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What is another concern or fear
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you might have for this generation
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of young believers that is coming up?
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Jesse: Another concern that I have
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for this generation coming up
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is what I call the eclipsing
of the Gospel;
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the eclipsing of Jesus Christ.
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Meaning, whether it's the individual
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or the church finding its identity,
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its hope, its joy, its fellowship,
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its unity in something other than
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Jesus Christ and the Gospel.
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And it's a very subtle shift
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that happens without many people
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noticing that it happens.
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So often, so many people will come
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to the church,
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and they'll begin to discuss with them
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about they're looking for a church.
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And so often, brother,
there are so many things
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people are looking for in the church -
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these byproducts of the Gospel;
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these byproducts of Jesus Christ,
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which are good things,
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but they become the source
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of their identity,
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they become the source
of their fellowship;
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they're what they're
looking for in a church,
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and they don't ask questions
about Jesus Christ or the Gospel,
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and that's a great concern.
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James: Maybe you could
give some examples there.
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What are things you've seen people
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looking for too much
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instead of the essentials of the Gospel?
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Jesse: I'll start with this.
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How about the whole
family integration thought?
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Just this last week,
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a couple of young people
came into the church,
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seemed like passionate,
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excited people.
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And the very first comments and questions
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were about family integration,
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family worship.
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Brother, our church worships
together in that sense.
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And my home - we practice family worship.
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But when those things become
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the mark and identity of a church,
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or the mark and identity of the believer,
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and the evidence you can see
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that this is happening
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is this is what you talk about most.
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This is what you're passionate about most.
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And this is how you base your fellowship,
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even within the church -
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those who affirm you in these truths,
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those who practice in conscience
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the same things that you do
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whether it's homeschooling
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or how you do family worship.
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And the moment those things
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become the foundation of our relationship
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or the identity of the church,
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and Christ is no longer that foundation,
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inevitably, it will crumble.
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Question: What are the biggest dangers
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confronting the church today?
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The reformed church specifically?
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Jesse: It's kind of getting back to that
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whole eclipsing of Jesus Christ.
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And I'm going to preach on this here
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on Saturday.
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A great concern I have,
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especially in reformed circles:
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all genuine Christians love God,
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they love truth, they love doctrine.
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But in reformed circles,
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it's like we're known for our doctrine.
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Those are the doctrinally
focused, sound people.
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We study through Revelation 2 -
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the letter to the church at Ephesus.
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And if you've ever read
what Jesus commends
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about that church,
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they're a doctrinally sound church.
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They toil in truth.
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They defend truth.
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They expose false teachers.
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They can't stand evil.
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They can't stand the Nicolaitans
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and they're commended for all of that,
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but then Jesus says to them,
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"But I have this against you,
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you've left your first love."
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Now, you might say,
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well, that was a love for Jesus Christ
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and I would agree with you.
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But here's the concern I have:
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I think our love for Jesus Christ
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is most manifested for its true sense
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in our love for His people.
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In other words, I love Jesus.
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Well, how do I know I love Jesus?
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Well, it's evident in the way that I love
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and treat His people, the church.
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And what that church was warned about
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is what we might call loveless orthodoxy.
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So the concern I have
for the reformed church
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is that we can have all of
our doctrinal positions right;
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we can debate them left and right,
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but we lack love -
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a love for God and a love for His people.
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And it's a subtle shift again.
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People will say how can I have
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all my doctrine right and still struggle?
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And throughout the Bible, we see examples
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of churches that have
their doctrine right,
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but they struggle with love towards God
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and love towards the church.
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Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13,
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if I have all understanding,
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all knowledge, but I have not love...
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So the notion is I can have
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some of these things
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and be lacking in love.
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And I think one of the
things we need to do
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in the reformed church
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is mark loveless orthodoxy
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as sin that needs to be repented of.
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It's not something, oh,
we should do better in.
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It's sin to be repented of.
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The warning Jesus gave to that church
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is, "Repent and return,
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or I'll take away your lampstand."
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It's as serious as it gets.
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So this eclipsing of Jesus Christ,
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finding identity in something
other than Christ,
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or believing we're good because
we have our doctrine right,
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but if we lack love,
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we're nothing.
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Here's what I struggle with
so much in this, James,
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is that when I preach on this subject -
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and I've preached on it, I think,
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probably ten times between men's meetings
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and the service and different things -
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ten times in the last year.
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And I keep getting accused of:
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well, you just are minimizing doctrine.
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You're saying that parts of
God's Word are not important.
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And I'm like, listen, I've given my life
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to the study and preaching
and teaching of doctrine.
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But I've come to realize by God's grace,
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you can be right in your doctrine
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and absolutely wrong.
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And I don't think people realize that.
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You can have the right doctrine
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and be nothing.
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And so what's the mark of maturity?
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In the reformed circle?
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Having all your doctrine right.
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What's the mark of maturity in Scripture?
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Love.
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Love.
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We begin to look at people as positions,
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where our conversations are not anymore:
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"how are you doing, brother?"
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"What's going on at your workplace?"
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"How is your marriage going?"
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It is, "where are you
at in this position?"
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And brother, they're not people anymore.
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We're just viewing people as positions
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to win over to my camp.
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Be careful.
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Be careful.
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One of the sermons I preached on
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was Romans 14 in this.
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And I'll mention it some in the sermon,
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because this is not only, James,
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in the doctrines that we hold to,
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but it's also in the living out
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of our doctrines and convictions.
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And what I find so interesting
about Romans 14 -
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if you say what does Romans 14 about?
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Oh, it's about Christian
liberty and conscience.
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No, it's not.
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It's about living out love in the middle
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of a church that has differences.
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And it deals with Christian
liberty and conscience,
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but how do you deal with someone
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who has a different understanding?
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You know what I love about Romans 14
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more than anything?
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Is Paul acknowledges:
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this brother has it wrong.
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And he doesn't really correct him.
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His greater concern is this:
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Are we welcoming one another?
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Now think of that.
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This brother - he says he has
a wrong understanding.
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He is weak in faith,
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and it's leading him to make decisions
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that are wrong.
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And Paul acknowledges it.
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But he doesn't say:
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Go over there and correct your
brother to the right doctrine.
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He says: Are you welcoming him?
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Are you loving him
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as Christ has welcomed you?
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And that doesn't mean
we're indifferent to doctrine
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or we don't talk about it.
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But there's a spirit
that if it's not there
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you can have all the right
doctrine in the world
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and it means nothing.
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So, Lord, help us, brother.
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Question: After studying and preaching
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your recent series on, "Maintaining Unity
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in the Midst of Diversity,"
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what do you look back on
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and say most impacted you
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from your studies?
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Jesse: I think the most impactful study
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that I got from the study there personally
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was I thought I was a
much more loving person.
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And I realized that the way Paul
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understands love is that we should not
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measure our love based on
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how we get along and respond with those
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who agree with us,
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but rather it's with those who disagree
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or offend us.
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So if we surround ourselves with people
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who just affirm us,
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and who agree on every point of doctrine,
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hold to all the same convictions,
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and have the same passions that we do,
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and we sit around and
just affirm each other,
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you might look at that and say,
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look how loving we are.
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And I'm not questioning whether that's
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genuine love or not.
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What I'm saying is though
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the true reality or depth, you could say,
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of your love for people,
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is measured in how you respond
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with those who do not agree;
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with those who hold
to different convictions;
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with those who have offended you.
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It is how you respond
in those circumstances
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and those situations that reveals
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the depth of our love.
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And I'll go further than that.
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I think it reveals the depth
of our love for Jesus.
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I think sometimes we can believe,
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oh, I love Jesus, it's just
these immature Christians
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who don't see it the way I do -
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they I struggle with.
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But as I read through Scripture,
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I think of 1 John 3.
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How can you love God
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whom you have not seen
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when you can't even love your brother
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who you do see?
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In other words, this:
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Our love for Christ is always displayed
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in our love for the church;
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in our love for others.
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So our vertical love is always
manifested horizontally.
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Or you could say the depth of it.
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And again, to take what Paul said then,
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and the reality of your love horizontally
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is not with those who agree.
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It's with those who disagree.
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So, I went into that thinking,
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I'm a pretty loving guy.
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And I walked away from it realizing,
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I have so much room to grow in my love
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as I look how I respond to those
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who disagree or offend me.
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Another thing I learned from that
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is I've watched people
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when they have disagreements
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maybe in doctrine or convictions
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or how they live out their convictions -
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how they begin to treat
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other genuine Christians, other believers.
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And it's almost like they create subgroups
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or you might say,
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second-class Christians.
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And I want to remind us all
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that there are no second-class Christians.
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That Jesus Christ identifies
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with the genuine believer who holds
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to the lowest view of doctrine;
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the struggling Christian.
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He identifies with them.
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And I'm really struggling in my own life
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and in the church and the church abroad
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with the response I'm seeing
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where people will say things like this:
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"Yes, we agree in the Gospel
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and in Jesus Christ,
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but in this other area of doctrine,
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we don't see eye-to-eye,
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and therefore I can't
fellowship with you anymore."
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And that's that eclipsing of Jesus again.
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Brother, if you agree in Jesus Christ
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and the Gospel,
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I'm not minimizing all the other doctrines
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in the Bible - they're important;
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they're God's Word -
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but we have so much in common
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in Christ and the Gospel,
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and then you begin to maximize
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these other areas.
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I struggle to even use the term,
because people get so angry at me.
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Non-salvific doctrine.
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But listen, there are other doctrines
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that you can be wrong
in and still be saved.
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I think Dr. Mohler did a great job
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in helping in this.
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He called it spiritual triage.
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And he wrote, listen, we don't treat
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a skinned knee like we do
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a gunshot wound to the chest.
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And we have to have a doctrinal triage
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at some level, so that if you and I
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can't agree on some level of eschatology,
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but we see eye-to-eye on Jesus Christ,
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justified by grace through faith alone,
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you're my brother.
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We can be in fellowship.
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We may not be able to pastor together,
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but we can be in fellowship,
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and I need to treat you with the same love
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that I would treat anybody else.
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And brother, I'm not seeing that.
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I'm seeing divisions after
divisions after divisions.
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And it's concerning.
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James: And why do you
think the devil wants that?
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Jesse: Well, when the church is divided,
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something other than Jesus becomes
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the basis of our unity.
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Something other than Jesus becomes
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the basis of our fellowship.
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And the moment that happens
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and it's not Christ as the
foundation anymore,
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the inevitability is we crumble.