Mar. 4, 2018 AM Peace Through Strength by Pastor Josh Sheldon

I thank Dale for praying for the preaching to come, and I think he may just as well have prayed for the preaching that came. And I don't know if I could have said it better. I don't know if I'm going to say it better, but I'm certainly going to say it with a few more words than that.

But Dale got right to the heart of the matter just by considering the title and the passage. But I do appreciate that. He got you on the right page for Romans 14. And I'll start at verse 20, and I'm going to read to the first chapter, verse 15, though 15 .1 and through the end of that chapter, or through verse 13 of that chapter, will be the text for next Sunday's message.

But Lord willing, you'll see why I include that at the end of this reading. But Romans 14 .20 to 15 .1 for this morning. The Apostle Paul writes to us, Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.

Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God.

Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. This is the word of the Lord. So peace through strength, as Dale pointed out, that's the title of this morning's message.

Peace Through Strength in the Church

Peace through strength is a phrase that's been recycled more than a few times in American politics. And what it says basically is that the way we ensure our peace is by making sure that any potential disturbers of our peace are certain that that would be a mistake.

That to impinge upon our peace would be a catastrophic, if not a failure, mistake because we as a nation are so strong. That's peace through strength. Ronald Reagan spoke of this. He said, we know that peace is the condition in which mankind was meant to flourish.

Yet peace does not exist of its own will. It depends on us. Well, now, we know better than that, but let me go on with this quote. On our courage to build it and guard it and to pass it on to future generations.

He goes on to quote George Washington who said to be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace. And then he quotes Will Rogers, the wit of his day, who once said that he's never seen anybody insult the heavyweight champion of the world at the time, Jack Dempsey.

There's something to be said for that. I'm not going to go and insult the toughest guy in the world because a flick of his wrist would be catastrophic for me. There's something to be said against it as well because as fallen humanity, that nation that is able to impose its version of peace upon others because it has such strength will generally enforce a peace on its own terms.

A peace that satisfies it and not necessarily others. In the church, though, it couldn't be more different. It shouldn't be like that at all. It has to be different. Amongst us, we have in this place a variety of believers.

Christians all. And some of us are simply more restrictive in our day-to-day living due to the motions of our conscience. We feel that our Christian duty demands that we refrain from some things that are in fact not forbidden in Scripture and conversely that we do other things that in fact are not required in the Bible.

We are the weak. We who impose these restrictions upon ourselves in that way are what Paul calls the weak. And then there are the strong. The strong ones. We are those who know the freedom of expression that we have in Christ Jesus.

We understand that where the Scripture is silent, our personal likes or dislikes within reason, but what we personally care for or don't, can guide our choices. This goes way beyond simplistic things such as should I buy a new car or should I lease a car?

A new car will give me a better ability to get the car maintained at the dealer. Leased car has some financial advantages or should I be very frugal and get a used car? These sorts of decisions. Your choice.

That's a very simplistic way of putting it, but that's a matter that you have complete discretion. We're talking about issues that really go deeper than that. In the church in Rome, the issue that sparked chapter 14 of Romans in this letter from the Apostle Paul was what?

It was food and days. Food and days. And when I was talking about restrictions and freedoms that we have, well, the food was the restriction. Don't eat these things. And days were on the other side. The things that were required.

Acknowledge and do something special on these days. Now those things were very, very important, of extreme importance to a group within the Roman church, which was the Jews. Jews who had become Christians.

Jews who had faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. True Christians. But their consciences were bound from centuries of tradition. It's kind of infused into their DNA, as I said last week, to refrain from some foods.

And Dale gave you a good reading in Deuteronomy 14 about that. And then, conversely, also to do certain things, most prominently certain days. And amongst those days, most prominently, the Sabbath. Their consciences were bound this way, even knowing that Christ, by his own word, and by the vision that he gave Peter in Acts chapter 10, that Christ had declared all things clean.

These things they refrained from, these foods, had been declared by Jesus Christ himself to be cleansed. Taking away all those food laws, all those restrictions. Well, the ones who continued with the restriction as a matter of tradition, or in this case, truly a matter of their personal conscience, are the ones that Paul calls the weak.

And the strong were, and are today, largely the opposite. The strong were the ones who knew this range of motion that was afforded them by their freedom in Christ, and so they ate any food that they liked, and they didn't elevate one day above the other.

And Paul called them strong. There's a message here for both groups, whether you're strong or whether you're weak in the context and the definitions I've just given. There's a message for both groups.

It is for you who know the liberty that we have in Christ Jesus, and you use it judiciously, you are the strong. And knowing freedom isn't a matter simply of saying, well, freedom sounds good, and not having a restriction to being able to do this if I want to or not.

That just sounds great. We're talking about having thought it through, having understood what the Scripture says about this freedom, having understood that there are restrictions in our range of motion in the way we live, in our ethics, in the things that we take in.

But one who knows where the freedom is and that I don't have to go along with these old restrictions anymore, nor do I have to manufacture things to do. That's the strong conscience, if that conscience is linked to the work of Jesus Christ and the working within you of His Holy Spirit, all in concordance with the Scripture.

That's the strong. And the message is for you this morning. The message is also for the weak. Now, we don't like to call ourselves weak, but if you're one who has these restrictions upon yourself that don't touch, that don't eat, that don't handle, that don't come from the Scripture, the message is for you this morning.

And the message is simply this. You should aspire to be like the strong. You should aspire to have a strong conscience because a strong conscience, as I said a moment ago, is linked to the work of Jesus Christ and the inner working within you of the Holy Spirit of God.

It's not just a willy-nilly, I'll do what I want and this pleases me and this doesn't. It's not arbitrary. It's based upon Scripture. It's based upon the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's the inner working, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within.

The strong have a duty. If you're one of the strong, you have a duty. And that duty is to keep peace with the weak. Therefore, the title of the sermon, Peace Through Strength, are you one of the strong?

Here's your obligation. It was at the beginning of chapter 15. We'll come to it again in a while. You have an obligation to bear with the failings, to bear with the weakness, to bear with that tender conscience of the other.

If God has given you that strong conscience, that strong faith, that's your obligation. That's your duty. Do you have that strength? That makes you a peacemaker. The strong have this duty. And I want to jump right into the text.

Do Not Destroy the Work of God for the Sake of Food

Let's start going through this. If you look at verse 20, there's a command there. And Paul says, Do not for the sake of food destroy the work of God. And it's followed by a principle to back it up. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats.

In other words, the point is taken. The food is clean. All food is clean. Christ said so. There are no restrictions whatsoever. But to insist on flaunting this in front of those who just can't get it is to do a real violence against them.

Now, if you're one of the strong, if you're one whose conscience, led by the Scripture, understanding the work of Christ to free your conscience from all these old things, you're not going to inherit them from a tradition that you weren't raised in.

For example, in the Roman church, if you were one of the Gentile Christians, you wouldn't take on these traditions from the Jews. You're one whose conscience understands, truly, the liberty that Christ won for us.

Then, this is what you need to be careful of. Destroying the work of God. You can quite literally do that. You can tear down the sureness, the confidence, that that weak person has in Christ, be it ever so tenuous.

And you, by the strength of your conscience, can shatter it. You can shatter it. Commentators, I should say, are divided as to whether the word destroy means you can actually drive them away from salvation itself or if it means to drive them away from the means of grace that they have or ought to have in the fellowship of the church.

What does it mean to destroy? Well, your answer is going to depend on your view of election, your view of the sureness that we have, our security in salvation, those sorts of things. But here's how I want us to take it.

Here's how I want you to take it. Use strong ones. Behave as though you are, in fact, able to bring them to a catastrophic failure in their Christian life. Use strong ones in dealing with the weak ones.

Behave as if your words could bring that sort of catastrophe upon that poor, tender, weaker, more immature, more childlike conscience. Describe it as you will, but behave this way. Now, we know from the doctrines that we get from the Bible, from the Confession, which so well summarizes the Bible, that you and I could never go in and dismantle God's work in someone.

If God has predestined someone and put in them a new heart of flesh, brought them to faith by the regeneration of their soul, predestined them to salvation in Jesus Christ, you and I are not going to do anything about it.

Let me make that very clear. And that's why I'm emphasizing the way I say that. But to get the intensity of what the Apostle says here, treat those weaker consciences as if you could do that. Act towards them with fear and trembling because with your stronger, we could even say more biblically justified, ethics, driven by your stronger conscience, you just might wreak this havoc on this faith of that weaker brother or sister.

Remember when Abraham in Genesis 18 was interceding for Sodom? Do you remember that? He was before, standing before him was the angel of the Lord. I believe that was the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. That was Jesus Christ and he's going back and forth with him and saying, will not the judge of all the earth do what is right?

Of course he will. He says, you're going to destroy the whole city. What if 50 are found? And the angel of the Lord says, if 50 are found, I will not destroy it for the sake of 50. Now I'm paraphrasing a little bit because I want to go quickly.

And Abraham says, what if you only find 45 and for 45 I won't destroy it? Well, be patient with me, don't get angry with me. For five less than 45, would you do this? And you know how this goes, it goes on and on.

Now we know that no man, Abraham or anyone else, is going to be able to negotiate God out of his own will and direction. We know that. But Abraham negotiated. Abraham interceded is really a better word.

Let me take away negotiated. He interceded for Sodom with God, the angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ, as if he could change God's mind. Now the whole city was destroyed, we know that.

But Abraham behaved as if his words could actually change the Almighty. If we acted that way, if we were that way, how much careful, how much more careful would we be in word and in deed with each other, especially we with a strong conscience or those with a weak?

How much more careful would we be if we behaved as if eternity depended upon that word? I've just given away my view of many of the if passages that we have in the Bible. If you continue in the faith, if you persevere, and it sounds like as some sects of Christianity take it to mean that if you don't, you'll be cast away by God.

And in the way I've just described this, you understand maybe if we get to some if passages in the preaching that we're going to continue with, Lord willing, not necessarily in this book right now, this is how I take them.

Not that God would actually cast away one predestined by Him to be in Christ, but manage your walk with Christ as if your next words, your next act, your next thought, your next fill in the blank had eternity, had eternal consequences to it.

The end of the verse makes it very clear. It says essentially that the issue of the food status is determined. It's over. All food is clean. But it's just not important enough to be a barrier between two Christians, and that's backed up by the next verse.

Matter of perspective here, is it not? It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything that causes your brother to stumble. Do anything. Not just the food which in the general sense is the restrictions.

Not just the days which in the general sense is the thing that we add to our Christian walk. And Paul says anything. Don't eat, don't drink, don't do anything that causes a brother to stumble. Go on to verse 22.

The faith that you have keep between yourself and God. Not meant to stop us from sharing our faith. By faith is not meant saving faith in Jesus Christ. We talked about this last week. It's the faith that you have that directs your daily living before God in matters that are morally neutral.

Your scruples, if you will. In Rome, it was food, days. Paul tossed in wine here in verse 21. We didn't discuss that last week. I'm not going to go into it much today. Today is a whole list of choices that we make, many of which we covered last week.

You can fill in the blank. These things that we defined as, remember the word? Adiaphora. Adiaphora meaning an indifferent matter. It doesn't matter. It's a neutral thing. We have this blessing in verse 22, the second half of it.

Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. In other words, blessed are you whose strong conscience leads you to a judicious exercise of Christian liberty. You don't judge yourself because you've thought through these matters and you've concluded where your areas or preferences are.

You're confident you've got it right. You know where you have freedom, where there's some flexibility. Paul says it's a blessing from God to be able to live in that confidence. Blessed is that one. Here, as we think about the blessing upon that strong conscience, which is one reason I tell you if you're one in the weak conscience, you should aspire to be like this other.

We see here one of the dangers that we have if our conscience is weak. If we are manufacturing these things that we must do and things we must restrict ourselves from that don't come to us from God's inspired word to us.

In other words, we've made them up. I want to reread a few of the verses that Dale just read to you. If with Christ, as Colossians 2, beginning at verse 20, if with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that will all perish as they are used according to human precepts and teachings?

These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. They don't get you anywhere.

They don't help you grow into the image of our Savior Jesus Christ. This places a man or a woman outside the scope of that blessing that Paul just pronounced upon the strong. You cannot be so blessed because with your self-imposed requirements you are constantly at risk of violating one of them.

And then you have to pass judgment on yourself. And maybe then you go to Christ, you confess, you seek forgiveness for having failed at something. But here that something is something that is not required or something that is not forbidden.

And we can almost hear the Lord answering that prayer of repentance. He could say, well, that was a very nice confession. And the repentance was quite heartfelt. The only problem is that I wasn't angry or offended by this thing that you did or didn't do.

I never said do that or don't do this other thing. You have freedom. We can almost hear Jesus saying, I bought that freedom for you on the cross. Live in that freedom, in that liberty. One of the dangers here is you'll start thinking that your compliance with your rules is what got God's attention upon you in the first place when He decided to save you.

Or we'll start thinking that it's my piety, my adherence to these rules, these do's and don'ts that maintains my salvation. And neither of these are true. Neither of those could possibly be true. For by grace you've been saved through faith.

And this is not your own doing. It's the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. You didn't initiate God's favor upon you nor do you keep it by means of anything but pure grace. Philippians 1 .6.

And I'm sure of this that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. The risk of the weak conscience, the one that batters the body into compliance with self-made precepts derived from a faulty understanding of gospel freedom is that you'll start to think that something depends upon you.

There's plenty of doing that we have as Christians. But none of the doing is anything but a return of love and gratitude to our Savior. It's a submission to His Spirit who's the actualizing agent that makes us able to even think of good things to do, godly works to perform, much less actually to do them.

Who are the strong ones? The strong ones, these clean consciences, the ones who read Acts 10 and this vision given three times to Peter where all foods were declared clean and understand what it means.

Not just go your own way and have fun and do whatever you want. No, that wouldn't be a strong conscience. That would be a libertine conscience. That wouldn't be scriptural. That wouldn't be biblical. This strong conscience is one that looks at the festivals, the days, if you will.

In Rome, the flashpoint was the Sabbath as it often is today. And I would posit to you that the strong conscience is the one that says that Christ is that Sabbath rest. He is the rest that the Sabbath always points to.

And one day we will have in full measure when we stand before him. The strong conscience understands that we do not celebrate the day of atonement that Old Testament Israel did because Christ is our atonement and brought that festival to completion.

The strong conscience are the ones that look at the festival of booths what Jews today call Sukkot where Jews would construct a booth in modern America in the backyard in what would it be sometime around 1962 or 3 when I was a young boy living in Portland.

A hurricane came in and knocked over our big tree. It was a willow tree or a pepper tree. I don't remember exactly what it was. It was big. And that was the day of Sukkot when we went out there and saw this huge tree knocked over in our backyard.

My dad looked in and saw that there was sort of a grotto that the branches had formed. So we cut away an entrance and we went in there and we had Sukkot, festival of booths. Well what is Sukkot all about?

It's a reminder to the Jews that God provides shelter as they were in the wilderness for 40 years. The strong conscience looks at that and says well I don't do that anymore even if a tree does fall over in my backyard and it would be fun to go into the grotto that it formed.

Why? Because Christ is fulfillment of all of God's provision and so with all the festivals. Christ is our Passover. Christ is our Sabbath rest. Christ is our atonement. And so the strong conscience doesn't fail to do the days simply because they don't want to take the time.

They don't want to come to church one more day a year than they have to. No. Because they look to Jesus and say he is that festival and it's over because of my faith in him. All the yeses and amen are in him.

That's the strong conscience. It sounds wonderful and it is wonderful. And Paul pronounces an extra blessing upon it. But the risk that we have is tremendous. The risk is tremendous. The risk is to make the weaker one feel defensive.

You bring the critique and he answers you. You prove you're right and he's still unable to shake off the shackles that have bound his conscience. He feels what? He feels less than. But he still can't get his conscience, his mind, his ethics, his daily living away from these things that he thinks he must do or not do.

And we need to ask ourselves if we've done anything but to judge his fear and to make him despise you for your laxity. We need to ask ourselves what has our strong conscience actually accomplished? Is it peace between the brethren?

Do we have some peace through strength here? Because God has given me a strong conscience, a strong faith, an ability to look at Christ and know judiciously, temperately, what that freedom is that I actually have.

And how has it been used? What has it accomplished in this weaker conscience? That's really the question that Paul's asking throughout here. Because what's in view beyond the blessing that you have because you have that better conscience is how it's brought to the good of the other.

The next verse, verse 23, tells us what we need to get done. Whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats because the eating is not from faith for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. We force the weaker brother or sister to sin against themselves, not in terms of the bigger picture of sin, sin against God.

Last week we used that word, and I mentioned it again, adiaphora, the matter of indifference. And what happens here is that we use our stronger conscience, our fuller and our better and richer and more sanctified understanding of our liberty to bring that weakling into another bout of self-condemnation.

What their faith, faith with a small f, not saving faith, what their faith, their daily ethic, their scruples requires of them. And if we, with our stronger, better, more biblically founded understanding, if we just force them out, bludgeon them, if you will, we haven't done any good.

We're going to make them even more self-condemning, more doubtful. He has doubts, and so he's condemning himself if he eats. And that's what gets accomplished when we're too harsh, when we overuse this strength, this good, clean, strong conscience that we got from what?

From the Holy Spirit of God. We need to look at these things humbly. We need to look at it as a gift of God. We need to thank Him for the liberty that I have, for the clean conscience, for the non-self-condemning life that I live because of Jesus Christ.

We need to thank Him for that. And then use it to others' good. We need to not wreak havoc on the faith of the others. I mean, have you ever had your pillars just knocked apart? Have you ever had somebody come at you with arguments that are so strong you can't find your way out of them?

But you can't agree with them? You can't get out of what you were doing, what you thought, your own personal ethics and scruples? And yet you leave the discussion with your foundations just obliterated.

And this is what we do. Something that was secure, something that helped the person to get through in their daily life, their daily walk with Christ, whether they need it or not. Remember, that's the weak conscience.

That's the one we're bearing with. We need to be so careful. When Reagan spoke of peace through strength, I mean, he was talking about armies and navies and aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons and all this sort of thing.

We in the church, what are we talking about? A Christ-cleansed heart. A Christ-given strong conscience. What do you have that you were not given, asks the apostle. I think we with the strong conscience, if we would dip a little bit more into that humility that Christ exemplified before we enter in, I think there'd be more peace within the church.

Even peaceful churches like ours. Chapter 15, verse 1, it absolutely insists that the strong are obligated to keep peace with the weak and not on our own terms. Paul's already conceded the correctness of the positions.

All things are indeed clean and the days are over. Not only does he agree that it's okay for you, he says it's okay for him. So, you're in good company. You're in company with the apostle Paul. Now, what to do with this strength?

What to do with this stronger conscience? Are we to find a weaker nation? One with no air force, much less nuclear weapons? Are we to force upon them peace? Too often, maybe usually, what that means is threatening them with a sort of doctrinal blitzkrieg until they sue for peace on any terms.

We have an obligation. We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. You who've read ahead a little bit in 15 of Romans know maybe why I'm holding off the rest of that for the final on this little series within the series in Romans because Christ did not please Himself.

And the apostle will go on and show how Christ came to please others and gave Himself up for others in citing the Scripture. And that will all be God willing for next week. But for now, this reminds me so much of what the apostle, the same apostle who wrote Romans, said in Galatians chapter 6 in verse 1.

Bearing One Another's Burdens in Gentleness

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watching yourself lest you too be tempted. Now I want to paraphrase that. I want to custom fit that for our purpose this morning in Romans 14.

Say it something like this. Brothers, if anyone is found to have a weak conscience in regard to their Christian liberty, you who are stronger in your faith treat him in this spirit of humility and gentleness.

Think of Christ. What are we talking about here is a meek attitude. And this is Christ's attitude. This is Christ who could have called down 12 legions of angels to save Him from the arresting party. He had that power.

And yet what did He do? He withheld it for the good of others because had the cross been avoided we'd have no means of salvation. The next verse in Galatians says, Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

That word for bear in Galatians, same one that we have in Romans 15. We ought to bear with the failings of the weak. It means to lift up, to bear away. It's used in John 12, verse 6 of Judas lifting out and bearing away the fruits or the funds of the money bag.

He was a thief. There's another word here I want to consider. It's the word obligation. It's often used in a commercial sense as in an obligation to pay a debt. It denotes a duty that is imperative, something that must be performed.

And in fact, when your conscience grew strong you gained this duty. If those with a weak conscience wrongly feel a duty to these rules that came to them by tradition or by misunderstanding we who are strong have a duty as well.

Their duty to their rules comes from their misguided conscience. Ours comes from God by the apostles inspired quill which is to bear with them. To bear with the failings of the weak and Paul does call them failings.

So you who are strong, you're right. I would say we're right. The foods have been cleansed. The days have been fulfilled. These are man-made restrictions, man-made requirements. We're right. And yet now the apostle says take your correctness, take your rightness and bear with their failings and trust God to bring them along.

Well, speak the truth in love. Yes, always. Answer questions honestly and forthrightly and from the scripture. Always. And then with this extra measure of humility, with this extra Christ-like meekness so as not to set them off, so as to cajole them along into this stronger place so they can join with you in the apostles' blessing.

Blessed are those who do not condemn themselves. And finally we don't do this to please ourselves. That's chapter 15 and verse 1. And that's much of the purpose that I'm holding off for next week as we finish up this series within the overall series.

Not to please ourselves. The right motive which is to please Christ and Christ says here through the apostle is to please the other which is for the strong to please the weaker. In this context, the right motive leads to the right demeanor.

And the right demeanor gains a better audience. And that better audience gains the good that we with a strong conscience can do because we have that strength. So who are we to please in our bearing with the weak?

Well, the immediate answer is of course Jesus. And we will find Him, God willing, next week to be that great example. If you look at Romans 15 -2, that's the reason, that's the motivation. The example that He gave us, everything for how we strong treat the weak is Christ Jesus, the strongest.

Him coming for the good of us, the weaklings. 15 -2 says that we must seek to please that neighbor, that weaker conscience. And the way we're to please Him is the way Christ did us. Peace through strength.

We need the strong. We need in this church those who can grasp what the Bible says and know how to apply to their everyday lives. We need Christians who know what it means that their conscience was cleansed by the Holy Spirit and we need the weak to keep the strong in check.

We need the weak to keep the strong doing what they're supposed to do which is to please you. And we need you weak, you who just can't get away from some of those restrictions and can't see that they really are man-made and that Christ freed you from them.

We do need you. We need them all. We need Christians who know both sides of this. We need all this variety here in this church, in this place. Paul addresses them both. We need you weak to want to be more like the strong.

We need the strong to treat the others who are weak in a weak way. This is what Christ did. Is it not? Who is stronger than Christ? Well, none of us. And we compare ourselves to Him. Every one of us must say in this context, I'm the weak.

Did He not bear with us? Did He not bear with me? Did He not bear with my weak, ignorant, unguided conscience even after I became a believer? I ask you who are strong. And you know who you are. We do know if we have the strong conscience.

It's not boasting here. How long did it take you to get there? Did you, 12 months after you were saved, realize fully your freedom in Christ? I would say no. None of us did. And so we bear with the weaker the way Christ did.

And He's the great example. Ultimately bearing with our sins where? At the cross. Ultimately bearing with our weakness in going to the cross and there reconciling our sins to the Father. And He's our great example.

There's not too much to say it that way. He's more than example. He's our atoning sacrifice. The way we have Him here in the scripture though is He's the one who has to guide. He's the one we have to look to.

He's the one, before we talk to that weaker conscience, brother or sister, say, how did Christ treat me? If He gave you faith to believe and He gave you the strength of conscience, I close by simply telling us all, use it to the good of that neighbor.

Use it to the good of Christ's reputation and help this other one along. And you who need the help along, try to be helped along. And as we have this strength this strength of conscience, this strength of doctrine, this strength of our theology, let us use it to engender and create and promote peace always in the church.

Amen? Heavenly Father, I give you thanks for your word and for the convicting power that it has and for your spirit who brings it home to our hearts that we may, Lord, be rebuked by it, be encouraged by it.

I ask, Father, that you by your spirit would have your way with us as we listen to your word, as we try to obey it. Father, you just help us in all these endeavors we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.