00:00: There are lots and lots and lots of things that you can do.
00:06: Legitimate, good things.
00:09: Things that there's nothing wrong with doing those things.
00:12: But sometimes you shouldn't do those things.
00:15: I love to grill.
00:17: Grilling food is just one of the most fantastic things out there.
00:21: I love to grill burgers and brats and dogs and steak and chicken and pork and fish and vegetables.
00:30: And pineapple, when you get those grill marks on the pineapple slices, oh, so good.
00:35: And as far as I'm concerned, the proper time to grill is all year round.
00:40: I grill all four seasons.
00:43: Even in January, I'm getting some thumbs up.
00:44: You know what I'm talking about, right?
00:46: All year round grilling.
00:48: But in its place, right?
00:52: And the place for grilling is outdoors.
00:55: If you grill indoors, there's problems that result.
01:02: Because grilling produces carbon monoxide.
01:05: And in an enclosed area, carbon monoxide will kill you.
01:09: Years ago, my mom explained this to my father and tried to get him to promise not to grill indoors.
01:15: Because he had one of these little tabletop hibachi style ones.
01:19: He was like, no, no, it's going to be raining.
01:20: I'll just do it inside.
01:21: It won't be that long.
01:22: No, you could kill yourself and the kids.
01:25: You can't do that.
01:26: Promise me.
01:27: And so he tried it.
01:28: And he started getting sleepy.
01:31: And then he had to rush outside with it using potholders.
01:34: And it was not an ideal situation.
01:35: Sometimes a good thing can be a bad thing if it's in the wrong time or the wrong place.
01:44: In fact, it can become so not appropriate a choice that it becomes dangerous to yourself or to others.
01:53: So also it can be with our freedom in Christ.
01:56: We have oodles of freedom as Christians in terms of how we live day to day as we follow Jesus.
02:06: There's lots of flexibility and freedom in terms of what that's going to look like.
02:12: But there are also times and contexts that demands that we limit the number of choices that we make.
02:22: We've been studying in Romans chapter 14 and go ahead and open your Bibles to Romans 14.
02:27: We've been looking in Romans 14 and saying, how do we preserve unity within the church?
02:34: How do we have a right attitude towards one another when our brothers and sisters in Christ sometimes make different choices than we make?
02:45: Now, in the context of Romans 14, we're not talking about one Christian choosing sin and another Christian choosing not sin.
02:53: We're talking about two different Christians making non-sin choices.
02:58: These are folks who are choosing to live for Jesus in an appropriate way but making different decisions.
03:07: Romans chapter 14, verses 13 to 23 is the portion we're going to look at this morning.
03:11: And we read, Therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.
03:26: 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.
03:37: For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love.
03:43: By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died.
03:48: So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil.
03:53: For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
04:02: Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.
04:06: So then, let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.
04:14: Do not for the sake of food destroy the work of God.
04:18: Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats.
04:26: It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.
04:32: The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God.
04:36: Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves.
04:42: But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith.
04:50: For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
04:54: This is really the extension of the first half of the chapter.
04:59: And Paul is saying, Christians, this is how you do life together when you do life differently.
05:08: This is how we, as followers of Jesus, deal with walking alongside, doing life alongside fellow Christians who live as Jesus' followers in a little bit different way than we do.
05:21: Now, this isn't at all about giving permission for any Christians to choose sin.
05:26: But it's saying, when there's more than one option on the table, and you choose differently, how do you deal with that?
05:33: Notice back in verse 6 from our previous section, Paul says, Now, Paul was dealing with some folks who thought, oh, I can eat only vegetables as a faithful follower of God.
05:55: And other ones are like, no, you can eat meat too.
05:56: There's no problem with that.
05:58: And Paul says, you can do both of those things in a way that honors God.
06:02: There are some folks that thought, well, we have to celebrate or observe certain probably spiritual religious holidays.
06:08: And other ones are like, no, you don't need to do that.
06:10: Totally optionally either way.
06:13: And you can do either in a way that honors God, according to verse 6.
06:18: These are both good option scenarios.
06:21: Which is why we saw in verse 3, Paul saying, Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains.
06:28: And let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats.
06:33: So if you get two different Christians in this very church who are choosing two different ways of honoring God, and they're both legitimate choices, you can't be having a bad attitude towards the other one for making a different choice than you.
06:47: That's a legitimate choice that honors God.
06:49: So hands off on that one, right?
06:51: If both Christians are making legitimate, God-honoring choices, then we have no business despising or judging one another about these kinds of decisions.
07:05: Now, if a Christian is choosing a total sin thing, then we need to speak up and correct that person in love, help get them out of that mess that they're walking into.
07:15: Now, Paul's coming back to the same set of issues in verse 13 and following.
07:19: Notice in verse 13, he says, Let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, right?
07:25: There's this tendency to look at somebody else doing something different and say, It's different.
07:28: It must be wrong.
07:31: If I open the dishwasher and it's half loaded, and I'm not the one that half loaded it, it's usually organized wrong by my standards.
07:39: Is it wrong?
07:39: No.
07:40: It's just different than what I do.
07:42: And I have no business looking down my nose at my wife or my kids for having loaded the dishwasher differently.
07:49: That's okay.
07:51: Let her load it differently.
07:53: That's fine.
07:55: Both good options.
07:57: And I can't be judging her.
07:59: Rather than judging one another as Christians for making different ways of living for God choices, rather decide never to put a stumbling block or a hindrance in the way of a brother.
08:14: Now, there's a couple things we need to see about this verse.
08:19: The kind of judgment that we're told not to do here is not all kinds of judgment.
08:25: Judging in the New Testament can be used a couple of different ways, just like it is in English.
08:28: There can be judging like wagging your finger at somebody, condemning them.
08:34: That's the kind of judging we're not supposed to be doing.
08:36: And then there's the kind of judging like discerning, calling a spade a spade, recognizing what's what.
08:43: That kind of judging, the discerning kind, is absolutely required biblically and in this very passage.
08:50: You can't know when to agree to disagree if you can't discern what kind of issue you're talking about.
08:57: Discern judgment, good.
08:59: Condemn judgment, bad.
09:00: Secondly, the verse calls us to make a decision.
09:06: Let me rephrase that.
09:08: God, in verse 13, calls you, Christian, and me, to make a choice.
09:15: And I don't think he means for us to delay this decision.
09:18: Means for us to make this choice this morning.
09:21: Decide never to put a stumbling block or a hindrance in the way of a brother or sister in Christ.
09:30: Decide right now that when situations come up and you have to make a choice, you're going to consistently choose not to be a spiritual hindrance to somebody else.
09:45: That's the choice every one of us needs to make right here and right now.
09:50: Because sometimes those moments are going to have consequences for us.
09:55: Usually, in moments where this becomes an issue, there's going to be a measure of inconvenience for you.
10:03: And we're going to look at that.
10:07: We also need to go a step further.
10:09: It's not simply that we don't put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of someone else.
10:13: We need to go further.
10:14: Look at verse 19.
10:17: So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.
10:22: We need to make the kinds of choices as Christians that help all of us as Christians to get along, to be at peace with each other.
10:30: Not necessarily to make the same choices, but to be at peace with each other even when we make different choices.
10:37: And to make the sorts of decisions that build each other up.
10:42: That's a big deal.
10:44: Mutually building each other up.
10:47: Church attendance is not about singing songs.
10:50: It's not about putting in your dues.
10:52: It's not about being well recorded on attendance lists.
10:55: It's about strengthening, encouraging, building one another up.
11:01: It's about helping one another to spiritually be healthier and more mature.
11:08: And that goes in every direction.
11:10: As the pastor, I am not without the same need as you are.
11:14: Every one of us needs this from one another.
11:16: We need each other investing us in ways that spiritually strengthen us.
11:22: And we shouldn't need to worry about going to church and being attacked or judged or torn down by somebody for reasonable choices that we might make.
11:33: We have a lot of freedom as Christians to live for God in a lot of different, legitimate ways.
11:38: And that's okay.
11:41: And we should say, I want to use my freedom in a way that blesses others.
11:46: I can't help but think of when in writing to the church in Corinth, Paul addressed the issue of spiritual gifts.
11:53: And he said, these gifts are all great.
11:55: But if you're going to focus on that, focus on the things that build each other up.
12:00: You want to be concerned about spiritual gifts?
12:01: Be concerned about how you bless your fellow Christians with these abilities that you've been given.
12:06: When you come to church, by all means, I hope that you're encouraged.
12:11: I hope that you are motivated to go back out into the world and live for Jesus in the coming week.
12:18: But I also hope that you're coming to give, that you're coming to invest in someone else, to encourage someone else in their faith, to encourage someone, keep going.
12:29: Keep following Jesus this week.
12:31: It's worth it.
12:31: God's going to be with you every step of the way.
12:33: Don't give up.
12:34: Don't despair.
12:35: God has a purpose in this.
12:38: God's going to work this for your good as you follow Jesus in some way.
12:42: I don't know what that's going to look like, but I believe, based on God's word, that God knows what he's doing here.
12:47: We encourage each other.
12:48: We build each other up.
12:50: So come each week to give that kind of blessing to one another.
12:54: The alternative to this attitude of non-judging, but rather pursuing peace and building each other up, the alternative is not neutrality.
13:05: Look at verse 20.
13:06: He says, do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.
13:11: In context, he's talking about people saying, well, I'm going to eat whatever I want, which is fine, but doing it in a way that messes with somebody else in their faith.
13:23: That would be like today, maybe encountering someone that says, you know, I grew up in a church background that says Christians can't drink alcohol.
13:31: Can Christians drink alcohol?
13:32: Yeah.
13:33: But you ought not to be drinking alcohol with that Christian because it's a stumbling block for that person.
13:39: And it just, it puts them all riled up and it has a negative impact on that person.
13:46: So you say, well, when I'm with that person, I'm not going to drink.
13:49: No big deal.
13:49: I choose to prioritize this person over the possibility of having a negative impact on them because this person is somebody in whose, in whom God is at work.
14:02: This is somebody for whom Christ died.
14:03: They are way more important than a beer or if it's a meat issue, a steak or if it's a holiday, then celebrating this holiday or that holiday.
14:13: The people around us are far more important than that.
14:17: And the reality is we can't avoid this.
14:20: Everyone here who is a Christian had somebody in his or her life that shared Jesus with them.
14:29: Somehow, someway, Jesus was shared with you.
14:32: And not only that, but your understanding of the Christian life, your understanding of how it is that we're supposed to be as Christians has been shaped by people.
14:41: You don't have an idea of the Christian life formed exclusively based on your Bible reading and the sermons you've heard and the Bible studies you've been in.
14:50: Rather, you are at least partly shaped by what you've seen other Christians do and what you've seen other Christians shun.
14:58: The example of other Christians is formative.
15:01: And so also is your example to others.
15:05: So we need to be intentional about the example that we set and make sure that we're setting an example that builds up.
15:12: I might do one thing in front of Eric that I wouldn't do in front of his two-year-old son, Caleb.
15:19: Because the context is different.
15:21: What each of them can handle from me is totally different.
15:24: I may interact with somebody who's been here for a long time differently than I might interact with a first-time visitor because they don't know my sense of humor yet and they need to be eased into that, right?
15:34: They don't know what's going on.
15:40: How we live together as Jesus followers is really important.
15:45: Suppose there was somebody in our church who said, you know, lately I've been reading my Bible and I was working through the book of Daniel and I see this story about how Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego all chose not to eat meat and instead lived a vegetarian diet and it seems like it was a really good thing that they were doing that.
16:02: And so I thought I would do that as well.
16:06: This person says, I understand that it's not wrong for Christians to eat meat, but I want to honor God by imitating these four heroes of the faith and going vegetarian.
16:18: Can a person in this church legitimately make that choice?
16:23: Yes.
16:23: That person can legitimately make that choice.
16:27: There's nothing wrong with that choice and they honor God in choosing that path.
16:32: And so I have no business trying to talk them out of it.
16:36: Now, that doesn't mean I have to become a vegetarian.
16:38: I'm still having burgers, but I'm not going to have the burgers in front of them.
16:43: I'm not going to say to that person who says, oh, I'm going to do this for the next year, like, waft the fresh roasted burger under their nose.
16:49: Oh, doesn't that smell good, right?
16:52: I'm not going to do that to them.
16:53: That's not helpful.
16:54: That's not building up.
16:55: That's not encouraging.
16:56: And I might be tempting them to step out of what they believe God's calling them to for that period.
17:03: So I need to make choices that don't hinder this person living out their faith in Jesus Christ in a legitimate, reasonable way.
17:17: I don't want to tempt them to do something they don't think they should do.
17:22: I don't want to tempt them to violate their conscience.
17:25: Now, I want every one of us in this room as a Christian to obey God at every turn, right?
17:32: But there are times when your conscience will only let you do some things and not everything.
17:39: I do not want you to violate your conscience.
17:42: I don't want you to do something that you don't feel right about doing.
17:47: God has given us conscience for a reason.
17:49: And we are not called by God to violate our conscience or to influence others to violate their consciences.
17:57: Now, it may be that our conscience changes over time as we become more familiar with God's word and what God says, and that's legitimate.
18:05: But until your conscience changes, you don't violate it.
18:09: Never violate your conscience.
18:11: Verses 20 to 21 says, Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.
18:17: Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats.
18:24: It is good to not eat meat or drink wine or do anything that caused your brother to stumble.
18:29: So this clean, unclean, it's not talking about sanitation.
18:31: It's talking about spiritual acceptability.
18:33: That's an Old Testament language of clean and unclean.
18:36: He's saying, you can eat anything you want and that's spiritually acceptable.
18:39: There is no spiritually unacceptable food except for maybe fried bologna, but not even that.
18:45: Even fried bologna is spiritually acceptable, okay?
18:47: No spiritually unacceptable food.
18:49: But if somebody thinks that a certain thing's out of bounds, then for that person, it is out of bounds.
18:56: And we can't try to influence them in a way that tries to get them to go against what they think is right.
19:02: Why?
19:03: Why?
19:05: Because in so doing, we are likely to get them in a place where they're violating their conscience.
19:14: Verse 15 gets even more explicit.
19:16: If your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love.
19:22: But what you eat, by what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died.
19:27: He says, if you're exercising your freedom in a way that causes problems for your fellow Christian, you're not walking in love.
19:35: You're not living a life of love.
19:37: Now, put a scale here.
19:40: On one hand, we've got loving our fellow Christian.
19:43: On the other side, we've got choosing to use our freedoms.
19:47: Which one is the more important issue?
19:50: It's love.
19:52: It's love.
19:54: Love over liberty is the principle here.
19:57: When there is a tension between loving people and the liberty that we have in Christ, love trumps.
20:04: Choose love over liberty every time.
20:09: Jesus said that the second greatest commandment is loving your neighbor as yourself.
20:15: We don't get that right if we choose to emphasize our freedoms.
20:20: Now, we do have freedoms in Christ.
20:23: It's not that they don't matter.
20:24: It's that when there's a tension between these two, the one totally outweighs the other.
20:28: I think of Luke chapter 11, verse 42, when Jesus said to the Pharisees, Woe to you, Pharisees, for you tithe mint and rue and every herb and neglect justice and the love of God.
20:40: You see, they took these little things and they treated them like big things and then they took the big things and treated them like little things.
20:48: And Jesus says, no.
20:50: The big thing is loving your fellow Christian.
20:53: The little thing is getting to always make full use of your freedom.
20:59: Love over liberty.
21:05: Love over liberty is the key to handling these kinds of matters well on the horizontal level.
21:11: You and other believers.
21:12: That's the horizontal.
21:13: The you and other people.
21:14: Love over liberty.
21:15: But what about the vertical level?
21:16: What about you and God?
21:18: What does it look like in that context?
21:20: The issue there is faith over freedom.
21:25: We have freedom to do a lot of things as Christians but never in a way that doesn't flow from faith.
21:33: Just as we choose to value loving people more than we choose to value our freedom in Christ, love over liberty, so also we need to choose to value living by faith in Jesus more than we value our freedom in Christ.
21:47: Faith over freedom.
21:48: One of the major issues that Paul was addressing was Christians having different ideas about what foods we're honoring to God to eat and which ones weren't.
21:56: Which special occasions had to be observed and which ones didn't.
22:00: He's even more explicit in verse 14.
22:03: I know and I'm persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it is unclean.
22:11: That's really important right there.
22:13: If you think you ought not to do it, you shouldn't do it.
22:18: Right?
22:19: Don't violate your conscience.
22:20: If you think this is out of bounds, don't go there.
22:25: Why?
22:27: Because it becomes wrong if you think it's wrong.
22:30: It becomes wrong for you, not for someone else if you think it's wrong.
22:34: So, say for example, I decide, oh, Carrie's birthday's coming up, I'm going to celebrate her birthday.
22:39: I'm going to take her out for a steak dinner and so we go to Texas Roadhouse and I see that at Texas Roadhouse people get their birthday celebrated.
22:48: They tell the waiter or waitress, oh, it's so and so's birthday and then they, have you seen what they do there?
22:53: They bring over the sawhorse with the saddle on it and then they get the birthday person to sit on the saddle and they're really kind of forceful about it once they know and then the person has to sit there and then they call the whole restaurant to attention, oh, we got a birthday here and then they do this big song and dance and whatever and it's totally embarrassing for the person on the saddle.
23:10: And what if I think to myself in that moment, you know, Carrie would hate that and she would and she would kill me and rightly so.
23:24: But suppose I thought to myself, you know, Carrie would hate that but I see other people doing that so I'm going to go ahead and do what everyone else is doing even though I think it's going to be wrong for Carrie.
23:36: Then I've done wrong, right?
23:38: Even if other people are doing it, even if other people are legitimately doing it, it's wrong for me to do that to Carrie if I think Carrie is not going to like it.
23:51: Suppose I do it and it turns out she actually did like it.
23:55: Now that's not going to happen.
23:56: I know my wife well enough.
23:57: There is no scenario where I embarrass her like that and she's happy with it.
24:00: But hypothetically, she likes it.
24:02: I still did wrong because I thought I was doing something that she would dislike.
24:07: We don't do something that we believe is wrong to do.
24:17: This applies in how we live for God.
24:20: Verse 23, whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats because the eating is not from faith.
24:28: For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
24:33: That's a life-altering principle right there.
24:37: The only things that are not sin are things done in faith in God.
24:47: Anything that you do, even good things, even otherwise legitimate things, if they're not done in faith, are sin.
24:55: He doesn't say they're neutral.
24:57: He doesn't say they're lacking.
24:58: He says they're sin.
24:59: We are meant to live 24-7 in everything we do in reliance on God, in dependence on Him, in living out our trust in Jesus in a way that pleases Him.
25:13: We are to do what we think is honoring to God, pleasing to God, celebrating God.
25:18: Now, I have the freedom as a Christian to eat a steak, to drink a beer, to celebrate Christmas, to read the Quran, and 10,000 other things.
25:30: I'm not saying I should or shouldn't do any of those things.
25:33: I'm just saying I've got the freedom as a Christian to do those things.
25:37: But if any one of those freedoms was at some time or in some context or in some way something that I thought I probably shouldn't do that, then it becomes something I shouldn't do.
25:49: If I was thinking, you know, maybe I'll read this Quran book and I'll find out what Islam's about more in that way.
25:55: That's acceptable.
25:56: I do that in a way that honors God.
25:59: But if I say, you know, I'm kind of afraid that in my head it's just going to kind of blur together.
26:04: I'm going to mix up Bible and Quran and they're all going to get blended.
26:06: I shouldn't read it then if that's my concern.
26:10: Right?
26:11: There's different ways that we can come at this sometimes in bounds, sometimes out of bounds.
26:17: 14.23 is a key principle for us as Christians.
26:21: Only what is motivated by faith, only what is reliant on faith is pleasing to God.
26:25: Hebrews 11 says much the same thing.
26:27: Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
26:34: God is not impressed by you making good choices.
26:39: Instead, God wants you to trust him.
26:42: God wants you to live with him as your focus.
26:47: When you do that, you're in the zone.
26:52: The greatest commandment, Jesus said, is to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.
27:01: To be 100% in for living for God.
27:04: We're not doing that if we're not living by faith.
27:08: In truth, really, what Paul's doing in this passage is he's applying the first and second greatest commandments.
27:14: Love God, love your neighbor.
27:16: And he's saying, what does that look like in this kind of situation?
27:19: Well, it looks like not causing each other to stumble.
27:21: It looks like not doing it in violation of your conscience.
27:25: It looks like putting God and others ahead of yourself.
27:32: Loving God, loving neighbor, means putting God and neighbor above your freedoms.
27:39: Earlier we said from verse 13, we are called to decide, to choose, to make that choice today, never to put a stumbling block in front of someone.
27:46: But here's the thing.
27:49: To live out that choice means self-restriction sometimes.
27:55: It means you are going to have to choose not to do something that you could maybe do.
28:04: You're going to have to sometimes choose not to do something that other Christians are doing.
28:10: That's what this needs to look like.
28:13: We have so much freedom in how we live for God.
28:16: When it's not a sin issue, believers have an unbelievable amount of liberty in choosing how to live life as Christ followers.
28:25: But we don't have the freedom to make choices at the expense of faith.
28:31: We don't have the liberty to make choices at the expense of loving our neighbor.
28:37: Faith in God and love for people are both far more important than us fully using all of our freedoms in any given situation.
28:48: And so I call on all of us to commit maybe for the first time maybe to commit afresh that we will consistently choose nothing if it's not from faith and to do nothing that would harm the faith of a fellow Christian because God and our fellow Christians are way more important than us getting to do everything that we might want to do.
29:11: Amen?
29:12: Amen.
29:13: Let's pray.
29:15: God, we want to be more and more discerning.
29:21: We want to be able to recognize which differences in the life of your people are Romans 14 issues.
29:29: Not sin issues, not disobedience to God issues, but just different ways of living for your glory and your honor so that we can treat one another in those circumstances the way that we ought to.
29:45: Not excusing sin, not letting each other walk into spiritual unhealthiness, but giving each other the freedom to live for Jesus in good and profound ways.
29:59: But God, we recognize, we confess that we are so prone to being self-centered that we want our way and we don't want anyone stepping on our toes and getting in the way of us doing anything and everything that we're allowed to do.
30:15: I pray that you will grow us in our love for God and our love for others so that it becomes easy for us to say no to self when it means saying yes to God and yes to loving others.
30:30: We ask for your help in these things so that your people are united and have peace with one another and so that you get the glory in the church now and for all generations.
30:45: In Jesus' name we pray.
30:46: Amen.