Title: Living together (Romans 15:1-6)
Contents
life together
Romans 15:1-6
We who are strong ought to bear the weakness of the weak and not please ourselves. Let each one of us please our neighbor for good and for building up. Christ did not please himself either. As it is said, “The slander of those who slander me is against me.” Whatever was written before, was written for our instruction, that we may have hope through patience or the comfort of the Scriptures. Now, God of patience and comfort. I want you to be like-minded toward one another, imitating Christ Jesus, so that with one mind and one mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Last Wednesday, our church finally opened a senior college under the name of ‘God’s Happiness Plus Classroom’ and held an entrance ceremony. Throughout the entrance ceremony, he said, “It starts with half. I spent the day repeating countless times, “Lord, now, Lord, lead and lead.” I truly believe that the Lord will experience the amazing grace of all of us through His sovereign work through this senior college.
Therefore, today, I would like to share grace with the content of “living together” to once again reaffirm the attitude of faith toward our neighbors. In the name of the Lord, I earnestly pray that the Holy Spirit will be with you so that you may overflow with precious grace and emotion.
In the past, our ancestors lived without walls, and even if there were walls, they were meaningless and worthless to the extent that we could have a conversation with our neighbors face-to-face. This can be said to be due to the idea that life is not a problem alone, but a problem of symbiotic coexistence with neighbors.
Unfortunately, these beautiful thoughts are gradually disappearing from the people of today. Even though I make a room and a room with one wall, let alone a wall, I hate to show my face, and even if I want to be close, I feel bad that it's an invasion of privacy. Today's reality is that even people who work side by side in the same office are viewed as competitors rather than colleagues. Nevertheless, human beings inevitably need gods and idols, and also need the help of neighbors. Therefore, whether we acknowledge it or not, the life of a human being as a creature is ultimately a life of living together.
In the early Roman church, conflicts and feuds arose between those who had strong beliefs that they could eat any food and those who insisted that they should only eat vegetarian food. That's why the Apostle Paul exhorts us in today's Bible text, "We who are strong in faith ought to bear the weakness of the weak and not please ourselves" (1-2).
Those who are strong in faith should not destroy the peace by blaming or despising the weaknesses of the weak, but instead, recognizing that it is their duty to compensate or correct their weaknesses, so that they should achieve reconciliation by bearing their burdens. 1 Thessalonians 5:14 says, “I also exhort you, brethren, to admonish the lazy, to encourage the weak, to support the weak, to be patient with all.”
Everyone, we need to know that the weakness of others is not an opportunity to enjoy our superiority or pride, but an opportunity to pay off the debt of love that I, who have been strengthened by someone's teaching or help, deserve.
Each of us who have been saved by believing in the Lord pleases our neighbors, but it is the right life of faith to do good and build up virtue. However, it is easy to say that we should do good in real life, build virtue, and please our neighbors, but it is not an easy matter to put it into practice.
Who is your neighbor? Are you from the same town as me? Are you close to me? The Jews understood their neighbors to extend to their own people, but the Gentiles were despised and hostile. Jesus, who we should imitate, gave a new interpretation of our neighbors through the story of the man who met the robber. The neighbor of the man who was killed by the robber was neither a priest nor a Levite, a fellow man who had just passed by after seeing it.
He says that the Samaritan who helped him almost died is his true neighbor. A neighbor is someone who needs your help, and the way to be a neighbor is to help. It doesn't matter whether you are from the East or not, whether you are alumni or not, whether you are from our class or not, whether you are from your fellow countrymen or not, whether you are a friend or an enemy. Jesus says that even an enemy is my neighbor if he needs my help.
What, then, are the good and the virtues that please our neighbors, those in need? I did good deeds and good deeds because I thought they would bring joy and benefit to my neighbors, but it often resulted in bad results and vices. In this case, goodness and virtue for this person are not good and virtue for that person.
A world-famous soprano singer who never stops cheering and applause from the audience just by singing a song, builds goodness and virtue that gives great comfort, comfort, courage and hope to many wounded people. Even so, if you sing loudly in your apartment in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep, this is clearly a vice and vice.
A dwarf was passing the underpass, and a beggar was begging with a hat in both hands. As he puts a coin into one hat, he said, “Why are you holding two hats each?” I asked. Then the beggar said, “Business was going well, so I opened another chain store.” it would be
Is the begging business so successful that I have to open a chain store? Is it really the way to achieve goodness and to build virtue? Sometimes to pretend not to know, sometimes to give advice, sometimes to rebuke, and sometimes to punish are the good and virtues that really bring joy and pleasure to our neighbors.
Therefore, what is important is wisdom in each case to judge whether what to do is the way to achieve good or edification. Religion must be discussed here. The apostle Paul realized that the good and virtue that truly pleases man is that which pleases God. That is why Galatians 1:10 says, “Am I now seeking to please men or God or do I seek the joy of men?
I earnestly hope that you do not follow your own reason, emotion, or will, but do the will of Jesus Christ with the heart of Jesus Christ, even in the good and virtue that pleases our neighbors.
The reason we who believe should please our neighbors is because of Jesus Christ. That's why verse 3 says, "Even Christ did not please Him, as it is written, "The slander of those who slander You has fallen on me." All of the Old Testament, including Psalm 69:9, quoted here, is for our instruction, so that with patience or the comfort of the Bible, we have the hope of eternal life.
Since Christ came, He sacrificed for equality with God and the infinite glory and glory of the kingdom of heaven. His public life was also a series of sacrifices of love and suffering, and in the end he became a sacrifice for atonement. The life of Jesus Christ was a life consistent with obedience to please God the Father instead of pursuing selfish joy. Of course, the life of Jesus Christ's obedience to the Father was to give the joy of salvation and the hope of eternal life to mankind who slandered Him.
Then, it is very natural for us, who have been saved by the grace of the Lord's blood, to imitate the Lord and take care of the weaknesses of those who have weak faith or those who do not believe.
There is the most important factor in the revival of the church as a beautiful church of love. It is to glorify God by imitating the Lord according to God's will and sharing our hearts, minds, and lips, regardless of church members with strong or weak faith.
Having lost his wife during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, De Chaser volunteered to be a bomber member of Major General Doolittle to avenge his revenge. He frantically bombed Tokyo and returned to Chongqing, China, where he crash-landed due to an engine failure, where he was captured by the Japanese army. After spending four years cursing Japan in various prisons in China, an occupied territory, by chance, I came to believe in Jesus and repent.
After World War II, freed on a prisoner of war exchange, de Chaser became a missionary. And he begged to be sent as a Japanese missionary to the first mission field. Missionary De Shazer, sent to Japan, strangely received the amazing guidance of God to be the first to evangelize Captain Fujida, who was the commander of the bomber that bombed Pearl Harbor for the first time.
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we pray earnestly in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that we too, like Missionary De Chaser, become all members of the State Church who accomplish true good and build beautiful virtues by preaching Jesus Christ, who is the greatest joy to all our neighbors.
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God who wants to bring us joy, we have often found ourselves in opposition to your teachings and commands to love our neighbor. And I confess that there were many times when I only considered that commandment as a heavy burden. Let us know the greatness of love and give thanks to God who has given us the responsibility of love. May we always have joy by telling our neighbors the truth, and show us that we are born again by striving to do good. May you be virtuous and edified by forgiving your transgressions. From now on, by practicing the commandment of love, I pray that you will have closer fellowship with the Lord and become the true saints of the Lord who are essential to your neighbors. Help the Holy Spirit to show the glory of God as a result of doing love. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.