That was an appropriate passage
of Scripture to go with our text tonight. Because every believer has a very light and easy yoke
given to us by the Father. And it is this. It's a two-fold
commandment. It's faith in Christ and love
to our brethren. By faith in Christ, We've established
the whole law as Christ established the old law for us. And the new commandment He's
given to us who believe is that we love one another. That's a
light and easy yoke. And when you have faith which
works by love, by the grace of God, then the rule you're under,
that faith which works by love is the rule you're under. And
everything you do, you ask yourself, What's going to glorify God?
And what will edify the other person? That's it. That's the rule. What will glorify
God and what will edify the other person? Let's start right here
in verse 23. We read here, all things are
lawful for me. But all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me,
but all things edify not. Now remember, Paul's writing
to believers. This is written of believers.
He said back up there, I'm speaking as to wise men. And that wise
man is one that Christ, God has made Christ wisdom unto him.
Made him wise unto salvation. that is in Christ, faith in Christ.
So, he's speaking to believers. Now, when he says all things
are lawful for me, he does not mean by that that things that
are sinful are lawful for a believer. You know that. He doesn't mean
things that are sinful are now lawful for a believer. The purpose
of liberty, being made free, is not to make a believer About
to free him so that he can now live in sin. That's not the purpose
of liberty. That's not what God's liberty
does. He makes us, in the new birth,
He makes us partakers of the divine nature. Partakers of the
divine nature. It's Christ in you. Christ formed
in you. So whatever the nature of God
loves, that's what His people's gonna love. And whatever the
nature of God hates, that's what His child will hate. God hates
sin. God hates sin. And therefore,
that new man, that inward man in the believer hates sin. God
loves holiness because God is holy. And therefore, in our inward
man, we love holiness. God loves His people. with an
everlasting love. And therefore, when God dwells
in you, you're going to love your brethren. The child of God
hates division. Why? Because God hates division.
He hates those who divide brethren. And so we love what God loves
and hate what God hates. That's where He's given you liberty
to love what God loves and hate what God hates. Liberty is when
Christ sets us free from the law and He frees us from our
sinful flesh dominating us all the time. When we were natural
born men, all we had was a natural sinful nature which dominated
us constantly. A natural man can do nothing
but sin, wants to do nothing but sin, and will do nothing
but sin. But when He frees you, in that inward man, He's given
you now a God wrought pure motive to serve Christ. And we serve
Christ. The believer serves Christ. We
do to our sinful flesh, we don't serve Him like we want to serve
Him. We wouldn't dare put confidence
in our so-called service to God. I wouldn't dare put confidence
in my service to God to bring me into glory. I wouldn't dare
do that because sin is mixed with everything I do. We don't
serve Him like we want to. We don't serve Him like we will
serve Him in glory and worship Him like we will in glory. Right
now, we don't do it perfectly. Then we will. Right now, sin
is mixed with what we do. But by God's sanctifying presence,
by Christ's presence in the heart of His child, we do serve Him.
We do serve Him. Believers have a pure heart.
We have a holy heart. And by His power, by His power,
and by His grace, we serve Him. We serve Christ. So when He speaks
here of all things being lawful for me, He's speaking here of,
in the context, He's talking about meat sacrificed to idols. meat sacrifice to idols. All
meat and all drink is lawful for the believer. It's all lawful
for the believer. Even meat that was used in a
sacrifice to an idol. If you could... We don't have
meat markets that sell meat that came right out of the idol's
temple like they did in that day. But let's say you could
have some some wine that was used in some free will church
where they worship in themselves and somebody gave you a sip of
that wine. That wouldn't hurt you to have
that. It doesn't matter that it was
offered to an idol. It doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter.
Sin is not in things. You know there's a people that
think sin is in things. You know, cut out things, cut
out the environment, and cut out the, you know, all the alcohol,
and cut out the guns, and cut out the, you know, all these
different things. Sin's not in things. Not at all. Christ said it's not what goes
into the man that defiles him. No. Sin's what comes out of the
heart, out of the sinful, fleshly heart. That's what defiles him.
That's where the sin is. But even though all meat and
drink is lawful for me, even though it's all lawful for me,
he says here, but all things are not expedient. All things
are not expedient. You know what that word expedient
means? Listen carefully to this now. It means all meat and drink,
are not partaken of, not to be partaken of always, in all places,
before all people. That's what it means. Not to
be partaken of always, in all places, before all people. And
then he says, because all things edify not. And what he means by that is,
it may not always edify others. Though you have liberty, you
can partake of it, But it's not expedient to do it everywhere
in front of every person at all times. Sometimes it's not expedient. Sometimes you're with somebody,
it's not expedient. Sometimes... Why? Because it
doesn't always edify. It doesn't always edify. Whether
they be believers or unbelievers, it may not be for their edification.
Now somebody might say this. Young believers will tend to
say something like this. I'm not under the law. Christ
has freed me from the law. And all things are lawful for
me, so I don't care what they think. Now listen carefully. Would we
say that to Christ? Would you say that to Christ?
You that know Christ, would you say that to Him? I don't care. I'm not under the
law. All things are lawful for me.
I don't care what anybody else thinks. Do we realize that everything
written here is the Word of Christ? This is the Word of Christ to
His people. You know, it could be written
by Paul like it is right here, or Peter, or James, or John,
or whoever wrote it. But it's written by the Spirit
of our Lord. This is His Word. This is His Word. Remember back
there in chapter 8, he said this, he said that if we abuse our
liberty and we cause a weak brother to stumble, if we abuse our liberty
and we cause a weak brother to stumble, if we have that attitude
and we say, I don't care if that brother is weak, he ought to
be stronger than he is, he ought to know that he is free from
the law. I'm going to do this anyway.
Well, Christ said, when you cause that weak brother to stumble,
you sin against him. You sin against him. And he said
something else. He said, when you sin against
him, you sin against Christ. That's what Christ is teaching
us right here. Now that's important. Do I want
to sin against my Redeemer? You don't want to sin against
your Redeemer, do you? And you don't want to sin against your
brother. even if it's an unbeliever. We don't know that might be our
brother. But if we run him off because of our sin, God's still
going to save him, but He might not use you to do it. You see
what I'm saying? We don't want to... So what should
be our rule when it comes to our liberty? For that matter,
whatever we're doing. What should be our rule when
it comes to meat and drink or whatever we're doing? What should
be the rule? What's the believer's rule? This is our governing rule
right here. This is the first part of it,
verse 24. Let no man seek his own, but every man another's
wealth. He's saying don't seek your own
pleasure, your own well-being, your own... Have your own way,
but seek what's best for the other. That's what he's saying.
If we're in our homes and we got friends over or we're in
a public place and there's people around, or we're at somebody
else's house or wherever you're at. When it comes to partaking
of things indifferent or anything else that might be questionable,
whether this is going to be offensive or not, we should not be pleasing
to ourselves, but we should seek to be profitable to that other
person. Now, this is what it is to be
under grace rather than law. This is what it is to be under
grace rather than law. You know there's folks who claim
to believe sovereign grace. They have a great problem with
this. I'll tell you why we have a problem with things like this.
We've heard false religion take scriptures like this and preach
it away from Christ, taken out of context from Christ. Brother
Angus Fisher down in Australia, he had a great point the other
day in a message I heard. He said, When you take a fish
out of water and you throw him up on the bank, he said it won't
be very long and he just starts stinking. Just dies and he stinks. He said, you separate these precepts
from Christ and they start to stink. And that's so. We've heard, we've smelled that
before, you know, and we've heard that before. And so we have a
tendency because that's the case when we read things like this,
you think, well, I'm not, don't tell me how to live. I'm not
going to tell you how to live, but Christ will. If you're His,
Christ will. Christ will. Let no man seek
his own, but ever man another's profit. That's faith which works
by love. Look over at 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians 13 and look at
verse 5. He's talking here about charity.
He's talking about love. And he says here, That love does
not behave itself unseemly. Look at that next thing. It seeks
not her own. You see that? If you have love
in your heart, your desire is not going to be to live for yourself. Your desire is not going to be
what's profitable to me. What do I want? What does my
belly want and my passions want at this moment? I don't care
what they want. That's not going to be the heart
of a believer. God formed in his heart where love is now. The nature of love is there.
That's not going to be his heart. Galatians 5.13, he said, Brethren,
you have been called unto liberty. Believers are free from the law.
We are free. We are made the righteousness
of God in Christ. As he is right now at the right
hand of God, so are we right now in this world. We have all
things in Christ, excepted of God in Christ. You've been called
unto liberty, brethren. What a glorious good news. Liberty. Liberty. He said, only don't
use your liberty for an occasion to the flesh. Don't use it as
an excuse to live after the flesh. He said, but by love serve one
another. For all the law is fulfilled
in this one word. Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. Now, you're not going to do that
in perfect righteousness. You're not going to do that and
be able to come to God by that. I've told you this time and again,
when you look at Calvary's cross and you see that one hanging
there forsaken of God and forsaken of his brethren because he loved
God and his brethren more than himself. He sought their good
more than his own. That right there is the righteousness
of the law. That's the love that is perfect.
That's the love that is perfect righteousness. And that's our
salvation. Christ Jesus Himself. He's our
righteousness. He's our sanctification when
He formed in our heart. He is. But He does tell you here
now, by love serve one another. By love serve one another. If
we have His love abiding in us, then the constraint of Christ's
love for us will be the rule of our hearts toward others,
and we will seek not our own, but we'll seek their profit.
Now let me ask you, isn't that a light and easy yoke? Christ
said, come unto me. He said, my yoke is light and
easy. That's so much easier than when
you go to read the law of Mount Sinai and that bare letter of
the law, it gives you no grace, it gives you no help, it gives
you no mercy, it gives you nothing. It's like a stop sign out there
on the highway. But see, this is Christ speaking. This is Christ accompanying this
Word in the heart of His child and giving you a constraint to
love one another, to love Him and to love one another because
of how He's loved you. That's a light and an easy yoke. And according to His Word, He
said, this is what He said, My sheep hear My voice. Do you hear
His voice in this? He said, My sheep hear My voice
and I know them and they follow Me. That means they're going
to obey me. Just like He speaks His word
of grace in our heart and brings us to trust Him for all our salvation
and to follow Him for all our salvation, in a word like this
right here, He makes you hear His voice and makes you say,
That is my Redeemer. I'm following Him. Christ does
that. He does that. What makes His
love for us such a constraint? What makes His love for you bind
you to Him and turn you and make you follow Him, make you willing
to follow Him? What about His love for us does
that? Turn over to Romans 15 because
this right here is what Christ did for us. It's what He did
for us. Paul's dealing with the same
subject here in Romans 15. Well, he'd been dealing with
it in Romans 14. Let's read the end of Romans 14, verse 21. Let's read verse 20. Meat destroys
not the work of God. All things indeed are pure, but
it's evil for that man who eats with offense. It's good neither
to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother
stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak. Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before God.
You have faith to do that and you know it's not going to cause
any problems, it's not going to destroy the work of God, it's
not going to change your completion in Christ whatsoever. You've
got faith, like that, well have it to yourself if you're around
a weak brother. He says, Happy is he that condemneth
not himself in that thing which he allow. If you can have a glass
of wine, he just mentioned wine. If you can have a glass of wine,
you know that that's not harmful. It's drunkenness that God forbids.
It's not having a sip of wine that He forbids. And if you can
do that with a clear conscience, knowing that you're free, you
have liberty to do that, have it to yourself, do it and don't
worry about it. Happy is the man that condemns
not himself in that which he has liberty to do. But, look,
but he that doubteth is damned if he eats, because he eateth
not of faith. For whatsoever is not of faith
is sin. You see there? That's why we don't compel another
brother to do anything. If a brother doesn't agree with
me on some point of doctrine, I might tell him the truth of
what the scripture says, but I'm not going to try to force
him to change his opinion and believe what I believe. Why?
Because whatever is not of faith, whatever is not being wrought
in his heart by Christ is just sin. If I got him to switch to
what I believe just because I convinced him, it won't profit him a thing. It won't profit him a thing.
And for me to try to do that works just as much as the man
who stands up and says you're saved by your will and your work. I'm telling you that's just as
much a work as the other. To try to compel somebody to
do what you think they should do or what scripture says they
should do. They got to be taught by God. Now read on. We then
that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and
not to please ourselves. That's just what he said in our
text. We ought to bear the infirmities of the weak. They might be wrong
as they can be. Love them, warts and all. Love
them. And bear with them. Let every
one of us please his neighbor for his good to his edification. Now here's why. Here's the constraint
that constrains us right here. For even Christ pleased not himself. But as it's written, the reproaches
of them that reproach thee fell on me. You think about that,
brethren. Christ sought not his own. He
didn't seek his own ease. He didn't seek his own pleasure.
He didn't seek his own profit. He didn't seek his own honor.
He didn't seek his own glory. When He walked this earth, He
came to do His Father's will. And everything He did was constantly
doing that which His Father bid Him to do. You see, He was serving
God in the room instead of His people. And He was serving God
as a man, as the perfect God-man. He's serving God, trusting God,
and obeying God, and doing it for His people to work out a
righteousness for us. And so He did always what pleased
the Father. Now, that was Christ's heart.
If He dwells in His child now through the Spirit, what do you
think the heart of that child is going to be? It's going to
be to want to obey Him and to follow Him just like He followed
the Father. And Christ did all things and
suffered all things, not for Himself. He did it for God His
Father and for His brethren. He did it for His elect. He did
it for us who He's called. He became incarnate for us. He
suffered rejection for us. He obeyed God and suffered for
us. He came not to be ministered
to. He didn't come to be an earthly
prince and to be bowed down to and all those things. He came
to be a servant. He said, the Son of Man came
not to be ministered unto. If you have a heart to preach and
you have a heart to preach, don't expect people to serve you. You
serve people. You don't wait around for them
to say, will you help me? You help them before they have
to say help me. Christ didn't come to be ministered
to. He came to minister. and to give
His life a ransom for many. That's why He came. He did it
for the salvation of His people. And He suffered reproach. He
suffered the reproach of the self-righteous religious world
that thought they were holier than He was, that said, if you
don't switch to our doctrine and believe what we believe,
then you must be a heretic and we're going to have nothing to
do with you. That's what the self-righteous religious world
said to my Savior. Am I going to say that to men?
Am I going to do that to men when they did it to my Savior?
Not if I'm looking out for the welfare of the other. Not if
I'm not pleasing myself but looking out for the other, I'll bear
the reproach. That's what He did for me. And
He even bore the reproach of His own disciples. You and I. He even bore the reproach of
Peter and James and John and all of their infirmities that
they had, He had to bear with them because they were sinners
too. Constantly saying dumb things and wanting to do... One of them
on one occasion tried to stop Him from going to the cross.
And nothing like the reproach He bore when He went to that
cross. Hung there, separated from God and from His people,
justifying us forever from our sins. Listen to this. Look not every man on his own
things. This is Philippians 2.4. You're very familiar with it.
Same thing. Look not every man on his own
things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this
mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in
the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God,
but made himself of no reputation. But he took the form of a servant. And He was made in the likeness
of men and being found in fashion as a man. He humbled Himself.
He kept going down, down, down. And He became obedient even unto
the death of the cross. And it says this, Wherefore God
also, wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him. You know
what that tells me? He took the lowest spot. When
He trusted the Father rather than His own hand, when He humbled
Himself and became obedient to the Father, that highly exalted
the Father. And in due time, the Father highly
exalted Him when He finished that work. And that's why Peter
over there in the 1st or 2nd epistle at the end over there,
where he says, he says, don't seek Don't seek your own way. He says, each of you submit to
one another. And He says, humble in yourself,
cast in all your care on Christ, trust in Christ to teach one
another and to lead one another. And He says, and He will exalt
you in due time. Because doing that, trusting
Christ is highly exalting Him. And in due time, He will exalt
you. But the problem is, you see men start dividing over something. brethren. And they usually start,
one or the other, both of them start acting like weak brothers.
But, almost always, both of them say, I'm doing this for the glory
of God. This is for God's glory. I'm standing my ground for God's
glory. But you know what the secret of the heart is? Whether
we know it or not, the secret of the heart is we want to be
exalted. Division is never of God. I don't care. I don't care
what we try to paint it like and try to say. If it's division
amongst brethren, it is not of God. And in your heart, you know,
you walk around, you're by yourself, and you're thinking, and boy,
you've got them arguments going in your head, and boy, I turn,
and he ought to do this, and you know, they ought to know
about me. They ought to think what I've done. They know how
much I've served, what I've done, and you just really want to be
exalted. He said, you humble yourself, submit yourself to
one another, cast your care on Christ that He may exalt you
when it's time. Alright, so here's a few scenarios
and let me move quick. Verse 25, but this, now let me
say this, this by no means covers the ways that this principle
applies. It doesn't cover all the way. This is just a scenario,
okay, of looking out for the other's well-being. Now, verse
25. Whatsoever sold in the shambles, that is, this was a meat market
where they sold idle meats that were left over from being offered
to idols. Whatever sold in the shambles, eat, asking no questions
for conscience sake. For the earth is the Lord's and
the fullness thereof. Don't ask if this meat was offered
to idols. It doesn't matter. The earth
is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Now he's quoting that
from Psalm 24 verse 1. And that's a psalm that speaks
all of Christ. You notice that psalm says, Who
shall ascend into the holy hill of the Lord? He that hath clean
hands and a pure heart, has not lifted up his heart to folly
and sin, that's who will. And Christ is the one who came.
who had clean hands and a pure heart and fulfilled all righteousness
for his people, and he was received in a God's holy hill. And that
Psalm, after it speaks of that, it says, Lift up your heads,
O ye gates, be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King
of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? It's
the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Why did
Paul quote that right here? Why did he quote that Psalm right
here, speaking of Christ? You see, as the Son of God, He
is the Creator. And He founded the earth on the
seas and everything in it is His, as the Son of God, as God. But when He took a form of a
servant and became a man as our mediator, He served with pure
hands and a holy heart for His people. He obeyed God all the
way to the cross. And when He finished that work
and justified His people, He ascended to that holy hill and
they opened the gates wide open for Him. And He entered in and
God gave to Him as the God-man. He gave to Him everything to
be His possession. And He's freed us from the law
and now when He gives His child faith to trust Him, He gives
His child everything that's His. We're joint heirs with Him. He
gives you righteousness and holiness and peace and redemption. Everything's
from Him. And not only that, everything
He owns is yours because it's His. And so He says here, I can
eat. and drink whatever because it's
all my Redeemer's and He's given it to us richly to enjoy so long
as we thank Him and acknowledge who gave it to us. He's the one
who gave it. Alright, now read on. But here's
another scenario. So He says, you can eat now.
Don't ask. Don't even ask. It doesn't matter.
Just eat it. Eat it. Because it's the Lord's
and He's given it to you to enjoy it Enjoy it and don't thank Him
for it. Do thank Him for it, but don't
be concerned and worried about it. He's given it to us richly
to enjoy. Don't abuse it. Do it in moderation,
but don't... Whatever it is, it doesn't matter
what it is. Food, drink, clothing, whatever. Don't, you know, don't
abuse the things He's given you. But now look, here's another
scenario though. Verse 27. If any of them that believe not,
bid you to a feast and you be disposed to go, whatsoever is
set before you, eat, asking no questions, for conscience sake. But if any man say unto you,
this is offered in sacrifice unto idols, you're sitting there
at this table and you're fixing to eat whatever it is they got
on the table. And all of a sudden a man leans
over to you and he goes, you know, we're eating this and sacrifice
to our God. And you know their God is not
the true and living God? You know their God is the work
of their hands and the figment of their imagination? What do
you do? Eat not. Why not? For His sake
that showed it. For His sake that showed it.
And for conscience sake. For conscience sake. Why? Look at this. For the earth is
the Lord's and the fullness thereof." Don't you find that amazing that
that's said again right here when He's telling you not to
eat? Before, He said, if there's some meat, don't ask any questions,
eat it. Eat it. And He said, because
the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. It's Christ's
and He gave it to me to richly enjoy. And now He says, but if
they tell you it's offered to idols, eat not. Why not? Because
Christ bought you And everything else, and it's all His. And for
that reason, don't eat it. You see, the point is this, brethren.
Liberty never means that Christ frees us to be our own man. To
do what we will and to sin without any consequence. That's not to
harm another without... That's not why He freed us. Liberty
means Christ frees us to serve Him, to be His. He said, your
body is not your own, it's bought with a price. Therefore serve
Him in your spirit and your body. It's His. And everything you
have is His. Every possession you have is
His. And so, am I going to take what He's given me and if nobody
is going to be offended by it and He'll be glorified, there
won't be anything harm His glory, I thank Him for it and I can
have it. But if somebody's sitting there and it's going to cause
them to doubt me and judge me and bring reproach to him, it's
not mine to do with it as I will. It's his. And he says, don't
eat it. You get what I'm saying? Whether
you eat or you don't eat, you do it remembering it's his, it's
not mine. I have to do what he says with
his own. So, that's the point he's making
there, brother. Now, look at verse 29. He says, you do this,
you don't eat it because you don't want to wound that weak
brother's conscience. Verse 29. Conscience, I say,
not thine own, but of the other man's conscience. Now, watch
this. This is confusing right here
if you don't know what he's saying. So, why is my liberty judged
of another man's conscience? For if I, by grace, if I thank
God, and I'm a partaker of this, why am I evil spoken of for that
for which I've given thanks? Now, he's not defending his liberty. That's not what he's doing here.
He's not saying, why are they judging me? They don't have any
right to judge me. Well, the fact is, they don't
have a right to judge a child of God. What he's saying is,
If I, by thanking God, partake of something, I have only Christ
to thank for it, then why would I do that in front of somebody
and cause my Savior and the liberty He's given me to be evil spoken
of because I've partaken of this? Why would I do something to cause
that weak brother to judge me? That's what he's saying. Because
that's what he's going to do. A weak brother can't help but
do it. You've done it to others, I'm sure, where somebody did
something and in your conscience you thought they ought not to
have done that. Well, they're Christ's servant,
not yours. And He's their master and He's
able to make them stand. He said over there in Romans
14, He said, so if a man eats, He says, don't you despise them
that do not eat. And if a man does not eat, or
if a man does eat, you that don't, don't judge him. And so he's
saying here, I'm not going to do anything that's going to make
that brother judge me, because for him to judge me would be
sin on his part. But you know who's made him do
that sin? I have, because I ate and I caused him to judge me. That switches this whole thing
around about, you know, men's always saying, don't judge. Don't
cause one to judge. You see what he's saying? That's
sin. And I don't want to cause him
to sin, whether he's a believer or an unbeliever. And if he's
a believer, I'm not only sinning against him, I'm sinning against
his master. I'm sinning against Christ who
laid down his life for him. Do you see what he's saying?
That's why he's saying it. I'd bring reproach on God by
my liberty. I'd bring reproach on the gospel
by my liberty. I'd cause that brother to sin
by my liberty. And I'd be sinning against Christ
by my liberty. Why would I want to do that?
You see what I'm saying? So I'm going to lay that liberty
aside. I'm going to lay it aside. Now here's the point. This is
our rule and this applies to everything believers do. It's
a two-part rule. The rule of life right here,
it's two parts to it. If we would think of these two
things before we made any decision in life. If we think of these
two things right here and conduct ourselves accordingly. We'd just be so much better. We would be better children of
God, faithful children. We would save ourselves a lot
of suffering. We would be looking out for the
betterment of others. Look here, here's the two things
right here. Here's the first one, verse 31. Whether therefore,
this is the conclusion of the whole thing, whether therefore
you eat or drink, or whether you don't eat or you don't drink,
whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. Whatsoever you do includes everything
from the greatest thing in your life to the smallest thing in
your life. From the most monumental to the most everyday. There's
nothing mundane when you're doing it for God's glory. I loaded
the dishwasher today. And as I loaded the dishwasher
today, I thought about this, I was studying this, and I thought
about this, and I thought, I need to load this dishwasher to God's
glory. You think, even something like that, even something like
that, everything, do it for God's glory. And here's the second
thing, verse 32, give none offense give no offense neither to the
Jews nor to the Gentiles. That is, don't do it to the man
who thinks he's under the law. That's a Jew here. Don't do it
to the man who thinks he's free from the law and he's just living
for himself. Nor do it to the church of God,
to God's true people. Even as I please all men in all
things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many,
that they may be saved. Now let me say this real quick.
One last statement. Don't read that and think about
others offending you. Don't do that. Don't read that
and think that's what others need to be considering about
me. Don't do that. This is written to make sure
you are not offending others. And it's a command to me to make
sure I'm not offending others. It's not for us to be saying,
well, I hope you're hearing that about me. I'm hearing that towards
you. And it's impossible, this is
why it's important, it's impossible to offend one for whom Christ
died without offending Christ. And when that's the case, you
can't worship God. If you're offending your brother
and offending Christ, and you're in the middle of that, you can
go through the motions of worshipping Him, but you ain't going to be
able to worship Him. I mean, think about it. Christ
is the only one that can give you worship. He's the only one
that can make you enter into worship with Him. And if you're
offending, you're in the wrong in what you're doing, and you're
offending your brother, and you're offending Christ, He's not going
to let you worship Him. He said this, If thou bring that
gift to the altar, You come to worship God and you remember
that thy brother hath ought against thee. Just anything. And that
brother is first of all Christ. And it's any of my brother, my
lesser brethren in this earth. I remember I've offended that
brother. I've done something to that brother.
Then I've offended Christ. And He says this, Leave there
your gift before the altar. Don't even think you're going
to worship God just yet. You got something you got to
get settled. Go your way. First be reconciled to your brother,
to Christ and to his child. And then come and offer thy gift.
Isn't that the case, brethren? You couldn't just come into God's
house and worship God in the beginning. What had to happen
first? You had to be reconciled to God. You had to be reconciled
to Christ until you had offended before you could actually enter
into worship. Well, it's the same now for a believer. We're
going to have to be reconciled to Him and to that brother we've
offended for Him to let us enter into worship. They do everything. You know, people get mad at one
preacher and they go to another place. You know, I'll show him,
I'll just go over here. Well, that's fine, but you ain't
going to get away from God. He is going to deal with you
whether you are under this one or that one or the other one.
You know what I am saying? So just humble yourself under
the mighty hand of God and cast your care on Him. He will exalt
you in due time. Glorify God in everything. What
is going to glorify Him? What is going to be good for
my brethren? That solves a lot of problems. A lot of problems. Alright, I pray God will bless
you.