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The Lord lifteth up the meek Cast with the wicked down to the ground Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving Sing praise upon the harp of to our God Who covereth the heaven with clouds Who prepareth rain for the earth Who will make it grass Grass to grow upon the mountains He giveth to the beast his food And to the young ravens which cry He delighteth not in the strength of a For he taketh not pleasure in The legs of a man the Lord taketh Pleasure in them that fear him in those deaths Hope in his mercy praise the Lord O Jerusalem praise thy God O Messiah praise the Lord O Jerusalem For he hath strengthened the bars Of thy gates he hath blessed Thy children within me he maketh these In thy borders and fill in me With the finest of the weak he sendeth For his commandment up on earth his work Fronteth there he squarely giveth Stone by gold he scatterth up Or frost by ashes scatterth Or frost by ashes he casteth forth His eyes like more souls who can stand Before his hope he sendeth out His word and not to them he calls And his wind to blow and the waters full He shall win his word unto Jacob In his statutes and his judgments unto him To Israel he hath not dealt so with Any nation and as for his judgments They have not and praise he the Lord As the offering plates are being passed around Please turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 14 Romans chapter number 14 Romans chapter 14 Romans chapter 14 Romans chapter 14 Romans 14 the Bible reads Him that is weak in the faith receive ye But not to doubtful disputations For one believeth that he may eat all things Another who is weak eateth herbs Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not And let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth For God hath received him Who art thou that judgest another man's servant To his own master he standeth or falleth Yea he shall be holden up For God is able to make him stand One man esteemeth one day above another Another esteemeth every day alike Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind He that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord And he that regardeth not the day To the Lord he doth not regard it He that eateth eateth to the Lord For he giveth God thanks And he that eateth not to the Lord He eateth not and giveth God thanks For none of us liveth to himself And no man dieth to himself For whether we live we live unto the Lord And whether we die we die unto the Lord Whether we live therefore or die We are the Lord's For to this end Christ both died And rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and living But why dost thou judge thy brother Or why dost thou set out not thy brother For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ For it is written As I live saith the Lord Every knee shall bow to me And every tongue shall confess to God So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God Let us not therefore judge one another any more But judge this rather that no man put a stumbling block Or an occasion to fall in his brother's way I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus That there is nothing unclean of itself But to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean To him it is unclean But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat Now walkest thou not charitably Destroy not him with thy meat For whom Christ died Let not then your good be evil spoken of For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink But righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost For he that in these things serveth Christ Is acceptable to God and approved of men Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace And things wherewith one may edify another For meat destroyed not the work of God All things indeed are pure But it is evil for that man who eateth with offense It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine Nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth Or is offended or is made weak Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before God Happy is he that condemneth not himself And that thing which he alloweth And he that doubteth is damned if he eat Because he eateth not of faith For whatsoever is not of faith is sin Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for Romans chapter 14 And I thank you also, Lord, for the opportunity we have to listen to it Be expounded tonight. I pray that you fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit And help him to explain the chapter to us, Lord And keep us safe as we go our separate ways after the service In Jesus' name I pray. Amen Amen So we're here in Romans chapter 14 And we've been kind of going through just different exhortations, instructions For the Christian life And a lot of what's been discussed in chapters 12 and 13 Is just kind of a lot of really clear things Things that are instructions that we need to make sure that we're following And when we kind of get into chapter 14 I think it's the apostle Paul And of course obviously this is the Holy Ghost But just giving us a little bit of a balance To the Christian life In the sense that some things in the Bible are just very clear They're just a straightforward commandment And then beyond that there's going to be some discretion As far as the decisions and the choices that we make in our lives Where it's not necessarily sin or not sin But just what's the most expedient What are our preferences And what are our own personal convictions And it's okay to have personal convictions And personal convictions And personal convictions I believe distinguish from sin Is the fact that we're not deciding what's sin or not It's when people go above sin Or have their own personal standards that are above sin That they for their household want to have Some clear examples You know the Bible talks about nakedness And the nakedness is from the loins under the knee Is basically what a garment or fabric should cover on a person But what if someone just decides you know our personal convictions Is we're going to make sure our garments go to the calf or something Or go to mid-calf Or sometimes people come up with these ideas That they don't want their daughters to dress in a skirt that goes down to the knee But rather all the way down to their calf As a personal conviction Meaning that it's not, according to the Bible, a sin to go to the knee But rather as their personal conviction They're just not comfortable going there So they themselves want to have a different standard Or another rule on top of this You can see the Recubites Their father is giving them or their grandfather is giving them instruction Not to drink wine That's not based on the Bible Or if it's a sin or not That's just a personal conviction or standard that they have You know people in their own houses are going to have different rules Different standards, different beliefs That go above and beyond what the scripture just clearly states And for that household that is fine And there's nothing wrong with having personal convictions I would argue that personal convictions are good in and of themselves But what we don't want to do is force our personal convictions onto other individuals Or we also don't want to take someone who has a personal conviction And ridicule them, mock them, or despise them for their personal convictions Because we have a different standard So if someone decides that they are going to have a standard for the dress in their household That exceeds yours We shouldn't ridicule or mock that person for their personal conviction But rather we should try to be peaceable and welcoming of that brother And I think that's what the first verse is trying to tell us about It says, Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations Now this verse is kind of a hard verse in my mind to just exegete exactly what it's saying But I'm going to give you just my view of what it's trying to say in a real granular sense But keep your finger here and go back to chapter 4 for a moment Now many times in the Bible it'll say the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak So that gives us a little bit of an idea of what it could mean to be weak Is that someone that's more prone to the flesh than prone to the spirit Someone that's more tempted to do things in the flesh Than someone who is able to actually overcome the flesh or crucify the flesh You know you could look at someone who struggles with a particular sin And you don't struggle with that sin You could say that that person is quote weaker in that context Meaning you know maybe someone in this church building they have zero temptation to drink alcohol They just honestly they're just like you know I just really am not even tempted if I was around it I'm not even enticed, it smells terrible, it looks terrible, it's expensive I just don't want it right Whereas other people in this room could say you know what unfortunately I made choices in my past That have led me down a road where I am tempted by alcohol It would cause me to potentially stumble if I was around that environment or around that situation And just being honest that person is quote potentially a little bit weaker in that category right That doesn't mean that they're physically weaker It may not even necessarily mean that they're spiritually weaker But in that context they're weaker because they have a proclivity to that particular sin Also just someone that's maybe just not spiritual right Someone that's been going to church for a long time, three times a week, going soul winning regularly Is going to arguably be a little bit stronger of a Christian than someone that just got saved and just started going to church They might be more tempted to get out of church, stop reading the Bible and not serving God And they could therefore arguably be a little bit weaker Look at Romans chapter 4 verse number 19 Here's the Bible bringing up weak It says in being not weak in faith he considered not his own body now dead When he was about 100 years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb So this is talking about Abraham We've already gone through this chapter But notice it's saying he was not weak in faith Meaning what? That he was fully persuaded that the promises of God that he had delivered unto him God was going to perform them and so therefore he was trusting God in that area of his life Go back to Romans chapter number 14 So some people may be weak in certain areas of their life They're not fully trusting God with their marriage They're not fully trusting God with how many children they're going to have They're not fully trusting God on tithing They're not fully trusting God on church attendance They're not fully trusting God in all these different areas And you could argue they're a little bit weaker Okay Now in Romans chapter 14 because the context is a lot about food I believe that the historical context has a little bit at play here as far as the understanding You know, if you were in Rome at this point in time There's a lot of pagans, there's a lot of false religion And as a result of that, many of the meals were animals sacrificed unto false gods Where the meat that was offered on the table Whether that be, you know, bacon or whatever Was literally offered to some kind of a false god And so many of the meals are kind of considered unclean There's a lot of different things at play here And the apostle Paul addresses this in other epistles He addresses this in 1 Corinthians About if someone invites you over And they basically just put a plate of steak, you know, on the table in front of you Don't ask how that steak got there That's basically what he's saying He's saying don't ask how they butchered it Don't ask if it was, you know, sacrificed to a false god Just for content's sake But if for some reason they bring up and they say Hey, I just want to let you know this was offered to Zeus Or I just want to let you know this is Diana's steak You know, Diana, great of the Ephesians, right? This is offered and sacrificed unto her And we're worshiping Diana with this meat today Well, then the apostle Paul is just saying Well, at that point you need to refuse it Because, you know, we shouldn't be eating meat sacrificed unto idols But if he doesn't know and he doesn't ask He has liberty to eat this meat Because, frankly speaking, he makes it clear that The meat itself is not like contaminated with demons or something It's not like when it was sacrificed unto idols Demons entered the steak body or the bacon And now all of a sudden when you consume it You're going to be consuming literal idolatry But rather, you know, everything is kind of pure in and of itself And so as long as you're eating and thanking God for that meal There's no problem But once it's been announced this is offered to a false god Well, now there's a problem because You shouldn't be having fellowship with devils And with idols and false religion And, of course, if you are in the presence of other believers or other persons And you're eating a meal in sacrifice to a false god They're going to get confused and think like I thought you were a Christian Like, why are you now eating this meal to a false god That doesn't really make sense And what could happen is maybe someone that's weaker in the faith Or not really as strong in the faith Could be tempted to say Oh, well, if Paul's eating meat sacrificed unto idols Then I can do that And let's go hang out with this false religion And let's join the pagan temples And let's get involved with a lot of different demonic practices And so that's kind of the context that we have here But it also says that we're not supposed to receive them unto doubtful disputations What does that mean? Well, it's kind of a phrase used once in the Bible Okay What is doubtful? Something that's unknowable, uncertain, not really clear What is a disputation? Well, if you just think about kind of the root word How about dispute? You're having an argument, right? So it's like an uncertain argument Or not a very clear argument So I think what it's trying to communicate is this If there's people in our church that are not the most strong Christians They're not the most zealous They're not necessarily the best Christians It's okay to hang out with them In fact, do hang out with them, right? Someone that's brand new to church Go have a meal with them Go hang out with them Fellowship with them Do things with them, right? But do not include people that are weak in the faith In an activity that you know would cause them a problem, right? And he's going to give us a lot of different scenarios here But look at verse 2 For one believeth that he may eat all things Another who is weak eateth herbs Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not And let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth For God hath received him So if someone just had a personal conviction and say You know what? I don't eat red meat And in fact I'm kind of offended at people that eat red meat Well then don't say like Hey, we're having a barbecue at our house You need to come over Right? Because now you're kind of like insulting the person Because in a sense you already know that they don't like that And you say, well what's the big deal? The Bible says that there's nothing unclean of itself You're right, okay? It's not that you're wrong But at the same time you shouldn't just kind of throw it in people's faces When they're wrong on these issues Or maybe they have a personal conviction Because is there anything wrong with never eating red meat? From a sinful perspective there's not Like you could serve God to your fullest And never eat red meat ever in your life Now are you going to be a little weaker? Yeah, you're going to be a little weaker Physically, for sure And then of course from a spiritual perspective It's saying that you're a little bit weaker in the sense that Why do you have this particular standard That's not necessarily required And in the sense that you don't have to have this standard You're kind of creating this boundary That you don't have to And so it's kind of viewing this person as maybe being a little bit weaker Someone that's stronger in their faith Says, you know what, I don't have a problem eating this There's nothing wrong with it And of course when we talk about the difference between Kosher diet and non-kosher This is like a Judaism type term But specifically the Bible In the Old Testament they had dietary restrictions on certain animals And I'm sure some Jews struggled with the idea of ever eating bacon Or ever eating pork Or ever eating some of these other animals So if they just said, you know what, I know that You guys are doing this But I'm not going to do it I don't want to partake in that kind of meal And I don't invite them over for a pork barbecue Because then that's kind of like Causing them a problem It's causing you a problem And then notice what it's saying in verse 3 Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not So, hey, how dare you not eat this I'm better than you Or whatever could be the conflict here Thinking that you're somehow better than someone Because you eat stuff that they don't eat Or vice versa And, you know, in our context I think that this is not very common Like there's probably not a lot of scenarios For us in this room Where we run into this exact scenario But I'm just trying to give you an idea of what this is saying And then we'll make some applications for us But in general What I believe is just trying to communicate Is when someone has a personal conviction Or they have a standard That's different than yours And you're aware of this Then try not to rub their nose in it Try not to cause a conflict Don't invite them to that particular event Knowing that they might be offended And don't look down upon them For having that event either If someone has a personal conviction You know, let's say again You say, well, we're going to wear dresses and skirts Down to our calves Well, then don't despise the people in the church That wear it to the knee, though Don't look at them and say, well, they're wicked now Because they have a different standard You know, we should not stand in judgment Of our brothers and sisters in Christ On doubtful disputations Meaning things that are personal convictions Personal standards or personal ways of life You know, some people may look at someone wearing a shirt And say, oh, that Nike shirt Well, did you know Nike donated money To this horrible thing And it's like, I'm sure they did And it's like, Nikes are related to like some false pagan god And, you know, so I think that you're a pagan worshiper Because you're wearing a Nike shirt This is just, it starts getting pedantic And it starts getting weird And sometimes people are like this, though About different topics And as we get in this chapter, it gives a couple of other examples What does it say in verse 5? One man, I'm sorry, verse 4 Who art thou that judges another man's servant? To his own master he stand of their fall For God is able to make him stand One man esteemeth one day above another Another esteemeth every day alike Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind He that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord And he that regardeth not the day to the Lord He doth not regard it He that eateth eateth to the Lord For he giveth God thanks And he that eateth not to the Lord He eateth not and giveth God thanks For none of us liveth to himself And no man dieth to himself For whether we live, we live unto the Lord And whether we die, we die unto the Lord Whether we live, therefore, or die We are the Lord's For to this end Christ both died and rose and revived That he might be Lord both of the dead and the living But why dost thou judge thy brother? Or why dost thou set it not thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ So, kind of what the Apostle Paul is bringing up Is this idea of, hey, if some guy is saying I'm not going to eat this because I want to serve God And then the other guy says, I am going to eat this Because I'm thankful unto God Who are you to judge that person In doubtful disputations Because we're both the Lord's servants And it's not really right For us to become the judge Us to become the master When Christ is ultimately the master And so, what the Bible is really trying to hammer in Is the fact that not every disagreement Needs to even be had You've probably heard this phrase Let's agree to disagree You know, you probably hear this all the time, right? I believe that's true But in some contexts, right? What is the context of Romans chapter number 14? Doubtful disputations It's not saying, well, you think that murder is okay And I don't, so we'll just agree to disagree Wrong, okay? That person needs to be rebuked, okay? The Bible is really clear in Leviticus chapter 19 We're not supposed to hate our brother in our heart And we're supposed to rebuke thy neighbor And not suffer sin upon him So when we're in the context of sin When we're in the context of right and wrong You know what? We need to judge We need to make sure that we're helping our brothers and sisters in Christ Be right with God There's a time and a place to rebuke your neighbor There's a time and a place to correct them And of course we should do it with meekness We should do it in the context of not being hypocrites When we do it But in this context it's saying there's gonna be some things in life That you need to just be okay disagreeing on Saying, you know what? I firmly believe you're wrong But it's not a sin issue Therefore I'm not gonna talk to you I'm not gonna condemn you I'm not gonna look down upon you I'm not gonna treat you any differently And it's totally cool that we disagree on this, okay? What is the example it brings up? Holidays Now, what does holiday even mean? Well, the root is holly like holy and day What is holy? Set apart That's simply what a holiday is It's a day that's set apart What does that mean? You're making it special, right? A birthday is making a day special for a person You're just setting that day and saying We're gonna treat this person different because it's their birthday Where we could have a lot of holidays that are kind of an American culture thing We have Thanksgiving is kind of a traditional holiday in America We have Easter, we have Christmas We have a lot of different holidays that are kind of traditional There's some holidays like Martin Luther King Jr. Day And some people set that apart Now, you know, I don't celebrate that day Because I don't celebrate adulterers and false prophets But at the end of the day Some people are gonna celebrate some days Some people are not I pretty much celebrate all the traditional holidays Me and my family, we love Thanksgiving In fact, I think it's my wife's favorite holiday She just really loves Thanksgiving And I get it It's a great time, great meal Although she wants me to cook brisket or something for her Albeit, she loves Thanksgiving It's really special to her She loves the fall Of course, I've always enjoyed Christmas Christmas was a lot of fun growing up as a child I loved the candlelight services at church Growing up, that was really special to me And you know, some people think like How dare you celebrate that pagan holiday Christmas And I'm thinking like, it's called Christ You know, Christ-mas How is that pagan, right? Well, they'll say, well, if you go back in these origins Back in this, you know, 1400s, 1500s I don't care Because you know what, I'm not doing Well, you have to understand, trees are pagan God created trees, folks, okay And of course, the Apostle Paul is saying Hey, nothing is like evil Everything's pure in and of itself Well, God would never decorate with trees He decorates the temple with trees, okay They're literally taking palm branches And laying them down before Christ As he enters into the heavenly Jerusalem And in fact, one of the main decorations Of the new heaven and the new earth It's a tree It's called the tree of life How am I supposed to think that trees are pagan And that trees are evil When the tree is the most common Representation of Christ himself Like, what is the most common Picture of Christ in the Bible I mean, it starts with the tree of life It ends with the tree of life He's hung on a tree It's on the cross of Calvary I mean, a tree is such an important symbol In the Christian Bible In the Christian faith of the Lord Jesus Christ And now I'm not allowed to celebrate Christmas Because trees are pagan You're weak, okay You're weak in the faith Again, here's the thing If someone comes up to me and says I don't celebrate Christmas You know what I'm not going to do? Well, you're an idiot I'm not going to say that, okay I don't even despise that person Great, no problem You don't have to celebrate Christmas I'm not celebrating Christmas I'm not going to get mad at you for not celebrating Christmas And if you tell me you're not going to celebrate Christmas You know what I'm not going to do? We're having a Christmas party, you want to come over? Right, because then that's Now I'm kind of like receiving this weaker brother Into a doubtful disputation And now we're going to have arguments about Christmas And it's like, that's not profitable Is it really profitable If Christianity Basically just gets broken down On whether or not we should celebrate Christmas We should just not even have that discussion ever It's like, I'm going to do it If you don't want to do it Do whatever you want And if you say I'm going to celebrate this weird holiday From Asia Go for it But I'm not going to do it You're going to celebrate Cinco de Mayo Do whatever you want But I don't have to do that You're going to celebrate some British holiday Well, we already separated from you So I don't want anything to do with that I'm mad at you for celebrating that You can do whatever you want Now of course there's some holidays That are inherently sinful Right, like there's some holidays That are literally worshipping the devil Or death or something evil And yeah, I think there's a time and a place To talk about that But, you know, is it Oh, on October 31st you're going to have a chili cook-off Well, we're not celebrating the devil On that day though We're doing our own thing, right Well, we're going to do whatever we want We're going to celebrate chili And we're going to be thankful unto God who gave us meat And we're going to be doubly thankful Because we're not going to put beans in it We're going to put meat So that's just like extra thankful to God For good food For the fact that we live in a country that has meat You know, there's so many people in the world today That don't have Beanless chili because they're poor Like it's not because they wouldn't want it They know that's the right doctrine They're very godly But they just can't afford it They couldn't have it And so like we're having it for them And we're being thankful to God for it But what if someone said, you know what I think that meat and chili is a wicked abomination Well, don't come to the chili cook-off Okay That's fine You can do whatever you want You know, but what we're going to do Is we're going to have that party, right People do their own thing People have their own idea Some religions will teach that you can't even have a birthday celebration I think this is like Jehovah's Witnesses And I think they really just don't celebrate any holidays at all They think that they're all bad or something You know, again If people celebrate birthdays And it's like the biggest deal ever Or some people say like, we're not even going to really celebrate birthdays Because it's not that big a deal Who cares? You know, and like for me personally I could never celebrate another birthday And be totally fine I just really don't even care anymore You know, and I'm saying for me But I celebrate birthdays because it's important to my wife Or my kids Or other people And there's nothing wrong with that either And it's sometimes just an excuse to hang out And that's fine too, right But if someone's like, I really hate birthdays I'm not going to invite them to my birthday party Right Because there's no point And just rubbing people the wrong way And if people say Well I think that birthdays are prideful And I don't do them because I don't want to be prideful And I'm going to serve God by not having birthdays Well okay, have your view And we will make sure to never invite you to anything, okay But is that really wrong Like, are you really going to be in heaven And be like, you're not going to get as many rewards Because you didn't celebrate birthdays No I'm not saying one day above another If he's fully persuaded, let him do his own thing If another guy's fully persuaded, let them do their own thing And you know what, I'm not against holidays I think that you can have your own If you just want to have your own special day Where you just celebrate your family How about just celebrate family pride Go for it, you know I might even join But at the end of the day, let's not be mad at each other Over holidays You know, I'm going to be mad that you're arguing about it Not mad about which position you're on Okay And of course the Bible is saying Let us not do this Let us not destroy someone's faith Or have a controversy Or get mad at each other Because of what days people celebrate Or how they treat the holidays Or what they do for the holidays Or their traditions Or whatever Who cares Some people have ham on Christmas I don't like ham So you have ham and off steak or something Some people have enchiladas on Christmas And I'm thinking, what are you? This is America No, I'm just kidding I like enchiladas, so I'm not against that I'm just saying, cultural appropriation I mean, come on Feliz Navidad, what is this? No, I'm just kidding But hey, you go for it Some people have turducken They put like, turkey Like turkey, deer And what is the other one? Dove, yeah, it's like turducken I've heard about this What is this? That sounds weird You know why they have to do that? Because nothing compete with steak They're like, let's put a bunch of animals together And it still didn't work Alright But I'm not against you having your own celebrations But don't be against me for my celebrations But if someone is really kind of has an aversion or has some kind of a personal preference against something that you're doing Don't include them in that, right? Include them in the things where there's not going to be conflict And on the things that you know there's going to be conflict Don't invite them Don't have them over Don't try to cause problems on purpose And don't then look down upon them Don't look at it as an opportunity to preach to them the Bible and preach to your personal convictions Try to convince everybody to be on your side of an argument No, he's saying like, let Christ judge that person And you be fully sufficient that you're going to be persuaded to be able to talk to Christ about your decisions Right? But we're not in the context of sin again When we're not in the context of sin Drop it Quit worrying about this stuff Don't make extra controversy Just do your own thing And make sure that when you're judging someone there's a really good reason to do it Right? Make sure that you're not a hypocrite Make sure it's a clear-cut sin issue before you open your mouth If you're not sure on it it's a doubtful dispute, just keep your mouth shut Right? And just judge yourself This is how we'll have a successful church when we're not quick to just get on each other's cases cause a lot of controversy constantly rubbing people the wrong way And again, Christ died for this person Christ loves this person They're Christ's servant and so we should look at them with honor and respect Some people take this phrase a little too far of like God's not a respecter of persons that we shouldn't show each other respect or honor or something It's like, well I'm not a respecter of persons so I don't care if you're a pastor or saved or a brother in Christ That's a dumb attitude The Bible is saying that we're supposed to show honor one to another So how do you reconcile that? What it's trying to say is that God is not elevating certain groups of people above others based on some arbitrary distinction They're from Israel God's not a respecter of persons in that category But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't show each other respect and honor and that there isn't positions of respect and honor in a household and that a child shouldn't look at their parents with respect and with honor and with dignity and that you shouldn't treat saved people with honor and respect But of course you should And that's just silly So we should honor and respect one another when we have personal convictions that are not clearly violating the Bible If someone's not clearly violating the Bible leave them alone Who cares? To get specific on this what I've noticed is that people want to pick on other churches and the old I of B on things that are not in the Bible And they'll get really mad about things that other churches are doing that are not in the Bible on either side of the equation and then acting like they're superior because of their personal convictions Okay? Like, specifically when we talk about the old I of B a lot of people hate on the old I of B for their own personal convictions not things that are clear in the Bible And look, I'm all for having standards, having personal convictions You know, there's some things in our church that we do that are different than other independent Baptist churches And you know why? Because we're independent Baptist churches And I'm not going to hold them to my personal convictions You know, what are some things like this? How about special music? Who's been to an old I of B church and heard special music? Alright, hands all over the, yeah If you say, I don't know if I've heard it then you haven't heard it, okay? You know if you've heard it, right? What is special music? Basically, special music is just a common thing where they'll have somebody from the congregation get up and just sing a solo sometimes they'll have a duet or a quartet or maybe even a choir special, okay? It's kind of all over the board, sometimes they'll have an instrumental special. Arguably we kind of have that in the offertory, we have an offertory special, right? Right between the Bible reading and that third song I have our instrumentalists play one verse of a song just kind of as a change of pace give people time to turn to their Bibles, people, you know handle tithe money or the offering or something like that and so that's just a decision I made Is that wicked and evil because I did that? No What if a church says, you know, we're going to have one of the best singers in our church get up and sing a song under the Lord. Is that evil and wicked? No How is that evil or wicked? That's their personal preference Now, I lean towards just not having much of that. I would never say though that I would never do it because maybe we would one day. Maybe if we got to have a really big church and we have some really talented singers or some really talented choir maybe every once in a while we would have that or, you know, some churches will have a choir special for Christmas or something like that. Am I going to really get up and say like, you guys are super evil and wicked for having special music? No. But, you know, for my personal preference I've been to churches where you have like four specials in a row you like, you sing, then you have announcements, then you have a special, then you have a sing and then you have another special and then like another special and then another special and it's like I've been here for 40 minutes and then by the time we're done with all that we get a sermon for about 10 minutes and I'm thinking like I'd rather like reduce the specials and get a little bit more preaching. And that's my personal preference. But you know what I'm not going to do? Well this church is wicked because they have so much special music and they don't have more preaching. No, that's just your personal preference, okay? Look, I really have strong feelings about this and I believe that what we're doing is superior but I'm not going to judge another church for having more music and less preaching than us. Having a different balance or having a different perspective. You know, also I think a lot of special music, sometimes people are getting up there for the wrong reason. Like they're getting up there and they're just kind of trying to showboat a little bit. Okay? So could there be some bad special music motives? There could be. But is that going to mean, hey, everybody's ever saying special music is wicked and evil? No. Some churches have other ministries that we don't have. They have Sunday school. Now look, I'm not a proponent for Sunday school. I don't want to have Sunday school. I don't believe that we probably ever will have Sunday school, okay? But if there's a church that I was going to that had Sunday school, I'd probably go to the Sunday school. And, you know, I did. Like it's not even like a hypothetical like I would. Like I literally did go to an old IB church and I literally showed up for the Sunday school classes. And then I also went to the main service. So it's not like something that I'm saying that I might do. I have literally done it. And you know what I wouldn't do is I wouldn't be like this church is wicked as hell because they have Sunday school. That's a personal conviction. And you know what's silly? It's silly that there's so many problems in the world today. There's so many enemies in the world today that I'm going to pick a fight with churches because they have Sunday school or not. Now look, some Sunday school they have women getting up and teaching men. You know what I would say? That's unbiblical. Now that's across the line where I would say you know that's just not even right. We shouldn't have women getting up and teaching men in the Sunday school. That doesn't even seem biblical. So I think you should eliminate that practice. Right. But is that. Can I just then say carte blanche Sunday school is evil or wicked. No. And you know what I bet a lot of people in this world have gotten saved in a Sunday school class. So am I going to sit here and say like how dare Sunday school ever exist because it show me the Bible says Sunday school okay well show me the Bible where it says don't have Sunday school. Riddle me that one. And again this is where we start getting into doubtful disputations right. Here's another one. How about bus routes. Now look we don't have a bus route. But you know what there has been people that have emailed our church and said hey I don't have a ride because someone gave me a ride and someone goes in the church van and picks them up and brings them to church. How wicked you know. How evil. Right. And how dare someone take a bit even bigger vehicle and get a lot of people and bring them to church. I mean can the horror. Right. I mean how dare. Can't you think of all the clear commandments in the Bible says thou shall not bring a bunch of people to church at one time. I don't remember that passage in Scripture. OK. Now look when we talk about bus I've known people that are really really great people that have run best routes. There's people in this room that have run bus routes. Do I think that every single person that's ever run a bus route is wicked. No. Now have there been bad people that have run bus routes. Yes. Have sometimes bus routes turn into a headache or nightmare for a church. Yes. Do I really want to do a bus route. Probably not. Especially if I'm just picking up kids without their parents. But what if we go into some of these poor neighborhoods and just picked up the whole family and brought whole families to church. Are you going to really condemn our church for having bus routes. That seems silly. And that would be the same logic as to say well there's bad pastors out there therefore every pastor is bad. There's bad churches out there therefore every church is bad. There's been bus route drivers out there therefore all bus route drivers are bad. You know this is a bad type of logic. And again if our church says well we're not going to have bus routes we shouldn't be damming churches that do. And then churches that do have bus routes shouldn't then be damming churches that don't have bus routes. Being like how dare you not go out and bus the kids in and try to reach your community. Well you know what. Not everybody has the same budget. The same scenario. The same ministries. The same personnel. The same vision. Why are we going to sit here and just judge one another and judge other churches based on our own personal convictions that is not biblical. Why do I have to get mad? And you know some people even get mad at Christians for going to Old Ivy churches. Like somehow they're a worse Christian. Like oh I can't I could never go to a church that's pre-trib. You weren't even saved two years ago. Get over yourself. You don't even know what that means. Like come on. Like some people they act so big and tough like I would never do this or whatever. And they if we examine their life they got serious issues. It's like they're sitting here and nitpicking the qualifications of a bishop while their wife's in pants. And I'm sitting here thinking like who are you to judge? Right? And of course there's all these you know people online and people out there that are just so quick to judge and they do it by tearing other people down because they want to lift themselves up. And when you're helping your brother realize hey this is a sin please don't do it. I love you. This is wrong. That's not an effort to build yourself up. That's you genuinely caring about someone and loving them and trying to help them. And you're trying to build them up. But when you're taking someone that's not sinning that has a different personal conviction and you're trying to just tear them down that's trying you to just build yourself up because you're prideful. It's pride that says I'm better than you based on something that's not even in the Bible. You know that's just not the attitude we should have as Christians. We should love one another. We should love our brothers and sisters in Christ. And you know what I believe there's thousands and thousands of Christians in this country that go through a quote old IAB church and how dare someone hate those people. Well they're pre-tribbed. They must hate the Bible. No you hate the Bible for hating on your brother in Christ. Well they must not read the Bible. Well it sounds like you don't read the Bible since you're ignoring Romans chapter number 14. You're ignoring the fact that you're supposed to love your brother and sister in Christ. You're ignoring the fact that the Bible talks about rebuke not an elder. You're ignoring all kinds of clear passages in the Bible and pontificating about how much you love it. You know what and there's so many people that just think they're so much better than everybody else and it's sickening. It's garbage. And they hear hard preaching and they don't know how to do it themselves so they just tear other people down in an effort to be a hard preacher. Look when you're a harder preacher than Pastor Anderson it's fake. It's just fake. They want to be cool and you know what stop trying because you're not cool anyways. Just be yourself. If you want to be cool be yourself. You're actually cool as yourself. You're not cool when you try to be something that you're not. And you know people like differences. You know what would not be cool is when I go to a restaurant and they're like hey we're from Italy. Our grandmother was from Italy. We have a million recipes for some of the most amazing dishes. Pasta ravioli everything. But you know the only thing we have on the menu is Asian food. It's like why? Well we just want to do Asian food. It's like dude do Italian food. Like that's cool. Be you right? And then you meet someone who's like we're from China and we have all these Chinese recipes on egg rolls and dumplings and whatever and it's like then make Chinese food right? It's cool that you're being yourself. But don't be someone that you're not. And it's okay if people are different. Hey if you're the best old IFB out there doing the bus route and doing your Sunday school thing and you got all these special music and whatever you know what? God bless you and reach those people. And be the best version of you that you can right? But let us not sit here and just condemn everyone that's not like us. Not everybody's going to be like us. Not everybody wants to be us. Let them be them. And if someone says you know what? I'm going to be a blessing in this church even though they have issues. You know what? Don't look down upon that person or hate that person or think that they're well they're just not hardcore. You know because they don't go to our church or my church or they don't like my sermons or whatever. You know he's a weaker brother. No you know you just don't really understand humility do you? And we need to make sure to check ourselves and test ourselves and make sure that what we're saying is even right. And look I'm not saying that hey let's not criticize false doctrine. Let's do right? Hey I'll preach sermons on how the preacher rapture is false. I'll preach sermons on you know issues that other people have sin. Let's talk about it right? We shouldn't shy away from sin. We shouldn't shy away from correcting people. But let's not unfairly criticize individuals when we're not talking about sin issues. We're not talking about things that are clearly outlined in the Bible good or bad. That's just your personal conviction. If you have a personal conviction you say I think all Bible college is wicked and evil then okay don't go to Bible college. You know what? Don't just sit here and say that everything about Bible college is super evil and wicked because of your personal conviction. Because you know what? There are some Bible colleges that are under the authority of a local church and what's wrong with the local church teaching and training men to become pastors? What do they call it? Church college instruction institute men's preaching class. Like what's the difference folks? Get over the labels and don't get so pedantic about things that aren't clearly sin or not. This is the whole essence of this chapter. And don't let us have Christianity devolve into this competition of whose personal convictions are the best personal convictions. Let everybody be unique. Let everybody decide their own things. We have enough clear commandments. Don't add your list to it. Right? Like there's already so much in here you're not doing. We don't need to worry about all the extra things. Okay? There's plenty that we have to work on. Alright? We don't need your extra special list that you're going to, you know, note tab in here. Right? If we keep reading, it says in verse number 11, it says, For it is written, As I live, say to the Lord, Every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Look, you're going to get all the time you want to explain these things to God. So buckle up, buttercup. Okay? And look, that terrifies me. You know, I don't look at this verse and think like, I'm ready. Got this. I'm thinking like, man, that's a scary thing. I'm going to have to stand before God, and I'm going to have to give an account of the things that I did. That should make us fear the Lord. And that should motivate us to make really good decisions. And it should motivate us not to be such a hypocrite and judge everybody else so pedantically. Because you know what? God often talks about how we're going to be judged the way that we judge other people. So you know what? I want to be really gracious towards others so that God will be really gracious when he judges me. You know, I don't want to be this like ultra critical person and hold everybody's feet to the fire because then when God does that to me, it's going to hurt. I'm not perfect. I have issues. I don't do everything right. And you know, I'm not wanting to sit here and let's examine Pastor Shelley's life real quick. Let's get the microscope on him and see every single thing he said, thought, did, wore, ate. It's like, wow, that sounds terrifying. And the person that is like, I'll do it right now is a lying fake. OK, no one that is sincere wants that to happen. OK, so let us not treat other individuals like this and hold everybody under the microscope when we ourselves would be terrified of such a thing. Verse 13, let us not therefore judge one another anymore. Now again, some people love to just take this verse out of context. Oh, never judge anybody ever again. Is that is that really what we said or the context? No, no, no. We're talking about in this context of doubtful disputations, personal convictions, this don't judge in this category, right? But judge this rather notice the next verse. But judge this is like, hey, don't judge anymore. But wait a minute. Judge. So again, don't just take one verse out of the Bible and run with it like judge not and then just run because then in the next breath, he's like telling you to judge. Jesus Christ has said judge not according to the parents, but judge righteous judgment. So, of course, the Bible doesn't say just stop judging. It's like, let's be careful how we judge. Let's not be hypocrites when we judge and let's not judge things that are personal convictions. But what should we judge this rather that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion of fall on his brother's way. So here's something that we should judge. If we notice someone putting stumbling blocks in someone else's way, we should try to correct that issue. We should say, hey, look, this guy doesn't believe in Christmas. Leave him alone. Right. Because if this guy is trying to hurt someone or cause someone to stumble or cause some kind of an issue, we should make sure that we're not allowing that to happen. If they say, hey, they don't like this food or they don't want to participate in this activity. Okay, let them do that or don't do that or whatever the scenario is. But let's make sure that we're not putting stumbling blocks and causing people to be offended. Like I've heard I didn't witness it, but I've had multiple witnesses tell me that in Jacksonville, you couldn't have a microwave in church. Okay. Now, now here's the thing. That's weird. If someone had that personal conviction, okay, but what if you have a new person coming to church and they're like, yeah, sometimes we just microwave our dinner and like how wicked you microwave your food. That's like, that's like putting Satan's, you know, microwaves into your food or something. And it's like, then that person's like, I don't even want to be a Christian because I can't even use a microwave. Okay. And now all of a sudden you're putting this weird stumbling block on people out of a bizarre personal conviction that has nothing to do with the Bible. Now, look, I've heard some people say, I don't want to have a microwave because I don't want my wife to get lazy. I want her to have to actually cook every meal on the stove or the oven so that you know, we'll have higher quality meals. She won't be as lazy and we're going to have better quality food. And you know what? That's my personal conviction. Go for it. I agree with your logic. There's nothing even wrong with that. But you know what? If that's not your family, okay. Right. Am I going to then be like, well, your wife's wicked because she uses a microwave. It's like, no, that's we have a microwave over here. Okay, folks. Now you say, I hate microwaves. Just don't go over there. All right. Don't even look. Just, you know, okay. But but at the end of the day, like we don't want to constantly upset one another over stupid things that aren't in the Bible, that aren't a clear commandment, that aren't this doubtful disputation. You know, we want to make sure that we're not putting these stumbling blocks on each other. Well, Pastor Shelley, you know, you got to wear a garment that covers your elbows because that's your nakedness and you're causing people to stumble. That's stupid. Okay. Again, it's always these hyper spiritual types that have these rules, isn't it? And they always seem to be wicked and they always seem to push their personal convictions on people because they're not actually spiritual and they have to pretend like they are. So they come up with new rules that aren't in the Bible and then they push them on everybody else and just mark it down. These people are almost always very evil, very wicked when people are pushing their personal convictions that are not found in the scripture, not found in the Bible. You know what? We need to stick to the Bible and not let our personal convictions cause people all these issues and cause people to stumble and cause people to get offended. And if someone says, you know, I don't want to participate in this particular activity because I think that it's sinful and you realize it's not, well, don't try to do that in front of them or try to cause them to think that, you know, you don't take Christianity seriously. You know, that's what possible is kind of bringing up about the eating meat sacrifice and idols. And I think some people, they, you know, they get confused. And I've heard this like in the job market area. Well, they'll say, well, I don't want to work for this company because this company seems really evil. But, you know, when you start playing that game, you pretty much can't work anywhere pretty soon. And so, you know, but someone could just genuinely say, like, I just don't want to work for this company because I personally have taken offense to them. Or like, I don't like their, you know, policy or I don't like their business model or whatever. I find it really, you know, convicting to me to not work for them. And they see you working for them, you know, it could cause them to possibly have a different view. How can this guy participate in this activity, you know, that I think so sinful? Well, you know, I'm not saying quit your job just to protect this weaker brother. What I am saying is don't rub your nose in it and don't like try to bring this guy into a workplace environment that they feel uncomfortable with. Right. Like, I'll just give you an example. I work for a company and they would have like alcohol at their events and I would go and I would just eat the dinner. I wouldn't drink the alcohol. Okay. But if I knew somebody in my church that also worked in that same company and they struggle with alcohol, I would be like not trying to encourage that person to go to that party because I wouldn't want to put a stumbling block in front of them, even though I feel like, you know, I'm not going to have an issue here and it's not a problem and I'll, you know, go and I'll just ignore what's going on. But if this person I know is going to struggle with this more or is weaker in the faith or maybe even just him knowing that I'm going to go is going to cause them to go and then they're going to be in a bad spot, maybe I just won't go to that party just to help that brother in Christ. Right. But basically just think about other people, care about them, try to make sure that you're not always worried about yourself and if you know your brother and sister is weaker then don't do that for them. Right. What if it's your spouse? What if your spouse struggles with drinking? Well, then don't take them to the family party where there's going to be alcohol and you know they're going to be tempted, right? And say, well, even though I want to be there like you ladies, if your husband struggles with drinking and you want to go back home to see your family but you're going to put your husband in a bad position maybe say, well, let's, you know what just not see the family because I don't want to put my husband in that position and make it awkward on him and cause him to stumble, put a stumbling block in his way because I'm taking him to the family party and there's going to be all this pressure and they're going to make fun of him if he doesn't drink so you know what we just won't even go so as to not put this stumbling block in my husband's way, right? Like this is just being considerate of one another thinking about one another and not putting them in a bad position because at the end of the day you don't have to go to every party to serve God. You don't have to eat every meal to serve God you don't have to celebrate every holiday and notice what he says in verse 15 but if thy brother be grieved with thy meat now walkest thou not charitably destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died let not then your good be evil spoken of for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness and peace and joy and the Holy Ghost. So if someone just really hates something or has a personal conviction against it don't try to invite them over and cause this controversy and then your good of inviting them and having a party turns into evil because you cause all this unnecessary strife. Don't try to invite people to do things or hang out with people in scenarios where it can cause them to sin, they're going to be offended you know there's going to be a problem maybe they don't agree right? What if you have a party at your house or what if you say like hey we're going to all go to the lake right? What if you say we're going to have a party at the lake and you invite family members to this party and you know your family members are not going to dress appropriately but then you invite a bunch of the men you know to go hang out it's like you're almost like putting a stumbling block in those men's way by putting them in that scenario and then you could cause strife or conflict and what if people what if there's literally a couple that's struggling in their marriage and then you're inviting them to these parties to be around people they shouldn't be around or a bad environment on purpose you know that's not walking charitably and even though you're trying to do a good thing or trying to throw a party or just trying to be nice don't let your good be evil spoken of by putting people in bad scenarios bad situations causing them all these issues you know even though maybe they're the weaker brother let's not despise the weaker brother hey this guy struggles in this area let's not look down upon him because we all struggle in our own areas or we have our own problems let us not you know do that kind of thing right if someone struggles with anything we want to make sure that we're not destroying them you know they're on a diet and it's like hey we're having a dessert party at my house it's like well you know that's kind of mean to do that person right like if they're struggling with this don't then entice them and cause them to kind of have an issue in that area right so just think about it and be kind and charitable to one another verse 17 saying again for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness and peace and joy and the Holy Ghost you know when I knock on someone's door to give them the gospel it does not matter what I ate that day it does not matter if I'm a vegan, vegetarian if I had beans in my chili or whatever it's like it doesn't really matter cause that's not the kingdom of God the kingdom of God is not meals it's you know righteousness and preaching the gospel and peace and being filled with the Holy Spirit says in verse 18 for he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace and things wherewith one may edify another for meat destroy not the work of God all things indeed are pure but it is evil for that man who eateth with offense it is good neither to eat flesh nor drink wine nor anything whatsoever by thy brother's tumblest or is offended or is made weak hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth and he that doubteth is damned to eat because he eateth not of faith for whatsoever is not of faith is sin now just kind of to conclude these last few verses in one thought it's just basically saying look if someone has a personal conviction and you somehow entice them to go against their own personal conviction you could actually cause them to sin so why in the world would I want to cause them to sin by having them participate in an activity that they don't really want to, they don't really like they think is kind of wrong you know there could be restaurants or places that people want to go that people have mixed feelings on I don't want to go to that restaurant because I think that they have something that's inappropriate there whether that be food, the servers, whatever like I just don't want to be in that environment and they could have that conviction and they feel bad about going there and if you drag them there anyways you're causing them to sin because they in their own personal mind don't want to go there they don't want to be involved in that, they don't want to participate in some activity where it's kind of confusing and you know we live in a sinful world and so when someone has a personal conviction let them have that personal conviction right and when someone is quote stronger in the faith and able to do things that you personally don't like but it's not really a clear commandment well you know what don't get mad at that person for doing that either right we just need to be careful that we're not judging another on things that are not clearly in the Bible and if it's questionable and you think it might cause someone else to have a problem then just don't do it right don't even cause them to have an issue if someone you know this is the way I look at things it's like well what is going to please all of the people what's going to please my brother in this situation rather than what's going to please me if I have a choice A and I have choice B okay and choice A is what I want but he's going to be offended or not want to participate then just choose option B so that they can participate and enjoy and have a good time and they're not necessarily going to be offended or cause some kind of a problem because I just don't want to put people in awkward situations you know I've I was in college I was around people that they would want to do something that I had kind of a personal conviction against or I felt like was wrong and I didn't want to participate or do and just because of peer pressure I ended up doing it and you know what that's that's my fault that's my problem but it's a real thing where people are sometimes talked into or because of peer pressure or because of whatever they make decisions they don't want to or they don't like or they don't feel comfortable with and we shouldn't force others to do these kind of things there's personal preferences we have a wide range of personal preferences and we shouldn't look down on others one other example to kind of be specific you know what about breastfeeding you know at our church we have a basically a policy of just do whatever you want like we don't really care you know some people are open breastfeeding some people are open breastfeeding in a private area some people cover some people pitch an entire tent you know you know some people go in the bathroom some people go in their car right there's all these different variations let's not get mad at one another for having different views on that right let's not have the ladies be like mad at one lady for having a completely different standard here a completely different view and we don't want to put women in a position where they're pressured to change how they feel on this based on your personal conviction you know let every woman be fully persuaded in her own mind and let everyone be fully comfortable with what she wants to do and let us not despise one another on her own oh I can't believe she made that to say you know there's just it's so quick and in women's nature to get mad at each other for stupid personal convictions stop getting mad at each other okay like it doesn't make any sense you know they're just trying to feed their child you know we all have our own views now obviously there's things that cross lines and we want to make sure that we're helping one another but when it's not a clear sin issue just shut up just don't care leave them alone love them be charitable when you do get to make a choice think about how other people feel about it think about their preferences think about what they like and try to make decisions that bless others instead of just being selfish about everything that you do and selfish about everything you know you men that get to make every decision for your family why don't you just decide you know what I'm gonna start making decisions that my wife likes I'm gonna start making decisions that my children like I'm gonna start helping them and loving them and being charitable towards them hey I get to be in charge but you know what as the dictator of my household I'm gonna love them as much as possible and choose good for them as much as possible you know let us love one another in sincerity and not go around and be like when will you ever come up to my level and understand my rules and be on my program why don't we condescend to men of all states and say you know what I'm willing to do what you want and go where you want and enjoy what you like and help you and I don't want to destroy my brothers and sisters in Christ I love them and we want to love one another as much as possible let us close in prayer they give me father so much for the sacrifice of your son and giving us this opportunity to have a church and have so many great brothers and sisters in Christ I pray that we wouldn't despise one another and especially over silly pedantic things doubtful disputations personal convictions I pray that we would just love one another and when people have differences of opinion that we wouldn't judge them for that we wouldn't despise them for that that we would allow people to have freedom to have liberty to be unique I pray that we would love our brothers and sisters in Christ that aren't in this room that we allow them to have freedom that we wouldn't be these overly critical harsh judges and that we would actually love one another when we have opportunities to be charitable, we choose to be charitable and at the end of the day we would realize that we're all here to serve you and in Jesus' name we pray, Amen Alright for our next song it's going to be 110 All the Way My Savior Leads Me 110 All the Way My Savior Leads Me Song 110 All the Way My Savior Leads Me All the way my Savior leads me What have I to ask His side Can I doubt His tender mercy Who through life has been my guide Heavenly peace, divinest comfort Here by faith in Him to dwell For I know what e'er befall me Jesus doeth all things well For I know what e'er befall me Jesus doeth all things well For I know what e'er befall me Jesus doeth all things well All the way my Savior leads me Cheers to the twining path I tread Gives me grace for every trial Feeds me with the living bread And my soul the thirst may be Gushing from the rock before me Though a spring of joy I see Gushing from the rock before me Though a spring of joy I see All the way my Savior leads me All the fullness of His love Perfect rest to me is promised In my Father's house above With my spirit cold and mortal Things is like two realms of day Through this my soul through endless ages Jesus led me all the way Through this my soul through endless ages Jesus led me all the way Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday Miss Emma, happy birthday to you. 21! God bless you, you are dismissed. Thank you.