Please turn now in the Bible to Romans chapter 14. Romans chapter 14. You can find it on page 948 and 9 in your Pew Bible. Romans 14. I'm going to read from verse 1 to verse 12 to give your attention to the Word of God. Romans 14. As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him. but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes 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 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 is 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. While the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord, and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, 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 Lord both of the dead and of the living. Why do you pass judgment on your brother, or you? Why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For 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. I must say, it seems to me that this chapter is rather neglected in discussion in the circles that we run in. Those who know their Bibles well often have discussions. Who do you think chapter 7 is about? Is it about the Christian or the non-Christian? Or chapter 11, do you think it's about the Jews being converted or do you think it means something else? Or chapter 9, is it about predestination or is it not? Some chapters have a lot of discussion on. And then other chapters, we often memorize things out of. Certainly, we memorize Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Or we memorize something out of Chapter 6, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Or we memorize things out of Chapter 8, and we know that God causes all things to work together for good, for those who love him, those who are the called according to his purpose. We could spend a great deal in chapter 12, that we ought to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Or if you want to talk about government, you have to talk about chapter 13 of Romans. There's a lot of chapters in Romans that get a great deal of attention. And on chapter 14, that was good. It was very quiet there. Exactly. It's very quiet when you come to Romans chapter 14. But this chapter is crucial for church life. It is crucial. if we are to live together as the body of Christ. And that is crucial for the continuance of the gospel on earth, since, as Calvin says, the church is mother of all the godly. And so this chapter tells us something crucial. We're to give thanks to God and not judge his servants on secondary matters. Or to put it another way, love one another includes your fellow Christian with the strange ideas. That's what it means. Because quarreling and jealousy, they were in the works of darkness at the end of the previous chapter. Now, as you can see, food here is the main thing in focus. And the church in Rome was being urged, do not fight about food. Now, it's worthwhile for us to dig into why food was a problem for them. Because at this point, by and large, the Christian church has really absorbed Jesus' teaching. Jesus said, it is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, but what comes out of a man. And we have that explained. The apostles needed it explained. They're like, Jesus, what is this? He said, well, anything you eat goes in your stomach and out into the toilet. There's no problem for you. It's what comes out of you. The evil thoughts and the wicked words, the slanderings and the raging, this is what defiles a man. But to eat with unwashed hands, to eat in anything, this does not make a man unclean. We have that very clearly in Mark chapter 7 and Matthew chapter 15, but we need to understand why it was difficult for them. It was difficult for them, first of all, because it was such a change from the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, God set Israel apart in a sea of paganism. And one important thing that he did to set them apart was he said, you will not eat just anything. There are rules and restrictions on clean food and unclean food. You shall not boil a kid in his mother's milk. You shall not eat pig. You shall not eat shellfish, and so on. They had rules about what kind of animal can you eat, study the animal, study its foot, and does it choose a cut, and so on. And so when Jesus said, it is not what comes into a man that makes him unclean, but what comes out of a man, even the apostles didn't really get the point for a while. Years later, we find Peter having a vision, and animals are coming down, some of them unclean, and he's being told, kill and eat, and he's telling the Lord, no. He's like, not so, Lord, I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean. And God has to say to him, do not call unclean what I have made clean. And he gives his vision to Peter three times to drive it home. And while the point was food, the point was more than food. Because immediately at the end of the vision, men came from a robin, that is pagan, army officer. And he came and calling for Peter. And the spirit told Peter, go with these men. and go into his pagan house. And when the Holy Spirit is poured out on them, go on and baptize them. It was a point about people, ultimately. The point about food was a necessary step on the way there. This is because God had set Israel apart to nurture them and to build up until the time of the Messiah. But then Jesus takes down the wall between Jew and Gentile, so the gospel can go out without restriction to all nations, and therefore food is no longer to divide the people of God. Now, we get that. Why didn't they instantly get that? Well, first of all, because they did not all instantly have Matthew and Mark in their hands to read. They had the memory of what Jesus had said. And they had the reports of what Peter had witnessed. But for some years, they did not have Matthew and Mark to read in church, and they did have the Torah. And so this was a challenging thing for a while. They go, I hear this, but I can read that. And so it took some time for the Gospels to be written and for the church to absorb the message, also some time for those who've been raised for centuries don't eat pork. It takes a while to get over that. Or perhaps that generation doesn't get over it, but the next generation perhaps does. That's one reason. Clinging to the mosaic law, you should be able to understand that once you enter into their situation. The second reason, because they had another reason that food was difficult for them, and that was that they did not simply go to Acme and go into the meat section and pick up some frozen ground beef. It wasn't like that. First of all, there's no refrigeration, so it has to be slaughtered that day. And secondly, when they slaughtered animals back then, they generally did it, you could say, in a religious way. That is, they would kill the animal in a god's temple and offer it to the god. And then if they were offering enough animals, the priest would need it all, some of that meat would then be sold in the market. We don't know enough to know if it was sold labeled. Get your Zeus beef over here and your Aphrodite beef over there. But we do know that a fair amount of this meat for sale in different parts of the cities would have been sacrificed to idols. And you might not be able to know which one was which. That's the issue in 1 Corinthians 8 to 10. And it goes on at some length, working out what are the implications of this. Food in and of itself is fine. but you're not to be wrapped up with evil spirits. Idols may be nothing, but behind the idol is an evil spirit, and you're not to participate with idolatry. So these are the two reasons that food was a trouble for them. And just think about it. What kept you alive today? Well, the Lord's Spirit and the food you ate yesterday. Now that food is relatively easy to come by, we don't think as much about it. But for most people, most of the centuries, you spend all of your time, practically, thinking about how to get prepared and eat your food. That's why food caused tensions. Some were worrying about keeping kosher. Others were worrying about food offered to idols. Others were saying, look, Jesus said it doesn't matter. And so you have tension about food. Now, Paul here is quite clear about who has it right theologically. You will notice that he says the person who eats only vegetables is the weak person. He goes on further on to say, you know, everything is indeed clean, verse 20. So certainly you can tell where he stands. He's saying indeed what Jesus said is what's binding. You can eat anything that's food, really. But what's more clear here is he says, don't fight about it. That's more important here than sorting out who has it correct about the kosher laws. And so he says, do not fight, do not quarrel, do not judge, do not despise. That's the whole burden here. When it comes to food, even in that environment with all those issues circulating, what was most important was that they not dispute with each other about it. Now, this is somewhat odd, perhaps, because we should be striving to be pure. You might wonder, how is that idolatry argument not a stronger argument? Why not judge when things seem so important? And so he enforces this by saying, God alone is master and judge. That is why you are not to judge your brother, because we have a judge, and that would be the Lord. He says, this is not your place to boss somebody else's servant. Now that may, you may get that on an intellectual level, but we don't usually talk about having servants in our culture. So let's transfer this to something that we are familiar with. I was in the mall the other day, regular friends. Should I get a job in the mall? Should I be a manager of a department in Bloomingdale's? Then in that job, I would boss those who were working in my men's clothing department in Bloomingdale's. But it would not be for me to walk out of Bloomingdale's and into, I don't know, Nordstrom's and start bossing the employees in Nordstrom's. I have no place in Nordstrom's. I don't work for Nordstrom's. What am I doing there? In fact, even within Bloomingdale's, I'm not to go into women's clothing and start telling them how to fold things. I'm the manager in the men's clothing. This is kind of the way we need to take this. Understand your lane, and stay in your lane. Who are you to judge another person's servant? Jesus is the boss, and you're not. If Jesus is the Lord, that means he gives the commands. Then he goes on in verses 10 to 12 to give us another way of looking at it, where he changes the language from servants to children. Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Now, we have many brothers and sisters here. And of course, sometimes life at home is nothing more than judging brother and sister. We also know how that goes. And so he's saying, there is one father, one teacher, one judge. What are you doing judging your brother? And he also fleshes out, and we are not to despise our sister. is despising is especially nasty. If you feel that somebody despises you, you have a hard time not hating that person. Or at least not deeply resenting the person who despises you. Even if they don't say anything, if you feel like they're despising you, there's the contempt in that person for you, how difficult it is to maintain that feeling of love and friendship. And so we're told here, it is Jesus' job to judge. And we ought to praise God for that. But the one who will judge us is the one who laid down his life for us. Kishtim says something to this effect. He who has paid such a price for us while we were still his enemies, will he lightly cast us aside now that we are his children? But if we are to take comfort in that ourselves, we need to extend that comfort to someone else and not be quick to judge them and to correct them. And you'll notice here, as you went through verses 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, that he says God, and he says Lord, and he says God, and he says Lord, and it's a little bit hard to tell, does he mean God or the Lord? And you might say, well, he means the same thing, but no, no, because then he says that the Lord is Christ. So it becomes difficult to say, so when he's talking about God, and when is he talking about Christ? It's hard to tell. And he's careless about that, because Jesus is the God-man, the second person of the Trinity, The Father has given all judgment to the Son, and so He doesn't have to be very clear. Because Father and Son, they are the judge. The Father has given judgment to the Son, and so we entrust that judgment to Him. Now, aren't we supposed to rescue our brother from sin? Isn't the Church supposed to stand for clear teaching? How do we understand this chapter, though? Well, yes, the Church is to teach what is true. Galatians 1, the Apostle Paul, the same guy who writes this. He says, if anyone teaches a different gospel, let him be accursed. If it's an angel, let him be accursed if it is not this gospel. Philippians 3, he says, watch out for the dogs and the evil workers. Acts chapter 20, he tells the elders, watch out. Men will spring up among you speaking perverse things. Certainly the elders are to be looking out for false teachings. And as to rescuing our brother, we have that. James says, beloved, if anyone turns a sinner from the error of his ways, know that he will rescue his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. Galatians 6, Paul says, brothers, if anyone is caught in a trespass, let you who are spiritual deliver such a one in the spirit of gentleness, looking also to himself, lest he himself be tempted. And so there is to be church discipline. We have that not only in theory, you might say, with Jesus and Matthew 18, we have Paul calling for it in 1 Corinthians 5. What is this man still doing? Let the Lord suffer with you. He is to be put out. And here we have this, do not judge your brothers. How do you hold this together? That is the crucial question in the Christian life. How do you hold Romans 14 while also holding all these other passages that I have been talking about? We might try to formulate it this way. As long as our brother is holding to Christ and not violating some clear moral teaching, then we're not to judge him. What is difficult, of course, is what is central to the gospel and what is the clear moral teaching? Well, the gospel, of course, is what is central. We're saved by Jesus and not by ourselves. We're saved because of God's grace and not because of our works. And so this same guy, Paul, if someone began to say, in order to be saved, you must not eat pork. If you talk that way, Paul was the first guy to go to war with you. That's why he says in Galatians, if anyone preaches another gospel, he's talking about that kind of teaching. If someone tries to make eating this or not eating that central to salvation, Paul is right there to say, you are not to teach that way. But if someone says, you know, I'm a vegetarian, Paul says, that's fine. Do you want to say, you know, I don't eat shellfish or pork? All right, food really doesn't matter. If it doesn't matter, then don't make it matter. And let everybody be master, other than babies, of what goes through their teeth. Don't judge someone else's servant. Food is not central. Now, that's difficult for us first on an intellectual level. What is it that is central that must be guarded? And what is not central and so we're not to judge? That's the first thing that is difficult. So we ought to consult with one another, perhaps, and say, you know, I really am bothered by this, but help me understand this. The second thing that's difficult, of course, is that we all like to have our own way. And we like to have everybody do it our way. So alongside the intellectual problem, we have a spiritual problem, number one. We want people to do it my way. And for that, of course, he's reminding us who the boss is, who the master is, who the judge is, Jesus Christ. And then I think we also have a second spiritual problem. And that is that sometimes you come into a nice little church like this one, and we find people who are really quite like-minded on many things. And we say, ah, my safe space. My safe space for all of my opinions. And so everybody should be holding all of my opinions together. You come in and perhaps you say, ah, ah, a place where we all understand homeschooling is the way to do it. Or that we all understand that we are not to celebrate Halloween. Now, I'm sympathetic to a degree for that desire for a safe space. But you know what's more beautiful than that? What's more beautiful than your safe space is a place that is safe for all those that the Lord is working on. That is a more beautiful, more expansive, and more difficult thing than your own safe space. Yes, when your brother is sinning, rebuke him in private, or to guard the Gospel. That is indisputably something that must be done. But not everything that you are convinced of is a necessary part of the Christian life. Now it's good to be convinced. He says, let everyone be convinced in his own mind. We'll speak more about conscience next week. We must know how to hold these different kinds of things. Now what things do we mean? What topics fit here? in this area where Christians conscientiously hold this, and other Christians conscientiously hold that, and each one can explain from the Bible why they think this is what God wants them to do, and the apostle here is saying, and you're not going to fight about it. What things fit into this kind of category? Well, first of all, food. I dare say I'm pretty sure we're not to be cannibals. We can rule a couple of things out. And don't ask me about blood, because I don't understand that one, so please don't ask. But for the most part, if it's food, you may eat it. But if someone does differently, you're to let it be. I'm going to praise my wife right here. A dozen years ago, we had three vegetarians in the congregation. And so every church lunch, she would make sure that they had something to eat. She would bring something vegetarian. Now, is my wife a vegetarian? No, she's Greek. And those two things are antithetical. But out of her generosity of spirit, she would make sure that there was a vegetarian thing for the vegetarians to eat. What you drink. Now, drink is not quite in the same category as food. Because there is greater evil potential in alcohol. And so you go back a couple of verses, and he just said, let us walk properly, not in drunkenness. is a danger to avoid. And yet, as you read the scripture, it is permissible for the believer to drink only in moderation. Not for drunkenness. Not for being addicted to it. So you have to take care. Some believers will say, because of the danger of drunkenness, I will drink nothing at all. And that may be the wise and right thing to do. And no one is to urge them otherwise. At the same time, they are not to judge those who do drink in moderation. But take care, brothers. We're there not to judge one another until it's obvious that we have a problem. We're never to despise one another. And often on this issue, I think there's some despising going on. Let's take care not to pass judgment on the one who drinks, nor to despise the one who does not drink. What is wise and proper for one is not the same as for someone else. We understand that. So let us encourage one another in the path that it seems necessary for us to walk. is becoming necessary to talk about drugs. May you smoke marijuana. Well, first of all, we just did Romans 13. We owe the state allegiance and obedience, unless it's directly contradicting what God says. So as long as it is illegal in these states, you're not to be smoking it. But let us suppose it becomes legal. It seems quite possible. You know, we are told to be sober-minded and be on the alert. We're told that the devil is like a raging lion going about for someone to destroy. I have a hard time seeing where the mind-altering stuff comes in there. That seems to me to be outside of what God would have us to do. I'm thinking here of Ephesians 5 and 1 Peter 5 and so on. Now, what about these days? You wish he'd said more at this point. It's so brief. He gives you a verse and a half about days, and he doesn't explain what kind of days he's talking about. Christendom, who was closer in both time and culture than us, he thought that he was talking about days of fasting. Now, American Christians don't really fast, so that doesn't even occur to us as something that would be a plausible explanation. But I actually think it's quite plausible. That brings food and days together, days of fasting. That would fit the context. And we know the early church did a lot more fasting than we do, and so did Judaism at the time. Jesus, in his parable, has the self-righteous Pharisee boasting that, I fast twice a week. And that's what many of them did. In the prophet Zechariah, we have the Jews going to the prophet, asking him, should we keep fasting in the fifth month and in the seventh month as before? And he says, I'm going to make the fifth month and the seventh month and the fourth month and the tenth month, these are all the fasts, I'm going to make them days of gladness. So then, if some wish to fast on a given day, you may. But don't hold it as something necessary, something that the real Christians fast on their days, nor the opposite. If anyone wishes to fast, let him fast. Now, I think as you look at some other passages here, Galatians 4 and Colossians 2, You have to go beyond fasting to say, in the Torah, God told His people that three times a year, all the males were to appear before Him in Jerusalem for the three great festivals of Passover, and weeks, and also the festival of booths. And indeed, in this neighborhood, you can see the Jews are still keeping these great festivals. As for us, they are in no way mandatory. As he says here is, if you want to build a tent in your backyard and sleep in it, you certainly may, I suppose. But we are not to imagine that this is some kind of necessary part of the Christian life. Now, what about the Sabbath? It's rather amusing to read the different commentators. Charles Hodge, of course, this is not about the Christian Sabbath. The current heavy hitter, oh, of course it's about the Christian Sabbath. Christensen, well, of course, it's about fasting. Thanks, guys. Yes? As I already said, we should view this as a creation ordinance, and so there is a Sabbath to keep. However, we're not to keep it the way the Pharisees did. We're not to be keeping it, indeed, in a strict mosaic fashion. Let us not be quick to judge one another. Let us take care, though, to obey the God's 10 commandments. Now, what other topics would fit in here? I've stayed right with the text so far, food and days. But you know, there's a couple other days that trouble us. Halloween and Christmas. And indeed, you follow this and it says, let everyone be convinced in his own mind. One is convinced he should keep Christmas. Let him keep Christmas. Let him do it to the Lord and give thanks. Another one is convinced that he should not keep Christmas. Let him not keep it. Let him abstain and give thanks to the Lord. One believes he may send children out, just like Superman, to collect candy. Let him do so. Another one abstains. Let each family make up its own mind. So in alignment with this, we take no church position on this, nor will we be taking any church position on this. Let each one be fully convinced in his own mind. What other topics fit in here? Well, how children are schooled. Do you send them to the public school? Do you send them to a secular private school? Do you send them to a private Christian school? Do you teach them at home? You know those families where you cover all the bases in a single family? Why is there such a thing? Well, because there's so many variables to work on, so many variables of whether there are two parents or one, whether both parents are working or not, whether There's a parent who has the aptitude for such a thing, whether it would work well with those particular children. There are so many different things that we do not make any such rules. Let every family decide for itself how this will happen. And let the rest of us support and encourage them in whatever their choice is. Let me say that again. Let the rest of us support and encourage them in whatever choice is made in each family. Yes, what modesty and dress requires? That we are to be modest, that is in Scripture. And so some, of course, if you run a school, you have to start trying to define modest, and that becomes difficult. If you go to such a school, just obey the rules there. But within the church, we say, yes, we are to be modest. And for the most part, every family and individual work out what that means. It means such different things in different cultures, in different situations, and so on. We do not prescribe a length of skirt or any such thing. Whether to vote and for whom. That the church should denounce evils, that is certain. We should denounce injustice. Yes, that is the church's duty, and we will continue to do it. But when it comes down to for whom to vote, it becomes so difficult with so many candidates and so many issues, and whether one should vote at all. And we find it difficult not to impose, not to insist on our own way. Don't you know my way is best? I can defend it from the Bible. It turns out there's a fair number of things on this sort of score that you can defend opposing positions from the Bible. And by the time we get to heaven, God will make it clear to us who was in the right. But in the meantime, we are not to let such issues divide Christ's body. I don't know who said it, but it's a good slogan. In the essentials, there must be unity. In the non-essentials, there is to be liberty. And in everything, there is to be charity. And such a word, charity, does not mean a handout. It means a generous attitude of love. Let us transition now. We've discussed what it is that we are not to do, not to judge our brother. We've discussed why it is, because we're not the brother's boss. We've discussed what kinds of topics this may be talking about. Now let us talk about what we are to do. It says here that we are to focus on our common Lord. He has welcomed your brother, strange though he is. And He has welcomed you, strange though you are. So let us rejoice in this. Let's rejoice in the Judge and the Savior, who has welcomed us all together. And as He has welcomed us, let us extend that welcome to one another. Yes, our brother lives to the Lord. That's why we know he's a brother. So let us take care that we are also living to the Lord and giving thanks. Giving thanks in that which we enjoy, giving thanks in that which we abstain from. Let us study the Word, so that we may become fully convinced in our own mind. This chapter is not a call to laziness. It's not a call to say nothing matters. But it says, let us have an informed conscience, and let us live according to it. In heaven, we'll come together in the same place. But for now, we come from different places, with different problems and concerns, on different trajectories. So let us welcome one another. Let us obey the Lord. That certainly comes through. We have a Master and Lord. Let us obey that Master and obey that Lord. Let us respond to Him in faith and in obedience. And let us not do His job. He is the Judge. And that is something that is a great comfort to us. So let us not usurp His position. Yes, we have here the first half of Romans 14. Distinguish between what is central and what is not. You may have many passions, and that is great, but they are not all central to the faith. So do not judge the Lord's servants. Live modestly before the Lord, giving Him thanks and praise and honor in whatever you do. And understand that you will not judge better than He does. He is the one whose love is so great that He gave Himself for us all. So then let Him carry out the judgment as we stay in our lanes and as we live for Him. Let us pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your blessings to us, that you call us together, that you call together people from every tribe and language and nation, and you bind us into one body in Christ. So help us, Lord, help us, Lord, to stick to the head. Help us to stick to Jesus Christ altogether, encouraging and welcoming one another. Lord, forgive us for the times in which we have judged one another, or which we have despised one another. Help us, Lord, not to hold contempt for any fellow believer. And Lord, we pray that you would continue to bless us and build us up in the faith. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.