22 Handling Disagreement (Romans 14:19-15:13)

Krisan Marotta: We are in Romans 14, and I didn't finish last week what was on the syllabus, so we're going to start actually back in 14 verse 19 and then go through 5.13 today. Look at all these people. You know, when I sat down to sing, there were like five people here. It's like magic. You sing and they appear. Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to um destroy something than to build it? And that's kind of what Paul's going to be talking about today. That's the theme. We can destroy in a matter of minutes what took maybe decades or or longer to build. I was thinking about this with this, you know, the city of New Orleans that stood for a couple hundred years, and in in a day, or actually in a matter of hours, Hurricane Katrina wiped out large sections of it. Or the mosque that was blown up last week in Iraq. It had been there for twelve hundred years, and it had withstood like Turkish invasions and wars, and then in you know, in five minutes, um, some violent protest blows it up. And then that threatens to undo all the long months of progress that country's made towards stable democracy. But uh we also do this in our own lives. There's one of my friends worked his whole life to play soccer at college, and he was really good, and he wanted to play at a particular college, the one, the best college that was known for soccer, it was always in the College Cup Final Four, and it was his childhood dream. Ever since I knew him, that's what he was working for. He played countless hours of soccer. He was a superstar in high school, and he graduated from high school, and he was offered full scholarships at other schools to play soccer, and he turned them all down to walk on and earn his spot on this school of his choice. And he got on the team, and being a freshman, of course, his freshman year, he sat on the bench almost all year, but he gave it his all-in-practice, and then his sophomore year he um got to play and he was doing really well and he was being noticed. And then one night he and his friends went out to a bar at two in the morning and were drinking, and they got into a fight, and police charges were filed, and they were charged with assault and battery, and his college has a zero tolerance policy toward that, so he was kicked off the team. So I thought here after 15 years of training, practicing, giving up other opportunities to take this, you know, one beer too many and a few minutes of poor judgment, and he lost his dream, everything he'd worked for. And that's the element that Paul's gonna add to our passage today, that we can tear down in a moment what God is building up. We can cause people to stemble, we can lose that progress. And it's this, he's gonna use architectural terms today to talk about the building up versus the tearing down. And he's gonna add the element of encouragement and endurance to this process of striving toward unity, that it takes a long time, and that we can tear it down in a matter of minutes, and that's what we want to avoid. So let me just review where we are. We're in the last section of the book of Romans, the chapters 12 through 16, which is the application section. Paul, up to this point, has laid out his case for the gospel, and now he's saying, so what? How should we live? What difference should this make in our lives? So in chapter 12, he says it's only reasonable that we worship God with our bodies in response to all this, and he's essentially taking that theme through the end of the book as how we do that. So in chapter 12, he encouraged us to be sober thinking about ourselves, to not think too highly of ourselves or exalt ourselves, and instead to be passionate and generous toward others. And 13, to submit to those in authority because God has placed them there and he is ultimately the authority over all of them. And then to be free from debt and free from darkness. And then in chapter 14, he opens with, now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. And that argument goes all the way through 5.13. So it's interesting. This is he spends the most time on this of all his application. This is the one he gives a lot of verses to. And his argument is basically in those areas where it's debatable, where we don't know exactly what's right or wrong, where God hasn't definitively spoken and drawn a line, how do we treat each other? And he's encouraging us to not make those kinds of judgments, to look at our friends and say, ooh, how can you be a Christian and do that? Whatever it is. So is it, you know, whether it's alcohol issues, can you drink beer? Can you drink wine? Can you drink cocktails? How should we keep lent? Is there a right way or a wrong way? Um, how should we celebrate Christmas? Is it okay to smoke? Is it okay to eat certain kinds of meat? Um, how do you educate your kids? Do you have to, you know, everybody have to do homeschooling or private schools or Christian schools? Or are there the right books and the wrong books to read, or the right movies, or television shows, or computer games? Where do you draw the line? How do you know what's crossed the line and what we shouldn't be doing? And Paul's saying, in areas like this where we disagree, where, yes, there's probably a line that needs to be drawn, but we disagree on what that line is. How do you live with each other when you think it's A and your fellow believer thinks it's B, how do you get along? So his first point is accept each other. And he says, we are not to judge each other in those areas for two reasons. These are the ones he gave us last week. First, it's not my responsibility to change my sister, it's God's. She is not my servant, she is God's servant, and it's up to him to grow her in the faith. And if she is wrong or if I am wrong, God will be the one to teach us both. So he says, don't judge because we're not in control, God is. And the second reason is because we can't see what God sees. God sees the inner conviction of the heart, and we don't. So what on the outside may look to us like sin, God may see that on the inside that person is sincerely trying to honor him and doing what they think is right. And he will respect that. But we can't know that. We don't always know what that is. So we are not to judge because it's God's responsibility and because we don't have all the facts, God does. We don't have, we don't know what's inside. Instead, he says, if you want to judge someone, judge yourself and ask, how are my actions affecting other people? Am I acting in a in a certain way that is causing more heat than light? And maybe I'm perfectly free to do it. There's nothing wrong with it, but if it's causing someone else to stumble or it's causing confusion or it's disturbing the unity of the body, then I ought to stop. So that's where we ended last week. That takes us through 418, and we're going to pick up with 419 and then go through 513 today. And watch the terms through this section of building up and tearing down. Paul borrows architectural language, and he's using kind of a the language that suggests that we're building this great, beautiful building, you know, a home, a secure place, a place of beauty and safety, and that we are building each other up into this secure building, like the I think similar to what Peter uses, the language he uses in 1 Peter 2 about we're being built as a living temple. We are Jesus is the cornerstone and we're the living stones being built into this temple of God. So the idea is God is the master architect, he's creating a building that is beautiful, and we um are he lets us be involved in that process, and it's going to take a long time. It is not going to happen overnight. So this trying to build unity among a body of believers is not something that we can say, well, I told you yesterday, you know, we ought to be through that. Let's, you know, get with the program, it'll work today. Um he's going to add to this a call for endurance and encouragement that this is going to take a long time. And notice how repetitive he is. He doesn't simply make the point and move on. Through from 4.1 all the way through 5.13, he keeps repeating the same point. So if as you were studying, you thought, hmm, this sounds like what he just said. It is. He's repeating himself with a slightly different aspect or a different point of view. Okay, so 419. 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. Let me just stop there for a second. That upbuilding and destroyer, the architectural terms I was telling you about. Upbuilding is really it's a construction term. It literally means to build it, to construct it, to create it. And the idea is that we are to build each other in such a way that when those hurricanes of life come along, we stand. We don't fall and collapse, but we are able to stand in the face of them. Destroy is just the opposite. It means to tear something down or to pull it apart. And that's what Paul's going to encourage us not to do. So we have this picture of God building each of us up into a temple that has strong, mature faith that can withstand the storms of life, and the encouragement to us is don't get in the way. You know, don't go get in someone else's face and cause them to stumble or cause them to be torn down. I used the image last week. I it I was from the Olympics, I was watching the women's snowboarders. I don't know if any of you saw these, but they they careen down these slopes with these bumps at, I don't know, must be 200 miles an hour. They look like they're flying. And the race I saw, they were going over these slopes, and one woman crossed into the path of the person next to her, and their boards touched just a little bit, and they both went flying, just wiped out. And that's, I think, the image Paul's going for here. God has got us on this race, we're running the race, he's in charge. What you don't want to do is get in someone else's way and cause them to stumble. You know, and it may take years of building up, and we can tear it down in a few minutes. Okay, so let's pick back up with verse 20. 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. Think of those snowboarders. It's good not to eat meat or 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 what whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. So notice in here he makes the unambiguous statement that all food is clean. There is nothing in creation itself that says this food is off limits, this food is spiritually tainted. And I think we could. So in at least in this situation, he's saying there is a line, and he thinks he's telling us what the line is, but just knowing there's a line isn't enough because we still have to learn to live with each other. So that's the point he's going on to make to make. Knowing that all food is clean doesn't mean we know how to live. And if he could walk in here right now and say, okay, in modern America, here's your list of do's and don'ts. You know, this is where we're going to draw the line here with television, and here's we're going to draw it with cable, and here's what we're going to do about the movies. I don't think it would solve the problem entirely for us because we're not all in the same place in maturity. We would still have to learn to live with each other and encourage each other. All right. So he gives us two examples here. The person, the first in verse 22, and the second one in 23. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. Oh, let me go back to this. The faith that you have keep between yourself and God. That is a very hard phrase to translate, and there is no way to really translate it literally and not make it be misleading. When you first read that, it sounds like you're supposed to keep your beliefs secret, which is funny because Paul just said everything is clean. So he just told us, here's our beliefs. Um, I'm going to tell you where the line's going to be drawn, and then you have the statement, keep what you think between yourself and God. Well, he can't be saying that we're not supposed to have opinions and then we're not supposed to explain or defend or speak our convictions because he's just done it. And it really doesn't fit. I mean, in a sense, everything from 12 through 16 is him telling us his convictions on how we should live. And that doesn't fit, I think, with his example or with his other letters of scripture. Now you could say, okay, everyone but the apostles has to keep their beliefs secret, but I don't think that's what he's saying either. I think what he's saying is, whatever your conviction is, make sure you've brought it before God and you're doing it to honor him. So keep your belief between yourself and God. That is, when you have a decision to make, make sure you've asked yourself, why am I doing this? and brought God into the equation. Let me give you an example. Suppose I decide that I'm going to wear cutoffs and a ripped t-shirt to shirt on uh to church on Sunday mornings. Now, some or dress in some way that no one else in the church dresses. Um, would God be offended? I don't think so. I don't think God really cares what I'm wearing to church. He'd probably rather I come with a humble heart than that I come in my best Sunday outfit. But before I make that decision and walk into church in, say, dirty or ripped or torn clothing or whatever, I need to ask myself, why am I doing what I'm doing? Am I doing this to get attention? Am I doing this to make a political statement? Am I doing this to shock my brother or sister? Am I doing this to flaunt my freedom? Or am I doing it because I haven't done laundry and there's nothing else to wear? You know. I mean, so I may be free to dress however I want in church, but the question I need to ask myself is, why am I doing that? And I think that's what Paul's encouraging. Before you take an action that may cause someone else to be offended, someone else go, What is she wearing? Why is she wearing that? Um you need to go to God and ask, Where's my heart in this? Um, have you what what are my convictions? Am I acting out of conviction and seeking to honor the Lord, or am I acting because I want to call attention to myself or something? Um I thought of that analogy because when my kids were little, they got to that point where they could dress themselves for church. And my son was about four and he came down and he had his pants on that had holes in the knees on both knees. And I said, You know, Brendan, you have to go back and change because we're going to church church. You can't wear pants with holes in the knees. And he looked at me and he said, God doesn't care. I said, Yes, but the neighbors do. You know, it's kind of but we let him wear them because that he was right. And I'm sure everybody that day thought I was the world's worth mother, but you know, we're still here, nobody kicked us out of church. Um but it just made me think that you have to ask. I thought in this case, yes, we're doing this not because we want to make a statement, but because I want my son to learn, yes, he's right. God wants you to come with a humble heart, not with your best pants on. Okay. So where are we? We're in verse um Paul's giving us two examples. So the first person is the one who um Where am I? Twenty-two, thank you. I'm looking at all these verses, going, I know it's in here somewhere. Um, so his conclusion, blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves, is basically saying, if you've gone to God and you're convinced that you're acting to see out of a good heart and to honor him and to seek him, then you have no reason to judge yourself. So by saying, this is the line I'm going to draw, or this is the action I'm going to take, and I have gone to God and talked to him, and I've I've prayed that through and I'm convinced in my heart that I'm I'm doing the right thing and I'm doing it to honor the Lord, then you have no reason to pass judgment on yourself. You've acted in freedom, you've acted um out of a desire to honor the Lord, and you and then I think he's saying that's where you want to be. So you want to consider the fact that your actions can create more heat than light, and if exercising your freedom causes someone else to stumble or get confused or or question the gospel, then you need to re-evaluate. So the action itself may not be wrong, but if you the way you did it or the timing of the thing or the uh reason you did it, all of that can make a difference. And it's kind of like, well, if you're gonna offend someone, you might as well do something offensive. You know, I mean, why why why take something good and then offend someone? Okay, so that's the first person. The second person then is in verse 23, 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. This is another kind of confusing verse. When I first read this as a new believer, I thought, oh my goodness, I'm in trouble because I don't know anything. And I was in that new believer stage where everything I did I questioned and I wasn't sure of. And I thought, well, I'm in trouble. It means no matter what I do, I'm in trouble because it's I don't know that I'm acting from faith. I don't think that's exactly what he's saying here. He's not saying if you have any doubts, if you've gone to God and you've thought it through and you think, well, this is the best, my best conclusion on this, but maybe I'm wrong, but I have to do something and I think this is right, I don't think that's the kind of doubting he's talking about. I think what he's saying here is if you have a conviction that maybe a certain kind of like drinking is wrong, and you go out drinking with your friends because you want to fit in, then you're in trouble. Because now what you're doing is you're not honoring God, you're honoring your friends. You're saying, well, I think this is wrong, but I'm gonna do it anyway because I want to look like everyone else, or I want to please my friends, or I don't want people to know I'm a Christian, or some other reason like that. So you are acting against your convictions for some reason for you're letting something else take precedence. Is that clear? Is that I think that's what he's saying. God's looking at your motives, and if you're willing to compromise your convictions, your faith, what you think is right or wrong, for the sake of appearance, popularity, prestige, fitting in, looking like everyone else, then you're not at, you're acting with doubt. You're not acting out of your conviction, and that's sin. Now notice both these examples, Paul's looking at the importance of asking why someone is doing what they're doing. Not just what they're doing, but why they're doing. So in in both the person in 21 and 22 and the person in 23, Paul's saying it makes a difference where their heart is. So they may look exactly the same on the outside, but they are acting completely different on the inside in terms of a different motive. And that's why we're not to judge, because we don't know that answer. Someone on it may look the same to us, but we don't know where they're coming from. And I think that's why he's going to go on to say when we get into 15, that's why it takes endurance and encouragement and it takes a long time, because we just don't know. In this building process, we're like the carpenter's apprentice. You know, we've been given the hammer and the saw and a nail and maybe a ruler, and we have these basic tools and we know how to use a hammer and a nail, but we don't we can't go build the building yet. We're we're not the master architect, we're not the one who has the whole blueprint in mind. That's God's job. So we have to remember, yes, we're in the process, in the building process, but we're just the apprentice. Uh the carpenter's apprentice, the master architect is the one who's designing the whole building. And he knows everything. He knows the blueprint, the motivation. Okay, so let's go on into chapter 15 then. Having um talked about judging our actions in terms of our motives and looking at ourselves to make sure we're honoring God and not causing people to stumble, he's gonna go on to say, this is gonna take a while. And notice in 15.1, he says, we who are strong who have an obligation to bear the failings of the weak, this is the first time he's mentioned the strong. Up to this point, he's been talking about the weak and the relatively not so weak, I think. And now he's gonna speak directly to the strong. Okay, so let's do one through six. 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 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. So he's saying this process of building each other up is going to take a long time. And it's not just like, you know, the three little pigs you can throw up a building of sticks and straw in a matter of minutes, but it won't do you any good. Building a church community that loves each other, that strives for this kind of unity, that accepts each other, that's going to take a long time. And he's and he says, we who are strong have an obligation to bear the failings of the weak. So the idea is if you've gotten to that point where you've grown in your faith, you have maturity, you've understanding, um, not just doctrinal knowledge, but you know, a real lived understanding of the faith, then your job is not just to please yourself and do what you know. what you want to or what you um think is good, your job is to help those who are not there yet get to where you are. You're to not please yourself but endure with the um those who are weak. So all you ladies with gray hair out here, he's talking to you. Just wanted you to know we need to. Okay, so how do you do that? How do you start with um how do you build up a whole church community? I think it's we're tempted to say, okay, that's um Greg and Tony's job, you know? They'll do that and we'll just tell them when they get off, right? We'll just let them know. It's not their job, it's our job. They're here to teach us, we're here to build the body, we're here to do it. And I think Paul doesn't directly address this, but from other passages of scripture I think the idea would be start with whoever God has put in your life. You can't build the whole church, but you can start with the person sitting next to you or the person that God has already placed in your life. In the book of Nehemiah when they go to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem, they it's a huge, immense task to rebuild this entire city wall and there's only a handful of people who've come back from exile. And Nehemiah says start with the broken wall in front of your house. So you don't have to go do everything at once. Just start with the broken place in front of your house. And I think the analogy for us is if you're looking for who should I be encouraging, who should I be building up, who should I pour my life into, start with the people God's already put in your life. So if you're married and you have kids, there's your first priority. Your husband and your children are the people that they're the broken wall in front of your house, if you will. They're your first obligation. And from there you branch out into whoever God has put in your life. If somebody keeps calling you on the phone that's a good indication. Someone you work with somebody you run into day to day. So you know your small group um whoever God has dropped on your doorstep those are the people to start with. Don't think oh well I have to go to um Bangladesh and figure out who I'm supposed to minister to well maybe eventually God might call you there but look who he's called you to right now. Who's coming over to your door? Who's who's asking for your attention who's already in your life start with those people and if we all do that it like ripples in a pond will get to the whole church body. Okay so and again just to say it's Greg and Tony's job to teach us, encourage us, instruct us, but we're the ones that are out there doing being the body of Christ doing the work of the church so all right so I already talked about the strong okay so he says bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves which is kind of an interesting statement because when we first come to the gospel I think we we come because we're needy. We come because we've seen the depth of sin or the destruction in our own lives and we want help and in it in a sense there's a sense in which that's a selfish reason because we want what the gospel has to offer for us. And that's okay but in the long run you want to get past that and start living not to please yourself but in to live in some sense to serve and to sacrifice for others. So that means you may end up not expressing the freedom that you you are convinced you have. It may mean you step back and take someone by the hand and help them along and if people are struggling with you know do I have a glass of wine do I eat a ham sandwich can I associate with certain kinds of people then you step back and say well let's think that through let's talk about it and you might curtail your um your activities so you don't cause them to stumble we have people in this church who've come out of all kinds of backgrounds and one example of this I I was ran into a woman who had come out of an occult background and had been raised in a family where the occult was very real very present and very dark and Halloween was a nightmare time for her because it brought all these memories and darkness and association and we're running around oh setting up for the All Saints fair and it was a real struggle for her and it was like whoa I had no clue I had no idea so we may not even know where people are struggling. Another area I've run into is there are women in our church who've come out of the nightclub exotic dance scene and they struggle a lot with the kind of music that gets played the kind of dance that happens the dress and the atmosphere because it brings back these dark memories you know so we have to be careful when we do skits or talent shows or parodies or whatever. We think we're having fun but there are people who come from other backgrounds who this may raise serious questions for. And Paul's point is there are people who have struggles that you may not be aware of. They're not going to change overnight. It's going to take a long time for God to start healing those wounds and and the scars that are left from their destructive habits, maybe addictions or lifestyles or dark backgrounds. They may be hard to live with they may ask the same question over and over. They may seem sensitive to us well how could you let that bother you that just that you're just being overly sensitive. And Paul's encouragement here is bear with them. Struggle through it with them walk beside them and see how you can help you need to be more concerned about helping them get to a mature faith than pleasing yourself. And this takes endurance. So and then he concludes this part of this argument with verse 5 may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Jesus Christ that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I think there's two things that that strike me about him throwing that in at this point. First is we're to glorify God together it's he's the whole prayer is not just that we get to where we're going but that we get there together. And yes it's important to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I'm not diminishing that we are called to that but we are also called to be a community to be a church body he doesn't want us you know to take singing lessons and get a taped 80 piece orchestra and stand up and sing praise all by ourselves and you know wonderful electronic um harmony. Instead he wants everybody to be part of the choir. It's going to take all of us we're all here to sing people who sing well and people who don't and we're all here to learn together. The other thing is may the God of endurance work this out in your lives. I don't know about you but at this point I start to get overwhelmed and think I can't do this. I'm not that kind of person. I'm not that that clue I'm kind of clueless you know I'm not that sensitive or aware of what might be causing other people to struggle how am I ever going to know this well don't forget everything we learned in the fall. It's up to God to get us there. God is going to bring this about it's our job to trust him to strive for it to long for it but in the end he's the one that's going to grant it. Then verse 7 therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. If you want a summary of the whole section I think that verse is it that's probably the most succinct summary of everything he's been saying up to this point. Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Our goal is to glorify God we needed a savior we needed mercy we needed grace we need to show that same thing to everybody else. We don't get to pick who's in the body of Christ God gets to pick and if he picks someone who annoys us or seems strange or different or unusual that's not our choice we're to treat them mercifully and graciously in the same way God treated us. Okay then he concludes this section with some a whole string of quotes from the Old Testament. Let me look at that. They're kind of interesting. So starting in verse eight for I tell you that Christ became a circum 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 and 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 all 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. He does something interesting in this not only he pulls from the law and the prophets so he kind of hits all the sections of the Old Testament he's quoting from Psalms and Deuteronomy and then Isaiah and notice verse 8 first he says to the Jews he says okay remember you Jews who are receiving this Christ became a servant to you but not because you were particularly wonderful or attractive or worthwhile because he made promises to the patriarchs and he's a God who keeps his promises. So lest we start thinking too highly of ourselves again, remember you're here because God is faith a faithful God. And then he turns to the Gentiles and he says okay you get to experience all God's grace and glory because he is a God of grace and mercy not because you deserved it not because you've done anything wonderful but because God in his mercy decided to include you as well. So there's the reminder accept others as Christ has accepted you. You didn't do anything to deserve it and they may not in your estimation have deserved it either but you still need to accept them. Then he quotes these from Psalms in Deuteronomy and finally Isaiah and I puzzled over this a long time and I'm still not sure I have it but one thing that struck me on this is the progression of the quotes. In verse 9 he says therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. So he's got a solitary singer singing among the gentiles suggesting that maybe this is a Jew standing alone among the gentiles singing to God's praise as these other people look on. Then in verse 10 again it is said Rejoice O Gentiles with his people now you've got two groups now you've got the solitary singer and the gentiles invited to sing with them so instead of a solitary person you now have two groups singing together. And then in 11, praise the Lord all you Gentiles and let all the peoples extol him he's widened the circle and it's and the Gentiles are invited directly to sing without reference to whether anyone else is singing or not. And then finally in twelve and again Isaiah says the root of Jesse will come even he who arises to rule the Gentiles now the focus is not on who's singing at all but the person being sung to. So you have this progression of I'm standing by myself learning to sing God's praises then with a group and a wider group and now my focus is not on me at all, my focus is on the one I'm giving glory to. And I think that progression is meant to show us this is what we're striving toward. We're striving toward a unity so that we don't notice if the person next to us is black or green or purple or different or older or younger or looks like us or thinks like us but we're so focused on the God who saved us both. So everybody is to accept everybody else. The weak have to help the strong because they have more to give they have learned more they want to pass on what they've learned but we're all under the master builder. And it's not going to be easy I think that's the subtext running through all of this it's hard to love someone who's not very lovable or to love someone who doesn't give back to you all the the warm and fuzzy feedback you want. And yet that's what Paul's going to call us to do. So let me just ooh we're doing good on the time let me sum up the principles that come not from last week and this week. So what has he told us over this section? First don't deliberately offend someone so yes you may be free in your in Christ to do something or act a certain way or to watch a certain TV show or read a certain book but you want to avoid deliberately offending someone the second one is if what you're doing threatens the peace stop. So give up your right if it's creating more heat than light and we want to be alert to judge ourselves in this area. So don't deliberately cause someone to stumble stop what you're doing if it threatens unity. And then third act from conviction so this is the idea don't act from doubt. Go before God and figure it out. If it's a gray area try to learn ask people talk people keep asking questions in the scriptures and then base your actions on your convictions of what you think is true. And then fourth choose to please your neighbor not yourself so when in doubt try to please your neighbor if at all possible so first don't shock someone second stop what you're doing if it's hindering unity or peace. Act from conviction not doubt. Four choose to please your neighbor not yourself and then the last one which we was in last week don't leave someone in their weakness but encourage them to grow. So the idea is not that we want to play Candyland forever we want to get to the point where we can play Monopoly and Scrabble and we move beyond that. So the balance to giving in if it threatens the unity is to teach encourage those who are weak. And again I don't know about you but that's overwhelming to me I look at that and I go I'm not that kind of person this this is just not what I do on a day-to-day basis. I like pleasing myself you know it's it's a lot more fun right um it's easier I know what I want you know as other people who knows um and if that's your response that's normal we can't do this um notice how many times in this Paul says uh God will do it or through the Holy Spirit uh you may abound in hope and then the is it five or yeah five may the God grant this in you. If you struggle with it you go back to God and say make me that kind of person. We strive for it we hung long for it but in the end God is going to get us there and the good news is he is going to get us there. He has promised to get us there. He's promised not to leave us weak but to grow us into strong people. And if our church is going to look like this or our Bible study or our small groups or our neighborhoods or wherever we're trying to build unity it's going to be due to God's grace and mercy and his miraculous changing of our lives. And the good news is he's promised to do it. So it's not like we're striving in vain. We are striving and we are making progress. Alright so let me pray for us and then give you a chance to ask questions. Father thank you that you are a God of grace and peace and mercy and we pray that you would give us the endurance and the encouragement from the scriptures to persevere in this area so that we are not tempted to judge our neighbor, to question the sincerity of their faith when we don't see what's on the inside, but that we would instead seek to grow together, to teach each other and to curry encourage each other and that you would be making us the kinds of people who can step back from our own wants and needs and wanting to please ourselves and begin to look to how we can help and encourage and build this temple that you are the master architect of in our particular church and our particular community. In Jesus' name. Amen