If you would, would you please turn in a Bible to Romans chapter 14? And if you would, would you stand? We do this as an expression of our acknowledgement that these are not the words of men. but the very word of God. Let's pray. Gracious Lord, we ask that you might send forth your spirit, that we might receive this word sown from the Lord Jesus through the apostle into our very lives. May it bring forth the fruit that he desires. May it ultimately bring forth fruit that brings glory to God. For we pray in Christ's name, amen. As for 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 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 as 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 who 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 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 of both the living and the dead. 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, for it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God. And 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 I am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it's 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. So don't let what 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 milk 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 please ourselves. Let each of us please our neighbor for his good to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of scripture, 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. You may take your seats. Well, a few years ago, there was a church in the United States where 15% of the membership left over an issue regarding ball caps. That's right, 15% of the church walked away over baseball caps. Now, this is what happened. A couple of high school athletes were late getting home from a tournament that was some significant distance on Saturday night. And because the team had played so hard, of course, the students were exhausted. And they did get up, and they got dressed nicely, but they didn't have time to shower. And so their hair was a mess, and they came in with ball caps. Now, one of the moms wanted to check with the pastor to be sure that would be OK. And he approached the pastor, and he said, no problem. So the boys wore their baseball caps during the service, and nobody complained. But that's where things got messy. Because the next Sunday, even though the boys had plenty of time to shower and get ready, they still wore their baseball caps. And they wore them again the next Sunday after that. On the fourth Sunday, people were getting upset. It didn't take that long for the elders to get involved. And they went to the pastor and said, Pastor, this is your problem. You need to fix this. Well, the pastor went back and forth on the issue. He thought, well, the Bible really doesn't address this issue directly. He couldn't find any passage in the Bible that said you shall not wear baseball caps to worship. And so what he did is, because he realized this was going to be a big issue, is he went to the boys and asked them to consider not wearing their hats. And they agreed. However, their parents found out about it, and they were very upset. And the whole thing snowballed, and 15% of the members of that church left over an issue related to ball camps. especially difficult for the pastor, not just because that many people left, but because as he searched the Bible for direction, he didn't find anything in the Bible that he thought really applied to this question. There just didn't seem to be anything that solved the question, you shall not wear baseball caps, or said, you shall not judge those who wear baseball caps when you worship. And isn't that what we often face in the church? We want to please Christ, but week after week we run into issues that the Bible doesn't directly address, what the Bible calls disputable matters. And seemingly we're left on our own. Of course, we need to be very careful when we say something like that about the Bible. Because while the Bible doesn't say anything about downloading music you haven't paid for from the internet, we can't say that that doesn't matter or that the Bible doesn't speak to that. That's stealing, and the Bible's completely clear about stealing, that stealing is wrong. But nonetheless, we often experience this issue, that we don't agree about what is the best way to honor God. How do we glorify God? And Paul takes this up here and walks us through some principles that may not at first glance seem obvious that apply to us. But Paul does show us how it is that we should work through what we disagree about when it comes to honoring God, where the scripture isn't explicit, either in its instruction or necessarily in the deductions we might reach. How we handle our disagreements matters. And there's a lot at stake. On the way to the cross, Jesus spoke in the upper room about our visible unity. And he said this in chapter 13 of John, by this all people will know that you're my disciples if you have love for one another. Our relationships with each other are actually central to being able to persuade the world that indeed that the Lord Jesus has been sent from God. And in John 17, as Jesus is about to be arrested and he's approaching the time when he will offer up his life on the cross, we have his prayer. He prays for himself, and then he prays for the 12, and then he prays for those who will believe because of the witness of the 12. And at the end of that prayer, he prays this, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you've sent me. The glory you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them, and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so the world may know that you sent me, and love them, even as you loved me. Well, Jesus is praying for our unity, and the Holy Spirit wants us to see how much this is on his heart, just how central this is to the mission of the church. And unity is something that Paul emphasizes in the book of Romans. Now, the book of Romans is the longest treatment of the gospel. The doctrinal section runs through the first 11 chapters. And then chapters 12 to 15 are the application, what it means to live that out. And then the last chapter is, well, it's kind of a farewell and some greetings to people. And of those four chapters that are the application, one third of that space is devoted to unity. Paul's passionate about unity, just as Jesus is, and it's not optional, it's not a secondary matter like which grades will go to which Sunday school classes, or how many songs we'll sing in worship. And yet, Paul is a realist about differences in the church. He is completely aware of the fact that the church is composed of people who are both men and women, with all the differences that comes with that, of various social standings. Some are Roman citizens, some are free men, and some are slaves, of different ethnicities, of different religious backgrounds. Some are Jews and others... are idol worshipers of different economic strata, from poor to rich. They have different life experiences, different levels of spiritual maturity, and as a result, different outlooks about almost anything you could imagine. And in our text, Paul acknowledges that there will be differences among those who are seeking to please the Lord. And Paul's very concerned that we believers get along with one another in spite of our inevitable differences. And Paul says that while there will always be differences among believers, we must learn to accept one another. Now, the text I've read is long, And actually, there's a fair amount going on here, far more than we're going to cover this Sunday and next Sunday. And the two main things that I want you to see this morning are in the outline. That we must not let our differences divide the church or destroy individual members. and that we must learn how to accept one another when we do disagree. So let's look at this first thing. We must not let our differences divide or destroy. Now, at one level, what Paul's writing about these issues, opinions, well, they mostly just don't come up today. But I want to emphasize that the principles here deal very much with matters that he calls, that ESV puts as disputable matters or opinions about very practical issues. So in verse 2, Paul's writing about eating, about eating vegetables or meat and vegetables. Now this is not a concern with what constitutes a healthy diet. It's not about being vegan or vegetarian or paleo or the DASH diet or the ice cream only diet, which is my preferred diet. It's about Jewish scruples in relation to the handling of meat. Now, in the Old Testament law, animals were not to be strangled as a form of slaughter. And the reason for that is that God commands the humane treatment of animals. That would be one reason to have concern. Another would be that the Meat had been handled in a kosher manner altogether. And it's possible there's another factor, which isn't explicit here, but it's dealt with in the letter to the Corinthians. And it's this, that the meat might have been offered to idols. In the Roman world, some of the meat that would be sold in the market had been offered in a temple somewhere. Of course, it doesn't carry a label, you know, non-temple-offered meat. And so, like Daniel and his friends in Babylon, there would be for many people a reticence Jewish people to eat meat. It was just simpler not to eat meat at all than offend God in that way. The second issue concerns days. In verses 5 and 6, Paul writes, one person esteems one day as 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. And she gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. Now, the issue here is which days are holy or are some days more holy than others? And for observant Jews, there were all sorts of holy days. There were all sorts of feast days, the Passover, the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Purim, and of course, the Sabbath. And some Christians, but not all, think that Easter and Christmas are special days. And many Christians think not only Easter and Christmas, but the days leading up to those events. And then there's Sunday, which some Christians hold is the Lord's Day, and others hold is the Christian Sabbath. And even among those who hold either of these views, and there are even some who don't think it's anything special at all about the day, it's just we happen to gather then to worship. And there are just a variety of points of view about this, far more than I'm going to mention today, and a whole host of opinions and even strong convictions about what's appropriate, depending on your viewpoint. And Paul says it's okay to be on either side of these issues, whether you're a vegetarian only or have meat. Neither is sinful. But he summons them, as he speaks about the days, to let each one be fully convinced in his own mind. So don't let this escape your notice. Paul's expecting differences. He says differences in matters of practical Christian living are going to be present in every church. And here Paul is dealing with issues that we could label non-essential. He's really saying it doesn't matter what you do or believe about these things. Now again, we need to be very careful about what we decide is non-essential because there's ditches on both sides. There is the ditch of legalism which adds to the Bible or adds our application of something taught in the Bible and elevates it to the same status as scripture itself. And the other ditch is antinomianism, which doesn't esteem the authority of Scripture and actually resists God's authority, especially His moral authority. But it raises the question, are only the things that are explicitly taught or commanded essential? I've already seen that the answer about that is no. No, there are things that we can infer. We can apply the command not to steal broadly. You don't have to be told it's wrong to steal paper and pencils from your employer. It just is. That's what it means not to steal. And there are doctrinal truths that are essential to Christianity. Paul, in the letter to the Galatians, says that justification, resting on faith alone in what Christ has done alone, is absolutely essential. To lose some part of that is to lose the gospel itself. Or John, in his first letter, says that it's essential to believe that Jesus has come in the flesh, and to deny that is to be the spirit of the Antichrist. Or Paul, in the end of the first letter to the Corinthians, says the doctrine of the physical bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is essential. The Christian faith is meaningless if that isn't true. And in 2 Timothy, Paul writes about the pattern of sound words, which is the pattern of apostolic teaching we find in the New Testament. but we don't have a list of essential truths in the New Testament. That has to be discerned in prayerful study and in conversation with the broader church. This is why churches write statements of faith, to try to help distill what those are. And of course, if you don't know, the Westminster Confession of Faith is the longest confession that's ever been written in the history of the church. And most Presbyterian bodies actually don't say that all of it's essential. We ask people to affirm the system of doctrine as being essential. There's an awful lot in that three-volume set that we call our doctrinal standards. Likewise, there are clear moral standards in the New Testament. There are lifestyles that are just utterly incompatible with following Christ. Take Ananias and Sapphira, who we looked at a little while ago. They lie to appear more generous than they are, and they die right on the spot. That sounds pretty essential to me, not lying to the Holy Spirit. I wouldn't recommend you do that, even if you don't drop dead as a result. And Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 writes this, or don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God. Now, it sounds pretty essential to me that if you continue in these things as a lifestyle, you'll be excluded from the kingdom of God. It sounds like this is a thing that gets you out. And so there's a real sharp edge in this passage. It's not the only passage, but it's one of the strongest and makes this clear that there are lifestyles that indicate that real saving faith, a real turning to Christ, a real spirit-wrought transformation hasn't taken place. But there's also an amazing message of hope and grace announced here that radical lasting change actually takes place as we come to Christ. And I know people who were addicted to some substance or to some form of sexual immorality who came to Christ and immediately they were set free. They had no more appetite for that. It was revulsive to them. And then I know others who have had a progressive path toward freedom. Would you like to be free? All forms of disobedience to God are slavery. All sin is slavery. And Jesus Christ can set you free. Turn to Him. Today's a good day to turn to Him. So there's essential truths and essential morals that are not matters of opinion. They're not disputable. We don't have the freedom to pick and choose no matter what's happening in society around us. There is no virtue in weak indecision and vacillation. That incapacitates. Instead, we're to aim at sure conviction, which sets us free to an obedience of which is firm, decisive, resolute, courageous, and joyful. That's what Paul is asserting in verse five of chapter 14, when he says, each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. So let me just recap what we've seen so far. Paul's a realist. He knows that in non-essential matters, Christians will come to different opinions. They will reach different conclusions. And what Paul does here is he gives us both principles to guide us and commands we are to follow. Now he gives us commands that are really very straightforward. They're easy to understand. they're just very challenging to actually live out. And he states principles here, but they're not a mechanical formula. It takes discernment to apply them. Now, for the analytical among you, I did not create a list of those for you today. You'll have to come back next week to get that list. I'll even write it out for you. But, you know, what a wonderful thing it would be if you would take a little bit of time and read this passage over and ask what is commanded, And what principles does Paul enunciate as he calls the church in Rome to navigate their differences? Now, here's the thing that you really must see, or you'll never make any progress. You won't really understand what Paul is getting at here. We must not miss that both groups, both people on each side of this are seeking to please the Lord and honor Him. Both sides have this common ground. They have the same motivations. And it's not seeing this, that's where things start to go south. When we start thinking the other side has bad motivations, we impugn their motives. We think that somehow we actually know what their motivations are, and we think our motivations are better than theirs. And what Paul's doing here is he is appealing for unity by exposing the dynamics of our hearts. We'll never be united unless we let the Lord meddle in what's really going on in our hearts. And this is where we must begin if we're going to preserve our unity in the bond of peace. It's the only way we're going to avoid being at odds with each other over our differences. You see, we can think that our point of view, our study conclusion, is superior to our unenlightened brothers and sisters. We think our practice is the right one, the only one that honors the Lord, that all other options are wrong and dishonor God. And this is what Paul's getting right there at the beginning of chapter 14, when he says, let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains. And let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who doesn't eat. Now here's a litmus test. You know what a litmus test is? It's a little slip of paper. You check the pH, especially if you have an aquarium. It's very important that you check the pH in the aquarium. Your fish will love you if you do, and if you neglect it, one day you'll wake up and you won't like what you find. So here's the litmus test to see if, in fact, you're despising. Ask yourself, do you think they are inferior to you? That they lack discernment? that they're dim-witted, that they don't read their Bible enough or listen to the right people. Ask yourself, am I angry? Now, we don't like to admit we're angry very easily, so let's use some of the synonyms. I'm irritated. I'm miffed. And then turn the searchlight of Romans 15, 17 on yourself and ask, am I welcoming others as Christ has welcomed me for the glory of God? Paul then adds in verse four, chapter 14, these words, who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It's before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. You see, God doesn't condemn the person who's a vegetarian or who is such for religious reasons, nor does he condemn the person who thinks meat and potatoes is the right kind of diet. Now, one of the most misunderstood words in the Bible is the word judge. And what Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew, in particular, is widely misunderstood. In Matthew 7, in the Sermon on the Mount, it begins this way. Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Now, a lot of people think that Jesus is using the word judge here, or translations are, to describe every possible meaning of this word. And so they end up saying something like this. No one can say what's right and what's wrong. No one can say this behavior or action is incompatible with following Christ or it's just plain immoral. No, no, we can't judge. No judging, you know. Judging is just a sign of how arrogant you are. But that's not what Jesus means. And if you just keep reading through the rest of the chapter, it'll become really clear. In the middle of the chapter, he says this, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit." Jesus is commanding us to be discerning. Now, Nancy's been gone for seven weeks, and I'm so glad to have her back, because one of the things I don't have to do now is being a discerning shopper in the fruit and vegetables section of the grocery store. And I'm not very discerning about that. I haven't made too many terrible mistakes, but I've made some. And I know most of you know, when you buy something like a tomato, you want to give it a good look. You want to give it a little feel. Soon there'll be watermelons out there, and you'll be tapping away to discern how ripe it's not. Well, Jesus is saying we need to be discerning between good and... true teaching and what's false. We need to identify good fruit and bad fruit. And to do this, we have to form judgments, moral judgments, because by fruit, Jesus means the results, what flows out of people's lives sitting under good or bad teaching. When Jesus says, judge not, he means we are not to condemn others. If we do this, and there are a lot of ways we do this, in fact, we need to ask ourselves, here's another set of litmus tests. Do we write people off who disagree with us? Do we reject them? Do we disassociate from them? Do we label them? Do we form a faction? to carry our side of this? Do we think, I can't fellowship with people who have this opinion or that, who wear baseball caps to worship, or parents who allow their children to wear baseball caps, or you just fill in the blank. You need to really think hard about what goes into that blank. We need to be very careful about using the word heretic and applying that to somebody who calls on the name of Christ. Yes, there are heresies and things rise to that level, but not nearly as commonly as the great wide world web would suggest. Why? Why must we not do this? Well, because God has accepted them. For the glory of God, Paul says in chapter 15, verse 7. You see, we can, and lots of people do, think that God's honor is only tied up in which side of an issue that's in dispute. But Paul won't let us off the hook like that. He gives us another balancing principle that our acceptance of one another is an issue of God's honor. Our not accepting one another dishonors God. And here we have to keep this truth and principle together with our concern about how to honor God where it's not an essential moral or doctrinal truth. In chapter 14, verse four, I read this twice to you now, Paul says, who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? Meaning God's servant. Well, the answer to that question is, should be, not me. I have no business doing that. God alone is the judge, and God can and will uphold the person whose opinion about disputable matters differs from yours or mine. You see, the root issue in condemning people and judging them in this way is pride. we all will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And we'll have to give an account to God, not only about our decisions in areas that aren't clear, but also how we treat others and whether we've divided the church or destroyed a fellow Christian in the way we've walked through and responded to our differences. Let's pray. Gracious Father in heaven, you are the Lord, the searcher of our hearts. You know none of us is free from pride. And you see clearly our motives, our attitudes, when we disagree. You, oh Lord Jesus, you know how we behave. You see us at our best and our worst. And we thank you that you're gentle with us. Lead us, O Lord, to yourself, that we might live out what we have heard today, even as we approach this table. For it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.