Strong People Make Space

Well good morning everyone. Welcome to Blue Oaks. We’re really glad you’re here today.

If we haven’t met yet, my name is Matt, I’m one of the pastors here, and today we continue our journey through the book of Romans.

I’ve really loved this series because Romans is so practical.

Paul is not just giving theological ideas. He’s describing the kind of people the gospel is meant to create.

And the deeper we’ve gone into this letter, the more uncomfortable it gets.

Because Romans keeps exposing things we’d rather not look at:

our pride
our judgment
our anger
our need to be right
our tendency to divide people into categories
our instinct to protect ourselves instead of love people

Which is especially challenging because we live in a culture that constantly tells us the goal of life is to arrange the world around our preferences.

We want…

personalized playlists
personalized algorithms
personalized coffee drinks
personalized news feeds
personalized mattresses

At this point if someone could invent personalized freeway traffic, we’d all pay for it.

Imagine: “Welcome to Freeway Plus. For only $49.99 a month, you will never again be frustrated by a Toyota Prius going 55 in the fast lane.”

We laugh… but most of us spend enormous amounts of energy trying to create friction-free lives.

Convenient schedules
Convenient relationships
Convenient community
Convenient people

And the problem is: Real love is almost never convenient.

Eventually every relationship becomes inconvenient.
Every family becomes inconvenient.
Every church becomes inconvenient.

Because people complicate things.

People interrupt things.
People move slower than we want.
People think differently than we want.
People need more patience than we want to give.

And Romans 15 steps directly into that reality.

Paul is writing to a church filled with tension — Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians trying to figure out how to live together as one family while carrying very different convictions… and very different traditions… and very different personalities… and very different instincts.

Some followers of Jesus felt freedom. Others had sensitive consciences.

Some thought certain practices were fine. Others were deeply troubled by them.

And underneath all of it is this question: What does spiritual maturity actually look like?

Because maturity is not merely:

knowing theology
or winning arguments
or having freedom
or proving you’re right

Maturity is what you do with your strength.

So Paul writes in Romans 15:1–2:

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. (Romans 15:1-2)

The word for “bear with” is important.

Paul doesn’t mean: tolerate people while quietly rolling your eyes internally.

The language means:

Carry
Or support
Or hold up

Strong people help carry weaker people.

Which is radically different from the way our culture defines strength.

Our world says: strength means independence.

Paul says: strength means using your strength for someone else.

A couple months ago, one of our special needs kids walked into church with his parents and immediately walked over and pulled the fire alarm.

If you’ve never experienced that during a worship service… it’s unforgettable.

Lights flashing
Alarm blaring
Everything stopping
Parents looking around confused
Staff sprinting in every direction

And because of our safety system, once the alarm goes off the sound system shuts down for several minutes.

So there’s this strange moment where hundreds of people are just sitting here awkwardly while a fire alarm screams over everyone’s heads.

Then a couple months later it happened again.

This time it was while I was teaching.

Which honestly felt a little personal.

It was disruptive. It was inconvenient. It threw everything off.

But afterward, what struck me was this: At no point did our staff sit around saying: “You know what would make church easier? Fewer complicated people.”

Because years ago we already made a decision as a church. We decided we want to be a place where families with special needs can belong.

Not just theoretically. Not just in a mission statement. Actually belong.

And belonging is rarely efficient.

That’s true in church.
It’s true in friendship.
It’s true in marriage.
It’s true in parenting.
It’s true in community.

People complicate things.

And Paul says: that inconvenience is not an obstacle to Christian maturity. That’s where Christian maturity is revealed.

Because strong people make space.

Paul says:

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. (Romans 15:1)

Now right away, we have to be careful with the language Paul uses here because modern ears hear “strong” and “weak” differently than Paul intended.

We immediately turn it into a hierarchy.

Strong people are valuable. Weak people are frustrating. Strong people lead. Weak people hold everyone back.

That’s not what Paul is describing.

In Romans 14 and 15, “strong” and “weak” are not insults. They’re descriptions of spiritual confidence and conscience.

The “strong” believers understood their freedom in Christ more fully. The “weak” believers still carried sensitivities… and fears… and convictions connected to their past.

Paul’s instruction is fascinating because he doesn’t tell the strong: “Win the argument.”

He tells them: Carry the weaker person.

Which I hope you remember from last week — spiritual maturity is not proven by how much freedom you can exercise. It’s revealed by your willingness to limit yourself for the good of another person.

Our world teaches us:

If you have power, use it.
If you have freedom, protect it.
If you have rights, demand them.

Paul says: If you’re truly strong, use your strength to help someone else flourish.

This is where Christianity becomes inconvenient.

Most of us are perfectly happy to love people as long as they don’t slow us down.

But eventually every meaningful relationship requires emotional sacrifice.

Every marriage does.
Every friendship does.
Every family does.
Every church does.

Eventually someone becomes inconvenient. Someone needs extra patience… and extra grace… and extra understanding… and extra time.

And at that moment, everything in us wants efficiency instead of love.

Which is one of the defining instincts of our culture these days — we’re obsessed with optimization.

How do we do things faster… and cleaner… and smarter… and more efficiently?

And again, some of that is good. But when efficiency becomes the highest value, people start feeling like interruptions.

You can even feel this in ordinary life now.

You’re standing in line at the grocery store and the cashier starts talking too long with the person in front of you, and suddenly you feel your internal irritation rising.

Not because anything immoral is happening. Just because someone is delaying your progress by 45 seconds.

Which is enough time for most of us to internally compose a TED Talk about why society is collapsing.

And Paul says: Christian maturity moves in the opposite direction.

Strong people slow down for weaker people.
Strong people absorb inconvenience.
Strong people make room.

I was on a flight last week sitting in the aisle seat, and a woman was sitting in the window seat.

And almost immediately after I sat down, she started talking to me very loudly.

Like… “the entire section of the plane is now involved in this conversation” loudly.

And within about 30 seconds I realized: this woman clearly had one too many drinks in the airport.

I tried to be polite. I tried to listen. I tried to help her. At one point she asked me to help get her phone working.

Then the person assigned to the middle seat showed up… and she traded seats with him so she could sit directly next to me for the entire flight.

Which felt aggressive.

And honestly, at that point, everything inside me wanted distance.

Because she was loud… saying embarrassing things… dropping things… sitting way too close to me.

Then before the plane took off, security personnel came onto the plane and asked me to step into the aisle because they needed to talk to her.

Apparently a flight attendant thought she might need to be removed from the flight because she was intoxicated.

And honestly, from a distance, it would have been very easy to reduce her to: “drunk, annoying woman making everyone uncomfortable.”

She wasn’t removed. She was warned. So I got to sit with her for the next 2 hours.

And over the course of the conversation, I learned her mom had died from cancer ten years earlier to the exact day. She showed me the date tattooed on her arm.

And she told me she became an oncology nurse because losing her mom shaped her entire life.

And she admitted this anniversary still carried enormous pain for her… even ten years later.

And suddenly, once I knew her story, my frustration started turning into compassion.

She didn’t become less disruptive. She was still loud. She was still awkward. She was still sitting too close to me.

But now I could see the pain underneath the behavior.

And honestly, I think moments like that reveal something important about human beings: It’s much easier to judge people when you don’t know what they’re carrying.

Because every person you meet is carrying a story you cannot immediately see.

And Paul says mature Christians learn how to move toward people with patience instead of judgment.

Not because truth doesn’t matter. Not because wisdom disappears. But because the gospel reshapes the way we see people.

That phrase “bear with” literally carries the idea of supporting or carrying a weight.

In other words: Paul is saying mature Christians don’t just tolerate struggling people. They help carry them.

And this is important because tolerance has become a very shallow virtue in our culture.

Tolerance today usually means: “I will allow your existence while remaining emotionally annoyed by you.”

But biblical love goes way deeper than that. Biblical love says: Your weakness is not an interruption to my spirituality. Helping carry you is part of my spirituality.

And ultimately, this is exactly what Jesus did for us.

Paul continues in verse 3:

For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” (Romans 15:3)

That line is the center of the whole passage.

Paul does something really important here: he moves the message away from preference management and into the character of Jesus himself.

This is not merely: “Be nicer to difficult people.”

This is: “This is what Jesus is like.”

And that changes the entire emotional tone of the passage.

Because when we hear:

“Limit yourself for others…”
“Carry weaker people…”
“Make space for difficult people…”

…part of us immediately starts thinking: “That sounds exhausting.”

And sometimes it is. Because real love costs something.

But Paul says: before you look at what Christ commands, look at what Christ did.

“For even Christ did not please himself…”

That’s remarkable when you stop and think about it.

Jesus is the only person in human history who actually had the right to center himself.

The only fully righteous human being.
The only perfectly holy person.
The only truly deserving person.

And yet his life consistently moved outward toward other people.

Toward the sick.
Toward the overlooked.
Toward the exhausting.
Toward the needy.
Toward the socially awkward.
Toward the spiritually confused.
Toward people everyone else avoided.

And what’s fascinating is how often the Gospels show Jesus being interrupted.

People constantly interrupt Him.

He’s teaching — interruption.
Traveling — interruption.
Trying to rest — interruption.
Trying to grieve — interruption.
Trying to eat — interruption.

If you read the Gospels closely, Jesus almost never gets a normal day.

Which is encouraging because some of you feel like that right now.

Parents of young children are reading the Gospels thinking: “Finally. Someone understands.”

Jesus is constantly surrounded by people needing something from him.

And what’s remarkable is not that interruptions happened. It’s how rarely Jesus treated people like interruptions.

Some writers on spiritual formation talk about what they call “divine interruptions.”

The idea that what feels inconvenient to us may actually be where love is needed most.

And when you read the Gospels, that happens constantly.

Jesus is on His way somewhere… and someone interrupts Him.

A blind man cries out.
A desperate father begs for help.
A woman reaches for his robe.
Children run toward him.
Crowds surround him.

And over and over again, the interruptions become the ministry.

Which is challenging because most of us spend enormous amounts of energy trying to eliminate interruptions from our lives.

We want control… and predictability… and efficiency.

But love rarely operates on a perfectly managed schedule.

Love moves toward people differently than selfishness does.

Selfishness asks: “How is this affecting me?”
Love asks: “What does this person need from me?”

This doesn’t mean Jesus had no boundaries. It doesn’t mean he said yes to every demand. It doesn’t mean he lacked solitude or rest.

The Gospels clearly show him withdrawing to pray and stepping away from crowds at times.

So this passage is not teaching emotional codependency. Paul is not saying mature Christians allow themselves to be endlessly controlled by unhealthy people.

What he’s saying is: The default direction of Jesus’ life was self-giving love.

And that’s radically different from the cultural air we breathe.

We increasingly treat self-protection as the highest good.

Protect your peace.
Protect your energy.
Protect your comfort.
Protect your preferences.
Protect your experience.

Now some of that language exists for good reasons. Healthy boundaries matter.

But eventually, if we’re not careful, we can build entire lives organized around avoiding inconvenience.

And the problem is: you cannot love people deeply without being inconvenienced by them eventually.

You cannot build authentic community without patience… and without sacrifice… and without discomfort… and without forgiveness… and without adjustment.

That’s true in marriage. It’s true in friendship. It’s true in parenting. It’s true in church.

And nowhere do we see that more clearly than the cross.

Because the cross is the ultimate picture of strength being used for the good of others.

Rome defined power through domination. Jesus revealed power through self-giving love.

The world says: strength means protecting yourself. Jesus shows us: real strength willingly carries others.

Paul says in verse 5:

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, (Romans 15:5)

Paul is not aiming at mere coexistence. He’s aiming at unity.

Not uniformity. Not sameness. Not everyone having identical opinions… or personalities… or backgrounds… or instincts.

Unity.

Which is much harder.

Because uniformity is actually pretty easy. You just gather people who already think alike — vote alike, live alike, and prefer alike. You build a community where everyone naturally fits together.

But the church of Jesus was never designed to be built around sameness. It was designed to reveal reconciliation.

And this would have sounded shocking in first-century Rome. Because the Roman world was deeply divided.

Ethnic divisions.
Social divisions.
Class divisions.
Religious divisions.
Power divisions.

Rome knew how to achieve external order. What Rome could not produce was genuine unity.

Because you cannot force people to love one another.

You can control behavior. You can enforce compliance. You can create fear. But you cannot manufacture love.

And into that world comes the church.

A community where: Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, slave and free, male and female, educated and uneducated… shared meals… and worship… and life… and called one another family.

And what made that possible was not agreement on everything.

It was Jesus.

That’s why Paul says:

so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 15:6)

One voice. Not because they became identical people. But because they became centered on the same Savior.

This may be one of the most needed words for us right now.

Because our world increasingly trains us to sort ourselves into tribes.

people who think like us
vote like us
parent like us
view the world like us
share our outrage
share our assumptions
share our preferences

And the moment someone becomes difficult, uncomfortable, or exhausting, the instinct is often:

cut ties
or leave
or unfollow
or cancel
or withdraw
or move on

Because our world tends to define peace as: eliminating difficult people.

But biblical peace is reconciliation in the middle of difficulty. That’s very different.

And listen, this doesn’t mean every relationship is safe. It doesn’t mean wisdom disappears. It doesn’t mean boundaries disappear.

Paul is not describing naive conflict avoidance. He’s describing a Spirit-formed people who refuse to let difference become division.

Which means the church should become one of the few places left in society where people who would not naturally choose each other still learn how to love one another.

When that happens, the church will become deeply compelling.

Because the world already understands communities built around agreement. What the world does not understand is supernatural unity.

A community where people make space for one another because Jesus made space for them.
A community where strength is not used to dominate weaker people, but to help them flourish.
A community where people are not valued based on usefulness… or efficiency… or status… or intelligence… or productivity… or cultural power. But simply because they bear the image of God.

That kind of community will become a witness to the world that the gospel is real.

Paul says in verse 7:

Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. (Romans 15:7)

That may be one of the simplest and most confronting verses in the entire section. Because Paul roots our treatment of one another in the way Jesus has treated us.

“Accept one another… just as Christ accepted you.”

Which raises a difficult question: How exactly did Christ accept you?

Because he did not accept you once you became easy. He did not accept you once you had your life cleaned up…

once you became emotionally healthy…
once your motives were pure…
once your theology was perfect…
once your habits were fixed…
once your personality became manageable…

Paul has made this painfully clear in Romans.

He’s spent a lot of time dismantling human pride —

Jewish pride
Gentile pride
Moral pride
Religious pride
Self-righteous pride

All of us arrive before God the same way — needy.

And yet somehow, once people receive grace, they often become less patient with other struggling people.

Which is strange when you think about it.

Christians above all people should understand that transformation is usually slow.

We all want instant sanctification for other people. We want everyone else’s growth to happen at Amazon Prime speed. Same-day holiness delivery.

And when people continue struggling… and continue failing… and continue needing patience… we become frustrated.

But the entire Christian life is built on the reality that Jesus continues making space for imperfect people.

That’s what the cross reveals. Jesus absorbed rejection in order to create reconciliation. He carried our sin instead of crushing us beneath it.

And because of that, the church should become one of the safest places on earth for imperfect people to grow.

Not because sin is minimized. Not because truth disappears. But because grace becomes bigger than shame.

This is where we as a church have enormous opportunity right now.

Because our culture swings between two extremes.

One side says: truth without grace.
The other says: grace without truth.

But Jesus consistently held both together — full of grace and truth.

And when the church reflects that balance well, something beautiful happens.

People can breathe.
People can admit weakness.
People can admit failure.
People can admit confusion.
People can admit struggle.

Because they know they’re entering a community shaped by the patience of Jesus.

And that matters so much because every single person in this room is difficult in some way.

You realize that, right?

Every one of us has…

blind spots
and immaturities
and fears
and defensiveness
and self-centered instincts

Every one of us has areas where other people have had to be patient with us.

Which means the ground is level at the foot of the cross. No one stands above anyone else here.

The only reason any of us belong in the family of God is because Jesus made space for us first.

Later in the service we’re going to celebrate baptisms together…

And baptism is such a beautiful picture of this reality.

No one gets baptized because they finally became perfect. No one gets baptized because they figured everything out.

Baptism is a person publicly saying: “Jesus made space for me through his grace.”

That’s true for every Christian in this room.

Every one of us came to God needy… and broken… and still growing… and yet somehow Jesus welcomed us anyway.

And when that truth sinks deeply into a church, it changes the emotional atmosphere of the whole community.

People become slower to judge… and quicker to forgive… and more patient… and more humble… and more compassionate.

Because mature Christians understand: “I’m standing here entirely because of grace.”

And people who know they live by grace become much more willing to give grace.

Paul closes this section with one of the most beautiful prayers in all of Romans.

Verse 13:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)

I love that Paul calls him: “the God of hope.”

Because Romans 14 and 15 could start to feel heavy after a while.

Carry weaker people.
Limit your freedom.
Bear with one another.
Make space for difficult people.
Accept one another.

And if we’re not careful, we can start hearing all of that as: “Try harder to be nicer.”

But Christianity is not behavior management powered by guilt.

Paul ends by reminding us that this kind of life is produced by the Spirit of God.

This is what God is forming in us. A people marked by:

joy
and peace
and patience
and humility
and hospitality
and hope

Hope may be one of the greatest witnesses the church has right now. Because we live in an exhausted world.

People are tired… and anxious… and fragmented… and angry… and lonely… and suspicious of one another.

Everyone is performing strength. Very few people actually feel strong.

And into that kind of world, the church is meant to become a living picture of another kingdom. A place where people are not valued based on:

efficiency
or productivity
or intelligence
or status
or political alignment
or usefulness

But because they are loved by God.

A place where weaker people are not discarded.
A place where struggling people are not shamed.
A place where interruptions are not merely tolerated.
A place where grace is real.
A place where people make space for one another because Jesus made space for them.

That kind of community does not happen naturally.

Human beings naturally drift toward self-protection… toward comfort… toward people who are easiest for us.

Only the Spirit of God creates this kind of love. Only the Spirit creates people who willingly carry one another.

Who forgive one another.
Who absorb inconvenience without resentment.
Who choose patience over power.
Who choose welcome over judgment.

And when that happens, the church becomes a witness to the world that Jesus is alive.

Because the world understands communities built around preference. What the world does not understand is a community built around grace.

A community where people who normally would never choose one another become family.
A community where strong people use their strength to help others flourish.
A community where love is greater than convenience.

This is what Paul envisioned.

This is the kind of church I want us to be.

Not a perfect church… but a church where people can breathe.

A church where people can heal.
A church where people can belong.
A church where the grace of Jesus is not merely preached… but experienced.

And honestly… I’ve experienced that personally from this church over the last year in profound ways.

As many of you know, this season of my life has not unfolded the way I would have chosen.

Walking through divorce has been painful… and complicated… and humbling in a hundred different ways.

And one of the things I’ve experienced from this church over and over and over again is grace…

and patience…
and kindness…
and encouragement…
and care.

not gossip
not suspicion
not judgment

Just people showing up with compassion.

And I need you to know something: that is not normal in our world right now.

The world knows how to shame people.
The world knows how to label people.
The world knows how to reduce people to their worst moments.

But what I’ve experienced here is something different entirely. I’ve experienced a church trying to embody the grace of Jesus.

It’s made me even more proud to be a pastor at this church.

Not because we’re perfect. We’re not.

But because I’ve seen people here make space for one another. I’ve seen people choose compassion over condemnation. I’ve seen people carry one another through pain.

And that’s what Paul is talking about. That’s the kind of community the gospel creates.

Because in the end, that is the gospel.

Jesus saw all the inconvenience we would bring into his life… all the sin… all the mess… all the selfishness… all the rebellion… and he made space for us anyway.

Alright, pray with me as the worship team comes to lead us in a closing prayer.

Prayer