Please open your Bibles to Romans chapter 14 and find verse 1. Romans 14, verse 1. This is inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God. Romans 14.1. Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things.

For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats, for God has received him. Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master, he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Father, come and teach your people, shepherd your flock. Lord, we pray that you would put the devil to flight through the embracing of these words in all of our hearts. Lord, I pray that you would use this passage of scripture to grow what you said was the greatest love.

Amen. Be seated. You might be able to say that disputing is the favorite sport among Christians because they do it all the time. They either do it well or they do it poorly. In this passage speaks about this whole matter.

I heard someone say that there are three things that you need to know about unity in the church. And the first is that it's the desire of our Savior. And second, it's the delight of the saved. And thirdly, it's the dread of Satan. But unity sometimes is compromise we understand that because we're all different we have different upbringing we have different levels of knowledge of the Bible We have different levels of maturity.

We have different scruples. We grew up with them. They are our pets. We have different personal opinions about personal preferences. So this passage is very helpful to this reality because what Romans 14.1 through 15.13 is that it teaches believers how to love one another, despite their differences, the different convictions on non-essential matters of faith in this context such as dietary practices and observance of certain days.

And what the apostle Paul is telling the church is that we ought not to look down upon our brethren who have different opinions on debatable matters, not to judge our brethren, but to build up one another in the faith. And at the same time, the strong, and we'll define strong and weak, the strong in the faith are called to bear with the weak and to follow the example of Jesus Christ, who's always bearing with the weak, and he's always bearing with his children. So in one way it's a difficult passage to understand and to communicate clearly and rightly before the Lord and but on the other hand it's actually extremely simple. It's hard sometimes to understand the edges of the questions that we might have about these debatable matters, But the heart of the matter is that God calls his children to love one another. And that's actually pretty simple.

And you know when you're doing it and when you're not. And it's such a critical thing. I was reading Matthew Henry, he says this, it is certain that there's nothing more threatening, nothing more fatal to Christian societies than the contentions and divisions of their members. He says this, by these wounds, the life and soul of religion expire. And so he says, but in this chapter, you find the remedies for these problems.

Now, we'll be in this passage for some time, I don't know how long, but look at verse 19 in chapter 14. I think this is the heart of the matter. If you want to get unconfused about this passage, dial in to verse 19 in chapter 14. Here it is, let us therefore pursue the things that make for peace and the things by which one might edify one another. These are the duties of the Christian when they are dealing with debatable matters and various things like that.

Now, this of course, all this teaching exists in the whole context of the book of Romans. And as you know, the first 11 chapters in Romans speak of the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul starts and he says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God. And then he begins to illustrate it. In the first two chapters, he tells us of the condemnation of God and the terrible state that unconverted man is in without Jesus Christ.

And then in chapters three through eight he talks about the grace of God and then in chapters nine through 11 he talks about the plans of God for the world. And then when we get to chapter 12 all the way to 16, he's really talking about the love of God and particularly how you apply the gospel in everyday life. And in chapter 12, there are probably over 30 Greek commands in this chapter. And of course, it begins with, present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. The Christian life begins with love toward God, love to the degree that you would put your whole life in his hands, and you present your body as a living sacrifice, and you turn from the world, not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind but then he starts spinning through the various responsibilities that we have that all have to do with love and the church.

And in chapter 12 verse 3, he says, let no one think more highly of himself than he ought to think. And then he says, don't be fake in your love. Let love be without hypocrisy. That's in verse 9. And in verse 10, he says, love one another with brotherly affection, and then love one another by showing honor and be very diligent about it fervent in spirit serving the Lord it's something that we pursue It's something that you go after in the church.

And when, and you're the kind of person in the church who's always rejoicing in hope. You're showing hospitality. You bless those who persecute you. You rejoice with those who rejoice and you weep with those who weep. In verse 16 you live in harmony with one another.

In verse 16 you are not haughty. You associate with the lowly. You're not wise in your own eyes and you live peaceably with all." That's verse 18. So you have these remarkably clear descriptions. They're so clear.

They're not rocket religion. And he ends the chapter by saying overcome evil with good. So chapter 12 begins this discussion of what love looks like in the church and it begins with love for God and then it has very specific manifestations. These are the kinds of things that the people of God do who have put their life in in his hands and then when we turn the corner to chapter 13, The subject doesn't change. It might sound like it changes, but it doesn't.

He's talking about how does the converted soul operate in the midst of a corrupt civil government? How do you express love in the civil sphere? And he explains all that. And then he ends Romans chapter 13 by saying, look, there are a few things that you owe. You owe one another honor.

He says also, you owe the government taxes. And then he says, but you owe another debt, another debt that you'll never fully be able to repay it's the debt of love all of us are indebted in other words we have an actual obligation to love one another And so the apostle says at the end of 13, and this is really sort of the introduction to chapter 14. Oh, no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law for the commandments you shall not commit adultery you shall not murder you shall not steal you shall not bear false witness you shall not covet and if there is any other commandment all are summed up in this saying namely you shall love your neighbor as yourself love does no harm to a neighbor therefore love is the fulfillment of the law and the river keeps flowing into chapter 14. There's no break, okay? The chapter breaks.

They might introduce various categories, often in this case the same category but a different way to look at it and addressing different problems, particularly the disputes that people have over debatable things. So we're continuing in the stream that began in Romans chapter 12 verse 1. So the the Apostle is desiring to disinfect the Roman church because they needed to know how to avoid ungodly divisions in that church. The church in Rome was in a cultural crossfire. Both Jews and Gentiles were in the church.

It was a powder keg. These people had grown up very, very differently. They had different preferences. They had different practices and traditions and they all came into the church and now they're jammed up together in this church in Rome. It's like our church.

You think about for one second the diversity of backgrounds in this church and you know, there's a tremendous unity in this church and I've really praised the Lord for it But the truth is we all didn't come from the same place not doctrinally not out of the same kind of families We're not it, you know, We didn't come out of the same culture. We were raised in sort of a common American culture. But beyond that, our families were different, our theologies were different, and now here we are. We're jammed up here in this place called Hope Baptist Church. So it's critical, it was critical to the apostle that the Roman Christians not make their personal preferences matters of division.

And there are several questions that he answers. Here's one, who are the groups? Well it's the weak and the strong, we'll talk about that. What is dividing them? Two things, diet and days.

All of that had to do with the cultures that they grew up in and what is the difference that distinguishes them and what does Christian liberty look like. Now I want to give us a flyover of the entire flow from chapter 14 verse 1 all the way to 15 verse 13 and I want you to stick with me but I'm gonna give you five headings that describe the overall pathos of this passage And I'm gonna say them and then we'll walk through them as I read the text to you. In the first 13 verses, the theme is receive one another. In verses 14 to 23, it's build up one another. In verses 15, 1 through 7, it's please one another.

In verses 8 through 13, in chapter 15, the theme is rejoicing with one another. Now you see some really beautiful themes that roll out through this and again you might not be it we might not be able to unpack and perfectly describe all the nuances to this but there are things that are so clear and nobody should be able to walk out of here and say I don't really understand this because the words are really really clear. But there will be things that are difficult to understand. I am confident in this that some of the things that are in this passage and some of the things that I will say about it will disturb everybody. It will disturb the conscience of the weak and it will disturb the conscience of the strong.

So get ready. Everyone is going to be offended by this. Praise the Lord. You know we need actually our our consciences often to be offended because sometimes they're built on things, they're built on straw. They're not really built on the word of God.

And we build up ideas and things like that. We get so attached to them and we think everybody else should do exactly what we're doing. Okay, So let's start. Receive one another. Now we're gonna unpack this section in a moment, but let's read it.

Receive one another, verses one through 13. Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat. And let not him who does not eat judge him who eats.

For God has received him. For who are you to judge another servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed he will be made to stand for God will be is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day above another, another esteems every day alike.

Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day observes it to the Lord, and he who does not observe the day to the Lord he does not observe it and we'll get what we'll get to this later on but when he's talking about days he he's not speaking of the creation order and ordinance Sabbath day He's speaking of the feast of Israel. That's what he's talking about. So he continues, he who eats, eats to the Lord, for he who gives thanks, and he who does not eat to the Lord, He does not eat and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself and no one dies to himself.

For if we live, we live to the Lord. If we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, Christ died and rose and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. And then he says in verse 10, but why do you judge your brother?

Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, as I live says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God so then each so then each of us shall give account of himself to God therefore let us not judge one another anymore but rather resolve this not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother's way. It ought to be very clear that when we're standing before the judgment seat of Christ we won't be judging our brother. And then the next section, build up each other.

Verses 14 to 23. I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself, but to him who considers anything to be unclean to him it is unclean and if your brother is grieved because of your food you are no longer walking in love do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not in eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy and the Holy Spirit. And there he's talking about the food laws of the Old Testament. For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men.

Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for the man who eats with offense. It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak. Do you have faith?

Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats Because he does not eat from faith for whatever is not from faith is Sin and in the third section Let us please one another is the theme We then who are strong ought to bear the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good leading to edification. For even Christ did not please himself but as it is written the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.

For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another according to Jesus Christ, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, receive one another just as Christ has received us to the glory of God. And this section makes it so clear. You really are not the center of the church, Jesus Christ is.

He pleased himself, he did not please himself, and neither should we. And frankly, the stronger you are, the gentler you should be. And then, And then finally, the final section, rejoice with one another. Verses 8 through 13. Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.

For this reason I will confess you among the Gentiles and sing to your name and again he says rejoice oh Gentiles with his peoples and again praise the Lord all you Gentiles laud him all you peoples and again Isaiah says there shall be a root of Jesse and he shall and and he who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, in him the Gentiles shall hope. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. I just hope you could see the beautiful themes in this section, receive one another, build up one another, please one another, rejoice with one another. And by the way, in 15, this rejoice with one another, it actually pictures the church of Jesus Christ singing together, the Jews and the Gentiles, They're all singing off the same page and they're loving the Lord and they love one another. So that's sort of a flyover and So the verses one through four really kind of cast forth the general principle that he's speaking of about receiving the weak in faith.

So you have two groups. You have the weak and you have the strong. In verse 15, we who are strong and you have we who who are weak. Now there's good news and there's bad news for everybody in this section. The problem with the weak is that they do not understand their freedom.

They're still bound up with the ceremonial law. They're bound up with the scruples of their Hebrew backgrounds. And they're holding fiercely onto the religious taboos that they grew up with. But what the Apostles is saying is that Christianity, Christianity is a seed. It's a growth cycle.

You begin in one place and then you grow. And what God does not do, he does not cut off, he does not cut you off in the early parts of your growth. He brings you into a community where both the strong and the weak, they don't just tolerate one another but they make for peace with one another. And so on the other hand, the strong, they do understand their freedom and they enjoy it, but they're exercising it proudly. They're a little bit stuck up about it actually and they're not considering their weaker brothers and the strong are saying you know don't you know that you've been released from the food laws?

You know don't you don't you know that you've been released from the food laws? You know, don't you know that you've been released from the feast days of Passover and unleavened bread and Pentecost and Feast of Trumpets and all the celebrations? Don't you know that you've been released from those? So you have this contention going on, and the weak are accusing the strong of being libertines and licentious and out of control. And the strong despise the weak because they're just way too narrow.

And so that's the kettle of fish that you've got here. So, the weak are the strict, and the strong are not so strict about their heritage and their traditions. And I think what the apostle is saying is, and I think we should really understand this, spiritual maturity is not a test of fellowship. Spiritual maturity is not a test of fellowship because that's what you get. You have young believers, you have untaught believers, they are believers, they love the Lord.

You have malnourished believers, you have people who are still you know in in process and the Apostle is saying no no receive the weak receive the one who is immature And what's dividing them are these matters of Jewish life and pagan life. Because the gentiles in the Roman church came out of paganism and they were participating in all the the wicked manifestations of their pagan religion. And the Jews, on the other hand, had been brought up in the law. And they had a completely different worldview and completely different practices when they went home after church. And so, so there are several principles here and there are several commands and you have them listed here.

I've tried to list four commands. The first command is receive one who is weak in the faith. And I believe that the apostle is actually talking about that he is weak, He is weak in his understanding of the faith, and you should receive him. And the second command is, do not dispute. He says, but not to disputes over doubtful things, For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables." So he's talking about doubtful things.

He's talking about things that are indifferent. He's talking about the things that the scriptures don't speak directly to. He's talking about the things that are or are not clearly prohibited in the scriptures. Anything that is prohibited in the scriptures should not be done. But he's talking about things that he calls them doubtful things, where there aren't explicit commands or things that are forbidden by Christian doctrine.

And he's saying, don't argue with one another about indifferent things, but trust that your brothers and sisters are seeking the Lord. Here, the weaker brother is not being chastised in this passage. He's a Christian. He's a sincere believer. He's not being corrected except by his making accusations against the stronger brother.

And you know people come into the church and they have lots of different preferences. They're just preferences. Many of them are principles that may arise out of Scripture, but what you have in Scripture is you have various categories of life. First of all, you have things that are explicitly commanded by God. These things that arise out of the Ten Commandments.

And then you have implications of the various things that you find in the Bible. And then you have things that we would call doubtful things like this. And for us, it might end up being certain details about the way that everybody's living their life and governing their homes. These are matters of personal preference and personal wisdom that families operate by and individuals operate by. I'm just going to give some examples.

I mean, think about there are different ways that people homeschool their children. How to raise their children, exactly how to raise their children. Now the Bible gives explicit commands for how to raise their children. The apostles desired to create a child-raising culture in the churches. We covered that several weeks ago.

The Bible actually has lots of things to say about how to raise your kids. But there are a lot of details in the cracks that people have differences of, you know, how do you engage in a courtship? You know, how about chaperones? How about alcohol or entertainment or things like that? What about different kinds of music styles?

You do have scripture that speaks to these things, but maybe not as clearly as you might want to think. Everybody doesn't think so anyway. These are the kinds of doubtful things, but the doubtful things in this context had to do with diet and days that really arose out of Hebrew and pagan culture clashing together in the church. The third thing that he says is to do not despise. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat.

So you had you had Gentiles looking down their noses at the Jews in the church. These people are just always eating vegetables. What's with them? That's not even healthy, right? You know, Josephus tells us that the Jews in Rome were only eating fruits and vegetables, and that's consistent with what we have here.

And Paul is confronting them for despising one another. So he says, receive the weak, do not dispute about these matters, and do not despise. And then he says, do not judge. Do not judge. In some of these cases, it's very clear, he's dealing with an uninformed conscience.

And an uninformed conscience can be a hard taskmaster on everybody and but it should it should not cause us to judge one another so he says do not judge and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats. And then he gives reasons, gives two reasons why. Why not, why receive the weak why not dispute why not despise why not judge why he gives two reasons and the first is for God has received him God has received him. He's been accepted by God. He's not a carnal Christian.

Stop accusing him of being that. I think that's the force of it. And so the strong must not trample on the weak and act so proud, and the weak must not condemn the strong. For being, I'm just going to use the word so loose, I don't misinterpret that. But we walk together not because we agree on every disputable matter.

We walk together because Christ has received us. Jesus Christ has received us in the state that he found us and I think that's the Apostles reasoning here. So God has received him and then in verse four the other reason is God is his judge. Who are you to judge another's servant? And so he's talking about a person on both sides who they desire to be servants of God.

Out of the integrity of their hearts they want to follow God and they're following God the best way they know at the moment. And so he says what who are you to judge another servant? You know it's very easy to have a judgmental attitude toward our brothers and sisters Who maybe they have different preferences? Than you do and You make a bigger deal out of it than God does And then the third reason you should receive the weak and not dispute and not despise and not judge is that God will take care of him. God's gonna take care of him.

God's gonna take care of his children. To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed he will be made to stand for God is able to make him stand. You know this is this should be so encouraging to both the weak and the strong. God will sustain you.

God will carry you through. God will change you. He'll keep working with you. You know, many, many years ago there was this bumper sticker on cars driving around Southern California. And it said, please be patient with me, God is not finished with me yet.

You know, there's a lot of wisdom in that. But God will sustain you even if your knowledge of the Bible needs a little bit of sharpening. God will sustain you if you have latent matters of immaturity. And all of us are in the same boat. Our personal knowledge and our personal sanctification has not completely caught up with biblical truth.

We're not caught up yet and there is a day coming when we will get caught up, but it won't be here. It'll be when we enter into glory and then we'll all be caught up and the Lord will set all these things right and all of our immaturity will dissipate and all of our harsh judgments and disputing and despising and judging all of this will end. So the Apostle Paul is helping this church to know how to keep from unnecessary divisions with both these Jews and Gentiles in the church with their very very different cultures and and matters of preferences. And what we learn about from this is that Unity in the church is not uniformity, and by the way it cannot be because all of us come from different places. We are all different ages.

We all came out of different cultures and while we cannot have uniformity, there's harmony, but it's the love of God, and the way that God defines love is what creates the harmony. Somebody said, Somebody said, you know, we are brethren, but we are not twins. You don't have to be twins to be friends in the Church of Jesus Christ. And it's so easy to turn a preference into a doctrine. But God did not make every believer the conscience police of the others.

Here it's very clear, God is able to make them stand. He's talking about the broad understandings that exist in a local church on a broad number of matters, and It isn't good for a church to be uniform. It's good for a church to be unified. But I don't think you can actually achieve uniformity in a church in terms of matters that are debatable. You can't.

And so what God does in understanding how he made us, he knows our frame. He gives us wise understanding for how to treat one another in the midst of our lack of understanding or our tendency to judge one another. And then the truth is, I think what he's saying is that strong faith shows up in soft hearts. You know, many, many years ago, there was a woman by the name of Karen Maines, she wrote a short essay about a wedding, and she called it, the bride is brawling. The bride is brawling.

And she paints this picture of this wedding and everybody's gathered together, everything is so beautiful. You know, the music is lovely, the groom looks fantastic, and all the attendants are there, and all the flowers and the bridesmaids and you know the sound of the organ starts and everybody stands up and they see the bride coming down and then everyone is gasping. They cannot believe what they are seeing. This is a bride like they've never seen before. And she's stumbling.

One of her legs is twisted. And she's actually limping down the aisle and her wedding garments are all tattered and and and they're torn it was not very modest she's got black bruises on her bare arms and her her nose is bloody and her eyes are black and swollen and yellow and she just looks absolutely terrible and she ends the article by saying that the Lord Jesus Christ, his bride has been fighting again. The church has been fighting again. The bride is brawling. And that's not really befitting of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You know, this essay that she wrote doesn't really describe our church, but I think perhaps it can help us to understand how to stay away from a bride who's brawling among themselves. So I think that the force of the of this entire section is this receive one another as Jesus Christ has received you. The Lord Jesus said, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. And that God demonstrates his love for us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Ephesians 4 22 I think is such a beautiful picture of this be kind to one another tender-hearted forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you And the key verse in the entire section is chapter 14 verse 19. Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify one another. Make for peace and build one another up. This is the word of the Lord. Would you pray with me?

Lord, we thank you for your word. We recognize that none of us can stand before it without turning our hearts to you and say, oh Lord, help me. Help me to love my brothers and sisters in all of our differences. Father I pray that you would just continue to make a congregation that does love one another, that's willing to talk about all these things but not to despise and dispute in an ungodly way. Lord, I thank you that you've given us freedom to speak with one another about these things, governed by the ways that you have commanded us to speak and the ways that you have designed for us to temper one another and build up one another and sharpen one another through our fellowship.

Lord, I pray that you would give us as a church this brilliant balance between iron sharpening iron and love that covers a multitude of sins. Amen.