Love Me Love My Luggage

UKnow Series pt 3-
Last of the series. What is our respose to the pasts of others?

Romans 15:1-13, Eph 4:1-6, 2 Cor 5:16-19

Love Me Love My Luggage

“Accept one another…”

In a world of division this is a tough command. A definition of tolerance that has overtaken our world has made churches and Christ followers very leery with using this term. This is the intent of the passage in Romans 14 and 15. The church at Rome is a real mixed bag. There are diaspora Jews and pagan Gentiles trying to co-exist in the same place. The customs, acceptable practices, and lifestyles were as varied as we face today. You had Jews who had lived in accordance to the laws of God given through Moses and Roman Gentiles who had given themselves to every god they could create. You had Jews who had betrayed their countrymen and their heritage by serving the roman government and others of no religion whatsoever. All these people were trying to be the church in a place hostile to the Gospel. In the midst of all of this comes the Gospel. A Gospel open to everyone that asks not for the following of rules but for the following of a Messiah. It has no idols to bow to, no cleansing rituals, and no barriers to direct communion with Diety. Needless to say, there was some confusion.

So let’s get back to tolerance for a minute. I’m not talking about “tolerance” as in everything is equal and if it’s okay for me then it’s okay. I’m talking about acceptance. I’m talking about meeting people where they are in life and accepting where they have been. See the problem we suffer from today is not so much a diversity of creed and religion as it is a diversity of background. And many people who are hurting feel very hesitant to be open about their pasts and their own struggles because we as the church have such a hard time dealing with sin in our own pasts. We have this trouble because we are still caught in an old mindset. We are still competing to see who is the best. Yet it is clear in scripture that there is no competition. We are all failures. We all fall short. Just because you fell short by lying and I fell short by lusting does not mean that you win God’s favor more than me. Nor does it mean that you have any right to place yourself in a position of superiority over me in church, in Christ, or in life. Yet we fall into this trap, mostly subconsciously, when we turn our backs on people who do not meet our standards of holiness. We have failed to remember how we came to Christ in the first place.

“…just as Christ accepted you,…”

So how does Jesus accept us? Let’s take a look at some of the people Jesus met and accepted.

Levi and Zacchaeus the tax collectors- men who were traitors to their people and thieves to boot

Woman at the well and woman caught in adultery- people in the midst of sexual sin

The Centurion- a person of authority who was part of a corrupt political system
Demon possessed men and children- people who were afflicted and in bondage to the forces of darkness

The man being executed with Him- a thief whose crimes were so heinous that he is being killed by the state

Peter- who denies even knowing Jesus in His moment of greatest need

Do you see? Jesus accepted anyone willing to put their faith in Him and at that moment before they had done anything other than express willingness. This is where we struggle and it’s why we have a hard time being honest about sin. We fear, and often rightly so, that our sins will ruin us at church the way they would ruin us in our workplaces, our social settings, or our families. This is what the Enemy uses to keep us in prison. We don’t open up about our sin struggles because the church acts just like the world. We judge, we mock, we reject and then we try to cover it up in God language to make justify our actions. There is a difference between holding someone accountable and putting someone on spiritual probation. When believers are honest about their struggles and failures it is our calling to meet them where they are and to partner with the Holy Spirit to help them to overcome sin. This is why so few people experience the freedom from sin, guilt, and heartache that Christ came to offer because there can be no healing until the wound is cleansed and the past put to death.

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

This is what Paul is calling for in Ephesians 4. We can accept one another and our past failures if we can fulfill the call of verse 2. Humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearance are the marks of a church that values unity. These are things we must embrace as a church as we seek to reach the people we know, love and work with and as we seek to come to know one another better as a community.

Now this raises the inevitable question, but what about sin? What do we say about sin? Well first we say that those who are in Christ are no longer slaves to sin. We have been separated from our pasts as we talked about last week. Therefore, we no longer spend time comparing resumes of righteousness and iniquity trying to prove whose more committed to God. That’s the way the world works, but not us. Look at 2 Cor. 5 in the NLT:

16 So we have stopped evaluating others by what the world thinks about them. Once I mistakenly thought of Christ that way, as though he were merely a human being. How differently I think about him now! 17 What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun!

Second, we say that those who struggle with sin have a safe place to confess and be prayed over and held accountable without fear of being trashed either publicly or privately. (James 5:16)

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

“…in order to bring praise to God.”

A better translation of praise is glory. What does it mean to bring glory to God? It means to raise His reputation, to make others’ opinions about Him grow, or to cause people to view Him in a better light. Stop a moment and think about the people in your world. How do they view God? What opinion do they have of Him? How would your treatment of other believers influence that one way or another? Are you in a “holiness competition?” Do you secretly or obviously discriminate against other believers because of what you know about them? Are you preventing openness, effective prayer, and healing from happening because of your judgment?

The church should be the one place in the world where it is safe to be real. The support and acceptance of the Body is illustrated over and over again in the New Testament. It’s not an attitude of do whatever you want and it’s okay, but an attitude of whatever you have done does not keep you from the grace of God and therefore does not keep us from being a part of the same community.

This morning I want to ask you, Do your relationships with other believers move men and women to praise God? If someone saw how you related to the believers around you would they want to be a part of the God’s kingdom? Do your words about others build up or tear down? Do you spread the pasts of others in order to enhance your own standing? Who do you desire to glorify, God or yourself?