Book of Romans, 14:4 - Freedom in Christ | Handling Doubtful Disputations, Pt. 4 (04/10/2022)

All right. Good to see you this morning. We're going to be in Romans chapter 14.

And we started talking about verse 2 last time. So we will continue with that and move on into this chapter.

Thank you for your prayers for my mom. I got here early this morning, and I just thought about all the many times she rode over with us and where she sat, who she sits with, and who she eats lunch with.

And you just can't take any little things for granted, can we? I have to be thankful for every minute we have with each other.

Been some time since she's been able to come to church, though. She hasn't been able to come for many months.

But I was just thinking about those things this morning. She's certainly a blessing to me my whole life, just a wonderful person and a wonderful mother.

And let's hope that she makes a recovery today in the next few days. I'll give you all a report tonight.

When I get home, I'll send an email out to everybody. All right, Romans chapter 4, verse 2.

For one believeth that he may eat all things, another who is weak eats only vegetables.

Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not the meat. If you eat meat, don't despise a person who doesn't.

Let not him which eats not judge him that eats. If you're a vegetarian, don't judge people that eat meat.

But people tend to judge each other, don't they? For God has received that person.

Well, that's an interesting ending to that. That last little phrase is interesting in that context,

I think. Well, we talked about last time, we're in Romans 14. And pretty much the whole chapter is about handling doubtful disputations among one another so that we have peace and unity and don't pick at each other over little things that we disagree on.

It's kind of what it's about and how to deal with those issues. Now, some of those issues are things that can actually be found in scripture, but sometimes people take them out of context.

And so whenever someone's bringing something into our church that we think is not true, it's a false concept, and yet they show a scripture for it, then we need to ask that person, well, let's go back and read the whole chapter together.

Or let's look at the whole epistle and see who this letter is written to and what it's about and see if all this fits in the way you're teaching it.

You always bring them back to the context. But then there are some doubtful disputations that are things that where people make rules that we're supposedly supposed to live by that are nowhere in the

Bible, right? So you got that too. So it's those two things, either something out of context or something that's not even in the

Bible that's taught as if it has authority and that we have to do it. Now, when you think about the things where they can show you a verse and say, see, this verse says this, so you need to do that.

First, we check the context, right? But there's a lot of language in the

New Testament. Even though it's grace, it's not law. We all know that. But it's written in the imperative, which means it's like a command from the

Lord for us to live this way as Christians. A lot of places like that. And those really are commands and where they're clearly taught in context and interpreted correctly, then we're supposed to live that way.

Not to be saved, though, because we're not saved by works of righteousness, but by grace through faith, right?

But we still should obey our Lord. I mean, now that we are saved and He counts us not as servants, but as friends and brothers and He loves us with such a love that He died for us, then we ought to, if He says live this way, we should live this way.

So we should make an attempt and work harder at it. We call that experiential sanctification or experiential righteousness.

We should try to live right. We should try today. Gentlemen, we should say, Lord, help me be a good man today.

Not a typical American, but a good man today. And women, let me be a good woman today in your eyes.

And we should do that every day and walk that way. So there are imperatives.

So I want to give some examples. And I had asked you to do some homework. And if you forgot, so you got a few minutes because I'm not to it yet.

So try to think of some doubtful disputations that people might have said to you in the past where they wanted you to do a certain thing.

But as you looked at the Bible, the Bible didn't say you had to do that. Try to think of a few examples like that.

Maybe you could think of a few that are in the Bible, but they're out of context. Or you could think of a few that aren't even in there, but people said you had to do it that way, right?

So think of a few of those and raise your hand in a minute and help me with it. I'm not quite to that yet. So what is the imperative mood?

Well, it means that the verb there is a command. Let me give you some examples.

You don't need to turn to these. I'm just giving you these as examples in the Bible of imperative.

So in Ephesians chapter four, verse 29, I'm going to read this little passage and I'm going to point out the verbs that are in the imperative.

So you know what they are. All right, here, start with verse 29. Let no corrupt communications proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, which means to build our brothers and sisters, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

All right, what's interesting is the little word let, that is the verb, isn't it? And that verb in Greek is in the imperative, which means the

Lord is telling us, here's what I want you to do. Do this, do this. And what is it that he's saying for us to do as born again people?

When we're speaking, we shouldn't let words come out of our mouth that are what

God would call corrupt communication. Slang, curse words, slang, words that aren't meaningful, words that don't build one another up.

Like if you teach your children this passage at home, you should never let your children call each other stupid, either in school or at home.

You don't let them call each other stupid. You don't let them talk hatefully at all. I mean, I know sometimes it will come up with what you do is you spank them when they do it.

You hold them accountable. I mean, they're human, it's gonna happen, but you let them know there will be, you will get chastened when you do that in this home.

They will learn to not do it. And guess what? When they grow up, maybe you'll be like me and Charlotte, and you'll have five grown children that love each other and would rather hang out with each other than anybody else on the planet.

Why? We didn't let them call each other stupid. It's that simple. Where'd we get that? Ephesians 4 .29,

because that's for all Christians, including little children Christians and adult Christians. So what about marriage counseling?

Well, when I'm asked to do marriage counseling, it's just biblical. I'll go here and read stuff like this, and I'll say, well, like, how do you talk to each other at home?

Do you say mean, critical things? Like when you get in an argument, do you bring up something in an old argument?

That's not it. You don't bring up old stuff. We're in a new argument. This is for this stuff. You don't bring that up.

Do you do that? Yeah, well, stop doing that. Where do I get that? From this passage, all right?

So when we do talk, what should come out? Now, here's another imperative, but it's in the positive. So don't say things that bring the other person down.

Just think about that, how often we can so carelessly, quickly be in the flesh and do that, and they never forget the words you said, ever, as long as you live.

So remember that when you're married. They don't forget the words you say, all right? It's especially important for gentlemen to speak well to their wives.

You know why? Because in the Bible, Jesus is pictured as the groom and the church is the bride, and it is his word that saves us.

And Jesus says, love your wife like I love the church. So gentlemen, in particular, be really careful about using your words in a negative and critical way very often.

I mean, sometimes we have to be instructive. I wouldn't call it critical, and it's not fun for any of us to have someone, a spouse, tell, well, you know what?

You pick your nose quite often in public. You should stop doing that. We don't like to be told that, but wouldn't it be nice if they told us so we could stop doing that, right?

So there's a great example. I could think of others. So, you know, sometimes that's necessary, but you don't want to do even that very much as far as just correcting the other spouse, especially a man correcting a woman.

And maybe I'm preaching to me right here a little bit because I've had a tendency to do that. Well, I got to cut me some slack though.

I started dating Charlotte when she was 14 and I was 17. So I knew the world better than she did, and I was her instructor, right?

And I'll never forget the day that, I don't know, she was probably 18 and I was a little older.

And all of a sudden, I start to help her across the street. And she said, she pulled away.

She said, you know, I can look both ways. You don't have to do that. And I went, wow, what was that?

And she was getting to a place where she did not need me to be her daddy, so to speak, but to just be a husband.

I didn't like that. Still don't, but anyway. Gentlemen, we have to be really careful, but women, listen, you can cut a man quick with your words.

You can even do it with a look without saying anything, right? So this passage is talking about this kind of stuff.

So it's easy to use this in marriage counseling. You get my drift. But this is the Lord giving us imperatives for what not to do.

We don't let stuff we say be critical and negative and harmful or push people down in our

Christian lives, whether it be our spouse, our children, our siblings, or people at church or people at work or any of it.

But what do we do? Here's the next imperative. When you speak, speak words that are good to use for building the person.

Isn't that something? Well, I think it helps build a person when you tell them to stop picking their nose if they have that habit.

I mean, that's a good, that's okay. So sometimes it is a bit negative or critical in that sense.

Doesn't mean you don't sometimes have that, but predominantly it needs to be positive reinforcement, like use the carrot more than the stick with each other.

Does that make sense? That's what this passage is saying. I think God knows our human nature better than anybody.

And he's saying, gentlemen, ladies, if you listen to this, your marriage will be a whole lot better.

Because I know how the woman thinks, God says, not me. God says, I know how the woman thinks, I know how the man thinks, live by this, you'll do better.

All right, one example. Okay, now let's see if we see another imperative. Now, he just told us an imperative.

Don't say things with your mouth that hurt people. Say things that build them up. Isn't that what he said?

And it's in the imperative. So it's a command. Now, would you say, now we didn't study the context of this, so trust me on it.

This is in context and it applies to all Christians everywhere all the time. Check it out on your own later if you don't believe me, but it does.

So in context, it's telling us, a command, this is something we do have to live by.

Even though we're under grace, we gotta live by it. That doesn't get us saved, does it? I can't treat my wife, if I'm lost,

I can't treat her nicely and just be, go to heaven for that, right? But what if I'm on my way to heaven and I've got the

Holy Spirit and Jesus has died for me and saved me and saved my wife, and then I speak critically and ugly to her all the time, what's gonna happen?

It's gonna be a Christian divorce, right? And that happens, right?

So this is an imperative. Do it this way, God is saying.

If you try it your way, it won't work. Do it this way. That's an imperative. Now, look at the next one, verse 30.

And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed until the day of redemption. Great doctrine there that when we're born again, the

Holy Spirit comes to live in us and he's still there till the day we meet Jesus. He doesn't come and go, he's with us always.

So you cannot lose your salvation. But the main teaching here is that when you do use your words in a context, or you gotta go up and look at your context, when you use your words to hurt other people rather than to build them, it grieves the

Holy Spirit. It even makes a car upset. Hear that? That might be one of our cars.

There it went. So, that didn't edify anybody.

It was terrible. All right. It's Paul Davis's car. Way to go, Paul. You took care of it.

It's a truck, whatever. Okay, so don't use your words to hurt other people because when you do, you grieve the

Holy Spirit. Now, there's a whole interesting thing we could discuss for about an hour. If you wanted to is, let me ask you this.

I love it. I like rabbit trails better than the stuff we're supposed to talk about. So, is God immutable?

Is that one of his characteristics? Yes or no? Okay, what does it mean? You're immutable. You don't change.

Are there any humans that are immutable? Not one. Is there anything other than God that's immutable?

Not one. Because you have to be outside of time and space to be immutable. So, well, in some ways,

I won't say that in all ways, but in some of the meanings of immutable, you would have to be.

Others, you wouldn't, which is kind of interesting. So, let me ask you this. If God is a person that you cannot change because he doesn't change, how can you grieve him?

Because he just changed from happy to upset. He has emotions all of a sudden.

You changed him with what you did or didn't do. Is that even possible? Brother Otis, you have an opinion on that?

Brother David, God doesn't change. All right, so how do you put that together? Anybody have a thought on it?

Well, we have instructions of what not to do. Yeah. But what if you disobey that and you grieve

God who was previously not grieved? Did your action change God? It didn't change him, but it doesn't mean he has to like it.

I kind of like that answer, John, because one thing John is pointing out is if God says,

I have always been an emotional being and I never change, then the fact that you changed him from joy to being grieved didn't change him because he's always been emotional.

Do you get that? Does that make sense logically? So there's one aspect, very good. You gotta be good when you're sitting on the front row.

All right, so here's another one that I have found and I have to give you, brother

Otis, a lot of credit on this because we discussed this many times at breakfast is that when

God, one of the greatest proofs that God not only has always existed as a triune being but must exist that way in order for us to exist and have fellowship with him.

One of the greatest proofs is that because God is a triune God, which means he is one

God who subsists in three distinct persons and person doesn't mean people as we use it with each other like two different like souls.

It doesn't mean that. It means two different persons in the sense of if here's the

Holy Spirit and here's Jesus and here's the father, all three of them have wisdom.

They have knowledge. They have understanding. They're creative. They have emotions. They can love, they can hate, right?

They can, all the things that we think people do. Well, why? Because we're creating his image but he has those things because he's a person.

Well, all three of God, I don't know how to say it. It's hard to talk about it, isn't it?

But all three of the persons have all those attributes and that's why the theologians call them persons.

It doesn't mean different people. You see the difference? But they are persons. They are separate in the sense that they have different roles they play from time to time.

And let me give you an example. God the father is never in time. The only thing of him that's ever been in time or space or on the earth is his voice, all right?

So when you see God in time on the earth it's either Jesus or the Holy Spirit.

It's not the father. So if you wanna talk about grieving

God you're not really grieving the father. The father caused everything to happen that's happening.

So he's pleased with it. It's his will, everything that's happening. My mom having a stroke, that is

God's will. I don't like it. None of us like it. My mom certainly doesn't like it but God in the sense that it's his will likes it because it fits his whole plan and his plan is perfect.

Now, do you think if Jesus were here in the flesh right now and I were one of his closest disciples which by the way

I am, but would he go to Waco and go visit my mom right now and put his hand on her?

I'm not saying he'd heal her. He might choose to if the father wanted him to but wouldn't he have compassion for her?

Would he like the fact that this is happening to her? No, might he cry over it? He cried with Lazarus when he died, didn't he?

You see, so there's the emotion and stuff you would not see the father have but the son has because he's in time but he only has it when he's in time as far as I can tell.

But you have to remember even at the right hand of the father, that's in time because that's a place, it's heaven. So Jesus is in time pretty much for the rest of our existence together until that very last moment when we all become where God is all in all whenever that happens after age, after age, after age.

So as long as Jesus, until that point Jesus will always be in time until that point.

So he will always be able to grieve with us be joyful with us. And in that sense, it looks like his mood can change but even

Jesus, even though his mood changes he's still immutable because he was always that kind of being.

The son of God has always had that capacity. And especially when he's in time or space the

Holy spirit can be with the father. He is the spirit of the father. He's the spirit of the son and he lives in us.

He connects all of us. So when he's working directly with us here in time and space, he can be grieved.

You understand? So this is what this is talking about. So, because he's in time because he's living in your body. Now he is omnipresent which means the

Holy spirit is not just in your body. He's not just in all of us individually. He's not just in this building.

He's in every church in the world today. He's in every place in the world today except the heart of an unbeliever.

Think about that for a minute. So is he really omnipresent? There's another good discussion. But anyway, so he's not only there but he's everywhere in the universe.

And you know, the universe has got bigger about two weeks ago because they got some satellites up there with telescopes.

They don't have to look through our atmosphere anymore. And now they've seen one a few billion light years farther away.

If you want to say, I wish Bill were here. If you want to say it as distance or you can say it as time, either way.

It's the same. It's the same. It comes out the same. So they've seen farther out to the edge of the universe.

It's to us from our viewpoint, it's now bigger than it was three weeks ago. Isn't that? It's bigger than we'll ever know until we meet the

Lord, right? The Holy Spirit is all in all of that to the edge of it wherever the edge of the known stuff is.

And then it goes beyond that into a place that's not a place where there is no time which is where the father is. He's there too.

So think about that. So that's the person that we grieve when we don't speak well to our wife or our husband or our brother or sister at church or even when we're home talking about our brothers and sisters that aren't there with us.

The Holy Spirit's in that person and in you and that's his baby and you're his baby. And you're talking bad about one of his babies.

Think about that. How do you think he likes that? Well, how do I like it? When one of my five talks bad about the other five which by the way, they don't do anymore.

They quit that when they were a little bitty after about the third spanking. All right. So like they know they don't pick on each other behind my back or behind their back or anywhere.

Now God's different than me cause he's there all the time and sees everything and hears everything. So you can easily grieve the

Holy Spirit by what you say about another brother or sister. And I'm preaching, you know, I'm always preaching to me first and then you because I got a lot of brothers and sisters around the country because of Tradeway.

I do business with other businesses whose owners are Christians. And I truly believe born again

I know them well enough that they're a brother. Sometimes they do stuff I don't like. Sometimes they do stuff

I like and maybe I'm talking to Charlotte and I'll rag on them a little bit. And boy, Charlotte, she'll just look at me with that look.

And I'll say, okay, that's, you're right. They belong to the Lord too. I probably don't see all the information.

There's probably a good reason why they did that. You see what I'm saying? We have to always be thinking about this right here.

So this is fabulous and it's imperative. So we have to do it. Don't grieve the

Holy Spirit who lives in you until Jesus comes back and will always be in you who will hear every word you say about every other brothers and sisters in the world.

Don't grieve him by saying stuff that wouldn't edify that person. Wow, that's some good preaching, brother

David. I like that. Okay, verse 31. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away.

That's in the imperative. The word let is imperative. It's a command from God to us. It is an order from our savior,

Jesus Christ to his brothers and sisters. Live this way if you're saved, okay?

If you, first of all, don't let bitterness ever even exist because when a brother does something odd against you, it says, go to that brother and tell him, communicate.

I've learned that good communication between Christian people will eliminate Satan in half a second, or at least in an hour.

If you sit down and have a good talk with the brother that you're having those evil thoughts about, like they hurt you with words or something, and you're thinking that they're thinking something about you, usually when you go sit down and you talk with them, they're not even, that's not even what they meant by what they said, especially by text or something, text or terrible, email.

You're gonna think they're getting all over you and they're not even thinking that. And then Satan's trying to bring division with it, right?

And then you just go speak to him, it goes away. It's fixed. But then he says, if they won't listen, you take another brother or sister with you, right?

Then if they don't listen, you bring it before the whole church. At that point, you kind of have to separate for a while if they're sinning.

If the whole group thinks, okay, they're sinning against you, you just have to separate. You know the rules, right? But what's interesting about it is if you don't go and talk to him and you just think about it,

Satan will bring imaginations into your mind that they're not even meaning or saying. We call it vain imaginings.

He will blow it up bigger, turn that mountain into, that molehill into a mountain, and you will have that person be almost like an enemy in your mind and they didn't even mean it, what you think they meant.

And that turns into bitterness. Well, now it deals with, okay, apparently some of us let this happen because he's telling us what to do when it does, right?

When you do, you should never let that happen because the Bible says, let not the sun set on your wrath.

So if you think a brother's mad at you or you're mad at them, you should go before the sun goes down and get it right through communicating and hugging and making up.

And if it's your spouse, you get to kiss and hug and make up. It's really pretty fun. I get in arguments on purpose with Charlotte so we can do this sometimes.

Just seeing if you're awake, but anyway, it's kind of, maybe I've tried that. All right, so if though you don't obey that and you let a few nights go by and you're just thinking about it, it's building up really big, it can turn into bitterness.

That is bad. You don't want that to happen toward any of us toward the other in this room for sure, or in trade way among our employees or even among our students.

You just don't want this to happen. So you deal with it through good communication and loving each other. It's kind of easy, but what if we don't do it?

And then we grieve the Holy Spirit, number one, but number two, bitterness starts existing inside of me.

Who does that hurt? You are the person that I'm upset with. It hurts me, but there is a verse that says that when we get bitter, it affects many others.

So all of a sudden, because usually we will vent to someone, won't we? So now that person's affected by this bitterness.

And then that person says, did you know David vented this to me? And then there's two people affected. You see how it spreads like a wildfire?

And so bitterness is really dangerous. So let all bitterness and wrath, that just means when we're mad at somebody, don't say we don't have it.

It's always righteous indignation, not wrath, right? So anger, clamor, what's that?

That's the venting. Isn't that a good word? I may start using that old English word. I like it. All right, let's quit clamoring, okay?

And evil speaking, but put away from you and all malice, which is like,

I'm thinking up something to hurt them with. Right, maybe not physically, but I'm thinking up something

I'm gonna say back and hurt. Put all that stuff aside, it says, right? Now that is an imperative.

So God's commanding us to live this way. Isn't that interesting? Not for salvation, but if you wanna have fellowship with the

Holy Spirit and be at peace with God, you gotta do this stuff. You can't stay in these negative realms very long without fixing them, or else you've grieved the

Holy Spirit and now you're out of fellowship with God. Your prayers hit the wall, the ceiling and go nowhere.

Nothing's happening and you're dwindling as a Christian till you fix it. Then God comes right back and says,

I'm proud of you for fixing that. Don't do it again, right? Just like a dad would. Let all bitterness and wrath be put away.

Now look at verse 32, and be kind one to another. Gentle hearted, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us.

There's the great reminder. How can you not forgive your brother when Jesus died for you, a sinner? You were a sinner and he died for you and forgave you of all of it.

And you won't forgive your brother. God is grieved. God, the Holy Spirit is grieved by that in our lives.

These are just examples of imperatives. Does it make sense? And if you look up the grammar with Lagos or some software where you can see the grammar, you will see in the

Greek it's in the imperative. And so we're supposed to do it, go do it, live that way.

All right, look at chapter four, verse 29. Oh, I'm sorry. But in those passages, 29 all the way to 32, it names things that we must do if we're going to obey the

Lord and walk in obedience and walk in fellowship with the Holy Spirit. That's called an imperative.

So what you have to do when you have a false teacher come in and they show you something that looks like an imperative that if you don't do it,

God's upset with you, make sure that's in context. Make sure the grammar is correct and the word meanings or what he says that means and that it fits all of scripture.

And that you have to look at it dispensationally too. Maybe it applies to Moses. It does not apply to Jesus and grace.

Those of us who are under that may not even apply. Like, can you eat ham today? Well, I hope so, because I brought one.

Can you eat ham today? Can a Jew eat ham? No. Now, if it's a saved

Jew, they can, but they don't think they can sometimes. They have to get over that. But I mean, you see my point.

So dispensation, matter, all that's part of the context. All right, so there we have it. Now, let's see, where was

I? Oh, it's interesting.

When it gets down there to where it says grieve not the Holy Spirit, even the word grieve is in the imperative. So like, there's a command, don't grieve the

Holy Spirit. I thought that was kind of interesting. So legalists love to make up additional imperatives.

Ones that aren't even in the Bible or ones that are out of context from the Bible. And so they love to come up with additional imperatives that are not in the

Bible or they're not in context in the Bible. And they hold those over the head of believers. And this itself is forbidden by the apostle

Paul again and again. So let me see if we can see some examples of doubtful disputations.

Things are not specifically even mentioned in scripture as an imperative. But before we do,

I'm gonna get you to list a few. You've had time to think now. So before we do that, look at, let's go into Romans 14, where our little passage is.

Let's go down to another verse here. Let's go down to verse four. So we're making progress through our

Romans passage too. Look what it's talking about all of a sudden. It just got through talking about some people are meat eaters and others only eat vegetables.

Don't judge each other over that. You both belong to the Lord and the Lord pleads with both. You see, it told that passage, which is an example of some people trying to put an imperative on somebody that's not really in the

Bible, or it's out of context, or it's in the wrong dispensation. It's not like I'm not a Jew under the law of Moses.

I'm a Christian, stuff like that. So look at verse four. Who art thou that judges another man's servant?

Now that's an interesting statement. What is it saying? It's saying, look, we're judging this person because they're not living right according to our rules, but they don't, like they're not our servant, they're

Jesus's. Why are we judging his servant? So you put that in the context of when we had servants, we had slaves and servants, and let's say

I'm one man's slave, and John is owned by another gentleman over there. We're slaves and you're owned by him, and I'm owned by this dude.

Is your slave owner able to order me around? No, and maybe mine says, you can wear

Bermuda shorts, David, when you're working in the field, and yours says, no, you're wearing blue jeans. And then

I got shorts on, and your owner comes to me and says, dude, you can't wear shorts, you gotta wear blue jeans. Can he do that?

I don't answer to him, he's not my, right? So God, Jesus is saying, look, we start picking on each other in the church, but we don't answer to each other in that sense because Jesus is our

Lord, and I serve him and you serve him, and he's pleased with the other person, so don't go picking on that person, saying you gotta live according to me as if I'm the master.

That's exactly what that means. It puts it in the context of slaves and slave owners and how all that used to work, and still does in some places in the world, unfortunately.

So to his own master, he stands or falls. So all of us answer directly to Jesus, not to each other in this sense, in the highest sense.

I know we're supposed to be accountable, but I'm saying in the highest sense. Only Jesus can see the heart, he can see everything about everything, and he can judge perfectly, we can't, so we miss it.

So this is a warning against that. So to his own master, this person stands or fall.

Why don't we just leave it up to Jesus whether he's upset that that person just ate some meat, because I only like vegetables.

Just leave that up to the Lord to deal with. And you know what, we hate that though, because we want everyone to believe and live just like we do as Christians.

I don't know why. The older we get, the less we have that, but we still have some of it, and it's hard to get rid of that.

The Lord doesn't like it because we're not the master, he is. So, yea, he shall be holding up.

Now this is interesting. He says, not only is it true that that person that you're criticizing is not your servant, he's the

Lord's, he reminds us of that. But now he says, not only is he the Lord's servant, but God is holding that person up.

And you're picking on the person because he ain't living like you think he should be, and God's holding him up, as is here's my person who

I'm well -pleased with it. Isn't that interesting to see? Yea, he shall be holding up, for God is able to make him stand just like he's making you stand.

So stop picking on each other. Verse five, one man esteems one day. Now it switches the allegory.

We're gonna switch from, or the example, I should say, we're gonna switch from worrying about who eats what, and that is a real thing still in this world today, in our society, like vegans, they kind of criticize meat eaters sometimes, and we get kind of thinking they're kind of silly for not eating meat, right?

It's still here, but it switches from that to people who say, oh, you should worship on Saturday because that's the true

Sabbath. And we say, well, no, we worship on Sunday because that's the resurrection day, that's the Lord's day. And then you fight about it, right?

So now it brings that up. So it says, one man esteems one day above another, another esteems every day alike.

Well, see, there are examples of early church fathers who were attacked for not worshiping on Saturday.

And they said, well, I see every day alike. I mean, every day is a Sabbath to me because I'm resting in Christ.

And so you can't tell me which day to worship. I worship all the time every day, and every day is a Sabbath, not just Saturday for me, because I'm not a

Jew. I'm not under the law, I'm under Christ. So every day, and that's exactly what this says. Every day is alike to some people.

The more mature Christian, every day is alike. You don't worry about worshiping on Saturday because yeah, I worship with you on Saturday.

Will you come with me Sunday? We'll worship both days, that's even better, right? It's okay. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

Now there's critical information because there are some Christians that are not as mature.

And for them to not worship on Saturday is just awful. And since you don't do it, you're awful. You're like, he thinks, gosh,

I'm not even sure you're saved because you don't worship on Saturday. And that's how the baby Christian thinks. The mature

Christian recognizes that sometimes and will go with him on Saturday so he won't stumble.

Does that make sense? It's not that you think he's right. You just don't want him, you want him to stay in the game long enough where you can instruct him, right?

Seriously. So sometimes we'll do that, but it says, let each person be persuaded.

It means to carry out fully, to have full evidence and let each person be fully persuaded from their

Bible study, from the Holy Spirit, and everything that they're right or wrong. And they don't always have to agree with us on every little issue, all right?

So let me see, can you guys think of an example?

Let's first, somebody give me an example of a doubtful disputation. It's not even in the Bible, but you've heard of certain church people, maybe even a church you went to that told you, well, you got to do that to be right with God.

Can you think of one? Yes. Women shouldn't cut their hair. All right, women shouldn't cut their hair short.

Like your hair is a little short. You got to admit, a little short. So you're a little less spiritual than her hair, that sort of thing.

You're the most spiritual because it's up in a bun. I used to call them bun heads when

I was young. That's terrible. I mean, from the pulpit, I would say that because I was picking on a fundamentalist and Pentecostalism said, bad, you should never do that.

So see, we're not, well, yeah, great example. Let's stop right there. Well, he's got another one. Right, right.

Yeah, so yeah, so I was judging him for letting people wear short hair or whatever.

Yeah, you're right. Double whammy there. Goodness. Bad example,

Dave, shut up. All right, who's got a good example? No, that's good. That's funny. It's very funny and it's very true.

Who's got another one? There's a good one. Now that's one though where it's in scripture but they take it out of context.

All right, Emily. Oh, you have to say the sinner's prayer, you're not saved.

And you have to be able to say when and where or you're not saved. Have you heard that one? Show me that one in the

Bible. That is not, that's one of the doubtful disputes not even in the Bible. You've heard a cool old preacher say it.

It's the only reason you believe. Where's Ben when I need him? Okay. Yes, ma 'am. You have to speak in tongues if you don't have the

Holy Spirit. You have to speak in tongues or you don't have the Holy Spirit or at least you don't have the full blessing, right?

All right, show me that in scripture because the scripture actually asked the question, do all speak in tongues?

Do all prophesy? Why would it like, what's that called? What kind of question is that called? What do you call that?

A question you're asking just to teach you don't really, you got a rhetorical question. It's like the

Bible is saying, hey, not everybody speaks in tongues, okay? Not everybody prophesies.

And yet most churches that believe in that think you all need to learn to do it. I had a gentleman at a tradeway meeting recently.

He said, he got in an argument with me and I was being very meek and instructing him and meek.

And he was just screaming. And so actually our level was kind of about the same.

And so he looked at me and said, well, you like, you don't, cause he had told me he had put his hands on the knees of the stewardess on an airplane.

First, I'm wondering why are you putting your hands on the stewardess's knees? And secondly, he said he was able to make her leg grow out longer so that her back quit hurting.

And he's telling that to some young Christians in my room, which I consider that my room. Cause I put them in there.

So I walked up and said, oh, I know wonderful that God still heals, but not through people anymore. Oh, he took umbrage to that, took me outside and wanted to argue for another hour.

And so we did, and he left angry. He had to walk away from me because I wouldn't give in to it.

So I put up not with him for an hour, right? He was gone. He came back the next day though.

Want to talk some more, but here's what he told me. He said, well, you know what that tells me is you think number one,

I'm a liar. So you're calling me a liar. Or number two, you think the devil did it. And I'm sitting there thinking you do not want to know what

I'm thinking. Cause I wasn't stupid enough to answer it. Number two, right?

What he didn't realize there's a third thing that I'm thinking is, yeah, it could be either one of the two you mentioned, you could be lying or you could, or Satan could have given you the power to do it.

Cause it wasn't the Holy spirit. But there's a third thing you didn't mention is you just learned to do it by watching people do it.

It's a learned psychological response where they taught you how to speak in tongues. They taught, you didn't know they have classes for that, right?

Why do you have a class for a gift? I do not get that, but they have classes for that. They have classes for how to faith heal all this.

So that could be the third choice, but anyway, I just didn't answer that. But here you have this person trying to imply that our whole church and me in particular are substandard

Christians because we don't believe in that, right? Well, I would love to take him into the context of every passage that he thinks teaches that, but he wouldn't let me talk.

And I finally told him, you know, you talk all the time. You don't let me talk. That tells me you're learning nothing. You'll never learn anything.

Anyway, it was rough. All right, what's one more? Give me one more that's not, give me the kind that's not in the

Bible that people put on other people as if it is. Can you think of one? Well, I'm looking at the next door, but it was 10 o 'clock, and they were elderly.

And every night - Time to put the ham on, by the way. They pray loud, loud. Yeah. But I remember her saying, and I was like nine or 10, but I remember her saying, don't ever,

God doesn't like for you to, so when you grow up, do not wear jewelry, makeup, or pants.

Jewelry or, don't wear jewelry, makeup, or pants. Or cut your hair short because God does not like it.

All right, well, okay. That, see, the founder of this church, when

Charlotte and I were in our 20s and didn't know better, they had that thing going where women could not wear pants.

They didn't, but they wore jewelry, right? So they only did part of it, the same passage.

So it's very inconsistent. And they wanted men to never have their hair touch in their ears or their collar.

They wanted men to have short hair, women to have long hair, and all that was part of this church at one time. And that's probably why that was here and I'm way over here now, right?

So, but yeah, that's a lot of, some of that is in the Bible and out of context and other is they add stuff to it that's not even there.

So, I mean, Jesus had long hair. How do you figure that if they're right about that?

So a man having long hair, how do you figure that? Well, there's ways you can figure it if you study, but you can't have a clue if you don't study, right?

So that's a good one. All right, well, let's see here. See if there's some, let me give you three points here and we'll be done for the day because we're running out of time.

But that takes us through Romans chapter 14 all the way through verse five, isn't that good?

Number one, we must recognize that our brother or sister is another man's servant.

They belong to the Lord Jesus, not to us. So we don't wanna be saying, well, you know, your hair's a little short over here.

I mean, don't you think that, let me ask you this. Do you think that the Holy Spirit could talk to the sister and say,

I'd like your hair to be longer? I don't mean with a voice, but could he not let her know through scripture or through something, if it's true, if it were true that her hair's supposed to be long, that the

Holy Spirit could get her to do that? Did he not get you to get saved to do everything? Yeah, so let him do it.

It's hers, it's not yours. So we don't pick on each other. Is that a good reason? I like that one. So another man's servant.

Well, I'm pulling that from the scripture we just read there in verses four and five. So in other words, they belong to the

Lord Jesus, not to us. Therefore they stand or fall when they're judged by Jesus, not when they're judged by us.

Isn't that a good one? That's awesome. It'll set us free from even thinking we need to be in that business.

Number two, by his or her own master shall the person stand and their master is

Jesus. He's the one who holds them up, right? We, so we can free ourselves from this worry.

In fact, he is held up by his own master, Jesus Christ. It behooves us to remember this when we are thinking about judging another person with regard to things not clearly taught in scripture or taught out of context.

Number three, let every man be persuaded in his own mind. Look, the Holy Spirit can put all of us under conviction of anything he wants to get in or out of our life, can he?

And he has done that in our individual lives. So why don't we think he can do it with the other people? We have to do it, right?

So we're taking on the role of the Holy Spirit when we do that, which is in a sense, blasphemous. It's humanistic.

We don't need humanism. Just pray for the person and so forth.

So let's stop there because the next is gonna go into verse six.

I think we're at a good stopping place for today. Thanks for your examples. That was good. Let us stand and we'll have prayer together and we'll be dismissed.

We do have meal today. So stick around. We'll have lunch in a few minutes. Lord, thank you so much for your word and how every passage, no matter whether it's

Ephesians 2, 8, 9 or Romans chapter one or Romans chapter eight or any

Daniel chapter 12 or any of these magnificent chapters full of amazing things or even

Ezekiel 38, 39, like we looked at for Sunday school. Sometimes we have a passage like Romans 14.

It's just stuff. It's not that exciting because it's stuff we have problems with ourselves. So we don't like them as much.

But Lord, as we get into them, we see all kinds of amazing things unfold that are beneficial in our lives, that are very practical for Christian living in our marriages, so in our homes and with our children and with each other at church and even on the workplace and across the world as we go.

So thank you for these passages and help us to learn to live by them, by the imperative.

The commands that you do give us, help us to work at being good men and women and living like you want us to live.

Bless the meal we're about to have. Be with my mom, Lord, and touch her life.

I know you can heal her if you choose to. And that's the desire of our hearts right now. And we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.