Embracing Grace in Diverse Convictions of Faith

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And so you see not all of us are made up the same, and so it's possible for one person to have honest convictions over an issue and another person not to have those same convictions. So we're not to despise those that have the convictions, but in the same token, they're not to judge us who may not have the same convictions that they have. [00:06:43]

For Paul said, who are you who judges another man's servant? Before his own master, he either stands or falls. Let us say that you are very wealthy, that you have many servants, and you invite guests for dinner, and the servants are there waiting on them. And if one of your guests would start to rebuke your servant who you feel is doing a marvelous job, he's doing exactly what you told him to do. [00:07:10]

We are all servants of Jesus Christ, and so who am I to judge the way you serve the Lord? What I need to be interested in is how I serve the Lord and that I serve the Lord in the manner that is pleasing to Him, that I do what He has commanded me to do, and I'm looking to Him for my instructions. [00:08:18]

In the early church, there were varying opinions. You see, so many of the early Christians were Jews, and they brought their Jewish traditions and Jewish law into the church. They still were kosher. Peter was kosher when the Lord there in Joppa let down the sheet from heaven before Peter, and he saw all of these manner of beasts and creeping things. [00:09:47]

And so there was this division that developed in the early church because the Gentiles, for the most part, believed that they should worship the Lord on the day that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. And some of your early church fathers even wrote treatises on why Sunday should be the day for worship. [00:10:43]

One man esteems one day above another, but then you have this character that esteems every day alike, me. I mean, I think that every day is the Lord's day. I give every day to the Lord. When I wake up in the morning, I say, well, good morning, Lord, what would you have me to do today? [00:11:56]

Let everyone be fully persuaded in his own mind. I mean, just, it's a matter of how God has dealt with you individually. Now he that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord's day, and he that regardeth not the day and that is the particular day that you've chosen, to the Lord he does not regard it. [00:13:49]

For none of us lives unto himself, and no man dies unto himself. We're not to be living for ourselves, but we're to be living for Jesus Christ. Paul said, for me to live is Christ, and so he said, for whether we live, we live unto the Lord. We do it as unto the Lord. [00:15:22]

We shouldn't be judging one another. We are told in the scriptures that we should judge ourselves. Therefore let a man examine himself, for if we will judge ourselves, we will not be judged of God. To tell you the truth, I have a big enough problem taking care of myself that I really don't have time to take care of you. [00:16:39]

I want to teach people their responsibility of standing before God, not to lean upon me, but to learn to stand before God, knowing that their ultimate responsibility isn't going to be to me. You're not going to have to answer to me for what you do or don't do, but one day you will answer to God. [00:17:31]

Better to just teach you that one day you're going to give an account of yourself before God. We shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. Now there are two judgments that are coming, well probably three if you want to get technical, but you know that's where you get into theological arguments. [00:18:24]

There is the judgment of the believer in First Corinthians chapter 5. Paul tells us that we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the rewards for the things that we've done while in our bodies, whether good or bad, and knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we seek to persuade men. [00:19:38]

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