Bibles to Romans chapter 14 and find verse 13. Romans 14, verse 13. This is the inerrant, all sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God. Verse 13, 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. 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.

Yet, 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 eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 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. The grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Oh Lord, you promised that you would dwell among us, that you are Emmanuel, God with us, and now, oh Lord, dwell among us, dwell with your people, open up our eyes to see wonderful things from your law.

Amen. Please be seated. So here we are, we're back in Romans after a brief pause. Great to be back in Romans. But when we're finished this morning, I'm hoping that God would give us some fresh insight as a church about how we deal with one another when we disagree on certain debatable matters.

Can you find another Christian who you agree with on absolutely everything? It's pretty hard. You can have agreement in broad areas and things like that but when it gets down to the nubbies, there are debatable matters that we disagree about and that's what the Apostle Paul is talking about here. And when we're finished, you're gonna hear four commands from God from these verses to help keep us from dividing over debatable matters. It's really interesting.

You know, in chapter 12, the apostle Paul told us not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. And it's very difficult for us because we are a proud people. I heard the other day that 90% of high school grads feel above average in leadership and personal skills. It's very difficult for 90% to be above average. But every believer you know is is in a position of patience with his brethren and so Just to give us a sense of the context of where we're where we are in Romans We're in the stream of instruction to the church that began in Romans 12 verse one, which really speaks of what kind of church the Lord desires to create.

And of course, chapters one through 11 focused on the pickle that man is in before God, sinful, condemned before God without Jesus Christ. And so the first 11 chapters speak of that, but then what are the implications of that? What happens to a person? What happens to the gathered church when you have believers in that church in Romans 12 through 16? Speak of all this, you know, and it begins with presenting your body as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God and then it it continues on and exercising your gifts Romans 12 3 through 8 Not to just show up and be a couch potato in church but actually do something and be a blessing to your brethren and then demonstrating the love of Jesus Christ in 12 verses 9 through 31.

And then in chapter 13, he speaks of submitting to the governing authorities. And then in chapter 14, he's really talking about your attitudes and the way you deal with the weaker brother, how the stronger brother deals with the weaker brother and how the weaker brother deals with the stronger brother. And he's really teaching a local church how to know how to keep themselves from ungodly divisions. Well this was really practical for the Roman church because the Roman church was like a crossfire of cultural differences. You had both Jews and Gentiles in this church and they came to Jesus Christ but they didn't they came from really different backgrounds.

And these Gentile believers grew up, you know, in what the apostle John calls Babylon. They grew up in Babylon. And when you grow up in Babylon you bring a little bit of Babylon with you it's very interesting in 1st Peter he says she who is in Babylon greets you he's talking about actual person who's in Babylon And so you have you have the believers that grew up in Babylon and you have the believers you know that grew up you know in Hebrew school. And so the Apostle Paul is appealing to this local church in Rome not to make their personal preferences matters of division. And what the Apostle Paul is doing here is he's urging the church to refocus themselves and to build one another up rather than to be shooting at each other over matters and to actually be patient with one another through the growth cycles that they are in.

So you had these conflicting cultures and matters of division But what the Apostle Paul is saying is it's really interesting. He's saying that unity is not always uniformity, but there's a harmony that God creates through his love, through the compassion that people have for one another, the patience that people have for one another. And you know, Paul's words here are words to the strong and to the weak, and how the strong should love the weak and how the weak should love the strong. Well this is really important because we by nature want everybody to be the same. We want everybody to think the same about everything.

But that's actually not even possible in a local church. In fact, I think it's actually good for people who have different thoughts in the church because it's stimulating and helpful and it causes good conversations under the government of God. And the church is a place where there's tremendous diversity. You think about the diversity of backgrounds in this church, it's really astonishing. The different countries that people have come from, the different backgrounds that people have come from.

And in a way, you know, church life is a little bit like marriage, where over time you become more and more unified as you sort of you morph toward one another and after a while you can kind of finish one another's sentences. There's a look on my wife's face. When I see that look, I know what she's gonna say. It totally cracks me up. And I call her on it all the time.

Stop, I know what you're gonna say. But the heart of these verses is really verse 19. Look at verse 19. If you want to sum it all up, it's right here in verse 19. Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.

So that's really the heart of the message. If you don't understand how to work out all the details of this, and it's hard to understand how to work out all the details of these matters, but there's one thing that should stand out and that we should devote ourselves to and that is to pursue the things that make for peace. That's really very simple. It's not rocket religion. So you have these two groups.

You have the weak and the strong, and what's dividing them is diet and days, what they eat and when they observe the worship of God. And what's happening here is that the weak do not understand their freedom. They're still bound up in the ceremonial law. And they're sort of hemmed in in their consciences by the scruples that were shaped by their Hebrew backgrounds. You know, they celebrated the feasts year by year.

You know, over 20, I think, 1% of the days of the year were dedicated to the feast. They did that and they've got locked and loaded in their soul to be devoted to those things and now the Bible says that those things are abrogated, the feasts are now abrogated and so what are they going to do? They're holding on to their religious, you can call them taboos, but the Apostle Paul is making it very clear that they don't understand their freedom. And the strong also do not understand their freedom either, and they're exercising it proudly without consideration of their weaker brothers, and they're not giving their brothers time to grow and think and read the Bible and be sanctified. You know, how long does it take for the sanctification process to work?

Forever. Until you go to heaven. Forever in your life. You're gonna be constantly changed by the Lord. And you know the Strong are saying, don't you know you've been released from the food laws and the Old Testament feast days?

Don't you know you don't have to celebrate the Passover and unleavened bread and first fruits and Pentecost and Feast of Trumpets. You don't have to do that anymore, but the weak are saying, but I think I really ought to. And the weak are accusing the strong of being a libertines and the strong despise the weak because they're just so narrow-minded. That's the problem. And so this is the basic principle.

You have the strict, the strict one is the weak one in this text. But There are so many things to glean from this. First of all, let's just nail this down. Spiritual maturity is not a test of fellowship. The completion of your understanding of the Bible is not a test of fellowship.

In a church you're gonna have, well you're gonna have people who grew up in Babylon, and you're gonna have people who grew up in in very well ordered godly homes, and their backgrounds have shaped them. That's in God's providence, that's how it worked out. You have young believers. You actually have people who, maybe they've been Christians for years, but they've really not been well taught. That happens all the time.

They were actually malnourished in their experience, you know, in the church. So what you have here is the stronger flaunting their liberty and it really becomes lovelessness And then you have the weaker flaunting their caution and they become warlike, okay? So that's the caution here. You know, Peter says, don't use your liberty as a cloak for evil. I think that's what was happening.

Now as I've walked through this passage for many, many weeks, I don't believe there's a one-to-one comparison with diet and days that are mentioned in this text. Because matters of diet and days were really already clarified by the Word of God. But what he's talking about are peoples whose consciences are catching up with the Word of God. And The things that the Apostle Paul mentions here are not debatable matters today because the Apostles have spoken clearly about them. And the Bible makes it clear that the Jewish ceremonial days, the feast and the food laws are abrogated.

And, you know, in the book of Acts that's made very, very clear The apostle Peter was told that there really was nothing wrong with those foods. They were actually designed to declare that the people of God were a separate people. They lived separate, they act separate, they eat separately, they're living by a different rule of life. That was what those food laws were all about was just to say my people live differently. Well that's true today as well for us.

And you know as this this text mentions wine, The Bible makes it clear there's no biblical case that you can make for total abstinence of wine. It's called a blessing in the Old Testament. On the other hand, there are very, very severe warnings and it's very clear that it's used for the Lord's Supper and that's why our confession calls it out because that's what the church always did. So the Bible has spoken about these matters and these really aren't debatable matters but they are matters of conscience And those matters of conscience should be carefully cared for between brothers and sisters. And So let's go back to the beginning of the admonitions here because they're very, very clear.

I'm going to drag you back to verse one just and go real quick to give a sense of what he's saying here because I want it to really sink down. Verse one, receive one who's weak in the faith. Receive one. Bring them in. Don't do a stiff arm because you think you know more than they do.

And then second, don't dispute over doubtful things. In other words don't make your whole life with your brother a big argument about things you disagree about. That's so often common. You know people you know they discover something and then they just want to argue about that one thing forever and they can't lay it down they can't talk about anything else and then he says in verse 3 do not despise do not let him not let let not him who eats despise him who does not eat So he's dealing with the you know the sort of the inner dispositions that people can cultivate with one another because they disagree. And then verse 3, and do not judge.

Let him who does not eat judge him who eats." So these are these are dispositions and the actions that that follow along and he gives two reasons and these are really pivotal. First of all, God has received him. In other words, God has already received him. He's forgiven him of his sins and he's not a carnal Christian. He's accepted by God.

And then the second reason is Who are you to judge? That's in verse four. Who are you to judge your brother? And then the third thing he says is that God will take care of him. This is in verse four.

To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand for God is able to make him stand. What does that mean? That means that God is going to take care of his people. If a person is genuinely converted, God is going to lead them and they're going to keep reading their Bible and they're going to change and their many of their positions are going to change the more that they learn and they grow and but God is able to make the believer to stand even when he's weak.

So that's sort of the foundation of all this. Now in the text before us beginning of verse 13, the Apostle gives four really specific corrections and he gives some reasons for the corrections. But I wanna look at the corrections in this text for those who are judging one another wrongly and as a result are treating one another wrongly. So the first correction is, and you can see this in the outline, the apostle repeats what he said in verse 4, let us not judge one another. He says 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.

So he's speaking about judging your brother in such a way that you've thrown a stumbling block in front of him. There's a way that you can judge that throws a stumbling block in his way. You're not treating him right. You're discarding something that he's genuinely working out in his mind and his conscience has informed him of it and he's working, maybe he's wrong but this is so interesting about this. Paul doesn't tell the weaker brother to change his view and Paul doesn't tell the stronger brother to change his view.

He tells him to change their attitude. That's what he's focused in on. In other words, Have patience with your brother if he's really a brother He loves the Lord and he what he's trying to work it out in his mind. He might be wrong But he says to this to judge here it really means to condemn, to give an offense. You might think of it as a difference between constructive criticism and destructive criticism.

One is to cast down, to win the argument, you know, to destroy the other argument, and the other is actually to build up. And you know, it's healthy in a church where people have different opinions about things. And it's healthy to have conversations. But when you're doing that, the most important thing is to get out your Bible and have a Bible study and walk through the scriptures and ask what does the scripture say? That's how the conversation should be in areas that we disagree so that we're actually Sharpening one another we're we're building up one another We're sharpening not ostracizing One another and getting high-minded and and proud He says do you see the word anymore?

Don't do this anymore. In other words, they've been doing it, don't do it anymore. So you know you're just constantly dripping, dripping, you're continuing to repeat. You can't, You just can't stop pushing that person. I like the way that John Murray, the commentator on this text, speaks of it.

What is condemned is the inconsiderateness that discards the religious interests of the weak. It's inconsiderateness that he's attacking here. And it becomes a stumbling block. A stumbling block is a moral hindrance. Why is it a moral hindrance?

And I think this is really really important Because you have a person who has a strong conscience on a particular issue, and you're tempting him to defy his conscience. And Why is that dangerous? Because if a person gets in the groove, in the habit of defying their conscience, it'll actually lead them to some really bad places. Because God gave the conscience really as a moral governor of the soul. And of course you know the Bible speaks about conscience.

The conscience can be defiled, it can be a clear conscience. You know there are various things that the Bible says about the conscience but you don't want you don't want to push somebody into violating their conscience. I don't think I think that you can talk about various levels of conscience from the Word of God, but we just need to be careful that we're not bullying people so that they get they get into the place where they think well it doesn't my conscience doesn't matter at all because your conscience matters. But the most important thing about the conscience is that it is informed by the Word of God The problem with our consciences is that our consciences have not always been formed by the Word of God They've been formed by our lust by our background by all kinds of things like that. And so the conscience, while the conscience is important, that God gave the conscience in order to be a sort of a director of your soul, at the same time we have to recognize that our consciences are not all that well put together yet.

And so we need to continue to cleanse our consciences by the word of God. And that's really the most important thing for a Christian. That really is the essence of following Jesus Christ. To follow Jesus Christ is to have your conscience continually cleansed by the Word of God. So you don't want to put this person down the course of constantly violating his conscience.

You know at the same at the same time every man's conscience is not the governor of every man. Years ago, R.C. Sproul preached a sermon called the tyranny of the weaker brother. Just Google that if you wanna listen to it. It's a very good sermon.

But what he's saying is that a wrong application of this is to tell the whole church that they must bow down to the weakest conscience in the church and to comply with all of their scruples. If you start going down that road in a church, you're gonna have a nightmare of a church because everybody's conscience is now so exalted and everybody has to submit to everybody else's conscience. That's not what the apostle is saying here. He's saying be tender with one another's consciences and pursue what makes for peace. You know, you know, if a brother, you know, has a conscience on the food laws and you know and wants to have and can't have bacon in the food line does the entire church have to submit to that?

Well no, no that's the tyranny of the weaker brother. You can't let the weaker brother become a tyrant and you can't let the stronger brother become a jerk. So I think that's what he's saying. And he's giving us the reason that why we should, he's not, he's not, things that are clearly prohibited in scripture is very clear. These aren't really debatable matters, you know, The Word of God speaks really clearly on them.

He's not speaking of things that are clearly unclean that really are defined in Scripture. Now notice the authoritative tone in this statement. I know and am convinced. You notice the sense of authority that he has here. And he actually is basing his teaching on Jesus Christ himself.

I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, he's actually making the claim that this is what Jesus taught, so that there is nothing unclean in and of itself. Now you can find this same idea in different places you know in the New Testament in first Timothy 4, 4, Paul tells Timothy every creature of God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is to be received with thanksgiving. In Titus 1 15 to the pure all things are pure to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure but even their mind and their conscience is defiled. The Lord Jesus said in Mark 7 15 there is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him but the things which come out of him, these are the things that defile a man. And so, you know, all these things just have to be recognized when we're dealing with the stronger and the weaker brother.

You know, we all place limitations on ourselves in order to progress, to be more disciplined, to do the things that God has commanded. And Some of those limitations that we place are not for every man. I know I place certain limitations on myself that they're not the global limitations, they're just the ones that I've thought were really, really necessary. But I think we should just recognize, like the apostle Paul said, all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. And every man has to deal with that.

Is there anything that I'm doing that's not really profitable before God? So then the second correction is do not destroy. You know this theme runs through this this chapter and the next as well, verses 15 and 16. Yet 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. Now, Paul repeats the Same idea in verses 20 and 21, I'll read it. 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. Verse 21, it is good neither to eat meat or drink wine or do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak.

And this this whole idea of grieving is is to again it's to discourage him from following his conscience. And here, John Murray, again, a believer is grieved when he has violated his religious convictions and is afflicted with the vexation of conscience, which the consequent sense of guilt involves. So again he's just pounding away at this matter of having respect for people's consciences and in other words it's not helpful for one another to dismiss our brother's convictions. It is grieving to him, it is actually it's hurting him because you're being so overbearing. So the apostle is really arguing for moderation in this whole text.

Martin Luther wrote a book called The Freedom of a Christian. I'm going to quote from it. A Christian is perfectly, a Christian is a perfectly free Lord of all, subject to none. I'll read that again. A Christian is a perfectly free Lord of all subject to none but then he says, a Christian is a perfect perfectly dutiful servant of all subject to all.

So you have both of these things. He says this, he says, Paul here teaches that we must moderate our liberty so that we do not cause the weak to stumble. For the sake of love it is necessary to bear the burdens and weaknesses of our brethren." So here's a par- I'll just let me paraphrase this. The freedom of a Christian is to fulfill his conscience, but also to be bound to all in the Church of Jesus Christ. We're connected together, and so we don't reject.

We are subject to all as well to be servants of one another. So again, Paul is not trying to get the week to change their views. He's trying to get them to change their attitudes. And this does not mean that we are prohibited from talking about controversial matters. That doesn't mean that we're prohibited from expressing our opinions.

In fact, later on when we get into chapter 15, chapter 15 verse 14, we have a responsibility to admonish one another. So you have you have this balance that the that the Apostle is is leading us to. He says, now I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren, that you are also full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another. You know, admonish, admonish like you're tending a garden, not chopping down a tree. There's a way that you do it.

You know, notice how people respond to kindness. Notice how people respond when you get hot. They don't respond very well when you get hot. But the Apostle Paul is just appealing for a way that we deal with one another in the church. And he's asking us to just recognize that God is working in them.

Now, what's the value of this? I think maybe it's obvious to everyone, but the weak and the strong are there in the church to teach one another what love looks like. That's why it's actually good for people to have different perspectives on things because it teaches the church how to love in the midst of their differences. You know I'll give an illustration, you know, I'll give an illustration of our church. People in this church have different perspectives regarding how to deal with literature.

Okay. I've been in many debates about this, I've heard about many debates about this, and particularly secular literature. And there are really three views that believers typically have. The first is the rejection view that says, I'm gonna avoid all non-Christian literature. It's dangerous, it's corrupting, it's irrelevant.

And that was, Tertullian really communicated that. Well, he said, what has Athens do to do with Jerusalem? In other words, what do pagan philosophers have to do with us? So, Tertullian said the Bible is your soul source of truth. You don't need Plato, okay?

And then the second view is, it's been called the integration view. And that's that all truth is God's truth. Some of this non-Christian literature contains elements of truth and beauty. It reflects God's general revelation, and it can help you to know God better. And this was Augustine, you know, in the fourth century.

He was initially wary of this view, but he turned and he used the analogy that the Christian, the Christian, it's legitimate for the Christian to plunder, plunder the gold of the Egyptians like you read about in Exodus 12, 35 through 36. And he felt free to read Platonic philosophy and reflections of the biblical truth. By the way, if you read a lot of Puritan literature, you'll find that they're often quoting Plato in the classics and things like that. Many of their views was the Augustinian view. And then you have the transformation view.

In other words, you know, everything in all literature can be transformed and you can, you know, reframe it. Non-Christian literature shouldn't just be borrowed but looked through the lens, you know, and there's some ridiculous, ridiculous applications of this in modern times, but this view really borrows from Aristotle's philosophy. That where you take what every secular thing and try to filter it through well guess what? People in our church have different views about literature they do and it's a worthy debate and You know and And I think it will be an ongoing debate, but how we debate about it really matters. Okay.

And the apostle Paul is saying, focus on what makes for peace. And he gives a reason in verses 17 and 18 here's it here's the reason for the kingdom of God is not in eating and drinking but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit for he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men." So he's describing the nature of the kingdom of God. And by the way, you know, the nature of the kingdom of God is really all about the rule and reign of God. And that's equivalent to the rule and reign of Jesus Christ. And what is the heart of the matter in the rule and reign of Jesus Christ?

Well, he gives three things. It's righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. And when he says righteousness, I believe he means righteousness in terms of ethical behavior, righteous behavior. And then peace, that we should be aiming for peace among our brethren and then joy in the Holy Spirit. Well, that's obvious.

That's a matter of disposition in our dealing with these kinds of things. So I think what the Apostle Paul is saying is we've come into the church with all these different views. Don't lose sight of the heart of the matter. I heard Jason Doam illustrate it like this. It's like the flight crew, all they are checking is the drinks and the snacks.

And they're not checking the electrical systems, they're not checking the instrumentation, they're not checking the fuel. They're just checking for the drinks and the snacks. In other words, they've gotten wrapped up in things that might be helpful, but they're not central. And so the Apostle wants to turn us to righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit and that's really what keeps the church in the air okay It's the broad manifestations of the kingdom of God and the church of Jesus Christ. And then we get to the third correction.

This is the hammer drop right here, verse 19. Therefore, let us pursue the things which make for peace, and the things which one may edify another." Well, you read that and you know, you might say, yeah, but I'm right. I'm right about this. I'm strong and I'm right. I'm weak and I'm right." Maybe you are.

The Apostle Paul assumes that you might be right, you might be wrong, But you have one responsibility here in verse 19. And that is that you pursue the things which make for peace. The word that he uses pursue is a really interesting word. It sort of brings up imagery of hunting. You're hunting for things that that make for peace.

Go hunt for what makes for peace. Yeah you can talk about your disagreements but what should be you be hunting for? You know it's so easy for people just to be hunting for their controversy, their thing that they disagree with their brother, you know. How many of you have heard the phrase, cage stage Calvinist? You know this cage stage Calvinist?

Wow, not very many people, that's amazing. Are you living under a rock? No, here's what a cage stage Calvinist is A cage stage Calvinist is a person you know who grew up you know without any sense of reform doctrine right and then they finally discovered the doctrines of grace and it's all they can talk about and they argue with everybody about it all the time incessantly. They're in the cage stage, you know, but frankly if you give them a few years, they're gonna, they're gonna get out of the cage and they're gonna start pursuing the things which make for peace. That's a cage-stage Calvinist.

Well you can have a cage-stage about for about anything, but what he's saying here is hunt for the things that make for peace. Keep studying. And then he says, and the things which one may edify one another. Build them up. You know, There's a lot more about the Christian life than this controversial matter that you're obsessed with.

A lot more. So if you find yourself falling into that, then just recognize the kingdom of God is bigger. It's massive. It's righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It's much bigger than this little controversy that you've got going.

And by the way, don't misunderstand me. Small things are not unimportant things, okay? We need to consider them carefully. But all things are not worth dividing over. The Apostle Paul said it like this in the Ephesian church, you know this this teaching runs through Paul's letters to all the churches.

He says, but speaking the truth in love, speaking the truth in love, we may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effective working by which, are you ready for this? Every part does its share, causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. Same word, edifying. It's to knit back together. It's to build up, to strengthen one another.

The fifth correction, verse 22. Do what you do by faith. Do what you do by faith. Do what you do by faith. Verse 22, do you have faith?

Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself by what and 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 this brings us back really to matters of conscience. Do you have faith in the genuineness of your conscience to do such a thing?

Is it right before the Lord? Would you see the Lord Jesus Christ doing it? Can you do it by faith? That's really the question. And what the Apostle's saying is, don't condemn yourself and don't condemn others for what is grounded in faith.

And don't override, don't think that it's your job to override everybody's conscience. The conscience is like the smoke alarm for the soul. And God gave it to everybody. Maybe someday we'll do a study on the word conscience in the Bible, it's actually remarkably helpful. Now, there's much to say about Christian liberty.

I had us print out a chapter in the Baptist confession on liberty of conscience and the Christian from the 1689 and he defines what what is liberty of conscience and I think that's really important. What is Christian liberty? What is Christian freedom like? When people say, I'm free in Christ, what does that mean? Well, what it actually means is that you're actually free from the condemnation of the law.

That's the freedom that you have in Jesus Christ. And nobody has the freedom to do what's evil. But I printed that out just for your perusal if you'd like to look at it sometime. We won't, I won't deal with it right now. Okay.

So I want to give an illustration. During the 17th century, there was an admiral, Admiral William Phipps. He was a colonial naval operator and he was involved in King William's War and he was going to Quebec to fight and he showed up in Quebec, he was told that he would meet his land troops. He came by sea. And he told he was meeting his land troops.

But when he showed up, they were delayed. And they didn't show up. And so his soldiers got bored. Of course, they were in Quebec, in a Roman Catholic city, and these Protestant British soldiers were not in league with the Roman Catholic Church, and so there were statues of saints all over the place. So they started shooting at the saints, and they're shooting down the saints, and just out of boredom and frustration.

And they kept destroying these statues of the saints until all their ammunition was gone and their attack failed disastrously. They were shooting at the wrong targets and that happens in the church. It's easy to be shooting at the saints, being divided by all kinds of things that are not necessary. And what the apostle Paul is doing is, he's saying, look, spend your energy on the right targets. I think that's the big thrust of this passage.

And in the church, we have really clear ways of going forward with one another when we disagree. And this is so consistent with the teaching about the kind of culture that God has designed for a church, which Romans 12 through 16 is all about. You know, in Ephesians, we are told to walk with one another, be imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma. You know in Colossians 312 we're told how to calibrate our dispositions toward one another. He says, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering.

In Ephesians 432, he tells us how to treat one another and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. In Romans 12, 10, we're taught what kind of feelings we should cultivate. Maybe we don't have good feelings. Maybe we should cultivate different feelings. He says be kindly affectionate toward one another and honor giving preference to one another.

And then the Lord Jesus Christ told us that this is how the world would know that we were disciples of Jesus. A new commandment I give to you that you love one another is I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this, all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. So therefore, let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another. I can't figure out all the all the little details about how you apply all this but I do know that if we make this our object We'll be okay.

Let's pray