Well, I’d like to read some Bible verses in Romans, starting in Romans 12. Today we’re going to go from Romans 12 to the end of Romans 16. I’m going to talk very fast.
The translator looks nervous in the back.
In Romans 12, I want to read verses 2 through 5.
And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
For I say, through the grace which has been given to me, to every one that is among you, not to have high thoughts above what he should think, but to think so as to be wise, as God has dealt to each a measure of faith.
For as in one body we all have many members, but all the members have not the same office.
Thus we, being many, are one body in Christ, and each one members one of the other.
Then turn to Romans 13, and we’ll just read verse 1.
Let every soul be subject to the authorities that are above him. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist are set up by God.
Then, lastly, Romans 15:7.
Wherefore, receive ye one another, according as the Christ also has received you, to the glory of God.
Let’s pray together.
Dear Lord, we’re joyful this morning to be together with Your people, to be together in Your presence, to worship You together, and to lift our eyes away from all other things except for You. We just declare Your glory. You are the glorious One.
You are our Lord. You have risen, been exalted, and are seated at the right hand. We just worship You together. Thank You that we can have this time together, looking in Your Word.
We want to hear from You. We want to share Your heart with You. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Well, the way that we’re able to go through all of these chapters together today is because our approach is different than a Bible study. As we’ve been going through Romans, we’ve been taking a different look at it.
Actually, we’ve been trying to be a friend of the apostle Paul, sort of like Tertius, the guy who’s writing it out as Paul dictates, or the people in Gaius’s house, or the other saints around there, like the steward of the city and so on. There are some people there while Paul is writing this letter to the Romans. At the end, in Romans 16, he talks about that.
So we’ve actually been going through Romans not so much detail by detail, giving interpretations of every spot. We’re trying to see why he shares the way he shares. We’ve been looking at preaching the gospel, watching this master gospel preacher share his longest gospel message, the letter to the Romans.
This is his masterpiece of the gospel. What we’ve been doing is looking at why he shares the way he shares—what he’s sharing, but also what’s behind the scenes with it all. Today, that’s what we’re going to do when we go through these chapters.
We actually need to see things a little differently. Some have gotten upset at different times afterward. They talked to me and said, “You didn’t talk about this verse or that verse.” This time it will be the same way, because there are a lot of golden nuggets in here.
There are a lot of things. A whole message can be shared on half of a verse, or a series, and so on. But what we want to do is get a panoramic view instead. We’re trying not to be so detailed.
You notice I’m wearing my glasses right now. When I wear my glasses, I can see everyone’s expression. I can see when you’re falling asleep. I can see who’s upset at what I just said and who’s happy. I can see everything.
I can see who forgot to wipe off their mouth or something when they ate breakfast. I’m amazed at what I can see when I wear my glasses.
But when I take them off, everybody’s smiling. Everybody’s enjoying the message. I feel like everybody’s with me. So usually I don’t preach with glasses on.
That’s kind of the way we want to do it. We want to sort of take our glasses off. Don’t see too many details so that you can’t see the bigger picture.
Right now, I see a lot of Christians. I see the saints. I see that there’s a bunch of us. When I put on my glasses, I might notice somebody’s shirt color. I’m too detailed, too specific almost.
Actually, both things are pretty good. You notice my glasses are pretty skinny, so I can go like this and this. It’s the same when you’re driving. It’s good to wear your glasses when you drive, if you have prescription glasses.
But when you first start driving, maybe you notice too many details. You notice the bumper stickers in front of you, like the one that says, “If you can read this, you’re too close.” That’s dangerous.
You have to get a feel for the panoramic view while you’re driving. You can see where everything is. You see what’s ahead. Then you can look at some details and so on.
That’s what we want to do. We want to look at it all as a whole.
As we’ve been going through Romans, looking at preaching the gospel, first we talked about the preacher of the gospel at the beginning of it. We talked about what he’s preaching—what the gospel is.
Then we talked about the provision of the gospel, both for sinners and for saints. Then we talked about the purpose and plan of the gospel, especially to do with individuals: how God is working all these things sovereignly, using man’s choosing but also God’s working behind the scenes, conforming us to the image of Christ.
But now, in Romans 12 through 16, we are looking at the product of the gospel. We talked about this last time, and today is part two.
What is the good news producing? When the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ is going forth, what is God making out of all this? People are being saved. The saved ones are being matured—fully saved. But out of all of this, the Lord is combining everything together and building something. He’s building His church.
Last time, one thing to remember—because probably half of you weren’t there—is that we said, many bodies equal one body. That was our formula in Romans 12.
We spent the whole time in Romans 12, and we looked at the beginning of the chapter. There were many bodies being offered up in consecration: “Offer up your bodies as living sacrifices.” Each one of us individually has to willingly give our lives over to the Lord. We each have our own body.
But when all these many bodies are put together, when we give our lives over to the Lord, He takes us and turns us into one body. This is the church. Many consecrated bodies get to experience the one body of the church.
This is essential for what we’re talking about today. With the church, God is taking those who are willing—those of us who are willing to serve the Lord—and putting us in a place in the church.
For us who have been redeemed, who have been saved, who have received the good news, He has something in mind: to build us together and mature us all together.
My burden today is that we would be burdened with the burden of the Lord. That’s actually what’s on my heart.
I feel like, when you watch this gospel preacher, Paul, he has an overarching burden of the gospel that’s very big. It’s so big that it’s not merely to do with one individual soul. He’s burdened for the church.
When he preached the gospel on his first missionary journey, many souls were saved in different cities. But because his main burden was for the Lord’s house, he went back on a second journey to establish the churches.
We would say that a gospel preacher shouldn’t spend so much time on the churches. He should be out talking with unbelievers. But it’s just not true. The burden of the apostle Paul was that churches would be raised up. His burden was for the Lord’s house.
I hope, as we go through some of this and watch how he shares, that our minds can be changed. We can take hold of what is on the Lord’s heart, and it would be on our hearts.
We’re going to pretend today that all of us are fully consecrated in the room. It may be true; it may not be. I’m not mainly beseeching us to be consecrated today.
We’re going to pretend all of us have responded to the good news. We all love the Lord. We all love His people. Instead of trying to help us get to that point, what we want to look at is this: we who want to serve the Lord, we who have given our lives to serve the Lord—what does He want?
What is He after? What is His burden? What is on God’s heart? What is the end result of the gospel?
The gospel is preached to sinners, and they get saved. Then the gospel is preached to saints also, because the good news is very full. The salvation that the Lord has provided for us is very thorough.
But the end result—even though we have passion for souls, even though we have such care for the saints individually—is that we need to step back, squint our eyes some, and see the bigger picture: God is after the church.
Not only is He after the glorious church in the very end, which He is going to make no matter what. If we only talk about that, most of us will sit back in our Lazy Boy chairs and relax because we feel like it’s going to happen no matter what.
Whether we go through fire now or later, somehow we’re all going to get there. We’re all going to be nice, and heaven’s going to be built. The New Jerusalem is going to happen.
But what about what is on God’s heart right now? In this city, or in different cities around, He wants there to be a taste of the New Jerusalem here and now.
The Lord’s burden for the church is in time, is with us, and is something for us to share with Him right now.
In Romans, at the very end, there are two things shared after Romans 12. These can stand alone; we can have messages on them. But I want to look at why Paul shares what he shares.
Romans 13 is basically about authority and submission. Romans 14 and part of Romans 15, down to verse 7, talks about receiving one another.
In the church that God is after—in the experiential church, in time right now, the local church—there are always two underlying principles, or foundational necessities.
One is the headship of Christ. Christ must be Head over His body. The second is the oneness of the body of Christ. The body of Christ is one; it should not be divided.
Even though in this letter to the Romans the apostle Paul is not mainly giving a teaching about the church, he is sharing specific things to help lead the saints into the experience of the church.
He is not talking about the headship of Christ in theory, but asking, “How do you experience the headship of Christ in the local assembly, in time right now?” He is not just saying that the body of Christ is one in fact—by definition, the body of Christ is not cut up or divided—but asking, “How do we actually experience that right now?”
This gospel preacher shares these things because he has in mind his overall burden: that in Rome they would experience the church, that the church would mature, and that there would be the testimony of the church.
In sharing this, he goes into authority and submission, and he also goes into receiving one another as God has received us.
There is sometimes a problem with terminology. Some things may come out today that sound strange. For example, I don’t know how many of you have a hard time when somebody talks about “going to church.”
Sometimes somebody will pick on you if you say, “I’m going to church.” They say, “How are you going to church? You’re part of the church. You are the church. Where are you going to go?”
But I think, in experience, some people go to church, and some people be the church.
If you don’t church it that much—if daily you are not given to what the Lord is after—then once a week maybe you go to church. When you get there, all of a sudden there’s the church. But the rest of your life, you live apart from what the Lord is after. You’re living your own life.
So probably the phrase is actually pretty true. You’re not doing much experiential church the rest of the time, and then you go, and suddenly you went to church. When you get there, you may have the experience of the church sometimes, or sometimes you just hear a message and hope that it is helpful for you.
When our minds start changing, after consecration, Romans 12 says, “Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Your mind gets renewed, and then you can discern God’s will. You can discern this perfect, good, excellent will of God.
As our minds are changed, we start to see that being in the church is all the time. This is my whole life. This is not something where I go to church. This is something where I need to be my part in the body of Christ.
I’m one of the body parts, whichever one—however I fit in. I might not even know, but I have my part in the body of Christ. I’m here to be the church.
I hope, as we look through these things, we can share with the Lord a new mindset. We have to think completely differently.
In the world, we think mainly of ourselves. Before we’re saved, we think of how to get out of hell. We think of how to be saved, or whatever our case is. There may be different ways that we come to Christ, but mainly it is to do with us.
Then, after we are newly saved, maybe a major thing we are interested in is overcoming sins, overcoming the flesh, and seeing what provision there is in the gospel for us to live the Christian life.
This is not wrong, but underneath all of that needs to be a bigger aspect—a bigger burden on our hearts—which is that the Lord, together with all the many saints, would get what He is after: the church.
These two aspects of the experience of the church—the headship of Christ and the oneness of the body of Christ—are found throughout the Scriptures. We can even see them in Romans 12.
When all the bodies come and consecrate themselves, there is the experience of the headship of Christ, in that He is Lord. Him being Head means He is in charge. He is the Head of the body. He is in charge of everything.
Then, as He makes all those parts into one body, there is the oneness of the body of Christ. Romans 12 says that we, being many, are one body.
Later it talks about gifts, and gifts have more to do with the headship of Christ, because He, as the Leader and as the Lord, puts us in our place. He directs us to be more usable or more specifically used in a certain area.
But in another way, it talks about grace. All of us have the same grace. All of us have the same life. All of us in the body of Christ have one Spirit.
These things are found in other obvious places, such as Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4 has two phrases that stand out: the unity of the Spirit and the unity of the faith.
The unity of the Spirit is like the oneness of the body of Christ. Ephesians 4 begins by saying that we need to hold on to this unity of the Spirit diligently and patiently with each other, suffering with each other because we are all in different places, but we need to stick together.
How are we unified? By the Spirit, by the Holy Spirit. It talks about this sevenfold oneness: one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God. All of us have these ones together. We are all unified.
No matter what, no matter where we come from, no matter how we look, we are all one.
But then in Ephesians 4, according to the second principle of the church, there is the unity of the faith. The unity of the faith is not just talking about faith when we first believe, but it is called the faith.
It talks about maturing and growing up to the Head. Basically, the body is maturing and growing up to arrive at the unity of the faith. We are not there yet, but this has to do with the headship of Christ.
He is leading us, maturing us, directing us, cutting down things that are not of Christ, and raising up things that are of Christ. This unity of the faith needs to be where we are pointed.
These things have to go together. If you have a group of saints just keeping the unity of the Spirit, with no thought of maturing together, it is a mess, and eventually we will divide up—even though we try so hard to stick together.
Everybody is at different places, but without any sense of His leading us forward into something else, we cannot really experience the church.
But also, if we just try to have the unity of the faith—if we only try to have the most exact teaching of God, the most exact experience of God, and the fullest maturity we can think of—we cut out a lot of other people. Probably we are also wrong in some areas. We limit ourselves.
We need two things together as we go on together to mature. It is like a tunnel that we are in, but the tunnel has an end in view. The end is that we are going to arrive at the unity of the faith.
But as we travel in this tunnel, while we are all on the same train, this is the tunnel of the unity of the Spirit. We are traveling along altogether. We have to stick together. Don’t let anybody jump off the train.
We are going to arrive there eventually, even though some think different ways and some practice different ways. We stick together because we are one by the Holy Spirit.
In Romans 13, when it talks about authority, we want to look at this in the light of the headship of Christ. We want to experience the headship of Christ in the church, in the local church.
Then, in Romans 14 and the first part of Romans 15, it talks about receiving one another. We want to look at that in the light of the body of Christ as one. This is our experience of it.
Romans 13 says, “Let every soul”—every one of us—“be subject to the authorities that are above.” This is important: “There is no authority except from God. Those that exist are set up by God.”
This is applicable to everything. In your family, there is authority set up by God. At school, at work, and in society, there are governments and so on. Paul uses some examples from life in this chapter, but if you catch the principle, it touches into the church experience.
In the church, there is authority from God. Whether it is recognized authority or spiritual authority, there is something there. But what we want to look at behind it is that all authority comes from God.
Remember, in the church, Christ is the Head of the church. With Him as the Head, when we who have given our lives to the Lord begin to participate in the church, we begin to do things. You can say we function. You can say we are churching it. We are involved with the saints.
It can be that you come to the breaking of bread and share a song, a Scripture, or something like that. Or you go to a Bible study and share something from the Word. At a prayer meeting, you are praying. Or you are spending time with the saints.
But as this goes on, one of the first things we run into in the church is authority. I am not just talking about recognized leadership. It may be things that are more mature than us, perhaps some spiritual authority.
Say I come and share something, and it is off. Somebody comes up and corrects me. Or I call out a song, but somebody lets me know that that lullaby song is inappropriate at the breaking of bread.
When we serve in the house of God, this only applies if we are actually consecrated and doing this. If you are not doing this, it does not apply that much, because you go, you do not talk, nobody notices you, maybe you say amen, and then you go back home.
But if you are actually doing things, you are going to run into—not necessarily walls—but some correction, because we are not perfect yet. As we are doing things, we run into some correction.
We have to look behind it. We have to see that Christ is the Head, and He uses other saints to show us and mature us. Remember, He is leading us to the unity of the faith. If we are not willing to learn, how can He be in charge?
It is a different mindset. Normally, our mindset as human beings in this world is very proud and very rebellious. We do not like to be corrected. None of us does naturally.
Even if you are a very outwardly humble person, one reason you are so quiet and humble may be because you hate to get corrected.
But rebellion, a non-submissive attitude, started with Satan. When pride rose up in him, he rebelled against God. The root of rebellion—the beginning of it—came from Satan in his rebellion against God.
The way of God is never with rebellion. Even if someone who is correcting you, or some authority in whatever case, is a little wrong or a little off, we can still be submissive about it.
Even if somebody is asking you to sin, you can still submissively disobey. The attitude of rebellion is always what is wrong.
Some of the apostles were asked not to preach about the Lord Jesus, and they said, “We have to obey God.” But they did it submissively. They got whipped, but they submissively took their beating, and they went away rejoicing.
In the church, you do not get whipped physically—usually. But sometimes we get in trouble. Sometimes somebody corrects us.
What takes the sting out of it, or what actually helps us, is if we look to the Lord and say, “Lord, teach me through this.”
Even sometimes somebody might be halfway wrong, but is half of it right? Even if they are completely wrong, we are learning to be submissive. We are learning at least to be meek. We are learning at least how not to rebel.
No matter what, if we are so rebellious and so proud, we will not make it. Even if someone else is wrong, then we are wrong as well.
When we are practicing the church experience, to have this product of the gospel—to have the experience of the church—there must be this aspect going on where we are helping each other to mature.
When it says, “If your brother sins against you, go to your brother,” this is a hard thing to do on the other side of it. If you are the one who sees it, you are praying for somebody, and the Lord is leading you to go and talk to them about what they are doing—maybe something they did, or even a way they are living their life.
If the Lord gives it to you, then go in a gentle way and help your brother. We really need this help.
If all of us close our eyes all the time and never correct each other, it will be very sad. A lot of sins will keep going on, and a lot of mistakes will keep going on. We will never arrive.
Also, it cuts off the Head. If the Head is showing somebody who is more mature to help another person, we should be faithful. We need to help each other.
There is also, in a more mature church, recognized leadership. When Paul went through on his second journey, he also laid hands on elders. But before that, some had been raised up; they were already acting that way, and they were experiencing the church.
There are a few reasons why we have a need for recognized leadership. One is because a lot of us will not recognize spiritual authority. We will not recognize when somebody is sharing something from the Lord. We will not recognize when somebody is more mature than us.
We do not always catch it, especially maybe as a new believer, or if someone comes in with a different background and many different opinions. In this way, it helps very much that there is some recognized leadership. God uses this.
But the way in the Scriptures is that even recognized leadership is always a group. If you look through and search the Scriptures, with the elders there is always an eldership.
This has to do with the headship of Christ. The reason there is a group of elders in every church listed in the Scriptures is that you never find an elder of elders. You never find one man—a priest, pastor, or minister—by himself being in charge of the local church.
The reason we never find this is that it is contrary to the headship of Christ. If Christ is Head of the church, He is the Leader of the church. If you have one man set up as the leader of the church, it cuts off that experience that Christ is the Head.
But imagine if you have a group of men having to seek the one Leader, having to seek Christ together for the general direction of the local assembly. Then they are more like a neck, but not a head.
There is some direct leadership through recognized leaders, but His headship is maintained. He is in charge of His church. He will not let anyone else have this.
Why am I getting into this? In Christianity right now, we have morphed into something different that hinders us from experiencing the church.
The experience of the church needs to have Christ as the Head. If He is not the One in charge, we cannot experience what He is after. He does not get what He is after.
Even though we may say it is much easier to have one person in charge, we are here for the Lord. What the Lord wants is that He would be in charge.
If we are somewhere—some people move for jobs, some people move for college, or other things like this—and we seek to gather with Christians, one thing that will hinder our experience of the church is when one man is in charge.
Some individuals love to rise up to the top and be the one in charge. This is one reason why the church is so divided right now. This is one reason why we are so much of a mess.
It takes a lot of suffering, even among leaders, to stick together. Imagine if you are trying to lead on together and you have different thoughts and different understandings. It is difficult.
There is a lot of submitting to one another, a lot of patience, and a lot of waiting. We should pray for those who are in this type of leadership, that they can hear from the Head and that they can stick together.
This is a big deal in our experience of the church.
My prayer is that we could be caught with what the Lord wants for His church locally.
I am not trying to thoroughly go into all the ways of authority, leadership, and submitting. Actually, take a step back and look at it. See that what God wants is to be Head over the church.
Each of us individually responds to Him directly, but each of us also discovers the lordship of Christ through other Christians. When someone comes to us—maybe more mature, or maybe they have something from the Lord—we can receive it because we know that He is the Head, and He is leading that body part to help us.
He is leading this Christian to help us and to mature us. If we do not see Him as the Head, and if we are not given to Him as the Head, we will get upset when people come to us and talk to us about things.
But if all of us were willing and given to serve the Lord, it would make a major difference in the experience of Christians. It would be an experience of quicker maturing. I think we would mature very, very fast.
Most of the things that hold us back are that we are tense. You share with somebody, and they are upset at you. Then we are afraid to share with each other.
But if we are willing to look behind the scenes, there is no authority except from God. God has established the concept of authority. Even if the person exercising authority can sometimes be wrong, the concept of authority is right.
The concept of submitting to authority is always right. The concept of rebellion is always wrong. If we look behind it and see that Christ is the Head—God is God, and He is the one authority—then we can understand every type of authority we experience.
My little sister, my dad, and my parents went to a church meeting. In the parking lot there were police officers who were also going in. They were parked next to us and getting out of their cars, and she yelled, “Daddy, it’s the police! Daddy, it’s the police!”
She was so scared. Why are we so scared of the police? I’ll tell you why we are so scared, because I used to be very scared of the police. Every time I would see them while I was driving, my heart would start pounding. I would look at the speedometer and start to get nervous.
Why am I so scared? Authority has its place when we are breaking the law. We are scared because we are wrong.
If you always stop at the stop sign, if you always go roughly the speed limit, or the speed limit or below, if you are always a law-abiding citizen, you are kind of glad when you see a police officer.
I was walking deep downtown in Richmond, in a decently dangerous area, with another person. That was Sam and me, actually. One street we went on, we should not have gone on.
We had prayed together that we could find some people to share with, and we did on our way through. But one street we went on was completely dangerous for a guy like me to walk on.
As we walked on, though, we were so glad that there were six police cars on the street. We loved authority that night. We were so glad.
Many people on the street were upset about those police cars being there. There was a big bust or something. But we walked around joyfully, thanking the Lord for the police officers being there.
It is like that in the church. When we see that authority is a good thing and rebellion is the bad thing, we can take joy even when we get corrected, even when we have some limitations.
We can be limited in the way that we serve. This is not a problem, because there is no limitation to the life of Christ.
If the life of Christ is leading you one way, even if it is good and you get limited, it is not a problem. The life of Christ does something else. Life just explodes. It breaks through concrete, like trees that break through your driveway.
The roots can break through. Any time there is life, it will break through. If there is a hindrance, it can go around. Nothing can stop it.
My point is that nothing can stop us from expressing Christ. Nothing will stop you from that, even if you have limitations in the way you are serving. This is a good thing. This is actually an expression of the headship of Christ.
To go on together, we cannot have a free-for-all where we reject every concept of leadership, and when anyone wants to correct us, we say, “Don’t judge me.” We cannot be so nervous like this, or else we will never mature.
We will never experience the Head leading the body on into maturity. The body needs to grow up and needs to go together.
Here in Richmond, this needs to be our experience. If we are actually active, we are going to run into different saints helping us—correcting us, or whatever. Hopefully they do it in love.
Sometimes it is not in love. When it is not in love, and when it is very bothersome at first, just look to the Lord prayerfully, asking, “Lord, is there something true about this?”
Then do not judge those who are judging you. Otherwise, you are judging them, and then we are all judged. This is a problem.
Now, grab hold of this principle: the headship of Christ. The next thing, in Romans 14, begins, “Him that is weak in the faith receive, not to the determining of questions of reasoning.”
We also read Romans 15:7, which says, “Wherefore, receive ye one another, according as the Christ also has received you to the glory of God.”
Here, let’s talk about the oneness of the body of Christ. This is our church experience in time, today. The church means our daily living during the week, the times we spend with each other, and the times we are by ourselves.
To experience the church, we have to receive whoever the Lord receives. The question of who belongs in the church of the Lord is answered this way: whoever belongs to the Lord belongs to the church.
The question we have to ask when a person comes is not what understanding they have on certain teachings: “Do you believe this? Do you believe this? Do you believe this?” Nor is it about certain experiences they have, except for one experience: have they been born again? Has the Lord received them?
Many people are received by the Lord, but they look funny, have strange backgrounds, and have strange ideas. But the Lord has received them.
When it comes to belonging to the church, whoever belongs to the Lord belongs to the church. How big is your church? How big is the church in Richmond? It is everyone who belongs to the Lord. Who do we receive? We receive everyone.
In practice, though, this is harder than it sounds. Paul gives some examples. One example probably does not apply much to us: people who do not want to eat meat and people who do eat meat, doing this religiously.
Back in that time—and even now in Israel—this can be a problem when Jews and Gentiles with different backgrounds are in the church together. Some people are faithfully keeping biblical kosher unto the Lord. They will not eat unclean meat. Some people will not eat any kind of meat because they are bothered if somebody kills a cow. It becomes a conviction.
Paul says, “Him that is weak in the faith.” Even when somebody is confused on an issue, weak in the faith means there is a misunderstanding in your conscience—a misunderstanding in your mind that affects your conscience.
Then you get convicted about things that you should not get convicted about. Say somebody is convicted about eating meat. They should not be convicted about it. In this chapter, Paul says it is okay to eat any kind of meat.
But the point is not merely that. The point is: how are you going to live together as Christians who see differently? How do we stick together?
We do not judge each other. We love each other. Sometimes we even lose our own rights for the sake of others.
We experienced this some in Lexington. When we were breaking bread, someone who came was a vegetarian by conviction. When we ate on Sundays, if we had soup, we always made sure there was vegetable soup too.
The Lord had received her, so we received her. It does not mean we have to shy away from the truth, but it does mean we can make provision.
If you are having someone over for dinner and they are very much against eating pig, why do you need to cook pig that night? You might as well not do that.
Another issue Paul brings out is the Sabbath. Some were keeping one day, like a Sabbath, with a conviction from the Lord, and some were esteeming every day the same.
This may be more applicable in our time. In America, at least, there are some who keep one day special above other days. They might not keep the Sabbath on Saturday, but they may do something for Sunday. Others do not do this.
We probably have some meeting here who have different ideas on this concept, but it does not divide us up. We still stick together.
When we can avoid offending another person, we try not to offend them. We will even lose our own privileges at times for their sake.
Another similar thing, especially in the South, is alcohol. This is an issue Christians see very differently.
Some are very convicted about not having a touch of alcohol because of teachings or experiences. Others understand from the Scriptures that they are free to drink alcohol but not to get drunk. Maybe this is their understanding.
I have been in places where one person was making fun of another person who had a different understanding. It is shameful, even though you may have a freedom or have more understanding.
The Lord receives this believer. Out of love, we do not need to pick at the differences. We do not even need to expose them.
The Lord is able to make us stand. Who are we to judge the servant of another? These believers are the Lord’s servants. They belong to Him.
Even though you might see something further or more advanced, if you judge them, you are in the wrong in that case.
Sometimes the question is asked, “Why don’t we have a statement of beliefs? Why don’t we have a doctrinal statement?”
According to this Scripture, “Receive one another, not to the determining of questions of reasoning.” One reason why a group of believers, in order to maintain the unity of the Spirit, may not have a list of twenty teachings that everyone meeting there has to agree to is because it locks out those who are confused.
Wrong teachings should not be allowed to be preached. There should be some filtering, because there is the headship of Christ. We are maturing. We are going on. We are growing up to the Head.
When someone is teaching something incorrect or going around spreading some wrong thing, that should be dealt with. But if the person themselves is confused, can they come and break bread with us? Yes. Are they received? Yes.
Even though there is some different understanding, when there is a list of teachings—“We all believe these twenty teachings”—we become a club that understands this much.
How far do you go with your teachings? The more you mature, the more you should add to your statement of faith.
You cannot say there are only so many core things that must be there if you are born again, because people have been born again who are very confused. You can get saved and be totally lost on everything about the Lord, but somehow you met Christ, got saved, had your sins forgiven, and repented.
We should not lock other people out for the sake of understanding. This is why we have a very open breaking of bread.
At the same time, we do not want to allow wolves to come in seeking whom they can devour, teaching corrupt things and so on.
With this concept—receive one another as the Lord has received us—when we start serving in the church, we are going to run into the problem that believers do not see the same way. Naturally, it is going to bother us.
But if we see it as the Lord sees, if we see the oneness of the body of Christ, I believe the love of Christ will shine through, and we will be able to go on together.
It may mean we go a lot slower than normal. It may mean that we suffer a lot. It may mean that, as a company, we are a little slow. But we are going together.
I want to express that the main thing that matters, that the Lord is after, is this experience of the church.
Some of you may know my story of church experience, but I will share it for those who do not. As a zealous young Christian, I saw the passion for souls. All I cared about was whether someone could be snatched out of hell and into the kingdom of light.
In Christianity, when you have some zeal, you are immediately promoted, because maybe most of us do not have zeal. I was involved at a megachurch. They were training me to be a youth pastor there, and I was involved at a smaller denominational church where they were training me to be a pastor.
I had a conflict. I had no idea about the church.
Personally, the Lord caused me to make a decision between the two. That was all I saw. It had to do with my own maturing.
It was very glamorous to be at the megachurch in the city where I am from. Everybody knows about it. It is a big deal.
But at this other group, I saw the souls, the individuals, and the Christians who needed help. One night, in consecration, I was touched by a song, and I gave up the megachurch way. Then I went the other way.
As I went through and was being trained in a completely wrong way—in Bible theology school, pre-seminary, to become a pastor—I was an intern pastor at the time.
I was paid part-time, I was going to school, and I had a group where I shared every Friday night. I was like a little miniature pastor, about nineteen or twenty.
But what happened was that I experienced the church. I did not understand it, but a few of us believers were getting together randomly. I was not in charge of that meeting, and I loved it.
When I got together there, all of us shared. We sought to be led by the Holy Spirit in that meeting. It was totally different.
It was not me at the pulpit preaching, and me deciding how we were going to do this or this or this. It was completely different. It was the experience that Christ is the Head.
We were all very different. This was just a group of college students and young people. We were like a church inside the church or something. We were churching it, but we did not know what we were doing. On the weekends, we would go to church.
There it was a typical church format—not much experience, not much experience in each other’s lives.
One time, at a pastors’ training meeting from headquarters, in my morning watch time I read 1 Corinthians 1.
I read about the carnal way of the Christians there: “I follow Paul. I follow Peter. I follow Apollos. I follow Christ.” Paul said, “Aren’t you carnal when you are so divided like this?”
In my heart, I loved my denomination. I loved those Christians more than any other Christians because they thought like me. They had the same experience as me. I was so divided.
The Lord exposed my heart and said, “You are so divided. The body of Christ is one. How can you be one when you are a member of this denomination, when you take another name besides My name?”
“Why do you want another name? Why do you want to call yourself of this church when you can be My church?”
I did not know what to do. I knew that, for me, it was a sin to be divided up like that. “I follow Luther. I follow Wesley. I follow the practice of baptism. I follow the experience of Pentecost.” All these divisions in the church.
The Lord exposed it to me, and on the way back from that conference I told the pastor who was training me that I had to drop my name from the membership.
This may seem like something so small, especially if you grew up experiencing the church experience. But this is a big deal.
This church experience is wonderful: to have a core of leaders, not one leader; to have an open meeting for all Christians; to have the experience of Christ leading us at the breaking of bread.
Do you know how precious this is? Our Bible studies, where all of us are sharing and building each other up—this is the most wonderful thing: to experience the body of Christ. This is what God is after.
But in my experience, it was not that experience. When I left, they told me, “Don’t get lost.” I knew I did not know what I was doing.
All the Christians I knew were doing that same thing. I could not go to other Christians and say, “Am I right? Am I wrong?” All I knew was that I had the Scriptures.
I was the first one saved in my family. All my family joined the denomination with me after they got saved. At that point, my family was there too.
All my friends whom I had helped come to Christ—a lot of my college friends—they had all come and joined this group. When I left, because I was in leadership, they asked me not to talk to any of them.
My career was gone. My whole career was to be a pastor. All my friends and family, I could not talk to them. My life was Christ.
I was very alone. My roommates belonged there, and even my roommate was asked, “Is it going to be either Jeff or is it going to be the church?” They chose the church because they did not see what I saw.
I got a job at a grocery store just to pay my way. In that time, I sought the Lord. I sought the Scriptures.
I read two books that helped me so much. I read a book called The Glorious Church by Brother Nee.
This book talks about the end result in eternity, when the church is perfect and nothing is of man. I saw this and said, “Lord, I give my life for this purpose. This is what You are after. This is what I am after.”
I pulled out because I saw it was a sin for me to be so divided. I was convicted. I tried to be faithful. But I did not see what I was getting into.
If I had seen it, there would have been no suffering, even though there was suffering. When I saw this glorious church, I knew this was worth spending your life and being spent for.
If you see that God is after something so beautiful—when that New Jerusalem comes down with no spot, no wrinkle, and no imperfections; when everything is transparent because you can see Christ; when every one of us shines Christ—this final, perfect thing is worth it.
It is more than just my own salvation and my own walk. It is so much bigger than this.
Then I read another book called The Church and the Work. It is actually three books, very detailed.
What I learned was that we can experience the church now, even though as Christians we have all been divided up because of carnality, because of the flesh.
Like it says in 2 Timothy, even though it is a great house, pursue the Lord together with whoever is willing.
Even though many Christians are going different ways, whoever is willing to experience the headship of Christ, let’s do it. Whoever is willing to stick together just because we have the Holy Spirit, let’s do it.
I learned that this is the way of the Lord in this time of the church being broken down. We can experience the church locally, here in our locality. We can stand for this here.
This can be our burden that we share with the Lord. Wherever we go, whatever is on our hearts, even when we lead someone to Christ, it is for the sake of His purpose. When we are building up the saints, it is for the sake of what God is after.
I hope we can just share the Lord’s heart together. I do not have a lot of new understanding. This is not anything really new.
But going through Romans and trying to see why Paul shares the way he shares, I think he shares the way he shares because he is burdened for the house of God.
I think the gospel preacher must see the purpose of God and be burdened for the house of God. This is what we are all really after. This is what God is after. This is wonderful.
Let’s pray to God.
Dear Lord, I just want to thank You.
You do not leave us to our vain paths and to our earthly, man-made ways. Lord, You are so wonderful to us. We just want to express our love to You.
Today, willingly, we give our lives to what You are after. Lord, renew our minds that we can discern this perfect will of Yours that You have always had.
I pray that we ourselves would have a growing burden to care for each other, that we would desire to pray for one another daily.
Even put a few on our hearts that we can regularly mention them and feel the responsibility of the church that You have put on us.
Lord, we want to go this way. We want to go this joyful, wonderful way of the church. We just appreciate Your kindness to us, how You have brought us all here together.
This is just a wonderful thing. We really just thank You. We commit this word to You. May something from You sink deep in our hearts.
In Jesus’ name, amen.