If you can turn your Bibles with me to Romans Chapter 14, 1-4. We're jumping back into the series in Romans. Romans Chapter 14, 1-4. Reading out of the ESV. As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.

Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld for the Lord is able to make him stand.

Let's pray. Gracious and loving Father, we thank you so much for today. We thank you for your living word, we thank you for your patience. We thank you for the fellowship that we have with brothers and sisters, Lord God in Christ. And we know what a blessing it is, Lord, to be a part of your body.

Help us to hear from you, not from man, not from man's thinking, not from man's study, but you, Father God, that you would ordain your words and that your sheep will hear your voice and follow you. May your name be blessed. May our time, Lord God, would be an encouragement.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You know, as you guys know, yesterday we had our annual softball tournament. I'm not sure if it was our 12th year or 13th year, and congratulations to our Brian Sisters A-Team, they won again. Let's give them a hand, okay? So this is their third year winning the championship, and some of the ladies were limping around the church, you know, that they played yesterday.

And so, again, it's always fun watching them and spending the whole Saturday, you know, just yelling and screaming and cheering on our sisters. And in particular, I had a lot of fun with our B-Team. You know, when we say B-Team, we normally say it's the fun team, so there's absolutely no expectation.

And so we went in there, again, with no expectation, but I would say the B-Team this year was probably the best B-Team we've ever had, okay? And this is objective science, this is not just my opinion. They played their hearts out, and especially this year, we had, you know, intergenerational teammates.

We had two mothers with two daughters playing on the same team, and it was really heartwarming to participate and see that. And we could tell every game they were actually improving. And so by the time we got to the third game, they were actually hitting and running bases and getting legitimate scores.

And in my mind, if we did this another couple years, we might be able to win a game, maybe one day. But it was fun either way, you know? I spent the whole Saturday, came back, and again, every year I look forward to it because not simply because of the softball, win or lose, it's an opportunity to spend time with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

And let me read a passage from you in Psalm chapter 133. It says, "Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. It is like the precious oil on the head running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron running down on the collar of his robes.

It is like the dew of Hermon which falls on the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore." And so in Psalm 33 is a description of God's community and how God gives it to his people as a blessing, not only for themselves but to share it with one another.

And what a blessing it is that we have to be able to run this race together with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. And so, you know, during softball, we get to spend a lot of time just getting to know people that we didn't know before. A lot of people are a certain way outside of the softball, but you can really see their personalities when they get into competition.

And so you feel like it's kind of a good way to break ice and to get to know people. Why I share all of this is, you know, probably one of the greatest gifts that God has given Christians is the church. That we have a community of people that we can run this race together with, share our suffering, celebrate our weddings, to pray together in our difficulties.

And so it's an awesome gift that God has given the church. But when the church turns sour, it's also the greatest source of stumbling. It's the greatest source of agony, oftentimes, it's also within the church. So typically what happens, if we're not careful, is the greatest excitement of the church happens early part of the church, when the church is planted.

And there's excitement, there's this vision, and everybody's sacrificing for one another. And it's kind of like taking a short-term trip out to Mission Field, and that's what the church feels like early on in the church. But after about two, three, four, five, six, seven years have passed, and all the different personalities begin to arise, and the pressures of the church, and all these things, and after a while what happens is that the fellowship of the church just becomes a place where you tolerate people.

You're not going to abandon it, because it's clearly stated in Scripture for us to be together, and this is the church that Christ loves. But it no longer has that feel like, "I want to be there because I want to get to know people and I want to share my life with people." It's more of, "I have these three people over here, but I don't like these four people here, and these people I want to spend my life with, and those people I hope I don't get put into the same small group." And we have all of these things happen, and after a while, the longer you've been at a church, the more we have to fight through tolerating certain people in the church.

And sad to say, that's the state that once you get to, you remain for the rest of your life. And then so, you remember, you talk about what it was like at one point a long time ago, but it's no longer your experience. There's a reason why Paul says, "In view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies a living sacrifice." And again, the application of that in chapter 12 and 13, he was describing what biblical love looks like.

Because the primary application of what God has done for us is to practice this love. As much as he loved us, he said, "Now practice this love with God and with one another." So that's what he's been expositing in chapter 12, chapter 12, 13. And in chapter 14 and 15, Paul's going to deal with something very specific.

Because love is easy to talk about when it's in theory, when we're singing about it, when we're expositing and talking and memorizing scripture. But where the rubber meets the road, we're actually rubbing shoulders with people and sharing lives and doing work together. You know, eventually, you're going to rub people the wrong way and things begin to come up, personalities come up.

And so Paul is going to take us to a very practical issue that came up in the early church. And it wasn't just in the book of Romans. If you look at scripture, you'll find out that this is splattered all throughout the New Testament. In fact, one of the greatest things that is dealt with in the New Testament is about the unity in the early church, how to practice this love.

So Paul is going to take us to a particular problem that the early church had that was, again, universal in almost all the early churches. And we're going to look at some principles that he's going to teach us through this. So the four things that we're going to look at this morning is, what specifically was the problem?

Secondly, who were involved with this problem? That's the second one. The third one, how were they to deal with this problem? And then the fourth, why was it necessary to deal with this problem? So that's the outline for today's message in verses one through four. So let's look at the first one.

What was the specific problem that Paul is dealing with? In verses, chapter 14, two to five, he describes it this way. He says, "One person believes that he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables." And then verse five, "One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike." So you had this tension between, are they allowed to eat this, eat meat, or not?

Is the Sabbath going to be on Saturday or on Sunday? And this was a big issue. Now, we may look at that and say, you know, we're 2,000 years removed from this problem. It's not a practical problem that we have today. We don't sit around talking about, like, should we eat meat or not eat meat?

We just eat meat. You know, universally, we accept that Sunday's a time that we worship. But if you look beyond what's happening, I think you'll see how practical this issue really is, and how it could have easily torn the church apart in the early church if they didn't deal with it in a manner that Paul is calling them to.

Think about what the early church was made of. You had former tax collectors with former fishermen, and by nature, they would have been at odds with one another. You had former slave owners and slaves, runaway slaves in the same church. You had the Pharisees, and then you had the sinners and the prostitutes, all in the same church.

You had the Greeks. You had the Jews. I mean, humanly speaking, there's no way that this group, this early church, should have made it, because outside of Christ, they had absolutely no reason to be together. The beauty of the church, even in this room, you know, even in this room, there's enough diversity in this room that there's probably people who are sitting around you that you may think to yourself that even if I wasn't a Christian, I could see myself being friends with this guy or this girl.

And then there's people sitting next to you that you never said that to them, but you probably think to yourself, "If I wasn't a Christian, there's no way that our lives would ever intersect. We just are just too different." We have people in various ages, various races, various economic backgrounds, personalities, hobbies.

How can you possibly get anything done in the church with a church that is volunteering? I can understand in a work environment where you're paying people and they're forced to do it whether they like it or not, but how do you get a church of hundreds of people with different personalities, different perspective, to all agree on anything?

But the beauty of the church is that God has placed the diversity together in the church to worship and to supplement, to encourage one another. If we do not handle, if we do not behave, if we do not practice the practical things that are taught in this text, the very nature of the church, humanly speaking, will eventually break up.

So we're surprised, you know, when a church gets together and then after 10 years or 20 years, they split up and they go their own ways. Oh, how could they possibly happen? Humanly speaking, why didn't that happen earlier considering the makeup of the church? How can these people who are so diverse, so different, in every aspect, stay together for that long doing something that is important as spreading the gospel?

Why did God use this system? Why does he put us together? Think about our society. You know, up to high school, you're forced to be around all different kinds of people. Whether you are a computer guy or you're a jock, whether you are a scientist or you're an entrepreneur, you know, we're all together and you have all kinds of diversity in high school.

But by the time you get to college, depending on your major, you get separated into different schools. But even within the schools, you have different majors. You have art majors and you have science majors. And so you have friends, but in your major, you spend bulk of your time with people who are similar to you.

And then by the time you graduate and you get a job, all the salesmen are on this side of the world and all the, you know, all the engineers on this side of the world and all the doctors are on that side of the world. And so you end up spending majority of your time with people who are just like you.

That's just the world that we live in. And the older you get, the more you live in this world, the more segregated you become from people who are different than you. That's true even with your family members. You know, when you're younger, you spend a lot of time because you're connected to your parents, but as you get older, if you have different opinions, different views, different jobs, you don't get to spend a lot of time with them.

So how does a church with all this diversity, with all different opinions, come together and stay united? You raise your children differently. You have different thoughts of what is important and what is not important. If we had $100 and asked all of you, "How should we spend the $100?" We'll have 100 different opinions.

How does a church with this much diversity stay together? In fact, this was probably one of the biggest concerns of the early church. And that's why in 1 Corinthians 1, 10 through 11, it says, "I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment." He's saying this to the Corinthians church because he was concerned about the division in the church, how they value one person over another, and that was causing all kinds of division.

And this division was the epicenter of why sexual immorality, why there's chaos in worship, why even in communion, even the use of spiritual gifts, all was practice in chaos, was causing all kinds of erosion in the church. But the root of it was division in the church. And it wasn't just the Corinthians.

In Ephesians 4, 3-6, it says, "Eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, the Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." And the reason why he keeps saying all, all, one God, one baptism, one Spirit, is because the Jews and the Gentiles were in the same church.

They spent hundreds of years hating each other, accusing each other of being arrogant, accusing each other of being unclean. And all of a sudden, they're together. And so there was this concern that because we're brought together because of the love of Christ, but there's this constant friction. In fact, the first problem that the church had was this conflict between the Hellenist Greeks, Hellenist Jews, Hellenist widows versus the Jews.

And they were being neglected in the daily distribution of food, so these widows weren't being fed. And if they didn't handle this correctly, it could have completely divided the church. And this was a constant concern of the early church. In fact, in Jesus's prayer in John 17, 20-21, the priestly prayer, the core part of his prayer is also about unity.

He says, "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me." So at the core of Jesus's prayer for his people is unity.

And again, in chapter 12, verse 16, it says, "Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be conceited." So this was not a problem with one church. I mean, just humanly thinking, if you have that kind of diversity in the church, you would automatically assume there was going to be all kinds of conflict.

And that's exactly what they were concerned about. But the beauty of the church is often like the marriage. After doing marriage counseling and officiating weddings, and I don't know exactly how many, it's close to 100 different weddings that I've participated in, and I can honestly say I can only think about maybe two or three couples that I say, "Wow, these people are exactly alike.

Their temperament is alike. The way they view the world is alike." I would say 98%, right, or more than 90% of the people that I counsel, these two people are as night and day. One person is an introvert, the other person is an extrovert. One person is tedious in planning, the other person just kind of is spontaneous.

And so there's natural reasons why there would be conflict. And where it first shows is in the preparation for the marriage, the wedding itself. Because they're planning, they're spending money, they're making big decisions, and all of a sudden they're realizing, it's like, "Wow, we're very different." But the beauty of the marriage is that these two people were very different, and I believe that it may be God-designed, because God intended husband and wife to be a complement to each other.

That the wife is good at things that the husband is not, and the husband is good at things that the wife is not, and them coming together makes them better. To the beauty of the church is very similar. If we look at the cross, I have my view of what the cross looks like, but the beauty of the church is, all of you have different perspective, because of your life experience, your personalities, your temperament.

So you're able to see the cross in a different light. I see it this way, you see it from this point. It's kind of like having different spotlights on the cross. Every time you hear a testimony of a believer, they're giving you their angle. I've been showing you this, and then another person's testimony is showing you this, another person is spotting the light from the top, another from the side.

And all of this adds to the beauty of the cross. But the headache that also comes along about being married is that a lot of times, after you've been married, the very things that you are attracted to, the very things that cause you to want to be with that other person, when something goes wrong in the marriage, all you see are things that you don't like.

Why is she this way? Why is he that way? A lot of times, ladies are attracted to strong, silent types. Then after the honeymoon period is over, the main complaint is, this guy never talks. I thought he was strong and silent, I realized he's just silent. You're attracted to somebody who's outgoing personality, and they like to do things spontaneously.

I love that about this person because they kind of make me want to do things that I didn't do before. I would never do these things. Then after the honeymoon is over, it's like, man, this person is so reckless. They never plan for anything. How can they possibly survive?

So the very things that attracted you in the beginning, once the honeymoon period is over, and you forget why you got together, the very things that made your relationship beautiful, it becomes a source of stumbling for you. And that's no different in the church. The glue that holds all of this together is the love of Christ.

And when the love of Christ, when the shining upon the cross becomes a side issue, and anything else takes center stage, all of a sudden, all these people that I would have never, ever spent time with becomes the main source of stumbling in the church. See, the early church, that was the problem.

You had people from various backgrounds trying to come together, and if they didn't practice love the way scripture teaches, all of a sudden it's like, Gentile. I have to go into a Gentile home? I have to eat with these people? I'm giving my offering and that's what, they're going to go and help those people?

So that was the early church. It's no different today. Maybe the application may look different, but humanly speaking, this is not supposed to work, right? Because you're not getting paid to do this. You're volunteering to do this. So if we're not careful, we're always in the area, we're one problem or one frustration away from just packing it up and saying, "I'm done with this." That was a problem, but I think it'll help us to understand the real issue, and again, for application, when we realize who these people were, that's number two.

Paul calls these two groups of people that were having conflict as one being weak and the other being strong. Now by saying that, we can already tell where Paul stands. Paul himself in chapter 15, one says, "We who are strong." So he relates himself with the people who are able to eat, who's not making a big deal about the Sabbath, and he calls the other group the weak brother.

So by saying that, we can automatically think, "Then why didn't Paul just step in and say, 'Hey, you weak brothers, you're wrong. It's unbiblical. You need to stop.'" Why does he even try to reconcile and saying, "Do not judge them and get along." You have to understand, Paul is not, when he's calling these people weak, he's not saying that they are morally weak.

He's not saying that they weren't strong Christians. He is simply stating that they were in the period of transitioning from the old and the new covenant, and they need to be patient with them in that period of transition. Now there's two groups of people who would have had issue, in particular with the eating aspect.

1 Corinthians chapter 8 deals with a group of people who used to be idol worshippers. And so they converted and they became Christians. They were in the church, but all the meat that they were eating was coming from the temple where it was offered up to their idol, and then afterwards it was being sold in the marketplace.

So what happened was, when they were eating meat, they were relating the meat eating with idol worship. So it wasn't simply that you had a group of people who were just going, "You know what? I don't care. There's no rules. God loves us anyway. We're going to do whatever we want." Their core motivation wasn't idolatry.

It wasn't licentiousness. It was their intent to stay pure. I think the best way for me to describe this in modern terms is, there are some people, even in this room, who came from a family background where either a father or mother or both maybe had abuse in alcohol.

And as a result of that, your conscience is a lot more sensitive than other people. So just a mention of alcohol causes you to say, "That's wrong." Just mention of it. And anybody even brings up the subject, it's like, "I'm never going to go to a church where they're going to touch alcohol." Because they came from a background where it was being abused.

Understandably, for that person, because of their experience and their background, they're hypersensitive to the issue of alcohol. And then we have some people who grew up in homes where they had godly parents, and they would have meals, and wine was a part of their meal. And it was nothing.

It was part of the meal. So they come to a church, and even the issue of alcohol is strange to them. And they probably never heard of this issue until they came to church, and other people were bothered by it. See, these people who were having this issue with meat, at least the first group of people, it was just bothering their conscience because that was their background.

And they related meat-eating with idol worship. So in the church, he's not talking about just people who are just going out, "You know what? I just want to drink and do whatever I want," and just completely insensitive to the conscience of other people because of their background. And it's immature.

You know, a lot of people misuse this text and other texts to think, "Well, if you're strong, you can drink whatever we want, whenever we want, in front of whoever we want because we're the strong." That's not what he's referring to. To me, that's immaturity because that's a revelation of selfishness.

You're not thinking about the context. You're not thinking about other people. See, that's what Paul is referring to in this text, the first group of people who are having issues because of their conscience, of their background. But the second group of people is probably more prevalent in the early church, who were the converted Jews.

Who were the people who probably had the hardest time making that transition into the Old and the New Covenant? Think carefully about who do you think would have had the hardest time transitioning from the Old and the New Covenant for the Jews? Probably the ones who were the most faithful to the Old Covenant.

You know, we've been studying through the book of Leviticus and how meticulous God was in teaching us about unclean food. How do you become unclean? How do you become clean? And so if you were a faithful Jew, you kept that tediously, every part of it. So the ones who were the most faithful to the law, they were the ones who were probably having the hardest time because Paul says all of that is fulfilled in Christ.

Now this thing that they couldn't touch for hundreds of years, all of a sudden now they're not only touching it, they're eating it. They're breaking bread with other people, sitting with other Gentiles. All this time they thought they were unclean, so they were having a hard time transitioning. He's not talking about a group of people who are just going out and just having fun doing whatever they want.

You want to know who would have had the easiest time accepting the New Covenant? Probably the unfaithful Jews. They didn't take the law seriously anyway. You know, they were probably traveling and going to Gentile worlds and there's no accountability, so they're just eating pork. This is delicious. I don't know why God says this is unclean.

I feel so clean when I eat it. You know, and then all of a sudden Paul says all of that is fulfilled in Christ. It's like, yes! Those weak brothers, they should have some pork and become strong, right? They would have maybe, superficially, had the easiest time transitioning into the New Covenant, but that's not who he's referring to.

And sometimes that happens a lot even in the church. They misinterpret Scripture and they say, "Well, we're going to drink, you know, because we're strong. We're going to do whatever we want because we're strong. Our conscience is clear. And all it is is a revelation of your licentiousness." That's who he's dealing with.

He's not dealing with people who are trying to live ungodly lives and making excuses. In fact, Romans chapter 14, 6, it says, "The one who observes the day observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God." He's saying in both parties, their intent is to honor God.

Their intent is to glorify God, not to make excuses. "Oh, Christian liberty, we're going to do whatever we want." He's not talking about that problem. That's a clear problem of mature and immature, but that's not what we're dealing with here. In fact, the hardest thing to reconcile in the church are two groups of people who are trying to live righteously, but they're not on the same page.

That's who he's dealing with, the weak and the strong. So the weak he's referring to is not talking about somebody who is just living in idolatry, the strong are not the people who've been living for so long and disciplined and know all the scripture. He's just talking about strong as in somebody who's transitioned from the old covenant to the new.

Weak brothers are taking a bit longer to get there. That's who he's referring to. Knowing that's the problem, knowing that these are the people who are involved in this conflict, and if they didn't deal with this well, can you imagine? If they didn't handle this well, it would have easily just split the church between those who are going to eat, those who aren't going to eat.

And they would have been justified, at least in their mind, because they're biblical. One side wants to honor and glorify God, and they can't touch the meat. The other side is saying, "We're going to honor God, so we're going to touch the meat." And so they would have easily had to separate.

So it is in that context he writes this, and he says, "This is what you ought to do." So number three, how are they to deal with this problem? First of all, he says, "We are not to despise or pass judgment on disputable matters and opinions." Verse one. In the NIV, it says, "Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters." He's not saying, "Don't make judgments of any kind." The scripture clearly says, 1 Corinthians 5, 12, 13, "For what have I to do with judging outsiders?

Do I have those inside the church whom we are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you." John 7, 23, "Do not judge by appearance, but judge with right judgment." Don't misunderstand and think, "Therefore," what he is saying is, "We should never say anything bad.

We should never determine anything good or bad. We should never have any opinions about anything." That's not what he's saying at all. He says, "When it comes to matters that are not essential, do not raise the bar." If we're not careful, especially when we're younger, if we're not careful, every issue becomes Martin Luther standing before the Catholic Church.

"Here I stand, and I can do no other." "Here I stand, and I can do no other." So when you have two people who are, "Here we stand, we can do no other," and they can't reconcile, and it's almost like there's a Reformation every two months. Everybody is like, "Reformation!

We have to! It has to be this way!" So he's talking about there are appropriate times when Reformation may need to take place, but he says, "When it comes to non-essentials, on disputable matters, on the things of opinion," he says, "Do not be strong. Do not oppose. Do not judge." That's the first principle that he gives us.

It doesn't mean that we don't have opinions on non-essentials. We all do. If I ask you what your thoughts on drinking is, I'll probably get all different kinds of views on this. On what you should do on Sunday, what you can and cannot do on Sunday, how you should spend your life, where you spend your money, what kind of house you buy.

Everybody has opinions about something. How should we dress on Sunday? What should I say? What should I not say? We all have opinions. He's not saying don't have opinions. He's saying don't be divided over these opinions. Don't make every opinion into a Martin Luther King moment. Not King, Martin Luther moment.

I don't know why I said King. I meant King Jesus. That's what I meant. But secondly, he says we are called to accept and welcome one another. To accept and welcome one another. When we read that in English, it just sounds like, "Welcome them," or "Accept them," "Tolerate them." That word for accepting the Greek is far beyond that word just to tolerate.

Because, again, if we're not careful, initially we get together as a church, and that honeymoon period of, "Yeah, we're going to do this, and we're sacrificing, and we just love the fellowship of the church." I remember earlier part of our church, we were known as the loiterers. Some of you guys know what I'm talking about.

We were known as the loiterers because whenever we got together, nobody went home, ever. Almost to the point where their parents probably would have gotten concerned. We actually went to another church to prep for mission work, and then their church locked up and went home, and we were still at their church.

They asked us, "Can you lock up when you go home?" Those of you guys who've been here a long time, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Our church was Berean loitering church because we would get together, and we would never go home. Part of the reason why is because everybody just loved each other's company.

We wanted to be together. It had nothing to do with being extrovert or introvert. We just loved being together. But again, the danger, and if we're not careful, we get to a point where all we're doing is just tolerating each other. We're tolerating ... At a church our size, you can avoid certain people if you want.

I don't mind having Sunday worship together, but don't put me in their small group. You never say it out loud. I just get emails. People who aren't laughing are the ones who sent it. I say that because it is that common. We can get into a church, and it's not just a few.

It's all of us. All of us can get to a point, once the honeymoon is over, and say, "You know what? I'm okay with these people. These people I love. These people I'm okay with. These people I tolerate." And they'll say, "Well, these people I hate." You're not going to say that because you're Christian.

It's just to accept. The word for accept here is a much deeper and broader word than what we would think in English. John Stott, I'm just going to read this to you, he explains about this word. He says, "Accept means more than to accept people in the sense of acquiescing in their existence, even in their right to belong, more even than to receive or accept in one's society, in one's home or circle of acquaintance.

It means to welcome into one's fellowship and into one's heart. It implies the warmth and kindness of genuine love. Thus it is used in the New Testament of Philemon giving to Onesimus the same welcome that he would give to the apostle." It's not just putting up together. Like, "I'll tolerate these people because I'm a Christian." The scripture says that we are identified as Christians because we practice the love Jesus practiced on us.

Not simply, he didn't just tolerate us, he didn't just allow us to come to church. He sacrificed his only begotten son and he adopted us. And now he calls us to enter his gates with thanksgiving. He wants us to come. "Well, you don't know what I've done this week." That's why Jesus came.

We have the communion table to remind us that it's not by your righteousness but by his grace, by his blood. He didn't just tolerate us. He covered us, washed us with his blood to make us his own children. He calls us, again, on the non-essentials to learn to be gracious with one another and to actually go further than that and to pursue love with one another.

That's what the word "accept" means. Why is this so important? Why does he tell us that this is something that we must do? Simply because that's what he did for us. In Romans 15, he makes it clear, "Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God." He welcomed us.

That word "welcome" here is the same word "welcome" here, "accept," because he loved us first. He pursued us. In fact, again, as John Stott mentions this word, Philemon 12.17, Paul says to the former slave owner, "I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart." He says he's not just saying, "You know what?

You need to reconcile. You need to forgive him." He says, "No, I'm sending my very heart." Paul is writing this letter as an apostle with the full authority that he has. He says, "I can easily command you to do this. I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ. Your salvation came because I preached the gospel to you, so I can command this to you.

But I'm not going to command this to you because I want you to practice the grace that God practiced with us. And I'm going to give you an opportunity to love him as we've been loved by the blood of Christ." And so he says, "What I'm sending to you, he's not just an ex-slave.

He's not just a Christian. He's my very heart that I'm sending to you." And he says, "So if you consider me your partner, receive him." That same word. Same word Paul uses here in chapter 14. "Receive him as you would receive me." That's the idea. That when you receive him, you're receiving Paul.

When you receive Paul, you're receiving who? Jesus. Welcome him and love him as you would love Christ. Remember Luke chapter 15? When Jesus was being rebuked by the Pharisees, "Why are you hanging around? Why are you tolerating these sinners?" Jesus turns the table on them and he gives these three parables.

Parable of the sheep, parable of the lost coin, parable of the lost son. And each one of these parables highlighting the preciousness of each one of these lost souls. He turns the table on them. You're asking me why I'm tolerating them, but I'm asking you, why do you not join me in pursuing them?

Do you not know that this is God's heart? God has made it very plain that he does not rejoice in the judgment of the wicked. And his whole purpose of everything that he did in the Old Testament was to prepare for the coming of Christ to pursue sinners. So why do you not understand what I am doing?

Zechariah chapter 2 verse 8, it says, "For thus said the Lord of hosts, 'After this glory sent me to the nations who plundered you, for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye.'" You know, I've done so much research on this, on the history of this word and where it came from.

Ultimately, basically the apple of his eye is just simple. You know, the black part of your eye, in the Hebrew it doesn't actually use the word apple, it just means the core of your eye, right? It basically means like, God loves his children like we would all love the apple of our eyes.

So basically the imagery is, if you were standing close to me and I just poked my hand, you're natural instinct isn't going to be… Your natural instinct is going to be flinching, right? If you play softball, a ball comes near you, your immediate reaction is to have the glove to protect it.

So that's the imagery that God is using, that he protects his children like the apple of his own eyes. In other words, he's talking about the depth of his love for his children. Now what I think you and I need to understand is when we talk about the love of Christ, we kind of love of it, talk about it in a generic sense, in love for the world, and maybe even love for the church.

When's the last time you really understood that he loves you? You. Not your family, not this church, not this generation, but you. And I always heard, you know, ever since I became a Christian, you know, God loves you, he counts the hairs on your head, and it's all great in theology.

But when you come to that conviction that God has his eyes on you, to that extent, you, he cares. Like how much? To send his only begotten son. He cares. He cares that you're lonely. He cares that you're hurting. He cares that you're suffering. He cares about all of that.

And he doesn't just care about the church in general, he cares about you. We are a collection of people who are the apple of his eyes. And so basically what he's saying is, see each other as people that he loves. So we act very differently with people that we care about.

We are a lot more gracious to people that we care about. We're a lot less eager to expose each other's sins if we care about them. And so that's what Paul is saying, these are God's servants. God's going to, if there's anything to deal with them, God's going to deal with them.

Let God see their hearts. But as far as we're concerned, we are sinners who've been saved by the grace of God. Isaiah chapter 49, verse 15 and 16, it says, "Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she would have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.

Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me." When you want to make sure that you don't forget something, oftentimes you write it on your hands. Because you don't want to forget, it's too important. Anniversary is coming up. You screwed up last year.

You don't want to do this again. You didn't like how it felt. You wrote it on your hands, right? It's coming up. You dummy, don't do this again. You put it on your hands so that while you're doing things, you forget and you're doing something, oh shoot, so you don't forget.

You don't write important things on the back of your neck, right? You don't put it on the heel of your foot, right? If it's important enough, you want to be able to see it all the time. That's exactly how he's describing his people. How much he cares and loves them.

He's an apple of his eyes and he hasn't written on the palm of his hands. In other words, he will never forget. You think the God who sent his only begotten son, that even for a moment would forget the people that he died for? Even for a second, they would slip his mind and say, "Oh, I forgot.

I forgot about him. I forgot about her." See, he says the motivation behind why we ought to be gracious is because God loves them. It's his children. It's his servants. Recognize who we are in the eyes of God. Because once that is restored, we act different. The church is such a gift.

Everything we do is better together. You remember the early part of the church when somebody got married? The whole church acted like they were getting married. You know what I mean? We had so many problems in the early church when they were getting married because everybody acted like it was their wedding.

They all had opinions about what flowers to get and what you should eat. It was causing problems. I had to sit down and say, "Hey, knock it off. You're making people feel bad." Because they were so engaged. Because we were so happy. Got together and then no one left.

We were loiterers anyway. No one left. They stayed until the couple left. I mean, it was just such a gift. People are hurting. Immediately we knew. Their phone call is going. It is such a gift that God has given us when we recognize what we have. It's one thing to worship by yourself.

It's another thing to worship together. It's one thing to pray by yourself. It's another thing to pray together. It's one thing to evangelize by yourself. It's another thing to evangelize together. That all of these things that God has given us as a gift that we may enjoy each other's company, but once we take our eyes off of Christ and the glue that keeps us together is no longer taking center stage of our fellowship, then the very things that God has given us to enjoy, we just tolerate.

Tolerate the fellowship, tolerate the diversity, tolerate the gathering, and we just bear through it and something that is a source of joy becomes a source of agony and annoyance. This is why Paul calls us to this issue. And that's why he keeps pounding over and over again. Do not forget what it is that you have in Christ.

Keep your eyes upon Christ. He's the author and the perfect of our faith. See if when you fall in love with Christ and what he has done for you, take center stage in all your motivation, all your thoughts, and all your dreams, and all your hopes, see if that doesn't change your perspective on how you see other people because it does.

When our hearts begin to stray toward things that aren't essential and our hearts are celebrating the things that we sing about and that's the center thing that we're pursuing, see if that doesn't change the fellowship. See if that doesn't change the people that you see around you because it does.

And that's exactly what salvation is about. If the core of the fall of man resulted in a strain in relationship between husband and wife and any other relationship, then the core of restoration is to restore that in the love of Christ. Would you take some time to pray with me as our worship team comes up?

And again, as we take some time to pray and to worship before God, and I know in this room there's all kinds of different wrestlings and struggles and you have family members who are in dire situations, you have relational strains, you have all kinds of things that you have background in, but let this, for this moment, let's put that aside for today and to really fix our eyes upon Christ and what he means to me.

Remember the preciousness of the gift that you've been given, that you are a precious child of God and the people that you are sitting with are also precious children of God that he loves. That God would give us that perspective, that we're not talking about strangers, we're not talking about just people, we're talking about our brothers and our sisters in Christ, that God would give us the love that is necessary to build a church that honors him.

So let's take some time to pray as our worship team leads us.