All right, brethren, Romans 14. We're going to try to briefly
cover this passage down to Romans 15, 5. I'm not going to say much
in each passage I read, each section. But in this passage, the Spirit
of God shows us that there are some things by which we cannot
discern who God's people are. There are some things we cannot
use to discern who God's people are. The Word of God is a double-edged
sword. It kills and it makes alive. And when you read this, if you know the Lord, The first
thought that you had when you read Romans 14, 1 through that
fifth verse of chapter 15, the first thought you had was, I'm
guilty of everything He says in that passage. There's been occasions, depending
on who I was with, where I was the strong in faith among the
group. And I've been guilty of despising
the weaker. There's been times I've been
the weaker in the group and I despise the liberty of the stronger.
There's been times when I did everything this passage says
don't do. Been times I've not done what
it says to do. Guilty, guilty. I can't come to God by anything
that's written here. You can't either, brethren. When
we read this, it's like what the Lord told that woman's accusers
that was calling adultery. He told them, he said, whichever
one of you is without sin, you throw the first stone. That empties our hands, don't
it? That empties our hands. Well, so you can't look at this
passage and see the wrong things and discern who God's people
are. God's people do a lot of wrong things. And you can't look
at this and discern who God's people are by what they eat or
what they don't eat. You can't discern by if they
regard a certain day or they don't regard a certain day. Some, it says here, who are weak
in the faith do one. Others who are strong in the
faith do the other. But both are in the faith. You see, this passage, the Spirit
of God, also gives us some things that are true of every true child
of God. And we'll miss those things if
we're not careful. And don't just choose on the
briars. And if we're not careful, we'll just look at what we think
is life and our doing and we'll miss the message, the gospel
that's in this passage. I want you to get the gospel.
If you get the gospel in this passage, you'll get what he says
do and don't. You'll have a heart to want to
do what he says do and not do. But you got to see Christ and
you got to be brought to Christ. That's where your motive's going
to be. First of all, here's some things that each saint has. This
is something each saint has right here. God has received each one. God's received each one. God
has. Holy God has. Look here. Verse
1. Him that is weak in the faith,
receive ye. He's weak. He's a weak believer. You receive him. but not to doubtful
disputations. Don't doubt him, don't dispute
with him. Now he's going to describe weak
and strong. One believeth he may eat all
things. This is a strong believer. Another
who is weak eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise
him that eateth not. You got two really opposite saints
right here. One has liberty and knows he's
free in Christ, made righteous and holy in Christ, accepted
of God. And you got another one who's
weak and he thinks, I can't eat everything. I can't go there,
I can't touch that, I can't do this, I can't do the other. They're
really opposite. But here's what they both have
in common. God hath received him. Now the Lord says to you
that are strong in faith, you received the weak brother. Why?
God's received him. And he says to the weak brother,
you received the strong brother. Why? God has received him. From
eternity, God received every one of his elect in Christ for
Christ's sake. No other reason. That's what
it means when the election of grace is unconditional. It's
all of grace. It means it wasn't anything in
you that made God choose you. And you know why that's such
good news? It's nothing in you that makes God keep loving you
and receiving you. It's nothing in you. It's nothing
in me. It's all in Christ and by Christ. If we get that, that'll
help us so much. with all the troubles in this
world. We have one hope, and it's Christ. God's received each
of his saints in Christ. Each elect child that the Spirit
of God gives faith, whether it's weak faith or it's strong faith,
that's not what makes this determination. Whether it's weak faith or strong
faith, that's not what makes this determination. God hath
received each one in the righteousness of Christ alone. He received
his people in the righteousness of Christ alone. Christ came
and laid down his life for God's elect and redeemed us by his
blood. He justified us. He put away
our sin. He made us righteous. And God
says we are accepted in the beloved. And that's what he makes his
child know. That's what faith believes. Whether it's strong
faith or whether it's just mustard seed. All my acceptance with
God is Christ only. Now this is the good news, brethren.
This is what'll help you with doubting and disputing with one
another to know it's not weak faith and it's not strong faith
that matters. That's not what makes the difference.
In other words, you don't make the difference. Nothing you do
makes the difference. Nothing you can do will change
it. The strong are not to despise
the weak and call them legalist. The strong who know they have
liberty, they're not to despise the weak and say, you're a legalist
because you think you have to keep this and that and the other.
The weak are not to judge the strong and say, you're licentious. You're an antinomian. because our righteousness and
our holiness is not in meat and drink and anything we do, it's
Christ only. And God, for Christ's sake, hath
received us. He's received, I'm sure there
in Rome, there was some brethren and they were doubting and disputing
of one another. One was strong in faith, one
was weak, they sat opposite ends on this thing. And Paul says
to both of them, you receive him, you receive him, because
God's received you both. Well, that's the way to handle
that, isn't it? Just shut everybody up down in the dust and say,
both of you look to Christ, where you received, accepted in the
beloved. Secondly, another thing every
believer has, in common is Christ is our master who shall make
us stand. We all have this in common, Christ
is our master who shall make us stand. Verse four, who art
thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own master he
standeth or falleth. Now understand this, he may stand sometimes, he may
fall sometimes. But it's to his own master he
stands, and it's to his own master that he falls. Not to you, not to me, to his
own master. Yea, he should be holding up,
for God is able to make him stand. Each of God's children have this
in common. We're kept by God. Christ is our master. He's our
master. He loved us from eternity, he
loved God's elect from eternity, and he ruled all history for
each one of us personally. You believe that? You believe
what you're bearing right now? God's doing it just for you personally. Why are you mad at him? Why are
you disgruntled with his providence? He's doing it just for you personally. Christ came and justified us
from our sins by his own blood. And now our sovereign victorious
savior, this one who laid down his life for us, is at God's
right hand with all power as the God-man. As God he has all
power, as man he has all power, and now because he's come down
and taken flesh like us, he knows right where you are, right what
you're bearing, because he's borne it infinitely more than
me and you ever will. And so he knows how to teach
you, and he knows how to strengthen you. And you know what he's gonna
do? Sometimes to show you not to trust you, he's gonna let
you fall. That's not blaming God for anything
if you fall. The fall's all our own if we
fall. We're looking from him. And we consider fall to be into
some sort of immoral sin. We fall a whole lot more into
self-righteousness than we do into immoral sin. and both are false, and both
are to teach us that you can't stand on your own, but Christ
will make you stand. He's able. He's able. He will make you stand. That's
what he's gonna do. That's comfort, brethren. So
when I look at my brother, no matter if he's strong in faith
or no matter if he's weak in faith, I know this, I'm not his
master. I can't judge him. He's another
man's master. He's not my child. I'm not responsible
to try to make him stand. I want to help him. I want to
help him. But the only way I can help him is reminding him of
this good news that Christ is the only one that can make him
stand. No matter what storms of providence he faces, Christ
will make him stand. And that's the confidence we
have, brethren. We trust one another to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And even, we're gonna see, more
importantly, you yourself look to your master, trust your master. We all have that in common. Christ
is our master who shall make us stand. Thirdly, whether our
faith be weak or strong, we all have this in common. We have
one Lord, and where he is no matter what, And he's doing everything
for our good. Look at verse five. One man esteemeth
one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike. One
man thinks he needs to observe a day. Another man worships the
Lord every day. He knows, puts no confidence
in observance of a day. Let every man be fully persuaded
in his own mind. In other words, let's mean you
stop trying to rule each other's conscience. You do that when
you sit and shake your head, point your finger, and all of
that. You're trying to rule another man's conscience. You don't have
the power to do that, and that's not our business. That's God's
business. And to do that is vile sin. Vile, vile sin. I don't care what we're condemning.
There ain't nothing that bad. He's trying to rule another man's
conscience. Listen, he that regardeth the
day, And here's why it's so bad. We're sitting there trying to
rule another man's conscience, and here's what we don't know.
Here's what we don't know about his own heart. He that regardeth
the day... We're talking about now a true
believer born of God. He's regarding a day. He doesn't
have to. He's weak because he does it.
It's not at all liberty to do it. He's putting himself in bondage
to do it, but he thinks he should. But now listen, here's what you
can't see in that person's heart. He regards it to the Lord. He
believes the Lord. Trust in the Lord. And he that regardeth not the
day, The weak brother looks at him and says, he's just, he's
an antinomian. He just living so licentiously.
He don't even regard this day. What a foul thing to do. Why? Because you can't see in his
heart that him not regarding a day, not treating any day like
it's any more special than another, he doing it to the Lord, because
the Lord's more special to him. We can't see the heart. He that
eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God things. He that
eateth not, oh, he wouldn't dare touch certain things. He eateth to the Lord, for he
giveth God things. He eateth not to the Lord, for
he giveth God things. Now look what he says here. For
none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.
He's talking about God's elect here now. He's speaking to saints. Talk to me and you. Whether we
live, we live unto the Lord. Whether we die, we die unto the
Lord. Whether we live, therefore die, we're the Lord's. For to
this sin Christ both died and rose and revived, that he might
be the Lord both of the dead and living. You know, in the
past, if a man bought a large estate, and he owned this huge
estate, he's called a Lord. This man bought the land. He
bought the house, built the house. He bought the servants that are
in the house. He bought all the cattle on the
hill. He's the Lord of the whole kingdom. He owns the whole estate.
Well, that's what Paul's saying. Christ came down, and he laid
down his life for his elect, and he arose with each of his
elect in him, and Christ Jesus has bought the whole kingdom,
and it's his. He's the Lord. Christ's death
was a purchase, and the purchase price was His blood. He bought
the kingdom of God. He bought the house of God. He
bought each of His people from the curse and condemnation of
the law. He conquered death for His people. Death and hell has
no more sting for His people because Christ gave us the victory
through His blood. So we're His purchased possession.
We belong to Him. We belong to Him. So at every
point in a believer's life, Whether we live, therefore, or die, that
covers every point of a believer's life. Whether we're living or
dying, or we're dead, that covers all our life. That covers everything
you do, say, think, everything about your life. And whether
we live or die, we're the Lord's. He owns us. He bought us. Who
gave the weak believer faith? Christ did. He said, let every
man be fully persuaded in his own mind. If he's fully persuaded
and his persuasion in his mind is not the persuasion you have
in your mind, you have to remember who persuaded him. The Lord's
the only one that persuades His people. If he's weak in faith
and he still thinks he has to regard a day or eat certain meats,
Christ gave him the faith he has and he's doing what he does
to the Lord. And if a man has strong faith,
let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He has strong
faith. He knows Christ set him free.
He knows Christ has redeemed him. He's under grace now. He knows he's free. He regards
all days the same. He's able to eat, drink. Christ
gave him faith, so he does it unto the Lord. Now where we stop
doing it to the Lord, And where we do fall into legalism is when
we start trying to persuade the other one and condemn the other
one because they're not persuaded like I'm persuaded and they don't
do like I do. Now we're total legalists. When
we say, except you do this, you can't be saved. You must be lost
if you don't do this. That man is lost and legal and
in bondage. But if you're doing what you're
doing to the Lord, You're the Lord's. You see what
blessing that is? You're the Lord's. You're the
Lord. Let every man be fully persuaded
in his own mind by the Lord, not by you, not by me, by the
Lord. Fourthly, our Savior makes his
child live knowing that we will all stand one day before the
Lord and be represented by Christ Jesus, our advocate. Look here
now, verse 10. Why dost thou judge thy brother?
Or why dost thou set it not thy brother? These usually follow
one behind the other. Condemn a brother and we stick
him over there, you can't come near me. Why do we do that to
another? Now get the point here, for we
shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it's written, as I live,
saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall
confess to God. So then every one of us, every
individual one of us, shall give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one
another anymore, but judge this rather. Here's what's more important
to judge, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall
in his brother's way. Judging our brethren puts a stumbling
block before them. Judging a brother puts a stumbling
block before him. Condemning them puts a stumbling
block before them. The same as exercising our liberty
before our brethren puts a stumbling block before them. But here's what we need to remember,
all of us. My brother does not have to give
account to me. And I don't have to give account
to my brother. He personally will give account
to God. And so will I. So will you. Christ makes his people remember
this. Every one of us, each of us individually, each of us personally,
shall give account of himself to God. Now, for the man who thinks he's
righteous, thinks he's saving himself, thinks he's holy by
his works, that will just embolden him to be more of a condemning
judge. Because he's looking forward
to the day that he can stand before God and say, look at all
the wonderful works I did. Because he thinks that's what
he's done. And he'll talk about how I said it and all those devils
and wouldn't receive them. Wasn't that a good thing, Lorne? I preached in your name. I never
preached you. I preached what men ought to
be doing. But I preached in your name. I said I was preaching
in your name. And the Lord said, depart from me. Everything you
ever worked and called holy and righteous and good is iniquity.
And I never knew you. But you see, when God's child
hears this, I'm going to have to stand before the Lord and
give account of myself. That humbles your heart because
you know, if the Lord marks iniquity, I can't stand. But here's where
you have rejoicing. Here's where you have rejoicing.
Christ Jesus is the advocate for His people. He came down
and He's the Lamb of His people who laid down and put away our
sin and bore the wrath of God for us. He's the advocate with
the Father for us right now. But here's even something that
just is amazing. God said He gave all judgment
to His Son. We're going to be judged by Christ. Well, if Christ is your righteousness,
and Christ is your holiness, and Christ is your redemption,
and Christ is your wisdom, Christ is your advocate with the Father,
that means he's your lawyer. Who do you think is going to
do all the talking in that day? Christ is. And you're going to
stay silent. And you're going to rejoice that
you have everything God requires. Now when you have that, understand
it. And you hear this Word in that light, in the light of Christ,
and you have a notion to do what Peter did. Okay Lord, I've heard
you tell me now, you're talking to me personally what I should
be doing in this passage, but what about John? You hear the Lord say, what's
that to you? You follow me. You follow me. See, it's between you and him.
This is trust in the Lord. This is believing Christ alone. And here's the good thing too,
brethren. He's the only judge there ever has been that has
made mercy and truth meet in harmony. He's the only one who
made grace and truth meet in perfect harmony so that we're
fully justified and He'll show us nothing but grace and mercy. Now you want me to tell you,
if you feel like you ever get to the point where you feel like,
well I need to make a judgment here. Listen, I'm going to say
it again, I've said it many times. You want to judge righteous judgment, trust the righteous judge. He's the righteous judge. You
want to judge righteous judgment, you can't go wrong. This is what
the scripture says, lean not to your own understanding. Cast
it on Him. Trust the Lord. Commit your way
to the Lord. He shall bring it to pass and
He'll bring forth your judgment as the noon day. And that day
when we stand before Him to give account, He's going to bring
forth the judgment of everybody He died for as the noon day and
everybody's going to know it. You know what everybody's going
to know about His people? You all have been as perfect as Christ
is perfect. That's what everybody's going
to know about His people. Fifthly, knowing Christ is our peace,
Christ makes his people peacemakers. Now the first thing we see in
this is we have Christ as our peace. The second thing we see
is he's going to make us peacemakers because of it. Verse 14, I know
and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there's nothing unclean
of itself. Oh, if we could get that right
there. Lips that touch wine will never touch mine. They probably
wouldn't want to. There's nothing unclean of itself. Nothing. But to him that esteemeth anything
to be unclean, to him it is. And we're talking about a believer
now. If he esteems it unclean, to him it is. But if thy brother
be grieved with thy meat, now we're talking to you that know
you're not, you can eat and drink, whatever. We're talking to you
now. But you got a brother, he's weak, And he thinks sin is in
things. If he's grieved with your meat,
and you're going to eat whatever it fends him in front of him,
you're not walking charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat.
Catch this next word. For whom Christ died. That's
what we all have in common. Christ died for us, brethren.
And that brother, Christ died for him. Whether we're standing
in the judgment seat condemning him, Christ died for him. Or
whether we're calling him a legalist, Christ died for him. They all
have that in common. Let not then your good be evil
spoken of, for the kingdom of God's not meat and drink. It's
righteousness and peace and joy in the Spirit, in the Holy Ghost. The child of God who esteems
certain meat or drink to be sinful, to him it's sinful. So the strong in the faith is
not to exercise his liberty before him. It's not that important. If a brother's going to be offended,
it's just not that important that I eat or drink whatever
it is that's going to offend him. If it's going to make the
weak brother fall, make him strive, make contentions break out, He's
going to end up calling your good liberty, he's going to call
it evil. It's not worth that. And worse than that, God's saints
don't want the world outside looking at us and speaking evil
of our good because of strife and division amongst us. For
the kingdom of God is not meat and drink. The Kingdom of God
is not carnal. The Kingdom of God is not what
you do or don't do. The Kingdom of God is righteousness
and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, in Spirit. Christ is our
righteousness, Christ is our peace, and Christ is our joy.
By bringing in an everlasting righteousness for His people,
Christ is our righteousness. And by doing so, He made peace
with us before God. And that's why He's our joy.
So let's walk by faith in Christ. Let's walk by faith in Christ.
Let's do what our Savior teaches us here through Paul. Knowing
this now, don't forget this, how I started this. You've failed
at this already. Don't you know that? Have you
not been guilty of everything? Do you want to stand on your
own before God? You don't, do you? Because you
know you've done this. But this is the thing about grace.
Christ is our righteousness. He's our peace. He's our joy. It's in spirit. And He makes
you want to be a peacemaker because of that. Because of that. I don't want you looking to the
strength of your hand. And you know what constraining
somebody else and trying to force them to do what you think they
ought to do, you know what that results in? It results in others looking
to their own works instead of Christ. That's exactly what it
results in. It does. This makes us want to
be peacemakers to know Christ has done all this to make us
righteous and give us peace with God and joy in our heart. That
makes you want to be a peacemaker. And the way you're going to be
a peacemaker is when everybody starts bringing up something
about doing and not doing, remind them of these things we all have
in common. And it's all in Christ, and it's
all by Christ, and He's our only acceptance. This is our peace
and joy, and comfort in the Spirit. Verse 18, for he that doeth,
he that in these things serveth Christ. is acceptable to God
and approved of men. He's not acceptable and approved
of men because he does these things. He does these things
because he knows I'm accepted in Christ. I'm approved of men
because of what Christ has done for me. Let us therefore follow
after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one
may edify another. For meat destroys not the work
of God. Listen now, meat, nothing in
this world's gonna destroy the work, Christ's work's eternal,
it's spiritual. All things indeed are pure, and
remember this too, but it's evil for that man who eats with offense.
You know meat doesn't destroy the things of God, you know all
things indeed are pure, you know you can do whatever because Christ
is all to you. But that man who's weak doesn't
know that. And if he eats what you eat, or drinks what you drink,
treats all days the same like you do, it's going to be sin
to him. It's going to wound his conscience.
So it's good not to eat flesh, nor drink wine, nor anything
whereby the brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.
You see, this is on both sides of it. Be a peacemaker, not by
condemning your brother because he eats, or drinks, or has liberty. Don't condemn him. Be a peacemaker.
And the brother who's weak and to the Lord he doesn't want to
eat or drink, he doesn't want to do those things, be a peacemaker.
Don't call him a legalist. You see? Why? Our righteousness
is Christ, our peace is Christ, our joy is Christ. Let's help
each other remember that. That's a peacemaker. Blessed
are the peacemakers, they shall be called the children of God. Lastly, all God's saints have
of this in common, we're justified by Christ, saved through faith,
so we walk in faith, trusting Christ. Look here in verse 22.
Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before God.
Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he
alloweth, and he that doubteth is damned if he ate. Doesn't
mean he's gonna be condemned by God, it just means his conscience
is wounded, he feels like he's damned if he ate, went against
his conscience. Because he eats not of faith,
for whatsoever is not of faith is sin. The just should live
by faith, brethren. Faith knows and believes all
God's elect were justified by Christ alone. Even weak faith
believes this. We're talking about true faith
now. We believe Christ justifies. That's what faith believes. So
if Christ's given you faith to know that it's not sin to regard
every day the same. It's not sin to eat. Paul said you go buy meat out
of idol's temple. It don't matter. It's just meat. It's not sin to drink wine. Have it to thyself before God.
You know this is so, have it to yourself before God. Happy
is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.
Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, drink thy wine with a merry
heart, for God now accepteth thy work. Free in Christ. But
remember that the weak in faith who doubts that he's free to
eat or drink, or who thinks he must regard a day, or who thinks
sins in these things, His conscience is wounded if he eats or drinks
because he is not of faith. Whatsoever is not of faith is
sin. So you have your faith and you exercise your liberty by
yourself alone or with other brethren that know they have
that liberty but don't do it in front of the weak brethren.
That's what he's saying. But if we have strong faith,
Now listen, if we have strong faith, I'm going to say it that
way because we all like to imagine we're the ones he's talking about
when he's talking about the strong in faith. Let's just admit it.
We all want to be that one. We want to be the one that's
strong in faith. All right, if we are, rather than doubting
and disputing, rather than judging and condemning, do for the weak
what Christ did for us. Verse one, we then that are strong,
ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please
ourselves. Let every one of us please his
neighbor for his good edification. He's talking about brethren especially.
For even Christ pleased not himself, but as it's written, the reproaches
of them that reproach thee fell on me. For whatsoever things
were written aforetime were written for our learning that we, through
patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope. Now think about
this. Think about what Christ bore
for us, brother. Even when we had no faith, even when we were
ungodly, Christ bore reproaches of self-righteous Pharisees who hated God and hated His Redeemer. He bore those reproaches for
you that sit here and believe God right now. Now think about
that, the reproaches of self-righteous, well-worshipping, well-working
men who condemned him as being a centrist, condemned him as
being a blasphemer. He bore those reproaches for
you who are his people, his elect. But let me give you something
else to think about. Christ even bore your sinful reproaches wherein
you've reproached others. It shouldn't be, but it's true,
and we're just going to be honest about it. It's true. Due to our
infirmities, whether we're strong in faith or weak in faith, due
to these very things we're looking at right here today, God's saints,
have sometimes thought critical thoughts about one another, and
worse than that, have voiced those critical thoughts. And
worse than that, have just flat out said negative, mean, hurtful,
ugly things about your brethren. You know what that is? Reproach. That's reproaching somebody Christ
laid down his life for. I'll tell you something about
the grace of God. Is somebody reproaching you now? Is somebody
saying mean things about you? Worse, and this is what we ought
to be thinking about more than anything, have you reproached
somebody? Have you said negative things
about somebody that's a professing believer? Well, here's the good news. This
is what brings God's child down. This is what puts our face in
the dirt. Christ has borne all those sinful
reproaches wherein you've reproached somebody else. He bore them. The reproaches of them that reproached
thee fell on me. You see, our reproaching of somebody
Christ died for is reproaching God. And all our reproach of
God fell on Christ, and He bore the justice that we should have
bore for that. Man, that just makes me want
to say, I can't condemn anybody. I ought
to be condemned. Can you say that? You can when
you see that those reproaches, Christ bore them. Put them away. We were the ones who reproached
Him. We reproached God. So if we're truly strong in faith,
here's what He says for us to do. Verse 1, Romans 15, 1. We then that are strong ought
to bear the infirmities of the weak, not to please ourselves.
Here's what He's saying. Knowing Christ bore your reproach,
wherein you reproach others, wherein you reproach God, Christ
bore the justice of God for you because of your own reproaches.
He says, now then, when you're reproached by somebody else,
that's their weakness. But remember, all these things
believers have in common, that's their weakness, they're reproaching
you. Bear their burden. bear their
sin, cover their sin, forgive them their sin, be long-suffering
where there's sin. All the things Christ does for
you every minute of every day. Bear ye one another's burden
and so fulfill the law of Christ. Let me end with this. Remember,
remember this about each of God's saints. Whether they're weak
in faith or they're strong in faith, we have all these things
in common. Number one, God's received us
in Christ for Christ's sake. These are the things that's going
to help us to remember these things He's taught us in the
exhortation. God's received us in Christ for Christ's sake.
Not for our sake. We've broken all these. We've
sinned in all these. And if you want to try to stand
before God in all these, you're going to fail. Because you've
sinned in all these. God's received us for Christ's
sake. Number two, Christ is our master. And whether we fall or
stand, we do it to Him and He will make His people stand. Know
that about your brother. Trust your brother to Him. Christ
is our Lord who shall keep His people living under Him. Whether
we live or die, we're His. We're His forever. He owns us. Remember that. Number four, Christ
is both our judge And He's our advocate, and He's our righteousness,
who's made us righteous and shall present us to the Father without
spot and blame. So, judge righteous judgment
by trusting it all to the righteous judge. Commit your care to Him,
and the care of your brother to Him, and trust Him. Christ
is our peacemaker who made peace between us and God, so the Spirit
of God is gonna make you be a peacemaker. That's what His people are. And
lastly, knowing we're justified by Christ alone through faith
alone. Walk by faith, not by sight. Stop looking at one another
and judging by appearance. Walk by faith, not by sight.
Bury the infirmities of the weak just like Christ is burying your
sin right this minute. He's putting up with your sin
because He's put them all away. He bore them all away. So bear
one another's burden. and walk by faith. Trust Christ.
This is what we all have in common. Amen.