Our times are marked by so much vitriol. Gone are the days of civil discourse and coping

with lifestyles that don't match up. Instead, we find people shouting at one another, trying

to force their values on others who don't share them. Today, on Insight for Living,

Chuck Swindall reminds us that we can't expect unredeemed people to live as though they are.

In his final message in the series called Living by Grace, Chuck surveys Paul's letter

to the Romans to unveil the biblical alternative to intolerance. Chuck titled today's message,

Extending Grace to Let Others Be.

Many people have the mistaken idea that Romans is all doctrine. And from start to finish,

it is just one doctrinal treatise. It certainly includes that all the way through. But when

you get to chapter 12 and all the way through chapter 16, the focus turns from the vertical

more of the horizontal and Paul writes to those of us in the church and those of us who desire

to relate to one another well, counsel and wisdom on how to do that with grace. What he really does

is describe what living by grace is all about. He sort of reaches his special climax when he gets

to chapter 14, where we are today. And that's the only chapter, but there is something wonderful

about this particular chapter in that it talks about extending grace to other people who

are different from us. They differ in the realm of the non-essential things in life,

where to have unity in essentials, those great truths, and that list is short,

but in the areas of the non-essential, where Scripture does not declare that to be wrong,

or taboo, we're to give people room to be and to believe as they wish or as they feel most comfortable.

We're not good at that. Christians can be very narrow men and women, even teenagers.

We want to learn from Paul's words in Romans 14 how to let others be and what the guidelines

are for doing that. Let me read for you several verses out of Romans 14. I'll choose excerpts from

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