Romans Chapter 14:1-5

Augustine said something interesting. He said, in essentials unity and non-essentials liberty and all things love. What he meant by that is there's some things that are essential to Christianity. That Jesus is the only way to heaven, that's an essential to faith. How we're forgiven ever since, that's an essential to faith. Non-essentials of the faith, what kind of worship music we have, what time service starts, what we wear, all those things are non-essential.

But in all things love. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. As the body of Christ, the church shouldn't walk with anger and hatred but instead should walk in love and in unity. Find out how this can be done as Pastor David continues in Romans 14 with his teaching Unity.

Here's David McGee. Romans chapter 14 verse 1 says, receive one who is weak in the faith but not to disputes over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all things but he who is weak eats only vegetables. What do you mean you're weak because you eat vegetables?

It's like protein deficiency? What's he, what in the world is he talking about? Let's go over a key. Ask these questions when you're reading a passage. Number one, who's the author? Number two, who is he writing to? Number three, what problems is he trying to address or questions is he trying to answer?

So here's how this helps. Now God is the author of this book. He used men just like you use a pen to write. Okay, so God is the inspired author of this book. And then other books we say okay who's, who's the author of the book of Romans? Well that's easy because we're told Paul. Paul wrote the book of Romans. Who's he writing it to? Well that's another fairly easy one isn't it?

I mean what's the name of it? Romans. Okay so I'm thinking it's written to the church at Rome. Taking notes. May I want to jot that down? But then the third thing is a little more difficult.

What problems is he trying to address or questions is he trying to answer? Now this, this yet some light on this passage because in the book of Acts when we went through it and it's in there that they were discussing what kind of meats are okay and not okay to eat. Now this is a kind of a complicated but not so much. There was Levitical laws about what you should eat in the Hebrew scriptures. There's no dietary restrictions in the New Testament. We're free to eat what we want but some people wanted to keep kosher. Okay fine but they wanted to make all the gentiles not only eat kosher but see in Jerusalem sometimes they would sacrifice animals to pagan deities and stuff and then they would sell the meat in the market and they said well you shouldn't be eating that meat. In Jerusalem they said okay probably shouldn't be eating that meat. There's a lot of other meat to buy. Rome was a different story altogether because all the temples all the pagan deities the majority of the meat there had been sacrificed to idols. So there was only a little bit of meat that was available that had been you know a lot of it being kosher and they said well you you can only eat this kind of meat and some people said no no I'm gonna eat I'm gonna eat this meat it's not a big deal. I don't I'm not worshiping this idol when I eat the meat and some people said this is too complicated I'm just gonna eat vegetables. I don't even want to be bothered by this. The living bible gives a kind of an interesting insight into this verse it's not a usual study tool of mine but I came across it says for instance don't argue about with him about whether or not to eat meat that has been offered to idols you may believe there's no harm in this but the faith of others is weaker they may think it is wrong and will go without any meat at all and eat vegetables rather than that kind of meat you stir into this that the Essenes were also a presence in Rome Essenes were in Qumran where we found the Dead Sea Scrolls and they were they're pretty hardcore they're pretty set this is the way it's got to be and so you mix them in the Rome so you got you already got kind of three denominations over what to eat the people say well we're just not going to eat meat at all the people say we're going to eat only kosher and then the other group says well we're going to eat anything that's not moving so you know you got these three different three denominations there in Rome already okay but Paul's saying you know it's not worth arguing about the new living translation of this for instance one person believes it's all right to eat anything but another believer who has a sensitive conscience will eat only vegetables I've been in places in ministry that you know would probably offend some people I've been the Sturgis and ministered there and a pretty crazy place during bike week when I was there to tell people about Jesus now for some they might not want to do that I felt called to go do that and also in traveling I did we had a we had a couple that traveled with us as we I traveled around to teaching music and uh Laughlin right on the border of Nevada and also Las Vegas we'd go minister do street ministry do work with churches and stuff and it used to be that the casinos offered really cheap food I mean like five bucks you could go in there and like they carve and roast beef and stuff I had a family of five I kind of made sense to me now and I've never struggled with the compulsive gambling so I'd go in there and feed the family well the people that were traveling with us were like I can't go in there there's gambling so oh don't go in I'm going in I'm going to worship God eating that roast beef brother so you know um if you don't want to get don't go in but they kind of judged me for going in there and I mentioned casinos because that probably is a tripping point for somebody like he went to a casino right you know I mean what did you know the the meat you eat at home is what sacrificed to the idol of corporate profits or something I mean everything's unclean in some way you know what's interesting is they can't we we were traveling and they came in and my you know daughter was playing with a barbie and they were like she's got a barbie it's like yeah she should play with barbies I'm just grateful the boys aren't playing with them I mean I'm just you know and bar is not a big deal you know but you know they started going well that's you know that's that's conforming to the image of the world and it's a barbie and that's thinking women are supposed to do you know it's like okay well then don't get a barbie you shouldn't you're adults you probably shouldn't be playing with barbies anyway but I'm getting you know that's my little girl she's playing with a barbie no big deal now here's what's bizarre we're in a hotel somewhere and I walk into the room and they're watching baywatch and they go it's our favorite tv show and I'm like barbie pamela anderson and but now I don't I don't watch baywatch I've never been a fan of baywatch you know what that's a whole nother discussion but the point is see it's like well that's wrong why is it wrong because I don't do it and this is right well how you know it's right because I do it each one of us falls in that trap your musical preferences well that's good music if you like southern gospel quartet that's the most godly form of music and you just kind of put up with our worship I like southern gospel quartet but all you know god is a creative god he gave us music to express ourselves to him I mean the music that kids listen to now I don't I feel like my dad man because I'm listening to I go he's just hollering and screaming what did he say you know and it's I still remember my dad saying the exact same thing but there's personal convictions now here's the thing while we're standing around arguing you know what's happening the enemy's laughing and people are dying and that's not okay and jesus is weeping while we argue about stuff that really doesn't matter this whole clean unclean thing you know what I here's what god said to peter acts 10 15 and a voice spoke to him again saying what god is cleansed you must not call common what god has called clean you don't call unclean each of us needs to search the scripture and talk to god and see what he has to say you've been listening to cross the bridge we'll return to david's study in romans in just a moment but first i would like to let you know about a new product that we're excited about here at cross the bridge each year david mcgee spends countless hours coming through the bible in preparation to teach god's word this is clearly seen every week as he proclaims the amazing truths found in the bible to his home church and through the radio ministry that's why this month we want you to be blessed by some of our favorite teachings from this year with the cross the bridge best of 2013 these three powerful teachings will help you to live victoriously in christ through a better understanding of who jesus really is the best of 2013 is our gift to you this month when you give to cross the bridge your gift will be used to reach countless people with the gospel while also encouraging other believers to stand firm in the faith to help us take god's word to the world please contact us at 877-458-5508 or visit us online at cross the bridge.com friend do you have a heart for the lost i invite you to send us the first names of your lost loved ones and we will have hundreds of people praying for them just go to cross the bridge.com and click on the prayer button and you'll enter their name and if you put your name and email address in there i'll send you free resources to equip you to pray and teach you how to reach your lost loved ones please don't wait this is so important so please again go to cross the bridge.com and click on the prayer button and send us the first names of lost loved ones we'll send you some free information and together we can partner to deliver the good news of jesus christ to the whole world the whole book for the whole world now let's return to david mcgee's verse by verse teaching in the book of romans look at verse three let 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 so again you know if somebody wants to eat kosher great if they don't want to eat kosher that's okay if you eat healthy you know what you think everybody else should eat healthy you know if you see somebody eating a big mac oh you sinner don't you know that's the temple of god you're putting that in if you don't eat healthy you look at people that eat healthy and you're like oh what is up with that man you know i drink this green stuff it's barley grass ground up you get used to it it's kind of but it's you know i drink it and you know i was working for the harvest crusades i was one of the guys came in he goes what in the world is that man and he started calling it billy bob swamp water but the why because he doesn't eat healthy he couldn't figure out why i drink something like that but see the moment we begin to judge and here's and you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna hit some trigger points most of us are single kosher now i'm cool whatever you know let's let's hit a couple um because he a few years ago mixed bathing was a big issue you know and i'm talking about sexist swimming together as well because somebody mixed bathing that's just wrong brother when um people swimming together they christians usually say men and women cannot swim together men need to swim in one location women need to swim in another location and and some people feel like they shouldn't go to the beach fine don't go to the beach but the moment you start saying well you should never be out the beach time out partner i mean we were down in south miami beach now i i told the people before they went down there i said yeah this this is a different kind of beach you need to be careful don't go out there alone and some of you probably shouldn't go at all but we were out there witnessing and handing out invitations of people to come to our cross the bridge event for somebody to go well you absolutely you're not supposed to go to the beach i'm sorry there's people out there people that need jesus so if you don't want to if you think men and women and women should swim separately if you're a man don't swim with women if you're a woman don't swim with men i'm that's okay just don't tell me i'm in sin if i do that here's smoking i don't smoke anymore anything and and so so but but so but i know people who smoke and i love them and they know god and they love god now if they come up to me and say i feel like i should quit smoking i would probably say that's probably a good idea you know it's probably hurting you and it's not a good thing and but unless they are asking me i'm probably not going to volunteer that information watching sports watching racing i don't do it i just it's the time thing for me but i'm not going to sit in here and say well everybody that watches a race or watches sports is bad or evil i mean i don't do it it'd be easy for watch a waste of time i don't know yeah there's things that you would look at in my life and think you're wasting your time you know i i watch movies some people think you should never watch a movie well then don't watch a movie well then don't watch a movie i happen to like watching movies some people that's a waste of time yeah i'll grow a garden they sell that stuff at the store maybe you think that's a waste of time but you know i'm kind of into it and i like doing it and there's so many times with Obama important thing is don't be judging each other and now we're going to talk next week about what is judgment and what is discernment and there is a difference and we need to be discerning but not condemning colossians chapter 2 verse 16 says so let no one judge you in food or in drink or regarding a festival or a new moon or savas which are a shadow of things to come but the substance is of christ so don't let somebody say well you need to eat vidic lividically or not eat lividically or whatever don't you know or and it says in drink so we're going to get more to that next week but i'll go ahead you know if somebody wants to debate or discuss whether they can drink a beer or a glass of wine with dinner yeah we can have that discussion um but you know what i found that most people that want to argue about that they want to drink more than just a beer they won't somehow to think that it's okay to go home and bang down a 12-pack and the bible is real clear on drunkenness that it's not good verse 4 says who are you to judge another servant to his own master he stands or falls indeed he will beat us he will be made to stand for god is able to make him stand in verse 5 one person is steams one day over above another and other is seems every day alike let each one be fully convinced in his own mind so we we see quickly what paul's trying to deal with and he's trying to address these questions and also the fact that they're fighting over these issues apparently they begin to discuss whether they should worship on the shabbat the jewish day from the the sundown on friday to sundown on saturday or they should be worshiping on sunday people are still discussing this and you know there was a group that says well you know supposed to be on uh saturday and you know for a while they were like really hardcore they would say you know if you worship on sunday you're going to hell you're really worshiping the antichrist and all this weirdness every day is supposed to be i know we call sunday the lord's day really isn't every day god's day but we love to argue what day do you worship that's just a weird discussion we start at church we start the midweek start on thursday i just prayed about it thought that'd be kind of cool kind of different you know had somebody call suspicious maybe a bit paranoid why do you have church on thursday church supposed to be on wednesday i thought to myself just so you would call i didn't i didn't say that i didn't say that i said i don't know we we prayed about it baba doesn't say anything about not having church on thursday wednesday so we one thing that's really cool because we have church on thursday we have people that come from other churches that come to church here on thursday and they tell us and tell me i come here to get fed the word of god and i go back to my church to serve now part of me thinks well you should be getting fed there but you know i'm glad you're getting fed here so you can go pour out there but wednesday thursday even the sunday augustine said something interesting he said in the essentials unity and non-essentials liberty and all things love what he meant by that is there's some things that are essential to christianity that jesus is the only way to heaven that's an essential to faith how we're forgiven ever since that's an essential of the faith non-essentials of the faith what kind of worship music we have what time service starts what time music service ends what we wear all those things are non-essential but in all things love oftentimes when we begin to tell each other how to do these things we begin to not walk in love the question of what paul is dealing with here paul is really dealing with division people saying you can't eat this you can't eat that we should worship this day we should worship that day incidentally worshiping god on sunday did not begin under constantine now there's some people that say that dan brown da vinci code other people that's just wrong tortulian who lived from 160 to 220 ad was already talking about worshiping on sunday and then also the there's a couple scriptures i'll probably get to them next week but talk in the bible about the first day of the week which was sunday that's when they got together and worship but they're wanting to argue they're wanting to sit around argue now this isn't just rome when i started digging on this praying through this we go from rome to the first and second cranthems to galatians to effusions to philippians to colossians those were churches that paul was writing letters to you know what i found every single church he was writing things about unity and not being divided every one of them that's how i know it's an issue here why because there's people here the moment somebody else showed up we were going to have differences of opinion about how certain things can go and but we have to love each other through that why because when it begins to break down we lose something that's very very special galatians paul writes this to the church of glacier for you brothers have been called to liberty only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh but through love serve one another for all the law is fulfilled in one word even unless you shall love your neighbor as yourself but if you bite and devour one another beware lest you be consumed by one another same passage in the living translation for you've been called in love to freedom not freedom to satisfy your sinful nature but freedom to serve one another in love for the whole law can be summed up in this one command love your neighbor as yourself but if instead of showing love among yourselves you're always biting and devouring one another watch out beware of destroying one another the world watches us do what we do as christians and it doesn't appeal to them we sit there and we argue it doesn't appeal to them at all first transience paul writes now i plead with you brethren by the name of our lord jesus christ that you all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind the same judgment well if you have a difference of opinion and i have a difference of opinion how do we get along we love each other more than our personal preferences and our opinions now some of you going well that's hard for me that's hard for everybody we all want things this way we all have our favorite dish at our favorite restaurant and you know man if there's a different waitress or a different chef or just oh it's not like it was i mean we're just we're that's the way we are that's the old life we gotta let go of that when we're willing to lower our personal preferences and love one another you know what happens god shows up big and things happen but if we stand around and we just bicker about stuff that doesn't matter we're just gonna spin our wheels god's usually not going to do something in that atmosphere he's almost never going to do something in that atmosphere acts chapter one says when the day of pentecost had fully come they were all with one accord in one place now what does that mean means they all had one honda car they were in a honda accord so now we know what to drive they were all shoving themselves into that baby no they were in one place of one mindset there was unity there and in that unity look at and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind and it filled the whole house where they were sitting god showed up big they were in unity psalm 133 says behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity the life lesson here we should walk in love and unity with one another we should walk in love and unity with one another gang i'm not going to agree with you about everything you're not going to agree with me about everything i'm okay with that you need to be okay with that some of you have traveled to church to church to church to church trying to get everything just the way you like it friend it's not going to happen and in the meantime you're going to get ripped off and you're going to miss out on a blessing you go to a church where you can agree on eighty percent of stuff the other twenty percent just love each other through we have our preferences that's okay you want to eat kosher eat kosher you don't want to eat kosher don't eat kosher you want to eat healthy great you don't eat healthy you know i'm all right with that i'm not going to condemn you i'll love you through it you love me through it god'll be honored and god'll do he'll show up big but gang unity cannot happen while we're clinging to our individual differences in our personal preferences we have to let them go i have to let them go you have to let them go because as people see that i'm telling you they are drawn to that instead of us sitting around arguing we can love one another you know if you're sitting here today and maybe you've seen christians do exactly what i'm talking about sit around and argue and you're like i'm not going to do that maybe it's turned you away from jesus on behalf of the church and whoever you were watching do that i'm sorry but focus on what's important jesus jesus loves you jesus died for you when i say that what i mean is jesus on the cross was being punished for your wrongdoing so that you could be forgiven and you have to deal with that that isn't essential how do you deal with that well you ask jesus to forgive you of your sins and he does and he wants to do it right now i'm not talking about some religious ceremony or some ritual i'm saying right now jesus wants to forgive you of every sin you've ever committed and if you'll come to him and tell him you're sorry he'll do that and then he'll give you the power to begin to live for him he'll do that friend do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven you can know right now i want to lead you in a short simple prayer simply telling god you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him now god wants you to pray this prayer so much that he died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask him to forgive you please pray this prayer with me out loud right now dear jesus i believe you died for me that i could be forgiven and i believe you were raised from the dead that i could have a new life and i've done wrong things i have sinned and i'm sorry please forgive me of all those things please give me the power to live for you all of my days in jesus name amen friend if you prayed that prayer according to the bible you've been forgiven you've been born again jesus said he would not turn anybody away who comes to him and he came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness those who were sick not the righteous the righteous so congratulations friend you just made the greatest decision that you will ever make god bless you if this was your first time praying that prayer with pastor david we would love to hear from you you can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our first steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with christ also if you contact us this month we will send you to cross the bridge best of 2013 for your gift of any amount if you've ever wondered how we can walk in the full power of god's spirit then this new product is just for you and we'll send it to you as a way of saying thanks for your donation you can give any time by calling us toll free at 877-458-5508 that's 877-458-5508 or go online to cross the bridge.com did you know one of the keys to spiritual growth is to daily be in the word of god i want to help you to do that you see i send out an email every day with a scripture passage a life lesson a directed prayer and some encouraging thoughts all you need to do is go to cross the bridge.com and sign up for our absolutely free devotional and also you'll receive prayer support you let us know if you have a prayer need and you'll get specially discounted offers god and his word promises that his word always produces fruit always so let's get started go to cross the bridge.com and sign up for our devotional you'll be glad you did thank you for listening and i pray you'll join us next time as we cross the bridge