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Grace-based biblical teaching and sermons with Pastor Jason White. Messages that focus on Life in Christ and practical application as New Covenant believers.
Earlier this week I was watching a documentary about the Florida Gator football team that Tim Tebow was on around 2006-2009. And I’m not recommending that you watch it. It’s got quite a bit of colorful language in it, but I found it fascinating because of the difference in how many of the players lived their lives partying and getting into trouble and Tim who players said was pretty much either reading his Bible or studying his playbook.
But one of the things that really struck me was about how Tim began talking about how different his upbringing was compared to many of his teammates. Tim had been homeschooled and raised in a Christian home. His parents told them that they loved him and showed him in a number of ways that he was loved, and he grew up knowing that he had a place to belong.
But many of his teammates didn’t have that. As a matter of fact, one of them they focused on in the documentary talked about how he was born in prison, and how his dad was in prison about 95% of the entire time that he was growing up. He said, I’d look around and there was no family. There was no one to hug. There was no one to kiss. There was no one saying I love you and you belong.
BUT then he began to talk about how the coach started inviting him over to his house on Wednesday nights, and how his wife would cook spaghetti for him and he got to sit with them at the dinner table like a family. They all accepted him and he felt like he had a place to belong.
He talked about how his teammates also became like family to him.
And you could tell that as meaningful as the National Championships were that they won, that him having a family…people who accepted him, and a family to belong to meant way more to him than winning football games.
And this is probably true of all of us. We long to be accepted. We all want to belong, and it can have a huge impact on our lives when we are accepted by others…and of course, it can have a huge impact on others when we accept them and invite them to belong…
But what I want you to see is that it goes way above and beyond that… Look at Ro 15:7
7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
When you accept others, Paul says that it brings praise to God. Most translations translate “praise” here as “glory.”
Did you know that accepting others is such a big deal that it glorifies God? It brings praise and glory to God’s name when we accept one another.
So it’s not just a benefit for us or for those we accept, it’s for the glory and praise of God. This must be a big deal.
It is a big deal and one of the reasons is because Paul was writing to a group of Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians who could not have been more different from each other.
So, when Paul tells them to accept one another, he is saying…
ACCEPT ONE ANOTHER DESPITE YOUR DIFFERENCES
Okay, so if you were to back up one chapter and look at the first few verses of ch. 14, you would see our word accept being used by Paul there too, and you would also begin to see the context.
Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them.
Okay so the word translated “accept” here in v. 1 and 3 is proslambano which is the same word Paul uses in Romans 15:7 when he says to accept one another…
And we see the context…FOOD! There is a major difference in the way the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians approach the eating of food (theological issues but disputable matters)
One group believed that certain foods were unclean and the other group did not. Some didn’t eat meat and others did…or they didn’t eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols…all kinds of things.
And if they were supposed to be the church together now, how could they really do life together and be a part of this if they had different interpretations of this theological issue?
But it honestly goes even way beyond food. I mean there were enormous cultural and religious differences in their backgrounds.
ONE GROUP could trace their genealogy back for 50 generations…
They were grounded in the Old Testament Scriptures…They had been taught the moral law of God…
And they had walked as aliens in this Greco-Roman culture that they were forced to live in.
AND THE OTHER GROUP was immersed in the Greco-Roman culture and had no knowledge at all of the Old Testament Scriptures and moral law of God.
Not only that, but they were enormous differences POLITICALLY
There were probably differences FINANCIALLY
There were differences CULTURALLY
And we’ve already seen there were differences in DINING around the table.
As a matter of fact in a lot of ways they were even considered ENEMIES of each other.
And here Paul is telling them to accept one another. This is no small thing.
It’s like I think I joked a few weeks ago about Cowboy fans and Eagle fans being asked to come together as one group and accept each other!
Or it’s like Democrats and Republicans being asked to accept each other…Donald Trump and Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy being asked to work together.
But as big of a deal as it was to ask them to accept one another, we see what this command was grounded in through what Paul says next in Ro. 15:8…
8 For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed 9 and, moreover, that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.
In other words, Paul says that Jesus is the fulfillment of many Old Testament promises and prophecies to fulfill the work of God in this world for both the Jews and the Gentiles.
And watch…to prove this he quotes 4 Old Testament passages next…one from the law, another from the prophets, and two from the Psalms…
PSALM 18:9…
As it is written: “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles; I will sing the praises of your name.”
DEUTERONOMY 32:43…
10 Again, it says, “Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.”
PSALM 117:1…
11 And again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles; let all the peoples extol him.”
ISAIAH 11:10…
12 And again, Isaiah says, “The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations; in him the Gentiles will hope.”
In other words, Paul is trying to show that the mission and purpose of Jesus coming was to build one Church that is made up of both Jews and Gentiles…
That was the Messiah’s mission, that Jew and Gentile would be together in one church, fellowshipping together across boundaries of differences!
Paul would say it this way in Galatians 3:26-28...
26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
It is the finished work of Jesus…his sacrificial death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Holy Spirit that brings us together as one church despite our differences!
We are all one in Christ, and therefore, Paul is able to give the command to “accept one another.”
Jesus has broken down the barriers and brought us together as one church, therefore we are to accept one another despite our differences…
Racial differences…Socioeconomic differences…political differences…age differences…cultural differences…and theological differences…we could go on and on.
The church is not made up of a bunch of people who look like each other…talk like each other…vote like each other…or dress like each other…
The church is not a homogeneous people group. It's not a collection of people who are all the same.
The church is a collection of all sorts of people, many of whom are very different but who all have one thing in common: JESUS!
As a matter of fact, I was so excited when I first came a few years ago to hear that there was a group of ladies who gather together under the name of MORE IN COMMON.
Some of you are a part of that group. From what I understand, that group was born out of the racial tension that became a really big issue 4-5 years ago.
And some ladies from our church, and some ladies from another local church (which was a predominately black church) decided to intentionally come together for fellowship with the understanding that they had more in common than they did their differences, and that it all started with having Jesus in their lives first and foremost. They were sisters in Christ!
And they still meet together…and some of them have formed friendships and hang out individually together…and they pray for each other and even worship with each other, and it is beautiful…
They are doing what Paul says in Romans 15:7…accepting one another.
And as a result (as Paul said), this brings praise and glory to God’s name.
Jesus has done the work of bringing us all together as His family, as His church; therefore, when we live in that unity…when we accept one another, Jesus is being glorified and honored for making that possible.
TRANSITION: Okay, so there’s one other part of this verse though, that we need to talk about as we finish up. Look at the verse again…
7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
Okay, so if Paul says to accept one another just as Christ accepted you, then we have to ask:
“How did Christ accept you?”
Well, let me tell you how that did not go… Jesus did not look at you and say…
Wow, you are such a great person… I see how you dress (that’s the way to do it), I accept you.
I see the way you mind your manners…you say yes sir and no sir…you are polite…I’m just so impressed by the way your mom/dad raised you…you were raised right.
I see the way you vote…who you align yourself politically with…and I’m just honored to accept you because of your stance on those kinds of things.
He didn’t say, “I accept you because of your skin color, because you go to church on Sundays, or because of what Bible you carry and sometimes read.”
As a matter of fact, here’s what we are told earlier in Romans 5…
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless (weak), Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us… 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son…
God accepted you when you were weak, ungodly, a sinner, and considered His enemy.
Okay so 2 things I want to point out about this…
First, if God can accept us based on the finished work of Jesus when we were weak, ungodly, sinners, and enemies, THEN you and I can accept other brothers and sisters in Christ who differ with us on non-essential matters of faith…
You can accept brothers and sisters in Christ who vote differently than you do, who dress differently than you do, who have a different skin color than you do, and who even interpret secondary biblical issues differently than you do. (accept doesn’t mean affirm)
But secondly, this also extends to people out in the world who don’t know Jesus yet.
Again, if Jesus took us in before we cleaned our act up and were considered weak, ungodly, sinners, who were His enemies, THEN we can accept those who are still in that position too.
We value and accept people because they are made in the image of God and because Christ died for ALL people!
Jesus even did so in His earthly ministry. He hung out with and valued lost sinners…& He will lead us to do the same thing.
Okay, so we are to accept one another as Christ has accepted us, and as we do so, we bring glory, honor, and praise to Him and His finished work on the cross.
So, let’s just get real practical for a second before we leave…
Who is it that Jesus is leading you to accept today?
Is it those who sit on the other side of the political aisle than you do?
In preparation for this message, I was reading different commentaries, and I came across a story of one guy who visited a church in Washington DC. And he walks into worship and from where he ended up sitting, he could see one highly recognizable Republican Congressman and one highly recognizable Congressman who was a Democrat. They were both very different from each other on their political views and the way they voted on certain issues, but he watched as both of them seemed to genuinely worship God together in the same church that morning. They both accepted each other on the basis of having Jesus in common, despite their differences in so many other ways!
And so maybe that is what Jesus is dealing with you about today…that He is leading you to begin to accept those who sit on the other side of the political aisle from you.
If it’s not that, is Jesus leading you to accept those who are of a different race, or a different socioeconomic status, or maybe someone who just dresses differently than you do and what you consider appropriate for church…
Throughout my years in ministry, I’ve had people approach me before about people in church who had tattoos, body piercings, were dressed down casually too much, and even about guys whose hair was what they considered too long.
And each time, it’s Galatians 3:28, “I’m sorry but we’re all one in Christ & we are going to accept one another.” Or if they aren’t believers, then it’s, “Well, Jesus probably hung out with people who weren’t considered culturally appropriate to many religious people too, so it’s probably ok.”
So, are these the people Jesus is leading you to accept this morning (those whose appearance is different from yours)?
Or is it those who think differently about something theologically than you do? (the Jews & Gentiles in Rome didn’t view food laws the same and Paul was asking them NOT TO BELIEVE THE EXACT SAME THINGS BUT INSTEAD to accept one another)
Now I’m not talking about primary issues like the deity of Jesus, His resurrection, or the Trinity. I’m not talking about the Scriptures being the inspired word of God or about salvation being through grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone (core, primary doctrines of the Christian faith)
But what about those who view Calvinism, Arminianism, or Molinism is different than yours? Do you accept them?
What about those who view the sign gifts differently than you? You know some people are cessationists and don’t believe they are used by God today and others think they are still in use today. Do you accept those who land on the opposite side of your view?
What about baptism? Do you accept those who view baptism differently than you?
What about complementarianism and egalitarianism? Do you accept those who view women in ministry differently than you? Do you accept those who view men’s and women’s roles in the home differently than you?
What about premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism? Do you accept those who have a different view about the end times than you do?
What about your view of confession, repentance, or the Old Testament law & how it applies to us today? Do you accept those who have a different view about these things than you do?
Guys, these things are important…and the Lord is dealing with me about these things too. But everything that I mentioned, even though it is important, is a secondary issue in Scripture.
Secondary doesn’t mean not important, but it does mean that we can differ on these things and still be on the same team…
Think about it…this is what Paul was talking about when he said this and were asking Jews and Gentiles who differed on a number of things to accept one another.
We can still accept each other and live in unity as Jesus carries out His mission through us as His church.
So, let’s keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and let’s accept one another in the same way that He has accepted us so that He will be glorified and praised.