to Romans 15, let me repeat an announcement that was made by… especially with respect to this coming Sunday, always when you are changing systems some people do fall off by the wayside. So it's something that I want us to do and that is not just that we ourselves register for the services this coming Sunday, but that we send word to our friends, our brothers and sisters in Christ, members of the church, saying, have you remembered to register? Remember, it will be two services. And we just want to make sure that people are not caught napping. All right, so we will send out word as usual. as elders to remind you, but please check out on your friends as to whether they have remembered or not. Because we really need to keep this registration thing going so that we are in good books with the authorities, the powers that be. In fact, one reason why we were allowed to have two morning services was because they said Baptists keep to rules. So let's make sure that that testimony is not about a past generation of Baptists, but that we ourselves are keeping to the rules of the book. Romans chapter 15. And we'll just read the first seven verses together. The Bible reads. We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproach of those who reproached you fell on me. For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus that together You may, with one voice, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Well, brethren, we are back to Romans chapter 14 and 15, in which the apostle Paul is dealing with the subject of Christian unity. And Christian unity, especially in the context of the local church, the local assembly. And it is a unity that is often threatened by the fact that we come from diverse backgrounds. and the moment of our conversion does not completely deal with a lot of the baggage that we come with. We come with different practices, but more than that, we also come with different scruples. In other words, areas that might be gray, but for which, for us, they are black or those areas are white. And as a result, Life together as God's people tends to prove rather thorny, difficult, and can easily lead to the splitting up of churches. Now the last time we looked at this passage of scripture, we were in chapter 15. And we noted the prayer or the benediction or the blessing of the Apostle Paul, where he was essentially saying that the people of God in his prayer may experience a level of unity and harmony that would enable them together to worship God. And as he puts it there, for the glory of God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The prayer was this unity in worship. And we noted then last time that true and authentic worship is something that really can only be realized where there is genuine unity between believers. where we are not with the kind of issues that are so paramount that we are failing to get along. The God who knows our hearts celebrates, as it were, our worship when there is genuine unity. Now today, we are seeing that this is simply after the example of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that is in chapter 15 and verse 7. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. I'm sure you haven't missed this, but it's worth echoing that from verse 1 down to verse 7, the Lord Jesus Christ is sort of coming to the fore quite often. We saw for instance in verse 3 that he is the supreme example, for Christ did not please himself and so we peeped at the example of our Lord Jesus Christ while he was on earth. We also noticed in verse 5 that this unity is really according to the mind of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are told then, may the mind, rather may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ. In accord with Christ. Again, in the passage we read last week, or rather two weeks ago when we were in this passage, we noticed that it is in order to worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Again, that is what we are seeking to realize when we are fighting for harmony. Well, even when we cross over into verse 8 onwards, again you can't miss Christ. Listen to this, verse 8. For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs. Christ, Christ, Christ. And in many ways, that's what the church is about. It's about the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not about you. It's not about me. It's not about what we like or don't like. It's about Jesus, what he wants. And as we shall be seeing in a moment, it is about the way Jesus is, and that our job is to emulate him. to follow after his example. Now, I've preached from this text before. In the year 2003, we were going through the one and other passages of the New Testament. And two of those one and others were actually in chapter 14 and 15. One of them was chapter 14, verse 13, that says, stop judging one another. Stop condemning one another. It says there, therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer. In a sense, that was the negative. The positive is what we are now seeing, which again, we looked at in the year 2003. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Let's spend a bit of time then reviewing the sermon of 17 years ago. Some of you obviously were here, but our memories could do with a bit of propping up. So what did we learn that time? Well, first of all, if we are to be united in our relationships in the church, we must welcome one another. We must welcome one another. At the time I was preaching, then the version that I was using was the new international version. And consequently, the phrase there was, therefore, let us accept one another. accept one another. But the word in the Greek that is used is a compound word. It's a word that really combines two words, like the word, for instance, straightforward. That's now been made into one word. It's straightforward. But actually, it is two that have since been compounded into one. In this particular case, the Greek word means, first of all, to move towards or to move forward, and then secondly, to take hold of. So there is a movement towards and then a grabbing. And that already enables us to see that it's a slightly deeper word than the word accept or the word welcome. because it is capturing something of having an affectionate regard for someone. For instance, you will notice that when you've got negative feelings towards a person, you generally will, the moment you sort of see that person, maybe you're about to enter the same room, something in you goes like that. You immediately want to bounce back. What is it? It's that there's already negativity within your own soul. Well, this welcome is the exact opposite. It's the way we feel, isn't it? Today, despite COVID, you meet a friend and you haven't seen each other for a long time, and you want to hug, then you remember social distancing. So you sort of pause for a moment, then you say, anyway, but at least handshake, you know? We wash our hands afterwards. and things like that. It's just the sense of movement towards, to embrace. There is that sense already. And it's what is being captured here. The sense of having the most affection for someone. And therefore, you have a sense of movement towards and embracing of the other person. Now, the reason why it is important that the Apostle Paul deliberately used that Greek word is because the environment, the situation in itself is one of endurance. It's one of endurance. And he's spoken about it a few times already. Look at verse 4. For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. He repeats in verse 5, may the God of endurance and encouragement or patience, as some of your visions might say, grant you to live in such harmony. In other words, the reality normally is one of simply enduring individuals with whom you don't see eye to eye, simply enduring them. That, OK, he's there or she's there. That's good enough. Let them remain there. But there isn't the sense of let me draw near, let me embrace. That is not there. And that's why the Apostle Paul is deliberately taking the step of saying, therefore, welcome one another. Go beyond endurance. Instead, be deliberate to take that extra step of saying, I'm getting into his life. I'm getting into her life. We're going to have fellowship together. It's what, in a sense, he was saying in chapter 14, verse 1, when he began. Look at the way he put it. Chapter 14 and verse 1. As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, and then he says this, but not to quarrel over opinions. Welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. It's exactly the same point, that deliberately realize that, yes, we are not in the same camp here. There are one or two issues that we differ on. This one is weak in faith. I belong to the category of strong in faith. I think we've understood what all that meant. And I'm not going to begin with saying, let's settle this issue first. Now, I'm first of all going to go forward and embrace. That's where I'll start. I'll embrace. I'll embrace my brother. I'll embrace my sister. And then we will sort these things out later. There are two passages of scripture that I referred to in 2003 that I still want to get back to again. They are both in the book of Acts. I begin with Acts 28 and verse 2, where the welcoming is one that's not in the church, but it's illustrative enough. Acts 28 and verse 2. I begin reading from verse 1. The Bible says that after we were brought safely through, that was after a shipwreck, and they arrived, some of them on planks and others on maybe some cargo and so on, we then learned that the island was called Malta. That's where they had landed after the shipwreck. Now listen to this. The native people showed us unusual kindness. For they kindled a fire. Now you understand why. And welcomed us all. Because it had begun to rain and was cold. You see, the people of Malta did not begin by sort of saying, OK, so who are you? What exactly do you believe? And your people and our people on this island have a very bad history. And the first thing they realized was this. These are individuals who've been shipwrecked. These are individuals in need. These are individuals who have not just been shipwrecked, but they are wet on a rainy day, and it's cold. So forget about our past. Forget about our differences and everything else, where we've come from and where they've come from. Let's concentrate on what their need is. And so we are told that they kindled a fire. and welcomed us all. As you know, some of these were sailors, others were soldiers, others were captive individuals like Paul himself. They didn't care about all that. They knew these were people who were in need. Let's minister to them. We'll sort out the other issues later tomorrow. For now, let's minister to them. They need warmth. They need to dry up. They need food. And so they said this is what they did for them. The apostle Paul and his team recognized this. And so they said the native people, the local people, showed us unusual kinds. And these were unbelievers. There's nothing spiritual there. This is just the image of God in other people, what we call in English sympathy. That's all it is, sympathy. Let's go to chapter 18, where it is now in the church, and there is a genuine doctrinal difference. Chapter 18. and verse 26, chapter 18 and verse 26. I begin reading from verse 24. Now, a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus. And here is the the mistake, the error, the insufficiency, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue but when, and here's the text, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside. They took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. They took him aside. They welcomed him and said, now brother, this is the way you were teaching, but there's this which we think you need to think a little more about. Because the way in which you are teaching is not quite the way in which the Apostle Paul taught here. It's not quite the way in which we've come to understand the scriptures and so on. They welcomed him. And you can, for instance, just picture this, that perhaps Priscilla and Aquila looked at each other as they were listening to this guy and they said, you know, his gifts, you can't doubt it. His heart is in the right place. But oh, how he would be more effective if this aspect could be dealt with. And so what did they do? You can imagine, they invited him home, perhaps. And in the context of the home, really got to know him better, his own background, his conversion, and so on. They made him feel welcome, feel loved, feel as a person they are interested in and of himself. And then gently introduced the correction. As we are often taught, in order to correct somebody with love, they say you use the sandwich of correction. I'm sure some of you have heard of it, that you begin with something that is positive about the person, then you squeeze in the correction, whatever the negative is, and then you finish off with something positive. That way they go home appreciating that you haven't just cut them into shreds, but that there's something positive about their life that you've appreciated. Perhaps there was something of this in Priscilla and Aquila. But one thing is clear, they took him aside and they took the time to explain to him the way of God more accurately. They did not, as it were, enter into dispute with him. They did not do what Paul is saying here that they shouldn't do, to quarrel over opinions. They didn't do that. they graciously helped him. And in the end, he will always be grateful for this as it were elder brother and sister in the person of Aquila and Priscilla who made him a better preacher. And we are told that he was then given a letter appealing to the brethren where he was going to also welcome him. Well, that's what this means. But back to our text. Because the Apostle Paul is not simply saying that we should welcome one another. He's going one step further. And he is saying that our behavior towards one another should resemble the behavior that Christ had towards us. That Christ had towards us. He says there, therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you. As Christ has welcomed you. In other words, we are to follow the example of the Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus welcomed us into the Christian faith, into the Christian life, When Jesus began to walk with us as believers, was our knowledge and our practice according to his? Was it? Now we simply need to be honest this afternoon, and we will all say, know. Because we ourselves are very embarrassed about some of the things we believed when we when soon after we became Christians. We're very embarrassed. But it's because of the baggage that we came with. Many of us are even embarrassed about our practices. our lives and yet Jesus accepted us. On what basis? On this basis that we had repented of our sins and we had believed in his finished work on Calvary, period. And therefore we were now converted. We're now citizens of the kingdom of God. Jesus did not sort of hold us at arm's length. If we could speak in informed terms and say, first of all, get rid of all your Arminianism. Once you've become a Calvinist, reformed, then come. Then we can have fellowship. There's nothing like that from Christ. He saw the faith. He saw the repentance. And he began to have fellowship with us. The book of Romans, in chapter 5, puts it this way. Romans 5, verse 1 and verse 2. Romans 5, verse 1 and verse 2. It says there, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, that is through this Jesus, we have also obtained access, notice again, by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. What is he saying here? He's saying that, you see, the moment you were justified, the moment you repented and believed, you were forgiven, you were declared righteous. The moment that happened, You were reconciled to God. He was no longer dealing with you at arm's length. No, no, no, no, no. You were now bonded to him. You were reconciled to him. You were at peace with God through Jesus. But much more than that, you entered into a sphere in which God now related to you by grace alone. In other words, never based on what you deserve, never. From that point onwards, you've obtained access into this grace in which you now stand, whereby he is now committed to so bless your soul as to bring you to heaven. And that is the reason why, even now, you can rejoice in hope of the glory of God, of heaven. You can rejoice now, because He's not waiting for you at the finishing line, saying, until you reach here, that's when I will now be in fellowship with you and take you to glory. No, no, no, no. The moment you repented and believed, you became a child of God. And that was it. He entered into your life and began to work with you. Well, brethren, Paul is saying you must do the same. You must do the same to other believers. Welcome them simply because they are believers. That's it. They've come with baggage. Yes. But accept them because God has accepted them. Welcome them because God has welcomed them. We must never draw our fellowship borders in the church where Christ has not drawn them. And sadly, that's what we often do. We say, yeah, he's saved, she's saved, but pansy. Outside, you can be there as a Christian, but no, no, not me. I don't like such people. Is that how Jesus treated you? With all your shortcomings, saying, oh, me, I just want to be with those who are mature, those who've sorted out their doctrinal issues. Those lives have now become next to perfect. Those are the ones that I want, you know, these, I have to keep pinching my nose because of the mess they are in. I want to have nothing to do with. We must be like Jesus. And friends, just think about the audacity that Jesus has accepted this presence. He's accepted you. How dare you refuse to accept the person for who they are? I mean, how dare you? It's not your church. It's not. It's Christ's church. But clearly, you have hijacked Jesus's church and turned it into yours. And therefore, you are saying, yes, Jesus, you may have accepted him, but Panse, This is now my church, and I don't want these guys like this. I don't want them here. Well, the Apostle John says that our attitude towards God's child betrays our real attitude towards God. So what he does? He says in 1st John chapter 4 and verse 20, He puts it this way, 1 John chapter 4 and verse 20. If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he's a liar. For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. Don't cheat yourself. If you cannot, as it were, reach out and embrace. That's that compound word in Greek. Reach out, move forward, and embrace. If you cannot do that for an actual brother or sister whom you can see, stop lying that I love God whom you cannot see. Stop lying. And you see, it's the image of God in her. It's what Christ has begun to refashion in them. But also, it's based on the merit of Jesus Christ himself. He has paid a dear price for that brother. He has. He has paid a dear price for that sister. He shed his blood for him or her. He died. So on that basis alone, you should be able to say, come in, come in. My fellow blood-bought brother, my fellow blood-bought sister, forgive my hard-heartedness and embrace, embrace. It's like what Paul did for Onesimus in the book of Philemon where he argues with Philemon to accept Onesimus on the merits of Paul himself. Philemon verse 17, it's that little book just before the book of Hebrews, just before the book of Hebrews. You might even pass it by going left right and seems to often disappear because it's just one page. Just before the book of Hebrews in the New Testament is Philemon. Verse 17, he says, so if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me. Receive him as you would receive me. In other words, yes. He has wronged you. Yes, I can testify that he's repented of all of that. Yes, you may not necessarily feel the warmth that you ought to feel towards him. But remember what you owe me, the warmth that you have towards me, pass it on to him. Pass it on to him. And basically, that's the same appeal that we see here. But let me hurry on, because the apostle Paul answers the question, why bother with this? Or why should I overcome my negative feelings, my sense of endurance, and now, as it were, take the extra step forward and embrace why? Why bother? Well, he ends by saying, for the glory of God. For the glory of God. In other words, first of all, This is what shows the grace of God. It shows the world that we are different. It's what shows the onlookers that God must be at work in these people. This unity in diversity, this deliberate effort to keep secondary issues secondary. and to deliberately make big issues out of that which is primary, and that is repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, think of it, those of you who are in workplaces, where you are in the same offices with individuals who go to other churches, and you know, You can see that the person is saved, yes. There's no doubt. They love the Lord. But yeah, it's difficult to say anything else beyond that which is positive. Because their own background and church tradition is just something else. And then the non-Christians are seeing you having fellowship with one another. Genuine fellowship. It's about the fact that your church backgrounds, your particular doctrinal positions is different. But there's a genuine love for one another. It says to them that church is not a club. It's real family. That's what it says to them. This must be real family. Look at how they love one another. It causes them to want to seek your savior because there's something of God that is being revealed there. Those of you in college, it's exactly the same thing. Your classmates see, they know that you belong to different churches. They see you get into different buses, going to different churches. But if they can see that there is a genuine love for one another, genuine fellowship with one another. Despite that difference, it causes them to realize that this Christianity is not a club. It must be real. It must be real. It also glorifies God because it's It's a means of your own sanctification. In other words, you learn to do away with so much of me, myself, and I for the sake of God. And that glorifies Him. Glorifies Him. Because the thing that tends to push you apart is the me, myself, and I. It's not so much the issue of belonging to the same father, the same savior, being indwelt by the same spirit, and so on. No, no, no. You turn that into a secondary issue. It's my comfort, my belief, my practice. But when you hold back that, it has a sanctifying effect on you. And therefore, it works to the glory of God. But also, as we saw in the previous verse, it is to the glory of God because it enables you to worship together. It enables you in the workplace, for instance, if there is a lunch hour fellowship, it enables you to join that lunch hour fellowship. On the campus, you've got your interdenominational evangelical movement. It enables you to be a member of that, and not just sort of sitting at the edge, but involved with all your being and all that God has blessed you with. It enables you to do that. And you genuinely worship the Lord, genuinely. And even in the context of the church, you see, a church church is never a stage. The church is always a ladder. You you always have people coming in and and beginning to to go up the ladder and just when they're getting things right, other people are coming in and and getting in. That's the church. And if you make a church a stage, the problem is it keeps getting higher and higher and higher and nobody can join you. Because you know, the moment they come in and they're Where has this guy come from? And before long, it's fairly clear you want him out. And then you are surprised that your church never grows. But you welcome them. We'll deal with these things as we go along. We welcome them. Otherwise, if you're going to wait for them to become like you, I mean, your new members class may have to go on forever and ever and ever, and it has to be before they join so that now you've really cleaned them up. Cleaned them up. And then it's okay, you can now come in. No. You welcome them so that you can worship together. You mature. in accepting them as they are, welcoming them as they are, positively welcoming them. And then from there, you go on to talk about these things leisurely. Because God's truth ultimately is in his word. It's just that it takes time to deal with the baggage we come with. Well, President, let's hurry on. What is your attitude towards those who are not quite fitting into your religious, your cultural background? What is it? Is it stay out? Is that what it is? Stay out? Are you an individual who waits at the finishing line saying, first of all, get over these hoops and loops. First of all, sort these things out. Then we will have dealings with you. Or are you a person who goes all the way to the starting line with everything that is upside down, inside out, but you can see that he is a brother. He is a sister. Here's somebody who loves the Lord, and you reach out and embrace. And they, too, can tell that you've accepted them just as they are. Now, brethren, those of us who are reformed in doctrine, we are often the guys who are guilty of waiting at the finishing We forget where we've come from. We forget. We are the ones who, the moment we realize that someone is a four-point Calvinist, that's it. How can you not believe in limit adornment? How? Uko. We're still three points. Two points. One point, finish. Let somebody else clean him up first. And then once he reaches four and a half, we can begin having dealings with him. We are the ones who are often guilty of this. We're the ones who often have what I call a chaotic tendency. chaotic tendency. We don't want to associate with anyone who is not exactly our color. And here's my point, we need to repent of it. We do. We do. Many years ago, I think it's now 15 years ago, I remember in a pastor's fellowship, which was just for us Reformed Baptist pastors, I spoke on this And I called it Coutish tendencies in Reformed Baptist circles. Coutish tendencies. And by Coutish, I mean like it is with the Jehovah's Witnesses. You are either a Jehovah's Witness or you are out. And we can easily become like that. And brethren, the point is we need to repent because the church is not ours. It belongs to Christ, and Christ has accepted them. How dare you reject them? How? So as I've said before, the boundary line is always, is it a gospel issue? If it's not a gospel issue, and it's fairly evident here is a child of God, Well, embrace the child of God. Don't endure and just endure. Embrace. Let the person feel that this person has recognized that his father is my father. His savior is my savior. The spirit in him is the spirit in me as well. One of the greatest evangelists I've referred to him before here, reformed evangelist, was George Whitefield. George Whitefield tried his best to embrace John Wesley, who was a typical Armenian and who was fighting him so often in public. Whitefield kept saying to him, brother, we don't see eye to eye on this point, but hey, let's fight. our fights behind closed doors, not on the public square, where Wesley would have nothing of it. He was fighting and fighting until at some stage, Whitefield was forced to respond, which he did. But two statements from George Whitefield show how Christlike he was. First of all, when he was asked by those who were close to him in the Calvinistic circles, whether he would see George John Wesley in heaven. His response was, no, I won't. Because he will be so close to Christ's throne, and I'll be so far away, I won't be able to see him. But secondly, Whitefield brought in his will that the person to preach at his funeral is John Wesley. John Wesley. He put it in his way. And that way, it was known he embraced Wesley as his brother. Brethren, that's the way Jesus is. That's the way he wants us to. To embrace brothers and sisters with all their idiosyncrasies. If we can see that here is a genuine brother or sister who loves the Lord, welcome them as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Say to them, I love you with the love of the Lord. because I see in you the glory of my King. That's why I love you with the love of the Lord. We'll deal with these other issues as we go along.