Love and Power
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We all know that just believing in something doesn't result in changing your life. Many people engage in religious activity, yet struggle with impatience, resentment, or an unforgiving heart. So what does true change look like? The gospel doesn't just modify behavior, it fundamentally reshapes our hearts. Today on Gospel and Life, Tim Keller shows us how Christ's love transforms us from the inside out.

This morning's reading is from Romans 14:1-3 and 14:15:7.

Except the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person's faith allows them to eat anything, but another whose faith is weak eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not. And the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them.

I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not, by your eating, destroy someone for whom Christ died. Therefore, do not let what you know as good be spoken of as evil."

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and a mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble.

It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall. So whatever you believe about these things, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith. And everything that does not come from faith is sin.

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the scriptures and the encouragement they provide, we might have hope.

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice, you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accept one another then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. This is the word of the Lord. So some weeks ago, we started this series. We...

said the thesis of the series is it's possible to be religious and moral, very active and busy in helping people, and not have a supernaturally changed heart.

What we're doing is looking at the signs the Bible gives us of what a spiritually, supernaturally changed heart looks like. Each week we're looking at one. This is the last Sunday in our series. The mark of a supernaturally changed heart we're looking at today is maybe not one that you would have just thought of if somebody was asking you for a list of

Here we're going to learn that the mark of a supernaturally changed heart, among others, is a changed attitude and view of culture. Your race and culture and other people's races and cultures. This mark has to do with this. In social relations, really grace-changed Christians use their power to serve, not exploit.

Now, the way in which we're going to understand this, Mark, is by looking at this dispute that happened in the Church of Rome. We just read about it. It actually, some of you might have said, gee, isn't there another place in the New Testament that talks about that? Yes. 1 Corinthians 8, there's another similar but different dispute.

which we're going to compare that one to this one in order to understand these three things. First of all, we want to learn what the problems that culture poses, all right? The problems that culture poses. Secondly, solutions true and false. And then thirdly, how we get the power to implement the solution, the true solution. So first of all, let's take a look at the problems culture poses. The problem

Look at verses 1, 2, and 3 of chapter 14, the beginning of the passage. Except the one whose faith is weak without quarreling over disputable matters. One person's faith allows him to eat anything. Another whose faith is weak eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything shouldn't treat with contempt the one who does not. The one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. There's a dispute going on, a quarrel, it says. What's that quarrel about? It's about food. Food.

It says one person's faith, and this person, by the way, is someone whose faith is weak. Notice that in verse 2? Eats only vegetables. So what is this all about? Now, does it mean that if you're a vegetarian, for health reasons, that Paul thinks your faith is weak? No. What we're looking at here are the dietary laws of Moses of the Old Testament, which

Many of you know that if you read the Old Testament, you'll see that Israel was regulated by many, many, many rules and regulations called ceremonial regulations. Much of it had to do with foods. There were just a tremendous number of foods that the Israelites were not allowed to eat, mainly meats. Also, there were many, many things they couldn't touch or they were ceremonially unclean, which meant that they couldn't go into the ceremony. That is to say, they couldn't go into worship on the Sabbath day.

Now, there are many reasons why God gave the Israelites those rules. Just two of them that might be interesting to you. One is that one of the things that it was it helped Israel keep its national identity intact. It lived surrounded by much bigger nations. They were very dominant.

And they could have easily just assimilated and lost their national identity. But the ceremonial laws made them so different. I mean, they could only eat certain things. They could only dress in certain ways. It made them so separate that they essentially had to be a separate culture. And it was one of the ways in which they kept their national identity intact over those years. But also, we know that there was an incredible object lesson being given...

The ceremonial laws, especially the dietary laws, were getting across to believers in God. You can't just go in to a holy God. You've got to be clean. These are called the clean laws. You couldn't just go in. You had to be clean. There had to be a cleansing. And that was the basic idea. But we do know this from the New Testament. Christians understand this. It's very, very clear. Jesus says in Mark chapter 7 that...

And also, by the way, the apostle said in Acts chapter 15 in the Council of Jerusalem, what Paul actually says in verse 14. Here's the summary of it. In the Lord Jesus, nothing is unclean in itself. In the Lord Jesus, nothing is unclean in itself. Or put another way, Jesus is what makes you clean. When you believe in Jesus Christ and you're in him and you believe in him,

And you go to God in Jesus Christ, in faith in Jesus Christ, God sees you as completely clean and acceptable in Christ. So Christ makes you clean. Yes, you do have to be clean, as it were, and acceptable in the presence of a holy God, but Jesus does it. And that's the gospel. It's not up to you to do it. It's not up to you to kind of clean your own heart up or clean your own life up. It's in Christ that you are clean. That's the gospel. But here's what's interesting. There must have been a group of people

in the church in Rome that didn't understand the implications of the gospel. That's the reason why Paul could call them not just disobedient or narrow, he calls them weak in faith. Their understanding of who they are in Christ, their faith in Christ is actually weak. These were people who were continuing to stick with the dietary laws of the Old Testament. One of the best ways to do that in a place like Rome where you really couldn't even get kosher foods was just not to eat meat.

So these are people who are saying, I'm in Jesus. I believe in Jesus, but just to be safe, I'm also going to follow all these rules. If I do Jesus, plus I follow all these rules, then I know I'm acceptable and complete. If I do Jesus and this, I know I'm acceptable and complete. Now, by the way, let me say that one of the themes of our preaching here at Redeemer is

that the gospel is so radical, the gospel that you are complete in Christ, you're saved surely by grace, not in anything you do, is so radical because every other culture, every other religion, and every human heart works on the default mode that says if you're acceptable or you want to be approved or you want to be celebrated, you've got to earn it. So that when a Christian actually accepts the gospel and says, oh, I believe the gospel, no one believes it all the way down.

It's so counterintuitive. It's so different than the way in which your heart works. Even if you accept it up here with your head, intellectually, it takes the rest of your life to see the implications because in every area of our life, we are still actually operating as if it's not true. Now, we're not going to go into all of those. We just have this one here as an example. These people are weak in faith. They really were saying, well, Jesus plus this, Jesus and this, and now I'm safe. Now I'm spiritually okay. And Paul says, no, you're not.

Because what you're really doing is you're demoting Jesus Christ. You're complete in Jesus. Lay your deadly doing down, down at Jesus' feet. Stand in him and him alone, gloriously complete. That's the message of Paul. Now, what's this got to do with culture? The answer is quite a lot.

particularly if you line this up with 1 Corinthians 8. See, so some of you, as we were reading this, you're saying, you know, isn't there another New Testament passage where the same thing happens? Yes and no. There is another New Testament passage, which is very like and unlike, and both the like and the unlike are important. In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul's writing a different church, not the Roman church. He's writing the church in Corinth, and there they were having a dispute too. Some people said you can't eat meat offered to idols.

In Corinth, in the morning, at the market where meat and all sorts of other things were sold, the open market, at the very beginning of the day, the pagan priests would come out and bless the food before it was sold. They'd bless it in the name of Zeus or the name of Athena or Apollos or something like that. And in the Corinthian church, there were some Christians who say, well, you can't eat any meat that you buy at that market.

Because it's been blessed by a pagan priest, so it's got the name of one of the gods on it. And other people said, of course we can eat the meat. It's just meat. Now Paul, interestingly enough, also says that the people who said they can't eat meat offered to idols were also, he calls them weak, not seeing how complete and safe they are in Jesus Christ. Thinking, well, maybe these gods still have some kind of power.

You know, I don't want to, if you eat that meat, then you might get some kind of curse. They're superstitious. They don't see how safe they are in Christ. So he also says they're weak. They don't see the completeness of who they are in Jesus. And the people who think they can eat any kind of meat, you know, including meat off their house, he calls them the strong. Here, it's the people trying to do the dietary laws of the Old Testament that are weak. And the people who say, no, I can eat all these foods are strong. Ah, but here's a question, class.

What kind of people would be most likely, what kind of Christians would be most likely to want to still follow the Mosaic Old Testament laws, even though they're Christians? Jewish people who'd been converted to Christianity. Okay, class, here. But in Corinth, which kind of person, what kind of people would have been most likely to still feel like maybe the pagan gods had power over me? Gentiles who'd become Christian.

Interestingly enough, in the Corinthian church, the Jews were the ones saying they don't have any power. And the Jewish cultural background enabled them to see the strength of the gospel, whereas the Gentiles, because of their cultural background, they couldn't see that. They were blind to some of the implications of the gospel. But in Rome and this other situation, it was the Jewish people whose cultural background blinded them to some aspect of gospel freedom. And the Gentiles, because of their cultural background, they could see it. Do we learn anything from this? Yeah. Yeah.

At least two things. Here's the first one. Culture is there. What I mean is, so many of our fights, so many of our disputes, so many of our philosophical, theological, doctrinal disputes, to a great degree, culture is behind it because our culture really, really influences the way we see things, much more than we might think. Now, let me tell you, I'm in America, so let me say that this part, I'm saying this to everybody, of course, but I'm especially addressing white people.

Okay? I'm especially addressing white people because white people in America don't believe this. Kathy and I had a friend when we were in seminary together, we had an African-American friend, Elward, and one day he looked at us and he says, you know, you white people don't realize that you actually have a culture.

And I said, what in the world are you talking about? Which, of course, just proved that he was right, by the way. I damned myself out of it. I'm like, what do you mean? And he says, no, no, look, when we black Christians do things in our way, you say, oh, isn't that interesting? That's your black culture. But when you white people do things your way in the church, you say, oh, that's just the way things are done. That's just the way it is. That's just the right way to do things.

When we do that, you know, you black people, you do it that way. Well, that's just how it's done. And he says, what you don't seem to realize is very often the things that you think are just the way things ought to be done are actually a white way of thinking. That your culture is more

influencing the way in which you think and the way in which you behave and believe than you would like to know. Now this is, I think, probably true not just to white people, but whoever's the dominant culture in any country, usually the minorities undersea the cultural differences better than the dominant people because we're swimming in our own culture so much that we're like a fish. Don't ask a fish about water. The fish will say, "What's water?" 'Cause it's all around you and you don't even know it's there. So the first thing is culture's there. But I'm not being relativistic.

Because here's the second thing we learned from this. Every culture needs to be corrected by the gospel somewhere. And every culture also has insights into the gospel that people from other cultures can't see as well. And therefore, here's the point, we need each other. You desperately need to know and hear from Christians of other races and other cultures. You desperately need to do it.

Because see, every single culture can see some parts of God's truth better and some parts worse. And only if we're seeing it all together and talking about it all together do we see the whole thing. I think I'm right in bringing in one of my favorite passages in C.S. Lewis is in The Four Loves. And he talks about friendship. And there he talks about three friends. And the three friends were Jack, that's C.S. Lewis, Jack, Ronald, and Charles.

Now, Jack was very affable, kind of like a hobbit, actually. Very tall hobbit. Ronald was actually very much like a wizard, kind of sharp-tempered and brilliant. Charles was sort of in the middle. And they were very, very dear friends. And then Charles died. And Jack said...

As sad as he was, he says, but I still have Ronald. In fact, now that we are such good friends, now that Charles is gone, in some ways I'll have more of Ronald. I'll have more of his time. I'll see more of him. And then he discovered, wait a minute, Charles was so different than Jack that Charles brought something out in Ronald that Jack never brought out. And he says, weirdly enough, when I lost Charles, I actually lost part of Ronald too. And then he began to think, began to say, wait a minute.

If it's true that it takes a varied community of people to actually know one person well, and if that's true even of a regular human being, how much more must that be true of Jesus Christ? People from different cultures, every culture can see some of the wisdom, some of the beauty, certain facets of the infinitely precious jewel of Jesus Christ that you can't. Everyone can see something differently, and it's only together that

That we see the fullness of the kingdom of God, the full implications of the gospel only together. And what does this mean? It means in spite of how hard work it is, it is work, we're going to get to this in a second, to deal with people whose sensitivities are so different, whose view of things are so different. It is always easier just to hang out with people like you culturally because you just don't have to think that much.

Everything's just natural. You don't have to watch what you say. You don't have to say, "Wait, what does that mean?" It's so much harder work to spend time with people who are a different class, a different culture. Get a highly educated professional together and a blue collar person together and they're gonna sit there and just roll their eyes at each other. Oh my goodness. Black and white, Asian, Hispanic. There's always this thing that you say, "Those people, those people. "That just drives me up a wall."

How much easier it is to hang out with your own type. Resist the temptation. You'll never find all of Christ. You'll never see all the implications of the gospel. Do the work it takes to be close friends, to be brothers and sisters, to be together, to study the Bible together, to worship together, to be together in a congregation across the racial and cultural barriers in Christ. So in a sense, I just said this, that's point one. So you see the problems of culture, but you also see the promise of it.

All right, then secondly, well, all right, then how do you do that work? I mean, obviously, that's obviously pretty hard. Because if you look out there at the institutions of the world, we're still pretty segregated in so many ways. So how do you do that? All right, point two?

I think you see here both solutions for this problem, but the problem of the cultures and the rubs that we have and the difficulty of getting along. We see solutions, false and true. Here's a false one, and here's the true one. The false one is what I'm going to call broad-mindedness. Now...

We haven't talked about the strong yet, have we? The weak, according to Paul, that's his name, for people who really don't understand the implications of the gospel, so they're narrow. They tend to be legalistic. They tend to be moralistic. There's all sorts of places they can't go. There's certain people that they don't want to deal with. They're narrow. Who are the strong people?

Well, the strong in both cases would be people who are broad-minded. That is to say, they're not narrow. They're not confined. They can eat this. They can go there. They can be with these people. They're broad-minded. But one of the things that will strike you if you not only read through Romans 14 and if you read through 1 Corinthians 8 is the great majority of the criticisms. And, of course, everybody gets criticized. The weak and the strong are both criticized. Paul is giving both weak and strong instructions. But the great majority of the criticisms are to what? To who?

Are you holding onto a grudge or struggling to forgive someone in your life? Would you like to experience the freedom and healing that forgiveness brings? In his book, Forgive, Why Should I and How Can I?, Tim Keller shows how forgiveness is not just a personal act, but a transformative power that embodies Christ's grace to a world fractured by conflict.

Far from being a barrier to justice, forgiveness is the foundation for pursuing it. In this book, you'll uncover how forgiveness and justice are deeply intertwined expressions of love and how embracing Christ's forgiveness equips us to extend grace to others. We'd love to send you Dr. Keller's book, Forgive,

as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the hope and forgiveness of Christ with more people. Visit gospelinlife.com slash give to request your copy. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Paul has much more criticism to give to the strong. And you know why? Well, basically, look, verse 3, the one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not.

And we'll get back to this verse one of chapter 15. You who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak. So here what we have is, he says, look, the weak may have their problems, but the strong, the so-called broad-minded people, you're despising them. You're showing contempt for them. You are impatient with them. You're looking down at them. You're condescending to them. You're saying, I'm not going to do that.

My behavior is perfectly okay. And if it wasn't for their stupid legalism, they wouldn't have their nose so bent out of shape. You're just looking down at them. You're broad-minded. But I want you to see broad-minded people, not only back then, but even today, are very often the problem. Because broad-minded people feel because they're broad-minded that they are superior.

And here's, let me ask you a question, okay? If you despise bigots, if you despise judgmental people, if you despise Pharisees, what does that make you? Here's what's so weird.

They're strong. These people who are broad-minded, they understand theologically the implications of the gospel, but they're despising these narrow-minded little bigots and people tied up in knots with their legalistic moralism. They're despising them, and therefore, here's the question, are they really strong? They may be strong theologically. They understand the implications of the gospel, but it has not actually affected their heart. In some ways, the gospel hasn't affected their heart because it hasn't humbled them.

Jonathan Edwards, 18th century American minister and theologian, preached a sermon years ago called, I love the sermon, it's called Love Contrary to a Censorious Spirit. A censorious spirit means a spirit of censorship, a spirit in which you're condemning people.

And he says, true love, a gospel-changed heart, basically he's saying a gospel-changed heart does not have a censorious spirit. What does that mean? It doesn't mean you can't disagree. In fact, we're going to get to this in one second. It doesn't mean you can't disagree. It doesn't mean you can't criticize. It doesn't mean you can't make a negative evaluation. It doesn't mean that. Because if you care about truth, of course you're going to have to have a disagreement. Of course you're going to make negative evaluation. Here's what he said. But do you enjoy making a negative evaluation? Yes.

Do you enjoy the contrast between your broad-mindedness and their narrow-mindedness? Does it make you feel good? Do you enjoy noting, observing, and talking about how narrow-minded they are? Does it make you feel good to talk about it? Because it shows that they just don't know what these people, and you do. He says that's a sensorious spirit. And it's actually, weirdly enough, you are weak in the gospel too.

You're actually weak in the gospel too, because you haven't really applied it and made you humble enough to see, hey, you're not complete because you're so broad-minded. You're only complete in Christ. You're not complete because you're better than narrow-minded legalistic people. You're complete in Christ. In general, by the way, let me just say this. In general, in the Bible and in our culture, what's called tolerance, tolerance, tolerance,

tolerance is saying, hey, I'm not going to tell you how to live, but you don't tell me how to live. That's not love. That's selfishness. I'm not going to tell you how to live, which means I don't want to have to get into actually talking to you about anything. I don't want to dispute or even negatively evaluate you. And, you know, I don't want to get into all that. So I'm not going to tell you how to live, but then you don't tell me how to live. That's tolerance. Yes, that's tolerance. It's not love. It's absolute selfishness. I don't have to get involved in your life. You don't get involved in my life.

Broad-mindedness is not the solution. But what is? Not broad-mindedness. I have to say, even though the word doesn't appear because of the way the translations go, we are to receive and lift up one another. That's what Paul says.

People with different cultural outlooks, even different theological and doctrinal beliefs inside the gospel of Christianity, people who are very different, you are not supposed to just simply fight with each other or disdain each other or be broad-minded with each other. Say, look, I'm not going to correct you. You don't correct me. Instead, what we're being told here is we are supposed to receive and lift up one another. First of all, the word accept, verse 1, chapter 14,

except the one whose faith is weak. He's saying to the broad-minded people who are filled with contempt, accept. Now, the trouble with that translation is you and I see the English word accept, and what does that mean? No value judgments, right? You accept me, that means no value judgments. But notice it says, look what Paul said. That can't be what Paul means, because here it says, except the one whose faith is weak. In other words, he's immediately making a negative evaluation.

So, except this person whose faith is weak. The word actually means receive. It's the word proslambano, which actually means to open your arms and to open your circle and to make room in your life for somebody. It's almost exactly what Paul is calling you and me to is the opposite of what our society calls tolerance. It's the opposite. Because tolerance in our society is, I won't tell you what's wrong with how you're living. You don't hinder the way I'm living.

Paul says, no, no, here's the opposite. If you're ever going to overcome your cultural barriers and be able to worship God with one voice and see him fully for who he is because the culture and racial barriers are surmounted, if that's ever going to happen, the opposite. Not, you don't bother me, I won't bother you. But first of all, you do make a negative evaluation. You do tell people, you're wrong. Your faith is weak. Your understanding of the gospel is weak.

You are in legalism here. So you do talk about it, but then you do let them change your life. What is all this where he says, look at verse 14, Paul says to the strong. Now he's really writing to the strong. If anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person, it is unclean. Okay. Now, what does that mean? He says, look, this person feels like I can't eat meat.

They're not just being stupid. They're not being stupid. Their conscience is uninformed. They need to think out the gospel. They need to think out the implications of the gospel. He says, so if your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. If you say, look, I'm not going to let the fact that I got these people with all their sensitivities around, I'm not going to let them keep me from living the way I want to live. Paul says, yes, you are. Yes, you are. If you want to follow the pattern of Jesus.

So not, I won't criticize you. You don't stop me from living the way I want. No, the other way around. I will criticize you and I will change my life so that we can be friends. I will let you into my life

I will refrain from things that ordinarily I'd have the freedom to do. But if this is distressing to you, if you're misconstruing it, I'm going to be patient. I'm going to try to understand. I'm going to try to sympathetically get into your thinking. I'm going to try my best to understand you. I still may be criticizing. I probably will be criticizing you. If for you to say, this person's sensitivity is not my problem.

is to deny the fact that you're members of one body, Christians. If you have a person in your church and they're very sensitive about something and you're upsetting them, you have to say, this is my problem because we are one body. It's the body's problem and I'm part of the body. And therefore, to be patient,

to be sympathetic, to listen, to perhaps refrain, perhaps to give up some things that you would prefer to do in your church, but people over here with that sensitivity don't like it, they don't want you to, and so you try to do your best to get them to come towards you, but at the same time, you're willing to make changes to come towards them. That's what Paul's talking about. Receive one another and lift one another up. Look at 15.1. We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak. That's a bad translation.

Sorry, whenever I do that, I know that's frustrating to you. The word with, the word with, that preposition is not there. It literally says, we who are strong ought to bear the failings of the weak. It's the same word that Paul uses in Galatians 6 too, when he says, bear one another's burdens. You realize that? People who are weaker, maybe because of their cultural differences, but you're not always sure. Maybe you're the weak one.

When you're getting into a relationship with somebody and you're differing on things, you're supposed to bear with, you're supposed to not bear with them, meaning just put up with them. That's the trouble with the word with. It sounds like you're supposed to put up with them. No, when Paul says bear one another's burdens, he's not saying put up with one another's burdens. He's saying help get underneath the other person's burdens. Take responsibility for that burden. Shoulder that burden with your friend so they don't have to face it alone. And this is saying you do own one another's failings.

You do worry about one another's weaknesses. You do let other people's sensitivities have an effect and influence and shape the way in which you live. And that's the only way we're going to move toward being a people who across the racial barriers can praise God with one voice. Now, how are we really going to do that? Where are we going to get the power to do that? That's actually extraordinarily hard. Everything in your culture tells you to do the opposite, right? Everything in your culture says, don't tell them where they're wrong.

But don't let them change the way in which you live. And Paul says, no, tell them where they're wrong and let them change the way in which you live. Where are we going to get the power to do that and the ability to do that? Well, it's in chapter 15. So turn to the last few verses. And there's three things here that Paul tells us, very important. The three things are we've got to, we actually have to see God's heart. We have to make sure we have the Christian identity. And last, we have to look and see how Jesus Christ accepted you. First of all, we have to see God's heart.

That's what I mean when I say in verse 5 and 6, may the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know how much of the Bible is about this? Who is he talking to? I want you, Jew and Gentile, I want you, all the races, Christians of many races and cultures, I want you to glorify God, I want you to magnify God and Father as one person.

Revelation talks about heaven. And one of the main things it says is great about heaven is that there will be people there of every tongue, tribe, people, and nation. Why would that be so great? Is that just some kind of, well, I guess heaven values diversity? No, think of what we're saying. They're all praising God together. If it's true that every culture and every person sees something of Christ that the rest of us don't,

If we're all there in our perfectly glorified selves, glorifying God perfectly, seeing God perfectly, but communicating as we pray, singing his praises to one another, finally we will see him as he is and we'll be transformed by the glory of who he is. Why? Because we're all one finally. We'll finally see him as he is only because we're all there. Because we're all one. And that's God's heart. You know, 90% of Muslims...

live in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. 98% of Hindus live in India, South Asia, the subcontinent. 88% of Buddhists live in East Asia. So all the great religions are really very, very concentrated just in one part of the world. But 25% of Christians are in Europe, 25% are in Central and South America, 22% are in Africa, 15% are in Asia, and 12% in North America.

It's the only religion that has spread into actually every continent in major ways. And Richard Baucom, Professor Richard Baucom of St. Andrews University says, almost certainly Christianity exhibits more cultural diversity than any other religion. And that must say something about it. I'll tell you what it says about it. God wants it. God hates it. When he sees Christians having contempt for people of other races, especially Christians,

of other brothers and sisters of other races. So first of all, do you see God's heart? Okay. You need that if you're going to do what we're talking about here. Secondly, you have to have a Christian identity. What's interesting about verses one to three, which some of you know is also a kind of motto for Redeemer over the years. We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbors for their good to build them up for even Christ did not please himself. What does it mean to go out into the world to please yourself? Very simple.

Every person to get an identity has to earn it. Remember what we said that every culture, every religion, you go out into the world to get an identity. You have to earn your self-worth. You have to earn a sense that I'm a good person. You have to prove yourself. You have to earn approval and acceptability. So when you go into relationships and when you get into jobs, you've got to go into relationships that fulfill you, that please you.

that you got to get into jobs that fulfill you, that please you, that make you feel good about yourself. You don't go out into the world to serve. You don't go out in the world to get drained. You go out the world to fill up because you're all, you go out in the world, into the world empty, looking to be filled. So I want this relationship as long as it makes me feel good about myself. I want this job as long as it makes me feel good about myself. I'm not doing the job to serve others. I'm not doing the relationship to serve others. I'm doing it so I can get a sense of self. Christians are totally different.

For Christians, the verdict is in. Christians know that in Christ, they're complete. Christians know that in Christ, God looks at you and values you more than all the jewels that lie beneath the surface of the earth. And that means maybe you have made partner in your law firm, but that's nowhere near as emotionally valuable to you as it used to be. It used to be, here's how I know I'm good about, here's how I know I'm a good person. No, here's how I know I'm okay. No, it's Christ that does that. Far better.

Because it's not based on your performance. And so your class, your race, your ethnicity, all those things are demoted. You still have them. Of course it's important to you that you've made law partner. Of course it's important to you that you're Chinese or you're Hispanic or you're African American, whatever you are. It's important, but it's not the main identity factor. And you know what that means? You're a Christian first and you're white or black second. You're a Christian first and you're Hispanic or you're Asian second.

And if you have that deep security, if you know who you are because of Christ, if your life is flooded with love from him and the sense of the honor you have from God in him, if that's really true, then you will always feel more of a relationship with someone of another culture who shares your Christian identity than someone inside your culture who doesn't. Always. And that's the basis for being able to do everything Paul's talking about.

I remember I had a professor, he's long gone now, Dr. Addison Leach, years ago, and he told us a story once. He was an Oxford PhD. He's American, but he went to Oxford as a PhD, and he was teaching at a university. And he was used to paneled faculty lounges and big leather chairs and stuff.

and big bottles of port and big roaring fires and brilliant people. And he was white and he was Anglo and he was educated and those were his people. But none of the people that he taught with believed in Christ. And one day he was driving somewhere and on the radio came an African-American preacher talking about the blood of Christ and talking about heaven and hell and using terrible grammar. And it suddenly hit him when he listened to that. He says, these are my people. These are my people.

Do you have that kind of identity? If you don't, if you can't say that about people who are radically different from you culturally, but they're Christians too, then you're actually, your identity is probably rooted in something besides this incredible completeness of salvation in Christ. And here's the last thing. Ooh, it has to be the last thing. Look at verse seven. "'Except one another then, just as Christ accepted you.'" How did Christ accept you? Well, he went to the cross.

And guess what he did on that cross? Two things. One is by going to the cross, he was giving you a negative evaluation. The most insulting thing that ever happened to you was when Jesus Christ went to the cross. Do you know that? Why? Because Jesus Christ going to the cross is his message to everyone in the world. You are so lost that nothing less than the death of the son of God can save you. I call that a negative evaluation. But at the same time, he went to the cross to say, look what I have done to make room for

in the life of God for you incarnation I lost my glory and my invulnerability I became killable atonement now I'm dying what did he do to make room for you did he sacrifice anything I'd say so look at him he literally bore the failings of the week you and me look at him bearing the failings of the week now if he would do that for you how dare you look at anybody else around you and say hey look

Look, you can't change the way in which I live just in order for me to get along with you. Jesus did that for you. Oh, my friends, may the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice, you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. One mind, one voice. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for this convicting word.

We do ask that you would help us to look across the cultural divides, the racial divides, the class divides, and see other Christians and say, these are my people. Help us to be willing to make the changes we need to make, to listen to each other, to sometimes change the way in which we live in order to accommodate our friends who may have different sensitivities and different issues. Show us that we need each other.

And Lord, let the West Side Congregation, let the body of Christ in this city, let this city learn to worship you with one voice. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you trust God's word and love him more.

You can find more resources from Tim Keller at gospelandlife.com. Just subscribe to the Gospel and Life newsletter to receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other resources. Again, it's all at gospelandlife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.

Today's sermon was recorded in 2016. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.