All right, well Romans 14, we're continuing our discussion here of chapter 14 and a good chunk of chapter 15, where Paul's dealing with the weaker brother, stronger brother relationship, but More importantly, what he's dealing with is the topic of unity, as we have discussed. And we're really going through this section and dividing this up into four different facets of what we need to do to promote unity within the church. And it seems so simple, doesn't it? There's nothing in here that's earth-shattering, but Knowing is one thing doing is something else because to do that means we have to give something up we have to sacrifice and so I'll remind you once again won't be the last time that To properly understand this section you have to understand that it's about you. It's not about the weaker brother He's not necessarily addressing the other person here and what they need to do to change their ways. He's not even talking to us about what we need to do to change their ways. He's saying, here's what you need to do to interact with people in the church, brothers and sisters in Christ, regardless of where they fall on the spectrum. New believer, less mature Christian, more mature Christian, Christian who's going through a struggle. And so if you look at this as Paul addressing you, you can grasp these concepts. If you look at this as how to fix the other brother, you're gonna miss the whole point. You might as well just skip the next few weeks and wait till we get to second half of chapter 15. The other thing that I have said multiple times, it is your individual responsibility to promote unity within the church. Even with people who aren't very unifying. Let's just face it, there's some difficult critters to deal with once in a while, right? Hopefully you're not the difficult critter, or I'm not the difficult critter. And that's really what Paul's dealing with here. What are you supposed to do to promote that unity? And so, last week we finished up the first facet, which was receive one another with understanding. Understanding is the key. It's trying to put yourself in their mindset. Understanding that God has accepted them, and so who are you to suggest that they don't fit in to God's church? when God has brought them in. And then we also started the second one, which is where we'll continue today, and that is building up one another without offending. I think all of us agree we ought to try and build up one another. If you get offended along the way, that's your problem, right? I mean, if I'm doing the right thing, or I'm doing things that aren't immoral, We're talking about amoral things. If you get offended, that's your fault. That's our mindset, isn't it? It's the human mindset. Stop being so offended. Stop being weak. Again, we all put ourselves in as the stronger brother because the things we believe certainly are right. We wouldn't believe them if they were wrong. And so if somebody believes differently, they must be a weaker brother, right? Build up one another without offending. We looked at verses 13 through 15 last time. The first point Paul makes there, don't cause your brother to stumble. Don't be the reason they get tripped up in their spiritual walk. And then we also looked at, don't grieve your brother. Don't cause them spiritual grief because you are going to exercise your Christian liberty whether it offends them or not. We're gonna look at the second part of verse 15 now in the third point here, which is just, it's an amplification of what he just said in the first part of verse 15. The third one is don't devastate your brother. Don't devastate your brother. Look at the second part of verse 15. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. Paul uses some intense verbiage here. And he's trying to get a point, or make a point as he often does. He says, do not destroy your brother. The Greek word there is apolumi, and it means to destroy or to destroy utterly. Now, Paul is not introducing a new doctrine here and saying that you can take somebody who is a believer and cause them to fall out of favor with God to the point where they would lose their salvation. He's not talking about that. He's not talking about eternal destruction. But this word is used frequently in the New Testaments, and it's always an intense word. Paul is trying to get our attention here by saying this. One verse which will help us understand the intensity With which Paul's being here is Matthew 10 28. I'm sure you're all familiar with it there He says this is Christ speaking and do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell same word There's some intensity there right like And so Paul's saying, don't destroy him, don't devastate him. Some of you are familiar with the name W.E. Vine. He's a well-known Greek scholar who authored Vine's Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament Words. A lot of you may have that in your library where it's a good resource. Just go in there. Okay, what did the Greek mean there? What did the Hebrew mean there? He said this and about this verse. He said the idea is not extinction but ruin or loss not of being but of well-being and So Paul's using in my opinion the same intensity that Christ was using you should fear the being who can destroy your body and your soul he can destroy you for all eternity and But when Christ was talking there, he wasn't talking about making them extinct. He was talking about spiritual destruction that would have that soul. All of us are eternal beings, whether we are a child of God or whether we're a child of Satan, we're an eternal being. And our soul will spend an eternity somewhere. And so, look at how these two concepts look side by side. Just like Christ did in Matthew 10, 28, Paul's trying to take two ideas, put them side by side to kind of compare and contrast them. In Matthew, Christ said, don't fear man, fear God. Probably the proper analogy there or assessment of that is, well, duh. What literally can man do to you? What did Christ say? The worst he can do is kill you. Now, killing is pretty extreme, right? But compared to what God can do, it's nothing. What happens to the Christian who's killed? Let's say a Christian is murdered. They just moved up, right? That's an upgrade. There's none of us who are going to get to the other side of eternity and say, man, I'd like to go back there. I mean, imagine once you get to look on the face of Christ, imagine being in paradise with him that very day. Those of us who are on earth, we would be saddened by that, but the person who has moved on just had graduation day. And so, Christ puts those two ideas side by side, and it's silly to fear man when you've got this being over here who can do so much more. Now look at Paul's statement. He's doing the same thing. He says, by what you eat, don't destroy him. It's just food. It's just an exercise of your liberty. It's amoral. It's nothing spiritual about it. Paul's using here, and then in Corinthians, the analogy of meat sacrificed to idols. Nobody's gonna say, well, I absolutely have to eat meat sacrificed to idols, or it's gonna destroy me. No, it's just a preference. Paul already said, hey, listen, I'm convinced. It's just fancy barbecue. But the idea of Your desire to have a particular food compared to the spiritual destruction of another person, they don't belong side by side. You put them next to each other, it's crazy. By what you eat, don't destroy it. Like if you're gonna destroy them, you better have a good reason. Food isn't it. Your spiritual liberty is not it. Paul shows us how preposterous he thinks the idea is in his first letter of Corinthians. We read these verses last week, I think, so you don't need to turn there, but 1 Corinthians 8, verse 9, he said, but take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. So yeah, it's your right, it's your liberty. There's nothing wrong with eating this meat, it's just meat. but don't let your liberty be a stumbling block. But then in verses 12 and 13, he says, thus sinning against your brothers, well, that's bad, and wounding their conscience when it's weak, you sin against Christ. It's like, okay, it's just Christian liberty. It is your right, it's amoral, you're not doing anything wrong. You mentioned elsewhere, you're even giving thanks when you do it. You could say it's a good thing. But if you take that liberty, cause your brother to stumble, you're not just sinning against your brother, you're sinning against Christ himself. Reminds you of David when Nathan called out his sin. He killed Uriah, he put Bathsheba in a horrible position. He just went down a dark, dark path and he finally is aware of his sin when Nathan calls it out and said, thou art the man. And what did he say? Against you and you only have I sinned in speaking to God. And that's what Paul's talking about there. If you're sinning against your brother by putting your liberty over his conscience, you've sinned against Christ. In verse 13, then, to show you how preposterous he thinks those two ideas are, he said, therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat lest I make my brother stumble. I'm not even going to give him the opportunity to think that might be sacrificed to him. I'm just not going to eat it. That's how preposterous the idea is. So when you think about those verses and compare it against what he's saying, by what you eat, don't destroy him. Don't utterly devastate his spiritual walk. He was willing to go without meat permanently rather than risk this spiritual devastation to someone. Now, this isn't just about meat-sacrificed idols. Most of us don't really have to deal with that question anymore. I don't even know where you'd go get meat-sacrificed idols. I'm sure there's places in the world where you can still do that. But he's just using that as an example, but it applies to any exercise of our Christian liberty. Somebody used the analogy, I think it was Martin, who talked about going to a Chinese restaurant where there's a Buddha sitting there. Probably the closest thing we could get to that. That could offend somebody, but it's good food. Shouldn't they just get over their offense? We're not going down there and bowing three times and kissing Buddha's belly. We're just eating good food. So that's the idea of Paul's. That was the most appropriate analogy for that day. By what you eat, don't destroy him. It's just food. But before we leave this point, though, in the outline, I want to notice one more thing. Notice the last phrase in the verse. He says, the one for whom Christ died. So who's that one? that he's talking about, don't destroy him, the one for whom Christ died. As a reminder, most of the verses we've covered so far, Paul's been addressing both the weaker and the stronger brother, right? He's talking to everybody. But in verse 15, there was a little bit of shift, and he is specifically addressing those whom we would call stronger, or better said, more mature in their doctrinal understanding of God's word. And so it's still that same person that he's addressing here. And he says, don't spiritually devastate or destroy the weaker brother over something as simple as food. But do you see how he ratchets it up a notch there at the end? Why would you destroy this person spiritually when Christ literally had his life taken from him for that person? He puts it on a whole new plane, like there was already some devastation or destruction that took place. The creator of the universe who came down to this earth, lost his life and even had God the Father turn his back on him for the sake of this believer. and you would destroy him spiritually? The destruction has already taken place. Why would food be that important to you? Or your liberty be that important to you? So it seems rather silly in that context to scream from the top of your lungs, I will have my rights. It's their fault if they're ignorant. They need to just be less ignorant. Now, As a sidebar, I do believe Paul's using that phrase there at the end for amplification. He didn't use it elsewhere in there. But he's also touching on the idea of limited atonement or a specific atonement there. He's not addressing unbelievers here in this section. He is addressing Christians. And without elaborating on it, he's basically stating that Christ died for his specifically chosen people there. And so if Christ died for this person who was chosen before the foundation of the world by the Father, and this destruction and devastation of the crucifixion experience was done for this person, why would you do that? And so, you know, I just, Matthew 121, we remember those words there. We hear them at Christmas all the time. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. And so. Paul's not necessarily trying to make a point about limited atonement, but it's the understanding that's there, like this was a person specifically chosen, and you would think so little of God's choice, God's election of them, the sacrifice Christ made that you would destroy them spiritually just to be able to eat a particular kind of meat or exercise a particular liberty. It doesn't make any sense. Do not devastate your brother, is the third one. So let's move on to the next point. Gonna look at verses 16 through 19 here. And here he's saying, don't forfeit your witness. Don't forfeit your witness. This starts to get as kind of an extra point or another amplification, he's starting to look outside the church here for a moment. Look at verse 16. So do not let what you regard as good be evil spoken of, or 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 mutual upbuilding. Now, remember what Paul just said here in the first part of verse 15. Look back there, he said, if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Love is a key theme as Paul goes throughout these application chapters, but very much so here, because why would you forego your liberties outside of love for that other person? If your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. With that statement in the back of your mind, now remember what Christ told us in John 17, 21. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples. And what is this? Your love for one another. So look at what Paul's saying here. Notice verse 16. Yes, you have liberty in Christ. That's already been established. That is true. And it's good for you to exercise that liberty. Sometimes. Sometimes it's best to just say, I have the liberty, but I won't use it. I will forego that liberty for the sake of my brother whom I love. And so he's saying, don't let what should be a good thing be used against you by those on the outside. It's the point there, like, yeah, if you eat this meat and you give thanks to God for the blessing that he gave you, is that a bad thing or a good thing? It's a good thing. But if you use it the wrong way, The outside world will look at that and accuse you of evil for what you thought was good. Look at verse 17 now. In essence, he's saying the exercise of your liberty is not what the kingdom of God is all about. Yes, you've got this Christian liberty. All things are clean, he says elsewhere. But the kingdom of God is not about the frivolous, or maybe better said, the extraneous. Is the kingdom going to be better because I eat meat-sacrificed idols? No. That's not what it's about. What is it about? He says it's about righteousness first, and then peace, and then joy in the Holy Spirit. That's what the kingdom's about. Not what's on your menu. Not the exercise of your liberty. You remember that brother or sister that you crushed spiritually in verse 15? Are they experiencing peace and then joy in the Holy Spirit now if you've done that? Far from it. There's no peace when you have destroyed their walk and made them struggle in their day-to-day lives. There's no joy from their experience with the Holy Spirit. because of you devastating them spiritually. You've decimated their walk with Christ so that you could have your own way. And if that takes place, how does that look to the outside world? They already know how to be selfish. They know how to put their desires before the needs of others. So why are you so special? I can act that way. If that's good, well, I'm a good person. I don't need what you have. How are you any different from them if that's how you behave towards your brother? And so Christ's words are very important here. By this one thing, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Now look at verse 18. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men." Whoever thus serves Christ, who soothes Christ this way. Well, how? What way? He says, by emphasizing the important matters of the kingdom over our own liberties. That's the way. If you say, listen, I've got this liberty, but for the betterment of the kingdom, I'm going to forgo that liberty. and sacrifice it for my brother's sake or my sister's sake. That's the way we serve Christ. And look at the result, he says there. I mean, don't we all want to hear these words someday? Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. Christian liberty. I will set you over much, enter into the joy of your master." I mean, that should be what we're striving for here on earth. What do I need to do to hear, well done, thou good and faithful servant? Because well done is only going to be expressed to the faithful ones. The unfaithful servants aren't going to hear well done. We saw in Christ's words there in the various parables what happens to the unfaithful servants. And so, if we want to hear those words someday, then the message Paul's giving us is we need to focus on the kingdom over our liberties. Look at it again. Whoever thus serves Christ, or whoever serves Christ this way, by emphasizing these things, is acceptable to God and approved by men. That's how you get those words well done. The little things. It's just liberties. It's not important. So, serve God by focusing on his kingdom, which is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. But notice that he also adds that this person will be approved by men. Now, More important to be approved by God, right? Acceptable to God. But is it unimportant to be approved by men? Not at all when we're talking about our testimony. And that's what he's saying. In other words, you'll have a good testimony to the outside world. They know how to be selfish. They know how to focus on them. If you show them something different, then they've got something to consider. If you act just like they do amongst yourselves, if you don't demonstrate love but selfishness, well, are they disciples of Christ? Are they really Christians? But if you do act that way, you'll have a good testimony on the outside. And then verse 19, if indeed that is our goal, then that verse 19 is the marching orders. It says, so then let us pursue what makes for peace and mutual upbuilding. The word pursue there is an interesting one in the Greek. It means to put to flight. The idea there is a hunter chasing after his prey. I'm not a hunter, but those of you are, I assume you more participate in the American version where you sit and wait for the prey to come to you, but some places, they go after their prey. It's an event. It's more than just stalking it. It is pursuing, it's going great distance. great exertion, the idea there with pursuing it. And so he tells us if you want to be focused more on the kingdom, if you want to be acceptable to God and recommended by the outside world or approved by the outside world, then you need to pursue some things. And it's not pursuing our liberties. If you want to live an acceptable, a life acceptable to God, rather than chasing the opportunities to exercise your liberty and say, look how free I am, look what I can do. Hunt down those things that make for peace. And we're to do this for everyone in the church. Remember what we revisited last week. We're to welcome the new believer. We're to welcome the weaker brother into our sphere of acquaintances. We're to welcome them with open arms. We're not to say, well, I'm gonna have to act different if they're involved. They can go hang out with the other weaker brothers so that we stronger brothers can do what we wanna do. I don't have to give up things. I don't have to act differently. Paul's, his first point in the whole section was welcome them, bring them in. And so once they're there, then we're to hunt down behavior that will lead to peace with all in that sphere. Weaker brother, stronger brother. Pursue, like a hunter would pursue his prey, what makes for peace. But he also said that we should pursue the things that lead to mutual edification. It's mutual. While that weaker brother is being edified and built up, we can be built up at the same time. The Greek word there at the end of verse 19 is in the context of construction. It means the process of building a building. And so, welcome them in, and then go after behavior that will make everybody feel comfortable. Don't hinder their worship, help their worship, build up their worship. And at the same time you have that behavior, you'll be edified as well. The goal is to build up the church of Christ. The goal is to train up a young Timothy so that later on he can fill the footsteps of an older Paul. The goal is to train up a younger generation of believers so that they can be the leaders in the next generation. And the goal is to do it at all costs, regardless of what we have to give up. We're to build up this church. We're actually gonna get done a little bit early today, but turn to 1 Corinthians chapter three with me. I want you to see this as we close. I want you to see how Paul uses this imagery here in another letter. This imagery of building. 1 Corinthians 3, let's read verses 10 through 17. He says in verse 10, according to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation. So you see, he's saying, listen, I'm doing this like somebody who knows exactly what they're doing, like somebody who has done all the legwork to make sure that that foundation is going to stand. But he's not giving himself credit. He says, according to the grace of God given to me. That was Paul's role. There's some people who, They're very good at laying a foundation. There's some people who are specifically called to be church planners, to go out there and evangelize people who haven't heard the gospel before and get those churches started. But there's also others. He says, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation and then someone else is building upon it. Somebody else is coming behind me because Paul could only stay in Corinth for so long because he had to get on to the next church or the next location and get the foundation there. That's what Paul was called to do. He had a couple missionary journeys, so he went back and revisited some of those places. Rome, he never got to visit. Once he was there, he was put in prison. But he's saying it takes both of us to have this mutual edification, this building up of the church. I laid a foundation, someone else is building upon it, let each one take care how he builds upon it though. Paul says I was a skilled master builder, not because he was awesome, because he was trained by Christ specifically as an apostle to be the one to do that. We already know the Corinthian church had some struggles with some things. The Galatian church we've talked about, you know, in the morning service and the struggles. They were letting people come in, putting some shaky stuff on that foundation. And Paul's saying, listen, I was skilled. I was called by God to do that. Don't bring somebody else who's going to mess it up. Don't start building a building that's gonna fall down. on that good foundation. Verse 11, for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if anyone builds on a foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will be manifest, for the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire. The fire will test what sort of work each one has done. What's he saying? Okay, you build on it, With wood, hay, straw, we know the story of the three little pigs. What's going to happen when the fire comes? That's going to burn. It's going to be nothing. That's taking up space, but it's not solid. It's not rigid. It's not acceptable for that foundation. You put a precious stone through a fire, nothing's happening to it. You put gold and silver through a fire, it's just going to be refined even more. It's gonna get more garbage out of it. And so, each one's work will be manifest for the day we'll disclose it. Look at verse 14. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he'll receive a reward. Because it's good work. It's proper work. It's skilled work. Like went into the foundation. Verse 15, though, if anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. And then verse 16, a verse we all know, do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? Now he talks about our bodies being the temple somewhere else in 1 Corinthians in a later chapter, but this verse gets, misconstrued a lot of time. When he says, do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you, he's not talking about you as an individual. He's talking about you, the church. He's specifically talking to the Corinthian church there. If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him for God's temple is holy and you are that temple. So you as a collective body, if you want to be acceptable to God, approved by men, you need to go after the things that make for peace within that body. There's nothing worse than a contentious body of believers, is there? I mean, we've talked about his parents, Isn't it awful as parents when we see our kids fighting and and they can't get along Same thing in the church. It's a horrible testimony of the outside when churches are fighting And so there in Corinthians it do you not know that you Church are God's temple and the God's Spirit dwells in you if God's Spirit is dwelling within this church Should be easy to pursue the things that that belong to peace and belong to righteousness and belong to joy in the Holy Spirit and not pursue my liberty, my rights. If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him for God's temple is holy and you are that temple. And so the concept is pretty cut and dry there. Don't forfeit your witness over something as silly as food. something as trivial as your amoral rights, your Christian liberty. We're just here for a little while. You know the song we sang at the close of the service, it will be worth it all. It's talking about the sacrifices we make and the things we do here on earth that lead towards the kingdom. You eating that meat, sacrifice to idols, you doing that thing that you know is likely to trip up another believer, that's not worth it. That's not building the temple. That's going to be destroyed by the fire. And so, don't devastate your brother. Don't destroy your brother's spiritual walk. And don't forfeit your witness with the outside world. The kingdom work is us, as long as God keeps us here, doing whatever we can to build up the church so that the church collectively can go out and find and share the gospel with the other lost sheep. It's not about do what you want, have fun, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. That is the wrong attitude for the church of Christ. That's all I have for today. Two more parts of this facet, Lord willing, we'll get to next time. Does anybody have any other thoughts on that? Easy stuff, right? Can you raise your hand? All right. Would somebody be willing to close us in prayer? Heavenly Father, we're so much grateful unto you that not only that we believe that you created the whole world, but you've created us anew through your son Jesus. We thank you for your word. As the unbelievers run away from the Word, we believers, we embrace it, we believe it, and we do everything within our might to follow it. Like James said, help us not be hearers of the Word only, but doers of the Word. That's the only way we differentiate ourselves from unbelievers. Anybody can hear, even a devil. Are those who bow their knees to you and are attracted to your word? That's what we want to be. Strengthen us, grant us the grace to be more like your dear son, Jesus.