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Have you been to Jesus for the
cleansing bath? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Are you fully trusting in His
graces? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Are you washed in the blood,
in the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? Are your garments,
fathers, are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Are you walking daily by the
Savior's side? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Do you rest each moment in the
crucifix? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Are you washed in the blood,
in the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? Are your garments boundless,
are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? When the bridegroom cometh, will
your robes be worn? the blood of the Lamb. Will you so be ready for the
mansions bright and be washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you washed in the blood? In the soul-cleansing blood of
the Lamb? Are your garments boundless? Are they white as snow? Are you
washed in the blood of the Lamb? Lay aside the garments that are
stained with sin And be washed in the blood of the Lamb There's
a fountain flowing for the soul unclean, who'll be washed in
the blood of the Lamb. blood, in the soul-cleansing
blood of the Lamb. Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow? Are you
washed in the blood of the Lamb? Brother Bogg, would you ask the
blessing on the offering? You may be seated. And at this time, and you can't
get out of it, I had a little friend tell me about some birthdays
today. So we do have birthdays. And
it's going to be Uncle Poe, probably. So we need to sing out here,
or not. It's gotta mean something to
you. Something with the month, I guess.
OK. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy
birthday, God bless you. Happy birthday to you. And do we have any anniversaries? No anniversary, Pastor. How many of y'all... Thank you. Micah came and picked me up from
the airport yesterday and what a blessing that was and thankful
for that. We had a fun ride back and weren't
even close to any accidents or anything. It was good. It was
very nice. No, no, no air conditioning.
It was cold. So, anyway. Yeah, I keep forgetting
I have a birthday. You know, I don't, I don't know
if that, that must be an age thing, right? So, and my brother
texted me from Australia and I'm like, oh yeah, I got a birthday.
And of course he's like a day early because I don't know. He
goes, I think you have a birthday soon. Happy birthday. Yeah, let
me check the clock and see when it is. It is soon. So thank the
Lord for another year. And we only get so many years
to glorify Him. And when we die, there will be
no need to glorify Him. And this is the only chance we
have. And how often are we reminded we haven't done a very good job
at it sometimes. And thankful for the years that
He gives us. Amen? All right. Romans chapter
14 this morning. We're going to jump into a subject
about how we live with one another here in our church. We're going to Look at the subject
of edification, of edifying one another, lifting up and building
up one another. And no doubt some of you all
have stories growing up in life when there may be somebody special
to you, somebody that stood out, maybe not even in your own home,
maybe just somebody at a school or wherever it might have been
that just, I tell you what, you might have had a lot of negativity
and this person just came along and just encouraged you. and
things like that. I remember my sister, who is
the next up from me, that sister, and she'll remain nameless, but
something was said to me when I was young, you know, high school
age, and no doubt the individual who said it maybe thought they
were being helpful. And they made some pretty negative
comment. And my sister came into the room
later and said, don't listen to that. It's not true. And I
remember that, obviously I remember that to this day, and it was
a helpful thing, it really was, and it was a positive thing.
And she didn't know it, because I didn't at the time, I could
have cared less where Romans 14 was, but I didn't pull out
my Bible and say, well, wow, Jen, oh, I just gave her name,
Jen, thanks. You just edified me, according
to Romans 14, and I'm so thankful for that edification, thank you.
And I wouldn't have known that then or wouldn't have understood
that then, but I do today. And how imperative that is, that
we are in a habit of edifying one another, right? Edifying
and lifting up and encouraging one another. And we need to do
that. Charlie Brown, he was at Lucy's psychiatric help booth. It was five cents for this psychiatric
help. And Charlie came up and said
he had deep feelings of depression. He said, what can I do about
it? And she snapped at him. She says, just snap out of it. Five cents, please. Just snap
out of it. That was her help, right? And
that's what some people have for what they think is help.
And no doubt, sometimes people need a snap out of it, right?
I knew a pastor, he had lost his wife, and he was going to
the grave every day for, I don't know how long, it had been almost
a year. And a pastor friend of his called and said, when's this
gonna stop? Ooh, that was rough. But he needed
that at the time because he was in a wrong place beyond the normal
of grieving. And yeah, sometimes there is
a snap out of it that you need every once in a while. It can
only come from the right person and the right friendship that
God gives you. But normally what we need is a good dose of edification. There's another strip of Charlie
Brown and he said, I'm not sure what happiness means. Lucy was
telling Charlie Brown this. I'm not really sure I know what
happiness means, but I look in your eyes and I know that it
isn't there. That's not edification, right? That is not edification. To edify means to build up. And
here in our text today, the Apostle Paul is gonna talk to this church
at Rome, and it's a process of faith and growth, of learning
to edify one another. So let's look at Romans chapter
14, verse 11. He says, 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 an 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 it seemeth 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 and approved of men. Let us therefore follow
after the things which make for peace." Here it is. and things
wherewith one may edify another." Okay? So we're not supposed to
be a stumbling block to one another. We're supposed to search out
for those things and follow after those things, which not only
make for peace, but those things wherewith we may edify and build
up one another. Life is hard enough, amen? It's
tough enough. And the Christian life adds a
whole nother paradigm to the struggles and the difficulties
that we have in this life. And the last thing that we need
is, you know, the Debbie Downer always coming around, or the,
let me think of what's that, there's a Debbie Downer, we gotta
find another D, Daniel Downer, there we go, we don't wanna just
pick on the girls, right? And we don't need those type
coming around all the time. There's a place for that but
boy we really need at times we really need some edification. Now Paul is writing here to challenge
them to grow in grace. and to grow in the grace and
the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. You have to realize this
church at Rome was a mixed church. There was Gentiles in this church.
There was Jews in this church from after 70 A.D. when Rome came in and fell, came
in upon, when Titus came into Jerusalem and kind of destroyed
the temple and wiped everything out. The Jews began to scatter.
They began to go all throughout that area and a whole lot of
them ended up in Rome and so this church here in Rome was
mixed. There was Romans and there were Jews in the church, there
were Greeks and so there was the Gentile believers who were
saved out of paganism and things that way and so they had different
views of observing certain holy days and and holidays, right? Things like that. Different views
on things about eating meat and things sacrificed to idols that
you would buy in the marketplace. So they had their views of that.
But the Jews didn't really grow up in that. So they didn't have
all of that problem. The Jews were appalled at the
Gentiles eating the meat which was associated with idols, right?
They thought that was horrible, you know? But Gentiles, I hope
I'm not confusing here, the Gentile believers wouldn't have thought
that so awful, but the Jews would have thought it awful. And so
you have these differencing of opinions of one saying, well,
I can't believe you're doing that. I can't believe you're
eating that. You are really eating that possum, right? Now, it wouldn't
be the problem was the possum. The problem was, well, they offered
that up to an idol, right? So now you have two problems.
You're eating a possum, and you're eating a possum that was offered
to an idol, which... Not a very good idol if you're
going to offer him a possum. But anyway, they had contention,
all right? They had differing of opinions,
and it could get to creating these stumbling blocks and just
not helping one another, not building one another up, but
tearing them down. And in a church family, listen,
our differences can either harm the church or bring harmony to
it, right? I make a lot of jokes. The Lord
kind of got on to me for making so many jokes about, you know,
New Jersey and all of the California and all of these different places,
right? And I'm thinking of jokes right
at this moment that could come out. But you know what? It's
not very edifying. And these differing, these people that
have moved, these people, these people that have moved. No, I
didn't mean it that way. All these people that have moved
into this area, right? And we're so thankful for those
that are in our church. They bring all different experiences
to our church that are actually are wonderful. They're excellent,
you know. I mean, we can look around and
we can see, you know, the rural setting that we're in, although
it doesn't look very rural anymore. And we have our own challenges
and we can get discouraged about how we reach the loss and how
we reach a community that seems to have no desire for the things
of God. But then you have a family that moves in from New Jersey
and the inner city and the challenge is there and you realize, well,
they, they built a church in that environment well we can
build God can build a church here if you can build one there
and watch it bring some it adds some some what do I say help
to us at different points of view and broaden our horizon
and don't get so myopic looking at things And it can be an encouragement
to the body. And so God, you know, we know
if we believe this, right, God places in the body whom He pleases,
right? He puts us where He wants us.
So it means He has a place for everybody in this body and your
background and your experiences in your time in Christ, they
all add to the benefit, or they can add to the benefit of the
body. So the point is not our differences,
the differences can be very good, right? And they can be a place
of edification and helping one another. I'm still trying to
figure out Martin, but no. No. Martian. Yes, the Martian. Listen, I love the people that
God has brought here from every walk of life. Everybody's a blessing. Everybody's a joy. Everybody
has their own experiences. Everybody has their heart for
God and a desire for the things of God. And I love it. Everybody
has that. But on top of that though, everybody
has a need just to continue to grow. We haven't all arrived,
right? We haven't all got there. We still have our self that we're
dealing with. We still have sins that we are
dealing with. We still have attitudes and things
like that that we are dealing with. We're still trying to stop
telling jokes about other parts of the country. Except Arkansas. Arkansas is always available
for a joke. I'm just telling you, God has put us together and one
of the things we need to major on is not necessarily the differences
but how to edify one another in spite of the differences and
along with the differences because God knows those differences and
He brings them into the church and He's allowed them and they're
for a purpose, right? And so edification, we need to
learn to edify one another. It doesn't happen by accident.
Becoming somebody who edifies one another doesn't happen by
accident. It's kind of not in our nature.
Now, there are those that just have the gift of edification.
God, it's just natural to them, and they are so good at coming
to somebody and going, boy, I love how you did that. Boy, you did
a great job on that. Boy, I mean, I would have never thought of
that. Man, that is so good. I hope you can continue to do
that. That is really a help. I mean, some people just have
that ability, and it just rolls off. I mean, it's just easy for
them. But watch this, it can come out of us genuinely, eventually,
right? If we determine to live a life
of obedience to God, in the command to edify one another, right?
Watch this. Do you know that once you begin
to, once you put a stake in the ground and decide, like a tent
stake, not a steak stake, but once you put a, drive a stake
into the ground and decide, I'm gonna obey God on this issue,
you know what happens immediately? You get grace. God gives you,
not just favor, right? You know what else grace means,
right? Divine enablement. God, He causes us both to will
and to do of His good pleasure. And so too is this thing of edification. When we decide that, Lord, I
want you to check me every time that something comes out negative
and is not the most edifying. Number one, I want your Holy
Spirit to go, hey, That's not very edifying, right? And then
secondly, I wanna grow in the ability and the grace to edify
one another and edify those that you've put around us. The minute
you decide to do that, that's when the grace of God comes in
and enables us and begins to work in us and to change us to
make us a people who edify. So you might say, you might say,
well, I'm just not good at that. I'm just not good at that. Well,
fine, God is. Right? You're not good at saving
yourself either, but are you pretty sure you're saved? How
many sure they're saved? Okay, right? You didn't have
a thing to do with that, did you? All you had to do is believe
and receive and say yes, right? And God did the rest. Well, you
know what? The same way you got saved is
the same way that we obey everything that God gives us to do. It's
His divine enablement and it's His grace. And so we can be those
who edify. We can become that, a body who
edifies one another. We're told here that in verse
19, we're told here to follow after the things which make for
peace. So that word follow after there
means to run after, to pursue, to seek eagerly, all right? To run after and to pursue, yeah. You've seen it happen and some
of you have done it. Run after and pursue. How many's
married? How many of you men are married?
Yeah. Did you ever run after? Did you
ever pursue? Yes, you did. Yeah, you did. Maybe there might have been a
couple that were like, uh-uh, she hunted me down. And she's
going, oh, you wish. Yeah. Hey, some of you know,
listen, we all know how to run after and pursue the things we
want. Some run after careers, some
run after money, some run after all sorts of things. I mean,
listen, we know how to do that and we're commanded here to follow
after, to pursue, to run after, to seek after eagerly, to follow
after the things which make for peace. You know what it is easy
to do? It's easy to follow after those
things that make chaos and destruction and upheaval and fighting. I
mean if we just live to the flesh that's easy. I mean we're constantly
doing that. But we need to actively pursue
peace, right? Somebody said this, I've got
it written down here, it's difficult to live peaceably with others
around us, even in our homes, right? It is, it's difficult.
So somebody said this one time, if we could just get everyone
to close their eyes in the world, everybody in the world, get them
to close their eyes and to visualize world peace for an hour. Just imagine how quiet and serene
the world would be until the looting started. Listen, I mean, you have to actively
pursue this thing of peace, right? The world can imagine, I mean,
you remember those things, you know, seek peace, world peace,
visualize, imagine peace, and things like that. Well, you can
imagine all you want. It doesn't happen. Actually,
it's got to be actively sought after. It's got to be sought
after. So Romans 14 here is going to
give us four steps how to live peaceably with each other. Number one, we're going to find
here in verses 7 and 8, And let's read the verses and I'll tell
you what it is. For none of us liveth to himself and no man
doth to himself. For whether we live, we live
under the Lord and whether we die, we die under the Lord. Whether
we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. So, number one,
the first step to living peaceably and seeking after edification
one of another is to stop living for self. Yeah. That's our biggest problem, isn't
it? I, I am the problem, the capital I. If you want a book later, I'll
give it to you. Tell me, I've got copies of them. I think,
Miss Julie, I think I gave you one once before and called The
Calvary Road by Roy Hessen. Anybody ever read that book?
I would recommend you read it once a year. It's a wonderful
book. I'll give you a copy. I've got several of them if you
want it. But he says, and this is the thrust of the entire book,
is dying to self, not I but Christ, Paul said, over in Galatians,
not I. And he said, see, we're the I,
and he said the letter I, the capital I is straight up and
down. It's a stiff letter. It doesn't move. He said, but
the C in Christ is an I that's bent. And he said, until we who bend
ourselves and mold ourselves to Christ, we'll always live
a life that's just straight and rigid and self-centered. We've
got to bend ourselves, yield ourselves unto Christ. It's a
hard thing to do, and we've got to be reminded of it constantly.
And listen, you know what we have found out, and you have
found this out if you're in Christ, you have found out it's the most
natural thing to live to self, and it's the most unrewarding
thing to live to self. The world will never understand
it. They will never get it. At times
we have to be reminded of it on a daily basis because our
flesh is so strong. But the joyful life is actually
the selfless life. And it's the self-centered life
is actually the miserable life. Why? Because you can never get
everything you want, right? Over in Proverbs, there are four
things that are never satisfied, right? You write the fire, the
barren womb. I'm trying to remember the other
two. I'll go back to them another time and remember them. But drought,
you know, and then there's something else. But we're just never satisfied,
right? And so you live to yourself and
you're constantly looking for somebody to fulfill you. Well,
they can't. Yeah, get this down, nobody can
completely fulfill you. No person can, right? And what
happens when you are seeking to an individual to fulfill you,
it's really a cruel thing to do to them because they're not
capable and then you're gonna be missing out because they're
not capable, right? They are missing out because
you're never satisfied with them and then you are missing out
because you're never satisfied with yourself because you're
still gonna always look for more and more and more and more. It's
a fruitless life. It's a futile attempt to live
to self. How many get reminded of this
on a daily basis? I'm trying it once again, to
live to self. and get what I want and you know
I've got to be the first in line and I've got to be the first
here. You just travel. Get on an airplane every day
and watch the world live to self. Oh my goodness. It's unbelievable.
Get on the highway and watch people drive. Get in the store
and watch. I mean it's just this constant
push of trying to get ahead and be the first and this and that
and it's the most natural thing we can do. but it takes a supernatural
God living in us to remind us and to enable us that no, this
isn't the fulfilling life, right? You'll never have enough money.
You'll never have enough people. You'll never have the right spouse.
You'll never have the right stuff. You'll never have the right friendships. It will never, ever, ever, ever
be enough, right? So watch, when it comes to the
place when you can die to self and Christ is enough, then everybody
around you will be enough. Because you're not looking to
it anyway, right? You're not looking to the stuff
and the money and things like that. Well, does that mean we
have to be paupers? No, it doesn't. Listen, God has
created us to produce, and some produce at different levels,
right? Some produce millions and billions, some produce thousands
and hundreds. But the point is, you can be
content where God has put you, and you don't have to look to
those things for your contentment. But boy, you start running after
them, you're never going to get there, you won't. If you want
to live peaceably among the brethren, Listen, we've got to stop living
for ourselves. We can't do it. The only way
we're going to live for one another is live for the Lord first. Live
for Him. Then we'll be able to seek peace
one for another. Number two, realize the Gospel is the focus.
Stop living for yourself and realize the point of why we're
here. Why did God leave us on the earth? What did Jesus say?
Occupy till I come. What are we supposed to be occupied
with? Go out into the highways and the hedges and compel them
to come in. Go into all the world and preach the gospel, right?
We are supposed to realize and remember on a day-to-day basis
that the gospel is the focus. The gospel is the focus, right?
You say, well, I'm just a grandma, I'm just a mother, I'm just,
I got little ones, or I just got grandkids, I'm not the place
where I'm going out. Well, you got, hey, can you teach
little ones the gospel and we're gonna go out with it someday?
Can you equip them with the gospel and they're gonna go out with
it someday? I'm telling you, some of you, some of the moms that
are still at home, the grandmothers that are just, in their grandkids' lives. Boy,
you talk about a building project. building program there with those
little ones that you have in the gospel, right? Being a mother,
being a grandmother, being a father, being a grandfather, all of those
things, you've got to realize it's all about the gospel, it's
all about the gospel of Jesus Christ, right? How you raise
them, how you direct them, everything, you know, but the things that
we get worked up about, oh goodness, you know, you've got to remember
When the gospel is the focus, we've gotta be reminded on a
daily basis that some things aren't worth it for the gospel's
sake. How many get reminded of your
flesh? I mean, you think you're clicking on really good? You're
like, boy, I'm living in victory, and boy, boom, something comes
up and you go, whoa. I didn't know that was there.
I was coming home yesterday, I was on a flight between Charlotte
and coming home to Springfield, and just sitting on my little
row, you know, I'm next to the window seat, and we're getting
close, so we just come over Rogersville, and coming in, and I'm looking
out my window, my window's down about, shade's about that far,
and this stewardess walks by and she goes, you need to put
your shade up for landing, and I'm like, I mean, just that quick,
I'm like, I'm like, it's up, it's down there, and I'm looking
over, and everybody else's window's down, and she didn't say a word
to them. Right? Listen, the Lord will work through
you through other people. Don't get bitter. Sometimes if
things are going on, you're like, why'd they say that? Maybe you
ought to stop and say, okay, speak, Lord, thy servant heareth.
What are you showing me? You know what I did? I put the
little window shade up, and for about 10 minutes, I had to go,
stop it, just stop, no, stop it. Because my insides are, my flesh
is wearing up, right? Like I was, you know, you know,
I was, you know, what's that word they like to use nowadays?
I've forgotten. Anyway, I've been discriminated
against, right? It's because of my red hair.
I know it. Yeah. You know what would have
been really bad is to say something because I've done it before.
And then later the Holy Spirit says, usually about three seconds
after it comes out of my mouth, right? Probably be a bad time
to give him a tract now, don't you think? Yeah. Man, it was... It was the attorney,
some of you probably heard him, David Gibbs talked about being
at a drive-thru and the lady could not get the order right.
It was him and his wife and his grandkids couldn't get the order
right and he kept trying to go over. He goes, I'm getting mad
and mad and angry and angry. And finally I'm like, you know,
lady, what do you have, boxing gloves on there? Are you trying
to hit the keys with me? I know you can't hit the right
key. And he goes, I'm getting mad. My wife's telling me to
stop. And he said, I pulled up to the drive-through window and
the manager came out and said, I appreciate your patience. You
know, she just lost her son last night and she's really having
trouble or something to that effect. I'm like, and he was like, oh,
you know, yeah. And yeah, some things aren't
worth the damage done to the gospel. Yeah. And we've all done it, haven't
we? Yep, I've done it, I've done it. And said things, right, and
made, didn't die to self, forgot that the gospel was the focus
of our life. And it might have been justified in it, right? And not saying that some things
don't need to be said at the right time with the help and
the aid of the Spirit of God, but a lot of things that we are
frustrated at is just because of self. And so Jesus Christ,
what did He do? He came with one focus, didn't
He? To seek and to save that which was lost. That was it,
that's why I'm here. He goes, I'm just saying what
my Father says. I'm just doing what my Father has told me to
do. I'm doing nothing else but what I've been given to do. That's
the whole purpose of my life. And we seem to think that the
purpose of Jesus' life is just something that gets tacked on
to ours and we go along with our life and just drag Him along
with us. But no, His life is our life,
right? You say, that sounds, does it
sound miserable? Does it sound like it's overwhelming?
Does it sound like, boy, I don't know if that sounds real fun?
Well, no, no, this is good news, because it might, because I've
had times like that, that doesn't sound fun, right? When you're
battling your flight, that doesn't sound, just, that's it? That's
the purpose of our life, right? Well, you know what you find
out? With the help and the aid of the Spirit of God, you begin to learn that
no, this is the joy. The gospel-centered life is the
joy. Watching somebody trust Christ is, there is, listen,
there is zero, none, no experience on this planet greater than watching
somebody humble themselves before God and give their life to Jesus
Christ and then God allowing you to be a part of it. Nothing
greater. Nothing greater. Yep. If we're going to edify one another,
if we're going to help the body, we've got to realize that it's not
about us. We've got to stop living for self. We've got to realize
the gospel is the focus. And then we need to remember
that all things are going to get settled at the judgment seat of Christ. Look at verse 10 and 12, But
why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at not thy
brother? For we shall all stand before
the judgment seat of Christ. Now obviously he's speaking to
believers here because unbelievers do not go to the judgment seat
of Christ, they go to the bema seat, the great white throne
judgment. But he's talking to believers. the ones that we are
just irritated with, the ones that have legitimately done wrong
and maybe have sinned against you and have never said a word
to you about it and then we get into the place of bitterness
and anger and it's ruling our life and they're ruling our life
and watch what happens, this just follows suit really when
you get into the place of living in bitterness and anger you know
your life becomes self-centered, yeah No, there's, all of these
things are still a list. They begin to reveal that we're
living to sell. Well, they did me wrong. Well, they did Jesus
wrong too. You've never been done as wrong as Jesus has been
run wrong. I know that becomes cliched, right? We make these
statements kind of trite, but it's really very, very, very
true. No matter what has happened to us, there'll be nothing, nothing
to compare what we did to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so what
it reveals in us is when we get that attitude in that way and
start getting irritated about what somebody else has done to
us, though as right as we may be, We've got to be careful because
it can turn into self-centeredness. It can become about my rights
and my this and my that. And watch, all of a sudden you're
living for self. You get your focus off of the gospel because
you think things need to be settled now and you're just all up in
arms because they're just getting away with it. They're getting
away with it. Can I tell you, friend, they're not. and the
same grace God is giving them and the space God is giving them
to repent, let me tell you something, Bubba, you'll be very happy when
God gives you that space to you when you need to repent and get
right with God. You'll be very happy for that
space and grace, won't you? Absolutely. And so remember,
we just have to remember that some things are going to get
settled at the judgment seat of Christ. This word judge in
verse 10 means to be contentious, to dispute with others, and to
sit at not here means to despise utterly. To be contentious, to
dispute with others, and to despise utterly. Listen, it is easy to
get that way with one another in the body. It is. There's a few people in this
room, I don't see how this is possible, but I'm sure it is.
But just to be all inclusive and not leave anybody out. Every
one of us know how to get on somebody's nerves. Like I said, there's a couple
that I can't figure out how they would do that, because they just
don't seem like that at all. But I'm sure there's somebody
somewhere that would say, yeah, that's kind of irritating, right? Listen, we can. We all know how
to get on to one another's nerves. We all do things. We have all
our own idiosyncrasies. We all have our own foibles.
We all have our own weirdnesses about us. And we can grade on
one another, right? And there can be even some things
that are, okay, yeah, that is just sin. But if you're not careful,
right, we will shift from living to edify one another and to strengthen
the body, we'll drift backwards to living to self. And then the
gospel goes out the window, right, and the purpose why we're here
goes away, and life just becomes about self again, and then edification
doesn't happen, and then we're just a body that's kind of miserable,
kind of miserable. Yeah. So all things are going
to get settled at the judgment. Don't forget that. Finally, avoid
causing others to stumble as well. Did you know if we all
lived with this on the very forefront of our mind, Father, would you
show me, would you make sure you help me see where I might
be a stumbling block to somebody else? Now, not, you know, some
people can just pick anything out. Oh, that's a stumbling block.
You need to stop. You know, it's like, you know, maybe you just
need to figure out how to deal with life, right? I mean, yeah,
self-centered too, yeah. And it can be, absolutely. But
there are some things that, like between the Jews and the Greeks,
here in this Church of Rome, there's some very important things here that could
be stumbling blocks to somebody else right if the Greeks didn't
have any problem eating meat and there's a Paul writes about
this right over in Corinthians and there's a there's a young
believer young Jew that's just accepted Christ and he's still
like Peter and he's like oh nothing Nothing undefiled has touched
my lips, you know. And this Greek says, hey, why
don't you come over for supper? Okay. And he puts out, you know,
a pound of bacon, you know. Maybe at this stage in his life,
watch, as that Gentile, maybe he ought to have been less self-centered
and said, and he may not have done it self-centeredly, but
maybe he could look at himself and go, you know what, I can
do without this. They're growing, they're young in the Lord. I
don't want this to make them stumble. Why don't we not do
this? We'll go ahead and serve up that
possum. And we'll see how that goes. And, but I had a meeting one
time, a sales meeting out in Oklahoma with this group that
had bought several truck stops. And they were changing out all
the sign package, large, very large stuff. And their last name
was Sing, S-I-N-G. G and H or something like that. It was Indian. And they were
Sikhs. They were the type that wore the turbans. I didn't know
anything about them, okay? I didn't know. I said, hey, why
don't we go ahead and we'll meet at Newton's Steakhouse. I'm sorry,
we do not eat meat. I'm like, oh, okay. Well, We're
in Oklahoma, I don't know where we're gonna go eat. I don't know
what we're gonna do. We ended up at an Indian restaurant.
Anyway, but they paid, so I was good. But I had rice and nuts
and fruit. It was actually really good.
But no meat. No assembling block, right. We
need to make sure, we need to avoid causing others to stumble. Look at verse 13. 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. If you're going to call somebody
a brother, there's a relationship involved there. We're to esteem
others above ourselves, are we not? We're supposed to esteem
others better than ourselves. So if there's something that
we know would be a problem, maybe they haven't, maybe they're young
in the Lord, they haven't grown up in some of the grace that
they understand that they had, maybe there's things that maybe
you haven't come to know that you ought to do, right? Hey,
there's some people that are at a, a stage in their Christian
maturity and there's some things that the Lord has brought them
to get out of their life and away from their life and they're
the mature ones and you're the immature one that you haven't
got there yet, right? And maybe you don't need to be,
you could be the stumbling block by introducing something back
into their life that they don't really want to deal with or look
at anymore, right? Listen, the point is We need
to be sensitive to the Spirit of God to shut our own needs
off and be alert and aware what everybody else, what our other
brothers and sisters needs are so we can edify one another in
the body of Christ. So we can lift up and so we can
help. Paul told the Gentile believers
right here that while you do have liberty to take meat, yeah,
He says you shouldn't do it if it's gonna cause the Jewish believers
to stumble there in the church. Just don't do it. Don't do it.
You remember the definition of Christian liberty? I think it
was Charles Ryrie. I think I just quoted this not too long ago.
Charles Ryrie said that Christian liberty is the freedom to be
a slave to righteousness. the freedom to be a slave to
righteousness. What is righteousness? Right
doing, right living. And so we have that in Christ.
Warren Worsby said this, there is one thing we should judge.
We should judge ourselves to see whether we are abusing our
Christian liberty and making ourselves stumble. It's easy
to judge somebody else, but maybe we ought to start, right? Judgment
must begin at the house of God. Physician, heal thyself. Sometimes
judgment begins to begin with ourselves. He goes on to say,
"...certainly nothing is unclean of itself, but some practices
and habits are considered unclean by others. Therefore, if we deliberately
do something that makes our brothers stumble, we are not living according
to the rule of love." We're living according to the rule of self.
itself. So if we're going to live peaceably
with one another, if we're going to live to where we edify one
another and where we took a place where we don't cause others to
stumble, right, we're going to have to live peaceably. And then
finally, we're just going to have to build up, build up one
another strongly. And we're going to stop there,
build one another strongly. We see here there's a priority
in edification. It's necessary. We need to edify
one another. It's an aspect of our life that
needs to become more and more normal. And how will it become
more and more normal in our life? Easier. How will it more easily
flow out of our life? When we live less and less and
less to self. Right. We will we will naturally
live like Jesus and live to edify and build up and encourage and
strengthen one another. The body needs it. It definitely
needs it. And so let's let's ask the Lord
today to help us to be aware of the fact that we need to live
a life that edifies
Romans 14
Series Romans
| Sermon ID | 1117241656136634 |
| Duration | 46:02 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday School |
| Bible Text | Romans 14 |
| Language | English |
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