 Beginning at verse 1, reading to verse 4, Paul writes, 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 repro-planned. As we're in chapter 15, Paul is continuing his message related to, or is writing related to the question of Christian maturity. And the question really is, what constitutes true maturity in the body of Christ? And he's already said it's love, it's love for the weaker member. That's the evidence of spiritual maturity. Now he'd been speaking concerning a controversy related to what is proper to eat and drink. And so he pointed out that there's one strong and there's one weak. And what should we do for those who are weak? And his answer was that God has received him and so should we. In receiving a younger believer, he's saying, we are dying to self and we're revealing real love. It isn't that we agree or approve of their belief, but we bear with them. And that's what he's moving on here in chapter 15 to say. And that's what he says in verse 1, when he says, we then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves. Now the word scruples, did you use it today? Most of us didn't. So when you read it, you ask yourself, what does that mean? What does the word scruple mean? I don't know, I didn't look it up. So I'll make up something. No, the word scruple speaks of hesitation or doubt. It speaks of a weakness. So we who are strong ought to bear with the scruples or the weaknesses of those or the doubts of those who are weak. So again, the true gauge of Christian maturity is loving a weaker brother. Instead of being irritated with them, we understand and we care for them. We who are mature, he said, ought to bear with our weaker brother's conviction. So word ought, it's not a suggestion. That's really a command. So we who are mature are commanded basically. We ought to, why? Because it's the right thing to do. We ought to bear. The word bear means to lift up or to carry a load. So we ought to help that person who's weaker carry the load. And we ought to do that or we're commanded to do that. Why? Because a truly mature person will bear the load with the weaker brother and sister. That means that a mature Christian isn't going to judge them. And that means that a mature Christian isn't going to stumble them. We saw in Romans 14-13 how he had said, let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother's way. So the reason we don't put a stumbling block in our brother's way is because we're not going to please ourself. We're not to strive to please ourselves. What we do is we die to the desire to always give our opinions. I've met many a person who listens patiently, not because they're listening to the words, but they're just waiting for that person's mouth to close so they can give their opinion. Sometimes they're uncomfortable with the sound of quiet. So they want to feel the silence with their own voice. And sometimes we do that with their opinions. And so he's saying, we're not to please ourselves. We're not to be going out of the way to try and convince somebody who has a weak conviction and weak heart as it relates to something, that it's okay to do that if their hearts are stumbled by it. So rather than trying to make them see our point, we bear with them. We walk with them. We love them. We encourage them. We're there for them. We accept them. And that's what he's pointing out here. So notice in verse 2 how he says, Let each of us please his neighbor for his good leading to edification. And so the refusal to live a life of self-pleasing again demonstrates maturity. It is a willing adjustment to whatever contributes to the spiritual good of someone else. So he's saying our desire should be for our neighbor's good that he may be edified. Now, that command that we should really have a desire for our neighbor's good is contrary to human nature because we are more prone to please ourselves first. You see, we don't need to learn to love ourselves. There's been so many years of people saying, if you're going to love somebody else, you need to first love yourself. Well, I don't have a problem loving myself. That's really been my biggest problem when you think about it. Loving myself too much and not loving somebody else. So we have to actually be taught to love somebody else. We have to learn to do that, not to put ourselves first. So we have to learn to die to ourselves. And again, that's very hard. It's very hard to do. But he uses Jesus as an example. Verse 3, even Christ didn't please himself. But as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. So he uses Jesus as an example of the one who didn't please himself. He's our supreme example. Why? Because Jesus, the Bible teaches, clearly came to do the will of the Father. In the book of Hebrews in chapter 10 verse 7 concerning Jesus, it says, I said, behold, I have come in the volume of the book. It's written of me to do your will. Oh God. So Jesus didn't please himself. He came to please the Father. And John 8.29, he said it. He said, he who sent me is with me. The Father has not left me alone. For I always do those things that please him. So if Jesus didn't live a self-centered life, resisting proper authority, the question is, should we? He says in verse 3, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. So the price of this kind of life is being misunderstood. Even rejected. Jesus' submission to his Father ultimately led to his death. And as we submit to him, we too are walking the road of the cross, dying to self every day. So he builds it by saying in verse 4, whatever things were written before, were written for our learning that we, through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. So where do you get your hope from? You know, when I was a kid, I'm talking ancient history now. Some of you have studied this in your history classes. We, in my era, we used to say this, there's no hope without dope. There you go. There's a little hippieism for you. There's no hope without dope, man. Well, we were without hope, completely without hope, and that's why we came to faith in Jesus Christ, isn't it? Because we were hopeless. And so he's speaking concerning the fact that the Scriptures give us hope. Now at this time, the New Testament wasn't completed, but as they read the prophecies fulfilled by Christ and the old, it gave them hope. You see in the Old Testament, there were promises that, that pertain to Messiah, and those promises were fulfilled by Jesus Christ, and as they look back and see that, they have hope because God is true to His Word. In 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 10 through 12, because Paul reminded us that Scriptures for us, the Apostle Peter said, concerning this salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing, when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you, by those who have preached the gospel to you, by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, even angels longed to look into these things. So it was revealed to them that they weren't writing to themselves, they were writing to those who were going to believe in Messiah. And so the Scriptures give to us hope. That's where we find our hope. So as we read the Scripture, as we meditate on God's promises, we learn to hope. It says in Psalm 119, verse 81, my soul faints for your salvation, but he said, but I hope in your word, in Psalm 119, 165, great peace have those who love your law, and nothing causes them to stumble. When you hold fast to the Lord and you're trusting Him, He will give you a peace that passes understanding. It's the kind of peace that people would say, how can you have that kind of peace going through what you are? And in a lot of ways, we don't really have an answer to those who don't know the Lord, but we simply say, you know, I don't know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future. That's the simplest way I can put it. My life is in the hands of the Lord. Well, what gives you this hope, the Scriptures? I read the Word, the Word gives me promises, God keeps His Word, and I trust Him. So going through difficulties are part of the Christian faith. And they needed to realize that the difficulties they were going through actually refined them. Remember in chapter 5 verses 3 and 4, how Paul said, not only that, but we glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance, character and character, hope. So somebody has asked me in the past, if you had the ability to go back into your past and change something, would you do it? If I were to ask you that, if you had the chance to go back and change something, what would you change? And there was, when I was a younger believer, I would say, well yeah, I would change this or I would change that. You know what happened as I grew older in the Lord? I realized that I am a product of all that I've experienced. I realized that. So would I go back and change anything? No, because what happened in my past has made me who I am now, and I'm glad in the Lord to be who I am because I look back at what he's done and how he rescued me and showed his love and how he's always been there and how he lifted me out of that, that the pain or the hurt or disappointment and gave me a depth and an understanding and increased compassion. Why would I want to change those things? Because listen, the way up is down. It's going through deep things. One of my professors at Bible College once said that to me. He said, if you want to be deep, you'll go through deep things. And that's absolutely true. And so it's the things that we've gone through and God's presence with us through those things and his being true to his word and bringing us out of those things that have given us strength and have actually worked for us to our favor. So it's through the scriptures that we have hope. Verse 5, Now, may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another according to Christ Jesus that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so this is an exhortation for unity. They've been squabbling over food and drink. It's causing division. So Paul is praying, may God give you a heart of unity and may he draw you into a unity that causes you to be able to worship Jesus together. May God who has given you comfort and support in all of your trials may he grant you the same power to do that for other people like Jesus did for you. Notice how verse 60 says that we may with one mind and one mouth glorify God. We may spiritually, we may grow spiritually at different rates. We do have different degrees of maturity. And so what we need to do is consider where other people are in their spiritual maturity and unity encourages us to live as a body of Christ, not dividing ourselves. I believe this and I'll say it briefly. Hardly anything undermines the power of the gospel and its effectiveness other than carnal Christians fighting with one another. Hardly anything makes the gospel look weak than that. When people say well it's my church, it's my pastor, it's our worship team, it's our children's ministry and all of that is better than yours. Well that may be true. I don't know, God's the judge of that. But I do know that many years ago we had one of our first hallelujah parties and we were on Maple Street in Ontario at that time and somebody came up to me at this hallelujah party and I was blessed to see a number of kids and people were enjoying the time together and somebody walks up and says hi my name is So-and-So. I'm from your competition and I looked at, it was a young lady I said I'm sorry what do you mean, my competition. She says you know I'm from such-and-so church your competition and there's this attitude so I punched, but there's this slapter face. No that's so carnal. What do you say? What do you say to something like that? You just kind of smile is that right? Is that right? The Bible teaches Jesus prayed for us to have unity Paul is encouraging us to have unity it's God's desire for us to be one in Christ in Philippians 2, 1 and 2. If there's any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any affection and mercy fulfill my joy by being like-minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind. Now in verse 7 and I obviously I'm not going to make it so I'll just enjoy myself in verse 7 he said therefore receive one another just as Christ also received us to the glory of God received means to welcome except instead of trying to change everybody into your image receive them as they are I'm not saying receive their sin I'm not saying approve of sin we never approve of sin of course we don't it's what Jesus died on the cross that set us free from but sometimes we mix up the sin with the sinner I think and we forget to love the one who's in need we forget to love the one who's in need I used to teach a Bible study just up the street if you went to the corner over here in Philadelphia took a pipeline took a left on Philadelphia went to East End and if you went up a block you'll see on your right side on the north side of the street there's a stone a house made of stones it has stones in the front I used to live there I lived there for several months I got ripped off with the rent it was $25 a month but I shared it with three other guys think about that for a minute $25 a month and we had a roommate and the roommate was a guy named, his name was Steve and Steve was younger than me I was in my early 20s at the time Steve was younger than me and Steve had a porn and alcohol problem and he would walk into the house with cases of beer, put it in his room he had stacks of porn young guy and I was teaching a Bible study there with my roommates and he was one of the roommates who began to come to the study and one day during the study Steve said I want to come to faith in Christ I want Jesus as my savior now Steve was already an alcoholic he was about maybe 23 he already was an alcoholic he had been drinking for some time and so we prayed with him he gave his heart to Christ kept going to the Bible studies but one day he came walking into the house and as he walked up to me I walked up to him to hug him to say hi and he said why do you do that and I said do what why are you smelling my breath and I said what why are you smelling my breath he said I know what you're doing he goes you're checking to see if I've been drinking and he was right he was right I didn't realize I was doing that why would I smell your stinky breath it's my first thought but he was right he was right and I looked at him and then he said this I'll never forget he said David he said you loved me more as a sinner than you love me now as a brother I've never forgotten that I never loved him as a sinner or as a brother so there it was right I said Steve forgive me forgive me I said I know you were you were addicted to alcohol and I said my concern came out he said well it came out the wrong way because you were judging me and I know it it's just forgiveness you're right I'm sorry and that's one of the ways the Lord began to teach me to love people instead of always trying to fashion them into the image I think they're supposed to have it's God's job isn't it and his word isn't it now as brothers and sisters I mean we do encourage one another exhort one another daily we do those things of course but not through judgment we receive one another we're examples to one another we encourage one another that's what God has called us to do we receive one another and again that word receive means to accept don't try and change them into agreeing with you now in Romans 14 Paul had already said receive one who is weak in faith but not to dispute over doubtful things in verse 19 of the same chapter by which one may edify another so welcome one another one may be weak the other is stronger but you need to have a unity of heart in verse 8 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 so as he's encouraged us to accept one another he speaks of how Jesus accepted and remember the Gentile church he's speaking of how Jesus accepted both the Jew and the Gentile notice in verse 8 he says Jesus became a servant to the circumcision that's another way of speaking of the Jews Jesus came preaching to the Jewish people the truth of the gospel and he says this was to confirm God's promises of Messiah the word confirm means to guarantee it means to secure now when you read your Bible if you do any studying with other people and all commentators and all we'll tell you that there are over 300 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled we know many of them just by I'll just read some of the things he was from the tribe of Judah he was the descendant of David he was born of a virgin he was born in Bethlehem he was preceded by a forerunner he entered Jerusalem on a donkey he was rejected he was despised he was silent before his accusers buried in a barred tomb he was resurrected these are all Old Testament scriptures and so he's a servant to the circumcision so they would read the word of God and they would be able to know that this Messiah Jesus is the one who fulfilled those things so 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 verse 9 that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy as it is written for this reason I will confess to you I will confess to you among the Gentiles and sing to your name and again he says rejoice O Gentiles with his people and again praise the Lord all you Gentiles laud him all you peoples and again Isaiah says there shall not be a root in Jesse and he shall rise to reign over the Gentiles again the Gentiles shall hope and so the Jews would look at the covenant with God the Gentiles had none they had no agreement with God God made his agreement with the Jewish nation with the Jews those who were followers of him so Gentiles rejoicing his mercy because he has made grace available to us you see at one time we were without Christ like we read in Ephesians when we studied that book recently we were aliens from Israel without hope in Ephesians 2 13 through 15 it says but now in Christ Jesus you who once were afar off have been brought near by the blood of Christ for he himself is our peace who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation having abolished in his flesh the enmity that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances so as to create in himself one new man from the two thus making peace there's no longer in the church Jew and Gentile were one in Christ and so that's the point he's making and that fulfills the scriptures now verse 13 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 God inspires hope and God imparts to his children faith in him produces hope produces joy and produces peace in John 14 27 Jesus said it like this he said peace I leave with you my peace I give to you not as the world gives give I unto you then he went on to say let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid if there's anything that the enemy works to do it's to produce fear in us fear in the heart of the believer he does it in a variety of ways but it's his chief tool he likes to he likes to encourage us to fear because fear has a way of eclipsing love perfect love casts out fear because fear has torment and so the opposite of love is in hate a lot of times the Americans will say if I say what is the opposite of love people will say hate no the opposite of love is fear because fear has torment and perfect love casts out fear and he who fears has not been made perfect in love what does that mean that means that I trust the Lord no matter what is that easy to do absolutely not of course not difficult sometimes because everything within me sometimes will scream doubt be afraid but when you have trust in the Lord he brings you through it years ago we were on a flight coming home from Israel those of you who've already put your deposits you can't take them back after this story we were coming home from Israel and we were coming towards the northeast we were coming towards New York about to land when we encountered a very severe storm it was terrible this huge 747 was going up and down it was it was just going crazy people began to you know involuntarily scream people in in the plane screaming out of fear this huge plane is shaking and I'm sitting and reading the newspaper and people around everywhere making noise and some Orthodox Jews came and said will you Christians please come and pray that tells you how afraid they were that's a fact will you come back here and pray with us they were in the back of the plane and they were doing their prayers and there's all these Christians with them and they were scared my daughter Corinne was a young teenager at the time and I turned to look at her she was seated behind me a couple of rows and she and her girlfriend receded together and she was trying to sing to the Lord in her little voice she was scared I said thank you Jesus she was scared so she'll praise you it really was we came down and then the plane went back up we were so low that we could see the waves and the white caps on them it really was it was bad we tried to land what a couple of times and they ended up sending us to Montreal so we had to go to Montreal we get home I'm not thinking anything of it my daughter Corinne says to me daddy why weren't you afraid because I wasn't why weren't you afraid I said because God isn't through with Calvary Chapel at that time I know it and she said did it ever occur to you he doesn't need you to finish what he plans on doing and I said I'm glad you didn't tell me we were on the plane well just about a year or two ago my daughter Anna said to me dad you know that story and she reminded me of it and I said yeah baby she said I wasn't afraid either and I said really I'd never asked her and I said really she says no she says you know why I said no because I kept my eye on you she said if you would have become afraid I would have too but you didn't you sat calmly you read the newspaper and you wrote it out and I watched you and the Lord taught me something about not only keeping my eye on him so that I might remain calm but that others keep their eye on me sometimes and it helps to calm them and the same thing is true with you there are those who watch you because when you panic they panic with you when you have not this kind of stupid because sometimes we just kind of stupid you know I ain't afraid well you should be stupid that's not in the bible that's a paraphrase I mean you have reason I mean wake up Jack but God keeps them in perfect peace whose mind has stayed on them for they trust in him and Isaiah tells us and that's true peace I give you a peace that passes understanding and that comes through our relationship with Jesus Christ he gives us hope he gives us joy and he gives us his peace and so when he says in verse 14 I myself am confident concerning you my brethren that you also are full of goodness filled with all knowledge able to admonish one another he's saying as an apostle of Jesus Christ I have written with sincere conviction and that's because I believe you are mature enough to understand what I'm writing so I want to say to you in spite of the things that I've had to write to bring correction that you have qualities that I want to commend he says you are full of goodness the word goodness or the fruit of goodness is what we would call moral excellence you're filled with knowledge that means that they had been carefully and properly instructed in scripture and as a result of having moral excellence as well as knowledge of the word you're able to admonish the word admonish means to reprove to remind and to do so in a gentle fashion he's saying these are qualities of maturity of faith nevertheless brethren I have written more boldly to you on some points as reminding you because of the grace given to me by God that I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles ministering the gospel of God that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable sanctified by the Holy Spirit so I've written because you stand in need of being taught so out of love Paul is using his authority and as he's doing so he's advising and instructing you see as a minister to the Gentiles they were in need of instructions and so he says that's what I'm doing I want you to be acceptable and sanctified by the Spirit therefore as a minister of Christ to you I'm instructing and encouraging you therefore verse 17 I have reason to glory in Christ Jesus in the things which pertain to God I glory in the ministry that God has made me to preach to preach to you to preach to Gentiles and he's used me to preach his message to those in need of knowing him for verse 18 I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me in word indeed to make the Gentiles obedient in mighty signs and wonders by the power the Spirit of God so that from Jerusalem and round about to Arkham I have fully preached the gospel of Christ I glory in the ministry that God has given to me I'm blessed that he has used me to preach his message to those who are in need of knowing him that's what he's saying in verse 17 but he says in verse 18 something I think is important to highlight he said I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me in word indeed to make the Gentiles obedient I'm not trying to take credit for the work that others have accomplished I don't take credit for what others have done amongst the Gentiles I'm not stealing other people's rewards by taking credit for the things that have happened in their life all I as a pastor here in the 21st century can say is I have built in other people's foundations we cannot take the credit when we first came here into the area we started ministering in Ontario and were in Ontario for a number of years but when we started in Ontario there was already a Calvary Chapel Chino Calvary Chapel Chino was a church that had begun early actually in the mid 70's and the pastor had been laboring in Chino for some time so there was already a Calvary Chapel Chino and you know I knew him I met with him in all of that we were Ontario, he was Chino but one day he chose to resign out of the ministry and when he did it was in 1985 when he did his board came and met with me and handed us their church so we took their incorporation they had a building it was an old theatre and we inherited that property we actually sold that property it became a surplus store for a while and we used that to do work in our own ministry but we became in 1985 Calvary Chapel Ontario Chino because Chino had been absorbed into into our ministry and so later on a few years later we were looking for property and we came upon this place and we ultimately moved here so we became Calvary Chapel Chino Valley I didn't want to call us Calvary Chapel Chino but I wanted to do something new so I called it Chino Valley we still are legally Calvary Chapel Ontario but we do business as Calvary Chapel Chino Valley but we are incorporated in California as Calvary Chapel Ontario so when Calvary Chapel Ontario was birthed I sent one of our assistants there and planted microceole and did a faithful work for many years I told Mike I said incorporate under a different title because I'm going to retain the name Calvary Chapel Ontario I said in the event that one day I might want to go back to Ontario you know you can't have it and he was very dear to me and he understood what I meant by that but that's how it works so I would never want to ever give somebody some kind of idea that we didn't build on other people's hard work you don't take credit for what others have done you just join in the labors that's what you do that's what you're supposed to do you know sometimes people think well I went into that area there was nobody there no when we came into the area there were already many hardworking pastors doing works for the Lord and they should receive their reward they did a good work and so Paul is saying that he's saying I'm not taking credit for what others have done I'm not trying to take that he says that I will verse 18 this is not accomplished through me in word indeed to make the Gentiles obedient but he goes on to say in mighty signs and wonders by the power of the spirit of God so that from Jerusalem and roundabout to Chino I have fully preached the gospel of Christ also known as Illyricrum I don't take credit for what others have done now he says in mighty signs and wonders in other words God has moved through me in a supernatural way when you read the book of Acts as we're going through on Sundays God worked miracles through him that are reported in Acts 13 for example verses 6 through 12 we'll be looking at a sorcerer named Elimus whom Paul caused to become blind we'll see that miracle in Acts 14 verse 3 it says that God works signs and wonders through Paul and Barnabas in 2 Corinthians 12 11 through 12 he said this he said I've made a fool of myself you drove me to it I ought to have been commended by you for I am not in the least inferior to the super apostles even though I'm nothing the things that mark an apostle signs wonders and miracles were done among you with great perseverance so he shares there that he should have been commended by those whom he ministered to remember as he's writing to the Corinthians the Corinthians had been invaded by false teachers whom he referred to here in this translation as the super apostles when you read 2 Corinthians and you might find this interesting if you read it in this way reading the things he speaks concerning excuse me his manner of preaching his appearance and variety of things you will see that he's actually writing in a way to deal with accusations that were made against him when you look in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 he says though you may have 10,000 instructors yet you have but one father I begot you in the gospel and yet by the time you look at chapter 1 start going to chapter 1 of 2 Corinthians these super apostles these preeminent ones had come in and had compared their ministries with Paul and so Paul through an entire epistle over 21 times answers accusations that were made against him that he's not worth he's not worth pain that he's weak in presence that his preaching is inferior and he speaks in that way and so you can see that if you read through it and that's what he's saying here he's making it very clear he said I have the marks of an apostle I have been faithful to what God has called me to do and these evidences have demonstrated my calling whereas these false teachers had come in and were saying oh we're better preachers they even called him ugly they said this meant his presence is weak it's another way of saying he's just an ugly little guy is what he is and so when you read that and one of these days maybe I'll take you through 2 Corinthians just to show you that probably not but maybe I will who knows you'll see it many times he had to defend himself against accusations and so he's saying I'm not going to take any credit for work I haven't done but at the same time God has used me in mighty ways he said I have fully preached the gospel of Christ because that's what I was called to do God moved through me but the miracles, signs and wonders gave me opportunity to reveal to you the one who performs all those works and so as he's going through and closing here with the Romans he wants to point out that he has made it his aim to preach the gospel not where Christ was named lest he said I should build on another man's foundation and we'll pick up on that next week and I'll develop that with you a little bit further