Personal Liberty and Matters of Conscience

Transcript

GR 2266
03/07/2021
Personal Liberty and Matters of Conscience
Romans 14:1-12
Gil Rugh

Let’s go to the book of Romans, we’re going to chapter 14. See, we do make progress; some of you are thinking with Ephesians one verse at a time, if you count all the verses in Ephesians we will probably be in glory. But we are going to go a little faster as we move through Ephesians as well.

We are in Romans and the fourteenth chapter. We are moving toward the later part of this book, a book that has unfolded the wonders of God’s salvation. No fuller, clearer development of the Gospel, God’s plan of salvation, than we have in the book of Romans. With chapter 12 he started showing how that doctrinal truth is to impact our lives, it’s almost the natural result, “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed” (Romans 12:2). After we have unfolded the beauty and wonder of God’s work of salvation in our lives through faith in His Son do you think we could continue in the same pattern, on the same course, living the same way? The wonder of it all is we are not the same people, we have been made new. We have had that in chapters 12 and 13, we continue that kind of emphasis in chapter 14. Part of what we’ve been reminded of in the doctrinal section of the book is salvation is by grace through faith. Also it was stressed, and we saw this in the section on sanctification in chapters 6, 7, and 8, our daily life, sanctification, is also by grace through faith, so to be clear on that, that affects our walk and the way we live.

Keep something in Romans and come over to the book of Galatians -- Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians. As we mentioned, Galatians is much smaller in size than the book of Romans and some refer to it almost as a rough outline of the book of Romans because the content is similar. In Galatians chapter 3 Paul begins this chapter by saying, “You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?” Somewhere along the line the Galatians had begun to become confused. Paul calls them foolish, it’s like they had been put under a spell. Clear-thinking Christians shouldn’t be confused on this subject. “This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?” In other words, how were you saved? When you place your faith in Christ the Holy Spirit came into your life. Did the Holy Spirit come into your life because you kept the Mosaic Law? No! You received the Spirit by believing the truth of the gospel. When you believed the truth of the gospel God cleansed you, declared you righteous, and the Spirit of God came into your life. Verse 3, here’s the foolishness, “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” In other words was that just a one-time event? Oh yes, you are saved by believing the gospel, then the Spirit comes into your life when you believe the gospel. But now we’re reverting back to the Mosaic Law and we’re going to be sanctified and now grow in our new life, as he calls it ‘being perfected,’ being brought to maturity by our own works. No! Salvation is a package beginning with faith and when we are declared righteous and cleansed from our sin and the Spirit of God takes up residence in our life that’s the beginning of our new life. And it’s lived the same way, by grace through faith in the power of the Spirit who was key in our initial salvation, if I can refer to it that way.

The confusion can develop in a variety of ways, Paul dealt with that in chapter 1 of Galatians. So as we have moved through the book of Romans we moved from our condemnation to our justification to our sanctification. Sanctification follows on justification, they are distinct but they are never separated, everyone who has been justified is being sanctified. Remember we talked about the word ‘holy’, ‘saint,’ the word sanctified comes from the same basic word, we’ve been set apart by God for Himself. His Spirit indwells us now to enable us, to empower us, so there’s a provision within. It’s not, now we need a list of laws and we will become more and more what God intends us to be, we will mature now by keeping the Mosaic Law. There are evangelical believers to this day who teach that. They say if you don’t teach the Law as necessary for sanctification you are antinomian, you are lawless. We say how can you say that? We died to the Law and the Law is a package. So we don’t want to be confused. Reformed theology is I think confusing in this area. How does sanctification occur? How did our salvation begin? By grace through faith and the power of the Holy Spirit. Faith in Christ and it’s the power of the Holy Spirit who identified us with Christ (remember Romans 6) in His death, burial, and resurrection to new life. The reason we can now live a new life is because we are not under the Law, but we are under grace in Romans 6 verse 14.

Come back to Romans 14. We want to be clear, God’s grace provided it all. We live in the realm of grace and in that grace we live, trusting God and what He has provided for us. Obviously, there are commands; there are things we are commanded not to do, there are things we are commanded to do. A whole new life empowered and enabled by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. What God has done is He has transformed us, made us new creation, a new creature, old things have passed away, new things have come. It comes from within out of being made new, not having a list of rules and regulations that we conform to.

So what Paul is going to talk about in Romans 14 is there are things that the Scripture doesn’t address, there are things the Scripture does. We are told what the works of the flesh are, what the fruit of the Spirit is. We want to submit to the Spirit of God and His control and power so He produces the character of God in us. God has changed our desires, we are new. We don’t want to minimize the transformation that’s brought about in a life, but we don’t want to go to the other extreme and think we have to be perfect. That’s our goal, we are being perfected, it is the maturing process, which is greater conformity to Christ. We have to deal with things. There are things that the Scripture does not address. Are they right or are they wrong? How do we handle those things and those areas? That’s what Romans 14 is about. It’s a natural follow through for us in our new life in Christ. Where the Scripture speaks that is our authority. In the power of the Spirit, we carry that out. What about where the Scripture doesn’t specifically deal with? Things have changed over time, we live in a different culture than New Testament times, there are different opinions, we are all getting influenced by our backgrounds.

When our family was saved, my parents and myself and others in our family, we were in the context of what is known as the holiness movement. There were certain things, women could not wear lipstick, they had to wear sleeves down below the elbow, there were a myriad of rules and regulations. We tried to conform to those things because we thought that’s what Christians do, but you couldn’t find a verse in the Bible about that. Worldliness became a picture that was developed. It was nothing new the Romans had to deal with; they are coming out of their backgrounds, their cultures, and they are different. Christian liberty deals with those things. We need to be careful on this because God does not intend for the Church to be monolithic, we are all alike. We dress alike, we look alike, we walk alike, we talk alike, we’ve been made robots. No! There is to be diversity in the Body. We see this in our own country, it has struggles with diversity but it has no basis for it, for accepting the diversity so we keep working to press everybody into the same mold. But when we’re trying to press everybody into the same mold we’re squeezing some people out because they don’t fit the mold.

The churches are sometimes like that, we’ve gone through it, it’s not past, some of the church growth ideas. One church that was huge (to this day as far as I know) got on the radio, found out what kind of music the people in the community listened to, looked at how they dressed, what their income level was, and then that’s the people we want to reach and have in our church, people like us. The whole point of what God has done is what joins us together, is not that we are all alike, but with all of our diversity we belong to the living God, we are His family. We are not joined by our racial similarity, our social likeness, our financial positions, on it goes. In the New Testament church you had slaves and masters; we had different opinions on things; we have different likes and dislikes. If we are not careful we begin to want to make the church the same. We are the same on doctrine in our beliefs, the word of God is our authority. We’re not talking about compromising doctrine so everybody can fit, the church is the pillar and support of the truth. The truth is what unites us, the other things are temporal and passing. They have an importance in the world in which we live. God created different nationalities, different races with the division made after the flood because of sin. There’s always going to be conflict but they are resolved in Christ. We have been made one in Him. So that’s what Romans 14 is about, accepting one another.

One writer a number of years ago wrote this, “The church was never meant to be a cozy club of likeminded people of one race or social position or intellectual caliber. Christians are not clones, identical in all respects. One of the difficulties the church has always faced is that included in its membership are the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, those from every stratum of society, the old and the young, adults and children, the conservatives and the radicals, people from a great number of nations are Christians, people of every temperament. When we don’t recognize that and demonstrate it we become like the world.” Well, they don’t fit, they’re not like us. Remember James had to write about that, the rich looking down on the poor that might come in. I guess I don’t want to tell them to leave but they don’t fit, they don’t belong here. But when the rich came into the congregation, oh, want to be sure you are comfortable, everybody be sure they are friendly to you, these kinds of attitudes. If we are not careful that’s the way the world is, that’s what we were like before God changed us.

So how do we deal with our differences? That’s what this section of Romans is about. He’s going to talk about the strong brother and the weak brother. The principles he lays down are applicable to all the differences externally. He’ll focus on those things that were particularly pertinent there, but they remind us of the things that are relevant for us today as well. The issue there, one of the great divides they had were when you had Gentiles coming into churches that were primarily Jewish, like in Israel. The early church was Jewish primarily but then Paul began to carry the gospel out to Gentile nations. But you had Jews that God saved because we are talking about their Messiah. The Lord opened the eyes of some of those Jews that the truth that the Messiah that they crucified was the Savior and in His death and resurrection salvation was provided, so they became believers and became part of the Church.

But they have brought their own ideas in. Well, we were raised to eat this food and not eat this food, we were raised to observe these days and not these days. The Gentiles come from a different background, paganism, and their manner of eating and they had to deal with what about food sacrificed to idols. So these kinds of things. Well, what foods are we going to eat? If we’re going to be a church and eat certain kind of foods we will have to decide, here’s the menu. Marilyn and I never could have got married, she has Jewish blood and to this day she eats funny, she eats strange things. I’ll see her preparing something and she’s a great wife because she doesn’t prepare it for me, and she doesn’t expect me to eat it, that’s liberty. We’d have a conflict. And I don’t mind she eats that; the problem would come if I said you can’t eat that because I don’t like it. You say, well, you wouldn’t do that in your home. Why do we do those kind of things in the church? Why does everybody have to be alike? We don’t, beautiful, wonderful. I look forward to going home and having her prepare my snack.

Alright, verse 1, chapter 14, “Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions.” We want to be careful of our attitudes. Of course, we accept everybody, when we come in we expect them to conform and we’re going to help them do that. That’s not the way. You’ll note here, the church by and large is viewed, the majority are strong believers; the weak believer is the one who has an overly sensitive conscience still, because he hasn’t grown. When I was a young Christian, very young Christian, my parents had been saved recently and they were told movies were sin, you do not go to movies. Well, my parents were gone and my cousin wasn’t a believer at that time and he was going to the movie. Well, if he’s going to the movie I’m going with you. I went to the movie, I sat down and it’s just starting. There was an empty seat next to me and in my young mind at that point I looked over and I thought for sure the devil was sitting in that seat. I got up and got out of that place as quick as I could. I never did see the movie, it was probably something innocuous, Hop-Along Cassidy or something, I don’t know. But that was where my conscience was at that time and it had been conditioned to that. So that’s what he’s dealing with here.

If you are a strong Christian the weak Christian will have the sensitive conscience in the area of foods he’s going to talk about. Don’t pass judgment on him, you understand he is immature, but you don’t treat him as a second-class Christian, you accept the fact this is his conviction. So you don’t accept him to pass judgment on him -- of course, we want people with different views, we want people who are different to come into our congregation, but after they are here awhile they’ll become like us. No, we are not passing judgment on their actions. Now once again that’s not if it’s sin, but in these areas there is liberty. The Jew didn’t have to give up the foods that they ate, they could still eat those foods. God doesn’t prescribe foods of one kind or another. Peter had to adjust to that and you know how serious it was when Peter went to the house of Cornelius. The Jewish leadership, the apostles headquartered in Jerusalem, in chapter 11 called him on the carpet. What are you doing in that house? Not we are glad to hear you went there and were sharing the gospel. So it’s the process of growing and learning.

You “accept the one who is weak in faith,” so this is a new believer or an immature believer. They might have been a believer for some time but had never been taught and had an opportunity to grow in the word. “But not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions.” He gives an example, “One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only.” That had been an example there, one of the issues, can you eat this or not? Those coming out of a pagan background, foods offered to idols, as Paul uses the example in 1 Corinthians, I can’t eat that, that was offered to idols, that’s a pagan god. For those who didn’t come from the background they thought it’s just food, food is food, who cares what particular background, that didn’t change the food. You have some background for that, Jeremiah 10 said an idol is nothing, it’s a figment of people’s imaginations, but there is spirit beings behind it. The other person thinks he can eat all things. “The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him.” That last statement we ought to mark, “God has accepted him.” When I think I am holier than God, I will not accept people that are acceptable to Him, I’m the one in trouble. If God accepts him we’d better accept him, that’s the point here. God accepts us not on the basis of our diet, vegetarian, non-vegetarian. You think God wants you to eat just vegetables? Eat vegetables. But you note, we don’t have the right to exercise our authority over the other person, neither one does. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats. This goes both ways. The weaker brother doesn’t have authority over the stronger brother; your eating offends me so you shouldn’t eat that. Mind thine own business. Well, I think you should eat everything so if we’re going to be friends we’re going to McDonalds together, we’re going to eat the same thing, I don’t want to hang out with people who don’t eat like I eat. Well, the world may feel that way, they are comfortable with vegetarians ought to be with vegetarians. That’s not where the church is. We eat differently, we are sensitive to that. Some of us have eating habits that other people don’t like. We want to be careful we don’t expect everybody to cater to us. But there may be reasons; we go to someone’s house and they invite us for dinner, there may be even health reasons or for whatever reason you may say I don’t eat this. I want to be careful if I go to someone’s house and tell them what to prepare for me. But we are sensitive to that, we realize, you know, is there any problem, do you like this or don’t like that. I won’t give any examples, we’ll just keep moving on. Marilyn eats everything, I don’t always follow her lead, but I always find something to eat.

We accept one another, isn’t that the nice thing to do? If you’re comfortable with that, that’s fine. I don’t want to get into any more detail than that. Just note verse 3 “the one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat.” Is there a clear biblical requirement here? If not, it’s your opinion. Be careful about extending that: well, there’s a biblical foundation, there is a logic to this. One thing leads… No, the Bible is the authority, if the Bible hasn’t addressed it then it’s a matter of personal opinion. Don’t expect others, and don’t regard them with contempt, so I have to be careful about my attitude here. I can’t just not say anything because it wouldn’t be right but in my mind I’m thinking I don’t think they are very good Christians, I don’t think they really fit here. Why? Different nationalities, we don’t have as much of it here as we have on the coasts, people coming in, but we do have people from different places, they like different foods, they dress maybe differently.

Alright, “God has accepted him,” that’s the key point here, we accept those whom God has accepted. So if they are weak in faith, they are in faith, they share the same faith in Christ, they are welcome here. Verse 4, “Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls.” Okay, well, it will come out that my thinking was right. No, “he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” So we ought to be careful about elevating our opinions and we become opinionated and very strong in our opinions and sometimes we don’t sort out our opinions from biblical truth.

The fundamentalist movement crossed that line. It got to be issues of how the hair was, how the clothes were, how you wore your hair. My mother for years, even though my dad didn’t like it, she wore her hair only in a bun because that was what was the way godly women wore their hair, you wear your hair in a bun, and you wear no makeup. I was young in those days, but I remember my father saying you look like walking death Shirley. Well, it was opinions. Now my mother at that stage should have been more sensitive to my dad’s opinion but they were both growing, they were new believers. My dad wasn’t a believer at that point, my mother was saved as the first one in our family. My dad was saved a little bit later, so naturally here he is, what happened to my wife? But these things they get to be the big thing, it’s not. We don’t judge others, the word of God judges us all so would you show me in the word of God… Pastors can be great at this. I’ve had this discussion with pastors. We have to challenge one another, I think that’s your opinion, what does the word of God say, show me. I have to do that to myself. Well, you’ve expressed this is the right thing for us to do, would you show us from the Word where it says that. If it’s not there then it is my opinion no matter how strongly I hold it. The church is not governed by personal opinions, note that.

“Who are you,” verse 4, “to judge the servant of another?” This is serious. God hasn’t made me the judge of his servants. Again, we are in these areas. Doctrinal areas, yes, of course, the word of God is applied, but then I’m not the judge but the word of God is. When I go beyond that, “Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands.” I remember exchanging e-mails with a person and my concluding e-mail was we are all slaves in the house of the Master, responsible to obey Him. That comes down to there are personal convictions, but we ought to be able to join together as a family of believers, appreciating we have different personal opinions and some that we hold strongly, but they don’t divide us as a body. These are the things we ought to be able to say, yeah, at our church we have all kinds of people, we have people of all strata of society, different kinds, you sort it out. The way it stands here I don’t want to be in opposition to God on this. “To his own master he stands or falls,” there is one Lord. Another word for ‘servant’ here is the word built on ‘house,’ it’s the household servant. The word ‘master’ is the normal word ‘kurios.’ Who is the lord of the house? We have been in Ephesians already and where we are going. Who has been appointed Lord? Who is Lord? Who is He accountable to? Not me. Not in that sense. Not in these areas. Once I go outside the Word… Well, the Bible doesn’t teach this but here’s what we do, here’s how it is here. Wait a minute, no, it’s not!

There have been changes, I have had to make changes. I come out of a background that I’ve told you something about, I come from a rather strict fundamentalist background. When I came to Indian Hills they had great people here. Some of them let their kids go to dances. I’ve shared this before. I remember saying to Marilyn I don’t know what to make of this, their kids go to the prom, what did we get into? Then you have to go back and say, where was that verse I looked for, ‘thou shalt not go to the prom,’ I know it’s here because I was taught it. Some of those things are personal opinions, I have to adjust. Now maybe I have an opinion about dancing, maybe you have an opinion about drinking wine, maybe you have an opinion about what kind of clothes. Fine, have it, but our confidence is the Lord will make us stand and you know what will come out? The victors, regardless of these personal opinions.

“One person regards one day above another. Another regards every day alike. Each person much be fully convinced in his own mind.” We observe Sunday. Talking about my background, we weren’t allowed to ride our bikes on Sunday because we are still partially under the Mosaic Law. I appreciate my parents were adjusting. My mother and then when my dad professed his salvation, people were telling them this is what Christians do; they were trying to do it. They were still in a Methodist church, it wasn’t teaching much, and trying to go to a Bible study through the week in another place, trying different places. Where do we go to learn what the Bible says and partly they were just being influenced by what they looked to as other Christians telling them what to do. Some of these things have got to get sorted out.

A day, Sunday, is the day that has been set aside to worship, but it’s not a day like the Old Testament Sabbath because most of the Sabbath is violated today in one way or another. It’s not the Christian Sabbath. Then we try to implement parts of the Mosaic Law, we observe it. Setting a day apart for the Lord is a good idea; Sunday works the way our society is structured. We are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together (Hebrews 10:25), but if for some reason we couldn’t do it on Sunday we could do it on Thursday. Well, the early church met together on the first day of the week. Yes, and the early church wore sandals, they removed them, and had their feet washed when they came into the house. And then they practiced some of these things, are they required for us today? One person observes a day, another… But today in our society as Christians we observe Sunday. But I want to be careful, what does that mean? That’s the day when we meet together. Do we meet together… When I was in another country they didn’t meet on Sunday morning because the government laws of that country didn’t set aside Sunday, so they came Sunday night. They were still using Sunday but… Oh well, you better get a Sunday morning service going and tell the government you can’t work on Sunday morning. Many of you have jobs on Sunday morning. If I go to the hospital I hope somebody is working on Sunday because I want to be taken care of. You mean you’re going to violate the Sabbath? We just want to be careful about these things.

“Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind,” there is room for liberty as long as I don’t make that liberty a biblical requirement. I don’t have to eat what someone else likes to eat and I don’t have to try to make them eat it and then to try to build a case. There are Christians that do Christian diets and have reasons and have got a book that tells you why eating like the Old Testament prescribed will prevent you from having all these diseases, in fact, the title of the book is “None of These Diseases.” So if you eat according to the Mosaic Law… that’s part of the problem we have is we don’t eat according to the Mosaic Law. And that was published by a person who professes to be an evangelical Christian. I think he’s passed away, but I haven’t followed, it’s an older book. “Each person must be fully convinced,” so I can have my opinion and you can have yours. You can like Chevys and someone else can like Fords and someone else likes Dodges or whatever, fine. You can join the Ford automobile club and they can join the Chevy automobile club, fine. When we come together as a church none of that divides us. We might talk about our likes and dislikes, but “each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.”

“He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord, and he who eats, does so for the Lord, for he who gives thanks gives thanks to God; and he who eats not, for the Lord he does not eat, and gives thanks to God. For not one of us lives for himself, and not one of us dies for himself.” Our life now is about God, our relationship to Him. We are brought together, the truths of the Word shape our lives. The truths of the Word properly understood and applied, of course! Outside of that we have all of our differences, all of our likes and dislikes, all of the opinions that we hold strongly. We’re not going to get into the political discussions here. Is a political liberal welcome in our congregation? Well, first we have to answer the question can you be a political liberal and be a believer, there’s the question, brother. The Bible doesn’t specify. Now there’s certain practices and conduct, but the Bible doesn’t ordain a particular form of government. The Jews lived under a different form of government than we have. Israel had a king and then when God judged the nation they lived under other governments and now Rome is ruling, and we obey the authorities. Those things become personal opinions. Now in our personal opinion we may feel this kind of government, these kinds of rules, are more conducive to Christianity. Obviously I’d be more in support of that but someone else may have a different opinion on that. We limit ourselves to what the Word says. We are not a political movement. I have a question on politics, I probably won’t get to tonight, but I will address that maybe next week in our discussion time.

So there has to be room for diversity. We want to be careful in our discussions that we don’t make our opinions the cause of diversity. Someone else is going to be uncomfortable. Like we have in our society: well, if you hold certain opinions you better not express them because there will be people there that are going to put you down. It shouldn’t be like that in the church. I want to be careful about expressing my opinion. Preachers have to be careful about expressing their opinion when they are preaching. If I express an opinion I want to tell you here’s my opinion, but it has no more weight, no more authority, than your opinion. That’s why I want to be careful with examples for something I do or don’t do and try to put it in the context that that doesn’t mean that’s what you have to do. We both have to be biblical, but we don’t have to share the same opinions.

I want to be careful now, we get here and we get to the matter of conscience. This is where Paul is going, I’m doing what I do or not doing what I don’t do because I’m concerned about what the Lord would have me do and my testimony. We will give a list of the principles when we move through this and then to chapter 15. I want to be sensitive to that. Certain things would be a problem for people so I don’t do them, I feel I have the liberty, certain things I did not do at a period of time that today where our congregation is it wouldn’t be as much a problem. Some people were looking, I know. Well, I have to be sensitive to that maybe in a way that you don’t naturally. But what I do and don’t do, if I think the Lord doesn’t want me to eat certain things I’m not going to eat it. Why? My conscience would bother me. Well, you ought to grow up spiritually and know you can eat that. I can’t eat it if I don’t think the Lord wants me to. So that’s where the personal realm comes. We don’t want to push our opinion on someone else so that they begin to do what their conscience tells them they shouldn’t do. Again, here we are in what we call grey areas, areas of liberty that the Word doesn’t speak to. Some people feel they can have a glass of wine with a meal, some people think they shouldn’t drink alcoholic beverages. I can’t find any scripture that says they cannot, I personally choose not to. That doesn’t mean it’s right for you to not drink and wrong for you if you do, it is a personal opinion. I’ve been with people at meals, and they say we have a glass of wine with this, would you like one. I said no, I’ll be fine with water. Would you like a soda? Maybe I’ll have a soda. These are personal opinions. I don’t want to feel like they should feel that they can’t do that because they don’t want to make me uncomfortable. I have to be more sensitive to the weak Christian. If I know they don’t eat ham sandwiches, come on over, we’re having dinner, it’s a surprise, and when they get there it’s ham sandwiches. My goal isn’t to make them uncomfortable. We’ve had people call, they hear I don’t eat everything like Marilyn does, they’ll call, and say we’re having this, does Gil have any problem with that? That was nice of them. If it’s something I don’t eat I’ll just stir it around on my plate and push it over to Marilyn. We’re free, with liberty, enjoy life.

“Not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself.” This is an important area, our whole life until our death is about serving the Lord. I want to please Him and I recognize you want to please Him. And some of the convictions we differ on, you have because with your conscience -- which is not my conscience, it’s your conscience -- you have to be comfortable doing. When we get into these areas that the Word does not directly address, that gets into some of these areas of politics and foods and everything else, the Bible just doesn’t address it. There’s a lot of things the Bible does not speak to, does not directly address, but we have opinions about, that’s fine. Some things I don’t do because I don’t think that would be what the Lord would have me do. Well, why? I have my own reasons. And you may have things I just wouldn’t be comfortable doing that; you don’t have to tell me why you wouldn’t be comfortable. If you’re not comfortable with it why would I want to make you uncomfortable, and I don’t want you to do anything that would conflict with your conscience. I have to be careful, our conscience acts according to the standard which it is given, that’s why there has to be room for growth.

I mentioned my background. I had to grow and allow the Word to impact me and adjust my thinking, but the solution wasn’t just to begin to do what those that I looked at as more mature Christians did. I want to follow their example, but they might do things I’d be uncomfortable doing. Well, if I’m uncomfortable doing with what’s biblical I need to bring my conscience in the line with the Word of God. But other than that, it’s a matter of conscience. The Lord may not want me to do some of the things you do because it would be detrimental for me. So personal things are there.

“Not one of us lives for himself, and not one of us dies for himself.” What are we doing it for? That came out of verse 6, whatever we’re doing we do it for the Lord, I want to please the Lord, I want to honor Him, I want the things in my life to be such that I am comfortable before Him. Sometimes I have people come and talk to me. Somebody came to me after my talking about what I think about people when they come to conferences. I’m not coming to you -- well, that was part of my purpose. But what I do is give you the biblical foundation, then with the biblical foundation you go to someone who has the gift of mercy and they counsel you in a comforting way how to apply that -- just a sidelight. We want to do what pleases the Lord, right? We want others to do what they believe pleases the Lord so that enables us to function together.
“For if we live,” verse 8 “we live for the Lord or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefor whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” Everything we do is for the Lord, we do everything for the Lord. We live for the Lord, we die for the Lord. Each one of us has that, we want to appreciate that, and that’s the beauty of the diversity. Everybody at Indian Hills is alike, yes, we are. We all believe the same gospel, we all believe the Bible is the authoritative word of God, we all live with the desire to live under the authority of the Word, because the Lord is our authority, this is His truth. That’s what unites us. Are you open to other people? Yes, anybody can come, whatever they believe. Unbelievers are welcome, but they are not part of the body. We would want them to feel welcome, we would want to be friendly to them, we’re glad they came. They will not be given responsibilities here, because this is a body of believers, but we welcome them to come. The reason they are here, we assume is the Spirit has for some reason brought them. Why else would they come? Now the word may become offensive to them, we’ll see what happens. For those who have believed in Christ, new Christians, they come, they’re going to come maybe with their own ideas, fine. Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. I want to recognize that, you are the Lord’s, I am the Lord’s. I realize preachers can become great for preaching their own opinion. We want to be careful, I am not the authority for this church, the word of God is the authority for this church; I am not free to impose my opinions.

A board of elders makes decisions; we decide to meet at 10am on Sunday morning. The Bible doesn’t say you have to meet at 10am, but it is a time that works for us to plan to meet together as a church family, that’s a decision that they make. So we have all kinds of those things we’ve gone through with, we meet in a building, we have these kinds of seats. They are not things that are the theological issues. We want to live for the Lord, we can have personal convictions.

Verse 10, “But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt?” He’s back around to this. This is evidently an issue in the Roman church in Rome. We just went through the gospel, and he said this is not what believers do. “Why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.” I lose sight of the fact there are certain things that are God’s prerogative that He retains for Himself, and that is ruling over His children, judging His Children. Now we are to exercise judgment, but that is in the context of the word of God. In discussion with other pastors in the debate over this -- and we want to be careful, we are not free to assert our own opinions. The word of God… Now there may be diversity, one church may understand the word of God to require this and this, and they have to function according to how they understand the Word. And so do we. And in some of these areas there’s going to be a difference of opinion, so the elders of each church sorts through those matters and makes decisions. But ultimately we’ll stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

When we come to these personal matters of liberty, I want to be careful that we’re just working together, we love one another, and we are one family. Just like we tell, you know, your kids, they’re different but they have to get along. They are under the authority that God has put in the home, example of the father, then the mother, it’s required. That doesn’t mean they have to become alike in everything, that they have to dress alike, or like this or like that, or whatever. Now, in our home, my dad had been in the Navy and there were certain things he would not eat. Now he was not in the Navy; I ate that every day in the Navy, I’m not going to eat it here. When my mother was making something like that, which she occasionally did, my dad got a special dish. But I didn’t have the same authority, I ate what I was told to eat. Dad’s not eating it! Yes, but you’re not dad. And my dad kept the distinction, we’ve lost some of that these days, but another subject for another day.

Verse 10, “For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God.” That comes out of the Old Testament. Verse 11 comes from Isaiah 45, “For it is written, ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.” So then every one of us, each one of us, He singles us out, will give an account of himself to God. I will give an account. You know, Lord, I want to give You an account. Well, leaders will give an account for those under their responsibility as God has structured things, that’s scriptural. In these areas, each one makes their own opinion, follows what they believe God would have them do. Now that doesn’t’ mean we can’t talk among ourselves as believers, talk why we think maybe something would be detrimental, maybe it’s not. We want to keep it on the level it is our opinions. One thing we’ve found, we as pastors would meet together over time, we had different opinions on different things. It was important we kept our opinions as our opinions. How would you handle that in your church? How would you handle that in your church? As we talked about different things, I remember thinking, well, you know we wouldn’t do it that way at Indian Hills, but that doesn’t mean that it’s wrong for you to do it the way you’re doing it. Because the scripture doesn’t specify how it must be done. So those kinds of things are opinions and it’s important for pastors, teachers, to remember that the authority is of God not me. And when I move out of the word of God, then I’m just expressing my opinion and it may be less valid then your opinion, because I may not have the insight and understanding that you have in some areas, so it’s a humbling thing.

Each one of us will give an account for ourselves. That’s why our differences are good. Because it helps refine me, being with someone who is different in these liberty ways, and I learn from it and I grow and I appreciate. In our differences I am driven back to the Word and the ultimate authority that we have is the word of God. That doesn’t mean I can’t have my opinion, and your opinion can be different. And foods, drink, clothing, music, there’s so many ways. We decorate our homes according to what we like. We come to church, well, this is the section for people who like traditional, these are people who like contemporary, these are people who like French country, these are people who like Victorian, these are… Well, wait a minute, we don’t do the church that way. That doesn’t mean you can’t have your own decorating in your home, do it! If we can allow that liberty we function together; if we don’t, this is what Paul’s concerned about, then we begin to deny the truth. This whole area of God’s working in sanctification is by His grace through faith. And areas where the Word doesn’t speak, then I have to go by my conscience in light of the Word, so there will be certain things I just am not going to do, I’m not comfortable with it. I don’t believe the Bible forbids it, but I’m not comfortable doing it, and there are things that go the other way. I have to obey my conscience in these areas, you have to obey yours, and we can be comfortable. No, I’m not going to do that, it’s something I’m not comfortable with, but I appreciate, you know, I don’t think that should limit you in any way. That’s the way we as a body feel.

So in the body we tend to gravitate toward one another, but we don’t want to become exclusive. So I think it’s simple, clear, but it’s not done. He’s going to belabor this through the rest of chapter 14 and then into chapter 15. It’s something the Spirit of God says is important for us. We have to learn to sift out what is biblical and what is just personal opinion. And there’s room for the personal opinion, but there’s not an allowance to enforce that on others as though it was biblical requirement. Part of maturing is recognizing the difference, part of maturing is recognizing there will be people who don’t recognize that. And we want them to feel comfortable honoring their conscience and living with their own personal opinion, but they don’t have the authority to impress it on the more mature.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for Your word. They are simple truths, the challenge comes for us to implement them personally and individually. Lord, we do have our own personal opinions and we bring them into church. There are divisions in our thinking, and Lord, we don’t want those to divide us as a congregation. We have to be careful about how we express our personal opinions. We need to be careful about trying to enforce those opinions on others, from all directions. Lord, we want to be mature people. This is Your family, we are Your servants, in Your house. Christ is the authority, the Word You have given us is the authority. We want to be careful when we blend and blur the distinction between our opinions and the authority of Your word. We can begin to corrupt the Word, and people lose the distinction that is important. So may we individually, and then as a church family, take these truths to heart. We pray in Christ’s name, amen.

Ok, if you have any comments on that, we will be going through this for the next couple of weeks, you can submit a question by email or text it in and we will try to put that on the list.

I had a question, one that does come up and if you think about it, how did the Old Testament handle these things? There was the yearly sin offering for the high priest and his family as well as the nation as a whole. But would individual Israelites keep a list of sacrifices they need to make and go to Jerusalem and make offerings as they were able to go there? I’m thinking that a Jew in another part of the land of Israel might have a hard time. Travel in those days, and many of you have been to Israel, in those days they would have had to walk or go by donkey or cart. How did you make your sacrifices, like the opening chapter of Leviticus, the various sacrifices, and so on?

The summary answer is there could be various altars and places of sacrifice throughout the land of Israel. There were various priests spread throughout the land of Israel. So while the focal point is the temple (after the tabernacle) – but we’ll talk about the temple in Jerusalem. There were certain feasts where you were to come if at all possible. But those sacrifices could be made in various places in the land. So it wasn’t that there was only one central place and a sacrifice could only be offered there by the priest there.

Let me take you to a couple verses, Exodus chapter 20. First I will just talk about what are called customary altars, they are the common altars. In Exodus instructions are being given to what Israel is to do when they are into the land. In Exodus chapter 20 verse 24, “You shall make an altar.” The previous verse says you are not allowed to worship any other god or to worship any other god, make any other gods. Verse 24, “You shall make an altar of earth for Me,” only for Him, not for other gods, “and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you. If you make an altar of stone for Me, you shall not build it of cut stones, for if you wield your tool on it, you will profane it.” In further instructions He goes on. So you see when they go into the land there was an allowance to make altars in various places. These are called common altars if you read about them in a dictionary or something.

Come over to Deuteronomy chapter 16, (we will go to two passages in Deuteronomy) Deuteronomy 16 verse 21, “You shall not plant for yourself an Asherah,” an Asherah was a statue maybe of a carved female deity, “you shall not plant for yourself an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the altar of the Lord your God, which you shall make for yourself.” So you see they were allowed to make altars, but they were not allowed to join it with the worship of the land, its paganism; they had to be careful that that was not in any way connected to pagan worship. So the fact they could have altars that they made out of dirt or stone did not mean they could allow for an idol to another god to be present there. So they couldn’t use the pagan sites or couldn’t join them together. God knows what we are like, compromise comes! Oh, let’s have an altar to our God and we will share it with them and they’ll have the altar to their god. No, that’s not a possibility, this is an altar to God and Him alone, aou can’t have anything there connected to another deity.

Come over to Deuteronomy 27, verse 5, here when they come into the land this will be one of the first altars they make in the land; after they cross the Jordan, then they are going to take the stones and make an altar. Verse 5, “You shall build there an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stone,” don’t use an iron tool on it, “build the altar of the Lord your God of uncut stones… offer on it your burnt offerings to the Lord… you shall sacrifice peace offerings and eat there, and rejoice before the Lord,” and so on. So you see, they move into the land and they could start with an altar right there where they were, these kind of altars and centers of worship. It gives a list of some of the people identified as offering sacrifices at these kind of altars, Joshua, Gideon, Jephtha, Samuel, Saul, David, Elijah, and then many others are connected with offering sacrifices in these kind of places, at these kind of altars. Now how this was facilitated: the priests were spread throughout the land of Israel so the priests were available to the people and could act as the people’s representative and bring the sacrifice at this altar that was made.

You are in Deuteronomy, back up to Numbers, Numbers 18 verse 20, “Then the Lord said to Aaron, ‘You shall have no inheritance in their land.” This is instruction for in the land that God was giving them, the land of Canaan which becomes the land of Israel. “You shall have no inheritance in their land nor own any portion among them; I am your portion.” So for the sons of Levi, the tribe of Levi -- the land is going to be divided up among the twelve tribes -- Levi, the tribe of Levi, does not get any land, that’s what He is talking about, you get no portion; you will be supported by the other tribes and the provision that’s made. Look at verse 24, “The tithe of the sons of Israel, which they offer as an offering to the Lord, I have given to the Levites for an inheritance,” concerning that they have no inheritance. How are the Levites going to be taken care of? The people who have the territory, when they bring their offering, some of it financial, some of it animals. We know the portions given to the Levites. That’s how they’re sustained.

There’s other provision. Come over to Numbers chapter 35 to see that the Levites are spread throughout the land. God says there are to be cities throughout the land that are given as Levite cities. So they are not primarily for developing land and crops and all of that; they are primarily for the residents of the Levites. In Numbers 35 go to verse 7, “All the cities which you shall give to the Levites shall be 48 cities, together with their pasture lands,” so there is a little bit of land around the city. But these are just cities spread throughout with a little bit of land around that city but there will be multiplied cities for these tribes. There’s just this portion but it’s not primarily to serve the same purpose as it serves for the other tribes because the bulk of the Levites’ provision will come from the gifts of the people as He has expressed. Verse 8, “As for the cities which you shall give from the possession of the sons of Israel, you shall take more from the larger and you shall take less from the smaller.” In other words… We said there’s forty eight cities. That doesn’t mean there’s twelve tribes because remember the sons of Joseph, they’re divided. There’s still twelve tribes even though Levi is not getting one. It doesn’t mean that every tribe will have four cities as Levite, no. The tribes that get larger land will have more cities, the smaller tribes will have less Levitical cities, but they’ll be a total of forty eight. So compared to the size of each tribe, continue the end of verse 8, “Each shall give some of his cities to the Levites in proportion to his possession which he inherits.” Then within that there will be cities of refuge, you can read the context. For manslaughter somebody could go in there to escape the penalty. So we know there’s forty eight cities.

Come back to Deuteronomy chapter 18, look at verse 1. “The Levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the Lord’s offerings by fire and His portion. They shall have no inheritance among their countryman; the Lord is their portion.” So you see again the bulk of provision for the Levities is from these cities. We know there are forty-eight. Down in verse 6, “Now if a Levite comes from any of your towns throughout Israel where he resides and comes whenever he desires to the place the Lord chooses he shall serve in the name of the Lord His God like his fellow Levites who stand before the Lord, in equal portions.” So these Levites, their cities are there, they can move out and around their territories, that’s what they do. Remember Saul, he was not to offer sacrifice until Samuel who was a priest came; Samuel delayed and Saul intervened. These priests are mobile, they have cities spread throughout, forty-eight cities. And we’re not going to go there, but if you go to Joshua 21, now the land has been conquered, it will give you a list of all the cities and where they are spread. So the Levites, there was no problem here, it was all settled. We won’t go there because we would have to get a map out and break it out. You can get in Joshua 21 the cities that are distributed. Then the Levites, this is their home base, but they go out. When they come to an area and an altar has been constructed they can offer for sacrifice there and a portion of that belongs to the Levite so he makes his living as a travelling priest, if you will, if I can put it that way, and don’t carry it too far.

So all of that to say and answer your question, no, they didn’t have to travel to Jerusalem. There were times when if possible they were to come up for the special feasts, but they weren’t bringing their sacrifices all the time and they didn’t have to wait. They may have to wait until a Levite was in their area but there was a schedule. We found Samuel travelled to the different cities. They probably had some kind of schedule so they knew when the priest would be in their area and they could plan accordingly.

All of that to answer the question, they didn’t have to go to Jerusalem, but the Lord had made provision and it was spread throughout. As I mentioned before, one of the problems with the Roman Catholics is they have developed their whole priestly system on this Old Testament system. The high priest centered at Rome, then the next level, and the next level, and then the priest throughout, but all of the authority ultimately has to come from the central priest. If you read their catechism they acknowledge that they go through the priestly system and they think that is a positive. We as Protestants would understand as Bible-believing Christians that that is a negative because that whole system was over with with Christ. What they try to do is incorporate Christ into that system and they fail to realize the beauty of what we have now, which believer-priests have with Christ as our high priest.

Let’s have a word of prayer. Thank you again, Lord, for Your word. Thank you for the provision that we have to now come to You directly, with Christ as our High Priest seated at Your right hand. We come with confidence to Your very presence, before Your throne of glory, which is a throne of grace for us to receive all that we need, that You abundantly and graciously provide. We pray for the week before us. Lord, we ask again that You would provide Your grace for each one. Our situations, our circumstances, the things we face, what You have planned for us to have to go through will vary from person to person, but we have the confidence that in every circumstance, every situation, and every individual life Your grace will be sufficient for every situation and every need. We commit ourselves to You, looking forward to be used by You however You choose. We pray in Christ’s name, amen.