WWUTT 1368 We Belong to the Lord (Romans 14:7-9)

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Romans 14 lays out some principles for how we as Christians relate to one another over non -essential matters.

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There are some things that God has not called sin, so therefore we should not call them sin when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the Word of Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness.

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Find all our videos and other ministry resources at www .utt .com.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. So we come back to our study of Romans 14 today, and I'm going to start reading in verse 1.

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We'll go through verse 11. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome, "...as

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for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.

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For one person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.

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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. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike.

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Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day observes it in honor of the

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Lord. The one who eats eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains abstains in honor of the

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Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.

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For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the

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Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be

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Lord both of the dead and of the living." So what

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I want to do today is look at verses seven through nine, which is where we would be in our reading today, and then

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I want to do some application at about the last half of the program as it relates to mask wearing.

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Some have been taking the principles being laid down here in Romans 14 and have applied this to wearing masks.

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We're not all the way through Romans 14 yet, but at least what we've looked at thus far I think provides a particular framework by which we can start to delve into this argument a little bit.

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So let's come back to quickly look at verses five and six again. Paul says, one person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike.

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Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. Now Paul brings up this example, not to throw in something else in the

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Romans 14 principles on how we are to deal charitably with one another on some of those non -fundamental issues, but rather he brings up days to cement this point, verse six, the one who observes the day observes it in honor of the

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Lord. So what makes that particular day a day of rest unto

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God? Because the person observes it unto the Lord, whether it's Saturday, as the

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Jews were still convinced the Sabbath should be on Saturday, or Sunday, since the church was gathering on that day, the

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Lord's day being the day that Christ was resurrected from the dead. He rested on the Sabbath day, he was buried on Friday, in the tomb

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Saturday, rose again on Sunday. And because Christ has fulfilled the laws of the

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Sabbath, that is why we worship on Sunday in anticipation of the resurrection that we will receive when we join the

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Lord together in glory. In the meantime, every day for us is a Sabbath rest, for we rest from our works, we rest in Christ, who is our righteousness.

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So as Paul brings this up here about days, he's not throwing in another example as if to say, okay, we've talked about food, now let's talk about days, but rather he makes a reference to days to show how these two things are alike regarding matters of conscience.

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So he says, each one should be fully convinced in his own mind, Romans 14, 5. You think you should worship on this day?

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Okay, be fully convinced in your own mind, for whatever is not done in faith, whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

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That's the conclusion of Romans 14, that's verse 23. So whatever is not from faith is sin.

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If you're just doing it as a matter of argument, or a matter of contention, or you're just trying to plant your flag somewhere and say,

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I'm right on this point, then you're not doing it in faith, you're not doing it unto the Lord, and therefore it would be sin.

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So let each one be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the

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Lord. Is this the day that we worship on? We do it in honor to God. Is this the food you're going to eat?

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Then you must eat it to the glory of God. That's how Paul said it to the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 10, 31, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.

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Same point, same thing being said here, the one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord.

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The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, same thing, abstains in honor of the

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Lord and gives thanks to God, for none of us lives to himself. This is verse 7 now.

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None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. Now he's making the point that we belong to Christ, but it also extends that we need to be considerate of others, because that's the context of everything here.

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Remember we're coming into Romans 14 off of the instructions that Paul gave in Romans 13, to love one another.

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You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

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That's Romans 13, 10. So you keep that in mind, and also what Paul said back in Romans 12, 5, for we though many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.

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Therefore we are meant to be helping one another within the church. We need to consider each other's needs and not just our own needs.

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So for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but don't quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person believes that he must eat only vegetables.

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Now Paul is straight up calling that person weak, but the one who is stronger in faith has an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak,

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Romans 15, 1. So 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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The one who eats, God is welcome. Just because he's eating food that had been sacrificed to an idol does not mean he's lost his faith.

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Paul had gone through very specific sins in Romans 13, 11 through 14.

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He says, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.

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But a person who's eating food that you might know was offered to an idol in a pagan place of worship, just because that guy is eating that meat does not mean he's gratifying some desire of the flesh.

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This is a matter of opinion. These aren't the major sin issues that Paul had just covered. So we must love one another.

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We must consider ourselves a part of each other, and therefore we must not divide over these opinions.

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Don't quarrel over these things that are non -essential matters with concerns for salvation.

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Now it's true that he calls the person weak in faith, weak. Therefore they must grow up.

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They must strengthen themselves in faith and understand that these things that they're eating or whatnot, or not eating rather, doesn't make them holier than a person who does eat.

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Whereas the person who's eating can't be doing that in the presence of another whose conscience is weaker and then causing a brother to stumble.

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It would be better for him to not eat than to cause a brother to stumble. That's something Paul's going to lay out a little more in the rest of chapter 14, which we'll get to next week.

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So who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? Verse four, 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. It's not by our ability or our own strength or our own works that we've come to salvation or that we stay in this salvation.

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This is the work of God that upholds us. So as a person is fully convinced in his own mind of what he knows is the truth that he must do unto

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God, then do it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the

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Lord, since he gives thanks to God. The one who abstains, abstains in honor of the

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Lord and gives thanks to God. None of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself.

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For if we live, we live to the Lord. And if we die, where do we go?

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We're talking specifically about believers here because we are addressing the church.

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So therefore, if we die, we die to the Lord. So then whether we live or whether we die, we are the

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Lord's. Our souls are kept in his care, though the body may die, we get to be with him.

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For to this end, Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

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So do all things unto Christ. Same statement again that Paul had made to the

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Corinthians, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the Lord Christ. And if that is our desire together, the whole church desires to do everything that we do unto the glory of Christ, then

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Christ is glorified and we are unified, unified in Christ. The illustration that Paul gives in Ephesians chapter four is we're holding fast to the head who is

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Christ, through whom the whole body is knit together with every joint and ligament and builds the body up in love.

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So as we all hold fast to Christ, who is the head of the body, then we're holding fast to one another as well.

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Christ is the one who gives us our unity. So let us be considerate of one another, mindful of each other, even as we navigate some of these conscience issues.

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They're not explicit. Do this. Don't do that. But there are matters of conscience.

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We must be fully convinced in our own mind and the one who's strong has an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, but at the same time, the one who's weak cannot be condemning a brother over a non -essential matter, passing judgment on the servant of another because it is

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God who upholds that person. You don't uphold that person and he does not uphold himself.

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So keep that in mind here. What we've read this week in Romans 14, one through nine is commonly addressed toward those who are strong in faith.

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But Paul is not just addressing the strong in faith here. He's also addressing those who are weak in faith.

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They're going to have to grow up. But in the meantime, though, they may struggle with some of these conscience issues.

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They cannot pass judgment on the one who eats. Do not pass judgment on the one that Paul is even saying here is stronger in faith.

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God has welcomed that person so that that person who kind of like elevates everything to a fundamental level, they are they are being impressed here not to pass judgment on somebody just because they see them doing something that they're absolutely convinced is wrong.

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It's not a passion of the flesh issue like what's outlined in Romans 13, 11 through 14.

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It's a conscience issue. And the two examples that we've been given here are with regards to food and days.

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Now, as we continue through Romans 14, we're going to find other examples that this might apply to.

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And we'll talk about that further as we get back into Romans 14 next week. But how I want to utilize the rest of my time here,

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I want to talk about ways that Romans 14 is often poorly applied.

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And I can draw from two examples that are very common in our culture right now.

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One is with regards to voting, and the second has to do with mask wearing.

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So first, let's talk about voting. And of course, I'm speaking from my American context. We just had an election, all local elections aside.

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The hot ticket issue was between Donald Trump and Joe Biden for president of the United States.

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And this divided even Christians over their opinions of these two men. On the one hand, you had

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Christians who could not in good conscience vote for Donald Trump, and they may have had legitimate reasons that they couldn't vote for Trump.

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He's a casino and strip club owner that hasn't changed. Overall, he's a godless man.

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And that's definitely true. He's perverse in his speech. He's kind of a big bully, not an example of good character to follow.

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So for some of those character issues, there were Christians who couldn't vote for him. That's understandable.

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But then there were also professing Christians who said they could not vote for him for illegitimate reasons, like he's a white supremacist, he's a fascist, he's a

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Nazi, he's a racist. And you might be thinking, I don't know, Gabe, those are pretty legitimate reasons not to vote for somebody.

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Yeah, but they weren't true. All of that was made up. It was part of a narrative that had been crafted to to smear an opponent.

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And some Christians believed it and they could not vote for Donald Trump because they were following a false narrative.

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They were they were listening to myths instead of the truth. For heaven's sake, Donald Trump moved the U .S. embassy to Jerusalem.

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How could he be a Nazi and bartered all these peace deals between Middle Eastern nations and Israel?

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On the other hand, you have Joe Biden and Biden during his campaign said that he would advance moral evil.

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He would progress the LGBTQ agenda into trans rights.

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We've already seen him do this, saying that mentally ill men who think they're women must be allowed to play in women's sports.

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We heard in one of the debates him say that a 10 year old boy who thinks he's a girl must be allowed to be a girl.

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And he's going to expand abortion in ways that we've not seen accomplished here in America. He's removing the

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Hyde Amendment, which means your tax dollars will pay for the murder of unborn children.

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He's already removed the Mexico City policy. So America is back to exporting abortion into other countries.

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Already, thousands of unborn children die by abortion in America each day.

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And now the nation is going to ensure that this happens in other nations as well. Biden has vowed to codify

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Roe v. Wade, making it the law of the land so that states laws cannot make abortion illegal.

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These are moral evils. And there were Christians that knew they could not vote for Joe Biden because he explicitly said he would progress this evil.

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Nevertheless, you had some Christians voting for Biden because they thought he was a better pick than Trump and other

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Christians voting for Trump because they thought he was a better pick than Biden. And Christianity is divided.

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Along comes our evangelical bigwigs, and they start saying that, well, this is a

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Romans 14 issue. It's a matter of conscience. Some are fully convinced in their conscience they have to vote for Trump.

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Others are fully convinced to vote for Biden. Let's just agree to disagree. We're talking about politics here at this point.

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This is a difference of opinion. So nobody's really sinning with their vote. We can have our own opinions and get along.

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But I want to say that that is not a proper application of Romans 14. As a matter of fact, that's kind of a cop out because we're not just talking about a difference of political opinions here.

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We're talking about moral evil with Joe Biden saying that he is for the murder of unborn children.

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Kamala Harris, even worse than he is. And and you have him advancing an LGBTQ agenda that is sexual abuse upon children in this nation.

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What he is doing is is repugnant. It is an abomination in the eyes of God.

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And he's trying to take this nation further in the direction of those moral evils.

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So, no, this is not just a matter of political opinion. We're talking about moral injustices that God's word says are evil.

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If this was just about, hey, I can wear red and you can wear blue and we can just get along. Well, then sure, then the

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Romans 14 principles would apply to that. But as we're talking about the murder of unborn children by the thousands daily in America, this is not just another political issue on a list of somebody's

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FAQ. These are lives lost in the barbaric slaughter of unborn children happening in America today.

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Neither Biden or Harris are people to be admired. And I want to stand firmly on this, that if you voted for them, you did sin.

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Now, you could have not voted, but you cannot with a clear conscience as a Christian vote for a pro abortion candidate recognized that Romans 14, 12 says each of us will have to give an account before God.

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Are you really prepared to stand before God and say abortion just wasn't that big a deal to me? It was just a political issue.

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The murder of thousands of unborn children in America each day. So it was just a difference of opinion.

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Do you think you can say that before God? Would Israel have voted for priests of Moloch who sacrifice babies to the pagan

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God Moloch? Now, it's at one point Israel did. They partnered with that and sacrificed their children, and God called them an abomination and they were destroyed in Leviticus chapter 20.

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It says that if a man closes his eyes to the one who gives one of his children to Moloch, I will set my face against that man and cut him off from Israel.

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So you cannot, as a Christian, just close your eyes to this and chalk it up to a matter of opinion.

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These are not just political issues we're talking about here. They're moral issues. OK, so that's one way that Romans 14 has been poorly applied.

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Here's another way and something else that is real big in our culture right now, wearing masks and something that is even divided

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Christians within their own church congregation. We're talking about wearing masks in the midst of a covid -19 pandemic and supposedly wearing that mask is going to protect yourself and it's going to protect your neighbor.

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The way that it's being pushed on us is that you need to love your neighbor. So therefore, wear a mask.

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But I'm not sick, so there's nothing I'm going to be spreading to my neighbor. And the research has shown that there is no spread of covid -19 for those who are asymptomatic.

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So I am not going to infect anybody else. I'm healthy. Therefore, there's no reason for me to wear a mask.

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But the way that Romans 14 has been implemented is this. There's two ways this is done. Let me go through both of them here.

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Number one, well, your neighbor might be weak in their immune system. So because your neighbor is weaker and you are stronger, we have it said here that the strong must bear with the failings of the weak.

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So therefore, you have to wear a mask just to protect your weaker neighbor in case they get sick.

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That's not a proper application of Romans 14, because this is not talking about physical health. These are conscience issues.

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So therefore, that's a poor application of Romans 14. The second way this gets applied is this way.

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A person who is convinced that covid -19 is just going to kill a whole lot of people.

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And if we wear masks, we'll be protected. Yeah, maybe you're not spreading it if you're asymptomatic.

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But I'm convinced that you might be, even if you don't know that you are. So therefore, we need to social distance.

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We need to wear masks. This is a person who's living in fear. They're weak in conscience. Those of us who are stronger in conscience must bear with their failings by wearing masks.

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We must not quarrel over opinions, but rather we should wear a mask for the sake of the conscience of the person who thinks that we all need to be wearing masks.

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I want to say that that's also a wrong application of Romans 14. That's actually really subjective, because what determines that the person who says we should all be wearing masks is actually weaker in conscience.

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Why not the person who's not wearing the mask? What if they're weaker in conscience? What if they think that this is all some big conspiracy theory?

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Like, wouldn't you say that person's weaker in conscience? And so therefore, we shouldn't wear masks in order to not heap any undue burdens on the conscience of a person who's convinced that we should not be wearing masks.

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So that those two examples there, that is not a proper application of Romans 14 concerning the mask wearing issue.

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Let me share with you how we can rightly apply Romans 14 to wearing masks.

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And I suppose that if I'm going to limit this at all, it would be in the context of the church. We can have the discussion about the broader culture later.

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But let's just consider this in the church, because that's what we're reading here in the book of Romans. If someone in your church is convinced that they need to wear a mask, they're protecting themselves, they're protecting other people.

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And I'm doing this because I love my neighbor. If that's the reason they're doing it, then let them wear a mask.

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Do not heap any undue burdens on them. Don't make them feel bad for it. Don't make them feel guilty.

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Don't tell them that they're spreading some sort of culture of fear by wearing a mask.

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If a person is convinced in their conscience, they must be fully convinced in his own mind.

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And they do this in honor of the Lord. So let them wear a mask with a clear conscience.

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If someone in your church is not wearing a mask and they are convinced they don't need to, they're healthy, they're not spreading anything to anyone else.

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And I am doing this in honor of the Lord. Then let them not wear a mask.

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Where I get really concerned about this issue is when churches start barring people from the table, like preventing their fellow believers from coming to worship and coming to communion because they're not wearing a mask.

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I think the church is sinning at that point. If you are requiring a person to have to wear a mask in order to participate in the

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Lord's table, and if they're not wearing a mask, then they can't come to the Lord's table. You are therefore saying to that person, they're sinning by not wearing a mask.

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And you are imposing a moral issue onto a person that the

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Bible has not made a moral issue. So the way that we rightly apply

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Romans 14 is we do not quarrel over opinions, because that's the way this chapter begins.

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As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but do not quarrel over opinions. And the one who is stronger in conscience, do not pass judgment on him over something that you seem to think would be wrong for you.

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For God has welcomed him. If God has welcomed the mask wearer and the non -mask wearer to the table to participate in the

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Lord's supper, the body and the blood that has been broken for us, that has been spilled for the forgiveness of sins.

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If the Lord welcomes us alike to the table and are wearing or not wearing a mask is not sin, then therefore we should not impose that as a sin on anyone else.

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Understood? Does that make sense? Did I wrap that all up well and present it in a nice little bow?

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I hope so. And I didn't trail off in my thoughts too much. Let's conclude with prayer.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for your grace toward us. And I pray that with the grace that has been poured into our hearts by faith in Jesus Christ, we would be gracious with each other.

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We would be patient with one another. For as it says in 1 Corinthians 13, 4, love is patient, love is kind.

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Let us practice that with one another today. Not quarreling over opinions, but welcoming one another in Jesus name.

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Amen. You can find a complete list of videos, books, devotionals, and other resources online at www .utt