Tolerance - 4 Series

Dakota Community Church

August 8, 2010

Tolerance – Part 4

Tolerance has come to mean the acceptance of every viewpoint as equally true and valid.

True tolerance means treating with integrity dignity and humility a person whose opinion I consider to be untrue and invalid.

1. What about the “no judging” passages?

2. When there is much “fruit”

Matthew 7:24

24"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

We know the false teachers by the fruit of their message – true prophets line up with the words of Jesus. False prophets refuse to stick to those boundaries.

The words of Jesus are the boundaries. - False teachers will not abide by the teachings of Christ.

This brings me to the final point - If this is true aren’t we:

3. Putting God in a box

We do not – we cannot put God in a box. He is “I AM”

What the sound doctrine does, what teaching in line with the Words of Jesus does; is KEEP US IN A BOX!

Isaiah 53:6

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

A.) Why are there boundaries?

Because we stray

All of us – not some of us – all of us - have rebelled against the reign of God

All of us – not some of us – all of us - prefer our own will to the will of God

Genesis 6:5-6

5 The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.

Psalm 51:5

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

Luke 13:34

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!

Not only is this state of heart a reality, not only do we rebel continually; but we are utterly and completely incapable of changing ourselves of our own volition.

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

O to grace how great a debtor - Daily I’m constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter; - Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, - Prone to leave the God I love;

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, - Seal it for Thy courts above. (Robert Robinson - 1758)

Because there is an enemy and we are children of war.

Ephesians 6:11-12

Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

We have all seen the National Geographic Channel – we know what happens to the wanderers

Our enemy is described as a schemer, liar, deceiver, angel of light, wolf in sheep’s clothing, thief, devourer, killer, destroyer, roaring lion, accuser, beast, murderer, tempter, wicked one; and the lawless one.

The box of sound doctrine is to protect us.

B.) What are the boundaries? How is the sheep pen defined?

Sheep Pen Slides

Sheepfolds or sheep pens had large walls which were made out of rocks. The walls of the sheep pens were about five feet high. On the top of the four stone walls were briars or prickly branches. The shepherds put the prickly briars along the top of the wall, so it was like our barbed wire today on the top of walls. The result of all of this is that the mountain lions and wolves couldn’t get inside the sheep pen.

Now, the door way was about two feet wide. This wide. Not wide at all. It was a small entry. It was like one small gap in the wall. So I ask you: what was the door made out of?

There was no door. The shepherd himself was the door. At night, the shepherd himself would sleep there in the small opening of the rock wall. He would sleep there, by the fire, with his rod and staff. If any mountain lion would come, the shepherd would fight it off with his weapons, his short stocky club or his long pointed staff. Literally and actually, the shepherd himself was the door.

John 10:7-21