Now some of you may be listening
to this message and others of you may be watching the video.
And if you're watching the video, it may sound, it may seem a little
strange because I'm not dressed in a coat and a tie like I normally
do on Sunday morning. The reason is, is this is a re-recording
of Sunday's Bible study lesson from the book of Romans. When
we came in Sunday morning, our power was out and we couldn't
record. or live stream, so I'm doing this so that our series
in the book of Romans will not be interrupted. This is a lesson
from Romans 15, verses 7 through 12. The title of the lesson is
Receive Ye One Another. Receive Ye One Another. It begins
in verse 7, wherefore, or for this reason, the apostle writes,
is inspired by the Holy Spirit, receive ye one another as Christ
also received us to the glory of God. Now the whole portion
of scripture here in Romans 14 and through the first part of
Romans 15 here has to do with the fellowship and unity of brethren
in Christ and how valuable that is and how we should take great
pains to guard that and preserve it and encourage the unity of
our brotherhood, sisterhood in Christ. We are all sinners saved
by the grace of God. And our salvation is evidenced
by the doctrine, first by the doctrine that we profess to believe. And I know a lot of people don't,
they sort of put down the doctrine. cast off on the doctrine, but
we have to understand that our fellowship, we're brought into
fellowship with the Father and the Son by the Holy Spirit as
He reveals the realities and the truth of God, who God is
as both a just God and a Savior, the sovereign God. of who God
is and all of his attributes and the reality and the truth,
the doctrine of who we are in our sinnerhood, our depravity,
that we have no right or claim or title to any of the blessings
of God's grace because of who we are or because of where we
come from or because of what we do. That's why salvation is
not by works. but by the grace of God. And
then we're brought into fellowship with the Father and the Son through
the Spirit as he reveals unto us the promises of God. Peter said this in 2 Peter chapter
one. As he opened up that epistle,
he talked about how the foundation of our fellowship, well, it's
the foundation of our salvation is the righteousness of our God
and Savior, Jesus Christ. And that righteousness is the
same as the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel by
the Spirit when he brings God's chosen people into fellowship
with himself. Those whom he has justified and
sanctified and adopted, those whom Christ redeemed, are born
again by the Spirit as the Spirit brings them under the preaching
of the gospel revelation, the gospel teaching, excuse me, the
gospel doctrine of how God saves sinners through the meritorious
work of the Lord Jesus Christ as the surety, the substitute,
the redeemer of his people, which is summarized in that phrase,
the righteousness of God, which is the merits of Christ, obedience
unto death, the place of his people. It's his righteousness
imputed to us and those to whom God has imputed or charged account
of that righteousness, the righteousness of Christ, they will be born
again and as God reveals the promises as Peter says in 2nd
Peter 1, the promises of the gospel all the promises which
Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 1.20, which are in Christ, yea, and
in him, amen, sure and certain. As he reveals those promises,
all the blessings, everything, as Peter says, that pertains
to life and godliness, he brings us into fellowship with the Father
as he reveals those things to us, the Father and the Son, and
as he shows us how God saves sinners, based upon the glorious
person and the finished work of Christ. And so our fellowship
is evidenced and recognized first by the doctrine of Christ. Now
John wrote about that in 2 John 9. Remember he says there, whosoever
transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath
not God. And he that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ hath both the Father and the Son. And then he said
in verse 10, if there is any who come unto you, and bring
not this doctrine, receive him not into your house." Now, the
house there is not talking about your individual homes. Now, you're
not to promote false doctrine anywhere in your individual home,
but he's talking about the household of faith there, the church. For
example, someone comes to me and they say, well, I want to
join your church. Well, first of all, I want to
know, well, do you know what we preach? What we believe here,
our statement of faith, because there are a lot of different
church people, groups who claim to be churches and Christian,
but they don't preach the doctrine of Christ. So I need to know,
do you know what we preach and do you believe what we preach?
Because that's the only way that you can have fellowship with
the people of God. John went on in verse 11 and
say, he that biddeth him God's speed, that person who comes
and who does not bring the doctrine of Christ, he that biddeth him
God's speed is a partaker, a participant, a partner, a fellowshipper, if
you will, of his evil deeds. And there he's talking about
false religion. Well, going back to, Romans chapter
15 in verse seven, when he says, receive ye one another, as Christ
also received us to the glory of God, we have to understand
that this reception, this fellowship, this union, is based upon Christ
receiving us to the glory of God. And that's the equivalent
of saying the doctrine of Christ and the fellowship of faith and
love in the truth to the glory of God. If we receive someone,
if we have fellowship with someone who does not believe the true
gospel, the doctrine of grace, we're not doing it to the glory
of God. A lot of times we speak, we talk about speaking peace
to people. When you receive someone into
your fellowship, call them brother or sister in Christ, you're in
essence speaking peace to them. Well, we're never to speak peace
where there is no peace. And what is peace based on? The
Bible says the peace of God, peace with God, a right relationship
with God is based upon the blood of the cross. It's based upon
the righteousness of God. Be ye reconciled to God. God
made Christ sin. That's sin imputed to Christ. Christ for us, Christ who knew
no sin. That we might be made the righteousness
of God. There's that phrase again. The
merits of Christ, obedience unto death. That we might be made
the righteousness of God in him. That's righteousness imputed
to us. Now here, as you know, in Romans 14, he'd been talking
about weak believers and mature believers, strong believers,
in the matters of Christian liberty concerning eating of certain
foods or abstaining from certain foods. Those are not gospel issues. in the matter of keeping certain
days or not keeping them. Those are not gospel issues.
Now, as I've said before in lessons, that people can make these gospel
issues if they turn them into a self-righteous religion of
legalism. In other words, if a person believes
that abstaining from certain foods makes them righteous before
God, or counts them as righteous before God, or has contributed
in any way to their salvation, or the keeping of a certain day.
And that that alone, that makes you righteous or contributes
to your salvation. But apparently that's not what's
going on here in Romans 14. If it were, Then Paul would treat
these weak believers, as you say, they'd be unbelievers, he'd
treat them like he did those false preachers and false brethren
in Galatia. Remember there? And in Colossia,
in Colossae. There he said, if any man come
preaching any other gospel unto you than that which we preach,
let him be anathema. He told the Galatians, he said,
if you be circumcised, circumcision means nothing, he said in Galatians
six. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross. Circumcision
means nothing. Uncircumcision means nothing.
But if you're circumcised in order to be righteous, to be
saved, or to establish a right relationship with God, the ground
of it, it says Christ will profit you nothing. He doesn't say that
to these weak believers in Romans 14. Now, apparently though, because
of these practices, that had been ingrained, and I believe
that it was mainly having to do with national Israelites,
natural Israelites, who had been converted to faith in Christ,
but who had been taught all of their lives that there's certain
foods they shouldn't eat, there's certain days they should keep,
and though they knew that that wasn't their salvation, that
wasn't their righteousness before God, They believed that this
was God's will for his people. In other words, I know that my
keeping a day does not save me, does not make me righteous, but
this is God's commandment that I'm to keep this day or I'm not
to eat this food. And they weren't convinced that
those prohibitions of food and the keeping of certain days under
the old covenant had been abolished by way of Christ. For example,
the Sabbath. There's a lot of people today
who claim Sunday is the Sabbath. Sunday's not the Sabbath. Christ
is our Sabbath. Read Hebrews chapter four. We rest in Christ. But there
are certain people who've been taught things, and what Paul
tells the mature believers who know their liberty in these areas,
that they're to be very tolerant, very compassionate, very loving,
and they're to teach those immature, weak believers, not judge them,
If a person comes to me and claims to believe the gospel, the true
gospel, and says, but you know, I just don't believe we should
be eating barbecue, or we should be, I just believe that Sunday
is the Sabbath, we shouldn't work on the Sabbath, it's my
responsibility to teach them what the Bible says about those
things, and not to automatically judge them to be a legalist.
Now they may be a legalist, But I've got to be compassionate,
I've got to be tolerant, I've got to be patient, and I've got
to use the wisdom that God gave me to find out and to teach them
right. And that's why he says in verse
seven, receive ye one another. Don't distance yourself from
one another, don't reject one another, but in the gospel as
Christ also received us to the glory of God. Look at verse eight.
He says, now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the
circumcision, that's the Jews, for the truth of God, to confirm
the promises made unto the fathers. Christ came and he taught the
people concerning the law, what it meant, what it was given for.
Confirming the promises given to the fathers. Now what are
the promises given to the fathers? The promises given unto the fathers,
and you know when it talks about the fathers, it's talking about
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, you can go on up through. And then those
promises given to the fathers were gospel promises. It wasn't
legalism. God never promised Abraham, Isaac,
or Jacob salvation based upon their works. It was always salvation
based upon the grace of God through the imputed righteousness of
Christ. And Paul had already dealt with that back in Romans
chapter four. How was Abraham justified before
God? Now remember what it is to be
justified. It's to be forgiven of all my sins. My sins are not charged to me. and is to be declared righteous
in the sight of God based upon the righteousness of Christ imputed
to me. That's what justified is. It's
a legal term in the court of God's justice. It's the foundation
and ground of the life given by the Holy Spirit in the new
birth. And when the Holy Spirit births
us again, he brings us to see these truths, these doctrines,
of Christ, salvation, the gospel. How was Abraham justified? Not by works. It wasn't by works
at all, but he was justified based upon the righteousness
of another. And Paul wrote that in Romans four and verse six.
He said, blessed is the man to whom righteousness is imputed
without works. And he referred to David the
same way. And the promises given to the fathers were the promises
of all grace here and all glory hereafter based upon what Christ
would accomplish meritoriously. Now Christ was a minister to
the Jews. for that truth of God, to confirm
those promises. And you see the Jews, because
of their false prophets and false religious leaders, they had turned
that into a system of legalism and work salvation. And Christ
came to set it right. And that's what he's saying here.
Now, verse nine, he says, and that the Gentiles might glorify
God for his mercy, as it is written, for this cause I will confess
to thee among the Gentiles and sing unto thy name. Now, Paul
is showing here that God's people, God's chosen people, God's elect
among the Gentiles was included in those promises. And what he's
saying in essence is this, that whether you're a Jew who was
circumcised, taught that you should keep the seventh day Sabbath
and not eat certain things, or whether you're a Gentile who
had been taught none of those things, that you're brought into
the kingdom of God by his grace and power through the Lord Jesus
Christ and no other qualification. You don't have any qualifications.
It's not God will save you and give you these promises if you'll
do your part. For the Jew were the Gentile.
Paul made that so plain. He said both Jew and Gentile
were all under sin. There's none righteous, there's
none good, there's none that seeketh after God. But God has
a people out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation,
Jew and Gentile, and he brings them together in fellowship around
the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of grace, the gospel. He gives
them both a new heart, a new mind, new life. And so that they
all will confess and sing unto the name of God. And that's the
key. So that's the basis of our fellowship.
And then verse 10, he says, and again, he saith, rejoice ye Gentiles
with his people. Now he's quoting here from the
Old Testament and I've got it in your lesson, the verses that
he's probably quoting from. But think about that, you see,
to the self-righteous religious Jews, lost religious Jews, it
was an aversion to them that God would save Gentiles without
first making them proselytes to their own self-righteous religion. But now he says, no, that's not
the case. Salvation is by grace, through
the blood of Christ, based on his righteousness alone for both
Jew and Gentile. And the Gentile is on equal footing
with the Jew before God, saved by the grace of God. And that's
why he says, he talks about rejoice you Gentiles with his people,
because you are his people, the people of God. How does that
work out? Remember, back here in verse
four of Romans 15, he says, for whatsoever things were written
aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience,
endurance, and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. You
see, that's what the Old Testament was always teaching. The fact
that people didn't see it and the people perverted it, that
doesn't change it. It's the gospel, and the gospel
way of salvation. You can recall over in John chapter
five, in verse 39, where Christ confronted the Pharisees, and
he says, you do search the scriptures, for in them you think you have
eternal life, for they are they which testify of me. And he said,
you trust in Moses. What that meant was they trusted
in their law keeping. He said, but Moses will be your
judge. He said, Moses wrote off me. Had you believed Moses, you'd
believe me. Remember in John chapter eight,
he talked about how Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he sought and
was glad. And so this whole thing, this
whole thing is sinners brought together, God's elect, God's
chosen people through the grace and power of God based upon the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so look at verse
11. He says, and again, praise the
Lord, all ye Gentiles, and laud him, all ye people. That's from
the Psalms. And this praise is worshiping
God as both a just God and a savior as he reveals himself to his
people in Christ. Philippians chapter three and
verse three says, we are the circumcision, which worship God
in spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in the flesh. And what's he talking about?
We are the circumcision. He's talking about Jew and Gentile
who had been circumcised in heart and ears. That's the new birth.
How do you know that? They worship God in spirit. It
means two things. It means they worship God first
as the Holy Spirit himself guides them and leads them and inspires
them and motivates them. In other words, we don't worship
God as we think he is. Man by nature worships an idol.
His thoughts of God are too low. So we don't worship God as we
think he is, we worship God as he is and we know that by the
word of God revealed unto us by the Holy Spirit. Who is God?
And then secondly, we worship God from the heart, a new heart. God gives us a new heart that
desires to worship and serve God. Yes, we still have the flesh
that fights against that, but it's a warfare, but we have a
new heart, a new mind to worship God. And then, what does he say?
We rejoice in Christ. That word rejoice in Philippians
chapter three means to boast. We boast in Christ. My boast,
my claim, my confidence of salvation has nothing to do with being
a Jew or a Gentile. It's Christ and his glory, his
blood washes away my sins. His righteousness justifies me. And then we have no confidence
in the flesh. Being a Jew, being a Gentile
works. The free wills of men, that's
a myth. We don't have any confidence in that. And so he says rejoice. The Gentile, glorify God for
his mercy. You can't earn mercy, you can't
deserve it. And then he says, again, rejoice
ye Gentiles, rejoice ye Jews. And then in verse 11, again,
praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles, all ye people. Verse 12, he says,
and again, Isaiah said, there shall be a root of Jesse and
he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles in him shall the
Gentiles trust. Now, obviously that's speaking
of Christ. That's from Isaiah 11, verse 10. It's a prophecy
of Christ. the redemptive work and the promised
Messiah who would rise from the dead to save all his people,
a root of Jesse. That's talking about his humanity.
Christ is both God and man in one person. Remember we talked
about he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ. That's the
doctrine of his person. Who he is. He's God manifest
in the flesh. It's the doctrine of his finished
work. What did he accomplish? He redeemed his people from their
sins. And that means both Jew and Gentile. He's the redeemer of God's elect,
both Jew and Gentile. He's the intercessor of both
Jew and Gentile. He's the king of both Jew and
Gentile, all spiritual Israel. And his elect among the Jews
will trust him and look to him and rest in him. And his elect
among the Gentiles will do the same. It's God's grace in Christ. that brings Jew and Gentile together
as one. Read it in Ephesians chapter
two. That's God's grace in Christ
that breaks down the middle wall of partition that divides Jew
and Gentile. We're one in Christ. For in Christ,
there's neither Jew nor Gentile, bond or free, male nor female. You see, those distinctions mean
nothing in the kingdom of God. And I closed out this lesson
with this, our mutual salvation by Christ and our love for him
is our unity. In Revelation 5, 9, and they
sung a new song saying, thou art worthy to take the book and
to open the seals thereof, for thou was slain and has redeemed
us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, tongue, and people,
and nation. And so Paul writes, receive ye
one another.