Sunday 05 • 06 • 18

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him but do not quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains and let not the one who abstains pass judgement on the one who eats. For God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgement on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls and he will be upheld for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God. While the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, Christ died and lived again that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. Why do you pass judgement on your brother? Or you? Why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgement seat of God. For it is written, "As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God." So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore, let us stop passing judgement on one another. — Romans 14:1-12

The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Father, I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts would be pleasing and acceptable in your sight. Lord, you're our rock, our fortress, and our Redeemer. We pray these things in the name of our Savior Jesus. Amen.

The Cost of Disunity

The comedian Emo Phillips once told this joke on live British TV. He says, "Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump off, and I said, 'Don't do it.' He said, 'Nobody loves me.' I said, 'Well, God loves you. Do you believe in God?' He said, 'Yes.' I said, 'Are you a Christian or a Jew?' He said, 'A Christian.' I said, 'Me too. Protestant or Catholic?' He said, 'Protestant.' I said, 'Me too. What franchise?' He said, 'Baptist.' I said, 'Me too. Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?' He said, 'Northern Baptist.' I said, 'Me too. Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?' He said, 'Northern Conservative Baptist.' I said, 'Me too. Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes region or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?' He said, 'Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes region.' I said, 'Me too. Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of seventeen eighteen seventy nine or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?' He said, 'Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.' I said, 'Die, heretic,' and I pushed him off."

In 2005, that was voted the most popular religious joke on the Internet. It's funny, but it's not funny, right? I mean, it's funny, but it's not funny because we know this. We know that Christians divide and Christians draw lines. It's too true. And there are a lot of times not even about doctrinal differences, but they're matters of practices of the Christian faith.

Today I want to talk about the hard work of unity in the body of Christ. The hard work of unity in the church. And this is going to be a two-part sermon. We're going to do the first part of it today and then pick it up the last part next week because Christians have always disagreed about particulars.

The Tension Points of the Church

You know how the human body gets arthritis when the joints rub against each other? I think the body of Christ gets a lot of arthritis when the joints rub against each other, and we need wisdom in how to deal with the tension points of Christian living.

So the title of today's sermon is Unity is Greater Than Uniformity. The subtext is: How to Be Satan's Tool in the Church. So if you wanted an info session on that—here it is.

Remember where we are in this book. We are almost at the end of Romans. We started in August and we've been going through the book of Romans. The first eleven chapters, as we've walked through Romans, have been about the content of the gospel. Where we are as God's people—we find ourselves in a place of being under God's wrath, rightly so for sin. And yet we see the incredible ways that God's love overwhelms us, where God intervenes in the lives of people by his grace, that have before the world began. We see the centrality of the cross, the resurrection, the way that God unites us to himself and unites us to one another.

And then at chapter 12, we hit the kind of hinge point of the book of Romans, and we go from the content of the gospel to the therefores of the gospel.

Therefore, in view of God's mercy, present yourselves as a living sacrifice to the Lord and do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. — Romans 12:1

Here's the problem. We find when we're around the church, the church too often is conformed to the way the world is in this area of disunity, of division, of throwing rocks at each other. It's so different from what we see in Scripture where instead of conformity, we have transformity, where it's a dying to self—a mark of gospel-changed people.

The Diverse Roman Church

Let's look at the context of this. I think it's helpful for us to understand what this little tiny baby Roman church was dealing with in their living together, and therefore, how we draw that out into our relationships with one another.

As we're going to see in two Sundays, the little brand new church in Rome was an incredibly diverse group of people. Lots of different backgrounds, lots of different nationalities. But for our purposes this morning, there were two main groups within that church. There were those who had grown up in a Jewish background, familiar with the temple and the sacrificial system, and came to faith out of that. They came to Christ, and then there were those who were pagans who grew up in the Roman Empire where there was the pantheon of the Roman gods, and all those gods are worshiped.

These two groups of people come together, and there is arthritis in the church. And there's arthritis about two things that we see in this passage: diet and days, special days and special diet. I want you to just kind of put yourself in this situation and think this through with me.

The Jewish Convert's Perspective

So you have first—let's talk about the Jewish convert. A Jewish convert grew up in Judaism, knew the sacrificial system, knew the law, grew up with the entire temple system. And when this person, this convert comes to faith in Christ, suddenly it's like someone flips the switch and the lights come on on parts of that system they never understood before. They're like, "Wait, mind blown. Jesus is what all of this was about? Jesus is the point of the sacrificial system?"

Suddenly, Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, takes on a whole new meaning. And they worship on those days with tears in their eyes. And yet they look over the fence and they see a pagan convert who's mowing his grass or going shopping and drinking a beer on Yom Kippur. And you get tension and arthritis and disunity in the church. "How can you do that on this day? Yom Kippur?"

And the pagan convert is like, "Man, Jesus is so great. Every day is a day of atonement." Which one's right? Which one's wrong? Both of them are right.

Conflict Over Diet

Now, they also had conflict over diet. So you have the pagan convert who's overwhelmed by the grace of Jesus in his life and wants to just have a huge fellowship meal in his house. He goes and buys two pork butts, puts them on the grill nice and slow like we like—you know, cooks real slow over a couple days like falling off the bone, you know, like good pork, right? And invites everybody over to the house, and the Jewish converts won't come. "We can't eat that. No way am I doing that."

And what is there? There's tension and disunity and arthritis in the body of Christ.

What do we do with this? You see, these aren't conflicts about doctrine. These are conflicts about how you do the Christian life, how we live out the Christian life.

If Christians don't know how to live with unity in regards to these conscience issues, then what's going to happen is > strife and discord — Romans 13:13

That's what our church is going to be like, and there'll be division.

Understanding the Nature of These Conflicts

So just to be clear, these are not areas of doctrinal difference. You can resolve a lot of doctrinal differences by just going to the Bible and talking through the passages of Scripture. These are not issues of morality. These are not issues of agreed-upon Christian morality. You can resolve issues of morality with church discipline.

These are the gray areas, non-revealed areas, areas that aren't spelled out in the Bible, not crystal clear, but where Christians have a lot of emotion.

The Modern Church

Is this still a problem in the church today? I want to tell you, one of my boys' favorite video games of all time has been Super Smash Brothers Brawl, which is sort of a free-for-all WrestleMania between Mario, Luigi, Pikachu, and all the rest. It's just an every-man-for-himself brawl, and it's been the favorite in our house for years. Man, what a picture of the modern church. Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and people fight it out.

And what's the funny thing? You can teach this text to Christians in our country, and they're like, "Okay, now I understand what to do if I'm offered food sacrificed to idols." And that's going to happen only if you're a missionary in a few places in Asia.

And yet this text is so applicable to a whole broad spectrum of these kinds of opinions, differences in how we think about the Christian life that are not revealed. Let me show you this. Let's walk through some of these because there are plenty of opportunities for disagreement in the church over these things.

Homeschool, Christian school, public school. Man, I have watched churches where they all have to be the same. Everybody has to think the same on this issue. No room for disagreement. People say things like, "Well, I'm so glad I don't let my children be trained by the children of the devil." Or others deride homeschooling: "Wow, you're training your children for social awkwardness. Way to go." There are all kinds of mean things that people say about each other in this. This is heavily divisive, and yet this is really a wisdom issue for families. Different kids need different things. Some people think children of believers should only be taught by believers, but everybody has a spectrum. Is that just mom and dad? Should children of believers be taught algebra by other believers? Does that matter? See, this is a gray area.

Dancing. Yeah, I know this is old school. But there are still churches who think dancing is evil. I personally don't dance much out of respect for the arts, but that's a different issue.

Breastfeeding versus formula. You may think that's crazy to have that on the list, but that's hardcore. There are moms who are so vehement about breastfeeding, they'll say, "You're abusing your child if you're not doing this. Similac? You might as well be made by the devil himself in a lab in New Jersey."

Sabbath keeping. Not whether you do it, but how you do it. The Sabbath is one of the commandments of scripture, and yet every person in this room has already moved away from what's revealed in scripture about the Jewish Sabbath being on a Saturday. We're doing this on a Sunday. How do you observe the Sabbath? Do you go out to lunch or is that sinful? Are you causing other people to stumble in that? Is it okay to watch NFL football on a Sunday? People have to make a decision about that, and the Bible isn't crystal clear on exactly how you celebrate that.

Birth control. There are those of us who use birth control and those of us who think you're playing god if you do. You are in sin if you don't allow God to control the size of your family. Incidentally, you don't have to have four kids to be on staff at CTK. That is not a thing. But is there freedom with regard to how families make these decisions?

Watching movies. Do you draw the line at G movies, PG movies, PG-13 movies, R movies? Is it okay for Christians to watch R-rated movies? There's a lot of disagreement in churches over that.

Spanking. Yes, parents are called to exercise discipline, but how that's worked out is not crystal clear except by inference. You can make inferences from scripture about this, but it's not like, "This is the way you have to do this." There are some families who say spanking is the way we do this. Others say, "My experience of that is abuse." Is it always abuse? No, it's not. But are we giving freedom in this? Can we be respectful of each other?

Drinking alcohol. Is it okay to have some wine with dinner? Okay to have a beer after I mow the grass? Our Southern Baptist brothers and sisters are still in a lot of conflict over this one.

Gender roles and work outside the home. I remember this from several years ago when we were involved with Acts 29 going to a conference where basically the leader there stood up and said, "Hey, if you're a pastor's wife, it's wrong for you to work outside the home." And then later also came public and said, "Hey, if there's a stay-at-home dad, that's in sin." And I just want to smack him. Like, what are you doing? Saying that with the same strength with which you say, "Jesus was raised from the dead"? I'm sorry. You're creating all kinds of problems.

Halloween. We lived in Philadelphia. Our neighborhood would go all out for Halloween. Everybody came out. It was a big day for us. My family started planning Halloween costumes in August, and we were like hardcore about trick-or-treating. It was a great day because you're with all your neighbors. It's the one time a year everybody's out. And yet my kids would go to the Christian school and hear, "That's the devil's holiday. You're worshiping the devil when you participate in that."

We had to walk through that. What about observing the Christian calendar? For example, Lent. You familiar with Lent? Yeah. There are some people who go through the practice every year of giving up something for Lent. Let's imagine a Christian who's not thinking, "Oh, I'm doing this to earn brownie points with God," but is actually thinking, "Well, this is a time where I'm going to really take time to work on my heart and I'm going to get into the spade work of my heart and really examine myself and have an opportunity to really do some business with the Lord in areas that I just haven't touched." And they hear other Christians who say, "You know, that church calendar, it's bogus, it's not as old as you think it is, it's not biblical, and you should be doing that all the time." Well, they come to that Christian and say that. You can picture the first person going like, "So wait, you're telling me I shouldn't be examining my heart right now. Can we have grace for each other then?"

Or what about this one? You remember "I Kissed Dating Goodbye"? That one rocked the church. Some people kissed dating goodbye and courted. Some people didn't and dated and there's a lot of conflict over this. See, these are issues I could just keep going. I mean, Christians have ruined many a church over these and other issues. Anybody have experience with this? Right? Christians love to argue about these things and make them into a big deal. But notice what Paul calls in here, verse one. These are opinions. These are disputable matters. These are not clearly defined in Scripture. And no matter what you say, these are by inference. You can at best go to the Scripture and say, "Well, I can deduce this from here," but these are by inference.

So we're not talking—let me be really clear. We're not talking about opinions with regard to doctrine. We're not talking about doctrine or things that are biblical. We don't have differences of opinion in our church on adultery. We're not like, "Hey, that may be wrong, maybe not." Or homosexuality, or stealing, or cheating the government. Those are not areas that are within this realm of personal conviction opinion. You can go to the Bible and a very straightforward clear reading of Scripture will guide you in that. We're not talking about that. We're also not talking about areas of Christian morality. We're talking about personal opinions—not "can I do something," but "should I"—things that are non-revealed.

So listen, let me make sure you're all clear on this. If you say your personal conviction is to live together before you get married, that is not a personal conviction. That is a sin, and you are deceived. That's clear in the Bible. So about that or drunkenness or anything else in these revealed areas, they are not up for grabs at the church. So no emails tomorrow, okay? Like, this isn't "CTK goes liberal Sunday" or "CTK is going soft on morality." That's not what's happening today. But what I'm saying is there are these areas where it's not super clear. They're not issues of doctrine. They're not issues of morality. Where we need wisdom in how to live together in peace.

Four Key Principles for Christian Unity

And so I'm going to give you four key principles today for Christian unity—three next week. Okay? Four today, three next week. So I'm going to ask you to write these down. Get out your bulletin, get out your phone, open your notes. Four principles. I need you to know this. We need you to know this. Your elders need you to remember these things. They're so key for our peace.

First one is this: When Christians don't fish, they fight. When Christians don't fish, they fight. Now let me show you this. In Romans, these last five chapters are all about love and unity. Love for one another, love for those outside the church, for our neighbors, love for those who don't yet know Christ, and unity with one another. Let's think about what happens. This is very purposeful that this is in the middle of this because when Christians stop fishing—when we stop sharing the gospel with one another, when we stop reaching out to neighbors, we stop loving people. My experience is Christians find lots of reasons to argue with each other. We get bored and we fight. And here's the opposite of that too. When we're fighting, forget about inviting anybody to your church. Oh, yeah, I really want to come and be a part of your heavily divided fellowship. No, right? When Christians don't fish, they fight, and when they fight, they can't fish. Really serious. You want to get our church off of the Great Commission? This is the way to do it. Stir up dissension.

Second, in issues of conscience, here's the word: live and let live. Live and let live. I know that sounds really unspiritual and not very biblical, okay? But let's look at this verses one through four.

You know how easy it was to divide the Roman church? All it took was some meat. All it took was a piece of meat. So in that contentious atmosphere and in our contentious atmosphere, Paul seems to say to us, with regard to conscience issues, live and let live.

So Paul distinguishes here between the weak and the strong. The weak are those who have strong scruples. They're religious stickers. "I've got to do all these things." So in this context, it's the Jewish Christian who's like, "I need to observe the diet and the holy days." The strong is a person who has weak scruples, who's like, "You know, freedom in Christ. Freedom in Christ. I can do anything." And he calls both groups—both groups—to not judge each other and to live together in peace.

Listen to the command.

Don't have your brother or sister over to lunch in order to pick a fight, but welcome them. — Romans 14:1

See, welcome them. I'm not having you over to brainwash you to my perspective about homeschooling. It's to have you over in order to hear you and to know you and to share with you.

Just, the other side of this is verse three. He says not only welcome, but don't despise.

Let no one who eats despise the one who abstains. — Romans 14:3

It's a great word. In Greek, it means look down on. This is where divisions start—with a haughty attitude. "You stupid pharisaical Jew. You dirty pagan." See, it starts with an attitude of superiority. "I know better."

You remember We Are the World? We Are the World was in 1985. Lots of you weren't even born yet. It was a collaboration of lots and lots of singers and artists coming together to raise money for a famine in Ethiopia. So all these big stars come together on stage. Well, Quincy Jones, who directs the whole thing, he has this sign on the stage door as you come in that says, "Check your egos at the door."

Now, why does he need to do that? Because all these superstars are used to having the spotlight on them. It's all about me. And he has to say, "Check your egos at the door" so we can come and do this collaborative thing together, and we can all sing, and we all have our parts, and it's not about any one of us.

I think it'd be a great sign to fix on the outside of CTK: "Check your egos at the door." You know, we don't—this isn't about you. This isn't about a particular agenda.

Listen to verse four.

Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? — Romans 14:4

Who are you? Each one of us here is God's servant. We report to God. We're going to stand one day before Him and give an account—not to each other. Before Him. He is the one we please. He is the one that we're seeking to please.

So, who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? Here's the only answer. The only answer we should have should be something like, "I'm a Christian with amnesia. I've forgotten for a moment that I'm a sinner saved by grace, just like my sister, just like my brother, and I forgot there for a little bit that I'm under God's wrath. I don't deserve anything, and He rescued me."

You see, Christians should be the people who are most humble. The gospel bar is high enough that we don't need to add other things to it. I mean, to come and humble yourself and say, "I need Jesus. I can't do a thing about myself"—do we want to add some extra freight on that for other people to have to do to make themselves pleasing and acceptable to God? No, we'd never want to do that. And yet with our opinions, we do so.

Unto the Lord

Remember, Christians don't fish, they fight. Live and let live.

God cares more about motivation than manifestation. This is what I mean by this.

— Romans 14:6-9

God cares a lot more about what's on the inside than even what comes out. He sees and cares about what's in the heart behind a particular action or activity.

Think again about the days and the diet. Okay, so let's talk about this. Here's a Jewish convert. Over here on my left, your right, is a pagan convert.

So the Jewish convert observes the special days. He is all about the calendar that he grew up with, and he's like, "All that's revealed in Jesus and fulfilled in him—man, it's awesome. I'm going to go do all those things." Is God pleased with that person if that's unto the Lord? Yes. God's like, "I love this guy. He's doing that unto me."

And then you've got the pagan guy who's shopping on Yom Kippur and mowing his grass. And he's like, "Every day is Yom Kippur for me. Every day is a day of atonement. Hallelujah." Is God pleased with this guy? Yeah.

He's like, you get monotheism. Right? Man, that's awesome. I'm so happy with that guy. Okay. Let's talk about Jewish convert again. He's like, I am going to eat celery under the Lord. Pagan guy, I'm going to eat my bacon under the Lord. Right? Can God be at the same time pleased with both of these people who have polar opposite responses? Yes. Because these are conscience issues, and they're both doing them unto the Lord. That's not postmodern. That's not slippery slope. That's God saying, "He's mature. He's doing this unto me. He's mature. He's doing it unto me. God bless him." I love both of those opposite actions because they're both unto him.

In the eating or not eating, in the observing or not observing, what's the common denominator between the religious stickler and the freedom guy? Three words: unto the Lord.

Now look, here's what we need to do. If we as a church can get beyond the outer manifestations and really get to know each other and understand each other's hearts, and we find at the very base of both of us are unto the Lord, unto the Lord—that's a place of commonality. So we can accept each other and say, "Hey, you don't do. We do. Both are unto the Lord. Praise Jesus. We're united about it being unto the Lord." That's maturity, people, as a body of Christ. That's maturity.

Unto the Lord as the Central Question

See, isn't "unto the Lord" the big question we should be asking about every part of our lives? I mean, if we walked around saying "unto the Lord" with everything we did, there were a lot of things that would be straightened out. Instead, I find that Christians want rules. We would love it if our Bible came as a multi-volume encyclopedia that just answered all our questions. And God chooses not to do that.

In the first century, they had the Torah, the Jewish law, and the Talmud, which is all the writings of the Pharisees and the rabbis about the Torah. So you didn't have to think. You didn't have to ask questions like, "How can I do this unto the Lord?" You just would ask your rabbi, "Hey, what should I do?" And they looked it up. In the Middle Ages, there was canon law by the church. Again, you didn't think about, "Hey, how do I please God in this?" You just would ask the priest and he looked it up in canon law and said, "Here's how you're going to do it."

And God gives us something so much harder and so much better in saying, "Freedom and unto the Lord." Can you, in your heart, make this your goal: pleasing him in all that you do? I want in my plans, in my future thoughts, in my marriage, in the way that I think about my friendships, the way that I date—all these things. I want these things to be unto the Lord. If we will do that, that is gold for our church. And we'll find ourselves not arguing about the manifestations because we'll know the heart.

Pull One Trigger, Not the Other

Last one is this: you pull one trigger, not the other. You know that phrase "pull the trigger"? It means to make a decision. And there are lots of these areas that are non-revealed, that are vague. I gave you a whole list, and there's lots more we could add to that. How you do the Christian life—there are areas that you're going to have to figure out. And this passage gives us a lot of freedom in that.

Did you hear verse five?

Each of you should be fully convinced in his own mind. — Romans 14:5

I know there's some personalities where it feels like things being vague is a black hole of indecision. And yet this passage gives us a lot of freedom to make decisions about spanking, about alcohol, about all these gray areas where you're free in the Lord. Study it in Scripture, come to a decision, pull the trigger. You're good.

But here's the area where you don't pull the trigger: ask your brother and sister. Right?

Let us not pass judgment on one another. — Romans 14:13

This is what I want you to see: God loves unity without uniformity. Unity without uniformity.

If you think about it enough, you realize God has chosen to not reveal lots of things because, I guess, He loves this diversity—this rich diversity among His people—that we would do things differently. See, uniformity is not all that beautiful. Everybody the same? That's like the clone troopers in Star Wars. Right? All the same, all think the same. Everybody's exactly the same. That is not beautiful. That's stifling.

Revelation 5 and 7 show us this picture of God's people gathered around the throne. Every tribe, nation, people, tongue—they're all worshiping the Lamb together, and they're doing so not all the same. God seems to love all these different exotic birds come together to worship Him unto the Lord. I want you to think about this: would it really be best to have a church that's 100% alcohol drinkers?

Or a 100% teetotalers, a 100% Democrats, a 100% Republicans, a 100% homeschoolers, a 100% public school people. No, this is what God wants: a unity without uniformity. This means three things. You make your call, you glorify God, you hush in our church.

When you start trouble, you are not going to be glorifying God. When you start wanting to make a matter that is non-revealed issue into a big deal in our church and you start gathering people to your cause and you start like, "We need to do a seminar on this"—you know what? You are not glorifying God. You are causing division, and our elders will go to the mat for this one.

There are things that we will never do seminars on in our church. We're never going to do them. You'll hear about them in other churches because we don't want to bind people's consciences. We don't want to say, "This is how it's going to be. Everybody has to think the same about this." Those are matters of inference. You're welcome to have people over at your house. You're welcome to study the scriptures together, read a book together, and think about it together. Absolutely. But we're going to be really careful that we make Jesus gathering around Him the central thing, and that we don't bind people's consciences in areas that are non-revealed.

So we have no seminars on homeschooling or why Similac is over the devil or Halloween. Not happening. We're going to fight hard for unity. That's one of my favorite things about this church. I see a place where right now God is growing up this beautiful sense of—we don't all think the same. And that is a great thing.

A couple of weeks ago, I ended my sermon about Legos, and I'm going to do so again. Legos are amazing pieces of engineering, and they have the highest production specifications because every LEGO that's made is designed to fit with every other LEGO everywhere in the world. Whether it's 30 years old or it was made yesterday, they all should fit. They're engineered for unity. And when you have a bunch of Legos, you can make amazing things out of them.

Yet Legos that are divided, that are on the floor in my hallway in the middle of the night when it's dark—incredibly painful, right? You walk on Legos, it's like walking on hot coals. Incredibly painful. And Christians divided are incredibly painful. But I want to add something to that because it is so much better when we have LEGO bricks that aren't all the same.

Imagine a bin full of LEGO bricks and they're all the same color and they're all the same shape. Do you know what you can build out of that? A wall. And Christians are really good at it. Because we all have to be the same shape, same color, we make walls. But when God grabs a whole bunch of Legos—different shapes, colors, sizes—and He begins to build them together, it's incredible. The beauty and complexity that God can make. I can't wait to see what He's going to do in our church.

Two Applications

Two applications for you this morning. These are both with relationships.

Do you need to leave today and go affirm a relationship? Is there somebody that you should call up today and say, "I disagree with you and I love you"? Somebody who you know we don't see eye to eye on lots of things and they sort of bug me. Man, I love you and we disagree and you're affirming that relationship. It's good that we're together.

And second, do you need to repair a relationship? Do you need to go back to someone and say, "You know what? Would you forgive me? I made a small thing into a big thing"? You don't even have to go back and rehash the whole conversation. Just go back and say, "Would you please forgive me? It was wrong of me to make a matter of personal opinion into a point that divided us. Would you please forgive me?"

I can't wait to see what God is going to do. Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for how incredible your love is for sinners, that you love all kinds of sinners. And Lord, we surely represent that this morning. And yet you make us one around this table. You make us one with regard to the way that you have called us to be a body together. Lord, we pray that would just flow out in all of our relationships and we would make the main thing the main thing. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.