Sunday Morning, May 31 2020, AM

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Sunday Morning, May 31, 2020, AM "Accept One Another" (Part 5) Romans 14:1-15:7

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Come on in, have a seat.
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Welcome this morning to Sunnyside Baptist Church. It's good to have everyone here worshiping together.
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The place just gets more full week after week and it's so good, so good to see. A couple of announcements this morning, obviously as we continue to slowly reopen things and get things back to normal.
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The elders wanted me to make an announcement regarding Sunday school. They've been discussing Sunday school amongst themselves, getting input from the congregation.
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And it's been decided that Sunday school is going to officially start back up June 14th.
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Now, if you want to talk it over with your Sunday school class and you all feel like you're okay meeting next week, that is fine too.
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But June 14th is going to be the official, let's get things kicked off. If you're thinking, well, what do
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I do with regards to nursery? There's discussions about trying to figure out nursery volunteers for the 14th.
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So just know that those discussions are continuing to happen and we'll get that sorted out by the 14th.
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Okay, another announcement, tomorrow evening at First Southern Baptist Church, we're going to be having
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Brother Ralph's remembrance and celebration service there. The family's asked me to make that announcement.
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Everyone here at Sunnyside is invited to come. So we look forward to seeing everybody there.
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It may or may not be live streamed. I've been working with the church trying to get some good internet connection up there, but that's still kind of up in the air right now.
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But there may be a recording later. We'll just have to see. All right, any other announcements that I'm missing this morning?
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Yes, ma 'am. 7 p .m. 7 p .m. Thank you. 7 p .m.
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First Southern Baptist Church in Dell City, 59th and Sooner, if you're not sure where that is,
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Southeast 59th and Sooner, roughly. Tonight and Wednesday night, another good announcement.
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So you're able to come back tonight for a meeting here in the auditorium, 5 .30
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p .m. And then Wednesday night, no meal, but we'll still continue to meet, 6 .30.
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All right. Well, if there's no other announcements this morning, we're going to prepare our hearts for worship, and then after, Dwight will open us in prayer.
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Father, what a blessing it is to be able to call you Father. To know that you have called us to yourself as your children.
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You have brought us into your family. Out of your great love, you sent your son to pay the price for our sins, that we might have fellowship with you to reconcile us to yourself.
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And what a blessing it is to meet together this morning and fellowship one with another in your spirit.
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And we've come together to worship, to express our love and adoration for you.
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So help us to do that in spirit and in truth, from the heart and according to your word.
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May we lift our voices and our hearts and be of one mind as we sing and pray and preach for your glory, for your honor, and the uplifting of your son, the
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Lord Jesus. And as we leave this place, may we be better witnesses for your son, the
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Lord Jesus. In his name I pray, amen. Would you stand with me for our call to worship?
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We're continuing our passage in Psalms chapter 42. We'll be reading verses eight and nine today.
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Read with me together. By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song with me.
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Prayer is with God of my life. I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me?
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Why do I go mourning? Because of the oppression of my enemy. Sing with me the chorus of As the
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Deer. To you alone are my strength, my shield.
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To you alone may my spirit heal.
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You alone are my heart's desire, and I long to worship thee.
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We just read God, my rock. We're going to sing on page 404, the solid rock.
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Sing verses one, three, and four. Hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood.
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I dare not trust the spirit's frame, but holyly mourn
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Jesus' name. On Christ, the solid ground is sinking sand.
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All other ground is sinking sand. Yet this covenant is one.
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Support me in the whelming flood. With all around my soul displayed, he is all my hope and stay.
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On Christ, the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand.
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All other ground is sinking sand. He shall come with trumpet sound.
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O may I then in him be found. Rest in his righteousness alone.
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Faultless to stand before the throne. All other ground is sinking sand.
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All other ground is sinking sand.
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If you have your Bibles with you this morning, I want to encourage you to take that in hand. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 7.
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And we'll be reading the whole chapter this morning. Deuteronomy chapter 7, starting in verse 1.
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When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the
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Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the
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Hivites, the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mighty than yourselves.
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And when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction.
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You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons.
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For they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the
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Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. But thus shall you deal with them.
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You shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their asherim and burn their carved images with fire.
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For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
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It was not because you were more in number than any of the other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples.
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But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers that the
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Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and has redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
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Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations and repays to their face those who hate him by destroying them.
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He will not be slack with the one who hates him. He will repay him to his face.
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You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.
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And because you listen to these rules and keep them and do them, the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love that he swore to your fathers.
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He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you.
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You shall be blessed above all peoples. There shall not be male or female barren among you or among your livestock.
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And the Lord will take away from you all sickness and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you.
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And you shall consume all the peoples that the Lord your God will give over to you. Your eye shall not pity them, neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.
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If you say in your heart, These nations are greater than I. How can I dispossess them?
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You shall not be afraid of them, but you shall remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all
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Egypt, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which the
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Lord your God brought you out. So will the Lord your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.
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Moreover, the Lord your God will send hornets among them until those who are left and hide themselves from you are destroyed.
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You shall not be in dread of them, for the Lord your God is in your midst, a great and awesome
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God. The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little.
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You may not make an end of them at once, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you.
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But the Lord your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed.
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And he will give their kings into your hand and you shall make their name perish from under heaven.
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No one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. The carved images of their gods you shall burn with fire.
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You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them or take it for yourselves unless you be ensnared by it.
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For it is an abomination to the Lord your God. And you shall not bring an abominable thing into your house and become devoted to destruction like it.
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You shall utterly detest and abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction.
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May God bless the reading of his word this morning. Would you pray with me? Almighty God, you dwell in holiness and in purity.
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In unapproachable light. In you there is no darkness.
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And Lord, we bow before you. We who are sinful in heart and in mind.
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Lord, our only hope, our only plea is Christ our
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Savior and his blood and righteousness to cleanse and purify us.
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Were it not for Jesus, we would be like the inhabitants of those nations.
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A people devoted to destruction. But because of your great grace in Christ and by faith in his finished work on the cross, by his death and resurrection, we are set free from sin and death and the penalty that comes with that.
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Lord, we thank you for the blessing of being able to gather together this morning.
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Thank you for setting your love upon us, for calling us together today.
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May we declare your greatness, your glory, your majesty, your mercy in Christ.
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And we give you thanks in his name. Amen. You may be seated. You may have received salvation recently or maybe you've been walking with the
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Lord for many years. It's wonderful to have a merciful and blessed
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Savior in the Lord Jesus Christ, to be freed from the bondage of sin and to have liberty in him.
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So let's sing together, Lift High the Name of Jesus. Lift high the name of Jesus, of Jesus our
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King. Make known the power of his grace, the beauty of his peace.
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Remember how his mercy reached and we cried out to him.
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He lifted us to solid ground, to freedom from our sin.
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O sing, my soul, and tell of all he's done, till the earth and heavens are filled with his glory.
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Lift high the name of Jesus, of Jesus our
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Lord. His power in us is greater than, is greater than this world.
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To share the reason for hope, to serve with love and grace, that all who see him shine through us, might bring the
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Father praise. O sing, my soul, and tell of all he's done, till the earth and heavens are filled with his glory.
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Lift high the name of Jesus, of Jesus our
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Lord. No earth can save him, raise the stone to lie.
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He opens up our eyes to see, the harvest he has grown.
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He labor in his fields of grace, and he leads sinners home.
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O sing, my soul, and tell of all he's done, till the earth and heavens are filled with his glory.
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O sing, sing, my soul, and tell of all he's done, till the earth and heavens are filled with his glory.
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Amen. And then our last song is Like a River Glorious. Page 494.
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Like a river glorious, is
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God's perfect peace. Over all the earth, not a shadow must pass me by.
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Still I'll be blessed, finding that he brought me peace and rest.
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Ev 'ry joy to falleth from our side.
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O we may trust him wholly, all for us to do him wrong.
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Still I'll be blessed, finding that he brought me peace and rest.
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Perfect peace and rest.
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Let's pray together. Holy Spirit, you ask a question that seems very relevant for our time.
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Why are the nations in an uproar?
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And the peoples devising a vain thing?
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And God, you give us the answer for the rage, for the outcry that we witness.
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That the kings of the earth have taken their stand and the rulers have taken counsel together against you,
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O God, and against our Messiah, Jesus.
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Why do the peoples rage? Lord, you tell us.
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They wish to be free from your governance.
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They wish to cast away your restraints. They wish to live as if there is no such thing as your law or your justice.
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And Father, we know that you're not bothered by that in one sense, and that you are greatly bothered by it in another.
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You reign from heaven, and you laugh and you scoff at all the powerless raging of the people.
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And yet it is deadly serious as they rebel against you, their
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Maker. And you would have them recognize, confess, and submit to your
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King, whom you have enthroned at your right hand. You have given all things to Christ, and He has a name which is above every name, and He is ruler over all.
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And so you tell us to take discernment and warning. And Father, I pray for discernment and for warning.
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For civil authorities, I pray for discernment and warning for those submitting to civil authorities and those rebelling against civil authorities, that we are all to worship you, the
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Lord, the Lord God Almighty, in fear, with reverence, and that we may rejoice in your provision and your goodness and your power, though with trembling.
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And I pray for peace in our nation and peace in our cities, but the kind of peace that comes from doing homage to the
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Son, Jesus Christ, submission to Christ, so that we not perish as a nation.
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You remind us how blessed, how happy, how favored are all who take refuge in your
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Son, Jesus Christ. And so I pray for the family of George Floyd to take refuge in Christ.
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And I pray for those who are peacefully protesting to take refuge in Jesus Christ, and those among them who are destroying and vandalizing and robbing and hurting to repent and take refuge in Christ.
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I pray for the business owners whose hard work has been destroyed and burned in fire and have lost the livelihood and the ability to provide for their families because of the riots, that you would see to their needs and that they would find refuge in Christ.
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I pray for the police officers who now must more than ever fear for their lives in doing their normal duties, that you would protect them and that you would teach them the fear of you, that they would operate in reverence to you at all times and that they would find refuge in Christ.
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I pray for those who are being mobilized as the
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National Guard to various places of conflict. I pray for their families who will be deprived of their presence, fathers and mothers absent from their children, from their families, and the hardships that they must face.
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And I pray that they would find refuge in Christ. Father, you have given us a very clear pattern in the
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Word. We either rage against you or find our peace in you.
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I pray for repentance, a forsaking of the rage, and a submission to your rule and your reign in Christ.
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It's in your name that we pray. Amen. I invite you to open your
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Bibles and turn with me to Romans, Romans chapter 14.
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We're going to be reading verses 13 through 23 in a moment. Romans 14, verses 13 through 23.
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This week I was especially, I felt especially grateful to Christ for His wisdom and His care in shepherding us.
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It's been kind of building in my heart as I've been studying and praying through these matters, but just the way in which
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Jesus does so well in shepherding His sheep and nourishing us and providing for exactly what we need,
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I find it somewhat amazing that by His Apostle Paul through His Holy Spirit, that He would speak to us about these matters of conviction, about matters of liberty, how we are to love one another in His kingdom.
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And I'm so grateful for there are so many other alternative, contrary types of messages and sermons being preached all around us than the one that Christ is giving us in His Word.
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For example, I heard on the radio of a local football coach whose name rhymes with Blinken Shiley.
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And he quote tweeted a sermon of the day from one of Ohio's priestesses by the name of Shanti Akers.
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She's a doctor. And this is what she said. She says, Not wearing a mask is a sign of your privilege.
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We'll come back to that word. Not wearing a mask is a sign of your privilege. It means that even in a pandemic with thousands of people dying, you have not been touched by sorrow.
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That's the assumption. Trust me, if you had actually seen COVID -19 in action ravaging the human body, you'd be wearing the edited word mask.
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So that sermon really hit home with the radio host. He confessed his sins at once, right there on the air.
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He confessed his sins, said he had been keeping his personal views muted so far because it's just easier to get along with people that way.
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And he'd not been faithful to wear his mask as he ought. And he promised as penance that he would do much better, especially in light of this moving sermon that he had read.
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It helps us to remember that the current pagan worldview, which prevails, and I say current because it's going to be overthrown by Christ.
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The current pagan worldview, which prevails in our culture, this word privilege, this word privilege operates as a dirty word.
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It's a guilt -evoking, shame -ensconced word. And to understand it in our own theological context, privilege is to oppression as depravity is to sin.
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So why do people sin? Why do they commit these acts of wickedness? Well, because they are depraved.
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There is a twisting of the heart, a polluting of the heart within. Therefore, they act in these sinful ways.
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Well, we understand that from the biblical model. We have that truth from the scriptures.
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But to understand the use of the word privilege, that operates in the pagan worldview much like depravity operates in the
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Christian worldview. And so someone given over to their privilege commits acts of oppression.
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This latest one from Priestess Akers is not wearing a mask. That is an act of oppression to all those who have been harmed and wounded by the sorrows and the struggle and the sickness of COVID -19.
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That's her point. I'm grateful for the intelligence and obviously the vigor that God has granted her to help the infected survive and recover from the disease.
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I can understand since she's experiencing the matters as a doctor firsthand, she is deeply moved.
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She has very strong feelings about that. I understand that completely. However, seeking uniformity by the tyranny of shame and guilt is actually bringing oppression, not stopping it.
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So this is an example. I'm just grateful for Christ who gives us a way of looking at things in a world over which he is king, over which he is sovereign.
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Why we wear masks or don't wear masks should not be governed by a pagan worldview.
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We have liberty in Christ to live according to the freedoms and the restraints that both are sanctified by his blood.
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So please don't put on masks or take them off according to which way the shame winds are blowing.
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Shame winds are blowing like the winds in Oklahoma. You should never know what direction the wind's going to blow.
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We are to proceed according to faith, faith in Christ. We need to consider how Christ would have us make our decisions, how he would have us establish our values.
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And it first begins with him being the king and we're in his kingdom. As we have been saying time and again, ruled and redeemed by Christ, let us accept one another.
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Ruled and redeemed by Christ, let us accept one another. I invite you to stand with me as I read
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Romans 14, verses 13 through 23. Let us receive the shepherding words of our
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Savior, Jesus Christ. Therefore, let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this, not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way.
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I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.
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For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love, do not destroy with your food him for whom
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Christ died. Therefore, do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil, for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the
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Holy Spirit. For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.
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So then, we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food.
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All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything by which your brother stumbles.
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The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves, but he who doubts is condemned if he eats because his eating is not from faith and whatever is not from faith is sin.
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This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. We've been talking about the good news, the joy that we have, and the time is this, and really indeed at all times, that we may have unity and liberty rather than uniformity under tyranny, all because Jesus Christ is king.
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Now, just to be clear of where we're at, trying to catch everybody up, we are talking about what happens within the local body, within the church of Jesus Christ at large even.
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How are we to treat one another, think about one another, accept one another when we have differing convictions?
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What do we mean by convictions? We're not talking about merely preferences, about what color the cushions of the pews are or what color the shingles are on the top of the building and so on and so forth.
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We're not talking about preferences. We're talking about convictions. By definition in Romans 14, and you can also read about them in 1
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Corinthians 8, 1 Corinthians 10, a conviction by definition is something that you are fully convinced of, that you have biblical warrant for, that you are convinced that I ought not participate in this.
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I shouldn't eat this or drink that, and I shouldn't do certain things on these certain days, and you have these convictions.
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Now, objectively, these convictions are not sin. If you eat, for instance, the
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Scripture declares in more than one way very clearly that if somebody eats pork ribs, they are not sinning against God just by eating pork ribs.
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However, certain people have a conviction about eating pork ribs, and to eat it, their conscience would not be able to stand up under the weight of that action.
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It would collapse about that issue, and Paul uses the language here in Romans 14 and 1
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Corinthians 8 and 10. He says that is a weak conscience. He doesn't say that's a bad
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Christian. He says that conscience is weak in that area. The very same person who has a weakness in their conscience about that area could have a very strong conscience about something else, and somebody could have a weak conscience about that issue, and so on and so forth.
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It is our calling as Christians in loving one another and accepting one another that when we discover that I have strength in my conscience where my brother or sister in Christ has a weakness in their conscience about that, we're not to look at each other as in our freedoms and convictions, our liberties and restraints.
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We're not to look at one another as inferior to the other and judge one another, but we are to think about how to love one another and accept one another in Christ, and this is a needful issue to address, especially in light of the
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COVID -19 various holiness codes that have been distributed and accepted and lived by under conviction by Christians or opted not to live according to because of the freedoms that other
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Christians have. So how do we accept one another in these regards? We've talked about the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ, that he is master, that he is savior, and that he is judge, and now we're talking about his accommodating liberty, how we may live freely in Christ according to our restraints and according to our freedoms, and it's all sanctified under him.
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We've talked about the mind of the matter in verses 13 through 14, how we are to use our minds not to find differences so that we may be opposed, but to use our minds to consider how we may not stumble each other and not scandalize each other, but before one another.
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Now we come to the heart of the matter in verses 15 through 17, the heart of the matter.
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I trust you can see as the quote from the doctor from Ohio illustrates, matters of conviction can be powerfully emotional.
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Deeply personal convictions may be held without serious reflection.
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So we have been instructed, verses 13 and 14, to put our minds to work. We have been instructed earlier in the same chapter that we must be fully convinced on our own minds about these issues, and as we continue now to apply the truths of Christ's kingdom, we come to the heart of the matter.
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We're going to talk about Christian love and Christian liberty and the Christian life, in which our personally attuned passions are not primary.
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It's not primary. Christ would have us put others ahead of ourselves. Christ would have us regard one another as more important than ourselves.
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That's the calling that we have. That's the heart of the matter in the economy of Christ's kingdom and his oikonomos, in his household.
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He wants things run in such a way where we are preferring one another above ourselves. And this really is the expression of Christian love that we hear talked about in verse 15.
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Paul says, For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love, do not destroy with your food him for whom
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Christ died. Three questions we need to ask about whether or not we are walking according to Christian love.
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First question is, are you wounding? Are you wounding? Paul says,
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For if because of food your brother is hurt, hurt. That term means to cause sorrow.
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It refers to the painful and bitter feelings produced in the heart. And we've got to ask ourselves, am
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I wounding someone? Am I hurting someone? Have I spoken or acted in some fashion that has vexed another's conscience?
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Have I morally pained them about food or about drink or about holy days or about masks or some other matter of conscience?
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That may have been unintentional. We may have spoken or acted in a way that we were trying to sincerely love, and we've only managed to hurt our brother or sister.
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Perhaps they now live under a sense of shame or guilt, which isolates them from the body, or maybe we hurt them in a different way.
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They're not isolated, but they go against conscience, and they cave according to the pressure, and so they sinfully go along with whatever we pressured them to do.
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Example, if someone tells you that wearing masks and sticking close to home and preferring not to invite folks over until 2021 is unholy cowardice, does that not wound?
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Does that not wound? If someone tells you that they are not wearing masks and if someone says that if you don't wear your mask and if you go about as normal and you feast without fear, if they tell you, well, that's privilege flaunting oppression, that you're being unloving to others, does that not wound?
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The strong may wound the weak through implicating that my freedom needs to be observed and joined in by you, and the weak may wound the strong by insinuating that my convictions must be taken up and held by everybody else.
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So we can trip each other up, can't we? We can stumble one another. We can scandalize one another.
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We can wound each other if we do not walk in love. So the question really is, how are we walking?
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How are we walking? Paul reasons that if you are wounding your brother over food, which is a non -essential conviction, you are no longer walking according to love.
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And Paul gets real personal here. In the original language, he gets second person singular, you, not y 'all, you, you all on your own.
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He brings a razor sharp focus. And so each one of us individually must wonder, how am
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I walking? How am I walking? Am I walking according to love in these matters of non -essential convictions?
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This is requiring us to say, I'm not going to let the group carry me through. I'm not just going to say, well, whatever the group is doing,
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I guess I'll just go with them. No, I have to ask personally myself, am
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I walking according to love? What kind of love is he talking about? What kind of love is
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Paul interested in in the life of the church? What kind of love does the
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Holy Spirit prize in his saints? Well, Romans 12, verses 9 through 10, we hear about love.
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Let love be without hypocrisy. Let love be without being two -faced.
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As the kids say, let love be 100. Don't, don't pretend to love.
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Don't try to, don't act like you love someone and do some things that look like love and then later on, you know, tell others all about how awful it was.
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But love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Abhor what is evil.
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Cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another. In brotherly love, give preference to one another in honor.
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So Paul just wrote that about love in Romans 12. Here we are in Romans 14 and he's saying, walk in love.
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He's already described what that looks like. We have a definition for what that looks like. This kind of approach will clear stones.
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It will remove scandals. It will eliminate wounds. Not all kinds of wounds, but it's not, and this is kind of a love when you're supposed to be walking in love.
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This is not simply a matter of establishing a new policy. Now that we've had this problem and then this stuff happened, we'll make a new policy and then we can move on.
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This kind of love is more than simple civil tolerance during COVID season.
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We are to consider our walking, our way of life, the continual conduct of our lives.
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And this kind of walking that Paul calls for, walking in love, is not going my own way.
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It's not going my own way. This kind of walking means we walk together. You may have noticed that when you take a walk with someone you love, you must continually make concessions.
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Try it this week. If your conscience so allows, take a walk with someone you know. Take a walk with someone you love.
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Avoid the writing. Take a walk. As you do, as you do, you're going to adjust for one another's pace.
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Someone's going to walk faster than the other, but you're going to accommodate your pace. Someone's going to prefer a certain side of the sidewalk, or someone prefers the open road.
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Someone prefers to walk in the morning, but the other one wants to walk in the evening, and so concessions must be made.
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Someone has to be waiting around for the other one to get ready to go, and then one tires out before the other, so you have to end early.
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All these concessions are made, almost second nature, when you take a walk with someone that you love.
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And Paul is saying to the Christians, walk according to love, which means you're always adjusting for one another's needs.
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Right? Adjusting for one another's honor. So, this is the kind of love that we are to have.
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I hope that you see that by walking in love, we're doing more than simply refraining from stumbling and scandalizing.
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The kingdom economy would cease to exist if all we do in Christian love so that we don't, so that we don't offend one another, if all we do is shelter in place, the kingdom economy stops.
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If all we do is just give each other a wide berth so that we never come into contact with contradicting convictions and contradicting freedoms, if all we do is just politely make room for one another so that everybody can go about their own personal course, we have an eternal waving along at the four -way stop.
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And emphasis on the word stop. Nothing ever happens.
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That's not submitting to the lordship of Christ. What he wants us to do in his accommodating liberty is that we are to live out love for one another, walking together in love so that all men will know that he is our master.
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And that's how he advances his kingdom. Now, I'm going to read the verse again.
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For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom
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Christ died. For if because of food your brother is hurt. Think about that word hurt.
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We need to grow up a little bit in Christ about some of these matters. We need to be mature, not infantile.
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There is a difference between faithlessly wounding and faithfully wounding.
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Paul is not saying here if you ever say or do anything that hurts your brother or sister, you are not loving.
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No. What does he say? He says, for if because of food, if with your food you hurt your brother, you're not walking according to love.
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It's an important distinction to be made here. I wrote this particular section of the sermon on Wednesday.
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It was the 27th, and that day's proverb, Proverbs 27, had this verse, verse 26, verse 6.
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Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.
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So here Paul says, if for sake of food you wound your brother, you're not walking according to love.
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And then Solomon says, well, if you, the wounds from a friend are faithful.
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So how are we to understand that? Well, there is a faithless kind of wounding where we wound one another over a failure to love, over a failure to accept one another concerning these non -essential convictions, but there is a faithful kind of wounding wherein we wound one another because we do love each other.
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In other words, if my brother in Christ is acting in ways that are objectively, biblically sinful, if I love him,
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I will trip him up. I will wound his pride. I may set him up in a conversation to lower the boom about the fact that he's sinful.
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I .E., Nathan speaking to King David. Why would
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I wound my brother in such a way? Well, because I want to see him turn away from his sin to stop destroying himself and his family and his community, his church.
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If I don't love him, I'll just say, oh, God's your number one fan. You go be you and God loves you.
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If I hate him, that's what I'll say. If I love myself more than him, that's what I'll say. But if my brother in Christ is merely acting in ways that are different from my non -essential convictions, if it's just a matter of food,
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I'll try to take care not to wound him. There's a difference. There's a real -life example from the Apostle Paul in 2
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Corinthians 7, 8 through 11. He speaks to them about how he wrote to them a letter. He wrote to them a letter.
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He says, For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it.
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Though I did regret it. For I see that that letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while.
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So he says, I caused you sorrow through my letter. I don't regret it, but I kind of do. He says,
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Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, that wasn't his ultimate aim, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance.
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For you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, that you might not suffer loss in anything through us.
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For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation.
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But the sorrow of the world produces death. For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow has produced in you, what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong, and everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter.
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Paul caused them grief, and all sorts of things blew up, and they got busy and tried to figure out what they had been doing wrong, and they zealously repented of their sins.
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Paul caused them grief, he wounded them, he caused them sorrow, because he loved them and desired to see their godly sorrow and the repentance from sin.
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A wider application of this needs to be understood. If you are unwilling to cause discomfort, grief, pain, sorrow, to those that you know and love and are responsible for, to turn them away from their sins and to turn them to Christ, the only alternative for them is the grief and the pain and the sorrow of hell.
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If we're unwilling to cause any grief or any sorrow to anyone over any issue of sin, we're no good to Christ.
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We have no flavor left in our salt, and our candle is done snuffed, and our city is a ruin on the hill.
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Paul causes them grief because he wants to see their repentance from sin, from that which would poison their city and ruin their church and break their families and ensnare their souls.
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He wasn't harping on whether or not they had as much freedom as he did. He was after their repentance.
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So the faithful versus the faithless wounding all depends on this, what we are using to wound.
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What we're using to wound. Is it a club of pride? I'm free, be like me.
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I'm restrained, you know, be like me. Is it a club of pride or is it a scalpel of love?
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So the question is, what are you wielding? Paul says, do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died.
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If you're wielding your food, you see, you're not going to be very effective in building up Christ's kingdom.
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Jesus wants us to build up one another. He wants us to invest in one another's growing up into him to be mature in Christ.
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He wants us to be investing in one another and building up the church and advancing his kingdom.
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But if we're using food to do that, we're not going to be very effective at all.
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Because food is a non -essential conviction. We're not going to build the kingdom through whole food plant -based diets or the
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Yum Brands food court diet. I mean, either way, we're not going to be building the kingdom if we insist that this must be observed by all who want to follow
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Christ. I think you'll find that these may be poor tools for edification in Christ.
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It's like employing a wrecking ball in framing a house. It's going to be tearing down the work that Christ is doing.
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So Paul grounds our love for one another in the love of Christ for us all. He says, look at what
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Jesus has done. Look how Jesus Christ has suffered and died upon the cross under the wrath of God for your brother, for your sister.
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Look how Jesus, our Master and Savior and King, so dearly loves this brother and so dearly loves this sister.
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And then he says, now, how will you love them? How will you sacrifice for them? That's the heart of the matter.
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How we're loving one another in light of Christ. We must not reckon our convictions or our freedoms as more important than Christ considered
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His own life. 1 John 3 .16, we know love by this, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
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We know love by this. How He sacrificed for us. How do we know how to love one another?
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Well, look at Christ. Look how He laid down His life. That's only going to make sense if you believe the
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Gospel of Jesus Christ. That's only going to make sense. It's only going to be a rubric of love for one another if we actually believe the
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Gospel of Jesus Christ. That He suffered and died in our place under the judgment of God to purchase us by His blood as a people for Himself.
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That He took upon Himself all the hell that we deserve. We would receive all the favor and joy
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He deserved. The heart of the matter is Christian love, which is the basis for Christian liberty.
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Verse 16. A robust understanding and application of Christian love results in a kind of Christian liberty which does salt the earth, which does light up the house, which does shine like a city on a hill.
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Christian liberty means the loving acceptance of both the weak and the strong in Christ, under Christ, and for Christ.
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Verse 16. Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil.
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Evil will be spoken of, our Christian liberty, if a tyranny of the weaker brother or the anarchy of the stronger brother prevails.
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Not everyone must be restrained to the convictions of the weak, but those who are stronger will defer in love and wisdom.
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It's not that everyone must be exposed to the freedoms of the strong, but those who are weaker will lovingly accept the strong. It's faith working through love.
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That's how Christ builds His servants up to build His church. In verse 6 of chapter 14, we discover that the convictions of the weak are for them a good thing.
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The restraints of the weak are for them a good thing. And the freedoms of the strong are for them a good thing.
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For these convictions, the weak will give thanks to God, and for these freedoms, the strong will give thanks to God.
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Verse 6. He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord. And he who eats does so for the
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Lord, for he gives thanks to God. And he who eats not, for the Lord he does not eat, and gives thanks to God.
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Do you hear it? It's a good thing. Your convictions are a good thing.
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Your restraints are a good thing. Your freedoms are a good thing. In the liberty of Christ, these are good things.
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And we are called, we are made responsible to ensure that what is for us a good thing is not spoken of as evil.
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It's not spoken of as evil. Blasphemize though.
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We get the word blasphemy from that. Don't let it be blasphemed, he says. You know, the psalms and the hymns and the spiritual songs, the doxologies, the readings, the introduction, the indices in this volume are all neatly, usefully merged together by one binding.
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The pages in this hymnal are not loose. They're not falling out. They don't get crumpled up and out of order.
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Do they? Because they're all together with one binding. Love, my dearly beloved, is the binding for us.
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The love of Christ binds us, organizes us, keeps us, makes us useful, renders us a blessing to the world.
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Light admits darkness. If we fail to love one another rightly in the truth of Christ, who is our liberty?
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Then that good thing, that good thing will be spoken of as evil. In other words, the weak will complain against the strong as the strong try to impose their freedoms on everybody.
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And then the strong will complain against the weak as the weak insist that everybody follow their form.
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In despairing of loving unity, all we're left with are war stories. How many times have we heard and can recount sometimes personally the kinds of conflicts, fights that have happened within the church?
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There's no failure on Christ's part. No deficiency in his word, but the binding failed because we did not pursue love.
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And in being instructed not to stumble or scandalize each other, we are also to consider our responsibility under Christ to not allow our good thing, our liberty, the kingdom economy, to be blasphemed, spoken of as evil by those on the outside as well.
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The context tells us it's not just on the inside, but those who are looking on. And that's important.
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The world needs to see something different than their own chaos. Unity in liberty rather than pagan -like attempts to impose uniformity through tyranny.
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We do not want the world to look upon unbound pages all around, a mess of paper without coherence.
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I was grilling some chicken breast last Saturday on my little propane grill just outside the garage, and all of a sudden
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I noticed the temperature was about half of what it should be. And I thought, oh, I'm out of propane. I better go grab my reserves.
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And then I smelled it. Oh, it blew out. High winds. I didn't have the flame up high enough.
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It just blew out. But if I didn't have enough fuel to finish the job, and I brought half -cooked chicken into the house, what was meant to be good would be blasphemized though.
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The good of Christian liberty is entirely dependent upon the fuel of Christian love.
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It is our responsibility to not allow Christian liberty to be blasphemed due to the lack of Christian love.
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And the Holy Spirit lays this burden upon us, and He gives us the grace to follow through.
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Therefore, do not let. He says, so then don't you allow what is good for you to be spoken of as evil.
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And how may we ensure that Christian liberty always delivers on its promises? By robustly pursuing
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Christian love in the Spirit. Ruled and redeemed by Christ, let us accept one another.
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Let's close in prayer. Father, I thank you for the time that you have afforded us. It is a joy to be your child.
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Behold, what manner of love, what a great manner of love is this that we would be called the children of God.
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We thank you that we may be called this, that we find ourselves by your grace and for your glory in your household, with our elder brother
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Jesus Christ firmly in control and thrown at your right hand, and all of our hope resting easily upon Him.
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And I pray that you would teach us more and more of how we are to accept one another and love one another through your
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Word and by your Spirit. In Jesus' name we pray. Would you stand with me for our song of benediction?
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I'd like you and your hymn on page 494. And we'll sing verse 2. God bless you and may
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He keep you. May He cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May He lift up His countenance upon you and grant you peace.