Two Journeys

Up in the heavenly realms, according to Revelation Chapter 4, there is a throne with someone sitting on it. And the 24 elders and the four living creatures and 100 million angels at least encircle that throne and they celebrate and they worship Almighty God continually day and night, praising and saying, "Holy, holy, holy." And they say, "You are worthy, our God, to receive honor and praise and glory and blessing, for You created all things. And by Your will they were created and have their being." That worship of God the Creator is going on incessantly in the heavenly realms. Wouldn't you love to be there right now? And then in Revelation Chapter 5 there's a different picture. I'm not preaching on Revelation this morning, I'll get to Romans in a minute, but I just love the vision of the heavenly worship, it just has the power to make you glad. It has the power to make you happy and to give you strength to fight sin. And so I think we ought to be meditating much on heaven, don't you?

And so in Revelation 5, as Revelation 4 celebrates God the Father or God the creator, so in Revelation 5, we have a celebration of God the Redeemer, Jesus Christ. And this is what the Scripture says, "Then I saw a lamb looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne." Meditate on that. "Encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He came and took the scroll, the title deed of the earth some call it, it may be so. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb and each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song. 'You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain, and with your blood, you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.'"

Oh, what an awesome picture of heavenly worship of Christ the Redeemer, whose blood is shed for people from every tribe and language and people and nation. They are His. Many of them haven't heard about it yet but they will because the missionaries are going to reach them some day, but they are His already, they are blood-bought and they belong to Christ. And so there's this extended scene of heavenly worship for Christ, the Redeemer that's going on right now.

John Piper: Let the Nations Be Glad!

As a result of that vision of worship, I believe, John Piper introduced his great book on missions called; Let The Nations Be Glad! In this way, this is what he said at the very beginning,

"Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exist because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity but worship abides forever. Worship, therefore, is the fuel and the goal in missions. It's the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white hot enjoyment of God's glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. 'The Lord reigns. Let the earth rejoice. Let the distant coast lands be glad!' (Psalm 97:1). 'Let the peoples praise thee, O God, that all the peoples praise Thee, let the nations be glad, and sing for joy!' (Psalm 67). But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God and worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can't commend what you don't cherish. Missionaries will never call out, 'Let the nations be glad' who cannot say from the heart 'I rejoice in the Lord…I will be glad and exalt in thee. I will sing praise at thy name, O Most High' (Psalm 104:34; 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship." 

Oh how powerful is that?  Christ came, took on a human body. Suffered on the cross, bled and died, and was raised from the dead to make the nations glad, to make them eternally glad. Not just glad for this afternoon because they get to eat their favorite lunch. Not glad just for the next six months, because they've had a good harvest. Not glad for the next couple of years because their first born son was born to them this morning. Not glad for the next number of decades because they finally get to marry the girl of their dreams. All of those things are temporary. No, Christ came and suffered and died on the cross and was raised from the dead on the third day to make them eternally glad in Himself. Eternally glad in God. Glad forever and ever and ever and ever. Now, that's a powerful amount of gladness.

And you may wonder what could be the fuel, the eternal fuel of that much rejoicing? It can only be an infinite topic, it can only be an infinite subject, and that is the glory of God. It is God, the Creator, who by His will, He created all things, and they have their being, and also Christ, the Redeemer. These are infinite topics and they will keep us busy in gladness, forever and ever. The Lord reigns, let the nations be glad. Let the distant shores rejoice. Christ came to make the nations glad in Him, in His reign, in His sovereign supremacy and in His delightful personality.

Wouldn't you love to know Him better? Wouldn't you yearn to know Him better? I do. I yearn to know Christ better just as Paul did in Philippians 3. Just to know Him, what a delightful personality, we'll have eternity to search that personality forever and ever. And this was His stated goal, to make people from every tribe and language and people and nation eternally glad in Himself. It was His stated goal before the foundation of the world. But I say to you at present, the nations are not glad in Him. They are not glad in God's eternal power and divine nature, they are not glad in God's immutable throne, not according to His eternal purpose. There are some in the nations that are glad, but they all belong to Him, each one of them.

And so what is the solution to that problem? Well, it is missions. It's missions. It's people like you and me going across the miles and reaching out with the gospel to those who are not yet glad in God's sovereignty, not yet glad in Christ's redemption. It's missions, that's the solution of the problem. As Paul already stated in Romans chapter 10: "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent, as it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.'" So what's the problem? Well, in God's infinite wisdom, the preachers, the missionaries, they must be sent. They must be sent out. The sending ones are the church. The church, therefore, must be a healthy, strong, united sending pad, launching pad for missions.

And I believe that Paul is writing in this section to the Roman church, so that they will be united around that purpose. That they will be a united launching pad for missions to the Gentiles. That's his purpose, that's why he wants them to be united. Now, let's do a little review. Romans 14, we've seen that the church in Rome was a divided... Not a divided church, a mixed church. I don't want to say divided, but they could have been divided because they were struggling over what we call debatable issues. And so Paul in Romans 14:1, urges them not to divide over debatable issues, but rather welcome each other and not dispute over these debatable issues.

Well, what would they be? Well, we've seen in our studies in Romans 14, it would be how the law of Moses would take part in the ongoing Christian life, and perhaps issues connected to paganism. Like what about eating meat sacrifice of idols and all of these debatable issues? His like, "Let's not divide, let's not have Jews and Gentiles dividing over these things. We cannot have it." And so, therefore, he desires the church to be united, to be genuinely united and not crushed by division. And so he wants this mixed church of Jews and Gentiles to love each other, and welcome each other.

Now, last time, we saw that the present struggle in Palestine between Jews and Gentiles, Hezbollah and Israel and all of that, are really just the modern chapters of an ancient struggle. And frankly the whole Jew-Gentile struggle is itself a subset of the conflicts that all human beings just tend to have. The reason is we're not at peace with God, therefore, we're not at peace within ourselves and therefore we're not at peace with other people in the world, whoever they may be. And so any division in conflict is really all united in that way. The church of Rome, we saw last time had the seeds of its own destruction already planted in its sin nature. It's not easy for sinners to come together and be in close contact with each other without division and controversy and strife starting to crop up. And so, he desired the unity of the church.

Now, I said last time in John 17:23, Jesus prays' High Priestly Prayer, and He prays in this way, he says, "May they, the church, be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as You have loved Me." In other words, as we become more and more Gospel united, as we become more and more one as the Father and the Son are one, in this world now, as the world is watching that unification process, then the Gospel is heightened in it's estimation in the hearts of the unbelievers and they see the power of the Gospel to transform lives, and they're attracted to it. They believe that Christ was sent by God, the Father, it is therefore essential to the advance of the Gospel that these local churches be united, that they be genuinely one.

So what's the flow of thought here in Romans 15:7-13? I think what's happening is this. First, all things should be done to the glory of God, all things. Salvation plan itself was worked out before the foundation of the world to be maximally for the glory of God, that's how God desires to glorify Himself with this redemption plan. That redemption plan, before the foundation of the world, included both Jews and Gentiles. Not Jews alone, but Jews and Gentiles. Christ was sent to fulfill that plan, and He, Himself, is the pattern for Jew-Gentile unity. He accepted sinners like us and therefore we should accept one another. Jew-Gentile unity and worshipping God was prophesied to the patriarchs and the promises made to the patriarchs and to the prophets, as we'll see this morning.

The ultimate and then would be that elect representatives from every tribe and language and people and nation would be around the throne worshipping God, God the Creator and Christ the Redeemer, forever and ever, blood-bought, cleansed from their sins, they will be around that throne forever and ever, and therefore we should get along. We should get along with each other in the local church. We should love each other. We should get over our petty divisions and disagreements and troubles, whatever they may be. Because someday, we're going to spend eternity together around that same throne. And the more we can imitate that now the better it will be for the advance of the Gospel. That's the whole flow of the argument and that's what's going on here.

Now, last time I gave you six remedies to this Jew-Gentile division, which I said by a connection extends to really any division in your life; Your marriage, your parenting, and church, etcetera, but focus on the issue of Jew-Gentile division in that local church.

1) Understand God’s Ultimate Purpose: His Own Glory

First, I said we need to understand God's ultimate purpose, and that is His own glory. If you focus on God's glory, it's going to be hard for you to bicker about whatever is top on your list. You diminish and shrink, in your own estimation, and God becomes greater and greater. And so, you're able to get beyond your divisions and controversy.

2) Understand God’s Second Purpose: Our Eternal, United Delight in His Glory

 Secondly, we should understand God's second purpose, and God's second purpose is to make us eternally happy in His own glory. He really wants to love us and give us gifts, and so He wants to give us Himself as the highest gift and secondly, He wants to give us each other as a lower gift, lower than Himself, but still glorious and wonderful. And I don't mean ourselves as we kind of are now, all messy in our sin and our selfishness, but I mean, He wants to give us each other glorious in Christ forever and ever. And so, that's what He's doing, He's giving gifts to us.

3) Obey God’s Command: Accept Each Other Wholeheartedly

Thirdly, we needed simply obey His command. He's told us in 14:1 and then in 15:7, we should accept one another. We should just accept one another, we should welcome each other and treat each other that way.

4) Follow Christ’s Pattern of Acceptance

Fourth, we should follow Christ's pattern of acceptance. I said last time that Christ gives us both the why and the how of accepting one another. Why should we accept one another? Because Christ has accepted us. How should we accept one another? In the manner that Christ accepted us, and we saw it in all the different ways that Christ welcomed people and so we should welcome each other that way.

5) Understand Christ’s Servanthood “to the Jews First”

Fifth, we should understand Christ's servanthood to the Jews, understand it, and see how Christ came as the servant to the circumcision of the servant to the Jews, and how He served them by taking their griefs and their iniquities and even their sins to the cross, not as a potentate, but as a humble servant.

6) Understand Christ’s Commitment to God’s Truth

And then, sixthly, last time we said we need to understand Christ's commitment to the truth.

Now, this morning, we're gonna look at four new remedies, four remedies to Jew-Gentile division remaining. And each one with the goal of Gentile worship.

1) Believe God’s Promises to the Patriarchs

2) Glorify God for His Mercy to both Jew and Gentile

3) Believe God’s Prophecies to the Prophets

4) Rejoice in Hope, United by the Holy Spirit

First, to believe God's promises to the patriarchs. Second, to glorify God for His mercy to both Jews and Gentiles. Third, to understand the prophecies of Jew-Gentile unity. And fourth, to hope in our glorious future together. Let me tell you something, through all that, my goal is just make you happy in your eternal future with the body of Christ. I want you to walk out happy in Christ.

You know something it's really commanded. It says we're supposed to rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. There is so much to rejoice about. So I want your problems and whatever struggles you may have brought into this sanctuary this morning to shrink into insignificance compared to the glory that's going to be revealed in us. That's my desire ultimately.

So let's look at the first one, and that's to believe God's promises to the patriarchs. Now, who are the patriarchs? What do we mean by that? Well, look at verse 8-9, "For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs, so that the Gentiles may glorify God for His mercy." The patriarchs are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. David in another place is called the patriarch and that's fine. But these are the great leaders of Israel from antiquity past. And some promises were made to the patriarchs. Well, what promise in particular?

Well, the first and greatest promise concerning Jew-Gentile unity came in the original call of Abraham when he was still living in Ur of the Chaldeans, way back in Genesis chapter 12, what I called, when I preached on that passage, the ancient origin of modern missions. And there it is in Genesis 12, "The Lord said to Abram, Leave your country and your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you unto a great nation and I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse. [And listen] All peoples on earth will be blessed through you." Now the word peoples, somebody once asked a preacher, "Is that a word? Peoples? I mean, isn't people plural already? So, why do you put the S on at the end, peoples? Well, peoples, as we'll talk about in a couple weeks, but they are identifiable people groups, like nations defined by language and culture and by geography. Peoples, nations. All peoples on earth will be blessed somehow through Abram of Ur of the Chaldeans. Now how can that be? Well, we know because we're further along in redemptive history. We know it's because Jesus Christ is the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Jesus Christ is the son of Abraham, He's descended from Abraham. He's the fulfillment of that promise. We also see the promise made to the patriarchs in Abraham. In Genesis 22:17 and 18, after God had commanded him to sacrifice his son, his only son, Isaac, whom he loved. And Abraham was willing to do it and just as he's about to plunge the knife into Isaac's heart and kill him, the angel of the Lord stopped him. He said, "Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son, whom you love." And then he said this, "I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring, all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me."

So how are we all blessed in Abraham? Well, we all know it's through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was a Jew, he was born of the Jews, he came and ministered to the Jews. He was a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And so Christ came to confirm these promises made to the patriarchs, specifically that Abraham would be a blessing to all nations. And so Paul wrote in Galatians 3:8, "The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: 'All nations will be blessed through you.'" And Paul says in Romans 4, that all of us, Jew or Gentile, all of us who have believed in Jesus Christ, who have repented of our sins and have trusted in the saving work of Christ, we are children of Abraham. We are adopted into Abraham's family. We are engrafted into the olive tree, and we're receiving nourishing sap from that root system. We are children of Abraham. And so Christ came to confirm those promises, so therefore, how can Jews and Gentiles not get along? This thing was predicted way back in 2000 BC, that Jews and Gentiles together would be blessed by Abraham's offspring, by Christ.

Secondly, we need to glorify God for His mercy, both to Jew and Gentile. Look at verse 9, "so that the Gentiles may glorify God for His mercy." That's Paul refers to the purpose of God in making these promises to the patriarchs. God's desire has always been worldwide, but it's still self-focused. What do I mean by God's purpose being self-focused? We already covered that. God wants to give you Himself, He wants to get your eyes off of all of your earthly concerns and troubles and difficulties and gets you to focus on Him. And so, therefore, Gentiles and such, I think we all are, although there may be some Jews among us, but most of us are Gentiles, we Gentiles need to glorify God for His mercy. We need to focus on God for His mercy and give Him thanks.

Since all of us are sinners, we should come to the realization that it's only by mercy that any of us stands before such a Holy God. It's only by mercy that we're actually going to get to be there, surrounding the throne with the hundred million angels in that high and holy place that God lives. Only by mercy will sinners like you and me ever get to be there. It's only by mercy that we will live forever and ever. And so therefore, we need to glorify God for His mercy. Well, that is a uniting feature, isn't it? God has been merciful to this one and also to this one, how can they not love one another? How can they not welcome one another?

Now, mercy, the mercy of God was a big theme of Romans 9-11, as he's dealing with the whole Jew-Gentile issue and eternal predestination, all those things. And it culminated in this marvelous statement about God's mysterious plan. In Romans 11:30-32, he says this, "Just as you [Gentiles] who are at one time disobedient to God, have now received mercy as a result of their [the Jews] disobedience, so they [the Jews] too have now become disobedient in order that they [the Jews] may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you [Gentiles]." You see how He unites Jews and Gentiles on the topic of mercy? "For God has bound all men over to disobedience, so that He may have mercy on them all."

Let me tell you something, when we get to heaven, we will not want to talk about us. You won't want to talk about you. I think at one level, you'll be thoroughly sick of the topic. It may preoccupy you now more than it should, but it will not preoccupy you in heaven. And if you think about yourself at all, it will be just to glorify God for His mercy. Amen? To glorify God for His mercy, that's what you'll think about yourself. O, how merciful has God been to me. And I think the more you think about it now, the happier you'll be in Christ. Who are we then to not welcome somebody else? How can we not glorify God for His mercy to us? And secondly, how can we not glorify God for His mercy to others? And thirdly, therefore, how can we not be merciful to each other? It just totally affects the way you treat each other. It totally affects the way you treat people who are giving you a hard time. Someday, we're going to be standing before the throne and all of that will be gone. How can we hold it against each other now? What a waste of time. What a waste of time to hold something against somebody. Let it go.

And I'm not saying we don't follow the church discipline issues and try to show somebody. Out of love for them we do it, but not because I need it done for myself or I'm going to be angry and I'm not going to go to that church anymore, and all that stuff. No, we let it go. We glorify God for His mercy.

Thirdly, we need to believe God's prophecies through the prophets. Look at verse 9-12, it's just a majestic golden chain of prophecies of how God, speaking through the patriarchs, speaking through the prophets said, "I intended this from the beginning, before the foundation of the world, that Jews and Gentiles together would glorify God for His mercy." He's proving it from Scripture. As it is written, "'Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles. I will sing hymns to your name.' And again, it says, 'Rejoice O Gentiles with His people.' And again, 'Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles. Sing praises to Him, all you peoples.' And again, Isaiah says, 'The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations and the Gentiles will hope in him.'"

A golden chain of four prophecies, a string of quotations from the Old Testament, one from each of the major sections of the Old Testament, one from the history books, 2 Samuel, one from the law books, in Deuteronomy. One from the wisdom literature, in Psalms, and one also from the prophets, in Isaiah. And so he binds all four parts of the Old Testament in a united voice to prove one thing: God has always intended this united Jew plus Gentile worship around a single throne forever and ever in heaven. That's always been His purpose. This isn't a new thing. It's to quiet therefore Jewish Christians from thinking that God never really intended to save Gentiles. It's from quieting Gentiles who think that they're second class citizens and don't really deserve to be there, somehow.

Some Christians, even go so far as to say that the Gentiles were God's plan B. Perhaps you've heard this among some dispensationalists. And they'll say that God was really working through Israel, but they rejected Christ. Oh, what a surprise, we have to go to plan B. They haven't read Romans 9-11, I guess. Nothing surprises God. As a matter of fact, He ordained it so that God could bind the whole human race together in disobedience and have mercy on them all. That's what it says, we just read it. But they're saying, "No, no, God's on His plan B now, it's been going on for 2000 years, this extended plan B." A backup plan. And that we are kind of inserted after the 69 weeks of Daniel before the 70th week, we're just kind of the big parenthesis, what a long parenthesis inserted in there, plan B.

Well, look, I'm not going to get into all of those eschatological details this morning, but I will say this: God intended before the creation of the world to save both Jews and Gentiles through Christ, and these prophecies should end that question forever. And by the way, it's not just four in the Old Testament, there are dozens and dozens of these kinds of predictions and prophecies, that God has always intended to save Jews and Gentiles in Christ.

Now, the Jews themselves had a difficult time grasping that God had a saving intention toward Gentiles. That, my friends, is a gross understatement. The Jews had a difficult time accepting that God had a saving intention toward the Gentiles. You remember in Acts 22 when Paul was giving his testimony to his Jewish countrymen in Jerusalem? And they're listening to the road to Damascus conversion. There are listening to all the things that God had done in Paul's life quietly, until he got to a certain point. And this is what Paul said, "Then the Lord said to me, 'Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.' The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, 'Rid the earth of him. He's not fit to live.'" Do you have a sense of a national allergy to a single word? The word is Gentiles. What a dirty nasty word to those nationalistic Jews back then.

But Paul saturates the quotes in the word Gentiles. Do you see it? Over and over. I will praise you among the Gentiles. I'll sing hymns to your name. Rejoice, O Gentiles with His people and praise the Lord, all you Gentiles. And sing praises to Him, all you peoples and the Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations and the Gentiles will hope in Him. Is that an accident? No, he chose those. The Gentiles, God had a saving intention toward the Gentiles.

Now, the first of the four prophecies is the one that David gives in 2 Samuel 22, it's also Psalm 18, and he's celebrating his own deliverance from Gentile enemy. So it's a little bit strange to be included in the string, but it's fascinating, really. David says, "You have delivered me from the attacks of the people. You have made me the head of nations. People I don't even know are subject to me." So he's talking about how he's become a ruler there in Palestine. But if you look more closely, it's really seen from a messianic perspective, like David is representing Christ. And so basically people that had been warring against him are now bowing down before him and serving him. Is that you? Were you at one point warring against Christ, fighting against Him, and now you're gladly bowing before Him? Yes, it is. Psalm 18 is your story and Christ is your King. And at some point, you Gentiles, you came and you bowed before Christ and He became your Savior. You took His yoke upon you and you learn from Him because He's gentle and humble in heart. You bowed your knee before Christ the King. And so it says, "I will sing praises among the Gentiles."

And then the second quotation, the original context is Deuteronomy 32, and the context is one of celebrating God's deliverance from enemies. But whereas, the first quote is David celebrating in the midst of the Gentiles, now the Gentiles themselves are urged to take part in the celebration. Look at verse 10, "Rejoice O Gentiles, with His people." Would you like to join us? The Jews are saying, "Why don't you come along? Why don't you rejoice with us?" What a glorious pre-figurement of our heavenly praise, Jew and Gentile together worshipping Christ in perfect unity. Again, note the theme of rejoicing. Well, friends, I have a great job to do this morning, I get to preach on happy rejoicing verses. Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people, a sense of delight.

Now the third quote carries this theme even deeper, a direct command to the Gentiles to praise the Lord in Psalm 117, that's the shortest Psalm in the Bible. Just two verses, and this is what it says: "Praise the Lord, all you nations; extol Him, all you peoples." Why? "For His mercy has been abundant toward us and the truth of the Lord endures forever." Why should the nations praise the Lord? Because His mercy has been abundant to us forever.

And the final prophecy is a prediction that the Gentiles will actually in fact glorify God for His mercy. See, the first is David celebrating among the Gentiles. The second two are urging the Gentiles or even commanding them to take part, but the fourth says what? They will. Not just they might or they're commanded to, they actually will hope in the Root of Jesse. Look at the prophecy. Again, Isaiah says, "The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations and the Gentiles will hope in Him."

Now, the Root of Jesse is Christ, of course, and Gentiles hope in Him, when they hear the gospel, they realize that His blood was shed for their sins and they realize that this world is not all there is, and financial and physical and relational suffering and struggling is not all there is, there is a glorious world waiting for us and it's getting closer and closer every week, and that is my hope and yours. The Gentiles will hope in Him, that is in Christ.

So first, David rejoices in the Lord in front of the Gentiles, then Moses urges the Gentiles to celebrate with his people, then the psalmist commands all the Gentiles to worship Him, all nations, and then finally, Isaiah predicts that it's going to happen, that every nation will find its hope in Christ.

The final factor of unity and Jew and Gentiles in this benediction in verse 13. Rejoice in hope, united by the Holy Spirit. Look at verse 13 on how rich it is. "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Look at all these delightful, wonderful words here: God, filling, hope, joy, peace, trust, overflow, hope, power, Holy Spirit. These are delightful things that Paul is in effect praying for the church there at Rome.

So, basically, may the God of hope fill you, church of Rome, with all joy and peace as you, church of Rome, trust in Him, so that you, the church of Rome, may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. That's what he wants them to do. It's a benediction pointing them. And in effect he's saying, "You know what, your hope is someday you're going to be at that throne, you're going to worship, Jew and Gentile, together forever."

You know what I would like? I would like a little manna from heaven, dropping down to feed on while I'm on my exodus through the wilderness of sin until I finally get to the promised land. I want some heavenly worship to drop into my life everyday, I want to eat it, I want to feed on it, and be happy in heaven now, while I still have time to advance the gospel and get along with my brothers and sisters here in this world and do things that will glorify God, like a warrior for Christ. I want to eat that manna now. And so I say to you that you could be happier in Christ than you are, and so could I. We need to feed on this manna, friends. You need to meditate much on Revelation 4 and 5, and whatever visions of heaven from Scripture you want to meditate on, and realize that God has a glorious saving plan intended for the ends of the earth, and for your life too.

The future is unspeakably glorious, and it only comes in verse 13, as you trust in Him. According to your faith, it will be done to you. As you're trusting in Christ, you will overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. So trust in what I'm saying. These things are sure and certain realities, they just haven't come yet. Christians are the only ones who can deal with that category. Sure and certain realities that haven't come yet. That's the essence of Christian hope. And someday, it's going to be ours.

Now, by way of review, last two weeks we've seen 10 remedies to the problem of Jew-Gentile disunity in that 1st century church in Rome and by connection, we can look up to our church here, your own situation. First, we saw understanding God's ultimate purpose, His own glory. Secondly, understanding God's secondary purpose, our delight in His glory. Thirdly, simply obeying God's command to accept each other. Fourth, following Christ's pattern of acceptance as He has accepted us so we accept one another. Fifth, understanding the nature of Christ's servanthood to the Jews, so that we Gentiles wouldn't be arrogant toward the Jews, but realize He went to the Jews only in His earthly ministry. So let's understand His servanthood to the Jews. And sixth, understand His commitment to God's truth, He came to make God truthful, to vindicate His truthfulness for those promises that were made to the patriarchs. Seventh, believe God's promises to the patriarchs concerning Jew-Gentile unity. And eighth, glorify God for His mercy to both Jews and Gentiles. And ninth, understand the prophecies that someday Jews and Gentiles will together be around the throne worshipping Christ. It's going to happen. And tenth, hope. Actively hope by faith in our glorious future together.

Alright. Well, how do you apply this to your life? You may be saying to me, "You know, Pastor, this sounds wonderful, I can see that you're excited about it, at least. But the question is, I don't actually have a Jew-Gentile problem in my life. I mean, I have problems in my life, but I'm really not struggling with the Jew-Gentile question. It's really not something I'm wrestling with." Or you might extend it to First Baptist Church Durham, you say, "You know, we're really not struggling with the Jew-Gentile problem here." Well, remember what I said at the beginning; all problems of disunity have their root in the same place. And that is our relationship with God. And if your relationship with God is what it needs to be, then it's going to factor out into a peace with God that you experience and extends to a peace within yourself. Well, you know that God's at peace with you by Jesus' blood, and so therefore, be at peace within yourself, and then you extend it to every relationship that touches you in your life.

It's not just a Jew-Gentile question. It's a Gentile-Gentile question, how we're getting along with each other. Issues of reconciliation with the body of Christ continue to be paramount. We, as a body, need to be united more than we are. I will not say to you that I see great problems of disunity in the church. There was a time that I did, but not anymore. That's gone. Now, there's an essential and a sweet unity and already good things are flowing as a result of that, but I think we can do better. I think we can know each other and love each other more than we do. And out of that will come an intense white hot power for worldwide evangelization. That's what I'm yearning for in this church. So, let's apply it to our church. Or apply it to your marriage.

I think you ought to meditate more on the fact that the two of you are going to spend, in Christ, if you're both Christians, the two of you will spend eternity worshipping God together at the throne. So whatever stuff is troubling you right now, can you please let it shrink into its proper insignificance in the face of that? I'm not saying you don't have questions you have to resolve. I'm not saying you shouldn't talk things through and talk about your budget, your finances, how to parent your kids, whether you should sell this home and move into that one or whatever. I'm not saying these issues don't need to be discussed, I'm just saying keep them in a heavenly perspective, and be happier than you've been in discussing them up 'til now. Be content in the fact that someday you'll be in perfect unity even on that question.

So, meditate, I would say, frequently on your heavenly future, and have full delight in worship. Can I speak to the issue of corporate worship? If we're all going to be worshipping in heaven, can we worship better than we do? You might say, "What do you mean?" I mean, can we just come ready to worship? I mean, come ready to just be hot and passionate and worship? And it's our job to be prepared for that and to stimulate you to worship. But I think it's so important for you to be hot and ready and passionate for worship as well. Get yourself ready every week for corporate worship, because we affect... The leaders affect your worship, but you affect one another as well, and when you're standing next to somebody who's singing with all his or her heart, doesn't that move you? You may want to move for some reason, right? Depending on their skill level.

Alright, but there's just something powerful about being in a congregation that's passionately by the Spirit, worshiping God corporately. Let's worship God. And then finally, let's live for God's future glory and the advance of the church. There's still peoples, people groups that haven't heard the name of Christ. We're going to talk more about that, not next week, but in the following weeks. Let's be involved in worldwide evangelization to the ends of the earth.

If you're listening to me and you've never given your life to Christ, the joy and the happiness that I'm talking about here today is only available one place. It's only available in Christ. Only through faith in Christ can you know this kind of eternal joy. It's only place. I so praise God for Haley Herb and for the work that God's done in her heart. What a powerful testimony. That can happen to you. If you have never trusted in Christ, you can give your life to Him right now. Don't leave this place without repenting and trusting Christ for the salvation of your soul. Close with me in prayer.

Turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 15. We're looking, for two weeks at verses 7-13. And as we do, we come in a very timely fashion to a text of scripture that addresses an issue that has pressed itself into the world consciousness forcefully over the last handful of weeks although it never really fully leaves, and that is the crisis in the Middle East. You know that several weeks ago, some Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and that sparked a great military conflict going on right now between Israel and Hezbollah. And recent events in the Middle East have caused the alarm of people all around the world and a renewal of the desperate search for a political and diplomatic solution to lasting peace in the Middle East. And there's a long heritage to that search, isn't there? Now obviously, there may be some that would have the question: How can Israel, for example, negotiate with Hezbollah whose stated purpose is their extinction as a nation? Now how are you going to sit down at the table with somebody like that? And you could turn the whole thing around and ask, how can Hezbollah, seeing the world in their own way, looking for an Islamic state to rise up there, how can they negotiate with Israel, who wants to continue to be a Jewish state, how can they get together diplomatically? But there have been efforts made toward lasting peace in the Middle East.

In 1978, I remember when President Carter got Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin together for the Camp David Accords, and they said it was a new milestone in heading toward peace in the Middle East. Of course, Sadat was assassinated by his own countrymen three years later, because they felt he'd sold out to the Jews. And then there was, in 1993, the Oslo Accords during President Clinton's administration, in which Yasser Arafat of the PLO and Yitzhak Rabin got together from Israel and they had the Oslo Accords and it was brokered by Clinton and signed September 13th, 1993. And the world thought so much of the Oslo Accords that in 1994, the three principals in that, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Of course, the very next year, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a fundamentalist Jewish man who felt he'd sold out to the PLO. And Arafat, for his part, didn't continue in the accords, he didn't keep his end of the bargain. And frankly, many observing, looking on the outside, said he's just never really changed from the statement he made to The Washington Post in 1970, "The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel and there can be no compromise." Okay, well, how are you going to negotiate with that?

And our State Department has been developing what they call a "road map to peace" in the Middle East. Here (Romans 15) is the road map to peace in the Middle East. Amen? It's in here. Someday, there will be lasting and permanent peace in the Middle East between Jews and Gentiles. Amen and hallelujah! And we ought to pray for it, because it's most certainly going to come. But it's not going to come the way the United States State Department thinks it's going to come. It's not going to come through a negotiated or even a military solution. It's going to come by the power of God working through the Gospel in the end. That's how it's going to come. True lasting peace between Jews and Gentiles in the Middle East and around the world seems as impossible now as it ever did. There's still what the scripture calls that "dividing wall of hostility" between Jews and Gentiles. And so one generation of peace negotiators after another can try to solve the Gordian knot, unravel the Gordian knot, of Middle East peace, some may make headway for a little while and if the headway was significant enough, they may even win the Nobel Peace Prize.

But we know what we already sang earlier today is true, in that beautiful hymn, May Jesus Christ be Praised. This is what one of the verses says:

Ye nations of mankind,

in this, your concord find

May Jesus Christ be praised!

Let all the earth around

Ring joyous with the sound

May Jesus Christ be praised!

That's where we're going to find the unity because that's what God is working around the world. That's the peace He intends. And I believe only the advance of the Gospel can genuinely and permanently reconcile Jews and Gentiles together, as each of them repent and trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. And frankly, as I read the scriptures, only the second coming of Jesus Christ and the establishment of His reign around the world will produce lasting peace in the Middle East.

Jew-Gentile Conflict a Subset of Human Conflict

Now Romans 14 and 15 deals with a significant problem in a local church 20 centuries ago. A local church of Rome had some divisions cropping up between Jews and Gentiles. It was a mixed church, there were some Jews, some Gentiles there, all of them believing and trusting in Christ but there were some issues, some difficulties, what Romans 14 calls "debatable issues." And I think it's centered on the role the Law of Moses was going to have in the everyday lives of Christians, and there was a struggle. Now as we come to the question of Jew-Gentile conflict in a 1st-century church, the church of Rome, you may ask, "What does this have to do with my problems and my troubles today? How is this relevant?" You may even think, "How is the Middle East struggle relevant to my life?" Many Americans, I think, are interested in what's going on there. But I say to you that Jew-Gentile conflict in the church in Rome in the 1st century is a paradigm of all human conflict for all time.

And the root causes there are going to be the same in our day as they were back in their day. The fact of the matter is, at root, all sinners apart from Christ, all sinners have no peace with God. And because they have no peace with God, they have no peace with themselves. And because they have no peace within themselves, they have no peace with other people. And that's where the root of all conflict comes from on this earth. Isaiah 57:20-21 says, "The wicked are like the tossing sea which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. 'There is no peace,' says my God, 'for the wicked.'" And out of that comes the Middle East crisis, out of that comes, in my opinion, every human conflict, because we have the habits of selfishness and bad relating, and they even carry over into the Christian life as well, sadly. The Jew-Gentile conflict in the 1st-century church is hardly different at all from modern Baptist churches having conflicts over politics or power struggles or the color of the carpet in the new Worship Center.

These struggles find their root in human sin and selfishness, all of them do. Neither, frankly, is it different from strife in homes between husbands and wives, between parents and children, between siblings; or in neighborhoods, from one neighbor to the next; or in office places, from one co-worker to the next co-worker. It's the same. The roots are the same all over. Deep division and conflict between sinners is a basic effect of sin. And only the reconciliation of the Gospel through faith in Jesus Christ can genuinely, truly solve the problem.

The Church at Rome: Seeds of Its Destruction Already Planted

Now the church at Rome, the seeds of its destruction were already planted within its own heart by the many, many years that each of those individual Jews and Gentiles spent in sin and in selfishness before they ever came to Christ. The seeds of their destruction were already sowed. Now we have seen throughout the Book of Romans the struggle that Paul is having to deal both with Jews and Gentiles who would be reading his letter. I mean, right from the beginning in Romans 1, you have Paul describing Gentile sin, pagan sin, apart from the knowledge of the Law of Moses, into idolatry and wickedness, he describes it very clearly in Romans 1. But then he turns and addresses, in Romans 2, the self-righteous Jewish person who thinks he can earn his salvation through his law-keeping, and he deals with that in chapter 2. Then in chapter 3, he sums up the entire human race in terms of our sinfulness: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Early in Romans 3, he said there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all of us are sold into sin. That is common between us, we share that. Jews and Gentiles share it together, and it's also the root of the very problem that we have.

And so Paul is dealing with the issue of Jew and Gentile in the Roman church. In Romans 11, his concern is that Gentiles who are flooding into the church and the Gospel is so richly successful among the Gentiles may become arrogant toward the fallen Jewish nation, those branches that have been stripped off of that olive tree, and he's concerned that the Gentiles not be arrogant toward the Jews. But then in 14, his concern, Romans 14, his concern reverses and he's zeroing in on Jewish legalese within the church, who he calls "weak in the faith," that they not judge others who are not following their rules and regulations. And he wants genuine Jew-Gentile unity, he's dealing with that. But he also, in Romans 14, deals with Gentiles, I think, who are strong in the faith, who understand the new covenant, that they not flaunt their freedoms all over the place and thus create a rift in the body of Christ. He's looking for unity. And here we see the culmination finally of this whole issue, Romans 14, Romans 15, of Jew-Gentile struggling within the church as we come to verse 7. And there he commands us, "Accept one another," Jew-Gentile unity.

Unity of the Church Essential to Its Mission

Now I say to you that genuine unity, not fake unity, not artificial or counterfeit unity, but genuine unity that only Christ can produce, is essential to the Gospel mission in the world. We must have it. We must have this genuine unity. The power of the Gospel to reconcile sinners at the human level must be made obvious to people who haven't believed the Gospel yet. We've got to put it on display. It's essential to the advance of the Gospel. As the Gospel makes its powerful advance in the world, it must show itself powerful to reconcile people who ordinarily couldn't get along. And I don't just mean Jew and Gentile, but even deep racial or tribal divisions. We need to see it put on display that the Gospel can do that. A divided bickering, fighting, selfish church cannot advance the Kingdom of God. And God wants to use the church, united, filled with the Spirit, to advance His name and His kingdom. And so, He's put us on display.

Does that bother you that God has put you on display? Don't you remember in the Sermon on the Mount, He said, "No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead he puts it up on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house." "You are the light of the world," He says. And so He wants to put the church, not this one local church, but yes, this local church, He wants to put us on display. And one of the things He wants to display is the genuine, heartfelt love and unity from one to another. It needs to be put on display. Tertullian in 197 in the midst of the advance of the Gospel through the Roman Empire, he said this: "It is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us." They say, "Behold how they love one another. And they are angry with us, too, because we call each other 'brother.'" They're jealous of the love that the early church was showing to one another, but some of them said, "I want some of that. I want to know how to love, and I'd love to be part of it." That was so attractive in the 1st-century, 2nd-century church.

Now there're two key statements that Christ made that show how important it is that local churches have an open, obvious unity, I would say even a supernatural unity, that can only be described by the Gospel, the power of the Gospel. Two statements. One is John 13:35 in which Jesus said, "By this will all men know that you are My disciples, if you love one another." This is the proof to the world the you are My disciples: If you have a genuine, open love for one another. That's one statement. Even more powerfully, in the high priestly prayer in John 17, this is so beautiful, Jesus prays for his own ministry, prays for His immediate apostles who are right there, and then He extends His prayer to pray for all of those who are gonna hear the Gospel through their message. And this is what He prays, it's in John 17:20-23. He says, "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You…May they be brought to complete unity, to let the world know that You sent Me."

Now let me tell you something. It frustrates me when I hear commentators say, "See? Jesus made that prayer and He's not getting what He wanted. We have got to do something to help Jesus' prayer out." Oh, don't you ever believe that about Jesus' prayer life. Does Jesus get everything He asked for in prayer? I tell you, He does. And we will someday be as one as the Father and the Son are one, isn't that beautiful? That's where our concord, our peace, our unity, is going to come from. When the Gospel is done with us, we are going to be perfectly one with people from all over the world. And how sweet is that going to be? But that's not the only thing Jesus prays; He says, "May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me." So the bringing, the process, of unification has to be done in front of an openly watching world so that we can be put on display and they can believe that Jesus is the Son of God. That's the way that the prayer works in John 17.

And how sweet is it going to be when a multitude greater than anyone could count stands around the throne from every tribe and language and people and nation? How sweet will it be that there'll be no division by haves and have-nots? No economic division. There'll be no racial or tribal division. There'll be no gender divisions, or age-graded divisions, or anything. There will be a perfect unity so much that we cannot even barely comprehend it or describe it. That is where we're heading. That is the future. And that is Heaven. But the process of unification must happen here on earth. I want it to happen here in this church. I'd like to see it. I'd like God to use our home fellowships to produce it. I like stuff to go on in the halls and in the pews and through the preaching and the ministry to make it happen so that we can put on display the love that only Christ can give, to put it openly and obviously on display.

Now that's all just the table-setting, the introduction. You think, "This is going to be a really long sermon if that's just the introduction." Actually, it's going to be two really long sermons. Okay? We're going to be looking over this week and next week at 10 remedies the apostle Paul gives in these wonderful verses to Jew-Gentile division. And as I said, I don't want you just thinking Jew-Gentile, but I also want you to think just about divisions and a lack of unity and harmony at every level. He's going to give us 10 remedies. We're going to look at six this morning, and God willing, four next week.

The 10 remedies are:

Now the overall point here is this: That God, in His infinite wisdom, in His eternal counsels before the foundation of the world, chose people from every tribe and language and people and nation to be rescued from this wicked and evil age by the power of the Gospel, that He will protect us in our journey through this evil age and bring us someday, Jew and Gentile, together into a perfect unity, focused on His throne and His glory forever and ever. And since that's going to happen ultimately, then in every local church, there should be an essential unity put on display to make that happen. That's how it works. We're going from the local church of Rome and their problems and their bickering and their difficulties out to the ends of the earth through missions, in these verses, out to eternity in worship. That's the motion. What an incredible set of verses these are. And so therefore, what I get out of this is that it matters a lot whether our church or any local church gets along well. It matters whether we love each other and whether there's an essential palpable unity and love in the church or not. It matters a lot. And that's the movement of these verses.

Alright, let's talk about the first remedy. The first remedy to Jew-Gentile division is that we should understand God's ultimate purpose in all things, namely, His own glory. This is the beginning of the true road map to peace in the Middle East. This is where it starts. Let's understand God's commitment to His own glory. Now I say to you that man-centered thinking is at the root of all human division. It all starts there. You know something? We... Well, I make too much of myself. Oh, come on. We make too much of ourselves. We think too highly of ourselves. We are our own favorite topic. And our needs and interests are our own favorite sub-topics.

We are fascinated with what we are interested in, and we are the center of everything. And may I say to you that until the human heart is captivated by something greater and more attractive than ourselves, we will continue doing the same thing. We will continue bickering and being divided. Racism and selfish national pride is a form of self-worship. So what we're seeing in the Middle East is a bunch of people ultimately really just worshipping themselves, is what's going on, on both sides, I would say. And all self-worship is a form of idolatry, isn't it? Haven't we exchanged God and now we are at the center and we're worshipping ourselves? But I say to you, as we've said many times before, God's glory is the only true right center of the universe.

What do we mean by “the glory of God”?

Now what do we mean by "the glory of God"? We talk about that phrase frequently. What does it mean? Well, I mean, it is the radiant, brilliant, attractive, fascinating display of God's nature, of His attributes. It's the shining radiance of all that God is. That's the glory of God. It involves light from God and truth from God about His own nature. The center of it is God's own person, His nature, what He is like. Now I want to bring you back to the night that Jesus was born. Now I'm not saying this happened, but let's imagine the shepherds were sitting around the campfire, bickering. Now it doesn't say in scripture, don't come back and say, "Pastor, there's no record that the shepherds were bickering the night that Jesus was born," but let's just imagine. It's not so extreme that we couldn't think that they were bickering about whose sheep were best or about which watering hole who would use which one, and that one's muddy but this one's clear, and I get to use it first. And they might have even struggle, they fought over it, who knows?

20:12 S1: But there they are the middle of the night, when suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared and the glory of the Lord shone all around them, and they were, in the King James Version, "sore afraid." And the angel brings good news of glad tidings that will be for all the people: "Today in the city of David, a savior has been born for you. He is Christ the Lord. And this will be assigned to you, you will find a baby wrapped up in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger." Then suddenly, with the angel, there was the heavenly host and they were saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace to men on whom His favor rests," and they're just celebrating, and then they go back into heaven, and the angel's gone.

"Okay, now what were we arguing about? Alright. I think my sheep are better... " They're not even thinking about that! They are thinking, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that the angel has told us about, that the Lord has told us about." The bickering has been driven out by a greater glory. And when we at last have a perfect vision of God's glory, I tell you, all bickering will end. It will have been expelled by something better, something more glorious, than self-interest.

Now how does Paul put the glory of God at the center of it? Look at verse 7, reading this time from the ESV, I think it's got a little bit better translation, in verse 7, it says, "Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God." Paul puts God at the center by giving the reason why Christ welcomed us. We, the wretched, rebellious sinners, deserving of wrath and hell, we, shaking our fists at God, whose throats are open graves and whose tongues practice deceit, ruin and misery marks our way in the way of peace, we do not know, Romans 3. We are the ones that Christ has welcomed. And He did it for the glory of God, to put God on display.

Now you might say, "How does Christ welcoming wretched sinners like us put God on display?" Well, it does. Look at verse 8. "For I tell you that Christ has become a servant to the circumcised, [the Jews] to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs." In other words, a central reason that Christ came and did His work is to prove how truthful God is, to prove that God always tells the truth, that when He makes a promise, He keeps it. And so God is glorified by Christ coming to earth because it vindicates the promises that God had made. It shows Him to be a truthful God, more about that later.

But I tell you this: We tend to think of human salvation in a human-centered way. It's because God loves us so much, because God couldn't live without us, because God needed us. We are the reason, and all of that. Well, let me tell you, God's reasons were first and foremost God-centered, because He says in Isaiah 48:11, "For My own sake, for My own sake, I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield My glory to another." That's God's motive. First and foremost, for Himself. And so, Christ came to prove that God told Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David the truth when He promised a Messiah who would come later. And so God's truthfulness is glorified by this salvation. He's putting God on display. We see it again in verse 8 and 9, and He puts God's glory on display when He speaks of why the Gentiles were saved. "For I tell you, Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs, so that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy."

And so you see Christ's ministry not only elevates the truthfulness of God, but also the mercy of God. We are all of us saved by mercy. God has been merciful to us in Christ, and we celebrate the mercy of God. So I say to you that basically, human strife and conflict end when the glory of God takes its proper place in our hearts and estimations and we start thinking about the truthfulness or the mercy or the power or the knowledge or the wisdom of God, and we are just done with strife and conflict. That is remedy number one. And I'll tell you, it'll work through all eternity. There'll be no strife and conflict in Heaven.

Remedy number two: Understand God's secondary purpose. His secondary purpose is our eternal united delight in His glory. That's His secondary purpose. God's ultimate purposes were God-centered, but God's secondary purposes were human-centered. He loves us. And I say to you, the measure of love is what the loving one is willing to give to the one he or she loves. How much is God willing to give us? He's willing to give us the greatest thing He could ever give: He's willing to give us Himself. He is willing that He Himself would be our possession throughout all eternity, that He Himself would be our reward throughout all eternity. He is willing to give us that grand and glorious gift of Himself. But I say to you also, He's willing to give us lesser gifts. For example, He's willing to give us each other. Oh, I don't mean "each other" kind of the way we were apart from Christ. I don't even mean "each other" the way we are now, struggling with our sanctification. I mean He means to give us each other perfected and glorious in Heaven. He means to give you a gift of brothers and sisters from every tribe and language and people and nation, to share the experience with up in Heaven. No, you're not going to have your own private cubicle to watch God's glory every night, okay? You're going to be with other believers.

"As for the saints who are in the land," Psalm 16, "they are the glorious ones in whom is all My delight." And so God means to give us this lesser gift of one another, perfected by the Gospel. And look how happy these verses are. I'm just so happy this morning, I get to preach these happy verses. And you are lesser happy, you get to listen to them. Okay? See, I'm more happy cause I know when this thing's going to end, I get to control that, okay? But still we have a glorious search of human happiness in these verses. Look how happy these verses are. Verse 9, "'Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles. I will sing hymns to your name.' Again, it says, 'Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people,' and again, 'Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and sing praises to Him, all you peoples.' And again, Isaiah says, 'The root of Jesse will spring up. One will arise to rule over the nations and the Gentiles will hope in Him.'" And then to top it all off, in verse 13, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Oh, these are happy words. These are rejoicing, celebrating words. They're meant to make us eternally happy, and so the second remedy to strife and conflict is to understand God's intention to give us each other eternally in Heaven to worship God.

Remedy number three: It's just simple obedience. Now I'm taking these in the order they're given in the text, but obey God's command to accept one another wholeheartedly. Now if you go back to Romans 14:1, when this whole topic began, the issue of debatable issues, the matter of the debatable issues and all that, it begins in Romans 14:1 with this command: "Welcome him whose faith is weak without passing judgment on disputable matters." Now we have the closing bookend. There's the opening statement; here, we have the bookend that ends this whole discussion. 15:7, "Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God." Simply put, God commands us to welcome and accept each other. He just commands it through the apostle Paul. It's simply a matter of obedience. That's all. And Jesus said in John 14:15, "If you love Me, you will obey what I command." He's just simply commanding obedience here.

Now the word "welcome" here was beautifully described in a sermon a few weeks ago by Scott Markley, the best sermon I've ever heard on Philemon. And how sweet was the idea of Philemon, the master, receiving and welcoming back Onesimus, who had wronged him, defrauded him, and welcoming him back, and we hope that's what he did upon receiving Paul's letter, but welcoming back with a warm embrace. Or again, we could consider what Scott did in that sermon, the prodigal son returning to his father and searching his father's face to find out, "Are you going to take me in? Can I be one of your hired servants?" He doesn't need to search his father's face; look at his father, he's running, his arms are extended, there's tears coming down his eyes. He's welcoming his son back. "Welcome one another." This is a simple command here.

Remedy number four: Follow Christ's pattern of acceptance. Look at verse 7, "Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God." Now I say to you that Paul answers two key questions on the issue of this welcoming that we're supposed to do for each other. The questions are why and how. First of all, why should we accept one another? Well, let me tell you, Christ is the motive for our acceptance of anybody, any Christian, that God brings here into this place. Christ is the motive. How can we refuse to accept someone if Christ has not refused to accept us, and if Christ has accepted him or her? How can we refuse them? We were filthy, rebellious sinners stinking with the pigs in our sin, and Christ embraces us in our saving faith. Christ embraced us in our rebellion. He cured us of it, He cleaned us up. He set us on a rock that will not move, and He will someday open Heaven for us. Why should we embrace sinners in Christ, other sinners? Simply put, because of how graciously Christ welcomed you. That's the why.

Now how should we do it? Well, again, look at Jesus. Look at Him. How lovingly did Christ accept you, how beautifully did He accept sinners in the New Testament, what is the pattern that Christ has set for welcoming of other sinners? John 6:37, He says, "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me, I will never drive them away." I'll welcome them all. And so Christ welcomed Zacchaeus, that pilfering tax collector who everyone hated. He welcomed the Roman centurion, who was part of a hated race in the Promised Land, a conquering race, but he had a need and Christ welcomed him. He welcomed Mary Magdalene, who was a prostitute, who had seven demons inside her. He welcomed her and drove the demons out and healed her. He welcomed the little children who had runny noses and who didn't understand the great things of God and the big plans for the kingdom and so the disciples wanted to keep them out, and He said, "Let the little children come to me." "They want to crawl on me a while, is that alright?" And so He welcomed the little children.

He welcomed a leper. If you can imagine what a leper would have looked like back in those days, with running sores all over his face and disfigured with corruption all over his body and people go running and screaming from the leper, and he comes stumbling toward Jesus and says, "If You are willing, you can make me clean," and Jesus reaches out His hand and says, "I am willing, be clean." He welcomed a woman of poor reputation in that neighborhood who bathed His feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. He welcomed even Saul of Tarsus, who began that morning breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples and really, against Christ himself. What a rebellious, self-righteous Pharisee, who thinks he's serving God by killing Christians, and Jesus welcomed him and took him in through simple, saving faith.

He welcomes anyone the Father brings to him, He won't turn anyone away. He welcomes them all, He welcomed you. And if you lost a sense of how amazing that is, then get back into the Word and find out what you were apart from Christ. He welcomed you richly through faith in Christ. For He said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will most certainly give you rest," that's the kind of welcome that He expects us to give to each other, because that's the kind of welcome He gave to you.

The fifth remedy is understand Christ's servanthood to the Jews first. Now Christ's ministry to the Jews first is a remedy to Jew-Gentile bickering because God elevated the Jews in that way, that Christ came first to the Jews and ministered to them. He came as a servant to the Jews though He rightly was their king. He could have reclined on silk pillows and had them come wash His feet, not that they would have needed any washing. But instead, the whole thing was reversed and He washed their filthy, nasty feet and He served them. He took up their infirmities and he carried their sorrows, says Isaiah, of the suffering servant. And that's what Jesus was: He was a servant to the Jews, and He came especially to serve them by dying on the cross for their sins. And so in Mark 10:45, he said, "The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many."

You know the pattern was set to the Jew first and then to the Gentile. When Jesus ministered in Tyre and Sidon, which is a Gentile area, and He's there to minister to the Jews that were living in Tyre and Sidon, and the Canaanite woman comes crying out after Him, "Lord, son of David, have mercy on me, my daughter is suffering terribly from demon possession." He just doesn't answer a word. And His disciples say, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us." And Jesus says this: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." Now you know that she came and got what she wanted because she talked to Jesus about food falling from the children's table. But Jesus came as a servant to the Jews first. Now don't misunderstand, the apostle Paul has proven in our text, and we'll look at this more next week, that God always intended to save the Gentiles. That wasn't an add-on, but His ministry was to the Jews first. And it gives us a pattern of how we should treat each other, not as kings, but of servants.

And the final remedy we're going to look at today, remedy number six, is understand God's commitment to... Or understand Christ's commitment to God's truth. Verse 8, "I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs." Now we've already touched on this. One of the reasons Christ came was to prove how truthful God is, that He never lies. He only speaks the truth, and He keeps His promises. I say to you, this is the foundation of all human relationships. It's certainly the foundation of a marriage relationship, with a husband and wife get up, and in front of God and witnesses, promise to be things for each other for the rest of their lives and God upholds that promise. But it's also true of all human relationships. We make promises to each other, we speak to each other, and we have to speak the truth. Lies and deception unravel relationships, and they unravel churches. And Christ has come on behalf of God's truth to give us a pattern of how we must be one with each other and speak the truth to each other in love and uphold our promises to one another.

And so we see six remedies to Jew-Gentile division, and I say also to all division, first, the overarching purpose of God is His own glory and a full meditation on that, an understanding of the glory of God, expels little bickerings and divisions. Secondly, we've seen God's second purpose, is to make us happy forever and ever, worshipping Him in Heaven. And so therefore we ought to do it with each other here on earth, don't you think? Thirdly, a simple command He's given us, in verse 7, accept or welcome one another. Fourthly, that we should follow Christ's pattern of acceptance. As He has accepted us, we also ought to accept one another. Fifth, we should understand Christ's servanthood to His own people, to the Jews, and sixth, his commitment to God's truth.

Now how do we apply this to our own lives? Well, first, I say that every local church, true church, must attend to its own unity just like this church at Rome had to. We've got to be sure that we are as one as the Father and the Son are one, in journey toward that unity. It has to be a goal. Wherever there's division, wherever there needs to be reconciliation, you have to do what it takes to get it done. And why? Because if there's true, genuine unity among the local churches around the world, there's a movement from the local church in this passage to the ends of the earth in missions, to eternity forever around the throne of God. That's the motion of this passage. So therefore, if you know of any difficulties within this body of Christ, it's our responsibility to reconcile. If you're involved, it's your double responsibility: Go and make it right until it's made right. Same is true in your marriage and your parenting and your friendships, co-workers. Follow these remedies, Put the glory of God at the center, and turn away from your own petty needs.

And I say to you also, you ought to meditate on Heaven more than you do. It just will make you happy. I had the most wonderful time going over this sermon this morning, been happy ever since. I'm thinking, someday, I'm going to be in Heaven with brothers and sisters from around the world, from every tribe and language and people and nation. I'm looking forward to worshipping with some of them today. I would love to see this church, we are a downtown Durham church, I'd love to see this church physically and visibly display as much unity, supernatural unity, as possible, across racial lines, across international lines, across gender lines, and families, and home fellowships. I would love to see it. I'd like God to put this church and many others, all of them, on display for that kind of unity, and see the Gospel go out from us. So, our home fellowship, this not an ad, I mean, other home fellowship leaders don't get the chance to advertise their home fellowship, I'm not doing that, but I'm looking forward to studying Randy Alcorn's book on Heaven, because I just think the more you study on it, the more you saturate your minds on where we're heading, the more powerfully happy and joyful you are in this world, and the more you do for His glory.

My final statement is to any who may be here today who have never trusted in Christ, you know, this kind of unity, this kind of peace, freedom from conflict, is not available to you until you come to faith in Christ. You have to repent and believe in Christ, you have to let Christ, in effect, get down and wash your dirty feet and your head and your hands and every part of you as well with the blood He shed on the cross. By simple faith in Christ, you can be fit for eternity and for perfect unity with brothers and sisters from around the world who have made the same decision to trust in Him. Close with me in prayer.

Well, it's delightful to be back with you. It's been a couple of weeks since I've had the privilege of preaching here and absence truly makes the heart grow fonder. It's a joy to be with brothers and sisters in Christ in other places, and to see the unity that we have in the spirit. Isn't it? But it's sure good to come home. So I praise God for that. When I was a child and through my growing up years, one of the big events in my home town of Framingham, Massachusetts, was in April we would go down and watch the Boston Marathon. It would come right through our town a world-class event coming right to us and very quickly through us. Alright, right by they went. And some of the world's best runners and some who were not the world's best runners would come right on through our town six miles from the start.

So they all looked pretty fresh. They're feeling good about themselves. But anybody who's run long distance races or read about it, there's something that hits a long distance runner called the "Wall." And generally in a marathon it's somewhere around 20 miles and they say that physically and psychologically, the marathon, 26 miles, the marathon is half over at the 20 mile mark and it just so happens in the Boston Marathon that there's a series of steep hills right at that point. Three hills one after the other, right at the 20 mile mark.

And they're dropping like flies, it's called Heartbreak Hill and it's tough and there are people, some of the best running fans in the world and some of the most sadistic and masochistic people in the world, just line the streets right up Heartbreak Hill and just enjoy encouraging these folks on or just watching them not make it, one or the other, I'm not sure. Not everyone there has the same motive, but there are some that are there who's express purpose is to give those runners everything they need to get to the top of the hill and to urge them that it really is downhill from the crest. That hill right up there, from then on it's downhill and you'll make it.

Is there a brother or sister in Christ here today that doesn't need that in the Christian life? Do you not need the encouragement of the Holy Spirit today? Did you not come in here needing to be cheered on, in your Christian faith? And I don't care if things have gone well for you this week or not. You need the encouragement that Scripture gives. That's what today is all about. That's why I love Sunday, that's why I love to be here because I get weak in my faith, I need to be encouraged, I need the ministry of the Body of Christ, I need the ministry of the Word of God, don't you? And in the spiritual realm, Satan and his demons are lining the road and discouraging us. You'll never make it. Why don't you give up. Sin owns you, you'll never change. Constantly discouraging and so is vital for us that we receive today the ministry of encouragement through the word of God and that is the topic of Romans 15 4-6, it is the power of the Scripture to give to us everything we need to finish the race, that's what it's about.

Fully Equipped and Supplied for the Christian Race

The Lord wants us fully and amply supplied right to the end of our Christian race. He doesn't want us just to start or to proceed for a while, he wants every one of his chosen children to finish the race. Of all that the Father has given me I will lose none but raise them up at the last day. We have to finish this race and He is going to give to us everything we need to finish, and He does it through scripture. And from scripture comes instruction and from instruction comes endurance and encouragement, and from all of these come hope. And all of this produces a unity in the body of Christ, that is essential to the completion of God's work in the world, and without these regenerating supplies, I tell you, the church will not be able to finish its infinite journey, from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.

And without these regenerating supplies you will not be able to finish your personal race either, for you are commanded to be perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect. To be just like Christ. And that's a long journey. And so for both the internal journey of Christ-like maturity, the external journey of worldwide evangelization, we need the regenerating supply of encouragement that the scripture is here to give us. Now, last time, a number of weeks ago, we looked at Romans 15 1-3, and you can look there now, we saw the obligation that strong Christians have to bear the failings of the weak. Verse 1 says We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves, each of us should please his neighbor for his good to build him up, for even Christ did not please Himself, but as it is written, the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. So that's what we looked at last time. Now, remember the context, maybe some of you haven't been here with us, through Chapter 14 and 15, but the context is the church at Rome, Rome is the capital of the Roman empire, the most important city in the Gentile world.

And that church that Roman Church was a mixed church of Jew and Gentile, and they struggled with debatable issues, they struggled with, with what kinds of foods they could eat and what the role of the law of Moses would play in the church life, and it's amazing how the apostle Paul gives a chapter and a half, about, to the issue of the church getting along through these debatable issues. And the reason for this incredible focus verse after verse after verse as the Apostle Paul tries to keep the Roman Church united, the reason is that a united spirit-filled, gospel believing gospel preaching church, is the chosen instrument of Almighty God for the destruction of Satan's empire and for the advancement of His name and His glory in the world.

That's what he's chosen. And so therefore, the church must be united, the church must understand the gospel of liberty, the church must be pure from sin. We have to help one another because this is the way that God has chosen to destroy the devil and his empire. So Paul desires for the strong Christians, the mature ones to help the weak, he desires them to stay together to not fracture and fragment into a bunch of groups that fall apart and drop down into the dust. There they are in Rome surrounded by Imperial pomp and paganism, and worldly success and temptations of plenty, and it would have been so easy for that fragile coalition of Jew and Gentile believers in Christ, to fragment and for pieces to be lost. And Paul did not want that to happen, and so he wanted to minister here, encouragement, he wanted to minister the body of Christ, to hold it together by the power of the Spirit.

And so he's zeroing in on those supplies that will keep the Church united. And he begins in verse four by talking about the role and the purpose of scripture. "For everything that was written in the past, was written to teach us…" So he's talking about the ancient writings, the scriptures, what we call the Old Testament. Now, we have to ask in context, why this parentheses, why does Paul stop and talk about scripture at this point, what's his purpose? Well, the immediate purpose, verse three had just gotten done quoting scripture, as it is written, the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me at Psalm 69, he's quoting the Old Testament. And frankly it's a bit obscure the quotation, it's a little hard to follow, how it fits in if you read Psalm 69, you might have a hard time seeing the point that Paul was making, but he makes his point. But then he wants to stop and say I want you to know something about Scripture. I want you to understand the ongoing role of the Old Testament.

Now, this is by my count, the 65th time that the Apostle Paul has quoted the Old Testament in the book of Romans. 65 times up to this point and he'll quote it six more times in this chapter And so he wants to stop and just talk about the ancient writings, the ancient scriptures. He wants to commend the purpose of scripture. Now, I believe that the devil's ancient work may be one of the oldest works of the Devil on Earth is to get human beings to doubt the Scripture, to doubt the Word of God specifically. You look at Genesis 3, and what does the devil say to Eve "Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?" Injecting the seed of doubt.

Oh how much trouble has come from that seed of doubt over the Word of God. But injecting that seed of doubt. Now how does it fit into the context of the church at Rome? Well it's a mixed church, you've got Jews who are well-acquainted with the Old Testament, and Gentiles who probably weren't as well-acquainted with the law of Moses and with all of these regulations and all that. They haven't been living them, they maybe were familiar with them. They're coming together now in a whole new era of redemptive history. It's the New Covenant now, it's a different time. And so I think the Gentiles in particular are going to be tempted to want to just jettison the Old Testament or least sections of it, to say we don't need this anymore, it's obsolete. Why do we even have to read the law of Moses? We don't have to circumcise our sons anymore, we can eat any kind of meat we want. Why do we even need it?

And so Paul wants to stop and to espouse, to establish the ongoing role of the ancient scriptures for both Jew and Gentile believer. So that they don't throw out the Bible. Furthermore, you know it was those Old Testament regulations that excluded the Gentiles anyway, that was that wall of separation that kept them on the outside. So if you're a Gentile believer, you might be tempted to just want to throw it out and get rid of it. He says No. "Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us." He says. He's talking about the Old Testament.

Now, what's amazing for me as a church historian somebody interested in church history is that within one century there was a heretic in Rome named Marcian who did the very thing that Paul's protecting against. Marcian in 144 AD started his own church, in Rome. I guess that would be second Baptist in Rome, something like that. But it was the second, it was a schismatic group, and at the root of Marcian's heretical church was that the Old Testament was written by an evil God, what he called a demiurge. A wicked and evil God and therefore its teachings are wrong. We just need the letters of Paul, we need some or parts of the Gospel etcetera. He considered himself to be the successor to the Apostle Paul in his battle against Jewish legalism, he really wanted to strip the church of all of its Jewish roots that was a heresy that he started in Rome. Now, there are modern attacks on the old Testament. Ever hear it? There's the God of the Old Testament and then there's the of God of the New Testament, the God of the Old Testament is the God of wrath, and arbitrary rules that we don't need to follow anymore. The God of the New Testament is the God of love and mercy and grace, we see it in Jesus, in His inclusivity, and in his love for people. But then the Old Testament, this God reigns down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah and so there's a split there.

So you see people like Thomas Jefferson or Mahatma Gandhi or Albert Einstein making disparaging comments about the Old Testament, and even somewhat attracted to Jesus even Einstein as a Jewish man. Many modern people attack the concept of the Old Testament and any thought of reconciling the message of the Old Testament and the New.

All Scripture Given for a Purpose

But Paul here, I believe, is defending all of scripture, and saying, all of scripture is helpful and beneficial to Christians in an ongoing way. The scripture was given for a purpose. Look at verse 4, it says, "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope." That is a purpose statement. It's why the Bible was given to us, God had a reason for writing it down. So many attackers of The Bible, critics of the Bible make it a human book. The Bible is ultimately God's book and God had a reason for giving it to us, he had a purpose in writing it down. Look at the purpose statements, everything that was written in the past was written to teach us. That's an infinitive of purpose.

So that that's a purpose statement. That we might have hope, that is the purpose that he's giving us. This is a very purposeful statement here, and he's saying that all of scripture is a gift, it's all that way. "Everything that was written in the past," he says, reminds me of 2nd Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is God-breathed, and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." And that means everything, that means the history books, all the Old Testament history, that means the genealogies are there for a reason. That means the Law of Moses still has something to say to us even though it's been fulfilled in the new covenant. That means that the prophecies are there for us to read. Everything that was written in the past, etcetera.

And what is God's intended audience? Well, it's us, His people, His chosen people, through every generation century after century. God was thinking about you when he spoke to Abraham and he said, "So shall your offspring be." And Abraham heard that promise concerning the stars, he heard that promise, and he believed God, and the scripture says, "Abraham believed God and it was credited him as righteousness," Romans chapter 4. The Apostle Paul says this, "The words, 'it was credited to him' were written not for him alone, but also for us to whom God will credit righteousness - for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead." Those words were written down for us so that we could read them. All of those prophecies. You look at what David wrote, "They have pierced my hands and my feet," Psalm 22. Did David know what He was writing? He didn't understand it was written for us.

First Peter 1, said they didn't understand they searched trying to understand it, but "it was revealed to them, that they were not serving themselves," but us. Jesus himself in the debates with the Sadducees, he talked about the account of the burning bush and he said, "But concerning the resurrection of the dead, haven't tou read what God said to you. I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." God is speaking to you through Scripture. When you take up the Bible in the morning for your quiet time, you should say, God speak to me, say something to me, this is a biblical concept. So everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that we might have certain things happening in our soul.

Some time ago. I read a book by Graeme Goldsworthy called "Gospel and Kingdom" and he's troubled by some of those glib applications, you know David and Goliath. There was a chapter somewhat humorously, entitled "Killed any good giants lately?" And basically the problem he has with the application of scripture is that it goes too quickly from the text right over to immediate modern day application. So what are the giants in your life? Boy it'd be easy for me as a preacher to just do that. Alright? What are the giants in your life? And whatever problems financial. I could even do a three-point sermon. You probably might like it occasionally. Alright, giant number one, giant number two, giant number three. I looked at that and I said that isn't right, but you know something, I must tell you, I've kind of come, not full circle, but come to a different place.

You still need to read the story of David and Goliath, saying what are you saying to me, Lord? What are you trying to teach me here? Yes, David is more like Jesus, than he is like us, We are not called to be heroic and go save the people of God, by facing such a ferocious giant. We're more like the Israelites cowering in the holes wanting someone else to save us. That is all true but you still need to learn something, you need to be fed by the scripture, you must be. That's why it was given. And so I've kind of come full circle. My yearning today is that you who are sitting and listening to me today will get what you need for this week to be holy and fruitful for Christ. That's my yearning, apart from that I've wasted my time and yours. Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us. Now, there's a lot of immediate purposes, here. Look at it, you see, everything that was written in the past was written to teach us.

So, that's instruction so that through endurance and encouragement, we might have hope. Those are immediate goals of the scripture. There are others that come in, not right here, but they're there. As you read the Bible, warnings against sin, and their enticements, through promises. Joy and celebration, wonder and awe, insight and understanding. All kinds of good things come to us when we read the Scripture. But let me tell you something, the ultimate purpose of scripture, the ultimate purpose of scripture is that God may be glorified by your salvation. That's the purpose. Because it says in Second Timothy 3-15. Paul speaking to Timothy, how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. That is why the scripture was given and you know that salvation is a lifetime work, and so through faith in Christ Jesus, that you would be given the wisdom you need to believe.

And the ultimate goal of Verse 6, "So that with one heart and mouth, you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." That's why the Bible was given, so that we wretched sinners would be cleansed of our wretched sin. And that we would be brought into the very presence of God and that we would be eternally glorifying God for His mercy in Christ. That's the purpose of scripture.

Now, look at the glorious chain reaction we have here. Look again at verse 4, "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope." First, Paul starts with instruction.

The Bible Was Given For Instruction

The Bible was given to teach us. Have you ever heard people speak about head knowledge? They almost always say, it negatively. Well, I'm not sure what part of my body I'm supposed to use to have knowledge. Okay, is it okay for us to have head knowledge? What do you think? I don't think it's just Okay, I think it's absolutely essential to the Christian life. The problem is if it just stays in your head and it's not transforming your heart, that's what they say, and we agree about that.

But my goodness, there can be no heart knowledge without first there being some head knowledge. Would you all agree? Just nod at me, I know it's hot in here friends. I know I'm hot too, but yes, we must have the head knowledge before we can have the heart knowledge. And so the scripture was given to teach us, to teach us things that we would not know any other way. Facts about God, His attributes, what he's like, his decrees in eternity, his actions in history, facts about God, facts also about Christ, His person, His miracles, His teachings, His death on the cross, His resurrection, His ascension, His future reign. His coming in glory, judgment He will sit and all the nations, gather before him. I need to know these facts and I can't know them any other way, except from the Bible.

Facts also about the people of God, about the Jews in the Old Testament, about the church in the New Testament trying to understand what happened to people when they obeyed, what happened to people when they disobeyed. I need to know these things. And scripture was given to teach me. And frankly, without this knowledge we cannot have faith and without faith our character cannot be transformed and without our character being transformed we cannot act differently. And so knowledge that the Scripture gives primes the pump for the entire Christian journey. We must have this knowledge, we must know what the Bible teaches. I think this is the essence of Romans 12:2 were it says, "Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind and then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will.

And so the scripture was given to teach us. Don't despise a teaching ministry. Thank God for it. I'm not here just to move your emotions. I think there are other speakers that can do that better than I can. But I want you to know what Romans 15, 4 through 6 teachers. That's my goal today because I trust that this scripture will help you in your Christian life. And I have a sense I may never preach on it again. And so my desire is that you would understand as fully as possible within the hour and a half that we have together that you would understand. See, some of you are laughing, others are visitors and you're worried now. Okay? We are not going to be here an hour and a half, but in the brief time we have I want you to understand this text. That's my goal, every week. So teaching.

The Bible Was Given for Endurance

Secondly, endurance. Notice that Paul gives two character traits that are closely related, endurance and encouragement. Endurance is the ability to persevere through trials and temptations without giving up. Endurance means you don't give up, you keep going, you're in a 26 mile race and at the 20 mile mark when you are exhausted and you think there is no way you can make it through those last six miles that now are feeling like 60 and your legs are heavy and you burned all of the resources you have and you just don't have any idea how you'll make it another step, you must have endurance. That's what endurance is. Endurance is essential to your salvation. Think about Luke 8:15, The Parable of the Seed and the Soils.

 The seed on good soils stands for those with a noble and good heart who hear the word, retain it and by endurance produce a crop. You gotta stick with it in the Christian life. You can't give up. Again, in Romans 2:7, it says, "To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality He will give to them eternal life." That is not salvation by works, friends. He's just describing the life that ends up in heaven. Persistence in doing good, seeking glory, honor and immortality. That's the Christian life. Romans 8:25, it says, "But if we hope for what we do not yet see, we wait for it with endurance, we wait for it patiently." And again in Hebrews 10:36, you need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised.

Perseverance, endurance is essential to the Christian life. Now, the Christian life can become easily very discouraging, isn't that true? Are you ever tempted to be discouraged in your Christian life? Look inward, you say you know you need to be like Christ, but you keep seeing the sin crop up. You thought you were done with it. Irritability, lust, pride, selfishness, materialism, idolatry. And you thought you were done and you're not. And it's so discouraging as you fight sin, so discouraging. You yearn to see more godliness in your family life, in your marriage, in your parenting, in your relationship, in your family. And their sin is active as well.

You want to see yourself lead more people to Christ, but nobody ever seems to come to Christ or the ones that show some indications they end up being the other seeds in the soil. The sun comes up or whatever and then a year later they're not around. And that's so discouraging. You want to see your church be a glorifying spirit filled fruitful Church and it's less than you think it should be. And all of us see it. And it's discouraging, it can be very discouraging. Let me tell you something. I said recently, we're meeting with a group of men and I said, "Satan is eager to sell you discouragement at every corner of the road."

I remember I was on a mission trip to Haiti. I'll never forget this. And we were going through the streets of Port-au-Prince and we were in the poorest area of the city, Cite Soleil. And we saw kids coming with containers and getting muddy ditch water out of the ditch and then going into the tent city there. And I thought, "What in the world are they going to use that water for?" Well, about a mile of the road there were these cute little Haitian kids coming right up to our bus, we weren't moving very fast, we were going... We were just stop and go. And they're coming right to the windows and they're trying to sell us refreshing looking drinks of blue and red and orange color. They didn't look new. The bottles looked mostly clean.

And I looked at that and I said, "No way am I buying that and drinking it, even though I'm very thirsty." And it did have condensation on the outside, it looked refreshing. But I said, there's poison in that bottle. There's no way my system can handle it. But they were persistent in selling it, they really wanted to sell it to us. And I think that's a picture of what the devil tries to do with discouragement. So, "Here, have this, drink this." All of the time, "Be discouraged, feel down." And we've got to say, "No sale." I can't be discouraged just because my story has a happy ending, has a glorious ending. How can I be discouraged? And the whole Church's story is a glorious story with a happy ending. Discouragement is unfit for the Christian life. We have to fight it at every turn.

So how does scripture resupply our endurance? Well, it gives us examples of endurance in the Bible. Look at Abraham waiting 25 years to get Isaac. Look at Joseph who unjustly is sold into slavery by his brothers, unjustly imprisoned by Potiphar, unjustly left there when some others of servants of Pharaoh said they would get him out, but they didn't. But through all of that he maintains, Jacob said, "Limber arms in the service of God." He's ready to go and when his time came he wasn't bitter, he wasn't angry, he just stepped forward. Endurance. Or you've heard of the patience or endurance of Job, how he went through all of these trials and never cursed God or sinned. So examples. Hannah, who prayed for a child and God granted her prayer. Or the Apostle Paul as he city after city is persecuted. Endurance. Scripture also re-supplies our endurance by giving us promises connected to our endurance. How about this one, in Matthew 10:22, "All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved."

Well, that's an encouragement. Isn't it? To endurance. Or by dire warnings of what happens to people who don't persevere. Look at Samson. Samson made it through three tests with Delilah, right? "Tell me the secret of your great strength." I just want to know.  He was not a discerning guy. Why do you want to know the secret of my strength? This is making me suspicious. Alright? And then even worse to test whether he told the truth, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you." This is not a good relationship. And he should've known, but he didn't. And finally through the nagging on and on, he gave up, he just gave up. It's a picture of us and temptation, isn't it? We just get tired and we give in. It's an example. Look what happened to him, his eyes were put out and he lost his strength.

Or by stimulations to prayer through to strengthen perseverance. Jesus said in Luke 18:1, He "told His disciples a parable to show them they should always pray and never give up." So He gets you praying, Jesus tells you this parable about the persistent widow and all that. And that you should never give up, keep praying. Or just commands in Hebrews 10:36. "You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will see what He has promised. You must persevere. These five different ways, He strengthens your endurance.

The Bible Was Given for Encouragement

The next word that Paul talks about here is encouragement. We've been talking about it the whole time. This is a weighty word, it's related to the word "paraclete" which is the Holy Spirit, the counselor, it is that encouragement that the Holy Spirit gives, the scripture was given for that purpose. You read of the sweetness of heaven and you're encouraged.

You read of the power of God, the immutable, the unshakable power of God to finish your salvation and you are encouraged. You read of the mighty power of Christ resurrection from the dead and he is a pattern of what you will do someday. And you're encouraged. You read of the ultimate defeat of Satan, we'll get to it in Romans 16, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. And you're encouraged. You read of the promises of God to help you day after day and you are encouraged. Strengthen yourself by the Word of God, don't yield to that weakness that discouragement brings. The scripture was meant to give you encouragement.

The Bible Was Given for Hope

And the ultimate result of this glorious chain is hope. Hope is a certainty of delightful future things based on the promise of God.

Absolutely delightful and absolutely certain. That's what hope's all about. And you know something, without hope you will not fight the good fight of faith. You just won't. You'll give in to temptation. You'll stop doing your ministry, you'll give up, you'll give up on this church, you'll give up in your family, you'll give up in your marriage, you'll give up in your fight against sin, you just will give up. You must have hope because if you don't have hope you will not fight. And if you don't fight you will not make any progress. You've got to have hope. So you see the glorious chain. Scripture instructs us, through the instruction we get endurance and encouragement. The result of that is hope and we keep moving in the Christian life.

And praise God for it. That's what he's giving us. Now, all of these wonderful things are from God. Isn't that wonderful? Look at verse five and six, "May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus. So that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." This is the benediction. It's not a prayer. Because you're not talking to God, but he's talking almost like a prayer. It's like a benediction. May the Lord be gracious to you and bless you, may He make his face shine upon you and give you rest. That kind of benediction. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement. But the point of the benediction is that all of the good things you need to see the race through to the end, they come from God. Now, many of you saw a number of years ago that film about Eric Little, Chariots of Fire. And I don't know if you remember, but there's this very dramatic point earlier in the movie in which he, who's usually just a sprinter, 100 meter runner, runs the 400 meters. And he gets knocked down to the ground.

And in a race that short it's still longer, it's longer than 100 meters. But race that short, that's a kiss of death. There's no way you're going to be able to get up off the ground and win a 400 meter race. Except that Eric Little just wouldn't give up. So he gets up and he digs deep and he fights as hard as he can. And at the tape, he wins the race. After that he gives somewhat of a gospel presentation. And he's talking about the Christian race, he likens the Christian faith to the running of a race. And he says, "Where then does the strength come from to see the race through to the end?" And what does he say? "It comes from within."

No it doesn't. I'm sorry, I know it's a good Christian movie and all that kind of thing, but that's just wrong. Let me ask you a question, how long would you have lasted in your Christian life if all of your resources had to come from yourself? Would you not have given up a long, long time ago. Let me ask the question again because it is a good question. We just need the right answer. Where then does the strength come from to see the race through to the end? He actually corrects it later in the movie by quoting Isaiah 40. You remember? He's in Paris he's at the Church of Scotland and it's so powerful, this montage of success and failure, athletic, whatever. And you're listening to Isaiah 40 and this is what it says, "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the Earth, He will not grow tired or weary. His understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary, he increases the power of the faint. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

So where then does the strength come from to see the race through the end? It comes from God. How do you keep getting up in the morning and having your quiet time, how is it after a day in which you have yielded to temptation and you feel disgusting and you feel totally unfit to be a Christian, the next day there's an internal strength to get up, repent, confess and try it again. Where does that strength come from? It comes from God who will not let you go. And praise God for it. He's got hold of you and He will never let you go until you are finished being saved.

Where then does the strength come from to see the race through to the end? It comes from the one who began the race in you and that is God. And God wants to give us, this church and all Christian churches around the world, one final gift. He wants to give us a spirit of unity among ourselves. He wants us to love each other and care about how the race is going for each other and to notice when somebody is stumbling and falling and to help them to be a minister of encouragement to them strengthening them by means of the scripture, that's what he wants, he wants to give us a spirit of unity among ourselves so that we don't give up. None of us give up.

Brother and sister, does it matter to you if your brothers and sisters finish this race? Did you care? Does it matter to you? You should. We will watch over one another in brotherly love. That's what we say we're going to do for each other. And what is God's ultimate purpose in all of this? Well, may the God who gives endurance and encouragement, give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ, literally, according to Christ Jesus so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Friends, the purpose of everything is right there, the Glory of God. He does it all for His own Glory, he's saving you so that you can with one heart and mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Where are we heading? Where are we going? Well, in Christ, we're going to heaven and what are we going to see when we get there? Well, we're going to see a throne and someone sitting on it? And if we look around, we're going to see people from every tribe and language and people and nation. And they will be with one heart and mouth focused on one thing, the throne and the One sitting on it. And they will be honoring and glorifying the Lamb of God. Who shed his blood that they could be there. Who paid the price so that we could be there. And there will be no divisions by race. There will be no divisions socio-economically, no division by talent or intelligence or gender or what era of church history we lived in. We'll all be one. That's where we're heading.

Now, I think it's good for us to act like it in the meantime. So that when people walk into this Church they sense and feel strongly a sense of unity among ourselves. We need to see it in our corporate worship. We're shifting out application. Every Sunday, will you please get yourself ready to worship and glorify God? Will you please do it in this way? Go to the Scriptures and say, "Lord, who am I in Christ? Please tell me how much you love me." If you have to confess sin then do it. Repent and bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance. Get yourself ready to be with the brothers and sisters in Christ. Strengthen yourself in the spirit. And listen, if this upcoming week you're discouraged, don't just lay there and be discouraged. Fight it, open up the Word of God and say, "Lord encouraged me. Please feed me, sustain me and strengthen me through the word of God. Give me a message today so that I could be filled with joy." You know something? We're of no use if we don't really believe how much God has loved us.

We have no use if we're not happy in Jesus. So you need to labor on yourself every day in the Scripture to be encouraged. And then finally, ultimately, you need to trust in Christ as your personal Savior. I have no idea, I look out at faces and I don't know where each of you are at. Some of me I know very well, but others I don't know well. The Scripture gives the central endurance and encouragement in this way, come to Christ, come to the cross, believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, trust in Him for the forgiveness of your sins. Close with me in prayer.

This morning we're looking at Romans 15:1-3, and we're looking here at the issue of how the strong should minister to the weak. Two of the greatest ideological enemies, of Christianity in the 20th century, were communism and Darwinism and both parted company with Christianity on the issue of how the strong should relate to the weak. First communism in 1875, German philosopher Karl Marx summed up the communist ideology with this phrase, "from each according to his ability to each according to his need". What people don't realize is how rooted in Christianity that idea is. One professor at Southeastern called communism a Christian cult or heresy, and it is with God removed. The ethos of Christianity of taking from the strong and giving to the weak. The only problem is, it was coercive enforced by the government, not given freely. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

Provision and Sharing in the Old Testament

You see at first in the time of the Exodus, when the manna came, bread from heaven laying all over the ground. How easy would that be? Those of you struggling with your jobs, you don't have to do it, you just go out and collect dinner from the ground. Of course, it's the same for 40 years, but it was still an open provision of God, and God commanded that they go out and collect as much as they needed just for the day. And it says in Exodus 16, "This is what the Lord has commanded, 'each one is to gather as much as he needs. Take an omer for each person that you have in your tent.' And the Israelites did as they were told, some gathered much and some gathered little. And when they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little."

The idea is this, the young strapping Israelite men, would go out and collect far more than they needed and they could bring it back to grandma or grandpa, the weak in the tent. And there would be plenty in the tent for everybody, they didn't need to worry about tomorrow for God will provide again tomorrow. And so, he who gathered much didn't hoard it. They didn't keep it for themselves, but they used it freely and openly for the weak in their own tents and the weak in the community, and so the strong ministered to the weak, they gathered as much as everyone needed, and the next day there was more provision. And so he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.

Provision and Sharing in the New Testament Church

Paul used the same principle in urging the Corinthians financially. As he said, "God has been abundant to you and given you more than you need. The saints in Jerusalem, or the church at Jerusalem, they don't have enough. And so there should be equality. He who gathers much, shouldn't have too much, and he gathers little should not have too little." But the basic idea is that the strong are using their strength, the resources that God has given them in service of those that don't have, in service of those that are weak. And so, we get a glimpse into the life of the early church, their life together. So beautiful in Acts 2:44 and 45. "All the believers were together and had everything in common, selling their possessions and goods they gave to anyone as he had need."

Now, some people say that sounds like communism. The difference is they wanted to, they delighted to do it. They did it because they wanted to build up the strong or the weak and make them strong, that they wanted to take their needs, whatever they had and make them available to those that had needs.

It was voluntary. So also in Acts 4:32, "All the believers were one in heart and mind." See that's different than communism. There it's forced on you or you going to jail if you resist. But there, they said, We wanted to do it. They were one in heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. And Paul set the example on how the strong should be ministering to the weak. In his farewell address to the Ephesian elders, he said, "You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself has said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

So what is the context of this teaching in Romans 15:1-3, on the strong and the weak. Well it's in the Book of Romans and in 11 chapters Paul lays out that magnificent doctrine, the Gospel of our salvation, whereby sinners like us can be made just in the sight of God, and then can be sanctified by the ministry of the Spirit for the rest of our lives until at last we are glorified, and fully saved in his presence. Sin no longer has any touch on us, we will be in redeemed bodies, we will be living in a new heaven a new earth, the full glorious salvation. "Oh, the depth of the riches, the wisdom, and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable his judgments Paul says, and his path beyond tracing out." Romans 1-11, the glorious doctrine of our salvation. Then Romans 12-16 is the application. How then shall we live? And we've been seeing again and again the issue is how Christians should be treating other people. There's a horizontal aspect here.

How we should be dealing with those outside the church, how we should be dealing with those inside the church, and all of it to the glory of God. Now, as we've been looking at Romans 14, and now into chapter 15, it's amazing, we will find that Paul gives almost a chapter and a half to the issue of how strong faith-filled understanding Christians should deal with those who haven't arrived yet, on the issue of disputable matters, and his yearning is to keep the church united. A spirit-filled, holy fruitful church, not fracturing, not dividing or fragmenting, nor rumbling into different factions and groups that have different views on debatable issues. But rather that they should stay together. And why? Because this is the ordained instrument of Almighty God for the destruction of Satan's empire and Satan would love nothing better than infiltrate the local church and get it squabbling and bickering on debatable issues, so that they cannot do the glorious ministry God has in mind for them to do.

And so we have this church at Rome. The church at Rome was a mixed church. There were Jews and Gentiles, both believing in Christ, both loving Christ. But they were having a hard time it seems, reading between the lines, having a hard time staying together. The issue with the laws of Moses, the Jewish lifestyle, the Jewish culture and the ceremonial laws. How much was that going to be part of the church's life? And Paul desires the strong Christians to help the weak, and not allow any, not one of Christ's precious ones to slip through the cracks. There they were in Rome, in the imperial city surrounded by all the trappings of worldly power and success, surrounded by the imperial majesty of Rome, surrounded by paganism, and wickedness.

And there were the Jews with the lure always to go back to the synagogue, the old covenant lifestyle. And so there were forces pulling on that church to just crumble and fall back into what they had been before. It would have been so easy for this fragile coalition of Jew and gentile church to fragment and for pieces of the crumbling structure to fall away and be lost forever. And so he's writing about the issue of the strong and the weak. In Romans 15:1, he says, "We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves."

Now, that second great attack on Christianity was Darwinism. You've heard of the slogan connected with Darwinism, the survival of the fittest. It's not something that you find in the origin of the species is something rather that British economist Charles Spencer, after reading Darwin's work came to. He came to understand this concept of the survival of the fittest. And Darwin embraced it.

He thought the law of natural selection, a little hard to grab on to, and so that was a good slogan, a fit slogan for his views. The survival of the fittest. Now this economist Spencer apply the idea to all areas of life, but especially to his area, economics. And what he was saying is, in the principal of economics companies which offer better goods and services survive better in the marketplace and tend to accumulate an ever-growing market share, poorly adapting companies will be forced out by better adapting ones. They will be killed by the competition. Have you seen some of those ads in which there are people sitting around as dinosaurs? They're literally dinosaurs. And the idea is, if you don't stay with the program technologically, you will become obsolete.

It's the idea of the survival of the fittest, it's a dog-eat-dog world out there. The powerful and the strong rip to shred the weak and the infirm, and leave them for dead. It's a brutal world out there, the brutal world of nature. Alfred, Lord Tennyson when he was writing some poems was grieving over the early death of a friend, a young man, and he was grieving over it. And he was talking about and used a very famous expression, talking about nature red in tooth and claw. There's a sense of viciousness out there in the world, the strong devour of the weak.

Evolutionary thinking that links humanity to brutal domination of the weak at every level. A little boy torments a spider, he in turn is tormented by his bigger brother. They in turn perhaps abused by their parents, maybe the wife abused by the husband. At societal levels, one society is stronger economically, more powerful militarily, they're going to invade and start building an empire and so it is in the world, the strong devour the weak. They crush them and destroy them.

The Vision of Daniel and World History

And so, Daniel in Daniel 7 sees a vision of all of world history, and he looks out and he sees the great sea and the Four Winds tormenting the surface of the sea, churning it up. And up out of the sea, come four great beasts and these are empires and the fourth of those beasts we interpret to be Rome. And up it came out of the ocean, a great beast. Daniel 7:7. After that, in my vision at night, I looked and there before me was a fourth beast terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth, it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled under foot whatever was left. That was Rome. And that's what these people lived with, that's what they understood, the power that was Rome.

It was a beast, and at the center of it all was the city of Rome. Rome was the eternal picture of might makes right, of the beast of government crushing and devouring whatever is weak. And so the world for 500 to 1000 years, East and West lay trembling in chains at the feet of this beast. That's what the world does with its strength, that's what the world does with its power. It uses it to dominate the weak. That is natural my friends, but God is calling the church to be supernatural. God is calling the church to look at strength and weakness very differently. And so we have to look at Romans 15:1-3 as a call from God Almighty to the church to think differently about power and about strength. Christian obligation then is the strong need to bear the weak. Now from the very beginning, God intended that we, the human race dominating because of our intelligence, not because of our physical strength, there are animals stronger than us.

The Powerful are Called to Protect the Weak, not Dominate

But because we are created in the image of God, he intended us to take a position over the physical creation similar to his own. We create in the image of God, and so God called on Adam to serve and protect the Garden of Eden. Genesis 2:15 in the Hebrew, that's what he's there to do. He's to help the garden be everything it can be. To put his strength and his power at the disposition of physical creation, and enhance and nurture it, not destroy it. And this is exactly how God is with us, isn't it? The Almighty God omnipotent creator and what does he do with his power except serve us? I love it in Isaiah 40, probably one of my favorite chapters in the Old Testament. What an incredible chapter, in Isaiah 40:10-12, it says, "See, the sovereign Lord comes with power, and his arm rules for him. Behold, his reward is with him and his recompense accompanies him."

That's the almighty power of God, omnipotence on the move, that's God. But the very next verse says this, "he tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart. He gently leads those that have young." The tenderness of God, it's harnessed power applied to the benefit of his people. And then the very next verse, we go back to omnipotence, "who has marked off, measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket or weigh the mountains and the scales or the hills in the balance."

This is amazing, here's almighty, omnipotent God and he's carrying you gently like a lamb in his arms, that's the way God is. So Paul is teaching in line with the consistent pattern of the Bible, strength and power are meant to serve and to protect the weak not to dominate. And so we have a developed... In the Bible, a developed theology of strength and weakness. The word weakness here, that's in this verse, has a powerful heritage in the New Testament. Frequently translated sickness or frailty, it relates to humanity and sin, all the effects of sin on us. All human beings are weak and sick because of sin. Jesus said, "It's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick, I'm not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."

And it says so beautifully in Romans 5:6. "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly." Do you think of yourself today as mighty and strong and powerful? Well you're not. You're not. And neither am I. We were at one time powerless, and when we were powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. That's what it says, same word. This is precisely why Christ came into the world to carry our weaknesses. The same Greek word is used in Matthew 8:16, 17, speaking of Jesus' miraculous ministry. When evening came, it says many who were demon-possessed were brought to him and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. That word sick is the same one we're dealing with here.

This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet, Isaiah, he took up our infirmities and carried our diseases. Do you see that the same idea of carrying of picking it up and carrying it? "We who are strong ought to bear the frailties of the weak and not to please ourselves." That's the picture of Christ, the very thing he did. Jesus' healing ministry was therefore a visible picture of his spiritual work of salvation from the weakness and disease of sin, itself. The blind cannot see, the deaf cannot hear, the mute cannot speak, the lame cannot walk, the dead cannot do anything. The picture of our inability and weakness, that's what Jesus chose for the canvas on which he's painting his omnipotence, he could have done all kinds of miracles, but instead it's in the context of our weakness, his power is made perfect. And so he heals.

Now, even after we've come to faith in Christ, we're still weak aren't we? Anyone want to come up and testify otherwise? You want to come up and say I'm mighty and strong and have no need of Christ any longer, I can make it from here. How long do you think you'd last? But the demons come. I don't need anything from God, I'm fine, whatever the devil wants to do to me, I can make it from here. You really want to say that we are still frail and weak even still, we still have the flesh, don't we? There's that fleshly yearning after wickedness, it's still in us. And Christ is our merciful and faithful high priest and he went through a bodily life so he could help us in our weakness. He could intercede for us and point the way to holiness. Someday however, oh, isn't someday a wonderful day for a Christian? Someday we'll be free from all weakness. That which is sown in weakness will be raised in power and we'll be done forever with sin. We'll be done forever with temptation. What a glorious thing that is.

In the meantime, it seems good for us to know how weak we are. Don't you think? Doesn't it seem good for us to be reminded consistently how weak we are? And so the apostle Paul, even makes a whole theology of weakness in 2 Corinthians, in 12:10, he says, "When I'm weak then I'm strong." You know why? Because when I'm weak then I realize I can't do it on my own. I must have Christ, I'm totally dependent on him, he's the vine I'm the branch, I must have him. "When I'm weak then I'm strong." What is Paul saying in Romans 15:1-3? But let's make it collective. When we are weak, then we're strong. When we bring our weaknesses together, and somebody else' strength compensates for somebody else' weakness. The body is bound together. But if the strong despise the weak and say, "You can't carry my shoes, I can't believe you don't have the New Covenant figured out by now. Why don't you come back when you get it figured out. In the meantime, we're moving on."

 Oh, it will fragment. It will fragment. And how arrogant is it to not realize it's not going to be long before you're the weak one and you need some strong one to come help you. And so Paul is in effect saying, this idea of weakness and strength is to bind the church together. Now who are the strong and weak in this passage, what are we talking about? Well, I think the strong are mature Christians who have fully understood the balance that I was preaching about in Romans 14, who understand Gospel freedom from legalism. They don't need to follow all those rules and regulations, any longer. Not talking about immoral issues, not talking about wickedness, or sin. But we are talking about debatable issues, they've got it, they understand. They know, they have understood the message of Galatians. They understand Gospel freedom.

They also understand Gospel purity, they're not lurching off into sin, they're walking holy and godly and upright lives. But Paul is urging them to add a third thing, understand Gospel unity understand it's not enough just for you to be the strong one for you to have a good grasp on those things.

What about your brother, what about your sister? Help them, stay with them, don't give up on them, keep them together. That's what he's doing. Now notice Paul includes himself isn't that wonderful? "We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the week." He's including himself. And that's a reasonable. He was arguing from that perspective in Romans 14, he knows that he can eat anything. He understands the ceremonial law, he wrote the Book of Galatians, he understands freedom, he's including himself in the strong, but he's saying, "We ought to bear with the weak."

Not called to merely “put up with” the Weak, but Rather to Carry The Failings of the Weak

Now literally, this word "bear with your," it doesn't mean put up with, that's not what we're talking about, "we who are strong not to put up with the failings of the weak."

The NIV's translation is a little unhelpful here. There's one little word here that I think ought to be removed. And in other translations it is, in the New American Standard it's not there. Because I think it's a better translation in this case. In Romans 15:1 says, "Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves." Not bear with, bear them. Pick them up and carry them. That's what it means, carry them. Not bear with. Not put up with.

March of 1942, the Japanese Imperial Army was in the process of conquering the Philippines, they captured some 70,000 American and Filipino troops in Bataan and forced them to march through horrendous conditions over 65 miles to a railway depot where they'd have probably one of the most horrific railway rides in history. Was an awful time and it came to be known as the Bataan Death March. The heat was scorching. Many of the soldiers marching had tropical fevers or dysentery. The Japanese guards refused them any water, no water at all. And diseased and weakened man began to stagger, fall behind or collapse in the searing heat. And this only infuriated the Japanese guards more who had no respect for them at all. Japanese soldiers hardly ever surrendered and so they had no respect for a soldier that would surrender. And so for them, as far as they were concerned, they were dead men already. And so if they would stagger or fall out, they would just be bayoneted, immediately. Well, it wasn't long before the soldiers recognized that if a buddy is staggering and weak, you got to hold them up, you got to carry him basically. And so they'd have arm and arm and they would basically drag some people who barely could stand up. Because they knew if they would let him go, they're dead.

Are the stakes any less for the church? Are they any less? Do we have any less vicious enemies of the temptations, any less for us, should our concern for each other be any less? We're supposed to strengthen the feeble knees. And the arms that are about to give way it says in the Book of Hebrews. We're supposed to care about each other. Jesus didn't come to save 90% of the elect, my friends. He said that all that the Father gives him will come to him. And of all that come to him, he will lose none, "but raise them all up at the last day." And he includes us in that work. We're supposed to notice how people are doing, it's supposed to matter if somebody's staggering and falling. What's going on in their lives? We're supposed to watch over one another in brotherly love.

Who Are the Strong and Weak Here?

Now, it's interesting how we play the different roles for each other at different times. Who are the strong and the weak here? Well, probably, the majority of the strong were Gentiles who understood the New Covenant, they understood what Christ had done, they understood the law of Moses, they understood because there really wasn't a big issue for them. "Oh, so I don't need to do all that stuff that I've never really been doing?" Okay, well good, good news, that's wonderful.

But what about the Jews? "You mean I don't do that anymore? I've been doing it all my life." What a struggle for them. But what's so interesting is the whole idea of bearing the weak was reversed back in Romans 11. Remember there the analogy of the olive tree and there's a root structure there. And the root structure is Jewish, my friends. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And he's talking there to the Gentiles sating, "Look, don't be arrogant about the branches that have been stripped of. If you do, consider this, you [Gentiles] do not support [or 'bear' same Greek word] the root, but the root supports you." And so I began to meditate on this whole thing and now I thought sometimes we play one role and sometimes we play another. And it is arrogant to think you're only ever strong helping these weak people around who just don't seem to get it.

If you have that attitude, it's not going to be long before you will need some ministry from a strong person. God will humble you. We are to be together, we are to help each other make it through this world. That's exactly what's going on here.

And so how do we do that? Well, we do it by living a life of pleasing others. Specifically, pleasing God by pleasing others. Look at these three verses, "We who are strong ought to bear the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves." See the word "please" there? "Each of us should please his neighbor for his good to build them up for even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, 'the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.'" So the theme here of these verses is, "Who are you living to please? Who are you seeking to please?" That's what it's about.

Now, that brings us into the area of pleasure, the area of pleasure, we're talking now about pleasure. We have a great struggle with pleasure, don't we? We're struggling with it, it's a fight for us. America is a pleasure crazed nation. Industrial Revolution, technological advances created multiple labor-saving devices. One thing Karl Marx said that I found interesting, "A society that makes useful things makes useless people." I found that interesting. And so as technology advances after a while you find yourself with lots of time on your hands. Labor-saving devices produces lots of time. What are you going to do with that? Well, technology has the answer to that too. I find it amazing when younger people can't find a way to get through a beautiful afternoon without doing something electronic. Don't you find that amazing? I remember when I was a kid, there was nothing electronic. Alright? There were things electric, but we weren't allowed to use them. You know, TV and all that. Go outside, it's a beautiful day.

But it's a problem for us, not just for the kids, for everybody. As a result, recreation then becomes a purpose in the center of everything. Living for the weekend. Result of this is an attitude of extreme selfishness. Every person relentlessly seeking their own pleasure. And some of this pleasure craze sadly has seeped into the church decades ago.

AW Tozer wrote this, "The abuse of harmless things," by that he means lawful things that you're allowed to do. That's a Romans 14 issue. "The abuse of harmless things is the essence of sin. The growth of the amusement phase of human life to such fantastic proportions is a portent, a threat to the souls of modern men. It has been built into a multi-million dollar racket with greater power over human minds and human character than any other educational influence on Earth. For centuries the Church stood solidly against every form of worldly entertainment recognizing it for what it was, a device for wasting time, a refuge from the disturbing voice of conscience, a scheme to divert attention from moral accountability. For this, she got herself abused roundly by the sons of this world. But, of late, she has become tired of the abuse and has given over the struggle. She appears to have decided that if she cannot conquer the great God entertainment she may as well join forces with him and make what use she can of his power. So today we have the astonishing spectacle of millions of dollars being poured into the unholy job of providing earthly entertainment for the so called sons of heaven." AW Tozer, decades ago.

What would he say now? There's a whole movement, the Church Growth Movement, of which Willow Creek and their model is leading the way. And if you go to that kind of a church you can find a cappuccino bar, you might find a food court in a church. Can you imagine a food court in a church? But it's there. I was reading about one church and actually went to their website and watched some of their worship service. Granger Community Church in Indiana. Begins with about a five or seven minute rock concert and then after that laser light shows, they give away iPods. This guy, the pastor, walks around with one of those things at a ball game that fires out T-shirts into the crowd. I'm not doing that, it's not going to happen.

I don't know what I would hit anyway. Tertullian during the time of Roman persecution said, "The blood of martyrs is seed for the church." Church Growth Movement said, "No, entertainment is seed for the church. That's how it grows." Well, I'm not sure what you're going to grow with that. Are you going to grow people that are really denying themselves, taking up their cross and following Jesus? That's genuine discipleship, genuine conversion. I worry about it both in terms of evangelism and discipleship afterwards. What are we showing to the church?

God is not Against Pleasure

Now, let's talk about it for a minute. The issue here is first and foremost not about pleasure itself. There's nothing wrong with pleasure itself. May I say to you that God is the ultimate pleasure being in the universe? You may be surprised about that, but did you know that God does everything after his own pleasure? It says in Psalm 1:15, verse 3, "Our God is in heaven, he does whatever pleases him." That means he's pleased about everything he's doing. So pleasure's not wrong. Our God is a God of delight, of joy, of rejoicing, of celebrating. Like when the prodigal son comes back, how many parties did they have in heaven? Lots of people being converted right now. And God is leading the way, there's more joy in the presence of the angels of heaven over one sinner. God's doing the rejoicing. He is the heavenly Father saying, "Quick do this... We got to celebrate." God is a God of pleasure, we should not think he's not. Our own salvation brings him great pleasure. Meditate on that. Luke 12:32, "Fear not little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." he delights in it, he enjoys saving people.

And salvation itself for you and me culminates, Psalm 16 verse 11, "You have made known to me the path of life, you will fill me with joy in your presence, eternal pleasures at the right hand of God." Oh, God is not a God against pleasure, not at all. As a matter of fact it's because he wants you to have real pleasure at his right hand that he wants you to be stripped of all these worldly lusts which do not provide ultimate pleasure. They're a dead end, they kill pleasure in the end. And that's the nature of idolatry, taking a good gift from God and worshipping it so it becomes the center of your life.

Romans 12:25, they "worshiped and serve created things more than the Creator who's forever praised, Amen." And so there are repeated warnings in Scripture against giving yourself over to earthly pleasures. It's idolatry. In James 5 it says, "Come now you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you, you have lived on earth in luxury and in pleasure, you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter." 2 Timothy 3:4 warns about being lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Hebrews 11 talks about Moses who chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. And so the solution here is to recognize that God himself is the ultimate pleasure. And all of the good gifts of God can come or go as he pleases. But God is our reward, he is our pearl of great price. He's our reward at the end of the Christian life, God himself. So God's not against pleasure, that's not it. The issue is not pleasure itself.

Pleasing Others Is a Higher Priority than Pleasing Ourselves

Secondly, the issue here is not pleasing others versus pleasing God. Now that's wrong, it's called being a people pleaser. You know what I'm talking about? Being a people pleaser there is having other people as your audience and you're going horizontal and you're trying to live to please them forgetting what God thinks. That's the danger of legalism by the way. When you start getting into a legalistic lifestyle, it's like, "Hey, somebody noticed what I've done. I was wholly over here. Did you see it? I gave a bunch of money to the poor." There's an announcing with trumpets. It's the whole problem with legalism, it's very horizontal. Your audience is other people. So Paul talked very plainly against this in Galatians 1 verse 10 where he says, "Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ." Now, that's not contradictory of what he's teaching here in Romans 15.

That's not the issue either. It's not that we're going to please others at the expense or rather than pleasing God, that's not it. Well, what is it then? Well, the issue is pleasing ourselves rather than pleasing others, that's the issue. The issue is, will you live a life that feeds your own desires to the expense of what it's doing to your brother or sister? That's the question. Selfishness is the enemy of Christian unity that Paul is seeking to destroy here. Christian freedoms can be selfish things, selfish pleasures. And so Paul's calling on Christians to be willing to please others for their sake. Look at verse 2, "Each of us should please his neighbor for his good to build them up." This is a call to deny personal pleasures and freedoms and privileges for the sake of Christian unity. It is the call of the cross. "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life in this world will lose it."

It's the Christian life, it's the call of the missionary life. First Corinthians 9:19. Paul says, "Though I am free and belong to no man I make myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible." You've heard perhaps the story of those Moravian young men in the 18th century who wanted to reach some slaves on a West Indian sugar plantation and willingly voluntarily gave up all their freedoms, sold themselves into slavery and worked alongside these slaves out in the field to win them to Christ. Put that picture in your mind, giving up on pleasing yourself so that you can please others.

Now obviously, Christ is the ultimate example. Christ did not please himself. Look at Verse 3, "For even Christ did not please himself." Christ is the powerful one. We, the weak ones, he, the strong one. Used his strength to help the weak. Christ, the perfect example. Now don't misunderstand, don't think Christ was displeased to save us. God the Father, pleased; Christ disgruntled. Don't get that picture. Actually it says in Psalm 40, "Here I am, I delight to do your will oh God."

He says, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and finish his work." He delighted in it, he delighted in saving us. It says in Hebrews 12:2, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of God." He delighted to save us. That's not it and that's not what we're saying here. Don't think of Christ as reluctant or opposed to the will of God, the Father in the salvation world. He delights in it, but above all things he's setting his pleasure aside so that he can please God and please us. That's the point.

And he says in John 6, "I've come down from heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who has sent me. And this is the will of God that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day." He was there to do the Father's will. And the culmination of that we see so beautifully in Gethsemane, don't we? When Jesus falls on his face with blood coming off of his face praying with intensity that we cannot even calculate saying, "Father, if it is possible, let this cup be taken from me, yet not what I will, but what you will." Again don't think of Christ as unwilling, but he's setting his own pleasure and his own will aside to serve the father.

And notice how it says, "even Christ did not please himself." One of my favorite Christmas songs is, "I wonder as I wander." Ever heard that one? It's a beautiful song, very sweet, sweet song. Came right from, I think, the state, North Carolina. It's a folk song. Beautiful and one of the verses said this,

"If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing,

star in the sky or bird on the wing.

Or of all God's angels in heaven for to sing,

he surely could've had it, 'cause he was the king."

 So if Jesus had come down from heaven and reclined on silk pillows like a Turkish Sultan and demanded that we human beings wait on him hand and foot, he would've deserved it. He deserved it, he's the son of God. But even Christ did not please himself. It's the very same thing that Jesus said, he put the word "even" in there. "Even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." Christ did not please himself. Rather he came to serve we who are weak and needy. He could have used his power to serve himself. Like in the desert after fasting 40 days and 40 nights. If you're the son of God, turn these stones into bread. He wouldn't do it. He didn't use his miraculous power to save himself. He didn't get down off the cross when they called them to prove himself. He did not use his miraculous power to please himself, he didn't use his teaching ministry ability to please himself, he was the greatest teacher in history. No one ever spoke the way that that man did.

He was spellbinding in his preaching. And what does he do with it? Well, he purposefully teaches things that will offend the vast majority of his hearers so they just go away and stop wasting his time and theirs. In John 6, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you." Oh boy, can you imagine someone believing... Person taking him aside and saying, "Jesus, you know you've been doing really well up until today. That was bad teaching right there. What are you doing?" Even the disciples, the apostles, they did not understand what he was saying. Jesus didn't please himself for this teaching ministry nor did he please himself when he died on the cross and nor did he please himself even in his resurrection. He came back and gave many convincing proofs to his disciples that he was alive for their benefit, for their sake's.

Christ's focus here is accepting abuse meant for God and for God's people. Look at verse 3, "For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me." Psalm 69, as it is written, it's clearly a Messianic Psalm with many prophecies about Christ. John 2 quotes this when Jesus was cleansing the temple. And it said, "for zeal for your house has consumed me and the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me." Do you know what the effect of his cleansing of the temple was? Well, at one level, the effect was to get the Jewish mafia, the high priest and his family and all that that were making huge money on the temple concessions. So enraged with Jesus, they wanted to kill him.

Did Jesus not know that would happen? No, he knew very well that if he cleansed the temple, the insults of those who insulted God would fall on him and kill him. And not only that, but he sends it out to us. The insults we deserved even from God himself for our sin fall on him, he is our substitute. He dies in our place and takes our abuse. But it doesn't even end there, even for the redeemed, whenever a non-Christian persecutes a Christian, it's him they're persecuting. And so he says, on the road to Damascus, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" "Who are you, Lord?" "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting." The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. The unity between the Son and the Father, the unity between the Son and the church, that's the idea. It's getting out of yourself and caring about the glory of God and what's happening to your brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ, that's why he quotes this. Now, what application can we take to this message?

First, can I urge you to assess yourself on the issue of the strong and the weak? First of all, do you see yourself as weak? Do you see yourself that way? I mean relative to Christ, needy of his ministry every moment. Secondly, when you are strong relative to other believers, are you using your strength to minister to them? Are you using your spiritual gift to build them up? When you see someone discouraged you pat them quick on the back, "Well, pray for you." And off you go. Or do you sit down and invest in their lives? Do you care enough to know what's happening to your brothers and sister spiritually? "We who are strong ought to bear the failings of the weak and not please ourselves."

We come now to a time of the Lord's Supper. To me this is a time for us to remember how weak we were apart from Christ. To look backward at what Jesus did on the cross and how he gave his life. This celebration is for Christians. For those who have made a profession of faith in Christ testified to it by water baptism. If you have not come to faith in Christ yet, don't take from the Lord's Supper, but while the Lord Supper's going on, cry out to Christ. He is very merciful, he will save you from your sins. Look to the cross, look to the blood of Christ, look to him and be saved, trust in him. The rest of you who are believers, as you're preparing your hearts, think about how you're living toward the body of Christ. Are you out of fellowship with anyone? Is there a relationship that needs fixing?

Are you using your spiritual gifts to build the body of Christ? One of the ideas of the Lord Supper is we all take from the same loaf there's one body together, we are all partakers of Christ. Look horizontally and then look to the future, the time when your weakness will be swallowed up in victory, when Christ will come again and all of his saving work will be finished. Close with me in prayer.

From the very beginning of human history, we have been fascinated by grand and glorious building projects. And the first example of this, of course, is the Tower of Babel, where we sought to build a stairway to heaven with state-of-the-art materials, for the praise and glory of our name and in defiance of God's command.

And that's gone on ever since then. You have the Great Pyramid of Cheops, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, a marvel of human technology and precision still standing today. This has continued throughout every generation; every society, every grand and glorious society, seeks to have at least one noteworthy building that it can point to, whether the Roman Coliseum or the Great Wall of China or the Taj Mahal, people want a great and glorious building project that sums up the glory of the people, so that people can know just how great that society was. Even to the present day, there are people designing grand and glorious buildings for their own praise and glory.

I was reading a book about the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who had a zeal and ambition for his own name, he desired to be the greatest architect in history. He's the one that designed Falling Water, that house that straddles a waterfall, it's really quite a remarkable piece of engineering and art. He also proposed in 1956 the building of a mile high skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois. Now, technology wasn't up to the task, but he had that kind of dream and that kind of vision.

I read recently about a project that's on the books in Japan, Tokyo, for the building of an incredible pyramid, the Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid. It's a monstrously huge thing that's going to be 12 times higher than the Great Pyramid of Egypt. It's going to reach over 2000 meters high. For those of you that are metrically challenged, that's about 1.25 miles into the sky. That's incredible, and it's going to house 750,000 people. It's going to have 30-story skyscrapers dangling from the inner structures, just hanging there like fruit on a tree and people are going to live there. They could actually spend their whole lives within that pyramid. The problem, of course, of space is acute in Tokyo and they want to build it out in the bay, and they're going to use carbon-reinforced nano tubes and all kinds of things. They think it's going to stand up against a tsunami, it's their version of a hurricane or an earthquake, or anything. This is the grand and glorious building project. And the statements that are made about this are quite remarkable, the boastful statements. They say it's going to be the greatest building project in human history.

Well, I say to you, it is not. Because all of these human building projects, all of them have something in common, they are all temporary, they're all built out of earthly stuff that the Lord says in Hebrews 1, he will roll up like a dirty garment and throw away when Jesus comes back to set up the new Heavens and the new Earth. But there is a human building project, built not with human hands, but by the power of God, that will last for all eternity, and it is the church of Jesus Christ, it is the temple of the living God that is being built by the power of God. It will last for all eternity.

And no, Frank Lloyd Wright is not the greatest architect in history, it is God himself who is the architect and the executor of that plan who is the greatest. He gets first place. God has been working on this plan, the plan for this building, since before the foundation of the world. God is the architect who drew up the plans, God is the builder who's executing the plan, God is the owner who will get all of the glory and he will dwell in it forever. God the Father gave the command, God the Son paid for it with His own shed blood on the cross, God the Holy Spirit Is executing it day by day with the advance of the Gospel, the preaching of the gospel all over the world. This holy structure, this temple of God is being built right before our eyes.

Now, this is the work that Paul has in mind in Romans 14. Now, I know you don't see it there, but if you know what to look for, it's there. It says in verse 19 we should "pursue the things that make for peace and the building up of one another." It says in the very next verse, "Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food." And so Paul has in mind this building project.

Now, what is the context of Paul's comments here in Romans 14? Well, Romans 14 is written to the church of Jesus Christ at Rome, which was a mixed assembly, Jew and Gentile together, worshipping Jesus Christ, loving Jesus Christ, but having some problems.

They were having some difficulties, and the problem was that they didn't know what to do with the Jewish lifestyle under the law of Moses now that they were in the new covenant. There were certain rules and regulations that in the past had separated Jews and Gentiles, but now the teaching had come and were obsolete. All foods had been declared clean, you didn't have to circumcise your boys on the eighth day, you didn't have to go to Jerusalem three times a year. The Sabbath had a different interpretation. It had been fulfilled now and it had been moved to the first day of the week. Things had changed, and it was hard for the Jews and the Gentiles to know how to get along, and so they started to bicker over debatable issues. They started to have conflicts over these kinds of things. And Paul is writing to the church at Rome, and he writes for about a chapter and a half about the need to maintain peace and not to bicker, and why? For the sake of this glorious, this grand and glorious building project that God's been on and continues to be on, this church that He's building.

Solomon’s Glorious Temple

Now, Solomon had built a glorious temple. We know about it, we read in the Old Testament, David had the idea to build a house for God, feeling perhaps a little guilty that he's sitting in a house of cedar when God's still in a tent, so he wants to build a grand and glorious house for God. God through the prophet Nathan says it's a good idea. You get full credit for it, but it's not going to be you to do it, because you're a man of blood, rather your son, Solomon, will be the one. And so God gave David the plans, he had given David so many of the resources, he stockpiled building materials, but it was his son, Solomon, that built that glorious temple.

Now, it was glorious, but it was small, relatively small. In 1 Kings 6:2, it says, the temple that Solomon, King Solomon, built for the Lord was 60 cubits long, that's 90 feet long, 20 cubits wide, that's 30 feet wide and 30 high, that's about 45 feet high, really is not all that impressive a structure, really not that grand. Our own sanctuary is larger in some dimensions, than that is. It was glorious, it was made of the highest quality materials, the artwork was exquisite, it was made of gold in many places or overlaid with gold. But for all of its glory, and for its size, it still was not glorious enough and too small to contain God. And so at its time of dedication, King Solomon said, "But will God really dwell on the earth, the heavens, even the highest heavens cannot contain you, how much less this temple that I have built."

Christ is Building a More Glorious Temple

And it was merely a shadow, a shadow of the reality that is Christ. Jesus is the reality, that temple was just a shadow of it, and it is now obsolete. It says in Hebrews 8:13 that the idea of having an earthly temple where we worship is obsolete. "By calling this covenant 'new,' he has made the first one obsolete and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear." No, Christ is building a more glorious temple, he's building a glorious temple, a spiritual temple. Solomon's temple was made of earthly stones and bricks, and acacia wood and gold dug out of hills somewhere. But Christ's temple is spiritual, it's a spiritual dwelling place, where he will dwell with his people forever and ever.

Now, as it turns out, in the New Testament, as we read, we find that the people of God are the temple. We are the building materials for this temple. It's taught openly in Ephesians 2, and there in Ephesians 2, it's talking about the previous strife between Jews and Gentiles, how there were regulations that kept them apart, a dividing wall of hostility between them. But that's been removed now in Christ. We're in the New Covenant now and the two, Jew and Gentile now become one new man, Christian, a believer in Christ, and those old distinctions don't mean anything. And so Paul says in Ephesians 2, "In Christ Jesus, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His spirit." It's a spiritual temple He's building. He says the same thing in 1 Corinthians 3, he says there, "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you. If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for God's temple is sacred and you are that temple."

It says in Hebrews 3:6, "Christ is faithful as a Son over God's house, and we are his house if we hold on to our courage in the hope of which we trust." And then 1 Peter 2, it says, "As you come to Him, the living stone, rejected by man, but chosen by God and precious to Him, you also like living stones are being built together to become a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable God through Jesus Christ." That's four different passages. This is not a minor theme in the New Testament, but rather a major one. We are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His spirit.

Ongoing Construction for Millennia

Now, this is an ongoing construction project. It's not finished yet. Jesus has been working on it now for 2000 years. Remember how He said the night before He was crucified in John 14, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in Me. In my father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you for I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me so that you also may be where I am." Now, what's interesting is Jesus says He's going to go there to prepare a place for us. But if you put the whole thing together, it seems he's every bit as much preparing us to be the place. And so we're going there to the place He's preparing, but we are also being prepared to live forever as living stones in that temple. Isn't that exciting?

And so Jesus has been working on it, now working on us for 200 years. He's working on you, Christian friend, brother and sister in Christ, right now, polishing you up, shining you up, getting the rough edges off, and on me too, getting us beautiful, to be a fit dwelling place where He will live for ever and ever. What an exciting thought that is. The dwelling place Christ has been working on for all human history is this very one. It says in Revelations 3:12, "To him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it."

What's so fascinating in the Book of Revelation, not only are we going to be a dwelling place for God, but He also a dwelling place for us, and so there's a perfect unity in that way. We will be one with God. And so it says in Revelation 21:3, "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them, they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.'" And it says later also in Revelation, "I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lamb of God is the temple." It's a beautiful picture of unity and oneness, the people of God and God himself.

Now, that's the building project. We are God's fellow builders. We are in construction with Him, we are given a role to play in which we are building this eternal structure, and that's exciting isn't it? God has ordained for us to be fellow workers with him in this grand and glorious building project. 1 Corinthians 3:9 says, "We are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, you are God's building." That's an incredible thought, to be laboring side-by-side with God on the eternal building in which we're all going to live.

Now, in Romans 14:19 it says, "So then we pursue the things that make for peace and the building up of one another." That's in the New American Standard, or mutual edification, a building up of one another. We're going to do everything we can, we're going to pursue whatever it takes for peace and for mutual edification. Verse 20, it says, "Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food." And so this edification is going on. We are his fellow workers. How do we do it? By evangelism, by leading new people to faith in Christ, a new living stone is cut and put into the place in the wall that only it can fit into through eternal election. We are going to be involved in evangelism and in discipleship. As I mentioned a moment before, the beautification of these living stones that are already set in place. But they are being sanctified, they're being purified, they're being fit more and more for the holy habitation of God that's going on, and especially through the use of spiritual gifts. As we use our spiritual gifts, as the flow of the spiritual gifts goes in the body of Christ, this building is rising and getting stronger and more and more beautiful.

We've already had that teaching in Romans 12:6, "We have different gifts according to the grace given us." The spiritual gifts are given for the building up of the body of Christ. Ephesians 4, it says, "It was He who gave some to be apostles some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up." The works of service build up the body of Christ, the pastor, teachers prepare the people to do the works of service, and that's what enables us to build up the body of Christ, moment by moment, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the son of God, and become mature, until the building project is finished.

So as we use our spiritual gifts, we are building up the church, and that is exciting, isn't it? You should never, as a Christian person, feel that your life is worthless, that your time is wasted, that there's nothing of value, no good work for you to do, here. You are working as a Christian, as you use your spiritual gifts, you are working on the only thing that will survive through to eternity, and that is thrilling, isn't it? That's something well worth doing. It says in 1 Corinthians 14:12, "Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church." And so the goal is that idea of edification.

Now, as it turns out, each one of us will be rewarded for our labor. God is noting how you're using your time. He is noting how you're using your spiritual gift. He observes everything and nothing escapes his notice. And so it says in 1 Corinthians 3, Paul uses the same building kind of imagery. He says, "Each one will be rewarded according to his own labor, for we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. By the grace God gave me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder. And now other people are building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds, for no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward." And so we're going to be rewarded for the way we use our time, we'll be rewarded for the way we are participating in this eternal spiritual building project.

Now, as we come to the end of Romans 14, we come to that great destroyer of this building project. And that great destroyer is sin. Sin is the ultimate opposer of this building project, this construction project. Sin is what destroys it, sin desecrated the temple, sin halts construction. Sin defiles and makes ugly the living stones that are already set in place, and so, sin is the enemy of the building project that God has us on. It's what I call satanic sabotage. You know what sabotage is? It's is the idea of somebody coming at night and undoing the work that was done, destroying it surreptitiously, trying to undo the construction work of God, and Satan is all about that kind of sabotage in this eternal building project. Now, there's a very great warning concerning this. In 1 Corinthians 3:17, it says, "If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for you are the temple of God." Sin is the great destroyer. And so therefore we have to be constantly vigilant in the body of Christ, concerning sin in our own lives and in the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Jesus is very clear about this in Matthew 18:6-9. He says, "If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin, such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come." And then He says, "If your hand or foot cause you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to end your life maimed or crippled than have two hands and two feet and be thrown in the fire of hell. And if your eye cause you to sin, then gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell."

And so we've been looking at the problem of sin in Romans 14. And there's different types of sin that destroy the building project of God. There's the sin of legalism, in which we don't understand the gospel of God's grace, and we become harsh judges, pointing the finger at one another, the sin of legalism. But then on the other side, we saw the sin of license in which people are going beyond commands that God has given into open sin. That's a problem as well and that's a concern, but then even within those areas of Christian freedom, Paul is dealing with something else. There's the sin of not being concerned about the effect of our freedoms on somebody else. We could be using our freedoms, but somebody else is hurt by it, somebody's offended, they're led into sin as a result of watching us, and Paul is very, very clear about the danger of that. And so he gives us, in effect, a new definition of sin in verse 23. Look at it, it says there, "The man who has doubts is condemned if he eats because his eating is not from faith and everything that does not come from faith is sin." The very strong and clear warning against sin.

The major effort then in this building project is maintaining peace while building. Look at verse 19 again, "Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification," or building up of one another. The building is built when peacemaking brothers and sisters edify each other. The building makes no unity, or no progress, when there is strife and discord and disunity. And therefore, Paul calls on Christians to be diligent about maintaining peace so that mutual edification can go on.

He begins in verse 19 with the word "therefore." He says, "Therefore, let us make every effort to do what leads to peace." That causes to look back and, if you would, look at verses 17 and 18. He says, "For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and proved by men." The Kingdom of God is not about eating and drinking. It's not about legalistic rules and regulations, either. It's about righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, and if you follow God in that way, if you serve Christ in that way, you will build the body of Christ. Therefore, let's do it. Let's follow what leads to peace and to the mutual building up of one another. That's the connection.

Now, it takes effort, doesn't it? I mean, let's face it, except for me, people are difficult to get along with. Sometimes very difficult. No, I shouldn't say that. I can be difficult, very difficult too. Please don't talk to my wife about it afterwards. Some other time you can talk. But there are some times that all of us can be difficult. Sin makes us challenging to one another and therefore it's going to take effort. You have to follow what leads to peace. There's a sense of pursuing it, because it isn't easy. The same teaching is in Ephesians 4, "Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace." It's not easy, because people are so difficult, also because Satan is active in sowing discord all the time.

Now, when I was growing up, I read a bunch of Greek myths, and I used to love those mythological stories. And there's a story about a gathering of all the gods and goddesses. But one goddess was left out, and it was goddess Eris of discord. She's the goddess of arguments and conflicts. Well, would you invite her to your party? So she wasn't invited, and she was very frustrated she wasn't invited, so she did what she does best, she decided is sow discord among the gods and goddesses, specifically among the goddesses. And so she rolls out an apple and on the apple it's written, "For the most beautiful." For the most beautiful, and so immediately three goddesses come forward, Hera, the queen goddess, and Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and Athena, the goddess of wisdom. The three of them are basically having a girl fight over this apple. They elect poor Paris, a mortal, to judge which of these three is the most beautiful. How would you like to be Paris?

Well, each one of them make offers to him, what they'll give etcetera, but Aphrodite offers him the most beautiful woman in the world, who is Helen of Troy. And he agrees and that starts the Trojan War. She is the goddess of discord, Eris. Well, it's a myth, it's just a story, but there is a god of discord, isn't there, and his name is Satan. He is always rolling the apple of discord into the church. Every local church struggles with discord, every local church struggles with disharmony. It's not easy to follow what leads to peace.

Among the deacons we were reading a book by Ken Sande called Peacemakers. It's a great book, and I would encourage it to you. It's just talking about the need that we have to maintain unity and the effort that it takes, and the way that we have to skillfully go to a brother that's sinned against us or that we have sinned against and work it out according to Matthew 5, Matthew 18, and the techniques it's going to take to maintain that peace. That's exactly what the Apostle Paul is talking about here, because Satan is the god of discord. Now, discord, disunity, stops the flow of spiritual gifts. People don't teach, people don't encourage, people don't give, they don't pray when there's discord and disunity. And so therefore, we've got to follow what leads to peace.

Now, the issue here in context is the exercise of freedoms in debatable issues. The thing you have to ask is, is it really worth it? Is it worth it to you to press your freedoms? Is it worth it to you to press your advantages and the things that are given to you, that are your birth right as a Christian, if it's going to cause a brother or a sister to stumble?

Now, we Americans, we're used to our freedoms, talking about our rights, right? Right from the very beginning, July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their creator with certain... " What? Unalienable rights. Unalienable, huh? Rights? How about graces from God, how about gifts of God? I mean, we ought to meditate on what we truly deserve. You ought to think about that, think, "God, what do I really deserve for my sin?" And if you take it to its logical biblical conclusion, we all deserve to be in hell right now. And whatever suffering you're going through, whatever your trouble is right now, whatever you're going through, whether financial, physical, relational, job-related, whatever, ask yourself, if you were in hell would you take getting out of help for that or would you stay in hell and be there? Would you trade hell for what you're going through right now?

And I can't imagine an earthly situation that's worse than the lake of fire. And that's what we deserve. But we are used as Americans to talking about our inalienable rights. We have the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, we have the Miranda rights. Ever seen a police movie? "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law," etcetera. We are used to being told what our rights are. Well, Christians have rights, too. We have freedoms that have been bought for us at a very high price by the blood of Jesus Christ.

The Book of Galatians talks about those freedoms. It's called the Epistle of Freedoms, and it's so important we recognize the freedoms we have as Christians. Paul is actually very incensed about these legalistic Judaizers that are crawling in there to try to spy out the freedoms they have in Christ Jesus and report them back to the authorities. He says in Galatians 5:1, "And though freedom that Christ has set you free. Stand firm then and don't let yourself be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." We are not going to be burdened by a yoke of religious legalism. We have freedoms, we have certain freedoms in Christ.

Paul is very strong in 1 Corinthians 9 about his freedoms as an Apostle. He says there, "Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord?  …And this is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. Don't we have the right to food and drink. Do we have the right to take a believing wife along with us…?" And what about getting paid for ministry, "is it only I and Barnabas who have to work for a living?" He talks about the issue of receiving money for ministry, and he makes a whole theology of it. But then after having laid out his biblical rights to being paid for ministry, he then says this, "But we did not use this right. In fact, we put up with anything rather than to hinder the gospel of Christ."

Now, that's the spirit of Romans 14. I'm not going to press my rights. Yes, I have the right to eat, I have the right to drink, I have the right to do these free things. But if my brother or sister in Christ is going to be harassed by it or it's going to cause them to stumble in any way, I'm not going to press my rights, I'm going to refrain. And so it says in verse 20 and 21, "Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, that is true, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble." And then in verse 21, "It is better not to eat meat or to drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall."

I think verse 21 is the most important verse I know in the Bible for my own view on Christians drinking wine. It's clear that Paul's arguing here, not about immoral or wicked things, but about things that are within the purview of Christian freedom, and yet he's thinking like a member of the body of Christ. And he's thinking, "What will be the effect of my behavior on someone else if they see me do this?" It's not worth it he says, in verse 21, "I is better not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything else that will cause your brother to fall." And so he says it's important that you find a way to keep your freedoms private. If you look at verse 22, and again, please don't misunderstand me. We're not talking about illicit or immoral things. Please understand we're talking about things that are matters of Christian freedom, not sin or wickedness, not that, but things that are free, that's what he's referring to here.

In verse 22, he says, "So whatever you believe about these things, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves." Sometimes openly talking about your right to drink wine or to watch any DVD you want or play any computer game you want or wear any clothes you want, or live any free way you want is actually as damaging is openly doing it. So he says keep it between yourself and God, and don't flaunt your freedoms. And also don't forget to guard your own heart. Some things that start out as freedoms can actually lead you across a line in which you are definitely sinning. And little by little your heart has become hardened, you don't even notice what's happening. So guard yourself and let your brothers and sisters in Christ guard you as well, as we saw in Hebrews 3, in the new member time. Let's watch over one another in brotherly love, and watch over yourself too.

Finally, we get to this verse 23. "Everything that does not come from faith, is sin." He says, "The man who has doubts is condemned if he eats because his eating is not from faith and everything that does not come from faith is sin." If your faith isn't telling you yes, if it's telling you no, you're sinning, even if you find out later you had that freedom to do it. You can't go beyond your faith, you can't go beyond your conscience. I you know something's wrong and you do it, then it's wrong, it's sin. A violation of a conscience is a serious matter. It's a serious thing to do something that you know is wrong or that you have a sense is wrong or that's going to hurt somebody, that's a serious thing. Everything that does not come from faith is sin. Therefore, I would urge you to set that up as one of the filters of your life. We'll talk about that in a moment, an application, but you need to look at everything you do, and say, is this from faith, is this for the glory of God? Filter your life that way.

29:51 AD: Let me speak a word to the non-Christian. Do you know what this means? The number one religion in the world is salvation by good works. You go try to witness to somebody and their hope on Judgment Day is that their good works will outweigh their bad, or even if they don't, they'll be of such pure value that they'll overcome the sheer quantity of bad works. I don't know what it is. The theory of salvation by works is so interesting to me, because you know what Romans 14:23 does? How many good works does the unbeliever have? How many? None. Do you see that? It's not that their good works are going to outweigh their bad. It's that they don't have any, because they haven't done anything their entire life by faith in Jesus Christ for the glory of God. And therefore anything that does not come from faith is actually what? It's sin. All of their good works are, it says, "filthy rags," they're actually sins in God's sight. You can't do any good works until you come to faith in Jesus. And so salvation by works is impossible by this verse.

Now, how is sin a failure of faith? Let me ask you. Would you be doing that or behaving like that if Jesus were standing right there? Oh! Is your home ever suddenly changed by a phone call? You know what I'm talking about? You're in the middle of one of those family moments, you know what I'm saying? And the phone rings. "Hello, how are you? Oh, we're doing great, great, having a great day." Yeah, well, a moment ago, you weren't doing great, okay. So my question is, I believe a moment ago was a failure of faith, because Jesus was right there. He was right there. Not only was He right there, he's in us, we have Him living within us by the Spirit. All sin is a failure of faith, a failure of vision to see into the invisible world, and to see God on His throne.

Job put it this way, "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl, for what is man's lot from God above, his heritage from the almighty on high? Is it not ruined for the wicked and disaster for those who do wrong? Does He not see my way and count my every step?" Yes, He does. But you see, when you have a failure of faith you forget that. You forget that God is sitting on that fiery throne and His eyes are like blazing fire and He sees everything. Sin is a failure of faith and therefore turn it around. You want to grow in holiness? Build up your faith, build up your faith. See into the invisible, see the realm of the invisible, that there is a God who sees everything, that Christ is there, that Judgment Day is coming, that all of it's true. Well, how do you do that? Read the Bible and obey it, and feed your faith on the Scripture. Then you will see the invisible world that surrounds us at all time and you'll live a holy life.

Now, what do we say by way of application? Well, first, let the eternal building project be the center of your life. If you're a Christian, build the church. Do whatever you can toward peace and mutual edification. I would urge that you get Ken Sande's book, Peacemaker. If you know of anyone in this church right now that you're having a conflict with or somebody's having it with you or there's a difficulty, you need to obey verse 19 and follow what leads to peace, seek that person out, give them a call this afternoon, talk to that person, male or female, whatever, and say, "We need to get together. Let's talk something through. My heart's telling me that we're not where we need to be, we're not at peace. And therefore, the edification can't go on the way it needs to between us."

And so get with them, and it's not a easy. I have to do it frequently, more than I'd like, but it's needful. Make those calls, make that appointment and get together and build that relationship. Take sin seriously. Not just your own, but your brothers' and sisters', realize you're being watched all the time. And as you look at your life, say, "Is this by faith?" Anything that does not come from faith is sin. Ask, "Am I watching this movie by faith for the glory of God? Am I watching this ball game by faith for the glory of God? Am I eating this food or this quantity of food or this type of food by faith for the glory of God? Am I spending this money by faith for the glory of God? Am I playing this X-Box game by faith for the glory of God? Will I be pleased on Judgment Day that I spent my time this way, that I lived this way?" These are matters of Christian freedom but you have to ask if everything is done by faith for the glory of God.

And one final word to the unbeliever. I don't know who of you that are here have never made a commitment to Christ, but if you're clinging to the idea that your good works will save you, according to Romans 14:23, you have none, you have no good works and they cannot save you. But Jesus, His shed blood on the cross, he can save you, He can give you a gift of righteousness and salvation right now simply by faith. By trusting in Christ, by believing in His word, you can have complete forgiveness of sins, not by trusting in your own good works, of which you have none. But rather if you come to faith in Christ, then there'll be a river of good works that are going to flow through you by faith for the glory of God. Let's close in prayer.

As we continue in our study in Romans 14 an incredibly important chapter. I think we come to the point where we are seeing one of the challenges of the church, the evangelical church in the west, the two great commands that we have really mediated to us by the Apostle Paul, and that is to come out and be separate, that we would not be polluted by the surrounding world, that we would not be defiled by this world. While at the same time that we would become all things to all people, so that by all possible means we may save some. The same one wrote both of those things. And he was serving the same Lord who said, "Father, I do not pray that you take them out of the world, but rather that you protect them from the evil one."

So how do we come out from the world and be separate? 2 Corinthian 6. And at the same time be all things to all men, so that by all possible means we may save some? 1 Corinthians 9. As I looked at Jesus, I looked to him as our ultimate example in this. How can we be evangelistically fruitful and at the same time, pure and holy in this world? That's the question. And Jesus taught us how. Now my favorite depiction of the life of Jesus in movie is Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth. It's still on TV. It was a TV mini series 6 hours and 16 minutes, first premiered in 1977, and I just love it. Others like the Jesus film better and it's been more widely used. But I just love the acting, I love the way the whole thing is pictured. And there's a very poignant scene right at the beginning of the call of the apostles, when Jesus works with the newly converted Peter, this big, burly fisherman who is filled with all kinds of whim and vigor and energy, and he doesn't understand why his brother Andrew, is running after all these holy men like John the Baptist.

And now here comes another one. He says, "What, another holy man, another one who tells us to wait for the future time and all that?" he said, "Show me a holy man that can put some fish in the sea, and then I'll listen to him." And then Jesus looks him right in the eye and says, "Go back out again." And he goes out and he catches that miraculous catch of fish and then Peter is incredibly humbled. Problem is, Peter has a, what he calls a "blood-sucking enemy." His blood-sucking enemy is Matthew the tax collector. And Matthew comes to his house where Jesus is there, and there's a huge group of people there, and Matthew enters Peter's house and says, Peter, I heard you had a large catch of fish. We'll talk about it later, shall we. He wants his back-taxes, and so Peter is irate that Matthew would come into his house. And Matthew says, "What about this new teacher, a rabbi whatever he is, Jesus?"

And Jesus looks up at him and says, I think that we'll have to meet at some place where we're both more welcome. And he says, "Is your house far from here?" And Matthew looks suspicious and surprised, said, "Why do you ask?" he said, "Because I should like to have dinner with you tonight." Well, Peter and John and James, and Andrew spend the rest of the day trying to persuade Jesus not to go to the house of a defiled tax collector. If you just go there, those people will pollute you, it will be a scandal, you'll be defiled. And Jesus said, "I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." It's not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. And so they go right... All of his apostles, disciples, they go right to the threshold of Matthew's defiled house, and they will not enter in, but Jesus walks right in.

Well, there's a party going on, it's that low-flickering lights, the oil lanterns, not immoral things going on, but a little bit seedy. You can tell that the first concern of those tax collectors and the women that are there and all that is not holiness, and Jesus comes right into that situation and they're all shocked, they never expected that he would really come. They thought it was just idle words, but he came and he said, "Peace be on this house. And then Matthew said, Thank you for honoring my house. Jesus has already done a number of miracles, and they know that he's an extraordinary person. They never expected him to come. Well Matthew doesn't know what to do and there's a woman reclining there, and he says, "Get out of the way." he's speaking very sharply to her and Jesus speaks gently, says, "No, no, I'll sit over here."

Well, someone offers some drink, he can have a drink and somebody offers a toast, "I drink to you in the name of all here" it's a real party atmosphere. And Jesus said, "I'd like to tell a story." And all of a sudden the place becomes quiet and he tells the story of the prodigal son, and it becomes clear as the story unfolds, that the prodigal sons and daughters are those tax collectors that are there celebrating and eating and drinking. And they're drawn into the story, because they've never seen anyone like Jesus with that kind of love and that kind of compassion, and that kind of power. He would come to their house and yet their hearts are being laid bare as the prodigal son waste all of his father's resources on riotous living. Meanwhile Jesus' apostles are standing right at the threshold of the door. Not a toe on the threshold, but they're right there listening also to the parable of the prodigal son.

And you know how it ends, Jesus stands up and he's really into telling the story, he's very powerful in his telling of the story. And you can just see the passion as the father sees the prodigal son from far off, and he runs, and he embraces him and he hugs the prodigal son, welcomes him back in and says, "Quick, bring a robe for my son, put a ring on his finger, and shoes on his feet, kill the fatted calf and let's celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again, he was lost, and is now found." But he doesn't stop there, he then goes on to the second part. Now the older brother at that time, heard the celebration, wondered what it was and called one of the servants and he was told. Meanwhile Jesus' disciples are listening very carefully to this right on the edge of the threshold.

And that older son is angry, that the father would throw a party for this wayfaring wicked son, who wasted all of his father's living on... Money on riotous living. And the father goes out and talks to him, says, "Please son, listen to me. You are always with me and all I have is yours." And at this moment in the movie, Jesus turns and looks right at Peter, "You are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But it was right for us to celebrate, for this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." And at that moment, Peter crosses the threshold comes into Matthew's house and Jesus takes him and puts his arm around his shoulder, welcomes him, but then turns him toward Matthew and the two of them embrace. From then on in the movie they were friends. Now, my question to you is, how does the church do that?

How do we go into the party, and immediately become the center and focus? Tell a story that cuts to the quick of the sinners that are there, makes them feel their need for God, not defiled in any way by the evil things that are going on and then producing, effecting a transformed life as a result. How do we do that? Churches are struggling with this all across this country. They're trying to be seeker sensitive, they're trying to set up programs or other things that will be relevant and connect with people. They're trying to have a Starbucks right on the campus or maybe a squash court or something like that, anything to attract the people. They want to find some way to cross the gap between church people and non-church people. And they're doing it in the name of leading people to Christ, but there's a danger of defilement and I think Romans 14, especially verses 17 and 18 gives us the answer.

How do we advance the kingdom?

First of all, what is the kingdom? What is the nature of life, in the kingdom and how can we serve God in the kingdom. And so it says in verses 17 and 18, "The Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way, is pleasing to God, and approved by man." Now, that's it. How can we be both pleasing to God, approved by man and serve the kingdom and advance it, that's the question. And that's what we're looking at today in verses 17 and 18. Now we come to the question of the issue of the kingdom of God.

Now, Christ began his preaching ministry with the central call in Mark 1:15. The time has come, he said, "The Kingdom of God is near, repent, and believe the good news." He began preaching the Kingdom that's what he did. Christ taught all of his parables around this central theme. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that was planted in the garden or the kingdom of heaven is like a farmer who goes out to scatter his seed. Or the kingdom of heaven is like a large catch of fish or the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. The kingdom of heaven, the organizing theme of his parables. He also organized his healing ministry, as a display of the powerful Kingdom of God, the power of God over demons, and over sickness, even over death. So it says in Matthew 4:23, "Jesus went throughout Galilee teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness among the people." So Jesus' healing ministry, a display of the kingdom's power.

Now, as we come to Romans 14:17, we have the first mention of the kingdom in the book of Romans. That's really quite remarkable when you think about it, it's the centerpiece of Jesus' teaching and miraculous ministry. Paul mentions the kingdom in many other places, but this is the first time that he's mentioned the kingdom in the book of Romans. And in doing so, he's giving us somewhat of a definition of what the kingdom is. Now, in order to step back just from 14:17, What is the kingdom of God, what are we talking about when we talk about the kingdom of God? Well, first of all, God is a king. God rules on the throne. In Revelation chapter 4, The voice comes and John who wrote the apocalypse is invited, come up here. And when he comes up to heaven, there is a throne at the center. God sits on a throne. And so it says in 1 Timothy 1:17, "Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to the only God be honor and glory forever and ever, amen."

We serve a king, an exalted glorious king. And he rules over heaven and earth. Secondly, God's kingly rule extends everywhere, even over his enemies. He rules actively and sovereignly and powerfully, even over to people who don't acknowledge him, who don't love him and worship him. His rule is everywhere, yet thirdly, there is such a thing as an advancing kingdom of God here on earth that will grow, and grow, and grow, and be fulfilled in heaven, and you can enter the Kingdom of God by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. You can enter the kingdom now. And so what is that kingdom? Well I think it's the place, if you can use that language, spiritually where God the king, is honored and obeyed gladly, by people whose sins have been forgiven by faith in the blood of Christ and who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, for that glad obedience. That's the kingdom.

It's a matter of glad submission to the king by the power of the Spirit and of the blood of Christ. And so Paul is bringing us here in Romans 14 to this question, What is the kingdom of God like? What is life in the kingdom like? Is life a matter of legalism, a bunch of dos and don'ts, about eating and drinking, and Sabbath regulations. And the answer is decidedly no. Well, on the other hand, is it a life of total freedom from the law? You can do anything you want, any time you want, you're under grace. Is it that? The answer is decidedly no. But what then is life like in the kingdom? That's what Paul is answering.

And he starts negatively. Verse 17, look at it, he says, "The kingdom of God is not…" So he starts negatively. The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, here, he's dealing with this topic of legalism, the very thing he's been addressing throughout Romans 14.

Can we eat all foods? Are all foods really clean or are we still under the Mosaic dietary regulations and restrictions? Can we eat meat sacrificed to idols? Can eat anything we want? Can we drink anything we want? Rules and regulations. Well, he says, "The kingdom of God is not about that. It's not about rules, and regulations, about eating and drinking." This then is the mind of the legalist, this is what the legalist is thinking like. I want to be told what I must do and what I must not do. I want a list. I want a bunch of rules and regulations that makes life simple, even if we can't keep it. And so, rules and regulations, the mind of the legalist, every single area of life covered by a rule. Told what you can wear and what you can't wear, told what you can eat and what you can't eat, told where you can go and where you can't go. Do you want to live like that? That's the life of a legalist.

Jesus was dealing with this all the time with the scribes and Pharisees. Remember the picture in Matthew 23. "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You give a 10th of your spices, mint, dill and cumin, but you've neglected the weightier matters of the law. Justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former. You blind guides you strain out a gnat and swallow a camel." It's just amazing. You can picture them there, sitting at their table with a magnifying glass, nine leaves of mint for me and one for God, nine more for me and one for God. It's the mind of the legalist.

What's the problem? Well, they're living harsh, judgmental lives, they're considering themselves pure and in no need of grace, they call other people sinners, they're ready to condemn a Sabbath breaker, even if Jesus has just healed him, for carrying his mat on the Sabbath. They shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces with their rules, their list, their dos and don'ts, but they think they're on the inside. The big problem is they focus on details and they miss the transcendent truths, like justice, mercy and faithfulness. Now first I want to say to you the kingdom of God is all-encompassing. I don't think Paul's saying it doesn't matter about eating and drinking in the Kingdom of God, I don't think he's saying that. If that were the case, then he wouldn't be telling us anything about eating and drinking in Romans 14. Wouldn't even bare mention. And Jesus himself said, you should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former. So go ahead and give a 10th of your spices, but that's not the center of it all. The kingdom is bigger than that, that's what he's getting at. I think what we eat and how we eat it does matter to God. If these things weren't important then Paul wouldn't have said in 1 Corinthians 10:31, "So then, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God." Everything is under the kingdom. There is nothing in all creation over which the Lord does not claim total sovereignty. Abraham Kuyper put it this way, he says, "there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, mine." Everything is Christ's, including eating and drinking.

But I think what Paul is saying here, is that the kingdom of God is not essentially about eating and drinking, it's not merely about eating and drinking, that's what he's saying here. It's bigger than that, bigger than that, involves far weightier issues than that. Some time ago, I came across an illustration I think is helpful. I think what happens is when you take little things and make them the center of everything. Everything flies out of control, just like the solar system. The sun is at the center of the solar system, because it alone has the mass and the gravitational pull to hold all those nine planets, and all the asteroids and the moons and all that revolving around it. The sun weighs 333,000 times more than the Earth. If you take the earth and put it at the center, everything flies out except maybe the moon. Faithful moon will stick with us, everything else will fly out. We just don't have the mass to handle it all. And so when you take legalistic rules about eating and drinking and put them at the center they just can't hold the thing together, it flies apart. What is weighty enough, it's got to be God himself, the glory of God, the word for glory, "cabod" is mass, weight. The weight of the glory of God holds everything together. The Kingdom of God then is not about legalistic rules and regulations, about eating and drinking. That's negative. Well positively, what is it then?

He gives us a positive definition. It's not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Now I believe that Paul is giving a strong description of life in the Kingdom in this world. I think that what he's talking about, I think, if you look at the context of Romans 14, he's talking about church life, getting along with each other, dealing with debatable issues, what it's like in the church, what it's like in this world. So I think Paul is giving a very practical description here of what life in the kingdom is like. And I think there's a very strong order to what he says here. He gives three words that capture life in the Kingdom. First, righteousness, then peace, then joy, and all of it in the power of the Holy Spirit. That's what the kingdom is. That's how we live together and serve in the kingdom. Now let's look at these.

The Kingdom of God is Righteousness

First of all righteousness, there's a great debate about this word in Romans 14:17. Some people say, is this the same way that Paul has used the word righteousness through much of the Bible? Is this that gift of righteousness, Christ's righteousness imputed or credited to our account by faith. Is it that righteousness or is it the practical every day out working of righteousness, living a righteous life? Which is it? Is it that spiritual imputed righteousness, or is it every day righteousness. I think a case can be made for both. But I believe that we're talking about everyday Christianity here. I believe we're talking about practical Christianity, righteousness lived out in the workplace, righteousness lived out in the home life, righteousness out in the roads and the highways, righteousness in the supermarkets, everyday righteousness. I believe imputed righteousness is the basis of it. It comes first. Why do I say that? Because righteousness has both an eternal aspect and an everyday one. Peace has both an eternal aspect and an everyday one. But joy really only has an everyday experiential aspect. There's no kind of eternal joy waiting for us, ascribed to us that we don't feel right now.

You're not feeling joy then. So joy is something you experience right here, right now, isn't it? Or you don't. And therefore I think all three of them are talking about our lives here in this world. So let's look first at this one, righteousness. Now I believe imputed righteousness is given to us as a gift, and it's the foundation of all of our righteousness. It's a gift from God. Think right from the beginning on Romans 1:16 and 17. Paul says, "I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes," Verse 17, Romans 1:17. "For in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is from faith to faith. Just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith." That is the gift of righteousness. He says the same thing in Romans 3:21-24, which I think is the glowing center of the gospel. You want to know what the gospel is? Romans 3:21-24. It's powerful. And there it says, "But now, a righteousness from God apart from law has been made known, to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." God presented him as a propitiation for our sins through faith in his blood."

That's the center of the gospel. It's a gift of righteousness credited to your account by simple faith. And may I say to you, that is the only hope we sinners have on Judgment Day. Do you know it? It's the only hope. Our practical day-to-day righteousness will never be good enough for judgment day, even on your best day. Maybe today's your best day. If today were your best day, would it be good enough for Judgment Day? I think you know it isn't. So therefore, there's a gift of righteousness simply by faith. Or again, it says in Romans 4:3, what then does the scripture say, "Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness." This is the imputed or credited righteousness of Christ given to us freely as a gift apart from works, not by law keeping. It's not by legalism. It's just a gift.

It's a center of the gospel. Now this glorious truth is essential that everything else, to everything else it follows in the Christian life, and it'd be impossible for you to understand properly any human righteousness unless you first understand that. But I believe there's another kind of righteousness and that which happens in your life after you become a Christian. The changes in your life, the way you're different, the way you become more like Jesus, the way you live out righteousness in your everyday life, that's the righteousness I think Paul's talking about in Romans 6, what we call sanctification righteousness. It says there in Roman 6:13, "Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and offer the parts of your body, offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness." So you're going to use your hands and your mouth and your feet and your whole body as servants of righteousness. That's everyday righteousness, isn't it? It's a righteousness lived out in this world. I think that's what Paul's talking about in Romans 14:17.

Donald Grey Barnhouse talked about it this way. He gave a great illustration of a butcher, a man who worked cutting meat for people, and a butcher asked what was the difference that it made to him when Christ entered his life. And he said, "Well the difference was I stopped weighing my thumb." You see what happened was the butcher, when he was cutting meat, lunch meat or any kind of meat for somebody, he'd have his thumb secretly on the scale pushing down a little bit, you see? And so he was charging people for his thumb. He was cheating them really is what he was doing. When Christ came into his life, he stopped putting his thumb on the scale, stepped back, let the scale tell the truth about how much weight had been put on there, and he charged people fairly and if anybody came along that he knew he had cheated in the past, he put extra meet on to compensate for what he had done in the past.

Just like Zacchaeus wanted to make it right, restitution. That is the kind of righteousness I think we're talking about here. It's a righteous life lived out in this world, a life in which Christ has made a difference in how you treat people. Christ has made a difference in what you do with your money. Christ makes a difference in what you do with sexual temptation. Christ makes a difference in how you live your life. That's the kingdom of God. That's what he's talking about here. Righteousness. As it says in Psalm 15, "Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who might live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellow man, who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the Lord, who keeps his oath even when it hurts, who lends his money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken." That's a righteous life.

I think there's another aspect of righteousness and that's, I think, true of all of us Christians, and that is a hungering and thirsting for righteousness, a yearning for it, a yearning to see righteousness in our own lives that we don't see the way we'd like, a yearning to see righteousness in the surrounding society that we don't see the way we'd like, a yearning like it says in Matthew 5:6, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied, filled." So the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness in the Holy Spirit.

The Kingdom of God is Peace

Secondly, he mentions peace, second statement is peace. Paul says that peace is of the essence of the kingdom of God. Now, as with righteousness, there's both a heavenly or objective or spiritual peace, and then there's one we feel, one that we can sense, etcetera. There's the state of being at peace with God. And then there's the feeling of harmony or peace we have within us. They're two different things but closely related. I believe it's talking about the second one, a feeling of harmony or peace where people are getting along with each other, specifically in the church. They're not bickering or arguing over debatable issues, but there's harmony. There's peace between the brothers and sisters. I think that's what he's talking about.

Now the first peace is a wonderful thing. It's a beautiful thing. Think about it. Romans 5:1, "Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Isn't that wonderful? Think about the objective relationship between nations. During World War II, we were at war with Germany and Japan and Italy. We were in a state of war with those countries. There was no diplomatic exchanges going on. There was just warfare. Now we are at peace with Germany and Japan and Italy. We exchange diplomats. We exchange gifts. Our leaders visit their countries and vice versa. There's open and free commerce. We can travel there without fear, etcetera. Our countries are at peace with each other. And so it is with God. At one point, we were at war with God and God was at war with us. When we were apart from Christ, when we were in our sin, we were God's enemies, it says in Romans 5:10.

In Colossians, we were enemies because of our evil behavior and our evil way of thinking. We were at war with God, and more specifically, God was at war with us apart from Christ. But now in Christ Jesus, in the gospel, you have been brought into peace. You have been reconciled through the blood of Christ. Oh how precious is that? Brother, sister, whether you feel it or not, God is at peace with you and he always will be. We might go into another state of war with Germany or Japan or Italy. We hope not. But God will never be at war with us again now that we have been adopted into his family. Isn't that wonderful? That's the objective reality of peace with God, Romans 5:1. But I don't think that's what this is talking about. No, I think there's a different kind of peace.

There's peace with God but then there's also that peace of God, a feeling of peace in your heart. We see it in Philippians Chapter Four. You know you've read that before. "Be anxious for nothing. But in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God." And what will happen? "The peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Oh, have you ever had that experience? A burden in you? A concern? And you go to the Lord in prayer, and not just a minute or two prayer, not a quickie prayer, but you go there until you have effectively given him the burden of your heart, and you get up and you're at peace. You have a feeling of peace. God's going to do it. He's going to take care of you. Peace in the Holy Spirit, I think that's what we're talking about here. Now here I believe is protection from legalistic strife and controversy. The peace of God that transcends all understanding unites us together in a bond of harmony in the Holy Spirit. So, we're not bickering. And then when you bring your non-Christian co-worker to the place, you're not embarrassed.

You could even bring them to one of our church conferences. Isn't that a delightful thing? There's peace and unity at a Baptist church conference. It can actually happen. Yes, it can. We are united by the power of the Holy Spirit. We don't have to be bickering Baptists. We can love one another, peace in the Holy Spirit. And how powerful is that for the advancement of the kingdom of God? Not arguing over Sabbath rules and regulations, not arguing over worship styles and Christian contemporary music, not arguing about Christian liberties and what you're allowed to do or not allowed to do. Instead, righteousness and peace in the Holy Spirit.

The Kingdom of God is Joy

The third that he mentions is the issue of joy. The kingdom of God is also about joy in the Holy Spirit. Unlike the first two, you don't have that spiritual one and then the earthly version. I'm not saying there's not going to be joy in heaven. Oh, there will be. But it's still us experiencing it, right? There is no joy that you don't experience. You're just not being joyful.

But you could be. You see, this joy is based on the rock solid foundation of the first two. Righteousness, the righteousness imputed to your account and the righteousness you see in your life, the things that God's done. Peace, the objective peace we have with God forever and ever and the peace we have in our hearts now that we're walking well with God by the power of the Spirit. And that results in what? It results in joy, the joy of the promises of the gospel, knowing that your best days are all yet to come. All the good stuff's in the future. There is treasure stored up in heaven for you and no one can take it from you. It's guarded for you in heaven, kept in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. This is the joy of the Holy Spirit.

I believe that joy may be one of the greatest barometers of Christian health that there is. Now I was looking at my message this morning and I said, "Wait a minute, barometer of health? That doesn't work." Barometer of Christian weather, sunny weather or a diagnostic of Christian health, I don't know. Can you just accept barometer of Christian health? You know what I'm talking about, okay? I couldn't think of a better expression. All I'm saying is if you want to know how you're doing, check your joy. Check your joy. You know why? Because joy cannot co-exist with sin. If you're violating your conscience, you will kiss your joy goodbye until you rectify that through confession or repentance and bringing forth fruit and capable of repentance.

Joy cannot co-exist with legalism and unbelief. Paul talked about this very directly in Galatians 4:15. The Galatians had imbibed or drunk in a bad gospel, a legalistic gospel. They thought they had to do a bunch of rules and regulations. They drunk it in. Paul is very put out with them, and at one point very tellingly, he says, in Galatians 4:15, "What has happened to all your joy?" A very interesting question. Do you remember how it used to be? Do you remember the sweetness of knowing that your sins were forgiven? Do you remember the sweetness of the beginning of your Christian life? What happened to that? Where is your joy? Joy is a beautiful barometer Christian health. Look and see if your joy is there, or if it's not.

Now I believe joy transcends all circumstances. Barnhouse used the analogy of a submarine. He said, "When all is chaos on the surface, deep down there can be joy. There's never been a storm in the Atlantic, even though its waves were so great that they combed over the bridge of a battleship whose roots were anymore than on the surface. A submarine always finds the water down below as calm as a pond on a clear June day." And I talked to a submarine commander. He said it's true. You have to go down to 400 feet. But I've confirmed this. I try to confirm the illustrations. I don't want to say anything that's not true. But he said even in a hurricane, if you go down 400 feet, it's placid and quiet and peaceful. So you can be going through some terrible trials, terrible trials, but still there can be that joy rooted on the promises of the gospel. How sweet is that?

In the Holy Spirit

The final thing he mentions is the Holy Spirit, it's righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. And I hope you notice I haven't been able to mention the others except for mentioning the Holy Spirit, it's righteousness in the Holy Spirit, it's peace in the Holy Spirit, it's joy in the Holy Spirit. The Spirit gives all of these things that we've been talking about. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And therefore, we're at a higher level. We're at a different realm of experience. We are not under the law. The law doesn't produce those things. We are in the Spirit and the Spirit does. The Spirit produces righteousness, peace, and joy. That's what he's come to give so spirits work in us, and this is the nature of life in the kingdom of God.

Now Paul asks or brings up an important issue. He's saying, "You want to advance the Kingdom of God? Do it like this. This is how you should serve Christ in the kingdom." Look at verse 18. "Because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men."

This is how we serve the kingdom of God. The problem with legalism, your focus is other people, the rule keepers, the rule holders. You want to please them. You want to please the Pharisees. They're watching you all the time. And it takes the focus off of God where it should be, we're all going to stand before the judgement seat of God and give him an account, takes the focus off of God and puts it on other people and what they think. That's a great danger of legalism. The remedy is the spirit-filled life. Spirit-filled life frees you up from being a people pleaser. Your conscience is clear, your lifestyle is pure, you have no secrets to hide, no fear of disclosure because the true audience is with you always by the power of the Holy Spirit, you're consistently filled with the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit characterizes you.

You're free to eat or drink or not to eat or drink because you know that your life doesn't consist of these things. And so, like Paul and Silas, you could be singing in the middle of the night in jail because you have joy in the Holy Spirit. And this is how we serve Christ in this way. Now we can serve Christ legalistically, a bunch of rules and regulations. We can try to advance the gospel that way and some people will be convinced. They'll want some structure to their lives, some discipline. Like going to boot camp, they'll come, but they won't be embracing the gospel. Or we can go the other way. We can be as worldly as we can possibly be and try to win Christ that way. I was reading a book recently about the Emerging Church. The Emerging Church is a kind of new wave in the West, America and Europe, Australia, different places, where they're trying to reach what they call post-modern, post-Christian culture, by becoming as much like them as possible so that they can win some to Christ. That's their desire. Their desire is evangelism and they want to win lost people to Christ, which is admirable. The problem is the methodology. The problem is the methodology. They were talking about how one church bought a bar and refurbished it and turned it into a church.

And they spoke disapprovingly of this. They said, "That's not what we're talking about," because now the people who used to come to the bar can't go anymore. Now it's a church. You've taken it over and made it a sacred space. No, what you better do, what's even better, is run it as a bar. Run it as a bar and witness to the ones that come. And they cited an example in Bradford, England, where some radical Christians bought a pub called the Cock and Bottle and continued to run it as a pub selling hard liquor to whomever came, seeking to lead them to Christ. Malcolm Willis, who's the manager, said this, "Jesus said to go into all the world and this includes pubs. He didn't say sit in your church and wait for the people to come to you." The book says the Willis's and their staff, all Christians, have set about creating a loving, welcoming environment where locals are cared for, listened to, and ministered to.

On the issue of selling hard liquor, Willis justified it this way. "Yes, we're selling booze to people who could do without it. But if we don't, they'll just go somewhere else to get it." Did you hear that? We'll come back to that in a minute. "At least if we're here, we can get alongside them. So, I have to ask, 'What would Jesus have done?' I think the Lord would have been here in the pubs." Well, he would have been there, but would he have been serving the hard liquor? That's a different question. In the margin of the book as I was reading, I wrote, "Why not a Christian crack house in the same theory?

Why not? I mean they're going to go somewhere anyway, right? Why don't we serve them the crack and then while they're... I guess before or after, we can witness to it. Say, "Now you really don't need this stuff that I'm giving you. Let me tell you about Jesus." It doesn't make any sense. Now, we believe that the end and the means must line up, and that's what these two verses are about. Anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men. In what way? You want to build the kingdom, I mean the real kingdom, the one that really is and is advancing? You do it by righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, by seeing God work in this church, those things. So we hold in balance those three things we talked about last time: Gospel freedom, gospel purity and gospel unity in love. Those three things create a church that is powerful in the area of evangelism. Now as I close by way of application, let me ask you a question. Do you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior? Do you know him? Have you trusted in him? Do you have righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit? Do you have the Holy Spirit?

Have you received the gift of righteousness by faith in the blood of Jesus? Is your conscience testifying to you that you are a child of God and that God is at peace with you? And if the answer to that is no, your conscience is not telling you that, you have never come to Christ, then today, repent and believe in Jesus. It's the greatest thing could ever happen to you. Your heart will be filled with a joy I can barely describe to you, the joy of knowing that you're going to heaven when you die. Come to Christ. But if you're a Christian, let me ask you, are you walking in this way? Are you serving Christ in this way, righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit? Do you have a passion for outreach? Are you seeking to reach the lost or are you inviting people to church? Are you inviting people even more importantly to Christ? Are you talking to people about the gospel? And then does your life line up with it, righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit? Are you serving Christ in this way? This I believe alone advances the kingdom, and this alone establishes that which can glorify God for eternity. Close with me in prayer.

Some time ago when I was getting some evangelistic training, I heard about a man called "The Great Blondin. Charles Blondin, actually he was a Frenchman, that wasn't his original name. But he had a special talent, in that he was able to walk a tightrope across the Niagara Falls. Perhaps you've heard about this man. 1,100 feet long, 160 feet above the thundering Niagara Falls, this man could walk back and forth with the greatest of ease. But that wasn't enough for him. He shocked people in 1859, the first time he went, he shocked them and after having traveled back and forth he went to the middle and did a perfect somersault on the tight rope. And then after that he starts walking across with blind folds, pushed a wheelbarrow sat down and made an omelette and ate it, on the tightrope.

Now this was used as an illustration in evangelism, because he did say at one point, I have a wheel barrow here, and I'm able to push a man across on the tightrope. How many of you believe that I can push a man across on the tightrope. They all thought he could. You, sir, He'd single them out. Do you believe that I can push a man in this wheelbarrow across the tightrope. Yes sir, I do. Do you really believe with all your heart that I can do that? Yes, I do then get in.

It's a picture of commitment. You say you believe then get in, and it's a picture of our need to trust in Christ, a great illustration. But I was thinking about this man, he had an extraordinary sense of balance, something in his inner ear and his body, his agility, he knew what to do at every moment to maintain balance on that rope. And I know that there must have been some updrafts of air over 160 feet above the falls. There were winds, in the middle I'm sure it was sagging, some moving, didn't matter. This man had such an extraordinary balance, that nothing could throw him off. He died at age 75 of old age, in his bed, went back and forth dozens of times on this rope, never fell.

And I think as I come to Romans 14, I think it really is one of the most extraordinarily balanced chapters concerning the Christian life and the church you'll ever find in the Bible. There are significant themes, three of them in particular, that Paul is weaving together to help us understand our life together as Christians. To some degree, at a simple level, they look contradictory, they look like there's no way we really could fit them all together. Well, what are they?

Gospel Freedom

First, there's the issue of gospel freedom. The freedom we have to be children of God. The freedom we have to be sons and daughters of the living God and not slaves. The freedom we have from legalism, to not try to please God by following a bunch of dos and don'ts, a bunch of rules and regulations, but rather we're freed from that through the blood of Jesus Christ. Gospel freedom, is one theme.

Gospel Purity

We also have the issue of gospel purity, the great danger of sin, and the danger of sin is also woven through this chapter, and we're going to see it very strongly in today's message. There's a concern about sin and world-ness, the church needs to know how to help its members not be polluted by the world, to maintain our purity in this defiling world, the danger of sin, and therefore gospel purity is one of the themes.

Gospel Unity

And then the third is gospel unity, that we would be one body of Christ, that we would love each other even when somebody else isn't where we are in the Christian faith, that we would be patient with God's work in their lives, not cast them off. Not condemned them or judge them or disdain them in any way, but maintain unity while people are growing and learning about gospel purity and gospel freedom, that we would maintain unity. These three themes are woven together, with such remarkable balance as only God could have done through the Holy Spirit and through the Apostle Paul, gospel freedom, gospel purity and gospel unity.

Now we've already looked at a number of verses, the whole section was read for you today, but we've already seen some things. First, we've seen the issue of passing judgment, that we must stop passing judgment in. Romans 14:1-12, Paul has been dealing with what we call debatable issues, gray areas, issues of Christian liberty. Again, we need to be very clear, we are not talking about overt sin, things that violates a law or a command of God, we're not talking about those things.

For in the Book of Revelation, the church at Thyatira is condemned for tolerating that woman Jezebel with her sin. So we don't just tolerate sin. That would be evil, but we're talking about grey areas, those debatable issues. Neither are we talking about false doctrine, we would never tolerate that, for the church at Ephesus is commended in Revelation 2, for being able to test false prophets, and find them false. So we're not dealing with those things, we are dealing with debatable issues, issues of religious liberty, the example that Paul gives first is the issue of food, ceremonially unclean food. One man is able to eat anything his faith is strong, he realized that all foods are clean, but another man is still somewhat in bondage to the old way of thinking and he's not free yet, ceremonial food. And the second example, which we talked about last time, is the issue of sacred days, perhaps at least the Jewish holidays and festivals, but at most, we were talking about the Sabbath, and letting no one judge you about what you do on a Sabbath day, etcetera.

Two-fold Problem in the Christian Body

Now, Paul highlighted a two-fold problem in the Christian body, those that are more mature tend to disdain those that are less mature, to think down on them, especially when they start to judge them back. And so there's a tendency to fracture in the body of Christ. To not stay together and work it out, to not let iron sharpen iron as they work through difficult issues but rather just give up and let the thing fracture and fall apart, just like the feet of clay... Iron and clay, that doesn't stick together in Daniel 2 in the statue that Nebuchadnezzar... It just doesn't stay together. Just fractures all the time. And we've seen that, sadly, in the history of the church. But instead, Paul says, "No, we've got to not pass judgment on one another and we need to not condemn one another or disdain one another. We need to stay together."

And so he's dealing with these issues of gospel freedom. Paul's goal there clearly is genuine unity for the sake of the gospel. And the foundational principle is that Christ is Lord over all, judgmentalism is thereby destroyed, because Christ alone as we'd talked about last time, has the right to judge us. He's the only one that does, he's the one that has the right to assess us. And so Paul says very plainly, "Who are you to judge someone else's servant?" We also saw the triumph of the grace of the gospel. The grace of the gospel is not just a starting grace, but it's a finishing grace. The grace is there not just to bring us initially to faith in Christ, but to sustain us through this dangerous world, to bring us all the way through to the end. "Who are you to judge someone else's servant?"

He says, "To his own master he stands or falls, and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand." Such confidence in understanding grace. And so weak faith is destroyed, it's not a religion of fear that we're proclaiming here, and that's what legalism is, it's a religion of fear. But rather we have confidence. Legalism produces insecurity, but this servant will stand. If you look at the Christian life like a long list of legalistic dos and don'ts, you will, I guarantee be utterly miserable. Not only will you be miserable, but it will be your job and mission in life to make the people around you as miserable as you are. That's part of legalism, that's what happens. We can all be under that list of dos and don'ts. That is not Christianity, that is not what we're talking about here. But Jesus is Lord of all, and the fact that we will all, every one of us, stand before Him, someday, and give Him an account directly for every decision we've made. Now, that destroys license too, doesn't it? It destroys. "Oh, I can live whatever way I want. I don't have to be concerned about issues of morality or issues of sin." Well, that's not true. And so license is destroyed as well. We see the balance here, through a thorough meditation on the achievement of Christ at the cross. It frees us from legalism, and license, and it provides the ground for true Christian unity.

Direct Command Against Passing Judgment

Now, Paul gives a direct command here against passing judgment. Verse 12, it says, "So then each of us will give an account of himself to God," and then in Verse 13, "Let us therefore Stop passing judgment on one another." He directly forbids the passing of judgment. How quick we are to assess someone else. How quickly we are to pass judgment, we all tend to do it. I was in a prayer meeting some time ago and I noticed somebody who didn't have their head bowed and their eyes closed.

Now, where is that in the Bible about Heads bowed and eyes closed? Now my children, are going to say, "Now Dad, why do you train us then, can we do whatever I want?" "No." if you're looking around the room, you're probably not praying. Alright, that's a different issue, alright. But I found myself being tempted to judge somebody. It's in us all the time, and it isn't just one of us, it's all of us. We have that tendency to pass judgment, the command is given universally. The greatest danger we have with this judgmentalism, is that we will lose perspective about ourselves. We'll forget how much grace has been lavished on us already. We'll forget how much grace we still need in order to finish the journey. We will forget how the very accusation we make against someone could be made against us at another time.

And so in Matthew 7, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount says, "Do not judge or you will be judged, for in the same way you judge others, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." And as Paul said earlier, in Romans 2:1, "You therefore have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else. For at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgement do the same things." And so when you have a judgmental attitude, you're forgetting yourself, you're forgetting how much grace Christ shows to you every moment. The second greatest danger is that the Body of Christ will be rend asunder by a capping harsh judgmental spirit, it will become unpleasant to be around. You wouldn't want to be there, there's nothing inviting about it, there's nothing enticing, it's not pleasant, it's wretched, all you do is feel guilty all the time around people like that.

And so this is the issue Paul turns to, the danger of full exercise of Christian freedom. The deeper problem here is that Christians forget that we're brothers and sisters, that we're all members of one family, that we're saved by grace, by the grace of God and by the blood of Jesus Christ. We have got to stop thinking so individualistically. The call in this section of Romans, 14, is to think like a family member. Yes, you have certain freedoms, but is it wise for you to display your freedoms, to flaunt them openly? That's what he's dealing with here. And if we're judging one another unity is destroyed. If we're flaunting our freedoms and destroying our brother by our freedoms then unity is destroyed.

And therefore you see how Paul wants to maintain these three things together. Gospel freedom, that we're not under legalism anymore, we're freed from that by the blood of Christ and by grace. Gospel purity, we're not going to be polluted by the world, because we all have to give an account to God for every decision we make. And he says at the end, in Verse 23, "Everything that does not come from faith is sin." Sin is a great danger and so he's concerned about that. And then, sweet Christian unity, the unity we put on display as a great weapon in the hand of God for the destruction of Satan's kingdom, a unified healthy gospel preaching, gospel living church, that's his concern. Those are the themes.

Now, he says, we should decide or determine not to cause our brother to stumble. Look at Verse 13. Instead of judging. "Instead [of judging] make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way." There's literally a play on words here in the Greek, it doesn't come across as well in English. He uses the word judge twice, he says, "Don't judge each other but judge yourself," and specifically it's a different sense of the word judge. It's make a decision or a determination in a matter. We're not to judge our brother to decide whether or not he's a Christian based on these disputable matters. We are to judge our own behavior, or rather to make a settled determination, a decision about our lifestyle. Similar use of the Greek verb in 1 Corinthians 2, which Eric read earlier. Paul there said, "I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." He made a settled determination, a decision in his mind, and that's what Paul's calling on you here. You're making a settled determination decision. I will not cause my brother or sister to stumble in any way. That's the decision he's calling on them to make. It's a determination here, in not to cause your brother to stumble.

What is a Stumbling Block?

Now what is a stumbling block? Well, a stumbling block is something that causes someone else to sin. The images of making progress, run a journey or walking or perhaps even running a race. When I was in high school, I ran cross-country, I was a cross-country runner and our course was the longest and most difficult in the league. And it finished with a very difficult section through some woods downhill in the woods and then a straight up hill up this muddy hill, it was sheer torture, because this is after 2.8 miles of running. And we had a long downhill stretch, where all the people stood aside and cheered and watched us as we suffered and struggled across the finish line. But in order to earn that, you had to go down into the woods and there was a particularly treacherous section, where you're running over some roots, exposed roots. We did it on purpose, because we trained on it every day, alright. But the opponents, had to come and it was a difficult section in the course. Now, as you're going down, you have to watch your footfall at every moment, because if you get your foot hooked under one of these exposed roots you're going down and it's going to hurt, that's a picture of a stumbling block, it's something that causes you to fall in your Christian life.

It's something that causes you to sin. The Greek word is related to scandal, like being scandalized. And Paul's great concern here is that a strong brother who has freedom and liberty in Christ to do many things, may actually be used by the devil to tempt his weaker brother, and lead him into sin. Jesus gives us a very strong teaching about the issue of things that lead us to sin, in Luke 17, He said to His disciples, "It is inevitable that stumbling blocks should come, but woe to him through whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown in the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble."

Oh, how seriously does Jesus deal with sin. How deadly a force is it in the world. It's an infinite poison working through the body of the world, and He hates it and He will have it out, that's His whole work, is to destroy sin. And so He's very serious about this matter of stumbling blocks. It's a warning concerning the very freedoms that Paul has been talking about, the freedoms the Gospel freedoms. Now, the gospel comes and liberates us from all these Old Testament regulations. We can eat anything drink anything we can worship anywhere, any time. And even better, we're free from that whole way of living. Living in fear. Is God going to get me today. Have I broken some rule? Is this my final breath? Because I broke some law or some rule. My whole relationship to God based on how I'm doing on a list of dos and don'ts. That's the old way. And it's a way that never saved anyone.

Galatians 3, Paul talks about that, he says, "Clearly. No one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith. The law is not based on faith. On the contrary, the man who does these things will live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who's hanged on a tree." So we're redeemed from that whole way of coming at God. It never saved anyone anyway. And praise God for it. Aren't you glad to not be under a bunch of dos and don'ts. That you're adopted? Sons and daughters of God, that's a beautiful thing. But now there's a different issue. What about your weak brother, what about your weak sister? They don't understand fully gospel Liberty.

They don't understand the power of grace, they might be destroyed, they might in some way be led into sin, they might be crushed, they might be harmed, they might be defiled in some way by your open exercise of freedom. Be careful then, what's happening in their lives.

Paul's example here is eating unclean food, look at Verse 14-15. "As one who's in the Lord Jesus. I'm fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards as something as unclean, then for him, it is unclean. If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love, do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died." So here we come again to the issue of unclean foods, old covenant law designated some foods clean and some foods unclean. We talked about that earlier. Jesus, of course, declared all foods clean. Again, we mentioned that.

With the coming of the New Covenant, we're free to eat anything we choose any time we choose. Now, Paul himself has made an astonishing journey in this matter. Do you remember what Paul said about himself? He said I, I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews, circumcised on the eighth day, of the tribe of Benjamin, I was a Pharisee of Pharisees. I was more zealous for the traditions of my fathers than all of my contemporaries. I was the expert legalistic Jew, that's what I was. But look what he says here in Romans, "As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself." Oh, don't ever think for a moment that doctrine doesn't change lifestyle, it does. He came to understand New Covenant doctrine, he came to understand the freedom of the gospel, and he was convinced he could eat pork if he wanted to.

He had that freedom, he was free as one who was in the Lord Jesus, he said, "I'm convinced that no food is unclean of itself. But there's a different issue. What will my brother think as he watches me eat this? And it's not just the matter of the Old Covenant food list, there's a different issue once you get out into the Gentile world, you know what it is? It's the issue of meat sacrificed to idols, not just the list of what kind of food or whatever, it could be perfectly clean meat, it's acceptable, it's on the good list, but you know it's been offered to a pagan deity. It's been offered to Zeus or to Apollo. Can I eat it? That's the issue. Now realize the whole pagan or temple worship system was thoroughly wicked and defiled. It was a very sensual sexual thing, that the people would go down there and they would glut themselves and feed all their fleshly drives. And when the gospel came, people repented, they turned away from those things, they turned away from that wickedness. They weren't going to be involved in that kind of lifestyle anymore, it was sinful and wicked. But then along came another question: Could the meat still be eaten? Can we still eat the meat even if we don't participate in the services? What about meat sold in a marketplace.

Now you know and so do I. It's been offered to some pagan deity. Come on, the butcher's not a Christian. All meat that's available has been offered to some deity somewhere, am I allowed to eat it, can I eat it? So he deals with this very openly in 1 Corinthians 8-11, in those four chapters. The basic principles are; first of all, idols themselves are nothing, they're just chunks of rock. There's nothing to it, and meat offered to them doesn't pick up a spiritual stamp that you carry with it wherever it goes, like some kind of bacterial infection, that's not the issue, there's no spiritual defilement of the meat. So we're free to eat anything we want if we're alone and no one is affected by our decision. But if you're sitting at a table with somebody, a non-Christian man you're trying to lead to Christ and he says, "Oh by the way, we just got this from the sacrifice to Apollo." Push it away, you can't eat it. He's put a flag in it, he's identified it now and it's not... The issue is not your conscience. Now it's his, he won't understand your actions. Or you could be with a Christian brother, he's come to faith in Christ, but he won't understand your freedom.

The concern now is, "What will other people think, by my freedoms?" The deeper issue here is the issue of conscience, the meat cannot be defiled, but the conscience can. Look what he says, in verse 14, "If anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean." If you regard the meat as defiled, then for you it is defiled. If your conscience is bothering you and you go ahead and eat, you're sinning. And if you keep on violating your conscience, you'll break it, and if you break your conscience, it won't be long before you're openly sinning in ways that everyone recognizes as sin. We're not dealing anymore at that point with grey area issues, you will have so hardened your heart and violated your conscience again and again that you're free for any sin, and that Satan's purpose. There is therefore a great danger in this matter of defilement. Isn't this amazing?

Now, we Christians are the ones here in this postmodern age that say, "One truth for everybody." There's no truth for this person then a different truth for that person. False is the idea that I worship God in my own way. No, we're against that. We say there's one truth for everybody, but here we come to an issue in which is not the case. One man can eat that piece of meat and have no problem, but someone else their consciences is weak, their conscience is defiled they can't do it. And if they do they are sinning, actually sinning greatly against God. It totally deals with your own situation, with the complexity of the human heart.

I was talking to my kids as we drove in about this. I said, "Suppose you're at a bank, not you of course, but one of you are at a bank, and you see a bag, a canvas bag, it's got the dollar sign and all that, and you've been really struggling to pay your bills. And look around, no one's noticing. And you reach down and pick up that canvas bag and run. Run, run, run, jump in the car drive. You think every siren is for you, you drive for two hours out in the country. Open up the bag and it's just a bunch of garbage, a Coke can, and some other things and all that. They don't even use those bags for money anymore. I asked them, I said, "Have you committed a crime?" They said, "No, you took out the garbage." "Have you committed a sin? Yeah, you stole." Because that's the significance to you. You violated your conscience. You did something wrong. And if you keep doing that, sooner or later you're going to sin in open clear ways. You violate your conscience, sooner or later you're going to do something that clearly violates scripture. The conscience is a very sensitive thing. And the Lord has first and foremost, set you over your own conscience, to listen to it. Jesus said, "If your right eye cause you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand cause you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” The right eye, the right hand, are gifts from God. There are good things, but if they lead you to sin, get rid of them, that's Jesus' teaching. You must stand over your own conscience and listen to it and learn what it's telling you.

Now the conscience is only as good as your religious education that feeds it, but as you continue to feed yourself and nourish the scripture, the conscience is a very strong Guide to righteousness in Christ, if you violate your conscience, it's great danger for you in the Christian life. But Paul makes a staggering point here. You're not only responsible for your own conscience. You're responsible for your brother and sisters' conscience too. And if their conscience is troubled by something you're doing, then you're responsible. The weak brother may never really come into his gospel freedoms, he might spend his whole life not fully understanding the freedom you have. That's all right, he doesn't need to, he just needs to trust in Christ and believe in him. Alright. But you need to be very careful about your weak brother and his defiled conscience.

And therefore in verse 15, he says do not destroy your brother with your freedom. In verse 15 he writes, "If your brother is distressed, because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love, do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died."

Let me ask a very famous question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Have you heard that before? Now who said that? Well, that was Cain. You remember. A rather sassy statement frankly, to God. God said, "Where's your brother Abel?" "Ha! Is my day to watch him? Am I my brother's keeper?" The word literally in the Hebrew, means; Am I his shepherd, am I supposed to be shepherding today? "What have you done?" He said. Well, it seems in Christ, yes, the answer is yes. You are your brother and sister's shepherd. Our church's covenant says we're going to watch over one another in brotherly love. We're going to care what's happening in somebody else's life. We need to act in love, we need, literally to walk in love. And if we cause a brother pain or in some sense destroy him by what we're doing, Paul says we're not acting in love. He uses two very strong words, first, if your brother is distressed, in the NIV, grieved in the KJV, hurt or even injured in the RSV.

The same word is used in Ephesians 4:30, the Holy Spirit, it says, "Do not grieve the Spirit of God with which you were sealed for the day of redemption." Grief is a great pain, and if you're grieving your brother by the way you're acting, you're not acting in love. Temptation's like a flaming arrow. And if your brother's led into sin, because of your free exercise, you have wounded him greatly. Perhaps he's been struggling with some old pattern of sin, he barely has a handle on it. He's not yet learned how to live in Christian freedom from sin, He sees you confidently eating and drinking and living your open freedoms, he sees you doing that. And he's not ready for it but he delves in, and he wounds his conscience, he violates his conscience and he sins.

Now later in Romans 14, look at verse 23, Paul would give a very striking definition of sin, he says, "The man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating does not come from faith and everything that does not come from faith is sin." If your brother is not acting in faith he's sinning, even though he's doing exactly the same thing that you are. Paul also speaks here of destroying your brother. Now, this verse is caused some people, some theological difficulty. Do not by your eating "destroy your brother for whom Christ died." They say, "See, you can lose your salvation, here's Jesus dying for somebody who ends up getting destroyed." Well, let me tell you something, there are different things that can be destroyed than just a soul. I believe if Jesus died for the individual, God, the Righteous Judge, will not require a second time, another payment for those sins which were already paid for by the blood of Christ, that's unjust. So He's not going to go to hell if Christ died for Him, but there are other kinds of things that can be destroyed.

The man's peace could be destroyed, his joy could be destroyed, his conscience may be destroyed if he keeps it up, so also the man's witness and service to Christ may be destroyed. Do not destroy your brother just because you want to exercise your freedoms. All of that for food is it worth it? Therefore, Paul is calling on Christians voluntarily to restrict their freedoms, voluntarily to not do certain things that they ordinarily would have the freedom to do, for the sake of the gospel. Paul's goal ultimately is Christian unity and holiness. His desire is a healthy Christian Church, united in holiness. He is so zealous about holiness, he says that even if God is not offended by something that we put in our mouth, if we think He is and we do it anyway, then for us it is sin. Paul wants us therefore to care for each other, to look out for each other, to build a Christian community in love, in which we take each other's holiness and clear conscience seriously.

There's one final theme that Paul brings up here, issue. And that is: Don't let your Christian freedoms be spoiled by flaunting them. Look what he says in verse 16, "Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil." Here we have the power of words. In verse 13, he urged the stronger brother not to put a stumbling block in the brothers paths, but one of the ways a weaker brother might stumble would be to judge you and condemn you and attack you verbally for something. The Greek word here is blasphemia. They might blasphemed or slander you for having done that. And why? They're talking, their tongues are wagging. They're gossiping about your lifestyle in Christ. Sooner or later, it's going to come around, you'll hear about it. In James Chapter 3, it says, "All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man, can tame the tongue, it is a restless evil full of deadly poison." And so tongues start to wag.

Christians are pretty good at it. "Oh, I just have a concern. I want to share a prayer requests. So and so... " They come to the pastor and say, "You know, there's just some things I've been seeing," and all this kind of stuff, the stuff you hear, it's really quite damaging in the body of Christ. But here Paul's concern is the freedom itself. God gave you a good thing. And if you flaunt it in front of somebody who's not ready to accept it, they're going to trash it verbally in front of you, and you'll lose the joy in it. You might actually then do it just to get them. Just to flaunt your freedom. You might just do it just to jab them, you're not doing it in love, you're not doing it by faith, for you now it's become a sin. You lost a good thing because you flaunted the freedom.

And so what ends up happening is, then we lose one of those three beautiful themes here, the freedom of the gospel. The world start to shrink and shrink and shrink, and pretty soon will end up where Martin Luther ended up, in a cold cell a stone cell in a monastery, unable to do anything for fear of being sent to hell. Sleeping on a cold stone floor without a blanket, thinking that if he suffered a lot on earth he wouldn't suffer in the afterlife. And the joy of food, the joy of friendship, the joy of laughter, the joy of the physical beauty of the world is gone. Robbed. Because you flaunted your freedom and then it got polluted by this kind of defiling blasphemy.

And so we see in this chapter, three great themes, we see the gospel freedom of grace. The fact that God has freed us to live as Christian brothers and sisters, freed us from legalism, dos and don'ts. Secondly, we see the concern of gospel purity, freedom from sin, and how much we ought to care about the issue of purity and holiness. And third, we see the issue of gospel unity, a loving Christian community. That's what Paul has in mind, these three themes. And we see balance. To some degree as a pastor you're walking a tightrope all the time. All the time on all kinds of tough controversial issues, we'll get to those in a minute. It's coming, as we walk across that tightrope we're trying to balance, trying to find a proper way to live our Christian lives.

What kind of applications can we take from this?

Walk in Love Toward Your Christian Brothers and Sisters

Well, first, let's walk in love toward our Christian brothers and sisters. Care about their sin problems. Care what they're struggling with. Care what their conscience is telling them. Don't say, "Hey look, you got your problems, I've got mine." And I think that happens best in close type discipleship relationships, where you're prayer partners, you know each other, and in families too. Carry each other's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. We're supposed to watch over one another in brotherly love. Does it matter to you if somebody else is led into sin? Paul says in 2 Corinthians, one of the great sufferings of His ministry, "Who is led into sin and I don't inwardly burn." You should care what's going on in the life of your brothers and sisters, and you should know what's going on in their lives, talk to each other, use your home fellowships for that, pray for each other, be real and share what's really going on.

Understand Your Christian Freedom

Secondly, understand your Christian freedom, you're adopted as a child of God, you're therefore not being scrutinized by some disapproving employer who might fire you at any moment kick you out of the family of God, for breaking a rule. Understand that's not the way we live our lives. Your relationship with God is not based on keeping a bunch of legalistic requirements. God has created a marvelous world full of good gifts, eating, drinking, music Colors, sounds, marriage, sex, children, friendships, these are good gifts of God. The devil wants to steal them from us and pollute them. Paul calls it a doctrine of demons to prohibit good gifts that God permits. It's a doctrine of demons, let's not live like that.

Understand the Danger of Worldliness

But thirdly, let's understand the danger of worldliness. Grace cannot be a cover up for evil. And may I tell you, I think the greater danger for this church and most American churches is not legalism. I don't know many of you who tempted to spend a night on a cold stone floor because you think it's pleasing to God. As a matter of fact, I don't know any of you like that. But I do know that we are constantly being bombarded by sensual appeals in our culture. The problem is more license isn't it? The problem is an alluring song pulling us in that direction of the two rocks we can crush our ship on, pulling towards sin, at all times. Grace cannot be a cover up for evil. Take seriously Jesus' warning about sin, if your right eye is causing you to sin then gouge it out and throw it away. And what would that be? Well, you tell me. If you sin and you know you violated your conscience, the Holy Spirit convicts you, trace it back to what led to that, and then circle that and say, what was I doing there? You'll probably find that it was an issue of Christian freedom. And wonder if you should have done that thing. Cause it led you into sin.

Don’t Flaunt Your Freedoms: Some Present-Day Applications

And then finally, don't flaunt your freedoms. Let's talk about some present day applications. Most of us do not struggle with the issue of meat sacrifice to idols. And if you struggle with that at all come and talk to me afterwards, if that's a problem for you, let me know. But I don't know anybody that's really wrestling with that one right now. But it's meant to be a test case for other issues that we will face. What kinds of things? Well, first, let's talk about alcohol. Don't flaunt your freedom about alcohol. It's not very likely in a Baptist church, but there's still among you who are convinced that drinking wine is not in itself a sin, be very careful how you carry on that freedom. I would say how you even talk about it, alright? You may be able to make your case biblically, but be very careful how you talk about it. I think it's very much a Romans 14 case.

Let me speak a tender word of counsel to our sisters in Christ. Can I urge you be very careful how you dress. We are not legalistic Muslims. I went to Pakistan and spent the summer and the women there wear burkas from top to bottom and you don't see them at all, nothing. I don't know how they do it in the heat. It was about 130 degrees, very unpleasant. Now we obviously would all agree that women wearing bikinis to church is inappropriate. So somewhere in the middle, right? Somewhere in the middle, there's proper ground, now popular styles today are always pushing the envelope, aren't they? Always pushing the envelope. My question to you is as you select your clothes, not just for Sunday but throughout the week. And as you buy them off the rack, etcetera, or get them out of a catalog. Ask yourself, "What is my motive here? What am I trying to do? And is it possible that this style could cause my brother to stumble?"

In the context of the eye and the hand, it's in the context of Jesus' teaching about adultery? If you look at a woman lustfully you've already committed adultery in your heart. Brothers it's your job to not look lustfully, that's your job. You're supposed to look away. I'm just asking the sisters to help us. It's very much in the line of Romans 14, in not causing a brother to stumble.

And then finally, don't flaunt your freedom about entertainment, movies, DVD spectator sports, there's all kinds of world computer games, all kind of world of freedoms out there. Don't flaunt your freedoms about these things. There could be some movies that you can watch and it doesn't cause you to stumble that might cause somebody else to stumble. And again, I'm not talking about those openly lustful things that I think, I don't know how it'd be possible to watch them without sinning. But there may be others that would Violate somebody's tender conscience. Be very careful. In general. Be careful how you live your Christian life. Think about others think about God, think about your own conscience. And love your brothers and sisters in Christ, enough to walk as a holy man or woman of God, close with me in Prayer.

Turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 14. We continue our study in Romans, we're looking at Romans 14, specifically focusing this morning on verses 5-12.

On July 11, 1924, Eric Liddell, took his place at the starting line of the 400 meter race in the Paris Olympic Games, and in his pocket was a note, a handwritten note that had been sent him by the team trainer, on which it was written, "In the old book, it says 'he who honors me I will honor.'" The reason that that note was written and handed to Eric Liddell is that he, Liddell, faithful to his Christian commitment and strict Sabbatarianism, had refused to run in the 100 meter heat the previous Sunday, much to the great chagrin of his nation, who were hungry for a gold medal in the 100 meters, especially against the Americans. They wanted to see Eric Liddell win and he was the best they had, and they did not understand what they considered to be his religious fanaticism.

But the scripture in his pocket said, "He who honors me I will honor," and it seems that the Lord did honor his refusal to violate his conscience, because he ran a race he was not very familiar with, that he hadn't run very often, that he had not trained for and he set the world record by two tenths of a second, winning the gold medal. And so he felt very clearly the hand of God's blessing on his commitment.

By contrast, on January 30th of the year 2000, Kurt Warner, the quarterback of the St. Louis Rams, led his team to victory in the Super Bowl, Super Bowl 34, set a record for passing yardage, the very exciting game, a rarity for the Super Bowl, and then at the very end, he led his team in a final drive 73 yard touchdown pass with less than two minutes to go. And I will never forget the post-game interview. In my opinion it's the best Christian testimony that's ever been given by an athlete in a situation like that in front of a live TV audience of perhaps 50 million people or more. The interviewer began by saying this, "First things first, Kurt, tell us about that final touchdown pass." And he shook his head, he said, "First things first, I have to give praise and glory and honor to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." And as he stood up on the podium to receive the Super Bowl trophy, he held it aloud and said, "All glory to God," in front of the whole world, a clear, unashamed bold witness for Jesus Christ by name, and for the glory of God. He recognized that the accolades of athletic success were soon to be gone like the morning mist, but he desired to live openly for the glory of God.

Two different men, two different eras, two different athletes, each of whom desired to use their athletic success to glorify God, but clearly two different convictions on the propriety of being involved in sporting events on Sunday. It'd be interesting to get the two of them together and see the conversation that they would have. What would they say to each other? And I think in the spirit of Romans 14, they would have an incredibly warm and loving conversation, while they disagreed on whether it was right to compete on Sunday.

Is it possible that what would have been completely sinful for Eric Liddell, competing on Sunday because it would have violated his conscience, was completely acceptable for Kurt Warner because he did so to the glory of God? That's the question in front of us in Romans chapter 14.

Now, we've already seen one message, we looked at verse 1-4. The context here is maintaining sweet fellowship in the midst of disputable issues. We talked last time about the first test case, that is, are we free to eat anything at all or is our diet restricted spiritually? So you look at verse 1, "Accept him whose faith is weak without passing judgment on disputable matters." And Paul's command is that we must accept what God has accepted, and specifically accept the people that God has accepted.

We talked about the need for discernment, to tell the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian and to tell the difference between an issue that's central to our faith and those things that are more a matter of Christian liberty. And we saw that Paul gives strong words to both the weak and the strong. The strong have a tendency to despise and disdain the immaturity of the weak. The weak, for their part, have the tendency to pass condemning judgments on those who exercise more Christian liberty. And so, he urges them not to do either one, but maintain unity while they continue to talk to one another.

Today, we're going to look at the second test case that Paul brings up on this whole issue of maintaining sweet fellowship while we dispute over issues, and that is the issue of sacred days or special days. Now, there's much dispute on this verse, verse 5, also verse 6, straightforward translation talks about one who honors or esteems a day above another, just takes a day above another. The NIV puts the word "sacred" in there, one man considers one day more sacred than another. It's not strictly speaking in the text, it just means that he esteems one day above another. That's a simple translation.

The issue I think is clearly religious observance. It's the idea that this man thinks of this thing as a religious matter, a spiritual matter, that one day is spiritually more significant than another. Almost certainly, this has to do with Old Covenant regulations which would elevate one day and make it different than the others. Now, the Old Covenant had sacred days, special days, the Jews did. They had in particular three festivals that they were required by Jewish law, by the law of Moses, to observe. You had the Feast of Passover, unleavened bread, you had the Feast of Weeks, or first fruits, also called Pentecost, and then you had the Feast of Ingathering or booths, Passover, Pentecost, and then ingathering or booths, those were the three.

Furthermore, the Jews were required by the law of Moses to travel from their homes in the Promised Land, and make their way to the place that God would choose. That one place among all the tribes where they would all worship. And in the course of time, we found that that was Jerusalem, the City of David, and so they would all travel to Jerusalem. But in the Book of Deuteronomy 16:16, it says, "Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God, at the place that he will choose, the feast of unleavened bread, at the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Booths and they shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed." Now, before the exile to Babylon and really, even more clearly, before the split, of the Northern and Southern Kingdom, the Israelites traveled joyfully and easily, from all over the Promised Land from Dan to Beersheba and they made their way up to Jerusalem. As a matter of fact, there's a whole body of Psalms called The Songs Of Ascent that they would sing, as they were making their pilgrimage three times a year.

Psalm 122:1 is a Song of Ascent and it says, "I rejoice with those who said to me, 'Let us go up to the house of the Lord.'" So they're singing these songs and they're traveling and they enjoyed that. It would be a major part of the rhythm of the year of the Jews. It would be unthinkable for a Jew not to observe Passover, to not travel up to Jerusalem and do that. Now, of course, after the exile this became much more difficult. It became much more difficult to make the pilgrimage from wherever you'd been scattered and go all the way to Jerusalem, to see this, to observe this feast, and yet there were still some Jews that did it. As a matter of fact, if you look in the Book of Acts and you see in the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the church and all of the church, those Jews that had trusted in Christ, the apostles and a small number, about 120 in the upper room.

They were gathered but it says in Acts 2:5 "Now, there were staying in Jerusalem, God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven." So people had traveled from all around the Mediterranean and as far as they been dispersed and they had made their way up to Jerusalem to observe this religious feast. They're listed in Acts 2:9-11 "Parthians, Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus in Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene. Visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism."

Now that's interesting. Many scholars believe that was the beginning of the church at Rome the day of Pentecost, as visitors from Rome heard the Gospel preached by Peter filled with the Spirit. They came to faith in Christ and then went back to their home in Rome, and they started the church, and they were both Jews and converts of Judaism a mixed church there and that's how it began. And so we see the concern for spiritual days. It's right there written in the Old Covenant, the festivals and most scholars agree that at least it means this: It has to do with these religious festivals that the Jews, observed. Now in the New Covenant, the Lord has been very clear that these ceremonial days, these ceremonial observances have been fulfilled, they're no longer binding on the Christian these thrice annual feast at least pointed to Christ's work on the cross so beautifully. Don't they? How Passover, the blood of the lamb, shed so that the angel of death passed over has been fulfilled as Jesus died at Passover, and then the feast of weeks, Pentecost happened at the first fruit when the first fruits were gathered in they would go celebrate and you can see how spiritually these 3000 that were added to their number were like first fruits of the Gospel. It's been fulfilled. The final one we're still waiting for. But that doesn't mean it's binding on us, namely the last fruits, when the last gathering has come in and the final trumpet will sound and everything will be done. But you see how they really just picture the work of Jesus Christ in working salvation.

Ceremonial Days Now Fulfilled

Now the message very clearly that Paul gives in Colossians and we'll talk about in a minute, is that these things have been fulfilled. Colossians 2:16 and 17 says, "Therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day, these are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ." So what he's saying is that these feasts pointed toward Christ, they pointed toward the Gospel and now they have been fulfilled.

Christ Himself pointed to a day when they would no longer need to go to this one place Jerusalem to worship he said in John Chapter 4 to the Samaritan woman, "Woman believe me, a time is coming when you'll worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, God is a spirit. And those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." And so he's pointing to a time when they wouldn't be required to come to Jerusalem, and worship, but they could worship anywhere because God is a spirit. Now, Paul's message here in Romans is one of freedom, but also one of conviction by the Holy Spirit. Like the eating laws the time for these has been fulfilled. It has been... It's passed by now. In Galatians, Paul is adamant that the Gentile believers there, understand their freedom in Christ, they're set free from the law, they're set free from the ceremonial regulations of circumcision and all of the ceremonies of the Law of Moses. They didn't have to do it anymore. And so in Galatians 5:1, he says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set you free, stand firm then and don't let yourself be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

He wants them to be as free as Christ intends for them to be free and he talks about this earlier in Galatians 4:9-11, he says "Now that you know God or rather have been known by God. How is it that you're turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You're observing special days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you that somehow I've wasted my efforts on you."

So he's actually very strong about this observation of special days. He says that shows you don't understand the Gospel. So that's a big concern. There it would have been wrong for them to continue to observe these special days because it showed they're acting like slaves, and not like sons and daughters of God. The time for ceremonial requirements is over. But then the question is, "Can somebody still observe them, is that okay? Can we choose to do it even though we know we don't have to do it, can we choose to do it? Can we can still keep the old feast?" Well, Paul would say, Yes, as long as you understand the covenant of grace and how we're saved by the work of Jesus Christ on the cross and not by this legal observance, we learn from the book of Hebrews that the time that you can observe it is coming to an end soon anyway, they were in a transition period as I mentioned last time, in which you could still go to the temple, you could still observe these feasts and these festivals but it wouldn't be long before the Romans would put an end to that by destroying the temple.

What About the Sabbath?

Now we come to the real question of this text, and that is, is Paul talking about the Sabbath is he talking about the Sabbath the Sabbath observance? Many Christian groups like Eric Liddell's have considered themselves strict Sabbatarians. So I actually looked up and found how orthodox Jews living in Jerusalem today, keep the sabbath regulation, and I found that there's nobody that comes close to them.

If you want strict Sabbatarianism just find out what the Orthodox Jews are doing in Jerusalem and see if that's how you'd like to live. Listen to this description according to a 1987 Associated Press story this is how orthodox ultra-Orthodox Jews observe the Sabbath. In Jerusalem before the Jerusalem Sabbath siren wails at sundown Friday night, marking the beginning of the Sabbath. Orthodox Jews unscrew the light bulbs in their refrigerators so as not to inadvertently turn them on and violate the Sabbath. Now in Exodus 23, you're forbidden to light a fire in your dwelling place, on the Sabbath. So they feel that if you open the refrigerator the incandescent light bulb will be lighting a fire on the Sabbath, and so they unscrew it.

They turn off their water heaters. That would include all heaters, like middle of the winter, everything any fire, it's out, they hide money because it's a reminder of daily labor instead of divine rest. They cut their toilet paper in advance because ripping it would violate a Sabbath regulation, so they cut it out in certain measured amounts they light tall white candles moments before the sun down, so it's... Timing's everything so they don't want to waste too much of the candle, so they wait moments before the siren because you're not allowed to light the match, but once it's lit it can keep on burning. You see, once the Sabbath has begun.

These are some of the acts prohibited during the Sabbath. Taking a bath, opening an umbrella touching a pen. Because they feel writing is work. Strict but complicated carrying laws govern what objects may be lifted and how far they may be moved. Doesn't that sound like John 5, where Jesus healed a man and told them to pick up his mat, and go home, and the Sabbath police came and got him on mat carrying. He's a mat carrier. Well, I'm healed 40 years I've been... Oh you're mat carrier who told you to carry your mat. There's this whole attitude the Sabbath police. And so they... Even today the ultra-Orthodox Jews, have rules on what you can carry and how far.

Much of the Sabbath, is spent in three long ritual meals usually shared with friends who arrive on foot and interrupted frequently by blessings and ancient Hebrew songs. Each meal begins with bread season heavily with salt, which must everybody has to eat, to remind them of coming out of Egypt with Moses. Cooking is forbidden pre-cooked food is kept warm by turning a burner on low before the Sabbath, and covering it with a copper plate, so it's burning the whole time, but they have to ignite it before the Sabbath, starts. The whole mentality of strict Sabbath observance is not the mentality of a son or daughter of God, do you see it? And this is what this man says, Yitzhak Wexler an orthodox Jew says "the Sabbath celebration following six days of work is an inalterable contract with God. Either we keep the contract as God commands or we lose the Jerusalem, he gave us." Do you see the fear in that? That God's going to, He's going to destroy us, if we don't keep this. It's the mentality of a slave or of a contract worker.

Is Paul Even Talking About the Sabbath?

Now the key point of disagreement for Christians however, as we come to Romans 14 is, is Paul even talking about the Sabbath? Notice that the word Sabbath is never mentioned here. It doesn't come up, it just says one man considers one day more sacred than another, another man considers every day alike, so word Sabbath doesn't even show up. If Paul is referring to the Sabbath in my opinion, it ends Sabbatarianism forever. But he doesn't openly say it so we're still open to discussion that's how it works. And so Christian commentators are divided on this. John Murray who is Sabbatarian, put it this way,

[If Paul is referring to the Sabbath in Romans 14:5], "this would mean the Sabbath regulation in the 10 Commandments does not continue to have any binding obligation upon believers in the New Testament economy. The Sabbath regulation would be no different than any of Moses' ceremonial laws. Secondly, the observance of the first day of the week, the Lord's day, would have no sacred significance either since Paul is freeing the Roman Christians from any special observances. Thirdly, the one who continued to observe a weekly Sabbath, the Lord's day would actually be seen in Romans 14 to be the weaker brother, because he had not yet attained to a fully mature view of the Lord's work of salvation. Just like the weak brother who can't eat certain foods, because of his conscience. So also the one who observes a weekly day of rest and sacred worship would seem to be weak in his faith."

And for John Murray those three things are unthinkable, and so he cannot come to the conclusion that Paul is even talking about Romans 14.

In general, Christians who have a very high view of the Sabbath, who feel that Christians, should be strict and dedicated to setting apart one day in seven, as holy to the Lord, who feel that it's a great sin not to do so, would utterly reject any idea that Romans 14 is talking about the Sabbath. But I believe that Romans 14 is talking about the Sabbath. And I think it's important, we could talk for hours and hours about this issue, the issue of the Sabbath and how Christians are to observe. And I have a number of things that I want to say, but I don't want to do them. What I want to do is get you to look at two passages in particular, take your Bibles and look at Colossians 2, which I've already alluded to, but for me, it's probably one of the most significant verses on this whole issue. Colossians 2:16-17.

Colossians 2: 16, 17 says this, "Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day, these including the Sabbath day are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ." To me, that's a very strong verse on this issue very strong. First of all, I want you to notice that it's very hard to obey Paul's injunction here. Look what he says in 2:16, "Do not let anyone judge you by what you do on a Sabbath day." Well, I don't know how you're going to pull that off, okay? I think perhaps what it means is don't take it to heart if they do and try to persuade them not to based on Romans 14. That's what I get out of it. Other than that, they're going to go ahead and judge. But in effect, he's saying, "Don't let it concern you." They are not the one who's going to be sitting over you on judgment day, so don't take it to heart, and certainly don't do it yourself."

But even more significant to me is the idea that these things, the Sabbath in particular, is a shadow. The reality is found in Christ. This is the exact language used in the Book of Hebrews to talk about all of the ceremonial law. Shadow - Reality. Shadow is Old Covenant, reality is found in Christ. The second passage, I want you to look at is Hebrews Four. So turn your Bible's to Hebrews 4:1. "Therefore since the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it." There he's talking about the fact that the Jews refused through unbelief to enter the promised land. They refused to enter in, they were afraid in the time of Moses, and they turned back, and for 40 years, they had to wander in the desert because of their unbelief. You remember that terrible, terrible story. And what the author is doing is, what happened there, picturesquely in the Old Covenant. Now, it's a very serious issue concerning the New Covenant. If you refuse to enter into the rest of the new covenant, by believing in Jesus. If you refuse to come in to the rest of Christ's salvation you'll be destroyed just as they were. So it's a very serious thing he's saying here, "For we also have had the Gospel preach to us. Just that they did, but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith."

Now look at verse 3, "Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, 'So I declared on oath in my anger. "They shall never enter my rest."'" He's saying by faith, we enter the rest that he has in mind and that rest is salvation clearly, because he's talking about the gospel. "'So I declared on oath in my anger. "They shall never enter my rest."' And yet His work has been finished since the creation of the world. For some where God has spoken about the seventh day in these words, 'and on the seventh day God rested from all his work,' and again, in the passage above, he says, 'They shall never enter my rest.' It still remains that some will enter that rest, and that those who formerly had the Gospel preached to them did not go in because of their disobedience. Therefore, God again set a certain day calling it 'today.' When a long time later, He spoke through David as was said before, 'Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.'" Now, let me stop there and say The most important day of the week, is always the same. It's today. That is the spirit of Romans 14, in my opinion. Today and today and today do you understand our whole lives are woven together by a series of today's.

And you can enter your Sabbath rest, today, whether today's a Sunday or a Wednesday or a Friday, it doesn't matter, it's the day that God calls you through faith in Christ, the day that you believe the Gospel, you will enter your rest. That's the vital day of the Christian life. It's today. Now today happens to be a Sunday and therefore for me this is the most important day of the week, right now today, because I can't do anything about yesterday and I can't really do anything about tomorrow except affect it by decisions I make today. But today, today is the day I must obey, I must follow. For if Joshua verse eight had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day, "There remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For anyone who enters God's rest, also rests from his own work, just as God did rest from his. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience." What rest is, he encouraging them to enter. Its salvation through faith in Christ.

As Jesus said in Matthew 11, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you what, I'll give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart. And you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Jesus is inviting any of you are hearing me today to enter the true final Sabbath rest, faith in Jesus Christ. And when you do, you will in some mysterious and spiritual way rest from your labors. And now Jesus says, "My Father is always at His work." So yeah, there's still works to be done, but your soul is at rest, in Christ, He's come to your home." To me, I think Colossians 2 says that the Old Testament Sabbath was just a shadow the reality is, Christ. Hebrews 4 explains the theology of the Sabbath and what it was meant for. Now we could go on and on and debate if we had an open forum. You could say "Yes but, it's right there in the 10 commandments written by the finger of God and so it is", and therefore I respect anybody who says, "I believe this is a lasting timeless commandment for all people, all cultures, all times because it's in the 10 Commandments. I respect that this is not an easy issue. And clearly, Paul doesn't say one thing one way or the other, he says, Whatever you believe be certain about it in your own convictions, and act according to your own convictions.

And so, Paul gives a command, concerning ourselves we should live for ourselves alone. Look at verse 5, go back please, to Romans 14 and look at Verse 5. "One man considers one day more sacred than another. Another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind." The act of setting aside a special day for spiritual purposes should be between you and God. It's something you decided to do to please God and to honor Him. You must be completely persuaded in your own mind that this is what God wants you to do. If your conscience is bothering you, you're not acting in faith. And we'll find out later in Romans 14, that whenever you do not act by faith, you're in sin. Look at verse 23, it says there, "The man who has doubts is condemned if he eats because his eating does not come from faith and everything that does not come from faith is sin." So whatever you believe about the Sabbath be completely convinced in your own mind, and then act according to your conscience, act according to your commitment, act by faith. If you believe the Sabbath regulation is still binding on the conscience of a Christian and if you violate that, for you, it is sin.

Secondly, not just be fully convinced, but you need to live for the Lord. Look at verse 6-8, "He regards one day as special does, so the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for gives thanks to God, and he who abstains does so the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord and if we die we die to the Lord, so whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord." Paul's call here is to live a life directly to the Lord. Live a life directly to Christ directly in His face, in His eyes, to please Him, directly to Him. This is a far more powerful compulsion than any legal requirement ever was. Christ has redeemed us from the law and He has called us up into a higher relationship with Him, not as slaves following rules, but his sons and daughters following relationship. It's a higher way to live, because we're not under law but under grace. Therefore regarding one day as sacred is perfectly fine. Beneficial even. If you want to do all you're cooking on Saturday night, so you can have more time for rest and worship on Sunday, fine. If you want to abstain from watching spectator sports on Sunday, so that you can concentrate on prayer and Bible reading that's great.

If you desire to abstain from going to restaurants or any businesses on Sunday, fine. But if you're doing so out of guilt, rather than by faith, you're sinning. And if you're forcefully persuading others to do the same or judging people who don't do what you do, you're sinning. Now, that doesn't mean we can't talk about it. Tell me what you think? What do you think about making the Sabbath a delight? There's a book out there talking about that very thing, picking up on The Book of Isaiah, talking about making the Sabbath a delight, and it's got some wonderful things about the way to enrich a Sunday fellowship enrich time and be spiritual.

But what is removed is that ultra orthodox legal feeling that if we don't do this, we're going to get condemned by God Almighty. That's thinking like a slave, and brothers and sisters, we have been redeemed from that, we're out from under the law by the blood of Christ. Part of that is the danger of people pleasing, isn't it? Living your life in front of an audience of human beings, thinking What will they think, What will the neighbors think spiritually if I do this or that. It's so easy to begin to live a life to please others. We know that we're constantly being observed. Constantly judged, constantly assessed. It's easy to slip into a pattern of caring more about what others think about your decisions, then you do what the Lord thinks. Paul wants us to live and die for the Lord here.

Paul also gives us a command concerning others, and that is let the Lord alone judge. Christ has earned the right to judge, He has earned the right of being Lord and judge of the conscience. Look at verse 9, "For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life, so that He might be the lord of both the dead and the living." Christ died on the cross. Did you? Christ was raised from the dead, were you? Do you have the right to stand over someone else's conscience as Lord of Heaven and Earth, as Lord of the living and the dead and make an assessment of their conscience. This is the strong language that Paul is using here. Christ died that He might be the lord of the conscience, He earned that right, His title is clear, Lord of all. He rules over the whole universe. "All authority in Heaven and Earth has been given to me," said Jesus. And He won this right to claim allegiance over the hearts of His people.

And this is especially true when it comes to judging. This is Christ's special glory, He said in John chapter 5, "Moreover, the father judges no one, but Has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father." And then later in John 5, He says, "The Father has given Christ authority to judge because He is the son of man." Therefore a true Christian life is lived moment by moment in realization, of Christ's authority and moment by moment in a desire to please him. Human judges, therefore show arrogance, when they judge other people's consciences. They're taking a place that isn't theirs, that they haven't earned. Because Jesus said, "When the son of man comes in all his glory, and all the holy angels with Him, He will sit on His throne in Heavenly glory, and all the nations will be gathered before Him and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

That is His unique glory and His unique right, what right therefore, do we have to judge our brother or look down on him? Look at verse 4, "Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls." And then in Verse 10, "You then why do you judge your brother. Or why do you look down on your brother for we will all stand before God's judgment seat." Therefore, Christians judging others on disputable matters of the conscience are really taking an arrogant role.

Christ's exalted role therefore is Lord and judge of Heaven and Earth. Look at verse 11-12. "It is written 'as surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me and every tongue will confess to God,' so then each of us will give an account of himself to God." Do you see how he introduces the quote in Isaiah? As surely as I live, says the Lord. He puts an oath on it. As surely as I live every knee will bow before me and every tongue will swear.

That's powerful. It's something that's definitely going to happen. What's so remarkable is that Paul takes that awesome monotheistic quote, ascribed to the God of Isaiah and ascribes it to Jesus in Philippians 2. "Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, 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 what is your future in mind?

According to this text, Romans 14:12. We will all give an account of ourselves to God, we're going to stand before Him and He will separate us from the unbelievers, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And is that the end of the assessment? No. You're going to give an account for everything that you have done in the body. 2 Corinthians 5-10, says, "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done in the body, whether good or bad." So yes, we're free from condemnation by the blood of Jesus, but we're not free from stewardship accountability. We will give an account and here in we find our protection from both legalism and license. From legalism, in that none of us has the right to be the judge. Jesus alone is the judge. But from license, because I know, let me just speak for myself, I know I will have to give an account to Christ for every decision I make in this world. And therefore I must do it as the Holy Spirit leads my own conscience to His glory. I must do it, verse 23, All by faith that He will be pleased with me.

What application can we take from this? Well, first stop judging others. And you say, "No, wait, I don't do that, that's a problem other people have." Well, if we don't do that, then why are there so many verses about this phenomenon? I have found myself judging people, I found myself judging other drivers. I have. And found myself doing the very same thing they were doing within a week. Sometimes within the hour. We just judge people because there's pride inside us. And we wanna put ourselves above and say, "Well I wouldn't do that on a Sunday. Look at that man he's mowing his lawn." You don't even know the man's name. But he's mowing his lawn on the Sunday, and therefore he's got to be x, y, and z. We do it. Stop judging. You don't know him, you don't know his situation.

Secondly, can I urge you to just do some research and determine biblically, what you believe about the Sabbath? I've given you my case, my conscience is clear in this. Colossians 2 and Hebrews 4 settles the matter for me. I believe the Sabbath rest has been fulfilled through faith in Jesus Christ. I think there are other verses that dictate what I do on a Sunday. I believe we must assemble together. We must not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Hebrews 10:24-25. And so I want to be with all of you. We'll talk about that more in a minute. But you need to find out what you believe about the 10 Commandments about the fourth commandment in particular, how you're going to carry so that you will not violate your own conscience only you can do that research for yourself. Whatever you believe you work it out between yourself and God that's what the text tells you to do.

The third, may I make an appeal to you, to assess the benefits of some Sabbath rest, a regular disciplined consistent Sabbath rest. Let me make an analogy. We are not required anywhere in the New Testament to fast, but fasting is beneficial spiritually. Let me make another parallel. All foods are clean, but I would not advise eating a whole big bowl of pork fat. I mean, you can do it if you want, but I wouldn't do it, I wouldn't advise it. It has no spiritual impact on you, but it might have all kinds of physical impacts, and I believe so also does working for 63 consecutive days. We're not machines. And I think the Lord in His wisdom, has given us a rhythm of work and rest of work and rest that we need to still honor. Don't be arrogant and think you don't need to rest in the Lord, and that's physically. Now let me speak spiritually. We tend to forget the word of God. We tend to forget what life is about and so it's beneficial to hear good preaching and to be with brothers and sisters in Christ and to receive the benefits of the spiritual gifts. It's beneficial. Do you think you can get along without it? You think you don't need the Body of Christ ministering to you? You need it.

So physically and spiritually it is wise to have one day in seven set apart for God. And then practically speaking, it's good to know what day it is. Imagine if we were on a shifting kind of calendar constantly moving. Alright, when is it this week? Well, it's Tuesday. I didn't get the news. And imagine if you are traveling. And so God in His Providence has arranged this first day of the week, based on some verses in the New Testament, but all over the world, Christians have, for the most part, accepted the first day of the week, and as the Sabbath looked back at the old creation, completed by God, the first day of the week looks ahead to the new creation that Christ began and inaugurated when He was raised from the dead. And so we celebrate on the Lord's day and look ahead to what He has yet to do.

And so, the Sabbath has changed on the first day of the week. That's when we get together. Freed from meticulous questions about whether or not starting a car consists in lighting a fire on the Sabbath. Had you like to work that one out? It's a long walk to church friends. Very long, and you're probably violating the Sabbath day journey thing there. We're all going to be living right around here, in an enclave or else we're going to say the lighting the fire thing on the Sabbath was fulfilled in Christ. And I can drive to church and it's okay. More than anything we'll be freed from that feeling of defilement that comes when you break a law or a rule. Instead, we're free. We're sons and daughters of God. Fourthly, live every moment for the Lord, the issue of the Sunday Ball Game or The Sunday lawn mowing begins to fade into a deeper question. How can I live every moment for the Lord who gave His life for me?

How can I make the most of every opportunity? Is a four-hour football game the best investment of my time on Friday or Saturday never mind on Sunday? Sometimes the answer may be yes for a brother or sister in Christ, the Lord will give you this desire and fulfill it. Sometimes the answer will be no, the Lord will give you another desire a higher desire and fulfill that. The mentality Paul is giving here is to learn how to live every moment and make every decision concerning what would most please the Lord, who died for me, and rose for me, and who will assess my whole life. Not if I break this rule, he'll punish me.

I want to close with an illustration that I think, I hope will be helpful to you concerning this whole question. Imagine a young family. Tomorrow's mommy's birthday. Father takes the little child aside and says, "Now, you know, tomorrow's mommy's birthday. And she loves it when you draw pictures for her, pictures with the meadows and the trees and the horses and stuff. She really loves your pictures. Now here's all the paper you need, here's all the crayons you need. Make her a picture, do something to make her happy." And you just give the child the freedom to create. But then the child wastes his time watching Veggie Tales videos and playing computer games.

The next day comes and the child has nothing to give and starts to cry. Now, what's the mommy going to do. Is the mommy going to kick the child out of the family for not having made the card? Should the family enact a law about card-making for birthdays? No, the mommy's probably going to take the crying child and hold the child and talk to the child but then at some later point, talk to that little child, about wise choices and about love. And I think in the same way, what are you going to do with today? You're going to present it to God, what's going to be on it, how are you going to use it? Today and today and today, how are you going to present it to Him? Are you going to cry over wasted time. Or you're going to give glory and honor to God by choosing what honors Him the most because you want to, because you yearn to, not because some law forces you. Close with me in prayer.

My sister-in-law and her family live in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. And I love to visit there. I love the peaceful rural way of life there. And I remember sleeping in their living room, under an open window, and hearing the clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop of a horse-drawn carriage that goes by. And I know that it's some Amish man going early in the morning someplace, and it occurs to me that that Christian community, the Amish, there in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, are one of the most noteworthy efforts in the world the Christians have made of finding a way to be separate from the wickedness of this world.

But they've done it in a very interesting way, they have erected man-made barriers around their community. And they have a rule of life, called the Ordnung, which governs what they wear, men's beards, styles of clothes. It governs the way they interact with the outside world, that governs the level of technology that they'll use and will not use. They have reasons for everything. And if you study the Amish movement, it really is a movement of repeated schisms and fracturing, again, and again, and again. It started with the Mennonites, the Anabaptists in the 17th century, and they were trying to establish the Believers Church, separate from the world, a holy people in the midst of an ungodly world. But then, within them, came this group, led by Joseph Amman, and he basically said, "We have got to practice strict shunning, ostracism if there's any sin or breaking of the community rules and regulations." And so, little by little, some were persuaded, and they broke off from the group of Mennonites, then they came over to America and continued this isolated way of living. It's an incredible study.

In the 19th century, they subdivided and broke again and again, something like six major subdivisions, of their group. And as I look at Romans 14, I think this is the chapter that addresses what it is they were trying to do, and some of the flaws of that approach. It seems to me that the Lord has taken his church and set it in a tremendously hostile environment. We are surrounded by forces hostile to our faith, somewhat like leaving a toddler in the median strip of an interstate highway, savagely dangerous. And you wonder, why in the world would the Lord leave us here, surrounded by such hostile forces to our faith? This world is no friend to the Christian faith.

The Extremes: Legalism and License

And the church has had two different extreme ways of responding to being surrounded by a sinful world, legalism on the one side, license on the other. The Amish, I think, in my opinion, are an example of a legalistic response to being surrounded by a hostile world. They set up a barrier, a wall, a dividing wall of hostility, and they say this is the community. They focus on themselves, they have very little encounter with the outside world, and they do it by setting up extra biblical regulations and requirements that they elevate to the same level as any other commandment in the Bible, and on the base of them, you can be shunned or ostracized. That's legalism, that your standing before God depends on keeping a list of rules and regulations that are made by men. Legalism.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have license, which basically says, because of the grace of God in Christ, because of the power of the shed blood of Jesus Christ, you can live anyway you want, in connecting with the outside world. You can do anything you want, and you're still forgiven, you're still loved, you're adopted in the family of God. That's license, on that side. For the most part, American churches are strongly on the license side, heading that direction. The Amish are an exception. So are some other, perhaps, fundamentalist groups that have set up similar boundaries or dividing walls.

Now, there is a very real problem that both groups are dealing with, wrestling with, and that is the surrounding world and its hostility to our faith. It says, in 1 John 2:15, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life comes not from the Father but from the world." Or then it says again, in 2 Corinthians 6, "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers, for what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?" And then 2 Corinthians 6:17, one of the most vital verses for those that are separatistic in their whole approach to the world. 2 Corinthians 6:17, "'Therefore, come out from them and be separate,' says the Lord, 'Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.'" That's the strongest separation verse there is in the Bible.

Now, obviously, this is a major issue. The question is how best do we deal with this as a community? How do we wrestle with the attack of the world on our faith? How do we maintain concern about each other as brothers and sisters in Christ? Our church covenant says, "We will watch over one another in brotherly love." How do we do that without becoming intrusive busybodies, or legalistic in some way, judging others? How do we maintain the proper balance? I think Romans 14 is the chapter to answer that question. I consider it a vital chapter for any community of Christian believers in this hostile world, so that we can maintain a sweet unity, a sweet fellowship, while, at the same time, being pure and undefiled from the world, while weak believers and growing believers work out their salvation with fear and trembling, but they're in a safe environment where they're not going to be condemned and said to be non-Christian if they make certain decisions. But where we're going to continue, as iron sharpens iron, honing each other, and helping each other be holy. Romans 14 is the chapter for that. Now, it begins with a command in verse 1, "Accept him, whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters." So, right from the beginning, the word 'accept' in the NIV, or welcome, gives us a sense of a rich welcome, a rich fellowship, rich community.

It literally means welcome or draw alongside to yourself someone. In Acts 28, for example, the islanders on the Island of Malta welcomed and received Paul and his companions who had been shipwrecked, and they showed them unusual kindness, they welcome, in the same Greek word. It's also urged by Paul of Philemon, concerning Onesimus, in Philemon 1:16 and 17. Paul there, writing about Onesimus, he says, "He is very dear to me, but even dearer to you, both as a man and as a brother in the Lord. So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me." Take him in, be friendly to him, be kind to and love him. That's the word. Now, divisions and arguments over debatable issues threatens that kind of welcome, doesn't it? Christian unity is constantly threatened by our sinfulness. Paul desires a warm, loving, united community, not a faction-ridden group of sullen people who can't walk across the room to shake somebody's hand. That's not it. He wants unity and a warm, rich fellowship of love. So the welcome is coupled with a negative clarification. In the ESV, Romans 14:1 reads this way, "As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions." Don't take them alongside so that you can drill him on this, on these matters. That's not it. Like you remember how Peter took Jesus aside, in Matthew 16, and began to rebuke him about the cross. He said, "Come with me, Jesus. I have something to say." And he began to rebuke Jesus.

Well, he ended up getting rebuked by Jesus. Don't ever rebuke Jesus. You're wrong. Okay? That's very simple. Basic rule of the faith, if you're thinking to rebuke Jesus, you're wrong, and he's right. You may actually get the rebuke back. So, Peter takes him aside to rebuke him. Or even worse, the Old Testament example of Abner and Joab. In 2 Samuel 3:27, it says, "Now, when Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took Abner aside into the gateway, as though to speak to him privately. And there, to avenge the blood of his brother, Asahel, Joab stabbed him in the stomach, and he died." That's even worse. Taking a brother alongside, and then, mmm, right in the stomach. Say, "No." Don't welcome him to dispute over debatable issues, that's not what it's about, but rather welcome him warmly, get close to him, love him, cherish him. Now, this is not worldly tolerance. That's not what we're talking about here. America loves tolerance. We're into tolerance these days, tolerance of doctrine, accept my views, celebrate my views, whatever they may be. Tolerance of lifestyle, accept me as I am, however I may be living. That is not what Paul is talking about here in Romans 14.

We are never to accept or welcome false doctrine, never. It says, concerning the messages of the churches in the Book of Revelation, Jesus commends the church at Ephesus because they have tested those who claim to be apostles, but are not, and have found them false. Don't welcome that. As a matter of fact, in 3 John, it says, if you welcome a false teacher, you're sharing in his wicked work. Don't do that, that's not what it's talking about. Neither is it talking about tolerating sin. Because, there, the Lord speaks against the church at Thyatira, because they welcome or they tolerate that woman, Jezebel, who leads God's servants into sexual immorality. Don't tolerate sin. So that's not what Paul is talking about in Romans 14, tolerating false doctrine or tolerating sin. The basis of this acceptance, of this welcome, is the truth of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the basis of it.

We're welcoming people that God has welcomed. We're accepting people that God has accepted. That's what we're talking about. Look at verse 3, it says God has accepted him, this weak brother. So don't judge him, because God has accepted him. And then, again, in Romans 15:7, which ends this whole section, "Accept one another, just as Christ has accepted you, in order to bring praise to God." We are dealing with people that God has accepted. We're dealing with people that Christ has accepted. You should accept them too. The basis is commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is faith in the Gospel that unites Christians. The brother or sister that has weak faith still has faith, don't they? They are brothers and sisters in Christ, and so you should welcome them. That is the basis for the warm fellowship that Paul has in mind here.

The Need for Discernment

Do you see already the need we have for discernment? We have to have discernment in these matters. We have to be able to discern people, who is a genuine Christian or not, on the basis of the doctrines of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, on what they say about Christ, about the commitment they've made, their view of the cross, repentance and faith. On that basis, we accept people as Christians. We have to discern people. We also have to discern issues. What issues are at the core of our faith? What issues are the ones... The hill to die on, the one that God has drawn a line, and saying, "You must believe this in order to be a Christian." We have to discern issues, and then those things that are debatable, a matter of Christian liberty. We have to discern these things. Now, the context of Paul writing in Romans 14 is a mixed church in Rome, in a transition period, in redemptive history, as they're moving from Old Covenant over to New Covenant, we've got Jews and Gentiles together, trying to work it out. And so Paul writes, Romans 14, right into that situation, the mixed church at Rome. If you read through the book of Romans, sometimes Paul directly addresses Jews, other times he directly addresses Gentiles. It's clearly a mixed group he's writing to, Jews and Gentiles.

Now, that church at Rome was very significant because they were at the heart of the Roman Empire. And so, the fact that there was a genuine, growing, healthy, spirit-filled church in Rome was of huge encouragement to the Christian faith around the world. And so, Paul writes, right at the beginning, in Romans 1:8. "First, I thank my God, through Jesus Christ, for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world." God has put you up on a pedestal. Everyone's watching you. Well, that's a two-edged sword, isn't it? Your faith is being reported all over the world, but if you can't get along, if you end up fracturing and breaking into seven schismatic groups, everybody's going to see that too. You've got to find a way to continue loving each other, accepting each other, while you work it out on these issues. So stay together. That's what he's dealing with. Jesus said that the progress of the Gospel in the world will be directly connected to the open display that Christians have of love for one another. In John 13:35, "By this, will all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." There needs to be an open, warm, display of love in this place.

And Jesus prayed in John 17, as he was leaving his disciples in the world, and he's going to the Father, he's praying for them. And he prays this in John 17:23, "may they be brought to complete unity." That's processed language. "May they be brought to complete unity, to let the world know that you sent me." Do you see that? As the church makes progress in unity, the watching world will say, "God sent Jesus to be the savior of the world. We can see it by the changes that are happening in that community." So this issue of love and unity is essential to the progress of the Gospel, got to have it. And so, he's writing to this mixed church in Rome. Everyone's watching and they're dealing with some very difficult issues.

Now, the fact that they were in a unique period in history, which we are no longer in, we're not in that period, but they were, brings out these test cases. They were moving from Old Covenant or Old Testament lifestyle into a New Covenant, New Testament lifestyle. Many people there, Jews and some God-fearing Gentiles, were used to following the law of Moses. They were used to the food regulations, they were used to the sacrificial system, they were used to making annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem, they were used to all of the ceremonial laws. Moses had been preached in every place for generations. These people were used to the ceremonial law. Now, the ceremonial law divided Jew from Gentile, there was a wall between the Jews and the outside world.

Circumcision was part of that, also the food regulations, can't eat pig, and all of those sort of things. In Leviticus 11, God gives all those rules and regulations. Have any of you memorized Leviticus 11, by any chance? All the food that you could eat, and couldn't eat? I didn't think so. I don't think it would be your first chapter to memorize. Maybe John 3, or something like that, would be your first chapter. But there, in Leviticus 11, there are all the rules and regulations. Just to refresh your memory, okay, in case you're interested, the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron, "Say to the Israelites, 'Of all the animals that live on land, these are the ones you may eat: You may eat any animal that has a split hoof, completely divided, and that chews the cud.'" There are some that only chew the cud or only have a split foot, you must not eat them. They don't meet both criteria. You got it? Let's take a test case, the pig. Alright? The pig is unclean because, although it has a split hoof, it does not chew the cud. For you, it is unclean. Well, that's Old Covenant. That's the Old Testament food regulation. It wasn't kosher, it wasn't clean, it wasn't holy food, so they couldn't eat it.

Now, there were long lists of birds and other types of animals you could or couldn't eat, and they all knew what they were, and they didn't eat them. Now, I believe that Christ came and fulfilled the ceremonial law. Once Jesus was born a Jew, born under the law, and he was identified within that community of Jews, the need for that barrier, that dividing wall of hostility, Ephesians 2, was removed. He didn't need it anymore, and God took it away, he fulfilled it in Christ, he removed those regulations. And so, in his ministry, Jesus declared all foods clean. He basically said, "Nothing you eat will defile you spiritually." And in so, saying, it says in Mark 7, "Jesus declared all foods clean." That means we can eat anything we want, and not be displeasing God.

Now, this was very difficult for the Jews to accept. I mean, look at Peter, for example. One afternoon, Acts chapter 10, he's hungry, and he's up on the roof, praying, and he sends to have something made for lunch. Just hungry. And while he's praying, suddenly, he has a vision, and from heaven, a large sheet gets let down, and the sheet kind of opens, and in it, are all kinds of four-footed creatures of the earth, and reptiles, and all kinds of nasty things. And they're kind of living and moving and moving, and all that, like a jungle. And then the voice comes from heaven, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat." "Oh, never, Lord," he said. Fourth time Peter said "never" to God, he just keeps on doing it. I don't know if he's still doing it. I think he is not still doing it. But there he says, "Never, I have never eaten anything impure or unclean." And then the voice from heaven came a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."

Now, that's a lesson. You know, in context, what God is doing, he has to do it three times. You don't drill into concrete quickly. Okay? He has to do it three times, and then comes the messengers from Cornelius the Centurion, who has a house full of Gentiles ready to hear the Gospel. And Peter the Jew is going to go and actually enter the house of a Gentile and preach the Gospel. Peter has got to be worked on first, or else he is never going in that house. And so, God works on him, and he enters the house. Now, the deeper issue here, friends, is not just eating or circumcision. No, that's not it. The deeper issue is how do unclean sinners like us, Jew and Gentile, stand pure and holy before God. That's the issue. All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There's no one pure and righteous of ourselves. There is no one who does good, not even one. How do unclean sinners like us stand before a pure and holy God, on judgment day, and survive that dreadful day? How will you?

Let me just take a break from this sermon and ask, have you trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior? Are you ready for that day when he whose eyes are too pure to look on evil, will look on you, and study your life from beginning to end? Are you ready? Are you cleansed? Are you covered by the blood of Jesus Christ? It's the only way. And one of the central teachings of the Gospel is it doesn't matter how many rules and regulations you think you've kept. You can never earn your way to heaven by legal observance, by keeping the law, cannot be done. And so, they had a big convention, a big meeting in Acts 15, to deal with this issue. Lots of Gentiles were coming into the church. Do they need to be circumcised? Do they have to obey the law of Moses or not? The circumcision controversy.

Peter, he gets up and says this, "Why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?" That's the law of Moses, with all of its commands, 600-plus laws. And then the Pharisees added hundreds and hundreds to them. Multiplication of laws, rules, and regulations. Why do you want to put on their neck a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? Peter says, "No, we believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are." Amen. It is by the grace of Christ, not by legal observance that we're saved. Simply by trusting in the shed blood of Christ, we are made pure, or we're made holy. That's the real issue.

Arguing over “Disputable Matters”

But then there are these debatable issues, arguing back and forth over disputable matters. Well, what are they? In Romans 14, it's at least this, eating and drinking, and special days of observance, perhaps the Sabbath. What do we do with these leftovers from the Mosaic Covenant? Eating and drinking. Look at verse 2, "One man's faith allows them to eat everything. But another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables."

Now, do you notice what's happened with the guy who eats only vegetables? The way I read Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy, its parallel passage, there's actually a lot of meat you can eat, if you're a Jew. They say, "No. We're not even going to do that because it may have been sacrificed to an idol." We'll set yet another wall even further away from God's laws. We're not getting anywhere close to the edge of the cliff. So they set up a man-made regulation, they eat only vegetables. But Paul says their faith is weak. So the issue has to do with eating and drinking. Drinking wine and other issues. Is it all right for the godly to be drinking wine? Etcetera. And Paul deals with that in Romans 14.

Another issue is special religious days, as I mentioned, perhaps the Sabbath itself. Look at verse 5. One man considers one day more sacred than another, another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. Now, these debatable issues clearly do not have to do with was Jesus God or not. They don't have to do with the doctrine of the trinity. They're not core issues, they're external to that. They're not central to the Gospel, they're debatable, they're matters of Christian liberty, that's what they are. That's what he's dealing with in Romans 14.

And so, Paul has to deal with the issue of strong and weak Christians. Look at verse 1, "As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions." Look one full chapter up, Romans 15:1, "We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves." So we have a division of category in the church, strong Christians, weak Christians. Strong in the faith, weak in the faith. He's dealing with two different kinds of Christians. Now, the word weak could be translated sick or frail or ill. Conversely, the word strong could be translated healthy, powerful, capable, or able. What are we dealing with when we're talking about somebody who's weak in the faith? Well, the KJV, I think, does a good job of highlighting what we're talking about here. In Romans 14:1, the KJV gives us, "Him that is weak in the faith, receive ye."

The faith was the body of doctrines that we call Christianity, it was orthodox doctrine, right doctrine. This person is weak in understanding the New Covenant. We can understand in what Christ had done. They don't seem to grasp the idea of justification by faith alone, and how they're free from all the ceremonial laws. They didn't grasp that. They were weak in the faith of the Gospel, they were fearful of sin, they were fearful of displeasing God by externals, fearful that eating meat sacrificed to idols would lead them into a sinful lifestyle. They're ridden by fear, fear of condemnation, fear that God's going to get them someday.

They live their life that way. It's a life of fear, not of faith, and so they make man-made rules and regulations to prevent themselves from straying into sin, but they don't stop there, oh no. You see, they care about you too. They care about you too, and they'd like to export their rules and regulations to you and me. And it's not just them that's doing it, because you're doing it too, and the whole community is doing it. And so, the whole thing is this legalistic cauldron of finger-pointing and arguing and disputing, weak in the faith, because they have not understood who they are. They haven't understood that they're adopted children of God. They haven't understood the power of the grace of the Gospel, how certain it is that they're going to end up in heaven. And so, they're fearful, holding on to Christ as though Christ were not holding on to them. That's a big problem, they're weak, they've lost their grip on grace, and they feel they must finish their own salvation. Having begun by the spirit, they're now completed by fleshly efforts. That's weak in the faith. And they judge themselves, don't they? It's a miserable way to live, constantly reproving themselves, wearing the hair shirt, flogging themselves.

And, in their misery, they'll make you miserable too, and criticize you. Weak in the faith. What about those that are strong in the faith? What does Paul mean? Well, they are strong in the faith, they understand the doctrine of justification by faith alone, apart from works, they do not use the grace of God as a license for sin, but as freedom from fear of condemnation. They're not afraid of judgment day, in that regard. They're free. They have a lively sense of the immeasurable power of Christ at work in them, to finish their salvation. They're fearlessly roaming in the path of freedom set up by the law of God that's written in their own heart, and the Holy Spirit enables them to run free in that path. They're not licensed, they're not legalistic, they're right where they need to be, they're strong in the faith.

Paul himself was strong, and he applied it to the matter of eating meat-sacrificed idols. Look at verse 14, Romans 14:14, he says, "As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully-convinced that no food is unclean in itself." We'll talk about that in due time, but here is a legalistic Pharisee of Pharisees. He says, "No, I'm free from that. I'm free. I can eat anything I want." He's strong in the faith. He's free to do anything he wants on this matter. At the same time, he is conscious of the needs of his weak brothers and sisters. He's not going to eat anything that will cause them to sin or to stumble. We'll get to that in due time. But he's free, weak and strong.

Now, each of these groups have sinful tendencies. The tendency of the strong is to disdain the weak, to look down on them and to mock them. The tendency of the weak is to judge the strong. Look at it, verse 3. "Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him." So the strong disdain the weak. Paul's word literally means look down on or treat with contempt as though you were some kind of lofty Lord, looking down on some lower life form. What is the matter with you? Don't you get it? Don't you get that Jesus has freed us from all this? You can eat that anytime you want. What's the matter with you? It's a disdaining, a kind of a mocking.

Early in my Christian life, I was discipled by a wonderful man at Campus Crusade for Christ, he just took hold of me at a key time in my life when I was a junior in college, and just taught me quiet times, evangelism, all kinds of things. I was raised Roman Catholic, and Roman Catholics don't eat meat on Fridays. Now, that was a problem for me when I was growing up, because I hate seafood, I just can't stand it. So I was a big cheese-eater on Fridays. So I went out with this man, and we were sitting down to lunch, and we ordered, and I ordered a grilled cheese, and he was little surprised. He said, "Why don't you get a burger or something?" I said, "Well, it's Friday." He burst out laughing. I felt terrible. I felt belittled, like I was an idiot. I said, "Why are you laughing?" He said, "You can eat meat any day you want." Alright. Well, he's right. There's nothing in the Bible about not eating meat on Fridays, nothing, it's a man-made rule. It's not just the Amish that do it. Alright? It's a man-made rule, and I was free from it. But that was not the best discipleship technique, bursting out laughing. Okay? It hurt. I was determined I was going to eat cheese for months after that, until he reasoned with me, and said, "Look, I'm sorry." Etcetera. Okay, the strong can disdain the weak. And the disdaining can go so far as to say, "Look, enough of this. I don't need to be with this person anymore. They're holding me back." And it gets even more pronounced when they, the weak, start to condemn you for the way you're living your life. What do you want to do then? Get away from them. Say, "Look, leave me alone." And so, there's a fracturing, and they start to pull away. He's saying, "Don't do it," talking to the strong. "Don't disdain the weak."

Even worse, though, is the tendency of the weak to condemn the strong. Let's use the word. It's not just judge in the term of assess, that's not what's going on here, it's judge in the term of sit on the throne and make a final judgment on you, condemning you to hell, basically, saying you're not a Christian on this disputable matter. They set up rules and regulations, and they are shocked if you don't follow them. And here come all those legalistic Christian groups who have condemned others for the way they live their lives, Roman Catholic monasteries with their hierarchy of holiness, and all their rules and regulations, separatistic Protestant groups who refuse fellowship with others on the basis of community-drive rules and regulations. Amish are like that. Fundamentalist groups who excommunicate others on the basis of dancing and card-playing, and other things like that. We've interacted, in our Haiti mission, with a group that will not formally connect with us because we don't practice separation the way they do, and so they will not formally do ministry with us.

It's all over the place, Romans 14. It's a constant problem from generation to generation. So many issues have been the ground for Romans 14 disputes in church history. Questions like this: Can a Christian drink any alcohol at all? Obviously, you're not supposed to get drunk, but can a Christian drink alcohol? What about the use of tobacco? Some Amish grow tobacco, it's interesting, and consider it one of God's good gifts, because God called everything good in Genesis 1. I was reading a commentary by J. Vernon McGee. Have you ever listened to him through the Bible? What a great voice. Wouldn't you be shocked if I preached like him one Sunday? Yes, you would. But he was from Texas, and I'm from Massachusetts, so there's no chance that's going to happen. But J. Vernon McGee was talking about a Romans 14 issue that he observed. He was in California, right on the beach, and they were having a conference, and there were Christians from all over the country, and there were the California beach Christians, and then there were some rural Christians that had come from farming communities further east, and they were together, and they were all just having a wonderful time in Christian fellowship, until a couple of issues came up.

One of them was mixed swimming, young men and young women wearing bathing suits and swimming together. The ones from the rural communities were absolutely horrified, horrified. How can you call yourself a Christian and do that? It was like open sexual immorality for them, they were stunned. So that wasn't good in terms of the Christian fellowship, but then come to find out that some of them grew up on tobacco farms, and actually didn't think there was anything wrong with tobacco use. And some of the California Christians were absolutely horrified, saying the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. How can you defile the temple of the Holy Spirit? And so, they were having a major Romans 14 issue. And there was judgmentalism and condemnation on both sides. And, see, what's so sad is those are real issues that communities need to work through and try to figure out what is best and what is godly, but right from the start, there's the judgmentalism that makes the discussion impossible, so iron can't sharpen iron.

How we judge one another. How about issues of entertainment? In the past, anyone who went to the theater, to see a play or a movie, was considered an open defiant sin. Dancing has always been controversial in conservative circles, among the Puritans and among fundamentalists. This church, First Baptist Church, disciplined a number of its own members 100 years ago for dancing. You can read about it in the deacon minutes. And, frequently, the church members will say, "I didn't know it was a sin." And so they had to work it through. Eventually, the whole structure of church discipline kind of sank on the rock of the problem of dancing, because they couldn't support it scripturally, but they felt, in their hearts, it was wrong, so they ended up not doing any discipline at all. They went too far the other way.

Romans 14 issue. What about spectator sports? Is it sin to watch a ballgame? How about on Sunday? We'll talk about Sabbath or Sunday next week, God willing. How about card playing? Is that a sin? Do you realize how shocking you card players would be to some of your brothers and sisters from five generations ago? It's a big issue. Worship styles is a big one these days, worship styles. Some advocate a more traditional worship style, and others advocate a more contemporary Christian style. One hold strongly to the pillar of separation from the world and its defilements, the other holding strongly to the pillar of we need to reach non-Christians with the Gospel. But what... Those are both good themes. What happens is the one clinging to the one pillar condemns the other on the basis of their own pillar, right? Saying, "You don't care at all about genuine, heartfelt, austere worship to God, you're irreverent and worldly," say the traditionalists to the more open or contemporary types. Meanwhile, they are going to say back, "You don't care anything about the lost. You have no concern whatsoever if they go to hell." Well, these are the kind of words that ought not to be said.

How about Bible translations? Is it KJV only? Or are the modern translations okay? Can you use the NIV? ESV? Etcetera. How about homeschooling? We have graduates, a number of our graduates are homeschooled. We have homeschool families in our current congregation. It would be so easy for the judgmentalism to fly either way, for the homeschool families to judge those that send their kids to public school, or vice versa, for those that send their kids to public school, to judge the homeschool families. These issues just continue on and on. Bottom line, on any debatable issue, we Christians stand in a continuum, with Christians to our right and Christians to our left. The ones to our right have, perhaps, a more strict and conservative interpretation on the issue that we're talking about than you do. The ones on the left have a more, open, free, Christian freedom way of looking at it than you do. There you go, Christians on your right and Christians on your left. Now, you will be tempted to condemn the Christians on your right, and say... To say that they are legalistic, and that they don't understand grace, and to look to the ones on the left and say they're wicked and worldly and sinful, but be careful because, you know, they're doing the same thing to you.

You got a group of people that are looking at you, and they're basically saying, "You are wicked and sinful for the way you're living, or you are legalistic and strict," etcetera. Oh, be careful.

What is the remedy? Well, Romans 14:3, the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. First of all, let's understand God's acceptance. Therefore, do not judge. Paul bases this command not to judge on one simple fact, God has welcomed this person, he has welcomed them, richly welcomed them. Think about the parable of the prodigal son, in which the father welcomes the son as he comes back after his journey into sin, Luke 15, "While he was still a long way off, his father saw him, and was filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him. The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven, and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Quick, bring the best robe and put it on him, put a ring on his finger, and sandals on his feet, bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.' And so they began to celebrate." That welcome is nothing compared to the welcome we will have when we come into the heavenly realms.

Oh, how rich will the welcome be then, when we are free at last from sin. Rich welcome. And on the basis of that, how can we be holier than God, and not welcome somebody that God has welcomed? Don't judge. God's message to Peter was very clear when he let down the sheet with all the previously unclean animals, do not call anything impure that God has made clean. When Peter went to preach to Cornelius the Roman, he began his history-making Gospel presentation to the Gentiles. He said this, "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right." When confronted, the next chapter, with a bunch of legalistic, Jewish... Zealous Jewish Christians who wanted to condemn Peter for going into the house of an uncircumcised man and eating with him, he said, "If God gave him the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think I could oppose God?" That's what the judger is doing, they're opposing God, because God's welcomed him. We don't have the right to judge somebody else.

Secondly, let's understand God as master, and, therefore, do not judge. Look at verse 4, "Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master, he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand." You know what? It's brutally bad manners to go in somebody else's house, and interfere with their servants, say, "The soup's cold. What's the matter with you? Come on, get going." Well, you're saying, "Servants, I don't know anybody that has servants."

Alright, let's talk about children. How would you feel if you had teenagers and kids down to age 8, 7, whatever, and you had some guests over, and they started disciplining your kids? Would that bother you? Oh, come on. Would that bother you? "Who are you to talk to my kid that way? I'm here. Okay. I'm on the job. We're working on it, okay? We don't need your parenting help." I'm not saying that we can't give each other loving insight, especially when asked for, but I'm just... I'm not talking about that. I'm saying it's a dinner, you're sitting down, and this individual, this guest in your home starts dealing with your children, disciplining them, even. Would you not be shocked and horrified? Isn't that about what Paul's saying here? Who are you... Who are you to judge somebody else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls.

That's what he's saying. Don't take God's place. He is dealing with that individual. It's not your place. Thirdly, let's understand God's power, therefore, let's not fear. That whole legalistic thing, it's a religion of fear. To his own master, he stands or falls, and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. Praise God for that. We are surrounded by a world that attacks our faith. You will stand 'til the end by God's power, not by your legalistic rule-keeping. You will stand 'til the end. God's grace has gotten hold of you, and he will not let you go. He will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. And, finally, let's understand our community responsibility, and therefore, let's not give up watching over one another in brotherly love. It's not in verses 1 through 4, but I can't preach what, to me, seems somewhat like an imbalanced sermon, saying, "We're supposed to just live and let live." That's not true, we'll get to it. We will learn that there are some things that may be generally a matter of freedom for you, but they will lead somebody else directly into sin. You need to be sensitive to your brother or sister in Christ. We'll talk about that in due time. Close with me in prayer.

This morning we're looking at Romans 13:11-14. Throughout history, humanity has been ingenious about the marking of time. We have been ingenious and developed amazing systems to mark the passing of time. Now, of course, from the beginning, God established the great time keepers in the sky. Genesis 1:14, And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky, to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years." And so the movement as far as we're concerned, of the sun across the sky mark the passage of one day. There's evening and there is morning the first day, and so we see the passage of a day. And then again the rhythm of the moon from full to new moon and then back to the full moon again, somewhat mark the passing of a month, although not precisely. The challenge of getting an exact calendar is one of the great achievements of the ancient world, because there were not exactly 30 days in a month, or exactly 360 days in the year.

But we saw with the passing of seasons, winter spring, summer, fall, the turning of the years. Now, it wasn't until man developed the sundial, that we're able to take one day and break it into smaller portions. And mark the passage of time by the tracing of a shadow across the face of the sundial. As a matter of fact, the ancient Romans were so in love with these sundials that they actually carried around pocket sundials. I don't know how that would work, how you would hold it, etcetera. I prefer our wrist watch today. But they established the sundial as somewhat a form of the marking of passage of time, during the day. Now of course sundials had their problems, but it was nothing compared to the marking of the passage of time at night. How are you going to mark the passage of the hours? For example, a watchman standing on the wall, and he needs to know how much is left of the night.

And so man developed various ways of answering this problem. The first answer were water clocks. And so there would be bowls with a certain size hole, and the water would flow out of the bowl, and it would measure a certain number of hours. The problem is the bowl, the hole got larger and larger. It would wear out and so it was inaccurate. Also water changed depending on the temperature and it wouldn't flow evenly. So then they developed hour glass, is the flow of sand, which was more impervious to temperature and all that. The problem is you had to be there to turn the thing over when the last grain of sand fell through, and that was inconvenient. Charlemagne developed a 12-hour hour glass filled with sand, but it was so heavy no one could turn it. And so, great ingenuity was shown in the development of water clocks and sand clocks. It's really quite an amazing thing.

It wasn't until the development of the mechanical escapement, which enabled force to be transferred, intermittently to a gear and the swinging of a pendulum that things got really accurate. Up to that point, the passage of time had been marked somewhat like a river, the flowing of something from a bowl into another bowl from the upper part of the hour glass down into the lower part. It was a little bit like a river. But ever since the 18th century, it's been marked more like a certain pockets of action, tick-tock, tick-tock, and that's what we're used to. And we've been that way ever since. We don't see time like a river flowing but rather certain things that happen. Points of action.

As a matter of fact, I can't stand that sound, and I frequently take the battery out of our quartz clock so that I don't have to listen to the passing of time. Any of you have been to my office, you see a beautiful octagon drop clock on the wall. It hasn't moved in seven and a half years. People get nervous, they look up and they say, "Oh my goodness," they think for sure they're late or they're incredibly early. But I didn't like to be constantly reminded by the tick tock of the passing of time. Now, man's ingenuity kept on moving, the vibration of the quartz in the middle of the 20th century. Now we're in the atomic age where literally if you look up the definition of a second, it's certain number of vibrations of the cesium atom. Who could ever know that? For me, I just click on the internet and it tells me the atomic time. Exactly perfect. But for all of his genius at marking the passage of time, man, has never been able to discover the answer to this mystery; how much time is left?

How much time is left? Now that we do not know. That is a mystery that God holds in His hand, and He will not tell us. But what he does tell us in this passage that we're studying today is, it's later than you think. Time is passing quickly. It will not be long before every one of us is quitted this life and we are standing before God on Judgment Day. It will not be long before this present age as we know it will end, it is later than you think.

About 35 centuries ago, the man of God, Moses, wrote in Psalm 90, "Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom." I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to measure the number of days I have left. And therefore the heart of wisdom for me is to assume that today might be my last day on earth, and that I should make the most of the hours I have today, to live them to the fullest to the glory of God, and to me I think that's the burden of this text. Look at Verse 11 and 12, it says, "And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over the day is almost here, so let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light."

Now, what is Paul doing here? Well, look what it says right in verse 11. "And do this, understanding the present time." What is he referring to? Well, it's a call for personal holiness. The "do this" at the beginning of verse 11, looks back at the previous verses. Look at verses 9-10, it says, "The commandments; Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet, and whatever other commandment there may be are summed up in this one rule. Love, love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to his neighbor, therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law, and do this understanding the present time." It really has to do with living a life of love, it has to do with fulfilling the commandments of God, in a life of love both to God and to our neighbor.

Now what is the context of Romans 13:11-14. Well, it's in the Book of Romans. The book of Romans was written by the Apostle Paul to explain to us the gospel, it is a synopsis of his gospel doctrine. And in this he explains how it is that the sovereign God, the holy God, take sinners like us and redeems us by the blood of Christ, through faith alone. And how He gives us the indwelling Holy Spirit and how He sets us on the path of His commandments that we may walk in newness of life. And how in the end, He will finish His redemptive work in us, that we might be glorified. Romans 8, that we might be transformed and part of a whole new creation with our resurrection bodies. It is the whole salvation story.

Romans 1-11, lays down the doctrine, makes it very plain and clear that the foundation of our hope before God is the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross. The foundation of our personal daily holiness is the indwelling spirit, and the fact that God has written His laws in our minds and on our hearts, and by the power of the Spirit, we can walk in it. This is the context. Romans 12 through 16 is the everyday life application of this doctrine. We saw in Romans 12, life within the body of Christ, how we're going to live using our spiritual gifts and loving each other and serving each other. Romans 13, perhaps life outside of the body of Christ, with secular government, and dealing with the sinful world. That is the context of what we're looking at.

Now, God's holiness is the pattern here for our holiness, I already heard read so beautifully Isaiah 6, how powerful is that? The vision that Isaiah saw of the risen Christ, the glorified Christ sitting on His throne, a vision he had of Christ. He saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple, and there were these seraphim, the Hebrew word means the burning ones, they are glorious, and they're calling to one another, as though they can't get enough of it, they are just so amazed at the holiness of God. Holy, holy, holy, they call to one another, and the whole earth is full of His glory, the holiness of God is our it's our pattern, it's our rule for life, it is also our future by grace amen and amen. He gives us His holiness as a gift. A gift of grace.

But it is also our call and we are called to be like God. We are created in Christ Jesus to be like God. We are renewed every day in our minds, transformed to be like Christ, that is the call on our lives and so He urges us to behave decently. Look what it says in verses 12-14. "The night is nearly over, the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness, and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime. Not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy, rather clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature." This is a call for personal holiness. This is a call to live a heavenly life while still here on earth. It is a call to resist the constant pull of the world, the flesh and the devil. It is a call to understand the significance of every passing moment of every passing minute and day and year. A call to understand what God is calling on us to do and to be in this world, a call to be children of light, in the image of our father. As it says in 1 Peter 1, "Be holy because I am holy." That's what Paul is calling on us to do.

Now he gets to it by a matter of urgency, there's a sense of the urgency of the present time. This is an urgent call, for personal holiness. Look again at verses 11-12, and note the words of urgency. "And do this understanding the present time. The hour has come, for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over, the day is almost here." Do you see these words, almost, nearly, it's here, it's coming. There's a sense of urgency. Now that's what this is about. A sense of urgency, pervades this passage, Paul wants us to feel that the time is running out. There's less of it than you might imagine. And so we have to understand time from God's point of view.

Now, God created time, He created the concept of time, the passage of time. Minutes and hours and days and months and years, they serve God's unfolding redemptive plan. There's a purpose to it all, God owns it, He made it and there's a purpose to it. And that is the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. Now, as Christians, we believe that history is linear, it's moving from point to point to point. We are not like the Hindus who believe that history, that time is a big circle, it's going around and round, the cycles of reincarnation and karma. We don't believe that, we believe in the linearity of history. It moves from point A to point B to point C. We can even use that language for Jesus, our Lord, said at the end of the Book of Revelation. Revelation 22:13, He said, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end." That's linear. And Jesus said it, so I would think we'd want to go to Jesus and say, "Teach us about time." Don't go to your physics professors or your philosophers. Let Jesus instruct you. Time is linear. "I am the Alpha and I will be the Omega." Time is linear, it's moving. But Paul's basic concept here is it's later than you think it's not the Alpha day. No, it's not the Omega day yet, but it's further along than you think.

Crush Procrastination, for The Hour Has Come

And so at last, we come to the sin of procrastination. Been meaning to talk to you about it, but I've been putting it off until now. Seem like a good time to talk about it now though. How many of you struggle with that? Don't raise your hand and don't shame yourself. But how many of you struggle with the idea of; I've been meaning to do something and I just keep putting it off. How many of you wrestle with the fact that you look at some things that just seem too difficult, and you just don't want to do it. They call it task avoidance.

Jonathan Edwards, preached a sermon on procrastination, procrastination, the sin and folly of depending on a future time, depending is the key word in the sermon. Now he's very balanced in the sermon, he says, we need to like the ant lay up in the summer for the coming winter. We need to make provision for that. But the idea is spiritually we ought not to depend on a future day because it might not ever come. His text there was Proverbs 27:1. "Do not boast about tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring forth." Don't boast about it as though it's already yours. "We ought," says Jonathan Edwards, "to behave ourselves every day as though we had not dependence on any other day." It kills procrastination. Don't put off to tomorrow spiritually what you ought to be doing today. Now, what could that be? Well, here I think he's seizing the day or seizing the moment in the matter of personal holiness, but we in this church called that internal journey of growing in grace and the knowledge of Christ. He's seizing the moment in the matter of personal holiness, the flesh is always making excuses. Isn't it? Putting off to tomorrow, saying, Oh, you'll get to it by and by. Holy Spirit may convict you of a matter of personal holiness, He wants you to address it now.

Do not imagine He's telling you everything. He isn't. Have you ever noticed that? You could go years blind to a certain area and then the Spirit brings illumination. And now it is time to deal with it. If the Spirit has brought illumination on many points you need to deal with all of them, whatever He has brought to your imagination, to your mind. It's a sense of urgency in the matter of personal holiness. Perhaps it's a spiritual discipline you've been meaning to start. You always thought at some point you would memorize a book of the Bible, you imagine that you would. Or, perhaps you always imagine that your family would be the kind that would have regular family devotions. Perhaps you imagined that you'd be the kind of person who would get up every day and have a regular quiet time. A meeting with your heavenly Father as Jesus did early in the morning. Perhaps you imagined yourself and you always could see yourself as the kind of person who would do that, but you know what, it's been years now. It keeps moving on. It's later than you think.

It's the issue of procrastination or perhaps it's a deadly sin pattern in your life. You fancy yourself some time in the future, when you'll be clean of it at last. I'm not talking now about in heaven when we will be at last free of all death, mourning, crying, and pain, and all sin. But I mean, you think of yourself even in this world, at some point in the future, you'll be free of that particular sin habit. Now it's later than you think. Perhaps it's an over-eating, a problem with overeating or with lust, or laziness, or pride or selfishness. You imagine at some point, you will effectively put it to death by the Spirit. But you know, the days just keep passing and nothing is done. Or, perhaps it's a matter of witnessing, somebody that God has laid on your heart. He's calling on you to be a witness. A co-worker, a relative, mother or father, a child. Somebody in your life, a neighbor. And he's calling on you to reach out with the gospel and you'll get to it by and by, but you never do, it's later than you think.

In our home fellowship, we were studying Randy Alcorn's book: Money, Possessions and Eternity. And he told a rather devastating story about an actress named Lisa Whelchel, perhaps you know the name, and she was in the popular TV program, Facts of Life. And she said that she heard a Christian speaker talking about thousands of starving children in Haiti. Her eyes were immediately opened at that point to what a selfish and privileged life she'd been leading. She was 18 years old. At the end of the service, she went to the front of the church, she took off her Rolex and an emerald ring she had and put it in the speaker's pocket and said, "Sell it and give it to the poor." She then went home filled with all kinds of zeal to look at different areas of her life, and this is what she said, "I decided I could live on 10% of my salary, I decided to sell my condominium and rent a simpler apartment more appropriate to my needs. I felt it was no longer necessary to drive around in a Porsche, selling the car and buying something more reasonable would free up thousands of dollars for the Lord's work. I had money invested in real estate across the country. If I sold it the money would feed tens of thousands of children it was a no-brainer. My Zeal was strong, I knew I had heard from God and was doing the right thing."

So what happened? Well, some Christian friends found out what she wanted to do and talked her out of it. They said she wasn't behaving wisely, she needed to be a good steward. She needed to think about the future and consider. She needed to wait some, pray it through consider. She ended up doing none of it. None of it. This is what she said, "Less than 10 years later, all that money was gone anyway. A chunk of it had been invested in a high-rise office building in Pittsburgh that went belly up. Another significant portion was in Texas land that dried up during the oil crisis and was eventually foreclosed upon. When I got married I sold my condo and bought a house in the California real estate boom in the 1980s, only to give it back to the bank three years later when the bottom fell out of the market. The Facts of Life TV show was cancelled and I spent all the cash I had left making payments on everything for as long as I could. At 28 I was broke."

She had at that moment, when she was 18, a window of opportunity. The Scripture says, "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts." And she didn't follow, she procrastinated, she imagined in the future she would get to it and she never did. And you know what? It was taken from her. All of it. The call in this text is for us to wake up. Look at verse 11, it says, "The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber." The King James Version puts it this way, "Now it is high time to awake out of sleep." Don't you love that? It's high time to wake up from your slumber.

The Slumber is a Metaphor for the Devil’s Work on Our Souls

Now the slumber, I believe, is a metaphor for the devil's work in our lives and in our minds. Slumber, the Greek word for slumber here is hypnos from which we get hypnotize. And so the devil's hypnotizing us about this matter of time and how we're spending our lives. And we're somewhat in a daze, kind of a stupor coming over us where it's like we're slumbering. In the midst of a battle we're just standing there hypnotized, and we don't seem to realize what everything is about. Satan deceives us on the matter of the urgency of personal holiness. He deceives us in the matter of the urgency of personal evangelism and witnessing mission's work. He puts us into a slumber, a sluggish-ness.

I've got two illustrations of this from the literary world. The first is the great story, The Hobbit, by Tolkien. Bilbo Baggins is there with 12 dwarves and they're on their way on some errand. It's an incredible story, but nothing like Lord of the Rings which is so much higher and more intricate, but it's a great story nonetheless. And there he is with these dwarves, and at some point they stumble into these woods where these monstrous huge spiders capture the dwarfs and sting them all with spider poison and wrap them up with sticky webbing and let them hang there to eat them later. Fresh meat for the monstrous spiders. And Bilbo has to rescue them with his little sword and he does. But they're all sluggish and in a stupor, almost... Well, they're drugged by the poison, the spider poison. That's a picture of us and the work that Satan would like to do in us, we're all just kind of waiting to be devoured. We're in a stupor, sluggish, as though nothing were urgent, nothing really matters. We're very mellow a society. There's a time for urgency and the text is saying it's now.

Another illustration is from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. The allegory of the Christian life where the main character Christian is moving from the City of Destruction on to the Celestial City. It's an allegory of the Christian life. Shortly after he comes to the cross and he loses his burden, he's given a scroll which scholars say represents His assurance. And he looks in it frequently for comfort and consolation. Anyway, soon he comes to this place called The Hill Difficulty, and he's making his way up the hill and it's tough, it's hard. And half way up he finds a shady arbor, a little tree place with a little bedding where he can just rest and be refreshed temporarily. And so he settles in there, but as one thing has it, he falls into a deep slumber and he sleeps away the rest of the day. And finally someone, it doesn't say who, comes to him, perhaps an angel, and says, "Go to the end, you sluggard. Consider its ways and be wise."

And he wakes up, and oh, he gets up and runs and continues his journey, makes it up to the top of the hill difficulty, continues on, but it's getting tough and the next trial comes along and he needs some consolation. And he reaches for that scroll that was in his possession until recently to read in it and then find some consolation, it's gone, he cannot find it anywhere. He doesn't know where it is. He's searching frantically. He retraced his steps. He has to go back halfway down the hill difficulty. Finally he remembers what happened, while he was sleeping he let it go. Well, he rejoices in finding his scroll again, but he laments over the wasting of the time. Now he has to retrace all those steps and now it's dark, it's dangerous and he laments bitterly, "Oh, that sinful sleep," he calls it. Oh, that's been so convicting for me. God has created from time to time pockets of rest and refreshment for us. And we end up staying there as though we're meant to live there forever.

Recreation, rest, relaxation, all of these things, R&R, they're meant to be these temporary shady arbors, and then we continue on our arduous journey, but instead we set up, say, "Well, I think, let's put the end table over there, I'll put the same way end up setting up. And we'll live there in the shady arbor." The sinful sleep. And the text is calling on us to wake up from our slumber. Satan is the druggist of that sinful sleep, isn't he? He's the apothecary, he's mixing that and handing it to us so we drink some more of it. And we're sluggish, we're sleepy. Rather than on edge ready to serve our commanding officer. Christians underestimate the seriousness of sin. They overestimate how much time they will have to deal with it. And Paul says, "Wake up." He says, "Wake up, wake up." And why? Because the time is now. There's an urgency to time, it's later than you think. But he gives us a word of optimism here. Look what he says, I love this, I've already alluded to it.

Our Salvation Nearer Now

Verse 11, "The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber because our salvation is nearer now then when we first believed." Isn't that sweet? All meditate on it, think much on it. Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. Not our condemnation, our salvation nearer now than when we first believed. Paul's logic is someday we're going to be fully saved from sin. We won't even see it around. There will be no temptations around. The world will be purged forever, from everything that causes sin and all those who do evil. That's what it says in Matthew 13. It will be a free pure world, and we will be fit for it and ready for it. That's our salvation, it's a complete salvation from sin.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones used an illustration of the closing days of World War II in a prisoner of war camp. Perhaps up to that point, the prisoners in the POW camp had been maybe collaborating at small levels with the German soldiers, maybe they've been acting in certain ways just to get by. Perhaps they were contemplating risky escape attempts or bribing the guards or doing some other things just to survive. But a short wave radio is smuggled into the camp and they find out that major victories have been won by the allies and frankly the troops are no more than four, five miles away. They're going to be liberated within the week. They start to celebrate. This is the time to act like somebody who's about to be released from prison. Our salvation is near now, nearer than we first believed. So why would we act like sinners? That's what we're being saved from. That's Paul's logic here in the passage.

What I get out of this, is that any effort we make in personal holiness, and I could add in from other places, any effort we make in worldwide evangelization will prove fruitful because God is in them. God is saving us from sin, and so when we wake up from our slumber, when we put sin to death vigorously by the power of the Spirit, when we move out in new areas of service to Him, God will bless that energy. He will bless the movement because he is in it. Now, what lessons do I get out of this phrase, "Our salvation is nearer now than when first believed." Well, first our salvation is incomplete, it's not done yet, we're not fully saved. That shouldn't be shocking to your ears. I'm not in any way denying that we could ask the question, "Are you saved? I know the scripture speaks in that way, but we've got more salvation yet to come. Our salvation is still in the future.

Salvation from Judgment Day, when all the nations will be gathered before Jesus and He will sit on His throne and He will separate the people, one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he'll put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. That is in the future. We need salvation on that day, don't we? We need to be saved from hell on that day and we will be through faith in Christ. So it's a future salvation. But also there's the ongoing work of sanctification, there's the transformation of our bodies, when we will receive glorified resurrection bodies. Our salvation is in the future, it's not finished yet, there's still work to be done.

Secondly, do you see the unspeakable precious nature of time? Time is precious, it's running out, there's not much more of it. It's nearer than when we first believed, it's moving, it's dynamic, we're moving ahead. And therefore number three, we are making sure and steady progress every day, every passing week to see in Christ face to face. Amen and Hallelujah. It can be sad to watch the passing of time. It can be sad for parents to watch their kids grow up. I've done a lot of weddings, and I've seen again and again parents cry at their children's weddings. Now, they will tell you it's tears of joy. Don't you believe it.

There's a feeling of death almost, the end of a phase of life that's precious to the mom and dad. It's sad, actually. I remember I was doing a wedding and I saw my little girl come walking down in this white dress and I had a vision of the future, and I thought, "Oh, no." It's not going to be long before that's me, that's her. And I actually started to cry and I said, "Wait a minute, I got to do the wedding here. I got to pull myself together. I can't crumble in the misery at the passage of time." So we watch our children grow up and their phases, their sweet little developmental phases, they don't last long. It's like the sunset, and then it's gone and it never comes back and you want to grab onto it. I actually have taught my kids bad grammar, their own bad grammar, to keep them from learning those right ways so they can stay young longer.

I admit it, my wife corrects it, she does, she's a good mom. But I'm just trying to hold on to something that I can't hold on to. It can be sad to watch the passage of time. And then just aging can be sad, losing capabilities. Things you used to be able to do, can't do it anymore. It can be sad. Christians should not be sad about the passing of time. This verse liberates us from sadness about the passing of time. Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. Amen, celebrate, every passing week brings us closer to seeing Jesus face to face. Come on, be happy, look happy, if you're a Christian. You're getting closer and closer. You're closer now then when I began this sermon. You know back in the 18th century, they actually put an hourglass over the pastor's head in some parishes. And it was someone's job to turn it once. Okay? I've got a clock right here, I know what time it is.

I know what progress we're making. But every moment brings us closer and closer to seeing Jesus. Closer and closer to being liberated at last from this dreadful sin nature. No more fighting with it. Amen and amen. Closer and closer to a resurrection body which will feel no pain or fatigue or weariness. Closer and closer to salvation. Oh, is that sweet? Do not lament the passing of time, but make the most of every day. These days are precious, you'll never live them again. Never, once they're gone, they're gone. Yes, you may have another Tuesday. But you'll never have this Tuesday again. Make the most of every moment. That's what I get out of this.

The Night is Nearly Over (verse 12)

And he says in verse 12, "The Night is nearly over." The night here, I think is satanic gloom of spiritual darkness that Satan has spread over the whole earth. It is now the age in the era of darkness, is it not? It's a dark era. The night that Jesus was arrested, he said to the chief priest and the guards and the elders, Luke 22:53, "Every day I was with you in the temple courts and you did not lay a hand on me, but this is your hour, the hour of darkness."

Oh, that's significant. "This is your hour, the hour of darkness." It's a dark dreadful time that Satan has cast over the earth. It's a dark age, but this verse tells me it's nearly over. The night is nearly over, the day is going to shine with radiance and glory. It's soon going to be over. All of it, over. The night also refers, I think, to deceptive concealment of sin. Most crimes happen at night when it seems like no one can see. It's a time of deceptive concealment. Why do I call it deceptive? Because nothing's hidden before the eyes or the One who really matters. We are the ones deceived by the night.

And so it says in Ephesians 5, "Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them, for it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret, but everything exposed by the light becomes visible for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said, 'Wake up, oh sleeper, arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you.' Be very careful then how you live. Not as unwise, but as wise. Redeeming the time because the days are evil." Now disposed concealment of darkness is just a satanic trick of deception. Ever heard that saying, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas"? I've never leaned on that. I want you to know, okay. That's wickedness, isn't that? It's the idea that you can go to Vegas and do wicked things there and no one will find out. Well, no, what happens in Vegas is written down in God's book and you'll face it again on Judgment Day. There's no concealment possible. He sees everything. Psalm 10:11, The sinner "says to himself, 'God has forgotten, He covers His face and never sees.'" It's not true. He sees it all. Christians need to understand by faith that true concealment is impossible.

Jeremiah 16:17 says, "My eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me nor is their sin concealed from my eyes." I see it all, everything. Jesus said this, Luke 12:1-5, we Christians need to listen to these verses. "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." That means looking good on the outside, but inside, wickedness. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known. Do you believe that? Do you believe every word of that? There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs. "I tell you, my friends," said Jesus, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear. Fear Him who after the killing of the body has power to throw you into hell. Yes I tell you, fear Him."

In Ezekiel 8, God brought Ezekiel on a Spirit journey into the depth, the bowels of the temple area. Through the walls where the elders of Israel were doing wicked disgusting things thinking that no one could see. God said, "Come on, I want to show you something." And he took him on a tour of the wickedness of Israel. I see it all. A Christian understands the deception of darkness is merely deception. We see the light by faith even though it is night, even though it seems no one can see what we do, we know by faith God sees it all.

Job put it this way in Job 31, "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl, for what is man's lot from God above, his heritage from the All Mighty and High. Is it not ruin for the wicked, disaster for those who do wrong? Does He not see my ways and count my every step?" In Hebrews 4:13 it says, "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight, everything's uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account."

I believe as a pastor, it's my job by preaching the word in this manner to make the day, Judgment Day, bright in your minds and hearts. To turn on the light inside your soul so that you're not deceived by this deceptive darkness. And you live like you will wish you had lived on Judgment Day. You'll wish you had lived purely and holy, in a holy manner. It's my job to make that intense for you today, so that you are ready and you say with the apostle John, at the end of the Bible, Jesus said, "'Yes, I am coming soon.' Amen. Come Lord Jesus." It's soon. Soon and very soon you're going to be seeing Jesus. Are you ready? It's my job to make it intensely bright for you because that's what it's going to be like on Judgment Day. Be ready for it.

Now, what is personal holiness? Well, what does he say? Well, there's a negative side to it. You're going to put off the deeds of darkness. Not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. These are some of the ugliest words in human experience. Rome was characterized by a flouting of natural moral laws. Sexual relationship within marriage wasn't enough, they needed an orgy. Eating food was not enough, they needed gluttony. A small amount of wine wasn't enough to gladden the heart of man, they need drunkenness. They were blowing through all of the barriers that God had set up. It was an age of excess just like ours. Paul says, "The time for these deeds of darkness is to be put off. Put off the deeds of darkness, those things will be ashamed of on Judgement Day. Put them off like a filthy discussing garment," that's the negative part.

Positively, put on the armor of light. Armor, like the Medieval Knights wore or like soldiers wear in Iraq. The body armor. The point of all armor is to prevent a vicious weapon from penetrating you and piercing your liver, your vital organs. Put on the armor of light, stand firm in the day of testing. Don't allow the temptation to hit your vitals, put on the armor of God, Ephesians 6. Specifically in this text it's, put on Christ. Know that Christ is your righteousness. Clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ, put His perfection on you. And make no provision for the flesh to satisfy its lust.

I think about that often. Sin takes provision. It takes equipment. The drunker needs to know where to go to get his alcohol, the drug addict needs to know what is sources of the drug. The pornographic user needs to know what websites to go to. The one who wants to share gossip needs to know where to go in the office to hear the juicy tidbits so that he or she can spread them around. The person who wants to sleep in and not have his quiet time in the morning, needs to know to not set the alarm, he's making provision for the flesh. Turn off the alarm, don't get up. No, he says no. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to satisfy its lust.

We have seen this morning an urgent call for personal holiness. I have a number of applications there on the back, but I want to share with you something that's transformed my way of thinking on this and then close with prayer. And some time ago when I was working as an engineer, I saw up on the wall of the office a year calendar. 12 months all in a row. January, February and March, all the way down to October, November, December. I have such a calendar on the back panel of your bullets and it's small, you can't really see it, but you know what I mean. You can see the whole year in one place. And I remember thinking as the year would go on, I would see it would be May, it'd be August. I could visually kind of make my way through the year. I remember at the end of June thinking, "Oh, we're halfway done with the year."

And one day a thought hit me. I said, "What if January 1st represented the day I was born and December 31st represented the day of my death. What month is it? Like I said, I have all kinds of ways to mark the passage of time, but I don't know how much time is left. Was it July for me? Was it October or was it December 30th? I had no way of knowing. That was sobering to me. But then I extended, I said, "Well, suppose that represented my time here at that company, at Grandmaster." January first, the day I was hired, December 31st, the day I left. Where am I in that? I had no way of knowing. It represented my marriage. January first, the day that we got married, December 31st, death parts us. I don't know where I am. I have no idea how many more months or years I have with Christi, no idea. Same thing with every one of my relationships with all of you, I have no idea. January first, the day I met you, December 31st, the day we're providentially parted.

I don't know, I don't know how much time is left. What does that tell me? Make the most of today, make the most of this afternoon with each other. Put aside dissension and jealousy and fighting and lust and all the evil things and make the most of it. If you're not a Christian, the most important thing you can do is come to Christ. You don't know you'll be alive tomorrow, make the most of today, make the most of right now by trusting in Jesus as your Lord and Savior. I don't believe that I'm preaching to a 100% regenerate audience. If today you hear His voice, come to Christ, come and trust in Him for your salvation. Close with me in prayer.