The sermon you are about to hear was recorded at Grace Baptist Church, Cape Coral, Florida. For additional sermons and more information, visit our website at truegraceofgod.org. Sometimes the biggest church fights are over the most insignificant things. We see this throughout history. We certainly see it in recent history. A few years ago, Tom Rainer took a survey asking members of churches of various stripes, various beliefs, to just list out some of the reasons that they had witnessed that caused churches to split, churches to fight. And he compiled a list of 25 of those reasons, and I want to give you a few of them that he wrote about. One church split because the length of the pastor's beard. Another, because they couldn't decide whether or not a church should purchase a weed eater. Another, because they couldn't decide what type of filing cabinet to purchase, whether it should be black or brown, or have two, three, or four drawers. One church circulated a petition demanding that all the church staff be clean shaven. Another reported a split when they switched the brand of coffee that they served and went to a stronger roast, stronger blend of coffee. I mean, examples like this could be multiplied many times over, and it's appropriate that we chuckle because they're so foolish and they're so silly. But we should also recognize that too often some of the worst church splits have been over some of the least significant causes. Oftentimes it's because of little personal preferences. that people hang on to and dig their heels in about and refuse to let go of. Well again, this isn't something that is unique to the modern church. It's been going on since the first century. We see this in our study of Romans chapter 14 over the last few weeks, as Paul is addressing things that really aren't that important, but have potential to divide Christians in that church. This morning we're going to continue our study of Romans chapter 14. particularly as we think again about how Christians are to treat one another when we might disagree about things that are indifferent. Things like what food to eat or not to eat, what holidays to observe or not to observe. The basic point that Romans 14 makes is that Christians are not to divide over such things. Followers of Jesus who are united together in a local church are to welcome one another. We're to accept each other. Last week, from verses 1 through 3 of Romans 14, we see that Paul gives the first of three reasons in the first 12 verses of this chapter by saying that we are to welcome one another because God has welcomed us. And because God accepts us, That's reason for us to accept one another. Today, we're going to look at verses 4 through 9 and see the second reason that the Apostle Paul gives for us accepting one another, and that is because we live under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Our text is Romans chapter 14, verses 4 through 9. It's found on page 948, 949 of the Bibles that are provided for you in the chair backs. So if you don't have a copy of scripture already in front of you, let me encourage you to get that and open up to 948, page 948, where that text begins and just follow along because I want you to see it. I want you to read what the Spirit of God actually inspired the Apostle Paul to write concerning this vitally important subject. So you follow along as I read from verses 4 through 9, Romans 14. I'm going to read it out loud and you follow silently in your copy of the scripture. The Apostle Paul writes, 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 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 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." Christians are called to accept one another because we live under the Lordship of Christ. Did you notice how many times Paul repeated the word Lord in those verses? Six verses, eight times in those verses he mentions the Lord. By emphasizing our relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul is reminding us that Jesus is our Master and that we are His slaves. He owns us. Christians belong to Jesus because He purchased us. He bought us. That's what He was doing on the cross. When Jesus voluntarily laid down His life to be crucified, He was ransoming sinners from sin for God. He was paying our redemption price. And as you trust Jesus Christ as Lord, you can be sure that the price of your sins, the penalty of your sins, has been completely paid for by what Jesus did on the cross. This is what makes the life and death and resurrection of Jesus such good news. Because it's by His life, death and resurrection that He has redeemed us for God. He has rescued us. Now, that's an important point that we find emphasized throughout the New Testament, that Christ has actually purchased us for God. We see it especially in the way that the Apostle Paul reasons and tries to help churches understand what it means to live differently in this world as those who belong to Christ. For example, in 1 Corinthians 6 20, Paul says we were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God with your body. In Acts 20, verse 28, he gathers the elders of the church of Ephesus, a church that he spent over three years of his own life ministering to, and he reminds them of their duty to shepherd the flock of God. He says that they must do this because God has purchased that body with His own blood. He obtained it with His own blood. In Revelation 5-9, the apostle John was given this great vision of heaven and what's going on around the throne of Jesus Christ. And he sees there the 24 elders representing the Old Testament saints and the New Testament saints. That's me and you in Christ. And as those elders gather around the throne, they fall down before that throne, and they begin to sing a new song, saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. Jesus, you purchased people for God. When you died on the cross, You were ransoming people from sin for God. Brothers and sisters, this is a basic fundamental truth. And if we remember it, it will go a long way to help us live as we ought to live. If we remind ourselves of this regularly, we will remember that we are a purchased people. We belong not to ourselves. We belong to Jesus Christ. So, if you are in Christ, you are His slave. And like every other person in Christ, you belong to Him. They, like we, have been purchased by the Lord Jesus through His death on the cross. Now, that truth should shape the way that we treat one another, how we relate to one another, especially as we find ourselves disagreeing about things that are indifferent. That is things that the Bible neither requires that we believe or do, nor forbids that we believe or do. That's why they're called indifferent. You can do them or not do them. You can do them to the glory of God. You could not do them to the glory of God. This would involve things like using makeup. or drinking in moderation alcoholic beverages, or driving a pickup truck, or owning a gun, or having a beard if you're a man. Which I have to say in these days. Christians are free. are not free, are they're free to do them or not do them, rather, because these things are morally indifferent. And so it is up to a Christian's Christian liberty as to whether or not you will do them or not do them. When we're tempted to separate from Christian brothers and sisters who disagree with us over such matters, we should stop and remember that they and we live under the Lordship of Christ, which means that we must accept each other. Now, Paul makes this argument in the verses I've just read. And to do so, he employs three points. And I want to call them to your attention as we work our way through these verses. The first point is this, that passing judgment on things that are indifferent is the Lord's business. It belongs to the Lord. It's his prerogative, not ours. We see this in verse four. Paul says slaves shouldn't judge fellow slaves about indifferent things. You see that question in verse four, it begins like this. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? The word servant there is literally the word for house servant or house slave. Somebody who had an intimate close relationship with his or her master so that he or she was always willing and able to do what the master called upon them to do. Paul puts it this way by way of a rhetorical question. So he's not asking for an answer. He's not saying I need to know the answer to this question. He's making a point. By asking that question, who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? We could say it like this. Paul's saying, who do you think you are? Who do you think you are? Passing judgment on another person's servant. Fellow Christians are not your house slaves. They have a master. And he's the same master that you have. And His Master will judge him just as He will judge you. You see that? He goes on in verse 4. It's before His own Master that He stands or falls. In other words, He will answer to the Lord for how He lives His life. How He spends His time. The choices that He makes. How other Christians exercise their liberty in things indifferent is primarily a matter between them and their Master. They must give an account to the Lord Jesus for these things. They will not give an account to us. So they'll be either pleasing or displeasing to their master. That's what Paul means when he says they will either stand or fall. And he goes on, he says, the Lord will uphold them. He's the one responsible for them. For the Lord is able to make him stand, Paul says. In other words, Christ, he has all authority, all power. You can't make someone stand or fall based upon these things that don't matter. The Lord can do that. And we should trust the Lord. So passing judgment on another Christian regarding things indifferent belongs to the Lord. It's His work. It's His business, not ours. Now, we need to be really careful here, however, to understand what Paul is saying and what he is not saying. He is talking about things that are indifferent. Don't get tripped up here. This is not a blanket prohibition. telling Christians that we are never to make judgments about the conduct or the beliefs of other Christians. In fact, Paul can't be saying that, because we are specifically required to make such judgments elsewhere in the Scripture. Over in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, Paul commands that church to make such judgments. He instructs that congregation to decisively remove one of the members of that church from membership. That person is to be judged no longer part of the body of believers in Corinth. In fact, Paul uses some pretty strong language as he admonishes that church to make this judgment. But the situation there is completely different from the situation that was taking place in the church at Rome that he's addressing in Romans 14. Remember, this chapter is addressing how we are to relate to fellow believers when we disagree over things that are indifferent. Specifically in that context, disagree over diets. and days. You remember in the first few verses we saw last week and the week before that there were some in the church at Rome who believed that you shouldn't eat meat and that if you did that, then you were being more spiritually minded. And that was more pleasing to the Lord. There are others who thought they meet. I'm going to eat meat. I'll thank God for it. And I can honor the Lord in that. And there were some who said, well, you got to observe these days, these holidays and others who said we don't observe those holidays and we're not going to and there was a potential for real division there. You may think that wearing makeup or dying your hair are improper. But you may have a Christian brother or sister that thinks both of those things are completely fine. Well, the Bible neither forbids nor commands either way on those matters. And so the point is, we should not judge one another in those areas. It is not your prerogative to judge another Christian in matters of things that are indifferent, how they choose to exercise their Christian liberty. But that's not the situation in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 5. That man that Paul says must be delivered over to the devil, must be removed from the membership of the church, he wasn't dying his hair. He wasn't eating meat or not eating meat. That wasn't the issue. That man was engaged in scandalous sexual immorality. He was violating the commandments of God in a shameless way. And his fellow church members thought that they were being loving by making no judgments about it. They may have thought themselves to be the epitome of kindness and warmth and welcoming to a man who was scandalously rebelling against the commandments of God. But when Paul heard about what was going on, he rebuked that church. He said, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You're letting this go on in the people of Jesus Christ? You're letting this go as if this is not a big deal? In fact, at the end of His admonition, when He tells them again to remove this man from the congregation, He gives us some very important instructions about judging in the church. So listen to 1 Corinthians 5, verses 11-13. Paul says, but now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he's guilty of sexual immorality, or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler. Not even to eat with such a one. But what have I to do with judging outsiders? In other words, we're not to stand up and just be judgmental toward people that don't know the Lord. But then he makes this point. Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? Again, it's a rhetorical question. Paul's not looking for an answer. He's making a point. Yes. Oh, yes, we are to judge. We are to hold each other accountable inside the church. And then verse 13, he concludes, God judges those outside. And here's once again, the reiteration of how the church is to function, purge the evil person from among you. What is Paul saying? As church members, we have the responsibility to hold each other accountable to pursue lives of holiness. We've all committed to do that because we belong to Jesus Christ. And this is why we admonish each other regularly to turn from sin, to live in repentance and to turn to Christ, to live in faith, because this is how Christians live. But when it comes to things that are indifferent. There's no sin to be repented of if somebody just disagrees with you. There's no righteous pathway to be pursued if they see things differently than you do, because things indifferent in and of themselves are neither sinful nor righteous. And when it comes to those things, we're to refuse to judge. We let the Lord handle his own servants. Well, living under the Lordship of Christ means that passing judgment on brothers and sisters for things that are indifferent is his business. It's not ours. That's the first point Paul makes in verse four. If you look at verses five and six, you'll see he goes on to make a second point that exercising our liberties is to be done for the Lord. When we make choices about indifferent things, we always make those choices with a view to honoring the Lord. There can be different practices among church members regarding indifferent things. And Paul now turns to that in verse 5, where he mentions not diets in this case, but days. He's dealt with diets in the first three verses. And now he says, one person esteems one day is better than another, while another esteems all days alike. What's Paul talking about here? Well, he's not talking about the weekly Sabbath. He's not talking about that one day in seven. How do we know that? Because that's not a thing in different. That's part of the Ten Commandments. God wrote that with his finger on tablets of stone. Well, how are we to think about that in our day? We're not living under the Old Testament. era any longer. Well, I love the way our church's confession of faith sets this forth in a very succinct way. And this confession was published in 1689. We've adopted it because we just stand in that that historic stream of Baptist orthodoxy. Listen to what the confession says about that particular point. Well, first, before I do that, let me read to you what the fourth commandment actually says in Exodus 20, verses 8 through 11. This is what God wrote with his finger on tablets of stone. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." But again now, in this new covenant era, after Jesus Christ has come, we're no longer obligated to keep a Jewish Sabbath. We're not ethnic Jews. We're not a body politic as they were in the Old Testament era of Jewish people. But in this new covenant era, we've been given the Lord's Day as a way for us to keep the fourth commandment again. Now, let me read to you from our church's confession of faith. This is in Chapter 22, the last paragraph of that chapter. So here, the way our confession just real succinctly puts it into a way that is helpful. The confession says it is the law of nature that in general, a portion of time specified by God should be set apart for the worship of God. So by his word and a positive moral and perpetual commandment that obligates everyone in every age, he is specifically pointed one day in seven for a Sabbath to be kept holy to him. So there's the point. This has never changed. One day in seven is to be set aside, recognizing he is the lord of time. Time belongs to him. And we set aside one day and seven for our benefit to acknowledge and remember that. And then the confession goes on from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ. The appointed day was the last day of the week after the resurrection of Christ. It was changed to the first day of the week, which is called the Lord's Day. This day is to be kept to the end of the age as the Christian Sabbath, since the observance of the last day of the week has been abolished. Now, it took some time for the New Testament Christians to come to terms with this, and there were some that continued to honor the seventh day as a holy day and some that immediately saw the first day as we read through the book of Acts, we see that happening. And even John's revelation in Revelation one was on the Lord's day that he was in the spirit. So we see that. And then there were the others that observed both days, the seventh day and the first day. And it took about 300 years or so before this began to be seen as, no, Jesus has done something new in a new creation, new creation, the first day of the week, raised from the dead, conquering all of his enemies and ours. And we celebrate the Lord of Time on the first day of the week in the Old Testament. We find all kinds of references to specific festivals, days, seasons, and it's most likely that's what is going on is these Jewish Christians in Rome were still tied in to these seasonal festival observances. And it wasn't just what had been revealed for that Old Testament era, but as they lived across thousands of years, they began to add to it as well. If you want a little glimpse of this, you can just go to the book of Zechariah, chapter eight, verses 18 and 19, and see how Zechariah refers to various fast days of various months that is not prescribed anywhere in the Old Testament, but it become current and become a part of the ethos of the Old Covenant people. Well, in the church, there were some who thought it was proper to keep such days, while others were convinced it was not necessary. And rather than let these differences become divisive, Paul says that everyone should act according to his own judgment. Do you see that in verse 5? Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind, fully convinced means absolutely sure with complete certainty. And you see, he says in his own mind, in his own mind. So this is between a servant and his master. When it comes to in different matters like food, days, whether to eat or not drink, observe or not observe, make sure you are living according to your own thinking, that you're not being unduly swayed in your conscience by somebody else. The importance of that point will become clearer later in this chapter, especially verses 13 through 23, where we are warned not to ever act against conscience, because to act against conscience is to act without faith and it is to act in sin. We should all recognize that with regard to indifferent matters, our fellow church members, are making their decisions for the Lord, for the Lord. Look at verse six. 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. Now you see that phrase in honor of the Lord. It's three times in this verse. And our English standard versions have helped us understand the meaning of it by adding a little bit to it. It's not wrong in what they're understanding, but they've actually added to the simple words that Paul used. Paul used three times for the Lord, for the Lord. The ESV translates it rightly in honor of the Lord. The point is this, that everything that Christians do are to be done for the Lord. Everything. Things he commands, things he forbids, things he neither commands nor forbids. We're responsible always for our decisions to be done for the Lord. This means that what we do, we must be able to do with thanksgiving to God. You cannot disobey God for the honor of the Lord. You cannot honestly give thanks to God for any activity that is contrary to his revealed will. This is helpful to remember, because if you ever get confused in your mind, is this right or wrong? Should I do this? Should I should I not do this? Ask yourself, can I thank God for this? Can I do this thanking him as I'm doing it, after I do it? And if you're not sure about that, then just tap the brakes. Just slow down a little bit. Get some counsel. Consider it. Reflect on it a little deeper before you proceed. You see what Paul's doing? He simply assumes that those who eat and those who refrain from eating are doing so for the Lord. He assumes that the one who observes the day and the one who refuses to observe the day are doing so seeking to honor the Lord. And we should assume this as well, brothers and sisters. Rather than sitting in judgment on people who might take decisions differently in these areas of indifference than we would take, we should recognize that they are living for the Lord, they're thanking God, and we should leave them to their master. Like ourselves, they have a master. Like ourselves, they're servants of that master. When we remember this, we will be willing more readily to leave them to the Lord as they sort out how to engage things that are indifferent. Now, thinking this way about each other, this is always the obligation that we have as Christians, though there are indifferent things that we can do as Christians, there's nothing that we can do with indifference. There are indifferent things we can do or not do. But you cannot do them or not do them with indifference. Why? Because we're to do everything we do for the honor of the Lord. 1 Corinthians 10 31, the Apostle Paul makes this very point. He says, so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do everything to the glory of God. Everything. Eating? Seriously? Drinking, do you stop and think every time you take a bite, every time you get a sip of water, that you should be doing this to the glory of God? Well, you may not be conscious of it every time, but you ought to be conscious of it pretty regularly. And in times like this, we ought to be thinking about it because that's exactly what our responsibility is. I mean, what's more mundane than eating or drinking? Is it sinful to drink water, not drink water? No. Right? Sinful to eat a cheeseburger or not a cheeseburger? No. Paul says, whether you eat or drink, you do it for the glory of God. But it even gets more encompassing because he says, whatever you do, whatever you do. So you think, well, I'm not sure I can do that to the glory of God, then don't do it. I coached a girls' basketball team for 17 years, and it's a Christian group, homeschool girls, and we competed with Christian schools in the area, and we adopted as our motto, basketball to the glory of God. And one of my goals every year was to try to help the girls understand 1 Corinthians 10, 31, to play basketball to the glory of God. And I'll never forget, I think it was the second or third year, we would say that and recite that. They'd memorize the verse. We'd talk about it. And we would always say, soli deo gloria, whenever we broke our huddles. And so one of the other coaches at one point found out what we were doing. And he said, you can't play basketball to the glory of God. He said that in a chapel service before a state tournament. And all these girls, their heads just kind of turned and looked at me like, you're going to let him get away with that? But here's my point. If you can't play basketball to the glory of God, guess what? You can't play. As a Christian, you can't play. Because the obligation is that whatever we do, we're to do to God's glory. That includes whatever we might do regarding things that are indifferent. You want to eat meat? Eat to the glory of God. You want to be a vegetarian? Be a vegetarian to the glory of God. You want to own guns? Own guns to the glory of God. You want to not own guns? Don't own them to the glory of God. You want to celebrate Christmas? Do it to the glory of God. No? Do it to the glory of God. That's this point that Paul is making. This is what we must get into our thinking as we deal with our own decisions about these things. And then as we recognize our brothers and sisters are in the exact same situation and we should recognize that they are doing or not doing whatever they believe is best in these indifferent matters for the glory of God. Well, Paul goes on in the third point that he makes in verses seven through nine, when he tells us that in life or in death, we belong to the Lord. In life or in death, we belong to the Lord. Look at verses seven and eight. 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. Paul has begun in verse one of this chapter, distinguishing two different groups in the church, the strong and the weak. Strong have no scruples at all about anything. The weak have conscience problems about eating meat. But here he is saying that both strong and weak should show respect. for each other. No Christian lives or dies to himself. That's his point in verse seven. When he refers to us, he's talking about Christians. None of us lives or dies for himself. To be a Christian is to be turned away from a self-centered life to a life that's centered on Christ. All that we are, all that we have is because of Jesus Christ. All of life, then, is to be lived not for ourselves, but for him. Do you see that in verse eight? All of life is to be lived to the Lord. That is, all of life is to be oriented toward the Lord. We're to take our cues from the Lord. We're to seek to live for him. Why? Because we are the Lord's. We belong to him. Brothers and sisters, do you see how all encompassing following Jesus is? This is not some little add on to your life. This is not like a religious component to how you carry out your life day to day. I fear that Paul's instructions here sound strange to many modern professing Christians. And the reason is because we've so watered down in our day What it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. We just hadn't really read the Bible honestly on this point. You cannot follow Jesus on your own terms. You can't. When you become a disciple of Jesus, you are bowing to him as Lord, you're surrendering your life to him. You can't be a Christian and live for yourself. Jesus made this crystal clear time and again when he was on Earth, we see it in the gospel accounts. For example, he draws it home with an illustration in Luke chapter 14 when he was explaining what it means to be his disciple. Listen to what he said near the end of that chapter. For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he's laid a foundation and he's not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he's able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. And then he says, so therefore, any of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. That's the words of our Lord. This is the teaching of Jesus Christ. Do you see how wrong-headed it is to think you can live a self-centered life and be a disciple of Jesus? You're seriously mistaken if you think that you can be a Christian and live to yourself. Now, that doesn't mean people don't try to do it. It doesn't mean there are people in the world are not people in the world who consider themselves Christians and yet are committed to self-centered living. There are many people who want to have Christ or more accurately, they want what Christ can provide. But they want that on their own terms. Jesus asks such people a probing question in Luke chapter six, verse forty six. He says, why do you call me, Lord, Lord? And don't do the things that I say. Why do you call Christ Lord? and not renounce your self-centered living, living life on your own terms, thinking that what you know is best. And so you disregard what he clearly says. Salvation is a free gift that's received by faith alone, and you can't do anything to achieve it. You must receive it. As a beggar, you must receive it as somebody who has nothing to bring to the negotiation table, but you just throw yourself at the mercy of God and you receive what he gives in Jesus Christ. With faith that receives Jesus as Lord. Results in a life that is increasingly dedicated to being lived for him. If it doesn't result in that. Then it's not real faith. It's not saving faith. It hasn't reconciled you to God. So I want to ask you just a real simple question this morning. Are you trusting Jesus Christ as Lord? If so, are you committed to living for him? Not talking about perfection here. Talking about the orientation of your life. Do you submit yourself to His will as He's revealed it in the Scripture? Are you doing what He tells you to do? If not, then you may be seriously self-deceived. You may be on the wrong path trying to convince yourself you're on the right path. And what you need to do today more than anything else is to get this issue settled in your mind. To whom do you belong? Are you Christ's? Is he yours? Are you just satisfied to have some religion out here while living your own way? Do you love Christ? Are you obeying Christ? If you've never honestly settled that question in your heart and mind, settle it right now. Bow to him right now. Call upon him right now. He is here. His word has been set before you and he calls you. He calls you to put up that white flag of unconditional surrender and to throw yourself at his mercy and to receive the Lord Jesus Christ. If you'll trust Christ, you receive Christ, God will accept you. God will direct your life. He will reorient you. He will give you everything you need to live from this day forward for his honor. The reason Jesus died and rose again is to have people who live for him under his lordship. That's what verse nine says. You see that? For to this end, Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. Jesus Christ is Lord of all. That was the point and purpose of his mission coming into the world. Paul makes the very same point in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 15, where he writes, Jesus died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised from the dead. When God raised Jesus from the dead, He was demonstrating to the world for all time, for history and eternity, that Jesus Christ is Lord. When He came back from the dead, it was a display of His sovereign power, His lordship over sin, death, hell, the devil. He alone has all authority as the one true living Lord of lords and King of kings. One day. One day. Everybody's going to acknowledge that there are many who acknowledge it right now and are trusting this king for salvation or seeking to live for him. But whether that's true of you or not, be assured of that, of this, that one day you and everyone will acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord. That's been promised. Paul writes about it in Philippians chapter 2. He says, being found in human form, Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So do you know, are you sure that you are going to confess Jesus Christ as Lord? You should be. You could be the biggest skeptic the world's ever seen. You could be an atheist sitting here this morning. But the Bible promises, He promises that the day is coming when you will say, Jesus Christ is Lord. Friend, we prayed that that day would be today. That today God brought you here today, Christ has been presented to you today as the only savior this world has. And if you'll trust him today and you will bow to him as Lord today, you receive his grace and forgiveness of sins today, then you will say Jesus Christ is Lord and live the rest of your life seeking to know him better, to live more faithfully for him. But if you'll not confess him. While it is today. While there's time and opportunity and you go to your last breath. Not confessing Jesus as Lord, be assured of this. You will. You will. On the day that he returns, every eye will see him. The heavens will split in two. He will descend on that day. Everyone will bow and say, Jesus Christ is Lord. But on that day, they will be compelled to make that confession. On that day, it'll be a confession born out of terror. born out of deep grief, sorrow, because it'll be a confession that vindicates what God then does with all of those who refused his many calls to them to turn from sin and be reconciled to himself through Jesus while they lived. And he will consign. All those to a place of everlasting damnation that the Bible calls hell. Friend, you don't have to. Experience that. God's brought you here today to hear of Christ. And he calls you today to turn from your sin and receive the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, Jesus Christ is Lord. Those who live under his lordship do so as his servants, his house slaves. Therefore, we're called to accept one another as fellow servants because he's the Lord of us all. And we are all answerable to him. So, brothers and sisters, remember this when your opinions about things that don't matter in different things don't line up exactly with your brother or sister's opinions and preferences. If the issue that you find your disagreement on is a matter of indifference, Then trust your brother or your sister to the Lord. Believe that they're doing what they do for the honor of the Lord while offering thanksgiving. And you do the same. And give each other the benefit of the doubt. Let's leave room for diversity in our relationships like this, knowing that differing views on such matters do not affect the true unity that we have living under the Lordship of Christ. And let's go on, believe in his gospel and obey his commandments as the Lord gives us strength and grace to do so. Let's pray. Our father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the instructions you give us, and we marvel that we need such instructions. And yet we know it's true because we can so often make the biggest deal out of the smallest matters. Forgive us for living like that and help us to hold those areas of indifference lightly. To exercise the liberty that you've given us to either do or not do. With an open hand and for your glory. Father, I pray for those here today that are strangers to your grace. Some of them may think that they are trusting Christ, but in their heart of hearts, they know they're not. Would you not reveal Christ in them and call them to yourself and cause them to hear your voice, turn them from sin and show them the beauty, the goodness, the forgiveness that is in the Lord Jesus. Make this day the day when they gladly bow the knee and confess with their mouths that Jesus Christ is Lord. We pray in his name. Amen.