WWUTT 216 The Failings Of the Weak?

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When you first came to Christ, you were a baby Christian, but there was somebody who had patience with you, who showed you grace and grew you in an understanding of the scriptures, correct?
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So this is the way that we should extend grace to everyone in the body of Christ, when we understand the text.
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This is when we understand the text, a daily study of God's word, that we may be filled with the knowledge of his will.
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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you Becky, and thank you Neil for reminding me to grab my Bible and take it to church with me yesterday.
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He was paying attention to the podcast last week when I said that I brought my sermon Bible home, which was a mistake.
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I try not to ever take it from the church because I have a hard enough time keeping up with it on a Sunday morning.
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So I was sure that bringing it home, I was going to forget about it and not have it for Sunday. Neil reminded me, I put it back in my bag, but here's the problem.
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I've put it back in my bag again and brought it home with me again. So sitting in front of me here on the desk, again, is my sermon
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Bible and it is from this Bible that we're going to be looking at Romans chapter 14 today, verses one through four.
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So if you want to grab your Bible and join with me as I will be reading from my sermon
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Bible and we'll begin this week, a study of Romans chapter 14. Yesterday was the one year anniversary of Obergefell versus Hodges, the
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Supreme court decision that legalized same sex marriage in the United States. Since that fell on a
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Sunday, I decided to do a sermon entitled LGBT and how the church should respond. That sermon is online now.
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If you go to our website, first southern baptist church .org, you'll see it at the top of the list and those sermons only last about three or four weeks.
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We only keep a few up at a time because it's sound cloud and so we have a very limited space. They only get listened to a few dozen times.
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It's not necessary for me to keep this huge archive of sermons. But if you don't have an hour to listen, you can always download it and, uh, and listen to it at a later time.
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The sermon again on our website, first southern baptist church .org, uh, the transcript also available.
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If you go to my blog, pastor gabe hughes .blogspot .com, did I get that right?
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There's two addresses. There's blogger .com and blogspot .com blogger is the login blog spot is the address.
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I guess that's how that works. So, uh, pastor gabe hughes .blogspot .com and you have the full transcript of the sermon right there.
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Giving instructions to the church on how to speak the gospel into our sexually depraved culture and understanding even some of the ins and outs of the homosexual community and that we should never encourage a person to enter into the homosexual lifestyle.
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It is not okay. It's not loving or compassionate to say to a person it's okay to be gay. Uh, the
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Bible says that homosexuality is one of those sins that will keep a person from the kingdom of God.
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That should be enough for us to know that we should never encourage a person in such sins.
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But the sermon also looks at how some of the things have changed in our society, in our culture, even within the past years since that, um, determination was made by the
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Supreme Court June 26th of 2015. So again, our website, first southern baptist church .org
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and you'll find the sermon there on the top of the sermon player there on the right side of the page. All right.
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We are in Romans 14 today. So let's read these first four verses. As for the one who is weak in the faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.
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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.
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Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls and he will be upheld for the
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Lord is able to make him stand. So here at the beginning of this chapter, as for the one who is weak in the faith, welcome him.
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And every once in a while, see, I've been a pastor now for six years. Every once in a while, our church will enter into this season where you will see several mature
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Christians kind of develop a click and they'll start looking down on those who are less mature. We've had this happen a couple of times in our, in our church.
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And so this is one of those verses I've had to use every time that I've observed this happening and encouraging a person, those who are weak in the faith, we must welcome them.
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And then we see this also at the beginning of chapter 15, we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.
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So Paul comes back to this again when we get into chapter 15. Now it might seem somewhat proud to say of yourself, well,
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I am strong in the faith and you are weak in the faith. But I think that there can be some, uh, some humility displayed in a person, even when they talk about how mature that they are in the faith.
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I think it is possible for a person to recognize that and acknowledge that without being proud about it.
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You can actually say that in a humble way. In fact, all of us should be able to look back at ourselves and be able to see the places where, man,
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I was really immature at that particular time. And this person helped to grow me in that process.
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I had a Bible study at the church once we were actually going through the Psalms in this particular study. And there was a woman during that study who had said to me,
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I'm wondering if I need to get rebaptized. And I asked her why. And she said, well, because I'm so much different a
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Christian now than I was when I first got baptized. And I even wonder if that woman was saved. And I said, that's honestly, that's the way that should be.
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So as one of the first acts of your profession of faith was to get baptized and how much you've matured all the way up to this point, looking back at yourself and that person is so immature that they almost look like somebody who isn't saved, but it's not dependent upon you and your works.
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It's dependent. It's a Christ and his work. It's because of what he did and his righteousness that has been placed on you so that even when you were in a place that you were immature, you were still saved.
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Not because of your righteousness, but because of Christ's righteousness that was on you. And I said, you believe in Christ, you were professing the right
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Christ and understood the correct words of the scriptures, right? And she said, oh yeah, sure. I understood any of that. And I said, well, there's no reason to get rebaptized.
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It was that baptism that was the beginning of your faith, a confession in front of the body of Christ to say that I have been buried with Christ in my sins and risen again to new life.
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And then as Peter describes it, it is an appeal for a clean conscience.
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So just as you know that you have been cleansed of your sins by the righteousness of Christ, so you are baptized appealing to God that your conscience would also be cleansed so that your past sins and transgressions, which you now know have been forgiven in Christ, are no longer haunting your heart and your mind.
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You are able to stand with confidence in the presence of God, knowing that you are able to do that because of what
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Christ has done. So that's what baptism is supposed to be for every single person who is baptized.
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It is a confession of faith that I have been cleansed in my sin, I have been risen again to new life, and I have appealed to God for a clean conscience.
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And then as we continue to grow in the faith, we are being shaped all the more in the image of Christ. So those who are new
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Christians, who are baby Christians, they're going to be weak in the faith and we need to welcome them and not quarrel over opinions.
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Now in this particular context, Paul is mentioning a tertiary issue that can tend to be a disagreement in the first century church, and this being an example of how we could end up arguing over something that really doesn't have to do with whether or not a person is saved.
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And the example that he is giving here has to do with food. So at this particular time, because if you go back to the thesis statement in Romans, Romans 1 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the
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Jew and also to the Greek, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, the way that it's worded there.
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So Jews and Greeks alike are welcomed into the family of God because of the sacrifice of Christ.
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Now, with the Jews in particular, there were certain dietary laws that the Jewish people had been following for 1400 years.
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And so now we just expect that because Christ has declared all foods clean, that immediately all
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Jews are going to go, oh, okay, so now I can eat pork and every Jew is going to be okay with that.
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That's not the way that was going to play out. There were still many Jews that were clinging to teachings that said that we should not eat pork.
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And in fact, this is an ongoing thing. Even today, there are people who will not eat pork because of what is said in the scriptures because of the dietary laws that are given in the book of Leviticus.
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But Jesus did declare all foods clean in Mark chapter seven. When we read the section about Jesus talking about what defiles a person,
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Mark seven 14, he called the people to him again and he said to them, hear me all of you and understand there is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him.
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But the things that come out of a person are what defile him. And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable.
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And he said to them, then are you also without understanding, do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him since it enters not his heart, but his stomach and is expelled.
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Thus he declared all foods clean. That's what it says there in verse 19. And he said, what comes out of a person is what defiles him.
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For from within, out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.
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All of these evil things come from within and they are what defiles a person.
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So what you eat, what you consume physically from the outside going in is not what defiles you, but rather what it is that is coming out of the heart of a person, all of whom are evil, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
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What it is that is coming out from a sinful heart is what defiles a person. So Jesus declared all foods clean.
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That's the point that I'm trying to make. Mark 7, 19. And yet you still had Jews that were clinging to certain dietary laws.
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Well, they would have been considered weak in the faith because they did not understand how Christ had fulfilled all of the law and the prophets.
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There was still some of these tertiary matters that they'd not yet been able to comprehend. So one person believes that he may eat anything while the weak person eats only vegetables.
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Now Paul is very frankly here saying that a person who still thinks that there are certain foods that we can and cannot eat, and if we eat the wrong foods, then we'll be sinning against God.
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He's calling them weak in the faith. He's saying that about those people. But we still need to welcome them and not quarrel over these opinions.
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There's a little bit of a difference between saying a person is weak if they still think that eating these things will defile themselves and then quarreling over it.
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Those are two completely different things. So let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains.
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Don't make fun of that person. Don't put them down. Don't decide, well, I'm not going to invite you over to my house because I want to eat what it is that I want to eat.
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No, we need to bear with the failings of the weak. If by having bacon in your fridge and you invite somebody over to your house who thinks that it is wrong to eat pork and you would cause them to stumble by having bacon in your fridge or you would quarrel with them over the bacon, take the bacon out and throw it away.
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I know that I'm probably asking you to make some sort of a huge sacrifice, I myself, and a bacon fan. OK, but if it's going to lead to a quarrel with your brother and if it's going to cause him to stumble, then just do away with it.
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All right. There's not a reason to quarrel over these things. And that is how you bear with the failings of the weak. As we go on talking about this over the course of the week, we'll talk about some other examples and how this pertains.
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Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains. Again, verse three, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats for God has welcomed him.
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Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls and he will be upheld for the
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Lord is able to make him stand. And this comes back to something that we had mentioned in Romans chapter 12, verse three, for by the grace given to me,
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I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
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So here we have the statement in verse four, that it is God who is able to make us stand.
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In Ezekiel 36, the Lord says, I will put my spirit in you and cause you to obey my statutes.
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We stand firm in the Lord because he causes us to make us stand. And so we need to bear with each brother or sister in the body of Christ and know that we're all at different levels of development.
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At one point, each and every one of us were very immature. And there were those who were mature in the faith bearing with us and teaching us the things that we needed to learn as we grew and matured.
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And so we must do this for each and every person as well, not quarreling over things and not putting a person down because they don't yet understand some tertiary issue, but helping a person through these matters to understand what the scriptures say and how in Christ Jesus, he has fulfilled all of the law and the prophets.
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Our dear Lord, we thank you for these scriptures today. And I pray that you would give us the patience as well as a healthy dose of grace, having grace on our brothers and sisters in Christ in all matters that we would not be short with one another, but we would bear with one another's failings, complimenting one another in strengths and weaknesses.
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And so that we would be a functioning body of Christ, continue to guide us in these things. Build us up, hold us steadfast as we continue to be shaped in the image of our
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Lord Christ. And it's in his name that we pray. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the
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Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. We hope you are a part of a church family committed to gospel teaching, and we thank you for including us in your
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Bible learning. If you would consider a gift to this ministry, please visit www .utt
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.com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Give online or send a check in the mail.