Romans 15:1-7
Getting on the Same Page as God about When Christians Disagree (Part 3)
Introduction
A. If I am going to do something I want to know what I am doing how to do it and why I am doing it
B. If you ever want to annoy me, ask me to do something that I don’t know how to do and I don’t know what to do and I don’t why I am doing it
C. To me there is nothing more frustrating then doing work just to do work
D. There is nothing more irritating then being apart of something that I don’t understand
E. There is nothing more annoying then not having the equipment to do the task
F. Do these things ever frustrate you? (Shake your head)
G. Today we are going to look at what we are suppose to do with that “week” person that we have been talking about the last couple of weeks
H. We are going to talk about
a. The Job
b. The Strength
c. The Reason
I. The Job (1-3)
A. Explanation
1. From the last couple of weeks we should realize that by now Paul is considering himself in the “Strong” category
a) Look what he says in verse 1 “WE” he is putting himself their
2. Paul then is laying out a problem that a lot of us, and especially the person that you hear talking, Selfishness
3. I can be a very selfish person, I want everything for myself, I want everything to go my way, I admit I have selfish tendency
4. But The problem is Christian love is not selfish
5. Christian love should seek to share with others and make other happy
6. Our job is to be building up the weaker, not to gain selfish recognition, but to do it out of our God Given Love
7. If we only had an example of this, this would be easier to understand: Whom who could we use (Read Vs. 3)
a) Jesus is the perfect example
b) Jesus Gave up his spot in Heaven, being next to God, and then coming here living as a normal person and then giving up his life by taking on the sins of this world
8. Why?
9. Why did Jesus do that, He did that to build the weaker person up in Christian love
10. He did that out of love
11. No one has ever made, nor will ever make, a sacrifice that great
12. Compare your sacrifice you might make of giving up going to Quaker Steak and Lube compared to what Jesus did
13. Not even close is it?
B. Application
1. Let’s apply this to our lives
2. WE are talking about making an intentional effort to support others
3. We are talking about forgetting about ourselves for just a couple of minutes and be concerned with someone else
C. Illustration
1. I meet with Jeff Smith ever so often talk to him on the phone, we have developed a pretty close friendship over the last couple of years, He is the youth Pastor at Butler Faith Fellowship
2. You know what I saw in him that made me want to be his friend?
3. I saw him genuinely care for people
4. Not a fake, how are you doing?, but a genuine concern for others
5. A concern to build up the other person
6. I am a stronger person because of him, because of Jeff laying down his selfishness, it has made me stronger
7. Now here is the greatest part, because he did that to me, I am stronger, but that has a big effect on a lot of other people
8. Because I am stronger, I can lay down my selfishness and help out others
9. By Jeff doing that for let’s just say four people, he could easily be effecting 12 people, of all four of those people do the same
10. What we need to do is forget about being the center of everything
11. Forget about wanting everything for our selves
12. And invest in someone else’s life.
13. I love to dream about how different this church, yet alone the whole world, could be if we were to follow verse 2 by building each other up.
14. That is the Job we are called to do
II. The Strength (4-6)
A. Explanation
1. How do we do the Job?
2. Building up each other, yeah your right Dan, that is a great idea, and yes we all could go for that
3. But Dan, it does not work! I have tried it. Let me tell your about __________ (fill in the blank)
4. Investing your time and energy in someone seems sometimes the most painful, hardest task, and waste of time
5. You invest all this time in a person and they don’t listen to you, they just go on living the way they were and seem never to listen to a word you said
6. How many of you here today, have been invested your life in an honest non selfish way with Christian love, in a “Weaker” person, and you have gotten discouraged? Let me see your hand!
7. You pour out your love and nothing happens, and you just want to give up right?
B. Illustration
1. Last year when I was directing at Edinboro I had a counselor come up to talk to me and told me she quit! She told me that she did not have anything left
2. She was used up! She invested her entire person into the her kids, and was empty
3. She had been doing a good job at honestly building up her girls, and loving them with every effort
4. But they were not getting it, and she was hurting and truly did want to quit!
5. Can any of you relate to any of this? Shake your head if your follow me
C. Application
1. What then do we do for our strength, how can we get the strength to do our Job?
2. Take a look at what the Bible tells us
3. The first way is to turn to the Bible
4. Look at verse 4. For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we must have hope
5. The Bible is our strength
6. There has been many times when I have said I quit, even in the last week. But the Word of God is my strength.
a) God has the amazing ability to get us through any situation, When your down and discourage, turn to the Bible, It will give you the strength and the endurance to get through
7. The 2nd way is through Prayer
a) (Read 5-6)
8. Do not be afraid to go to God and let it out!
a) Do not be afraid to go to God and tell him how you feel
b) Read the Psalms, the writers of the Psalms do that, they let God have it
c) Tell God you are discourage Tell God you want to quit, tell God you cant take it anymore and then ask God to help
9. Ask him to help you get through the situation, it is amazing He will
10. I can not tell you how many times I have gotten to the point I quit, I told God I quit, and He got me through it
11. Prayer is the Strength
12. When you are trying to “Build Him up,” to borrow the phrase in verse 2, Him will get you upset, him will not listen, him will make you mad, him will make you want to quit
13. Him is not the Strength
14. God is the strength
15. You receive “the Strength” through the Bible and Prayer
III. The Reason (7)
A. Explanation
1. Ok Dan, the Job is to build up people, and we find the “Strength” to do the Job through the Bible and Prayer, just one more question? WHY?
2. Why Bother! What is the purpose of all of this pain, why should we have to suffer
3. If you have ever invested your whole self into someone only to have them not listen to you and turn their back on you it hurts
4. So why bother
5. Look at our verse of the week
6. Yes, our verse of the week is 7
7. The Reason?
8. God tells us it is our Job
9. This is not me telling you
10. This is not the Governing Board telling your what to do, this is not the your boss at your Job telling you what to do
11. This is God telling you
B. Application
1. Let’s apply this verse to our lives
2. Look at the Phrase “Just as Christ accepted you”
3. In our selfishness in our pride, we forget who we really are
4. We are sinners, and bad sinners at that, we do not deserve all of this that we have, we are sinners
5. Paul in another book calls him self the worse of sinners, this is the apostle Paul calling himself that, I have a bone to pick with Paul, I think I might be worse, and you might think your worse then me
6. But we are all sinners, and God accepted us
7. If God can accept us, despite how awful we are
8. Should we be able to accept each other?
9. Why? To bring praise to God!
10. To express your appreciation to God for given you life that you do not deserve
11. To express your indebt ness to God
C. Illustration
1. Do we become the unmerciful Servant
2. Turn to Matthew 18:23-35
3. (Read it)
4. Think about how much Jesus forgave you, shouldn’t you be able to accept another person?
Conclusion
A. This stuff that we have been talking about today is hard stuff
B. But it time we stop judging people
C. It is time that we stop trying to immediately write off people
D. It is time when we stop be selfish and put lay down
E. We have a couple of concluding thoughts
a. Building each other up is not an option, it is command
b. We can not Build each other up with our own strength: Our strength is God through the Bible and Prayer
c. If God can accept you, you can accept the one another
F. You might not always agree with the person
G. You might not always like the other person
H. That does not matter
I. Our Job is build people up using the Strength of God to bring praise to God
J. Maybe you’re here today day and you realize that you have not been building the person up because you have been selfish, if that is you, you need to repent
K. Maybe you are here today and there is the person that you have invested everything into and it just is not working and you have given up on them, if that is you, you need to gain strength
L. Maybe you are here today and you just don’t want to be involved in this because those people are not worth it, if that is you, take a look at yourself, God accepted you, you should be able to accept one another, if that is you, you need to repent
M. WE have a job to do
N. We have the Strength
O. And we have the reason
P. Go do it
Q. The question is are you on the same page as God about when Christians disagree?
