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Accept One Another
Romans 14:1 - 15:7
Let me tell you
about two churches. Both meet regularly. Both communicate a message.
Both offer communion and take up a collection at every meeting. They
both have their own unique music which inspires and confirms their
faith. Oh, and there are hypocrites in both. You won't find a church of
any kind, anywhere that doesn't have a few hypocrites warming the pews.
The first church meets in a state of the art worship center. It has
padded, theater-style seating, a huge projection screen and a killer
sound system. Instead of a preacher, they project amazingly produced
parables on the screen, complete with sound tracks and the latest
special effects. The music is all pre-recorded but it is strictly
professional. In fact, it is some of the best music in the world.
The message they preach through their projected parables is really quite
simple. You can sum it up in one word. Tolerance. You believe what you
want to believe. I'll believe what I want to believe. I won't judge you.
You don't judge me.
As I said, there are hypocrites among them. Because while they preach
tolerance, they don't always practice it. Sometimes they are quite
exclusionary. If you don't measure up to their standards, you can still
come to their church, but you won't be very welcomed. If you don't
embrace their values, they won't embrace you.
Despite the failings of many of their members to practice what they
preach, the church is quite successful. In fact, they have congregations
all over Central Alabama and in every major city in America. You've been
there many times. You might have even attended one of their services
this weekend. It's called the First Church of Culture and they meet in
movie theaters everywhere. The contribution usually runs about $ 8.00 a
head and is collected at the door. Communion consists of a bag of
popcorn and a coke. That costs extra, though. You can even rent their
sermons and take them home if you don't feel like going out to church.
In which case you'll have to provide your own communion.
The other church doesn't have the most comfortable seating. Attendees
sit on pews. Communion consists of a small piece of stale tasting bread
and half-a-swallow of Welch's grape juice. It's free though. The
contributions are free-will offerings. The unaccompanied music is live,
but by the standards of the culture, not very inspiring. Rather than
communicating the message through a special-effects enhanced movie, a
guy gets up, reads some words from an old book and talks about them for
twenty-five minutes.
The message is compelling, though, even if the medium isn't. Instead of
tolerance, this church preaches acceptance. What's the difference
between tolerance and acceptance? Well, we'll need to hear the words of
an old book and listen to the guy talk about them to find out.
Read Romans 14:1-9
In these old words, Paul reveals how and why brothers and sisters who
don't agree on emotionally charged issues can do better than just
tolerate each other. He explains why we can accept one another. First,
let's take a look at his examples. They need some explanation because
they don't seem all that relevant. They don't seem all that relevant
because, frankly, they aren't.
In vs. 2, Paul mentions the issue of food. Some people at Rome ate
everything. Some ate only vegetables. I would have been in the eat
everything group. From the looks of most the audience, so would you.
The other issue he mentions is in vs. 5. One man considers one day more
sacred than the other; another man considers every day alike.
These were really big deals to the Christians in the first century. Meat
wasn’t eaten daily in the first century, it was too expensive. So when
Paul talks about disagreements about food he's probably referring to the
fact that most of the meat people bought in the market had been
sacrificed to a pagan idol, since it was cheaper. Some Christians –
probably the Jewish Christians who had memorized the second Commandment
about Idols at a very early age -- felt that eating idol meat would be
nothing less than an endorsement of and participation in that religion.
So they were vegetarians.
Other Christians – probably the Hellenistic or Gentile Christians were
the meat eaters and they didn't have a problem with it all. They thought
the vegetarians were too uptight. They'd see one of them in the express
check-out line at the market with a basket full of green and yellow
things and they'd say, "Hey brother. What's in the basket?"
"Oh, just some food I'm picking up for dinner tonight."
To which the Gentile Christian would reply, "Food? That's not food.
That's what food eats!"
The Jewish Christian, on the other hand, thought the meat eaters were
playing fast and loose with the will of God. They'd see a meat eating
Christian walking out of the local Piggly Wiggly with a leg of lamb
across his shoulder and say, "What do you think you are doing with that
idol meat?"
To which the meat eater would reply, "This isn't idol meat. It's lamb,
knothead."
"Lamb, pork, beef, doesn't matter. It was slaughtered at the temple of
Aprodite and everyone who sees you with it thinks you are one of her ...
her adherents! Just wait till I tell the elders about this. You'll never
teach Sunday School in this town again!"
So the problem at Rome was more than just a lack of tolerance. They
weren't accepting one another. They were judging and condemning one
another. Now before we talk about Paul's remedy, we need to look at two
more words. Weak and Strong.
The strong of faith were the meat eaters. They understood that eating
meat that had been sacrificed to an idol was no big deal. God created
all foods to be enjoyed. They said their prayers before they bit into a
baby-back rib. Eating that food didn't tempt them to join in the fun
down at First Church of Dionysius. It didn't violate their consciences.
The weak of faith, however, really struggled with anything that smelled
like an idol. But when Paul calls them weak, and I think that there
might be a better translation. Paul doesn't mean that they were feeble
in character or will or intelligence, the word here would better be
translated sensitive. Their consciences were easily troubled. They had
scruples. And that's not a bad thing to have.
We need to be careful here that we don't do exactly what this text warns
us against. We are tempted, because of the distance in time and our
modem theological sophistication, to dismiss the people Paul calls weak.
Their goal was to be as careful as possible when it came to being the
people of God. And that's not a bad goal.
So what good does all this talk of idol meat and sacred days do for us?
As I mentioned, those aren't really our issues. So let's put what Paul
calls a disputable issue on the table. By disputable issue he means
something that isn't clearly outlined in the will of God. Something good
Christians can disagree on and still accept one another.
If I were a raging fool or a courageous crusader, I'd give you my long
list of things that I think are disputable issues and we fight about in
the church. Since I'm neither, I'll follow Paul's advice in vs. 22 and
keep that between God and me as private property. But there is an
example that I though about this week as I read this passage.
Monty Python was a comedic troupe from England. Now some people think
that they are hilarious and some people just don’t get it. Regardless of
where you fall on the Monty Python scale, between their sketches they
would fade to black or show a short cartoon and a voice over guy would
come on and say, “Now for something completely different.” I don’t know
about you but I hear that every time I walk into this building.
It is no secret that Roger, Ron, and I all are different types of people
and different types of preachers. Roger worked with this congregation
for 20 years give or take a few and then Ron worked about 20 years give
or take, and now we have been together 11 months. I really appreciate
the work that they have done for this congregation and for the Lord’s
church as a whole, but to say that Roger, Ron, and I are different would
be an understatement; do you understand now why I hear in my head “Now
for something completely different’?
I didn’t have the opportunity to know Roger or Ron the way that you did,
but I have come to an understanding that there are some differences
between them and myself. I wear shorts and hate coats and ties, I read
out of 7 different versions of the Bible, I preach a very conversational
style, I stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning and like to sleep late and
don’t feel bad about it at all, I pray weird, I am very transparent
about the struggles I have in my life, and I believe that the invitation
is for rejoicing and well as repenting.
I understand that most of you have never had a preacher like me, and I
need you to understand that I have never worked with a church like New
Hope. The problem we run into all too often is that we get the urge to
say one was right and one is wrong. If you agree with me you are a
Conservative, if you don’t you must be a Liberal and those titles are
thrown around like a dirty word. And there might be tolerance, but I
believe that we are called to do more.
If Paul were here -- and he is in this text -- he'd be blunt. He would
say Jeremy Hush. Who are you to judge your brother? Who are you to look
down on your sister? There are some very good reasons for us to accept
one another.
1. If God has accepted someone, you and I must accept them, too.
That's vs.3. If someone measures up to God's standards, they certainly
should measure up to mine. Or are my standards higher than God's?
Refusing to accept someone God has accepted is an dangerous form of
idolatry. Idolatry is nothing less than making something or someone
higher than God. In this case, it is making your litmus test for
acceptance tougher than the test God has given.
What we're really saying when we refuse to accept one who is acceptable
to God is that what Jesus did on the cross and their faith in that just
isn't enough.
They also have to do things the way I do them. In other words, Jesus +
my worship style or traditions = acceptance. The Bible word for that is
false doctrine. Another is heresy. Or more to the point, sin. And you
know how God feels about that.
2. You and I are not the judges.
V s. 4. "Who are you to judge someone else's servant?
Vv. 9 - 12. "For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so
that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do
you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we
will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written, 'As surely as
I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before me; every tongue
will confess to God.' So then, each of us will give an account of
himself to God."
We'll come back to verse 12 in a moment. But I need to address the fact
that some of us are forever trying to kick God off the judges bench and
occupy it ourselves. We somehow think we'd do a better job than he does.
Friday standing in Piggly Wiggly I was talking with one of the employees
there and I invited them to our wild game supper. They declined because
they were Methodist, and I told them I didn’t care if they were a cactus
we would love to have them. They told me that a Church of Christ
preacher told them once that they were going to hell and wondered what I
thought.
I told them that any preacher that could condemn them to hell, would
probably be there as well.
We have forgotten that our job is to teach, encourage, and love the
people that God loves. To tell everyone the good news with our mouths
and our lives. But we would rather judge, and that, too, is idolatry.
But instead of placing a system of belief above the Almighty, we're
trying to put ourselves where only He belongs.
Jesus’ command in John 7:24 about judging the righteous judgment does
not call you and me the judge, of people’s souls. We are, rather, the
judged. And if we usurp what is God's role, the judgment we meet will be
severe.
3. Even with our disagreements, we are members of the same family.
Six times in eleven verses Paul reminds us we are brothers and sisters
of the same Father, God. Members of the same family are called to accept
one another.
Think about your own family for a minute. Are you all exactly alike? Of
course not. That's why they drive you nuts. But it's not your
differences that make you dysfunctional. It's when someone in the family
tries to make everyone else in the family just like them that fouls up
the works. Did it ever occur to you that God put us into families so
that we would learn how to accept people who are not like us?
He didn't just do it for laughs, although sometimes it's pretty funny.
The family is the first place we run into the wall of differences. Not
everyone is like me. But I share something important with these people.
The same last name. The same house. We're in this together and our
membership in the family is more important than the differences that
threaten to divide us.
With Christians even more is at stake. We don't share the same physical
gene pool, but we spring from the same spiritual father. We all have the
same big brother. And there is, coursing through our spiritual veins,
the same Holy Spirit of God. So since we are family we are called not
just tolerate each other, but to lovingly, warmly accept one another.
So what's the difference between tolerance and acceptance?
Just think of some of the synonyms we could use for tolerance or
tolerate. There's endure. "I think we should endure people no matter
what they believe."
How about stomach? "All opinions must be stomached if we are going to be
a civilized culture."
Suffer. "I don't agree with your view on that, friend, but I'll suffer
it."
Put up with. Bear. Deal with. Swallow. Abide. None of those sound very
nice. Yet that's what our culture settles for.
In the passage we heard in the beginning, the Bible calls us to higher
way of relating to brothers and sisters with whom we do not agree. It
demands acceptance, not just tolerance.
What's acceptance?
It means to welcome someone into your fellowship and into your heart. It
implies the warmth and kindness of genuine love. Tolerance on steroids.
So which church would you rather be a member of? One that puts up with
you? Or one that embraces you with acceptance?
But the really important issue isn't whether we're going to accept one
another or not. The really important question is, does God accept you?
Remember the passage I said we'd come back to? Romans 14: 12. "So then,
each of us will give an account of himself, herself, to God."
Vs. 11 says that One day, every knee will bow. Every tongue will
confess. But if you haven't bowed before him or confessed your faith in
him before that last fateful day, it will be too late.
I’d like to tell you that everyone in this room is ready for that day.
I’d like to tell you that you should accept everyone in this room
because everyone in this room has been accepted by God. But I can't say
that. Because some of us in this room have not yet accepted Him.
God isn’t waiting for you to get your life all fixed up, straightened
out, and tucked away before He can love you. He already does. He already
did. And now He’s waiting for you to love him back.
Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, God loves you and
longs to be loved by you.
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