Judgment and Judgmentalism, Part 2: Unity and Fellowship

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Matthew 7:1-2

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Well, this morning I was originally planning on pressing on to verses 3 through 5 in Matthew 7 and talking about that dreadful spiritual disease known as planki, which is so prevalent among us as fallen human beings.
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But I thought it perhaps needs a little more of a foundation, maybe an orientation.
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And so I plan to lay some groundwork for verses 3 through 5 this morning. So in some ways, this is part two to what we began discussing last week.
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So we're still looking at Matthew 7, 1 and 2. We're still talking about the difference between judgment and judgmentalism.
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We've talked about a very positive, necessary place for judgment among Christians, moral discernment, moral evaluation.
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Judgment is something that Paul rhetorically says in 1 Corinthians 5 is to take place in a church if it's to strain out chaff from wheat, the goats from sheep, or wolves from sheep for that matter.
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And so there is a proper place for judgment. What Jesus is teaching against is judgmentalism.
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And that's what we began discussing last week. So we've been looking at with everything we've established last week and will establish this morning.
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We're looking at how we relate to one another. And really here at the beginning of chapter 7, that's how we relate to one another as fellow believers, as brothers and sisters in Christ the
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Lord. And so that's how we relate inside, so to speak, inside the church. And after we get to verse 6, we're going to start talking about how we relate outside.
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That is to those who are unbelievers. What do we do with what is holy? What do we do with pearls? And then that turns over to how we relate to God above us.
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So inside, outside, above, in terms of asking for the things that we need. This relation of dependency upon God, and that comes full circle with verses 12 through 15.
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And really the idea there in verse 15 is you have the golden rule. We've come full circle to how we treat others in the way we want to be treated, which sounds a lot like the measure with which we judge is the measure by which we will be judged.
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How we treat others is how we can expect to be treated. And so Jesus says here at the beginning, judge not that you be not judged.
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For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
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Well, let me lay out a little bit of groundwork of where we're going this morning. At first, just a sort of recap.
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Judgment and judgmentalism. Beginning really with that latter end, this danger of judgmentalism.
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And the call is to properly love the brethren. That love involves moral judgment at times, but that moral judgment, that moral discernment or evaluation of others' failures or sins, is never to be carried out against them in the form of judgmentalism, a sort of sneering condescension, a malicious intent, a braggadocious egoism that stands over and looks down upon.
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Those things are all forbidden here if we're understanding Matthew 7, 1 rightly. And so what's forbidden is judgmentalism.
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Love requires us not only to notice our brother or sister, but to even at times faithfully wound our brother and sister.
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This is what love requires. Love requires, as we'll see, a willingness to go to the one who has the splinter in their eye and seek to remove it.
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For their sake, for their health, for their wholeness. And of course, the difference between the two is really boiled down to love.
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Do you properly love the brethren? That's what we're after. Do you really fulfill the righteous requirement of the law, which includes a righteous judgment, as we saw from John 7, 5?
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Do not judge, but have a righteous judgment. That's the answer. A righteous judgment always includes mercy.
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The intent is for the sake of the other, not for yourself. And so James says in James 2, 8, if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you do well.
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Think of the context of James, where he's going from chapter 2 towards chapter 3, the power of the tongue.
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And he sets out this whole beginning in chapter 2 with if you really fulfill the law, which says, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you'll do well.
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And on the one hand, he's saying, it's not an easy thing to do. You'll do well if you can do that. You'll exhaust the rest of your life trying to do that.
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And I love that he has this little word translated, really. If you really fulfill. Because he knows it's very easier for us to say, of course
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I love the brethren. Of course I love my neighbor. I love them. Normally this is how we say that. I love them.
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But, I love my brother. But, and then we go on to show the ways that secretly in the caverns of our heart, we don't actually appreciate or love, honor or respect our brother or our sister.
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That's why James says, if you really love your neighbor as yourself, if you really love in the way that you would want to be loved, you'll do well.
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That's pretty rare. As we said last week, the golden rule is called the golden rule for a reason.
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It's as rare as gold. Go panning for gold and see how many grains you can come up with.
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That's what it's like to find someone who's actually doing the golden rule. If you really fulfill the royal law.
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So James, James, James, I actually do love my neighbor as myself. I love the brethren with a holy love.
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And he goes, really? Like that meme with the boy with his eyebrow cocked, really? Do you really love in that way?
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And he comes to verse 13 and he says, judgment is without mercy to the one who does not show mercy.
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You notice how he frames this call toward corporate love in the context of the judgment of God.
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And he says that the judgment of God will have no mercy toward you if you are unable to show mercy to the brethren, unable to show mercy toward others.
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Judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. That sounds a lot like Jesus saying that the judgment that you judge with is how you will be judged.
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So if we desire mercy, then we are those who show mercy. James goes on to say in chapter four, if you judge the law, you're not a doer of the law, but a judge.
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You think you're the judge in the jury. You're not. There's one judge. His reckoning is what you'll stand before.
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You might call others to your own reckoning, but what good is that? You're not the law giver. It's not ultimately you that they must answer to.
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In fact, you'll have to answer to someone as well. If you judge the law, you're not a doer of the law, but a judge.
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So don't stand over the law and go around grabbing everyone by their collars and neckties and saying, pay me what you owe.
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You rather minister and relate to others as one under the law, one called to fulfill this law, which includes loving
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God so that you can love your neighbor as you love yourself. James says there is one law giver who is able to save and to destroy.
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He's ratcheting things up to the larger context of this judgment seat of Christ. And then he says, who are you to judge another?
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So just like we see in Matthew 7, there is this Godward vertical view, this sort of view, this glimpse of judgment that is to animate and alleviate all of the calls of how we relate to one another.
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A Godward vertical view in light of the judgment to come means that we will relate to one another as brothers and sisters, fellow servants of God.
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We will not preen and prude and judge one another, but rather we will look toward the good and hold one another in higher esteem.
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Paul says the same language. If James says in James 4, who are you to judge? Paul begins that in 14 .3,
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Romans 14 .3. Who are you to judge? It's this constant refrain throughout
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Scripture. What does that tell you about churches? What does that tell you about churches?
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Churches are hotbeds of this kind of fleshly judgment, aren't they? The church at Rome, the church at Galatia, the church at Philippi, the church at Corinth.
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If you found this perfect church that is all daisies and flowers and hugs and kumbaya circles, tell me about it.
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It's not a New Testament church, I can tell you that. This is what the church looks like. This is where Satan is seeking to sow division and discord.
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This is where people are reeling in this warfare between the flesh and the Spirit of God. This is where we're seeking sanctification, which involves not only our own isolated, individualized walks, but our corporate walk together.
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And so you find this constant refrain. Who are you to judge? Who are you to judge? Why are you judging? Stop judging.
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You see the YouTube comments on videos like I saw one the other day, and someone commented, there's no hate like Christian love.
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That was someone's comment. There's no hatred like Christian love. Sometimes that's how the world thinks of the church.
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All under the guise of love, it's actually just hatred. Now, I can easily dismiss that.
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I can say, oh, they're actually far more hypocritical than they could even realize. Christians all own that we are sinners, but the reality is to the degree that anyone thinks that, there is some blame that we all should feel.
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The church can have a very hollow practice of Christian love.
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Who are you to judge another servant, Paul asks. To his own master, he stands or falls.
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Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand. But, verse 10, why do you judge your brother?
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Why do you show contempt for your brother? We will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Notice that Paul does what
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James does, what Jesus does. He frames his context of judgmentalism in light of the judgment of God.
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Are you going to be the judge? Well, we'll all be before the judge one day. You see, that's a prospect.
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So a Godward view in light of this judgment, in light of our common hope, helps us to follow through on Jesus' teaching.
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Judge not, lest we be judged. And it helps us in this way, because we're focused on our own need for mercy.
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If I'm conscious of the fact that I must answer before my God, my maker, my creator, and my savior, for all the deeds in my body, whether good or bad,
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I will live with the constant need for his mercy. I will be living by grace.
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As we sang from the hymn based on Titus 3 .5, not by works of righteousness that I have done, but by mercy he saved me.
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That'll be my life. And if I'm living in light of that constant need for mercy, the mercy that he's faithful to renew every morning, then
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I won't be judgmental toward others. I will, in fact, be merciful toward others.
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Because I'm recognizing the mercy that I am not only receiving, but will need to receive on that great day.
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When everything is laid bare, everything is exposed before the one who sees and knows all things.
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And on that harrowing day, my only plea will be that my savior shed his blood for me.
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My entrance into glory will simply be that I laid hold of a savior who showed me mercy undeserved.
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Now, if that is true, how should I relate to others? How should
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I relate to others? If you really fulfill the law, which says you'll love your neighbor as yourself, you do well.
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Jesus stands before those who had attained works of righteousness. The zealous Pharisees, the scrupulous scribes.
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And he condemns them both as those who are unable to show mercy. He reminds them of the prophets who say, mercy
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I desire, not sacrifice. You look very fancy with your long robes in your best places in the synagogue.
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And you love the greetings in the marketplace, but you don't know how to show mercy. You might feel all the adulation of man, but you won't find the adulation of my father.
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Look, prostitutes and tax collectors enter the kingdom ahead of you. Those who realize they have nothing to offer to God in terms of saving merit, but their guilt.
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Nothing to offer God, as Jonathan Edwards said, but the sins which made their salvation necessary.
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Those that realize, as Paul says, we've all together become worthless.
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And that's the sigh of their heart will be led to seek after God and live upon his mercy from mercy to mercy, nothing but mercy.
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It's a comfort them to know that all of God's ways are mercy and people who recognize themselves and recognize the
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Lord in this way will become merciful. We receive mercy from the
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God of all mercy. How could we fail to be merciful? There's an utter incongruity.
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Did I say that right? I'm not gonna try it again. There's an utter contrast between someone who truly understands the mercy they have received to then go out and be judgmental and condescending and sneering against those who require that same mercy.
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It cannot be, it cannot be. Rather, we look at our lives and we think, what a poor return
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I am for this kind of mercy. How long have I been walking with the
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Lord and I'm still backward in all of these ways? Still dull, still slow of heart to belief, still so thick -headed at the very things
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I've learned and rehearsed and recited and memorized I can't actually carry into practice.
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What a poor return this is for the love that has been poured out upon me. What a drag
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I am on this kingdom's holy advance. But the paradox is, in the degree that I'm realizing that,
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I'm that much closer to the fruit of the cross because in that humility there is a certain blessedness.
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Blessed are the poor in spirit, Jesus reminded us. So in that sense of poverty, there's actually a place for God to become my all in all, in that place of meekness and humility, where my sins, my sins are constantly weighing me down.
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As the hymn says, I can then go, my sins, my sins, my Savior. And now there's a fullness that comes into my life.
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Mercy cascades toward me. It makes my life fruitful. As D .L. Moody once said,
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God never sends away anyone empty except those who are full of themselves. Jesus says, the sick have no need, the healthy have no need for a physician, it's for the sick that I've come.
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What does Paul say to the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 4? You have it all.
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You're already kings. I wish I could reign with you. You've arrived.
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You're so full of yourselves and look at the fruit of that. You're splitting the church four ways. There's nothing but infighting and backbiting and now you're beginning to even question and depart from me.
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Ah, I wish I could reign with you. You guys have really nailed this whole spirituality thing. You see how he's rhetorically dismantling all of the pride and pageantry of the church at Corinth?
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No, blessed are the poor in spirit. The Christian brings his emptiness to Christ. The Christian brings her need to Christ.
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And there at that very moment, the hand is now open to receive. There in that place where we are, as it were, exposed before God, now is there an opportunity to be covered by God.
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That covering has a ripple effect in the way that we think of and regard and treat others.
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Those who are mature, in other words, realize that they are not yet mature.
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Those who have arrived in the graces of Christianity realize they have not yet arrived in the consummated graces of Christianity.
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You can hardly say anything about your relationship to God without realizing this dynamic.
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How much more I need him. Maybe as a new Christian, you think, ah, every week, every week
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I need him. Once a week, I need him. And you press on in the Christian life, and you're like, I need him daily.
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And you press on in the Christian life, and you start to sing like the hymn writer, every hour
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I need thee. I need him every hour. That's maturity. That's maturity in the
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Christian life. What does that maturity look like? A humility, a dependency, a weakness that is seeking fullness, a restlessness that is seeking satisfaction.
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Are we mature in these ways? Well, let's think about this corporately. There's only two things
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I want to accomplish this morning in trying to pave the way for verses three through five.
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That's in part because I'll be away next week. I think Greg is planning on completing Jonah in the last chapter of Jonah, and then
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I'll be back to pick up Plancki in verses three through five.
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But in paving the way, I want to think about, are we actually mature? Are we able to love in these ways?
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Two things that I want to focus on. First is unity, and the second is fellowship.
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I ask the question, are we mature in these ways? Are we corporately mature in these ways? Well, the answer to that consists largely in unity.
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Are we mature in these ways? The question is, are we unified? Think of a marriage.
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How do we get our handle around defining a mature marriage? What's a mature marriage? What does it look like for a husband and a wife to have matured into their calling, into their roles as a husband and wife?
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Well, not the only way, but perhaps the best way to answer that question is, is that marriage unified?
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Are they unified? That unity will speak volumes to maturity.
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That unity betrays a certain spiritual depth, a recognition of God's calling, an intention, a purpose, a motion toward God's calling.
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And so one of the ways you answer the question of maturity is unity. Are we a mature church body? Let's answer the question.
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Are we a unified church body? Why does Paul call the church at Corinth childish, immature?
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Because they're disunifying. And he presses on to say, if you're going to be mature, if you're going to be complete, you'll actually recognize these gifts shouldn't be dividing you, they should be uniting you.
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All of chapter 12 in the wholeness of the body, not every body part looks the same or functions the same, but they all require one another.
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And Paul says, that's the more excellent way. If you recognize what the body is and you focus on love, chapter 13, then you will be mature.
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And so maturity is one of the ways we get at unity. One of the ways we can answer the question, are we a mature church is, are we a unified church?
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And here's my two sort of overriding statements for where we're going this morning. First, where there is judgmentalism, there will be no unity.
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Where there is judgmentalism, there will be no unity. Secondly, where there is a lack of unity, there cannot be fellowship.
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Where there is a lack of unity, there cannot be fellowship. That's essentially all
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I'm trying to answer or to elaborate this morning. Where there is judgmentalism, there is not unity.
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Where there is not unity, there is not fellowship. Paul knows that Christian maturity comes about largely through the unity and fellowship of believers.
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That's why it's such a constant theme throughout every New Testament letter. Anything that's addressed to a church has this all over it.
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A constant reminder, exhortation and call for unity and like -mindedness or fellowship in the things of the gospel.
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Maturity comes about through unity and fellowship. It's why you ask the question, are we mature? Are we unified?
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What does our fellowship look like? Well, let me say this about unity. First, unity is not uniformity.
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Paul dispels that in 1 Corinthians 12. We're not all hands, we're not all feet, stomachs, eyes, mouths, noses.
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The stomach can't say to the foot, I have no need of you. The hand can't say to the eye, I'm better off without you.
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The whole body has to function together, the parts for the whole and the whole for the parts. Everyone doing what it's been equipped and called to do for the sake of the whole.
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You don't wanna see the Adam's family hand kind of crawling around the floor in the church of God.
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Unity is not uniformity. That means we don't all talk alike, look alike, act alike.
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That's actually a good thing in the church of God. I mean, we're scary enough for people coming off the street.
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Imagine if people came off the street, we're all wearing gray, you know, trench coats. We all have weird mushroom haircuts from the 90s.
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We're all talking the same, we all have the same posture. I would get people running to the hills. Unity is not uniformity.
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We don't all drive beige sedans, wear identical outfits, eat nondescript oatmeal for lunch. It's a good thing that unity is not uniformity.
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God has called us into communion with him as distinct individuals.
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Distinct backgrounds, distinct callings, distinct abilities, distinct weaknesses, all these things arrive together for his purpose according to the wisdom by which he composes a church body.
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Unity is not uniformity. If we're aiming for uniformity, we actually won't arrive at unity, not in the way that Scripture calls.
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So we have to understand the difference between uniformity and unity. Part of this understands the nature of the calling itself, to walk worthy of the calling with which we were called,
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Ephesians 4 .1, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long -suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to maintain the unity of the
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Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling.
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So the unity of the Spirit doesn't snap into being, not according to Ephesians 4.
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It doesn't fall into place effortlessly. Just reading this passage, what does the unity of the
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Spirit require? Lowliness, gentleness, long -suffering, bearing with one another, self -control, self -denial.
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Not only bearing with, but bearing up one another. That's part of how you maintain the unity of the
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Spirit. In other words, it's a progress. This is the calling and we're growing into it.
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Until when? He says in verse 13. Until we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the
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Son of God. To a perfect man. Notice again, the translation perfect there don't get thrown off.
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To a mature man, to a complete man. So what does the lack of unity, the lack of all these things look like?
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Immaturity. You see again, maturity is the way we get at unity.
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We will not be a complete, a mature, a grown man. We will be like toddlers if we're not able to be lowly and gentle, long -suffering, willing to bear, endeavoring to maintain the unity of the
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Spirit. Part of this means to have the same mind. Paul knows that sincere, mature believers are going to differ.
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But that's not a reason for them to stop striving toward having the same mind. You're ever striving to think about things in the same way.
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It gets hard when there's a diversity, when there's so many different backgrounds and unique individuals in a church body.
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And yet if we're all striving toward the same mind, we'll continue to get closer and closer and closer.
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For Paul, that looks like having the same judgment. Something comes up and we're unified in it.
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We're all looking at Scripture in the same way. That's unity. That's unity. Now unity is not a virtue in itself.
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Unity is not actually the be -all, end -all. Truth, truth is that which is to unite believers.
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How can believers be of the same mind if that mind is not pursuing what is true?
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So the virtue is not unity at any cost. It's rather unity in the pursuit of what is true.
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Unity, it's not a virtue in itself. There is a dividing line between truth and error. Think of Paul writing to the
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Galatians. He does not want them to be unified with the Judaizers. He wants them to be divided from them. And what's the dividing line?
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It's the truth of the gospel. He's even willing, as it were, to divide from Peter over the truth of the gospel.
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So there's no sense in having some semblance of unity if the unity is not oriented toward truth.
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If we're not striving for what is true, what is biblical, then we might as not strive together at all.
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We might as well be Unitarians and just make sewing circles. It just doesn't matter at that point.
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It only matters to the degree that we're seeking what is true. Jeff Thomas, one of my favorite preachers, he puts it this way.
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I'm alarmed when I hear a nervous refrain in certain church prayer meetings. Keep us united,
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Lord. I wanna ask the person praying that prayer, well, united in what? The Gadarene swine were all united when they went over the top of the cliff.
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United in what? What morality will unite us? What theology will unite us?
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What are these prayers going on about? Far better prayers are prayers for a growing understanding of the truth, a growing obedience to the truth, and a growing love for the truth.
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May truth reign in every church. That is a far more biblical prayer than keep us united.
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That's a very truthful statement. So unity is not a virtue in and of itself, but unity in truth, unity in the gospel is a mark of Christian maturity.
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Unity in the truth, unity in the truth of the gospel is a mark of Christian maturity.
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Now, how do we parse this out? Well, there are secondary issues.
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We think of things like certain traditions, certain practices that are secondary issues, like traditions over a proper subject or mode of baptism, a proper application of the sacraments in light of baptism, right?
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These are secondary issues. Secondary not meaning unimportant, but vitally important, and yet, underneath what is of cardinal importance.
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So secondary issues are very important. Churches essentially have to be united in some ways on secondary issues as a church.
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My particular view would be you have a unity with all believers on the primary truth, which is the truth of the gospel, that which divides believer from unbeliever, and then the secondary issues are that by which you form churches or church traditions.
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What's our view on baptism? What's our understanding of the nature of a church, of a church body, right?
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These differ across traditions, and we would say they differ as secondary issues.
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I do not think it's wise for a individual church to have a mix of secondary views. I think it's far better to create multiple congregations that can agree and move toward the same secondary views.
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And then there's tertiary views, those third -level views, and that's down to how much seasoning you put on your chicken for dinner, things of that nature.
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What style of music, perhaps, contemporary, classic? Of course, even with any of these debates, there's a sort of seesaw between the second and the third level of doctrine, but we should say there are clearly secondary issues.
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The primary thing is the gospel that all believers have in common, the truth that we all contend for, the secondary issues by which various theological traditions emerge, and out of those theological traditions, churches are formed.
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We hold to be dear brothers and sisters, are Christ -believing, gospel -saturated,
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Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, even a Methodist, maybe, in there somewhere?
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No, of course, there's many godly Methodists, Calvinistic Methodists. And then, of course, there's the tertiary issues.
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Now, the tertiary issues, those third -level issues, are what often threaten an individual church, a local church.
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And Paul shows us again and again and again that we are not to deny those who differ on secondary matters, and we are not to judge those who differ on tertiary matters.
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Let me say that again. Paul will show us again and again not to deny those who differ on the second level, certain practices underneath the gospel.
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We're not to deny them as brothers and sisters if we're aligned on the first level, but we are not to judge those on the third level.
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We're not to judge one another on the third level. That's a very, very important point.
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The fact that God is a revealer means that Christians can trust the Spirit will lead them into what is true, and that can afford a church body with those who have been walking with the
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Lord for 10, 20, 30 years to grow in the same patience to show for those that have only been growing in the
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Lord for one, two, or three years. God is patient in how He reveals things to us.
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He feeds us in due time with what's appropriate for our age, and Christians who are maturing need to recognize the same thing.
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A foolish dad is gonna try to feed a six -month -old a meatball sub, right?
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God doesn't do that. God is a lot more like the wise mother who will almost brawl with the dad who's trying.
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What are you doing? It's food that's appropriate for the season or the time.
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God is patient in how He brings us along, and so maturing Christians are to be patient with how they are to bring the immature along.
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That means that a maturing church actually has patience toward those who are immature, charity toward those who are weak, gracious toward those who are wayward.
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That is a mark of Christian maturity. Now, of course, it takes a lot of wisdom and maturity just to discern what's a secondary issue and what's a third -level issue.
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Where is something, as it were, right underneath the gospel, and where is something a matter of practice or family tradition?
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And some of the difference emerges right there. Some of the division in a church body, some of the friction can be, this brother thinks it's a third -level issue, and this brother thinks it's a second -level issue.
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Now, there's a problem bubbling beneath all of this, and it's especially true among Reformed Christians.
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We always want to have our convictions maxed out on just about everything. We want to turn that volume dial all the way up.
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I call it reference there, all the way up. If we didn't think we were right about an issue, we wouldn't hold on to it, right?
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In that level, it seems like every issue we're holding on to is a first -level issue. There are no second, there are no third -level issues.
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Every issue's a gospel issue. Well, now there's no opportunity for real Christian unity, no opportunity for real
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Christian fellowship. If we're turning our volume all the way up, we're gonna be like Roger Williams. You excommunicate everyone in your church, including eventually yourself.
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The church is some empty building. Where'd all the believers go? We turn the volume all the way up.
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If we didn't think we were right about an issue, we wouldn't hold on to it. And it's because we think we're right about an issue that we contend for it, we hold it because we believe it to be true.
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We argue for it because we believe it to be true. And what Paul says and what Paul models out is we should always be mindful of first, what is most important for the
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Christian, and second, what is most helpful for them to attain what is most important. This is where the mature learn to bear with the immature.
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This is where those who perhaps are strong in the Romans 14 sense learn how to defer to those who are weak in the
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Romans 14 sense. And Paul doesn't actually assign the labels. He goes, well, wait,
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Paul, who's strong and who's weak? Because we always want to be strong. And he goes, figure it out. I think he's doing some really neat rhetoric there by just unloading the strong and the weak.
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Probably our definitions and parameters for who is strong is not what Paul would understand to be strong.
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The strong is the one who has such a regard for his brother that he will not cause him to stumble.
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So though I have something that I believe to be true, I'm convicted it is true, I want to contend for it as truth.
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All of these things are right and fitting, and they have their place among the people of God. And yet what is to be overarching for all of these convictions, whether second or third level, is that I am to have a regard first and foremost for who is this brother or sister in Christ?
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And therefore, what will be most helpful for them to take the next step in their walk with the Lord? That means
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I'm not going to shout down or tire out. I'm not going to throw them a pair of boxing gloves and say, get in the ring.
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I've been here for 15 years, you've been here for five, now we're going to do... That's just, there's no place for that in the church of God.
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If it is a brother, if it is a sister, we think of them first in relation to their identity in Christ.
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We know that we have a role to play in their walk with Christ. We who have gone on before have a certain pattern and an example that is meant to influence them, where to feed them the right food in the right season, to show them the steps that we have also trod, to avoid the snares that perhaps have caught us along the way.
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These are all things that we're called to do to one another. So I regard my brother or my sister first with the freedom that they have in Christ.
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They're Christ's servant, not mine. They answer to Christ, not me. I answer to Christ.
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Who would I be to judge? So there's no place for judgmentalism. I respect their ability to look at the
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Scriptures like a Berean. I respect their God -given conscience. It may not be as informed as it ought to be, but I respect it to the degree that it is informed.
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I honor it. I seek in a winsome and loving way to shed more light. Now, the weaker brother needs to be willing.
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There's no place for the weaker brother to become the very thing that he would kick against, the golden rule helps us so much here.
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The weaker brother is not able to be judged right here. Hey, how dare you tell me I can't do this?
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How dare you try to advise me otherwise? I'm the weaker brother. Leave me alone. I can do what
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I want. I believe the gospel. R .C. Sproul has a tremendous sermon called
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The Tyranny of the Weaker Brother in Romans 14. Now, the weaker brother is one who recognizes
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I need to be teachable. There's someone who has walked a lot more faithfully, someone that I look up to.
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They may not be perfect in every respect, but they have a lot more figured out in the Christian life than I do. They spend a lot more time in God's word, a lot more time using the means of grace than I have.
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I need to be teachable to them. Right now, I don't know that I agree or disagree with them. I need to be teachable.
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You see, both sides moving for the sake of the other, both sides deferring, esteeming, honoring one another, viewing one another through the lens of who they are in Christ.
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This means that for the mature believer, they spend as much time praying as they do persuading. Just take that as a litmus test.
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If you spend all your time on the soapbox, lording it over others, and you're not actually praying for them about some of these things, you're probably doing it in the flesh.
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You're doing it to some egoistic satisfaction. You're not doing it as a fellow pilgrim and sojourner along the way to Zion, the city of our
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God. Paul had revelations from the third heaven.
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Think about this. I don't even know what the third heaven is. Maybe Ryan could figure that one out. What is the third heaven?
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I don't know, but Paul had revelations from the third heaven. Who had the kind of spiritual giftedness that Paul had?
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He says to this church that's clamoring after gifts in Corinth, I speak in tongues more than you all. Why are you making such a big deal out of it?
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I don't. Think of the giftedness, think of the authority. That Paul had.
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And yet when he's dealing with other believers, even believers who, as it were, are nipping at his heels, he regards them as not only equal, but in fact, more necessary than himself.
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That's why he says, I'm a servant, your servant, for Christ's sake. The apostle, the mighty apostle, saying, hey, fellow brothers and sisters,
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I'm your slave unto Christ. I'm here to serve you. That's how he encourages them to regard one another.
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And he's able to do that because he has the mind of Christ, which has taught him, this is how Christ regarded him.
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Christ became a slave for the sake of Paul. He became a slave and didn't even despise death, not even death on a cross.
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He endured it. He denied himself, as it were, at every turn, all of the glory and majesty that will be revealed in order to face that death like a meaningless, nameless slave on the fringe of the
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Roman Empire. And Paul, recognizing, if that's what my Savior has done for me, how should
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I be toward others? How should I be toward others? Well, we all, especially in reformed circles, we all want to be very faithful to Christ's Word.
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We want to, as it were, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. That means growing in the truth of God's Word.
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We are willing, as it were, to die on the hill of the faintest whiff of compromise.
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That's almost what it means to be reformed, isn't it? No compromise. We will die on the faintest hill.
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We're not just warrior children, we're rabid pit bulls for Christ. That's what it means to be reformed, doesn't it?
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And yet, the one area that is perhaps the hardest for us is to be faithful to the example and calling of Christ, to be meek and lowly, to be gentle, to be humble, to be poor in spirit.
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It belongs to those who are spiritual. In my mind, that's almost a synonym for those who are mature, for those who are spiritual, to seek to restore those caught in a sin and a spirit of meekness, as we said last week.
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That is a mark of a mature Christian. That is a mark of a mature church. How are we regarding one another?
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Have you never been caught in a sin? Have you never strayed from the truth?
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Have you never been backslidden? And yet, coming out of it, we enter into a cage stage of egoism.
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How could someone do that? How could someone be like that? You were like that three weeks ago. There's absolutely no humility, no meekness, no patience toward the weak, do you see?
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It's not the mark of a mature church to function in this way, it's immaturity. There's a certain war readiness that we even admire.
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But we like those that are outspoken, charismatic, those that are, in truth, nitpicking exclusionists.
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We tend to view as the very spiritual. I wonder if we need to flip that metric upside down. It's not the nitpickers.
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It's not the extortionists and the exclusionists. It's rather the one who values the oil of unity that runs down Aaron's beard, the one who desires to contend for the truth in love, in the bond of the spirit that actually accords and adorns the gospel of our
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Lord. That's someone who is mature. That's someone who is spiritually minded. The danger is this.
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I begin to look at my brothers and sisters no longer as people but as positions.
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And so I sit down and I say, what's your take on X? What's your position on Y? Because I'm trying to inform my thoughts about you, how
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I'm gonna regard you, how I'm going to measure you. And the more
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I do that, the more I look not only at my brothers and sisters but everyone else as a position, not as a person, as a sort of a lump of varying convictions, not as a fellow image -bearer, not as a blood -bound believer, a brother and sister in Christ.
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And that attitude of viewing someone, reducing them to positions, tends to breed this kind of regard or thought what could you offer me if you haven't even understood this?
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What could I learn from you if you haven't understood these things? What could I gain from fellowshipping with you if you're still at this place?
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Now what is that saying about them and what is that saying about me? What can I gain from you?
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What can you offer to me? But when you view people as people and not as positions, when you view a brother or sister as a brother or a sister, the logic, the thought begins to look like this.
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What can I offer you? What can you gain from me? What will
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I learn from the way that God is moving in your life? The gifts that He's given you. How can I serve you? How can
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I help you to grow and to gain as we share in our Savior together? You see the difference between the two.
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It's a difference between immaturity and maturity. Don't think mileage equals maturity in the
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Christian life. I've met Christians that have been Christians for four decades and they're immature.
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Mileage does not equal maturity. I've met Christians who have been Christians for two years and they're incredibly mature.
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In many regards, I look up to them. God does these things. So your time on the block means very little in the kingdom of God, in the metrics of the kingdom of God.
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A major obstacle to unity in this way is this attitude of self -sufficiency. It's the attitude that I can reduce people to positions because I actually don't need people.
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They need me because I've arrived on all my positions, which by the way change every year and a half, but I actually don't need anything from them.
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There's nothing that they can offer me. And that kind of self -sufficiency shows I haven't understood the first thing about a church body.
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That is a hand saying to the foot, I don't need you. That is a stomach saying to the mouth, I really don't need you.
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I'm self -sufficient. I'm just here as a bonus. You should just look to me and appreciate that I'm around.
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It's not someone recognizing I need the body as God has composed it, because there's always something to receive and there's always something to give.
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There's always someone that's serving me and there's always someone to serve. That is the wisdom and logic of the gospel at work in a corporate dimension.
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What does it mean to be gathered and called out together? Again, just be reminded, the church, the ecclesia, this called out gathering, who is it who's called us together?
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Who are we gathering? Who made us to belong together? Psalm 100 reminds us we're to come into his gates with thanksgiving, into his courts with praise.
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It's pretty hard to do that if you're coming in and you're glaring across the aisles. It's hard to come into his courts with thanksgiving and enter his gates with praise if you're walking in on one corner of the room and there's certain places you don't wanna be and certain people you don't wanna be near.
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To understand what it means to be called together means there's a certain way we have to check our hearts, check our attitudes at the door.
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If Paul the apostle were like a lot of us, he wouldn't be writing letters to these churches, he'd be sending eviction notices.
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You're done, you're cooked, you're too far gone. When we enter
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God's house with the right attitude, it can dissolve a lot of issues that we have outside of God's house. There's something about worship that is meant to be transformative.
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And if we're allowing the things that happen outside of God's house to so deaden and impact the things that happen inside of God's house, then we have it all backward.
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The worship of God, the unity that we have by being called out together is meant to affect our outside relations with not only one another but even enemies, even those on the outside.
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So when we enter God's house with the right attitude, when we come to worship in spirit and truth with meekness and humility, when we're entering the gates with thanksgiving for mercy undeserved, that's transformative to the way we regard and relate to each other outside of that worship.
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At least that's how it's supposed to happen. I'd say don't discount that.
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Don't discount how worship can transform the way you regard and relate to others in a church body.
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If you're not looking upward as you worship, as it were, if you're not lifting your heart up to the Lord and you're keeping your members here on the earth, and maybe for every glance upward, you're looking three glances around, something has gone off the rails in your understanding of what this is all about, where this is all going.
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Christians, as Eugene Peterson, I think, helpfully says, Christians make this explicit in their act of worship each week by gathering as a community.
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Other people are unavoidably present. As we come to declare our love for God, we must face the unlovely fellow sinners whom
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God loves and commands us to love. You see the logic there? Where John goes, can you say that you know
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God if you don't love your brother? How could you love God whom you have not seen if you can't love your brother whom you have seen?
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How can I enter his courts with thanksgiving and say I love you, Lord, if I can't love the unlovely fellow sinner next to me?
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And they're not able to love me as a fellow sinner, unlovely, in many respects.
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If we live in the Spirit, we walk in the Spirit. Paul says at the end of Galatians 5, let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another, and then that goes right into 6 .1.
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If a man's overtaken in sin, you who are spiritual, seek to restore him in a spirit of meekness. Consider yourself, lest you be tempted, bear one another burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
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So we're to live harmoniously as Christians. That's the maturity of unity, it's harmony.
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You understand the difference. It's not uniformity, that's monotone. It's unity, that's harmony.
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That means different people, different places, different lengths, different gifts, different backgrounds, different, as it were, visions, different manner of walking toward the same goal.
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All of that is meant to harmonize in a church that is mature. It's the same piece of music, but everyone's playing a different instrument.
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That's harmony. We're not called to be soloists, we're called to be symphonists. And I at least played in the
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All -City Jazz Band back in my middle school days. I could wake up having night sweats thinking about some of those days.
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But one of the things that middle schoolers are prone to do is try to be the soloist. So you have the clarinets, the trumpets, the saxophones, the flutes, and every kid is trying to blow as hard as they can through that instrument.
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Everyone wants to be the solo. I wanna drown out all the other noise. And the conductor of these middle schoolers is going, okay, okay, quiet, quiet, please, okay.
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Play it a little more softly. If you've ever gone to a little concert of five and six -year -olds playing recorders.
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They all look like Dizzy Gillespie with the big cheeks. They're all just trying to play it as loud as they possibly can.
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There's no sense of harmony. What does harmony require? Deference. My timing has to be aligned with the conductor.
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I can't go before or behind the part that I am to harmonize with. What does harmony require?
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Deference. Deference. I have to compliment the notes around me, the instruments around me.
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I'm not to drown out their playing, their contribution to this symphony.
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I'm to compliment it. Maybe in some ways I can help it.
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I can make it more clear. I can make it more beautiful. So there's no soloist in the church of God.
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There's just symphonists. We're all playing different instruments. The conductor is like the Holy Spirit. And the degree that we're being, as it were, concerned about one another's timing, notes, the movement of the peace, the movement of the
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Christian life, the movement of the kingdom, it's going to look like a beautiful harmony. Paul, in my study
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Bible, the heading for Romans 12 says living together in harmony. Because that's what
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Paul's getting at in Romans 12. He says rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
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That's what a conductor has to do. Maybe the first movement is fortissimo and it's very bold and aggressive.
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And maybe the third movement is adagio and it's very, it's like a big lament, a very sweeping, mournful thing.
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And so in a church, there's the robust, joyful experiences. And there's also those very sad, discouraging, dark nights of the soul, as it were.
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And in a church, in a larger church, both of those movements are happening at the same time. And it does no good to only be rejoicing with those who rejoice if you refuse to weep with those who weep.
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Or vice versa, to just be in the gloom and try to be a Job's friend, try to be one of the good friends to Job.
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If you're unwilling to rejoice and be thankful with those that the Lord is moving in that way, is blessing them in that way.
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Both of these things happening together. Well, how in the world is that gonna happen? I've said it before, it's the hardest thing for a church to actually rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.
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It's incredibly hard. What does it require? To be of the same mind toward one another.
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That's what Paul says. Be of the same mind toward one another. Don't set your mind on high things.
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Associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion. Essentially, Paul is saying, major on the majors.
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Is there a gospel issue? It doesn't matter if those from James come. It doesn't matter if Peter himself is standing against you.
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You major on that major. You major on the gospel issues. And I wouldn't even say minor on the minors, but pray, pray on the minors.
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Pray about them. And only then minor on the minors. Because again, we tend to just turn the volume all the way up.
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What does it look like to pray and then minor on the minors? It looks like I have an awareness for the urgent needs and in light of those urgent needs,
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I'm looking for wise opportunities to address them. I've prayed, which means it's for the good of my brother or my sister.
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I've prayed, which means I've humbled myself to realize all that I am not, all that I continue to need from God. I've prayed, and so I realize it's not a major, it's a minor.
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And even though that minor seems urgent to me, I'm going to seek a wise opportunity to address it.
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Paul lays down the gauntlet on gospel issues. And then in every other aspect, he's like a patient farmer or a nursing mother.
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He nurtures believers faithfully, consistently. That's how you build unity in a household, isn't it?
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What builds unity in a household? More yelling? Visible frustration? Going off in separate rooms?
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Does that build unity in a household? Exposing slights and wounds?
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No, what builds unity in a household is, all right, we are a family.
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This is where our family is going. This is what we need to do as a family. We haven't been able to do this. I played a big part in that.
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What needs to happen? What do I need to do? And maybe what do you need to do? For us to move forward in the way that this family needs to move forward.
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What failures can we learn from? What goals can we aim for that we haven't aimed for before? What kind of humility and self -denial is required to get there?
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That is how you achieve unity in a household. It's the same with the household of faith. Listen to Richard Sibbes, a great
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Puritan, the gem dropper. He says, this is what the progress of maturity looks like. And he's speaking in terms of a Christian church.
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He says, the progress of maturity looks like this. Enduring the infirmities of others, knowing particular needs and seeking further supplies of grace, and an ability, endeavor to beget other
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Christians. That's maturity, according to Richard Sibbes. You see what he's saying there?
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The first progress of maturity is, I'm not thrown off by the weakness of others.
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I'm not agitated. I'm not aloof. I'm not put off.
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I'm not deterred. I'm not gloating. I actually, I not only endure, but I even seek to attend to the infirmities of others.
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And then with that, I have a knowledge of particular needs. I know my own needs. I perhaps know some needs of others, and I'm always seeking supplies of grace.
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And then, this third mark of maturity, not only the ability to do this, but the endeavor to do this, to beget another
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Christian. And this is what he says. A weak Christian has enough to look to himself.
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A weak Christian can only, it occupies his whole plate to just look to himself. A mature Christian looks to himself even as he's looking to others.
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That's a mature Christian. A weak Christian not only has all themself on their plate, they need everyone else to look on them.
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But a mature Christian not only looks to themself, they look to others. That's a recipe for a mature church.
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Well, I have to be very brief. I just have a few, maybe a few sentences about fellowship.
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We barely scratched the surface on fellowship. It was shorter to begin with, but fellowship is very important.
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That we understand, as we've said in the past, fellowship is not the fact that we are together. It's that we are together toward a common end.
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I don't have time to go into this, but there's a difference between fellowship and friendship.
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And fellowship is the commonality we have in Christ toward the calling of Christ, toward the goal, the upward call of Christ.
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That's what fellowship is. Now, what's the difference between a clique and a fellowship? If we go back to our
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Second Lenten Confession and we look at the chapter on the church, chapter 26, part of that explanation of the church is this.
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Members of churches are saints by calling, visibly manifesting and evidencing their obedience to the call of Christ, willingly consenting to walk together according to the appointment of Christ, giving up themselves to the
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Lord and to another by the will of God in professed subjection to the ordinances of the gospel.
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That's a lot of 17th century syntax. So let me break down the most important point for my purposes here. Willingly walking together, giving themselves up to the
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Lord and one to another. Notice the order of that.
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Giving myself up to the Lord and then one to another. That is, in part, a definition of a body of believers, a fellowship of believers.
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That's gospel fellowship. What's the difference between cliques and fellowship? It's simply this. It's the difference between giving ourselves to one another, that's a clique, without giving ourselves first to the
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Lord. That's fellowship. Very important difference. The world is full of cliques.
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I grew up in high school as a just clique city. All there is is cliques. In some ways, you never outgrow that.
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You just navigate an ever more elaborate cliques. Cliques are where you give yourselves up to each other.
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Fellowship is where you give yourselves up to the Lord and then one to another. That's the difference.
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We don't want a church. We don't want a fellowship of believers that is like a rural town diner.
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And all the regulars are up at the countertop. And when some Yankee walks in, they all turn and kind of glare.
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Who brought you here? What are you doing here? And even the waitress comes up and what do you want?
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Everyone knows each other by their first name and the Yankee's there and he's going, boy, am
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I gonna get thrown out of this place? Am I gonna get beat up? This is the most hostile environment I've ever seen. We don't want a church, in other words, that the fellowship is cliquey in the sense that it's all for those on the inside.
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That's us just giving each other over to each other without first giving ourselves to the Lord. And so we don't gather as regulars or in -towners.
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We gather for the sake of this calling of Christ. Maturity looks like not only do we have that commonality, but we're endeavoring to beget it.
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That's the difference. We can spend a lot of time talking about growing in affection, the inward draw of fellowship.
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I'm all on board with that. The difference is learning how to fellowship for the sake of Christ. That's the difference.
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In other words, the things that we do, the people we talk to, the things we talk about, we learn how to do all of these things in relationship with an eye for Christ.
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It's how I regard my brothers and sisters here, my brothers and sisters that aren't from here, and even those who are not brothers and sisters all around.
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It's with an eye for Christ. First to the Lord, then one to another. That is fellowship.
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And it looks like a mind being renewed by the gospel over and over and over again.
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A heart yearning for the gospel, seeing opportunity with those in and out, with those all around.
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Feeling that tension when you see something sinful, something broken, something sad, and you long to see what redemption would look like in that person's life, in that person's marriage, in that person's family, in that community.
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It looks like lives that adorn the gospel. This is an above all love that 1
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Peter talks about. Above all, have this kind of love, this fervent love. It's born by the gospel.
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So I close with this, 2 Corinthians 13 11. Again, just think of this as the groundwork for planks and splinters in two weeks time.
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This is the horizon for it all. Paul says, finally brethren, farewell.
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Become complete, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace, and the
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God of love and peace will be with you. I really actually prefer the ESV's translation of this.
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This is what the ESV says. Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration.
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Comfort one another. Agree with one another. Live in peace. And the
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God of love and peace will be with you. Beautiful. Rejoice. You enter his courts with thanksgiving and praise.
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You check your heart at the door. What goes on inside transforms what goes on outside. Aim at restoration.
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You're endeavoring to maintain the bond of the spirit, the unity of the Holy Spirit in peace.
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Aim at restoration. Be of comfort. In meekness and lowly, you esteem yourself a servant for the sake of your brothers and sisters, a servant unto
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Christ. Be of comfort. Be agreeable. Don't major on the minors. Pray that God will give you wisdom to know what's a second level and what's a third level.
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Understand that to be weak is actually to be strong in that Romans 14 sense. Be agreeable and live in the peace of that agreement.
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Live in peace. And Paul almost makes it conditional. If you're to do all of these things, then the God of love and peace will be with you, which is to say if you don't do these things, don't expect to find the love of God and peace in your presence.
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Are we a mature church in these ways? Are we mature
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Christians in these ways? Judge not that we be not judged,
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Jesus says. For with what judgment we judge, we will be judged. With the measure we use, it will be measured back to us.
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And so we aim for restoration. We comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace so that the
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God of love and peace will be with us, amen? Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word.
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Thank you for this calling, Lord. We're reminded that it's your calling on our lives, Lord. You and your wisdom have knit together our lives.
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We know each other now, Lord. Not in passing, but by name. We know each other in ever increasing depths,
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Lord. We pray with that knowledge that we would rightly love one another. Oh, Lord, to love as you love us.
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To show mercy as you give mercy. To see needs as you see. To see opportunities as you give.
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Lord, flesh cannot do these things. We cannot do these things devoid of your spirit. We pray your spirit would help us,
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Lord. Give us a greater measure of his presence and power in our midst, Lord. We pray that we would follow through on the spring training of these basics.
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These basics of living out the gospel in relationship. Lord, that you would help each one here.
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Help us as a corporate body to devote ourselves to you in such a way that the ripple effect is felt by every person, every family, every child in this place.
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As Paul says, Lord, that nothing would be done unless it's done for edification. In that flesh denying, world denying way that you call us to pick up our cross and bear it,
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Lord, may we have our eyes fixed on you. For it's only in seeing you, seeing your love, your sacrifice, your mercy so profound that we're able to walk in meekness and lowliness and deny our flesh.
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Help us, Lord. These things are not easy. Help us to grow in these things even now, Lord, as we prepare to press on in a few weeks time to verses three through five,
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Lord. May you be even now over these next few weeks convicting us of sin, of waywardness in our own lives and in relationships.
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Illuminate us, Lord. Hide words in our heart. Help us to find the buds of this fruit growing,
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Lord, as we keep in step with your spirit. We ask for all these things, Lord. If there's a stranger to your grace here,
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Lord, might your love, your call encourage them,
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Lord, and call them into your presence, into your body, that they might have salvation and redemption.