All right, Romans chapter 14.
We dealt with the first four verses last week just to set
the tone of this whole chapter. But the apostle Paul has been
inspired by the Holy Spirit to deal in issues that may arise
between brethren. And that's important. He starts
off in verse one, him that is weak in the faith. He's not talking
about an unbeliever here. I know we throw around terms
that I don't even like to really bring up in the pulpit, but just
for the sake of argument, I'll do it this time. He's not talking
about, here's a Christian who's a Calvinist, and here's one who's
an Arminian, that kind of thing. Here's one who believes in the
sovereignty of God, and here's one who believes in the free
will of man. Those aren't brethren. You say,
that's not what he's talking about. And he's not talking about
what we would call differences over the essentials of the gospel. Paul had been inspired by the
Spirit to lay out the essentials of the gospel in the book of
Romans like no other book. It's like a systematic theology. And so we understand the simple
gospel of how God justifies the ungodly. And it's all by his
grace based upon the righteousness, the blood, the death of the cross,
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ freely imputed to
us. And there's no other gospel.
And if a person's either ignorant of, Paul had said this in Romans
10, if you're either ignorant of or not submitted to that truth,
to the righteousness of God, the righteousness of Christ,
then you're going about to establish a righteousness of your own.
And to those who are doing that, we cannot call them weak brethren.
They're not brethren at all. and they won't be until they
are brought to faith in Christ and reveal themselves this way.
So it's imperative, if you're gonna understand Romans 14, and
this is where context is so important, Paul, he's talking about differences
that arise between brethren over non-essential doctrine, non-essential
matters. Specifically, he tells us, he's
talking about here the weak brother, the weak sister, It has to do
with what we're permitted to eat and what we're not permitted
to eat. You say, well, why is that even
an issue? Well, you know as well as I do, under the old covenant,
they had strict dietary laws. And that was one of the ways,
there's several things you could say about those dietary laws.
A lot of it had to do with just mainly separating them from Gentiles. the Gentile world. You see the
Jews, the Israelites were to be separate and God used physical
things to point them out and separate them out as his people,
his chosen people for a given period of time to keep them together
as a nation. And so it had to do with separating
them out. It had nothing to do with their
holiness as far as holy before God. It had nothing to do with
their salvation eternally. It had nothing to do with a righteousness
before God, whether you ate pork or not. It didn't make you righteous
or unrighteous. That old covenant was given to
show them their sinfulness and drive them to Christ, the promised
Messiah, who would come in the future and establish righteousness. But there were other ceremonial
dietary laws that God gave them to keep them separate. And a
lot of theologians say, well, it had to do with health, and
it may have. You know eating for example eating
pork today was not like eating pork back then It was very unhealthy
and very dirty and that kind of thing so it had to do with
with all of these things but under the new covenant all the
distinctions of foods, edible foods now, okay? Not just eating,
you know, when Paul wrote to Timothy, he said, I'm persuaded
that everything is clean. He's not talking about things
that we're not, you know, you don't eat, you know, he's giving
us a brain. And he's talking about edible
foods. In other words, there's no, there's nothing wrong with
eating with the Gentiles. Now if the Gentiles ate things
that were just wretched and rotten and dirty and all of that, then
we don't do that because I just, that's not appetizing to me.
But as far as any distinction that would set them apart according
to the dietary laws, those are gone. And so here he's dealing
with weak believers in the sense that they were not yet convinced
in their conscience, their own conscience, and that's important.
You know what the conscience is, that's the seat of judgment,
that's your courtroom in your head. One old writer said. How do I know right from wrong?
It's my conscience. How do I decide whether to accuse
myself or you or excuse myself or you? That's the conscience.
And of course we know the conscience of the natural man or woman is
defiled. Basically, I remember Brother
Tim James one time preached a message and he offended a lot of people
because he said that unbelievers are spiritually insane. Well,
they are. They don't know the difference
between right and wrong. That's what insanity is. They
don't know the difference between right and wrong when it comes
to salvation, when it comes to a right relationship with God,
see? And that's why our conscience
is purged by the blood of Christ. But these weak believers were
not yet convinced in their conscience that that distinction of foods
was abolished. And so they burdened their conscience. The mature believer, he or she
was convinced that it was done, and they had the liberty to eat,
and so they started judging each other on that. Well, if you eat
that, you're not doing what God commands you to do, and Christian
wouldn't do that, that kind of thing. Well, here in verse five
it starts off with another non-vital issue about the keeping of days. Look at verse five, he says,
one man esteemeth one day above another, and another esteemeth
every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded
in his own mind. Let him be fully assured in his
own mind. Now you know what this distinction
of days is all about, don't you? It had to do, under the old covenant,
they had Sabbath laws, they had Sabbath days, they had Sabbath
weeks, they had Sabbath years, every seventh year. And then
they had their year of Jubilee, which was a Sabbath, you know,
every 50 years. And they had all kinds, then
they had feast days, all right? And these things were significant.
Again, God gave these actual days to the children of Israel
to separate them out, to keep them. But especially the Sabbath
day is an issue. That's part of the Ten Commandments,
the seventh day. And the seventh day is the last
day of the week. It's not the first day of the
week. It's Saturday. And you know, the Seventh-day Adventist, you know,
they still are convinced in their minds that that's the day we
should keep. Well, if you're gonna keep a Sabbath day, if
you're gonna keep a Sabbath day according to the law, that's
the day you should keep it. I had a man ask me, you know,
now, for example, people today say, well, Sunday is the Christian
Sabbath. Where is that in the Bible? From
Genesis to Revelation, show me where it is in the Bible. You
can't find it. That was a tradition, I believe,
started by the Catholic Church. They said that Sunday, and that's
what, and I know when Seventh Day Adventists, when they approach
people who don't worship on Saturday, but on Sunday, they'll ask them
that. Where in the Bible did God change the Sabbath from Saturday
to Sunday? And usually they'll say, well,
they don't get any answers, or they get just tradition, tradition. Well, Sunday is not the Christian
Sabbath. And Saturday has been fulfilled.
We meet on the first day of the week. We call it the Lord's Day
because for what reason? It is a special day because it's
a day that the Lord has given under the new covenant, the New
Testament, that believers should congregate together for public
worship. And that's why we should set
aside Sunday to do that. But it's not the Sabbath. Well,
what is the Sabbath? Well, look over at Hebrews chapter
four. And you can go back to what Paul,
I think when we looked at Colossians chapter two last week, where
he says plainly, don't let people judge you in meets and days and
feast days and Sabbaths. We're not to judge each other
on that basis. We're not to receive or reject
anybody on that basis. Now there may be some people,
like what he's talking about, weak brethren, who think in their
minds that either Sunday or Saturday is still the Sabbath, but they
need to be taught if they're brethren, if they're believers.
And next week we're gonna deal with how to do that. And the
answer is we do it with patience, with love, with compassion, and
with wisdom. Not by flaunting our liberty,
or just embarrassing them, or burdening their conscience. But
look at Hebrews chapter four. This is one of the passages.
He says in verse one, let us therefore fear, which means to
worship, lest a promise be left us of entering into his rest. His rest, you know what the Sabbath
day was for, it was a rest day. a day when you would rest from
your labors. And God gave that to Israel on
the last day of the week so that they were separated from the
Gentiles. And then he talks about the gospel,
verse two, for unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto
them, but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed
with faith in them that heard it. And so he says in verse three,
for we which have believed do enter into rest. We which believe,
we enter into rest. Well, what rest do we enter into
a day? That means we don't work on Saturday
or we worship on Saturday? No. He said, as he said, as I
have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although
the works were finished from the foundation of the world,
Think about it, verse four, for he spoke in a certain place of
the seventh day on this wise, and God did rest the seventh
day from all his works. Now that's when it's creation,
you know. God rested on the seventh day. It doesn't mean that God
got tired and had to re-energize like we do. It means that he
finished the work in six days. And then he stopped working on
the seventh day. And verse five, and in this place
again, if they shall enter into my rest, the rest he's talking
about here, as it pertains to the Hebrews, was entering into
the promised land, the rest there. and they couldn't enter in because
of unbelief. But look at verse six. Now look at this. Seen therefore
it remaineth that some must enter therein and they to whom it was
first preached entered not in because of unbelief. They didn't
go into the rest of the promised land. So verse seven, again,
he limited to a certain day, saying in David, today, after
so long a time, as it is said today, if you will hear his voice,
harden not your hearts. Now verse eight, for if Jesus
had given them rest, now Jesus there is Joshua. Remember Joshua? Moses couldn't go into the promised
land, but Joshua led them in. And that's Joshua, that's the
Old Testament name for Jesus, Yeshua. And this is Joshua who
fit the battle of Jericho, that's who he's talking about. And if
Joshua had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken
of another day, another day of rest. And verse nine, there remaineth
therefore a rest, that word's the Sabbath, to the people of
God. Well, what rest remaineth for
the people of God? Verse 10, for he that has entered
into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, now here's
the key, as God did from his. Just like God ceased, finished
the work, whoever he's talking about that entered into his rest,
he finished the work. He's not talking about us there. He's talking about Christ. So
he says in verse 11, let us labor therefore to enter into that
rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
He's talking about the finished work of Christ. And he entered
into his rest. What did he do? The Bible says
he sat down at the right hand of God. After he finished the
work, what work? The work of our redemption. The
work of our salvation, the work of the righteousness by which
God has justified us. He finished it, he completed
it. We're gonna be talking about that in today's message. Once
for all. Once for all his people and once
for all time. So what is the Christian Sabbath? It's not a what, it's a who.
It's not a day. It's Christ. He's our eternal
rest. You know, some people, they put
on these tombstones, he's entered into his eternal rest. Well,
if he's a believer, he's already done that before he hit the grave.
We believe in Christ. We rest in his finished work. That's what the gospel is. The
righteousness of God is a finished work. It's nothing we do. It's
nothing we add to. Now go back to Romans 14. So
Christ is our Sabbath. Now, Sunday is a special day.
Don't get me wrong. I mean, this is the day, the
first day of the week. Sometimes it's called the eighth
day. You know, they were to be circumcised on the eighth day.
Well, the eighth day is the first day of the week. It's seven days,
then the eighth day is day number one, seven plus one. And what
does that signify? It signifies the resurrection,
a new beginning. And circumcision on the eighth
day is a picture of the new birth. When you're born again by the
Spirit, circumcised in the heart, it's a new beginning for you,
isn't it? That's what he's talking about.
So yes, Sunday's a special day because it's a day that we're
to regard in this sense, not as a Sabbath, not as a day on
which we're holier than the rest of the week, and like the rest
of the days don't matter. Every day's the Lord's day, like
he says here in verse five. One man esteemeth one day above
another, another esteemeth every day alike. And what he's saying here is
that the mature believer, he doesn't look at any day as being
the Sabbath, he looks to Christ. And that's what these young believers
needed to be taught. He said, let every man be fully
persuaded in his own mind. They need to be taught. Verse
six of Romans 14. He that regardeth the day, regardeth
it unto the Lord. Now that's the key right there.
Regarding the day. If you regard a day, keeping
a day as making you holier than somebody else, or as you're keeping
the law, you're not regarding that day unto the Lord. What
does it mean unto the Lord? It means to his glory. And the
only way we can glorify God is by resting in Christ. You see,
he's the Shekinah glory of God. If I keep a day, thinking that
that day is gonna make me something more than what I am. I'm not
regarding it unto the Lord. So that's the key. If it's a
believer, he's regarding it unto the Lord. He's not doing this
because it saves him or makes him savable or makes him righteous. He's doing it because he's just
convinced in his mind or she's just convinced in her mind that
this is what God says to do. Why are we baptized? Because
we feel like it? No, because God says to, this
is our confession. Why do we keep the Lord's Supper?
Because, well, we just figured something to do. No, it's because
it's a commandment. It's not a suggestion, is it?
It's not do it if you feel like it, but now if we do it for the
wrong reason, then that's a problem, see? And so he says, let every man
be persuaded. And he that regardeth the day,
regardeth the night, and he that regardeth not the day to the
Lord, he doth regard it. Then he goes back to eating,
verse six, he that eateth, eateth unto the Lord, for he giveth
thanks, thank you, Lord. See, there's the motive, grace,
gratitude, grace, love, and gratitude, thank you, Lord. And he that
eateth not to the Lord, he eateth and giveth God thanks. Now that's
the keys. That tells you we're talking
about believers here and not legalistic unbelievers. And then
he says in verse seven, for none of us liveth to himself and no
man dieth to himself. Whether we live or we die. Look
at it, verse eight. For whether we live, we live
unto the Lord. We're here for the glory of God.
We're not here to flaunt ourselves. We're not here to please ourselves.
Whatever we do, it shouldn't be to promote ourselves. It's to live unto the Lord. Whether we die, we die unto the
Lord. In life, we live unto the Lord. In death, we die unto the
Lord for his glory. Clinging to Christ, resting in
his righteousness, pleading his blood. You see, that's the issue
for the glory of God, our sovereign creator and redeemer. And he
says, whether we live therefore or die, we are the Lord's. We
belong to him. We don't even belong to each
other. We're in the same family, but he's the head. We're the
body. He's the bridegroom. We're the
bride. He's the husband. We're the wife. We belong to
him. He's our master. He's our redeemer. He's the Lord, our righteousness.
We worship him. And so whatever we do by way
of having been convinced in our conscience either to do this
or not to do that. If we're believers, it's gonna
be unto the Lord for His glory and not for any other reason.
Not for any, if it's for any other reason, like, well, this
is gonna, this puts me a cut above you, you know. If I worship
on Sunday or Saturday or whatever. No, not at all. Feast days, all
of them, all those days are alike in that sense. We're the Lords.
And so in verse nine, he says, for to this end, Christ both
died and rose and revived, that he might be Lord both of the
dead and the living. Christ, in his essential deity,
has always been Lord, but this is speaking of Christ the Redeemer. This is speaking of Christ as
the mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. This
is his mediatorial glory, which he earned by his finishing the
work on the cross. As God-man, you might say it
that way. As God, he's always been in control,
he's always been Lord, he created the world. He's the governor. But as God-man, he has a special
mediatorial glory. Peter spoke of this in Acts chapter
two, that the result of his death and his burial was his resurrection
unto glory, and he's crowned now in a way that he wasn't crowned
before because he's now the one mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus, sitting on the throne, And that's the
reason that he died and arose and revived, that he might, which
I believe is speaking of his ascension into glory, that he
might be Lord both of the dead and the living. Well, who's the
dead and the living? Well, I believe in the context what he's talking
about is all of God's elect, those who are living and those
who are dead, who've gone on to be with the Lord. Some commentators
say that he's the Lord of both, the living, which would be our
believers, and the dead, which would be unbelievers. And he
is going to be Lord. He is Lord of all. And the Bible
tells us that in the end, every knee is going to bow and every
tongue is going to confess that he's Lord. To those unbelievers,
it's going to be a forced bowing. They're going to be forced to
bow. They can't empower. But we bow to the Lord when we
come to Him and rest in His finished work. That's what we've done,
or by the grace of God. Well, verse 10, now listen to
this. He says, but why dost thou judge? Pages here now. Why dost thou
judge thy brother? Or why dost thou set it not thy
brother? For we shall all stand before
the judgment seat of Christ. Now again, he's talking about
judgment that is based on wrong things. So why do you judge them? Either it may be they've gone
so far as to say, well you can't be saved if you do this or do
that. Not because that would gain you salvation, but just
because a child of God wouldn't do that. You see what I'm saying? That's the kind of logic we use.
Why do you set your brother at naught? Why do you cast him off
as nothing? Count them as nothing. We're gonna stand before the
judgment seat of Christ. And so Paul calls their attention
to this final judgment to remind them, this thing is not about
what you eat or don't eat. Are there things you shouldn't
eat? Well, sure. The Bible says eat all things
in moderation. I'll never forget one time when
I was up in Aspen, we'd go to the Y to work out. There was
a young man there who had a reputation of being kind of a party goer,
you know, a rounder. And he came in, he knew I was
a preacher, he came in one Monday. He told me he wanted me to rejoice.
He stopped doing all that and he got saved and things like
that. He said, I don't drink anymore,
I don't do this, don't do that. Well, in the process of the conversation,
I understood what he was talking about salvation. It's what most
of us went through in false religion and I'm not trying to make fun
of the man or anything like that, but he knew he was saved because
he quit drinking. And his name was DJ, and I said,
well, DJ, I'll be honest with you, I'm glad you quit drinking.
I really am, because some people just can't handle it. But I said, let me ask you a
question. I said, if you walked into a restaurant, and he knew
Debbie, too, because we both worked out there. I said, if
you walked into a restaurant and you saw me and Debbie sitting
there drinking a glass of wine, what would you do? He said, well,
I'd be appalled. I said, but DJ, I said, there's
nothing wrong with me sitting there drinking a glass of wine.
Now I said, if I get a whole bottle and get drunk and crawl
out, then there's something wrong. That's sin. But I said, there's
a bigger sin going on in that restaurant that you don't even
think about. He said, what? And I said, it's all those people
are sitting there overeating. And you don't even think about
that. Why aren't you appalled at that?
I'll tell you why, because we do the same thing, you know.
That's okay, we make fun of that. We make jokes about that. And
I started to try and tell the difference between what real
sin is and what real holiness is. But I don't know if I ever
got through to him. I think he did come to church
up here one time. I don't think he came back though, did he?
I don't know what I was preaching on that morning. I'm sure it
was the gospel. But anyway, Paul's saying this
thing's not about what you eat or don't eat or what you drink
or don't drink or what day of this, day of that. Listen, what
matters at the judgment? Are we in Christ? Do I stand before God washed
in the blood of Christ from all my sins and clothed in his righteousness? Because if I'm not, I don't care
if I worshiped on Sunday through, Saturday, it doesn't matter.
If I don't have Christ, if my sins are not forgiven on a just
ground, clothed in the imputed righteousness of Christ, what
does it matter? Look at verse 11. He says, for
it is written, as I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow
to me and every tongue shall confess to God. That's true.
Our accountability is to God. Look at verse 12. So then every
one of us shall give account of himself to God. Now, have
you ever heard that verse taken out of this context and used
to scare people? They'll go over there to Matthew
where Christ told the Pharisees every idle word. You better not
be telling them jokes now. God's gonna flash it up on a
screen at judgment. Is that what that means? With
every idle word, you know what he's talking about there? He's
talking about people preaching a false gospel. That's what the Pharisees
were doing. Out of the issues of the heart,
out of the mouth comes the issues of the heart. He's not talking
about the idle talk that we often engage in. We do. But we're all gonna be accountable
to God. We must give an account. Now here's the question. What
is our account before God? What is my account? You know
what an account is? There's an accounting. There's
a book of accounting, you might say. It has debits and it has
credits. Debits are good, aren't they?
And credits are bad, isn't that right? Well, what is my account? Well, the Bible says at judgment,
that God's children, sinners saved by grace, are gonna be
judged out of one singular solitary book. And what's that book called? It's the Lamb's Book of Life. Read about it in Revelation 13,
Revelation 20. But now, unbelievers are gonna
be judged out of many books, plural. Now what's written in
the many books? All of their credits. All of
their sins. They're gonna be judged by their
works. But what's written in the Lamb's
Book of Life? It's written in red ink, the
blood. What is my, if I'm a sinner saved
by grace, what is my account before God? I'm washed in his
blood. God will remember them no more.
I'm gonna talk about that this week and next week in Hebrews
10. God will remember them no more. That means he will not
hold me accountable for them. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth righteousness without worry. That's my account. I stand
before God in Christ. My works don't count. Are they
important? Yes. Over in 2 Corinthians chapter
five, I've got this list in verse 10. It talks about we must all
stand before the judgment and God's gonna judge, he said, whether
our works are good or bad. When you listen, I've got this
listed down there. A good work is only declared
to be good as the light of the gospel of God's grace in Christ
shines upon it. and reveals it to be the work
of Christ by the Holy Spirit in his people and as it gives
all glory to God for his grace in Christ. It's the light that
shines on. And so a bad work is only exposed
as bad as the light of the gospel of God's grace shines upon it
and exposes it to be iniquity and evil. You see that? And that's the declarative judgment.
Well, look at verse 13. He says, let us not therefore
judge one another anymore, but judge this rather that no man
put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.
Let's stop judging on a wrong ground over non-essential matters,
but let's be careful that we don't trip up each other in this
thing of non-essential matters and liberty. and we'll talk more
about that next week.