All right, brethren, we're going
to be in Romans 14. Romans 14, and we'll be looking
at verses 1 through 6, maybe up to verse 9, but definitely
up through verse 6. Now, our passage here, it's written
in light of the fact that there are contentions and disputations
that arise in the body of Christ, in the local church is what I
really should say. And it comes out of differences
in customs and backgrounds and, you know, just who we are, personalities
and all manner of different reasons. And in Paul's day, it was largely
brought out between the Jews and the Gentiles, right? Jews who learned and heard the
truth of God through the word, through the prophets, through
the law of Moses, and through their teachers there in the synagogues.
And then they had Gentiles who were coming from many different
forms of pagan idolatry, pagan religion. And what Paul is saying
is that basically we are to avoid getting into these disputations,
these arguments and differences that are not the gospel. And
I realize that there are arguments that people will make about what
is a gospel issue versus what isn't. There's differences there,
honestly. If we're being honest with ourselves,
we know that we can say, hey, I think this is so vital that
this is a gospel issue. And so people will divide over
that, even though they agree in principle that we're not to
avoid apart from one another over things that aren't gospel
issues. And then the examples that Paul gives us is certain
foods and certain holy days, the observance of certain days.
And what Paul is showing to us, and I think that it's good for
us, is that we should be more willing, more ready to be gracious
and patient with our brethren than we are to be judgmental
and harsh, show harshness with people. We should be more willing
and more ready to bear long with one another and be patient, right? Unless it's a clear, clear gospel
issue, we should be more patient with them. And so while this
began probably in Paul's mind most likely from the Jew and
Gentile differences, it carries forward to our day. Because we
come from all manner of backgrounds. And he's talking here to believers
that are mature and have a great deal of knowledge and understanding
in the faith. And then there are those that
are young or immature about certain issues in the gospel and our
hope in Christ. And so he's just saying, be aware
that there's differences, but bear with one another and be
patient and show love to one another. Because these things,
they do cause conflict. There's personality differences,
and there's just different ideas about how things should work,
and there's different things that are priority there's different
ways that people worship right some people sing hymns and others
sing only the Psalms set to to hymns right and they can get
upset over those that would sing hymns and spiritual songs right
and so they're not they don't like those things so there is
a this principle of love and understanding, it still applies
to us today. Now, I've titled this Brethren
Received by God. Brethren Received by God. Now,
let's first look at the first six verses of Romans 14, the
first six verses, and we see there that we're to be patient
in growth, especially in terms of our brethren, patient in growth,
in our Lord growing our brethren. And so Paul begins here in verse
one, he says, him that is weak in the faith, receive ye, but
not to doubtful disputations. Right, not to, don't get into
questions of doubt, things that are not clear or made very plain
to us in the scripture concerning our hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I realize, again, I realize
that people will broaden that out very wide to be very harsh
and rude and cruel and demeaning to people, but let's be sure
that it's really not about Christ and the gospel that we hope in.
And so we're to welcome all who would come to our congregation
that are willing to hear, that are seeking Christ, coming to
listen. They want to worship the Lord
and they want to hear. And we're supposed to be welcoming
to them. And we want to be patient with
those that come in, all right, before we greet them at the door
and we, you know, point to that idol in their hand and say, you
need to let that thing go before you can come and sit and hear
the gospel. Really? I think we should actually let
them come in if they want to hear and they're seeking and
let them hear the gospel. Let them hear what the Lord says,
right? What he's teaching us because
the truth is that the gospel in the hands, so to speak, of
the Holy Spirit, applying that word with power and his teaching
and revelation, he's going to teach them a lot more than our
witty, sharp tongue can teach them, right? you know, teaching
them a lesson that they need to hear and telling them what
they need to know, right? The Spirit is the one who's going
to teach them in the same manner that He taught us, right? And was patient and long-suffering
with us. And so, this Word really is for
us who are mature to hear. We that are mature and think
of ourselves as knowing something, this Word first comes to us. Us that are in Christ and think
we have a strong footing and standing in Christ. Think about
what Peter said at the end of his second epistle, 2 Peter 3.18. He says to us that we are to
grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. And what that tells us is that,
thanks to religion, the religion of this flesh, the religion of
man, and the things that we've heard and grown up and studied
or thought we understood, we carry a lot of baggage, a lot
of religious baggage, and a lot of things that oftentimes, when
we think of, we're ashamed, right? Things that we've said and done
to people and just things that we did, how we handled situations
and how we treated others, and thought, you know, how we should
handle it. And we look back at that with
shame now. And so we have this baggage and
we've got to realize that the Lord, all the Lord's people are
coming up through various paths and it's all dead religion that
we're coming through. It's all lies about the Lord,
right? Even if they never stepped foot
in church, their parents or their aunt or grandparent said something
and told them, you know, Cleanliness is next to godliness, you know,
and other sayings that are not in the Bible, right? That have,
they're pulling from something, but they're not real. They're
not the scripture, they're not the truth, and they're not being
applied correctly. They're just being left to us
to apply them as we will. And so the Lord's bringing his
wounded people. He's bringing people that are
hurting, people that are full of confusion and lies here, and
he's doing it so that they'll be fed and nourished by the gospel,
that their wounds will be cleaned and anointed with oil and bound
up so that they can heal. That's why he's bringing them
to the local church, right? Think of the parable of the Good
Samaritan. That's what it's a picture of,
those beat down in religion and cast off and refused and mistreated
by religion and he brings them to a local church. That inn is
just a picture of the local church where the Lord brings them and
says, give them what they have need of, take care of them. And
whatsoever you have need of extra, I'll give it to you. I'll provide
for you when I return, all right? So be ready to bear with your
young brethren and immature brethren impatience and don't insist upon
them knowing everything you know immediately of those things that
took you so long to learn and that we're still learning, right?
Don't we still get reminded like, wow, I can't believe I'm still
doing that same thing that I know I shouldn't be doing and we do
it. So it takes time for our brethren to hear that and so
be gracious and patient and pray, pray for them. Pray for yourself
because you might be the one to learn something in it all. Actually, maybe the Lord's teaching
you. All right, so Paul gives us an example of what the early
church faced in verse 2. For one believe it that he may
eat all things, another who is weak eateth herbs. Right, and
so our understanding of that is that in the city you would
go to the market, they didn't have refrigerators, that we know
of and so typically they would go to the market daily and they'd
get their food and oftentimes the meat that they purchased
was likely already sacrificed earlier that day in a pagan temple
of the god of that city and it went through its process of being
blessed under some pagan idol and then it made its way to market
and was sold. among other things, among pork
and things that under the law is forbidden for a Jew to eat,
for example. And so you have all this food
that you don't know its background, what it was used for, where it
came from. And some people said, well, I can't eat that. I shouldn't
eat that. Because for all I know, it was
sacrificed to Diana up there in the temple there on the mountain.
And I don't want to partake in that. You know, God wouldn't
want me to do that. And so they were bound by their
conscience thinking that they shouldn't partake of those things.
And so that really gave them a hard time. But the mature believer
said, who cares? I don't I don't care if it was
sacrificed or wasn't sacrificed. I don't care if it's pork or
beef or chicken. Doesn't matter to me because
I know that the Lord has created all things and I know that there's
no pagan idol that this is sacrifice to, I'm thanking the Lord for
it and just happy to have a good meal and I'm going to eat it.
And so they had no bound conscience about it. And Paul said over
in 1 Corinthians 8 verse 4, if you want to turn there because
we'll look at a couple other verses, 1 Corinthians 8 verse 4 he says,
"...as concerning therefore the eating of those things that are
offered in sacrifice unto idols. We know that an idol is nothing
in the world and that there is none other God but one." Alright,
so anyone who is enjoying and rejoicing in the liberty that
they have in Christ, they know, well, there's only one God. There's
not other gods, so let man do what he's going to do to that
piece of meat. It doesn't matter because I'm
eating it in thankfulness to the Lord. I'm just partaking
what he's given me. So they weren't troubled by it. But And carry this over to other
arguments maybe that you've been in over things that now you look
back and say, you know, I can't believe I was so adamant about
that and so impatient about that. And the reality is that, you
know, we can take our knowledge of things and hammer on people
and be mean to people and rude and just really inconsiderate
of them. And, you know, we can do that. And Paul would say, If you're
there in 1 Corinthians 8 verses 1 through 3, he said, now as
touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have
knowledge. We all have heard things of Christ,
we've been in the local congregation, and we've come to know some things. And some things we know, but
they may not even be the truth, but we know them, and he says
knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. So even today, there's
arguments that go on in the churches, right? And there's churches that
we should be in fellowship with, but for various reasons, we don't
know them because there's contentions, right? There's schisms that have
arisen up between their pastor and what they think of another
church's pastor that we do associate with, right? And some of you
know some of the things and you're like, I don't see what the issue
is. I don't know why people aren't talking to each other over these
things. And the reason why is because knowledge puffs up, right? And there's people that are afraid
to attend gospel churches that might be as close as 15 minutes
away, but they won't go because there's, you know, they heard
a pastor say this about, something in the Bible. And it's not a
gospel issue, but they've made it a gospel issue. And they think,
well, now I can't go there, because they don't agree with that, with
what this pastor over here said. And I like what he says. And
so knowledge puffs up so that their head is so fat they can't
even get it through the church door. So they're stuck at home,
because they can't get past that front door, because they've got
a fat head full of knowledge. And that's really what is going
on in many ways. And so, you know, if the brethren, if they've confessed
Christ, if they love Christ and he's all their hope, right, you
might find some differences in what they say about a particular
verse or a particular doctrine. But if they love Christ, then
hope the best for them and seek to be in fellowship and be patient
with them and and pray that the Lord help them because Paul went
on to say in verses 2 and 3 of 1st Corinthians 8 if any man
think that he knoweth anything he knoweth nothing yet as you
ought to know but if any man love God the same is known of
him of God. He loves God because God loves
him. He confesses Christ and hopes in Christ. He might have
baggage that's clouding his view or some certain fears or concerns
about a particular doctrine, but if he loves Christ and his
hope is in Christ, not in his works, not in what he's doing,
but in what Christ has done, then he's known of Christ. The
Lord has revealed Christ to him. And so we should seek to believe
him and to fellowship and be patient there and check the things
that our tongue would want to say to them, right? And so Romans
14.3, Paul back there, he says, let not him that eateth despise
him that eateth not. And let not him which eateth
not judge him that eateth. For God hath received him. For God hath received him, he
says there. Now we know, just a little further
in Romans 14 verse 17, Paul speaks about food and drink. He says,
the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness
and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. That's verse 17 there.
And so, we're not to get into arguments over things that we
put in our body, because it all passes through and goes out the
other end. You know, nothing to get upset
about, right? One person is fine eating meat,
right? You know, somebody might complain
about somebody smoking cigarettes, right? But they have no problem
putting a greasy, fat hamburger full of GMOs and garbage in their
body, right? And French fries, they think
nothing of that, but they're going to condemn you for drinking
you know, a wine or taking a shot of whiskey once in a while or
having a beer or smoking a cigarette, right? And they get upset about
that. But we all do it, right? We put poisons in our body all
the time. And so be careful, right? The kingdom of God is not meat
and drink, but righteousness. It's our hope in the Lord Jesus
Christ, right? It's peace and joy in the Holy
Ghost and rejoicing in him. And so we don't want to bite
and devour one another over things that we're guilty of doing, even
though they may be a little different, but we're blind to it. Don't
bite and devour one another over those things. So, know that we're
joined together in the body of Christ. It's through his righteousness
and his blood. We're made alive by the Holy
Spirit, who turns us, gives us life and repentance from those
dead works. But there are people that are
still bound to some degree by touch not, taste not, handle
not, but they're coming to hear the gospel. And that's where
they should be, to come and hear the gospel, because it's the
Lord that's gonna teach them and give them a comfort and a
rest in Christ to know that He's their salvation, that He accomplished
all our salvation on the cross when He shed His blood. And by
His death, He delivered us from the punishment of sins and the
wrath of God which is coming upon the inhabitants of the world
who know not God and don't believe in him or trust him. And so if
the disagreement isn't over gospel substitution, meaning that we
need a savior, we need the savior to do all the work. I don't have any part in it.
and that we agree that our faith, our hope, our love of Him is
born of the Spirit, it's not of this flesh, He gave it, and
we glory in Him and rejoice in Him that it's all of His work,
right? Though sometimes we see, we interpret
a verse a little differently and apply it slightly differently
than how others, but if it's not, the substitution of Christ,
and we're not boasting of our flesh and what we've done for
the Lord, but giving Him all the glory and rejoicing in Him,
why don't we have fellowship then? Why can't we rejoice in
that? We're not talking about being
bound by the law for our righteousness and trying to seek a righteousness
or add to the work of Christ. We're saying it's all of Him.
It's all of him and I'm completely dependent upon his grace and
mercy to me. And you say the same thing, meaning
that God's revealed that to you, meaning he's received you. And
so just as I believe he's received me in Christ and made me to know
these things. And so we can have fellowship
over that, right? We should seek to see our brethren
in the same way our God sees us in Christ. and bears long
and patient and is patient with us, right? So when Christ, when
he saved us, we're coming out of man's religion. We're coming
out, right? Aren't there verses where you're
hearing the gospel, And now, right, you're now hearing the
gospel, and the Spirit just enables you to behold it in the light
of Christ, and what you are in Christ, whereas before you're
like, oh, I thought that was talking about my righteousness,
and my works, and what I had to be doing better, and now I
see he's talking about Christ. And he's talking about Christ,
and so, We're looking to him, right?
Even that word there that I read from Romans 14, 17, the kingdom
of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness. Religion tells
us that's my righteousness. I better be keeping the law.
It's about buckling down and doing what I need to do under
the law. But now we see that righteousness
is speaking of Christ's righteousness, our hope and joy in Christ, not
what I'm doing under the law, but what he's done. And then
he leads us and teaches us. He leads us in paths of righteousness.
He teaches us in the spirit, not to do those things that are
written in the law, because we don't want to sit against our
neighbor, whether that's a brother or sister in Christ or somebody
out on the street. We don't want to sit against
them, but we want to show them love and patience and the spirit. And so we're fulfilling the law
because we're just seeking to be loving and kind to others.
We're already fulfilling the law. So we're not under the yoke
of the law. We're, we're free in the law
of liberty in Christ who, who settles us down so that we're
not out there judging and pointing out everyone's fault because
we think that's our righteousness and how we get to heaven, stepping
on people. But we're patient with people
knowing that it's our God's grace and mercy to them, just as it's
his grace and mercy to me. So we can be patient with them
and just show them kindness and gentleness and encourage them
to come and hear the gospel, that he saves them the same way
he saved us, all right? All right, and so we're coming
out of man's religion full of fleshly deeds and self-righteousness
and looking for approval and looking to make ourselves feel
good about ourselves. And so it can take time under
the gospel to address all the questions, all the foolish notions
we have, all the silly thoughts that still rise up, but the Lord
is teaching us through the gospel and he's settling us, making
us to know, wow, Lord, I see. everywhere you provide your righteousness
and your blood and your grace and your kindness in all things
that I never even saw before. It's all really all of you. And so it takes time as it pleases
the Lord to unravel those grave clothes and drop them from us
and to remove them from us. So if your brethren, if you're,
if the one who you have a dispute with, you know, if they believe
Christ, if they trust that the blood of Christ has bought them,
then grace covers their sin, right? Even if they are wrong,
grace covers their sin and God receives them. And so you can
receive them as well, right? You can receive them and be patient,
not join in with their sin and their error, but you can be patient
and wait on the Lord to teach them. And maybe he'll actually
even teach you. you know, what you have need
of learning. All right, and in verse four, who art thou, he
says, Romans 14, four, who art thou that judgest another man's
servant? To his own master he standeth
or falleth. Yea, he shall be holding up,
for God is able to make him stand. All right, that's a comfort to
us. It's not, God's not placing that
burden of their learning on you. Now, you don't want to set a
stumbling block in front of your brethren. You don't want to be
a cause for them to sin. but you have the encouragement
to know that God upholds them, and he's the one who's gonna
teach them. He's able to make them stand,
stand in his grace, their sin being covered in his grace, and
to grow them in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ, just as he has grown you in the grace and knowledge
of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. All right? That brother
or sister isn't dependent on what you are able to tell them
and the argument you can craft and get them over to your side. They're dependent on the Lord.
And so trust the Lord that he's going to sustain them and grow
them just as he did with you. Because he's long-suffering to
us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance. It's committed to Christ, and
he'll provide for them in the preaching of the gospel. And
so really, we want to just create an environment where the gospel
is preached without disturbance and distraction. If you want
to help, then don't be a distraction to the gospel. Be committed to the work of the
gospel, that it go forth in peace and in joy and in that fellowship
with one another. And so, you know, we can be gentle
and charitable to our brethren, knowing that it's the Lord who's
gonna teach us, teach them under the gospel as he taught us, all
right? And then Paul gives another example in verses five and six.
He says, regarding the observance of holy days, he says, one man
esteemeth one day above another. Another esteemeth every daylight.
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth
the day, regardeth it unto the Lord. And he that regardeth not
the day to the Lord, he doth not regard it. He that eateth,
eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks. And he that eateth
not to the Lord, he eateth not and giveth God thanks. So we
see there that both parties are concerned with the glory of God. Both are doing what in their
conscience they think is is right to do. And it's, you know, be
careful about dividing over those differences and those things. Even if you feel strongly about
them, be careful about dividing over those things. And, you know,
I was thinking, you know, Paul is talking about holy days, all
right, the various holy days in the Jewish you know, what
the Jews were coming out of, even Sabbath days. And, you know,
they still felt like, hey, this is important for me to observe
this day. All right. And, and what we see
is if they want to come in here, you know, strict Sabbatarian
wants to come and hear the gospel preached, then let them come
and hear the gospel preached and be patient and bear with
them because under the gospel, even the strictest Sabbatarian
is going to hear, they're going to come to hear that Christ is
my rest. He's my hope. And they're going
to learn, wow, and Christ is that day, that Sabbath day points
to Christ, who is the believer's rest. And he's the one who's
delivered us from the labor of all our works. And in him, we
rest, right? And so in that, we can take joy
and comfort in knowing that under the gospel, we hear of him and
we realize, wow, Lord, you really are everything. Now, some people
might, you know, count the day as a day to do a little extra
religious things, but the Lord will show them that every day
is a day that we rest in Christ. look to him, and he'll teach
us. If we're using the law or we're being legalistic with ourselves,
the Lord teaches us that and says, why are you doing those
things? Trust me. Trust me for all your righteousness.
And he'll bless it there under the gospel. So I'll stop there. Just pray that the Lord bless
that word so that you rest in Christ and rest in him in all
things, knowing that he teaches each of his people as we have
need of being taught. And he uses us as we have need
of being used in the body to minister to those who need to
hear the gospel. And so I pray he bless that word
to your heart. That's closing prayer. Our gracious Lord, Father,
we thank you for your grace and mercy in your son, Jesus Christ. We thank you for the patience
that you have with us in Christ, how long-suffering you are, and
that you don't leave us in darkness, but that you continually teach
us and grow us in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. We pray that you would help us
to be charitable and gracious and loving to our brethren, and
that we would all grow together in the knowledge of Christ and
in the fellowship that we have in you, rejoicing always in your
righteousness rejoicing always in your full, complete, sufficient
salvation. We thank you, Lord, for this.
In the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
All right, brethren. Come back in about 15 minutes, so a couple
of minutes after the hour on this clock.