Feb. 25, 2018 AM Responsibility in Freedom by Pastor Josh Sheldon

We'll turn, please, in the book of Romans to chapter 14, in our text this morning, which is verses 13 through 19.

Therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.

I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but is unclean for anyone who thinks it is unclean.

For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom

Christ died. So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil.

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the

Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then, let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

It was Voltaire who said, with great power comes great responsibility.

And for this morning's message, I want to leap off of that, but I want to change it just a little bit. With Christian liberty comes great responsibility.

With the liberty, with the freedom for which Christ set us free comes this responsibility which is manifestly, most profoundly found in how we relate to one another, to brothers and sisters in the

Lord here in the church. With liberty comes responsibility.

And this liberty bought for us at the highest price, one that we can only describe but never truly imagine.

Christ, in his death, burial and resurrection, purchased for us this liberty which we have and must then live with in a manner that is responsible.

Responsible to the Lord Jesus Christ first and foremost. Responsible also to each other.

Romans 14 is about how we use our liberty that we have in Christ Jesus.

That's really the thought of the whole chapter. And that chapter, this whole chapter 14 in Romans could be the content of one single sermon because it's really one thought.

It's how we use this liberty in our relationship with each other. These back and forth judging and despising as we just talked about last week and so forth.

I've broken it into three. Last week verses 1 -12, this morning verses 13 -19, and God willing next week verses 20 -23 and then again with God's blessing perhaps move on to chapter 15.

And I've done that for a reason. I've hit these points, it really could be three points in one sermon, I've hit them as separate sermons because of how important this is.

Because of the gravity that the Apostle Paul, by inspiration of the Spirit, writes these words.

We can almost hear in the backdrop here an alarm bell as he looks at this division that has been occurring in this ancient church in Rome some 2 ,000 years ago between the

Gentiles, in this context the strong, and the Jews, in this context the weak.

Doesn't mean stronger or weaker in salvation type of faith with the Lord Jesus Christ. It's speaking about our ethics, it's speaking about the conscience, it's speaking about the way we go about daily life and what we think we can and can't do.

This idea of liberty and what is this liberty that we have and how do we exercise this liberty? How far can it go?

And how do I use my liberty in a way that could harm or help a brother or sister? That's what this whole chapter's been about.

And that's why because of its importance, because I as your preacher, as your pastor see this importance.

Not because I see any particular issues here in the church, but because all of us as fallen humanity risk constantly falling into this pattern that the

Apostle Paul drives that church then and this church now away from.

Hindrances, stumbling blocks, lack of mutual love, lack of up -building, judgmentalism, or the other way, despising.

Last week, we began by delving into this idea of meat versus vegetables. The stronger ones in Rome, we've said those are the

Gentiles, and they indulge their freedom by indulging this unrestricted palette of food. Which as we pointed out just very briefly, recall this, that that for them was no change.

Before they got saved, they could eat anything. And now that they were saved, now that they were in Christ Jesus, they could still eat anything.

They were the strong ones who understood this liberty that we have in a way that the weaker ones, the

Jews, those whose consciences couldn't let go of the habits formed over years, we could even say centuries, of following the

Mosaic law. The ethic behind it, the scruple that they came with because of that.

They were the weak ones. Not weak in faith in Jesus, that's so important for us to keep in mind.

Weak in their personal ethic and their understanding of their liberty. We summarized last week by asking, as we applied this idea of weak and strong and meat versus vegetables and these other things.

We made different applications that occur in this life, and I'm not going to repeat any of them now, but we summarized all that with this question.

Is it as important, this issue that you have, this thing for which you are judging the one way and you being judged despising the other way, this whole thing that has led to that back and forth, is it as important as life and death?

Paul says whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. Life and death, is it that important?

Then he goes on to say, for this reason, Jesus Christ lived and died, that he should be

Lord of the living and the dead. Again, the question resounds. This issue, it may be an important issue, it may be something that we have to deal with, it may be something that brings us to rebuke a brother or sister publicly.

It may be, but here's the question. Here's the platform from which we must leap.

Is it that important? At the end of this chapter, which

God willing we'll get to next week, Paul seems to make sin an individual assessment.

Good for me, that's not good for you, well that's fine because it works for me type of thing and it's sometimes even taken that way and I want to read this verse at the end because it relates to a lot of things that we're going to talk about now even though, like I said, next week,

God willing, we'll cover it again. But at the end of this chapter he says, whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats because he is eating not from faith, excuse me, let me say this again, because if he eats, he is not eating.

His eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

Now does this mean that you or I determine for ourselves what is or isn't sin? Well of course not. We would never define sin correctly.

Except by the Holy Spirit regenerating the soul and opening our minds and putting the scripture before us, we have no idea what sin is.

Not only how bad it is, how egregious it is, how ugly it is in God's sight, not only that, we would never even define it.

We would only define what we don't like to be sin and what we do like could never be sin if it was left to us, so of course not.

That would be silly. If that were the case, the church would have no basis for discipline or for judging any practice or for anything.

Paul doesn't mean sin when he says that there, when he writes that there I should say. In his broadest sense, in a theological sense, that's not what he's saying there.

He means that forcing or even convincing someone to go against their own convictions, their own conscience, their own scruples is making them sin, not against God, but against themselves.

But remember that's sin as it were with a small s. Going against somebody's personal ethic when it's a matter of indifference here from what

Paul's saying. So let's have that in our mind that when we get to the end of this chapter and even as we're going through it this morning, that we don't get to individualize what we define as sin or even righteousness for that matter.

Remember he's being very specific. When he talks about sin in that sense, he's talking about someone's own personal scruple on matters in which they have liberty.

We'll talk more about that as we go through. So let's understand what happens when a fellow believer is compelled to do something against their own conscience.

It is, verse 13 says, a stumbling block. It's a stumbling block.

It's a hindrance. Verse 15 says it is to their destruction. Did you hear the word?

We'll talk about it a bit more as we go through this. Do not destroy the one for whom

Christ died for something as insignificant as what he's eating.

Destruction. And it makes what would otherwise be good.

Your desire to build up that brother or sister, your understanding of God's good and eternal word, things that would otherwise be good, and it causes them to be seen as evil.

These are heavy words from the apostle. These are strong words. These are rebuking words.

Words like these are the reasons that I took one single thought of one chapter that should really be one message to the church and broke it into three because of the gravity with which

Paul writes. Are you strong in your faith? Are you one of the strong who really knows the liberty that you have in Christ Jesus?

Well, if you are, God bless you. Amen. We need strong ones. All churches need strong in the faith members.

But are you strong in your faith? Then you have a responsibility. You have a grave responsibility.

And what is that? Let's wrap it up with one simple statement.

If you are one who's strong in the faith, then you are to show your strength by conceding questionable matters.

Are you one who really understands your liberty in Christ Jesus? Here's your responsibility. When a questionable matter comes before you, between you and a brother, you and a sister, concede the matter.

It's that simple. The term we use here for these types of things is called adiaphora, and I might have pronounced it wrongly.

It's a Greek word. That A in front, the adiaphora, the A is a negating A, and so it means not important or a matter of indifference, something that is morally, ethically neutral.

A matter the Bible neither forbids nor does it mandate. The answer is, ultimately, on these types of things, do as you will.

God does not constrain you one way or the other by a specific precept or by any rule. It's adiaphora.

Are you going to buy a Ford or a Hyundai? Choose the one you can afford.

I can afford either one. What will I do? Choose the one you like. I'll like them both. What am I going to do?

It's adiaphora. Flip a coin. It's really that sort of a thing. It's something where the

Bible gives us no direction, well, the Bible gives direction on almost everything. Let me rephrase that.

It's something on which the Bible does not give a specific restriction. That's what

I meant, adiaphora. And Paul has this in mind when he writes about food. In Rome, the

Jews were the weak brothers whose ethics couldn't get past the old food laws. The stronger the

Gentiles who in their freedom ate anything, and remember, that's not a change for them.

That's not a change. For the Jews, it would have been. They're adding to their plate things that for centuries, it's almost burned into their

DNA. Don't eat that. It's wrong. And what will it do to you? It will make you ritually impure.

You'll be ceremonially unclean. It's part of the DNA of being that people. Is that correct?

Of course not. We'll come to that. And yet, their scruple couldn't pull away from it.

These are the kind of things Paul has in mind, and he's calling them adiaphora. He doesn't use that word, but the word fits.

So we have these matters where Scripture gives us liberty, places no demands on you one way or the other.

Do as you like. And doesn't that sound great? Finally, after all these commands, after all this preaching, after all this teaching,

I open the Bible and all I see is imperatives, and here's this preacher saying, do what you want. Sounds good.

But then Paul goes on and he says that while food is adiaphora, a matter of neutrality, an indifferent thing, while food is that, the way we treat others is anything but adiaphora.

Anything but morally neutral. Anything but a matter of indifference.

With liberty comes great responsibility for the strong believer, the one who really knows that Christ has set him free.

What's the responsibility? How about compassionate tolerance? Compassionate tolerance in areas where the

Bible makes no demand. The strong must not run roughshod over the weak.

You whose conscience is strong because it knows the liberty must not run roughshod, must not domineer, must not bully the one whose conscience hasn't quite caught up with yours.

That's the message here. Verse 13, therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a believer.

Decide, judge. Do not judge this way, but judge for yourself not to put a stumbling block, not to put this hindrance in the way of the believer.

That first word, therefore, connects us with verse 12, and the idea is there. Verse 12, he had said, so then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

So the therefore in our first verse this morning connects us to that. Therefore, knowing that we will all be judged by Christ, we oughtn't to judge one another.

And with that in mind, we're now told that to continue in judgment is to put in that person's path a stumbling block, a hindrance to what?

It's a hindrance to their walk with Christ. Stumbling block is often used of idols, that thing which draw or drew the believers away from God.

And in this context, stumbling block, something that draws another person away from their faith in Christ.

Their attachment to him is in that sense being weakened, if not even severed.

Strong believers, are you one of the strong? Did you know, did you have any realization how powerful you can be to be able to do that?

To see a weaker believer walking along, stumbling along, tripping along, sometimes getting off on the wrong exit and trying to find the return onto the freeway and can't quite find it as quickly as you could.

Do you know, did you ever know, did you ever consider the power that your words have?

It's a stumbling block. It's like putting an idol back in the day in front of an ancient

Israelite and say doesn't that look good? Knowing they'd kind of say, yes it does. We strong, we strong.

We always do it for right purposes. We say, I'm just trying to help them along on their path and really what we were doing.

That's what Paul says here. We're hindering them by not showing love, by not showing tolerance about adiaphora.

And I'll say this over and over again. I'll say this throughout this message. There are things where we have to draw the line in the sand.

There are things that are not at all adiaphora. I think too often we err away from them though.

A stumbling block, putting something that might as well be an idol. That's how strong our words are.

That's how strong you are if you are one whose conscience in this sense is strong.

Did you know that by debating, by arguing, by despising, that you're doing that sort of harm? Did you know that your words had that sort of power?

It's a very powerful admonition to us. It's important. It's urgent. We need to go on.

What does the Apostle say next? He says, I know and am persuaded. This is the Apostle Paul. Paul, remember that he's inspired by none less than the

Holy Spirit of God himself. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but is unclean for anyone who thinks it is unclean.

Now to understand this, and it's food, and food is important to the argument of Romans 14.

And food and the eating and not eating back then was important, but not the food itself.

The flashpoint that it generated, the way the non -eating

Jews despised those two libertine Gentiles and the way the Gentiles judged those who couldn't eat the bacon and all that sort of thing.

Well, Paul's saying, who cares about the food? Who cares about the bacon or the vegetables or the green peas or the liver or anything like that?

It doesn't matter. What matters, church? What matters?

It's how we treat one another. It's the love of God to us in Christ Jesus that is to be emanating from us to each other.

That matters. And if we use something as insignificant as food or then fill in the blank to staunch that flow of godly love for one another, brotherly affection, as the apostle calls us to, we're so askance with this.

In Acts chapter 10, Jesus, when he gave that vision three times to Peter, remember that all the animals coming down?

Peter, kill and eat, not so, Lord, for nothing unclean has ever passed my lips. And what does Jesus say? Does he say, hey,

Peter, I'd appreciate it if you don't call unclean what I've tried to cleanse. No, he says, do not call unclean what

I have declared to be clean. Serious words.

It's not just, hey, Peter, you need to think a little bit different about this. It's no, do not.

And then vision is repeated to him three times. Jesus died on the cross that such barriers should not exist.

When we're done here, before lunch, perhaps this morning, read Ephesians 2, 11 -22 about the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile that got smashed down.

Not like a Reagan, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall, as wonderful as those words were, here's a wall destroyed forever by the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross.

The reason for the freedom that Christ bought for us, though, is not about food. Food is indifferent.

It's about people. People are more important than my pet doctrine. People are more important than my pet rule.

That weakling next to me or next to you should be, in your eyes and my eyes, more important than you are to yourself.

That's what the apostle's been driving at. To the strong. To the strong in Rome.

To the strong in Providence Bible Church in 2018. Let me make a concession.

You're right. You're right about this thing over which you're willing to argue. Let's say it's food.

You're right. You win. No food is unclean. Christ declared them clean.

Paul says so. You win. The battle's been engaged. The weaklings have fled in terror and the day is yours.

Your victory is total. The opponent has spent all their munitions. They've given every argument they can.

You've absorbed every volley. And not only are you unscathed, but your adversary is demolished. To the strong.

You win. But before we sweep into what's left of our enemies or our opponent's stronghold, before we gather up our prisoners and display them in some type of a victory parade, we need to slow down and ask ourselves, what did we actually win?

What did we gain? You know, battles and war are usually fought over ground. One army has to win the high ground so it has the advantage or it wants the ground that has better cover or better supply lines, that sort of thing.

Or nations go after other nations because of natural resources, access to ports and gold and oil and that sort of thing.

What do we stronger Christians win? What do we gain when we conquer that immature, that tender, that overwrought conscience, that decidedly weaker believer or brother?

Well, it's right here in the text. It's right here in the text what we've gained, what you've won. You've been crowned with a diadem of sorts, studded with precious jewels, and each jewel is engraved with this memorial to our skill in apologetics, in rhetoric, and in debate.

Verse 15. Look at verse 15, please. Chapter 14, verse 15.

For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom

Christ died. Here's the reason I had

Conley read from Leviticus 19. Leviticus 19, verse 18, to me is one of the most stunning statements in the scripture.

It says, do no injustice to the poor. And many of you have heard this before. But to use

Jesus' words, let this sink down into our ears. That phrase in the Hebrew, do no injustice to the poor, you know what it says?

It says, do not take away his face. Do not humble someone by doing injustice to him so that he cannot walk with confidence and with dignity in public.

Don't take away his face. And it's properly translated. I'm not going against the translation that we have in the

ESV of the New King James or anything like that. But the original Hebrew behind it is, don't take away his face.

And so when we win these arguments, when we win the debate, when our rhetoric outshines that weaker believer, what have we done?

I would suggest that the risk, at least, is Leviticus 19, 18. We've torn away their face. We've humbled them, humiliated them.

Can they show their face before you again? Are they willing to sit down in fellowship with you?

Or are they afraid that, okay, again, I'm going to get plastered by this superior person?

He's smarter than me, quicker minded than me, knows how to phrase their debates and their questions and their answers better than me.

I get trapped, I'm done, they were right, I'm wrong, I can't win, and I'm going to eat lunch somewhere else.

I don't see that here, by the way. I want to tell you up front, I'm not correcting something that I see happening at this church that's prevalent here.

And I feel like I'm preaching this rather strongly as if I'm implying there is such a thing here.

I don't believe that. But what the apostle says here is such a warning to us, to tamp down our pride, to tamp down our own spirits in relation to each other.

Verse 16, so do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil.

Do you hear the strength again of what the apostle's saying about all this? Something good now spoken of as evil.

You've taken God's good word and made it susceptible to this charge. You've taken what is good and employed it for what amounts to evil.

Why don't you just try and show them the error of their ways? No, says the apostle. You're taking something good and using it for evil.

But my pride, my ego's not in this. The statement stands.

Verse 17, look at that again, please. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the

Holy Spirit. What do we do when we treat that brother or sister that way? You strong ones, we strong ones, we whose consciences are properly freed because of the gospel of our

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What have we done when we treat that weaker one that way?

And how often do we go and get attracted to that one because we know we can win the debate over there? We've tried him or her before.

We know that they can't stand up to us. What have we done? The third thing we've done, this other crown that we get in our diadem of a victor, is we've displayed in ourselves a complete ignorance of what the kingdom of God is.

It's joy and peace in the Holy Spirit. It's not food. And if we use food as the paradigm for all these other things, it's not winning the debate, unless the debate is about something that's not adiaphora, about sin.

We talked this morning in the membership curriculum in Sunday school about a disqualified pastor.

Has he abandoned the gospel? That sort of thing. That wouldn't be adiaphora. That wouldn't be an indifferent thing if I said, hey, you know, this morning,

I want you to know that I'm not quite sure that Jesus died for sin at all, much less for the sin of his people. Well, that'd be a big problem, wouldn't it?

That would not be an indifferent matter. That'd be worth debating. That'd be worth disqualifying someone.

Very few things rise to that level. Now, when we do these things, when we act this way, when we enter into it as a thing to be won, this is what we've done.

Destroyed that brother or sister for whom Christ died, taken something good, which is God's word, the spirit of God dwelling amongst us, and made it susceptible to the charge of evil.

And we've proven that we, the victor, ignorant of the kingdom of God, don't really know what it's about.

What have we won? We've won the battle, but not the brother. We've won the battle, not the brother.

The removal of the food laws does something you may not have thought about. When Israel left

Egypt and became a nation of their own, God gave them laws that served to mold them into his character, his,

God's character. They had civil laws. They had laws of justice, jurisprudence, if you will.

They had moral laws. They had sacrificial laws. They even had laws about their intimate, conjugal relationships, all with the purpose of revealing one thing.

The righteousness of God, ultimately to be fulfilled in his son, Jesus Christ.

They were told in excruciating detail what could and couldn't be eaten, most famously pork, though lobster or escargot or sturgeon were equally unclean.

You may eat this, but you even touch this other thing, you're defiled. Are you strong?

Are you fully enmeshed in the doctrine of Christian liberty? I have news for you.

You are now more constrained in everything you do, including what you eat, more constrained, more restricted than any

Old Testament Jew ever was. You think it was hard for them to avoid something as tasty as pork or something as delicious as lobster?

You are far more constrained than all the laws together and then doubled and tripled could ever have made that people.

James chapter two, verse 12, which was read to you. James is arguing there, as does Paul, that love fulfills the law.

Love of neighbor fulfills the law. Doesn't get you a part of it. It doesn't get you a step or a toe stepping into it.

It fulfills the royal law, says James, by loving one another.

And here's this great responsibility. Jesus said, to whom much has been given, much will be required.

James says, so speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.

For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Is not James speaking of the same thing that Paul is in Romans 14? Interpersonal relationships, he is.

We need to ask ourselves whether we are putting a hindrance in the path of someone else or we're helping to remove a hindrance to them.

If your brother, verse 15, is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. That is, you are no longer fulfilling the law.

Jesus Christ fulfilled the law on your behalf. His active and his passive obedience in his life fulfilling

God's holiness and his law has been attributed, imputed to you by faith.

We, because of him, by loving one another as he makes possible by his

Holy Spirit, do fulfill that law which he fulfilled on our behalf. And if our brother is grieved by what we eat, and I think what is implied here is you continue to eat it despite knowing he's grieved by it, and you keep pushing it in his face, as it were, and eating it to prove your liberty, to show it off, as you were, knowing that he doesn't understand that liberty, what are you doing?

You've stopped fulfilling the law. It's as if that law is no longer fulfilled for you.

It's as if you are now going to be judged by the whole law. I say as if because once Christ Jesus has set the law aside for you, once his obedience has been imputed to you, been justified by faith,

Romans 5 .1, that cannot be taken away. We're speaking of our ethical behavior here.

We're speaking as if now I am going to be judged by the entire bar of the law.

Because of what? Because I grieved my brother and removed myself from walking in love, and therefore am no longer fulfilling the law of liberty.

That's how serious it is. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom

Christ died. So we're back to chapter 14 in verses one through 12. Is it that important?

I mean, really, is it that important? Destroy is a very strong word. Jude uses it of the fate of Israelites who rebelled in the desert.

Paul uses it in 2 Thessalonians 2 .10 about the fate of people who follow satanic deception.

Jesus used this word to describe Judas' apostasy. And Paul uses it here of strong believers who use their liberty to grieve the weaker, the more tenuous, the timorous believer.

Compare all that to the importance of food or anything else.

There are some anything else's that rise up enough and we say, you may be grieved by this, but we're gonna hold to it.

There are those issues. I personally doubt there are as many as we, myself included, think there are.

Verse 16, do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. So what's good? Freedom in Christ is good.

The word of God that is our rule of faith and practice is good. And at the front of that sentence, do not let what you regard as good, the front of that sentence is the word evil.

We have it at the last word in the sentence in our ESV and most other translations. But really, in the

Greek, that word's up front and it's not the word commonly translated as evil. It's the word that's translated as blasphemy.

Blasphemy. So sort of not blasphemous, therefore, allow your good to be spoken of. Don't let what is supposed to be good, we're talking about the kingdom of God.

We're talking, verses 14, five through nine, about life and death. We're talking about that one for whom Christ died and rose.

That good, that important. Do not let that good be spoken of as evil or blasphemed against or even susceptible to that charge.

You see, we strong ones are so powerful that we can cause something that good to become a cause for blasphemy.

That's how serious this whole matter is. The kingdom of God, verse 17, is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the

Holy Spirit. A judgmental spirit shows a total lack of understanding of what the kingdom of God is.

Everything we do, most especially our conduct towards each other, says something about what we think about God's kingdom.

The kingdom that Christ Jesus inaugurated, the kingdom that he will complete when he returns.

That kingdom is the kingdom we're showing our ignorance about The kingdom isn't about winning the debate.

Winning a brother does sometimes mean making him see his sin and repent. That's Matthew 18, 15.

Jesus Christ says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have what?

You have gained. Some translations, you have won your brother. Quite the opposite of what was happening in Rome and what we're at risk to do when we enter into these things against the weaker conscience just to bludgeon them into compliance with our view.

Too often the case for all of us, including myself. No, winning your brother is very different from winning the argument.

Jesus is talking about sin. He's talking about a failure to keep the apostles or his own clear commands. And that work of extracting their speck, that sin, has to be preceded by rustling our own log out of our eyes.

And we've been through this before. We won't go into it in detail this morning. Jesus addressed all this in Mark chapter seven and verses 18 to 21.

And he said to them, the apostles now, the disciples, then are you also without understanding?

Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside, he's speaking of food here, cannot defile him since it enters not his heart but his stomach and is expelled?

Then there's a parenthetical. And Mark is giving us this explanatory comment. Thus he declared all foods clean.

And Jesus said what comes out of a person is what defiles him. What comes out of our mouth proceeds from the heart.

The heart directs the words of the mouth. That's what he's saying. We're not advocating some kind of an anything goes church.

It'd be ludicrous to say with the author of Judges, each man is allowed to do whatever is right in his own eyes. That's not the case here at all.

Paul is pushing us to be wise and discerning, most of all, loving and considerate and gentle.

The call to worship this morning, Jesus Christ said, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

For I am humble and lowly in spirit. Now Jesus crushed his opponents in debate.

But those were opponents who came to him highly educated with cynical questions towards him. Not the gentler ones.

Not the ones who came humbly before him. Even the rich young ruler who left sad, bowed down and worshiped him as he called out to him, what must

I do to inherit eternal life? No, Paul's pushing us towards wise, discerning and loving judgments.

And we all need to make judgments. We need to make judgments about each other. But these judgments are not to be my personal preference.

It's not whether I like chicken liver and you, like a good friend of mine, thinks that that organ should be disposed of with the bird's carcass.

Liver doesn't matter. What matters is whether my conduct, what matters is whether your conduct, actual conduct, what

I or you do, what I or you actually say, whether those things are in keeping with my status as a blood -bought citizen of the kingdom of God.

None of this is to say that the weak can turn all this around and thus control the strong. 1

Corinthians 10, 29, for why should my liberty be determined by someone else's conscience?

So you, the weaker believer, you who doesn't truly understand the liberty, you may be a little jealous of the stronger believer who does live in that liberty.

By your own conscience, you won't see a movie rated beyond PG, you who maintains your walk by never drinking a beer or a glass of wine, you who thinks coffee beans should be left on the vine and never see a mug, your conscience does not dictate the conscience of others.

If someone came to my house who had strong beliefs about no alcohol under any circumstance, he or she would never be offered a beer.

Not in my house. I drink 10 or 12 beers a year, and I mean that literally.

I like them. I have one every now and then. I'm not kidding, that's about it.

But that's not even the point. If I liked it even more than that, if I liked to have one every dinner, and someone came over whose scruples were against that, it would never come out.

And we can say that about all kinds of things. The idea of beer or a glass of wine is just more common.

We can gather it up quicker, more easily. Within reason, it's the same for all those other sorts of things that I mentioned, within reason.

Movies within reason, books within reason, that sort of thing. Verse 18 then applies to all of us, weak and strong alike.

He says, whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men, and so should be acceptable to you or to me, unless, that is, our standards are better or higher than God's.

The alternative is verse 19. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual up -building.

We last came across this word pursue back in chapter nine, verse 30. That was of Gentiles attaining to the righteousness of God as something that they never pursued.

And Israel, who doggedly did pursue it, never found it. Because the one was by faith, the

Gentiles attained it by faith, and the Jews, Israel, kept going after it by works. They pursued it, and that word also means to persecute.

It's this determined, this consistent effort towards a goal. So then let us pursue, let us determinately go after, let us persecute to gain what is for peace and mutual up -building.

We could paraphrase that. What is pursued? Peace amongst the brethren and mutual up -building into compliance with Christ's word and progress into his image.

That's nothing more or less than living as kingdom citizens, because the kingdom is about that and not those other things.

It's about righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Our life together as brothers and sisters in the

Lord is supposed to be a foretaste of what is waiting for us when Jesus returns and makes the kingdom final.

And so Paul brings in the kingdom of God and says, why aren't you living it out here and now?

Someone should be able to walk into this church and see the kingdom, love and joy and peace in the

Holy Spirit. See that being lived out right now, right here. And we say, come to Jesus.

They say, what for? Because heaven's gonna be better than even this. They should be able to look here and say, well, this is pretty grand, the way you treat one another.

We do it because we are citizen kingdoms. And we love the Lord Jesus Christ who gave us liberty, liberty to love one another, liberty in him.

Liberty, freedom from the law, knowledge that we are free from sin, and all its dread consequences because of his cross.

And what you see here is just the barest foretaste of what he has in store for those who love him and obey his gospel.

That's what this is all about. That's why you're getting three instead of one sermons on one thought in one chapter.

This is that important. Think of scales, and we will close with this. You have a scale.

And on one side, we put our issue, that thing, that practice, that abstinence that we have that we judge others for not having.

And on the other side, on the other plate, what do we have? That brother or sister for whom

Christ also died. Put them there. Now, back in the day, the proverb was about the butcher who would distract the lady buying the meat for dinner, and as she's distracted, he's adding up how much is, he puts his finger on the scale and presses it down.

I don't know if we can even do that today. Would that work? I don't even know if it would work. But it's the old type of scale, the mechanical scales, and you push it down.

And in this case, I want you to be able to push it down. All you want, it's not cheating. On that plate is your issue, my issue.

And you get to work on it. You get to weigh it down as hard as you want. And the other scale, you put your brother or your sister.

See which one wins out. But before we let the scales go and see which one's gonna win the balancing contest, that brother or sister is cloaked in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ.

And now let's see which way the scale goes. That's sort of what Paul's saying here.

If we're sure, after that sort of an assessment, that the issue is that important, if the doctrine, if that thing that we want them to come into compliance with is that important, if that's the one that brings the scale down, and you, by prayer, by supplication before the

Lord, if I can look at the scripture and say, yes, that is something we must do, then we're commanded to.

Then we're commanded to. But remember that brother, that sister that we're going to, that we are correcting, that we've been judging, whatever the case is, before we even start, see them the way

Paul gives them to us. That one for whom Christ died, that one chosen by God before the foundation of the world, put in his son,

Jesus Christ, suffered for on the cross of Jesus Christ, bathed in his blood, his righteousness,

Christ's righteousness imputed to him, that brother, that sister, how important is this issue relative to all of that?

If Christ's honor, if the good of that brother, sister, if the progress of the church is truly by your conscience, by prayer, by supplication, by looking at God's word, if that all comes out in favor of proceeding, then

God bless you, proceed. The word of God tells you how. The word of God says you must now proceed.

You have no choice left, but enter into it the way Paul would have us do. Seeing this brother, sister that way, knowing that you have properly assessed your place in the kingdom of God, which is joy and peace and righteousness and love, and all those other things in the

Holy Spirit. And with that, we have the right way for the strong conscience to behave towards the weak, the weak conscience not to despise those libertines over there, because none of that is correct.

What is correct? What I just said about what the kingdom of God is. What Paul wrote about what the kingdom of God truly is.

I think this is the way we can assess these things. This is the way we can, as a church, as brothers and sisters together, help one another to grow into that image of the

Lord that we worship in this place, who is none other than Jesus Christ. Amen? Heavenly Father, thank you again for this day and for your word.

Thank you for the clear admonition and instruction that it gives us. I pray, Father, forgiveness where we have knowingly erred against this word, where this word has been set before us.

We've ignored it because of our own egos, our own desire to see the battle won, the debate, to conquer through debate or whatever the case is.

Oh, Father, may we be this people, this loving kingdom citizen people that would bring the most honor and glory to your name.