Unity In The Church

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I became a Christian in 1989 and some strange things began to happen.
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There were people that I knew that still continued to go trick -or -treating. They would dress their kids up in some kind of strange outfit and they would go on October 31st and go trick -or -treating.
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But there was another group that said, this is horrible, this is blasphemous, you can't do that. Then I knew some
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Christians and some would drink alcohol, alcohol out of a brown bottle. Other Christians said, no, that was okay to do.
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I met some Christians, you could not listen to any music except hymns. You couldn't listen to secular music and if it was rap or something else, you were way out there.
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I met other Christians, they said that if you somehow smoked these dry leaves, rolled them up and inhaled them, you were going to hell for sure.
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Others said, God has made tobacco, enjoy life. Some said, if you put a
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Christmas tree in your house, it was in Jeremiah that it was like this pagan object and you were not allowed to have a tree in your house.
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Other Christians said, it reminds me of Christ, a green tree all year round and it's life, it symbolizes life and it's a tree and Jesus died on a cross.
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I didn't know what to do. I wasn't quite sure what to do. Some Christians said, any kind of birth control for a married couple is absolutely sinful.
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Others said, no, as long as you don't hurt the egg, fertilized egg, it's fine.
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This is kind of an amazing place, a local church. How do we all get along?
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What do we do? There are real differences in the church that we could find some principles maybe in the
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Bible to talk about smoking or drinking or dancing. But there wasn't anything more than principles and different Christians live differently and they lived out their
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Christian life in a different way. And so if you'll take your Bibles and open to the book of Romans chapter 14, we want to look at this morning, how do we live in a church that is full of different people where we have different convictions?
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And I'll say from the get -go, I'm not dealing with doctrinal convictions. When I say the word convictions today, what
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I mean by that is convictions about areas that Christians differ, gray areas, issues that we need to extend liberty, if you will, in Christ.
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We can't find verses that says, thou shall not smoke a cigarette, thou shall not drink.
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There may be principles to our convictions, but we can't find verses, so what do we do?
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And if you're like I am, I tend to find people who think like I do and hang around them because then it almost confirms my choice.
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When I first got saved, I took all my records, I used to be a disc jockey for this local college radio station.
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I just took all my records and I just sold them all. My friends told me to burn them because they were so bad and I was more of a pragmatist, so I took them to the bookstore, record store, and traded them all in for Bible commentaries.
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I thought I was smarter than they were, why burn all these records? Some of those records, by the way, I wish
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I could have back. Some of you kids are saying, what's a record, but that's a different sermon. We are not clones.
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If you look around, we look different, we act differently, we have had different parents, different fathers.
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Some are poor, some are rich, some are old, some are young, some are mature in the faith, some are not mature in the faith.
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Some are brand new Christians, some have been walking with the Lord for 40 years. And we are different and it is okay to be different, and it is okay to have your own convictions, and it is okay to have different racial backgrounds in a church.
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Those things are all fine, we have life experiences and differences, and we are not all cut with the same cookie cutter, but we will tend, left to our own, we will tend to be around people who are like -minded on issues that are not found explicitly in Scripture.
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Parenting styles, dating, well we believe in there should be dating, we believe there should be no dating, it should be courtship.
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We should believe in courtship dating, we should believe in arranged marriages, I mean the list goes on, doesn't it?
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Well, we think public school is the way to go, the state is paying for it, well we think home school is the way to go, that seems more godly, we have private school people and we all are swirling around, how do we live as a local church?
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Ephesians chapter 4 makes it very clear that we are to maintain unity even though we have differences, and anything less than unity in the church,
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God does not look upon with pleasure. So Romans chapter 14 and 15 deal with this very issue, how do we love each other even though we are different, we have been saved by the same
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Savior, we have been saved by grace alone, through faith alone, to God's glory alone,
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Christ alone, but we live out that Christian faith differently, not any of us have arrived, and so Paul makes it very clear in Romans, here's what you do.
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Now we've been going verse by verse through Ephesians, we've had some detours with the Psalms, but before we're back into Ephesians, Ephesians 4 is talking about the unity of the church, this issue has to be dealt with because it will help us with unity, and I'll say it again,
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I'm not talking about issues like the deity of Christ, justification by faith alone,
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Christ imputed righteousness, or any other doctrine for that matter, I'm talking about issues that you can't find in the
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Bible, maybe principles for living, and you can find principles about schooling, principles about dating or lack thereof, those things you can all use the
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Scriptures to help you with, but I'm talking about black and white doctrinal issues, we'll keep, and we will divide over those if you will, but we must not divide over issues of preference, or issues of conviction today, not biblical convictions but our own personal convictions, you say potato,
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I say potatoe, in New England they say bodata, I mean what are we going to do? The book of Romans covers all kinds of subjects, and it starts off in logical progression, chapters 1 and 2 and the first part of 3, it deals with sin, and whether you're
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Jew or Gentile, you fall underneath the curse of sin, because Adam is our father, and God decided in his good wisdom, he will represent you, and when
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Adam fell, we in Adam fell, but it goes on in chapter 3, the second part of it, it talks about how
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God, being good and loving, he has provided salvation through his son, and how his son has reconciled us, and redeemed us, and suffered
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God's wrath upon himself for us. Chapter 4 talks about that faith, and so does chapter 5, 6, and 7, how are we sanctified, how are we made more holy, chapter 8, it talks about our security in Christ, chapters 9, 10, and 11, it talks about the future for Israel, and God's sovereignty, and what he's doing with Jew and Gentile, and then it comes to very practical issues, fleshing the theology out, and you don't have to look at it, but Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, two verses on the mind, how important is the
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Christian mind, Christian thinking, super important, we're to love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, two verses, very critical.
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Then he goes on in chapter 12, verses 3 through 8, and it talks about how we deal with the church, our duties towards the church, service, how many verses, six verses, now you can't calculate everything on how many verses go with it, but just to make the point this morning, in chapter 12, verses 9 through 16, our duties towards society, eight verses, how should we respond towards our enemies, chapter 12, verses 17 through 21, five verses, what about the government, chapter 13, verses 1 through 7, eight verses on the government and duty and taxes, and then towards our neighbors, chapter 13, verses 8 through 14, seven verses, certainly if there were one verse, it would be important, now he moves to Christian liberty, how are we to live our
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Christ with the freedom that we have, how many verses, 35 verses, all of chapter 14, and then chapter 15, 1 through 13, how do we live when we have differences, how do we love people even though they're different,
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I kind of got a first hand experience of what that was like being in India, where I knew what it was like to be a minority,
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I felt different, most of the time around here I don't feel different, but there I felt different, and so how do we get along, how could we love each other when they had different backgrounds, they ate different things, they had different cultures, different social, cultural faux pas, how could we get along, and what
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God does is he redeems the people, not just Israel anymore, but he redeems Israel and Gentiles, Jews and Gentiles, and he brings them all into this new organism called the church, every tribe and tongue and nation, how do we live, what do we do,
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I think it's good to have convictions, by the way if you have convictions about smoking and drinking and dating and school,
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I applaud you for that, the issue is when those convictions, we'll see in Romans chapter 14 and 15, your main goal in life is to make other people have your same convictions, and that's what you do, but we'll see there are other goals, and so let's take a look at Romans chapter 14 and 15 this week, we'll see how far we get, typically we only get 3 or 4 verses, but we'll try to do large sections, we'll deal with this issue of liberty, and then time allowing we'll deal with the issue of legalism, and how these kind of go together and what happens with liberty and legalism, if you're taking notes today and you'd like an outline, we're going to look at the 3 requirements that you'll need to love different Christians, or more precisely to love
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Christians who are different, how do you get along with people who are different, this is going to be exciting because it's very challenging,
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I have to admit this week I've sat underneath the text thinking, God I don't want to act like this,
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I think sometimes I still do act this way, and God I used to really act this way a lot, I don't want to do that,
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I want to major as the Bible says on majors and not running around trying to find all the differences, we have enough differences as it is don't we, we just look around, so we'll look at these 3 requirements where we're to love other
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Christians in spite of differences in debatable areas, and again we're not talking about differences in, well how are you saved and is it
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God's cooperation with man, no that's false and we will stand up and proclaim the truth and we'll have to divide on those things, we'll be patient as we teach you along that it is
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God alone who saves and it's not man's cooperation, but here these are things that you can't find in the
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Bible, how about this one, mixed swimming, we don't even think about that much anymore, there was a day in the south, maybe there's still a day in the south, just going to keep going, where you would, mixed bathing was seriously forbidden, how about this one, movies, what do you think about the people in church who go see
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R rated movies, I'm amazed that anybody will go see any movie, no just kidding, there are differences and there are scriptural principles yes, but they are your own convictions because you can't find
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Bible verses that back them up, you can give me principles but you can't give me verses and so what do we do, and the tenor of this whole passage is going to be in chapter 14 and 15, are we going to love each other in spite of our differences like God does or are we going to somehow create these little groups and cliques and we're kind of known as this group that does and this group that doesn't,
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I'll say at the beginning end as well it's okay to have friends who are like minded, if you want to have a co -op and you're all into the same thing,
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I applaud that but if it becomes exclusive, I don't even have to chastise you because the scriptures will, we are to love everyone here just like Christ loves his people.
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Alright so three requirements to love Christians in spite of their differences and we'll have kind of sub points if you will, and the first way to love
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Christians in spite of their differences is found in Romans chapter 14 verses 1 through 12 and that is that you should strive for harmony in spite of differences, that we're to strive for harmony in spite of differences,
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Paul knew there were differences and the big difference back in those days was Jew and what, Gentile but there are other differences too, there were slave and free and rich and poor and male and female but here he says
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I want you to strive for harmony in spite of differences, Romans 14 1 through 12 and there's some ways that we can go about this, the first way to strive for harmony is found by accepting the weaker brother or sister in Christ, found in verse 1, it's a great attitude, now accept the one who is weak in faith, there's all kinds of imperatives found in Romans 14 and 15,
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I find 11 of them and I'll note some of them as we go, here's the first imperative, accept the one who is weak in faith, now here's what
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I think of when I think of accept, okay accept, nice to see you, you're accepted, I tolerate you, that's not the word, that's what's so neat about when you study words of the text and why
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I'm thrilled we have Greek classes going on here, this word is not just to receive with toleration, it's to roll out the red carpet, the welcome mat, warmth and love and we are going to receive you into our homes with our arms wide open, even though I don't go to R -rated movies and even though you do, even though I'm a public schooler and you're a home schooler, even though I don't believe in youth groups and you do, whatever the differences might be, he says extend a welcome, it's a command by the way, anything less is a sin, receive into one's home or circle of acquaintances and he's getting rid of all this kind of second class citizen, oh you don't believe what we believe, so too bad and here is even the weak one, we are to accept, if you look at Romans 15 verse 7, it's the same kind of idea, the exact same root word, wherefore accept one another just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God, when
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Paul was on the island before he got bit by the snake, the text says they kindled a fire and received or accepted us all, we are not to shun them, we are not to reject them, if there's someone who teaches salvation by works, we shun them, we reject them, but if you have the right view of Christ and you're saved, we welcome you,
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Ray Steadman said the favorite indoor sport of Christians is trying to change each other, okay
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I know what I'll do, that guy, he lets his kids actually go trick or treating and they don't even dress up like a bunny, they're dressing up like a witch or something,
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I'm going to accept him, you said to roll out the red carpet, we're going to roll it out and you're going to come into my home and I'm going to feed you a meal and I'm going to set you straight, that's what
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I'm going to do, I'm going to give you the what's for and I'm going to tell you when I was immature I used to do that and everything else, but I've learned and I've grown in grace, the text says exactly opposite,
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I like the laughter because I know we all identify with it, chapter 14 verse 1, present imperative, keep on accepting the one who's weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions, but not trying to, as the new
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English Bible translated it, attempting to settle doubtful points, literally not for decisions of opinion, don't invite them over and give them the red carpet treatment because you want to change their thinking on non -biblical issues, don't do that, certainly if there's a matter of doctrine,
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I've said it twice already, I'll say it more, matters of doctrine, of course we have to teach and we have to hold for, let me give you a little illustration, if Paul knew you thought circumcision was for salvation, how did he treat that issue?
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The hammer came down, Galatians chapter 2, you think you want to get saved by circumcision and that's all wrapped up in your legalistic works, righteousness system,
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I will not do it over my dead body as it were, Paul said in Galatians 2, 3, but not even
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Titus who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised, but it was because of the false brethren who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus in order to bring us into bondage, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel might remain in you.
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Circumcision, you want to circumcise your kid, I mean we could have two different groups here, those that circumcise their kids and those that don't, circumcision means nothing, but if you add it to salvation,
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Paul said it means a lot, if you're not adding it to salvation, listen to Acts 16, 3, Paul wanted this man to go with him and he took him and circumcised him,
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Timothy, because of the Jews who were in those parts for they all knew that his father was a Greek, it wasn't an issue of salvation, so it just worked out better, if you look at the text back in Romans 14, verse 2, one man, the strong man has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only, and so what was happening there, they had
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Jews and Gentiles, and so the Jews would say I've come out of Mosaic law and I've got civil laws, ceremonial laws, and moral law, and all these things and I just couldn't eat shellfish before and now in Christ I know
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I can eat it, but I just can't bring myself to do it, Paul says well they're weak in faith, you had
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Gentiles and they would have pagan debauchery sessions on certain days of the week and that pagan
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Gentile would say, that's a day, I can't worship on that day because I used to worship myself on that day,
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I used to eat certain kinds of foods for idols and I don't want to do that anymore, so here he says one man has strong faith that he can eat all things, the other has weak faith and eats vegetables only, now let's talk about this for a moment, about strong faith and weak faith, did you notice the text, it does not say that he has weak
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Christian faith, it's not like he's an unbeliever to start off with, these are Christian people,
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Christian people who have a mature faith or an immature faith, and the easiest way to describe it without getting into all the details is this, the strong person who has strong faith knows this, if God has justified me by Christ's righteousness alone, counted all my sins to Christ on Calvary, affirmed this by raising
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Christ from the dead, I can just live in liberty, food issues don't matter when you look at the enormity and the immensity of the cross, but the weak one in faith doesn't grasp the cross in all its fullness and so they're still trying to add things in to make themselves more pleasing to God, just like I prayed, can
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God love you any more than he does? If you're a Christian, the answer is no, there's the love of a parent who is enjoying obedience of a child, but he has shown his love, and if you eat or don't eat certain foods, worship or don't worship on certain days, it's not going to mean he's going to love you any more or any less, the strong grab hold of their faith and live it out, strong objective faith in Christ, crucifixion and resurrection, live out their subjective faith, the weak are just the opposite, now the problem is the strong easily can become smug and arrogant, and I'm mature and I know what to do,
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I set the standard, I'm not under mosaic law anymore, it's
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Israel and the church, the weak in faith, I don't like NIV's translation there, it says faith is weak, no, he's weak in the faith, he doesn't trust
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Christ a little, he just doesn't grasp justification by faith that Paul's been talking about, and these weak people had a bunch of do's and don'ts, and they were legalists, they were sensitive to sin, they were
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Christians, but they wanted to make their salvation more certain by obeying certain laws, and they were prone to condemn what?
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The stronger ones, I can't believe they're doing that, they're eating food offered to idols, and you can see what happens,
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Christians do this today too, politics, I can't believe that guy is a good standing member of this church and he's a democrat, can you believe that?
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Yeah, that's right, I can't believe they let their kids go to Disneyland, don't you know that Disneyland gives money to bad places,
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AT &T subsidizes all kinds of homosexual activities and we give our money to Lifeline, that's it for long distance carriers, all of a sudden you just see the schisms start happening,
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I use the New American Standard, I use the
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English Standard Version, it just goes on and on and on, Paul says accept them, strive for harmony by accepting this weaker brother or sister, by the way, if you are stronger, and you're probably a mix of all kinds of things, but if you're stronger, you're only stronger in your faith, for what reason?
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Because God has graced you, it's not because you're better, it's because God has been very gracious in giving you the maturity,
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I can ask you the question before we continue, and again, it's fine to have like -minded friends, we all do, but do you make any attempt to open up your house, to open up your life, to open up your family to people who believe exactly the opposite things that you do, that are in the
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Christian liberty realm, oh no, your kids go to public school,
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I never let your kids play with my kids in a million years, friends,
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I hear that, that's not what the text says, sure you should use discretion, but this is the church, maybe you need to be a good influence on those other kids, let's keep going, strive for harmony in spite of differences, by A, accepting the weaker brother, by B, found in verse 3 and following, by treating the fellowship like God does, in other words, don't be more restrictive than God is, if God has welcomed these people into the church, don't put more rules than God has rules, and again, we'll learn in just a minute,
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I want you to have convictions, if you have a strong conviction, my kids will not date, good, if you have a strong conviction,
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I believe in courtship, good, if you have the exact opposite, good, I want you to have convictions, may it never be from this pulpit
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I go around telling people, oh I don't want you to have convictions, but biblical truths and convictions about those things are a lot different than having convictions about areas of the
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Bible that you can't prove, you could imply by principles, but here, let's not put up extra rules, look at verse 3, let not him who eats regard with contempt him who does not eat, don't let the mature or the strong regard with contempt those that don't eat, the weak, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats, for, what's the reason?
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God has accepted him, the strong and the weak weren't associating with each other, except to try to change each other's minds, and then after that the divorce was final, and they weren't mixing and mingling in the church, but God has accepted them, so the way to approach this is to ask the question, how can you put up extra rules and not accept other
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Christians that God has accepted, and if you look at the words, they're very strong, to the strong, don't despise, don't throw out as nothing, the
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Bible says in Luke 23, 11 using the same word, inherit with the soldiers after treating Jesus with contempt and mocking him, don't look down on those weak
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Christians, and I have to admit, I've done it before, I've done it with certain issues, and I think,
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I can't believe those people are doing that, I can't believe they're doing that, the issue is if someone's sinning, then
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I should say, I can't believe they're doing that, it's time to help them, if it's not a sin, I should say, stop judging, stop despising, stop having contempt, and for the weak, the weak who want a bunch of rules, and they think the strong are out there just licentious, and let their hair down and they're just going wild, it says to them, don't judge, it means don't condemn, don't criticize, and these are imperatives, why?
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Because God has accepted them, do you have a club that's more exclusive in this church than God's club is?
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That's the point, you're not saved by personal convictions, you shouldn't be separated by them either, furthermore, man, he just,
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Paul just, by the Spirit's inspiration, just goes for it, verse 4, who are you to judge the servant of another?
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This is a household servant, this is someone that does the work around the house, who are you, a servant, to judge another person's servant?
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Can you imagine? How can we create the scenario these days? You're judging, as a servant, another servant, and who's the one who should be judging that servant?
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And judging you too, by the way, it's God, I can't believe that person did that, I can't believe that they're allowed to do that, when the person who's supposed to judge is
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God. To his own master, verse 4 says, he stands or fall, and stand he will, why?
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Why will the weak one stand? For the Lord is able to make him stand. It's the master's business, it's not your business.
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God will make him in fact stand, or her stand. We are not to snub those who have, there's only two kinds of people in this church, those are those who are looser than you are in your
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Christian liberty, and those who are tighter than you are, right? They're the whole gamut, right, they're people that will allow their kids to do more or less, who themselves do more or less than you will.
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There's all these people. Oh, there's some people, you know, in our church, they give a tithe, it's 10 % straight up.
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Well, we, we give tithes, and they give on gross, we give on net, that's what we do.
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I mean, it just goes on and on. We would never resuscitate on demand, resuscitate, you know, you can't do that, that's just some ethical issue.
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We would never let our kids go see Santa Claus, we would let our kids go see Santa Claus. We would never own that big of a house, oh, we would use that house for God's glory.
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That guy has an earring, he doesn't ever wear it, but I can see the pierced hole there.
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By the way, I'm so glad that I have a little fold right here, and so none of you ever knew that I had a pierced ear when I was in my younger days, and I was weak in the faith.
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No, just kidding, just kidding about the weak in the faith part. How long does that thing take to grow back in, that's what
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I want to know. Hairstyle, hair length, clothing, of course there's good principles, but it's just too easy to divide.
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There's all these just substructures and groups. We like hymns, we like contemporary, we don't like,
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I mean, it just keeps going on and on. We're to strive for harmony in spite of differences, by A, accepting the weaker brother, by B, treating them like God does, accepting them,
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C, found in verses 5 and following, by keeping your convictions private. Boy, this is hard for me to do.
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John Calvin once said pastors ought to refrain and fast from speaking sometimes. He just bumps you, and then
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I just have comments about anything. You just ask me something, I'll just tell you what I think about it, blah, just out. I'm supposed to keep my mouth shut about this.
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If you come over and say, pastor, the Bible doesn't really talk much about birth control, so give us the lowdown.
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Well, of course we can inform people and educate them, that's fine, but it should not be my job and it should not be your job to go around making sure everyone thinks the way you do about issues that are not black and white in Scripture.
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Keep your convictions private. Verses 5 and 6, let me, 5, 6, 7, 8, let me read this, and as I do, look for the phrases, for the
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Lord and to God. One man regards one day above another. Another regards every day alike.
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Let each man be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it for the
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Lord. He who eats, does so for the Lord. For he who gives thanks to God and he who eats not, for the
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Lord. He does not eat and gives thanks to God. For not one of us lives for himself and not one of us dies for himself.
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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
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Lord's. The issue there, if you go back to verse 5, it's another imperative, be convinced in your own mind, be fully assured.
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I could push it this way, Christian convictions about non -biblical issues are to be private.
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You are to keep yourself out of other people's business. You're to mind your own business, be convinced in his own mind, not be convincing everyone else your views.
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We are responsible for our own views before God, not anyone else's. And some here in the text, they esteem one day,
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I have to worship on Saturday, that's a Sabbath. I've got to worship on Saturday. Another one says, hey, every day is a
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Sabbath, I'll just worship God on the Lord's day and every other day too. Notice what
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I find it striking here, Paul doesn't come down and correct a lot of people for their views of the
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Sabbath or the views of food. He just says, make sure you all get along.
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It's kind of Rodney King theology. Why can't you all get along? If you look down at verse 22, he's saying the same thing of chapter 14.
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The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. And again, it is not about doctrinal issues.
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Well, we all have our own convictions about the doctrinal statement. That's not the point. We have doctrinal convictions, we have convictions that are not doctrinal, they're personal and they're good to have.
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Be a man, be a woman of convictions. But he says, be convinced in your own mind.
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God's word defines what's right and wrong. You don't. I don't.
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It's God's word. And if you can't find it in God's word, you have to be careful. Listen to Deffenbaugh, he said, quote, convictions take up where biblical revelation and human law leave off.
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Convictions determine what my conduct should be in those areas, not specifically prescribed by scripture.
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My convictions draw the line between what I will do and what I will not do as an exercise of Christian liberty.
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Convictions reach the conclusions of should and should not. The question is not so much can
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I do this, but should I do this or that? End quote.
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These are matters of conscience. You're not strengthened by the way if you have arranged marriage or a love marriage.
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You're strengthened by grace, Hebrews 13 says. So what's the big deal? Look at verse six.
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He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord. He who eats does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God. He who eats not for the
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Lord, he does not eat and gives thanks to God. Do you know what they both do? Those that restrict what they eat and those just go for the buffet, they both say grace before they eat.
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Thank you, Lord, for what you're giving me. Thank you that I'm saying no to some of these foods that have been offered to idols because I can be self -sacrificing like your son was.
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The other person says, Lord, thank you for all this food. I can't believe the sizes and tastes and shapes and cultures and everything else, and they just,
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I wanted to say pig out, but gluttony is a sin and that's not a personal conviction. By the way, that's sometimes to those who have a conviction that the
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Lord's Day you can't do anything except stay at home and engage in the sin of gluttony. That's the only thing you can do.
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We have people in this church, some have certain things they can do on Sundays, some that don't.
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I applaud that. I am glad. It's for the
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Lord. They do it for God. By the way, as a side note,
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I don't think Sabbath law can be in effect anymore if Paul would use something like this in liberty. If it was still in law, he would say, this is not a negotiable issue.
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This is not a liberty issue. You've got to worship on the Sabbath. Look at verse 7, for not one of us lives for himself.
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Not one of us dies for himself. And by the way, you don't live alone and you don't die alone because the Lord's there for both of those.
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If we live, we live for the Lord. We are not free to do whatever we want.
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We are free to serve God as slaves to Him. If we die, we die for the
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Lord. Therefore we live or we die, we're the Lord's. Or theologically, verse 9, for to this end
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Christ died and lived again. Why? First of all, Jesus was already Lord of everything. We know that.
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But in a special way, look what happens. That He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
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You'll see in a special way after the resurrection, if you'd like to study it sometime, that Jesus became Lord and showed
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His Lordship as He was raised from the dead. For those in Scott Goddard's group, you'll see the word here, the verb is an ingressive heiress.
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So make sure you have Scott teach you that next week. He became the Lord. Not like He somehow wasn't the
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Lord. He was always the Lord, but in the full demonstration of His Lordship, He raises from the dead and He's Lord over all.
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That means we're not Lord. Food comes under His Lordship. Worship of certain days comes under His Lordship.
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Preferences come under Lordship. Personal convictions come under His Lordship. And then
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He says in verse 10, but you, why do you judge your brother?
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You weak, why do you judge? Now He calls him brother. I don't know about you, but when I was born and raised in Nebraska, I'd fight for my brother, for my sister.
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All of a sudden now, this phrase of kinship and family, why are you judging your brother like that?
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You're judging him. Or again, why should you strong people regard your brother with contempt?
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Kind of look down your nose like, I can't believe they're doing that again. It's another Halloween and off they go, trick or treat.
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What's the issue? For we shall all stand strong and weak before the judgment seat of God.
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There's only one verdict that counts, right? It's God's verdict at the judgment seat in 2
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Corinthians 5 verse 10. We are not judged for our sins. God has judged those sins on Christ in our place, on our behalf.
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But we are judged for what we've done and our motives, whether good or worthless. Let me read you the verse in 2
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Corinthians 5 verse 10. For we must all appear, and if I was going to import language into it for the sake of preaching, for we all strong and weak, difference in preferences and convictions.
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We all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds, no one else's, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
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We will all answer to God, not other people on judgment day. You're not going to go to heaven and Jesus will judge you, and then you walk down that aisle and then you go over to the side, and then
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I'm standing there and I'm going to judge you. Good job, you're just like me. You didn't drink, you didn't do
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Halloween, and you had a Christmas tree. See, I've got to mix it up a little bit so I'm not a wacko. If you do those things,
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I'm not saying you're a wacko either, that's just a figure of speech. The verdict is
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God. The verdict is God's, rather. You know what I love about Paul?
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He just goes straight to the Word. The Bible says that ends it for Paul. Verse 11, for it is written.
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It is written and it stays written, and Paul will affirm and acknowledge and comply with Jesus is the one who judges by saying, a very familiar quote in Isaiah 45 that you know from Philippians chapter 2, but here it's found in Romans 14, 11, talking about how each of us will be accountable to God.
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As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, implied no one else.
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Every tongue shall give praise to God. Get busy with your
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Christian life and stop going around judging what people do that aren't, it's not biblical issues.
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Verse 12, one man said this is, every section of this is emphatic. So then, each one of us shall give an account, financial accounting, bookkeeping, shall give an account of himself to God.
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We get judged, we don't get to judge. I read a funny story, you've heard this probably before, two
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Baptist groups met in Europe. One from America and the other from Germany. At the dinner table, several of the
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American Baptists began to smoke cigarettes. The German Baptists were aghast. In fact, the
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Germans were so shocked they almost dropped their beer. Of course, and I taught this by the way in India and it had a very good reception because we are all the same, whether we're
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India or here, we like our own little groups. It was good for them to hear from an outsider, you know your own pastor can stand up and preach for five years and say things week after week, but some outsider comes in and preaches and you go,
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I got it. This was good because the issue is harmony, the issue is the body, the issue is there are bigger things in life than what we do or don't do and what our preferences are.
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I could ask you this question, this is very convicting when I ask myself this question. I'm going to ask you this question, in this church, in this fellowship, are you known by your stances on gray areas?
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Does everybody in this church know where you stand on gray areas? About movies, about drinking, about smoking, about birth control or lack thereof, schools and what kind.
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I mean, the list can go on. Have convictions, but we're to keep them to ourselves.
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Certainly, if you've got kids today and you think, it's Father's Day so I brought my kids and now the pastor is saying, everybody smoke.
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I'm not saying smoke, I'm not saying drink alcohol. If you're enslaved to cigarettes and destroying
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God's temple, that's sinful, but if you pick up a pipe once a year and smoke it, that's your own business.
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We're about producing harmony in the body, striving for harmony by accepting others, by treating them like God does and by keeping our convictions private.
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This is convicting stuff because we all like to have people like ourselves and we end up spending time trying to get other people to believe what we do.
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Turn to Ephesians chapter 4 just to remind ourselves and we've got two other main points to go and so we're not going to have time today to do that, but let's turn to Ephesians chapter 4 and I want to remind you that we are supposed to be unified even though we're different.
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I'm glad we're different. When I lived in Los Angeles, we had a home group and that home group had benefits of differences.
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We had Cubans, we had Asians, we had Indians, we had whites, we had blacks, we had
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Chicanos, we had all kinds of people and you know what one of the greatest benefits was? We had awesome pot provinces.
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It was good. It was spicy. But the benefits aren't just for us, the benefits are of showing the world, look what
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God can do and how he can redeem people from all backgrounds and they love each other. The issue is really love, isn't it?
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What are the two great commandments? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as long as he's like yourself.
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That's exactly what this passage is teaching the opposite of and we Christians, we can do this in very sly ways.
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I have my devotions at 4 o 'clock and by the way,
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I usually have my devotions late at night and I just say in a different time zone, I'm ahead of you if you're the 4 o 'clock in the morning person.
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Have your devotions whenever you want, but it doesn't say who's more godly. We can do it in very
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Christian ways. I pray by saying thy, your new
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American Standard 95 and you just say you, it's inside joke.
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You know what one that used to really bug me when I was an immature Christian? I could not stand it when Christians read the fortunes in fortune cookies.
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How could they? There's no such thing as luck, chance, pagan fortuna.
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What are you doing? Fortuna is fortune, the goddess of fortune. I wasn't calling the person a pagan fortuna.
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Pagan's fortuna, sign up, 2 .99 a pound. They drink coffee.
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It's not even Starbucks and they're just drinking that thing down. They drink Dunkin Donuts. I can see it here, especially with Jeffrey's around.
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We've got the Starbucks contingency and we've got all the rest of you besides Dave and I, the Dunkin Donuts guys.
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It's a big problem. Not for Dave and I. We don't believe in any credit card debt.
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Bible says don't owe anybody anything. Well, we do. I mean, you can just see over and over.
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But Ephesians chapter 4, we'll end here and we'll pick up the rest next week. God puts a high priority on unity.
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And beloved, when it comes to doctrine, I don't need to say that I am a pit bull about sound doctrine.
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I will go down with the ship fighting for substitutionary atonement, sufficiency of Scripture, etc.
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But on issues that are debatable, where you have to get kind of Christian principles, let's put it all in light of God's view of unity in the church.
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Therefore, I, Paul says, the prisoner of the Lord. You can just see he's using that terminology just to kind of do exactly this, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with what you've been called.
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Literally in Greek, here's a balance. There's all this weight with doctrine, chapters 1, 2, and 3.
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Live in a way that you put your weight of Christian living balances out all the stuff that you know.
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Balance it up with the way you live. And what's the first thing he says? With all humility, you don't have to go around and correct all those people who believe in Halloween.
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And gentleness. With patience, everybody's in progress.
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Showing tolerance for one another in love. Be diligent to preserve the unity of the
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Spirit in the bond of peace. And then he says, I'll show you why. One body, one
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Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
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Beloved, I don't think it's a huge problem in our church. But in case if it ever is, we are to welcome other people who are different for the sake not even of them, but for the sake of Jesus Christ.
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And we love them. Think about Christ and His love. For the Samaritan. For Nicodemus.
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For all these different kinds of people. And think about God's manifold love for dying for people like us.
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Most of us Gentiles. And the next time you want to go correct somebody on their views, instead of going to the servant to complain about the servant of someone else, just go to the
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Master and say, Master, I think they are weak in that area. Would you just mature them? Our Heavenly Father, what a joy it is to have
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Your Word. And Father, just to be under it. Father, may we be a church known as a group of people who are submitting to Your Word.
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Father, we need Your Spirit. Paul prays later for that very thing because he knows nothing else will help.
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We need Your Spirit to not only empower us to obey, but give us a perseverance of obedience.
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Father, would You rid our church if there is any kind of inkling of this in my heart or any of these dear people's hearts.
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Would You help us to be a church known for loving and accepting those who differ in these preferential areas.
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And Father, then You would use us soon, today, in the fall, as we preach the Gospel of forgiveness of sins, that we will not compromise on what is found only in Christ Jesus.
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Make this church a special bride that is pure and white. Not only because we are in Christ, but because we are trying to live it out as well.