Let us then turn in God's Word to Romans chapter 15. Romans chapter 15, as we continue looking at Romans and how we are to live in thanksgiving to God, of course, in the third part of Romans. We look again at how do we deal with other people, those especially with whom we disagree. And we look at that in the first 13 verses of Romans chapter 15. So let us hear together the word of almighty God. Romans chapter 15, beginning reading at verse one, we then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good leading to edification. For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like minded toward one another according to Christ Jesus. that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore receive one another just as Christ also received us to the glory of God. Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers. and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy, as it is written, for this reason I will confess you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. And again, rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people. And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles. Laud him, all you peoples. And again, Isaiah says, there shall be a root of Jesse, and he who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles. In him the Gentiles shall hope. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus far, the reading of God's Word. May He add His blessing to our consideration of it this morning. Brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ, as we look at this passage, first of all, notice how He addresses us. We then who are strong, Now, which one of us looks at somebody else and says, You're the strong one. I'm the weak one. We all think we're strong. So, brothers and sisters, we have to realize how we are to deal with those with whom we disagree. We live in a church culture and in a modern culture today, which as soon as someone disagrees with us about anything important, they must hate us. And they must think we're terrible people and so many other things. But brothers and sisters, we as Christians, what does the scripture say? They will know you by your love. And yet the church has so many times spent its time fighting amongst itself, causing problems that way. And what does Paul say to us? Therefore, receive one another. Now, for the Jews at the time of Paul's writing of this, they would have pointed out, and that's what we see in the second part of the passage, and said, those weak people you're talking about, those are those Gentiles. We're not even sure they should be part of the church. And brothers and sisters, we have to understand that we are to call all people to fellowship and to unity around Christ, around His word, And that's where we're going to get unity, around the truth of the gospel. We don't throw out our distinctives, but we need to understand and we need to work together with our fellow Christian, pointing them again and again, pointing ourselves again and again to the Word of God. Thus saith the Lord. And then we'll edify one another. Then we'll build one another up. And the gospel will go to all people. And so we are, as our theme says, believers are called to bear one another's weakness and thereby to glorify God together. Believers are called to bear one another's weaknesses and thereby to glorify God together. In verses one through three, we're called to bear with the scruples of the weak. In verses four to six, we see that we are called to like-minded patience and comfort in Christ. And verses 7 through 13, we see that we are called to joy and peace in believing from all nations, hope comes through faith. And so we're called to bear with the scruples of the week. Now, what are scruples? Questions, difficulties, disagreements. Paul parallels in 1 Corinthians chapter 8, talking about people who worry about things offered to idols. And that there are those who are afraid to eat such a thing. And we saw last week that the application of this must be confined to the area of things which are illicit according to Scripture. And we have to realize that no Christian is going to have every piece of the puzzle here on this earth. And we're called to bear with one another and serve God together. Notice what Paul says later on. Therefore receive, verse 7, one another, just as Christ also received us. Were we perfect when Christ received us? What does the scripture say? While you were what? Yet sinners. We were nowhere near perfect. And so the strong are to bear with the scruples of the weak. That there are going to be those who disagree with us. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 14, we exhort you brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the faint hearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. And we live in a culture that has no patience. And we too much are carried along with that. One of the songs the young people saying this week was what the fruit of the spirit. Where where do the fruit of the spirit come from? From the work of the Holy Spirit in us, love, joy, peace, patience. kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. We as Christians are to cultivate that by being again and again in the Word of God, in the things of God. And so we are to be those who are patient with those who disagree with us, to call them back again and again to the Word, The more I am a pastor, the more as I deal with people who are in disagreement, I will say, let's read the Word of God. Let's go back to that Word. What does God say? Notice, remember what we said in chapter 14, verse 1, receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. There are doubtful things. And we're not to spend our time disputing over those. There are plenty, far more important, not doubtful things to look at and to study in the scriptures. But notice where he goes with this, that we are not to please ourselves. What's the easy thing? Well, you're just an idiot. Walk away. That's the easy way to deal with people who disagree with us. And in our culture, especially politically nowadays, that's all they say. They're just a bunch of idiots. Well, brothers and sisters, we need to consider one another's point of view. And we need to again and again look for how can we serve God biblically. And that's going to be hard work. Instead of just writing everybody who disagrees with us off as idiots, we need to do the hard thing. To teach. To build up in the truth. Jesus said in Matthew 7 verse 3, Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye and do not consider the plank in your own eye? So often we're looking for tiny problems with other people. and we let ourselves off with a huge mess. And that is totally unbiblical. God calls us to please our neighbors, not ourselves, doing that hard thing, edifying them, building them up. Paul says, 1 Corinthians 9, verse 19, For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all that I might win the more. How do we call people to Christ? By serving them. By giving of ourselves. considering other people more important than ourselves. That's Philippians chapter 2. Let each one of you look out, not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. And he goes on to say, considering others of more importance, of higher priority than myself. That's pretty hard in a culture that's all about me. And Christ is our example in this. Verse 3. For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me." Christ, of course, is our example in many ways, and here as well, in giving about himself. He didn't please himself. He took our reproach upon himself. Reading, continuing there in Philippians 2, verse 5-8, lest this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Christ is, of course, co-eternal, co-equal God, but he made himself of no reputation. He took the form of a servant, of a bond servant, came like man and being found in appearance as a man, he didn't even stop there. He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. He became a curse. For us, Galatians 3.13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Christ became our curse. Now how does that respond? How do we react then to people who disagree with us? You're just a bunch of idiots, right? No way. We carry their burden. Remember, there's a couple of places in the Bible, Moses did and Paul does, where he says, I could wish myself accursed, Paul says, for the sake of my brethren. That's the kind of love that we're called to for our fellow Christians, for the people around us who don't know Christ. And of course, Moses says something very similar for the children of Israel. This is how we ought to deal with people who disagree with us, giving of ourselves for them, doing again and again the hard thing to love them and to care for them and to build them up, calling ourselves and them back to that word of God. And we're called to be like-minded in patience and comfort in Christ. We're united by the Scriptures. The Scriptures are there for our learning and for our hope, we're told here. Learning the truth is edification. That's what we want for those around us, especially for those who are weak in the faith, for those who disagree with us. We want them to realize the truth. to those who have misunderstandings about the scripture, building them up in love, we're told, caring for them with the hope that we can be united by the truth of scripture instead of in disagreement. By edification, by knowing the scriptures, we have hope. We read going back to Romans chapter 4, verses 23 and 24, now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to us, to him, but also for us, it shall be imputed to us who believe in him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. Our hope is in Christ and we are unified by that word of God. And what better way to express our hope than by loving a weaker brother or sister and helping them to see the beauty of God's truth with kindness, with gentleness, instead of beating them over the head with it, which is so often our response. We have, if you will, a very big stick. Because by God's grace, I believe we understand the Word of God the best of any. Around. There's not a church in the in the United States and probably in the world that I would rather be a member of than the RCS. And I praise God for that fact. The problem is too often we beat people over the head instead of in gentleness and loving kindness, calling them to the Word of God. And we're given patience, we're given that comfort by God. The Christian hope does not disappoint, Paul says. Romans 5.5, now hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Now, that comfort and that hope, the fact of it, may be sometime in coming. May require us to go through some grave difficulties. And yet God is the one who promises, and God is true. Peter tells us, 2 Peter 3 verse 9, that God is not slack about His promises, but is waiting for the last soul to be saved. Allowing time for each one of us to receive the salvation that God has promised. And so brothers, we are given comfort and patience by God. And we need to exercise that by reading the Word. by being in fellowship with one another as Christians. To be like-minded, that's the goal. Having been taught by the same teacher, by God's Holy Spirit using the scriptures. The Bible unifies. So often people don't even get this thing out. I remember sitting in arguments and discussions in college and seminary. And we'd be arguing about the Bible, and we wouldn't even have a Bible in front of us. What kind of foolishness? When we start discussing the Bible, the first place we ought to be is, let's get a Bible out. The sad fact is, too often we don't know enough about it to know where to go. Brothers and sisters, We need, and I'm so thankful that we're working together as a congregation to read through the Bible, and I hope we can do this a number of times in the future. It's so helpful and so important to know what God says. The Bible unifies even when it is hard for us to accept what God says as human beings. We will have the same mind, the same goal in Jesus Christ if we are about the Bible. about the Word of God. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 10, Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions among you, and that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. Now, how do we achieve this unity? By getting out that stick and beating one another over the head? By studying God's Word together and separately. edifying one another. You've heard me say, but it bears repeating again. Luther and Zwingli met once. And they had a get together and they talked through things. And Luther writes home to his wife. And says we agree on everything except the presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. The Bible. is where they got their ideas. They were unified by that. Luther's background was very different than Zwingli's. And yet Zwingli of course leads into Calvin and into our tradition from that perspective. How are we going to be unified? As we see all the factions in the church today, by going back to the Word of God. This book is radical. The Bible is radical. And we need that to guide our lives. And so when we are unified, and as we are unified as the people of God, that is to the glory of God. And we will do this with one voice. Acts 4.24, so when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, you are God who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them. The word of God is what unifies. And we are called from all nations to joy and peace. We are to receive one another to God's glory. Christ received us, we are told, even though we will never be perfect on this earth. And we are all working together as the church anyway. So why don't we work together and receive one another in Christ? Calling one another back to the Bible. Has Christ received us even though we are weak sinners to the glory of God? As we said, Romans 14 one, the previous chapter, receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to dispute over doubtful things. We must not spend our time arguing about things which are doubtful. We are to go to the meat of the word. And the Bible is clear. It really is. And God's call is always to all nations. Christ is a servant to the circumcision we read there, verse 8, to confirm the promises made to the fathers. John 1, 11 and 12, He came to His own and His own did not receive Him, but as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God to those who believe in His name. Jesus came to the world and He came to His own people and they rejected Him. And yet at the time in which Paul writes this in Romans, the people of Israel were looking down, those who had believed were looking down on the Gentiles. And Christ came as a servant to the circumcision, confirming the promises that were made to the fathers about the salvation of those from all nations. Romans 3.29, or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not the God of the Gentiles? Yes, the God of the Gentiles also. And we start reading there, verse 9, the second part, verse 10, verse 11, verse 12 are quotes from the Old Testament. Was the gospel just for Israel? Let's read one. For this reason I will confess you among the Gentiles and sing your name. Verse 10. Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people. Verse 11. Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles. Laud Him, all you peoples. Verse 12. In Him the Gentiles will hope. And brothers and sisters, the gospel is then for everyone. How does that apply to you and me today? Well, I grew up in the church. I had to go through catechism, that rough pastor or whoever it was. That was hard. But we look back, and it's a blessing. There are people who haven't had that opportunity. And brothers and sisters, we need to understand, and there are those around us who need the gospel. and that we have opportunities so often to bring that gospel to them. Do we? And do we bring it in a manner to edify, to build up? The gospel is for everybody. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Let's study the word together. What does God say? And when we leave and when we call these people to faith, they will be filled with joy and peace by God with an eternal hope in the Holy Spirit. There is hope for everyone on the planet who will believe in Christ. And our hope is that same hope. It is in God. We have joy, we have peace with God through believing in Jesus Christ. And we have hope through the power of the Holy Spirit within us. Going back to Romans 14 verse 17, for the kingdom of God is not eating or drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy by the Holy Spirit in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit working in us, that third person of the Trinity living within us. Notice that word there in verse 13, the power of the Holy Spirit, the power of God dwelling within us as Christians. Despite our sinful unworthiness, we have the power of God, the Holy Spirit living within us, causing us, giving us the ability to live as Christians in a world stained with sin, broken, that calls us again and again to live in a sinful manner. And our hope is in God. Our future hope is in God working in us and eternally in what Christ has done for us. And this is the gospel that we can bring to the world that has no hope. They claim they have an idea. This sounds good. This might make life better. But guess what? Every one of us is going to die. And then they say, well, you're worm food. But the Christian has hope in his death. We are gods in life and in death. And so, brothers and sisters, we can witness that hope to those around us. We can witness that hope by loving those who disagree with us enough to bring the gospel to them, to point ourselves in them back again and again to the word of God. And so, brothers and sisters, we are to bear with one another's weakness, and we are to glorify God together as his church, calling one another again and again back to the truth of God's word as our only foundation. Amen. Let us then bow before our God in prayer, and we'll close this prayer together with the Lord's Prayer. Let us pray. Almighty, most gracious Heavenly Father, we thank You that You have given to us that foundation of the Word of God, that it is a foundation more firm than the world beneath our feet. You tell us that the heavens and the earth will melt with fervent heat, but Your Word stands forever. And so, Lord, we pray that You would give us grace to witness that Word in our lives to those around us, to those who know, and to those who do not know. And we pray, Lord, that Your name would be glorified and honored as we seek to serve You. And that our lives would show forth Your praises in everything that we say and do and think. And we are here only because of Jesus Christ. And we praise you, Lord Jesus, for what you have done to save us. And so we pray as Jesus taught us to pray, saying, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.