Good. For Nothing?

Text: Philippians 3:4-11

Focus: Turning the other Cheek

Function: To help people be aware of our commitment.

Form: GON

Intro:

I watched a profound movie, The Black Robe. It's a true story about a missionary to a tribe of Native Americans in Canada. It was produced in the era when it was popular to bash Christianity in the theaters.

And the way they attacked Christianity was really sad. He converted this tribe to Christianity, and they decided to live like Jesus. Eventually they were completely wiped out. First by, the slave traders who still called them savages, even thought they were Christians and then by other tribes because instead of fighting back, they choose to turn the other cheek.

The movie influenced me to consider what Jesus really meant when He said: “love your enemies” and “turn the other cheek.”

At the end of the movie, my first gut reaction was that these people were converted, became good, and it was all for nothing.

How do we respond when people are critical of us? In this passage, Paul is being criticized because he preaches that Gentile believers do not need to adhere to all the Jewish laws.

Paul is concerned that people trust in the religious practices of the law instead faith in Jesus to save them.

And, his preaching has caused some significant degrees of conflict in the Churches. There were people sent out who were telling Gentiles that unless they adhered to all the OT laws, they were not really Christians.

Last week we saw that even the council of leaders, the Jewish council of leaders decided that none of those regulations applied and they merely asked the Gentiles to be sensitive to the needs and traditions of their Jewish brothers and sisters.

However, sometimes conflict doesn't stop even after cooler heads try to persuade people to be kinder.

Maybe it is pride. Maybe it a feeling that we were not actually heard in the first place.

But I love the way Paul addresses the issue.

He first tells them that if he wanted to defend himself with his adherence to Jewish law, he could put them all to shame.

But he doesn't boast about that at all. The only thing he speaks about, in the midst of this conflict is Jesus.

He replies with an attitude that is a great example of pastoral leadership!

“Look!” He says: “If I am placing my confidence in what I am as a man, all of my education, all of my credentials, all of my abilities would be nothing more than a stinking pile of old napkins, fouled by waste.”

What he says is a mode for all of us. He is saying: “If all of this teaches me any one thing it is this: It reminds me to look at Jesus. Because in all of my struggles, the Lord keeps reminding me of what is actually happening. I am getting a chance to live out the same kind of life that Jesus lived out.”

And Paul is happy to be suffering criticism and persecution at their hands. As a matter of fact, it appears that this is a kind of a badge of honor, A Christian “Red badge of courage.” All of this is a spiritual reward.

He gives a us perspective to look at when things aren't going as well as we would like.

He reminds me to ask the big questions instead of fearing about the moment.

Literally, his statement is this: ^8aMore than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish...

Does that apply only to him? Does that apply to us as well?

His attitude toward all of his worldly and religious accomplishments is this: “Next to the value that I have received in just getting to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, everything else is like rubbish.”

Wow!

I find that statement challenging!

It is strange working again in a secular environment and working with people who have enough money to get along well, but feel as if the only way they can have real value is to make more and more money. As if the only concept of self is derived from what we can earn.

Now, having enough money is good. It keeps us from the pressure of having to strive just to exist. If we have a good relationship with money, it is a form of protection and a form of security.

But the only real security that we have is in Jesus Christ Himself.

I think about that movie and that tribe of Native Americans. I think of the accomplishment of that missionary to lead them to Jesus. And it would be really neat if they were able to leave behind a legacy of generations and generations of Christians who lived out the life of Jesus.

But instead, because of their faith, they were destroyed.

The producers of the movie used the movie to criticize us believers with the idea that if we had not brought them to Jesus, the tribe would still exist.

And I ask myself why God allowed evil people to destroy them?

And here is the example of brother Paul.

Paul, instead of being offended at the criticism he received decides again to turn the attacks, curses, and backbiting into another opportunity to serve Jesus.

His accomplishments are being discounted. And He doesn't care!

The only thing that matters to him is what Jesus accomplished for all of us.

I suppose the gratitude we feel towards Jesus is an important motivator. But there is also another reason.

He states it at the end of verse 8 and following: ^8bin order that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.

Here is what Jesus said: “^24bIf any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me” Matthew 16:24

These words haunt me. They should haunt us. These words inform us of just what a new life in Christ Jesus is all about.

Paul says, in comparison to all that he has achieved by worldly and religious standards, none of that is important when it is compared to the privilege of knowing Jesus.

I have often reflected on that phrase.

It gets in the way of our own pity parties.

In Psalm 73, the prophet Asaph is beginning to have a pity party.

He asks God if his being a good man has done him any good. He sees some wicked people and they are strong and healthy. They scoff at people who do good and mock them by telling them that it isn't helping. They laugh at God and say that that God doesn't care enough about the earth to judge evil people.

And the Psalmist asks God if he has been “good for nothing.”

Did you ever wonder if it would be better to chuck it all, live for the moment, forget about doing good, giving, and forgiving? Did you ever wonder why some people seem to get away with indulging their revenge, or their greed?

Remember Paul is telling us that all the worldly things don't mean anything compared to the value of knowing Jesus.

And then there is a scary part to the Psalm. The Prophet recounts what happens to him when he goes into the house of God to worship.

He says: “When I get in the presence of God, I am reminded of their final fate when they face God at the end.” He knows that God will indeed judge the wicked in the end.

He doesn't gloat over the fate of the wicked. He isn't proud, nor does he feel self-righteous. His only real response is perhaps the same sadness that God feels over every lost soul.

He understands the value of salvation.

Paul understands the value of salvation and that makes the petty bickering and competition in this world less important. Or, in Paul's words: about as important as a pile of dirty diapers.

When I think about these words of Paul. He is saying, “Just think of where I would be for eternity if I hadn't experienced the grace and mercy of Jesus.”

The response to our salvation given to us freely is our own lives.

Jesus bought our lives from an eternity without Him.

Paul reminds himself that no matter what people do to him, that one treasure is his and it cannot be taken away from Him.

Everything else is forfeited to the privilege of knowing Jesus.

It is not an privilege that we brag about. But it is an eternal privilege. It is the most important privilege there is.

So, when he is given an hard time by others, he justs adds their persecution of him to the list of things that make him more like Jesus Christ.

This privilege is the gift of God.

With this privilege, he gains Jesus Christ, and everything else in this world is nothing compared to that.

Did you ever wonder how those first Century Christians could allow themselves to be made a spectacle of in the Roman Arenas?

Was their faith good for nothing?

Did you ever wonder where that courage comes from?

It wasn't just Paul, but all of them understood the value of their faith.

Knowing Christ Jesus changes or attitude and value system. Look at verse 10: ¹⁰I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

This is the goal of his life. To Know Christ.

And again he is suffering criticism and he refuses to whine about it. He refuses to defend his own credibility. He doesn't even ask the Lord to defend him. He just takes the problems and recognizes that in every situation, he can act like Jesus acted, like Jesus wants us to act, or he can act according to the value of this world.

He knows that he is serving the Lord.

He tells us that if there is any way that people might find the example of Jesus in his own life, let it be by the way he trusts God.

Jesus did not retaliate. Jesus, turned the other cheek. Jesus told us to live the same way and trust God to work it all out in the end.

So when he says: “I want to know Christ, and the fellowship of His sufferings...” he is saying that one way that we can live out Jesus' love to a dying world is if we choose to respond like Jesus did in those times when we have been treated unfairly.

Listen. The same Holy Spirit that kept on filling Jesus lives inside of us.

That same Spirit that raised people from the dead. That same Spirit that healed the paralytic. That same Spirit that cried out “Lazarus, Come out of that tomb!” That Spirit lives in us.

Paul says everything else on earth is worth it if I can just know Jesus.

To know God.

I loved our sign: “Do you know God?”

Listen, we are not called to a social club with with values that we can embrace when it is convenient for us. It isn't some boring, or “take it or leave it” thing that Jesus calls us to.

This is eternal life.

He says it is worth it because ever other alternative makes life meaningless. Every other alternative is a life lived for ourselves.

Every other alternative is a life lived without the hope of glory, and the Love of the Father.

Just what would happen if Paul gave into self-pity when he was being criticized? Is that faith?

Just what would happen if Paul decided to return criticism in kind? Is that faith?

Would God declare to the angels that He knows Paul if when persecution or hardship comes he merely reacted with anger or pity?

No. Because that is not the path to obedience.

But Paul says, instead of worrying about it. Instead of praying “God, someday let me be proven right.” Instead of hoping that those who were doing this would stumble, fall and be shown to be the fakes that they are.

Instead of all that, his attitude is: “Good news!” I get to prove that the Holy Spirit in a life makes it a life that reacts differently.

Good news? Jesus said, “If they persecute me, they will persecute you.” I must be doing something right.

And Jesus is not alone. I now get to partner with Him in suffering.

And in so doing, he has this great place in the family of God.

If God never choose to vindicate him. If God permitted those Native Americans to die off without leaving generations of believers for their posterity. Paul knows that in the end, at judgment, it will be much better to have been faithful to Jesus.

The Banana or the Peel?

Text: Romans 14:23-33

Focus: Living for each other

Function: To help Believers consider how their actions affect other Christians.

Form: Storytelling.

Intro: Without exaggeration, I could say that because of the love and commitment of my wife, and this very passage of scripture, I would not be alive today.

There is a story to be told in my own life about how God used this scripture to set me free from years of bondage to sin and its control in my life.

But, it's not about me, it's about God's word. I can tell you though, that God's word is powerful and effective and my testimony, at the end will help you see that.

Before I get there, let us look again at what this passage is telling us.

And we are going to do that by looking at the first scripture that we read this morning.

Acts 15:19-21

Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God, but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood. For in every city, for generations past, Moses has had those who proclaim him, for he has been read aloud every sabbath in the synagogues.’

I can imagine that when we read those verses this morning people were going: “Huh?” What in the world does that have to do with worship.

Well, it has a lot to do with worship.

Worship is both individual and corporate. Worship is both private and public.

If we are spending private time with God during the week, then we are better prepared to gather for corporate worship. That private time reminds us that during our worship service here at church, God is the audience and we are the ones presenting ourselves to God.

Pray regularly, read scripture, get to know God on a personal basis. When we do, we begin to realize just how much God gave up to know us.

God won us to Himself through His own personal sacrifice.

And in corporate worship, when we come with an attitude of personal sacrifice, then the welfare and development of others becomes a priority that is just as important as us getting our own needs met.

We are created to live in community.

And these passages of scripture, both the one from Romans and the one from the Book of Acts, are about the problems that we sometimes have when we worship together.

In the Acts passage, they were having a real big problem in the church. The first converts to Christianity were Jews. 5,000 were saved on the day of Pentecost. They were from all over the world and they went home and established churches.

Then Brother Paul came along and not only preached to the Jews but the Gentiles as well.

And that was where the problems started.

It stated over dietary restrictions.

You see, the passage in Romans tells us that we are free to eat anything we want; we are free to worship on any day we want; we are free to drink wine; we are free to abstain from wine, we are free to eat meat; we are free to abstain from meant.

He says: “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but just living, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

God's Kingdom is not about religious rules, but believers are righteous -that means two things, they are saved from sin, and their nature is changed into people who are just, people who love their neighbors as much as they love themselves. This, not what food we do not eat, are the marks of being a believer.

But, when people with different values get together, and those values are held with fierce passion, how do we live out our freedom to live as we feel convicted to when someone else has a different conviction?

What should be our proper response?

It is like someone eating a banana and someone else slipping on the peel.

He doesn't want us, even though we are free to cause someone else to stumble.

It was causing a big problem across the world since the church was about half and half Jewish and Gentile.

The Jewish diet restrictions were pretty strict.

The problem was, the Jewish people were and still are very faithful to those diet restrictions. And when Gentile believers got together with Jewish believers, it became a problem when the meal was surf and turf and not just turf.

It caused conflict. The Jewish believers had this thought in their minds: “When God gave the law, including the dietary restrictions, He said it should be followed forever.” And, “since the faith came from Jesus, who was Jewish, and shouldn't the gentiles follow the same practices?”

Some of them were offended that they didn't.

And the text from Acts explains why. It says: “since those laws have been read for generation after generation in those cities.”

Because of the conflict, the apostles got together and decided to act in a way to promote Christian love. They discussed if we gentiles had to obey all the laws of the OT or not. They came up with 3 or 4 suggestions to promote unity: 1). Abstain from things polluted by idols, 2). be sexually pure and 3). don't eat meat that is either strangled or meat that still has blood in it.

The first two make a lot of sense. Idolatry is one of the bigs sins of the Old Testament. Sexual purity has everything to do with respect for the way God created us, our husbands, our wives and the value of our children.

But why does he mentions things strangled and meat with blood in it?

This is interesting. The big thing was that in Jewish law, symbolically, the soul of a creature somehow exists in the blood. To drink the blood was to drink in the soul.

Every sacrifice was to be cut at the neck, the blood drained out. Every sacrifice, before it was eaten was to be boiled to make sure the blood came out of it.

And the only sacrifice, throughout the entire bible where it is permitted to drink the blood is the sacrifice of Jesus Himself when we symbolically partake of His blood during communion.

So, for these Jewish believers, the idea of eating rare meat, or blood, especially for those who are trusting in Christ, that idea was to take away from the one sacrifice that can save the soul. The blood is very holy.

Does that mean eating rare meat is a sin? No. Paul says in the passage that once we pray over food, blessing it in the name of the Lord, God purifies it. It makes no difference what its past was.

There was another problem that is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 8. During this time, one could buy “day-old” meat stores. You could buy meat at the local pagan temple. It had been sacrificed the day before to a pagan idol. Some Christians wouldn't eat it because of its previous history.

Other Christians knew that once they prayed over it, their prayer overcame any spiritual tainting that the previous sacrifice caused.

They had lesser and bigger degrees of faith.

And again, conflict rose.

So why did the apostles ask the gentiles to abstain from these practices when they were worshiping with their Jewish neighbors?

Well, that is the entire point of this passage.

When we gather for worship, it isn't about us. It is first and foremost about God. And it is secondly about the mutual love and support we have for one another.

When we worship, we get more out of it, it becomes meaningful when we gather to worship with the express purpose of lifting up God and each other.

The problem was that people were worshiping and all they were really caring about was what was in it for them.

There was a selfish attitude in the worship.

So, the apostles asked the gentiles to do these four things in order to keep from offending others.

Worship is about God. But Jesus said the purest expression of faith in Him is love for one another. So, if the music isn't your bag of tea, but it does resonate with others, then with the same attitude, we should be happy that others are being blessed, not offended when it isn't our kind of music. I submit that when we start to be happy that others are being blessed, we are beginning to work into a deeper lever of worship.

For example. My mom and I like different styles of music. I doubt if I ever get her to appreciate jazz and blues like I do. She is improving in her love for classical music. But mom is relentless in her passion for Country music. And I know this about my mom. She has an artistic and creative soul. And yet, Country music, which isn't really my bag if tea resonates with her soul, it feeds her emotions in a healthy way.

And maybe, just maybe, I have been missing something by automatically dismissing the music. And because of love, all of a sudden, I find that some of it is pretty good.

And, if I didn't love and trust my own mother, I would have missed out on the blessing of it all my life.

Do you see what Paul is talking about? When our love for God is reflected in the way we love and respect others, all of a sudden worship becomes more genuine.

And in this passage in Romans, the same thing is happening. The disagreement had gone beyond the type of food to the day of worship, vegetarianism and in the end of this passage the practice of drinking wine.

That is a good illustration. Imagine a man or a woman who has been bound for a lifetime to an addiction to alcohol.

Now Jesus turned the water into wine. Drinking wine is nowhere condemned in the Bible. Alcoholism and excess is condemned through the bible.

But the new Christian, who is bound by the old desires of their human flesh may not be able to tolerate the freedom of a Christian who isn't bound by alcohol.

Paul is telling us to consider just what kind of effect our actions can have on others.

Now I will tell you how this passage of scripture saved my life.

You know that I was raised in a godly home. I was taught the scriptures by my mother from a young age. My father lead me into the depth of them and was always there to guide me through the tougher questions. He was patient and faithful.

In spite of a godly heritage, a terrible thing happened to me when I was 11 years old. I was the victim of a crime from which I am lucky to have survived. As it happens in almost every instance of rape, the victim blames herself, in this case, himself.

And the shame can be almost unbearable. Sometimes it turns into self-destructive behaviors. I have seen drug addiction, alcoholism, obesity, cutting and other terrible actions as a reaction to it.

Jesus came to heal us, both spiritually and emotionally, but until a person comes to that point of surrender, sometimes terrible things can happen.

For me, I turned to drugs from the age of 16 until I was almost 21.

And I turned to drugs with a vengeance. I have shared how I was almost murdered at the place of business where I was working during a robbery attempt at 18. That night Jesus saved me. And I remember, as I was laying in the cooler to the Restaurant, locked inside, after I had been unconscious for nearly an hour, with severe blood loss and hypothermia. I remember praying to God that I was glad that I was going to die in that cooler because I knew that if I went out that door, I would be back to my drug habit.

But as I was laying there praying, God spoke to me. God said: “I am the one who sets you free.” I was locked inside the cooler because the internal latch had been broken off. And when those words came to me, all of a sudden supernatural strength came over me, I found a pen that was just the right dimension to jimmy the lock and I was set free.

I always thought that that was what God meant.

And I wish I could say that was the end of my drug use.

But I was an hopeless addict.

God began to change me in other ways. I would see a car broken down on the side of the road and God would lay it on my heart to stop and help. God's love for others broke down some prejudices that I had. God was working on me. But the drug thing wasn't going away.

My twin brother had the same problem.

The sales job I was working with required a pretty good amount of deception. I was convicted about making money through dishonest means.

So I prayed about it and God provided a job that was not hundreds of miles away from my family.

He provided it miraculously, the next day after I prayed for it.

My twin brother was going back to church, we stayed with him and his wife when I interviewed for the job and we had a great time talking about Jesus and doing drugs.

It was all wrong, but God was at work.

He had this new church, access to some of the finest dope available and I had a job back in the area. It seemed like everything was perfect.

Kathy and I were packed to move back home and we were saying goodbye to some good friends we had made in the city we lived in.

I was doing drugs and I was witnessing to him about how he was not right with God and that Jesus came to give him eternal life and that God was real.

And I could feel the Holy Spirit speaking out of me toward him.

My friend, almost in tears said to me: “Phil, I hear what you are saying, and I wish it was true, but how can it be real when you are preaching to me while you are getting high.”

I started to respond with something like “God told Adam that all the herbs were given to us for our pleasure.”

He interrupted with: “Everyone knows that Christians don't do drugs.”

That was in March. For Christmas that year, my mom had given me a copy of the New International Version New Testament. I was hungry for spiritual things and I had started reading through it. I had just read this passage in Romans that morning. I had read that if I felt free to do something and it caused somebody else to miss the kingdom, then my freedom ends at the salvation of the other person.

I thought, if my so called freedom keeps him from heaven, what good is my right? His soul is more important than my freedom.

I looked at him and told him that in the name of the Lord I would never do drugs again. I flushed my drugs down the toilet, destroyed all my paraphernalia and asked him to reconsider his choice to reject Jesus.

But that is not the biggest miracle of this evening.

I was moving back home the next day. And my twin brother and I are very close.

Our mutual drug habit was a point that we really bonded over. I knew that if he wanted to get high with me, the temptation would be too great.

It was 1:30 in the morning. I called him to tell him not to ask me to get high with him. However, just as he answered the phone he shouted that he had was just picking up the phone to call me.

I told him what I had to say was important and he said what he had to say was more important.

He told me that a Christian brother took him out after his second shift of work and that during the conversation, God convicted him of the sin of his drug habit. He told me not to ask him to get high with him.

The miracle was that God knows temptation, and the struggles we are in. So, 200 miles apart, at the exact same time, God, by His Holy Spirit, set us both free from the bondage we were in. And God used this scripture to do it in my life.

So. God's Word works.

The essential truth is this: We live for God and others.

Emergency Love (9/11 style)

Text: Romans 14:1-12

Focus: Christian Love

Function: Loving Each Other without Judging each other.

Form: Bible Study

Intro: This is the second of 3 from Romans on how we love each other.

Yesterday, I took my son and grandkids to the Greek Festival at the Greek Orthodox Church. We had authentic Gyro sandwiches and I brought home some Baklava for my mom.

It made me think of my niece and my nephew. He was recently ordained into the Orthodox Church. And along with his journey into that ancient form of Christianity, they also decided to become Vegetarians.

My Niece's daughter was in 1^st grade and the all the students became aware of her different eating habit. They were together with a couple of other parents and one of the young children was explaining to another one of the students why my Niece's daughter wouldn't eat the hot dogs the rest of the kids were eating. Except she got it wrong: She said “they don't eat meat because they are vegetables!”

So, the niece's daughter has taken on the name, vegetable since them. Apparently she doesn't mind.

If one goes to Kettering hospital on a Saturday, one will find that the menu is very limited, as well as all the other services. The 7^th Day Adventist Christ, which sponsors that hospital, has a large membership that refuses to eat meat.

Is this passage talking about vegetarianism? Is there anything wrong with Vegetarians? Or, if you are a Vegetarian, is there anything wrong with people who eat meat?

The text is not about vegetarianism. This passage is a teaching passage about Christian love and trusting God to do the work of transforming us into people who live like Jesus. It is about trusting God to do it in us as well as others.

Apparently, there was conflict in the Roman Church between the different religious practices of different believers. There were people who refused to eat meat. Those people who refused to eat meat were judging those who did. Judgment. They thought they were more pious, more godly, because they were vegetarians.

At the same time, the meat eaters were mocking, or resenting those who refused.

It is a natural reaction. A person tells you that you are not spiritual enough because you are not like them. And, if you are deeply in love with God, have a fervent prayer life, do the good deeds that Jesus said you would do, you would resent the remark that you are not as good of a Christian as someone else based on an obscure teaching in the bible.

Where did they get the idea of not eating meat? Well, when we read the list of sins that people were doing right before the flood, one of those listed is eating meat. Apparently, there were people who knew Adam, or people who knew people who knew Adam and they would remember that God gave humanity plants to eat.

In Creation, we were made to eat vegetables. And the thinking was, “why not show God we love Him enough to go back to the original creation?”

These people have such a zeal for God that they want to go back to that original state.

I appreciate Zeal. But after the flood, God Himself said that it was okay to eat meat. (Genesis 9:3) And before the flood, Cain slew Abel. Cain grew crops, Abel raised Sheep.

Zeal is good. And there is logic to not eating meat as a way to show that we want to go back to the garden of Eden and that perfect place of restoration with God.

God is pleased with acts of devotion. But that does not mean that others who have different acts of devotion are less spiritual.

Have you ever tried the Spiritual discipline of fasting? I have a good friend, a really good friend and he is a very Godly man. Every year at Lent, I choose something to fast from. But he, he just doesn't practice it. So, he tells everybody that during Lent, jokingly, he is fasting from watermelon.

So here is what Paul is talking about. If I were to judge him as not being as Spiritual as me because he doesn't do a Lenten Fast, then I would be sinning by violating the principle in this passage.

If my friend were to mock me, or accuse me of putting on a false Christianity, if he said something like: “why do you fast only during Lent? Jesus should be served all year long.” Or if he made fun of me for being weaker in faith because he was just as close to God without a fast as I am with one, then he too would be violating the principle of this passage.

Brother Paul is telling us that every one of us will have different convictions about different issues. The Holy Spirit will not work the same way in every person. It is the same Holy Spirit, and He works differently in every one of us.

I believe that this is a test for us. It is a test of our Christian love. Look again at verse 4: “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before their own masters that they stand or fall.”

If you judge the employee of another person, you aren't judging the employee, you are judging the boss' ability to manage his or her work force.

When we judge another Christian, we judge the Lord's ability to make that person into a Christlike person. Listen, without the Holy Spirit at work inside of us, it is impossible for us to become like Jesus Christ. It isn't even our job to make ourselves like Christ, so how can it be our job to make others like Him?

Brother Paul goes into another area that Christians back then had begun fighting over. In verse 5 he tells us that some people choose one day above another. Some people kept the Jewish tradition of worshiping on the Sabbath, or Saturday. Others switched the day to Sunday

Did you ever wonder why we worship on Sunday and not Saturday? We know the 10 commandments, to keep the Sabbath holy.

The change happened because after Jesus died and before He rose again, the bible states that He was in hell disarming the Devil Himself. He took the keys to hell away from Satan, preached the gospel to the people where were there and led a host of them into heaven with Him. On Saturday, the Sabbath, He was working and since He rose on Sunday, it became known as “The Lord's Day.” And, we read in 2 Corinthians that the believers began to use Sunday as their day to gather together for their corporate worship services.

But Paul says, stop fighting about it: “what is the difference? Saturday or Sunday? Who cares?”

And the debate got worse: Then he says, there is another group out there who believes that every day is the same. And again, the book of Hebrews states that since we are believers, we have entered into a form of Sabbath rest. Therefore, Christians should be worshiping every single day. And you guessed it, the group that held to Saturday criticized the groups that held to Sunday, and the group that held every day. The every day group criticized the other two and the Sunday group criticized the other two.

And the Lord, I believe, just looked down from heaven and wondered: “just what part of `love one another' do you not understand?”

Listen, there was pride, judgmentalism and conflict in the church right from the beginning.

It proves one thing. Although we are Christians, we are not yet perfect.

The big issue behind it is the issue of pride. Or the issue of competing with each other to be better than each other.

I wonder if this concept of loving, and not judging one another had been practiced by the world, if we would not have to go through this pain that we are experiencing this day as we remember 9/11.

An Arab Prince wanted to donate $10,000,000 to NY City to help with the cost, but the money was refused because the prince had said that if the USA changed its policy toward Israel, this would not have happened.

I wish they had taken the money. Not that I am against Israel in any way shape of form. But extremists in those two races are engaged in a fight, that seems to be a fight to the death. It is up to the Church to be an example of love and forgiveness. God is counting on us to show them a better way.

So Brother Paul illustrates the nature of Christian love by calling all of us believers to give up the pride that causes us to compete with others to see who serves God better.

Last week we saw that the only form of competition allowed is to try to outdo each other in the way that we love one another. But not for pride's sake.

If we are called to be an example to the world, then it must work out in the painful places of our own lives.

A dear saint, after 9/11 told me that she would never forgive. I forgive her for that, and pray that she become like this passage.

And the problem, oftentimes is pride.

When Peter bragged that He would be the best disciple and would follow Jesus even if he died trying, Jesus told Peter just who vulnerable and weak he still was. “Tonight,” Jesus said, “Tonight you will betray me three times.”

I am sure that when Peter heard those words that his will power, his resolve was strengthened. He was going to look out for it and be especially careful to be faithful, even if they ran him through.

But we know what happened. That night, he did indeed let fear control him and he turned his back on the Lord.

Why? The Lord knows that there is only one way be can be faithful to Him, and that is by God's power, not our own.

The thing is, once Christ has come in, lives begin to change. For some, they get bold, for some, they get quieter. For some God focuses on setting them from from an addiction, for others, God's deliverance is from bitterness or unforgiveness. The thing is, God is working out His plan in every life at His pace and according to His schedule.

And the command is to give up judging the sincerity of another person's worship and commitment.

The Holy Spirit knows what is best for each individual. So, in verses 8-12, Paul explains that for the person who chooses the path of abstaining, the path to die to oneself, then they are dying to self on behalf of the Lord.

The person who chooses not to abstain is celebrating the life that comes with new freedom. And thy honor God the same way.

Let every person be convicted in their own hearts.

And let us learn to worry about our own selves and no one else.

When this works out in our personal lives, it translates into the way we love others. God wants us, as Christians to love both Arabs and Jews for God does not play favorites.

I have a friend, a Jewish woman whose parents escaped Poland in the late 20's. They came to Palestine before there was any Jewish state established. The rest of their family did not survive the Holocaust. I asked her about peace between her people and the Arabs. She spoke about suicide bombings. She said: “When they love their children more than they hate us, we can begin the process of peace.”

I thought those were pretty good words, but behind them I heard an accusation that all Arabs hate all Jews.

A youth from my last Church is now living in Palestine. She is a strong Christian. And she is working with other Christians in Palestine to help her people live and love like Jesus commanded.

There are both Christians and Jewish people in Israel who are working to enlighten people that God loves both races.

These people are in harm's way. They are risking their lives to bring about the change that will bring peace between the two countries. If there was peace there, 9/11 would not have happened.

This passage of scripture is about loving each other by not competing over whose faith is more sincere. It is about Christians showing love regardless of the way others respond.

And it is personal. It talks about a way of life that pleases God and brings about the love that God has that will change the world.