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The River ChurchSermons

Romans 9-16

Applying Righteousness: Towards Others/Selflessness

Chuck Lindsey · Sunday, 23 November 2025 · Romans 14:1-15:13 · 59:20 · 10,513 words

Romans S31 · 14:1-15:13 Grand Blanc

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

The speaker explores how Christians should handle matters that are not outright sinful but can cause stumbling or conflict, such as personal preferences and cultural habits. It emphasizes being careful with one’s actions, words, and attitudes so as not to hinder others’ faith, and urges believers to prioritize the good of their neighbors over personal liberty. The speaker calls listeners to humility, patience, and selfless sacrifice, following Christ’s example. He also invites those who have not yet trusted Jesus to repent and believe, finding joy, peace, and hope in Him.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

sensitivity 26 meat 21 eat 34 wrong 34 sensitive 8 careful 16 steak 9 wear 13 preference 9 problem 20 uh 18 movie 12

Topics

Sin 9 Prayer 6 Faith 6 Judgment 2 Freedom 1 Hope 1 Conscience 1 The Weaker Brother 1

Scripture referenced 31

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 14 1:08 Romans 15 1:13 Romans 14 7:49 Romans 14 11:48 Romans 14:1 12:05 Romans 14:1 16:24 Romans 14:1 18:50 Romans 14:2 19:02 1 Corinthians 8 20:28 Romans 14:3 23:18 Romans 14 23:54 Romans 14 24:14 Romans 14:3 24:39 Romans 14:4 24:57 Romans 14:5 25:18 Romans 14:5 25:48 Romans 14:9 33:42 Romans 14:10 33:54 Romans 14:13 38:31 Romans 14:14 41:02 Romans 14:15 43:40 Romans 14:16 48:42 Romans 14:19 50:05 Romans 14:22 52:21 Romans 14:23 53:39 Romans 15 53:55 Romans 15:1 54:03 Romans 15:2 54:24 Romans 15:4 54:35 Romans 15:5 54:55 Romans 15:8 55:27

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

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Well, good morning. Good to be together with you this morning.

Welcome to those of you joining us online as well today.

If you've got a Bible, I'm going to ask you to open it up to the book of Romans.

We only have two messages left in the book of Romans.

That seems crazy to me. We started it 28 weeks ago, and we are finishing next week with the book of Romans.

And so this morning we'll be in chapter 14, and we will cover...

About half of chapter 15 as well, so we're going to move pretty quickly through a lot of this this morning.

But we are talking about gray areas today, meaning we're talking about things in life that are not specifically wrong or sinful,

but they may not be helpful to us or to others.

And so we need to learn how to deal with these things.

But before we jump into it, let's do this.

Let's humble ourselves, as is so important to do when we come to God's Word.

And let's pray, asking Him to speak, okay?

Lord, we love you. We thank you, Lord, for bringing us together today.

Lord, thank you for your Word.

Lord, I just pray that you would speak through your Word today.

Pray that, Lord, you would help us to hear you, to see you, to know you.

We just look to you now, Lord.

And we thank you that you have what we need.

It's in your precious name that we pray.

And I want that to be a help to you.

I want that to be a help to the people who are around me.

To put it the opposite, I don't want to hinder anyone in their walk with the Lord.

I don't want to make things difficult for you in your relationship with the Lord or in this life.

I don't ever want to do that to you.

Can I ask you maybe a difficult question?

What happens when people are around you?

Right?

I had to ask myself this week, right?

What happens when people are around me?

When people spend time with me or when people spend time with you,

when they listen to you, when they watch you,

would you say that they are affected in a good way?

Or, again, very difficult, are they affected in a negative way, in a bad way?

Do people leave from talking to you or spending time with you?

Do they leave?

Are they encouraged and built up and filled up and encouraged to walk closely with the Lord?

Or do they leave from you discouraged maybe or beat up?

You know what I'm talking about, right?

We all have people that we know where when we're around them, we are so encouraged.

Can you think of somebody in your life that you spend time with them?

I mean, it's like, man, you're encouraged.

You're like, you're blessed.

You're like built up.

You feel filled up, right?

I mean, it's just, you know, very uplifted by being around a person like that.

I want to be someone like that.

I don't feel like I'm naturally a person like that, right?

I don't feel like that's natural, right?

But I want to be like that.

Just encouraged, you know, when you're around that person to know and love the Lord more.

But then there are some people, right, when you're around them, it's not like that.

They drain you. It's discouraging. It's depressing. It's frustrating. It's sad.

My wife and I, when we were first married, we were invited over to someone's house for dinner,

a couple who had been married for some time. And as we sat at the table with them,

they bickered and fought among each other in all these various ways and made all kinds of

remarks and things against each other, just sliding each other nearly the whole time we

were there. And it was so hard to see that when we left, and we couldn't wait to get out of there,

but when we left, I mean, we literally broke down in tears almost the whole way home.

Just like this was not, this was just so sad to watch. Two people who've been married for some

time just cutting each other down. It was just tragic to watch. It's a tough question, right?

But what describes this?

What describes you? Do you want to be a help to the people around you? Well, please hear this.

One of the things that is in common with every single person that I have ever known that is a

help to other people, that is an example, that is a blessing to the people around them, there's

something that is in common with all of those people. It is this. They are very careful with

their lives. They're very careful people, meaning they are careful with what they do.

They are careful with what they say. They're careful with what they are about. They do not

have this common attitude that we see in the world today, you know, which just is like, hey,

I'm not changing for anyone. You don't like me. You can lump it. You know, I don't know if people

say that. I'm whatever people say, whatever people say, right? You got a problem with me. That's your

problem, not my problem. You don't like what I do or say, well, you can get over it or get lost.

You know, I mean, I don't, you know, right?

This attitude that just is like, that's your problem, not mine. By the way, if that's your

attitude, you're making things really hard for the people around you, just so you know, okay?

Really hard. But the person that helps others takes an entirely different approach.

This is the person that wants to help others. They are careful with their lives. They know

that we impact people either for good or for bad. And so they know that if they're

something in their life that could cause someone real trouble, the person that wants to be a help

is now willing to change those things, right? Willing to do something different.

Romans chapter 14 is addressing this very issue. To understand what's happening here,

you got to know a little bit of the background. And so let me just give you a little bit of that.

When Christianity first came into the world and people began to turn to the Lord Jesus for

salvation, they were coming out of all kinds of things, right? You had people coming to Christ

out of paganism and idol worship and like all, everything that went with that, which is some

terrible stuff. And so when they came into Christianity, they came in with like a lot of

baggage, a lot of things, a lot of hang ups. And they were either bringing with them some of the

practices from when they were, you know, worshiping idols. They were now trying to bring that into

very super sensitive to anything that resembled what they did in pagan worship, right? So there

were sensitivities. There were all these things that were having to be dealt with. Not only,

you know, people coming out of paganism, you had people coming out of Judaism, right? Jewish people

were coming out of the religion of Judaism and they were either bringing in, trying to merge in

Judaistic practices. What do we do? Should we eat only certain things as Christians? Should we

you know, all these things they were, they were trying to figure it out or they came in

very, very sensitive to those things. And so there were, uh, and, and, and there's many other things,

but right. They were, these were like leftovers, if you will, from where they'd come from. And you

might have the same, the same things, sensitivities from what you've come out of sensitivities from

what they came out of it. Again, it happens today. If you came to Christ out of Catholicism, for

instance, you might have either confusion, uh, over why we don't do certain things, or you might

have sensitivities to some of the things that we do. So, um, if you've come out of Catholicism,

you might wonder why we don't take communion every single Sunday, because

in the Catholic church, you're going to take communion every single Sunday. It's a part of

maintaining your salvation, which of course it does not do. It's why we don't need to take

communion every single Sunday. But if you come out, you might wonder, why don't you guys take

communion every, every Sunday? Or how come there's not a cross hanging on the wall? Where's the cross?

I don't see it anywhere. How come you don't do that? How come there's not a picture of Jesus

anywhere? Ever wondered these things? I'm creating problems right now for all of you. You're like,

hey, wait a minute. I didn't think about that till you said it. I guess if none of you are here

next week, I'll know why. Okay. All right. So you might wonder if you need to keep Lent or not,

or if you should baptize your baby, right? Like, so each of these has an answer. And if you need

that answer, please come talk to me. We're happy to give that, but you might have confusion from

what you came out of, or you might have a sensitivity to anything that seems now religious

or formal because of what you've come out of. And so,

someone stands up here and reads a scripture or it's hard for you, or, you know, some, some

structure is difficult for you because now you've got this sensitivity to these things. You might

maybe the opposite of that. You might be like, Hey, how are you wearing jeans up there? That

seems disrespectful. You know, like just coming out of wherever it is that you've come out of.

Again, we can talk about all of this, but this was happening in the early church. And as people

from all over the place were coming, they were being saved and they were becoming

a part of the church. You had sensitivities, you had preferences, and it began to cause

problems. Okay. So what is our response to be to all of this? What are we supposed to do with all

of these things? That is, you know, what we're talking about here in Romans 14. So Paul begins

by telling the Roman Christians to take in these new believers with all of their sensitivities,

with all of their preferences, but be

careful. He's saying on how you treat them. So verse one, it says, receive one who is weak in

the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. So a person here called weak in the

faith, it doesn't mean that they're spiritually weak. It doesn't mean that they don't know the

Lord, you know, very well or whatever, that they're less than a believer than others.

The word weak is referring to sensitive. They have a sensitivity. Please hear this. They have

trouble with things they don't need to have trouble with, but they do. They've got, they've

got trouble with some of these things. They don't need to, but they have it. Okay. And so a few

examples, let me give you a few examples. If you've come out of a church where the women were only ever

allowed to wear dresses, okay. Coming into a church like this and seeing women wear pants might be

tough for you. Maybe like that doesn't feel godly. If this has not been your experience, that might

seem crazy to you.

But these are sensitivities, right? These are things that we are aware of that as people come

in, they might have difficulty with these things. It could seem disrespectful. It could seem wrong.

It could even seem sinful to some people that, that, that it's not like that. Right. And it

comes from past experience. It's not, it's not wrong for a woman to wear pants, right? But it

comes from a past experience. And so you don't need to have that sensitivity, but you might still have

it. You might've come out of a church where the women were only ever allowed to wear pants.

You might have come out of a church where it would have been wrong for men to wear a hat in church.

Anybody wearing a hat's like takes their hat off. I mean, you know, right. Listen, um, or maybe, um,

you come from a church where men remove their hats when they pray. So that has not been my experience.

I have never been a part of a church where men remove their hat when they pray.

When I first came to the river, everybody removed their hat when they prayed. And I was like,

this is, do I, do I now remove my hat? I don't, I don't know what I do. I don't know what I even

believe about this, right? I don't know what I believe about this. I don't know what I believe about this.

Right. So this might be a thing for you. It might be a problem. Hey bro, you didn't remove your hat

when you prayed. God did not hear you. The hat actually stopped the prayer and hit the top of

the bill, went back down. God didn't hear you. Sorry. You know, right? Like, listen, it's not

a problem. God doesn't care about your hat. Makes no difference at all. Person is not sinning. God

doesn't care about that. He doesn't care about women wearing pants. None of that means anything,

but we understand that there are preferences. There are sensitivities. And sometimes it's hard

between what is a preference, what is a sensitivity and what is right and wrong. Okay. And so listen,

it is not more godly for us to have pews than it is to have chairs. It's more efficient by the way

to have chairs. It's not a more godly to have a pulpit than this weird table.

that I stand at every week. It's not more godly to have a cross on the wall than to not have one.

It's not more Christian to have weekly church potlucks. You go, but it should be, right? We

should have, yeah. It's not more Christ-like to have an ornate church building instead of

whatever this is, right? Right? It's not godlier to wear a suit on Sundays. Now, listen, one of my

dearest friends wears a suit every single Sunday. You'll see him. He wears a suit every single

Sunday, but it is not to shame anybody else. He does it because he wants to honor the Lord.

That's like an offering to the Lord. I think it's beautiful, but he would never tell you to wear a

suit, you know? A woman does not need to cover her head in order to honor God. She can do that if she

wants to, but it's not right or wrong to do so. These are not issues of sin. These are just issues

of experience and preference, not actual issues of right and wrong. And so here we're told that

there may be these sensitivities,

and they may be causing difficulties. And there are those without those sensitivities,

some of us, right? We don't have those same sensitivities. What is to be our response? Are

we to tell people, you know what? Get over it. You got a problem? That's your problem. Get over it.

Paul says, don't do that. He says, welcome them into the family as true followers of Jesus Christ,

but not with the goal to try to change them. Okay, look what he says there at the end of verse one.

He literally take one in who is weak in the faith or sensitive in these things,

but not to disputes over doubtful things. So doubtful things means that these things are

debatable. Okay. These are not hard and fast rules. These are just debatable things. These are not

important issues. These are just things that we can talk through. They're not wrong.

They're not called sin in the Bible. These are just debatable issues. And so we are not to

welcome people in with the goal to conform them to our preferences.

Now, so someone comes in, they have tattoos all over their body, but you don't. Okay. You're not

to befriend them in order to convince them to laser remove all their tattoos. Does God care

about tattoos? No. Are they wrong? No. Can the content of some of those tattoos be wrong? Sure.

Right. I've seen some for sure, but they're not wrong in and of themselves. There's nothing wrong

with that. But listen, if something needs to happen with the person and their tattoos, if they are

truly a follower of Jesus Christ, they're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be

the Lord. The Lord is going to speak to them about that issue, right? He's going to talk to them. And

I've watched him do it many times. If shorts and Hawaiian shirts bother you, not, not saying,

right. I'm not letting summer go. That's what's happening this morning. Okay. But like if shorts

and Hawaiian shirts, you know, offend you on a Sunday morning, you would not want to go to the

churches. I grew up in, in Southern California. The pastors are preaching in shorts, flip-flops

and Hawaiian shirts every single Sunday, right? Like that's just how it goes. Right. But there

are sensitivities and we understand this. So here's the, here's the lesson. Here it is. Ready?

Keep the main thing, the main thing, major in the majors, minor in the minors. Don't major in the

minors, right? We don't want to do that. We don't come into the church and try to push our preferences

on everybody. And a lot of churches are stuck in that loop. They're stuck in that loop. They're

like, well, it has to be like this. And this has to be like that. And, and how come there's not this?

And, and so they come in and they're trying to push preferences, things that are not right and

wrong, things that are not called out specifically. It's just about trying to get everything to be the

way they want it to be. We are not to do this. And so the words of verse one there, literally,

if we were to like kind of translate them, it's, it's truly welcome them in, but don't fight about

things that are unimportant. This stuff does not matter. And so Paul says, verse two,

for one believes that he may eat all things, but he was weak, eats only vegetables.

Now you say, why in the world would anyone only eat vegetables? And I'm with you. I agree with this,

right? But Paul is describing something that was common in his day. In Paul's day, it was common

for a butcher to take the meat that he was going to sell that day in the market. And he would take

that meat, he would cut it all up, and then he would offer it to the false gods that he believed

in. He would offer it to them, uh, to, to bless, uh,

the, the, his business essentially as worship, he would offer it to them. And, um, so many, uh,

new Christians knew about this practice and they wouldn't eat meat at all. And they wouldn't eat it

because it could have been offered to an idol.

And so, you know, they gave up on happiness and decided to only eat vegetables for the rest of their lives, right?

No, I'm only kidding.

If you only eat vegetables, God bless you, okay?

But they were worried that if they ate the meat, they were going to, seriously, they were going to ingest a demon.

They were going to accidentally worship Satan.

That's what they believed.

And so, of course, this is not possible.

And Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians 8.

Also, at length, Paul says this.

He says, therefore, concerning things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing.

It's nothing in the world.

And that there is no other God but one.

There's only one God.

And if he's living in you, nothing else can be, right?

So, like, don't worry about it.

In other words, they didn't need to worry, but they were worried.

And instead of telling people, hey, just don't worry about it, and, you know, we'll do whatever we want to,

we're being taught how to actually deal with these things.

Now, you might think that they were crazy for thinking they would ingest a demon,

but let's test your sensitivity real quick.

Let's do it.

If you were invited to someone's house for dinner,

and they set down a huge, perfectly grilled ribeye steak in front of you,

just beautiful ribeye steak, right?

Some of you are like, okay, you're making me hungry.

And then you're like, man, this looks amazing.

Thank you so much.

What a steak.

This is beautiful.

I love this.

I thought I was getting a tube steak, and I'm getting a real one.

This is amazing.

Tube steaks are hot dogs, just so you know.

Okay, here we go, right?

But then they tell you that it was cooked so well

because they always offer it to Satan before they cook it, okay?

I always just, we do a little sacrifice in the backyard, a little offering.

We always offer it to Satan.

We do a little seance and everything.

And the meat always cooks super well when we do this.

I want to ask you a question.

Would you have trouble digging in?

Some of you are like, whoa.

I don't know if I could do that, right?

You got any cereal, you know?

Or would you do what?

Corinthians tells you, and would you be able to say,

hey, listen, I don't worship Satan, but I like this steak.

This looks real good, right?

I don't worship Satan.

I worship the Lord Jesus.

He lives in me.

Nothing else can.

And so we're going to go ahead and put the steak in the belly, right?

That's going to happen.

I'm going to dig in.

So the question is, which would you do?

Well, this was the sensitivity that many of these new Christians had.

And so two things happened as a result of this.

The sensitive Christian.

Seeing the non-sensitive Christian eating these things immediately thought he was sinning.

Like, you're in sin for doing this.

And then the non-sensitive Christian, seeing the sensitivity of this other person,

basically thought they were stupid.

Like, well, this is dumb.

They began to either dismiss them or to despise them, it says.

And so some even took the attitude of like, hey, I'm going to teach you a lesson.

And every time I see you, I'm going to eat meat, right?

I'm going to.

I'm going to help you grow, right?

Is the idea.

Paul says, don't do this.

Look at verse three.

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.

Now, we pause for just a moment.

We are not talking about issues of sin here.

We're not talking about issues of right and wrong, you know, which God calls out.

We're not talking about things that God says are evil or sinful.

So someone cannot say, for instance,

well, I'm living with my girlfriend and I'm not married to her,

but I think it's fine and you don't think it's fine and you're not to judge me.

And, you know, that is not what Romans 14 is talking about.

That's very different.

That is specifically called sin in the scriptures.

It's sin for two people to live together.

You can fix this if this is where you're at, but this is sin, right?

And what we're talking about here is issues that are not called out as sin, right?

Romans 14 is not telling us.

It's just to look the other way and accept everyone and everything that they're doing.

That's not loving anybody to do that, okay?

If someone's playing on the freeway, you don't just, hey, have a nice time, you know?

We're going to be like, hey, let me tell you.

Come here, right?

Let me help you out.

So all of this is about things that are not sin, just sensitivity, just preference.

And that's why verse 3 ends with the words, for God has received him.

The question is, why are you rejecting that person?

When God has received them, you're rejecting them for things that don't matter

because they do something you don't do, right?

And so verse 4 says, who are you?

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. So it's very simple. Each person answers to God for what

they do in their life. You will, I will, we all stand before God and we answer for these things.

Verse five says, hey, okay, fine. One person esteems one day above another. Another person

esteems every day alike. Great. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. So one person says,

hey, you have to worship on Sunday. That's the only day you can worship. Another person says,

no, we can worship on Saturday. In fact, I prefer to worship on Saturday. Another person says,

well, I don't know what my work schedule is. So if I, if I'm off on Saturday, I'll worship on

Saturday. If I'm off on Sunday, I'll worship on Sunday. Somebody else says, worship God every

single day. We say, great. All of it. Fantastic. Sounds good. Here's the key. End of verse five,

such an important lesson. Let each person be convinced, be fully convinced

in their own mind of what they're supposed to be doing. Listen, act in accordance with what you

know God wants you to do. That's the idea. In other words, only do what you know he wants you to do.

And don't go against that is the idea. If you are not sure if you should do something, don't do it.

If you can't say God wants me to do this thing, you should pause. You should wait. You should

pray. But if you are sure that God wants you to do something, then you should do it. Let me give

you a silly example. Is it right or wrong for Christians to have a TV? The answer is like,

that's not helpful, but it is because listen, some Christians would say it's wrong for Christians to

have a TV. Some people would say, no, it's not wrong at all. Here's what I would say. It might

be wrong. It might be right. There is no universal right or wrong in this. This is not a universal

right or wrong. Here's what I would say. It might be right for someone and it might be wrong for

someone else. This is a, this is something that would be determined by the Lord of your life for

you. So you can't look and say, well, everybody else does this. So I can do this. It might be

wrong for you. He may not want you to do that. Does this make sense? So here's the differences,

right? We could give a million examples of that, but the idea is whatever you and I do, we must,

must be able to say,

that we are sure God is happy with that thing. And if not, then we should get rid of it. So verse

six, but it says he who observes the day, observes it to the Lord. He who does not observe the day

to the Lord, he does not observe it. He who eats each to the Lord for he gives God thanks. And he

who does not eat to the Lord, he does not eat and gives God thanks. So again, the principle here is

very simple, but it is important in decision-making when you're trying to make decisions about things

that are not specifically said.

You know what they are. If you can say with a hundred percent certainty that God is good with

that thing, then do it and give thanks, right? I have no hesitation eating a cheeseburger. I give

God thanks for that cheeseburger. And I praise the Lord. You know what I'm saying? But if you

cannot, right? If you cannot say with a hundred percent certainty that what you're doing, God is

happy with, then you should not push forward. You should not do that thing. You should stop

and you should pray. Now, again, these are things that God is happy with.

These are things that God is, we're talking about things God has not given us clear instruction on.

So for instance, you do not need to pray and ask God if he wants you to stop stealing from your

work. God, just give me a sign. Just, just show me if I should stop stealing. He's, he's talked

about that. Like you don't need to ask about that. Uh, if you are unmarried living together,

you don't need to pray and ask God if he wants you to separate physically. You don't need to

pray about that. That is a hundred percent. That is what God wants you to do. It's very clear in

his, in his book. So if you don't pray and ask God if he wants you to separate physically,

his word, you don't have to pray and ask God if he no longer wants you to get drunk, right?

God, just show me if you don't want me drunk anymore. It's like, he's already said these

things, right? We have clear instruction, but should you sell your house right now? I don't

know. That's something you should pray for. And when you are convinced that he wants you to do it,

then do it. If you don't have that certainty, I personally, I don't move when I don't have

the certainty. I don't move. I will wait. I will pray until I know what I'm supposed to do.

here's what I believe about the Lord

I don't think he's trying to play games with us

think he's trying to say, hey, figure out what I want. Hope you get it right. I think what he does

is what I do with my children. Here is what I want. Walk in the obedience of that. If I don't

know what that is yet, how can I act in accordance to that? How can I do what he wants me to if I

don't even know what he wants me to do? Does that make sense? He's going to make it clear somehow.

That's a totally different message, but he's going to make it clear somehow. So listen, I don't move

unless I know. I pray, I wait, I ask God to make it clear. Should you put the kids in school or

homeschool? Again, there is no verse that says thou shalt homeschool thy dear children, right?

Doesn't say it. We pray, we ask God what he wants. We listen through his leading, you know, in the

word or, you know, others and all of that. We come to a place where we are convinced one way or the

other, then we act in accordance with that thing. And so for every decision we are not sure about,

it's a rinse and repeat, right? Just do these things. Well, listen, be convinced. And when you

are, do it under the Lord,

giving him thanks. And if you can't give God thanks, you probably shouldn't do it. Whatever

it is you're going to do, you can't be like, Lord, thank you. Thank you for this movie that is full

of filth. This is awesome. Lord, you are, you are so good. If you can't do that, you should not be

a part of that, right? So it's probably, if you can't do it, he's probably revealing that it's

not from him. It's not what he wants. So listen, at the end of the day, something that is true

of all true Christians is that we want,

to do what God wants us to do. We want him to be pleased with our lives, right? So look at verse

seven 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 as

Christians. We belong to him says here, we are the Lord's. And it is the joy of every Christian

to say that, right? I am the Lord's. I'm not my own. I, my life is not mine. He bought me,

uh, at a very steep price. He bought me out of the slavery of sin, hell and the devil,

right? My life was lost to the destruction of sin. My eternity was lost to the flames of hell.

My soul was lost to death forever. He bought me out of it all. And so listen,

my life is his. And not only did he buy me out of it, he, he, he adopted me. He brought me into

his family. And so he is Lord. And that means my whole life is subject to his will. He

doesn't like something I'm doing. He just has to tell me. And now because of what he wants,

because he is Lord, that's what he gets, right? I'm not saying I don't have a problem sometimes

with that or fight against it, but I'm saying because he's Lord, my life is subject to his will.

And so this is true of all Christians. We do not live primarily for ourselves. We live for him.

We don't live chiefly to do what we want. We live for what he wants. The unsaved person the Bible

talks about.

Chiefly lives for themselves. They are the Lord, quote unquote, of their own lives. They do what

they want to do. It doesn't matter what God wants them to do. You as a believer, if you know what

God wants you to do, now you begin to want the same thing or you wrestle with that and, and then,

you know, give, give God what God wants, right? Because he is Lord. Well, this is because he died

for us. Look at verse nine for, uh, to this end, Christ died and rose and lived again that he might

be.

That he might be Lord or master owner of both the dead and the living. And so because of this,

because he died for us, we ask this question, verse 10, but why do you then judge another?

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. Okay. So the idea here, he bought me, he bought you. I belong

to him. If you know the Lord, right? You belong to him. We answer to him as Lord, which means we do not

ultimately answer to each other, right? You don't answer to me because I'm not the Lord. And I don't

really answer to you because you're not the Lord. We can and should help each other. We should say,

Hey man, this isn't good. This isn't right. We should definitely do that for each other. But

ultimately we each are going to answer to the only Lord, the Lord Jesus, uh, for what we do in our

lives. And then the remainder of verse, um, 10 tells us something that we all need to be reminded

of. Here it is. We will all, every single one of us,

we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

Do you know that?

there will be a day soon, I believe, that you will stand before the Lord, you and him. That's it.

Kids aren't there with you. Your spouse isn't there with you. It's you and the Lord, right?

This is your life now, and what it was, and what it wasn't, and what you did, and what you didn't

do, it will be completely exposed. Everything will be clear, whether it was good, whether it was bad,

whether every little thing, right, all of it, nothing hidden, nothing forgotten. We will stand

before Jesus Christ. As it goes on to say there, verse 11, for it is written, this comes from Isaiah

45, verse 23, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to

God. So every single person, believer or unbeliever, is going to stand before Jesus. Every single person

is going to bow before him. You and I who love the Lord, we're going to love to bow before him.

The unsaved person is not going to bow before him. We're going to love to bow before him.

They're not going to love to bow before him, but they're going to do it anyway. And then catch this,

verse 12 says, every single one of us is going to give an answer to him. Verse 12, so then each of

us shall give account of himself to God. So understand what this means. We will stand before

him. Our lives will in some way be unveiled, revealed, exposed for what they actually were.

Now, here's the thing. I am certain there is going to be a lot of tears in that moment. You say, I

got to read that more carefully. Revelation says he's going to wipe away our tears. He can't wipe

away what's not there, right? So this means that what we do here and now actually matters, right?

We will give an account of ourselves to God. And there won't be any, well, it wasn't really like

that. And, you know, I didn't really mean it like that. And, you know, we get into this whole

spinning things to be different than they actually were, you know, commonly called lying.

Um, it'll all be seen for what it actually is. And, uh, now here's the, here's the, that's

terrifying. Well, the blessing of us as Christians standing before him is this. You will see that the

blood of Jesus Christ has been applied to every, everything, every wrong that was done. Uh, I have

no doubt we will still feel the pain of those things, but each thing we will see has already

been paid for. Please hear this. Very important. You hear it. If you know the Lord, every single

thing has already been paid for. No payment will be required from you. It's already been paid for

by him. And then amazingly after that, you are rewarded. I am rewarded for my faith in him. And

you know, the things that we did to serve him and others, which is crazy because it's only by him

that we've ever done anything that's been good. Right. But it's because of this, because we will

stand before him to answer for our life's choices that I don't need to worry about you.

And your life's choices on things that are not important. Again, not sin. If you're in sin,

I should come to you because I love you and say, Hey, this isn't right. But if you, you know,

if you want to wear Hawaiian shirts and make poor choices, you know, with your style, that's fine.

Right. We don't need to worry about that. So verse 13 says, therefore, let us not judge one

another anymore and rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our

brother's way. So the picture here is of taking a rock and, and throwing it into the road that someone is walking

on and putting something that would cause them now to trip and to fall. It's a warning to all of us

about something that we can do to others. If we are careless, if we are not careful, we can cause

people in our lives to trip and fall. We can affect each other in a bad way. We can make things hard

for other people, harder for them to know and love and follow the Lord harder for them to grow.

In that day, it was eating

meat. Christians knew some Christians had problems with Christians eating meat. And so

each believer had to decide what they were going to do with that. They would either do wrong and

just say, who cares? It's just meat. I don't care what happens to the people around me. If they see

this, I don't care if anybody stumbles, it makes no difference to me. I want to eat this meat.

So they either had that opinion or they would care. And maybe they would eat meat in their homes.

Right. But listen, the point is everybody had to decide. And Paul's saying it would be wrong to

invite somebody else to come and eat meat. And so they either had that opinion or they would care

over who had these sensitivities and then serve them meat to try to make the point.

It's, it's love. We're supposed to walk in love. The guiding principle here is this ready? I must

look at what I am doing and ask three questions. First is what I'm doing sin. Is it wrong before

God? Well then of course, stop. Second, if it's not sin, then we must ask this question out of

love. We must ask this question is, is what he is, is what I'm doing. Does he want me to do this

thing? Can we definitively say, yes, we know he wants us to. And then again, in love, the third

question is, will this cause someone else to stumble? Will it cause someone else to have

difficulty, trouble needlessly? And we can always say, but there's nothing wrong with it. It

shouldn't be a problem. We can always say that. But again, we go back to, do you want your life

to help people? And if you do, then we ask questions like that. And if we know we're causing

someone trouble, then we are going to change that, right? Look at verse 14. I know Paul says, I know

I'm convinced by the Lord Jesus that there's nothing unclean of itself, but to him who considers

anything to be unclean to him, it is unclean. So Paul says, I know there's nothing unclean about

that meat. I know that, but if they are having trouble, then we can cause them to sin. Eating

meat was not wrong. It was not unclean. Smoking cigarettes. Is it unclean or unclean? Is it wrong

or not wrong? It's not in and of itself, anything. It's not sinful in and of itself. It's not

healthy, but it's not inherently sinful. But you might say, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't

have trouble with that because of the culture that you grew up in. It might be something, right?

Might be something. It might be sin for you because maybe God is saying, don't do that. And

if you keep doing it, it does become sin for you. But in and of itself, it's just a thing. It's

nothing. Is dancing wrong? Oh yeah. Christians should never dance. Are drums wrong? Oh, don't

listen to the devil's music. The devil's beats. They'll get into your head. You know, these are

things, right? He's going to the movies wrong. Like you go on and on. These are not unclean things of

course. They can be wrong for sure. But the issue here is that if someone has a sensitivity to

something, like they are worried, they're going to ingest a demon by eating meat, then they should

not do that. They should not eat that meat. And you and I need to be careful. It's true for you

and I, you should not push past the conviction that you have, that you are going to sin against

God by doing something. You should not push past that. If you think, uh, Christmas is evil and of

the devil, some people do don't celebrate it. Don't put up a tree. That's fine. But don't try

to convince everybody in your life that it's evil. Okay. You don't have to do that. If you

think Halloween is evil and of the devil and trick or treating is literally worshiping Satan,

then okay. Don't do it, but don't push it. Like as though people that are, are sinning against God,

be careful, right? That you're not trying to convert everyone to the idea

that these things are evil. By the way, I don't even like Halloween. So I have no pony in that

race. Okay. But I will say you come at me with a Christmas being of the devil. And I'm going to

call you the Grinch. And I'm also going to say bah humbug to you. Okay. So that's so, um, anyway,

as Christians, right? We're to walk in love towards one another. We don't just do whatever

we want to do. We consider whether we are doing harm to others. So look at verse 15. Yet if your

brother is grieved because of your food, look what happens when you say, I don't care what happens.

You are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your food, the one for whom Christ died.

I don't know any examples we could give of this, but, uh, I remember being in Bible college and,

um, coming into my room one day. And, uh, one of my roommates was just saying every expletive under

the sun. I, I was like shocked. I was like, wow, I've not heard those words in some time now,

you know? And I thought, what are you doing? And so he was talking to someone else. And this person

was like wide eyed and white as a sheet, just like, what are you saying? All these things flying

out of your mouth. And I was like, what are you doing? And he was like, I don't know. I don't know.

And so when that person left, I sat my roommate down. I said, what, what are you doing? And he's

like, bro, they're just words. They're actually not because yes, they are just words, but they

are also offensive to the people that are hearing them. Well, you know, if you were in this country

and if you were in, it doesn't matter, you're offending people right now with these things,

right? This should not come out of your mouth.

mouth, we are told to not let any unwholesome words come out of our mouth, but only things

which build people up, not pull them down, not tear them down. Right? So, but he had this idea

that he had freedom and he called me the weaker brother. He's all, you're just sensitive. You're

the weaker brother. I said, no, you're stupid. And so then we got in a fistfight. No, I'm just

kidding. We didn't do that. But it's like, I took him here. I was like, your brother who just walked

out of here now doesn't know what to do. By the way, I now don't think you're very godly despite

what you have tried to portray. I think you got problems with the Lord, but we're grieved because

you decide you have this freedom. You were not walking in love to the guy that just walked out

of here. You just made things difficult for him. And so he says here, do not destroy. This person

walked out like, I don't even know what's going on now. Do not destroy with your food, with your

language, with your, what you're about, with what you're doing. Don't destroy people. Don't,

don't make it hard for them to do what they're doing.

Christ died for them. You can't be cavalier like that with him, with them when he has been so

careful with them, right? To, to, to, to rescue them. We don't have the ability to just do whatever

we want to do. An example of this from my family is my family and I were just, we're very careful

with like shows and movies and things that we watch. We have this paid subscription. It's a

filtering, real-time filtering service. It real-time filters out like the bad content from

really everything. It's great. It's called vidangel.

We love it, but it creates a problem for us. Here's the problem. There are movies or TV shows

that we have seen through vidangel that we would, there's no chance we would watch these movies

apart from vidangel. Okay. So vidangel has removed all the swearing. It's removed all

the inappropriate stuff. And so we've been able to watch these shows. And sometimes it's really

funny. We'll like pull up a, um, a show. You can pick all the content that you want to turn off.

And then it'll tell you how long the movie is after you've turned everything.

Off. It's been, it's really, really funny. So there was like this one show we decided to like

do that. We turned off all the stuff that would be inappropriate. And the show went from 22 minutes

to three and we were like, let's watch it. And it played the intro. And then there was like three

words and then it played the outro. And we were like, wow. Right. That was amazing. But see vidangel

creates a problem for us in our family because someone will say, Oh, did you see that movie?

And if we just say, yes, that's a problem. Why? Well, because we're saying we saw the movie and

its entirety. We saw everything that was in the movie. And that is literally almost never the

case because there's something in almost every movie. So there've been times where people were

like, Whoa, I wouldn't have thought you would have watched a show like that or a movie like that.

And then we have to explain that it's all through vidangel and it was, you know, taken out half the

movie or whatever. Right. But listen, it's because of this. I tell my kids, it's this principle in

the scriptures. I tell my kids for the sake of others, not to maintain some reputation. I don't

know if it's for the sake of others, not to put a stumbling in someone else's path. You must say yes,

but we watched it through vidangel, which takes out this content. And we do that because we would

never want anyone, please hear me, never want anyone to be emboldened to go watch something

they should not watch or to do something they should not do. We would never want to destroy

someone or cause them difficulty spiritually through something we did. And so we must be

careful because verse 16 is possible.

Therefore, do not let your good be spoken of as evil. You can be doing good, but if you don't care

about what you're doing, it can be thought of to be evil. So if we don't care, we're going to stumble

people. And this is why Paul said in first Corinthians, I'll never eat meat again. If it

causes my brother to stumble, I won't do it because it's better for their sake than for mine. So verse

17 reminds us life is more than these temporary things for the kingdom of God. It's not eating and

it is 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. Please hear that. There may be something that would be

okay for you to do, but you don't do it for the sake of other people. That is so good. What a

blessing, right? That's a, that's a good thing. You're thinking about the, you're thinking about

things the right way. I could do this, but I'm not going to, I don't want to make things difficult.

That is a good thing. And you're actually, it says there, you're serving the Lord for he who serves

Christ by doing these things is acceptable to God and approved by men. There's something you've

given up because, uh, other people that is so loving and sacrificial.

and Christ-like. What a wonderful thing for their benefit. What a beautiful thing you're doing.

Verse 19, therefore, let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which

one may edify or build up another. Do not destroy the work of God in someone's life for the sake of

food or any other dumb thing, right? All non-sinful 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. And so if we just say, yeah, I don't care if this

causes others trouble. According to this passage, three things will happen. One, they might stumble.

This means they might be emboldened to go against their conscience and do what they shouldn't do.

And now they've sinned against God. Or two, they might be offended. It says there in the passage,

meaning they look at you now differently and you seem to be hypocritical to them,

so they can't hear from you anymore. Or third, lastly, they could be made weak

and what this means is that their walk with the Lord can be affected by the things that we do.

I don't want to stumble. I don't want to offend. I don't want to make anybody

weak with the things that I do. And so they might begin to entertain doubts about the Lord. If any of

this is real, they might begin to believe lies from the enemy, all because they've seen the

hypocrisy in their minds between what we say and what we do. And so you might say, so am I never

to have a glass of wine again? Because it'll, it might stumble someone. Well,

as a pastor, I would say, um, no, don't do it. Drinking never helps anybody just so you know,

never helps anybody. But if you do remember first that you are commanded to never be drunk.

That's a command. You don't have to ask the Lord about that. You're commanded to never be drunk,

but then please for the love of others, for the love of others, please be careful.

Don't go out with groups of people, mixed group and have a drink. You're like,

what? You have no idea what you're doing with your Liberty. You don't know who you're stumbling.

You have no idea how that affects the people around you. Making things hard for them unnecessarily

for what drink a Coke. It doesn't bother anybody. In fact, do better and drink coffee. That's what

the Lord would want. Okay. Sorry. Just kidding. So verse 22, do you have faith? Great. Great.

Fantastic. Have your faith between you and God, right? Have it to yourself before God.

Happy is the man who does not condemn himself in what he approved. So something is okay. It's not

sin, but it might stumble someone else like eating meat.

Paul's day. Then listen, eat the meat at home. Great. Don't flaunt your Liberty. Great. Don't

talk about it. Brothers. I just wanted to give a praise report about how amazing the New York

strip steaks were from the satanic butcher. I bought them from down the street, right? Don't

do that. That's dumb. Don't go on Facebook talking about your wine tasting tour. Don't be stupid.

That's stupid. Why make things hard for people? That is not helpful. That's foolish. Don't,

you know, make references to the office in your, in your conversation. Is that,

it's not wise to do this and don't come at me with the office is clean. No, it's not. It was the show

I was talking about that only lasted three minutes when we took everything out of it. Listen, am I

trying to put condemnation on you? No, I'm asking you to be careful. That's what we're called to do

to be careful and not to say, Hey, forget you. You got problems with me. That's your problem.

Paul says, be sure that what you're doing, God is happy with, and then enjoy it. Verse 23,

but he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith for whatever is not

from faith is sin.

Bottom line, if you're not sure God doesn't want you to, then don't do it because it will be sin.

If you do now, I just want to read the, the, this, uh, first part of, uh, verse, uh, chapter 15 will

be done in just a moment. So it says there in verse one, we then who are strong. So those that

don't have those sensitivities, they ought to bear with the scruples or the sensitivities,

the troubles of the week and not to please themselves. That's what it comes down to.

Do you want to please yourself? You want to please the Lord? Let each of us please his neighbor

it says there, verse two for his good leading to edification, building up for even Christ did not

please himself. That's why we should not please ourselves. But as it is written, the reproaches

of those who were approached, you fell on me. Jesus said, right? Verse four, for whatever things

were written before were written for our learning that we, through the patient patience and comfort

of the scriptures might have hope. This was all written ahead of time so that we would understand

the way has always been selfless sacrifice. And so we're going to have to, we're going to have to

so verse five, Paul says, now may the God of patience and comfort grant

you to be like-minded toward one another according to Christ Jesus, 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 also received us to the glory of God. So here is the overarching principle. Receive,

welcome them because you have been welcomed. Love and give because he has loved you and given

everything for you. Care for each other because he has cared for you. And so verse 8, now I say

that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision, the Jewish people, for the truth of

God to confirm the promises made to the fathers and that the Gentiles, the non-Jewish, might

glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, for this reason I will confess you among the Gentiles

and sing to your name and again rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people and again praise the Lord, all you

Gentiles, laud him, all you peoples, and again Isaiah, there shall be a root of Jesse and he

who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, in him the Gentiles shall hope. The point of all of that

was for Paul to say, you're supposed to take in all of these people. It is not supposed to just be

the people that are like you that you're taking in, right? All of these people, all of their

sensitivities, you're bringing them in, you're bringing them among, and God has shown that from

the very beginning all the way back. God has shown this is what it's supposed to be. And so verse 13,

we close here this morning.

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. Let me ask you a question. Do you have joy, like real joy? Do you

have peace, peace with God? Can you say that? Do you have hope of anything good coming? These things

only come, it says there, through believing. Do you believe? Do you believe on the Lord Jesus?

You can right now. You can turn to him and trust

him. Have hope and peace and life, which is only found in his name. If you do not know the Lord

Jesus, you must humble yourself. The Bible says do two things, repent and believe. You must come to

God humbling yourself, admitting that you are a sinner, lost and in need of salvation. Nothing

happens until that happens. Nothing happens until that happens. And once we come to God humbling

ourselves and in repentance, God extends mercy, gives forgiveness, and then we must believe,

in him and what he's done. So if that's you this morning, you can feel the Lord pulling at you.

Don't deny him. Don't refuse him. Let's pray together. He's listening to you. Lord,

we love you. Thank you for your word. Thank you for the truth of it. Thank you, Lord, for your

goodness. I pray, Lord, for anyone here today or watching online that does not yet know you,

has not turned to you. I pray they would do that now. If that's you, if the Lord is pulling at you,

if you're ready to admit that you cannot,

that you are not good enough to save you, that you need him to save you. Again, you must repent.

You must come to God humbling yourself. I'm a sinner, Lord. Just tell him I'm a sinner. I've

separated myself from you by my sin, my choices, but I ask for your forgiveness. And then you must

believe, must believe that he came to die for you, that he will save you as you call out to him. And

so you must ask him to save you. He will do it. Lord, we thank you. Help us to follow,

help us to live for you. We give you everything. We give you our lives because

you gave up your life for us. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.