Okay, once again, thank you for praying for me this week. Jarvis, it's just great to see you here. Thank you for praying for me this week. It's been a good sermon week. Studying God's Word, just learned so much. Thank you again for your kindness towards me. You've all come to hear a message from God and not from me. That's just even more special. So, why did God provide salvation? Why has God provided salvation? Let's start with an audience participation question here. Because we can't save ourselves. That's great. Yeah, for His own glory. To bring glory to His name. Well, that's great. To bring glory to His name. So, why would God save me? So, if He brought glory to His name, why would He save us? I hear the crickets chirping. So we can glorify Him. That's great. He brought salvation to bring glory to His name so that we, in saving us, can bring glory to Him. We're at the climax, the conclusion of the book of Romans. And let's go back to, well, here in chapter 15, 1 through 13, this really is the conclusion of the theological teaching. And we want to wrap our arms around this to understand the message of Romans from chapter 15, verse 14 through the end of 16 is really a summary conclusion, a postscript. So let's go back to chapter one. And set up how he set up the book of Romans, and we'll see how he's concluding it here. So if you go back to chapter one, Starting in verse 1, Paul says, I am an apostle for the gospel of God. Verse 2, the gospel which was promised. Verse 4, the gospel which is concerning his son Jesus Christ. Verse 5, the gospel which he received. Verse 6 and 7, the gospel to which you are called. Verse 14, he's a debtor to the gospel. Verse 15, he's ready to preach the gospel. Verse 16, he's not ashamed of the gospel. The gospel is the power of God. And the gospel is for the Jews and the Gentiles. And then in verse 17, the theme is the summary of the gospel, the just shall live by faith. So in the first 17 verses of chapter one, he introduces the theme of Romans, which is the gospel, the saving gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the power of God. And then he unfolds that gospel starting there in the second half of chapter 1, 2, and up through chapter 3, verse 20, that the gospel is for those who have sinned, for those who have come short of the glory of God, and then brings in the theme of justification, starting in chapter 3, verse 21, in chapters 4 and 5, for justification, and then sanctification in chapters 6, 7, and 8, and then restoration in chapters 9, 10, and 11, And then beginning in chapter 12 to where we're at in chapter 15, verse 13, that whole section is the application of the gospel, the practical outworking of the gospel on practical Christian living. And in this section on practical Christian living, he's talked about the Christian's focus on the Lord in chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. Our relation to other Christians in chapter 12, verses 9 to 21. Our relation to everybody else. And that was chapter 12, verses 9 to 21. And then in chapter 13, 1 through 7, our relationship to the government. Chapter 13, verses 8 to 10, the superiority of love. And then in chapter 13, verses 11 to 14, the importance of time. So we started out this section on practical Christian living that were to cultivate a proper relationship to God, a relationship to other believers, a proper relationship to everybody and to the government is to be permeated with love and is to be done immediately because the time is far spent. And then in chapter 14, as we start here, all the way through chapter 15, verse 13, he's discussing the relationship of strong and weak Christians. And then he sums that up with the discussion of salvation and its implications. So in our current section here, chapter 14, verse 1 to chapter 15, verse 13, there's been four principles that he's given. to govern the relationship between strong and weak Christians. In the first part of chapter 14, first 12 verses, we're to receive one another with understanding. And then in chapter 14, verses 13 to 23, is to build each other up, to edify each other without offending each other. And then here in the first six verses of chapter 15, we're to please each other with Christ as our example And in the final section, here in 7 through 13, is where to rejoice with each other in the plan of God for salvation. So in discussing the relationship with strong and weak believers, he says we ought to rejoice with each other in the plan of God. It ought to be the concern of all believers not to struggle with each other, not to have division, not to have chaos, not to hassle with each other, but to accept each other and embrace each other because this is the plan of God. And we should rejoice because it includes all of us. So he emphasizes the intended character of the church, and that is being one in Christ, whether we're weak or strong, whether we're Jew or Gentile, we're all to be loved and accepted and embraced as one in Christ. So let's start with prayer as we look at chapter 15 here. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word that explains to us your gospel, that you have given us your gospel for your own glory's sake. Come and meet with us, open our understanding into your word, that we together, with a unified voice, would bring great glory to your name. Use our lives to honor you to bring glory to your name, for you are worthy of all praise and glory. In Christ's name, amen. Okay, so the first six verses here in chapter 15, I'm going to call this the glory of the gospel. We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproach thee fell on me. For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. Now the God of patience and consolation grants you to be like-minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus, that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So verses 1 and 2, right here, give us the doctrinal instruction. And we want to remember that this is written to the church at Rome, which is comprised of both Jews and Gentiles. We that are strong, we that are able, ought to bear, we have an obligation to carry the infirmities and failings of the weak. And not to please ourselves, but for the purpose of edification. to build each other up. And this is in the context and conclusion of what we had studied in chapter 14. If you remember in chapter 14, verse 2, he brought in food choices. And verse 5, he brought in conflict about how days were contention among them. And verse 21, about drink. And then if your brother is grieved with your food, you're not walking in love. So don't tear down and destroy each other for your choices, but edify each other. And the point has been, be willing to forego your freedom in matters of meat, drink, and days to avoid destroying a weak brother. And instead, deny yourself to build each other up. Now let's contrast this. If you turn over to Galatians chapter 1, verse 10, you will see almost the exact opposite written. In Galatians 1 verse 10, he says, if I please men, I am not the servant of Christ. So here he says to please each other. But in Galatians, he says, if I please men, I am not serving Christ. So what does he say? In Galatians, there is crucial issues about the gospel. And Paul says he will not change the gospel to please men, if you read that in context. Why? Because when the gospel is changed, people are destroyed. And the point in Romans is, if you can serve and please others for their edification, for their upbuilding, we should deny ourselves and do it. So the aim is to please each other for their edification. If it will do them good, if it will build up their faith, but not destroy the gospel and hurt people while doing it. It's a virtue to be glad when we can build up each other, even if it costs us our immediate pleasure, because God loves a cheerful giver, to give of our pleasure to others. And then he gives several reasons to become a unified people. Look there in verse 3, look at the example of Christ. But Christ is more than an example. He is a life that by which act he saves us from the wrath of God. Become the kind of person who joyfully serves each other is what he's saying. Look at Christ and his sin-bearing substitutionary work on the cross Why? Because even Christ pleads not himself. So think about it. Think about the apostle Peter. Three times he denied the Lord. Did Jesus get angry and say, don't you know you're going to sin and that's going to increase the suffering I have on the cross? No. You're reproaching God and that's going to cause me to suffer? What did Jesus say to Peter? He says, I've prayed for you that your faith fail not. And when you're converted, strengthen your brothers. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus. Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in passion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death on the cross. For even Christ pleased not himself." I think we just lost all our excuses. Understand that in this passage, Paul does not explain to us how to change each other. He's telling us what kind of person we need to be, that I can change myself, and that is by the grace of God. Secondly, in verse 4, the scriptures are written for our learning. The scriptures are essential to learn what God wants us to learn. And the instruction of the scriptures are an important part of our unity in Christ. And then he goes on to say that through patience and comfort of the scriptures, we might have hope. Only by hope can we live a life of self-denying, sacrificial love for each other. God has designed the Bible so that when we read it and follow the meaning from story to story and from book to book, the effect is patience and comfort, endurance and encouragement so that we can have hope. How did Jesus endure through Gethsemane and Golgotha? Hebrews 12.2 says it was the power of hope. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God." Fourthly here, the fourth reason he gives for us is in verse 5, that we must pray that this would happen. because it's the God of patience and comfort that grants us to be like-minded towards each other. The key word there is grant. May God grant us. That is a prayer, that God would grant us to be like-minded one towards another. For what purpose? That we may glorify God. The goal here in talking about the weak and the strong is not good human relations, but Christ-exalting relations. The ultimate goal of the gospel is to display the glory of God, the beauty of God, the greatness of God, and the majesty of God. And we should pray together that God would make us this kind of people, that he would bring glory to himself, that we with a unified voice could praise him We will not succeed if we're known as a friendly people. We won't even succeed if we're known as an unfriendly people. God wants his church to be known as a people consumed with the glory of God. If our children speak of the glory of God, if our young people love the glory of God more than the glory of sports, music, or fashion, If our career people pursue the glory of God more than the praise of men or financial success, for older people rejoice in the hope of the glory of God just over the horizon. Almost everything in our country threatens to undo a passion to see and savor the glory and the greatness and the beauty and the worth of a perfect, unchanging, all-sufficient, glorious and loving God. Almost everything in our American culture threatens to make our devotion and our mind and our heart shallow and casual and pursue the great American tradition of having fun for fun's sake and not living for the glory of God. May we be consumed like Moses with the passion as he pleaded with God, show me your glory. By faith Moses when he was come to years refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He denied himself, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. Why should we be unified? Why should we deny ourselves the pleasure of this world to seek each other's edification Look at verse six, that we may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why is this a conclusion to chapter one? Because the gospel is the glory of God. God's glory is displayed when he saves sinners. Psalms 21.5. His glory is greater than thy salvation. Honor and majesty has thou laid upon him. Psalms 79.9. Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name. Deliver us, purge away our sins for thy name's sake. Revelation 19.1. I heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying, Hallelujah, salvation and glory and honor and power unto the Lord our God. that we may, with one mind and one mouth, glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Verses 7-13. I'm going to call this section, Our Hope in the Gospel. The Gospel is our only hope in this life. Wherefore, receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. Now I say that Jesus Christ was the minister of the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises he made unto the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name. And again he saith, Rejoice ye Gentiles with his people. And again, Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles, and laud him, all ye people. And again Isaiah saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, and him shall the Gentiles trust. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. Go back to the section in chapter 14 verse 1. Starts out, him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. Now look at 15 verse 7. Wherefore, receive ye one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God. 14.1, 15.7, those are the bookends to this section. What's the key word? What's the key word there in both those verses? Receive. And this word receive is a strong word of action. This is not some tiddly word to receive something, but it requires action. It occurs 14 times in the New Testament. One time in Acts 18, do you remember the story of Apollos? He was preaching eloquently on the baptism of John in Acts 18, 26. Aquila and Priscilla, when they met him and heard him, they took him unto him and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly. They took him unto him. That's our same word here, receive. Philemon, verse 17, when Paul wrote about Onesimus, if you count me as a partner, receive him as myself. The word receive here is to take someone to yourself as a close friend. Receive ye one another as Christ has received us to the glory of God. How is the example that we are to receive each other as Christ has received us? What an example for the purpose of the glory of God. When we welcome someone for the glory of God, It should help us grow in our love for God and deepen our friendships with each other. Loving people for the glory of God is really the only way to love God. Because if we don't help each other to see and savor the glory of God, we really don't love each other. Since the perfect, sinless Son of God was willing to suffer and die to bring sinners into God's family, how much more should we be as forgiven believers be willing to warmly embrace and accept each other in spite of our disagreements over issues of conscience. To take this point and drive it home a little further, when Christ received us, were we worthy of his reception? Did he receive us because we were so wonderful? Not at all. Luke 15, 2. Jesus was criticized by the Pharisees because he received sinners and went and sat at a meal with them. If Christ receives us as unloving sinners, when we hated him, when we were deep in sin, if he did not refuse to love us, if he did not refuse to forgive us, to call us his friends, to call us his children, to call us his brothers, and to receive us into his eternal fellowship, to live with us, to live within us and empower us, shall we not receive each other? When a Christian refuses to receive another Christian, he's saying, I know Christ receives the worst of sinners, but I require more. I have a higher standard. Are we more holy than God? Can God be friends with people not worthy of our friendship? Is it possible for God to receive people that are just not good enough for us? Blasphemous thought, isn't it? He has received those who are unworthy, and so must we receive each other. So must we receive each other. Verse 8, Christ became a servant to the Jews so that they would glorify God for His truthfulness and fulfilled promises. and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. So be amazed, both Jews and Gentiles, Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Israel, has come, not to be served, but to serve and give his life for both Jews and Gentiles. There is one salvation and one people of God. And this theme has been carried throughout all of Romans about the Jews and the Gentiles. If you go back to chapter 1, verse 16, salvation is for the Jew first, also for the Gentile. Chapter 2, 9 and 10, Jew first and also the Gentile. Chapter 3, verse 29, is God the God of the Jews only? Is He not also of the Gentiles? Yea, of the Gentiles also. Chapter 10, verse 12, for there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. Chapter 11, verse 11, through their fall, the fall of the Jews, salvation comes to the Gentiles. So, Roman is a declaration of the sovereign act of God to save both Jews and Gentiles. There is one Savior of both Jews and Gentiles, and both have the same way of salvation. Since both groups of people have the same salvation, both should be able to rejoice and praise God together, and according to the scriptures, this has always been God's plan. And he quotes from four passages in the Old Testament to prove this point. The first quote he gives is from 2 Samuel 22.50, which is also repeated in Psalms 18.49, Deuteronomy 32.43, Psalms 117.1, and Isaiah 11.1 and 10. And the Old Testament all along has said that the Gentiles would be saved and the Gentiles would praise and rejoice with God's people Israel. that the Gentiles would hope in the Messiah to come and that we ought to embrace them and each other. You see, the Gentiles cannot have a grudge against the Jews because through the Jews salvation has come. The Messiah came through the Jews. The truth of God's word came through the Jews. So the Gentiles should not have any sort of grudge against the Jews. And the Jews should not have a grudge against the Gentiles because the very purpose of their existence was to take God's truth and reach out to the Gentiles, as the scriptures say. So the Jews and Gentiles should not be angry at God over saving each other. They should, with a unified mind and mouth, glorify God. Verse 13, it's the benediction, the wrap up of all this. The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that she may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. May God, who is the source of eternal life, fill you up and leave nothing out. Literally, may we overflow with joy and peace when it comes to believing that we may abound in hope. It's another way of saying, may you get all there is to know of God. May you know all the joy and peace and hope that you can possibly get by the power of the Holy Spirit. May we be completely spiritually satisfied in God, for that's what salvation is intended to bring. May we know forgiveness and peace and hope and love, victory over sin. May we know the power of the Holy Spirit of God. May we know the obedience of a spiritual life. May we know the right use of our spiritual gifts. May we have a right relationship with each other, to our government, to know how to love. May we have a sense of urgency and may we know how to care for each other as weak and strong. May we know all that God would possibly give us in the power of the Holy Spirit and thus be a fully satisfied believer, that we may be fully satisfied in Christ and Him alone. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. I want to wrap up with a story about a missionary and that is Henry Martin. Henry Martin was born in 1781 in England, and he spent only six years in missionary service in Asia. But during those six years, he learned the languages of Hindustani, Persian, and Arabic, and translated the New Testament into those three languages in six years. At the age of 16, he entered Cambridge University and graduated in 1801 and took top honors in mathematics. Upon graduating, he said, I obtained my highest wishes, but was surprised that I had grasped at a shadow. And then he went into the ministry from there. Then he was not immune from Cupid's bow, for he had what he called his beloved idol. That was Lydia. But Lydia did not want to leave the shores of England for missionary work. So faced with that decision, he left England alone for India to serve as a missionary. and said, I feel no wish to live except to be employed in the work for which Christ died. So then he got on a ship in 1805, sailing for India. As he was traveling, he held services and preached on the ship. One of the sailors said, Mr. Martin sends us to hell every Sunday. The trip from England to India took nine and a half months and he arrived in April of 1806 at 25 years old. In less than a year, he was preaching in the Urdu language. He had learned the language. Then in 1810, he took a voyage and he worked on a revision of the translation of Persia and Arabic in the New Testaments. He went to Persia in 1811. He was the first Protestant missionary to live in Persia and had only one year to live there. two interesting things of his life. One time in Persia, he was surrounded by a group of fanatical Muslim clerics who were trying to convert him to Islam. In their vehement discussion with him, they blasphemed him, the name of Jesus Christ. He began to weep, and it was a source of wonder among those Muslims. They asked him why he was weeping. For they had not touched him. He says, you have just blasphemed the name of my most wonderful friend and savior, Jesus. This had a profound effect upon these Muslims, and it was the gentleness of him that seemed to have the great power in his ministry. And then also, after his death, the English Parliament, because of his life, he was influenced where they changed the laws to open unrestricted missionary access to India because of his work. But the part of his life that interests us today happened in July of 1806. He arrived in India. Two months after he was there, alone, not really sure of the language, he was not well received. And one of the veteran missionaries there, he preached a public sermon, in public, against him in the audience, directly at him in his doctrines. And he made false accusations concerning his teaching as being inconsistent, extravagant, and absurd, and accused him of seeking only to gratify self-sufficiency, pride, and uncharitableness. He was criticized in public just right after arriving. So him, as a lonely man, crushed to the missionary, having the experienced missionary crush him, what did he do? How did he not only endure that, but go on in the next six years to learn three languages and translate the New Testament into those? Here's from his journal. in the multitude of my troubled thoughts, I saw that there was a strong consolation in the hope set before us. Our only consolation is in the hope of salvation. Let men do their worst, let me be torn to pieces, my dear Lydia torn from me, or let me labor for fifty years among scorn and never seeing one soul converted. Still it shall not be worse for my soul in eternity, nor worse in the time. Let the heathen rage and the English people imagine a vain thing. The Lord Jesus, who controls all events, is my friend, my master, my God, my all." He died in Tokat, Turkey, October 1812. Are we fully satisfied in God? Is God our hope? Is He our glory? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for the glory of your gospel. Thank you that you would come and save us so that we together with one mind and one mouth can glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. May you fill us with hope, fill us with all joy and peace in believing that we may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. Thank you, Lord, for what you have granted us in salvation. Amen.