Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 15 and find verse 1. Romans 15 verse 1. This is the inerrant all-sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God, Romans 15.1. 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.

For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproach you fell on me. 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 Jesus Christ, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Therefore receive one another Just as Christ has received also received us to the glory of God. Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, for this reason I will confess you among the Gentiles and sing to your name.

And again he says, rejoice oh Gentiles with his people. And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles. Laud him, all you peoples. And again, Isaiah says, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, in him the Gentiles shall hope. Now, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Oh Lord in these verses we pray that you would help us to grasp the heights of the plans you have for us to create a church that is a living picture of the love of Jesus Christ. Oh Lord, I thank you for this church. I'm so grateful that you are doing that here and it's such a blessing to be able to open these words here that we might hear from you, amen.

Please be seated. So Romans 15, these verses that were in here, Paul is continuing to present a case study for handling conflict and division in local churches. And the problem is identified, the issues have been identified already in Romans chapter 14. And so when we come to Romans 15, he's the apostle still speaking of the things that he has in the past from Romans 14 verse one. And he's really teaching this local church, the church in Rome, how to keep from being torn apart through unnecessary divisions.

And this is a big deal. It must be a big deal to Paul. Check it out. I haven't counted the number of words, but Paul spills a lot of ink on this issue from 14 verse one all the way to chapter 15 verse 13, and he actually deals with the same thing in three chapters in the Corinthian letter. So it's really a big deal.

And so he's addressing a problem that happens in churches that arise out of people coming together from different cultures, that arise out of different levels of knowledge of scripture. Praise the Lord, people come into the church, some with no knowledge of the word of God and some with a lot, and we all kind of morph together and learn from one another. Some who have weak consciences, others have strong consciences, They're debatable matters that are thrown into the mix of this whole thing. And the apostle is teaching a local church how not to be unnecessarily divided over debatable matters. Now, we know this.

I'm going to be the master of the painfully obvious here. Some people just can't be happy unless they're talking about what they disagree about. They just can't be happy unless they're talking about the latest disagreement. And that's sort of like the default position of their character. And it's, it, it, it, everybody comes by it naturally or honestly in this sense.

You know, social media is, is incessantly delivering up tasty morsels for you to chew on, and then you chew on one another as a result. And, you know, the news cycle, Twitter, it's just built on controversy. Headlines are built to make you click on them, and the most controversial and the most outrageous are the most clicked on. That's the society that we live in. And so The apostle is dealing with the way that this was playing itself out in the Roman church.

At the same time, I just want to calibrate for a minute the whole context because The Apostle Paul has really been talking about the culture of a church since Romans 12 verse 1, and he's been identifying various matters that really are the fruits of the power of the gospel, which he communicated in the first 11 chapters. The first 11 chapters he declares the danger that mankind is in without Jesus Christ. And the solution, of course, is substitutionary atonement. Well, that's chapters one through 11. And then we get to chapter 12.

All the way to chapter 16, which we're headed for, the apostle is speaking about what a culture Jesus Christ is trying to create in his church. And it's very, very beautiful, beautiful language. And so, but here in Romans 14 and 15, he's speaking about debatable matters, something that is not explicitly condemned in scripture. It's perhaps on matters of liberty. He's not talking about whether you can divorce your wife or watch evil things or listen to demonic music or squander your life doing frivolous things.

He's not talking about things that are absolutely explicitly prohibited in scripture. He's talking about debatable areas that we come into the church with that aren't specifically handled in scripture. And on the one hand, some people might think they are specifically handled, and other people might think they aren't specifically handled in the scripture. So that's the kettle of fish we're dealing with here. Now, I wanna laser beam us to the center of this text, the center of the message of this text.

As we go through the details of these verses, as we'll walk through them, the apostle is driving to one single thing. Everything he says is really a buildup and then a consummation in verse 13. Go ahead and look at it, verse 13. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." So that's what Paul is driving at and this the subject is hope And this word appears three times in Romans chapter 15. And I know that you're probably aware that we named our church Hope Baptist Church many years ago because of the scripture that teaches about the hope that there is in Jesus Christ and it's very broad and very significant.

There's only one hope for sinners, that's Jesus Christ. There's only one hope for an abundant life, that is in Jesus Christ. There is only one hope really for one another, and that is that Jesus Christ will sanctify us. And there's only one hope for eternal life in heaven, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. So these verses were key in really the founding of our church and the naming of it way, way back then, Romans 15 verse four.

We so prayed that we would be a people who placed their hope, their whole hope in the Holy Scriptures. And that's why verse four reads like it is, that we through the patience and the comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. Or verse 12, people whose hope is in Jesus Christ and in Christ alone. In verse 12, and he shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, in him the Gentiles shall hope. And then a people whose hope really arises out of the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15, 13. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." So the Apostle Paul has already in chapter 14 told us not to lose hope for one another, for the redeemed. Now, an unredeemed person is in a hopeless state until they turn to Jesus Christ. But if you have a redeemed sinner who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ and who's being transformed, You should not lose hope for that person, no matter what stage they are in their spiritual development or what you might disagree about. And what the Apostle Paul has been saying all through Romans 14 in the previous chapter is that if a person is truly born again, God will take care of him.

The language is God will make him stand. God is able to help him to stand. God will sustain his people and he'll sustain his people all the way to the end, and that means you, if you believe in him. And God is able to make you to stand, that's what he says. And so then he says, well, who are you to judge since God is gonna make his people stand?

So That's the basic thrust of Romans 14 and 15. Now, I've put together what I'm calling building blocks of hope in a local church. And there are five of them. And first of all, to bear with one another. Second, to please your neighbor.

Third, to rejoice in the patience and comfort of the scriptures. Fourth, to fulfill Paul's prayer for like-mindedness that glorifies God. And then finally, to answer Paul's prayer for hope. So that's where I want to go with this. These are building blocks of real harmony in a church.

So The first building block is bear with one another. That's in verse one. Bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves. Scruples are feelings, strong feelings for something or against something. It might be a feeling that doubts something.

And in this context, some doubt that they should eat meat offered to idols. Others think it's fine. These are scruples that people have. But notice the command, bear with the scruples of the weak. In other words, stick with your fellow believers.

Stick with them. Stick it out with them. The language that the Apostle uses is really graphic. And for example, this word bear with is used for carrying water in Mark 14. So the idea is carrying, bear with, carry the scruples of the week.

It's also used in Acts 21 verse 35 for carrying a man. It's used also of carrying the cross of Jesus Christ. So the idea is to bear up under, to lift up, to hang on to that person, and in the midst of their scruples, And that means that there should be an exercise of the will to bear up. It takes effort to do that. It actually takes effort to bear up the scruples of the week when you disagree with somebody to sit back and not feel like you have to correct everybody or be, you know, always pounding away at your view of something.

And, you know, also I want to make a note here. Maybe this is obvious. Romans 15 is not a personal love letter to you, okay? It's a letter to a church. It's a letter to a group of people that are interacting with one another, who know one another.

And it's sort of a problem when you get to know people. You know, it would be a lot easier to have church life where nobody really knows anybody? Because you could just come in and go home and everything would be beautiful. But then you start getting to know people. And frankly, you know, some people are, well, you know.

And, but this is not a letter to you. This is a letter about a local church and how they function together. You know, and what is a local church? A local church is an assembly of believers who've covenanted with the Lord by faith to worship God, to preach the word, to obey the Lord, to administer the ordinances of baptism in the Lord's Supper, to exercise church discipline, and to live under the headship of Jesus Christ by obedience to the word of God. That's what a church is.

And so Paul wants this local church, the collective body, like all the interactions that take place in that church, that it would be a hope-filled church. And I hope that's who we are. I think that's who we are. I'm very, very grateful. But here in these verses, Christ is the example of hope.

And then the second building block of hope is to please your neighbor, verses two and three. Let us, let each of us please his neighbor for his good leading to edification. So you have two things here in this single verse. Pleasing the neighbor for his good, and there's an objective that leads to his edification. And to please, it's not the same thing as man-pleasing.

It's not the same thing as just agreeing to get along. It's not the same thing as man pleasing. It's not the same thing as just agreeing to get along. It's not the same thing as being fake. It's actually a general disposition of generosity toward your fellow believer.

But The reason, the purpose of pleasing your neighbor, and it's important that we're, there are ways that we please one another. But the purpose is to build up. And you have this word edification, leading to edification. You know what an edifice is, right? It's a building.

And then this has to do with a builder of a house or building some kind of structure. In the Bible, God makes it very clear that every member has a responsibility to build up the body of Christ. We don't just exist on our own, but we exist in the midst of a community of people. And so he's using this language of a builder of a house to build up to architect. Some of you are builders.

You know the process. There are various phases in building that are necessary. And he's actually repeating what he said in chapter 14 verse 19. Have you noticed there are a lot of repeats in chapter 14 and 15? Yeah there are.

There's a reason we need repetition and so in 14 19 he says Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify one another." And we were looking at that word pursue the things that make for peace and edify. It brings forth the imagery of hunting. You're hunting, you're hunting down ways to make peace. Hunting for ways to build up one another, not to tear down. And the apostle, he doesn't just leave it there, he actually addresses the complexity of the matter.

He says in 1st Corinthians 10 23, all things are lawful for me but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me but, and get this, not all things edify, not all things build up. And so in the church we don't just do whatever we want, say whatever we want, we have a responsibility toward one another to build one another up. That's why God put us together, you know, even in this room. And I think the apostle is saying, don't be self-obsessed, don't be self-absorbed, you know, don't be such a narcissist.

You're just there just minding your own business, ignoring people, you're not caring about them. That's not the culture that God has really designed for his church. You have these, hey we all tend to want to be passive with one another. And we like to plan our time around ourselves, around the people that we want to be with and all this kind of stuff. And really, There's just a tendency in us to fraternize with the people who are like us, who think like us.

The tendency to just talk to our friends. We default to ease. We always want to be with our family and just be with a comfortable situation rather than actually you know coming alongside of others in the body of Christ. In the church, here's what God has done. He gives everybody two families.

You have your biological family and you have your church family. You have your little family and you have your big family. And when you're among the big family, remember, it's a big family. So don't just stay with your family, you know. And he gives this example, become like Christ, and then he's quoting Psalm 69, for even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me." He's giving the example of Jesus Christ.

Let me just say it like this. Nobody bore the scruples of the weak like Jesus Christ. Okay? Jesus Christ bore all of our ridiculous scruples. He did, he does, he will.

And Compared to the Lord Jesus, every believer is a weaker brother. Doesn't quite get everything, you know, and he bears our sins. He actually bears the weight of the punishment that we deserved for our sins. And to believe in Jesus Christ is to have the weight of your sins lifted off of your shoulders and put on the shoulders of Jesus Christ. He bore our sins.

And he did not gratify himself. And frankly, you know, from a time a child is born, you know, one of the most critical things that parents do is they teach their children not to be narcissists, to think that the world centers around them and that there are other people that they need to pay attention to. And you know, Paul says this so clearly in Philippians, Philippians two, verse five. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond servant and coming in the likeness of men and Being found in appearance as a man. He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death even the death on the cross So the Lord Jesus Christ He was the ultimate one who pleased His neighbor by sacrificing His life and his earthly comforts.

You know, it's so important that in a church, we learn these things, but these things are cultivated at home, actually. For example, Don't you love to watch your kids playing happily? Don't you love that? And doesn't it rankle you when they're not? So, so children, children, are you looking at me children?

So here's my question for you. Would it be possible that you set yourself to please your siblings? That you would want to please your brother? That you would want to please your sister. That you wouldn't want to just take what they have, bonk them on the head, take their blocks and run the other direction.

I mean, you don't have to live that way. And the apostle really is saying, children, do you want to tear down or do you want to build up? And it's really critical that parents have an eye for this and they train their children not to be hard on one another. And that sets them up. And frankly, in my experience, you know, often you'll have problems in church life that actually go back down into family life.

You have somebody who didn't learn how to honor. They didn't learn how to honor authority, They didn't learn how to honor authority, they didn't learn how to honor one another, and you get church divisions because somebody didn't learn the importance of authority and submission. So, yes, we do love to watch our children play happily, And that's what the apostle is advocating, to please your neighbor. And then thirdly, to rejoice in the blessings of the scriptures. I really find this fascinating.

Verse four is very striking. You wonder why it's here. Well, I think I know why it's here. Verse four, for whatever things were written before were written for our learning that we may through the patience and comfort of the scriptures we might have hope. What?

The scriptures are patient? Yes, they are, they are patient. Look at the characters in the Bible. Look at all the flawed people that Jesus Christ saves. God gives the scriptures as a source of patience.

The scriptures are given to us to teach us the way in which we should go, to help us to learn how to walk with God and with one another and in the civil realm. He's teaching us how to do that. You just think for a second how patient God has been with you in all the matters of the Word of God, all the commands of God, all the principles that are there. You know, You know, James says that if you've broken one law, you've broken them all. What that means is that God is patient with his people.

He casts a vision for what he has designed, and then he takes you there, he takes you there slowly and he takes different people there at different rates of speed and this is the patience and the comfort of the scriptures. You can read the scriptures, be convicted by them, but also comforted knowing that Jesus Christ has forgiven you of all of your sins. And that's the patience and the comfort of the scripture. And why? So that we might have hope.

We might have hope. And so it's the scriptures that are of hope and are of comfort for us. You know, it's pretty obvious that lots of people in our society have lost hope, have lost confidence, particularly in our institutions. I think there's like a general loss of hope that runs all throughout the culture. Like the recent Gallup poll on confidence in institutions says that 8% of Americans have confidence in Congress.

8%, that's down from 42% in 1973. So you've got this hopeless slide that's going on. Confidence in big business, 13%. Confidence in newspapers, 14%. Confidence in television news, 13%.

Confidence in public schools, 26%. That's way down from 62% in 1975. News, 13 percent. Confidence in public schools, 26 percent. That's way down from 62 percent in 1975.

The medical system, 33 percent have confidence in the medical system. 33%, how many of you have gone to the doctor lately? Did you go in with just such brimming confidence that everything you would hear would be just exactly what you need? Well, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. Even in the presidency, 26% have confidence in the presidency.

Twenty-five, less than that for the Supreme Court. Small business, you know, gets pretty high, 59%. Anyway, what I'm saying is that there's a general loss of confidence in the culture. But where do you turn for confidence? What this is, I think, arguing is that you turn for hope to the scriptures.

Turn there. If you want hope, go to the word of God. For whatever things were written before were written for our learning that we might through patience and the comfort of the scriptures might have hope. So there's hope in the learning. You know, go to the Word of God every day.

Go to the Word of God and feed your soul. Go to the word of God and have him do a spiritual adjustment, a mental adjustment of your life, because you need it, I need it every day. And it's the patience and the comfort of scripture that we have hope. And then, fourth, fulfill Paul's prayer for like-mindedness that glorifies God. This is a longer section, verses five through 12.

But there's really one thread in these verses. And that thread really is a picture of the objective that God has for this local church in Rome, That they would be unified in the way they treat one another in the way they talk with one another and and and get this and the way they sing The way they sing together This This whole section pictures a church unified, loving one another and what do they do? They come together and they sing. The Jews, the Gentiles, and Jesus Christ himself is singing with his people. That's the flow of this section in verses five through 12.

And so in verse five, of course, now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another according to Jesus Christ. In Verse six he says, and that you may with one mind, okay so now internally in your mind, okay, and with one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So internally, internally you have love for your brethren, and then you express it with your mouth. And God is glorified by this reliance on him. And then he says, and he's gonna repeat in verse seven what he's already said before, therefore receive one another.

Well he said that in chapter 14 verse 1 and now he's saying it again in chapter 15 verse 7. Receive one another. Why? Just as Christ also received us to the glory of God. So this is a command to accept one another.

And that's the main point. Not standoffish. The central behavioral change that is necessary in the Roman church is that they should do a better job at crossing the aisles, you know, talking with one another, welcoming with one another, and reaching out to one another. That's the whole idea. And the foundation of it is that that's what Jesus Christ did for you.

He reached out to you and as a result you now have a new life. You're not just reaching out to yourself in your own pleasures, but you're reaching out to your brethren. And then in verse eight, he continues to pound this home and he says, now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers. And then in verses nine through 12, he drops the hammer on the objective, sort of the final objective of what he's trying to accomplish in the Church of Jesus Christ. And I'll just read it.

But I want you to notice what's happening here. Because I'll tip you off. What's happening here is that you have the Gentiles and the Jews and Jesus Christ himself and everybody else are singing together. That's what's happening. And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy as it is written, for this reason I will confess to you among the Gentiles.

That's I, I is the Lord. Confess you among the Gentiles and sing to your name and again he says rejoice, oh Gentiles, with this people and again, praise the Lord you Gentiles, laud him, all you peoples. And what are they doing? They are singing together in the local church. Verse 12, and again Isaiah says, there shall be a root of Jesse, and he who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, in him the Gentiles shall hope.

So there you have this unity, these people that are treating one another in love. Jesus said, they'll know you're my disciples if you love one another. But the expression of that love is this singing together in the body of Christ. And God is trying to accomplish something by sending his son. One of those things is to bring together a choir, a group of people who will sing together and sing in spirit and in truth.

And they're living together in harmony and they rise up and they sing together and they're making harmony together. All of their voices mingle together in the Church of Jesus Christ. And what's the character of it? Rejoice, oh Gentiles, and he will say, praise the Lord, laud him. The Lord Jesus is with his people, and he's saying, rejoice, all you Gentiles, you people who grew up all messed up, rejoice all you people, praise God together.

And so, and this isn't the only place where you find the Lord Jesus standing in the congregation and singing with his people. Well in Revelation one, we learn that Jesus Christ is walking among the lampstands. What that means is that he's present whenever local churches gather. He's present spiritually with his people. If you go to Hebrews chapter two, open to Hebrews chapter two.

This is really remarkable. Hebrews chapter two, find verse 11. What you have here in Hebrews two is this, it's a picture that's being painted and you have, You have people who are gathered together and they're being sanctified. In other words, they're making progress before the Lord as they're going forward in their life as a church. That's the picture.

So listen to this. Verse 11. For both he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all one. In other words, it's a picture of Jesus Christ in unity with his children. They are all one.

Christ is unified with his children. You are in Christ and he is in you. And then he says, for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren. Here, the Lord Jesus Christ is among the people of God in the local church, and he's not ashamed of them. Just let that sink in for a second.

He's not ashamed. He's not ashamed to call you brethren. He's not ashamed to be identified with you. Not ashamed to call them brethren saying, I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly. I will sing praise to you.

And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, here I am and the children whom God has given me. So you get the picture. It's a picture of local church life. People are being sanctified.

Jesus Christ is in their midst. He's not ashamed of them. And he's saying, here I am. Here I am with the children that you gave me. They're my children.

And I'm not ashamed of them. It's such a remarkable picture of singing in a local church. I'm just finishing up a book on congregational singing. I've talked to you about this before in the past. I'm just almost done with it.

But here's the deal. When you go home today from this church service, you can say, you know, those people were singing to me. They were singing words of life to me. They were singing beautiful melodies to me. And you can say that what's really amazing is that the Lord Jesus sang with us.

He was singing with us. That's what this teaches. And all of this for one purpose, for hope. For hope. So that the people of God would be filled with hope.

That's why we sing, so that we might have hope. Hope for one another, hope for ourselves, and hope in the kingdom of God. And you know all of this is just a declaration that there is hope. That God does walk with his children. That he watches your path.

The Bible says that he holds you in the palm of his hand. The Bible says that he puts his hand on your head. He sees you in your storms, he sees you when you're drifting. He understands your lack of knowledge. He understands your lack of love and he still, he walks with his children even when they're confused, even when they feel hopeless.

It's not hopeless because he's there. And he's actually creating a choir. He's creating a people who will sing together. What a blessing it is. And then the final building block of hope is really in answer to a prayer.

This is the second prayer in Romans 15. Verse 13, and now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is God's objective for his people. In a hopeless world, God fills his people with hope, and that makes such a difference in their lives. And so, I pray all these characteristics of hope identify us as people at hope, at Hope Baptist Church.

You know, I'm really grateful, you know, this, we're not, I'm not preaching this message to be you know to tell everybody in this church to be more harmonious because I'm not really aware of any raging controversies or division going on right now in this church they're probably a little you know brushfires here and there but I'm not really aware of them. And so we have this teaching really to prepare any of us for any times when we're tempted to lose hope in one another so that we would relate with one another in a healthy way. The people of hope, Romans 15. Well, the Bible is full of this word, hope, and I pray that God would fill this church with the hope that is in Jesus Christ. And that when you relate with one another, when you relate with another believer, that you relate with them brimming with hope.

How about that? Would you pray with me? Lord we thank you for this the teaching from your word for directing us in ways that are consistent with the way you have designed the church, that you would teach all of us not to despise one another, but rather to have hope for one another because you, oh Lord, are the God of hope. And I pray that as we sing every time we get together that there would be such resounding hope in all of our singing to be singing altogether in all the mix of our differences and singing along with our Lord Jesus Christ. All these good things, amen.