Welcome the Welcomed, Part 2

1:02And that's because opinions, or specifically, the way that Christians were holding their opinions in the church at Rome, was causing division in the church. You see, Christians in the church at Rome, just like Christians everywhere for all time, fell into one of two categories: the strong and the weak. Believers, as we've seen, felt the freedom to eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols. They didn't feel that they had to observe the Sabbath or the Jewish feasts. Strong believers live in the world of May. That is, they know that they may do this or they may not do that.

1:50And their temptation was to despise those weaker believers in the church. And those weaker believers didn't feel the freedom that they had the freedom to eat meat that was sacrificed to idols. They felt that they had to observe the Jewish Sabbath and the Jewish holy days. They lived in the world of must. They thought that they must do this or they must not do that. And their temptation, as we saw, was to judge the stronger believers.

2:24Now, remember, in all of these things, we are not talking about black and white issues, things that we are commanded to do or not to do in the Bible. We're talking about gray areas. We're talking about matters of Christian freedom. And the difference between a strong believer and a weak believer is not that you choose this or that. You're not a strong believer because you do something or you don't do something. You're a strong believer because of how you approach issues of Christian freedom. That is, you approach them in the world of May, not the world of must.

3:01But God has the same command for both the strong and the weak in the church at Rome and for us here today, and that is to welcome one another. We saw at the beginning of Romans 14, this is how he begins this whole section, as for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. We're commanded to welcome one another, not despise each other, not judge each other, but welcome one another.

3:27And this morning, as we've already heard, our passage today and this whole section ends with the command in verse 7: therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you. And so those two statements form the bookends of the section. They frame out this entire section of Romans. They serve as the main point that God wants to communicate through the Apostle Paul to us. We must welcome one another as Christ has welcomed us. But something that you may have noticed as we've gone through this passage is that while Paul is referring to both strong and weak believers at different times in the section, he is primarily addressing strong believers, those mature Christians in the church who have a right understanding, a biblical understanding of Christian freedom.

4:30And why is that? It's because those who are strong, those who are mature, those who, by God's grace, have a right understanding of Christian freedom, bear a greater moral responsibility before God to do what is right in his eyes. And we understand that, don't we? I mean, consider our legal system in the United States. Both adults and minors break the law. But we hold adults to a higher standard than we hold minors. We have higher expectations for those who are older, for those who are more mature, for those who ought to know better.

5:16And so Paul is going to focus on the strong, but he's going to address all of the believers in the church at Rome and all of the believers here at New Life Baptist Church today as well. Here's what we're going to learn this morning. Take a look on the screen. For the glory of God, we must welcome one another as God has welcomed us. That might sound familiar from a couple weeks ago. Just got one additional phrase there. For the glory of God, we must welcome one another as God has welcomed us. That's for all of us, the strong and the weak. But since the strong bear a greater responsibility, Paul is going to focus, and we are going to focus.

6:00On the strong. And so we're going to consider the obligations of the strong, the means of the strong, and the goals of the strong. So let's start with that first point in Romans 15:1. Let's look at the obligations of the strong. Look at verse 1. 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.

6:39Now, until this point, Paul has only referred by name to those who are weak in faith. Those are the only people he's explicitly addressed. He's implied that there are strong believers, that there are those who are strong in faith, but he's only named those who are weak in faith. But now, Paul addresses the strong. And you notice he includes himself among them. He says, we who are strong. Paul is strong in faith, meaning that he lives in the world of may, not in the world of must.

7:13And Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in writing another letter, urged us to imitate him. Look at the screen. Paul told the Corinthians, be imitators of me as I am of me. Christ. So in everything that he did, Paul sought to imitate Jesus Christ. And Paul then urged us to imitate him as he sought to imitate Christ. So you may be a weak believer, at least in some areas of your life. You may live in the world of must about this or that decision.

7:57That's probably true of every one of us in one way or another. But friends, we shouldn't stay there. We should not stay in the world of must. We should not remain weak in faith, thinking that we must do this or we must do that in areas of Christian freedom. All of us should strive to grow, to recalibrate our consciences to the Word of God, so that we are all strong believers, just like the Apostle Paul. Now, listen, that does not mean that you will necessarily make a different choice than the choice you're making now in any given area.

8:37But it means you will understand that you and others have the freedom to make a different choice than the one that you are making right now. That changes the way that we view each other in the church. That changes the way we interact with each other in the church. So we should strive to be strong in faith. And Paul teaches that the strong have two. Obligations, two moral requirements, and those are to bear with the weak and to build up the weak. First, the strong are obligated to bear with the weak.

9:17And that word translated to bear means something like to carry, to pick up, to continue to bear up under. And what are the strong obligated to bear with? Take a look at the verse again. Verse 1, we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak. That's a strong word. Other translations render it weaknesses, so you'd have the weaknesses of the weak. But either way, Paul is teaching that there are shortcomings in the way that weaker believers understand and practice their Christian faith. Weaker believers believe and live as though there are certain things that are unclean when Jesus has declared anything that is not sinful to be clean. And all of the apostles supported that teaching in the New Testament. If it's not a matter of sin and obedience, then it's clean. It's up to the Christian to decide whether to do or not do.

10:25So weaker believers do need to grow. They need to reach. Recalibrate their consciences to match the word of God, so that whatever choices they make, they understand that all Christians have the freedom to do or not do anything that isn't sinful. But notice, Paul is not addressing the weak in this verse. He doesn't say, you who are weak have an obligation to strengthen your faith. That may be true, but that's not what the verse says. What does he say?

11:00We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak. Paul puts the responsibility on the stronger believers, not on the weaker believers. And when he says that we have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, he's not saying that our job is merely to tolerate them, merely to put up with them. What is the rest of our obligation? Look at verse 2. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up.

11:40So, second, the strong are obligated to build up the weak. We're not merely tolerating weak Christians. We're not merely putting up with them. We are called to please them, to build them up, to take positive action toward. Them. Because if we don't, then we can easily deceive ourselves into thinking I'm obeying God's command. I'm bearing with the weak by tolerating them, by putting up with them. And yet all the while we are despising them, looking down on them, failing to welcome them.

12:24So God commands the strong not just to bear with the failings of the weak, but to strive to please them, to do them good, to build them up. And Paul has already showed us how to do this back in chapter 14. What did he tell us? Don't put any stumbling blocks or hindrances, remember last week, in the way of a weaker believer. We don't want them, as they're running the race of faith, to trip over anything that we put in their path. We don't want to weigh them down with that weighted vest of hindrances that are the ways that we are exercising our Christian freedom that are difficult for them. We don't want to do that.

13:05We want to welcome them, not to quarrel over opinions, but into our fellowship. We pray for them. We patiently encourage them. And why do we do these things? Look at what Paul says in verse 3. He says, this is because this is what Jesus did. Verse 3. For Christ. Did not please himself. But as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. As a stronger believer, anytime that you think that you are making a big sacrifice by giving up certain food or certain drink or shows or movies or music or the freedom to say and post whatever you want on the internet, anytime that you think that you're making a big sacrifice by giving up some of your freedoms, friends, remember Jesus Christ.

14:11Remember the sacrifice that he made. Instead of pleasing himself, he came to suffer and to die in our place for our sins. Paul quotes Psalm 69 to show how Jesus bore all of the insults, the reviling, the mocking that we threw at God through our sin. That's what reproaches means: insults, reviling, mocking. We did all of that in our sin. And Jesus bore that. His suffering did not benefit him at all. And yet he bore it for us.

14:55And so the next time that we have to limit our freedoms for the good of other Christians, And we feel like we're making a huge sacrifice, we need to view our sacrifices in light of Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf. That he gave up everything that he had in heaven with the Father and suffered and died as an innocent and perfectly sinless man for you and me. That is a real sacrifice. That puts our obligations in perspective.

15:32Brothers and sisters, those of us who are strong have an obligation to bear with the weak and to build up the weak. And we bear with and we build up in view of the sacrifice of Christ, who bears with us and who builds us up every single day of our lives. So we reflected on the obligations of the strong. Now let's consider the means of the strong. Take a look at verse 4. 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.

16:22So in the first three verses, Paul taught that we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the weak and to build up the weak, and we. Do that because that's what Jesus did for us. But the natural response is: I'm not Jesus. How am I supposed to do that? And so, verse 4 shows us, Paul shows how we are able to bear with and build up the weak. He identifies two means: the encouragement of the scriptures and endurance.

17:01Okay, first, the encouragement of the scriptures. Paul teaches that everything that was written in former days was written for our instruction. That is, it was written to teach us. Now, think about that. When Paul says everything that was written in former days, what's he talking about? He's talking about the Old Testament. Now, if you are doing a Bible in a year plan, it's February 22nd, you're probably in Leviticus. A book filled with laws, instructions about building the tabernacle, taking the tabernacle down, transporting the tabernacle, making sacrifices, which sacrifices that you can make.

17:54And you may have thought to yourself, I don't know what any of that has to do with me. You can be forgiven for thinking that. Lots of believers have had that same thought. But the reality is, the entire Old Testament, including Leviticus, was written to show us the holiness of God. That we cannot just approach God willy-nilly any old way we want to. We don't just get to make up how we can come before God. We don't get to say, I think I'm good enough, and therefore my worship will be accepted by him. This was one of the first sins, right? The first sin. Cain offers this unacceptable offering to God, and he's bent out of shape because God says, You can't worship me like that.

18:43The whole Old Testament is showing us that. The whole Old Testament is showing our sin. It's showing God's grace in repeatedly pursuing and forgiving his people and promising to provide a Savior for them. So here in Romans 15, Paul quotes Psalm 69 to show that even a thousand years before this letter was written, before Paul wrote this letter to the Romans, a thousand years earlier, God was pointing people to the Savior, the one that would come to bear reproach, to bear reproach for our sake, for the sake of the people that he came to save. Friends, every page of the Bible points us to Jesus. Jesus and his sacrifice on our behalf. So again, when we need to make sacrifices for the good of weaker believers in the church, we view all of our sacrifices in light of the sacrifices that Christ made for us. Because when we do that, we are in a very small way imitating our Savior. We are in a small way counting ourselves as nothing, putting others first, saying, You and your needs are more important than me and my wants.

20:04So that's the first means, the encouragement of the scriptures. The second means of the strong is endurance. And that word translated endurance means something like steadfastness. It means to continue to bear up under difficult circumstances. And endurance is a concept that's worth reflecting on. I don't know if you ever thought about endurance before, but think about it for a minute. With most things in life, you do one thing and you get something else. So you work and you get paid money. You do one thing, you get something else.

20:51But endurance is different. It is one of the rare things in this world that you do to get more of. You endure to be able to endure. This is what you crazy people who run long-distance races do. You endure in order to be able to endure for longer. Now, here's how James says it. Take a look on the screen. He says, Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. It's the same Greek word as used here for endurance. And let steadfastness or endurance have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

21:45Having to bear with the failings of the weak falls under this category of trials of various kinds. And when we go through trials, endurance is both the means and the end. We endure to be able to endure. But enduring anything is not easy. And that's why it's such a gift that we have the encouragement of the scriptures. When we feel tempted to give up, when we feel tempted to say, I've had enough, when we feel tempted to say, I don't want to deny myself anything else for the good of others, that's when we go back to the scriptures and we see pleasure. Picture after picture of people laying down their rights, laying down their freedoms, encouraging us to do the same, and never more than Jesus Christ, who laid it all down, who made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant for you and me. We are freshly encouraged by the word of God to be able to endure.

22:56And look at the outcome. Look at the end of verse 4 and see what comes from the encouragement of the scriptures and endurance. It is so that we might have hope. That's what James says. He says that when steadfastness or endurance has its full effect, look what it says, we will be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Oh, brothers and sisters, our hope is not in this world. Our hope is not in the things of this world, in being able to enjoy certain freedoms that we get to exercise.

23:39Our hope is in Jesus and in the promise of his coming kingdom. That he is coming because he has gone ahead to prepare a place for us, and one day he's going to take us to be with him where he is, where we're going to walk with him and enjoy him every day. For all eternity, enjoying every good and perfect gift that a good and perfect heavenly Father can provide. It's like when Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians, he says, What we go through, these trials, they're light and momentary afflictions.

24:21Every freedom that we lay down, every privilege that we give up for the good of others, that is a light and momentary thing in view of eternity, where we are going to get to enjoy every perfect gift, good and perfect gift from a good and perfect heavenly Father. Giving up some of our freedoms is no big deal because we've got a hope that can never be taken away from us, the hope of eternal life. So we've seen the obligations of the strong, we've seen the means of the strong, and now let's conclude with the goals of the strong. Look with me at verse 5.

25:04May 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. In this final section, Paul prays to God and he calls him, did you notice this? The God of endurance and peace. I know there's an orange truck. It's there.

25:43Everybody, take a look. It's going fast. It stopped. It's going to go again. It'll stop again, probably, but you know, it'll move on eventually. There we go. We are going to pay whatever it costs for stained glass windows. I will sell my truck anything it costs. We ain't doing this again. This is it. Enjoy it while you have it. Paul ends by praying to the God of endurance and encouragement. And his prayer is that the church would be unified and that God would be glorified. Those are the two goals of the strong: the unity of the church and the glory of God.

26:36Okay, let's first consider the unity of the church. Look at that phrase again. Verse 5, Paul prays that God would grant you to live in such harmony with one another. Later in verse 6, Paul refers to us as having one voice. You see what he's this picture he's painting, talking about harmony, talking about us having one voice? When I was growing up, I sang in my church's youth choir. And if you ever sat next to me in worship, that might be hard to believe, but it's true. I would never lie to you in a sermon.

27:19My voice is okay, but I always struggle to sing in harmony in the choir. Harmonizing is when more than one person, you're singing the same words, but you're singing different notes. I couldn't hear it. I can only hear the rhythm. I can't hear the melody. And so when you're singing in harmony, there is unity, but there's not uniformity. And that's what Paul has in mind when he prays that we would live in such harmony with one another. He's praying for unity, not uniformity. He's saying the church should praise God with one voice in verse 6. We're all singing the same words, as it were, about Jesus, about his life and death and resurrection, the great truths of the Bible. We're all singing the same words, but we're singing in harmony, as Paul says in verse 5. We're not all singing the same notes. Unity, not uniformity. And our unity is very important to God.

28:30It is so important that on the night that he was betrayed, Jesus spent an extended amount of time praying for our unity. Look on the screen at John 17. If you've never seen the high priestly prayer, this is remarkable. He's praying for us in this moment. I do not ask for these only, that is the disciples, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that's us, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you loved me. Friends, three times in this prayer, three times in the short paragraph, Jesus prays for our unity, that we would be one, that we would be one just like the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one in the Godhead, that we would become perfectly one.

29:49And here in Romans 15, Paul echoes that prayer for unity, because that is in accord with Christ, who is both one with the Father and one with us. We are his body. So think about this. Every single Sunday, when we gather together, we are reminded of our unity in Christ. You may have never thought about this before, but that is one reason that we recite the Apostles' Creed together. It's one reason that we pray the Lord's Prayer together. It's one reason that we pray a prayer of confession together. It's one reason that we emphasize congregational singing where our voices are loudest.

30:43Because in those moments, we are reminded of our unity. That we are not simply individual Christians who hold different opinions on matters of freedom, things like politics and educating children and social media and social justice. When we gather together on Sundays to worship, we do so in unity as we together confess what we believe. We lift one voice together and pray as Jesus taught us to pray. We lift one voice together as we sing the great truths of the Bible.

31:23Every Sunday is a reminder of our unity in Christ. And unity is the first. Goal of the strong Christian. So it should be the first goal of every person here. So that brings us to the second goal. Second, the glory of God. That's the second goal of the strong Christian. Look again at verse 5. 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.

32:08So the strong Christian has the unity of the church as their first goal. But the glory of God is the ultimate goal for every strong Christian, because God is glorified when his church is unified. I want to put John 17 back on the screen for you to look at again. We already saw how Jesus prayed for unity in the passage. But notice here why Jesus prays for unity. Notice the purpose of it. So that the world may believe that you have sent me.

32:47So that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. You see, the purpose of our unity is to point to the truth that. Jesus is the Son of God. That he is the Messiah, the Savior, that God sent to rescue us from our sins and their consequences. In other words, the purpose of our unity is the glory of God in Christ Jesus. That's the purpose. That's why Paul writes what he does in verse 7, where he concludes: look at verse 7.

33:24Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. You see, friends, when we welcome each other, particularly when we welcome people who are different than we are, different skin color, different socioeconomic background, different opinions on matters of Christian freedom. When we welcome each other, we are living in harmony with each other. Living in harmony is living in unity, and unity glorifies God who welcomes every person who receives Jesus Christ by faith. So the first goal is unity, but unity is not the end. The end is the glory of God.

34:20Brothers and sisters, our calling as Christians is to welcome one another just as we have been welcomed by Christ. That is very simple. But simple things are not always easy. And welcoming people who think differently than you do, who hold different opinions than you do, who get on your nerves because they're not as mature as you, or not as mature as they should be, that's not easy. But friends, remember, it was not easy for God to welcome us.

34:55It was not easy at all. It cost him everything, the life of his only begotten son. So let's work to remember that, and let's work to remind each other of that fact. Friends, in this season, we are hoping to do great things for God. We are hoping to significantly invest in people, in programming, in facilities, so that more people can come to know Jesus Christ, can be discipled, and learn how to follow him and make more disciples of Jesus Christ here and across the world. We are hoping to do great things for God.

35:41And Satan is going to hate that. He is going to come for us. And his favorite target is the unity of the church. Think about the very first strategy that he employed in the Garden of Eden. It was divide and conquer. Divide the man and the woman from each other and conquer. That strategy works in every type of warfare, and it works especially in spiritual warfare. Divide and conquer. A church that gets divided gets conquered. But thankfully, we are not unaware of Satan's schemes.

36:32He has been running the same playbook for all of human history. And we have a Savior who prayed so fervently for our unity that it took up an entire chapter of the Bible, John 17. And Paul echoes that prayer here in Romans 15. So, brothers and sisters, let's welcome each other. Let's fight for unity, not with each other. Let's resist the devil and watch him flee from us. If you are not yet a Christian, I hope that you were struck by the picture that Paul paints of Jesus Christ in this passage today. One who did not please himself, but bore the reproaches of every sinful person.

37:30To reproach someone, again, is to mock them, it's to insult them, it's to revile them. Friends, that's what every person who has ever lived did to God the Father. In our sin, we mocked, we reviled, we insulted him. We turned our back on him and said, We want nothing to do with you. If you're familiar with the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15, that's what we've done to God. We have a good and benevolent heavenly Father who is eager to bless, who loves us, who showers us with good. He gives us life and breath and everything that we have to enjoy. Our families, our jobs, our hobbies, our houses, our cars, our church, everything. God has poured all of that out on us. And yet, every single person, you and me, we have turned our back and we have run away.

38:31We reviled Jesus. Religious people, just like you and me, demanded Jesus' crucifixion. Religious people, just like us, cursed him and spit on him and celebrated his execution. And how did Jesus respond? Look what Peter wrote in 1 Peter chapter 2. Jesus committed no sin, neither was deceit. Found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed.

39:30Friends, Jesus went to the cross and he gave up his life for you. He bore all of your sin. He bore all of your shame. He died where you should have died for your rebellion. He did not please himself. He bore the reproaches that we hurled at God, our heavenly Father. That's how Jesus responded. So how must you respond? Look at 1 Peter 2.25, the very next verse. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.

40:13Friend, you must return to the shepherd and overseer of your soul through repentance. That means to change your mind and through faith. Putting all of your faith, all of your trust in Jesus Christ. His perfect life, his death, his resurrection. You put your faith in Jesus. God is eager to welcome you. But for you to be welcomed by God, you must welcome his Son. You must embrace him by faith. That's all you have to do. So welcome Jesus this morning. And then welcome us, the family of God, into your hearts and into your life.

41:04Because we will surely welcome you as we have been welcomed by Christ. Pastor Joshua comes now to pray. Pray with me. Oh, Father, we are so grateful for the unity that you desire among us. Spirit of God, I pray that you will fill us, that you will give us the faith that we need to believe, Lord, all that we have heard this morning, and give us the grace that you know we so desperately need to live in the good of it. All for your glory.

41:45We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at New Life. CS dot net