Well, I thank you for the opportunity
to speak again today. Our topic is Christians and tolerance. And we pick up, this will be
the second in the series. And I realized as I studied even
for this one, there will be yet another one that's going to be
necessary to bring this to a better completion. Here are scriptures
for our consideration. Please hear these and hold them
in your heart as we have our discussion today. The first is
from Hebrews chapter 12 verse 14. The scripture says strive
for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no
one will see the Lord. The second verse will be from
Ephesians chapter 4 verse 17. And there we are told now I say
this and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk
as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. The third passage
here is longer. It's from First Peter, chapter
two, verses nine through 18. Bear with me on this, please.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. a
people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies
of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but
now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners
and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage
war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles
honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers,
they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of
visitation. Be subject for the Lord's sake
to every human institution whether it be to the emperor as supreme
or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and
to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God that
by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish
people. Live as people who are free not
using your freedom as a cover up for evil, but living as servants
of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. Servants, be subject to your
masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle,
but also to the unjust. Another passage will be from
1 Peter 3, verse 15 and 16. but in your hearts honor Christ
the Lord as holy. Always being prepared to make
a defense to anyone who speaks, anyone who asks you for a reason
for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and
respect, having a good conscience so that when you are slandered,
those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
1 Timothy, Chapter 2, verses 1 through 4. First of all then,
I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings
be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions,
that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified
in every way. This is good and it is pleasing
in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be
saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. Second Corinthians
chapter 5 verse 20 reads, therefore we are ambassadors for Christ,
God making his appeal through us. From the Gospel of John chapter
15 verses 18 and 19, Jesus told his disciples, if the world hates
you, know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of
the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you
are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world,
therefore the world hates you. From Matthew 10, verse 16, here
we read that Jesus again tells his disciples, Behold, I am sending
you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents
and innocent as doves. And last time I called upon this
verse as a prayer of my heart and I hope it's a prayer of all
of our hearts often in our lives. From James 1, verse 5, If any of you lacks wisdom, let
him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it
will be given. The topic again is Christians
and tolerance. And last time we noted that the
world demands tolerance. It's a hot topic. Everybody should
be tolerant. Well, as we began last time with
the definition, let's do this a little bit in review. Tolerance,
as defined in the dictionary, is the act of allowing something. Tolerance, by definition, is
neutral. Tolerance does not approve or
disapprove of the tolerated act, but Tolerance as proclaimed today
and as practiced today is not neutral. Tolerance as practiced
means acceptance of and in some cases special privilege beyond
acceptance. We are not talking today in practice
about just allowing something to happen or not happen. We are
talking about being forced to accept something. That means
tolerance. For us as Christians, that immediately
creates a problem. Because so much of what we are
told we must tolerate is contrary to our faith and practice. Making this situation more difficult
for us and bringing it into the realm of Our real day-to-day
lives is the fact that we as Christians function in two worlds. We are Christians. We are in
the realm or the kingdom of God. We are God's people. And we live
in the fleshly world. For us as Christians, the kingdom
of God is primary. It should take precedent in our
lives. It should be our number one interest
and pursuit. But the truth of our existence
is that we live and function in the fleshly world. Again,
this is the conflict. We are spiritual people living
in a very unspiritual world and we are at odds with the world. That is our condition. Consider
then also that within each realm that we live and function, there
are different levels of participation, so to speak. In the world, we
operate as citizens of the nation. We operate as residents in our
neighborhoods. We operate as employees on our
jobs. And each one of these has a different
level of tolerance expected of us, complicating the issues. As Christians, we also live in
different levels. We today, right now, function
as members of this church, of this body, in this place. And
there is a conduct and an acceptance of conduct in this place. When
we leave here, each one of us will go home to our families.
And there is another level of conduct, another level of accepted
or not accepted practice. And then personally, each one
of us is an individual. And there is an acceptance and
a non-acceptance of practice and belief there at that level
as well. So, all of this can be very difficult
to sort out. It can be very difficult to sort
out and that's why the verse from James about asking God for
wisdom is so important because the truth is We need a lot of
wisdom to understand where we fit in and how we must act. My topic today is about tolerance
in the world. The discussion of tolerance and
acceptable practice within the church, within the family, and
within ourselves is to be followed up later. But today we talk about
Christians functioning in the world and the tolerance there.
We live in a fallen world. I don't have to remind you of
that too much. We know that. We believe in the
fall of man. We believe in the depravity of
man. We understand we live in a fallen
world. We can't escape this. We know
it in our minds and our hearts and we experience it every day
that we live and breathe. If we go out into the world,
wherever we go, wherever we go, we are dealing with sinners.
We know that. And God's people of every day
and age have had to come to terms with that. Now, last time we
talked about the Christian response to the world, and we did decide,
or at least I did and presented to you, that Christians are not
a tolerant people. in one way, we are not to personally
tolerate sin in us or immediately around us. Paul's solution as
presented to the church in Corinth was to segregate from the world. Withdraw from the world. The
point was brought out in letter that we as believers can't completely
separate from the world because we do business there. We do business
there. Paul's response to that was then
keep your associations with the world to a minimum. Don't take
your fellowship, your friendship, your intimacies from the world.
But do business, but do it honestly and uprightly. But keep your
exposure, personal exposure to the world at a minimum. That's
the way we handle the world. And it's got a practical consideration
there because the world is a sewer. And if we go into the sewer,
we will be drug further into the sewer faster than we will
pull others out of the sewer. Paul's advice to the Corinthians
in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 33 was to remember that bad company
corrupts good morals. His advice to them was to separate
from the world, keep your exposure to a minimum. But here's the
rub, and I don't really need to remind us of this, but this
is the very real rub, the condition that we're in. Most of us must
associate with the world eight hours a day or more. Like it
or not, I go to a job And that is not a Christian job.
I don't work for a Christian ministry. I don't work for a
church. I work for a forestry company. I work in the world. After work, I will go to Walmart
to buy my groceries. Walmart, last time I checked,
was not a Christian ministry either. I'll drive on a road
back to my house and the people that are getting angry at me
for driving too slow or too fast or leaving my blinker on for
five miles, they're not Christians either and they're mad and they
have ugly things to say to me. The truth is I am not functioning
in a Christian world. Eight, nine, ten hours a day
I am living and dealing with pagans. There's where the issue
of tolerance comes in. That's the real situation we
find ourselves in. That is indeed the real situation
that Christians have always found themselves in. The scripture
tells us, first and foremost, we are citizens of heaven. Citizens
of heaven. That is our true home, our true
citizenship, our true interest. The scripture also tells us we
are strangers here, aliens, passing through. We don't belong here. We're here, but we don't belong
here. As Abraham traveled to find a city whose maker did not
make it with hands, we travel here too, wandering through. We are also told that we are
ambassadors. While we are passing through,
we represent our God and our Christ. And then, the dark side
of all this, if it could be darker, is that the world hates us. We're
ambassadors in a hostile territory. We need to take all of this to
heart. We need to take all of this to heart. Something I brought
up last time, and I'll bring it up again, and I want us to
remember this, that tolerance is a one-way street. I can't stress this enough. When
you hear the people on the radio and on the TV and read it in
the paper and the magazines talk about tolerance, let us understand,
take it to heart and really hear what they're saying. They're
saying, you be tolerant. I won't be, but you be tolerant. That's what they're saying. If we are not tolerant as they
define it and practice it, then they will turn on us and devour
us. They want us to capitulate. They want us to accept and even
practice their view and their practices. They don't have tolerance
for us. We are told we are to be tolerant.
worldly tolerance is demonstrated to us in Romans chapter 1 verse
32 and I'll read this. This is the long passage beginning
in verse 18 of Romans chapter 1 that talks about the downward
spiral of a society into gross paganism and hatred of God. And
this ends the passage and it's real significant. Although they
know God's righteous decree that those who do such things And
that speaks of the very evil things that Paul had just laid
out previous to this. They know that those who do such
things deserve death. They not only continue to do
these things, but they also approve of those who practice them. That's
worldly tolerance. I'm doing horrible things and
I know it. Y'all come on and join me. That's
worldly tolerance. Now the second point is beyond
tolerance, that the world demands tolerance of you and me, but
they don't practice it. And if you'll consider, this
attitude is presented in the book of Revelation chapter 17.
And I realize that this may be a little out of context from
what you've heard before. But consider the principle that's
being demonstrated here. In that chapter we're given a
prophecy, a picture and symbol of the beast coming up to dominate
the world. And riding on the back of the
beast is the woman which represents the false church or false religion
or however it's presented. But notice the point. The woman
is securely on the back of the beast, riding, enjoying the comfort
and privilege of being a part of the beast. And then at such
a point that she is no longer useful to the beast, the beast
turns on her, throws her into the dirt, strips her naked, kills
her and eats her body. That's worldly tolerance. If
you disagree with me, I will kill you. That is worldly tolerance. Tolerance is a one way street. It is a one way street. Now,
Christians are told in the scripture, we read the verses and we understand
this, that we are to be at peace with all men as much as we can
be. Scripture says be at peace with
just men, unjust men, secular rulers, church rulers, your enemies,
your neighbors. We're to be at peace with them.
That means we are to be tolerant. We are to be tolerant. Now the
world will never be tolerant of us. It may fake tolerance. It may appear to be tolerant,
but they're using us. And that's fine. That's the way
it is. We should understand that and
not be surprised by it. But we as Christians are to be
tolerant. So we must understand then what
is tolerance in the world? And the reason that this is so
important is because we perceive ourselves as living in a society
that is spinning out of control. We've got to get a grip, a handle,
an understanding of what tolerance is or is not for us. The world cannot by nature and
will not by practice accept tolerance. They won't. They can't understand
what it is to be tolerant. They can understand how to use
people for their benefit. That's not tolerance. But we
as Christians are to be tolerant. I would ask as we consider the
issue of tolerance that we bring to mind and remember the stories
of three from the Old Testament. These are significant stories.
We're only going to talk about some bullet points this morning,
but remember the story of Joseph in Egypt, Daniel in Babylon,
and Esther in Persia. Each of these people were children
of God living out their life and practicing their faith in
the vilest of pagan nations. Remember that. Children of God
in societies, in places that were hostile to their religion,
to their practice of their faith. Each was a child of God. Scripture
is plain on that. Each one of them was a child
of God. Each was in a pagan society that was actually hostile to
their faith and practice. Each of these people were brought
to the attention of the pagans around them. Look at their lives individually
and remember these things, that each of these, Joseph, Daniel
and Esther, lived quiet lives. They did not flaunt their religion. They did not deny it either.
But they lived quiet lives, not purposely drawing attention to
themselves. Notice that each one of them
lived and worked excellently even in their wicked societies,
even in their hostile environments. They worked excellently. They did the best job that they
could. And notice in those stories from
the Bible that each one of them prospered. Note that each one of them offered
explanation for their faith and practice when they were asked. They did not flaunt their faith. They did not take up the placards
and the signs and walk the streets. But when they were asked, they
offered explanation of their faith. Notice that each one of
them at times in their lives suffered consequences for their
faith and practice. Note also that each one of them
may not have been respected for their faith, but their excellent
work was recognized. That's an important point. And these are lessons for each
one of us to learn. Paul has much to say about our
lives as we live among the pagans. The letters of 1st and 2nd Corinthians
that we've talked about last time when I spoke and Brother
Bill has been speaking about so much are wonderful letters
because they address issues, very real issues of believers
in a horrible pagan surrounding. That is where the rubber meets
the road. The Bible is very open and candid. It presents the truth,
and the truth is not always beautiful. It is ultimately because the
truth is contained in Jesus Christ and the salvation of sinners,
but the day-to-day details of the truth can get ugly, and it
did in the church at Corinth. And the truth is that it does
get ugly in Houston, Texas. Again, tolerance is a one-way
street. It is a one-way street. We've
got to remember that, but we've also got to remember that we
are to be tolerant. And tolerance for us as God's
people is for a purpose. The ultimate
purpose, the overriding purpose of all things is that God be
glorified. The immediate purposes for us
is that we generate peace in the place we are. That we may,
number one, worship freely. And number two, that we may be
evangelists. That we may offer faith to those
around us. That's the purpose of our tolerance.
We are not trying to further a social agenda out there. We
are not trying to keep garbage off the streets or get drunks
out of the gutter. All of that may be a result of
our faith and practice, but that's not our purpose. Our purpose
is that we generate peace around us, that we may worship freely,
and that we may be free to evangelize. To do that, we must know how
to be tolerant, and that is contained in morality. We need to know
what's moral or immoral. That's defined for us by the
scripture. And as the scripture tells us
what is moral, then we have decisions to make if things are moral.
We may or may not participate in moral activities. That's left
to us. That's up to our preference.
And whether we practice something that is moral or whether we don't,
we tolerate it in others. It's not my place necessarily
to tell you what to do. That's the argument that we talked
about this morning in the sermon, this weaker and stronger brothers.
This is where tolerance comes in in that place. On moral issues,
we may differ. We tolerate those. We may or
may not partake ourselves and we don't get dogmatic and tell
others what to do. If something is immoral, and
this is the greater issue for us personally because immorality
grates on us. If it is immoral, we must not
participate. That's us. Individually, and
as a collective here in this church, we must not participate
in anything that is immoral. The whole world out here is immoral. It's not up to us to participate. Then, following the examples
of those that we spoke of earlier, Joseph, Daniel, and Esther, if
we are given opportunity to speak, we do. If somebody by chance
says, Why are you not doing this? Then without being loud and ugly
about it, we offer them explanation why we don't when we're given
the opportunity. And in addition to that, we strive
to live at peace. This is the hard part. We aren't
purposely confrontational about these things. What is going to
happen to me and what kind of sentiment am I going to bring
up if I decide today after church that I'm going to go to Montrose
and protest against homosexuality? I may make the news. I may get
pummeled. but I'm not going to change anybody's
mind and I've not practiced tolerance. I've been purposely confrontational
trying to make a point but I've done absolutely no good. This is the problem. How do we
handle immorality around us and what do we do? Well, toleration means that we allow it. Don't
partake in it. Don't be a part of it. Don't
go near it. But we allow it. But that hurts us. Because that
means everywhere we look, there's ugly things around us. And I
don't deny that. We perceive our society as a
society of civilization in decline. Wouldn't argue the point. Wouldn't
argue the point at all. And this is where the tolerance
comes in. What do we do about it? How do
we handle it? Well, as Christians we're to
be tolerant. There was no more wicked society
in the world than Rome. And yet, Paul tells the church
to withdraw from it. Keep your associations within
the church. He doesn't tell them to go out and overthrow the government. He doesn't tell them to go to
the clinics and protest. He doesn't tell them to go to
the bad parts of town and close the liquor joints down. He doesn't. Joseph did not have a four-point
program to turn Egypt into a God-fearing nation turning away from whatever
the name of that cow was they worshipped. It's an interesting
point that Joseph and Daniel both were God's people in vile
and wicked pagan nations and yet they both did excellent work
and by doing that they actually strengthened the pagan nations
they worked in. A strong economy benefits the
just and the unjust. In Egypt, God's people were spared
the effects of the famine because Egypt was strong because Joseph
did excellent work for a nation that hated his faith. It's hard to understand. It's
hard to practice because it grates at us to look at filth and say,
well, we've got to live with it. That's the very, very real hard
part of Christian tolerance. In Rome, toleration on the part
of Christians meant, number one, they tolerated an oppressive
government. They tolerated a corrupt government. They tolerated slavery. They tolerated injustice in the
courts. They tolerated the grossest forms
of immorality among the populace. And here's another one they tolerated.
They even tolerated abortion. They tolerated it. Every one
of these is horrible. Every one of these things is
horrible. But Christians tolerated it. In the greater society. In the
world. In the church, they did not.
They did not. You read in the writings of Paul,
and such were, were, were some of you. No longer. That was okay out there. You
didn't know any better. In here, no. We don't do that. But as we live and function in
the world, as the church then lived and functioned in the world,
they did tolerate that. That's hard. That's hard. I say that again, because as
I look out, as I see these things, they make me sick. But. But we tolerate them. Christian answer to immorality
in the world. as the world is that we tolerate
it. And then we get up tomorrow and
we tolerate it again. Now again, let me say that's
in the world. That's not in the church. That's
not in the church. And it's certainly not in our
individual lives. But in the world, we tolerate
it. We let them do their own thing. Letting the world do its own
thing is not accepting their practice. There is a difference. There is a difference. We do
not participate with the world in these things. In that, we
maintain peace in the world because we're not a threat to the world.
And in that, we can worship freely. And we have the freedom of movement
then to evangelize, to seek and save the lost. And those are the greater issues.
Those are the greater issues. Now, all of this, I must be honest
with you, hurts my feelings. Because I grew up in a country
where there was freedom. There wasn't immorality at every
street corner. There was a cleaner culture. But that's fast going away from
us. And it hurts me. Does it hurt me as a Christian? Or does it hurt me as an American? And that's a hard question to
look at, to hear, and to deal with. If it hurts me as an American,
that's bad. Because it's my culture. It's where I grew up. But that's
not as important in the bigger picture as if it hurts me as
a Christian. And there can be a difference.
Americanism and Christianity are not necessarily the same. So we have to look at ourselves
and see, What hurts us more? Is it because we're Christians
or is it because we're Americans? And that's something that each
one of us has to look at and come to some understanding of.
And it can hurt us in both ways. As I look at events and things
that have happened lately, I must tell you that I'm more concerned
as an American than I am as a Christian. The church, my life in the church
here is wonderful. My life at home with my family
is wonderful. And I am disappointed, yes, with
myself, but comfortable with myself as well. And in the realm
of the kingdom of God, I'm at peace. As an American, I'm not. And that's why this whole issue
of tolerance comes in, because I have to personally come to
an understanding of what is appropriate or not appropriate as a Christian
living in a nation that may or may not be a Christian nation. And the Scripture does speak
on that. It's a complicated issue again, as I said earlier, because
at each place we go there is a different level of tolerance
that is presented and expected. And we have to understand what
we as individuals at any given time, at any given place, what
is expected of us there. And then once we understand the
expectations, we can begin to understand how it fits with our
Christian faith and practice and where the complications,
where the rubs are and where they are not. That's where that
wisdom comes in. Now this has all been pretty
general. And when I speak about this and as I thought it over
over the last two weeks and read and studied, I realized that
all of this sounds like I don't care about society, that I'm
just saying, let it go, do what it wants, and that I'm saying
we really shouldn't strive to have an impact, and that's not
what I'm saying. And I realize that this warrants
another sermon yet, specifically looking at Christians in American
life. And America, in terms of the
world, is fairly unique. We have rights granted to us,
perceived, unperceived. We have rights that say that
we can speak our mind when and where we want. We have the right
to vote, choose our representatives. We have rights to write whatever
we want, publish. We have these things that allow
us a lot more activity within our government and within our
society than people in times past had. Does that mean that
the Bible is out of place and out of time and has no application
for us? No, that's not at all what it means because the principles
presented in the Scripture are eternal. They apply in every
single time and place that man will ever be. They spoke of chariots in the
Old Testament. They didn't speak of automobiles,
cars and trucks. Does that mean the Bible is out
of date? No. It means it recorded a time and
place, but the principle is always eternal. So when it speaks of
chariots, we think cars and trucks. The principle is the same. And
that's what we'll strive to look at. Yes, in the Bible they spoke
of kings, and emperors and things of that nature, and we don't
have a king here, we don't have an emperor. We have elected officials. Does that mean that the Bible
doesn't speak to our situation? Yes, it does. And that's going
to have to be the next sermon. Now that we understand that there
is a Christian tolerance, and we do understand that that tolerance
is basically one way, the world will not tolerate us, we must
tolerate them. Then the next question is, that
being true, how do we, in a representative republic, where we have freedoms
heretofore that people have never known or understood, how do we
apply these principles in our society? And that'll have to
be the next sermon, is what does tolerance for Christian people
mean to us as Americans specifically and how is it going to be practiced
for us where we have certain privileges granted to us that
nobody else has really ever had. That'll be the next one. I hope
this spurred some thought. As I read on this and got into
it, it's like a big tangled mess. You've got to kind of pull it
out strand by strand to get to the core, and that's what I hope
we're doing. The core of this being, how does
this apply to our lives in reality every day? Because all the ideology
is meaningless if there is no application. And there really
is application. And Paul demonstrated that in
his writings, specifically to the church at Corinth, which
was a church very much in the world. And we're very much a
church. And God has great things to tell
us about how we can live and how we can even prosper in a
wicked place. And that's where that verse on
wisdom comes in. And again, let me read it one
more time and I'll close with it because it's precious and
I hope you hold to it. I know I do. And that is, if
any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously
to all without reproach and it will be given to him. We need
wisdom. As Christians of every day and
age, we need it in this day and age. And I hope that God gives
it to us. I trust He will.