Sunday Morning, May 17, 2020, AM

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Sunday Morning, May 17, 2020, AM "Accept One Another" (Part 3) Romans 14:1-15:7

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All right, good morning everyone.
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Welcome to worship at Sunnyside Baptist this morning. Glad that you're here. If you're joining us via live stream, we're glad that you're joining in that way as well.
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I want to remind everybody, last week was Mother's Day, so we didn't have the live stream last week, but that will start up again tonight, again, and then as well on Wednesday.
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Okay, any announcements that I'm missing before we get started in worship this morning?
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All right, we're gonna have a time of preparation, and then after, Michael will pray for us, and we'll worship in song together.
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Today, for your name is glorious and good. All that you do is good, and all that you say is true.
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We thank you for being our Heavenly Father and knowing our needs before we even ask that even today, you have provided in an abundance of ways to meet our needs.
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We come again as needy children, asking that you would provide for us the graces of worship.
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You would lead us in glorifying you, praising you, that you would have your way in our lives through your word.
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You would transform us from the old into the new.
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We ask that you would help us to use this time aright, and we would not waste it, but that we would make the most of it, that you would deliver us from the temptation to simply again, as we have in the past, take these
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Sundays and services for granted. Father, I pray that you would help us to truly worship you and give you the praise.
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Father, we need this, and we ask that in our lives and in this world, that you would be glorified.
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We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Do you stand with me for our call to worship?
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Our passage this morning is found in Psalms, chapter 42. We'll be reading verses 1 and 2.
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Excuse me. Sorry. Read with me together. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you,
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O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall
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I come and appear before God? Our first song this morning is
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As the Deer. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you,
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O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living
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God. When shall I come and appear before God?
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My soul thirsts for God, for the living
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God. When shall I come and appear before God? My soul thirsts for God, for the living
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God. When shall I come and appear before God? My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. We'll be finishing the chapter this morning, starting in verse 22, reading through verse 33.
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Deuteronomy 5, 22. These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice.
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And he added, No more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone, and gave them to me.
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And as soon as you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders.
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And you said, Behold, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire.
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This day we have seen God speak with man, and man still live.
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Now, therefore, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us.
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If we hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, we shall die. For who is there of all flesh that has heard the voice of the living
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God speaking out of the midst of the fire as we have, and has still lived?
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Go near and hear all that the Lord our God will say, and speak to us all that the
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Lord our God will speak to you, and we will hear and do it. And the
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Lord heard your words, and when you spoke to me, when you spoke to me, and the
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Lord said to me, I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you. They are right in all that they have spoken.
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Oh, that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me, and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever.
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Go and say to them, return to your tents, but you stand here by me, and I will tell you the whole commandment and statutes and the rules that you shall teach them, that they may do them in the land that I am giving them to possess.
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You shall be careful, therefore, to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
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You shall walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess.
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May the Lord bless the reading of his holy word. Would you pray with me?
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Father, we thank you for these words from Deuteronomy, your word. Oh, Father, that we might continually remember to obey, and in our obedience, find blessing.
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But just as the Israelites were coming out of bondage, we know that if we disobey, that's what we'll find, bondage.
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Might grant that to us, might, by the blood of Jesus, come before you clean, that we might be able to worship you pure and holy.
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Father, thank you for this time that we can gather together as brothers and sisters here at church.
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We pray for those that are still at home, knowing that they are worshiping with us in heart and mind.
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Father, we ask that you might just have your spirit descend upon Michael this morning as he preaches your word.
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We thank you for the time that you've given each of us, and we ask your blessing on all of this this morning.
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Amen. Our next song is rich in the word of God.
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We just sang about God is thrice holy, and of the blessed trinity.
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Paul writes about in the book of Romans that because of the righteousness and the work of the
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Lord Jesus Christ, he is both just and the justifier of one who has faith in him.
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So because God is holy, he must judge sin, but he's also loving and a merciful
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God. Sing with me together all three verses of Before the Throne of God. Tells me of thy mercy in there, my sin.
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Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free.
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His righteousness, the great unchangeable.
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My Savior, Christ my
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Savior. Our last song is
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His mercy is more. Let's go to Lord in prayer.
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Father, it's a joy to come before you today, to sing these songs together and read and hear the prayers of brothers and sisters around.
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We give you thanks for bringing us here today, providing for us, setting the table for us.
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We thank you for the meal ahead of us here in your word. We know that we are not to live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from your mouth.
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And we thank you for a clear, sufficient, truthful word, one in which we may rely in every season of life.
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A word that has never failed your people in any generation, no matter what was going on.
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So, Father, we come this morning to help us to be like trusting children, to receive the gift that you give to us.
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And may we be good stewards of it. And we pray these things for Christ's sake. Amen.
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I invite you to open your Bibles to Matthew, or not Matthew. Matthew's on the brain. Romans chapter 14.
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Romans chapter 14, we are looking at a passage that runs from the first verse of chapter 14 all the way to verse 7 of chapter 15.
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Romans 14, 1 through 15, 7. We're going to read verses 10 through 23 in a moment.
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So, you can be looking at that particular portion, verses 10 through 23. This is our third in a series of sermons.
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The title of the series is Accept One Another. Accept One Another.
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A series that I felt the need and discussed it with the elders, and we all agreed it was something that our church really needed to examine and consider the truths of this passage and how we are to love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, despite diverging convictions that have been made so obvious by the pestilence under which we now live.
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As we make our way through this passage, the one thing we are certainly wanting to root out of our thinking and out of the ways in which we are interacting is that of folly, any kind of foolishness.
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We certainly do not want to act in an unwise way from the very beginning of this time, the lockdown and all of the restrictions and the fears and the many people who have been suffering and dying and losing their jobs and so on.
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It's easy to be afraid. It's easy to be afraid, but we are instructed in the scriptures that the fear of the
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Lord is the beginning of knowledge, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of man is a snare, and that the fear of death is slavery, and these are the things that have been on my mind, weighing on my heart ever since the start of this.
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And as I consider what's going on here in Romans 14, I see a lot of wisdom from the
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Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul and how we are to deal with one another, how we are to accept one another. A lot of wisdom is being employed here.
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We just don't want folly to raise her ugly head. Folly is everywhere.
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Those who desire wealth without godly labor should soon pray for city improvements by random tornadic activity.
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Those who seek justice without God's law might as well fire their pistols at shapeless sounds on a moonless night.
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Those who pursue sexual gratification outside of biblical marriage have a mind to suffocate fire with kerosene -soaked straw.
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Folly, no matter how well she dresses up and how stylish she arrives at the ball, folly never fails by the end of the night to thoroughly embarrass all in her presence and ruin those who invited her in the first place.
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And our world is full of folly. Would we know folly if we met her? Our world is full of folly.
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Folly loves worship with no religion. Acceptance, regardless, meaningless protests.
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Folly would gladly buy a plane ticket to heaven just so long as she could store her favorite sins in the overhead compartment.
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We don't want folly as a member of our church. We don't want folly to be influencing our lives.
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It would be foolish for us to reach for what we think is desirable while at the same time removing from it what proves essential to its blessing.
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And in regards to where we're heading, Christian liberty, we're going to be talking in depth about Christian liberty, how we are free in Christ to live according to our convictions and in love for one another.
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In regards to the economy and ethics of Christian liberty, we cannot merely cite a few phrases here and there about how
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I can live, how I want to, and none ought to judge me. The entirety of Christian liberty is based upon the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ.
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How Christian liberty leads to love for one another, how it leads to holiness rather than to isolation and licentiousness utterly depends on the lordship of Jesus Christ, which is why we're taking our time to make sure we understand that theme in our text.
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If we would not be so foolish as to say, I just love words but can't stand dictionaries, then we should not discount the defining matters of Christ's lordship which make
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Christian liberty the blessing that it is. So, with that in mind, we are in the process of looking through this passage at Christ's sovereignty along with His sacrifice, providing us with the sufficient doctrinal basis that we need to love one another.
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As those ruled and redeemed by Christ, we are to accept one another.
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Let me read for us this morning God's holy word. Please stand with me as we hear a word from our
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Savior and our sovereign Jesus Christ. Romans 14 will begin in verse 10, and I'll read through verse 23.
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But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt?
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For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, as I live, says the
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Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God. So then, each one of us will give an account of himself to God.
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Therefore, let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this, not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way.
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I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.
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For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love, do not destroy with your food him for whom
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Christ died. Therefore, do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil.
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For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the
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Holy Spirit. For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.
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So then, we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another.
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Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense.
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It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything by which your brother stumbles.
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The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves, but he who doubts is condemned if he eats because his eating is not from faith, and whatever is not from faith is sin.
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This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. We're talking about the sovereignty of Christ, the manner in which
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He exercises His Lordship. We know that He is at the right hand of the
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Father. He's been given a name which is above every name. We know that He is King of kings and Lord of lords, that all authority has been given to Him in heaven and on earth, that He is indeed the ruler of the kings of the earth, that He is the head of every man.
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He is the head of the church. Christ is sovereign. Christ is king. And that has and should have a big impact on the way that we treat one another, on the way that we relate to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.
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Of course, it has a great impact on everything that we do in life. It should be the governing principle, the first thought in our mind when anything happens in the world around us, however cantankerous the politicians may be, however catastrophic a disease might be, however costly an economic downturn might be.
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Our foremost thought should be about the reign and the rule of Jesus Christ.
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And in His absolute lordship, we've been looking at verses 1 through 12. We see that He preserves us.
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He is able to make us stand, that He has purchased us by His sacrifice upon the cross, and so that He is
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Lord of us. He is our master. Whether we live or we die, we do so for the
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Lord. And that, in verses 10 through 12, our focus this morning, He positions us in such a way that we are able to accept one another, that we are able to love one another.
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The apostle Paul is pressing his case further upon those brethren in the church at Rome who were factious, who were at each other about the depth or the dearth of their convictions, whether or not they would eat certain food, whether or not they would observe certain days.
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And there was division, there was infighting, there was controversy among them. And Paul is talking to these different groups, and he's saying, look, don't you understand you're one group?
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Don't you understand who you are in Christ and who Christ is? And we've been talking about who
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Christ is, that He is our Savior, that He is our master, that He is our judge.
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And that's what we see, especially in verse 12. Isn't it striking the way that verse 12 reads, so then each one of us will give an account of himself to God?
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So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.
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Now, what is stated universally in verses 10 and 11 is made most specific and personal here.
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It is made most pressing here. We are to give consideration to the fact that we will stand before Christ.
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Indeed, we will kneel before Christ. Each one of us, each one himself, each one herself will be before Jesus Christ as our judge.
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The Father has given Jesus Christ authority to execute judgment because He indeed is the
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Son of Man. He is the judge of all the quick and the dead, as the King James reads.
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And it is in the sobriety of that truth that I am called to preach the Word of God to you, according to 2
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Timothy 2 .4, that I'm ever to preach the Scriptures in the light of the fact that Jesus Christ is a judge, that He is the judge of the living and the dead.
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And we are to give weighty consideration to the appearing of Christ and to His kingdom, and the fact that each one of us will give an answer to Him.
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So I ask you, what accounting will you give? What accounting will you give?
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Consider this moment in which we live with the COVID -19, the lockdowns that have occurred, the regulations that abide that are going away, the ones that are ahead.
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But we're not done with this particular moment in time. It continues, and there will be all sorts of implications and fallout.
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What kind of time in which we live? And we will give an accounting to our Lord Jesus Christ as His servants of how we have lived and how we will make our way through this time.
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Each one of us will give an answer to Him. So I ask, what kind of accounting will you give? Are any of us going to regale the
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Lord of the universe with our personal testimonies of the liberty in which we lived, the freedoms that we enjoyed due to our faith?
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Will any of us rather impress the great high priest with the depths of our personal holiness and show him a thing or two about the sacred?
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I don't think so. I think we must as ever plead the blood of our judge
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Himself, that we would come before Him as those for whom He has suffered and died and was raised.
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He is mighty to make us stand, we are told in verse 4. We are to plead no merits of our own, but we are to make ready for that day.
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And how do we do that? 2 Corinthians 5, 9 through 10 says, therefore, we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
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For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one of us, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
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So let us think about the fact that Christ is our judge. The foremost thought in our mind needs to be, how will we serve
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Christ in a way that will please Him? And let us remember that how we serve
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Christ, how well we serve Christ, depends greatly on how we treat our fellow servants.
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Isn't it telling in the parables of Christ that when the master comes home and deals with the various types of servants, that he deals with those who do not treat their fellow servants well with great severity?
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Let us not cast contempt upon one another if we find that someone has a great depth of convictions that we ourselves do not have, or the fact that they have a dearth of convictions, that they don't seem to be convicted about many things about which we are.
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Let us rather, instead of looking at how many convictions one does not have or they do have, let us turn our attention to the holiness and the glories of our judge
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Jesus Christ. If we rightly consider these matters, I think we will all recognize that we're placed on level ground, level ground.
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We're going to have continuing, persisting issues regarding this COVID -19 moment.
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I mean, we're not done. There's still things to consider, regulations that are still in effect.
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We don't know what's going to happen the next time a pestilence or the very same thing comes back around.
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We don't know what's going to happen, but we are given instructions about how we are to live, how we are to respond to the changing moment, how we are to respond to the various things which may cast all manner of obligations upon us that we may agree or may not agree to.
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And we have a great need, I think, to be biblically equipped to relate to one another, accepting one another in Christ.
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There is, it seems to me, a growing range of culturally -derived convictions amongst the church of Jesus Christ, that the more that we move forward in the culture in which we are, the more
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Christians find themselves being bound by their convictions to be concerned about these issues and to be involved in these matters.
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And the more convicted, the more intricate one's holiness code becomes, the more everyone inside the church of Jesus Christ needs to be ready to accept one another and bear with one another.
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The only alternative is to be at one another. We have a need,
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I think, to be thoughtful about the way in which we present ourselves. We have no need to virtue signal, no need whatsoever to virtue signal.
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We don't have to make it known that we started back to church before others did. We don't have to make it known that we waited to come back to church much longer than others did, as if somehow one way or the other we're more loving or we're more holy.
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We have no need to virtue signal. We have no need to to put it out there and show ourselves as someone impressive in the eyes of God.
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The reason why is because we have Christ as our judge, but not only as our judge but our justification, and we can rest in Him.
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And we are on level ground. I want you to consider the questions that Paul asks in verse 10, and I want you to sense the way in which he's putting us all on the same level.
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But you, why do you judge your brother? Or again, why do you regard your brother with contempt?
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For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. Paul takes a very parental approach here.
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Parents, mothers, and fathers, one of the reasons why you receive so many answers that sound like,
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I don't know, is because very often you're asking unanswerable questions.
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When the instructions and the rules and the principles have been made clear, when all the needs of the child have been met, when every advantage has been afforded them, and yet he still strikes his sibling, and she still refuses to obey, and he still chooses folly, and she still murmurs and complains, you ask, we tend to ask unanswerable questions.
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After all we have done for you, didn't you hear me say, didn't we just have a conversation about what will your father say?
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I don't know. The point is made in the question.
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It's not meant to be answered, but it does call for a response. I don't know is a fine admission of simplicity, naivety, and ignorance, but a whole bucket of these smells like folly's favorite slop.
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The response that parents seek and the response that the Apostle Paul is seeking is that of repentance.
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It's not, why do you judge your brother? Why do you regard your brother with contempt? After everything he said in verses one through nine, can you really answer those questions?
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You don't really have an answer, but there is a response, and the response is one of repentance.
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And why should we repent of judging one another and showing contempt towards one another? Because we're all on level ground before I judge
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Jesus Christ. We have the same relation to Jesus, the same relation. He says, why do you judge your brother?
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Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? Thus far,
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Paul has reminded the Christians in Rome that they are fellow servants, they are fellow worshipers, they are fellow slaves, and all of these descriptions are humbling reminders of who they are, whether they are
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Jews or Gentiles. The point is they are not allowed, they cannot allow identities, ethnic or otherwise, to divide them where Christ unites them, and Christ unites them entirely.
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He unites Jew and Gentile entirely. He has broken down that wall every last brick.
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Literally, not one stone was left upon another.
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Now, we have another term, a term that is relational, a relational consideration for Jew and Gentile, for rich and poor, black and white, fundamentalist and evangelical, brother, brother.
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That's an endearing term. It's an obvious partner to the term sister.
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It means to foster and demonstrate familial love, but it is also a theological term.
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The term brother holds within it the doctrines of regeneration, adoption, justification, and glorification.
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It has implications for the doctrine of the church, especially in regards to the church's discipline and the church's polity, our governance, all in that one word, brother.
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How can a Jew and a Gentile be called brothers? Well, it's simple.
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They were born again into the same family. You see, it's the doctrine of regeneration, being born again.
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They were born again into the same family. They were adopted by the grace of faith into the family of Christ, who is the seed, and so we are all of His seed.
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We have Jesus Christ as our elder brother, and His righteousness covers us.
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Because we are brothers and sisters with Christ as our firstborn, what does that mean?
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It means that we are co -heirs with Christ in the new creation. And as brothers, we are able to be one another's keepers in the covenant life of the church, and we are to address one another on this level of being brothers and sisters, remembering that there's only one head of the church, and that is
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Jesus Christ. Matthew 23 verses 8 through 12,
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Jesus says, But do not be called Rabbi. But do not be called
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Rabbi. Some...an honorable name for a teacher.
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He says, Why? For one is your teacher, and you are all brothers. He's talking to Peter.
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He's talking to James. He's talking to Thomas. He's talking to these apostles.
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He says to them, You are not to be called this honorable name of rabbi. You're brothers.
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That's how you're to identify yourselves. Do not call anyone on earth your father.
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Don't call anyone father. I mean, if he is your father, then, you know, hey, dad, that's fine. That's not what he means.
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He means don't give...as you're doing church life, as you are with one another serving
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Christ in the life of the church, do not call anyone in the church father.
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Nobody in the church deserves that name, no matter how old they are or distinguished they are.
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For one is your father, he who is in heaven. Do not be called leaders or whatever, you know, life coach or whatever they come up with nowadays.
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For one is your leader, and that is Christ. But the greatest among you shall be your servant.
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Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. And that's what we are to be reminded of in this term brother.
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We are to be humble with one another. We're all on the same level and same relation to Jesus Christ. I have heard complaints from time to time about some folks being too much church.
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They lay the word brother on someone's name like hot syrup and melted butter on a vast flapjack.
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Brother. This was more an issue in the south than it is here.
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And perhaps it is just tradition for some and an annoyance to others. One wonders why we don't say sister as much as we say brother, and perhaps we're just trying to avoid association with certain other belief systems, and I can understand that.
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But dearly beloved, how much of the judging and contempt which so often arises in our minds and tumbles to the front of our mouths would simply be if we would humbly call theological richness.
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If not, we say brother. We ought to really live it. We ought to truly live it.
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The strong must accept the weak, and the weak must accept the strong. Why? Because we're brothers. We're brothers and sisters in Christ.
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He's our elder brother. He is our judge. We're in the same relationship with Jesus, and we have the same requirement for judgment.
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So Paul's asking these questions in verse 10. He says, why are you judging your brother? Why are you regarding your brother with contempt?
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In light of this, we are all going to stand before the judgment seat of God, the judgment seat of Christ.
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And Paul emphasizes this word all. He lays it right at the front of the terms.
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He wants us to recognize our same requirement. We're all going to be judged before Christ.
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We're all in the very same boat, the disciples in the boat with Jesus in the storm.
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They were all in the same boat. They were all in the same storm, and they were all concerned that they were going to drown.
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And so we are all in the same boat, but we have Christ as our judge.
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Now, what we are reading about here is what leads into the quote that Paul gives from Isaiah in verse 11.
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The universality of our future as Christians is a part of the same future for all of mankind.
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I mean, all of mankind is going to be judged by Christ, and we're all going to be before Him whether we're brothers and sisters in Christ or whether we are in rebellion against Christ.
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It is appointed for man to die once, and after this comes judgment. Paul has already told us where a
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Christian's confidence should lie. Our confidence is not in our convictions but in Christ.
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He is the one who is mighty to make us stand. Christ is our judge.
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I'm so thankful for that. I'm thankful that the one who died for my sins upon the cross and was raised from the dead, having suffered the full wrath of God for my sins, is my judge.
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He will not decide against Himself in my case. But having purchased me by His blood, given me new life, and called me to be
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His servant in His kingdom, I will have some answering to do with what I have done with the talents
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He has entrusted to me. And those who are really born again in Christ will make some use of all that He has given to them as a stewardship.
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And in light of this, Christ being our judge, should we not lay aside our judging of others' convictions, our contempt of others' freedoms, perhaps, in light of the fact that we are going to be standing together before the judgment seat of God?
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And is this not something that is more pressing upon us when we consider how soon this will be?
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Scripture is full of reminders concerning the shortness, the brevity of our lives. Many of the
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Spirit's stunning expressions can come into your mind even now. How short is the life of a man?
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How short is the life of a woman? Psalm 39, 4 through 5, says the prayer of the psalmist,
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Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the extent of my days?
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Let me know how transient I am. Behold, you have made my days as hen breaths, and my lifetime as nothing in your sight.
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Surely every man is at his best a mere breath. Selah. So, considering the shortness of the time that we have to serve
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Christ, do we really have time to arrogate to ourselves the tedious, soul -numbing job of critiquing the depth of the dearth of a brother's convictions?
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I mean, we're all going to be standing before Christ very soon, and He's going to sort it out all very well.
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He's great at sorting everything out. That's who
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He is as the Son of Man. He is the supreme judge. He's going to sort all the tares out from the wheat.
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He's going to sort all the bad fish out from the good. He's going to sort out the wicked slaves from the faithful slaves.
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He's going to sort out the foolish virgins from the wise virgins. He's going to sort out the goats from the sheep.
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And if He can handle these great, weighty, eternal matters, we may entrust to Him the lighter matters, which still weigh upon our consciences.
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We are on level ground before Christ, the same relation, the fact that we're all going to be before Him in judgment,
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He will sort it all out. And He positions us not only on level ground as our judge, but also upon our knees, for we are to be humble before Him and worship
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Him, and this is incredibly clear as we consider His ultimate glory. Paul cites a combination of passages from Isaiah here in verse 11, which gives us a glorious scene to consider.
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The judgment seat of Christ is, of course, where He sorts out all of humanity. That's in view here, but that's not exclusively the only thing in view.
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We're looking at the last great day, and when we hear the final gavel blow of justice, it is a day of glories even greater than that.
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The judgment seat of Christ is consistently connected in Scripture with the consummation of His kingdom reign, which means the influx of the full number of the redeemed, the last of the afflictions of Christ's body, the triumphant subjugation of all of Christ's enemies under His feet, and the sorting out of all mankind.
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They all come together. These coincide happily in the law and the prophets and in the writings.
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They coincide in the parables of Christ and the letters of Paul and the exhortations of Peter and the apocalypse of John.
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It is the coherent message of the Holy Scriptures that in the exaltation of Jesus Christ is the consummation of all judgment and salvation.
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In the exaltation of Jesus Christ is the consummation of all judgment and salvation.
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So, let's turn in our Bibles to Isaiah 45. This is the passage from which
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Paul is quoting, Isaiah 45, verses 21 through 25. As always, we are to remember that the
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Holy Spirit does not take verses out of context. And so, when the
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Holy Spirit inspires one of the apostles to write something in the New Testament, and he alludes to it or he quotes just a verse of it, or perhaps he quotes from a couple of different passages and puts them together, the apostle is not playing fast and loose with the textual integrity of the
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Word of God. He's not taking things out of context. He's not twisting Scripture. And so, it always behooves us to do due diligence in reading the full context from which the quotation comes.
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Isaiah 45, verses 21 to 25, declare and set forth your case.
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Indeed, let them consult together. Who has announced this from of old?
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Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the Lord? And there is no other
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God besides me, a righteous God and a Savior. There is none except me.
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Turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other.
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I have sworn by myself, the Word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness and will not turn back.
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To me, every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance. They will say of me, only in the
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Lord are righteousness and strength. Men will come to Him, and all who are angry at Him will be put to shame.
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In the Lord, all the offspring of Israel will be justified and will glory.
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Matthew Henry identifies this passage as a prophecy in general of Christ's dominion, and here fully applied to the judgment of the great day, which will be the highest and most illustrious exercise of Christ's dominion.
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What are we considering here? I have sworn by myself, the
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Word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness and will not turn back. To me, every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.
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We're thinking about a day in which God has fixed, in which
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He will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising
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Him from the dead. This is a day of the ultimate glory of Christ.
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And in that glorious day, all humanity will have the same posture kneeling before Christ and the same praise that He is
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King of kings and Lord of lords, even though all humanity will be divided, having two different hearts, the heart of a goat or the heart of a sheep, heart of the foolish virgin or the heart of the wise.
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Some will kneel rejoicing in His salvation and others will kneel shamed in their angry rebellion.
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Paul's point in bringing up this promise is to arraign the divisive members of the church in Rome before the prospect of Christ's ultimate glory, because there they will find the last stitch, the final weld, which binds them together.
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Look at the same posture that we will all kneel before Christ, our judge.
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We will all have the same praise to Christ, our justification. Here, Paul confirms that Christ Himself, and Paul says that in Romans 14, how does he put it?
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He says, for it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, every tongue shall give praise to God.
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So, the Lord, Christ Himself, through the prophet
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Isaiah, states, every knee shall bow to me.
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You see that? This is why no matter where we are in the Scriptures, it is the Spirit of Christ in the prophets and in the apostles who gives us the
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Word of God. The Word of God incarnate is who gives us the
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Word of God in Scripture, the Word of God as Scripture. So, Christ says, every knee shall bow to me.
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So, all will bow the knee to the judge of all mankind. All will humble themselves or be humbled before Him, and there's no other posture that is fitting before the glory of the
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Lord. And Paul makes the very same point in Philippians chapter 2. When you read
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Philippians chapter 2, and I hope that you've had the opportunity to do that this last week. If not, then this is your week to do that,
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Philippians 2. As you read through it, the very first two verses are concerned with unity, right?
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And isn't that what Paul's after here in Romans 14? It's unity, coherence, the coming together of the body of Christ in agreement, unity.
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And then the very next two verses is about humility, how we are to be humble toward one another, each considering each other's interests above our own.
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Paul knows the key to unity, of course, is humility. And then verse 5, he says, now the example of this humility that we so need to be in unity is found in none other than our
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Savior Jesus Christ. For consider how He humbled Himself in our place and for our sake, even to the obedience of death upon a cross.
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And what was the outcome of this humility? What was the outcome of this work that He did to save us?
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Well, our unity is even more cemented in the glory of Christ, is it not? Philippians 2, 9 -11, for this reason also
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God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow.
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Here, Paul again is quoting from Isaiah 45, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is
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Lord to the glory of God the Father. The bowing of the knee shows the concrete reality of His glory and His authority.
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We do not yet see everyone in subjection to Christ now, the writer of Hebrews admits, but that doesn't mean it's not going to happen.
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Indeed, it will. That is the glory of Christ. And the bowing of the knee goes together with the confession of the tongue.
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What will prove to be bitter and coarse for the enemies of Christ will be a grace for His brethren.
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How sweet the bending of the knee, how rich and harmonious the confessions of praise which will come from those who know
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Christ not only as judge, but also as their justification, not only as sovereign, but also as Savior.
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For those without Christ, they will know Him as judge, yes, but not their justification. Those without Christ will know
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Him as sovereign, yes, but not as their Savior. Now, what about this praise?
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Paul, here in Romans 14 verse 11, he says, for it is written, as I live, says the
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Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall give praise to God. There's two peculiarities in his quotation.
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The first is his opening, as I live, says the Lord. It's interesting that we don't find those exact words in the quote from Isaiah 45, but this phrase, as I live, says the
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Lord, is very common throughout the Old Testament. In fact, it's most common in Ezekiel.
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It is prolifically used throughout the Old Testament as an introductory formula of the judgment of God.
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It's even used time and again of the promised destruction of rebellious Israel.
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And yet we know that Paul's point in speaking to members of the church is one in which we are, yes, we're being judged before Christ, but he's actually quoting from a passage in Isaiah that's all about the salvation that is brought, the great hope that we have, the victory of Christ that is demonstrated in our salvation.
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And so, how is he using this phrase that so often introduces judgment, but here he's using it as something about salvation?
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Well, the answer to the riddle is that he's quoting from Isaiah 49 as well as Isaiah 45.
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And in Isaiah 49, it is to Isaiah 45 like the novel to the short story.
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The passage we looked at Isaiah 45 has all the themes that Isaiah 49 does, except Isaiah 49 brings it into more detail, more fruitful consideration for us.
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And in Isaiah 49, in verse 18, we read, lift up your eyes and look around, all of them gathered together, they come to you.
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As I live, declares the Lord, here's the phrase, you will surely put on all of them as jewels and bind them on as a bride.
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What is he talking about here? Isaiah 49 is a passage in which all creation is called to praise
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God for His chosen servant who brings salvation to all nations, and these nations will all come and will adorn the people of God as jewels.
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And that's what he's talking about here. This is a promise of great salvation, and he's using this phrase, as I live, declares the
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Lord. So, what is Paul after? Paul is after unifying the church, unifying brothers and sisters in Christ in the church with a view to the ultimate glory of Christ, the fullness of our salvation in Christ.
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That's what he's doing by quoting here from Isaiah 45 and 49, that we're going to have the very same praise.
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And Paul just sums it up, you know, we're all going to give praise to him.
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And Paul is mostly considered, he is mostly concerned, of course, with Christians here.
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He's talking to Christians about our relationship to one another. So, what kind of praise will we have?
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We're all going to have the same praise. We're all going to be praising Christ together. What are we going to be saying?
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Well, the passage in Isaiah says things like we're going to be swearing allegiance to Christ, that all these people from all these different nations are going to come together, and they're all going to swear allegiance to Christ and give
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Him praise. In other words, the confusion of Babel will be gone as the languages harmonize in submission to the new
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Adam. And what do the redeemed say of Jesus Christ? Well, Isaiah says, we'll be praising Christ and saying, only in Him is righteousness and strength, that this will be what we all say together, that salvation belongs to God and to the
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Lamb who is on the throne, according to Revelation 7. And who says this?
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Well, all the seed of Israel say this, all those who are justified in Christ by His righteousness.
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We are all going to have the same praise, giving the same glory to the same Savior. And that is the scene which
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Paul has in his mind as he writes these words. That is the hope that the Holy Spirit intends to arrest our hearts.
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This is the judgment seat we are to have in mind as we consider one another when we would rather judge one another.
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As those ruled and redeemed by Christ, we are to accept one another. See, Christ as our judge puts us in a particular position, and it is a position of self -examination.
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Each one of us will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Well, that should spark some self -examination.
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And the examination that we're going to need to have first and foremost is not, am I keeping up with the level of needful convictions or not?
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That's not going to be the primary consideration. The primary consideration, according to Paul, according to the whole thrust of this passage is, am
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I loving and accepting my brother or sister in a way that will please Christ? Because He's the master of us all.
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He's the judge of us all. My first consideration about these matters is, okay,
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I know my convictions about the matter. I know what I'm comfortable with. I know what is clean and unclean for me. That's not hard for me to figure out.
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I mean, I know that intensely. What's hard for me to figure out is why people don't all agree with me.
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I don't have the same process to handle everything. So that's the hard part. And in that, my primary responsibility before Christ, He's concerned with how well do
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I love my brother and sister in Christ? How well do I accept them and bear with them? That's what
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He's concerned about. And as our judge, Christ places us in a position of humble, thanks -filled worship.
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If we will remember Christ as our judge, we are to remember His sovereignty and His authority and His holiness,
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His power, His exaltation, and at the same time, how He died for us upon the cross, how
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He has lived for us, how He is our righteousness, how He is our salvation, how He is our shepherd, that He is mighty to make us stand, and has put us into a humble place of thanks -filled worship to Him.
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And thirdly, as our judge, Christ places us in a position to lovingly serve our brothers and sisters, right?
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If we're freed from pride through humble worship, and if we are brought near to one another before Christ, who is our judge, and we have the same position before Him as our elder brother, then our first response can be one of ministry to one another.
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These are the considerations, I believe, are necessary for us before we consider what it means to live in true
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Christian liberty. May God bless our time together. May those who have ears to hear, let them hear.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank You for the time You've given us in Your Word. I pray that we would take these things to heart, that You are our master and our savior and our judge, that we will consider well what the implications of that are for our accepting of one another and our loving of one another.
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Lord, we pray that Your Lordship would be foremost upon our minds, that we may live in true
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Christian liberty, in love for one another, and in holiness before You. And I pray that You would give us grace, that we may be patient with one another, that we may bear with one another, as You have so long -sufferingly borne with us and have shown great love to us.
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We pray all these things for Christ's sake. Amen. Would you stand with me for our benediction?
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I'm going to sing again as the deer, but we'll sing verse two. Well, as we're being dismissed,
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I want to let you know that families with children who have participated in TAG this year, there are some packets for you at the back of the foyer, so you can grab those on your way out.
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And I encourage you to make your way out with the back row starting first, and we'll go out to the parking lot for more fellowship.
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But for now, I just want to say, may God bless you. May He keep you. May He cause
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His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May He grant you peace.