Okay, now today we're looking
at Romans chapter 14, and we'll probably begin there at verse
5. One man esteemeth one day above
another. Again, he's writing to believers. He's writing to those who lived
at Rome who were believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. One man
esteemeth one day above another. Well, another believer esteems
every day alike. Let every man be fully convinced
and convicted in his own mind. Now again, we come back to our
study the Lord had given the Apostle Paul about believers
living together with one accord. Believers living together in
harmony. It's a blessed thing to live
in harmony and peace, whether it's in the family, or whether
it's on the job, or whether, and especially in the congregation
of believers, to live with one accord, with one mind, with one
goal, one object, living in harmony. Rather than sitting in judgment
upon each other with a critical heart, with a critical spirit,
we are to make allowances for those who are weak, for those
who have certain convictions. We are to make allowances for
the weaknesses in each other. Now, I guess you don't have any. But we all have weaknesses, faults,
and let's just call them what they really are, sin. We all are sinful people. We should make allowances for
the weaknesses in each other, and then to love one another,
and to forgive one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath
forgiven us. If you've read on in this chapter,
Romans 14, look at verse 19. Let us therefore follow after
things which make for peace, peace, peace, and things wherewith
we may edify one another. Not criticize, but edify one
another. And then we're going to see in
chapter 15, verse 1, we then that are strong ought to bear
the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves. Consider
one another and provoke one another unto love and to good works. Now, coming back to our study,
Romans 14 verse 5. Now, you got to remember in the
early days there were those Jews who had a lot of baggage. A lot
of baggage. They have been brought out of
that bondage of the law, but many of them had much difficulty
leaving off those certain feast days under the law, such as the
Feast of Passover, such as the Day of Atonement and the feast
that surrounded that Day of Atonement, and then the keeping of a Sabbath
day. Keeping of a Sabbath day. And
then many of those what Paul called Judaizers, who said they
believed the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, but yet they would
take believers who were Gentiles and try to put them back under
the bondage of the law. Now, the book of Galatians deals
a lot with that. You remember those Judaizers
that we read about in Acts chapter 15 that said this, to the Gentile
believer. They said, except you be circumcised
after the manner of Moses, you really can't be saved. Now, I
ran into a man the other day that told me that, and I'd never
heard this before in an evangelical church, but one certain church
somewhere, not here, but away from here in another state, told
a person that except you're circumcised, I mean in the fleshly, the fleshly
circumcised as you would a child that's born in the hospital,
told this person except you be circumcised that you can't join
our church. I don't think I've ever run into
that before. But that's exactly what those old Jewish people
were doing to the Gentile believers. And you can read that 15th chapter
of the book of Acts and there was a large debate and discussion
about those things. And finally Peter cleared the
air and he stood up and said, We shall be saved by the grace
of God. We believe through the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ that we, the Jews, shall be saved
exactly as the Gentiles And that's by the grace of God alone. Now,
if we're not careful, we'll get caught up in this thing. We'll
get caught up in this thing of days. You know, a lot of the
old writers that I read after, John Gill and those back in the
1500s, 1600s, Matthew Poole, Matthew Henry,
John Gill, a lot of those, Charles Spurgeon I think was one of those,
but they had and carried over from the law what they called
a Christian Sabbath. That is, they made Sunday a Sabbath
day. They wouldn't do this, wouldn't
do that, wouldn't do certain things, and people, even in some
certain religious circles, people today have what they call a Christian
Sabbath. In other words, they won't—out
there where Joe Terrell lives out in Iowa, you can't find a
store out there that's open on Sunday. I mean, those people
in that area, the old Dutch Reformed people, that's their ancestors,
but they observe what they call the Christian Sabbath. They shut
down the town. You better buy your groceries
on Saturday because Sunday you won't find a grocery store. And
some people carry that on today. You know, they won't take a Sunday
newspaper. They won't do certain things
on Sunday because they have a conviction about it. Here's the thing, while
others being fully taught of the Lord that Christ was the
fulfillment of those things, there was no need to observe
these certain days and feasts any longer. Remember, our Lord
said, I didn't come to destroy the law, I came to satisfy the
law of God. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ,
He is our Passover. He is sacrificed for us. And
every day, we celebrate every day as the Lord's Day. We set aside Sunday, the first
day of the week, as the early church did, for the preaching
of the gospel and the assembling of the saints together, but we
don't observe that day to be holy. If we do, we're in big
trouble. If we think that we're more righteous
or more sanctified because we keep a certain day, we're in
big trouble. Paul said, you observe days,
times, and months, and years. He said, I'm afraid of you, lest
I bestowed upon you labor and bane. Galatians chapter 4. You
see, Christ is our Passover. He has sacrificed for us. He
has set us free from the bondage of the law. He's redeemed us
from the curse of that law. Now, if you're going to pick
this day and that day, a Sabbath day or a feast day, I mean, if
you're going to go back to the law in any form or fashion for
sanctification or holiness unto God, you've got to keep the whole
law of God. I think of that scripture there
where Paul is trying to instruct the believers in Galatia who
had such a problem with those Judaizers. And he finally says
this in Galatians 2 verse 21, If righteousness is by the law,
then Christ died in vain. No need for him to die. If I
can get it done, observing the law, and you know, so many people
today are caught up in this very thing. They make the fatal mistake
and think that their morality is righteousness before God.
My whole family, I grew up being taught that. that morality or
our observing meat and drink. You know, I wasn't allowed to
drink coffee, wasn't even allowed to drink tea. Those things were
forbidden. And tobacco, my goodness, you
couldn't do that. Well, you know, everything they
told us little brats that we couldn't do, that's exactly what
we wanted to do. So, and that's what happens really
when you put people under the law. Christ is our Passover,
Christ is. We don't observe a day of atonement,
Christ is our atonement. And then, you remember from our
study in Romans 10, 4, Christ is the end of the law or righteousness
to everyone that believeth. You see, our eating or drinking.
Observance of days make up absolutely no part of our salvation. No part of our salvation. And
the perfect righteousness that we have before God is not a righteousness
that you have gone about to establish. Now, you understand that, don't
you? You've been taught of the Lord. We're not going about to
establish a righteousness by our doing. The righteousness
that we enjoy in Christ is blessed is that man, you remember Romans
4, 6. Blessed is that man to whom the Lord would impute righteousness
without works. And then in chapter 3, he said,
by the deeds of the law shall no sinner ever be justified. So what does that mean? That
means it shuts us up to Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle
Paul, in Colossians 2, he writes to those people in
a way of trying to help them. He says,
you touch not, and taste not, and you handle not, and therefore
you think that you're better than somebody else. We call that
the religion of not. Not. Not this, not that, not
this. The religion of not. And a lot
of people are caught up in the religion of not. Now, verse 5, let every man,
last part of verse 5, let every man, now again, he's talking
to believers who've been called out of darkness into his marvelous
light. Let every man be persuaded in
his own mind. Let every man be convicted and
taught of the Lord in his own heart and his own mind. When the Lord persuades us and
teaches us, then we will have assurance that our salvation
rests upon Christ alone. Now I can tell you that and I
can teach you that, but I cannot convict you of it or persuade
you of it in your heart. The Lord can. All those who have
heard and learned of the Father, they come to and they keep coming
to the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Now, look at verse 6, Romans
14, 6. He talks about those who would
regard today, they would regard it as unto the Lord. And he that
regardeth not today to the Lord, he doth not regard it. He that
eateth, he eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks, he
that eateth not to the Lord eateth not, but yet he gives thanks.
Now, the key here I would point out to you, and I would even
underscore it, is he giveth thanks unto the Lord. He says it twice
in that verse. We give thanks unto the Lord. Whether we regard the day or
not, whether we eat meat or not, we are the Lord's. We are the Lord's. We are his
people, saved by his grace and chosen and blessed in him. We
should always encourage one another to give thanks unto the Lord.
You remember 1 Thessalonians 5, in everything give thanks,
For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
In everything give thanks for the blessed fact that our salvation
is totally of the Lord, not in eating and drinking and observing
certain days. The Apostle writes this in 1
Corinthians 10.31, Whether therefore we eat or drink, whatsoever you
do, do it as unto, do it all to the glory of our God. Now, the only ground and standard
of salvation is our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and
our union with Him by God-given faith, not works, not observing
a day, Not eating or drinking certain things or leaving off
eating or drinking certain things. The only ground, the only basis,
the only reason, the only standard, I can't think of any more words,
for our salvation is resting in Christ alone. In Him dwells
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and we are complete in
Him. Meats and drinks, days or not,
have absolutely nothing to do with the accomplishment of our
salvation. Nothing. Nothing. But our union
with Him by God-given faith. are union with Him by God given
faith. By Him, Acts 13, 38, 39, by Him
all that believe are justified in Christ by which you could
not be justified by the law of Moses. Faith is the blessed gift
of God. Faith is called There are not
many things in the Word of God that are called precious, but
you know, one of those things, we are redeemed with the precious
blood of Christ, and we are redeemed with the precious blood, and
then we are given that precious gift of faith that unites our
hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ. We are not to set ourselves up
as a standard of judging, who is saved and who is lost. At
any given moment, if you would look at, would you say the king
of Israel, David, was a saved man? Well, looking at his whole life,
we would. But what about when he committed adultery and killed
Bathsheba's husband? I mean, if you took a snapshot
of his life, you'd say, that man, he wasn't a saved man. But
what about his whole life? God said he was a man after his
own heart. And see, the Lord looks on the
heart. We have terrible vision when it comes
to looking upon someone's heart. We can't do it. We can't do it. I think of this all the time.
When Samuel, the prophet of God, went down to the house of Jesse,
God told him specifically to go down there to anoint a king,
to anoint a king for Israel when he discarded King Saul, remember? God told him to go down there,
you can read about it in 1 Samuel 16, to anoint my king. Well, Samuel told Jesse to round
up all of his boys. And he rounded up all of them
but one. And Samuel looked at Eliab, the
firstborn, big, tall, dark, handsome, strong. And Samuel said, this
must be the man. God said, no, I've rejected him.
Went through all them boys. God said, no, I rejected that
one too. Samuel, your problem is you're
looking on the outward countenance, God looks on the heart. And then
in desperation, Samuel asked, Jesse, do you have any more boys? I've got one little runt. He's
out there in the field tending sheep. You're not interested
in him. That's the one, go get him. And David came in. And Samuel took that horn of
oil and anointed David as the king of Israel. That was God's
choice. And then he told Samuel, he said,
The Lord seeth not as man seeth. Man looketh on the outward appearance,
but the Lord looks on the heart. You see, all things are naked
and open unto the eyes with whom we have to do. You take a snapshot
at any of our lives at any given moment in a time of, I don't
know, when you're having a bad day or whatever, and you would
think, well, you see, we're so prone to say, well, he's not
saved. Who are you? You see, and that's what Paul
is teaching here. That's a lesson. It's not our
business. He said, you remember that parable?
He said, the tares and the wheats, the parable of the tares and
the wheat, remember what the Lord said? Let them grow together. He said, if you try to separate
them out, you just mess everything up. Let them grow together. The Lord will do the separating,
the sheep and the goat, in his due time. churches have got into this bad
thing. It's not among any of the great
churches that I know of, but there's a lot of churches that
I know, even locally, they vote them in and vote them out. I
mean, they vote them in by this standard, that standard, this
standard, that standard, and then later on, if you mess up,
well, they'll vote you out. They'll kick you out. They set
themselves up as a standard. And Paul was saying here, there's
no need for us to do that. There's no need for us to do
that. Let's love one another and let's forgive one another.
The Lord will straighten that out. The Lord will discipline.
We don't have a discipline committee. Yeah, a lot of churches have
a discipline committee. You get out of line or one of
the elders think, well, that person's out of line. They'll
get a committee and they'll be on your doorstep. And they'll
try to hoodwink you and buttonhole you and badger you and tell you,
you better straighten up or we'll church you. That's what they
call, you know, when somebody gets churched. They kick them
out. I've seen this happen. I've seen
it happen. I've been not in grace churches.
Not in grace churches, but before I knew the gospel and the religion
that I grew up in, I mean, man, if you didn't have certain things,
I mean, you were out. You didn't meet their standard.
You see, what it boils down to is this. Does God save sinners
by His grace? Or does He save them by works?
Now, we've studied here in the book, He said if it's grace,
If it's grace, then it no longer works. You can't have both. You can't have it both ways.
It won't mix. It won't mix. Now, look at verse
7. None of us lives to himself. Again now, he's talking about
believers. None of us live unto himself. You see, the just live by faith. Saving faith is always taken
up with the Lord Jesus Christ. None of us live to himself. We live unto the Lord. And no
man, no man dies to himself. No man. No man. Remember, we are members one
of another in one body with one head. As we studied in Romans
12 verse 5, so we being many are one body in Christ. Everyone
members one of another. No believer is an island. He
is put in the body of Christ to serve the Lord Jesus Christ
and doing so by serving one another. That's how we serve the Lord. by serving one another. Now,
don't turn because, but in 2 Corinthians 5, let me
read this to you, 2 Corinthians 5. I quote this verse all the time.
What motivates a believer then? I mean, if it's not the whip
of the law, if it's not promise of reward,
holding out a reward. You know, you've got to line
up in obedience if you're going to have a bigger reward. If it's
not the whip of the law, nor the promise of reward, what motivates
the believer to obedience and living as unto the Lord? Well,
here it is. 2 Corinthians 5.14, For the love
of Christ constrains us Because we thus judge that if one died
for all, he's talking about his people, then we're all dead.
And that he died for all, all his elect, that they which live
should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which
died for them and rose again. There is no stronger motive than
love. especially in the heart of a
believer. You take even what we would call
not spiritual love, talking about the love of God in Christ, but
even natural love, the love a mother has for a baby. How many times
does mama change dirty diapers in the middle of the night when
the baby's screaming? I mean, why do you get up and
do that? Why do you, what motivates you
to do that? Well, you know, it's my duty.
I just gotta do it. No, it's because you love. You
love. You love that child. You gave
birth to that child. It was God's gift to you. And
that's what motivates his people. The love of Christ constrains
us and that love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Spirit. Whether we live or die, we are
the Lord's. We are the Lord's by His choice. We are the Lord's by His grace.
We live by the Lord, His sovereign grace, and we die in faith by
the Lord keeping us by His power. We are the Lord's. We are bought
with His blood, and His people delight to walk in faith and
to live, walk by faith, not by sight. The apostle said this,
for we are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your
body and in your spirit, which are God's. And then Paul said,
God forbid I should glory save in the Lord Jesus Christ. Every
believer is chosen in that eternal covenant of grace. Every believer
is redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. Every believer is
called out of darkness into God's marvelous light that we should
show forth the praises of Him who called us. Every believer
is made a new creature in the Lord Jesus Christ. Every believer
is preserved by the power of God. Every believer is kept from
falling by His grace. Now, you look at all those different
things that I just mentioned. What does that have to do with
eating and drinking and observing certain days? Absolutely nothing. Aren't you glad that God saves
us by His grace? and sets us at liberty to serve
Him. For to this end, to this purpose,
Christ both died and rose and revived that He might be Lord
of the dead and the living. He's Lord not by something we
do. He's every man's Lord by the
decree of God. You remember Peter at Pentecost? said this same Jesus whom you
crucified, God hath made him both Lord and Christ. He's not
Lord by something we do. People in religion say, well,
make Jesus your Lord. My soul, God beat you to it.
God beat you to it in eternity. He's decreed to be the Lord.
God hath made him Lord. We bow to his Lordship. And that's
by His grace, by His power. He makes us willing in the day
of God's power.