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Romans 14 "I'm more mature...no your not, I am!"
Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him. Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die , we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living. But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written: "As I live, says the Lord, Every knee shall bow to Me, And every tongue shall confess to God." So then each of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way. (Romans 14:1-13)
One of the questions that I hear over and over is, "What denomination are you." I always launch into my standard explanation that we are a non-denominational church, which means that rather than being of this or that group, we are simply Christians who believe what the Bible teaches to be true. But because we are also an international church located in Tokyo, Japan there is an incredible diversity in our members. In America it is not a difficult thing to find a church that you can feel comfortable in. The average American drives right past a number of churches every Sunday morning on the way to the church of his choice. There are churches on practically every corner of every conceivable variety, but here in Japan our options are more limited. In Tokyo, which has the most churches by far, you are lucky if there is one church within 30 minutes of your house (if you speak Japanese, that is) But that one church could be Baptist or Methodist or Holiness or United or who knows. So to get to the church that you "fit" into the best you have to travel quite a ways. Now if you are a foreigner living in Japan, then you are down to a very few choices. You can go to the Baptist, Union, Assembly, Anglican or Catholic church or you can come to Horizon. None of these churches is going to be very much like what you are used to at home, including Horizon, but that doesn’t excuse you from going to church. Chances are that you will have to find a new church sometime in the future. You might have to move to a new city, or you might just get tired of my preaching, but if you do have to find a new church let me give you one piece of advice. Don’t judge a church on the little things. There will always be little things that you don’t like. Judge a church on the main thing. Is Jesus Christ at the center? Does Jesus get the glory? Does the church try to follow Jesus’ example of love? Is it teaching His Word? At Horizon we come from so many different backgrounds that it is very likely that you believe something very different than the person sitting next to you. You will probably disagree about things as important as how to be baptized or the right way to do evangelism or the exact meaning of biblical prophecy or how much free will we actually have. But we all can agree on one thing. Jesus Christ is Lord.
Paul says that we should "receive one who is weak in the faith".
We should not exclude anybody from our fellowship over a lack of faith.
I am encouraged by Jesus and the disciples. Time and again Jesus told
them, "Oh ye of little faith". If their faith was so tiny,
why didn’t Jesus just go out and recruit some better disciples?
Because Jesus was in the process of giving them more faith. Jesus could
see what these weaklings would one day become. He could see that there
would come a time when these men would carry the gospel to the world
and live and die by faith. Right now there are some in our midst who
are still uncertain whether or not they can believe in Jesus. If you
are one of these, you are welcome here. We welcome you to come into
the house of Jesus Christ and get to know our Lord as we worship Him.
There are some who know that Jesus is Lord but have not been treating
Him as such recently. There are others who are having a hard time living
their lives by the Bible and trusting God that He will really do what
He says. You are welcome here. We are all growing in faith together.
Faith is a process, in which you build up a relationship with Jesus
Christ. It is not a sudden "filling" but the gradual building
up of trust.
Paul says to receive one who is weak in the faith, "but not to
disputes over doubtful things." We receive anyone who wants to
know more about Jesus. Everyone is welcome. But there are two things
that we do not do at Horizon and we should not do as Christians anywhere.
We are here to love as Jesus loves and teach the Word of God not to
argue about doctrine. There are plenty of doubtful things that we could
dispute with each other about. That is why there are so many denominations,
because there are some things that are "doubtful". The problem
is that people expect us pastors and theologians to know all the answers.
They come to us and ask their questions and it feels good to be able
to tell them something that they don’t know. It makes us feel
superior and it feeds our egos. And this is a trap! Because then somebody
comes along and asks us something that is not clear in the Word. But
they want an answer and so we do our best to give them our best answer.
But that is where we go wrong because it is not God’s answer,
but "Our" answer. Whole denominations have been built because
of the pride. "We are right and they are wrong."
We don’t need to know everything. There are some things that God
has left intentionally vague. He is saving it for later. Things like
when Jesus will come again. We don’t need to know the exact day
or time, if we knew it then we would just procrastinate. We don’t
need to know whether or not this person or that person is really saved.
Only God knows the depth of a humans heart and God is the only judge.
If we knew, would it help us to love each other better? I doubt it.
And then there are many things that God just gave us a wonderful freedom
with. Nowhere in the Word does God dictate to us what kind of music
we have to use in worship or what kind of clothes we have to wear. There
are some examples to learn from and some things that we should avoid,
but God never gave us a pattern for church that we have to slavishly
mimic. Instead He knew that as the gospel spread from culture to culture
and passed through the ages there would be an infinite number of ways
that the people from every tribe and tongue would worship Him. So the
number one thing that we should not do is dispute over doubtful things.
If somebody brings up a question like this, it is okay to think about
it together, to look up the scriptures and see what the Bible says,
but don’t wrestle each other to the ground. Let love be first
and sacrifice pride on its altar.
The second thing that we do not do at Horizon is judge each other. Paul
says, "Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own
master he stands or falls." I was talking to a man who was passing
through Tokyo on business about his spiritual life. He said that he
was a Christian but he hadn’t been attending church for a long
time. As we talked I could tell that this man was dry as a bone and
thirsty for the Lord. So I asked him why he didn’t go back to
church. He told me that he was afraid what people would think of him,
because he had not been to church for so long. It makes me want to cry.
This man is afraid to go to the one place where he should feel that
it is perfectly safe to go. He was afraid that he would be judged by
those who should be loving him unconditionally.
My wife and I like to watch the figure-skating competitions during the
Olympics. They are all so good that the judging must be very difficult.
After they skate they always go back to the little seat where they wait
for the announcement of the scores. As the points are announced, there
is usually some difference between the judges from each country and
it always amuses me how the judges from the countries that have an entry
in the same event tend to be lower. We would chuckle as the Russian
judge gave each skater a low mark except for their own team to which
they gave a perfect 10. What if you were a skater and knew that all
the judges would be Russian? You look over to the judges box and are
shocked to see that instead of the usual panel from the U.S and Canada
and European countries there is nobody there but Russians. And you’re
not Russian! You would cry out, "unfair" and refuse to skate
at all. What if as look closer, these Russian judges are not even really
judges. They are just a bunch of normal people that they pulled off
the street who don’t know anything about skating at all! This
is ridiculous! Folks that is how people feel when they come to church.
They feel like they have to expose their lives to a bunch of amateur
judges who aren’t even fair. There is only one true judge, God.
Only God is truly fair. Only God is truly qualified.
We do not have the time to get into childish arguments about who is
right and who is wrong. We do not have the time to pick each other apart
over little things. We are called to love as our Lord Jesus loves. Paul
says "Indeed he will be made to stand, for God is able to make
him stand." Don’t worry about this thing or that thing that
somebody might be doing wrong. God is big enough to take care of His
own. No little thing is going to cause us to fall out of His care, not
after He sacrificed Jesus on the cross to get us. We are called to love
each other with this same love that Jesus had for us. Don’t let
some little thing come between you. Hold on tight to each other and
walk in love.
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