As to the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes that he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass a judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God. And the one who abstains, abstains in the honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord. And if we die, we die to the Lord. So that whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, Christ died and lived again, that he might be both the Lord of the dead and of the living. Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God as it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it is unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. Do not let that which you regard as good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. Do not for the sake of food destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith, for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up for Christ to not please himself. But as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproach you fell on me. For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through the endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may, with one voice, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Amen. Let's pray together. Our Father in heaven, we pray that this spirit should be made manifest in our congregation, that we might be obedient to your word in this way, that the glory of God, that the good of our neighbor, that peace and mutual up-building should be those things that drive us on in all things. And if we have differences in such matters, our Father, we pray that likewise you would teach and enlighten each one. that we should serve you together in good conscience and in harmony with one another. In accord with Christ Jesus, glorify you, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we pray. Amen. There was a great deal of quarreling in the ancient church, to borrow Paul's word here from the ESV. Christians had disagreements with each other, often over doubtful matters, as the New King James puts it. Opinions on this or that. People had strong convictions, approving of certain things, disapproving of other things. Others having the opposite opinion. All throughout the book of Romans, Paul is dealing particularly with the tensions that arose in the Jewish and Gentile members of the congregation. And it seems to be the same here. Paul takes up two matters. For instance, the eating of meat is the first. And as I explained earlier, you remember in that day, practically all the meat that is sold in the marketplace had been sacrificed to one idol or another. Some people simply could not eat that meat in good conscience. That's heathen worship. And still today, in places like India, it's an integral part of heathen worship. Our missionary friends say it's just the common thing. You go to somebody's door, and the first thing that the person will do, as a matter of just ordinary kindness and hospitality, is to offer you what was offered to his God that morning. Something that they have to constantly refuse and say that our God is a jealous God. Well, that was the way it was back then. People could not eat that meat in good conscience because it was an integral part of heathen worship offering sacrifices to their gods and consuming that which was sacrificed. How can Christians eat meat sacrificed to idols? Which is clearly pagan religion. Well, Paul says, I do. there's an area of conscience where Christians strongly disagreed. There's also the matter of Holy Days, which again, given the Jew versus Gentile context of the book, would lead us to conclude that Paul was writing the same thing in both Galatians and Colossians. Colossians 2, writing about festivals and new moons and Sabbaths. We know from the New Testament and early history that this was a tension that many Christians excuse me, many Christian Jews continued some observance of the Mosaic liturgical calendar still today in the Messianic congregation, same deal and they pressured the Gentiles to do the same thing in the Messianic congregation, same thing so many similar matters needed to be dealt with in the church now these are not particular issues which thankfully are raging in our congregations today and so there are We're at a safe distance to evaluate these things for there are plenty of similar matters which perplex us and even divide us today. People have strong opinions or various convictions over doubtful matters. In fact, probably at no other time in the history of the church has the professing church been so fractured and divided over matters of Christian practice than where we are now today. Some Christians do this, other Christians do that. When we think of Christian liberty, we often think of different kinds of matters than these, right? We talk about Christian liberty, we think about things like drinking alcohol, and it certainly applies, right? Some people enjoy wine and such things as God's gift to them to gladden the heart of man. Other people do not do that and cannot do so with a good conscience. I've been at conferences where people get together in the evenings and enjoy smoking pipes together and others hold their arms and look at them very crossly. Some Christians watch television, some do not turn it on at all if they have one. I read about one German Christian who moved here to America who would say and discuss, you Americans say that we shouldn't drink beer and yet you go to bowling alleys. I mean, in the German mind, going to bowling alleys is the epitome of worldliness, and drinking beer is something the Germans did at dinner, right? So, had no sinful connotations whatsoever. Similarly, in most Dutch worship services, you ladies this evening would be completely out of place. Dr. Knight, known to some of you, was traveling in the Netherlands with his wife some years ago and they went to a service in the summer and dear Virginia Knight felt like crawling under the pew because she was dressed as she was always dressed feminine and conservative by American standards but she was practically a scandal in the conservative Lutheran and Reformed churches of the Netherlands Because all the women, of course, wore black or very dark gray and had their hair arranged very plainly out of biblical conviction. Even the men wear very dark suits and dark ties. I read one Presbyterian student recently up in Grand Rapids. He talked about going to a Dutch Reformed church and he says the elders wear black. Only black. My wife is in the Confession of Faith class, and it was explained to her that there was no rule about the elders wearing black. Until one day, a new elder wore a plaid suit, and they called an emergency elder meeting to establish that an elder must wear black, and if he could not afford it, a black suit would be provided for him. true story. Another interesting one. Somebody went and visited David Murray up at the Puritan Reform Seminary. He was in the Free Church of Scotland, continuing now in the Free Reform Church. Anyway, he's now in a Dutch church. And a young man went to visit the congregation. He was wearing a purple tie. And he writes after the service that one of the elders began to ask me some questions. And I quote here, Well there, sonny boy, Do you think it's really appropriate for a young man to wear purple in the house of the Lord? Okay. It's a scandal. There are various practices, my point is, that we often associate with Christian liberty, things that are considerably less serious than this. Drink, dress, going to a movie theater, and so on, and these can become biblical These can become issues in the church whenever people feel a measure of biblical conviction about some matter and want others to agree with them. And so the principle of Christian liberty does apply to these things, but the real struggle in the apostolic church and still today is over what we might call religious observances. Things that become important when the whole church must observe some human tradition or in Antioch or Galatia, to require the Gentiles to observe the laws of Moses, starting with circumcision some churches requiring people to do this or that and Paul is not absolutely against circumcision, he circumcises Timothy when he is going to do some ministry among the Greeks, but he is absolutely against the church imposing this upon the Gentiles And churches also have a variety of practices today, right? I mean, some churches require people to submit to adult baptism by immersion. You have to agree with us if you are going to be a member. It's right on the sign. Some churches require infant baptism. Some churches require children to submit to Episcopal confirmation. Others to attend worship on certain days of the year. Others to support Christian education and so on. In the early days of the church, many people wore a kind of overall called a chossable to worship, a chossable. It's the equivalent of overalls, I suppose today, a kind of apron that had fabric down the front and the back. It was made out of inexpensive material. It's what working people wore when they didn't want to get their clothes dirty from whatever they were working on. While Christians in the church knew that there weren't to be any distinctions of class or race or status or wealth, 1 Peter 3 says your beauty should not come from outward adornment such as braided hair or the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes so rather than fine clothes people wore a chossable to church so they didn't put on any airs and then as we start to move on toward the Middle Ages the chossables began to change instead of being an expression of humility in the church, it became the mark of the best Christians in the church, a kind of spiritual status symbol for the devout and after a while, instead of making them from cheap cloth, they made them out of fine linen and silk and the priests got in on this and they began to wear special chossables still to this very day, in any Roman Catholic church you go the man officiating at the Mass wears a chossable Gold and silver, embroidery and jewels often accompanied these and the more impressive and expensive it looked, the more status you had in the church. And so instead of being something that removed pride and status, it actually became something that promoted it. Arguments and contentions arose as to who was supposed to wear what. What was propriety? What was the will of the Lord? It's interesting how something lost its purpose. Well, such matters of worship and religious observance have created many divisions that still exist in the church today. What is the church to do? When some individuals are strongly convicted, the Lord would have the church do this. And others are strongly convicted the other way. Well, I thank God that Paul has dealt with this issue for us in Romans chapter 14, beginning of 15. But it's a challenging chapter. How does the apostle approach such things? He does not do it the way we would like. We would like him to take sides and say that this is the answer and everybody has to get on the right side. Now, he does admit, verse 14, that on the matter of meat, he doesn't agree with the people who won't eat meat, who are saying it's unclean. Paul is against that idea, although you would never know it from his practice. You would never know what he believed because he practiced the opposite. He looks like he held the error. And Paul gives a difficult answer. He doesn't simply straighten out people to solve the problem. Neither does he say, if you have different opinions, that you should simply separate so that each church can have its own practice and follow its conscience. He does not allow the church that way out, that comfortable way out. He does something that's far, far more difficult for us, far more uncomfortable for us. He gives us four principles, as I've numbered them. Four principles on how we are to deal with such problems, along with at least three reasons that should guide our practice. Four principles and three reasons. I'll summarize the main idea this way. This is Luther from On Christian Freedom. A Christian man is the most free Lord of all and is subject to none. A Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all and subject to everyone. Hold these things together. The most free Lord of all, subject to none. The most dutiful servant of all, subject to everyone. Just like Jesus. Lord of all, Servant of all. Paul says exactly the same thing in 1 Corinthians 9, Though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all. That's his answer in dealing with the question. Let's see how it works out, though. I do have four principles for you that will help you as the Apostle seeks to unfold the answer to these questions in the churches. Four principles for exercising Christian liberty in the church. The first one is found right in verse 1, repeated again later a few times for good measure, but 14.1, as for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him. Welcome him. The first thing that we are told to do with people who have wrong opinions on doubtful matters is to welcome them. If Christ has died for them, verse 15, if Christ has died for them in our best judgment, we are commanded to receive them. Christians belong together in the family of God and we will be together forever The church is to reflect this as much as possible. And so the doors of the church are to be as wide no wider than the doors of mercy our churches book of Book of Order, you may know, explicitly forbids us from having any other requirements for church membership than those questions we ask, those most basic questions of Christian discipleship. That is to say, if you can get a profession of faith that passes muster with the elders, if we are convinced that you are sincerely walking as a Christian, ought to walk as a Christian, you are welcome here. this is not out of pragmatism it is out of biblical and I should say reformed principle biblical command for that matter not to mention apostolic practice like the Philippian jailer who knows practically nothing he and his household baptized and added to the number in a single evening this is the apostolic Doctrine and practice all Christians are to be accepted at Christian churches We are certainly not going to agree with them at every point as he says, but we are to welcome them among us first three God has welcomed them He says God has welcomed such a one into his own family if God has welcomed them. Who are you? To refuse How can we do less? It is wrong for us to refuse to receive into the church anyone whom God himself has welcomed, because whose church is it anyway? Who makes the entrance requirements? Welcome them, first principle. The second, again repeated also for good measure throughout the chapter, don't despise or judge those who disagree with you. Don't despise or judge those who disagree. despising the one who does something, sorry, judging someone, the one who does something that you think is wrong, despising going the other way, typically despising the person who is there judging you for something. Verse 3, let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats for God has welcomed him we have to think of people who have the wrong opinion as immature or legalistic or unenlightened we have to chide them for having certain scruples that a strong Christian should not worry about And the reverse is also true. We have to pass judgment on people who are doing things that you would never do. And not to go around saying, look, they're so worldly, how can I be in the same church with these people? I'm not giving tacit agreement by being in the same church with these people. Well, if it's God's church, there's nothing that you're going to be able to do about that. God has brought them to himself. God has welcomed them. And so we are not to despise or to judge. Now the danger is that the whole congregation, of course, can be held at ransom by the scruples of a few weak people. And Paul says this has happened to him countless times, right? Many times in the scripture. He says how he has to make himself a servant to this group, and like when he's with them, he has to do what they want. When he's with them, he does what they want. He submits himself to the law. He does not... The danger is the whole congregation can be held at ransom by the scruples of a few weak people. And if anyone does what they think is wrong, they shoot them down on Facebook, right, or whatever. And we realize we have to walk very carefully without despising or passing judgment on people who have the wrong view, by which he means weak believers. Do not despise or judge those who disagree. Third, the principle of a good conscience. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. If you're taking notes here, welcome them. Don't despise or judge those who disagree. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. We must all walk according to our conscience. I am not your servant. You are not my servant. We are both servants of God. If someone has different convictions from God's Word in some matter, frankly, I'm usually glad. That is to say, I like people who actually have convictions, right? Talk to somebody who's got maybe Baptist convictions about something. Pick one thing. I talked to the person for a while and I realized the person has thought about it, the person is convinced about it, the person is solid on it, and even if I disagree, I think, I am so glad that someone has thought about this and has convictions. I love people who have convictions. I love people who are serious about God's Word, even when they're wrong about that issue. that greatly troubles me when people have no convictions about things, cultural Christians who just go with the crowd, have no conscience about their behavior at all. Whatever we do, verse 23, is to come from faith. If it doesn't come from faith, it's sin. And the reverse is true, verse 14. I know that nothing is unclean in itself, but It is unclean for anyone who thinks it's unclean. If a man is going against his conscience, then he is condemning himself by eating. Again, verse 23, whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats because the eating is not from faith. It is critically important that people walk according to their conscience in the matter and that they are not pressured are forced either to doubt or to go against what they know is true. Now, even here in the passage, Paul is able to say, look, this is my view, this is the right view. He handles this elsewhere. He's willing to talk about it, to teach about it, but he is not willing to convince people against their conscience, or pressure people against their conscience to do anything. It is critically important that people who've been welcomed into the church are able to stay in the church and serve in the church, to serve the Lord in good conscience, even when they are wrongly convicted on such matters. So why are you doing this? Why are you not doing that? If you believe you are serving the Lord, if you are convinced, if this is right in your view, then you may have no other practice. Your brothers and sisters are here to respect you and to support you even if they don't agree with you. As a matter of fact, the people who have the right opinion on these doubtful matters are often called to bend over backward so as to appear that they hold the mistaken view themselves. I will never eat meat or drink wine, he says, if that should cause my brother. If that's what it is, I would so bend over backward that I should appear to others as holding the mistaken view myself. Fourth principle, the final principle I'll cover from this chapter here is to decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. After writing that, I think perhaps I just should say that edification should be our goal. Edification. Deciding never to put a stumbling block, though, is how he puts it in verse 13. God has given you your liberty, but that liberty is not to be harmful to you or others, or the church of God, or the lost for that matter. There are many times that you must give up the exercise of your liberty out of love and concern for the spiritual progress of our fellow believers. The main concern we are to have is not how comfortable we are. The main concern we are to have, in fact, it's going to be very discomfortable, uncomfortable to have to do things this way. If you want to be comfortable, then skip this chapter and similar chapters on liberty, right? These are uncomfortable chapters. The main concern is not our comfort. The main concern is that people run their race with joy and are faithfully, fruitfully serving the Lord. Are they being supported to serve the Lord and bring Him glory? This means that we don't grieve other people in your doubtful matter. Verse 15, if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. In all these matters in which we can be flexible, we are to seek what is best for our brother's walk with the Lord. If we grumble at these constraints, We have the wrong perspective. The Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. And if we are to give up what we have by right to serve another's good, then he says we are following the Lord Jesus Christ who did the same thing. Gave up what was his, that we might have salvation. These are the four principles, very uncomfortable principles to deal with these matters of disagreement, And I'll highlight for you three reasons, I'm sure I can list 30 reasons from this chapter if I work hard on it, but three reasons given here. The first I've already mentioned, God has welcomed him. God has welcomed him. The gospel is at work in these matters. God in heaven has received this person through his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And who am I and who is the church to refuse them? I am not to have higher standards than God. God says, I chose them. I received them into my church. I love them. And we can never bring honor to God or be faithful members of the church by saying anything else than agreeing with God, accepting and loving whom God has chosen. The second principle in verse 8 I'll highlight. We live to the Lord. We live to the Lord. Whose life is this anyway, right? These parties in disagreement. These parties in disagreement. They are both to be able to act conscientiously and obediently living to the Lord. So many people in this world have no interest in pleasing the Lord. How encouraging it is for us to find others who want to honor Him. And even if they are not doing it as we think is right, we should at least want to encourage them and be proud of our fellow Christians that they might live fully to the Lord and not be hindered by us. The third reason, we will all stand before God's judgment seat. right from verse 10, we're all standing before God's judgment seat. That is to say, we're not to presume to take God's place, to take authority over another Christian's conscience. God alone is Lord of the conscience, and it is not our place to judge another brother or sister, and we will have much less zeal to do so if we remember that we too must stand before God and give an account of our conduct. toward one another. So, rapid fire, four principles, three reasons that we might have liberty of conscience in the church. These practices that Paul is speaking of here in Romans 14 are sometimes called adiaphora, a fancy Greek word that means things indifferent, that is, things that are neither right nor wrong in themselves It's a matter of indifference whether one observes them or not. It's not quite accurate. Obviously many people in the church were absolutely convinced that these practices were right and that others were wrong and they would therefore judge others for not keeping them. Right? We read about that even this morning. Absolutely convinced that the church must do this or that. These groups of people, we know from other material in the New Testament, did not think they were arguing about tastes or preferences or customs. They were not people who say, we agree about the biblical teaching only with our preferences we are arguing. No, they felt very strongly that biblical matters and conscientious matters were at stake. And therefore, they have a conviction to serve the Lord, it's from faith. And if a man is convinced, that he is to keep it and some of them they were right and some of them they were wrong what makes Paul's argument so important and so bracing is that he does not say that Christians need to work these things out and agree he does not require the church to be of one mind in these things he does not require that the weak correct their mistakes though of course he hopes they will and tells them his own views you might think in a reformed church people are to have all of our reform convictions and if they don't that they are welcome to find another church but you see that is the opposite of what is commanded that this is the Lord's church and that the church must follow the Lord and this is the commandments here in chapter 15 verse 2 just as Christ did not please himself let each of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up 15.7 welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God Christ became a servant to the circumcised and so forth that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy and we are to do the same this I say is what's behind our book of church order this is what's behind the practice and conviction of the Reformed Church And Paul certainly practiced what he preached. This great apostle to the Gentiles was anyone's doormat with regard to matters in which he felt he could be flexible, even when he knew precisely what the right answer was, even though he was an apostle of the Lord. He did not want to weaken the church by fomenting arguments within her or to trouble any man's conscience. When they were convinced they were serving the Lord with the light that they had and not walking in any obviously sinful way, he would bend again and again where others would not. He would bear with a great many dumb ideas that Christians had from time to time. But there have been far too few like him in the ages since. Why this chronic failure? Well, as you'll see out in the hallway, we have a picture of the Westminster Assembly, the titanic battle that was between the Independents and the Presbyterians over this matter. And a pivotal moment in that debate is actually pictured in the hallway. The Independents, the five dissenting brethren, strongly insisting that churches should be allowed to separate into denominations in which each congregation might serve God according to his own conviction. and the vast Presbyterian majority rejecting that separation in favor of what they called accommodation. The people should be given liberty to serve the Lord according to conscience without dividing the church. As it happened, Cromwell, by force of arms, broke up the covenant of unity of the church and gave his fellow independents their wish, introduced what we now call denominations into the English-speaking world, And I think we can see what's happened to the church as a result. Nevertheless, the reformed churches still, at least on paper, welcome anyone making a credible profession of faith, provide them liberty of conscience, unlike many modern denominations which have insisted that others share her conviction. and are known for a certain minimalism. That is to say, we don't have things in the life and practice of our church that we do not think are very clearly laid out in the scripture. We have this approach where we do not wish to have anything done to anyone which we cannot firmly point to the verse and say, thus says the Lord. We have, by the way, a lovely chapter on this in our Confession of Faith, intentionally given right before the chapter on worship. On page 859 in the Red Trinity Hymnal, if you'd like to look there with me, I'll give you the basic teaching of this as we have laid it out. This is, again, the big picture. The specifics of this are taken up in the various books of church order. This is our wonderful statement about the liberty with which Christ has set us free. Chapter 20, the bottom of page 859, chapter 20 of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience. It says, the liberty which Christ has purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law, and their being delivered from the present evil world, bondage to Satan, dominion of sin, from the evil of afflictions, Sorry, from the evil of afflictions. I'm not delivered from afflictions, certainly in this world. But we are delivered from the evil of afflictions, that all things might work for our good. The sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation. And also in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience to Him, not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love and a willing mind. All which were common also to believers under the law. But under the New Testament, the liberty of the Christian is further enlarged in their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law to which the Jewish church was subjected and in greater boldness of access to the throne of grace and in fuller communications of the free spirit of God than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of. This critical paragraph here, number two. God alone to me, God alone is Lord of the conscience and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in anything contrary to his word or beside it if it matters of faith or worship so that to believe such doctrines or obey such commands out of conscience is to betray true liberty of conscience. And the requiring of an implicit faith and an absolute and blind obedience is to destroy liberty of conscience and reason also. Cautionary paragraph number three. They who upon pretense of Christian liberty do practice any sin or cherish any lust do thereby destroy the end or goal of Christian liberty which is that being delivered out of the hands of our enemies we might serve the Lord without fear and holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life. Luke 2. 4. And because the powers which God has ordained and the liberty which Christ has purchased are not intended by God to destroy, but mutually to uphold and preserve one another, they who upon pretense of Christian liberty shall oppose any lawful power or the lawful exercise of it, whether it be civil or ecclesiastical, resist the ordinance of God, and for their publishing of such opinions or maintaining such practices as are contrary to the light of nature or the known principles of Christianity, whether concerning faith, worship, or conversation, or to the power of godliness, or such erroneous opinions or practices as either in their own nature or in the manner of publishing or maintaining them, are destructive to the external peace and order which Christ has established in the Church, They may lawfully be called to account and proceeded against by the censures of the church." Well, the Reformed churches have suffered through a great number of things and positions upon the conscience and have sought to very carefully limit its own practice no further than what the Word of God has given. God alone being Lord of the conscious. But this method of dealing with things among the church will mean that the church is not going to be the most comfortable place by way of harmony and agreement, that people are able to maintain differences. People are going to have to amend their own correct practice in light of their brethren who have different convictions now people can disregard these commands of course to make the church comfortable it's nice to think we have a pure church and which we don't have any such dissensions but of course that would not be a pure church that would be a disobedient church that we are refusing to follow these principles Christians are to be allowed to reach different conclusions from each other. And it is the mark of a cult that it demands uniformity. Everyone has the same opinion about every point. They look the same, they go to the same places, they have the same list of do's and don'ts. This is not right. Now when we follow this principle, we're going to appear inconsistent to others. Paul was accused of being inconsistent. And when we do the same things, We will look inconsistent. When we do something with one group of people, we wouldn't do with another group of people. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9, this is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. Do we not have the right to food and drink and so forth, he asks. He says I don't use those rights. If I would hinder the gospel, if someone sees me eating meat in the house one day and refusing it in another, then they say this man is a hypocrite. This man is completely inconsistent. But this is my defense. These circumstances are different. And am I not free? This is part of our growth in Christian maturity. So, remember what this is all about. Now, there's a matter of, you might say, informal pressure that we need to also be concerned about. I didn't quite know how to put this in the notes. If you walk into a church and everyone's wearing hats, And you're not wearing a hat. Again, you start to think. Even nobody says anything about hats. There is a struggle. There's a struggle that goes on. Everyone else is talking about having some Christian practice and you don't have that Christian practice. What's going on? At our ladies Bible study some weeks back, I invited some of the women to share what it was like when they first came to the church. And the first woman says, well, you know, I just got in the car and cried. And my husband said after a couple of weeks, honey, we don't have to keep on going back. because people were, have, you know, just, we don't fit in in this way. And you don't realize it, of course this is normal to you, people coming in, they realize it. Another person said to me, you know, it's just constant political chatter, and I just have a different view on those things, and I just don't fit in. Well, you know, alright. Having a church where everyone has to fit in is not the biblical mark. of a pure church. A pure church is one who follows the commands of God and in this area we have to allow people to have various practice, various views, various liberties. This is all part of our growth toward maturity. At the end of 1 Corinthians 10, Paul says, look, whatever you, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Let this be the principle that directs in all things. Have the the God you love in the center of your heart and mind, and do all to bring Him glory. And in every situation you're able to pray, Lord, let me use my freedom to bring you the most glory, or not use my freedom to bring you the most glory. Let me limit it or use it for your glory. And that is to be the overall guiding principle. Next verse he says, give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the Church of God. We are not to Seek to despise or judge or give offense by what we are doing or not doing. We are to have insight and sensitivity and tenderness, not to make it any more difficult for people to live and to serve the Lord. The principle is in that ancient medical oath, do no harm. This is what Paul says, give no offense, do no harm to Jews or Greeks or to the Church of God. The last verse in that chapter, I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many that they may be saved. Not just that he should do no harm, but that people might be saved through him. And we know that the balance is evident when the overriding concern is not that everyone should be straightened out, but that everyone should be serving the Lord according to his conscience, that the lost are saved and the saved are edified, and God is glorified. And if we have these things, we have the spirit of the law. May it be so with us. Let us pray together. Our Father in heaven, we long to live in the freedom and maturity that is ours in Christ Jesus, and we pray that you would give us joy in our liberty, joy in all that you have given to us for the blessing of ourselves and others. We confess to you that we are too ready to make ourselves comfortable and to neglect pleasing others or amending our practice for their sakes we pray that you would give us an understanding of these difficult issues that we might have a consuming passion for your glory and a zeal to lay down ourselves for the sake of others for the profit of many even as our Lord Jesus Christ did we pray that they would be that all would be preoccupied with Christ and not with themselves We pray that you would direct our paths as we acknowledge you in all things. And we pray that the church should know this joy of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, which is the heritage of the Kingdom of God. In Christ's name that we pray. Amen.