Guidelines for the Strong Christian

Transcript

GR 2267
03/14/2021
Guidelines for the Strong Christian
Romans 14:13-23
Gil Rugh

We are going to the book of Romans, we’re going to finish chapter 14. So while we may be going slow in Ephesians, just look at how we’re moving along in Romans. So I sort of divide it out and say look at all the verses we did in Romans today, and if I put that with Ephesians, we did a good number of verses. I don’t really pay attention but it makes me feel better. We are in Romans 14 and it’s talking about what we call grey areas, areas we have to deal with and sometimes we may get mired down with. They’re areas the Bible doesn’t specifically address, is it right for me to do this, is it not right for me to do this. Often the questions that have come over the years as people have talked to me, do you think it’s alright if I do this, is it biblical for me to do that? And many areas of our life are not addressed directly by the Scripture, but there are principles and guidelines for us that cover these areas of our lives. Paul’s concerned about our fellowship in the body and how we take care of one another as God’s people. So we’ve looked through the first twelve verses of chapter 14, I just want to review the points from those verses. We have a slide, so we’ll walk through that.

The first thing he had said when we get into these areas is we’re to welcome all believers into the fellowship, that’s in verse 1, “accept the one who is weak in faith,” and you accept him without restrictions. This is a person, the weak in faith, a person who hasn’t yet grown to further maturity, but you accept him with the right attitude, he is a fellow believer. We rejoice to have that person join in the body. So we welcome all believers, whatever stage of their growth, into the fellowship. We’re aware there are going to be different stages of growth in the body. That’s why these guidelines are given.

Number two, we’re to see one another as accepted by God. The end of verse 3 says, “God has accepted him.” With our difference… here he uses food as the example, you might be a vegetarian or you might not be. You may have religious convictions about this, for example, as the Jews would to join this Gentile church in Rome. Well, understand as a believer in Jesus Christ they’ve been accepted by God. I better be careful. I remember reading one of the Puritans; he reminded us, I believe it was John Owen who said it is a serious sin to reject someone that God has accepted. So we want to be careful, it’s an offense against God to not accept one another. We’ve been accepted by God on the basis of faith in His Son.

Point three, we are all going to stand, not fall, by the grace of God. Verse 4, “Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” So an appreciation. We all stand before the throne of God as our ultimate Judge by grace, and everyone, the least mature believer and the most mature believer, will stand there by the grace of God. And we will stand, we’re accepted in Christ. So we allow for the diversity and the growth.

Point four, we are to function according to our convictions in areas of liberty. Here he uses days as an example. Some observe certain days, religious days, and some might not observe them. We see the end of verse 5, “Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.” The Scripture doesn’t address it, it doesn’t say to observe this day and don’t observe this day, there’s liberty now. For Jews coming out of the Jewish background, the Sabbath day may have still been something that they thought they should observe. Well, accept that, they have a liberty, “each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.” Now note, these are areas that the Scripture doesn’t directly address, because when the Scripture addresses it, it’s settled for us all. Now in a sense it’s settled because the Scripture doesn’t specify a day or not a day, but that means we are free to observe a day if we think that would be better for us or to not observe it. In that, we’re not free to not assemble ourselves together because the Scripture says do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together and it gives instruction to us regarding being brought together as a body. But observing days, we get to this even in our day, should we be observing Easter Sunday, should we be observing Christmas. If you don’t want to, don’t. The Scripture doesn’t say you have to observe the day of Christ’s birth, it doesn’t say you can’t. We begin to justify it, well, they have pagan associations… We have to be careful we don’t import things here. If the Scripture doesn’t address it, it doesn’t address it. Obviously you have feelings or convictions that cause you to see it one way or the other. But that doesn’t mean we can import those convictions and put them next to Scripture as authoritative. “Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.” We’ll have more to say about that and similar ideas as we move through the rest of the chapter.

Point five, we are the Lord’s in life and death, we are the Lord’s in life and death. Look at verse 8, “for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord.” On point five, that should be verse 8 with that instead of verse 5. We live, we live for the Lord; we die, we die for the Lord; “whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” Keep our perspective proper and our appreciation for one another can grow and develop. We belong to the Lord, and we will to the end of this life, that’s the blessing. So I see that other believer that I may have disagreements on personal activities, I won’t be comfortable doing that, well, that’s fine. Or they should be comfortable. They should have outgrown those prior convictions or personal things. Why? Is their life about pleasing me? If they do it in the context of belonging to the Lord and now we belong to Him, that’s what matters.

And point six, we are going to give a personal account of ourselves to God. Down to verse 12, “Each one of us,” it’s in individual thing, “will give an account of himself to God,” that’s a prime responsibility. That’s not in a selfish sense. As we’re going to see, we have concern for one another, that’s why he’s giving these principles. But in the right sense I realize they are not ultimately accountable to me, they’re ultimately accountable to God. Within the body there are responsibilities given and so on, but basically, you’ll give an account. So I recognize that and these are principles that should help us walk through what we call the grey areas.

We’re going to pick up with verse 13. We’re going to continue with more instruction on this. God is concerned we get this right. We have chapter 14 and into chapter 15 in Romans. We have several chapters in 1 Corinthians dealing with the same subject matter. It’s important we keep clear on what is biblical and what is an area of liberty. I remember Holland London[RG1], (he spoke here many years ago, I knew him through school in California) I remember him giving an example to a class. Holland wore his hair long down over his collar. But he said he was invited, he mentioned the pastor, to speak at his church. It was a large church, conservative church, and the pastor said to him, our people would be uncomfortable with your hair as long as it is, it would be an issue. I thought Holland handled it well, he said, I told him I’ll get my hair cut before I come to preach at your church if you will promise me you won’t mention my hair when I come, he didn’t want to get caught up in that conflict. Fine, if it’s going to be an issue I’m going to cut my hair. But I don’t want you getting up and introducing me and saying he got his hair cut so he could preach here and blah blah. It’s going to be a non-issue because people won’t think about it. He just comes in with his hair cut and they say that’s good, leave it at that. So some of those principles in application are important for us.

What we’re going to pick up with in verse 13 is guidelines for the strong Christian and how we are to use our liberty. The stronger Christian, the more mature Christian, is the one who has flexibility; the weaker Christian, the less mature Christian, doesn’t have that flexibility. He believes, and his conscience convicts him, that he should do this or that he shouldn’t do this. The guideline is the mature believer is to realize his conscience is a guide for him. Now a conscience is not a totally reliable guide; conscience operates with the standard it’s given, and it can be given a corrupt standard. But in these areas there is liberty. We want to be careful that when we grow to a certain maturity, we think it’s important the less mature believer understand he can do this, so do it. Wait a minute, he doesn’t have to do it. If he had to do it, God would have given Scripture to say he had to do it, or if he can’t do it, He would give Scripture for that. So to be careful as mature believers, we’ve gone outside of Scripture; well, there’s no reason you shouldn’t do this. There may be reasons they shouldn’t do it, so the more mature believer has to recognize that and be very comfortable in the presence and the fellowshipping together with the less mature. It’s going to be a growth process for both, but there has to be extra sensitivity on the more mature. How many times do you tell your children… You have an older child and a younger child, and you expect more of the older child. The younger child does something and then the older child does it and says, well, he did it. You’re older, you should know better, that’s the principle. We should know better if we’re more mature and use our maturity properly.

Let’s pick up with verse 13, “Therefore,” so he’s connecting it, those first twelve verses are the basis now that he is building on, “let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way.” We aren’t to be involved in judging other people. Now again, we are not going with what the Scripture deals with. The Scripture addresses sin and sin has to be dealt with, Scripture addresses these matters. We’re talking about the Scripture doesn’t say it’s right or wrong, then there comes personal convictions, and I live with my conscience, not your conscience; you live with your conscience, not my conscience. Now if it’s pointed out this is wrong, I’d say to someone, you know, you’ve been lying. Well, my conscience doesn’t bother me. That doesn’t matter—what you’re saying is a lie, maybe your conscience has been deadened to that lie. So things like that, we want to be careful we use these guidelines properly.

We don’t judge one another in these areas where God hasn’t exercised His prerogative to require or forbid. “Let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way.” That’s the concern, I want to bring them along, I want to help them grow, I don’t want to do something that would cause them to stumble. That’s fine if they want to eat this way, observe that day, that’s fine, go ahead, I don’t have to bring it up as an issue. There’s a variety of things you can fill in, the Scripture gives us examples, it uses food and days. They would have been things of the time, but there are other things. If you’re bothered by what another believer is doing, one of the first questions to ask yourself is if there’s anything in Scripture that says they must not do that, or if they’re not doing something, does the Scripture say they should? Books have been written on Christian diets and if you want to eat potato chips, the Bible doesn’t say you can’t. We’ll get more into that.

Alright, don’t put a stumbling block, that’s the first thing, I’m concerned for your well-being, I don’t want to do anything that would hinder your growth, that would divert you from what really is important for you growing in Christ. Look at verse 14, “I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself,” that’s a broad statement, “nothing is unclean in itself.” Come back to Mark chapter 7. Paul says that really strongly, and Christ said it very clearly. Mark 7, and this is in the context, you know, externals become crucial things, what happened to the Jews. There were dietary guidelines and requirements for the Jews under the Mosaic Law, certain foods they were forbidden to eat, and certain foods they were given permission to eat, there Scripture was binding. But the Mosaic Law is ended with the coming of Christ and its finalization of that will be His death and resurrection. So here He’s instructing them. What they had done is they had made these externals, the Jews had, they thought that they would go through the externals: we observe the days, we eat the right foods, we don’t eat the wrong foods… but it’s all external. Verse 6, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men,” quoting from Isaiah 29. “Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.” You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. We have to be careful because we today have traditions. We meet at a certain time, we meet at a certain place, we do certain things certain ways. If we’re not careful, those externals become the substance, and the real substance soon leaves, but we’re still going through the external forms. That’s what he’s dealing with. Verse 13, “You’re invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.” So He gave an example but He said this is just an example, you have many things you do like that. Your traditions have replaced the word of God as the authority in your life. After He called the crowd to Him again, He began saying to them, “Listen to Me, all of you,” now note this verse, verse 15, “There is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man.” What you eat doesn’t defile you. Verse 17, “When He had left the crowd and entered the house, His disciples questioned Him about the parable. And He said to them, ‘Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart.’ ” And note, that’s the key thing. That’s why I mentioned things like Christian diet books. We say your body’s the temple of the Holy Spirit, so you don’t want to fill it with junk food. What’s that mean? What goes into my mouth, and I’m not saying you ought to eat just junk food, but it’s not the thing that spiritually defiles you.

When I was a young person, smoking was the big thing, and one of the reasons given me why I shouldn’t smoke if I’m a Christian was you want to fill the temple of the Holy Spirit with smoke? I don’t know, does the Holy Spirit smoke? Sounds blasphemous, but what are we saying? So Jesus says to His disciples that you ought to understand and know better than this, it wasn’t through the foods or the lack of foods that kept you clean in the first place. The substance of this is your faith and belief and willingness to obey God. “Whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach,” and, literally goes out into the latrine, passed out. Note this, “(Thus He declared all foods clean.) And He was saying, ‘That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed…’ ” And then you have this list of the sins which come out of the heart. What God’s concerned about is we deal with the heart, it’s not external things, the external things are nothing if they don’t come from the heart.

So I just say to the side, we want to be careful because Christians get caught up wherever the world is… I’m not against eating healthy. I have my own quirks, and you have your own quirks, Marilyn, she doesn’t have any quirks, she eats everything. But it’s not a biblical thing! I don’t think garlic smells so great, garlic makes Marilyn hungry just by smelling it, which of us is right? Well, me, I’m the man of the house. We sort of incorporate it’s not healthy, then we get off and we’re caught up in all the health craze of the day, just like the church gets caught up in the social things of the day. Whatever’s going on in the world somehow confuses things. I said to a person that it’s not whether you’re overweight or underweight or just the right weight, none of that has anything to do with where you are spiritually. So He declared all foods clean, that doesn’t mean you have to eat all foods. You can make your choice, you can pick and choose. Be careful about that argument—your body’s a temple of the Holy Spirit so be careful what you put into it—because Jesus said it doesn’t matter spiritually what you put into it. It may not be best for you physically, and that’s a different issue. That’s where we begin to blur things. If we could get people as passionate about just the simple truth of the Word as we could about their particular diet plan or whatever… Alright, enough of that, right?

Come over to Acts 10, you’re familiar with this, this is Peter. He’s a New Testament believer now, I take it we would say a New Covenant believer, he’s a member of the church. The church began in Acts 2 under the preaching of Peter. Here we are in Acts 10 and he still doesn’t understand that the law is done, it’s over. He was there when Christ was giving the instructions we just read about in Mark, but it didn’t sink down in. It’s like all of us, we’re growing, and Peter has to grow and mature. He’s still thinking about the distinction, he still doesn’t think God’s going to save Gentiles, they’re dirty and defiled, I don’t even go in their house to eat, just being in there and touching things could defile me. He hasn’t made the transition in his thinking, we would say he’s the weak brother at this point.

God’s going to give him some direct instruction, so Acts 10:9, “Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. But he became hungry and was desiring to eat,” so they’re preparing a meal for him, “but while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance,” and God is going to speak to him. He became hungry and in this trance “he saw the sky opened up, and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners.” So it’s containing something and it’s being held up by the four corners. When it settled down, it contained “all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air. A voice came to him, ‘Get up, Peter, kill and eat!’ But Peter said, ‘By no means, Lord.’ ” Now here we say, if the Lord tells you to do something… see how patient the Lord is? But it could be the Lord’s testing him, get up and eat. I wouldn’t do that, Lord, because I don’t eat unclean things, remember I’m a Jew, “I’ve never eaten anything unholy and unclean.” Then there’s clarification that comes, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.” What is the standard? It’s not me, it’s not Peter, it’s not something God has replaced. It’s what God is doing, God says it’s holy and no longer out of bounds, you can eat it. That was to make a point.

Then, you’re aware, Peter comes out of the trance and lo and behold there’s a knock at the door inviting him to come to the house of Cornelius. Cornelius is a Gentile. Well, he wouldn’t go to a Gentile’s house. You know the story, he tells them that he wouldn’t have come if God hadn’t directed him. Acts 10:28, “And he said to them, ‘You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean.’ ” So you see, this goes beyond foods, that whole barrier’s broken down, there’s a marked transformation that occurs. Israel as a nation was set apart by God, and some of the requirements for them, like the foods they ate and circumcision, these kind of things were to distinguish and keep them separate from the Gentiles. Remember when they came into the land of Canaan they didn’t go in to evangelize; they went in to kill every man, woman, and child, because they weren’t going to be connected to that corrupting influence.

Things are changing, Peter has to make the adjustment, so he preaches the gospel. You know what, in chapter 11 the rest of the apostles called Peter to account and said what were you thinking, going to the house of a Gentile? And then he has to explain to them and then they say can you believe it, miracle of miracles, (I’m paraphrasing) God’s going to save Gentiles! He talked about a miracle. It’s one thing to be saved Jews, the chosen nation, but He couldn’t save Gentiles, dirty, defiled…, we wouldn’t even go in their house. Peter’s on the carpet. So you see, you have to see things and adjust and grow -- change comes. With chapter 13, the whole direction of the ministry of the gospel changes with the Apostle Paul’s ministry and now the focal point will become Gentiles. Not that Jews are excluded, but the whole focus changes now to the ministry of Paul and the carrying of the gospel to Gentiles. So you see, the foods, the connection, how we view people, that’s all brought together.

One more passage before we come back to Romans. Come to 1 Timothy 4, the chapter begins, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars.” The Bible uses strong language when you talk about those who are corrupting the word of God, “deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,” that word translated ‘doctrine’ is just the word ‘teaching.’ “by means of the hypocrisy of liars.” They don’t just call them liars, they’re hypocritical liars, “seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” What’s unclean about those eating is their heart, so nothing they’re doing is acceptable to God. Changing their diet won’t make them any more acceptable to God, and when God changes the heart, they may change their diet or they may not change their diet. In that sense, it’s not a pertinent issue.

So come back to Romans. He’s not done because the last part, Paul says, “I know and am convinced that nothing is unclean in itself.” There’s nothing wrong with the food but that doesn’t mean everyone should eat what they are uncomfortable with. Note this last statement, “but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean,” that becomes the important principle, why a mature believer doesn’t want to push a less mature believer to do what his conscience convicts him he should not do. We want to be careful because we don’t want to encourage them to do something they believe God does not want them to do. Because their first concern is I want my life to please Him. If I am convinced in my own heart and mind that God would not want me to do something then I shouldn’t do it. I don’t want to do it because someone who may be more mature than me says, well, you can go ahead and do it, why wouldn’t you do it, if you were mature enough you would. This is why we have these personal spaces as we refer to things today, it’s an individual thing. I don’t have to beat into him that he’ll grow and may understand that I have the freedom to eat it and he doesn’t. I want to be careful that I’m not pushing him where he shouldn’t go.

Come over to 1 Corinthians, just after Romans, 1 Corinthians chapter 8. And again, it’s important how often this comes up in scripture; God’s concerned we stay on track and we function in a way that honors Him. Sin is to be dealt with as sin but we want to be careful that we don’t get off-track and make external things and unbiblical things the focal point. Look at verse 4 of 1 Corinthians 8, “Therefore, concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols,” now we’re outside the Jewish realm. We are dealing with Gentiles, you go to the market there, they have things that may have been sacrificed to one of their gods as part of their pagan worship system before it is being sold. Well, we know about eating the things sacrificed to idols. Some coming out of that background would think that was my pagan background, I sure don’t want to eat things sacrificed to idols. Well, we understand, we more mature believers, there is no such thing as an idol in the world, there’s no God but one. If you go back and read Jeremiah 10, we won’t take the time to do that, Jeremiah says that. They’re just idols made by men, they can’t do any good, they can’t do any harm. Now in false worship there are spirit beings behind the false worship. But the fact that there’s a wooden idol there and they prepared the food in the presence of that idol, it is still food. Just like you might go to a restaurant and the food was prepared by a Muslim or a Hindu or an unbelieving Protestant, doesn’t change the food, it was good.

So we know this issue of the pagan gods is nothing. We had to go through a time with that, I had a statute I’d bought, a little carved thing. There were books written on this by Christians that they bring with them these evil spirits so you shouldn’t have that in your home. I took the person who confronted me about that to Jeremiah 10. He said, oh, I guess that argument’s not applicable then. It is just a piece of wood that reminds me of a trip we took, it’s nothing.

So there’s only one God, idols are nothing, we only have one God. There are many gods, small ‘g,’ on the earth but we know there’s only one true and living God, verse 6, one God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, this fits with where we were earlier. But “not all men have this knowledge,” verse 7, “but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to the idol.” They can’t break in their thinking. They’ve been conditioned for that, their conscience has been conditioned. Remember your conscience operates on the basis of the information it’s given, so it’s conditioned to that. They can’t get away from the fact that that food was offered to an idol; I don’t want anything to do with anything associated with the idols, that was my ex-life. So when they eat it they eat it as something sacrificed to idols, the middle of verse 7, “their conscience being weak,” there’s our word, “is defiled,” because they’re connecting it with that, they haven’t broken the connection. “But food will not commend us to God; we are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat.” But note this, “take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.” So you see there’s a greater responsibility on the more mature because I have liberty, I can eat that or I cannot eat it.

When I was having lunch with a Jewish believer who had recently been saved I don’t have to order a pork sandwich to prove something to him. I can be aware that maybe he hasn’t resolved this. We might talk about the dietary things. I’m still uncomfortable breaking away from the eating patterns, it still bothers me if I do it. I’d be comfortable saying, well, you don’t have to, I’m not here to pressure you to. I’d have to ask what he’s eating because certain Jewish things I might want to skip and I have the liberty to skip it, for no religious reason. But I don’t have to try to push him: well, this would be a good time for you to take this step, we’ll both order pork sandwiches. Well, wait a minute, if his conscience is not ready for that I do the wrong thing by encouraging it to be done.

So come back to Romans. So you have this subjective realm we are in here, there is room for diversity. As we talked about, this is where the church is to be brought together with different races, different nationalities, the different social strata, slaves and masters, because that is part of what God has done. We accept one another because we are one in Christ, not one because we share the same diets, we share the same income levels, those are superficial things. We corrupt the truth of the word of God when we bring them in and blend them. I may give an example of that in our discussion time that is not about this, but it connects to this.

Verse 15, “if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died.” The Spirit of God directs Paul to make this a big issue for the mature Christian, the language here is strong. If I do something over the issue of food that hurts the weaker Christian I’m no longer acting for his good, his benefit. Genuine love always is thinking about the other person, what would be best for them, ‘how could I help them’ kind of thing. And then he uses a strong word here, “do not destroy,” he does it to bring the sharpness of the contrast. That word ‘destroy’ is a strong word, great harm is afflicted and done here. Don’t destroy with your food, it’s a non-issue, as Jesus said, it’s not what goes in your mouth that defiles you. I’d destroy a fellow believer. and then you see how serious it is, Christ died for him, but you’d ruin him over the issue of food. Do I qualify as a mature believer? Have I lost my perspective on what is really important is the maturing and developing and the encouraging and supporting of this immature believer? Most important? Well, if I love him it is, and it may take time, and he may never get over some of the diet things he’s carried over or some of these other things, they may be convictions he maintains.

There are certain things I don’t do just because I don’t believe they would be best for me. A part of it may relate to my position, part of it relates to me. I’m allowed to have those personal convictions, I’m not allowed to make them your personal convictions. We want to be sensitive to it. The danger comes when those who have the liberty want to push. This doesn’t mean the immature Christian can control everything, it offends me if you do that, it offends me if you do this, I’d be offended at this. Wait a minute, get over it! But I want to be sensitive to it if it is really a matter of where they are and they haven’t grown to that, but it’s not that now the weak Christians have control because they can just say this is what bothers me. No, because they have to grow and learn certain things. But I want to be careful I’m not putting them in the position where they feel the pressure. Well, if you go to that church they’ll expect this -- I will expect you will be interested in the Word, be looking to have your life conformed to the word of God, be serious about the word of God -- they’ll welcome you. Oh, I don’t think I have a nice enough car or I don’t have very much income, will I fit there? Well, of course you will because that’s a nothing there, that’s not what binds the people there together. We have different people, if you want to go exercise together, fine; if you don’t like exercising, fine, don’t go. Keep going here.

“Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil.” So you see the mature Christian wants to be sensitive here. We are blessed as the congregation. Mature believers are to be leading the way and help create the atmosphere and keep things on track, so they don’t get diverted, so these non-issue things don’t become the focal point. There’s a sensitivity to these people. We don’t want to play up as important the things that aren’t, but we have the freedom there. They may ask, well, why do you eat that or why don’t you eat that. Well, really it had nothing to do with me being a believer, it’s just personal for me. I was going to give some other examples, but I don’t want to get myself in trouble, so you think about it.

Note verse 17, “for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” This not a verse that says we are in the kingdom, but we are going to the kingdom. We’re like we talked about, we are citizens of heaven is what we are talking about, even in Ephesians. We are a people set apart. Ultimately our citizenship is in heaven, and what’s going to happen in the full form of the kingdom, the eternal aspect of the kingdom in the closing chapters of Revelation. Heaven comes to the new heavens and new earth, and the kingdom goes on, it’s an eternal kingdom. When Christ comes to rule and reign in the first phase of the kingdom, the millennium, it won’t be about these external things. So the guidelines here, the kingdom is not about these things. So we dead-end things because what has happened? Our perspective is come back to the world we are in and the material things again become the focal point. It’s not the material things, we are citizens of heaven. We are of a dual citizenship, if you will, our citizenship is in heaven, but we have a citizenship on earth, as Paul claimed his Roman citizenship. But I’m not caught up in the physical things here, they are not what I’m about here. That’s what is a danger for the church, when these physical things, like the social things, they become the important things. Wait a minute, we’ve lost focus, we’re here to do eternal things with an eternal perspective. So “the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,” is what it is about; again, the ministry of the Spirit preparing people.

(Verse 18), “For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.” That’s what I want, my life is to serve Him. I can have personal convictions, but I have to distinguish. I have to say pastors can be great about this, my personal convictions can get mixed in with the word of God in a way they shouldn’t. I’m not called to preach my personal convictions, I’m called to preach the word of God. I can have my personal convictions, but I can’t impose them on you. I want to be careful that we maintain that atmosphere of welcome and openness. James had to do it between the rich and the poor; the attitude was so welcoming to the rich and indifferent whether the poor come -- the same kind of idea. External things, material things, physical things, are pressing in because that’s where the world is all the time, that’s all they have. Even their religious activity is materially focused, the kind of building, the atmosphere conveyed, doing external things. That’s not where we are. We want to be “acceptable to God and approved by men,” passing the test. Yeah, that’s a church that functions what it believes, they welcome, it’s the way they treat one another.

(Verse 19), “So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another.” We are not looking to divide. The word of God causes divisions; divides us off from the world and it can divide us off from professing believers because we read some passages about those who corrupt the Word like in 1 Timothy 4, strong things are said about them. So this is not an openness to all things. We are pursuing the things which make for peace. That word drawn from verse 17 that the future kingdom will be characterized with righteousness, peace. We want to show the character of God and the church is the assembly of God’s people, a collection of God’s people, so we manifest God’s character. We’re not going to be beating one another up in the kingdom when we’re all there; it’s not to be going on here over these irrelevant things.

We want to build one another up, that brings love. How is he thinking, how can I help them to get from where they are to where they need to be? I want to encourage them. Well, that’s alright, you don’t have to do those things you’re not comfortable with. That doesn’t mean you are any less a part of our body, any less welcome here. Those aren’t the things we are about. So I want you to just feel comfortable in the positive sense. That’s the attitude we have. They don’t have to give up their personal convictions. We don’t give up ours, but I will adjust mine more than they can adjust theirs if I’m more mature. If we invite them over to our home for dinner and I know certain foods are trouble for them we just won’t have that food that evening, that’s fine. That doesn’t mean we won’t have it when they are not there because I have liberty. And I don’t have to tell them, well, we have this kind of food but since you’re here we didn’t have it. No, that’s not the point. The point is to make them comfortable, they know we are comfortable with them, and not make an issue out of things that are not an issue.

“Do not tear down the work of God.” It’s like he won’t let it go, you get the idea we just keep repeating things here. “Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food.” He puts this in the strongest language and it’s the Spirit making it. When we make an issue of these material things, external things, we divert attention from biblical truth and we really… God’s doing a work and we’re working to tear it down, we are hindering the growth of this one we should be encouraging. We are making it more difficult to be part of the body because he doesn’t feel welcome. I’m not comfortable there, I don’t think they are comfortable with me because I’m different. Well, then we deny what binds us together is a relationship with Christ. If Christ has accepted them, we don’t? So “do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food,” these external things.

(Verse 20), “All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense,” so I can’t do it in an offending way, I have to be sensitive to this. If everybody is functioning in love looking for how they can help the other person, self gets pushed to the background. That’s all what he is talking about here.
“It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother stumbles.” So we make adjustments for weak people, we do that. I use the example: we have elders. We have the biblical qualifications of that as elders. We as elders have agreed that while we serve as elders there are certain things we will add to that list just because it would be troublesome to some people in the body. The Bible doesn’t say you can’t have a glass of wine, you can’t have a beer, at least I can’t find a place of that. But we do ask the elders while you are serving as elders that that be something you abstain from. It’s not a big requirement because we believe we can do it; we also know we don’t have to do it. If it would be better for the body, we won’t do it. Now that might change because these things are relative to other things going on. Just as an example since he mentions drinking wine. It’s good not to do things that are offensive. You don’t have to do it if it makes your brother stumble, we are looking out for one another. Don’t you love it when a person shows that kind of patience and kindness and thoughtfulness for somebody? They say, no, that’s fine.

(Verse 22), “The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God.” So you see there is a personal thing, it’s a faith here, the conviction that I should do this or shouldn’t it. “Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves,” I’m not going to do what my conscience would bother me doing, I can have my personal convictions. I just think there are things that would be better that I don’t do. I don’t know that someone else ought to have that conviction. I don’t know that another pastor ought to have that conviction. Certain things are just personal convictions for me. I don’t want to go against my conscience and I don’t want to encourage someone else to go against their conscience just because their conscience would trouble them in an area that mine doesn’t. “Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves” because there is always a bad thing to do, something you think God doesn’t want you to do. That’s why I’ve shared with you, sometimes I’ve had people come and ask me about things in grey areas. Smoking was one that used to come up periodically. Do you think it’s a sin for me to smoke, is it alright for me to smoke? I’m using smoking because I’ve used it before. I usually just asked the question do you think it’s alright with God that you smoke? I don’t think God wants me to smoke. Well, then it really doesn’t matter what I think, does it? You don’t want to do what you don’t think God wants you to do. Now I’m not saying someone else says, Spurgeon said when someone came to his church and preached against smoking. When he got done preaching Spurgeon got up and said I hope to smoke a cigar to the glory of God after this service. Someone asked him, he said but I wouldn’t do it to excess. When they asked him, what is excess, he said, smoking two cigars at once. God used him. He had a different conviction.

Alright, verse 23, “He who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith.” You see conscience plays a role. Now it will take maybe time for the conscience to get adjusted; maybe he’ll grow through that. Peter still struggled with it. Remember Paul had to rebuke him and it is mentioned in Galatians that I had to rebuke Peter because he backed off from fellowshipping with Gentiles. Wait a minute! That’s going beyond, that divides the body over an external. I rebuked him publicly for that. “Whatever is not from faith is sin.” What the word of God says settles the matter. When it says I should do this, I should do it; when it says I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t; but then we have these areas. There’s so much the scripture doesn’t address. It becomes a personal matter. Sometimes people say I just don’t know what I should do. Well, then don’t do anything; if you’re not comfortable going forward doing it, don’t do it, continue on your path. It’s an open area like that. I’m not sure; well, if God doesn’t give me confidence about it I’ll hold back, that kind of thing. That’s fine.

So these are some of the principles. He’s not done. You see how important this is for God. He doesn’t want His body of believers divided over things that should not be divisive. It denies the gospel that we have been brought together in a oneness with God and with one another. When we divide over things like this it’s a denial and it is destructive. We don’t want to do it.

Let’s pray together and then I have some things to talk about. Thank you, Lord, for Your grace. We need to be reminded we are all growing. Lord, it’s easy for even our own personal convictions and feelings to take over and we think everybody ought to hold this conviction, everybody ought to ‘feel this way,’ think this way. Lord, we want to constantly be making the adjustments necessary to bring our lives, our conduct, and our thinking into line with Your word. So we commit these truths to You to be impressed upon each of our lives individually by the gracious work of the Spirit. In Christ’s name, amen.

Okay, I had a question I want to address, it has to do with government. Let me just read it to you and then I may read a little bit from the book on government that I recommended. I don’t know whether this question came from somebody in the audience or someone that watches us on the internet. The book I’m going to refer to is “Toward a Biblical View of Civil Government” by Robert Culver. I’ll read a little bit from that. If you are here you can pick up a copy at Sound Words and they’ll give it to you for free. Now only that person! If they get thirty people who go in and say I’m the person then you’ll be visited by the elders. You’ll have to have proof that it was your question. If you are online you can call Sound Words and they’ll mail you one since I’m drawing on this book.

The question is, “If our forefathers fought against the ruler of those days would it be against God to fight against the ruler of today?” We look back and we see how things happened. Our own country came breaking away from the authority of England and so on and the war that takes place, and other battles that have taken place. A general statement, then most of what I’m reading comes from the last chapter. I always tell you to start with the last chapter so if you’re reading this book, if you read the epilogue he’ll give you a summary and that way you’ll have an idea of where he’s leading you to, and you can go back and get the details. This is one passage. It doesn’t come from the epilogue, but he’s been going through what Paul’s written. He says, “Because Paul understands that the world is not a friend to God and that it is in the providence of God temporarily under satanic control, the Christian believer will not set out for utopia.” And then he gives varied examples of the kinds of government, “socialistic, communistic, humanitarian, democratic, papal, capitalistic, Townsendite, Calvinist, Puritan, otherwise. There is no biblical promise that either the world or Satan, its god, will ever be converted. While supporting every genuine social improvement,” in other words, believers. Naturally as government comes up with things, we will support the things that we think are consistent with biblical truth, we’re happy for that. We vote in our form of government and we’re supportive. They’re doing something for good, things that we would say, that would be good, I’d be for that. “The Christian will not succumb to the reformist temper. Though supporting constructive change he will hardly be a revolutionary, at least not in the violent sense of that term. There is a temper of mind apparently present in every generation which feels that society,” (and now I’ve moved to the epilogue) “there is a temper of mind apparently present in every generation which feels that society, being corrupt, must be overthrown, rooted out, and reconstructed in the shape of some social ideal. This temper of mind may sometimes seize a large segment of the Christian population.” And he gives an example of seventeenth century Britain with the Calvinistic puritans and they got the idea… but what really happened was they abandoned their doctrine of sin and thought they were going to bring in the millennium, the kingdom, so they ought to change the government, overthrow the monarchy, and get involved in all of this and begin to establish the kingdom on earth. He said really what they had was Puritan heresy. That would shake some people, but yeah, they went contrary to their doctrine of sin and the depravity of man. It could not be brought about by external operations. It said it’s difficult to explain how they got off track being so Calvinistic with their doctrine of sin.

It’s on my mind because I just reread a book, while I was gone over the holidays, on the Puritans and their view of reconstituting government. It was a disaster. He warns us, “religious persecutors soon become extinct. Social reformers are always with us.” And that’s what the Puritans became, social reformers, we’re going to clean up the sin of our country. They did it in Britain, attempted to do it, then they brought it over here. Well-known men like Jonathan Edwards, he thought he was starting the kingdom in New England. They were on the verge of it. If you read those New England Puritans they were convinced, this is why we are here, this is going to be the New Jerusalem. What about the sin of man? You’re going to implement these ideas, these social changes, you see where we’ve come, to the external, the material, and somehow, what? You overrule the fact the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, it can’t be changed by these external principles. He quotes a man here, “From time to time the belief spreads among men that it is possible to construct an ideal society. Then the call is sounded for all to gather and build it, the city of God on earth. Despite its attractiveness this is a delirious ideal stamped with the madness of logic. The dream, utopia, leads to the denial of God and self-divinization, the heresy.” You see what happens, we lose sight of the focus on our theology; the depravity of man and we think government. We got into this and we get into it in our country, we begin to look for who is going to be the next president, who’s going to be in Congress, who’s going to be the Supreme Court, and we will bring this country… This doesn’t mean we don’t vote for people we think would be more consistent with biblical things, biblical actions. But I’m not going to get involved in that because it has nowhere to go except in short term. Everybody excited, oh yes, now we got conservatives and… what? That improves man, that can change his heart?

He reminds us here, “the biblically informed Christian will never forget that the present world is not man’s permanent home. It will not be news to readers of the preceding pages of this book.” (We are in the epilogue) When you read the preceding pages this won’t be a surprise “that one will learn very little indeed of social or political theory and only a little of economic theory from the Bible.” So why do Christians get so worked up and caught up in it? Something’s out of focus. “The Bible appoints and treats the appointment of human government at all levels. In our own day not only the secular multitude but apparently millions of Christians assume that laws should always be made and enforced by representatives chosen by democratic processes. That if government is not democratic it is certainly inferior and probably wrong. Yet as we have had occasion to note earlier, the Bible endorses neither monarchy nor democratic republic though it repeatedly proclaims in a variety of ways that magistrates of civil government have their power given them by God Himself.”

We may personally think that our capitalistic society is the best, but be careful, the Bible doesn’t say that. In fact, when God appointed government for the nation Israel He did monarchy. When we get to the kingdom it will be a monarchy. Before that He appointed judges; we have the book of Judges. Israel sinned when they decided they didn’t want judges anymore because it wasn’t God’s time for the monarchy, but when they decided it would be… That’s where we want to be careful between getting involved with conservative politics and conservative biblical interpretation as though that’s the biblical way. Now let’s see, “As to the precise stance which believers should take toward the social order in general and toward civil government in particular, it can be said that the Bible has given them a consensus on many matters. There has been a variety of response to critical situations. The scriptures don’t speak directly to every situation.”

I want to realize we deal with the times we are in, but would it be against God to fight against the ruler today? It’s hard to find biblical grounds for it, even with the change in government. Israel was the nation God established for Himself but when it came time for God to bring the Babylonians to power, Jeremiah had the humanly-speaking unfortunate responsibility given him by God to go and tell the nation to submit to the Babylonians. You will not win fighting against them, they’re going to come in, and they’re going to crush you. They’re going to tear your families apart and carry you away into captivity to a foreign land. You submit. He didn’t say build the army, get stronger. Same thing happens when the prophets had to deal with Assyria and Isaiah had to face that kind of thing. Well, you’re going down. We’re going to replace it with one of the worst governments, the cruelest governments… submit. When the Babylonians did come in and they didn’t submit, then Jeremiah had to say what? Settle down in the foreign land, obey those rulers, plant crops and harvest the crops, this is going to be home for a while.
So I think we as believers… Even Israel as an earthly nation and a theocracy appointed by God; then we come to the New Testament we’re not even in that kind of system. Our citizenship is in heaven. Look at the churches in the Church Age and spread throughout the world, the different kinds of government. When I was in China they were living under a communist government. Some of the pastors I talked to had spent more than twenty years in prison for doing nothing else than preaching the word of God. They were not open to talk negative about the government in any way. It is the government God has appointed for us, we live under its authority. We do not cease giving forth the truth and sharing the truth, but we will not go to prison for fighting against the government. We will go to prison for -- we all know the answer -- being faithful to the Word, preaching the Word. I asked a man, we gave him some materials that we had carried in, aren’t you afraid to take this? No. I wouldn’t take it in my hotel room because then I would be a governmental subversive, but I receive from you in this public place and they can’t accuse me for being a subversive. Meeting with you in private like that would make me subversive to the government.

So you just adjust. Multitudes of people have been saved in China. Oh, but communism is… I hope I don’t have to live under a communistic or socialistic government because it will be more closed to the preaching of truth, but would I attempt to overthrow it? Would I become part of a political movement to do so? No, because I don’t have any biblical grounds to do it. If God’s going to change the government, He changes it. We just had evidence: some evangelical Christians were promoting the former president, but he is the former president. God didn’t lose an election. God changed the rulers and it may be He’s going to change it for the worse even further because we are living in a world in rebellion against God, it brings His judgment.

So my answer to that: I don’t think believers would want to get caught up in the political turmoil. Now we will get caught in it and it is opposed to us. You see things closing in on us as the school system wants to teach things that are overtly unbiblical. Will we put our children in those schools? Will you be a teacher in those schools? We will have to continue to proclaim biblical truth. You’ll have to decide what you do with your children. The pressure comes. Will it come to the point you cannot teach those things which we view as subversive to our government? We are welcoming to all people. You cannot say sex outside of marriage of a man and a woman is sin. You cannot say that a man is a man, and a woman is a woman and that’s true from creation. That undermines the unity of our society… Because they want to be unified in a way that is consistent with one another and opposed to God’s truth. We’ll have to deal with that when it comes.

But there is no future for this world, it’s going to judgment, it’s going to Revelation 6-19, this country is doomed. I don’t want to get caught up in it. We’re here for a unique purpose, we want to save all our energy and direct it for what we, and we alone, can do because the church is the “pillar and support of the truth,” not human government. God has raised up the church, raised up us as believers. We need to be concentrated on that. We are afraid of the freedoms we’re going to lose. We have the freedom to meet together but we don’t have a great desire to do that. I don’t know, maybe there are not that many Christians left, maybe they are filling other Bible-believing churches. But the pressure is there. Maybe believers have lost interest, lost focus. We want to be carrying the gospel. Maybe God’s work of redemption is closing down. Maybe this nation has past its day of opportunity, that’s happened to nation after nation. I don’t want to fight against what God is doing and I don’t always know what He is doing until I see what He does. I didn’t know who His appointment for the next leader of our country was, after the election I knew, I couldn’t prophesy it. So we take it day by day.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for Your word. Thank you for raising us up in these days to be Your people as we see the disintegration even of our own country, the society in which we live. We are not disheartened because we really just see more openly displayed what you see in the heart of every unregenerate person. What we were before the grace of Your salvation reached us. Lord, these days we don’t want to be distracted. We don’t want to be turned away from what You have called and appointed for us, to be lights in the darkness, to bring truth to a world that is lost and without hope. In the week before us may we be faithful wherever You put us and however You determine to use us. May we honor You with the lives we have. In Christ’s name, amen.


[RG1]Not sure on this name. 8:46