00:00: Wouldn't it be nice if Christians always got along with each other?
00:06: Wouldn't that be great?
00:08: And sometimes we do and sometimes we don't.
00:11: And sometimes we should and sometimes we shouldn't.
00:18: And sometimes it's hard to know the difference.
00:21: As I was thinking about these issues and meditating on the passage for this week, it, unsurprisingly to me and probably not surprising to you, made me think of a dumb joke I'd heard.
00:33: Have you noticed how judgmental people are these days?
00:38: I mean, I can tell just by looking at them.
00:41: Right?
00:42: Now we laugh, but isn't there some truth in that?
00:47: Right?
00:47: There's issues of people legitimately being too judgmental.
00:52: And sometimes we make judgments that aren't based on legitimate things.
00:58: Or we make judgments in really hypocritical ways.
01:03: We've reached Romans 14, probably the most significant passage in the Bible about believers agreeing to disagree.
01:12: About Christians getting along even when they have different perspectives on things.
01:18: When they don't see eye to eye.
01:19: Now this is not a minor issue to consider.
01:24: Knowing when we ought to stand our ground and insist on truth.
01:27: And when we need to agree to disagree is not always an easy matter.
01:32: And the consequences can be huge.
01:35: Especially for the unity of the church.
01:39: One of the main issues that we need to think this through is, how does it affect relationships with fellow Christians?
01:47: There are matters worth dividing over.
01:49: There are issues that matter enough to suffer broken relationships and the loss of relationships.
01:56: And there are matters that simply do not rise to that level of importance.
01:59: And there are some in-between issues as well.
02:03: This passage that we begin looking at this morning, Romans 14, 1 through 12, and then the following sections as well, has huge implications for church unity.
02:13: And if we don't get this right, the result is that we're going to mistreat each other.
02:19: And we're going to break relationships with each other.
02:22: And divide from one another over things that aren't worth it.
02:27: I think this passage may surprise you in some aspects of how it addresses these issues.
02:35: There are lots of aspects to this section of God's Word that bear scrutiny, lest we make assumptions that don't accurately reflect what God's Word actually says here.
02:44: And this should really hit close to home for us.
02:47: If you look at the back of your bulletin, you'll see our purpose and mission statements printed on there.
02:52: We say here at Faith Chapel that our purpose is that we exist to worship God by enjoying relationship with Him and one another through Jesus Christ.
03:04: Part of how we fulfill our purpose is by enjoying relationship with one another.
03:12: Maintaining right relationship with fellow Christians because of our connection to each other in Jesus.
03:20: If I'm a son of God through faith in Jesus and you're a son of God or a daughter of God through faith in Jesus, then we're family.
03:27: And the way that we do life together matters.
03:30: It's part of how we honor or worship or glorify God.
03:34: So this is not a minor thing that we can say, whatever, move past it.
03:38: Go ahead and look at the first 12 verses as I read them aloud.
03:43: The Apostle Paul writes, For God has welcomed him.
04:11: Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?
04:17: 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.
04:26: One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike.
04:32: Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.
04:36: The one who observes the day observes it in honor of the Lord.
04:39: The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God.
04:44: While the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.
04:50: For none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself.
04:54: For if we live, we live to the Lord.
04:56: And if we die, we die to the Lord.
04:58: So then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.
05:02: For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord, both of the dead and the living.
05:11: Why do you pass judgment on your brother?
05:15: Or you, why do you despise your brother?
05:19: For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.
05:23: For it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
05:30: So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
05:38: We can't tackle everything in this passage this week.
05:42: But one of the things we might notice straight out of the gate is that he talks about some people being weaker in faith or weak in faith.
05:52: Now, straight out of the gate, I think probably all of us think that's probably somebody else.
05:58: And I don't want to be that.
06:00: But maybe you are that person.
06:04: Maybe I am that person in some ways.
06:08: And what does Paul mean by this weaker in faith thing anyway?
06:12: In this passage, being a weaker faith Christian or a stronger faith Christian is not about how much you trust God when you pray.
06:23: God, I need this need, or please heal me, and how confident you are.
06:28: That's not what it's talking about, which I think is how we most naturally think of stronger or weaker faith.
06:34: This is about meat.
06:38: It's about whether you can have a hamburger.
06:41: This is about whether you can enjoy a chicken strip or a T-bone.
06:45: Notice in verse 2, one person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.
06:52: Now, he's not picking on vegans.
06:56: He's not saying they're weak because they eat only vegetables.
06:57: He's talking about their weak faith.
06:59: And he says the weaker person in faith thinks that eating only vegetables is the way to go.
07:05: And the stronger person says, I can eat whatever, meaning vegetables and meat.
07:11: And when we get to verse 21, we'll see that Paul adds wine to the list as well.
07:18: Verse 21 is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.
07:24: So the weaker one would say, no, I can't drink at all.
07:28: No alcohol.
07:29: And the stronger person says, I can have a glass of wine or enjoy a wine cooler or a beer or what have you.
07:35: The weak faith believers are the one who only eat vegetables and the strong faith believers are the ones who are free to eat whatever, vegetables, meat, and alcohol.
07:48: But in verse 21, which I just cited, Paul is telling the strong faith Christians that there's a time to not use their freedom.
07:58: He doesn't say that they're wrong to have a burger or drink a bottle of beer.
08:03: However, he just says, there's a time to not do that, right?
08:07: It's not out of bounds, but sometimes you need to say, not today.
08:12: Now, we're going to look at that later on as we get to that section.
08:16: But it's very un-American of Paul to say that.
08:20: In the U.S., we tend to insist upon our rights.
08:22: If I can do this, then nobody should get in the way of me doing this.
08:25: And Paul says, you should be willing to say no to you.
08:29: You should be willing to say, I won't do this thing that I can legitimately do.
08:33: Because there's something else that matters more to me than doing whatever I'm allowed to do.
08:38: And we'll come back to that later.
08:41: So these are folks, these weaker faith Christians are folks who are not doing some things that they can legitimately do.
08:52: The second, we see that these are God-exalting Christians.
08:58: They're weaker faith in some sense.
09:00: They're good Christians.
09:03: These are not Christians who've gotten tangled up in sin.
09:05: This isn't about strong faith Christians obeying God while the weak faith Christians disobey God.
09:11: This is not about some of them submitting to God and some of them not submitting to God.
09:16: They are acting in faith.
09:19: Now, it may be a weaker faith, but it's not no faith.
09:22: They are living out their faith in Jesus in what they're doing.
09:26: And they're honoring God in it.
09:30: We see, as we get to the end of chapter 14, verse 23, Paul's going to insist that whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
09:40: That's not what's going on with these guys.
09:42: These are not folks who are operating out of something other than faith and getting themselves into sin for that.
09:50: The other thing I think about with this is in my personal Bible reading lately, I've been in the book of Daniel.
09:56: And straight out of the gate, when you get in the book of Daniel, you read about Daniel and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who are Jewish men transported out of the land of Israel into the Babylonian empire, and they choose to eat only vegetables.
10:13: Now, there are reasons that are probably different than the ones in Paul's time.
10:17: But nonetheless, these are men who said, we're going to only eat vegetables.
10:22: They could have legitimately eaten meat, but they chose not to.
10:27: And you don't get any hint in the book of Daniel that these guys are lesser believers in God for having done so.
10:35: In fact, they're praised for it.
10:37: So we can't look at these Christians and think, oh, these are second tier.
10:41: These are the inept believers.
10:43: No.
10:45: These are good, solid Christians.
10:49: Notice in verse six how Paul highlights the legitimacy of their choices.
10:57: The one who eats, meaning eats veggies and meat and drinks alcohol.
11:03: The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, that is abstains from meat and wine, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.
11:17: These weak faith brothers and sisters are honoring the Lord.
11:22: They're legitimately glorifying God and they're giving thanks.
11:27: In fact, these guys might be doing that better than we do sometimes, even if we understand our freedom in the Lord.
11:33: Do you get the sense that Paul is not slamming these folks?
11:38: That Paul has a very positive attitude about them?
11:42: And these weaker faith Christians, they're not legalists.
11:47: They are not people who say, I must obey these rules for God to accept me.
11:54: And they're not people who say, there's these Old Testament rules that I have to obey to be right with God.
11:59: How do we know that?
12:02: Because God had Paul write the book of Galatians and Galatians tears into those mentalities hard.
12:10: When Paul's dealing with that kind of mentality, he is harsh.
12:16: He is so severe saying, you guys have abandoned the Lord, you've compromised the gospel, it's all for naught if you're going that direction.
12:25: There's not a hint of that tone in this passage at all.
12:28: So these are not folks who are thinking about these things and saying, I absolutely have to do it or God doesn't accept me.
12:36: That's not their mentality at all.
12:42: Verse 14, Paul says, I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it is unclean.
12:58: Now, that seems a little out of place.
13:00: What's he talking about there?
13:02: We're only going to get into that a little bit so far.
13:05: But essentially, unclean is a biblical word that has to do with how you're relating to God.
13:11: We're not talking about cleanliness.
13:12: We're not talking about sanitation when we talk about unclean.
13:15: It has to do with like common versus designated for God.
13:20: That's more how that word is used in the Bible.
13:22: And Paul brings it up here because it's relevant to this context.
13:28: And so I take it to mean that Paul says of these vegetable-only Christians that they're thinking somehow in some way of the meat and the wine as being common and not designated for God.
13:41: So in some sense, unclean.
13:45: Now, we're going to have to wait and get into what that is in more detail later.
13:48: But I read all these details.
13:51: I look at these specifics and I think, I don't think these are particularly weak Christians.
13:57: I kind of admire these guys.
13:59: I don't know if I agree with them on all the details.
14:01: In fact, I don't on all the details.
14:05: But these are solid brothers and sisters.
14:08: They're living out their faith.
14:10: They're seeking to glorify God.
14:11: And they're succeeding at that.
14:13: They're living out a thankfulness towards God.
14:16: They're expressing thanksgiving to God.
14:18: So they're not being self-righteous or self-sufficient in how they're thinking of things.
14:24: They're not being legalistic.
14:26: In many ways, these weak faith Christians are role models for us.
14:31: No wonder then that according to verse one, we're to welcome them in the body of Christ and neither quarrel with them nor judge them.
14:41: But we still haven't said, what is it that makes them weak in faith?
14:46: It has something to do with this unclean thing.
14:49: They abstain from eating meat.
14:51: Why?
14:52: The one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.
14:57: So they seem to have thought, I can honor God by not eating the meat.
15:04: I will not eat the meat and in choosing to eat just vegetables, I'm gonna honor God.
15:08: That seems to be what's going on.
15:10: Now we don't know exactly why.
15:12: We don't know all the extenuating circumstances.
15:15: But they seem to think that that was a better path for them to honor God than eating meat would be.
15:24: Which is interesting because they're wrong.
15:27: Paul says, you can eat whatever.
15:32: Nothing is unclean in and of itself.
15:33: You can think of some other sections in the Gospels where Jesus says that God declared all foods clean.
15:39: Or in Acts when God gave a vision to Peter about the sheet coming down and about how both all peoples, Gentiles Jews, and all foods are available for Christians to partake of and to have connection with.
15:53: So they're wrong that these things are somehow lesser.
15:59: And yet they are doing it for God's glory.
16:03: I think of a situation I faced, oh, probably about 15 years ago.
16:08: I was serving in a different church at the time.
16:10: And there was this couple that was attending regularly for quite some time.
16:13: And then they just popped off the map.
16:15: So I reached out and said, hey, how you guys doing?
16:17: Is everything all right?
16:18: And I found out that the husband had been reading some stuff online and he'd come across this website and had become convinced that it was wrong for Christians to celebrate Christmas or Easter.
16:30: And so he didn't want to come to church during the Easter or Christmas seasons when we had decorations up and we're talking about Easter and talking about Christmas.
16:40: And so one of the elders and I went and met with this guy and said, tell us more about this.
16:44: What are you thinking?
16:45: And it basically boiled down to the idea that these celebrations, as he understood them, came from pagan background.
16:55: And so it was wrong for Christians to participate in them.
16:59: And yet he acknowledged that what we at the local church level were doing had nothing to do with paganism.
17:04: We weren't doing any other gods.
17:05: We weren't doing anything but saying biblically true things about Jesus.
17:10: But he thought, I just, I can't, I can't be okay with me showing up when that stuff's going on and being part of that.
17:18: And we didn't try to persuade him to come to church during that season.
17:22: Because we said, okay, he thinks he's honoring the Lord by staying away from that thing.
17:29: I think he is.
17:30: I thought, I thought, you know, this guy is honoring the Lord.
17:33: Now, I think he's misguided in his understanding of Christmas and Easter, but he is honoring Jesus.
17:39: And I respect that.
17:43: But we also needed to have a conversation with him so that he could understand that the folks that were doing it weren't sinning.
17:52: Because he kind of got too far in that direction.
17:55: And so this elder and I took him to 1 Corinthians, chapter 8 and chapter 10, where Paul's dealing with a similar but not identical issue.
18:02: He was dealing with Christians saying, can I eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols?
18:08: See, what happened back then is people, pagans, worshiping various gods would take their animals and they would take it to this temple or that temple and they would offer the animal in a ritual of some sort as an offering to whatever pagan god.
18:24: And then they would get some or most of the meat back and it would be available for use.
18:31: But here's the thing.
18:32: If you don't have a deep freezer and you just killed a cow, you don't have a way to keep all that meat right away.
18:38: And so it would get essentially sold in the local butcher shop.
18:42: And so some of the Christians were saying, well, we can't buy meat at the butcher shop if it was sacrificed in the temple, can we?
18:49: And Paul's answer was, totally.
18:51: It's a burger.
18:52: It doesn't matter where it comes from.
18:55: It's just meat.
18:57: But then he went on to say in those passages that basically if somebody says, hey, you want to come over for dinner?
19:03: By all means, go over, have dinner with them.
19:05: Don't ask questions about where the meat come from.
19:08: It doesn't matter.
19:09: But if they make a point of saying, hey, we got meat from the offering to false god this or that, well, then you got to back off and you can't be part of that because you would be giving the impression that you're participating in that or you're embracing that in some way.
19:23: So he says, you can't do that.
19:25: And of course, you can't be like actually offering the meat up to the false god.
19:30: But meat's meat.
19:32: The origin of a thing does not determine the legitimacy of that thing.
19:39: So also this fellow needed to understand that just because somebody back when did something pagan with Christmas, possibly, or Easter, possibly, doesn't mean that it's out of bounds for somebody to do it in a legitimate way now.
19:53: Now, we weren't trying to convince him he had to celebrate Christmas.
19:57: We weren't trying to convince him he had to come during the Christmas season.
20:02: But we were saying, but you need to see that those who do this aren't sinning.
20:06: We can honor God in different ways and that's okay.
20:13: But we need to do it in a way that we can think well of each other because neither group is sinning here.
20:18: I want to share an extended quote by a Christian pastor that I thought was helpful in kind of unpacking this.
20:25: He writes, Paul's dealing with a similar situation, though not the same, to the one in Rome.
20:30: He says, For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
20:41: However, not all possess this knowledge.
20:44: But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol.
20:53: And their conscience, being weak, see that similar language, is defiled.
21:00: So, this pastor is quoting the context from 1 Corinthians.
21:05: He says, Not all possess this knowledge, namely, the knowledge that all creation is from God and through Christ and for God.
21:12: And lacking this knowledge, eating and drinking certain things are viewed in themselves as less honoring to God.
21:21: Paul puts it this way in 1 Corinthians 10.25, Eat whatever is sold in the meaty market without raising any question on the ground of conscience, for the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.
21:31: In other words, the fullness of faith, to eat what you will to the glory of God, is based on the fullness of knowledge that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.
21:44: The weak believer lacks this knowledge and perhaps other knowledge as well and therefore their faith is limited in its exercise.
21:54: They are weak in faith.
21:56: The strong, on the other hand, have a more full understanding of God and his relation to the world and are freed by this truth to embrace more of God's creation in a God-glorifying way.
22:07: I think the weak faith that's being described here is not about more or less confidence in God.
22:16: It's about having an inadequate understanding of our freedom in Jesus.
22:24: It's not understanding the full spectrum of the goodness of God toward us where God says, enjoy all these things.
22:34: I have in my head this picture of the Garden of Eden where God said, hey, all the plants, all the trees, all the stuff out here, enjoy it all except this one is off limits.
22:46: It'd be like them saying, well, we can enjoy most of it but I'm pretty sure because this one's off limits we probably shouldn't eat from any of the trees just to be safe.
22:55: Well, you can do that and you're not sinning by not eating of the trees but you're welcome to eat from the trees.
23:01: Just this one was off limits, right?
23:03: Those with the weaker faith are those who have less understanding of their freedom in Jesus but they're not self-indulgent.
23:12: They're not insisting on everyone doing things their way.
23:15: That's an important one.
23:17: It's not about saying whatever the lowest common denominator is, everyone has to live that way.
23:23: That's not what he's doing.
23:24: I think of a young woman I know, a Christian in college currently, Christian college student and she wears long skirts.
23:34: I think they're all denim, in fact.
23:36: I'm not 100% positive.
23:37: I don't think I've ever seen her in anything but a long denim skirt.
23:42: Is she right?
23:43: Well, yes and no.
23:45: Does she have to wear a skirt?
23:46: By no means.
23:49: Does she seem convinced that she needs to wear a skirt?
23:51: For whatever reason or reason, she seems to think so but she's not making it a point of division.
23:56: She totally hangs out with and is close friends with tons of people that don't do that.
24:04: So she chooses to wear a denim skirt seemingly to the glory of God as far as I can tell but she doesn't make it a point of division between her and other Christians.
24:15: She's honoring the Lord.
24:16: Now, she could totally honor the Lord with shorts or jeans or slacks or what have you.
24:22: That's fine.
24:23: She has the freedom to do that but she's not sinning by choosing to only wear long denim skirts.
24:28: And so I wouldn't want to see even the slightest bit of conflict with her.
24:33: And I don't know more about it because I've never bothered to ask her because why?
24:38: I don't need to create any conflict or tension.
24:41: Why would I do that?
24:42: No way.
24:43: Welcome her.
24:44: Right?
24:45: When Christians have differing opinions about how to best live for Jesus situations that are not sin situations situations that are not about obeying versus disobeying God how should we treat each other?
25:02: Go back to verse 1.
25:04: 14.1 is very explicit.
25:05: As for those who are weak in faith welcome him but not to quarrel over opinions.
25:11: That person should be welcomed.
25:13: Not just tolerated but welcomed.
25:16: They should be actively embracing we want you here we want you in this church family we want you in our life group or small group or Sunday school or what have you.
25:24: We want you here come on in.
25:28: But don't welcome them in so that they're a captive audience and you can nag them about this issue.
25:33: Hey why are you doing that?
25:35: Don't you think that's wrong?
25:36: Let's debate this.
25:38: No.
25:38: Leave them alone.
25:40: Don't bug them on that.
25:41: We believe here at Faith Chapel that God's word speaks against various abuses of alcohol addiction and drunkenness and and doing it in a context that causes a fellow Christian to stumble.
25:58: But we do not believe that God's word requires that Christians abstain from alcohol.
26:04: But you know what?
26:05: If you don't drink at all welcome.
26:08: In fact I don't drink at all.
26:11: Most of you probably don't even know that about me because it's just not an issue.
26:15: Now I could I may at some point but it's just not an issue for me.
26:21: I just don't happen to drink and in so doing I'm honoring the Lord.
26:25: But I got zero beef with you having a beer or a glass of wine or champagne or what have you.
26:32: Get along.
26:33: Welcome each other.
26:35: Verse three is really important.
26:37: Check this out.
26:39: Let not the one who eats that is the one who better more fully recognizes their freedom in Christ let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains.
26:51: In other words those who consume alcohol can't look down on me because I don't.
26:58: You can't despise me or condemn me or look down on me because I don't happen to drink alcohol.
27:03: Right?
27:04: And let not the one who abstains like me who doesn't happen to drink alcohol let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats for God is welcome to him.
27:18: So I'm the one that doesn't drink.
27:19: I can't look at you having a beer and say oh you're one of those half-hearted Christians because you drink now.
27:26: We have to be able to look at each other and say in bounds.
27:31: That is acceptable.
27:32: That is pleasing to God.
27:34: We may have different ideas about the best choice in this situation but we're both honoring Jesus.
27:40: And alcohol I'm just using that as an example because A it's in the larger passage and B we live in Wisconsin so it's one of those things.
27:48: Right?
27:48: But we have to be able to say to one another this is in bounds.
27:55: The trick is it has to be an in bounds thing.
27:58: Right?
27:58: If it's hey you look at porn and I don't well that's not an in bounds thing.
28:05: Right?
28:05: That's a sin issue.
28:06: We can't just say agree to disagree on that.
28:10: Strong faith Christians who are more aware of their freedom cannot despise look down on the other group and it goes both ways.
28:17: I think about when I first joined the alliance.
28:20: This denomination when I joined it 22, 23 years ago had a no drinking alcohol policy for all the pastors and missionaries and official workers of whatever sort.
28:29: And I remember when I was being interviewed by the leadership they said are you aware of this?
28:34: And I said yes.
28:35: And they said are you willing to abide by that?
28:37: And my answer was this.
28:39: If you're asking me to abstain alcohol because alcohol consumption is sinful no I cannot abide by that.
28:48: But if you're asking me to abstain from alcohol just to set an example that one needn't drink alcohol necessarily I'm happy to abstain.
28:58: And they said that works for us welcome.
29:02: And I think that's the way that we need to look at these kinds of things.
29:09: We're going to see as we continue to look at this passage in the following section because it really kind of moves through the whole chapter and into part of 15 that these are agree to disagree kinds of issues and the one who correctly sees themselves as having more freedom they need to self-restrict in that freedom sometimes but not all the times.
29:40: Okay.
29:41: I was having a conversation with my friend former pastor Pastor Dan and he was talking about how when he's with Christians for a meal and they're at a place where there might be alcohol very often the people will say oh you're a pastor do you mind if I have a drink?
29:56: They just kind of have this assumption that he's a pastor so maybe it's not allowed or maybe that's out of bounds.
30:01: And as we talked about it we both agreed that was good that they were sensitive to that and that they were prepared to not drink if it was going to be an issue for him.
30:10: And for him like me the answer was I don't mind go ahead I'm just not gonna.
30:16: But that attitude of if this is going to be an issue for you I'd rather not do that right now is exactly the attitude we need to have.
30:26: So I want to encourage you in two seemingly contradictory directions.
30:30: One be open to learning more about your freedom in Christ and understanding the things that are in bounds.
30:37: but once you discover that something is in bounds be willing to not do that in certain contexts in order to prioritize your relationship with other Christians above your ability to do that thing.
30:55: Now if Pastor Dan had been out for lunch and his friend or somebody in the group had said hello you're a pastor do you mind if I have a beer with my lunch and he said actually that does bother me.
31:06: That person should not have a beer at that lunch while he's present but they are totally free to have a beer at some other lunch right they don't have to live according to his conscience the rest of the time and they don't have to hide that they're doing that right we're not playing secrets to not offend the judgmental person no we're talking about people saying we're not going to be judging towards each other we're going to be accepting of each other so look around at the brothers and sisters here look at them with love and compassion even when they may make different choices than you non-sin choices about how to live for God be excited be glad to do life together with all the variety that we have represented be glad that God has redeemed each and every one of us through Jesus Christ and that in the end we're all going to cross that finish line and get to be with God forever because God's the one that's going to make sure that we stand and don't fall away God's going to be the one that sees us across that finish line so that we enjoy him forever amen amen amen let's pray God I pray that you would help us to that we make into sin issues that really aren't help us to recognize where we are evaluating ourselves or evaluating others by worldly standards making ourselves the test and our views the standard help us to have compassion and acceptance for one another and say they're doing it different but they're different is not necessarily wrong in the circumstance so let's celebrate the diversity that we have and let's do it in a way that prioritizes unity amongst Christians so that God is honored as he ought to be in Jesus name we pray amen