Sermon: Live in Harmony with One Another

Tonight we're going to be continuing on in our sermon series through the, the one another passages in Romans. So we're gonna be in Romans chapter 12, verse 16 tonight. So if you'll turn there with me, I believe it's on page 9 48 of your Pew Bibles. I encourage you to have it open as we'll be referencing some other verses in Romans here tonight. Before we open God's word, let us pray and ask for his blessing upon it. Please pray with me.

Father in heaven, we praise you that you are good and that your steadfast love endures forever, that you are great and greatly to be praised. Lord, we like the disciples, come to you asking Jesus, where else can we go, Lord, for the words of eternal life. Father, that is the posture that we approach you with tonight. We know not where else to go for the words of life and life abundantly. We pray that by your spirit, you would show us Christ through your word.

Would you build up this church? Would you help us to love one another as Christ has loved us? We pray all these things in His name. Amen. Romans chapter 12 verse 16. This is God's holy er, sufficient, authoritative word, live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Thanks be to God. This is his holy inert word, and he write its eternal truth on all our hearts.

If you are like me, you often don't think about Snoopy and Charlie Brown and the Peanuts, movies or comic strips outside of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. So as I open my sermon with a Peanuts illustration in the middle of June, I guess the end of June, you might be a little bit confused, but I do think oftentimes like Calvin and Hobbes, there are profound truths in these comic strips. And there's a, there's a comic scene with Lucy and Linus.

You'll remember that Lucy and Linus are brother and sister, that Lucy is typically the antagonist in many of these, um, interactions that she has with people. She's often selling her advice because she thinks so highly of it. And Linus, her younger brother, is often sucking on his thumb, carrying around his little blue bank blanket, giving wise, young philosopher advice, often quoting the gospels, and they're having a conversation with each other.

And we see that Linus says that he wants to be a doctor someday. And Lucy scoffs back at him. She says, Linus, you could never be a doctor. Do you know why you don't love mankind? That's why. And Linus sucking on his thumb, thinks about that for a moment. And he responds, he says, I do love mankind. It's just people that I can't stand. And that's funny. But the obvious irony there is that as individual people, we are the fabric of mankind that we, you can't love

mankind without loving individual people. Yet I wonder how often you or others that you hear talk about the church, think of her in this way. You say, oh, I do love the Lord Jesus Christ. I do love his bride whom he gave his life for. But it's just those people that I can't stand. It's just these types of people, those people who believe those things that I can't stand. And what Paul is giving us here tonight is the imperative

that the Christian must live in harmony with his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, especially those that are in their local expression of the body of Christ, that you can't separate the body of Christ from Christ. So when people say that they love Christ, but they don't love people, what are they really saying? What are they really getting at that when we love Christ, we must love his church. And that means loving the individuals in our church.

And so tonight we see that Paul is telling the Christian to live in harmony. And so we're gonna examine this text under three points tonight. We're gonna talk about harmony in our body, harmony for our mission and harmony is our blessing. So harmony in our body, we'll spend the most amount of time on harmony for our mission. Harmony in, uh, is our blessing. So we'll start with harmony in our body. So again, we see Paul is exhorting this church in Rome

that they need to live in harmony with one another. And I think to understand the full weight of this exhortation, it's important that we understand the context of who Paul is writing to and why he is addressing them. So if you'll remember with me in, in Romans chapter one, Paul says that he longs to visit this church in Rome, that he has not physically visited them yet, that he has heard of the good things that are going on,

but he, he longs to be with them so that he can build them up so that he can care for them so that he can, they can be a blessing to him. We see then at the very end of the book of Romans in chapter 15, Paul also tells them that he wants to visit them so that he can press on to Spain. And Spain at that time was an unreached people group. The gospel had not been brought to Spain yet. So Paul is hoping that he can make his way to Rome

and press on to bring the gospel to Spain. So Paul is writing this letter to this church in Rome ahead of time so that he can hopefully build them up to be a faithful mission church to Spain. Now, there's two problems in the church in Rome that Paul is seeking to address before he reaches, uh, before he visits them personally. We see that in chapter 14 that there are some Christians in this church. Many scholars think that these are Christians

who have been converted from Judaism who find their conscience is still bound to certain parts of the Old Testament law. So we see in chapter 14 of Romans, um, in verse two, Paul will say, one person believes that he may eat anything while the weak person eats only vegetables. Chapter 14, verse five, Paul says, one esteems, one person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. So we see that there are some Christians who believe

that their conscience is still bound, that they're not free in Christ from the Old Testament food laws from the Jewish feast calendar. Now, the second problem is that there are some who know that they are free in Christ. Many scholars think that these are gentile Christians. Gentile converts that they don't have the, they haven't had a past with Jewish food laws in the Jewish calendar. And they are quarreling with these people

who have weak consciousness, as Paul will call them. They are judging them, that they are causing conflict and strife in the church in Rome. And so to address this, Paul does two things. One, he goes in length to expound the gospel. And that's what you see in chapters one through 11, that Paul goes at length to explain the gospel, to explain the nuances of the gospel, how the law relates to us as Christians, how Abraham was saved before Christ.

And the second thing that he does is he pastorally applies these gospel truths in chapters 14 and 15 is where we mainly see it. But he applies these gospel principles to resolve this situation at hand. So we see that in chapter 14, verse 14. Paul will take a side in this argument, chapter 14, verse 14. Paul will say, I know and then persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it is unclean.

So Paul is planting his feet in this debate. He's taking the argument, he's saying that all things are are clean, that all things are lawful, though all things might not be profitable if you are in Christ. But despite that, despite Paul planting his feet in aside, if you will, he does not force the whole entire church to immediately conform to his position. Paul will say in chapter 14 verse five, that each one should be fully convinced in his own mind

that they should in chapter 14, verse 13, therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide to never put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of another brother. So Paul is taking a side, he's telling this church that they need to prioritize harmony. So all that we've said up until this point can be summarized in our verse for tonight, 1216. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with a lowly.

Never be wise in your own eyes. Because if you'll remember with me and a couple weeks ago when Mr. Hinckley kicked off this series, he told us that we were members of one another. That our objective reality as Christians is that we are in unity with one another. But just because that's true, that doesn't mean that we're always living in harmony, that we can be in unity. In fact, we are in unity, but we can be living in harmony

or disharmony because though we are united to Christ, though we are united to one another, there is still sin dwelling in us and we live in a fallen world. So we don't get to choose if we're united to each other or not, but we do get to choose how harmonious our unity is. An example of this would be your marriages. You know that once you make that covenant vow under God, it cannot be broken. You are united what God have brought together.

Let no man separate. However you know that every day you need to choose to live in harmony with your spouse. As sin is our na natural disposition, it takes work to live in peace and harmony with our spouse. You need to make the conscious effort to do so. Kids who is in your family, you can answer that question by probably who you drive home with tonight. Most likely you know that your family is united. You are one familial unit.

But you also know that just because that's true doesn't mean that there's gonna be harmony in your family. That fights will happen, that you will want to disrespect your parents, and that you need to work every day, every minute, every second, to live in harmony with your siblings, to honor and respect your parents. You think of a sports team, a sports team. Different players come together. They are, and unity trying to achieve the common goal of winning.

But a sports team not working in harmony is not going to be a very good sports team. They're probably going lose games and be unsuccessful in their endeavors. Harmony in a body takes work and much of the time, that means that we need to prioritize harmony over being right, because again, we look back to this text with in Romans here, because Paul planted his feet. He took aside that though there was issues in this church,

there was issues on the implications of how we live out the gospel and how we relate to Old Testament food laws. And the Jewish feast calendar, Paul is telling them that they need to prioritize harmony. And it's hard to argue with the apostle Paul on that. He tells them to prioritize harmony. Now, we must be very clear here, and I mean very clear that we must note that gospel purity is always worth the cost of disharmony.

And that is not to say that harmony in our body is cheap, but that is to say that the purity of the gospel is infinitely valuable. And we can observe that because we can see that Paul's tone in this letter to the Roman church is very different from his tone to the church in Galatia. You think of Paul's tone in many of the, um, in many of his letters to the churches compared to Galatians that Galatians stands out with his, we could say

aggression towards false teaching. That some are saying that circumcision can justify you, that we need something else other than the righteousness of Christ to save us. But here, as Paul is addressing Jewish food laws and the Jewish calendar, we see that he's not condemning anyone. In fact, he's telling them you need to prioritize harmony instead of condemning your brothers and sisters who disagree with you.

And so there's times in the church, there's times in our denomination, there's times in our Christian life where we need to stand with Luther and say, here I stand. I can do no other. So help me God. And there's times when we need to fight for the gospel that disharmony needs to be set aside for the sake of gospel purity. But in issues that do not strike at the vitals of the Christian faith that do not compromise the gospel,

we must prioritize harmony in our body. Now, I'm sure you can all think back in examples of your life where you've had a disagreement with someone, where you have been at odds with someone, you've been in conflict with them. And maybe as you look back five years later, 10 years later, you can still think, ah, I was, I was right in that conflict. The substance of what I was arguing was correct. But maybe you look back and you think, ah,

I didn't say it in the right way, or My tone was aggressive. I was not polite, I was not charitable towards that person. And we know that we feel foolish and we feel a little bit cringeworthy of the way that we, we disrupted harmony in our past because of how we said something that our tone can taint the truth. And that's what Paul is speaking to us here tonight, that though something might be true, though something might be in line with orthodoxy,

if you will, that we must prioritize harmony in our body for the sake of the church. And we know that again, harmony is not our natural disposition as sinners that oftentimes it feels impossible. And what is the cause of that? Well, Paul goes on to tell us there in chapter 12, verse 16, he says, after he says, live in harmony with one another, he says, do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own eyes.

The enemy of harmony in our church, the enemy of harmony in our denomination, the enemy of harmony in the global body of Christ is haughtiness. And the root of haughtiness is pride. A godly conviction, though it may be true, is quickly spoiled by a prideful heart. And CS Lewis will go so far as to say that pride leads to every other vice. It is the complete anti-God state of mind. It is the chief cause of misery in every nation

and family since the world began. That pride is the thing that tears us down quicker than anything else. Yeah, I think here Paul is addressing more subtle manifestations of pride. We see again, um, in that verse he says, do not be haughty, but associ with the lowly. That a lack of association with the lowly, a lack of association with the people who disagree with you, is a subtle manifestation of pride in our hearts. Now, it's true that we all try

to avoid awkward conversations. We all try to avoid people that we maybe don't like. That's natural to our human disposition. But we see that pride is the most dangerous when we're not even aware that it is present and lurking in our communities, that it is hurting us and it's hurting those who need help in our community. When we are so consumed with ourselves and so consumed with our friends that we can't see ministry opportunities around us, we're missing the point.

And I think typically we, young people struggle with this. We want so badly to be on the in crowd. We want so badly to figure out where we fit into everything as we shape our identities. And we need to, we're scared of associating with the lowly because we might get tied to them. Our social status might get dragged down with them. And maybe we've just never been on the outside. We don't know how to reach out to people.

But dig and SCF students, we must for the sake of the health of our body, seek out those who aren't quite sure where they fit. We have to bridge that gap with those who have been raised differently than us. We have to try to understand those who break our idea of Christian etiquette. Those who maybe don't have the Christian manners that we thought that they should have. We need to reach out to them to understand them, to walk

with them, to learn from them. And we see that these are necessary because Paul tells us that this is the very antidote to pride in our, in our midst. He says that we need to associate with the lowly, that we should never be wise in our own eyes because pride breeds disunity. And Paul tells us that we need to be humble and associate with the lowly. What we need is a love that condescends, the lowest of lows. A love like our savior has.

Matthew Henry will say that we must count, we must, we need a love that counts nothing below us but sin. There was a, a video circulating on the internet a couple of months ago, and there was this cool English guy, um, cool accent. And he, uh, he was a, he was a barrister. I recently learned that a barrister is a lawyer in England. And he, he would, he, he was on, um, he was being interviewed. He was on on tape, he was on a video.

And uh, he said, I never really liked church. I never really liked Christians that much. I I became a Christian. I I I love Jesus. I thought Jesus was great and Jesus is the stuff that you like, but you have to, you get the church, you get the people, um, with it. And it's just kind of a package deal. And one day, as he was sitting in the back of church with his arms crossed, someone came up to him and asked him, would you like to, would you like

to serve coffee next week? Would you like to help us, um, serve coffee? And he looked at them, he thought they were crazy. He said, I work 70 to 80 hours a week. I'm a I'm a barrister, not a barista, and I don't have time for this. I don't need another job. I don't need to serve coffee. And he reluctantly agrees, probably out of a little bit of social pressure. And he shows up next Sunday and he starts handing out coffee to people,

starts handing out coffee to people that he likes, people that he doesn't like, people that he, he enjoys spending time with people that annoy him a little bit. And what he says is, he says, as I started handing out coffee to people, I started growing in love for them. And he says, as I started handing out coffee to people, my life basically changed because I fell in love with the church of Jesus Christ. And why was serving so impactful for him?

Well, if we think about it, Christ ultimately served his bride by giving his life for her. It's the least that we can do to serve her as we live. She's imperfect, but she's beautiful. She's worth our time. She's worth our effort. She's worth the uncomfortable conversations because Christ blood was paid for her. So I encourage you again to think, how are you serving in this church? Are you serving in this church? Why, why aren't you serving in this church?

If not, and if you are serving in this church, ah, praise God, keep doing so. But I'd encourage you to recruit people who aren't serving right now. And those of you who aren't surfing, ask someone who is serving what a joy it is to serve. 'cause I would bet that most of them would say that even in the smallest of task, even in the biggest of task, it is a joy to serve this church in any church. I think VBS was a great example of this.

We had people younger than me, older than me, many, many years older than me, coming together to, to serve our children in this congregation, to share the gospel with them. And it was a great opportunity to, to fall in, in, in a deeper state of love with, with our kids, with, um, with each other. That, that we came together. Um, and it was a great time together. So it it comes to the point that if we are concerned with ourselves, our opinions, our social circles,

that we cannot see those around us. And we surely cannot see Christ. But when we look to the gentle and lowly Christ, though we were his enemies when he chased us down and bid us to come to him, we see just how needy we are. And when we see how needy we are, we see how Christ can meet others' needs. And that moves us into our second point. So we've talked about harmony in our body. Moving to point number two, harmony for our mission.

So one more time, if you'll remember with me. Paul is writing this letter to the church in Rome so that he can build them up to be a faithful, um, launching pad for gospel missions into Spain. He's hoping to build them up in doctrine and he's hoping to resolve conflict so that they can, um, be a, be a faithful church to, to spread the wealth of the gospel to the surrounding areas. And that, that brings up the point that a church's harmony,

a church's unity is directly tied to its missional effectiveness. A church's harmony is directly tied to its missional effectiveness. See, a local church living in harmony is a firm foundation for a launching pad for gut faithful gospel ministry to the ends of the earth. But a church living in disharmony is so busy trying to patch her cracks that she can't lift her eyes up, that she needs to be self-consumed. She needs to be putting out fires, plugging holes,

and she can't look out for great commission work As a church, we bear fruit and fruit trees don't just bear fruit to look pretty or even to to show their health or to feed those who are closest to them. They're to feed those and be a blessing to all. And we see that in chapter 14, verse 20. Paul exhorts this church in a very, with very strong language. 'cause you remember, food is the problem here. And what does Paul say? He says, do not for the sake

of food, destroy the work of God.

You are c you have been blessed with so many great missional activities in your past and your present and in your future. We have great ministries right in our backyard, like 300 plus covenant children that we get to minister to every day. We have Michigan State University with SCF and Spartan Internationals. We have, um, things that are investing in the, the future of the global church, like the internship program, the fellowship program, Malawi Reformation Network church

plants, hopefully Lord willing, the Payton Society where we can send Presbyterian missionaries to the unreached people groups. But all of these things, effectiveness is directly tied to our unity and harmony. And God has shown much favor to these ministries. But how much of their fruit can spoil if disunity creeps into our body? And you all know that the church is, that the culture is trying to tear the church down. Every instance it gets it is trying to bring her down.

Do not assist it by breeding disunity in our body as the world gets crazier and divides deepen. Do not let disunity hinder our mission. Do not for the sake of important and especially unimportant issues, destroy the work of God. Do not for the sake of the carpet color in the fellowship hall, destroy the work of God. Do not let disharmony creep in because of different responses to our culture. Do not let disharmony creep in

because of different opinions on how we should school our children. Do not let disharmony creep in because of different instruments or no instruments that we think should be used in worship on Sundays. Do not let disharmony creep in because of the 2024 presidential election.

These things are good to have convictions about what we must seek unity in Christ above all else, we must count others more significant than ourselves for the, for the sake of Christ church. So again, one more time I'll say it. Do not let petty disagreements or even serious disagreements tear apart your outreach to your children, to Michigan State University and to the world. Our missional effectiveness is intertwined with our harmony,

seek unity in Christ. And to clarify here, this does not mean that we can't disagree on ministry philosophy. This doesn't mean that we can't disagree on who to vote for. This does not mean that we can't disagree on X, y, Z, but this does mean that we must always humble ourselves that we must look to Christ as our example and source of unity, not only for the sake of our brothers and sisters, but for our faithfulness to the great commission.

So we've had harmony in our body, harmony for our mission. Now we talk about harmony is our blessing because we've established that harmony is we've established the importance of harmony for our church and for our mission. But how do we actually obtain this harmony? Because we all know that we need to agree on the essentials and have charity in the non-essentials. We all know that we need to get along. We all know that we need to give our brothers

and sisters the benefit of the doubt, but oh, how hard that feels to live out, how hard that feels when we are frustrated with the worldview of a fellow church member that we feel is influenced by questionable teachers. When we are frustrated with, um, people who vote differently than us. When we are frustrated with, with all sorts of different things going on in our bo in our body, when we see the craziness of the culture, we just feel like

how could we ever get along with all that is going on? But brother and sister, this harmony that Paul calls us to is yours in Christ. And we see that that's where Paul takes this church in Rome. If you'll look with me in chapter 15 verses one through three, Paul points them to Christ. He says, we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good,

to build him up for Christ did not please himself. But that is, but as it is written through approaches of those who approached you fell on me, he points them to Christ. The Christ who did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasp, but humbled himself by taking on the form of a servant and being obedient to death, even death on the cross. He died a brutal death on the cross, not only for you, but for those sitting to your right and to your left

and in front of you and behind you so that all might be free from the bondage of sin if they place their faith in him this Christ who came not to be served, but to served. So if you are in Christ, dear Christian, a fellow Christian is not your enemy. There's no way that they can be your enemy.

There's no way that they can be your enemy because we who are once enemies of Christ, sinners in his eyes. But he chased us down. He loved us. He paid the high price of his blood for us. There's no way we can be enemies with those who are in Christ. And Paul does not only point them to Christ, but he proclaims God's blessing on them. If you'll look with me in chapter 15, verses five through seven, that Paul gives them a benediction here,

that he blesses them. He says, may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus, that together with one voice, that together you may with one voice, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Christian harmony is only possible when we lift our eyes off of ourselves.

Because living in unity and living in harmony is not ultimately for your sake. It's not ultimately for the sake of your brother and sister. It's not ultimately for the sake of the prosperity of your church. It is ultimately and finally for the glory of our triune God. It's so that with one voice we can proclaim God's glories now and forever more. There's a quote from John Newton as he's counseling one of his pastor friends on how to address where he feels that,

um, his, his Christian brother is fallen into error. He's, he's in heresy and John Newton is, is exhorting him in this way. He says, in a little while you'll meet in heaven, he will then be dear to you than the nearest friend you have on Earth is to you. Now anticipate that period in your thoughts, and though you may find it necessary to oppose his errors, view him personally as a kindred soul with whom you are to be happy in Christ forever.

So as you worship on Sunday, I want you to look around you as you worship with his last worship song tonight. Look around you. Don't pay attention of who's here and who's not here. Look around you because it's a foretaste of what you were made for. It is your te us. It is your purpose that there will be, there will be a day when all of God's people are standing before the throne of God singing his praises and will be so consumed by His glory

that we won't even think about any of the silly things that our pride deems important right now. There there will be people who voted like you and who didn't vote like you. There'll be people who like the same food as you and didn't like the same food as you. There'll be people who were small, tall, ugly, pretty white black maize and blue, green and white, all completely consumed with the glory of God not thinking about any of these things.

But though our pride blinds us now and we cannot see the full beauty of our brothers and sisters as they exist in this sinful world, there will be a day when we can see it because as we look at them, they will all be covered by the blood of the lamb. All of these things that mark our identity right now, they will be stripped away and the blood of the lamb will be completely covering us. And that is their only plea for admit admits into the throne room of heaven.

But dear Christian, that is your only plea for admittance as well, that Christ has shed his blood for your sins. And if you receive that in faith, you can be welcomed into that throne room with God and his people for now, now, and forevermore. So do you see those that you worship with right now covered by the blood of the lamb? Would you see your brothers and sisters now, how Christ sees you now and how you will see them for eternity?

Let's pray.

Try and God, father, son, and Holy Spirit, we praise you that your ways are above our ways and that you exist in perfect love and perfect harmony.

We thank you oh Lord, that you, by the blood of your son, have granted us to be a part of a beautiful church. That we can have union with Christ and we can be and we can be united to one another. We pray that you would help bless us in Christ so that with one voice we may glorify God for all eternity. We pray that all the things that are so prevalent in weighing us down right now, that we would, we would see our brothers

and sisters, how we will see them for all eternity. We pray all these things in Christ. Holy name, amen.