Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript
## Luke 2:1-20 | Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Sermon text today is found in Luke chapter 2 beginning at verse 1. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David to be registered with Mary his betrothed wife who was with child.

So it was that while they were there the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were greatly afraid.

Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you. You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” So it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger.

Now when they had seen him, they made widely known the saying which were told them concerning this child. And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen as it was told them.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for this poignant account of the coming of our savior. We thank you for the gospel of Luke. And we pray now you would help us to understand the relationship of this gospel and then the rest of your scriptures to the community that Jesus Christ gives us as a gift by his advent. Bless us Lord God with an understanding of your word by your Holy Spirit. Transform our lives by that spirit that empowers us for victory. We ask this in the name and authority of Jesus Christ and for the sake of his kingdom, not ours.

Amen. Please be seated.

We’re going through a brief survey of the Gospels over the four Sundays of Advent. We began with Matthew, then went to Mark, did Mark last week, Luke this week, and next week we’ll conclude with John. And what we’re looking at is the presentation of the first advent of our savior and its relationship to what some have referred to as life on the cross—how we’re stretched out. We have a past orientation and a future orientation, an interior orientation and a community orientation, and an exterior one as well.

And so that’s kind of what we’ve done—use these gospels as a jumping off point to discuss these things. Now, I’m not trying to assert that these gospels necessarily flow in that way, but I do think that they work out that way nicely, at least what we’ve seen so far. When we looked at the Gospel of Matthew, we saw genealogy—not the kind of introduction that this gospel gives us, and we’ll talk about in a moment—and a relationship to fulfillment. Israel is in bondage still in the genealogy. All the predictions the Old Testament prophets predicted—the death of Israel in the north, the death of Judah in the south, and then their resurrection. And from Matthew’s perspective, they waited and waited and waited. That resurrection was not the return, not the restoration from exile, but they’re still in exile in Matthew’s genealogy. And Jesus fulfills then the prophetic message.

So the message of fulfillment in the past. And Mark doesn’t even give us a birth account at all. It just leaps right into these wonderful first verses about the gospel of the kingdom. The gospel, as we see by study of the gospels, is the gospel of the kingdom—references to Christ’s kingship and then immediately going into the announcement of the forerunner and Jesus’ work. And so we saw kind of a future orientation in Mark’s gospel.

I wanted to, before we begin in today’s talk, say a little bit about this increase of his government, which we talked about last week—the future. Matthew looked at the past, seemed to have an emphasis on the past and fulfillment. Mark looked at the future. The king is leading his people into the future and fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah that we sing and delight in this time of year—that the child will be born and of the increase of his government there shall be no end.

There was a short clip that I made off of an old news show last Sunday—the ABC News with George Stephanopoulos. I DVR’d it and then made a DVD out of it to show to the young adults Sunday school class because I found it so astonishing. They were discussing the recent speech by Mitt Romney. Now, I’m okay to talk about politics here because the gospel is political. The purpose in Isaiah for the coming of Jesus Christ—the purpose of Christmas was the establishment of good government, the increase of his government. There shall be no end.

Now, that’s not restricted to political government, but it includes that. So it’s okay to talk about it. In fact, I think it would be an aberration to talk about Christmas and not talk about the implications of the coming of the King of Kings to government—to civil government.

Well, in our day and age, interesting things are happening. Mitt Romney gave a speech about his faith. He’s a Mormon. And he said in this speech that there’s an attempt to establish a new secular humanism as the religion of our day. And Romney reflected probably the concerns that many people in this church would have—that we’re being pushed out of the public square in favor of an atheistic secular perspective on life. And that’s kind of the new orthodoxy.

And they were talking about this speech. They were also talking about the meteoric rise of Governor Huckabee, who was governor of Arkansas. He was on the cover of Newsweek magazine this week with his picture and it called him “Holy Huckabee.” He was a Southern Baptist pastor who left a large Southern Baptist congregation to run for lieutenant governor originally and became governor and now is running for the presidency. And they were discussing these two facts. They being George Stephanopoulos, Cokie Roberts, Sam Donaldson, and the token conservative who really isn’t probably conservative, George Will.

What was amazing about this little clip that I showed the class this morning was that the word theocracy was used several times. This equation that Romney had—that in order for you to have morality, morality is necessary for virtue, and virtue is necessary to be a good citizen. And so the atheists and secularists have come out of the closet in attacking the speech because what he’s saying, by implication at least—they think this is what he’s saying—is that unless you’re religious of some sort you can’t be a good citizen. And even George Will said that we are getting close to the place where there will be a rebellion in this country if they continue to infuse the public policy arena with piety. He said it’s unheard of in the history of our country to have this attempt, and the other people used this word of a Christian theocracy to be imposed in public policy.

So all three—all four of these men and women discussing current events—expressed a fear of a growing theocratic movement in America. Now it’s very interesting because Christians have a fear about a growing secularist movement in America. Dangerous times. Everybody’s kind of fearful. But what was fascinating was if you listen to them carefully, they had some truth on their side.

Will George Will pointed out that 100 years ago William Jennings Bryan ran for president and he ran against Taft, and one of his big claims was that Taft wasn’t fit to be president because he was a Unitarian and William Jennings Bryan was an Orthodox Trinitarian Christian. And as George Will said, the country yawned and elected Taft. They really didn’t care. Sam Donaldson said that 50 years ago, yes, the sessions of Congress would begin with a prayer, but you know, when it comes to public policy issues, nobody’d be quoting the Bible. Now, he says, God is invoked against a tax cut in the halls of Congress. He says he doesn’t think God has time to worry about tax cuts. It’s ignorance, of course. But you see, they’re right in a way. It sounds to us like they’ve got it backwards. It’s strange they would even think these things. But—of the increase of his government there shall be no end.

This country—we want to equate Christian political action all too often with the founding fathers of our country and see complete continuity with them. We are not continuous with them because the founding fathers were just as much children of Athens as they were children of Jerusalem. They were just as much—and maybe more so—informed by Greek philosophy and Greek social structures and Greek views of government as they were by a Hebrew theocracy. They were more informed by their Greek style. They were more prone to quote, in arguing for particular public policy matters, Greek politicians or political thought as opposed to the scriptures.

Now, there was an ethos of Christianity that allowed all this to happen. Everybody was Christian. It was theocratic in a soft sense. But what’s being called for now by Christians is theocracy in a harder sense. Not in the kind of sense that is portrayed erroneously by the people that fear it, but an actual looking to the word of God for determination of what is good for the country in terms of taxation policies, moral things, finances, etc. Everything now, by a significant element of the Christian church, is seen under the lordship of the increase of the government of Jesus Christ. And so that government must inform everything that we do, including our public policy matters.

So what’s happened over 2,000 years? Christianity is birthed in the context of Greek philosophy and it’s got an admixture of Greek thought with it for 2,000 years, and all that sort of plays itself out. And now in our day and age it seems like there’s an attempt to purify—you know, not just political structures but churches’ polity, etc.—away from Greek influences and make them more explicitly biblical. That’s exciting.

That’s why these people are reacting fearfully. They see something happening. They see the kingdom on the move in a way that we don’t because of our fear. We don’t see the increase of his government. We think it’s decreasing. But in actuality, the Lord Jesus Christ—I think, this is my opinion—but I believe that in our day and age, he’s trying to get us to be more explicit. He’s not trying. He is bringing us into more of a maturation of Christian political thought in every other area as well.

So you see, it’s very interesting what perspective you look at this stuff from. And given a true historical perspective, there is something new and novel today. It has continuity with the past and the founding fathers and the Christian ethos, but it is a harder form of taking the scriptures seriously as they relate to public policy issues. So you know, it’s interesting because it’s evidence of the relevancy of the Christian faith in our day and age. Public policy matters on ABC News—the danger of a growing Christian theocratic movement. And they’re right. The kingdom is on the move. Public policy issues are being explicitly tied to the scriptures. This is something somewhat new in the particular way it’s being done in the history of this country. That’s exciting news. Of the increase of his government, there shall be no end.

Now, there’s other indications. I heard an interview on NPR with the fellow from Saddleback, Purpose Driven Life—Rick Warren. And you know, I’m not—I understand the differences, understand the problems—but you know, he’s part of the same community of the church of Jesus Christ as we are. And I’ve seen interviews that indicate that he’s Calvinistic. Well, in any event, there was a long interview with him on NPR that I listened to this last week, and him and his wife are very involved now in third world countries trying to combat AIDS, poverty, starvation, people dying for lack of water, etc.

And the way Warren is attempting to solve that problem is he’s saying that they try to use two legs of the stool. Political structures and businesses—microlending practices are absolutely fascinating to me and I think that we ought to know more about it in this church and we ought to be involved in it. It’s an attempt to loan small amounts of money to people in impoverished areas to create business, free market going on, etc.

So you’ve got that happening. The governments and now business particularly has awoken to responsibilities to try to help. But Warren says a three-legged stool is what they need. They don’t need—and he didn’t say Christianity. He said churches is the third leg. Churches are all over the globe and in many of these impoverished areas there are existing churches, or churches can be planted, and churches are necessary to solve the problems.

I think for the first time in the history of the world—because of communication skills and abilities, because of the great wealth of the west—we can actually, I think that Warren’s right, make a significant impact to show the benevolence of the Lord Jesus Christ by working through local churches in connection with businesses that are working with sound policies and try to combat the governments that are so often corrupt and part of the problem.

But you see, I think it’s wonderful. I think of the increase of the government of Jesus Christ in terms of political action, we see evidence of that growth. And in terms of the extension of benevolence, we see indications of that growth. The church is awakening to its opportunity to feed, to give people water, to help their diseases in the name of Jesus Christ. And specifically Rick Warren has been used by God, I think, to awaken the institutional church, the local churches, to their responsibilities to move in terms of these problems.

So I think it’s an exciting time to live, and I think there’s lots of reason for optimism in what we’re doing. These are dangerous times, you know. If the culture is afraid of theocracy, we can expect increasing attacks and there will be attacks. That’s okay. It just shows the relevancy of Christianity to public policy issues. So there’s difficulties. Sure, I understand that. But the good news of Christmas—that the child has been born, that the second person of the Trinity has taken on human flesh and humanity now has been exalted to the right hand of God in the person of Jesus, and man now rules in the context of the world. This good news is being worked out in marvelous ways that, if you just try to look through the eyes of faith and through the eyes of the scriptures, can be seen fairly evidently—man ruling.

The angels proclaimed that birth. Where have the angels been for 2,000 years? You seen an angel? I haven’t seen angels. Not that they were necessarily common. The angels are gone. It’s the time of man now in Middle Earth. It’s the time of humanity. The wizards and warlocks are gone now. They’re fading away. And you know that we like that sort of stuff because it’s based in truth.

The world waited for 4,000 years for a man to become son of God, ruler again. And Jesus Christ, second person of God, incarnate in the flesh, takes on humanity and raises humanity to the right hand of the Father. And a man now rules the universe. That man is Jesus Christ. And as a result, he’s raised the state of men. Paul says we’re to judge angels. We’re no longer judged by them. We’re over them now. Man has dominion. It’s our responsibility to take care of the problems and to be the herald messengers of the good news of the announcement of the increase of the government of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So that second gospel—Mark—is working its way out. The king is continuing to move, and in fairly dramatic ways in our day and age that are exciting to me—wonderful opportunities and give us more reason to sing forth with joy at the celebration of the first advent of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So we’ve looked at the past with Matthew’s gospel. We’ve looked at the future with Mark’s gospel. And here in Luke, we have this wonderful account that is the basis for probably mostly all Christmas plays throughout the world for 2,000 years. This is what we like to hear. Many families, traditions maintaining the past, looking to the future—they read the Gospel of Luke for the Christmas story. It is a wonderful family picture. Joseph, Mary, the babe in swaddling clothes. Luther, of course, whose hymn we sang earlier, was greatly inspired by this imagery, relieved from his monastic life, being cut off from marriage, becoming married and looking at the blessings of children and family and household.

And we can see it in that Christmas song we just sang—that God has come to bring gifts to this ineffably sublime, incredible picture of Jesus coming as a child, as a baby in swaddling clothes. Luke is appealing to us because it has this wonderful imagery of the restoration of community and family. That’s my point. We’ve talked about the past. We’ve talked about the future. Now we’re going to talk about community today. And next week we’ll talk about mission to the world.

We have a past orientation, a future orientation, an interior orientation—what’s important for our community as a church—and then God gathers us to send us out to bring even more people in. Jerusalem in the book of Revelation has walls. It’s a defined city, but it has gates that are always open. And the church of Jesus Christ is the new Jerusalem. We are a defined people by our confession of faith, the apostles creed, etc. We’re a defined people, but our doors are not locked. Our doors are open to the world. There are permeable barriers between community of Jesus Christ and the world because God expects us to bring all the nations into his worship through those open doors. And he expects us to take the message of the gospel out through those opened doors.

And I think Luke is this wonderful picture of community being restored. You know, it starts off. Matthew starts off with a long set of genealogies. Mark starts off going boom, boom, boom. The king’s come. He’s going to get going. And Luke starts off by Luke writing to a friend, Theophilus. Well, I thought you’d like to know what actually happened here. And I kept really good records and I know what I’m talking about.

Luke says, “Now beloved Theophilus, here’s the account.” Do you see the difference? The gospels are different one from the other for a particular reason. They all tell the one story of the coming of Christ, but from different perspectives, like facets on a diamond. And this particular facet, I think, in part at least in Luke, is this facet of restored community. Friendship now between Luke and Theophilus drives the entire gospel. It’s at the beginning—the restoration of friends again. And then before we get to the lovely scene we just read from Luke 2, we have Luke 1. After that brief introduction to his friend, now we have the story of another family.

We have a barren woman—another barren woman. We’ve got Zacharias, a priest. We’ve got the promise of the coming of John the Baptist. It’s another family, a family that longs for a child and a family whose unity will now be bound together with a child through the grace of God. And then even after the account in Luke’s gospel in chapter 2, we see a man and a woman in the temple. So we’ve got temple with Zacharias, we’ve got the coming of Jesus, and then we’ve got the temple again. And those temple scenes are ones in which men and women are being restored and in the case of the first two stories, given children.

It’s a family deal. It’s a family story. It’s a wonderful family account. And we thrill to it, don’t we? We’ve heard it all of our lives, those of us that are older. And yet when it’s read on Christmas Eve and our families are gathered and it’s read from the pulpit, it just has this wonderful peacefulness about it. It’s got that kind of glow of a fireplace to it. It’s got that wonderful sort of Christmas smells of evergreens and stuff, tasty candies and drinks. It’s got that kind of appeal to us because it has this wonderful imagery of restored community.

Not just the barren woman having a child, but set in the context of a family. And not just a family—because, as I said, it begins with the reconciliation of brother against brother, problems resolved by Luke writing to his friend Theophilus. So I think that the entire beginning of the gospel of Luke is set in this context of the restoration of community. At least we can look at it from that perspective this year and say, yes, an important element of the celebration of the advent of Christ is the restoration of community—the gift that God has given to us of community.

Luther in his song talked about the gifts that this child brings to us. That’s what Christmas is all about. It’s the giving of gifts as a reminder of the wonderful gifts that God gives us in the advent of Christ. He gives them to us every Lord’s Day. The gifts of glory, knowledge, and life that we’ve talked so much here about. They’re gifts to us. And God expects us to use those gifts to gift other people in the context of community. God expects us to do that.

My sermon today is on opening the gift of community carefully. You know, you can get certain gifts and your parent or your spouse or your child will say, “Well, be careful. Don’t break what’s in there because there’s something important. It’s beautiful, but it can be broken if you open it in haste.” Well, community is the same way. This is a gift. And Jesus Christ on the cross at the end of John’s gospel—what does he do? He restores community. He tells John to care for his mother. He says to his mother, “This is now your son.” He creates community as one of his final acts on the cross. This is what Jesus has come to do—to give us the restoration of community.

In our day and age particularly, we need this assurance that Christmas means that yeah, we can have marriages that will last. We can have parent-child relationships that will develop and be good. We can have churches where we won’t be stabbed in the back by the person next to us in the pew, or we won’t be attacked for this or that thing that we’re trying to do to please God. The restoration of community is a wonderful gift of Christmas.

And my sermon today is about opening that gift carefully, acknowledging the need to be careful in how we receive this gift. I want to talk primarily from Romans chapters 14 and 16. In doing this, the gospel of Luke sort of sets us up. You know, the gospel of Luke is about singing too, right? Next week we’ll read responsively the four songs—the four great Christmas songs. You know, the Gloria in Excelsis that we read about today, the Benedictus, the wonderful story of the response to the coming of Christ, the Magnificat—Mary’s song of blessing: God, my soul magnifies the Lord—and then the Nunc Dimittis, which we sing frequently at this church at the end of the service.

These are all Christmas songs. They’re part of the way the Christmas story, the advent of Christ, is told in the gospel of Luke. Singing builds community. We get together in our families at church. We sing together. We create special memories at the other. We bond together through singing. And Luke’s gospel gives us that as well. It’s all about—at least from one perspective, this facet of the diamond that seems to shine a little brighter in this one than we have in the previous two gospels—this restoration of community and families and friendship and singing with joyful celebration with one another, etc. And this is a wonderful time of year for that. And we’ll all do a lot of that, I’m sure, over the next couple of weeks—the next week and a half. We’ll do it. And that’s Lucian to engage in that kind of community.

Now men, women, and children—then in your outlines, point number two: Jesus and the restoration of community is what I’ve been talking about. It’s men, women, children. It’s families, but beyond families. The nice beautiful two family accounts in the middle, as I said, are prefaced by a man and his friend Theophilus that drives the whole thing. And then a man and a woman not married at the end. So there’s a restoration of community not just in terms of the family but in terms of friendships, and ultimately we would say that the community that’s defined by the advent of Christ is the church.

The church is the community of God, and we want to open that up. So I want to talk about Romans 14. Paul writes to the Romans and he says, “Well, this community thing, you’re kind of getting some things wrong and it’s such an important deal. I need to write to you about it at length. I’m going to spend a chapter or more on it.” In fact, I think he spends the most of the last three chapters of the epistle to the Romans on community, and he tells them some things they’re doing wrong—which we all remember—this is the part of Romans epistle where he talks about people that eat differently from others and how we exercise community properly together. And I want us to look at that briefly so we can look at how we receive this gift of community in a positive way. Then what are some things we shouldn’t do that are harmful to community?

So opening the gift of community carefully—as I say on the outline—there are community characteristics in Romans Chapter 14. Turn to Romans 14. Then we’re going to spend some time on that. We have that wonderful scene in Luke—the various scenes. You know, this is what it’s all about. But it doesn’t feel like that to us a lot of times. And Romans 14 will give us instruction on what we should do to better receive this gift of community.

And I want to stress first of all that there are these community characteristics in Romans 14. So we can look at the negative—we will in a moment—things that destroy community. But see, there are first of all some presuppositions. He’s writing to a church. Now let me just say at the beginning that the issues he’s going to involve himself in are primarily issues of diet and the keeping of days. And you know, the church at Rome had big problems between Jews and Gentiles.

The Jewish converts had been kicked out of Rome along with the rest of the Jews some years previous to this under one emperor, then had been brought back. So there were contentions between the Roman culture in general and Jews, and this bled over into the church. So the first application of what Paul is specifically addressing—I’m convinced—has to do with how you treat these Jewish people who want to eat kosher food and who want to observe all of the Old Testament calendar instead of just the Sabbath or Lord’s Day. They bring in all these days. And so the question Paul will address is how you go about maintaining peace, opening the gift of community carefully, without tearing each other apart in how we deal with these kind of issues.

Now, it has implications for us, you know, issues of food and what we do with time. And there’s a lot of other things that divide churches. So it has application to us, but in the first instance, I think it’s talking about Jewish converts and Gentiles.

Well, when he writes to him in chapter 14—and by the way, Romans 11 sort of ends the doctrine section. Romans 12 begins the Christian life, what we would call the practical side of Romans. It begins with worship, right? Presenting ourselves in worship to God, our reasonable service of worship. And then it talks in the next chapter—chapter 13—about a relationship to the state. Okay? Subject to the governing authorities in the state. And then in 14, it talks about community life together. So we go from worship to the state to personal relationships in the context of community and extended family, etc. Okay.

So he goes into this quite abruptly in Romans 14 and he says this. The first word he says is receive. “Receive one who is weak in the faith but not to disputes over doubtful things.” So the idea is that you know, to the Jews there wasn’t kosher meat available in the city. So they’re going to have to eat just vegetables. They’re not going to be able to eat the meat for various reasons—why it’s not kosher—and it’s particularly not kosher because it’s been sacrificed to idols for the most part at this time in the history of Rome. And so they wouldn’t eat the stuff that other Christians knew they should be able to eat. But they didn’t want to eat it. It would hurt. It would harm.

Paul later makes it very clear that the problem is not one of personal preference. The problem is that if they convince the Jews who were convinced that this was wrong to do, if they make them, if they force them, if they cajole them into eating this stuff, then the Jew will feel guilty—the Jewish convert, that is. They’ll feel guilty. And the operating principle in Romans 14 that Paul lays out is that whatever is not of faith is sin.

So you’ve caused that other person to sin by having him partake of something, and do something that isn’t sinful of itself, but it’s sin to him because he’s violated his own conscience. So that’s kind of the dilemma that’s set up. And the first word—say, good. How do we open the gift of community carefully? Well, number one: we’re people who are to receive people that are different than us, to accept them, to receive them, to embrace them.

We accept the gift of community by accepting each other in the context of the church. So Paul is addressing, you know, ways that the community that he’s going to write to actually acts. And the first thing he commends them to and he tells them that they should do is to actually receive one another. That’s not as easy as it sounds, is it? We have people come into the church from all kinds of different social perspectives, political perspectives, all kinds of different issues. And yeah, we know that in the future the church will come to perfection. That’s what Ephesians tells us. But we know also that’s a process. And it’s difficult. It’s hard to bring people in that are not like us. Particularly in America, it’s hard for us not to have—it’s hard for us to have friends that aren’t like us. And it’s even harder to go to a church where there’s all kinds of different people.

Receiving people is not easy. And you have to remember that Jesus wants to create community, and in a very radical way, creates community in a way that the Romans could never have perceived of, apart from Christianity. They were class-driven. The differences were accentuated. You would eat with your own class, etc. And Jesus blows through and establishes a new community. And the first element of that community that he stresses in Romans 14 is the need to receive each other, even those people that are different than us. Not easy to do, but that’s what we’re supposed to do.

Secondly, these are people who he’s commanding to receive one another, but these are people who have something in common. Look at verse 5. “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. He who does not observe the day to the Lord, he does not observe it. He who 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. Did you notice “to the Lord”—to the Lord, to the Lord. Paul assumes that the gift of community is found in the context of a Christian congregation who are sold out for Jesus. That’s the only kind of Christian he perceives of in this debate. He’s saying you’re all zealous, and that’s what you should be.

So a common characteristic of successful Christian community is working at living for the Lord. Are you living for the Lord? I guess is one way we could say it. Sounds a little evangelical or Baptist. It isn’t. It’s what Paul uses. It’s what he says. You’re supposed to live to the Lord. And what he’s telling them is, yeah, people are doing things differently than you and you don’t do it that way. But you know what? You’re all trying to live for the Lord. So cool it. Calm down a little bit because you’ve got something very important in common. You have a zealousness to please Christ. And yeah, they’re doing it a way different than you. But understand, give God thanks for the major issues. And the major issue is there’s a commonality of trying to live for the Lord.

I have to remind myself of this. We are big on trying to build community with other churches in Oregon City. And people do things a lot different than we do. But you know, those pastors and those people are for the most part living for the Lord. Now they may do it in great ignorance. They may do it in great weakness. We may do it in great ignorance or weakness. But the common theme here is that we’re to receive each other and we’re to recognize that the reason for this reception is because we’re all living for the Lord.

Now, so the idea is this is kind of a radical call to commitment. We cannot have community if we’ve got people that aren’t really living for the Lord. They’re not part of this equation. He’s addressing people who are sold out for Jesus. That’s what he assumes we are in the context of the church. He’s not talking about. So, in other words, what he’s going to say is that I’m not talking about your individual preferences. I’m talking about things that you’ve decided: this is what Christ would really have me do. That’s the sort of issues he’s addressing.

Now, he says in the context of this that some people regard one day above another and some people like this food or that food. I’ve got a quote here. I thought it was wonderful. This is from Rushdoony’s commentary on Romans, from Daniel Doriani. He said, “The law of God, in other words, is the practice of God’s own life ruling in the soul as a guiding, sustaining, quickening power.”

What a wonderful quote. And the reason Rushdoony inserts it in his commentary on Romans is Paul is not saying that there aren’t right and wrong in issues. He’s not addressing the issues where God clearly speaks to one thing or another. The problem wasn’t the celebration of the Lord’s Day, the Christian Sabbath. The problem was the Jewish converts wanted to keep the whole Old Testament calendar. And this is quite clear as we look at Colossians or other verses that talk about their keeping of days and Sabbaths in the plural. And with the coming of Christ, the Old Testament calendar is put on a shelf and it all rolls up into Lord’s Day observance.

So he’s not saying that the Lord’s Day isn’t a day that God tells us should be set apart by everybody. That’s not the point. There are obvious things the law requires. It’s not—you’re not supposed to receive people who reject the law of God in supposed Christianity. He’s talking to people that are faithful in pleasing the Lord by application of the law. Because the law is nothing more—when we say the law of God, you know, the whole scriptures are the law of God. The law is, as Doriani said, the practice of God’s own life, the law is God’s own life ruling in the soul as a guiding, sustaining, quickening power. That is excellent. There’s no law. In other words, when we talk about law abstracted from the person of God, we get in trouble, because that’s not what it is. It flows from the person of God himself.

The life that he has in himself, and our appreciation and appropriation of the life of God, is an appropriation that will find itself in conformity to his law. So community—and we’re to receive one another—and the presupposition is we’re all living for Jesus. There’s another presupposition in verse 6, and that is thankfulness. I just read it. I’ll read it again in verse 6.

“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 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.”

So what he’s saying is that this argument of how to embrace the gift of community and not sin against it is given to people that are trying to live for the Lord. And it’s given to people who are being thankful to God for the practices and perceptions that he’s brought them to. So thankfulness is of the essence of Christianity, as we’ve said many times, and it’s the common denominator here of the community.

So he’s stressing some things you have in common. You’re all trying to live for Jesus. You’re all thankful to God. You didn’t do it yourself. Build on those things and receive other people who in like way are sold out for Christ, living for the Lord, and in like way are thankful to God for whatever it is they do.

Now he’s talking about food and people give thanks to God for their food. We looked at Thanksgiving Day—the many scriptures in the New Testament that show this as the traditional practice. There’s no law that says you have to stop and give grace at the beginning of eating, but it is the common practice of Christian churches. And the thanksgiving here is put in the context of this discussion of eating. So we give thanks for what they eat or for what they don’t eat. And that’s important. After all, it was eating that got us into this mess. And Jesus recovered us from this by causing us to give thanks and to see whatever we do in terms of food is consecrated to him.

So they’re all thankful. Fourth, they’re actively pursuing peace and edification. At least they’re supposed to be. Look at verses 17 and 19 of Romans 14. And he says in verse 17, “The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men.”

So peace is of the essence of Christian community. “Therefore, let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify one another.”

To receive the gift of community is to see peace—God’s peace, the blessings of God in community—as the goal. And it is to self-consciously try to build each other up rather than tear each other down. So the question is edification. Now this is important because he designates some people as weak and some people as strong. And obviously weakness is not a state that’s supposed to be put up with long term. The strong have an obligation to try to edify the weaker brother, to bring him to a position of liberty in terms of food, for instance.

But he’s not supposed to do it by disputation. He’s not supposed to cajole him and you know, you stupid idiot, why don’t you know, do this or that or the other thing. No, he’s to build his brother up and be peaceable about it. And that’s the key to building Christian community.

So in the context of Jesus Christ, we are to be those who receive one another—or gifts to each other. We’re to be those who are sold out, living for Christ. We’re to be those who are being thankful in whatever it is we do. And if that’s the context, then be very careful not to tear your brother down. Work for peace through the edification of your brother in the Lord.

So that’s the positive things he says. But then there are typical sins against community that he speaks about in Romans 14 as well. Now, he tells us here of the typical sins against community. And that’s the whole point of what he’s saying here. Is that, you know, you’re not doing well in this. You’re tearing each other down.

He says to receive people and look what he says, verse 3. So he says the problem is you’ve got people that differ on food. Then verse 3: “Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat. Let not him who does not eat judge him who eats, for God has received him.”

Both sides in a community that’s in difficulty, that’s struggling, both sides—at least in the one Paul is writing to—are censorious. They’re both wanting their standard to be the standard for everybody else. The way I want it to be. That’s the way it should be.

Rushdoony, I thought, had a very insightful comment in his opening two paragraphs on Romans 14. He says, “Our problem since Adam is that because of our fall in Adam, we all seek to be our own God and law.” Genesis 3:5. You know, the temptation is you can be as God, determining right from wrong. We all want to be our own God on our own law. As a result, we want everyone, including God, to hear and obey our word. And we tend to feel that the world will decay if we withhold our comments and judgments.

Oh, that’s good, isn’t it? Hits home though. You know, that’s so often what we’re like. We want to tell everybody else what to do. And not only that, it’s even worse than that. We think the thing will fall apart if our judgments, our criticisms, our corrections aren’t spoken into the situation.

That is our fallen, sinful tendency, according to Rushdoony, and I think it’s right on target. And the way this finds itself being worked out—these typical sins against community are two-fold. First of all is to despise the weak. So people that are exercising Christian liberty—they’re eating the meat that was sold in the shambles, dedicated to the idols. They don’t care. They know there are no idols. Hey, it’s meat. It’s good. And that’s good. They’re right in that.

See Paul doesn’t hold back from saying some people are strong in this and others are weak. So he’s not criticizing them for their strength. In fact, he’s saying the weak don’t have strength and they really should get strength eventually. That’s what edification would imply. But the strong—what are they doing? They are despising the weak.

Now, he says this twice in Romans 14. It’s not just this verse. Later, he says the same thing. And I think by a two-fold witness, what he’s telling us is that people that exercise Christian liberty are tempted to despise. The word means to think little of or think nothing of, to put down, to ridicule the ones that don’t exercise their liberty in these things. That is the particular temptation. That’s the way to destroy the gift of community.

If you’re a person who understands Christian liberty, you’re living for Christ. You know, you can eat food. You know, you can have a cigar occasionally, as long as you’re not addicted or whatever. As long as you’ve got the cigar and the cigar doesn’t have you, you can drink on occasion. As long as the drink doesn’t have you, you have the drink. You know, there’s things you can do. And your temptation, if you’re one of those sorts of people, will be to ridicule people that aren’t.

Oh, come on. You can do this. Have some beer. Have some cigar. Have this meat. They’ll tell the other person. And if they don’t have it, they tend to put them down as being somehow weaker Christians. That is a horrific sin against community that Paul is addressing in Romans 14. Now, they had it in spades because of this Jew-gentile convert problem. But every church has it. We all have people that have Christian liberty and they try to enforce that liberty on others. And what they do, Paul says, is they can have the effect of ruining their brother instead of building your brother up.

He can take that drink and he’ll feel guilty about it. It’s sin to him who doesn’t do it of faith. So the particular sin of strong people, people who are more mature in the faith, is to despise the weaker.

This same word despise is used back in Luke’s gospel in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Jesus spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. So people that despise others is what the Pharisee is a picture of. I thank you that I’m a lot better than this terrible tax collector. I thank you, Lord God. He gives thanks to God for his grace, but in his despising of the tax collector, he shows his self-righteousness.

So if you’re one of these guys that are strong in the faith, mature—don’t despise people that are growing, who aren’t the same place you are. That’s your particular sin.

What’s the particular sin of the weak? Well, he goes on to say, “Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats.” The particular sin of the weak Christian is judgmental. If the strong Christian is an elitist—oh, you know, the faith is really, this is what it’s all about. And we’re the elite and we’re the powerful, we’re the strong ones, we’re the mature ones. You guys are really sort of irrelevant to the whole thing. Great sin against community.

But the weak people, they’re judgmental and they’re reductionistic. In other words, they reduce the Christian walk to some simple rules, usually man-made, usually not found in the scriptures. Now, they’re trying to walk for Jesus. They’re doing it because that’s what they think—I shouldn’t ever, you know, drink or do this or that or the other thing. And please, nobody think I’m talking about you. I’m not. I’m talking in generalities here. But they apply to every congregation. And so it’s easy for them to be seen in terms of us.

I’m not talking about specific people here, but I’m saying that this is what Paul talks about. And the people that are not as mature in the use of their Christian liberties tend to be judgmental toward those who are. They’re legalistic, they’ll say. They don’t really, they’re not really trying to follow Jesus. If they were, you know, they wouldn’t eat that idolatrous meat or they wouldn’t, you know, have that cigar. They wouldn’t drink that whiskey or whatever it is. They wouldn’t watch those movies.

So a particular tendency of weak Christians is judgmentalness. Now, this is really important for pastors and for the rest of you too. We’re all supposed to encourage and exhort each other to faithfulness. If you’ve got a person that’s judgmental, it means that what you’ve got to do is just help them to grow in that area. You want to build them up. And you don’t build them up by being censorious, by despising them.

And if you’re a weak person, great. Paul is saying, I’m glad you have the scruples. I’m glad you’re not eating that meat because if you were right now, it’d be sin for you. But don’t judge other people by your standard and don’t think that you’ve got to speak that standard into the lives of everybody else or the world will come crashing down.

Now, judging—we know—I mean, clearly the scriptures tell us we have to make judgments. Judging is wrong. What he’s talking about here is judgmentalness. In John 7:24 we read, “Don’t judge according to appearance but judge with righteous judgments.”

So he’s not speaking against all judgments, but he’s saying that we Christians tend to be legalistic, reductionistic, and they tend to then be judgmental toward others.

All right. What about this community? Nice in the abstract. Well, we’re to receive one another, recognizing the differences of giftings in the context of the body. We all think of ourselves as the standard. That’s the common theme of both groups that Paul is addressing.

One way to hurt community is to make yourself the standard. And to accept other people who are different than you and yet committed to Christ is of the essence of building community up. God gives different giftings, different callings to different people in the church. And when we have our calling, we think that’s what everybody else should be doing, right?

So we’ve got this thing going on. We’re really good at showing hospitality. And therefore, everybody that’s not as hospitable as us is no good. Well, everybody’s supposed to be hospitable. But there’s a giftedness to it to some people. Some people are gifted at speaking the truth evangelistically to others, at winning people to Christ, at taking the message to non-Christians. And then they think that you’re less of a person because you don’t do that. Your gift may be teaching or maturing people that are already Christians. You see, God says that in the body there’s all kinds of giftings and ability.

And in this church we have all kinds of different perspectives. You know, when people say why doesn’t the church do this ministry, my typical response is, “Well, that’s great. Why don’t you do that ministry?” Because if God has laid it on your heart, it’s probably not something he’s laid on somebody else’s heart. Now, I believe you that God’s laid it on your heart. Great. You’re living for Christ. This is what you want. But don’t make the whole church have your standard. I’ll help you. I’ll do whatever I can to assist you in that ministry. But, you know, it’s not a cop-out to tell you it’s your ministry. In fact, it’s empowering to you.

You have to know that God calls you to minister in particular ways. And when you have an idea, more often than not, you should act on it. You should act on it. You shouldn’t get somebody else to act on it. It’s your deal. The monkey’s on your back, right? God’s Holy Spirit is motivating you to ministry. So in this church, let’s receive one another.

I think we do a great job of this in general, but let’s continue to do it. You younger people, receive us, older people. Don’t reject traditions. Ask why. God says in the Old Testament, you’re to have these traditions—Passover, for instance. And he says, you know, you’re supposed to ask why, young people. God was bridging the generation gap by causing the young people not just to do empty-mindedly the traditions that have been passed down by the older folks, and not by chucking them because they’re just the traditions of mom and dad. He says, talk to one another. Try to understand why this tradition is established in the church.

Now, maybe you want to get rid of it. Maybe you don’t. Traditions are powerful things. I was at the Advent Lesson and Carols at the Episcopalian church a couple weeks ago, and I was amazed reading their literature how apostate they were. And yet at Christmas time they become very orthodox. They’re a little bit of funniness in some of their songs and readings, but for the most part they become orthodox.

Why? The Christmas tradition has kept them somewhat conservative, at least once or twice a year. So traditions are good. They preserve truth. Now, on the other hand, you could tell me—I’m sure some of you are already thinking of this. You’re bright people here. Didn’t do them much good, did it? Because the rest of the year they’re apostate. And that’s true too. Past, future.

In this church, we’ve got people that—some are traditionalists. They don’t like things to change in the church. And other people are innovators. They like things to change. And if we all become like—if we all choose one person to follow—then we’ll either be stuck hopelessly in the past, not moving to the future, or we’ll be pushing into innovation without being firmly rooted and grounded in the tradition of the church and in the past.

So we’re all different kinds of folks. Embrace each other’s differences, receive one another. And we’ve got different practices of doing things. You know, I know this is a sore subject, but I’m going to—I’m not held back the last few months. I won’t hold back this time either. We’ve got people in this church who are sold out to Christ and who want to raise their children for Jesus Christ. You know where I’m going. The question is, what method do you use to instruct them?

Homeschool, private school, blend of both, public school. We don’t have any of those yet. But the point is that people have ways they think. Some people think I can homeschool, I can private school. Either one is okay. And some people think, no, it really should just be homeschool. Now, everybody’s convinced of their view. And we’re to leave each other alone about that stuff. We’re to say great—to his master he’ll stand or fall.

Problem with the ones that are strong—they can be—they think that it’s their strength that’s making them stand or fall. God says no—it’s the grace of God that allows you to stand. You may think yourself as strong and in some ways you’re more mature in the use of liberty. But understand—it’s the grace of God that gives you that strength.

So you know, receive one another and don’t despise people that don’t make the same choices or think they’re even legitimate choices to make. Don’t despise those that want to educate their children at home, I don’t care if it’s till they’re forty. You may have some things to talk to them about, but don’t despise them. And those of you that want to educate your kids at home, maybe till about forty—don’t judge those that use a different method of education.

See, this is what would be a sin against community. There’s some things you should talk to them about. Well, do you see what’s happening in private schools? Do you see how this might impact it? Conversations—that’s about receiving. If we’re going to receive each other, it’s not just by name. It’s by embracing the perspectives that are brought to each other. And a lot of times what we need to do is we need to listen to the Sam Donaldsons and Cokie Roberts and the atheists. They’re better judges of what we’re doing wrong sometimes than we are. And as people that are taking a particular track in education or child-rearing, you don’t want to listen to people who are different than you. But that’s probably the person you need most to listen to.

Make yourself listenable to. If you enter into these conversations, be gracious, seek peace, seek edification, building each other up, and avoid the censorious spirit of either despising some people who don’t see all the options or being judgmental against people who see options that you don’t see.

Jesus has given us this great gift of community.

Now, I’ve got briefly on your notes—chapter 16 is also an astonishing chapter. Turn there real briefly. I’ll try it. I’ll do it quickly. I’m sure I will. It’s just kind of a big ticket issue. And you can look at these things later yourselves. I love—maybe I should preach a sermon on the first couple of verses of chapter 16. Phoebe the deaconess, ministering to Paul. You know, that’d be good. Maybe I should preach on that in the new year.

But what happens in 16 is he lists all these people. Greet this person. Greet this person. Greet this person. Greet this person. Greet this person. Greet this person. Then he takes a break and he says, “Well, the Lord God, you know, is gracious to you and he’s going to crush Satan under your feet shortly.” And he warns them about what sort of people not to greet—heretics. But then he says, “God will crush Satan under your foot.” And then he goes back and now instead of just greeting people in Rome, now from Corinth where he’s writing, he sends the greetings of Corinthians to him. You’ve got more names, names, names, names. The point is this.

This isn’t throwaway lines for Paul. He didn’t need to fill up the space. And in fact, the space was quite valuable in those days, writing space. It’s the inspired word of God. And at the heart of chapter 16 is crushing the serpent’s head. But it’s bound by bookends of all these names.

When we live in community, when we receive people, we have victory. You see? And he also warns them. He says, “Avoid certain people.” So we’re to receive most of each other. But if there are people who are bringing heresies—absolute heresies—to the church, you’re not supposed to receive them. You don’t have doors that you don’t ever shut on certain people. You do shut the door sometimes on certain elements of people. You don’t let them in your community. Heretics.

So you’ve got to know who to receive and who to avoid. And so the scriptures tell us that the context for victory is a proper understanding of community. It’d be interesting to go through all these names. There’s slave names. One guy’s name—it means it’s a name that was commonly given to dogs in Rome. I’d like to have your name be Phto. You know, that’s what this guy’s name was. Other names were clearly slave names, as was Phto. Other names indicate—Phoebe, for instance—that it’s a Gentile convert. Other names indicate that these were Jewish converts. And there’s a number of women that are addressed. Praise God.

And so the idea is he’s giving us a picture. First of all, community is important for victory. The only way we get to crush the serpent’s head is by living in community. It’s not—you can’t abstract it out. You know, people think today you get on the internet, you write your little blog, you do your own thing individually, and you can be effective for kingdom work. The answer is no. God says kingdom work happens in the context of this wonderful gift of community—that great picture in Luke’s gospel of the family reunited and friends with each other and men and women friends and all together expressing community, songs of joy and praise to God for the advent of Jesus Christ.

That’s where the victory over Satan happens. That’s how the kingdom advances—is through Christian community. And that community is comprised of slaves, free people, rich people. Aquila and Priscilla had three house churches, right? Another thing we talk about from Romans—a number of house churches. But he writes to the one church in Rome. You see, our community is broader. We’ll talk about that next week. But Aquila and Priscilla were obviously—they had these three houses, maybe four or five, and they had churches in each one of them. Rich people, poor people, slaves, free people, women, men.

Community is the great culmination of the gospel that Paul writes to the Romans. And he concludes it with a wonderful benediction and doxology at the end. But I can’t. There we go. Chapter 16. Reminding us that undergirding this, the whole idea of the Christmas message, the victory that comes through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ is a result of the grace of God. Verse 25 is how he ends it. Verse 25 rather: “Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began, but now made manifest—Jesus has come. Christmas has happened. It’s now made manifest. It’s not a mystery anymore. And by the prophetic scriptures made known to all nations”—all nations—conversion of all nations. Satan’s head being crushed definitively once for all at Christ’s coming. He promised the Romans local crushing of whoever the opponents were to them. The progressive crushing of Satan’s head in history, and the church’s message would be effective for God for evangelizing the nations “according to the commandment of the everlasting God for obedience to the faith. To God alone wise be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.”

The great Christmas message is that Christ has given us this wonderful gift of community and gives us very clear practical instructions on how to open that gift carefully without damaging one another. And more than that, understanding the need we have for each other to exercise the victory that Christmas is also about—the discipling of the nations, that is inevitable since the coming of our savior.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for this wonderful community here. We thank you for the inside of Reformation Covenant Church. We pray that we would be permeable, that others would be able to come in, Lord God, and not be held back by our traditions, the way we look, or the ways we do things here. Help us, Father, to have a proper sense of our community. Build us up increasingly as a community. Keep us, Lord God, from despising people or from judging each other. Help us, Lord God, to receive each other, avoiding heretics, but receiving one another. And thus give us victory over Satan in our areas, in our spheres of influence. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.