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The River ChurchSermons

Romans 9-16

Applying Righteousness: Towards Others/Selflessness

Gary Wright · Sunday, 23 November 2025 · Romans 14:1-15:13 · 42:45 · 5,683 words

Romans S31 · 14:1-15:13 Burton

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

The sermon shares a story of his marriage to his wife Kim, showing that God joins people with different backgrounds. It then turns to Romans 14, where Paul tells believers to stop arguing over gray areas such as diet and worship days, and to welcome and accept one another. Listeners are challenged to put others first, follow the Holy Spirit’s convictions, and pursue unity and love rather than imposing personal preferences.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

gray 22 area 24 eat 32 meat 18 drink 19 conviction 14 liberty 9 social 10 drunk 8 alcohol 8 diversity 7 unity 11

Topics

Sin 4 The Holy Spirit 4 Judgment 3 The Gentiles 2 Conscience 2 Faith 2 Unity 2 Love 1 Freedom 1

Scripture referenced 24

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 14:1-4 5:13 Acts 10 8:51 Acts 10 9:34 Acts 10:15 9:34 Acts 10:16 9:34 Romans 12 11:31 Romans 14 12:06 Romans 14:3 16:42 Romans 14:10-12 17:59 Romans 14:4 18:57 Ephesians 5:8 24:10 Matthew 7 25:29 Matthew 7 25:29 Matthew 7:1 25:29 Matthew 7:2-5 26:08 Matthew 18:15-17 28:23 Romans 14:20-23 31:13 Romans 15:1-2 36:40 Romans 15:5 37:37 1 Corinthians 13:5 38:36 Romans 12:3 38:58 Matthew 18 40:27 Romans 12 42:16 Romans 12:1 42:16

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

So my wife and I grew up together.

We actually were in kindergarten together, you know, back in the day.

I don't know if they still do this.

You got the little kindergarten postcards with all the pictures on it.

Well, there's a little five-year-old boy and a little five-year-old girl on there in the same class.

So the crazy thing is, yeah, I wasn't going for that.

The crazy thing is my grandson started kindergarten this year, same kindergarten classroom that we were in.

But it's not the same teacher, of course, because when I added up the years, I'm like, oh, my goodness, I'm an old man, right?

I couldn't believe how many years ago it was.

But anyways, Kim and I grew up together.

We started, we were friends for a long time.

All through middle school, we were really best friends.

And in 1983, though, something happened.

Kim and I realized that we liked each other more than friends.

We started dating.

We dated for three years through high school.

And in 1986, we got married.

Now, I would love to tell you this about Kim and I, that we're exactly the same.

We're soulmates.

Everything we agree on.

But I would be lying to you if I told you that, right?

And if you're married, you understand what I'm talking about.

But Kim and I, we grew up differently, different backgrounds, different thoughts.

Honestly, we ate different kinds of foods, right?

My family was from the south, and we had, like, southern food, right?

The good kind of stuff, the good kind of food, right?

So.

Her family was from the south, too, but they liked soup and hamburgers and things like that more.

Eggs and toast.

That's an inside joke.

But listen, we had different ideas.

And the truth is, about my wife and I, that we don't agree on a lot of things.

We have a hard time making decisions together.

Matter of fact, after lunch today, it's going to be intense fellowship trying to figure out where we're going to have dinner together today.

And that's no lie.

Right?

We've reversed places like Firehouse Subs.

Now, that's okay.

But I've been eating sandwiches my whole life at work.

I do not want a sandwich for lunch, right?

I prefer places like Qdoba.

Maybe you don't agree with me there.

But clearly, Qdoba is the right choice.

I don't know.

Listen, truthfully, when it comes to eating out, there's no right and wrong answer.

There's no right and wrong answer.

Where we, you know.

Truthfully, it's a gray area.

Right?

There's no right and wrong.

You know, I can say Qdoba is better.

And she could say Firehouse Subs is better.

But truthfully, there's no truth there.

Right?

It's your opinion.

So, what do we do?

Kim and I, we have these, we don't agree on everything.

So, what do we do?

Do we stay together or do we split up?

Right?

It would be crazy to think that we're going to split up because we have these differences.

Because God brought us together.

And that is what exactly Paul's talking about.

He's not going to be talking about our relationship.

But he's going to be talking about us believers and our relationships to one another today.

Okay?

So, the church in Rome, there was a lot of diversity there too.

They grew up differently.

They came from different walks of life.

There was diversity.

And they had different thoughts on different things.

And lots of diversity.

And lots of different opinions on whether something was sin or whether it was not sin.

And there were some major differences here.

A lot of these things, and the things we're going to be talking about today, are gray areas.

The scripture is not 100% clear if it's right or if it's wrong.

Okay?

And that's what Paul's writing about.

Because churches have split over things like this.

Churches have split.

Probably over the color of the carpet before.

And that's the truth.

And that's what Paul's going to address today.

Two of the biggest conflicts that were going on there was we have a group of Jewish Christians, Jewish believers.

And we have everyone else who is not Jewish.

And they're also believers.

They grew up differently.

You know, the Jews had to follow, or they tried to follow God's law.

They tried to follow.

They followed special dietary things.

And the Gentiles didn't.

And this was a huge conflict after they both became saved and were in the same church together.

Worshiping the same God, by the way.

But Romans 14, 1 through 4, Paul starts hitting this problem.

Okay?

He says,

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 judgment on the one who eats.

For God has welcomed him.

Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?

It is before his own master that he stands or falls.

And he welcomes.

He will be upheld.

For the Lord is able to make him stand.

So what's going on here?

The Jews and the Gentiles had different thoughts on a couple of things.

Two major things.

Their diet, what they're eating, and the days they worshipped on.

And we're going to talk about the diet first.

The Jews would not eat meat because most of the meat or a lot of the meat that was sold in the market in Rome

was from the worship of pagan gods.

It came from an altar of a pagan god.

So the Jews were like, I don't know which meat was used as the sacrifice here or a burnt offering,

but I'm just going to be safe and I'm not going to eat no meat.

I'm going to eat vegetables.

And the Gentile believer knew that pagan gods weren't real.

That they served the one true God.

And they didn't have the background the Jews had about the...

These special types of foods that they had to eat.

And they didn't have a problem eating the meat of the pagan god.

What do we have here?

We have a gray area.

Right?

The scripture doesn't say once you're a believer you can't eat the meat.

And it doesn't say you can.

So we have a gray area.

Kent Hughes, a Bible commentator, says Paul's not saying...

So Paul calls the Jewish believers weak in the faith.

Okay?

The beginning of our passage.

But Kent Hughes says Paul is not saying the Jewish believers are weak in their basic Christian faith.

But they are weak in the assurance that their faith permits them to have certain things such as eating meat.

So the Jews thought the meat was unclean because it was sacrificed to a pagan god.

Christians have liberties.

We have liberties that the Jews didn't have before they were saved.

Okay?

We have liberties in Christ.

And why he's calling them weak is because sometimes we get hung up on things that we think we're convicted by these things that are gray areas.

And we let that...

We want to make everybody believe that way.

But that's not the way it is.

It's only in these areas.

It's only for those who are convicted by this.

So are the Jews wrong here?

They are not.

Are the Gentiles wrong?

They are not.

Okay?

And we see the same sort of thing going on with Peter in Acts chapter 10.

Peter has a dream.

Now Peter's a Jew and he believes he can't eat certain kinds of meat.

So he has this vision and a dream.

There's like this huge sheet coming down from heaven and it's full of animals.

And God says in the dream,

Peter, I want you to kill these animals and eat them.

And Peter was mortified.

He's like,

As a matter of fact, I think I have this wrote down.

No, I don't.

He says,

I would never do that.

Right?

But in verse 15 and verse 16 in Acts chapter 10, it says,

And the voice came to him a second time.

What God has made clean, do not call common.

The word common here means unclean.

So what the Lord has called clean, do not call unclean.

That's what he tells Peter.

He's saying these meats,

are okay to eat.

That's what he's saying.

And this happened three times.

And the thing was taken up at once to heaven.

Okay?

So what I want you to see here is,

is God condemning Peter here for not eating the meat?

He's really not.

Because if we read on, we're going to find out.

It's more about a person, this man named Cornelius,

than it is about Peter or about the meat.

He didn't, the Jews wouldn't even eat with,

a Gentile. Cornelius was a Gentile. And in verse 28, it says this, and he said to them, you yourselves

know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation. But

Peter says this, but God has shown me that I should not call any person unclean, common or unclean.

It was not about the meat. If Peter didn't want to eat the meat, that's great. It was about the

relationship with other people. It wasn't about Peter. Look, when we have these gray areas,

it's not about what we want. It's about the other person. We're to work, we're to try to get along.

Look, we're talking about love again. Since the beginning of chapter 12, Paul has been

addressing how do we live this life as a Christian? How do we live in the mercies of God?

And it's through loving our God and loving people. And that's what we're talking about again. It's

all about those two things. There was also a disagreement between the Jews and the Gentiles

on what day they worshiped on. If we read Romans 14, five through nine, it says one person,

esteems one day better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one would be fully

convinced in his own mind, the one who abstains the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. And

the one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God. Sorry, I lost my place

here. While the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. So they're

both doing this to glorify God, whether they're eating or not, and whatever day they worship on

or not, they believe that's true. That's their conviction. And they're both honoring God. So

it's important to see that. For none of us, none of us lives to himself, and none of us die to

himself. For we live, we live to the Lord. And we die, we die to the Lord. So that whether we live,

or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, Christ died and lived again,

that we might be Lord, both of the dead and of the living. Okay, so the Jewish believers in Rome

thought that the main argument here was the Jewish believers believed that they should

worship on Saturday, because Saturday was the Sabbath day. Okay, now, you have to understand a

the Sabbath was not a day to worship on. It was a day of rest. Okay, but now that they're believers,

the Jews wanted to worship on that day. But the Gentiles, everyone else, because Christ was raised

on Sunday morning, they started a tradition of worshiping on Sunday. We still do it, right? And

I'm not up here to saying we should change the tradition. I like worshiping, but I'm not up here

to worshiping, but if we decided to change it to Tuesday morning, well, some of you guys wouldn't

be able to come because you're working, but maybe we'd have to do Tuesday night, but it would be

okay. Any day of the week, we can gather together and worship our Savior. Amen? Gentile believers,

so what does Paul say about all this? He gives some commands here to the people in Rome, and

unfortunately, he's given it to us as well. Actually, I should say fortunately, because he's teaching us

to get along. He says this, do not quarrel. That means argue. Do not argue over these gray areas

because we're following the conviction of the Holy Spirit on our lives. He says, welcome and accept

and receive. What does that mean? A lot of times, we have a thought. Maybe we think that everyone

should dress up to come to church, and that's okay. If you have that conviction, awesome. Dress up. But

other Christians, because that's not true, right? That's not clear, I should say. So what we want to

do, what Christians try to do sometimes, is to change people. And I read this quote from Ray

Stedman. He says, the favorite indoor sport of Christians is trying to change each other. Is that

not true? Have you ever been, have you ever been in these gray areas? Have you ever been tried to be

molded into something that necessarily wasn't in the scripture? I have. And that's exactly what Ray's

talking about, and that's what Paul's talking about here. But don't argue, Paul says. And then he says

in Romans 14.3, let no one who eats despise the one who abstains. So the Gentiles are not supposed to

and the word despise means to look down on somebody and think of them as totally worthless. But he goes

on and he says, and let not the one who abstains ask judgment on the one who eats. For God has

welcomed him. We, if we have a conviction about something that we think is correct, but it's a gray

area, we're not supposed to judge other Christians who are not doing that. We're supposed to welcome

them. Notice what he says here. God welcomed. God has welcomed all of us. He's brought us here

together. It's okay to have these gray areas, and it's okay to disagree. We can still be together.

We don't have to separate. Paul also writes about this somewhat in Romans 14.10-12. He says,

why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we

will stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee

will bow to me. We're going to come, Christians, we're going to come before the judgment seat of

Christ, and we're going to give an account for our lives. It's him that we need to be pleasing,

not anyone else. And it's him that we need to be changing ourselves to be like. We're not supposed

to be changing people ourselves. He's the one who's going to do the changing. I love what, I have to

tell you this. The name of the book is The King. The King is the King. The King is the King. The

name of my sermon is it's not about you. It's not about me either. It's not about us. And I have to

say that a lot in this. It's not about us. Who's it about? It's about our Savior. In verse four,

it says, who are we to judge the servant of another? It is before his own master that he

stands and falls. Look, Paul here, she serves faithfully, and she's a servant. And Jim, he's a

deacon here. And the word deacon actually means servant. But do they belong to me, or do they

belong to you? No, they belong to the one who died for them and paid the price for their sin.

That's the one that we need to be worried about. He's the one who's going to judge us.

And we're not, if we're not the master of them, why do we try to judge them on these great

areas? We shouldn't be doing that. Actually, I want to tell you this too. In our passage here,

10 times I counted, it could be more. It uses the word the Lord. It's not about us. It's about him.

I would love to tell you, they were, the Roman church was the only one that dealt with these

gray areas. But if you've been around church long enough, you know that is a lie. Listen to this. I

wrote down a few of these gray areas. What Bible translation are you using? Is homeschooling right

or wrong? What music are we playing up here? Right? I used to think contemporary Christian

music would bring people in. And I was a big fan of that. But guess what? It doesn't matter if we're

singing hymns or if we're singing contemporary music, Christian music, we're praising the same

God. It doesn't matter. The music doesn't matter. It's not going to bring in more people. It's about

praising God. Another area that's gray is dancing. What we watch on TV,

movies we watch, birth control, social media, smoking, chewing, tattoos, long hair or short hair,

drinking alcohol. That's a big one right there. That's a big one right there. And honestly,

the drinking alcohol one is something that an area, a gray area that I have really struggled in.

And I'm going to use that as an example. And listen, I'm not calling people out for social drinking. I

feel like this is a good sermon illustration because this is where I was at. But social drinking

is a gray area. To have a beer or have a glass of wine is not prohibited in the scripture. And I hate

to say that because I was raised differently. But it is not there. But here's what is there. Let me

say this first. So if we have that conviction, if I have that conviction, and someone else thinks it's

a drink, I cannot argue with them, or I'm not shouldn't argue with them. I shouldn't look down

on them. And I should not judge them. Okay, now I have to make this really clear before we go on.

We're talking about these gray areas where the scripture is not clear. If the scripture is clear,

it's a whole different sermon. If if it's doctrine, if it's Jesus is the way the truth in the life,

I'm standing right here and I'm not moving.

If we're talking about the Trinity, I'm standing right here and I'm not moving. If we're talking

that we're all sinners, and we need Christ, I'm not moving. We're unmovable there. But these gray

areas, we have to be flexible because it will split a church. Okay. So drinking socially to

have a beer is not in scripture. But here's what is in scripture about drinking, getting drunk,

getting drunk is definitely in scripture. So, you know,

if we have a beer, great. But if we're going if we're drunk, buzzed, and I'm going to tell you

this, if it's weed, if it's alcohol, or whatever the source is to make us buzzed or drunk, it is

sin. I'm sorry. It is. It is sin. Ephesians 5, 8 says, don't be drunk on the wine, be filled

with the spirit. And what why does Paul compare alcohol to the spirit?

Spirit of God, because they both change us. You ever heard of 10 feet tall and bulletproof?

Listen, I wasn't always a Christian or I wasn't always a close follower of God. I've experienced

this. When you drink and you get buzzed or you get drunk, you become a different person. You get bold.

And if you've been if you've drank or you've been buzzed in your life, you know that here's what the

spirit of God and we allow it to fill us. It changes us, but it changes us to be more like

Christ. And that's why Paul's saying this. Don't be drunk on the wine, be filled with the spirit.

And we have to be careful. Talk about judging, too. If we're going to talk about we can't judge

other believers. I mean, there's a verse in Matthew 7, chapter 7, verse 1. It says, Jesus says,

not be judged or sorry, I said that wrong, that you be not judged. OK, so we read that we would

think, OK, so if I see somebody else, another believer sinning, I can't say anything. I can't

judge them. But if you read the rest of the scripture, you're going to find out it means

something totally different. Verse two through five. For with judgment, you pronounce you will

be by the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be

measured to you. Why do you see the spirit of God as a judge? Because you're not judged. You're not

in your brother's eye. But do not notice the log in your own eye. How can you say to your brother,

let me take that speck out of your eye when there's a log sticking out of your own eye?

You hypocrite. Listen to this right here. First, take the log out of your own eye. And then you

will be able to clearly take the speck out of your brother's eye. We're talking about hypocrisy here.

And we are supposed to go to our brother when they when they're their sin in our

life. Other believers. Listen, we're never supposed to go to non-believers and call them

out on sin. But if we if we have another believer, somebody who professes to be a believer,

and they're struggling with sin, do we come to them and slam them? No, we pray and we ask God

and we let him lead us and we go to that person. And we have to make sure we're not coming to them

with the log in our own eye.

That we've got our our life right, too. We can't go to them if we're doing the same thing. And we

help this brother. What is the what is the purpose of this? To lead the brother or sister to

repentance and turn them, help them come back to Christ. That is the reason we come alongside. And

that's the reason we come to a brother or sister who has sin in their life. To help them.

Not to kick them out of the church. Not to. I mean, they might need to be blown up a little bit

sometimes. But we need to come to them in love and help them come back to a place of repentance.

And in Matthew 18, verse 15 through 17, it gives the guidelines for this. And I want you to know

before we read this, that this is not an excuse for us to change people to be like, we think they

should be. It is to bring them lovingly back to the Lord. Repentance. But it says, if your brother

sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If they're sin, you go to that

person. You talk to him about it. If he listens to you, you've gained a brother. That means that

person is coming to a place of repentance. But if he does not listen, take one or two others with

you. Not just anybody. I would suggest that you take one or two others with you. And if you don't

take one or two, just deacons or a pastor or somebody that you know is faithfully following

the Lord. And go to that person, the three of you. Take one or two others along with you that

every charge may be established by evidence of the two or three witnesses. And if he or she refuses

to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him

be as a Gentile or a tax collector. That is church discipline. And look, when he says, let him be as a

Gentile or a tax collector, that doesn't mean we kick them out. That doesn't mean we don't keep

loving them. What that means is we treat them like they don't know the Lord. And we try to lead them

to where? Repentance. It's all about us, God using us to help these people to a place of repentance.

It's not about us. It's about the other person. Some notes here. I just want to make sure I'm not

forgetting something. Sorry. Paul goes on and he says that as believers in these gray areas that

we have liberties. We have liberties. I've mentioned some of them. But Paul's going to tell us as we go

on that we don't use our liberties to cause someone else to sin. Verses 20 through 23 in our passage in

14 says, Oh, do not for the sake of food, destroy the work of God or destroy the work of God.

Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats.

It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.

The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason

to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats

because he is eating is not from faith. Because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does

not proceed from faith is sin. So what Paul's saying, we have liberty. We have liberty. Let's

use drinking again. So we have liberty to have a social drink. But here's what if that social drink

you who's struggling with getting drunk or alcoholism and we drink anyways, that is causing

that person to stumble. If the other person or, you know, that's one way. Actually, I have to tell

you this. I have family members. One of them struggles with alcohol. The other one's a social

drinker. The social drinker would call me up two or three times a week to tell me about the other

one who's struggling with alcohol. He's depressed. He's struggling. We need to do

something. Both of these men say they're believers. So I'm trying to figure it out. But what happens

in between is these two guys get together. And the one who's been calling me, guess what he does?

He takes the other one out for a drink. I'm like, what are you doing? Right? I actually blew him up.

I'm like, why are you calling me if you're going to cause him to stumble? You can't do that, right?

And that's what this is saying.

It's also saying if someone, if I go out to dinner with somebody today and they think vegetables or

eating meat is a sin and I eat meat in front of them, I might be causing them to stumble in their

conviction as well. We need to think about the other person because guess what? It's not about

you or me. It's about the other person and about the Lord. When it comes to gray areas, Paul says

some of us have convictions. I'm going to tell you when it comes to our convictions,

alcohol has destroyed my family. And I've came from that life. And I know that I can't drink

because I'm convicted to even think about it. But I can't push my conviction off on you

about having a social drink. I can't drink at all. I have to listen to my conviction and I have to

follow my conviction. If the Holy Spirit's telling me as a believer not to have alcohol and I do,

it is sin for me.

Someone else could have the green light to have a social drink and they believe that's okay. It is

not sin for them. That's hard to understand, but we have to listen to the convictions of the Spirit

of God. And we must follow the convictions of the Holy Spirit. The church is a diverse group of

people. I would love to say we're all the same, but guess what? It would be a boring place to come.

I like the diversity. I like the

difference most of the time. But if we're going to survive and we're going to serve the Lord in

unity, we have to overlook these gray areas. We can't judge. We can't despise. We got to accept.

Otherwise, we're not going to reach anybody. We're going to fall apart. And listen, I don't know

about you, but I want to reach the community of Burton. I want to reach wherever I'm at. And I

don't know about you, but I want to reach the community of Burton. I want to reach wherever I'm at. And I

don't know about you, but I want to reach the community of Burton. I want to reach wherever I'm at. And I

don't know about you, but I want to reach the community of Burton. I want to reach the community of Burton.

Or how we dress or a tattoo or social drinking cause us to fail at that. Okay, we have to love one

another in this. We have to have unity. Romans 15, 1 and 2 says, we are strong and have obligations

to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor

for his good and his good for his good. And we have to love one another in this. And we have to

build him up. If we're trying to change our neighbor to be like us in these gray areas,

we're not building them up. We're tearing them down. In the body of Christ today, in the church

today, it's just like it was in Rome. We're all diverse. We're all from different places,

different backgrounds. It's about building up our neighbors. And when we do this, there's unity

in the diversity. And through Christ, it is possible to have that unity. If we skip down to Romans 15, 5

through 6, it says, may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony

with one another in accord with Christ Jesus. Let me start over. I messed that up. I'm sorry.

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in

accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may be one voice glorifying the God Father of

the Lord Jesus Christ. When we come together in unity, we're glorifying God in one voice church.

We're glorifying God in one church. That's God's plan for us. Many times, we wanted our way. I'm no

different. I'm no different. But the truth is, it's not about us. 1 Corinthians 13, 5. I forgot what it

says. It says, this is talking about love, the commands of love. And one of them is this, do not insist on your own way.

If you look back in Romans 12, verse 3, it says, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself

or herself more highly than you ought. We must humble ourselves. Put Christ first. Put others

first. It's not about you and me. It's about glorifying God. Now, there's been times in my

life where I've been upset by decisions that were made in the church. I didn't

agree with something. And I found myself complaining and wanting my way. But that's not

the way that God calls us to be. Maybe you find yourself in that position today. We have to

remember that we are a diverse group. We're going to glorify God. We have to be in unity. That means

unity with our elders, unity with each other, unity with between me and you. Any conflict

is going to mess that up. Now, if you have a problem, what do we do? If you have a problem

with me, or you have a problem with another Christian, or you have a problem with the

elder, what do you do? Matthew 18, you go to the person one-on-one. You don't gripe

about everything that's going on. You don't try to pull people into your argument. You go take

care of it like Christ would do. We're either bringing unity or we're causing separation. What are you

doing? God brought Kim and I together. We're diverse. Guess what? In diversity, we have each

other's back because she sees things I don't see, right? Like this morning, I get up and I get

dressed, put on this black shirt. And I'm thinking to myself, I've got some gray loafers out there.

I can just slip on. They're so comfortable. And my wife's like, absolutely not, right? Black shoes

because I have a black shirt on, right? I couldn't do that without

my wife, right? It's no different in the church. We need each other. We need the diversity

because God's called us together to do something. And you're probably going to be able to do

something that I can't. And we need to be in unity. Set aside our differences. We can do

incredible things. You, but this, these, ever since we started preaching or talking about

to love each other, I've been very convicting. Ever since chapter 12, verse 1, I started

not yet. I'm like failing, failing. And like, maybe you're like me this morning and you feel

convicted by this. You want to talk to somebody, you want somebody to pray with you. We would love

to be able to do that.