When Christian Disagree (Part 3) Series

Romans 15:1-7

Getting on the Same Page as God about When Christians Disagree (Part 3)

Introduction

A. If I am going to do something I want to know what I am doing how to do it and why I am doing it

B. If you ever want to annoy me, ask me to do something that I don’t know how to do and I don’t know what to do and I don’t why I am doing it

C. To me there is nothing more frustrating then doing work just to do work

D. There is nothing more irritating then being apart of something that I don’t understand

E. There is nothing more annoying then not having the equipment to do the task

F. Do these things ever frustrate you? (Shake your head)

G. Today we are going to look at what we are suppose to do with that “week” person that we have been talking about the last couple of weeks

H. We are going to talk about

a. The Job

b. The Strength

c. The Reason

I. The Job (1-3)

A. Explanation

1. From the last couple of weeks we should realize that by now Paul is considering himself in the “Strong” category

a) Look what he says in verse 1 “WE” he is putting himself their

2. Paul then is laying out a problem that a lot of us, and especially the person that you hear talking, Selfishness

3. I can be a very selfish person, I want everything for myself, I want everything to go my way, I admit I have selfish tendency

4. But The problem is Christian love is not selfish

5. Christian love should seek to share with others and make other happy

6. Our job is to be building up the weaker, not to gain selfish recognition, but to do it out of our God Given Love

7. If we only had an example of this, this would be easier to understand: Whom who could we use (Read Vs. 3)

a) Jesus is the perfect example

b) Jesus Gave up his spot in Heaven, being next to God, and then coming here living as a normal person and then giving up his life by taking on the sins of this world

8. Why?

9. Why did Jesus do that, He did that to build the weaker person up in Christian love

10. He did that out of love

11. No one has ever made, nor will ever make, a sacrifice that great

12. Compare your sacrifice you might make of giving up going to Quaker Steak and Lube compared to what Jesus did

13. Not even close is it?

B. Application

1. Let’s apply this to our lives

2. WE are talking about making an intentional effort to support others

3. We are talking about forgetting about ourselves for just a couple of minutes and be concerned with someone else

C. Illustration

1. I meet with Jeff Smith ever so often talk to him on the phone, we have developed a pretty close friendship over the last couple of years, He is the youth Pastor at Butler Faith Fellowship

2. You know what I saw in him that made me want to be his friend?

3. I saw him genuinely care for people

4. Not a fake, how are you doing?, but a genuine concern for others

5. A concern to build up the other person

6. I am a stronger person because of him, because of Jeff laying down his selfishness, it has made me stronger

7. Now here is the greatest part, because he did that to me, I am stronger, but that has a big effect on a lot of other people

8. Because I am stronger, I can lay down my selfishness and help out others

9. By Jeff doing that for let’s just say four people, he could easily be effecting 12 people, of all four of those people do the same

10. What we need to do is forget about being the center of everything

11. Forget about wanting everything for our selves

12. And invest in someone else’s life.

13. I love to dream about how different this church, yet alone the whole world, could be if we were to follow verse 2 by building each other up.

14. That is the Job we are called to do

II. The Strength (4-6)

A. Explanation

1. How do we do the Job?

2. Building up each other, yeah your right Dan, that is a great idea, and yes we all could go for that

3. But Dan, it does not work! I have tried it. Let me tell your about __________ (fill in the blank)

4. Investing your time and energy in someone seems sometimes the most painful, hardest task, and waste of time