. He keeps cycling back through the same thing. Do not destroy. Do not put a stumbling block. Build up. He keeps cycling back through the same commandments. And what I think he's doing is he's continuing the same argument, but he's giving new reasons. The first one is the kingdom of God is not a matter of food. It's a matter of righteousness and peace and joy, verse 17. The second argument where he says the same thing. Do not present a stumbling block. Do not destroy the work of God. It's your faith with God. And then turn to 15, verse 7. I think just using different language. Do not just please yourself. Please your neighbor. Build him up. Because this is what Christ has done. So he says the same thing, and we're hopefully going to say the same thing over and over again, so that we might hear what God has for us. Let's start with this key word. Welcome. This is the key word of the passage. Let's define this word. What does it mean to welcome? Well, it does mean that you receive somebody warmly. That's normally how we think about this. You know, somebody's welcoming, they have open arms and they receive you with a warm embrace and a smile. Welcome also must be something that's very proactive. Welcoming isn't just passive, it's proactive. We can see in our passage that, one, welcome is an attitude. From last week, verses 1 to 12, don't judge, don't despise. That's an attitude towards someone. If you have a welcoming attitude, you're not despising and you're not judging. In our passage, there's a lot of do's and don'ts. Welcoming is an action. It does not hinder. It does not put a stumbling block. It loves. It makes for peace. It builds up. It avoids what causes someone else to stumble. It is not focused on self-pleasure. It pursues the pleasure of other. It unites with others in harmony. That's just some of the do's and don'ts of what welcoming is. So welcoming is an attitude and it's action. A simple definition of what I believe this passage would say welcoming is, is this. A proactive pursuit of others prioritizing the kingdom of God. It's a proactive pursuit of others prioritizing the kingdom of God. Now, my concern is that we use the word, we've treated the word welcome like we use the word love. We usually think of love as something that passively happens to us, you know, I fall in love. No, we think welcoming is something that's somewhat passive, we just receive somebody. No, both love and welcome, they're proactive words, they're aggressive, they go at someone, they seek someone. We have to realize something else from this passage. We can only be welcoming Christians when we have the right kingdom priorities. We welcome believers who are still sinning because God welcomes sinners. It's a very clear gospel kingdom principle. We will only welcome those Christians who are still in sin, which is every sinner, which is every believer, because God welcomes sinners. We welcome those who are different because God welcomes all different kinds of people. We welcome without quarreling because God has said this is to be, we are to be a people of peace. Now church, let me speak to you very personally. I am so thrilled and thankful that the testimony I regularly hear of Jefferson Park is that we're welcome. People feel embraced and warmly welcomed when they come through this church. So that kind of passive receiving, I think we do well. But I think we need to be challenged with this passage as well. I don't believe it's always clear that we are proactively pursuing others to welcome them in a way that denies ourself, in a way that says this church is about Jesus Christ and not my particular interest. There's really nothing more discouraging for me to hear than to hear someone say, I don't think I'm good enough to be at Jefferson Park Baptist Church. When someone appears to be a genuine believer, seeking to follow scripture, and they say that, it is extremely discouraging, and I hear it. Now, we have to realize that sometimes the trouble people have is revealing more of their insecurities, but here are some folks I've heard this from. I've heard it from single parents. There's nothing in terms of helping them with their children. Families who are still trying to train their children, they feel like they could not participate because their children aren't yet trained. Folks who are not wealthy, I feel like they say they feel like they'd be judged. We need to realize that when we present ourselves, we need to present ourselves as Christians following Christ and Him alone and making His priorities our priorities. This is the one that stings me the most when I hear somebody say, my life is too out of control, everyone there has it all together. This one bothers me because I know it's a lie. Church, this is false advertising on our house. We don't have it all together. If we're presenting like we have it all together, we're lying. It's false advertising. This church is full of all kinds of sinners who have all kinds of difficulties that are wrestling with marriage, with sin. But when we present ourself as if we have it all together, we're telling the world this is what Christianity is, it's people who have it all together. Christianity is about people who have lives that are ruined, and they recognize they're ruined. And we look to Christ and we say, Lord, save me. This is what visitors should see. So this is a good time for self-inspection. How do we welcome other covenant members? How do we present ourselves and Christ, not our personal convictions? How do we welcome those who visit? How do we welcome those who are seeking to witness in the world? Now last week was do not pass judgment. Now, the real difficulty in And the weaker, stronger brother is this. How do you know the difference between them when something is clearly doctrine and personal conviction? The whole premise behind what Paul is speaking of here is that the stronger brother is the one who's able to recognize the difference between what is clearly taught in Scripture and personal conviction. The weaker brother confuses those things. And so, the health of the church is dependent upon the stronger brother who's able to lead with grace. Let's look to our text. There's some basic key commands. Chapter 14, verse 13. Do not pass judgment, therefore, on one another any longer. Okay, that's summarizing the previous section. Rather, decide to never put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. Look at verse 19. So then, let us pursue what makes for peace for mutual building. It's great when a passage has a prohibition and a command. You don't do this. You do this. Don't put a stumbling block. Don't be a hindrance. Rather, promote peace. Build up. That's the big picture. That's the big picture of the entire passage. We are called to not hinder growth. We're called to build it up. We're called to not destroy growth. We're called to love. If we look at the command, do not put a stumbling block in front of somebody, verse 13. I'm gonna come back to verse 14, and this is why. Verse 14, I think, is a parenthetical comment. I think it'd be better to read that as a parentheses statement, because verse 15, four, he's gonna explain what he said in verse 13. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. I believe in verse 15 he's telling us what a stumbling block is. It's when you do something that's going to grieve the one who has a sensitive conscience. When you go out of your way with your liberty to do something to a weaker brother or with a weaker brother that he is not convinced is right or wrong, you are presenting a stumbling block. So, It means to present a stumbling block. I believe this is publicly flaunting your freedom in front of a weaker brother. Whenever we flaunt our freedom, we're doing more damage to the kingdom. Whenever we're trying to convince a weaker brother, no, you're wrong, this is good and right, you should partake against your conscience, you're hindering the work of God. You're putting a hindrance in front of their growth. You are not building them up. I think the most difficult part of this is that the stronger brother could win the argument from Scripture, and he shouldn't. The stronger brother could open up the Bible and say, you're wrong, look how clear Scripture is, and Paul is saying, it's not so clear you should do that because of the conscience. It's not so clear that just because you can win the argument, winning the argument doesn't actually promote peace or build up. So going back to verse 14, and this is extremely important, Paul says, I know and am persuaded in the Lord that nothing is unclean in itself. Paul's saying that food, it's often declared clean. There's nothing wrong with this food that makes it any better than this food. Vegetables are not better than meat. There's nothing holy or unholy about either one of them. But if their conscience tells them it's clean or unclean, So be it. And the stronger brother is supposed to show them grace. Look at verse 16 and 17. So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. Now this verse is somewhat tricky. What is he referring to as good? I believe the good is understood to be the kingdom of God and the freedom of the gospel. because of how he qualifies the good. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The stronger brother is supposed to realize that if you flaunt your Christian freedom, you're going to do it in such a way that's going to pierce them, it's going to hinder them, it's going to be spoken of as evil. We're to protect our brothers, seeking to live at peace with them. So the stronger brother has to be careful not to let the freedom that he has in the gospel be spoken of as evil. Now, let's just back up a second and realize that we all have weaker brother issues. We all have hobby horses. We all have personal convictions that we love and that we like to talk about. The problem comes when we want to attach our issue to the gospel. And that's typically what we like to do, because if that one thing that we love is so sacred, well, oftentimes we think, God hasn't made it sacred enough in his own words, so let me attach it to what's most sacred. Let me attach it to God. Let me attach it to the gospel. This is what we have to avoid. This is what the stronger brother is called to help avoid. Make sure the weaker brother knows the gospel is not about food or drink. The gospel is about righteousness. peace and joy from the Holy Spirit. The stronger brother is to keep that which is most important centered on being most important, not to engage in the quarrels. Stronger brother is supposed to have the one who has the self-control, not to engage in those quarrels, but to keep the gospel central, clear, and pure. Before we move on, Paul, I believe in verse 14, is saying the same thing we read from Matthew 15. Nothing is, no food is bad. Everything God created is what? Good. Very good. So why is there so much sin? Because we rebelled and our twisted hearts decided to take all of God's good gifts and instead of using them in a way to honor them and to honor Him and to give thanks to Him, we decided we were going to use them for our selfish, sinful tendencies. The stuff of this world is good. What God created, it's all good. So what's wrong? It's our twisted hearts that pervert God's good gifts. So we look at this passage, we're called to welcome without putting a stumbling block, proactively pursuing others in a way that prioritizes the gospel. Let's look at verses 20 to 23. Welcome according to the personal conviction. Again, notice the commands of do and do not are the same. Do not for the sake of food destroy the work of God. Earlier it was do not destroy him who Christ purchased, but now it's do not destroy the work of God. Everything indeed is clean. It is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. So here I need to apologize. I've made fun of vegetarians in my life. Apparently that was wrong. So I'm sorry. But here we have it. It's clear. He's saying the same thing again. Do not destroy the work of God. Do not cause a stumbling block. It's good to abstain. It's good to limit your freedom for the one you love, is what he says. It's good to limit your freedom for the brother that Christ purchased that you're now called to love. It starts, do not. Pretty bold. Do not destroy the work of God. This is serious. This isn't a secondary issue. God is at work. He does great work in others. He will complete that work. But we as brothers, we can oftentimes destroy that work. We can hinder it. God has begun a good work. We're supposed to help build up. Love extends others liberty in their personal convictions. Now, here's the key thing we realize about a church, or about relationships. When you enter into a new relationship, what you're doing is taking on new responsibilities. When you tell somebody, I love you, what you're telling them is, I'm going to limit my liberty for your good. So be careful when you're interested in pursuing that young man or that woman, and you want to blow out the words, I love you. That feeling may be coming out of your heart, but what you're telling that person is, I'm going to be committed to limiting my liberty for your good. That's what it means to love somebody. So, we can think about the different stages of life. You go from the college age of, quite frankly, just being a narcissist. Is there anything that college trains you to do other than being a narcissist? Yes, you learn all kinds of stuff, but you just do whatever you want to do. That's college. So you go from that to pursuing somebody and all of a sudden you've got two narcissists who say they love each other trying to live together. Something has to give. You have to start limiting your liberty so that you can live together. And then there's two, a husband and wife, they have a baby. Rights and privileges they thought were theirs, gone. The most precious of which is sleep. But you do it. And God made those babies so cute so that you don't get too mad. But you get the principle that the more people that you put yourself around to love, really, the less liberty you're saying you have. The more people you commit to love, the less liberty you have. Entering a church is entering a different kind of family that says, I love you. I'm taking responsibility for you, to care for you, to sacrifice for you, to build up. Paul takes I'll take a swipe at the freedom of the Christian brother, the strong brother, the one who knows his liberty. You cannot enjoy your liberty if it hinders the one Christ called you to love. He is more valuable in God's eyes than your love for meat. And so God calls you to abstain because he matters more than your appetite. Now we get a new reason. He goes into a new explanation. I believe verse 16 and 17, they're the heart of the first one because the gospel's not about stuff. The gospel's about peace and righteousness and joy in the Holy Spirit. Now he goes into this explanation of faith, verses 22 and 23. The faith that you have Keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself or what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whoever does not proceed from faith is sin. Now let me be clear. He's talking about a particular kind of faith. This is not saving faith. Because we know from Matthew 16 that's a public profession of faith. There's a public confession that others hear and say, yes, you're making a legitimate and clear true Christian confession. What he's talking about here is your personal belief in what God has said is good and bad. And your personal faith in what God has said, this is where you have liberty. What he's saying is if you cannot do what you're doing by faith, by trusting that God has said it is good and committed you to doing it is good, then you should not do it. Publicly, he's saying, if your brother's offended by what you're doing publicly, you should stop doing it. Privately, if it's between you and God, you can do it privately. It's between you and God. But know that whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. It's not full liberty to do whatever you want to do. Notice here the one thing that stands out about the mature is that they're the most sacrificial. We oftentimes think that the people who have the more rules are more mature. I don't think Paul's saying that. Paul's saying, look for the most mature. Who's sacrificing the most? For the brothers. A mature believer does not let petty differences come between them. A mature believer does not hold on to hurt feelings. A mature believer seeks to move forward in faith despite difficulties. A mature believer perseveres through being misunderstood and mistreated. A mature believer makes the gospel the focus of their life and their relationship. A mature believer does not make personal conviction standard for fellowship. See, one of the things we have to realize about that desire to grow in maturity, it all comes from focusing on what God has given us in Jesus Christ. The more grace we recognize we need, the more grace we're going to give. That faith that God has spoken, it's clear, it's right, that comes from a stronger and stronger faith that everything I can think is questionable. But everything God says is true and right. It comes down to trusting Christ and his word. Let's look to our third section. First, welcome according to the kingdom. It's not about the stuff, it's about the righteousness and the peace and the joy in the Holy Spirit. Welcome according to the faith. It's between you and God what you are committed to do individually, but when it comes to your brother, you have limits, and that's good. And now, well, the clearest and biggest, I would say. Welcome according to Christ's example. Chapter 15. Let me read first verses 1 through 4. We 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 the good, but 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. for whatever was written in former days was written for your instruction, and through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope." Notice here, the peace of the church at some level does, it falls upon the stronger brother. There's an obligation. Your freedom in Christ makes you duty-bound. There's an obligation. Those who believe Christ has set them free know that He set them free to be His instrument of grace, to be an instrument of proclaiming His grace and helping others grow up in that grace. The strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of others. Now, to bear with somebody is to endure. Really, what was it, to put up with? The strong are to bear with, to put up with the failings of the weak, to show grace, to limit their own freedom and to show grace so that those brothers are built up according to Christ. Your freedom binds you to that brother. We're to bear with their failings. We're to bear failings of the weak. Let me ask a question for us to consider. Am I a weak brother or a strong brother? This is going to be helpful, I hope. If whenever you see someone failing, your first inclination is to complain and grumble about them, you're a weak brother. If your first inclination is to complain, you're not really bearing You're not caring. Sinners do that. Christians who have faith seek to say, those brothers who are weak, I'm not going to complain about them, I'm going to endure with them, I'm going to build them up. So this is the test for you. How often are you pointing out others' weaknesses in complaint versus seeking to show grace and coming alongside and building up. That's between a weaker and a stronger brother. We are supposed to have the freedom to help others, not complain about them. Now, notice the key command in all of this. You are free now not to please yourself, but to do what's pleasing for others. He's saying the same thing he said at the end of chapter 13. You fulfill the law if you love your neighbor. Same thing. You sacrifice. You seek to do what's most pleasing to others. We bear with others' feelings or failings because we're seeking to do what would be most pleasing for them. That's love. And why would we do that? Verse 3. For Christ did not please himself. Christ came and He sacrificed Himself in all of His rights, all of His righteousness, so that we who are unrighteous and have the right to be judged would be forgiven and would be declared righteous. The One who set us free has bound us now to obey Him. Let me flip this on its side. The measure of your maturity in Christ is caught in how well you show grace to others and their weakness. If you flip this on its side, Paul is saying, you are to show others that grace because Christ has shown you grace. You are to please others because Christ has sacrificed himself so that you would benefit. How well do we seek to bear others' burdens and bear others' weaknesses? That is measured by how quick we are to show grace. Verse four, I believe, is another parenthetical declaration. He just quoted Psalm 69. He's now declaring everything that's been written is for us, so that we might endure, so that we might have encouragement. What Paul is declaring to us is what Christ has done is supposed to teach us. He's freed us, and he's now the model of freedom. We are supposed to be little Christ. Let's look to verses 5 to 7. He ends this section with a fitting benediction. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Paul here is praying to the God of endurance and encouragement that we would know how to live in harmony with one another. There's that sacred church one another language. God has put up with our sin, he's washed it away, now he calls us to forgive as we've been forgiven. The God who encourages you, he calls you to build up. Notice here at the end of verse five, in accord with Jesus Christ. How we live is supposed to be in accord with Jesus Christ. He is the measure. We just sang this. Let the glory of your name be the passion of the church. Let the righteousness of God be a holy flame that burns. Let the saving love of Christ be the measure of our lives. We just sang this. Do we live it out? Because Paul says, may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ. That's one of those things that's easier to sing about than to do. Let's just face that. It's easier to sing about that rather than to do it because once we start living with one another and we get in each other's lives, it gets sticky. It's harder to do than to sing about, but we sing about it, so we'll be encouraged to do it. Now, to live in harmony, in order to have harmony, you've gotta have different parts. You've gotta have different musical notes. You've gotta have different people in a quartet. But all those different parts, with all the different gifts, they all come together to make one sweet sound. The church is supposed to be in harmony because all these different kinds of people, with all their different kinds of sin, with all their different kinds of gifts, they come together and they sing the one song of Jesus Christ. No one's seeking to do a solo. No one's seeking to promote their own sin, which makes you sing out of tune. No, it's a harmony. All different Christians. If you're living like a single life without anybody around you and you think you're in harmony, you're not. You gotta be with people to harmonize. How well are you living with others who are not like you in harmony? That's what the gospel calls us to do. We become a divided church when people sing out of tune. They wanna make their voices heard. They cause discord. Too many solo artists. Something about the church that we need to realize from chapter 14, not everybody's opinion should matter. The church isn't a place for opinions to be validated. The church is a place for us to say Christ and his word is what matters. This is what we're gonna submit to together. Let's look at verse seven. Before we move on, there's different ways of harmonizing a church. Some folks, they want to have a harmonized church because they want to have a university church. Some folks want to have a harmonized church because they want to have a blue collar church. Some folks want to have a harmonized church because they have an older church that have everything in common. A younger church, a traditional church with hymns, a contemporary church with new music. My personal favorites have to be a motorcycle church or a cowboy church. I mean, seriously, if we're going to do something else, I mean, does a cowboy church not sound like a lot of fun? You get to dress up for three hours. We'll have cowboy hats and belt buckles for visitors. No amen or a yee-haw on that one. We can laugh at that, but we're all guilty of this. We're all guilty of trying to make the church of Christ a little nuanced according to our personal convictions. We're all guilty of this. What we're all supposed to do is say, we want to commit to being a purified people, which means purify me first, God, so that we can all come together and say, we're going to lift up the name of Christ together in harmony, setting aside our soul, setting aside our sin so that we can sing in harmony. Now verse seven. Welcome one another as Christ welcomed you. As Christ welcomed us while we were sinners. As Christ welcomed us while we were ornery and difficult. While Christ welcomed us while we were extremely different. He welcomed us. He loved us. He gave us a new identity. And now we are to do the same. Why? For the glory of God. So we have to have the right motivation. The rails get off when it's about something else other than the glory of God. We are to be Christ-like. We are to be instruments of grace according to Christ for the main purpose of saying, may God, the God of mercy, be exalted. Will you pray with me? Father, we praise you and thank you that you welcomed us. We praise and we thank you that you have given us your spirit of righteousness, peace, and joy. We praise and we thank you that you are the God of love who endures our weakness and our failings. May you help us to be Christians in a church united, loving one another, not causing one another to stumble, not flaunting our liberty, not imposing our personal convictions, but help us, Lord, to make Christ and His crucifixion and His commandments known to one another so that we build one another up according to His will and His way. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.