Seven o'clock, good to see you all. We're going to start tonight by singing of shepherds watching their flocks by night, hymn number 124. It looks like we've got our hymnals back there on the water cooler, and we'll start from there. Appreciate those who got ready for the concert, and we'll go from there. 1, 2, 4. Let's sing together while shepherds watch. Let's sing 1, 2, and 5. 1, 2, and 5. 1, 24. The angel of the Lord came down, and glory shone on them, and glory shone on them. Let it be the rite divine, blessings in all the right. Let it be the great joy I bring to you and all. On the fifth is the last. Amen. You may be seated. Good singing. You know, there may be times when you feel dread or fear, as verse two says. There are things in your life that discombobulate, that trouble, that cause fear, irritation, trouble, and anxious mind. that night so long ago. The shepherds saw angelic glory and they were very much afraid and yet God brought to them not a message of judgment or a message of damnation but a message of salvation and a proclamation of peace. You know as we get near the Christmas season as we start focusing on the Advent, we remember that unto us a Savior is born, Jesus Christ the Lord. He is the wonderful Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. I printed 15 copies. Did they all not come out? Was there a paper issue? So this one who came at the time we celebrated Christmas, came, he said, I come not to judge. He came to call sinners to repentance. And as we open and get near the end of Romans, we find a church that was kind of looking at one another out of the corner of their eyes, going, oh, really? Truly? And you call yourself a Christian? You see, this was a church that had differences in what they believed were acceptable behaviors before God. And so what we saw in Romans 13, just by way of review last week, we saw Romans 13, one through seven is that God has ordained authority. Therefore, we obey authority because it is authority appointed by God. Of course, we pray, we seek to live quiet, peaceable lives, but we do this. But not only do we do this, we do this with a heart of love. Because we must love our neighbor and our neighbor includes our authorities. It also includes those that we meet and fellowship with in the church. It includes everyone, according to Jesus' parable about the Good Samaritan, right? The Good Samaritan was the neighbor and he was not even a believer. And here was this one who was an outsider, who was We would say not a Christian, but he was better than the priest, better than the Levite. And sometimes we as children of light are rebuked in our behavior by the children of darkness who show more love or kindness or compassion than we do. And so we saw there at the end of Romans 13 that we need to love one another. So in your notes there, The first point is a review from last week. We see that we must love others. This is the fulfillment of the second greatest commandment. So I think there's a blank there that says, so the title of our message tonight is Judge None, Love All, but we are loving others and loving God. And so what we see is that Jesus Christ himself crystallized the commandments of God under two headings. And the second greatest of those two commandments was to love others. Love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself. And most of us do a pretty good job looking out after ourselves, making sure we have food to eat, making sure we have clothes to wear, making sure that we protect ourselves from danger. Do we have that same proactive love for our neighbor. And so the second greatest commandment then is to love our neighbor as ourselves. And so Paul echoes that priority there in Romans 12, Romans 13 verses 8 through 10. Really Romans 12 through 16 is the application section of Romans. Romans 1 through 11 is doctrine. There aren't do this, even though this series has been under the rubric of responding to Romans. But when you get to Romans 12, it's like do this, do this, do this, do this, right? A lot of commandments, a lot of imperatives. And so all of those commandments are the result of the doctrine of the teaching we're sinners, Romans 1 through 6. God has made a way of salvation, Romans 4 through 8, really. God justly chooses, justly judges, Romans 9 through 11, right? And so because all that's true, those of us who are redeemed are responsible to what? Submit to authority, to love others, to work out this love in others. And all this, again, is not primarily, although it's the application, about others. Because ultimately, this loving others is derived from the fact that we love God. My ability to love the person who irritates the spitfire out of me is predicated on the fact that God love me when I was his enemy. You know, my sins nailed his son to the cross, and he loved me enough to send his son to do that. So if God can love me when I'm sending his son to the cross, I can love the person who is the fingernails on the chalkboard of my life. Right? That is possible. And so what we see here in Romans 13 verses 11 through 14 is the 10 commandments, once again kind of reflected. Remember the first four commandments, don't worship any other gods, no idols, remember the Sabbath day, don't honor God's name, do honor God's name, don't take God's name in vain. I almost got myself in trouble there. Yes, we honor God's name. Why? Because we love God the Supreme. So our love for God then, look at Romans 13 verse 11, is what inspires us. Romans, you're there in Romans. Romans 13 verse 11 tells us that it's high time to awaken out of sleep. Now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness. Let us put on the armor of light. What does this mean? Wake up. Our lives are brief. Your life is a vapor. It's going to be over soon. Even for those of us that are youngest, our lives are a speck on the on the vast seashore of eternity, right? Our lives are a vapor. And so we have a limited time available to us. Look there at verse 12, the night is far spent. We don't have a long time left to serve him. So we better make good use of our time, redeeming the time because the days are evil, Ephesians tells us. So Moses, this old guy, went out 120 years, right? Says, Lord, teach me to number my days, Psalm 90. So Ecclesiastes 12 reminds us, you know, old age is a pain. And so what we see there is that as the strength of our youth ebbs into the frailty of age, We need, whether we have the infirmities of age or the health of our youth, to give what energies we have to serving our Lord, to loving Him completely, to serving God righteously. So verse 13 says, let us walk honestly as in the day, not in writing and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envy. How do you do that? You love God, verse 14. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. Okay, so here we've got the foundation. We love God, thereby enabled to love others, but then we've got people. Drum roll, what do you do about that? Because people are different. And what we see here is there are two categories of people in Romans 14 and 15. We see the first category in verse 1, Romans 14, 1, the weak in the faith. And then in Romans 15, 1 is the other group, we that are strong, strong in the faith. So here are two groups of people in the church who are Christians. And they have this in common, Ephesians 4. They have one Lord, one faith, one baptism. They are believers in Christ. They are part of the body of Christ. They are one, but they are at different levels of maturity, at different understandings of how the scriptures apply to certain positions or certain actions. And so they're what Paul describes here in verse 14. And he says, you know, don't kick these guys out of church. Don't spend your time gossiping about them. Don't spend your time just going, oh, boy, I don't want to go there. Don't. It's not a bunch of separation going on here. And sometimes as fundamentalists, we have gone off on the wrong track here. We're so quick to be righteous that we forget we've got to love our neighbors. And there are those who come to different understandings of certain things from the scriptures that we will describe. Some may say that some things are wrong that we affirm. Other things will say this is right and we say, uh, doesn't look like that to me. But what we see here is there are two categories that they're talking about where some are saying this is good, others bad. Bad, no good. And they're disagreeing about two things. And what you see is, in verse two, there's one issue, is what do you eat? Should we all be vegetarians? After all, Garden of Eden, God said, eat only veggies, right? There was nothing about meat. And the other side say, no way. There's, you know, Genesis says. And of course, there's also all the idol worship that Corinthians brings into this issue. And so the question is, what do we do? Just to be safe, you know, nobody wants to give veggies to God, so they're safe to eat, right? That's my opinion. The idea is, yes, I know there were peas on it. But there were those who would only eat vegetables, And there were those who just enjoyed sometimes the unclean meats. According to the Levitical law, you have your samgibsal, the pork. And the Jewish guys were saying, that's really hard for me. That violates the Old Testament scriptures. So you've got the Jewish background, you've got the idolatrous background, and all of these things were causing some people to say, I just It's best for my conscience. I'm not going to, I'm going to be like Daniel. I'm just going to eat the things that I am absolutely sure are safe. And so the people who were eating, you know, the hamburgers and the pork and all the rest are despising verse three. despising him that he did not. But on the other hand, the ones who were, you know, all veggies all the time were saying, you know, they're just a bunch of wicked people. Don't you know the Bible says, be separate from the world? Don't you know the Old Testament about the... And so they were judging. So here you have one group despising the other, the other group judging the other, and oh, here's the love of God flowing abroad in our hearts, right? No. So look at your notes there. Let's get back to basics. First paragraph. Judging none, loving all. Judge none. What we see in Romans 14, verses 1 through 12. Judge no one. Jesus Christ said, judge not. And this is scripture. And this is hard for us because we tend to be judgmental. And there's also the scripture that tells us that we need to be discerning, wise, and to be able to recognize sin. So there are some things that we are holding in tension here. There are some things that are very clear, violate the scripture, and we say, sin no. There are other things that we have to understand. There are different scriptural principles that apply. And which principles we apply most strongly will determine how we evaluate. And so what we have to remember is that every single Christian, every single person who has believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and become a saint, been saved, are a member of one body of Christ. All of us. It's not Baptist, Presbyterian, holiness, or whatever you've heard of. It's Christ. We are in Christ. And, you know, some of the people we find in heaven may surprise us, but they believe in Jesus Christ. That is the condition to be a Christian. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And so we are, in that sense, we are equals before God. Galatians tells us there's neither male nor female. There's neither a slave nor free, Jew nor... So there is an equality there that I am not better than Mr. Nam or Pastor Chu's not better than Mrs. Ackley. You know, we're all on the same platform. We're giving to heaven by grace through faith, not because we deserve it, right? And so we're equal before God, we're redeemed by Christ, we're fellow joint heirs with Jesus Christ. And so each one of us who are a Christian, God is working on us. None of us are there yet. I'm not perfect, I know that's not a surprise. You're not there yet either, okay? None of us are perfect. But we are being changed, we are being conformed, we are being made more like Christ. Some of us are getting there faster, some of us are getting there slower, as we cooperate with this. But God will have his way, God will do his work. The question is, will you cooperate with it? Will you go with the plan? If you don't go with the plan, boy, it's gonna be painful. Okay, so, but the issue is, Even though each one of us is being conformed and being made like Christ, some are mature. They understand the scriptures. They understand the issues. They are Berean Christians. They are what Paul calls in 15.1 strong. Others are immature. They're not grounded in the scriptures. That might be because they just became Christians. It might be because, I'm sorry, some Christians don't study the Bible. That's true. Not everyone does. And so what we have to realize is that some Christians are weak in the faith. In other words, they lack discernment. They lack the ability to tell the truth or to explain what the Bible says in a way that won't just cause questions or cause confusion or cause fights. Right? Some people spend a lot of time studying the scripture. They've grown in maturity and discernment. So these are our two groups as distinguished in Romans 14 and 15. All right, so the third paragraph. Paul divides Christians into two categories. The weak in the faith and the strong in the faith. Right? Both the weak and the strong in the faith belong to God. They are Christians. They are both gods. Both face a temptation. We see that there in verse 3. Despising and judging. Right? They're looking at others through glasses of self. It's about how I look at things, not really about how God looks at things. But we think we're doing it according to the scripture. And so the question is, are we going to fall into this temptation? Are we going to despise and judge God's people? Brothers and sisters, Paul is saying that's not right. It is actually a sin. The question is, do you, a child of God, have the right to despise anyone that God loves? God loves them, sent his son to die for them, and you're like, eww, yeah, I don't like it. Come on! They're so bad! Well, yes, they may have problems. But you have no right to despise anyone that Christ died for. On the other hand, do you, even as a Bible-believing Bible reader who knows the Word of God, do you have the right to say, thou sinner, you're off the charts. You have... And the thing is, the Bible does tell us there is a time to say, Thus saith the Lord. We know that. All the prophets do that. Right? Jesus does that. Paul does that. So we have to realize which... where we have to be quiet and judge not, and where we have to put the scriptural... what the Bible says and what God has said. Okay, so this is calling for discernment and judgment and judgment. But if you despise the one who is the apple of God's eye, don't you think you're a dangerous character? We need to, we have to love our neighbors to fulfill the law. How can you love the person you despise? Is that even possible? Judging someone that God has declared righteous is just as dangerous. It's like, think about this. Some of us like politics. I'm guilty of this. And sometimes I've watched the news, probably back then. But you get on, you watch the news and you see someone on there and there's a, the Supreme Court makes a decision and says, this is constitutional. And you get some buddy on TV who is not a judge, who's just somebody who's given money. The Supreme Court is wrong. And it's like, who are you to judge the Supreme Court? The Supreme Court has said this. They have no ability, you know, those nine people have supreme power in that area of constitutional law, the way that our American government is set up. But not to get sidetracked by politics, but we do the same thing. God has said, this person is righteous, and you're saying, no, he's not. God's got it wrong. You're like the commentator on whatever your favorite news channel. The Supreme Court got it wrong. God at his bar of justice was wrong. That's where we are putting ourselves. That's dangerous, brothers and sisters. That's beyond your pay grade. That is not your job. You are usurping God's authority. And I'm not the one saying this. The Holy Spirit is saying this through Paul. Because look at verse three again. Let not him which he did not judge. Don't judge. Look at verse four. Who are you? Who do you think you are? You're getting too big for your britches, buddy. Who do you think you are to judge another man's servant? Who's the other man? God. You are judging God's own servant. He sends out his ambassador, and you're like, you know, cut your beard, send him back to David. Right? You despise him, you judge him. Who are you? To his own master. There is one who will judge, who will evaluate, and that is God. Make no mistake. He may Because we do make errors Understanding the scripture. None of us are infallible There are no pope see Right to be plainly follow the scriptures and follow So each one of us is going to give an answer to the Lord to our own answer and Notice in the verse four though, yay, oh, here's affirmation. He shall be called God. In other words, God is actually affirming innocent, affirming this is my child. This is, he did this as unto me, even if he didn't do it as unto me the way you are doing it, what you're not doing unto me. Make sense? So what do we do? Notice God is able to make him stand for us where it continues. Read Romans 14 and 5. One man... Okay, here's the second issue. The first one was food, the second one is one man esteems another day above another. Nope, Sunday we go to church. Christmas is very special, right? But... let another so we've got the Christmas celebrators and then the Another seems every day a lot right seven days. You know each is a day What do we do how do we set how do we cut this morning enough you hear that on your Cut it First on let everyone be persuaded We don't like that, do we? We want to say, thus saith the Lord, have my convictions. We don't like people to say, you know, God has called us to be a nation of priests. That means we need to search the scriptures, know the scriptures, apply the scriptures, and realize God will judge our evaluation. Brother, this is hard. This is very hard. Because we like to throw stones. It's much more fun to throw stones than to just ask the Lord, am I right? OK? But we do this. I do this sometimes. And I have to confess this. So brothers and sisters, remember not who your brother and sister answers to. Remember who you are. because it's not, yes, God is their judge, but God is your judge. God is my judge. That means if God is my judge, Jesus Christ is my Lord and my God. Look at verses eight and nine. We live unto the Lord. We die to the Lord. We live or die. We are the Lord's, right? He is Lord. That means he's master. He sets the terms. We answer to him. We give account to Him, right? You do, I do. Those of us who believe in Christ. And so that means you, I, will stand before Jesus Christ. I will give an answer for my understanding of the scripture, for what I have taught, for what I believe, and for how I live it out. And you will too. And so if you, Come to a different conclusion than I do. What do I do? I love you. I don't judge you. I don't despise you. That guy just needs to figure out the Bible. No. You might be right. I might have it wrong. Or it might be that the Lord says, okay, you understand it this way. That's how I'll judge you. Remember, as you look down there, God does judge us by the scripture and by conscience, by how we understand the scripture. So you're going to stand before him. Every thought, every word, every action comes under review. You're going to give an answer for every line of word. That's scary. None of us should dare to put ourselves behind the judgment seat of a pastor, of a brother or sister in Christ. But we do. Far too often we do. And some of this is committed to tensions. Some of this might be that we're wrongly defined in the scriptures. But remember, Christ does not give it to you and I to evaluate or judge other brothers and sisters. But we do need to judge ourselves and put our lives under God's microscope of the scriptures of the gospel. Psalm 19. and see if there be any wicked way. We need to be constantly in the scriptures to evaluate our actions, our positions, our speech. And we need to be constantly asking the Holy Spirit to draw us closer to himself and to create in us the mind of Christ so that we will be able to have discernment, righteous discernment, so that we will be strong in the faith and not weak in the faith. So you are responsible to yourself before the judge. You are not responsible for your husband, for your wife, for the other people in the church in that sense. So stop judging. But, let's flip the coin. Not only should you stop judging, but Romans 14, 14 through 23 says love everyone. And again, this is difficult. Look at Romans 14, verses 15, 15 through 23. If thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not? The second greatest commandment is what? Love your neighbor as yourself. And here you are, someone sees you doing something. And according to your understanding, it's all, you can say kosher, it's all okay. The Bible does not condemn what you are doing. But your brother sees that and says, I don't think that's okay. And they're looking and they're seeing and it's a question. And if they do it because they understand it to be a sin for them, it would be a sin to do this. And so they see you and they know this is a brother in Christ. This is a sister in Christ. They tend to be pretty, You know, they know their Bibles. I'll do it too. And so there's this peer pressure or this sense of, you know, to be popular or to be accepted. And they destroy their conscience. Look at it, verse 15. Destroy not him with me. No, I love Satan. But if it hurts someone spiritually, it's time to go vegetarian. And I don't like that idea. but you are more important than my belly. Don't destroy the one that Christ died for. And notice what verse 16 says, let not your good, here is an affirmation. It is good, but somebody's looking at it and saying, not good, bad, evil. And you're saying, no, it's not. before God in my heart, this is okay. As far as I understand the scripture, no problemo. But they're saying, this person is terrible. He calls himself a Christian and he's doing that. He's eating Samkinsal, how could he? That's wonderful. And then they go out and say, you know, Brother Bright's out there eating Samkinsal, let's go. And they destroy their conscience. And before God, they stand condemned because they understand that to be a sin. And God says, OK, you wanted to honor me by not eating that, and you did it any way that did not honor me. Right? Verse 17, the kingdom of God is not meat and drink. It's not about communion, although we do that. It's not about food. Don't get this wrong. What is the kingdom of God about? Three things. Righteousness. Is it right by God's standard? According to the scriptures, yea or nay, immorality is always wrong. Stealing is always wrong. Killing is always wrong. That's so we don't do those things. On the other hand, some things are always good. Loving others. Being kind. The fruit of the Spirit. That's always good. Righteousness. Peace. Peace with God. Not violating your conscience and your understanding of what He has said. Peace with one another so I don't go picking on Pastor Chu saying, oh, you're so bad about this. No. I try to get along with Pastor Chu and to understand where he's coming from. A joy in the Holy Ghost, right? And again, look at verse 19. Follow after the things which make for peace. We're striving to live peaceably with all men, especially those of the household of God. Right? Hopefully. And actually not just peace, but actually building up, edifying one another, verse 19 says. Wow, so what we got to do once you judged yourself Under the lens of scripture in the searching. I'm the Holy Spirit Evaluate whether your good actions Hurt others Actions don't just impact the doer. It's not just about me me you see me others observed And so the observer is affected, impacted to follow, to judge. So you affect others by your words, by your actions. And we all have the tendency to, we don't like the word judge, evaluate, try to discern. And so we know that even a child Our second graders are known by their doings, whether they're good or whether they're right. Proverbs tells us this. So are you allowing your good, the thing that you are right before God and doing, to be seen through the lens of judgmentalism? Or through the lens of weak faith? Others don't have the confidence to do an action, to listen, to watch, to whatever it is. Do things that others see in your life make them wonder, does that person really like to be conscious? Do the things that they hear from your mouth make them wonder, does that person really like to be conscious? And here, do you do anything morally doubtful? If it's doubtful, the new Psalm says, don't do it. If it's doubtful, don't do it. There may be things that biblically are right, but culturally no longer can be put out without explanation. If I put a rainbow on my Bible, a rainbow sticker, with no further comment, those of us who are Christians say, wow, you're remembering God will never judge the earth again. But I don't take that rainbow sticker on my Bible and they look at it and say, all right, that's a church that's LBGTQXYZ123 affirming. So here is a good thing, a rainbow created by God with a message of mercy that people have used as a license for iniquity. I'm not gonna put a rainbow on anything without some explanation about what it means. Because otherwise, I may be affirming something I do not believe, a wicked iniquity. Now, and as we come to chapter 15, we need to love one another. We need to understand that we need to edify others, avoid arguments, misunderstandings. Be confident that what you're doing pleases God by the grit of Scripture, but don't cause others to stumble. How do we do this? Look to Jesus. Because Jesus had a bunch of misunderstandings. People were looking at him and saying, you're a drunkard, you're a wine giver, you're a traitor, right? You're telling people to pay taxes. And what did Jesus do? Look at Romans 15. We ought to please our neighbor for his good to edification. That's what you're trying to do. Where do we look? Verse three. Even Christ pleased not himself, as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproach thee, felony, So here were people judging Christ. You can say the weak in faith judged Christ. They were saying, oh boy, bad Jesus. Reproaches. Crucify. Here's someone who is an illegitimate child. Here's someone, I mean, these were the things that were cast against him. They called him Satan, a son of a liar. He was not. His good was evil spoken of by the wicked. And even Peter tried to convince Jesus not to go to the cross. Right? Here was a good man, Peter. This one who said he... Jesus said, you know, I'll build upon that foundation. You are the Christ, the Son of God. You know, you're... And the next moment appears to get behind the sin. Reproaches. And we look at the scriptures, verse 3, as Jesus did. For what? Verse 4, Romans 15, 4. Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and coverage of the scripture might know. Now look at verse 5. How does this work out? The nod of patience. We do have to be patient with one another as God is patient with us. Consolation, the one who comforts us. Grant you to be like-minded. So we may have differences in how we interpret scripture, but by God's grace He can bring us together to understand the scriptures correctly. To be like-minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus. What was the kingdom of God? Three things. Righteousness, peace, joy, but the result, verse 19, edification, right? So if we've got the righteousness, the peace, the joy, and we're building one another up, we're not gonna spend all of our times casting stones, despising one another. And so verse six, here are people with differences. who come together with one mind, one mouth, glorified by God, in the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the goal. And I think we're largely there. I don't see any big arguments around it. And so verse seven, wherefore receive one another. Come on, get along, don't bar the church door. Receive ye one another as Christ received us to the Lord God. Once again, we see verses 8 through 14 Jesus Christ did this he got that despised him I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision, right, the Jewish law, for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the Father. So here he was, the fulfillment of everything in the Old Testament. And what happened? For the Gentiles, he might glorify God for his mercy, as it is written, for this cause I will confess thee among the Gentiles, and say unto them, thy name. And look, rejoice ye Gentiles, So the result is God is glorified, Jesus Christ is glorified and magnified. Verse 11, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles. This is evangelistic as well as edifying. Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles. Love him, all you people. Isaiah, verse 12, there shall be a root of Jesse, he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles. In him shall the Gentiles trust. We'll close this sermon with verse 13. Now, the God of hope fill you with joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope, that we can all get along, that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. I myself am also persuaded that you, my brethren, that ye also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and also able to impart it. I'm so thankful that we, here at Soul Bible Church, I see a lot of witness. This is a church that has been well-discipled and well-taught for decades in the past. We know the Scripture. We do love one another. And I'm so thankful for that. And may God help that to continue to be the case. by the grace of God. Our Father in heaven, we do thank you for the kingdom of God that is established in righteousness, a righteousness that is revealed in the word, a righteousness that was lived out by Jesus Christ when he came to earth in Bethlehem. So long ago, throughout his years here on earth, he fulfilled all righteousness. And now he is our righteousness. And we stand before you, clothed in your son's own righteousness because of the promise. And Father, we pray that you would help us to be holy because you are holy and we are yours. Lord, help us to love one another as we are. Help us to live with one another in an understanding joyful, edifying life, that we might have peace among one another, that we might abound in the Holy Spirit, and be fruitful in righteousness, and glorify You by bringing forth fruit evangelistically and in the fruit of the Spirit. We pray this in Jesus' name. Lord, thank You. Amen.