Join us online! - Next online service starts Sunday at 9 AM • Watch Live →
Apr 28, 2024
Included | Romans 14:7-13
Cheering For Each Other
Human beings need reminders about how to get along, and Christians are no exception. We especially need reminders about how to love each other while we disagree.
Paul draws the believers' hearts and minds back to what Jesus has done, and that paves the way for loving each other well through conflict.
Songs for this week: Spotify
- Reflect on the issues that often spark discussions and disagreements in your relationships. What are they, and how do they affect your interactions?
- Explain how “we belong to the LORD” provides perspective to any disagreement between Christians.
- What is the root of contempt? What does that grow out of in our lives?
- Verse 12 states that 'each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.' How does this truth resonate with you? How does it make you feel in your ‘tummy’? And what are your hopes for that day?
- What would it look like for you to ‘make someone’s life easier’ after a disagreement with them?
Share with a friend
Recent Sermons
Paul finishes his letter to the church in Rome with a list, not exactly best-seller material. His aim wasn't literary acclaim, although his work became influential; instead, he was interested in fostering and fortifying connections.
Reflecting on Paul's list may have you thinking about your own list: the people God has used in your life to bring you closer to Him.
Paul never recovered from God including the Gentiles in the salvation invitation.
Like some of us, perhaps, he felt like some people should be excluded by virtue of where they were born or how badly they have behaved.
More than included, Paul instructs that former ‘outsiders’ should be treated as precious insiders, treated even better than we would treat ourselves. What would it look like if love came to town?
How do we live with Jesus in a society that opposes him? Paul tells us to wake up to our resurrection hope. When we do that, loving others and rejecting sin in our own lives makes sense.
Romans 12 is the description of what happens when God’s mercy overflows in a church’s life. Lifelong attitudes change, love becomes genuine, mocking enemies are not met with equal and opposite force but, quite the opposite, with peace and gentleness. Be praying even now for how God will speak uniquely to your small group.
All along, we’ve been saying that God’s heart is to see us INCLUDED. That’s why Jesus came, and that’s the subject of Paul’s letter to the Romans. At times, Christians forget God’s radical inclusion of them and go back to the old patterns of competing and comparing. Sadly, that was happening in the Roman Church. Paul has one powerful dose for that sickness.
The resurrection changed everything! The story includes an invitation, a blessing, and a commission for the first witnesses … and for us today.
