Accept and Witness || Romans 15:5-6 || Weekend Wind-Down #3

Welcome to the third week of “Weekend Wind-Down.” This series is where we take the verse of the day, look at the face value interpretation, check the background and context of the verse, do a deeper dive on the focus scripture, and figure out what we can walk away with. 

Today’s verse is Romans 15:5-6, which says this: 

5 May God, who gives this patience and encouragement, help you live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus. 

6 Then all of you can join together with one voice, giving praise and glory to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Face Value

At face value, this shows me that God is patient with humans and encourages us to live in complete harmony with him and each other. If we can get along with others, we live how God wants us to. It’s the best example of showing the world God’s glory and praise. 

Background

Paul wrote Romans to introduce himself to the Romans and to present his main message before he arrived in Rome. He created this letter very carefully as he presented his statement of his faith. As I’ll explain later, an essential thing to notice is that he spent considerable time greeting the Roman people at the beginning and end of this letter.

Romans 15 is an extensive chapter with lots of information. Paul opens this letter by discussing how we can live to please others. How can we do that? Paul reminds us that we should know what God has in the past and have faith and confidence that he can do that in the future. The Roman Church was a diverse congregation of Jews and Gentiles, enslaved and free people, rich and poor, strong and weak in faith. Paul wanted them to accept each other. What did that mean to Paul? To take people into our homes and hearts, share meals and activities, and avoid racial and economic discrimination. To consciously greet those you don’t usually talk to, minimize the difference, and seek common ground for fellowship. Paul closes this section of chapter fifteen with a reminder of the joy that comes with doing the work and will of God daily and anticipating what comes in the future. Paul also includes his reason for writing this book (14-22) and his future travel plans (23-33). 

Deep Dive

While there were no direct notes about these verses in my study Bible, some associated verses share some exciting information. The first verse we’ll look at is Romans 1:5, which says this:

5 Through Christ, God has given us the privilege and authority as apostles to tell Gentiles everywhere what God has done for them, so that they will believe and obey him, bringing glory to his name.

Paul and the apostles received the privilege or gift of sharing the Good News – that is, the message of forgiveness of sin and new life in Jesus. This gift also came with the responsibility of sharing this message correctly. Paul’s new life also involved a divine assignment: to witness as a missionary about God’s Good News to the world. God calls us to do the same thing, not to Paul’s degree of missionary work, but in our communities. God calls us to be an ambassador for Christ and to witness the changed life we have that Jesus began in us.

Keep this in mind as we look at the next verse, which is Romans 12:3. This says: 

3 Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning. Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.” 

Honest and accurate self-evaluation comes with knowing the basis of our self-worth – our identity in Christ. I have a series about our identity called “Who Am I?” that looks at many different titles that we are through Christ that you can peruse on your own. I will be working on a revisited series of that soon to update it. Learning these titles will help reinforce your personal beliefs about yourself and strengthen your relationship with God. If we evaluate ourselves by the standards of success that the world created, we can overthink our worth. We’ll put too much value on others to determine our worth and thus miss our actual value in God’s eyes. 

Remember this as we look at our last verse, Philippians 2:17. It says: 

17 But I will rejoice even if I lose my life, pouring it out like a liquid offering to God, just like your faithful service is an offering to God. And I want all of you to share that joy.

The main thing to focus on here is your commitment to serving God. If it’s fully there, sacrificing to build the faith of others brings positive rewards. 

Take-Home Point

With all this in mind, what should you take home to apply to your life? Two points: acceptance and sharing the Good News. 

Let’s revisit the definition of acceptance that Paul shared with us. Paul states that acceptance involves:

• Taking people into our homes and our hearts.
• Sharing meals and activities.
• Avoiding racial and economic discrimination.

It also involves consciously talking to those we don’t usually talk to, minimizing the difference between you and me, and seeking common ground for fellowship.

When we talk about acceptance, we need to agree with everyone about everything. We can’t contradict everything someone does and must go along with it. This line of thinking isn’t true. We need to accept each other as a human, as a creation of God. We don’t always agree with what someone believes or how someone does things, but we can accept them as they are. We can gently correct their ways if what they do causes harm to themselves or others. We can invite someone out for coffee or invite someone in for dinner and engage in the deep conversations that connect us. We can embrace someone with a different background: religious, socioeconomic, romantic, gender-based, and more. We can learn about who they are as humans and find that common ground with each other. Doing these acts of acceptance can lead us to what Paul called “living in complete harmony with each other.”

The other thing we can do is share the Good News. We can witness this information to others. It’s having a conversation with them about Jesus. It’s inviting someone to read the Bible with you and introducing them to the Gospel story. It’s helping a friend who is going through a tough time and sharing the love, care, and compassion of Jesus. We can witness within our means. We can’t heal people who are blind or feed the multitudes as Jesus did, but we can invite someone over for a meal or donate your time at a local senior center. We can’t resurrect the dead as Jesus did, but we can start a community garden or volunteer at a school or a homeless shelter. We can witness by sacrificing. We can proclaim our faith in God by donating the money we’d use for coffee to the local missionary or church. We can share our groceries with the local food pantry.

I hope you found something insightful in the third week of our Weekend Wind-Downs. We talked about how we can accept each other and witness the Good News to others. Let me close this message out in prayer. 

Accepting God,

Thank you for accepting me as I am. Thank you for the Good News shown before me in the Bible.

Please help me to accept others as your children. Please help me to understand where others have come from. Please help me to witness to those who need to hear about you however I can. 

Amen.