Unity > Uniformity

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. In the application of a principle, we should show restraint in equating that with the Word of God. You see, unless you can give a chapter and verse, don't give your perspective or don't give your application of a biblical principle equal authority with God's Word. Spiritual maturity is not only developing strong convictions.

Spiritual maturity is learning to show restraint in the weight that you give those convictions. Welcome back to Summit Life with pastor, author, and apologist J.D. Greer.

I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. Okay, think about this for a minute. What would the church look like if it made unity in the gospel more important than disagreements over non-essential things?

I mean, let's face it. Most of the time we argue about the things we like or don't like about church, right? Well, today pastor J.D. teaches us about how to handle conflicts in the church over matters that are more about personal preferences than those essential to the gospel and salvation. When we learn how to prioritize healthy family fellowship over uniformity, then we will become the kind of church our communities need.

Pastor J.D. called this message, unity is greater than uniformity. Romans chapter 14.

If you'll open up your copy or turn on your copy of the Word of God as you're turning there, I'll just tell you this one is another doozy, okay? Chapter 14 and the first part of chapter 15 are one extended discussion about how to get along with people in the church who disagree with you on something that you feel passionate about. Paul is going to say that for many of these things, if not most of these things, unity in the church is more important than uniformity in our perspectives. Somebody in the early church said it this way, in essentials, in essentials we need unity.

In non-essentials we ought to give liberty, but in all things we ought to demonstrate charity. That statement always gets attributed to Saint Augustine. It is doubtful he actually said that, but who knows? Regardless, it is a concise summary of what the Apostle Paul is going to say here. Do you remember back when we went through chapter 12? Chapter 12 was the turning point in Romans where we went from talking about what God did in the gospel to how that ought to affect how we treat each other. Paul summarized the whole approach to the Christian life, Romans 12, 16, as saying, live in harmony with each other, because God has made peace with you, therefore you should live at peace with other followers of Jesus. Well, these chapters are going to explain how to do that even when you disagree with people in your own small group on things that you find important. Now, I'm going to try to be very specific about certain things in our church that our members here at the Summit Church disagree on.

I thought about teaching this whole passage just in very general terms, giving you some principles for how to get along and all that kind of stuff. But then I thought, no, that's not going to be any fun. Let's just be really specific. That'll be way more fun. Plus, I've been looking for a way to generate a lot more email that I have to answer, and this will be a great way to do that. So pay attention. I guarantee you that I will say at least one thing today that is going to make you bow up.

You're going to be like, oh, no, he didn't. If not, I feel like I will have failed as a preacher. So I'm coming. Everybody look at your neighbor right now and say, he's coming for you. He's coming for you this morning because he is. When you hear that thing that makes you bow up, when you hear it at that moment, at that moment and not before, you're going to be ready to hear and to understand what Paul teaches you about how to process that emotion. And if you send me an angry email this week, I'm just going to go and tell you right now, that's okay. It's fine. I got an award this week.

In fact, I snapped a picture of it. I was voted worst Christian of 2019. That is not a joke.

They actually, they were different contestants that they evaluated criteria. I won over everybody in the world. I'm the worst Christian in Christendom in 2019.

So your little, you know, pithy email is not going to, it's not going to bother me at all because I've already gotten that award. Okay. All right, chapter 14, verse one, except anyone who is weak in faith, but don't argue about disputed matters. Disputed matters. Paul is saying that there are things that we are going to disagree about in church that should not lead to quarreling or arguing or division.

Doesn't mean we never talk about them. It just means that they shouldn't lead to the kind of arguing that leads to separation. Now, Paul is not saying with that, that there is never anything in the church we should not divide over. Have you read the rest of the New Testament throughout Paul's letters?

He identifies things that should tragically make us separate from one another. In Galatians, for example, Paul says, Galatians 1.9, if anybody preaches any other gospel than what I am preaching to you, that is so important that you got to mark that person and you got to separate yourself from them. Do not allow that to go on in your church. In the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul says, if somebody is practicing open immorality, you've got to not just rebuke them.

You got to remove them from your fellowship. So yes, there are things in the Christian life that ought to cause separation and division, but not everything rises to that level. And so Paul introduces a category here called disputed matters.

There's a theologian named Michael Byrd who gives three levels of importance for issues in the church that for years I've found really, really helpful. He said, number one, there are matters that are essential for salvation, the gospel, who Christ is, who God is. They're essential for salvation.

That's category one. Category number two are matters that are important to the faith and the church. They're really important, but they're not essential for salvation. Think of something here like the inerrancy of the Bible.

That's something crucially important for the faith, but man, if somebody had some errors wrong in how they thought about different aspects, it's not like that's going to knock them out of salvation. Think gender, gender roles. Think about certain dimensions of morality and our understanding of marriage.

That would be in that category there. By the way, categories one and two are almost always spelled out chapter and verse in scripture. But then there is category number three, and that is matters of indifference, non-essentials, debatable things, preferences, disputed matters, opinions. The Greek word for opinion is Twitter. We are not to Twitter over inconsequential disputed matters. By the way, it's totally made up. Do not say that to somebody later.

Let's try to look smart. I just made that up. But that is what Romans 14 is about.

It is about the Twitterable matters. Not everything in Christianity is a first order issue, but here is the catch. And if you've been in church for any amount of time, you're going to know exactly what I'm saying here. The longer that you are in church, the more you start to like your opinions on everything and think that everybody else needs to live by your opinions.

In fact, in your mind, they're not even opinions anymore. They're just the way things are. And they are the way that mature Christians see the world.

But here's the deal. For many things in the Christian life, God has not spelled out what he wants to the letter. For many things in the Christian life, he gives us principles. And he expects us to use wisdom in applying that wisdom to new situations. And that's maturity.

Having the wisdom to know what the right thing to do is even when it's not spelled out in Scripture. I mean, as a parent, that's my goal for my kids, right? I don't want to have to tell my kids what to do in every situation for the rest of their lives.

What I want to do is I want to teach them principles so that they can figure out what to do on their own when I'm not around looking over their shoulder, telling them exactly what to do, right? Well, Scripture does the same thing with us. It wants to give us principles so that when we go into a new situation, we have the mindset to be able to figure out what God wants. That's called wisdom.

But here is the thing. We should always show restraint in equating our wisdom. In the application of a principle, we should show restraint in equating that with the Word of God. You see, unless you can give a chapter and verse, don't give your perspective or don't give your application of a biblical principle equal authority with God's Word. Spiritual maturity is not only developing strong convictions. Spiritual maturity is learning to show restraint in the weight that you give those convictions. Paul is going to introduce two contentious issues in the Roman church. Now, let me warn you, okay? These are not issues that we really struggle with anymore.

I don't know anybody that really has come to me with a question on either of these two things. So we're going to look at them, and they're not really going to apply to us, but we're going to learn from them principles about how to think through the contentious issues in our church. The first one is in verse two. One person, Paul says, believes that he may eat anything.

By the way, just for the record, that's me right there, okay? I love that verse. And I love the next verse. You vegetarians, pay attention to this verse. While one who is weak eats only vegetables, okay? Now, that verse is not really about the virtues of a carnivorous diet as much as I wish it were.

That's not what it's about, okay? The city of Romans, here's what's going on. The city of Rome was filled with temples, and almost everybody in Rome was an idol worshiper. And most of the meat that was sold to the market had been presented to an idol for its blessing, and some of the meat had actually been offered to the idol as an offering. You've probably seen this in other countries or seen it on TV where they'll take an offering and they'll actually put it at the temple.

The idol rarely will finish everything that you put there for it. So they would take that meat that had been offered to idol, and they would sell it at a discounted rate in the temple, all right? And so some of the Roman Christians, particularly the Jewish ones, felt like the fact that the meat had been offered to an idol, they felt like that permanently tainted it. And to accept the discount that you got from eating the meat that was offered to an idol was to participate in idol worship. Plus, a lot of the meat that they sold on the market was pork or had touch pork, and so Jews looked down on eating pork anyway. So to avoid all this, many Christians simply refused to buy meat in the market, and they ate only vegetables. And they were like, hey, isn't that what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and Daniel did in the book of Daniel? They refused to eat the king's meat and ate only vegetables, and didn't God commend them for that? So that's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna be like them. But there were other Christians of the Roman church who said, no, no, no, no, no, no. We know that idols are not really gods. There's only one God. And God's power would counteract any of the idol magic. First of all, idols are the statues, so what can they do to not put in any kind of curse on this meat?

And if there were, God would overcome that. Plus, Paul the apostle clearly says that Jesus' blood has cleansed us all things for us, so, right, pass the bacon. It's gross. Save the money and let's eat the bacon.

It's gonna be great. Just curious. See how well you know yourself. How many of you had been alive at that time you would have been on Team Veggie? You'd have been like, I've probably been an only vegetable eater. Anybody?

Oh, everybody here is just so spiritual, right? Okay. A lot of us would have been there. Based on emails I get on other subjects, this is exactly where we would have been. All right?

Some of you would have been on Team Meat Eater. That's issue number one. Issue number two. One person judges one day to be more important than another day. Somebody else judges every day to be the same.

All right? Here you got Jewish Christians in the Roman church who still thought that the Sabbath, which is our Saturday, was the day that you should worship on. I mean, that had been a huge deal in Israel for 1,500 years.

So why change it? Furthermore, they thought that even though they were Christians now, they should still observe Jewish holidays because God, after all, had established those holidays for Israel to remind them of various things throughout the year. They understood that these things weren't necessary for salvation. You didn't have to observe the holidays to be saved, but they were like, hey, I mean, observing them has got to be a good idea, right? Because God established these holidays. That's a halfway decent argument. Other Christians were like, no, no, no, these things are part of the old law, and the death of Jesus has completely released us from these things.

Well, you can observe them if you want, but there's nothing inherently special about them. How many of you think I would have been an observed holiday Christian? Like, that's just what I'm going to do. Anybody? Right?

Several of us would have been in that category. I want you to know, all right, Paul has an opinion on both of these issues about which one is right. Thanks for listening to Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. We'll get back to today's teaching from the Book of Romans in a minute, but first I wanted to tell you about the latest premium resource we are offering our Summit Life family right now. With your gift of $35 or more to this ministry, you'll receive the second part of a Bible study through the Book of Romans written by Pastor Tim Keller. Not only will this Bible study help you gain a better understanding of one of the deepest, richest parts of the Bible, but it's also a great reminder of Pastor Tim's years of faithful Gospel ministry as he takes us through the second half of the Book of Romans. Be inspired to embrace this Gospel message and all of its beauty, and maybe even study with a friend.

To get your copy call right now with your gift, you can reach us at 866-335-5220 or visit jdgreer.com. And as always, we want to thank you for your continued support of this ministry. Summit Life exists because of the faithful giving of God's people, so thank you for jumping on board. Now let's get back to today's teaching from Pastor JD right here on Summit Life.

Paul was definitely on team meat eater. In verse 14 he tells us that, verse 14, I know and I am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. No meat that's been offered to an idol, it's not unclean, the pork is not unclean. In Colossians 2 he says directly that after Christ there is nothing inherently special in any day of the week or in any holiday. And Paul calls those who did not understand this Gospel principle, he calls them weak in their understanding of the Gospel. He wants them to be strengthened in their faith by becoming better informed in the Gospel. So Paul is not saying, hey everybody's right here, okay, everybody's got equal opinions to each his own. Paul thinks the weak are wrong, and that's what makes this passage so helpful, because it shows you how you are to relate to people that you think are wrong on some issues that you're passionate about.

When you're genuinely convinced they're wrong. Again, we're not talking here about things directly addressed in Scripture or things essential for the faith. We're not talking about it somebody who's like, oh, I think there are multiple ways to God, and I don't think the Trinity is true, and I think there are errors in the Bible, and I'm okay living with my girlfriend, or I think looking at pornography is okay.

We're not talking about those issues. We're talking about wisdom in the gray areas where Scripture is not as clear. And Paul says in these areas, unity in the body of Christ is more important than uniformity of perspective. Now, you're sitting there saying, oh, pastor, this is easy. I would never let anything not directly addressed in Scripture divide me with somebody else.

Really? In the church I grew up in, there were some Christians who argued about what one should wear to church. Some said, hey, God deserves our best in worship.

Amen? And that should include what we wear. They're like, if you were going to meet with royalty, you would dress up. So shouldn't you dress up to stand before God?

That's a halfway decent argument, right? Other Christians are like, no, no, no. The Bible says that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.

So it doesn't matter what you wear. Or in the church I grew up in, I was taught that real Christians would never go dancing because dancing always leads to fornication. Of all the sins that were looked down on in my youth group, dancing was considered the worst. My youth pastor told me the reason we shouldn't make out with girls is that it might tempt us to go dancing later.

He just should never do that. The church I grew up in was totally teetotaler. We were taught, the Bible says, the wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging and whoever is deceived by it is not wise. I was taught, technically we are free in Christ to drink alcohol, but that doesn't mean that it's wise.

Technically you're free in Christ to disassemble a belt-fed machine gun and eat it piece by piece, but that doesn't mean it's a wise choice. We know that one in seven people who drink alcohol, become an alcoholic, develop a problem with it, right? I wouldn't keep a dog in my house that bit one out of every seven people that came in. So why would I have a drink in my house that would ruin the life of one out of every seven people who touches it, right? One of those seven people following my example might develop a problem with it, so the most loving thing to do is to avoid it altogether, right?

Right? That's what I was taught and a lot of Christians believe that in our church. Other Christians are like, well, but the Bible specifically says that God created wine for our enjoyment and Jesus drank it, so it can't be inherently sinful.

Just because something can be abused doesn't mean we avoid it. The more biblical approach is to live out before your neighbors and your kids a healthy, God glorifying relationship with alcohol. That's more biblical than to avoid it altogether, right?

And you got different perspectives on that. That was the world that I grew up in. Always wear your Sunday best to go to church and don't drink or dance or chew or go with girls that do. And then I met and fell in love with a sweet little Presbyterian girl and you know how they are, okay?

Free in Christ all over the place, right? She got me to loosen up a little on a few of these things. She even got me to start dancing. And then she asked me to quit and never do that again, okay?

And go back to the way I was after she watched me. You're like, okay, well pastor, those three things are not really that contentious anymore either, okay? I'll bring up a few more that you asked. Is it okay for Christians to read or watch the Harry Potter series? Some in this church would say, and I know you say this because I've gotten your emails, clearly Harry Potter's witchcraft. The story is literally about witches and wizards and some of the terms come straight out of the occult. So no, the Bible tells us to avoid any hint of evil and we should avoid any hint of Satanism. Others are like, yeah, but it's fantasy like Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia.

There's a good and a bad side. The kids even celebrate Christmas, so it's clearly not satanic. Plus, J.K. Rowling is a member of the Church of England.

I've even got a book in my library called The Gospel According to Harry Potter and I think it's fine to do it. Or how about can a Christian do yoga? Some say, well, that's a Buddhist practice and you can't separate the practice from the origins. I mean, yoga after all in its original formulations is about clearing your mind and finding oneness with the things around you, finding oneness with God in everything and that's not Christian.

And technically they're correct. But others are like, well, but I'm not going into all that when I go do yoga. Yoga is just good stretching for me and there's nothing anti-Christian about letting your mind rest and listening to gong sounds for a few minutes. All right, so we've got Christians with different ideas on yoga in this church.

Don't even get me started on yoga pants, okay? How about this one? Joby Martin says, get a homeschool mama and a public school mama together and ask them what is the best educational approach for your child and then just get some popcorn and sit back and prepare for a UFC bout. The homeschool mama be like, sure, you can send your kid to that place where they outlaw prayer like in the times of Nebuchadnezzar and teach your kid that he came from monkeys and where he might get stabbed in the face by a gang member, that's fine, but we love our son and we want him to develop a biblical worldview, so we homeschool. Statistically, they're more likely to walk with Jesus if you do that, so clearly homeschooling is the godly choice.

How could you choose anything else? And the public school mom is like, yeah, that's cool, but we just want our kids to have things like social skills. We think it's cool that little Timmy can churn his own butter and make his own clothes, but we want our kids to know things like math and we think our kids need to learn how to deal with the temptation of the world and not just run from it. After all, didn't Jesus promise he would protect us in the world? He didn't command us to vacate it, and if all the Christians flee the public school, where's that gonna leave society?

How can we be salt and light in the world if we vacate it? So keeping our kids in public school is an act of love for our neighbor. And some of you, listen, just bowed up as I went through one of those two explanations. You're like, well, that's dumb, right? That is so dumb, I can't believe. That's the point. You're passionate about those things, and people in Paul's day were just as passionate about meat being offered to idols and whether you should observe Jewish holidays. You're like, Pastor JD, what's your opinion on those things? I'm not telling you.

I will not tell you. I will tell you on the school question, we have done all three. We've done private school, we've done home school, we've done public school, and we've seen advantages in each of them. Veronica did say that she cannot home school. She told me she could not home school all four at once because the Bible does clearly say thou shalt not murder, and she said that would have probably led that direction, so I couldn't do that.

How about this one? Some believers say a man like Donald Trump with such severe ethical and moral compromises and who says such derogatory things about others should never get a Christian support. I don't care what good you think he's done, he has encouraged division and bigotry in America. Christians supporting Trump is a compromise to our witness, and that is worth more than any supposed political benefit, so hashtag NeverTrump. And others will say, well, I'm not a fan of all that he says and does, but I like him better than the alternatives, and all the current Democrat candidates support abortion on demand. They publicly flaunt Christian ideas of morality and marriage, and they promote restrictions on religious freedom, so even though I'm not a fan of his character or his morality, I think the better choice is to vote for him.

Just like God used the pagan King Cyrus in the Old Testament to help Israel, he can use Trump to do good things also. Chances are most of you have a strong opinion on one of those two positions, and you have a strong opinion on all of the above. So yeah, we might not argue that much anymore about eating meat offered to idols or whether to observe the Feast of Tabernacles, but there are hundreds of secondary issues that in this church we would feel contention over. So my point today is not to tell you the right answer on any of those, or even my opinion on them. The point is, what are Paul's instructions on how to handle those conflicts in the church?

Here they are. I'll give you a handful of principles. Number one, he says you've got to obey your conscience. You have to obey your conscience.

Let each one be fully convinced in his own mind. Whoever observes the day, they observe it for the honor of the Lord. Whoever eats, eats for the Lord, since he gives thanks to God.

Whoever does not eat, it is for the Lord that he does not eat it, and in doing so he gives thanks to God. In other words, whatever you do, you ought to be able to do it as an offering to your Heavenly Father. Can you listen to that? Can you participate in that? Can you go to that as an offering, as an act of worship to God?

And you need to be fully convinced that you can, because here's the thing, if you feel like something is wrong and you do it anyway, it is wrong to you, even if it's not wrong in itself. Is that confusing? Look at verse 23. Whoever doubts stands condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith. It's not done saying, God, I'm doing this as an offering to you. And everything that is not done from faith is sin. Does that make sense? Even if it's not wrong in itself, because you thought it might be wrong and you did it anyway, it was wrong to you.

Strong opinions have existed since the beginning of time. It's just all about how you handle these conflicts in the church. You're listening to Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Our featured resource right now is the second part of a two-part study through the Book of Romans written by Pastor Tim Keller. To get your copy, simply give us a call at 866-335-5220.

That's 866-335-5220. Or you can give online at jdgreer.com. While you're on the website, don't forget to subscribe for our weekly newsletter. Get ministry updates, information about new resources, and Pastor J.D. 's latest blog post delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign up when you go to jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch. Next time on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. continues in this message from Romans 14 and 15 to show us how, when it comes to debatable matters in the church, we can obey our conscience while still being open to the church and having it retrained. See you Friday for Summit Life with J.D. Greer.