Sunday Morning, June 14, 2020, AM

Hope everyone's doing well.

We wanna welcome you to Sunnyside Baptist Church this morning.

We'll get started with a few announcements.

Couple of opportunities this week.

Tonight, 5 .30, come back for the evening service.

No nursery though.

And then Wednesday at 6 .30, Bible study and prayer time.

No meal and no nursery.

And then next Sunday is Father's Day.

So look forward to that.

Our fighter verse for this week comes from John chapter six, verse 35.

Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life.

Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

So meditate and memorize that this week together.

Just a little bit of a reminder, just try not to linger around after service is dismissed.

Go ahead and go out, exit the building in the parking lot or on the porch.

You can mingle there.

Offering plate, again, is still at the back of the auditorium.

So be sure and leave your tithes and offerings in that today.

And then also the nursery is available today, both during Sunday school and the morning worship.

Any more announcements that I'm missing?

All right, it's good to be together to worship the Lord today.

We're gonna prepare our hearts for worship now and then after we do that, Michael will lead us in prayer.

Your word says, behold how good and how pleasant it is

for brothers to dwell together in unity.

It is like the precious oil upon the head coming

down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard coming down

upon the edge of his robes.

It is like the dew of Hermon coming down upon the mountain of Zion, for

there the Lord commanded the blessing life forever.

So Father, as we come before you today, I pray that the

amen of this word from heaven would resonate in our lives here on

earth, that our unity would indeed be centered

upon our high priest, a unity that is generous and

overflowing and full, a unity that is centered on Zion where Christ

reigns, and that there in honoring of

Christ, our King and our high priest, we would know our

unity and our love for one another.

Bless us in this way today, amen.

And we're gonna have a video to watch.

It's a hymn written after the theme and the words of

Psalm 42 and 43, which originally were one psalm together.

And so we're gonna watch the video about these two psalms and meditate on the

words and rejoice in the Lord.

And hopefully one day soon, we'll be able to sing this together as a congregation.

Fought

from sorrows deep I call

When my hope is shaken Torn and

ruined from the fall Hear my

desperation For so long I've pleaded and

prayed God come to my rest

and soothe my heart With my

troubled soul Questions without answer

My faith these billows

roll my shelter To

cast down my

soul of fires and

awkward hearts To sin

scream

I

tread

my

salvation

Recently finished Psalm chapter 42.

We're gonna start on Psalms chapter 43 this morning.

So we'll read verse one.

Read with me together.

Also, the words are in your bulletin.

You don't have that.

Psalm 43, one.

Vindicate me, oh God, and defend my cause against ungodly people.

From the deceitful and unjust man, deliver me.

Our first song is in our little black hymns, hymns modern and ancient.

Page two, across the lands.

See what the Lord is doing in our hearts and in our nation.

It's from the book of Deuteronomy chapter nine, verses one through four.

Here, oh Israel, you are to cross over the Jordan today and go in to

dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great

and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the descendants of the Anakim,

whom you know and of whom you heard it said, who can stand before the descendants

of Anak?

Therefore, understand today that the Lord your God is he who goes over before you as a

consuming fire.

He will destroy them and bring them down before you.

So you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has said to you.

Do not think in your heart after the Lord your God has cast them out before you, saying, because of

my righteousness, the Lord has brought me in to possess this land.

But it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you.

It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their

land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out from

before you, and that he may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers,

to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Therefore, understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess

because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff -necked people.

Remember, do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness.

From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious

against the Lord.

Also in Horeb, you provoked the Lord to wrath so that the Lord was angry enough with you to have

destroyed you.

When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the

Lord made with you, then I stayed on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights.

I neither ate bread nor drank water.

Then the Lord delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them

were all the words which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire in the

day of the assembly.

And it came to pass at the end of 40 days and 40 nights that the Lord gave me the two

tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.

Then the Lord said to me, arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you

brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly.

They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them.

They have made themselves a molded image.

Furthermore, the Lord spoke to me saying, I have seen this people, and indeed they are

stiff -necked people.

Let me alone that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven, and I will

make you a nation mightier and greater than they.

Would you pray with me?

Lord God, orient our hearts toward Christ Jesus this morning

through your word and through the ministry of your Holy Spirit.

Lord, we are so thankful that you do not deal with us

according to our righteousness, but in accordance with the righteousness of your beloved Son

in whom we trust.

For if your loving kindness toward us depended at all upon our own merits, we would have

nothing left but the fearful expectation of wrath.

And blessed be our mediator who stood in the gap for us at

Calvary and who continues to serve as our advocate even now from his throne

in resurrection glory.

It is his name, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that we exult in this morning.

And it's in his name we pray, amen.

You may be seated.

Our next two songs are in our little blue hymnals.

If you would turn to page 274, and also page 172, and we'll

sing together, Break Thou the Bread of Life, and then also Tell Me the Story of Jesus.

God the Father and God the Son, Jesus Christ, saying, he who knew

no sin, I'm sorry, he made him who

knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might be made the righteousness of God in

him.

And then also in Romans 5, 8, that God demonstrates his love in that while we were yet

sinners, Christ died for us.

Our last song is in your little black hymnals, page 112, The Gospel Song.

Father, I thank you for your

faithfulness.

I thank you for your unchanging character,

for your unfailing word,

your unrivaled glory,

for your undeterred purpose, your

unstoppable power.

We thank you that you are our creator,

your glory.

All things have been created.

Lord, we ask that you would attune our hearts rightly,

direct our thinking

correctly, all according

to you, who you are.

You have revealed yourself, your son, Jesus Christ,

through your word, by your Holy Spirit.

So everything to you, and we marvel at

what kind of a love this is, that we would be called

your children.

Help us today to worship you as we consider the words that you have so faithfully

provided for us, words that you knew we would need for this moment now.

So we ask that you would feed us with this bread, nourish us,

help us to trust you in all things.

We pray these things for the sake of Jesus Christ, the one with whom you are well -pleased, amen.

I invite you to open your Bibles and look with me in Romans chapter

14, and I'll be reading, beginning in verse 19,

this morning, and we're going to read Romans 14, beginning in verse 19, through chapter

15, and verse 7.

Romans chapter 14, beginning in verse 19, and we'll read through chapter 15 and

verse 7.

And this is the seventh time we have come to this passage as we are considering how to accept

one another.

And I invite you to stand with me now as I read the words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus

Christ, through his Holy Spirit, by his apostle.

So then, we pursue the things which make for peace and the building

up of one another.

Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food.

All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense.

It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine or to do anything by which your brother stumbles.

The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God.

Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves, but he who doubts is condemned if he eats

because his eating is not from faith, and whatever is not from faith is sin.

Now, we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please

ourselves.

Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good to his edification.

For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who approached you fell on

me.

For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction so that through perseverance and the

encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.

Now, may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant

you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so

that with one accord, you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord

Jesus Christ.

Therefore, accept one another as Christ also

accepted us to the glory of God.

This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

Surprisingly difficult to walk a straight line through the woods.

Maybe you've tried that before.

And the surprising part of it is not, you know, the red cedars hogging the ground and the spiderwebs

clogging the air and the green thorny vines

flowing like Niagara Falls.

Those aren't surprises for anybody who's grown up tramping through the woods of central Oklahoma.

What's surprising is you think you're heading straight.

You think you're doing a good job.

When in actuality, you're shifting and drifting and weaving like a texter on I -40.

And I tried to remedy my problem by using a compass with a map.

But I get a bad reading off of the map because there's metal in the table beneath the map.

And then I think my compass is broken.

So I, well, two compasses are better than one, right?

No, they just find each other.

So it was only when I held the compass by itself away from all the other metal tools, move all the metal

away, just this compass by itself, holding it level,

finally, finally, I get the reading magnetic north.

I can get the reading, the degrees that I want to follow.

And I can walk a straight line through the woods.

And in the series of sermons on how to accept one another in Christ, to love one another, we've

been thinking a great deal about what would be right, what would be wrong, what is good, what's bad in our

interactions with one another.

And we've come to this section of the outline that says the ethics of the kingdom of Christ.

But if we don't have any objective reading for our moral compass, we're gonna get lost

in a hurry.

If we put our moral compass too close to stuff that will move the needle,

we're gonna get a bad reading.

If we all gather together and try to get a reading by group compass consensus,

we'll all be pointing at ourselves.

And the wild directions we're getting from well -funded, widely platform evangelicals today tells us there's a lot of

interference fouling up the readings.

Emotional interferences, fear of man, latest news stories, changing what used to be right

and wrong into something else, the nearest crying person.

So that the compass gets so turned around, it's not just off, it's just backwards.

And this is not a new problem for human beings.

Isaiah chapter five, verses 20 through 24, the prophet says, "'Woe to those who

call evil good, "'and good evil, "'who substitute

darkness for light, "'and light for darkness, "'who substitute

bitter for sweet, "'and sweet for bitter.

"'Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, "'and clever in their own sight.

"'Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine, "'and valiant men

in mixing strong drink, "'who justify the wicked for a bribe,

"'and take away the rights "'of the ones who are in the

right.

"'Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes stubble, "'and dry grass collapses into the

flame, "'so their root will become like rot, "'and their blossom blow

away as dust.

"'For they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts,

"'and they have despised the word "'of the Holy One of Israel.'".

See, if you reject the law of God, if you despise the word of God, you're wise in your own

eyes, and you end up having your moral compass completely messed around,

and then what happens?

This confusion is really nothing new, because we see it in Isaiah's own time, and we certainly

have been seeing it in our own nation for quite a long time.

I mean, our country's been killing babies and destroying families in the name of the good, while making prayer and Ten Commandments and

chastity to be evil.

We've been doing that for quite some time, haven't we?

So moral confusion is nothing new.

I mean, we're seeing a new flavor of it today, but it's nothing new.

The broken windows and the scorched businesses and the defaced churches and the armed insurgents and the bloody corpses which litter our

land is what?

Well, you see, when God lifts his restraining hand, devilry does the rest.

It's all it takes.

I mean, all day long, he has held out his hands to a rebellious and perverse nation

who protests and protests.

We don't want you, we don't want you, we don't want you, and so he just lifts his hand a little bit, and then devilry does the rest.

There's good news, biblically, reading through 1 Samuel on Sunday nights.

Come on Sunday nights, we'll hear another reading from 1 Samuel.

But biblically, here's some good news.

Ichabod comes before Ebenezer.

Ichabod comes before Ebenezer.

The glory has departed.

Chaos, ruin.

Ichabod comes before Ebenezer.

Thus far, the Lord has helped us.

Stone of help.

It's good news.

May God have mercy.

I say all that to bring our attention to influences which may be interfering with the way we think of right and wrong, good and

bad, and our interactions with one another as the church, which, of course, matters for our interactions with

people in society.

Culture is a religion externalized.

If we're not able to find clear lines of right and wrong,

if we uncritically take our readings, then we're gonna stay lost and confused.

But we've been saying time and again that we are to accept one another as those ruled and redeemed by

Christ.

We have our magnetic north.

We have the objective reality which determines right and wrong for us,

good and bad.

That clarity comes for us in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

He is the light.

He is the light for all men.

He's the light. He clarifies. He dispels darkness.

He's the truth.

He's the way. He's the life.

And we get our clarity from him.

So we've been talking about the sovereignty of Christ, not only his absolute lordship, but also his accommodating

liberty.

And we've come now to the ethics of the kingdom in verses 19 through 23.

And much of this we've already talked about, but I want to focus on the

need for clarity in our definitions about

what is good, what is bad, what is right, what is wrong.

What is it that we're actually supposed to be about?

You see, much of the confusion in our day comes from the fact that we're all basically

using the same vocabulary, but we're using different dictionaries.

We're all using basically the same vocabulary, but

different dictionaries.

And so we need some clarification, which again, we have in the word of God.

God is so kind to give us this.

In verse 19, we hear this.

So then we pursue the things which make

for peace and the building up of one another.

Verse 21 says, it is good not to eat meat or to drink wine or to do anything by

which your brother stumbles.

We're told what is good.

This is what we are to pursue and gives us a specific example of how we can do that.

What is good?

Well, good involves both doing something and not doing something as we see here.

There are things that we're going to enact in our lives and things that we're going to

change and restrain in our lives if we're going to pursue the good.

We must pursue the good.

Notice the good is not the convenient.

The good is not the default.

The good actually is not even the safe and the good is therefore not the majority

opinion.

Paul says, pursue the good.

Pursue what makes for peace.

Pursue that which builds up.

It is good for us to act in these certain ways.

So we have to pursue it.

Now, the term we're using here for pursue that Paul uses is the idea of chasing after,

hunting down, and securing something.

It was much the way that I used to hunt with some church members, some

friends back in Tennessee.

They never felled a deer in the place they shot it and so we were always chasing

and pursuing for quite some time and the woods were filled with black powder and lead.

Never gave up, never gave up.

The word that Paul is using here is the same Greek word for persecute.

The same Greek word for persecute because it has the idea of a vigorous

chasing after, a hounding, if you will.

Do you remember how Paul, when he was better known as Saul of Tarsus, how he was breathing out

threats against the followers of the way?

He hunted down Christians.

He killed them.

He threw them into prison.

He haunted their fleeing steps all the way to Damascus and the

earnestness, the strategy even, the tactics, the diligence, the follow through of

persecuting Christians, that same intensity and work ethic are compelled here toward the

good, meaning that we're not in park.

We're not in neutral.

We're shifting into drive and we're gunning it.

We've got to pursue peace.

We've got to pursue that which builds one another up.

We have to pursue that which is good and so we have these terms, but again,

we need to be careful that we don't have a bad compass reading on these terms.

Peace.

We are to pursue that which, the things that make for

peace.

The Greek word is irene.

It means to join, has the idea of setting at one, a setting together.

By implication, this brings rest.

It brings quietness.

It even brings prosperity.

There's an element of wholeness here that we have also in the Old

Testament equivalent for the word shalom.

Certainly the word shalom would be in the mind of the Apostle Paul as he's writing here

about peace.

This peace is to be pursued.

Now this word peace and its synonyms of reconciliation and so on

are getting used a lot in our day, but again, we're using vocabulary, the same

vocabulary, but there's different dictionaries in use.

The dictionary Christians are to use is one that is tied to the

unchanging character, the unchanging revelation of God and

Jesus Christ so that we're not to update our

dictionaries and change the meanings of our vocabularies based on the latest news

cycle.

The peace here has everything to do, as we've already seen, has everything to do

with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That our peace and our reconciliation are in his work, his gospel work, his

dying on the cross for us, his dying for all kinds of people, not just Jews, but

also Gentiles.

It isn't just dying for those who were brought up in religious homes and those who were not.

No matter what kind of classification we can come up with, Jesus Christ died for all kinds of

people, all without distinction.

So there's peace in Christ as we join around his good news, his gospel of

salvation, but the peace that is being used today, a lot of the times the word peace has

a different type of definition.

The word peace being used in, this notion used in paganism today

has to do with more of a material reconciliation rather than a relational

or spiritual reconciliation.

Paganism is the cult of the day.

It's a material kind of oneness.

It's a material kind of oneness.

Everything is basically one in paganism, which is why

it's so easy for people to say abracadabra and turn boys into girls and so on.

It's all one anyway.

And in paganism today, since everything is one, that if there's any

disparity in material, any disparity in terms of material,.

Distribution,.

Then that is by definition in paganism unjust.

Because if it's all one,.

Then why isn't it equally apportioned?

And so peace or reconciliation has more to do with a setting together of the

material rather than the persons.

And it's interesting, the chaos of our day, you wonder what kind of oneness is

possible, what kind of peace is possible, what kind of reconciliation really is possible when everyone's intersectionals, their

race or their genders or their class, whatever they identify as, is

with special effects being enhanced in 4K 3D.

Everything has to be completely set at odds with everything else.

So what do they talk about when they want there to be reconciliation?

What do they mean when they want oneness?

It's not a coming together of peoples, it's a

evening out of material because it's the gospel of paganism.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is what defines the term that we're dealing with here

as peace.

Pursuing peace with one another means pursuing it in the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ, is what

determines what it means to love one another, to forgive one another, to have a relationship with one another.

The things that make for peace are the things which honor Christ and model his

glory.

Prime example is that little letter in the Bible often forgot called Philemon.

Remember Philemon?

Very easy read, doesn't take you long.

And Paul just models the gospel in his humility, in his

standing in between the offended parties, in his calling both master and slave

to find their love for one another and their reconciliation together in the

finished work of Jesus Christ.

That's a blueprint and real life example of pursuing peace.

And Paul went out of his way and went the extra mile to pursue peace,

to even make peace between two offended brothers.

And we're gonna have to go out of our way to make peace.

It'll mean laying aside that which distinguishes and divides.

It means laying aside the things which we could use to continually make a

separation between one another.

Things of the past, things of our preferences.

Well, you know what it is to watch your friend or your loved

one who was offended exit the room because they're upset.

You know what that's like.

And if you pursue after them later on or right then to make amends,

to try to set matters at one between yourselves, that's the idea

of pursuing the peace.

But even if a husband and wife, for instance, are proactively pursuing

from the outset the things which make for peace, then the repairs are far less frequently

needed.

And so when Paul is saying pursue peace, he doesn't just mean when things get bad, oh, I guess we gotta pursue peace now.

But to be actively at peace with one another

in Christ, that we see one another as Christ sees us, that we

know who has died for our sins, who has cleared away our guilt, who has

removed our transgressions as far as the East is from the West, who has given us the gift of the

Holy Spirit, who has accorded to us many promises of hope and glory that we have our

unity, our coming together in Christ.

The way of the pagan is to demand a kind of peace in which all others must make the movement,

centering around them.

So Jesus was getting onto his disciples about arguing who's the greatest, who's gonna get the

preferred seating and that everybody else must gather around.

The way of peace for the pagan is to force all others to center upon them.

And these demands are almost always hostage negotiations.

Unless you meet my demands, I'll not let you have your streets, your calm, your economy, your safety, or your rest.

On the personal level, that's still the same.

It can even happen in the church as a paganized insurgent will only cease their smearing and jeering

and complaining and maligning only if folks will see and do things their way.

That kind of setting at one is not peace, that's called tyranny.

Now in verse 21, we have a specific example.

Notice how, what Paul says here, it is good not to eat meat or to drink wine or to do

anything by which your brother stumbles.

So in this sense, the pursuit is actually not doing something.

And I think an interesting example has been the way in which we've been greeting one another

with a holy kiss ever since COVID started, you know, and we're not

getting anywhere within the range of a holy kiss for a long time, but we're still calling each other and emailing each other and

trying to do our best to warmly fellowship as we have opportunity.

And then even when we come together, we're still trying to sign each other up by their body language, whether we're fist

bumping or nodding or actually shaking hands, but trying to make sure

we're not doing something which inadvertently stumbles our brother or sister in Christ.

That's a very simple thing, is it not?

But that's good, that's glorifying to Christ.

We pursue peace by removing stumbling blocks.

And if you've noticed, these levels of greeting are in flux weekly.

If we ever tried to write a policy on proper greeting during COVID -19 based on any given week, it'd be different the next week, if

you never noticed that.

This is not as easy as just writing policy, it's about pursuing.

It's about pursuing, it's about pursuing peace, what makes for peace with one another.

And if we're not pursuing the things which set us together, the things

which set us apart will predominate.

The lazy man is the brother to a destroyer, a proverb says.

Think about that, the lazy man is the brother of a destroyer.

Just let things go, things break down.

Let us not allow our peace to decay and rot.

Let's chase these matters down and do good.

So not only are we pursuing the things which make for peace towards one another on this

individual basis for the blessing of the whole church family, but also

edification or building one another up.

And Paul uses here a term which invokes hope.

We pursue the things which makes for peace in the building up of one another.

Pursuing peace might be seen as repairs, repairing the breach or some

kind of problem or repairing that or pursuing peace may be looked at as a maintenance, keeping

things at one with each other.

But this building, this building up is something new, it's something to go after, it's making progress,

it's actually pursuing new construction.

We're gonna be building up one another, edifying one another.

And again, let's make sure that we have this term dialed into our

magnetic north.

When we talk about edifying one another and building one another up, we're not talking about a self -esteem

enhancement campaign.

That's not what Paul is talking about here.

In fact, this is a metaphor that Paul uses quite often throughout his writings, whether it's Romans or

Ephesians or Corinthians.

And so what does he mean when he talks about building up one another, edifying one

another?

Well, for instance, in 1 Corinthians, you can turn over there to 1 Corinthians chapter three

in verses seven through 11, Paul is dealing with an issue where

there is division in the church.

There are different factions vying for dominance or supremacy.

They're defined by several things, but one of the things that's dividing them is this group says, well, I'm of

Peter.

This group says, I'm of Paul.

This group says, I'm of Apollos.

This group says, well, we're of Jesus.

And they're trying to identify Christ and his apostles as if they're

distinct groups, okay?

And they're trying to say, we're all gonna identify by our group.

And guess what happened in the church?

It was a mess.

All kinds of destructive infighting began in the church.

And so Paul is writing to try to put that at rest.

And so as he's talking about these various personages, whether Peter or Apollos or himself,

he's trying to put those things in perspective.

These are just slaves of Jesus, just servants of Christ.

They're no big deal.

Christ is the big deal.

And so he uses this analogy to try to help them understand what it looks like to in unity,

building up one another.

First Corinthians 3, seven through 11.

So then, so then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters

is anything, but God who causes the growth.

Now he who plants and he who waters are one, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

For we are God's fellow workers.

You are God's field, God's building.

So he moves from the agricultural to the architectural.

It's a very common way that he moves in his thinking.

Jesus did himself in his parables.

He moves from the field to the house.

Paul does the same thing.

God's building.

Verse 10, according to the grace of God, which was given to me like a wise master builder, I laid a

foundation and another is building on it.

But each man must be careful how he builds on it.

For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is it, which is

Christ Jesus.

Okay, so in the more amply filled out metaphor that Paul is using about

building up one another, he's talking about, listen, we are to recognize that what we

build matters.

He goes on to talk about there's a difference between building with wood, hay, and stubble, and gold, and silver, and precious stones, that what

we build with matters, how we build up one another, and where we build matters.

It has to be on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

And so when Paul is saying pursue the good, when he's saying that, he's saying

not simply to do our best to make everybody else feel like they are really

worthy of God's love, right?

That's not at all what he's saying.

He's saying building one another up, edifying one another, this is

the good that we're pursuing.

We're constructing things upon Christ, according to Christ, for the glory of

Christ.

And Ephesians, he says that we're investing, and growing, and building up the body of Christ into

the full stature of maturity, who is Jesus Christ himself.

Jesus Christ is envisioned not only as the foundation of the church, but he's also the capstone

of the church, the alpha and the omega of the construction.

And although we are involved and called to pursue these matters, Jesus himself

said, I will build my church.

He's gonna do it his way, by his grace, according to his word.

And anything that we end up building, that is not upon the foundation of Jesus

Christ, or anything that we try to build upon the foundation of Christ, that's

not of his word, of his truth, of his grace, is useless,

and will be burned away.

So as we pursue the good, as we pursue the good, we must

orient our moral compass to the gospel of Jesus Christ, to his

person and his work.

Otherwise, we may be trying to build something that we think is good, but it's not.

Something that will be lasting, but it won't last.

We have to build in this way.

These ethics matters, but what we pursue in our peace and building up, but also what

we believe.

Verse 22,

not only what we pursue, but also what we believe.

The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God, happy is he who does not condemn

himself in what he approves.

Now, this faith before God that he talks about here, this faith before God

is something he's already mentioned earlier on in the chapter.

This term conviction that I read in the New American Standard is not

actually there in the Greek text.

The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God, term's not even in there in the Greek text.

It's there just to help clarify the meaning of the author, as the translator's

intention in that.

The point that here is the King James, I think, follows a little bit more closely with what's there.

Hast thou faith?

Have it to thyself before God.

Now, if this verse is taken out of context, well, that's the end of all evangelism, isn't it?

Right?

If it's taken out of context, but no, when we're reading through the context, we should then understand the

interpretation.

Paul's already used this expression in chapter 14, verse two.

He says, one person has faith that he may eat all things.

That he who is weak eats vegetables only.

Right?

He's already used this expression.

You have faith?

I'm not determined by some sort of conviction here or there, but I have faith I can eat all things.

Paul says, well, later on, he says, well, have that before God.

Enjoy that before God.

Do you have faith that you may eat all things, drink wine, discard certain customs, and so on?

Does the strength of your faith mean that you enjoy a great deal of liberty?

Have that between yourself and God.

What need is there to broadcast that around?

That's what Paul is saying.

He says, if you do, you're gonna end up missing out on the beatitude

of freedom.

He says, happy, happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he

approves.

Now, that's the same word Jesus used in each of the beatitudes.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

Same word here.

Blessed are you.

Blessed is the one who does not.

Is that this beatitude in our freedom in Christ, all these matters in which some

may restrain themselves, is a blessing to you, but only a blessing to you if you avoid the

condemnation.

What is the condemnation?

Well, the blessing is undone by exercising your freedom in such a way that

stumbles your brother, that tears him down.

The freedom you have is to be enjoyed before God, not in

spite of your brother.

Enjoy it before God, not to spite your brother.

Paul further qualifies this blessing of a believer enjoying faith before God by saying, in what

he approves.

The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God.

Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves, which is a reminder of what we've already

talked about, that we are to test and examine our freedoms,

not only our freedoms, but also our convictions.

The freedoms and convictions we have are to be tested and examined according to the word of God through the course of our

life of following Christ.

We are not to have loose convictions and whimsical freedoms.

When I was first starting off in seminary, I got a job as a after school care

coordinator at Presbyterian Day School, and I met my supervisor.

I liked the Baptist, but I didn't join him.

I wanted to be a Methodist so I could drink.

It's like, okay, that's kind of a whimsical freedom, right?

It wasn't really well thought through.

I appreciated her honesty, but she needed a little bit more wrestling with that,

right?

So we may end up turning our blessing into something that

hinders us and others if we don't have it worked out before God and enjoy

it before God.

Now, so we see what is good, pursue what is good, but what is bad, what is bad?

Now, in the text, we see what is bad.

It's about tearing down the work of God for the sake of food, or if you

doubt, but you go on through doing something in your doubt, then you condemn yourself because whatever is not

from faith is sin.

So we are told what is bad in these situations.

So we're trying to accept one another in Christ.

I'm so glad the Bible tells us what is bad.

I mean, that's a real blessing.

The Bible tells us what is bad.

That's such a blessing to us.

In a pagan culture, what is bad changes rapidly according to the manic mood swings of capricious gods.

I mean, have you noticed this?

Late 2019, early 2020, the goddess Gaia, Mother Earth, had all the power and sway.

This was the news stories.

This was the focus.

All humans must loathe themselves as we defile her with our carbon.

And then from March to May, the goddess Athena, almighty science, fell in love with the imperial cult.

And the academy and the state were worshiped together as supreme.

Fall on your face, shelter in place.

But now, the goddess intersectionality has her time in the sun.

But nobody can seem to hear Mother Earth's complaints or anguished cries of pain as rioters cause massive

amounts of pollution, burning and destroying and forging roads.

Forcing police to fire tear gas and so on.

I mean, what would have been wrong six months ago must now be accepted.

Any speaking out against it are anathema.

Three months ago, science and state declared that gathering in the streets to protest and riot would have

been deadly and illegal.

Now, the ethics of the matter have changed.

The gods are capricious.

The gods are capricious.

Isn't it good to know that the culture of capricious gods was the culture in

which the gospel of Jesus Christ was preached, first

preached and declared and caught like wildfire.

And people turned away from the folly of being led around

by their noses with a chain.

And turned to the one true God revealed in Jesus Christ.

I'm glad that the Holy Scriptures tell us what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong.

And that these categories are established from the very character of our immutable

creator.

It doesn't change from generation to generation or from month to month.

When it comes to Christ's kingdom and his economy of liberty and love,.

We are clearly told the ethics of the text and why.

So destroying others is bad.

Destroying others is bad, verses 20 and 21.

Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food.

All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense.

It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything by which your brother stumbles.

Making food the principle of Christian relations, making the non -essential

most essential tears down the work of God.

It overthrows the righteousness and peace and joy that God is building up in his saints.

And Paul writes this in the ongoing sense.

He's saying, do not go on tearing down the work of God for the sake of food.

That kind of graceless vandalism must cease and desist.

Food, Paul says, food, drink, indeed all things that God has made are clean.

He says elsewhere to Timothy, they are made holy by the means of prayer and thanksgiving according to the word of

God.

But these gifts can be taken up and used to

stumble others, which makes it into an evil.

And that's the essential work of the devil, to take what is good in God's creation and make it evil.

Let's not do the devil's work.

Our savior came to destroy the works of the devil and on that we ought to be on board.

The good, the use of God's good gifts to

give offense and trip up our brother or sister in Christ, well, that's not good

at all.

The final word in verse 21 is of interest.

The word stumbles, it's a little bit different than the other words for stumble in the text.

It actually envisions causing someone to run into an obstacle.

We have our modern phrases like brake checking,

cutting people off, running people off the road.

All these things we say are bad driving, right?

Well, their spiritual equivalent in our relationships as brothers and sisters in Christ, that's bad as

well.

Causing someone to run into something, destroying others is bad and damning ourselves is

also bad, verse 23.

But he who doubts is condemned if he eats because his eating is not from faith and whatever is not from faith

is sin.

And Paul is not saying everything except that which is positively of

faith is sin, but that which is positively not of faith is sin.

In other words, if you doubt, don't.

If you doubt, don't, right?

I don't know if it's right or not to go visit

so -and -so who's lonely and needs encouragement without my mask.

I just don't know if it'd be right to go visit that person.

I'm not sure if they're isolating because of the virus and they're concerned about these things.

I don't know if it'd be right or not.

I mean, I feel fine going out, but I don't know which one, is it right or wrong?

If you doubt, don't leave your mask at home, take it with you, right?

If you doubt, don't.

I don't know if it'd be right or not to sip a little bit of wine socially with other people.

I don't know if that'd be right or not.

If you doubt, don't.

Paul says if it's not positively proceeding out of, if it's positively not of faith,

then it's sin because you are already going against your conscience where you've not settled the matter.

And this is no excuse to leave things unsettled, to just constantly walk around in doubt

and chains of doubt and just say, well, I don't know, and then just never work through the scriptures,

never pray for the matter, never grow up in Christ.

There's no reason to embrace doubt and make doubt your ethic.

That's not what Paul is saying.

He's told us time and again to work it out, to test it and so on and so forth.

So that's helpful.

I just greatly appreciate being told what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong in such basic terms that I can

apply in my daily life.

We're given clarity from the word of God as to the ethics of Christ's kingdom.

Good and bad are not relative to who can make the most noise.

Good and bad are not relative to those who can burn the most buildings or loot the most stuff or brutalize the most

bystanders.

That's the Darwinian bestial ethic survival of the fittest.

Nature is red in tooth and claw.

Good and bad are determined according to the character

of the man seated upon the throne above all thrones.

That's how we know good and bad, right and wrong.

And while there is no forgiveness, none whatsoever, while there is no forgiveness

in the social purgatory of critical race theory, Christ has come to seek and save the lost,

to forgive sinners, to cleanse the filthy and to raise the dead.

And boy, do people need to hear that word of hope today.

Jesus says, the thief comes only to steal, to kill and to destroy.

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Praise God.

Father, I thank you for the time you've given us in your word.

Thank you for the hope that we have in Christ, for the clarity that we have in his light.

I pray that you would help us to make full application of the things that we've been learning here.

Let us all accept one another and love one another to pursue the things which

make for peace and build up each other in Christ and for Christ.

It's in his name that we pray, amen.

I

just want to say thank you to our pastor.

For preaching the word of God in truth and clarity.

And maybe when you gave the phrase, it made me think of a song by Ron Hamilton.

It says, if you don't doubt it, don't, if you doubt it, don't do it.

So if you doubt it, don't do it.

Anyway, would you stand with me for our song of conviction?

We're gonna sing knowing you.

And it is good to know the Lord Jesus Christ, your personal Lord and Savior.

All

on

the

face

of

the

sun.

And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all.

We are dismissed.