Unity: Accepted In Christ

I ask you to take your Bibles this morning and turn to Romans chapter 15. In order to get the context of our text this morning, I'm going to read Romans 14 and then through 15-13. So you follow along as I read. 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, and not let 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 honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God. While the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord, and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For 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 Lord both 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. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one 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 but what you eat do not 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 to drink wine or to 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 grants 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. For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. as it is written, therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. And again it is said, rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.

And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him. And again, Isaiah says, the root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles. In him will the Gentiles hope. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Father, we ask now that this would not be just an academic exercise but that you would cause these words to fall on ready hearts to see where change needs to happen and to make us as those who are unified and who glorify God with one voice Help us to that end, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. Everybody longs for unity. people hate fighting and yet they still do it they're captive to their sin they have their desires they want what they want and they fight to get what they want and yet as we have noted over the last three weeks God has made it absolutely abundantly clear that his people should be different than those of the world that his redeemed people are those who must be unified We must be a people that love one another, that are unified. We must be a people who are not like the world, as the redemption of Jesus has caused us to be one people.

We've noted in the last three weeks that Jesus commanded us to love one another. We don't have a choice in it. We're commanded to love one another and to love one another in the same way that Jesus loved us. We saw that part of producing unity is to live a life worthy of the redemption by which we were redeemed. And the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 4 that we do that through such things like gentleness, forbearance, humility, and patience as the Gospel works in our life and causes us to be that way.

Last week we saw that Jesus expects us to purge all grudges and bitterness from our hearts and to pursue reconciliation. That there is no hatred in our hearts towards one another, but there is always, always a willingness to be reconciled should a problem arise. Now we come to this passage. This passage addresses another area that can cause disunity. When the gospel goes out, it draws people from all different backgrounds, all different ways of life, and they all come in with their own customs, their own rules, their own traditions, their own ways of doing things.

And you know what happens is, we think our traditions are right, and we judge everyone else by our traditions. Right? We have our rules. Our rules are the way of piety. Our rules are the way of godliness. And if you don follow my rules then something wrong with you Now because we all come from different backgrounds and the redemption of Jesus as we saw in the book of Revelation draws people from every nation tribe tongue and language there's going to be a possibility of conflict in the church.

Because we all come from these different backgrounds. Now, in Romans chapter 14, as we come to chapter 15, our text this morning, he's addressing the Jews and the Gentiles. both have been brought together into one congregation. Now the Jews have grown up, these Jewish people have grown up their whole lives hearing things like this. Don't eat pork. Right?

You cannot eat pork. The law forbids you to eat pork. There are certain days of the year that are set aside for festivals and fasts and you must observe them. All these things, all these things from the old covenant. And then these Gentiles are brought in and they don't have any of that. they've had ham sandwiches for lunch for years they don't think anything of it right they know nothing of these religious holidays that God required under the old covenant and Jesus had come along and made all food clean so that now Jews look those rules aren't the same anymore but let me ask you if you've grown up your entire life never eating pork, which was forbidden under the old covenant.

And suddenly, it's okay. Do you think that tomorrow you'd just run out and buy up all the pork you could? There'd be a sense in which that just didn't seem right. Right? You've grown up your whole life with this instilled, and now it's okay. Well, it just doesn't seem right to you.

And so that's the problem. You've got Gentiles going what's the problem here what everything's okay we can eat this God says Jesus himself said it and yet there's some of these others who have a problem with that these are the weaker ones the ones with all the rules it's wrong to do this this this this and you got to do this this and this they're the weaker brothers stronger brothers are the ones who can enjoy liberty and enjoy many of those things now listen the things that he talks about Romans 14 are what we call disputable matters. They're not things addressed in the Bible.

Things like this. Adultery. Is that wrong? Always. Murder. We saw last week.

Hatred. Is that wrong? Always. But what about eating pork? It's okay. Right?

The Apostle Paul said, it's alright. Everything's clean. But there are some folks who think, that's just not right. You say, well that's great. That's a good history lesson. What about today?

Well, let me give you an example. I grew up in a household that said, alcohol is always wrong. Always. Never. You don't touch it. You never let it touch your lips.

That's it. None. If you do, you're just not. I wonder if you're saved. and Sundays, Sundays, Sunday was the Lord's Day. I want to tell you something. Do you know what it's like to be 10 years old on a bright, shiny day in May and have to stay in the house?

We could not go outside and play. That was the Lord's Day. My mom and dad would take naps. My brother and I would go nuts. you know what we would do? I mean, I can remember one day we set up the chairs as hurdles and started running in the living room and broke a chair and arguing about who was going to tell Dad which one broke the chair. You know, Sundays were the Lord's Day.

We could not even watch baseball on television. Okay? Now, you might think that's crazy. You might think that's nutty. You're saved. You come in and you go swimming on Sunday.

You've got a pool in the backyard and you just go swimming every Sunday. That's no big deal. And you might even drink a beer with your pizza. What's the big deal? You see what happens? You put those two together, what happens?

There's plenty of room for disunity. Alright? That's what he's addressing here. And so he says in chapter 14, you weaker brothers, you guys with all the rules, stop judging the other people. Stop judging them. You're judging them.

You're not very pious. You're not very holy because you go swimming on Sunday. He says, you stop judging. And to those who are the strong brothers, who are more mature, he says, stop looking down your noses on those people like, what's wrong with you? Why don't you grow up? Don't you know it's okay?

What wrong with you he says both of you stop doing that right remember chapter 14 Because who are you to judge God servant We all stand before God We all have to answer Okay And so he says coming to chapter 15 now, what must we do then to produce unity? What must we do to produce unity? he ends up chapter 14 by telling the strong brother be careful don't exercise your liberty so that the weaker brother stumbles and falls into grievous sin not gets angry but here's someone who grew up and now he's a christian no alcohol in our house great god says fine that's your rule that's fine you do it to honor the lord so you over here you think it's all right if you partake of that and cause this brother to say well maybe it's okay you cause him to fall into grievous sin as he goes back to his drinking says you be willing to restrict your liberty before god don't do it now we come to chapter 15 let's look at the first 13 verses 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 to scriptures we might have hope 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.

For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy as it is written. Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. And again it is said, rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.

And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him. And again Isaiah says the root of Jesse will come even he who arises to rule the Gentiles in him will the Gentiles hope May the God of peace fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. How can then we, how can we be unified given these differences?

He says you will glorify God in your unity, first of all, by pleasing one another. Verses 1 through 6. Now, many of you who are married couples know what it means to please your spouse. You wives, you work hard at pleasing your husband. He's tired after working in the basement all day trying to get the washer and the dryer situated just the way you want it.

And you know what to please him? You make his favorite meal after he comes out of the basement. You go out of your way to please your husband. And you guys know what it takes to please your wife? First, you know she wants a workable solution to the laundry problem, and so you spend all day in the basement trying to get that thing figured out. Or when she tells you how bad the kids have been today, you don't say, well, what do you want me to do about it?

Get, get, do what you want. Or do you spend time listening to her and coming up with solutions and talking to the children and telling what you expect of them and so forth? That pleases her. You find your wife is quite pleased when you treat her with kindness and tenderness and respect. Well, much the same way that wives please their husbands or husbands please their wives, we have to be in the habit of pleasing one another.

That is, not living for ourselves, but to please one another. Now here, God commands the strong brother to please the weaker brother. Now, it doesn't mean living life according to their whims. It doesn't mean I don't enjoy the liberties that God has given me. But it does mean, it does mean that instead of insisting on your liberties and pressuring your weaker brothers to do the same things, you turn your attention to pleasing them.

Instead of thinking negatively, I guess I'll give up my beer and my pizza, if that's what it means. Instead of that, you respond positively. How can I show that brother that I care for him? because when we have these competing codes, right? And by the way, you all know what these competing codes are, right? We have it within our extended family Okay my brother before God has his rules I have our rules in the household right We have differing rules And ours tend not to be as strict as theirs And his kids are saying to him, Dad, Uncle Tim's kids, our cousins can do that.

And Uncle Tim's a pastor. So why do you say it's wrong? All right? And boy, we've had discussions about that, right? And what is God saying? Chapter 14.

He's doing it to honor God. He's going to have to answer God for that. And I say to him, look, to my brother-in-law, Alan, look, that's what you decide for your family? That's a good thing. You're doing it to honor God. We're doing ours to honor God.

So you're trying to honor God. We're trying to honor God. Let's quit getting on each other's cases, right? You see, there's potential for conflict in the body, is there not? Well, especially with our kids. when they throw that at us. What do we do?

Well, I want to show my brother not so much that, hey, what's wrong with you, but I'm really concerned about you. I care about you. This is not the main issue between us. I want to care for you. So what do we do? He says, we please one another.

You please them. Pleasing your brothers who are weak means bearing their weaknesses. Now, it says bearing with their failings. I like the translation weaknesses better. It's not talking about sin here. It's talking about these matters that we don't quite agree on.

He's saying, not bear with their weaknesses. Literally, it says, bear their weaknesses. When we read bear with their weaknesses, we get the idea of tolerating their rules and regulations, difficult life they impose on themselves. And that's not what God is saying. Rather than tolerating those weaknesses, as God calls us, to bear their weaknesses, to bear their burdens.

How do you respond when your daughter tells you about what happened at school that day, and she says how one of her best friends dissed her, just really said some mean things to her, and went off to be with the popular girl who now seems to accept that friend? And she's heartbroken. Will you just sit there like this, tolerating that difficulty in her life means that you might take the time to listen, but you just sit there and she's talking to you, your little girl's talking to you, and you're looking at your watch, and you're listening, and yeah, okay, uh-huh, all right.

Well, honey, that's the way life is. Okay? And off you go. That's tolerating. Bearing that burden means that you listen with interest, that you feel the sense of injustice that she feels, and you seek to help her through that. In other words, what it means to bear with these weaknesses is to put yourself in their shoes.

Put yourself in their shoes. Bear that. All right? This person is coming out of something that was horrific. And the tendency then is to put in these rules to keep that from happening in their lives again. Can you walk in their shoes?

Can you see that? Could you walk in my shoes and say, what was it like to grow up in a pretty strict home like that? Do you think that just disappears overnight? Do you think you just throw those things away overnight? No, you walk in their shoes and you say, I can see why you would feel that way about some of these issues. You've grown up that way.

It's ingrained in you. So you please your brothers by bearing those actual failings. You please your brothers who are weak means building them up. Verse 2, Let each of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up. Now, stop right now. Stop your thought process, if that's possible.

When you read that term, build them up, We tend to pour our 21st century meaning into that. And you may look at that and say, yeah, build them up, make them feel good. That's not what it's saying. The Bible doesn't tell us to work with people to make them feel good about themselves. That's not what building them up means. Look at 1 Corinthians 10 for a moment and you get an example of this.

1 Corinthians 10. and again the apostle Paul's dealing with these same disputable things again only in the different context here he's talking about the ministry of the gospel to the outsiders and what that means to him so verse 31 of first Corinthians 10 so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do do all to the glory of God give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage but that of many that they may be saved all right i not seeking my advantage i seeking what good for you okay so to build them up means seeking your advantage restricting i'm going to restrict what i have to restrict in order to accomplish something greater a weaker brother who can minister more effectively i want to build you up in ministry I'm going to work hard to help you be effective. Okay? To please your weaker brother means following the example of Jesus.

Verse 3 and 4. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. now Paul here is quoting from Psalm 69 and in Psalm 69 it it's a psalm that points to Christ and to his sufferings it foreshadows the experience of Jesus especially his suffering and what is he he's quote this scripture to to prove to you that Jesus did not please himself Jesus did not please himself. Jesus went so far as to take upon himself the hatred of men against God.

Those who hated God vented their hatred against God's Son. And he was jealous for God's honor. And so he took upon himself the reproach of evil men. Jesus was not in the business of pleasing himself. so you look to Jesus and you say even his redemptive death speaks to some very nitty-gritty practical daily ways I relate to you Jesus didn't please himself he took the reproaches of men he took them as they vented their hatred for the honor of God I have to be willing to give up things for you now I want you to think about this if you're working at pleasing one another okay and that means bearing the failings right it means I'm going to work to see that you more effective in your ministry it means that I will take reproaches It means that I will not please myself like Jesus did Do you think that's going to produce unity?

What produces disunity? What produces disunity is this. I don't care what you think of me. I don't care what you think of anything. I'm going to do what I'm going to do. Right?

That's a formula for disruption. Right? I don't please myself. I live for others. Verse 4 then. 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.

You know who needs hope? All of us as we work together. Isn't that right? Some of you may not know that because you don't take the effort of ministering side by side with other people. When you minister side by side with other people, you need hope. You need hope.

How do you get that hope? Well, through the Scriptures. You need endurance and comfort. And what will generate that kind of endurance and comfort are the Scriptures. And that always leads to hope. as you rely on scripture to produce in you the necessary endurance and comfort you find a congregation gaining and operating with hope it will not be a dismal gloomy congregation it will not be a dismal gloomy congregation where the ministry of the word is central and it produces endurance and comfort, there will always be hope.

Now again, here's what he says. He brings it down now to verses 5 and 6. As you give yourself to the ministry of pleasing your brothers, you glorify God. You then with one voice glorify God. Okay? as the stronger brothers minister to the weaker pleasing them as god ministers to you through his word it produces a character congregation characterized by hope and you find unity if you want to find disunity you will always find in a church that not united you will always find little hope and little joy.

Now, which leads to the other, I don't know. But as the Word of God is ministered, as you gain endurance and comfort from the Word of God, you're going to grow in unity. As you seek to please one another, there will be unity. All right? So we join together with one heart and mouth and we worship and delight in God. That kind of fervent, delightful worship doesn't begin with the music.

Right? It doesn't begin with whether you've got a praise band or not. And praise bands are fine. I'm not saying anything against that. I'm not saying anything against contemporary music or anything like that. I'm just saying, that's not the key to vibrant worship.

The key to vibrant worship is what? A congregation where we're pleasing one another, bearing one another's failings, seeking to please one another, not thinking of myself. That will produce vibrant, healthy worship. Okay? Because there's unity and together we sing praises to God. So that's where it starts.

Now he goes on, and I think verse 7 should go with 7 through 13. The paragraph break should be between 6 and 7, because now he says, you will glorify God as you're united by accepting or welcoming one another. Okay? As we welcome or accept one another. God commands all of us to accept one another. Look, Paul says, let me put it simply.

You guys who have all the rules, and again, Paul in the former chapter said, if you do this for the glory of God, fine. If you have the rules, accept those who don't have the exact same rules you have. And you over here who don't have the rules, and you have a tendency to look down at those weaker brothers and say, oh, when are they ever going to grow up?

He says, accept them. Welcome them. Accept them. You know what we often do? because we disagree I'm going to have the people over for dinner that think like I do. Right? Right?

No. Accept one another. All right? And he doesn't mean tolerate them. He doesn't mean give them official recognition like you're a Christian, I'm a Christian. Hooray.

He means to treat them with the love and honor that you give your brother or your sister. When I see my brother, right, when my brother and I get together, it isn't like, oh, yeah, that's my brother. We grew up together. We have the same parents. He has the same last name. All right?

So, that isn't the way it is, right? That's not the way it is with your brothers and sisters. You should accept one another. Why? Why? You should accept one another because Christ has welcomed you, that he accepted you for the glory of God.

What would happen if Jesus used the same standard that we did for accepting one another? what would happen? Well, let's not even contemplate that, shall we? That would be awful, wouldn't it? How did Jesus accept you? I read an interesting article this last week. Okay?

And the writer of this article had said this. Too often, we have the TSA version of welcoming people to the church. Okay? Like, when I leave on Thursday, I know this much. On anything that I carry onto the plane, I can't have a full tube of toothpaste. I've got to have a little one.

Right? Not the full tube, a little one. So much stuff, right? You've got to leave some stuff behind. He says, the writer of this article said this. We have a TSA view of the church.

We say, oh, you can come in, But some of those sins, you can come in only if those sins aren't too big. Right? Oh, if you're gay, oh, don't come in our church. No no don come into our church An adulterer you can come But you you no Right We have a TSA view of our fellowship oftentimes. Well, you don't agree with me on this, so you don't agree with me on this, so we'll greet one another at church, but have much to do with each other.

I don't think so. What if Jesus had the same attitude? Did Jesus accept you after you got a few things cleaned up? Or did He accept you just the way you were? You say, well, yeah, but He doesn't leave us there. That's true.

That's the love of Jesus. But that's not what He's talking about here. He's just saying, accept one another. Just like Jesus accepted you. Not toleration, but accepting you. Christ has been gracious to you.

And so grace ought to distinguish our relationships. And you can accept one another because of Jesus' redemption. And he goes into this long thing about Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. And then he quotes a bunch of the Old Testament, each of them taken from every section, the Law, the Writings, and the Prophets.

Okay? You can look up the references later, but every section of the Old Testament, he quotes to show one thing, and that is this, that Jesus died to bring us together. The reason that Jesus died was to draw us and make us one people. He was faithful to the promises to the patriarch. What were those promises? That all the nations would be blessed through the seed of Abraham.

He's the one through whom God fulfills his promise that they will be my people and I will be their God. And as Jewish people come to him in faith, and when he returns in glory and he reclaims the earth for God's people, he's going to fulfill the promise to Abraham of giving him a land, the whole earth. And the Gentiles have to remember what They part of that root that grew up They part of that tree They're attached to that tree.

Alright? But Jesus also came so the Gentiles would glorify God. This Jewish Messiah came in order, and he quotes a bunch of Old Testament that shows how God's intention was always to bring Gentiles into the people of God. So what's the purpose? Why is he making this argument? God's eternal purpose was to save both Jews and Gentiles, and that finds expression in Jesus and his death.

How can they refuse to accept one another? Now, we don't have a Jewish-Gentile thing going on here. But the point is this. If Jesus died to draw us into one people, then how can we refuse to accept one another? Are we going to agree on everything? No.

But we accept one another because the intention of Jesus' death was to draw us into one people. In other words, in principle, what? We are one. It's a done deal. But now, with that in mind, we've got to act like it. Okay?

We have to act like it. Now, verse 13 then. This God of hope. Notice, in him will the Gentiles hope, verse 12. So what is God? He's the God of hope.

I love this verse. The God we worship is the God of hope. And the God of hope is all about filling us with joy and peace by the power of the Holy Spirit as we believe. As we believe. As we continue to put our trust in Jesus, as we continue to rest in him, as we continue to see him as our savior yesterday, today and tomorrow, the God of hope will fill us with joy and peace and we will be a congregation of hope The Spirit works powerfully in a congregation where the gospel is central and where we believe that Jesus has brought us together.

So, why should we please one another? Why should we accept one another? Because by doing that, we live out the redemption that Jesus has accomplished in bringing us together. And God is glorified when that electric current of joy, peace, and hope runs through the congregation. Paul is saying to us, God is clearly seen in a unified congregation that comes about when we please and love one another.

Let's pray. Father, we come now to this table which speaks to us of the redemption that Jesus accomplished. We come to this table realizing, Lord, that one of the purposes of his sacrifice was to draw people from all kinds of different backgrounds and making them one. and thus to show the world to show the world that the redemption and the power of Jesus' sacrifice can make a people who are entirely different than the world.

A people who love one another. A people who accept one another. A people who think more of others than they do of themselves, as Jesus did. Father, now as we come to this table, remind us of the purpose of the sacrifice of your Son. Lord God, remind us of the promises that come with that great sacrifice. We thank you now in Jesus' name.

Amen.