Who Are You To Judge
The Servant of Another?
Part Three
5/22/05
How important is unity in the body of Christ?
How important is it to the Lord that we
strive for unity?
It is our duty before God to make every
effort to keep unity in the body of Christ!
Eph. 4:2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one
another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity
of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
Unity can only happen when we make room for
each other!
Unity will not happen because others change,
it will only happen because I change.
Acts 4:36 Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas
(which means Son of Encouragement), 37 sold a field he
owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.
A person who has a heart to encourage usually has
also a real heart for unity! Barnabas did.
A person who has a heart to encourage looks for
the good in a person even though they have failed. Barnabas did.
Acts 15:36 Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit
the brothers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see
how they are doing.” 37 Barnabas wanted to take John, also
called Mark, with them, 38 but Paul did not think it
wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and
had not continued with them in the work. 39 They had such a sharp
disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for
Cyprus, 40 but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the brothers
to the grace of the Lord. 41 He went through Syria and Cilicia,
strengthening the churches.
Let's look at these three men........
Mark. What did Mark do wrong?
Acts 13:13 "From Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed to Perga in
Pamphylia, where John left them to return to Jerusalem."
The scripture does not go into any detail about
why he left.
It obviously was very upsetting to Paul.
Barnabas. Whatever Mark did wrong, Barnabas did not think it was
justifiable to hold it over his head.
Paul. Paul later realized that he was wrong...
Col. 4:10 My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings, as does
Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. (You have received instructions about him; if
he comes to you, welcome him.)
2 Tim. 4:11 Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you,
because he is helpful to me in my ministry.
It's interesting because Paul wrote his letter to the Colossians around
60-64 A.D. and 2 Timothy was written around 65-67 A.D.
The words that Paul uses and the time difference tells me that Paul
regretted what he did and was making it a point to emphasis how much he needed
Mark and he wanted others to know that.
Why is it that people’s faults, inadequacies
and short comings don’t look so big after they die?
People who have done great things become even
greater after they pass away!
When people are alive we point out their
weaknesses and after their death we point out their strengths.
We don’t build statues to honor the living unless
they are a dictator!
What do you think about the apostle Paul? Do
you respect him? Did he have any faults? Was he opinionated? Was he a man of
God?
1 Cor. 7:12 To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord).....
1 Cor. 7:1 Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man
not to marry. 2 But since there is so much immorality, each
man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.
1 Tim. 4:1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the
faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such
teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared
as with a hot iron. 3 They forbid people to marry and
order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with
thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.
1 Tim. 2:11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I
do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be
silent. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And
Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a
sinner. 15 But women will be saved through childbearing—if
they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
Even Peter acknowledged this.....
2 Pet. 3:15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience
means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom
that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters,
speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are
hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the
other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Here are some great men of God who were very
much used by God and yet did some foolish things!
Abraham is our father of faith. And yet because of his fear he had his wife
lie about being his husband and said she was his sister.
Gideon was greatly used by God and yet did a foolish thing.
Jud. 8:22 The Israelites said to Gideon, “Rule over us—you, your son and
your grandson—because you have saved us out of the hand of Midian.”
23 But Gideon told them, “I will not rule over you, nor will my
son rule over you. The LORD will rule over you.” 24 And he said, “I
do have one request, that each of you give me an earring from your share of the
plunder.” (It was the custom of the Ishmaelites to wear gold earrings.)
25 They answered, “We’ll be glad to give them.” So they spread
out a garment, and each man threw a ring from his plunder onto it. 26
The weight of the gold rings he asked for came to seventeen hundred shekels,
not counting the ornaments, the pendants and the purple garments worn by the
kings of Midian or the chains that were on their camels’ necks. 27
Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town. All
Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to
Gideon and his family.
David was a man after the heart of God. But he wasn’t the best father and he
lusted after Bathsheba and fell into sin. Does that take away all that David
had done? It was even after all this that the scripture says he was a man after
the heart of God!
Lot allowed himself to stay in Sodom and Gomorrah which caused great grief
to all his family. And yet the New Testament says.....
2 Pet. 2:6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them
to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7
and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy
lives of lawless men 8(for that righteous man, living among them day
after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and
heard)
Peter, a man of God, compromised the truth because of peer pressure!
Gal. 2:11 When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he
was clearly in the wrong. 12 Before certain men came from James, he
used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and
separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged
to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his
hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of
the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live
like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to
follow Jewish customs?
Listen to the Wisdom of the Word in dealing
with faults.
Pr. 19:11 A man’s wisdom gives him patience;
it is to his glory to overlook an offense.
Pr. 10:12 Hatred stirs up dissension,
but love covers over all wrongs.
Pr. 17:9 He who covers over an offense promotes love,
but whoever repeats the matter separates close
friends.
1 Cor. 13:4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not
boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it
is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
1 Pet. 4:8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over
a multitude of sins.
Ec. 7:21 Do not pay attention to every
word people say,
or you may hear your servant cursing you—
22 for you know in your heart that many
times you yourself have cursed others.