How Your Decisions Affect Others

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. You love us so, so much. It's amazing, Lord, what you've done for us. We just want that word to get out, that word of your love, that grace to so many who are lost right now and lonely and confused and wherever they are this morning, wherever they are, if they're not at a church, Lord, we just pray that you would somehow reach out to them through neighbors, through friends, through circumstances, but that you would shake them up so that they know your love somehow and that we would be vessels, tools, instruments, spokespeople for you into their lives. So we thank you, Lord, for the other gospel churches in our area and their ministry as well, that we, together with them, can't have the privilege of sharing your mercy and grace, and we pray, Lord, that you would teach us how to make decisions based on your love and your truth today. All this we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So it's exciting to be here this week. We're going to start in the book of Romans. We're looking at chapter 14 and 15, and we're going to read this passage in our third week and then get into the whole message. So this is from Romans chapter 14 verses 14 to 19 and then chapter 15 verses 1 through 7. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love, but by what you eat do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil, for the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. 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 as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 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. So here we are in our last week and we're going to be touching on a new subject, kind of a shift from the weeks before, but in the first week when we discussed divine direction, we looked at the fact that God doesn't always send out a blueprint or he doesn't necessarily use a crazy 8-ball or whatever else, you know, or like that method of just kind of Bible roulette, open the Bible, point at a passage and that's the one that God speaks to you today on, you know, because have you ever done that? You have. And how did it go? It worked. Well, try it again, but you know, you might come up with the buckler and shield passage that doesn't make any... Yeah, that's not necessarily the way it goes, but that he actually cares more about who you are before what you do, okay? He cares the person you are becoming, who you are, more than what you do. And he cares about the why, the motivation behind it before the what. And finally, he cares the most above everything else whom you trust, whom you trust, and that is Jesus his Son. So that was the first week. The second week we talked that God doesn't necessarily send out a, tell you exactly what to do, when to do it, you know, God give me a sign, tell me what I need to do and I'll do it. He gives you wisdom, wisdom, so that you know and you grow in that wisdom to make decisions. This week we're taking maybe a little step farther, okay? And that is that when God gives you the choice and the freedom in disputable matters, and what I mean by that is, it's not in the Bible that says do not do this, and it doesn't say in this Bible you've got to do this, but it's in those areas that are kind of gray, which is most of life. How do you make a decision in those disputable matters when you have freedom to do as you please? And Paul will say, don't just do as you please, even though you can. And that's what he says in Romans chapter 14 and 15 here. But before we get into this message, I want to share, I'm really excited about the next series, and Jen knows about it because she helped me with this. We did this on Wednesday nights for our campus ministry during the semester, and I think these students really had a lot of good di...