Sunday Morning, May 10, 2020, AM

Good morning everyone. Welcome to Sunnyside this morning. We're glad that you are with us today on this

Lord's Day. If you're joining us on live stream, welcome to you guys too. Hope that you enjoy worship with us this morning.

We're also thankful today is Mother's Day, so we want to specially recognize all of our mothers, grandmothers.

We thank each and every one of you. I know I love my mother and I thank you for all that you've done for me in my life.

So as you have today to take that opportunity, use every day to honor your mother, but especially today, just a reminder because of that there will not be a live stream tonight because of Mother's Day.

One more announcement that I had given to me this morning, King's Outpost is a camp that we've supported over the years here in Oklahoma.

They have some financial needs there at the camp. If you can give towards those financial needs in any way, please see

Norm Nelson. He will fill you in on those details. All right, one last thing

I wanted to mention this morning as we've kind of been out of the building the past month and a half or so,

I want to recognize three specific people that have really helped us continue to have church and worship together.

First of all, Brother Michael, for just your continued faithful preaching of the word. We thank you for that.

For Jana and all your communication of songs and notes through your email.

And then last but not least, Brother Ralph, Brother Edgar, for all the work that he has put in doing live stream here at the church.

We thank these people specifically for allowing us to still be able to worship together.

So if there's no more announcements this morning, we're going to have a time of preparation for worship, and then afterwards,

Brian will lead us in prayer. Let's go to the

Lord in prayer. Father, I thank you for the blessing of gathering together today.

Lord, as I have been praying, and I know we have been praying this together, that we would not take lightly the blessings of regathering and we would not take it for granted as we were apt to do.

Father, help us to be purposeful in our worship to you, making the most of our time here together.

Our unity. Lord, we pray that you would bless us with humility and grace towards each other.

We would bear with one another. Lord, I pray in our hearing of your word that you would give us an eagerness not only to hear your word, but also to be doers of your word, to see your work done in our lives.

Lord, we pray that you would help us and give us aid today as we worship and as we submit to your word.

We pray that you would give us great grace for the sake of your son Jesus Christ, for it is in his name that we pray.

Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles to Romans chapter 14.

Romans 14. We'll be reading verses 1 through 12 in a moment. Romans chapter 14.

We are continuing our consideration of this passage, which runs from Romans 14 verse 1 all the way through chapter 15 and verse 7.

A pause in our study of Jeremiah so that we may consider how it is that God would have us accept one another, how it is that Christ would have his church unify and come together, especially when there are so many diverging convictions on display.

So, obviously, different from each other in the way that we are handling this pestilence, this

COVID -19, and it gives us opportunity, I think, to consider in general all the other convictions or lack of convictions that we may have about one subject or another.

How is it that we are to accept one another in Christ? How is it that we are to love one another and unify together?

There is a moment in redemptive history, which I think is a good illustration for our continuing need for unity.

You remember that David, the son of Jesse, became king of all Israel, but his path to the throne was full of many incredible stories.

Anointed by Samuel when Saul was still king, David soon became the champion of the nation.

He was hated by Saul, however, and David soon found himself an outlaw, suffering greatly in exile.

The entire time that he was suffering in exile, he would not lay a hand against Saul because he was the king's anointed.

Even though he allied with the Philistines, he would not attack any of the

Jews, but only attack the enemies of the Israelites. And even when divisions would arise within his own band of men, he would always handle things in the most upright of ways.

And so we see that by righteous and courageous means, even though he was suffering all the while, David remained the savior of Israel.

After Saul died at the end of an inevitable but brief civil war, all the disparate tribes gathered together to David at Hebron, and this is what they said.

They said, Behold, we are your bone and your flesh. In times past, even when Saul was king, you were the one who led out and brought in Israel.

And the Lord your God said to you, You shall shepherd my people Israel, and you shall be prince over my people

Israel. So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and David made a covenant with them in Hebron before the

Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel according to the word of the Lord through Samuel. Here are all these different tribes who are coming together, tribes that had long fought with each other, and their fighting with each other did not just extend through David's lifetime, but you go back and you read in the days of the judges how often they were at each other's throats.

And here we have all these diverging tribes. They're all the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

They're all these, the same descendants, the same general family. But now at last, they all come together under David.

Why? He had suffered for their deliverance from their oppressors, and he had proved his determination to rule in righteous ways.

So dearly beloved, I would have us consider the son of David, the son of David, who has suffered for our deliverance from slavery to sin, who, he has delivered us from everlasting death.

He has delivered us from the wrath of God in righteousness, righteous ways.

Let's consider the son of David who was risen, who is ascended, and who reigns in righteousness.

Do we not rejoice in the sacrifice of our king? Do we not find our unity there?

Is not our unity in our ability to accept one another contingent on our submission to him, that if we are all submitted to the same king, can we not then accept one another in the divergence of our convictions?

Well, the Holy Spirit gives us these two doctrines to consider in Romans 14 and 15, and these two doctrines,

I think, translate very easily into personal affections and practical applications which unify us in Christ.

And the first is this, the sovereignty of Christ, and the second is the sacrifice of Christ.

I want to read Romans 14 1 through 12 for us. If you would please stand with me in honor of the reading of God's words.

Here is the word of our sovereign and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions.

One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only.

The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him.

Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls, and he will stand, for the

Lord is able to make him stand. One person regards one day over another, and another regards every day alike.

Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day observes it for the

Lord, and he who eats does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God, and he who eats not for the

Lord, he does not eat and gives thanks to God. For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself, for if we live, we live for the

Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the

Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be

Lord both of the dead and of the living. But you, why do you judge your brother?

Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.

For it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.

So then, each one of us will give an account of himself to God. This is the word of the

Lord. You may be seated. We're talking about Christ's sovereignty and his absolute lordship.

In verses 1 through 12, verses 13 through 23, we'll be considering his accommodating liberty, and how he allows us to have different convictions, and how it is that we are to use that in love for each other, to his glory, to be that much more effective as his body.

For now, we really need to understand, what does it mean that Christ is

Lord? Really, what was going through the minds of the early

Christians, as we read about them in the book of Acts, when they would, rather than say Caesar is

Lord, when they would say Jesus is Lord. Rather than confess what was said of Caesar Augustus, that there is only one name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

That which was said of Caesar Augustus, they said, no, that name is Jesus Christ. What was going through their minds when they were saying that Jesus Christ is

Lord? What does it mean here, as we look at Romans 14, where the

Apostle Paul is writing to this church, who they live in the capital of the

Roman Empire, and he is reminding them that Christ is

Lord, and in this truth, they may find unity and accept one another.

Verses one through four, Paul affirms the lordship of Christ by showing that he preserves us.

He preserves us. We may have different convictions. We may have different ways of looking at particular issues, but because Christ is our master and because he is powerful, he is the one who preserves us, so there's no need for us to condemn or castigate each other, and in verses five through nine, the emphasis is on that he has purchased us, that he purchased us.

Paul wants the church in Rome to know, first of all, you can accept one another.

You can love one another with your diverging convictions. Why? Because it is Christ who preserves you, not your fealty to a holiness code or lack thereof, and verses five through nine, he wants us to know that we can accept one another, and we ought to view one another in a particular way because Christ has purchased us.

Now, as we consider the sovereignty of Christ, we are not saying anything that is disconnected from the salvation which

Christ brings, that when Christ saves, he also is

Lord, and as he is Lord, he saves. There have been misguided and robust efforts, however sincere, in the

Western Church over the last century or so to divorce the saving work of Christ from the sovereign rule of Christ, and I believe that requires quite a lot of word wrangling and an abandonment of the clarity of Scripture.

Why would anyone think that they could be saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ while rebelling against him?

Can one say that they believe in Jesus, but not the parts about him having all authority?

Our passage is one of those that is incredibly clear about the good news of Jesus Christ, which is the gospel of the kingdom.

It means not only salvation, but it means the sovereignty of Christ, that salvation, as Colossians puts it, salvation from the dominion of darkness precisely means being transferred into the kingdom of light.

To have Christ as Savior necessarily means to have him as sovereign, and I think that that is something that we need to take to heart and apply thoroughly, robustly in our own lives, but it is also a message that I believe that many of our neighbors and family members need to hear, many of our co -workers need to hear.

Many people have a nominal attachment to Christ and name his name and speak and say, of course,

I'm saved. But of course, they are not at all meaning that they have Christ as their

Lord. And so their understanding is is completely different than that of the scriptures.

Now, as with verses one through four, so also with verses five through nine, it is the last verse in the section which provides us a good starting point.

In verses five through eight state about why we are to do what we are to do, and our diverging convictions is made clear when we look at verse nine and consider what it is that Christ has done.

What is it that Christ has done? Well, we see that because of his death and resurrection, he is

Lord. And when we say Lord, we mean it in an absolute sense, Lord of creation and Lord of the church.

Now, look at verse nine again. For to this end, Christ died and lived again, that he might be

Lord of both of the dead and the living. Now, as you look through verses five through eight, it doesn't seem to be very interesting material.

It talks about very common, perhaps uninteresting affairs, eating and drinking, working and resting, as we read the verses one through nine.

What's so important about those things? Those are the everyday, mundane kinds of things, but they are all to be done as to the

Lord Jesus Christ. The mundane things in our lives, the things that we may not give another thought to, that actually they are to be done to Christ.

What does that mean, and why is that so? Well, the matters of feasting and fasting or laboring and worshiping, these are not simply to be presented spiritually to Christ in the way that perhaps a small child would plead for his mother's attentions.

And the little guy is standing there, and he's made some sort of art and craft, and he's put it together, and he'll have to explain what it actually is.

But he is very pleased with himself, and he's offering it to his mother, and hoping that she will give him that gaze of affection and approval.

It's not exactly that. I mean, it can be that. But what does it mean that we present to Christ, that we do it as to Christ, our eating and our drinking, our working and our resting?

What does that mean? It means that the smallest details of our lives, including our holiness codes, those things that we are sincerely committed to, that we believe that matters to being clean or unclean, the deepest convictions that we have, all of these are relegated to the oversight of Jesus Christ.

And why is that? Because He is the universal King. As Acts 10 .36

says, He is Lord of all, and that is the all in the absolute sense.

Now, sometimes we, and I can understand why we would think this, that we would think that the larger a king's dominion, the larger the king's dominion, the more expansive his rule, his influence, and his borders, we would consider that he would be that much less involved in the details.

Isn't that the way that it works in the human realm? The larger and expanse someone rules over, the less they can be involved in the details.

But that is not the case with Jesus Christ. That is not the case with the Son of God. Christ's sovereignty is as intensive as it is extensive.

And this reign of Christ is essential information in the good news, as is the good news that Peter preached, that Paul preached.

It's the same that Christ himself preached. It was for this purpose that Christ died and lived again.

Absolute sovereignty and dominion as the God -man. These were the fruit and end of his death and resurrection.

He is the Lord of the living, we read. What does that mean? Well, he is ruler over all. He is the ruler of the kings of the earth.

All authority has been given to him in heaven and on earth, as he says in Matthew 28 and verse 18.

Also, he is Lord of the dead. He is Lord of the dead. What does that mean? It means that all mankind of every generation must deal with Jesus Christ, the

Son of Man. All the dead, and all the living, and all those yet to live must reckon with him.

Why? Because he is the Son of Man. That's what it means. He is the Son of Man, that type of royalty, that type of authority.

He is Lord of creation, but more specifically to our passage, he is Lord of the church. Why should we love one another and accept one another?

Because he is our Lord. And pay attention to the parallel there in verse 9.

It says Christ died and lived again, that he might be

Lord of both the dead and of the living. You see that? He died and he lived again.

So, he will be Lord of the dead and of the living. There are the dead, the saints at rest, the great cloud of witnesses.

Christ is their Lord. We are among the saints at work, those alive, the laborers in the harvest.

Christ is our Lord. So, Christ is Lord of those who are alive to rule us, and he is

Lord of those who are dead to receive them and then to raise them up. So, everything about our life and death, even our convictions about what we eat and how we rest, must be understood in relation to our

Lord. Because Christ has been raised, Romans 6 says, so we die to sin and self and live unto

Christ and to righteousness. What does that mean for our identities? This is all, this is when we live in a world with everything's about your identity.

What does it mean? Our identities, though distinct, are eclipsed by Christ's personal and historical mediating glory.

That we are always, as Paul says, we are always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

What does that look like? What is the manifestation of Christ anyway? How is

Christ manifested in us? Well, what did he say? By this all men will know that you are my disciples, by the love that you have for one another.

It's impossible for us to censure and castigate one another over convictions if we are indeed caring about the dying of Christ and manifesting the living of Christ.

Unity, love, and acceptance of one another will sound as the principal instruments in the orchestra of the church's life.

I want to give you a word from Matthew Henry. Now remember, in verse 9, for to this end, for this purpose,

Christ died and lived that he might be Lord of both the dead and of the living. So he died on the cross, suffering the judgment of God, and was raised to dead again so that what?

He would be our Lord, whether we are dead or whether we are alive. So he has purchased us.

So here's a word from Matthew Henry. If Christ paid so dearly for his dominion over souls and consciences and has such a just and undisputed right to exercise that dominion, we must not so much as seem to invade it or entrench upon it by judging the consciences of our brethren and arraigning them at our bar.

I think Matthew Henry has a two -handed firm grip on the application, the meaning of this text, and I think that even more so as he follows through with his swing.

When we are ready to reproach and reflect upon the name and memory of those that are dead and gone and to pass a censure upon them, which some the rather do because such judgments are of the dead are more likely to pass uncontrolled and uncontradicted, we must consider that Christ is

Lord of the dead as well as of the living. If they are dead, they have already given up their account and let that suffice.

I find that application of Romans 14 .9 to be especially helpful in our current state of wokeness. I also find it ironic since we're studying a passage which speaks to Christ's ownership of slaves.

Now, I know that for some folks within Christendom today, slave ownership without qualification is the unpardonable sin.

In other words, since certain long -dead Puritans and seminary presidents and preachers and saints of note once upon a time owned slaves, this means in today's parlance they must not have been saved.

They were not born again, and everything that they ever wrote must be suspect if not outright pitched.

And in fact, I think we might just have to exhume the bones of Jonathan Edwards so we may properly burn them and send their ashes down the

Connecticut River. Before we castigate saints alive or dead, we're manifesting differing convictions than our own.

Let us remember that Christ is our Savior. He died and He rose again to be the

Lord of the dead and the living. And we have to be very careful that we are not in the spirit of always finding someone who is different in our convictions and then going after them to show that somehow that we are superior in our spirituality or intellect or morality than they.

I do believe that if we have a firm grasp on the doctrine of justification by faith alone, we will not be tending towards that.

Having understood where this passage is heading in verse 9, what about verses 5 and 6?

How do we to understand our sacred expressions? We offer them to God, whatever they are, in our convictions or the lack of convictions, we are offering them to God as those purchased by Christ.

Sometimes we have differences in our convictions. Sometimes we have just differences in the way that we apply the very same principles.

And sometimes, though, our differences are the unnecessary byproducts of the failure to biblically and thus thoroughly think through these matters.

And sometimes what differences may seem irreconcilable have not been rightly submitted to Christ as worship.

And so we need to consider our differences, our determinations, and our devotion in verses 5 and 6.

Notice the differences in verse 5. Each one person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike.

Now, the church in Rome was made up of both Jews and Gentiles, and their diverging convictions lay upon that fault line about what they ate or did not eat, what they drank or did not drink, and what days they felt were special and what days they had no concern for.

Now, notice that Paul makes no apologies for simply stating what they all are. These are sensitive issues.

These are of grave concern. These are the very hot button, sore nerves, third rail, whatever expression you want to use.

It's all there. He just brings it out right in the open and says, we're going to talk about these things. Some were free to eat and drink a great variety of God's gifts, while others restricted their diets.

Some did not differentiate between their days, considering all of them to be as holy to the Lord as the rest.

Others found warrant to separate some days from the rest as special. Now, what days would those be?

Well, the Jews growing up with a religious calendar full of feasts and special years would have had many days they would like to set aside in honor of the

Messiah. Now that He had come and they wanted to rejoice in His coming, they wanted to honor Him as the fulfillment of such special times as the

Day of Atonement and Passover. You probably understand that. Other days would have included the

Jewish custom to fast twice a week. These would have been associated, obviously, with diets.

You can imagine how easy it would be for a Gentile believer to stumble over when and what the

Jewish brother would eat. Always running into some special day, oh, I can't have leaven right now, or actually today

I'm fasting. He's always going to be running into all these customs that were like second nature for his

Jewish brother. Another day of vital importance would have been the Sabbath itself.

We just read about that in Deuteronomy 5. The term literally means seventh. That's what

Sabbath means. It means seventh. And the believers, they all knew that God rested on the seventh day in creation and that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week.

These were important markers on any given seven days. The fourth commandment is all about the seventh day and what you do on the seventh day and what you do not do on the seventh day.

So, depending on how any one of these believers would have understood Christ to have fulfilled the law and how to apply

God's law in Christ, some of them might just need to have both Saturday and Sunday off from work to worship.

So, you see the need for believers to accept one another as they lived in Rome. Now, we talked about some of our differences in our convictions last week, and my frightenings about some of those matters may have caught you off guard.

They may have possibly offended you. I certainly do not mean to do that, but I see here that Paul just brings it all right into the open, doesn't he?

And I believe that if we do that in honoring and loving Christ and we're not being flippant about it, that it'd be helpful for us to acknowledge that we have differing convictions and how it is that we're to accept one another in Christ.

Acknowledging differences does not mean validating them for everybody.

As if to say, I'm mentioning all of these different convictions that some people have, but none of you all should ever have them.

That's not the aim of me bringing them all out. And it also does not mean, by mentioning all these various convictions that people may or may not have, the point is not to say, well, these matters are unimportant.

And that, of course, is not the aim in bringing them out into the open. That's not what Paul is doing here in the text.

But we need to take the opportunity during such a plain and obvious time when some people will not come out of their houses and others have been out of their houses for some time, and other people are wearing masks and some are not, and some are wearing gloves and some are not, and some are shaking hands and some are not, and some are giving hugs and some are not.

In this time when convictions are so obvious, so different, we must take opportunity,

I believe, to talk about what do we do about differing convictions. Because we're going to continually stumble upon the not so obvious convictions as we gather in each other's homes, as we spend time with one another, as we get to know one another in conversations, that we may exhort one another in Christ.

We're going to come up against convictions that some have and some don't have. And how are we to respond?

Well, according, I think, verses 5 and 6 give us two exhortations that should triangulate our definition of accepting one another.

And what does it mean that we have these types of convictions? Well, Christ has purchased us as our saviors so that our sacred expressions, though they may be different, should be determined in a particular way.

Verse 5 says, each person regards one day above another, each another regards every day alike.

Each person, here it is, each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.

So Paul makes it clear that none of us ought to be holding to convictions or proceeding without them in a state of confusion or being pressured.

Each of us has got to stand on his own two feet, having worked out in his head and settled in his heart what

God wants him to do. And there's only one way for a Christian to do that. It has to be done through the prayerful study of the

Scriptures. And any other type of conviction would just be personal preference, which makes it one more piece of lint in a lint screen world.

Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. Why? Because verse 7 says, not one of us lives for himself.

Each one of us has to be fully convinced in our own mind. Why? Because each one of us will give an account of himself to God, verse 12.

So how do we make these determinations? Well, Paul's term here is very interesting, fully convinced.

He says, must be fully convinced. This is the term which delineates between actual convictions versus preferences.

A conviction is a stance held with a full assurance of faith.

That's far stronger than a preference. You may notice that there are different ways in which churches organize themselves for worship, the way in which buildings are structured to the way that songs are sung.

And many of these things are just a matter of preference. But what is a conviction? A conviction is a stance held with full assurance of faith.

Paul says, each one of us must be fully convinced. This is a compound word in the

Greek, and it means to bring to a fullness. It's used often in the complete illegal matter, sign the bottom line, put your signature to it, and now you've finished the financial document or the legal document.

It has the picture of a completed building passing through a final inspection.

That's the kind of word we're dealing with here. When used of people, it pertains to their beliefs that what they are convinced of has been morally, intellectually worked out, that they are convinced of the truth, the worth, and the value of their beliefs.

And no Christian, no slave of Christ has any business coming to such certainty outside the

Holy Scriptures. Now, what you can usually tell when someone is not fully settled on their belief or their conviction, usually when challenged, they may go against conscience, and they will actually go against what they had been convicted otherwise to do because they want to, you know, make peace and go along and not make any waves.

Often also when challenged, they may get angry because they feel threatened.

If they're not fully settled in their own conviction, the response might be one of anger. But those who are fully convinced are not so unstable.

And one might think that two Christians being fully convinced as to opposing convictions, that they would be that much further apart, that they would be more disjointed.

But the truth of the matter is, the more fully convinced we are, the more submitted to Christ's sovereignty we are, and the more able we are to accept one another in love rather than lash out at each other in suspicious anger.

That's what Paul prayed for in the churches of the Lycus Valley. Colossians 2 .2, he prayed that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance, same word, full assurance of understanding resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery that is

Christ himself. This full assurance of understanding brings unity, not uniformity.

Christianity is not a system of thought, a belief, a following after the

Son of God that brings about uniformity, where everybody is exactly the same as the next person over, like some systems are.

This is unity, not uniformity. Unity in Christ and protects us against false teaching, which deludes us through persuasive argument,

Paul goes on to say in Colossians. Now, no one must do what is contrary to the dictates of his own conscience as illumined by the word.

No one is to do what is contrary to the dictates of his own conscience as illumined by the word, and no one ought to make conscientious determinations contrary to the word, because all these matters are matters of worship.

This is about devotion. Verse 6 says, he who observes the day observes it for the Lord, and he who eats does so for the

Lord, for he gives thanks to God, and he who eats not, for the Lord he does not eat and gives thanks to God.

You see, our convictions or lack thereof, our weaknesses or our strengths are to be held and employed all to the honor of our

Lord Jesus Christ, all to the glory of God. There are

Roman church members who observe special days. Well, they did so as worship to the Lord Jesus Christ. There were those that treated every day just as holy as the next, but they were to live and worship the

Lord Jesus Christ, and to respond, both groups should be responding in thanksgiving to the Lord who gave them all the days that they have to live.

There are Roman church members who ate meat, and they should do so to the Lord Jesus Christ to give them thanks for it. There were those who were, as we talked about last week, convinced they couldn't find a piece of clean meat in all of the city of Rome, so they just ate vegetables, but they too were to give thanks to the

Lord for their meal. Some of you here have wine at your table. Some of you do not.

Some of you cannot. But those who drink must do so fully convinced in their mind as to the rightness of the matter, and they must do so in a way that may be received as worship by the

Lord consistent with the scriptures. Those of you who do not drink wine must be fully convinced in your own mind and abstain with thanksgiving to the

Lord's abundance. You see how that works? Those of you who come to church during a pestilence must be fully convinced in your own mind it is the right thing to do.

Those who remain in their home should also strive to make it clear in their minds according to the scriptures, listen, how we

Sabbath ought to be done as to the Lord with thanksgiving for his provision of rest.

Those who use a mask ought to do so for the Lord with thanksgiving. Those who refrain should do so to the

Lord thanksgiving. All is done in the name of Christ, for he has purchased us.

He is our sovereign and our savior as those ruled and redeemed by Christ except one another.

Now, this is all based on our state of existence in verses 7 and 8. Verses 7 and 8, two thoughts here.

We belong to a community and we belong to Christ. If you read through verses 7 and 8, notice how many times we have the plural first person.

For not one of us lives for himself and not one dies for himself. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the

Lord's. Do you hear it? We, we, we, seven, eight times.

We belong to a community. Why is Paul using these terms so prolifically? It is to remind the

Roman church of what makes them one. Not one of us is on our own.

Not one of them was on their own. Every last one of them and every last one of us who are part of the church is bought and paid for by the blood of Christ.

Do you see what makes them a community? Jesus owned them all.

That's what he's meaning by this. If we, we can't live for ourselves, we can't die for ourselves.

Why? Because where our living is for the Lord, our dying is for the Lord. No matter what's going on with us, whether we're living or dying, whether we live or die, we are the

Lord's. We are possessed by a person and his name is

Jesus Christ. So, it was slave ownership that made them one.

It was slave ownership that made them one. They were the property of somebody else. Not a single one of them had the right to complain against the other concerning issues which belonged to the purview of the master alone.

It's proper for us to remember in humility just what kind of community we belong to. And I believe that the spluttering protests against the notion that the blood of Christ is more objectionable than the purchasing.

To be bought by another without our warrant, without our say -so, without our even being born yet, how monstrously devastating to our pride.

But dearly beloved, it is in humility, it is in a Christ -focused humility that our unity is achieved.

Your homework is Philippians 2, 1 through 5. We belong to a community, therefore, because we belong to Christ.

Now, Paul is not saying that we're mere cogs in a wheel. We really are living. We really are dying. We're not just material for processing.

We do live. We do die, but we live and die for another.

We live and die for the one who loves us and the one whom we love, our sovereign

Savior, Jesus Christ. And it is clear that he is the focal point of our lives.

We are to fix our minds above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Notice verse 8, for if we live, we live for the

Lord. If we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. The Lord, the

Lord, the Lord is the threefold focus of verse 8 and our existence. Why?

Because he's the master. He's the master. Murray J.

Harris, in his book, Slave of Christ, writes, the master is the focal point of the slave's life.

Everything is evaluated in terms of the master's pleasure and profit. The absoluteness is depicted in temporal terms.

The master's good reigns supreme, whether in continuation of his slave's life or with the advent of his slave's death.

Believers are divine property invested at the discretionary will of the master for his own profit.

And if that sounds too strong, he's playing it soft compared to Paul. The biblical data proves the point.

Those who overcome and reign with Jesus Christ, as you read through the book of Revelation, are those who have his name written on their foreheads and written on their hands.

Meaning what? Christians are branded by their owner. How often does

Paul speak of himself and Christ in this slave master dynamic? Paul's consistent desire was what?

That Christ would always be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death, for me to live is

Christ and to die is gain. How could he say these things unless he understood his state of existence as one of slavery, a kind of slavery in which he belonged to Christ?

All who are born again are dead indeed to sin's slavery.

We reckon our members as alive to Christ. We present our bodies as instruments of slaves unto righteousness,

Romans 6 says. You and I, dearly beloved of God, are slaves.

1 Corinthians 6, 19 and 20 says we are not our own. We have been bought with a price.

Therefore glorify God in our bodies. So as those ruled and redeemed by Christ, we are to accept one another.

What we do with our bodies is Christ's business. It's Christ's business, eat or not eat.

Rest on this day or not rest on that day. Drink that, don't drink that.

Stay at home, go out and about. Wear protective measures, don't wear protective measures.

It's the Lord's business. I've got all kinds of choices and habits and disciplines to be concerned with.

I mean, I am a steward. I am to be personally responsible, but I am to render all of these considerations in subjection to my master.

And you're in the same situation. You have meaningful choices to make. You have a stewardship that you are to be concerned with, but it's not for yourself.

It's not unto yourself. It is for Christ. So how then are we to be one another's keeper in such matters?

How am I to be my brother's keeper in such a matter? Well, I'm going to exhort you to be fully convinced, to pursue your convictions as worship to the

Lord, to live in the midst of your bodily stewardship with thankfulness. That's what

I'm going to encourage you unto. Now, if we have completely different convictions on how to handle a pestilence and what kind of food to sit on the table, that's between you and Christ, but there are some things that I'm going to still exhort you to.

I'm still going to be concerned for your spiritual good, and that is in accordance with what we've been looking at.

Thankfulness, worship, be fully convinced in your convictions. If I have faith to walk publicly unmasked and attend crowded gatherings, but you do not, who am

I to judge the slave of my master? I am but his slave myself. He preserves us, he purchased us, and next time we're together, according to his will, we'll think of how he positions us as our judge on level ground where we bow the knee before his glory.

Let's close in prayer. Father, I thank you for the time you've given us in your word. I pray that it has been a help and a benefit to your people.

God, help us to understand ourselves aright from your point of view as the slaves of Christ, that we live and die for him.

And so, in humility, help us to love and accept one another. We pray all these things for the sake of Christ, the one with whom you are well pleased.

Amen. Would you stand with me for our song of benediction?

We're going to sing the chorus this morning. To him be praised for his glorious reign, from the depths of earth to the heights of heaven, we declare the name of the

Lamb once slain, Christ eternal, the

King of kings. Love of the

Father, and the grace of the Son, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. We encourage you to dismiss from the back pews first, and go on out to the parking lot where we can have some fellowship together.