Unity in Christ: Embracing Diversity in Faith

It started? Or you don't know? Okay. This is May 25th, 2014. I want to use Romans chapter 15, beginning with verse 7. This section is a conclusion to what Paul has been talking about all the way back to chapter 14, beginning with verse 3. There he's talking about the relationship that the people in this church at Rome have with each other. They're a church divided into two different groups of people, Gentiles, or non-Jews, and Jewish people. And the relationships between Jewish people and non-Jewish people is very complicated and very difficult. This long history of prejudice from one side to the other, and now many of them have become followers of Christ, and they're gathered in small groups, small church house churches, the way that most of the churches were done back then. Groups that met in homes, but they would occasionally meet together so that there was a tense relationship between the people who were non-Jews and the people who were Jews. And Paul is trying to help them understand through the whole book of Romans. I mean, the entire book is designed to address some of the problems that they were faced with. His primary goal is to let them know that there really isn't any difference, for everyone is the same. We've all failed God. We've all fallen short of what He wanted. And the answer and remedy is not in the Old Testament law that was given to them, but instead it was in the faith of Abraham that is the guiding principle that allows everyone to come to know Christ and to live for Him. He goes back to show that Abraham was the foundation stone of faith, the faith that opens its life to God. And that Abraham was not even a Jew when he had this faith. He had not been circumcised. He wasn't a part of the Jewish community. And yet it was his faith that allowed God to call him a righteous person. So this is the foundation stone for everyone, all of us who are followers of Christ. And then he talks about how the transformation of our minds should occur because of our faith. We should learn not to think like the rest of the world thinks. And as he's addressing this problem, he's admitting, acknowledging, you get a bunch of Jewish people together, you get a bunch of non-Jewish people together, they look at each other, they see enemies. They don't see friends. They don't see people they want to be around. They see someone who they don't want to be around. Now Christ is coming to the lives of both the non-Jews and the Jews, and they now find themselves in a position where they need to be in fellowship with each other. He sees the issue is divided between the Jewish people who are so used to thinking of righteousness in terms of things you do. All of the Old Testament law, they've taught for centuries that you should do this. Now they come and preach to the Gentiles that all you have to do is give your life in submission and obedience to Christ. The Holy Spirit comes inside of you, and you can live in faith. And this act of faith does not require keeping all of the Old Testament laws as they were written there. For they have principles in those Old Testament laws that are still true in the New Testament. I hope that in the study of, in the small groups in Sunday School, you've seen from what I was talking about this morning, everything in the Old Testament sacrifices are still required of people in the New Testament. That is, the spiritual part of that. Not the animals that you kill, or not the temple altar, but everything spiritually that was required of people in the Old Testament and those sacrifices is still required of us. For example, if you want to receive forgiveness, you have to come and yield yourself to God and say, I'm prepared to give you everything in my life. Nothing held back. And I commit myself to live in purity and faithfulness to you. Now they had to offer an animal that sort of represented that, but we don't have to offer the animal. We have to have the same attitude and spirit. Every one of those things, since the very beginning, God is the same. Yesterday, today, and forever. So what Paul was trying to get across to the people is that the requirements that God had for the Jewish people in the Old Testament is the same one he has for them today, as they're now followers of Christ. And the same thing is true for the people who are non-Jews. So all of them come in the same situation. But the Jewish people who had raised with these laws seemed to feel that if you didn't keep the Sabbath law, if you didn't keep some of these things, that somehow you were compromising with God. And so their conscience would get bent if they thought of missing a Sabbath day and not keeping the Sabbath. Or if they went out and walked too far, they would feel like they were doing something terribly wrong with God because of all the teaching and instruction they'd had in the past. I've used the illustration to talk about the change I've seen in the Catholic community whenever they said, OK, now it's OK to eat meat on Friday. And even though the Pope said it was OK to eat meat on Friday, there are many people who for so long a period of time saw that was a terrible, tragic thing to do that they could not bring themselves to do it. It wasn't necessarily required in the Bible. And even now the church says it's not required. When you've been taught something for so long and you've done it for so long, it becomes a reality to you even though it's not found in the Scripture or required. And that's the very same problem the Jewish people were having. And when they looked at their Gentile or non-Jewish friends who had come to Christ and they saw them eating pigs and doing all the things that their whole life had thought just terrible to do, it was a problem for them. What Paul was talking about is that some of you have a very strong conscience about what you do and you have a weakness in thinking it's faith only that helps you. So he calls those the people whose faith is weak because they need some kind of ritual support for their faith. It's faith plus doing all these things that you have to do that really makes God pleased with you. And here are the Gentiles who never had any of this. And they come to this and they hear you say, if you'll just confess to Christ your life and you'll turn your life over to Him, the Holy Spirit will come in you and you can live with freedom in any way you want. And they did. And they didn't worry about all these laws of the Old Testament. And they were serving God with joy and freedom. And the Jewish people looking at them and said, there's something wrong with those people. They're not really keeping the rules. And the Gentiles or the non-Jewish people would say, why can't these people worry about their food and all the things that they're doing? Why can't they just enjoy trusting Christ and living their life? So there was tension. Paul was talking about that all the way through chapter 14 and 15. And he talks about the fact that we don't judge each other. I'm going to start with chapter 15, verse 7. This is a conclusion to what he says. Accept one another then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. Now he's saying to both sides of this. And the word you here, it's a Yankee you. It doesn't have any plural to it. You know, if it was Southern, it'd say y'all. So you'd know it was more than one. He's saying a plural you. All of you, Jews, Gentiles, I'm addressing this to you. Accept one another as Christ accepted you. How did Christ accept the Jews when they came to faith in Him? How did He do this? He listened to them say, I give my life to you. He listened to them say, I want to follow you and do everything that you tell me is the truth. I believe you are the Messiah. And because of their faith, He came into their lives. The Holy Spirit was given to them. They had the presence of Christ in their life. All they had to do was to say, I place my life in your hands. And He took hold of their lives, accepted them just as they were. Even though they had trouble putting aside all of the rules and rituals that they'd had in the past. He overlooked that little part of them that wasn't exactly the way He intended it to be. He didn't condemn them for it. He simply accepted them as they were. Now the non-Jewish people hear the gospel proclaimed. And they believe what is said to them. And they say, I'm ready now to place my life in the hands of God. They do. The Holy Spirit comes into their life. They begin to live this life of freedom. It didn't matter to God that they were non-Jewish people. And that their lifestyle before. Now the Jewish people in the group, their lifestyle before had been pretty moral. Because they had all these laws to keep. But now He has pagans that have come. With wicked backgrounds. Immoral lifestyles. Lifestyles that had nothing to do with keeping the Old Testament's laws or teachings of God. And so they come into the church. And they come into the church from a lifestyle of paganism. Immorality. All the kinds of things that everything in the Old Testament would say was evil. And not a part of what ought to be in anybody's life. But you know what He did? He accepted them just as they were. He accepted them and said, I'm willing to receive you. Because of your trust in me. And I want you to have now the fullness of the kingdom of God. Now when He talks in this passage about accepting people. Accept one another then as Christ accepted you. I want to step back just a minute. And say there's a caution we ought to have with this. Our culture sort of this day says you ought to accept everybody regardless of what they do, say or how they live. That's just the culture of our society. And there are certain things that you can't do. You know if you're a racist they'll throw the book at you. If you have some things that are kind of not socially acceptable they will. But in our culture whatever the lifestyle of a person. Whatever their beliefs. Whatever it is we're supposed to accept them as they are. The Bible never teaches that God accepts everybody as His child. And that's what He's talking about here. That He accepts everybody as His child without some discretion. Jesus does not accept people to be His children who have not expressed trust in Him. He doesn't accept people as His children who have not placed their life in His hands. Who are not committed to live in obedience to Him. I think in the church we don't have a lot of discretion about this. Especially Baptists you know. I mean you can have somebody come down to the front of the church and pray a prayer. And we accept them as if they're a Christian even though their life and lifestyle reflects none of the presence of God in their life. So whenever the Bible is talking about accepting people as Jesus accepts them. It has sort of a hedge with it. There are a lot of people who came to Jesus when He was here who wanted to be accepted by Him. But He didn't accept them. Do you remember the story of the rich ruler? He said I want to join you here. I want to be a part of what you're doing. And He didn't say hey buddy come on. He said hey as soon as you sell everything you have give it away to the poor then you're welcome to come. Some said well I need to go back and take care of some family business. When Jesus said come and follow me. And He said if you look back you're not worthy of the kingdom of God. It wasn't that Jesus accepted everybody on everybody else's terms. But what He's saying here is when you've accepted Jesus Christ as the Lord of your life. You've genuinely committed yourself to serve and live for Him. He accepts you no matter what your background and your past has been like. The issue of trust and faith is the key ingredient that God looks at to accept us. It's not whether you're a Jewish person or you're non-Jew. That has nothing to do with it in God's eyes. It has nothing to do with it that your background was immorality. It has nothing to do with that. All the things that might be something that we would look at. Jesus has no interest in looking at those things. What does Jesus do when we come with faith? How does He accept us? He looks at us and says if you're willing to give your life to me. I will accept you. He doesn't ask us immediately to become perfect. He doesn't ask us immediately to know exactly what we always should do. He allows us to come into His kingdom. Make mistakes and errors. Learn and grow as we're trusting Him. He doesn't throw us away because we have failed to be able to live up to His standards. So long as we're committed to live in obedience to Him. God understands immaturity and He accepts us even though we're immature. He accepts us with our limitations. But He tells us it doesn't matter what your limitations are. I can help you overcome those. It doesn't matter how much sin has clouded your life in the past. I can forgive you of that. It doesn't matter about what your mind and heart and behavior is controlled by Satan's power. I can set you free. Whether you're Jews who need to get over some of the things that you thought made God pleased with you. Or whether you're Gentiles whose lives were caught in addictions and behaviors that were heinous to God. I'll accept you because if you've trusted me and you've placed your life in my hands. I will shape your future. I will make it different in the future. So He said we should look at each other that way. So I should see someone else. When he talks about this, he mentions earlier that we are to accept people exactly as God does. And we're not to condemn people because they're the children of God. Other followers who are followers of Christ, they belong to Christ. They're His. And we are not to condemn them because they're workers of His and they're children of His. It's like he's saying, you know, when you live in a house and there's children next door to you. You don't try to raise those children. They have their own parents. So he's saying all of the Jews and all of the non-Jews are my children. So I don't want the Jews over here trying to raise my children. They're my children. The non-Jews, I don't want you to try to straighten out the Jews because they're my children. Leave that job to me. So he says, may the God, he says, accept one another then as Christ accepted you. And His purpose in accepting you is to bring praise to God. This is an important thing that we see here. It's to bring praise to God. I've tried to emphasize several times in the last few chapters of this how the issue of praise in the Bible has to do with our behavior more than what we do in church. Almost automatically when we begin to talk about praise, we begin to think about singing or we begin to think about what we do in church. But here he describes our attitude toward each other brings praise to God. Now, we just can't create the society in which Paul was writing. I mean, Gentiles, that doesn't say anything bad to us because that's who we are. We're Gentiles. We can't be wicked or evil. And Jews, we like them because Jesus was a Jew. So we don't have these hard feelings. There were hard feelings between Jews and non-Jews in Jesus' day. Terribly difficult feelings. They hated each other in some ways. They persecuted each other in times and places. It's more than anything we have in our culture. We don't have anything, even racially, that matches what was available or what was the circumstance for them to live in. And he says, now everyone in the world knows how Jews think and how Gentiles think. Jews thought their word for people was only for Jewish folks. Their word for people only applied to Jews. They had another word for everybody else that wasn't a Jew. They were goyim. They were others. There were people, and then there were others. And Gentiles thought of the Jews as people who worshipped pigs because they thought so much of pigs they would never eat one. So they thought they were people who were so low on the social scale that their God was a hog. And there was no love between these people. Now, Jews and non-Jews receive Jesus Christ, come and sit down together, care for each other, love each other, work together for a common cause, and everyone around them looks at this and says, how in the world can this happen? How can you change the mind and heart of a prejudiced person? How can you break away the racial prejudices that are there, the religious prejudices that are there? And so when your neighbors see you inviting a Jewish family to come and join your fellowship group in your meeting house, they say, who in the world can do this? And you declare to the entire world the greatness of God. Now, all this happens whenever the Jewish and non-Jewish people are confronted with each other. And Paul wouldn't have been writing this if it was smooth. He's only writing this letter because there were bumps involved in it, and there was resistance on the part of many people, even though some of them had caught that picture. He was saying to them, what God is going to do is change your mind. And he's doing it to show the entire world how powerful God is and how the love of God comes to change people. I think you know that we're kind of in a place where a lot of times churches sort of target, maybe they don't intend to, certain groups of people. And so you'll have a church that has people who are upper class. You have a church with middle class. You have a church with lower class. And they just don't mix them up together because they don't feel comfortable around each other. What Paul's great vision was that you would have a church with all kinds of people in it. Educated people, wealthy people, uneducated people, poor people, people of different races, people of different intellectual abilities and skills. And whenever we love all those people the same, it declares to the whole world the power that God has for us. God has given us a very, very diverse church. And I think sometimes the diversity of what we have in our church causes some people who visit us to say, well, you know, that's not quite the kind of folks I want my own kids to grow up around or I want to be around a part of that. And they go find somewhere else that's more socially acceptable to them. But I think that there is a value in what God does when he allows us to accept each other. We don't have differences, many, many differences between us. When we look at each other, we see a child of God. And it brings glory and honor to God to do it. That's Paul's point. If you can see people as God sees them, it says God controls you. And if you accept people the way Christ accepts people, it says to the world, this is how Christ will accept you. You don't have to attain some standard to be able to be acceptable to Christ. And we can prove that. Because here in this group, we will love and accept you exactly as you are. So the whole issue that Paul is raising here is pointing not just to a way by which they built the church or grew the church, but he's wanting the church to exemplify the power of God to transform and change the minds of people. You'll remember in chapter 12 when he closes the doctrinal part and starts this discussion, he said that we're to make sure that our own lives are controlled by Christ, do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world. That's the way the world does things. It has classes and barriers between people. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Let God teach you how he thinks about people. And so when you run up against people who may grate you the wrong way, or you think, well, that's not someone I like to be around, you stop and you think, has God accepted them the way they are? Maybe he can give me the ability to overlook whatever kind of flaws I see in them and accept them as I accept myself. We all think of ourselves as being good enough to be around. And whenever we make that transition in our mind, it is God who changes our value system. I want to teach you how to value someone who's my child, even though you may not like them, even though they may not be the kind of person you are, even though you may not feel comfortable around them. I want you to be able to think the way God thinks. Because whenever you learn to accept people because Christ is in you, then everyone around you sees how Christ accepts others. Our mission is to declare to the world the nature and character of God. And living this lifestyle controlled by Christ does that. It allows us to. Our minds are being transformed. And as they're being transformed and we begin to live out that transformation, we are showing the nature and character of God. For I tell you that Christ became a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs. Christ became a servant of the Jews. And these were the people that killed him. Get this. He became a servant. I don't know if you have another translation of this passage. I'm reading NIV. But some of those say Christ became a minister of the Jews. Some of you know a little bit of Greek, don't you? There you go. Do you know the word diakonia, diakon? That's this word here. Some people think the deacon means someone in the church who has a certain kind of role. But the Bible uses that word for a lot of different functions. Here it uses it for Christ who is a minister. We would say a minister, preacher. A minister here and it's used as some places it's translated servant. Here it's translated servant. Christ became a servant or a minister to the Jews. He is describing for us that Christ himself looked at the Jews who were trying to kill him and accepted them. Not only did he accept them, but he became a servant to them. This is the power, the transforming power of God in the mind of a person that changes the enemies that we see to our friends. Jesus did this even though they actually did kill him. His entire ministry was focused on the Jewish people. Do you remember the story when a Gentile, a non-Jew came to him, a woman who wanted to be healed? He said, no, I came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. She said, I know, but the dogs get to eat the leftovers from the table, don't they? Jesus was focused on the Jewish people exclusively in the beginning of his work. So you see here, those of you who are Gentiles, how Jesus did this. So when you see those Jews who have to keep the law and you think how silly they are, their eyes are not open, their faith is not big enough. I want you to think like Jesus did. You become their servants. You become the ministers to them. You become the ones who care for them. This is the role that you take. This is the transforming power that God gives to you. On behalf, you do become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth. The truth that God gives that everyone in his eyes is really the same. And it's really a reference to the covenant. The covenant promise God made to Abraham and is then opened up to everyone in the world. You remember the covenant he said to him, if you'll follow me, I'll guide you to the place I want you to be. I'll provide for you and I'll protect you from your enemies and I'll make you into a great nation. This covenant truth that Jesus used was in keeping with this old covenant. God made a covenant with the Jews and now Christ came to fulfill it even though the Jews were trying to kill him. And on behalf of God's truth to confirm the promises he made to the patriarchs. He was keeping the promise that had been made to Abraham centuries before. And he did this in spite of the fact that it killed him. So that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy as it is written, therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles and I will sing hymns to your name. God's servanthood to the Jews was done so that the Gentiles could be reached. That was his initial plan. Yes? Who? You mean at this time? Well, it's available to them. They don't use it as their guide. It's the Old Testament as their guide. What Paul was talking about was this great task that God had to be able to bring the Jews into the kingdom of God had an ulterior motive. In the last part of the covenant with Abraham he said, and I will make you a blessing to all of the peoples or nations. Not just to the Jewish community but to all of the nations. So Jesus came and became a servant of the Jews. But his objective was not only to fill the covenant promise to the Jews but to fill the covenant promise to the whole world. God's intention was exactly what you guys are doing in the Roman church. From the very beginning of Abraham's promise he said, I want to bring the Jews into my kingdom. And I want to bring also the non-Jews into my kingdom. And right in your church you're doing now what God had intended with Abraham. You're living this out for yourself. So accept each other understanding that accepting one another you're fulfilling the great promise of the covenant. This great truth that confirms the promises made to the patriarchs. So that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy. Not only is the Jews receiving it but now the Gentiles will receive it too. Therefore he quotes in this passage from Samuel in the Psalms. Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles. I will sing hymns to your name. Again it says rejoice oh Gentiles with his people. What he said the grand vision of God was the Gentiles and Jews would together praise God. Would together sing songs of praise to God. Would together be a part of this great promise that God has. And now it's taking place right in front of you. And again Isaiah says the root of Jesse will spring up. One who will rise to rule over the nations the Gentiles will have hope in him. Christ will arise this prophecy from Isaiah. Not just for the Gentile people the non-Jews. But he also will be raised for those Gentiles that they might have hope. I said it's not just for the Jews that this is going to happen. But also for the Gentiles that they'll have hope. Now the word hope in the Bible is very different than we use this word. People say man I hope it rains tomorrow. They don't have any idea that it actually will rain tomorrow. It's just something inside of them they would like. Hope in the Bible is something far different. Whenever God says to you I'm going to change your life. And he says to you I'm going to give you the power you need to be able to live victoriously over the temptations and the addictions that come to you. The promise that he gives us is the basis of hope. I promise you that I'm going to give you a life that is full and complete. Whenever Paul writes earlier in Romans that in all things God is working together for good to those that love him and are called according to his purpose. What he gives us that to say at any time at any place no matter what's happening to you you can say God is at work for my good. That's the hope that you have. You're not saying well I hope something good happens to me. You're saying God has made a promise to me and my hope is in his promise and in his ability to carry it out. Now I want all the Jews to be able to have this hope that you have. The promises that you've received that it would come to them. And then he ends this section by saying may the hope of God. Not that God hopes things get better. See it is the hope that God gives us. When you read all the promises in the Bible that is the basis of our hope. If I tell you I'm going to do something you may think I'm going to do it but you can't count on that as you can with God. Because I can make a promise to you that next week I'm going to do something and drop dead tonight. I don't have the ability to fulfill all those things. But when God says I will be with you he will be with you. When he says my power is available to you your power is available to you. His power is available to you. When he says if you are a missionary and making disciples I promise I'll be with you to the end of the ages. You can count on that. So when it looks like it's not working you can count on the promise as the hope that you have. So may the God of hope. God is the source of our hope. May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace as you trust in him. Joy is not happiness. It's not having fun. It is a sense of contentment that believes that there is something good in my future. It's not always what I have right now. But I have the joy of knowing that the promise of God means that my future will be taken care of. And when you're going through difficult times where you can see no future that's good for you you read the promises of God and you can find joy inside. Not happiness all the time. But joy which is the contentment that comes from knowing God is at work in your life. So you have the joy and the peace as you trust him. The word peace in the Bible is not only the absence of conflict and fighting. It is the assurance that life in all of its fullness will be given to you. The Hebrews used the word shalom as the word they would greet someone with. And it meant many different things. But to wrap it all up in one it means I am asking God to give you the fullness of life. Every good thing that God has promised to come to you is in this shalom or peace. Certainly the absence of conflict is one part of peace. But it's more than that. It's not only you can have no conflict and be in misery somewhere and not feel alone and feel like you don't have any future. But God promises us I will guide you, I'll provide for you, I'll protect you, I'll make your life a blessing. That's his promise to us. And when we receive that promise even in the most troubled times we can say that's going to happen to me someday because God has made that promise to me. And so we have peace in spite of the difficulty around us and the conflict around us. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him. The joy and peace does not come automatically. Whenever you're in trouble and you can't see any way that your life is going to work out you can sit there and worry about the things you see that trouble you or you can say God's made me a promise and I'm not going to worry about that. You have a choice. Do you trust his promise or don't you? So that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now the ability to have hope in the middle of your difficulty is based on whether or not you trust the Spirit of God as he talks to you and guides you. He will remind you of scriptures. He will remind you of things you've heard. He will point out to you what he's doing. And you have to listen to the Spirit of God to find it. So his prayer may the God who has hope and who is hope fill you with joy. A contentment of life. That the fullness of life will come to you as you trust in him. So that you may overflow with this hope that comes by the power of God's Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit can only come in you when you surrender your life to him. And when you surrender your life to him you can't keep the Holy Spirit out. God gives that Spirit to you and he promises you life will be victorious. That's his guarantee. Let's pray. I'd like to ask you, if you know some people who are followers of Christ that you just have trouble accepting, that you'd ask God to help you see them the way he sees them. That you could accept them the way he accepts them. I'd like you to ask God to help you be able to see and accept people as he has done. That people might see Christ in you. You may have difficult things in your life right now. There are really hard times. But God has made promises to us. I want to ask you in the middle of all the things that might be difficult to you this week, that you would try when you're in the middle of an impossible situation to say, what promise has God made to his followers? And let the Holy Spirit remind you of the Bible verses or things you've heard God say from the scriptures or from studying the Bible or sermons or Sunday school lessons. That in that moment you would experience the victory of hope over discouragement. And of God's promise over human efforts. Father, I ask in all the things that we face tonight and the rest of this week, that we would never get into despair, but always have confidence that whatever place you put us in, whatever circumstance we face, your promises are true. And when it looks hopeless in human terms, and it may be hopeless in human terms, you'll remind us that it's not hopeless in your terms. For even though everything we see falls apart, you have something else out there that we've never seen that will be better. Give us that confidence. Give us that hope. Give us that joy. And give us that peace. That all the world might know what you can do. Amen. He's moving his son down there. He did? Yeah, his son's moving to Dallas. His daughter's moving to Kansas City. The way he went off last week to move his daughter to Kansas City, this week he's moving his son down to Dallas. That's something, you know. He's going to save yourself.