In his sermon 'The Precious Unity That Glorifies God,' Jason Dohm explores the concept of unity among believers, emphasizing its value both as a sweet, desirable state and as one that may require personal sacrifice. He draws on Paul's teachings from the book of Romans, where the apostle distinguishes between doctrinal truths and their practical applications. Dohm highlights the importance of understanding and living out the gospel, stressing that believers have a divine obligation to love one another as part of fulfilling the law. He underscores the need for the strong in faith to carry the burdens of the weak, advocating for an orientation towards others that mirrors Christ's own example of selfless service. Dohm also discusses the role of patience, comfort, and hope derived from scripture in nurturing a like-minded community that glorifies God. Ultimately, unity among Christians is seen as a means to collectively glorify God, and believers are encouraged to focus on what truly matters rather than secondary disputes.

The title of the sermon this morning is The Precious Unity that Glorifies God. All is setting before us unity, and it's precious in both senses of the word. It's precious in that it's sweet and valuable. It's highly valuable. And it's precious in the sense that it might cost you something.

It's not a unity that never costs anybody anything. Sometimes it actually comes at a cost to us. But we should see the value of it and know the sweetness of it so that when there's a cost to be paid, we'll happily pay it. So Paul brings us to this precious unity that brings honor to God and the world. It's designed to do that.

In Romans chapters one through 11 are theological in nature. They're doctrinal, They're about Bible truths that Paul wants to establish, and they're very particularly gospel truths about the good news that solves all of the bad news that comes with us and our sin. Chapters 12 through 16 are practical in nature. In other words, since chapters 1 through 11 are true, it ought to have this impact on our lives. It ought to work its way out in our lives in this, this, this, and this.

Paul put all of this as he started this sequence of chapters on the practical, what we should do as an implication of the gospel. He put all of this under the banner or within the framework of chapter 12 verse 1, I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God because God has been so merciful in these ways that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. Give your life back to God because of all of his mercies. And then this section that we're in right now began in chapter 13 verse 8 where Paul said, Oh knowing anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. So, so Paul wants us to have one central debt.

What's the debt that we need to keep repaying and keep repaying and keep repaying that that we love one another. And then in the verses that follow that he lists a bunch of Old Testament laws and he says, you can sum it up with this, love your neighbor as yourself. So the whole section, chapters 12 through 16, are under the banner of, God has been very merciful, present yourself back to him as a living sacrifice. And then this section is under the banner of love is the fulfillment of the law. The summary of the law is this love your neighbor as yourself.

Now for more than a chapter he's been essentially answering a question. What's the question? What do we do when we understand matters differently? There's a lot of different things that we're all concerned with. Do we all understand them the same way?

No way. Okay, what then? Paul tells us what then. It tells us how believers in the Lord Jesus Christ ought to behave towards one another when we see matters differently. Today we're all but concluding this section and it is about unity for the purpose of glorifying God.

So Paul is wrapping it up. We've been in this section for a chapter and a half basically now and Paul is wrapping it up by calling us to a unity that brings honor to God in the world. Let's ask God to help us. God, I thank you for the however many weeks we've been in this section where you tell us how to proceed when there's a matter or many matters that we don't see exactly the same way or don't see the same way at all. How should we behave towards one another?

Thank you for not leaving us alone with just our inclinations about that. We know that we'd end up at such a wrong place if we just followed our natural inclinations. So thank you for teaching us through especially through the example of the Lord Jesus how we ought to relate to one another in our differences. Pray that you would press on these truths and that it would change change us move us forward help us in Jesus name. Amen.

Alright, subdividing as always. Hopefully your Bibles are still open to Romans chapter 15. Let me reread verses 1 and 2. Follow along as I reread verses one and two. Paul continues, We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves.

Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification. In these two verses, Paul talks about setting aside our wants in order to carry the weak. So if you're taking notes on the handout by filling in blanks once and week, fill in the two blanks. Setting aside our wants or what we want in order to carry the weak, He begins with an exhortation to the strong, so a strong encouragement to the strong. And again, in defining the terms, strong, as Paul is speaking of it here, isn't people who have the most trust in Jesus.

There are other places in the New Testament that uses it in that way, but that's not how Paul is using it here. This is people who have a strong understanding of what it means to be in the New Covenant and how to apply the gospel according to the mind of God. So really connected with the mind of God. That's what the strong is here. The weak have thoughts about things that are actually disconnected from the mind of God on things.

And is it true that you're always strong across all the different matters that would be considered? Of course not. You would find yourself strong in understanding of Being connected with the mind of God on some things and weak and understanding and disconnected from the mind of God on others Only you don't know which is which we all think we're a very strong and connected with the mind of God on everything But that's simply not true So So Paul is really awakening us to that fact. You might be very well be strong on one matter and weak on another, so all of this is applicable to all of us. Paul says, we then who are strong.

He is the inspired apostle Paul, so he's stronger than any of us on probably all the matters that we would be thinking about and encountering. And so he associates with the strong and so he includes himself in this strong encouragement to the strong. What is that encouragement? The strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please themselves. Now I hate to get too technical but I want to make four comments on translating this from the Greek into the English.

Here are my four comments. First, ought, We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the week. This word being translated ought means to owe, to be in debt. So this isn't a divine suggestion. This is a divine obligation that God through the inspired Apostle Paul is giving to strong believers, people who are connected with the mind of God on whatever matter is in question.

They have a divine obligation to these things that Paul is calling them to. Second, we see bear with. We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the week, the new American standard actually doesn't have with just says, bear the weaknesses of the week. That's how it translates the rest of the phrase. But it omits the word with, and that is actually correct.

I think adding the word with here is particularly unhelpful because in what we mean when we say bear with, the Greek word that's being translated really doesn't have that sense. The Greek word that is being translated means to bear, to carry, to put on yourself. So, this is not to tolerate. That's in English, isn't that what we mean when we say bear with something? Put up with, bear with, tolerate it.

Oh no, no, no, this is not what Paul means. Paul means to bear the the scruples or the weaknesses or the infirmities of the weak, not just to tolerate, to like to take up, to carry, to put on your back. Third, scruples. When was the last time you used scruples in a sentence? It's been a long time, I'm sure, if ever.

You may have never used that. So I'll say that the King James renders it infirmities. And the King James renders it infirmities because the lexicon says that this word being translated means infirmity of error arising from weakness of mind. And that is exactly what is in view here. An infirmity of error arising from weakness of mind.

You are not connected with the mind of God on this though you might think that you are, you aren't. And then finally, what is translated, not to please ourselves, that sequence of Greek words means to accommodate oneself to the opinions, desires, and interests of others. So I'm not blaming the translators. The reason you have a lexicon is to be able to expand it out. But if you expanded every word that's being translated out, the Bible wouldn't look like this.

It would look like this. You know, it would be this book that was that high. So we shouldn't expect them to do that. I'm thankful that they didn't do that. But when it comes to carefully studying a passage, it helps sometimes on keywords to go to the lexicon and let them expand it out in not please ourselves when you let the lexicon expanded out.

That's what you get to accommodate oneself to the opinions, desires, and interests of others." So the strong have a divine obligation to bear the infirmities in the understanding of the weak and to accommodate themselves to the interests of the weak. That's really what Paul is getting here. The strong, people who are connected with the mind of God on a matter, having a divine obligation to carry on their backs, to take up the infirmities of the understanding of the weak and to accommodate themselves to the interests of the weak, to abandon their own interests if need be, to take up the interests of the weak. In Darwinism, survival of the fittest, only the strong survive, the infirm get left behind, Right? That's how it works.

You can't keep up. I got nothing for you. The pack's gotta keep moving. The strong gotta keep moving. You have an infirmity you get left behind.

In Christianity, the infirm get carried by the strong. Paul says that here. Give me Christianity, amen. In humanism, everyone has one life to live, so everyone pleases themselves. The objective is actually to bend everyone else to accommodate my interests.

In Christianity, the strong accommodate themselves to the interests of the weak. In Christianity, the great are the servants of all. That's what Jesus said. Give me Christianity, amen. But, but this is a very targeted accommodation of the interests of the week.

Look again at verse two. Let each of us please his neighbor or accommodate himself to the interests of his neighbor for his good leading to edification. So it's a very specific purpose. For the good of your neighbor, leading to the building up of your neighbor. So Paul isn't saying, give the weak everything they want all the time and for any and every reason that's not what he's saying that's not what he's teaching you.

He's saying it is for his good leading to him being built up, your neighbor being good, for her good, leading to her being built up. Edification. So the weak in understanding don't get left behind, they get built up. That's what Paul has in mind. That's what God has in mind.

Not the weak getting left behind. Oh well, you're disconnected from the mind of God. Oh well, we leave you behind. No, no, no way. The strong take the weak up on their back.

They put the weak on their back and they act in their interests for their good and The purpose is to build them up. Notice in verse 2 Paul shifts from the week. In verse 1 it was the week. In verse 2 it is your neighbor. Why the shift?

I think there are two reasons. One, Paul is drawing on the end of chapter 13, where as the heading of the section is love your neighbor. So I think by switching from the weak in verse 1 to your neighbor in verse 2, he's saying this is an application of love your neighbor. What does it mean to love your neighbor? When your neighbor is weak in understanding, disconnected from the mind of God on a matter, you don't leave them behind like the Darwinists do.

You don't bend them to your interests like the humanists do, but you take them up on your back if you can. You act in their interests for their good leading to building them up. That's what the calling is. This is an application of love your neighbor. So I think that's one of the reasons for the switch.

Number two, I think the other reason why Paul is switching from the weak in verse one to your neighbor in verse two is that this is to be the orientation all Christians should have. If you're weak, you should have this orientation. If you're strong, you should have this orientation. If you're a Gentile, you should have this orientation. If you're a Jew, you should have this orientation.

This Others centered orientation is not for just the weak or just the strong or just gentiles or just Jews. It is for believers in Jesus because Jesus is oriented towards others and as we're conformed to his image And as we follow him, we become more oriented towards others. Now, verse three, moving to verse three, policy, Paul writes, for even Christ did not please himself. But as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you, God, capital Y, you, God, fell on me. In verse 3, Paul gives us the ultimate example, who's always the ultimate example is Jesus.

Why does Paul say, even Christ? Even Christ did not please himself. Here's what Rob Ventura says, and I think he hits the nail on the head. Rob Ventura says, the word even, implying that had anyone ever been entitled to please himself, it would have been Jesus. Do you buy that proposition?

Okay, we have all the people who have ever lived, and there's one who's entitled to please himself. Who is it? This one's easy. Okay, It's Jesus. If there's only one in all of human history entitled to please himself, it's Jesus because he's not just man, he's the God man.

He left heaven to come and take on the form of a servant. Who gets to please himself of all of humanity? It's Jesus. If we have one exception, let's make him the exception, but Paul is saying he didn't make himself an exception. Even Christ did not please himself.

Jesus is the Lord of the believer. Jesus is the master of the believer. And if our master did not shrink back from accommodating himself to my interests, our interests, and our calling is to follow him and walk as he walked and be conformed to his image. How can we shrink back? That's really the nature of the argument.

If Jesus didn't shrink back from accommodating himself to my interests, our interests, and I'm supposed to learn how to become like him, How can I shrink back from what Paul is calling us to in this text? In Matthew 20 verse 28 Jesus said, The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. So we can do the same thought experiment. All of humanity, if there's one person in humanity who ought to be served and not serve, Who would that be? Same answer, Jesus.

But Jesus didn't make himself the exception, though he would be the logical exception. He came to serve and not to be served. He came to give his life as a ransom for many. In 2 Corinthians 8, verse 9, Paul wrote, Jesus was rich. Yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich." Jesus was rich.

Master of understanding. Jesus was in heaven as God from eternity past, enjoying his godhood. Enjoying the fellowship and love which exists in the Trinity from eternity past, no beginning to that. Enjoying the glory of being God and he impoverished himself. Why did he do that?

So I could become rich for his own interest? No! It didn't serve his own interests other than he receives glory by being my Savior now. But he set aside being rich to become impoverished so that I could be rich, so that believers in Jesus could be rich. Talking about accommodating himself to the interests of the weak.

If we're talking about strong and weak, who's the ultimate in strength? Jesus Christ. Who's the ultimate in weakness? The sinner, dead in sin. What will I do for myself?

What will I do for myself? Dead in sin, in that desperate condition, What can I do for myself? The dead don't do anything for themselves. They're dead. Talk about strong and weak.

Jesus and the sinner, dead in trespasses and sins. He accommodated himself to the interests of the weak. That's me. That's you. In today's text, Paul quotes part of Psalm 69, 9.

That's about half of this one verse, Psalm 69, 9. The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. Mankind's rebellion against God and hatred of God was acted out on Jesus. Isn't that what that means? The reproaches of those who reproached God fell on God's Son.

At the cross, mankind's rebellion against God and hatred of God was acted out on Jesus. We hate you, we'll crucify you. By the way, The first half of that same verse, which isn't quoted in our text, but I'll give you the first half of that verse, is, Zeal for your house has eaten me up. Which John the Gospel writer quotes in John 2 verse 17. So we know that this is messianic.

Jesus goes into the temple and he turns over the tables and he drives out the money changers and those who were selling in the temple courts and it makes the disciples remember, oh yeah it says in Psalm 69, 9 zeal for your house has eaten me up. So we so we know this is about the Messiah because we've already had a gospel writer point us back to there and point to Jesus as the fulfillment of this same verse. Psalm 69 is a psalm of David. David is a type of the Messiah who points forward to and teaches about Jesus. Jesus was the son of David.

David's the type and Jesus is the fulfillment. And David's sufferings were a type of Jesus's sufferings. Psalm 69, nine is about David's sufferings, but not really about David's sufferings. It's really pointing forward to and teaching us about the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. The point is this, if Jesus was willing to allow the rebellion against God and the hatred of God to be acted out on himself to take me from death to life.

I was dead in my sins, but now I'm alive." How did that happen? Well Jesus allowed the rebellion against God and the hatred of God to be acted out on himself on the cross. If that is true, how can I refuse to accommodate myself to my brothers or sisters interests? That's the whole argument here. Jesus subjected himself to that, to take me from death to life.

Now I'm going to say, no, I will not accommodate myself to my brothers or my sisters interest. How absurd is that? Paul is bringing us face to face with the absurdity of taking that position. No one would ever say, I'm taking this position. I will not accommodate myself to the interests of my brother or sister.

No one's bold enough to say that. But we actually construct lives that say that without saying Jesus did it in a great thing. I'm being asked to do it in a small thing, Forgo a little meat or something like that. Is that what's been before us? Can I eat meat or not eat meat?

Some people can eat meat with a clear conscience. People who are disconnected from the mind of God on the matter can't do it without doubting, can't do it without sinning. So I'm being called to forgo eating a little meat. Jesus did it in a great thing. I'm just being called to forgo a little meat.

Jesus did it for his enemies. I'm being asked to do it for my brothers and sisters. Do you see a difference there? Jesus died for his enemies. Jesus died for rebels.

Jesus died for people who hated Him and wanted to displace Him to be God for themselves. We're being asked to do a smaller thing for people that we ought actually to have affection for in our hearts. In summary, Jason, simply follow Jesus. See what he's doing? He's the Lord, he's the Master.

Follow him, walk in his steps, Walk as He walked. As Jesus said in Matthew 10 verse 8, freely you have received, freely give. So it's right that thought. Because of the mercies of God offer yourselves back to God. Live for God.

You've received an abundance, give a little. Freely you have received freely give. Are we being called in that? Freely you've received freely give. Are you being called to give it all up you received X now give X no no way.

You've received A through Z. Now give X. Out of A through Z, out of the riches that you've received, give this little." Verses four and five. Paul continues, For whatever things were written before, were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another according to Christ Jesus.

In verses four and five, Paul points us to the testimony that delivers God's patience and comfort, nurturing our unity. So unity fills in the one blank if you're filling in blanks, the testimony that delivers God's patience and comfort, nurturing our unity. Now Paul expands on his quotation of an Old Testament passage. He just quoted half of, not a whole verse, half of Psalm 69 verse 9. So we just got done looking through the microscope.

We looked at half of one of the 23, 145, so thankful for Google, I didn't have to count those verses this morning, I could just Google it. The Old Testament has 23, 145 verses. Paul just had us look at half of one of them. We've been looking through the microscope. It's helpful, but all we've been looking at is through half of a verse.

Now, Paul takes us from the microscope to the telescope. So under a microscope, you take a drop of pond water and you put it under a slide and you look and you see are there all these living amoebas, creatures, you remember doing this in high school? Maybe you homeschoolers haven't done it. We did that. A drop of pond water.

You're thinking, that's disgusting. All that is in a drop of pond water? Yes, all that is in a drop of pond water. So now he's taking us from that and he actually puts us in front of a telescope to look at the ocean. The whole of scripture.

And he says that, looking through the telescope at the whole ocean that was all written for our learning that was all written for our instruction so why did those things happen so it could be written down why was it written down so we could read it so that we could learn from it, so that we could study it, so that we could memorize it, so that we could have all those things about the mind of God that we're disconnected with, we could actually become connected with and begin to view those things rightly. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 11, Paul talked about the Old Testament histories. He runs you through a series of things that you can learn about in the Old Testament in the history of God's dealings with his people. Then he says this in 1 Corinthians 10 verse 11, Now all these things happened to them as examples and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come. So all those things from the Old Testament histories, happenings.

God had those things happen to give us examples and had all that written down so that we could learn from them, could be instructed by them. The Old Testament scriptures for Paul and those of his time, those were the scriptures they had, And all of scripture for us, because now the New Testament is finished and widely distributed, were written to deliver, to hand to us, patience and comfort so that we might have hope. Now let's break that down. Patience and comfort, we might have hope. How do the scriptures deliver patience and comfort to the believer?

Paul says that the scriptures do deliver patience and comfort to the believer. How do they do it? When I read and reread and reread the scriptures, I just might notice that the world does not revolve around me. You pick up on that when you read your Bible? When I read and reread the scriptures, I just might notice things are not organized around my ease or for my entertainment.

When I read and reread the scriptures I just might notice that I'm not the first to encounter hardship and sufferings that actually the history of God's people is a history of hardship and sufferings but also God's faithfulness in the face of hardship and suffering so that the people of God who are recorded here actually learned to know God, learned to walk with God, learned to trust God because of the hardships and sufferings. Not in spite of, because of the hardship and the sufferings. And that was God's, actually God's grand purpose in bringing them into hardship and sufferings. The scriptures instruct me that the world revolves around God. And that things are organized to bring God glory not me ease and comfort and entertain me that hardship and suffering are actually both for my good I need them.

I can't do without the hardships and sufferings that God brings into my life. Scripture teaches me that. You absolutely need them. They're essential and for God's glory. Hardship and sufferings are actually both for my good.

I need them and for God's glory. He receives honor when I grow through the hardships and sufferings that he brings into my life, and when I flourish in the midst of the hardships and sufferings, nothing teaches you about God like experiencing, finding, that you not only survive the hardships and sufferings that he's brought to you, so first it teaches you he brought them to you. This is not time and chance working itself out and oh I just happen to be in these hardships and sufferings. No, the Bible teaches you God did that and Actually not with a purpose to harm you but a purpose to help you he's helping us and We we learned to know Him when He shows us, demonstrates to us, we find that we not only survive hardships and sufferings, but we flourish in the middle of hardships and sufferings. People look on to Christians when they matured to the point that they can see this and experience this when God has brought them to that point that actually they're not surviving hardships and sufferings but they're actually growing and flourishing in the middle of them because of them.

People look on and say, I can't believe what I'm witnessing. This should be crushing them. How is this not crushing them? As an example, Taylor and I hatched a conspiracy. We did not.

Hebrews 11 that Taylor read from. It's not the Hall of Fame. Football and basketball have a Hall of Fame. Christians have a Hall of Faith. And it is Hebrews chapter 11, this list of people that God brought into and through sometimes through to martyrdom hardships and sufferings but they learned to know God and trust God and walk with God and flourish in God through their hardships and sufferings.

And so the author of Hebrews makes a long list of people who all that happened to them. So I should be patient or endure, and I can be patient and endure. The Bible teaches me that. So I should take comfort in the middle of hardships and suffering or be encouraged. And I can take comfort in hardship and suffering or be encouraged.

All of this leads to hope, My having a confident expectation of the future. That's what hope is in the New Testament. Confident and expectation of the future. Not wishful thinking but knowing that something will happen that hasn't happened because God is behind it. God said He would never leave me or forsake me and I have concrete proofs of that in my life.

How many concrete proofs do you have in your life that God will not leave you or forsake you? You started to make a list, you would make a long list, you've been walking with the Lord for a while. Okay, This was a hardship in my life. But you know what? God brought me through it.

And sometimes on your list you'll encounter things and you'll remember things that you didn't remember before. And they're quite miraculous. There's really no logical explanation for what happened next in the thing on your list. The thing that you would have guessed would have happened last, next didn't happen next, but God did something remarkable to bring you through it. Do you have concrete proofs like that?

I have a bunch of concrete proofs like that. I'm seeing some smiles around the room. I can see you're making a list in your mind. I'm glad. Many concrete proofs that God will never leave me or forsaken.

God has made me many, many promises about my future in His Son, Jesus Christ. And I can see from scripture that He has always been a promise maker and always been a promise keeper. So you go, you start in Genesis and you're reading, God made a promise, God made a promise, God made a promise, God made a promise, God makes a promise, God likes to make promises. You learn that from reading your Bible. Okay?

He kept this one, kept this one, kept this one, kept this one, you keep going down the list. Promise kept, promise kept, Promise kept. And I can see that he has been a promise maker to me too. A lot of these promises weren't to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. A lot of them are to anyone who will trust in Jesus Christ.

So I can see, okay, there's these promises that have been made to me. Oh, he's kept this one in this way. He's kept this one in that way. He's kept this one in this way. He's kept this one in that way.

I can see that he's been a promise maker to me too and a promise keeper to me too. Now in verse 5, Paul expresses a desire and calls on God for it. So look at the desire that he expresses and look at him call on God for it in verse 5. Re-read it. Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another according to Christ Jesus." Aha!

So the Bible is not some sort of separate independent magical book that somehow can give you patience and comfort. No, the God of patience and comfort has established it, given it as an instrument to provide patient and comfort to his people. If you didn't have that second verse, if you just had the first verse, you might think there was something mythical about this book, magical about this book that somehow, patient and comfort could flow through you. But then in verse five when he says, now may the God of patience and comfort, you say, oh, I see, it's not a magical book at all. God has given it and established it as an instrument through which patience flows to me.

Comfort flows to me. Hope flows to me. The Bible has come to us through the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit moved directly, acted directly upon authors of Scripture across 1, 500 years and then the Holy Spirit brings it to life for Christians. It's a dead book to dead people, but it's an alive book to alive people and the Holy Spirit throws light on it to help you to understand what is actually incomprehensible to people who aren't spiritually alive yet and uses it as a channel of patience and comfort and hope.

Patience flows down the channel from God into my life through the instrument of the Holy Spirit. Same with comfort, same with hope. Paul's desire that he is calling on God for is that God would give us, God would grant believers a like-mindedness toward one another that is consistent with what we find in our Lord Jesus. So he wants us to have this like-mindedness and it is characterized by what we find in Jesus. Is Paul asking for all differences in understanding to disappear?

We all think the same thing all the time. No. Paul is asking God to give us the same disposition towards one another. I love you, you love me. We love each other mutually, reciprocally, and biblically.

So real love, not this stuff that you see on the Hallmark channel, or not exclusively that. We love each other biblically, and sometimes it costs, and we pay the cost because because we're Christians and we're following Jesus and his love was very costly and so we understand what real love is. We love each other that way. I accommodate myself to your interests to build you up. You accommodate yourself to my interests to build me up.

The scriptures give me patience and comfort and hope to make these sacrifices sustainable. Isn't that true? Are we built as humans to keep going and going and going, sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, without patience, comfort, and hope? No way. We're not built as humans to be able to sustain that without patience and comfort and hope.

So God gives us this channel so that he can have these things flowing into our lives so the sacrifices he call us to we actually have resources for. I think that is the connection of these things here. The scriptures give you patience and comfort and hope to make the sacrifices that God is calling you to in this text sustainable. This is the people who can diminish their own interests and submit them to the interests of others. People who have a channel of patience and comfort, of endurance and encouragement, and a Strong expectation of a future, a glorious future with God.

This is the people who can diminish their own interests and submit themselves to the interests of others. As we grow in Christlikeness, we are also growing towards each other. Isn't that true? I'm growing to be a little more like Jesus, not as fast as I would like or you would like, but you also are growing towards Jesus, maybe not as fast as you would like or I would like, but as we both grow towards Jesus we're actually growing towards each other as well because we're getting this like-mindedness in disposition towards one another. Finally verse 6.

That you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Here Paul gives us the end point. Unity that glorifies God. Glorifies fills in the blank. That's what God is after here.

That's the endpoint in view. A unity, a like-mindedness, a togetherness that glorifies God. That, all this that Paul has been teaching us about, that this is the purpose of this like-mindedness. That corporately together, we would have a single-minded view of God. We would all know him as infinitely good and gracious.

So, God is good and gracious. How good? How gracious? Well, it's like an ocean with no shores and no bottom. Infinitely good and gracious.

We would all know God as infinitely beautiful in all his perfections. He has all of these characteristics. The Bible teaches us that God is this and this and this and this. He has all of these characteristics and every one of them is perfect. How perfect?

Well, it's like an ocean with no shores and no bottom. Infinitely perfect in every characteristic and beautiful in all of his perfections and as infinitely worthy God wants us all to know him as infinitely worthy how worthy well it's like an ocean with no shores and no bottom. Infinitely worthy of our lives, of all of our worship. We give all of our worship and yet he's worthy infinitely beyond all of our worship. That would be what we all think about God.

So one mind. What do you think about God? That's what we think about God. He's infinite, infinitely good and gracious. He's infinitely beautiful in all his perfections.

He's infinitely worthy of all of the praise that we can give and then infinitely beyond that. That would be what we all think about God in one mind and what we all say about God, one mouth, our unified thoughts about God would extend to our unified testimony about God. We all think this is who God is based on Scripture and experience and then that works its way out in our unified testimony. We tell the world this is God. This is the God that we've come to know.

Giving Him the glory that is due to his name. We owe a debt. If God is really like that, we owe the debt to tell the world that God is really like that. If he's not, then it doesn't matter. Which is it?

No, he's really like that. We know by scripture and experience. He's taught us by scripture and by his dealings with us in our lives that he's like that. Well then we owe a debt to give him the glory that is due to his name, to pay the debt of saying what he's taught us that he's like. Paul is pulling us up out of lesser things like whether or not we eat meat to greater things.

We were all made to glorify God together. You know glorifying God, worshiping God is meant to be a team sport, it really is. And contentions over secondary matters erodes that, disempowers that, devalues that. So we should be very sensitive to the sources of those contentions and strive to keep clear of the sources of those contentions. If we thought that our contentions over secondary matters eroded our ability to give him the glory due to his name that we owe because of what he's like.

Would we be sensitive to the sources of those contentions. You better believe it. Finally, under the New Covenant, the people of God glorify God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament saints didn't know Him as that because they were seeing through a glass darkly. They were seeing dimly what we can see so clearly because we have our New Testament in hand.

But we know God and glorify God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything good that we ever had came to us through the person and work of Jesus Christ. And when we think of God, we ought to think of Him and glorify Him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who left heaven to die for sinners like us.