Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. His intent was to make a school where Christ would be the center of everything, so he established daily chapel services. Today, that tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from The University Chapel platform.
Today, we're concluding a short series on why Christians need to have standards and convictions. Today's message will be preached by Dr. Dave Doran, and Dr. Steve Pettit will introduce him. Well, we are honored this morning to have Dr. Dave Doran preaching here in chapel. Dr. Doran is the pastor of the Inner City Baptist Church in Allen Park, Michigan. He's been there now as pastor for 32 years. He is the president of the Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. And as I looked at this week, as our theme was on standards and convictions, I really wanted Dave to be able to come, and I know he'll bless your heart as he speaks. So let's give him a warm welcome as he comes this morning. Let me invite you to take your Bibles, please. If you go to Romans chapter 14 this morning, Romans chapter 14, and while you're turning there, I was grateful to be invited to come down to chapel, and then I thought President Pettit was my friend. He told me it was going to be on standards and convictions, and then he told me I'm following Les Olula, so I've got my work cut out for me.
About two minutes after Les finished yesterday, I got a text from a different friend saying I've got a tough act to follow, so I'll try to keep you awake this morning. Romans chapter 14. Standards and convictions have been a point of debate for the entirety of church history. I know I've covered more of church history than you, but I can remember my first experience of this was actually when I was a junior hire in our Christian school, and that was the early 70s. You can tell from looking at me it was a long time ago, and the debate at that point was the first sort of wave of the unisex movement. That's what they called it back then, trying to sort of blur the distinctions between men and women, sort of unifying the clothing, hairstyles, all that stuff.
At that point, basically in American culture, a guy wore a watch maybe, a ring, possibly like a class ring if they were married, a wedding band, but that was about it on the jewelry side of it. There was another junior hire, Todd Brooks, who showed up at school with a gold bracelet on, and it was against the school policy, and so the teacher was confronting him about it, and Todd was saying, why? The teacher said, well, because that's how the world dresses. In his brilliant junior high assessment, he said, well, the world wears underwear. Are we not allowed to wear that too? Right?
I remember thinking as a junior hire, that's sort of profound. If you're going to go by just because lost people do something, it's therefore wrong, we would start to cut out a lot of stuff, right? I mean, we can't actually operate that way, and so it really, even as a young Christian, started the process of wrestling through, so where do you draw the line on worldliness?
Right? Where do you establish standards and convictions because we do know that God's people are supposed to be different than those who don't know the Lord, right? We all start at that baseline and then have to work out from that, and the reality is Christians have never come to uniform positions on all of those things. They have actually, in fact, disagreed with each other over the years and the centuries and actually the millennia because here in Romans 14, you have Paul addressing the problem of God's people having differing convictions and how they should respond to each other. The overarching theme from 14.1 all the way through into chapter 15 verse 13 is that we should allow room for differing convictions while accepting one another as God's people so that we might build each other up and have unified praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's what he starts with.
14.1 goes all the way through into 15, right? We can't cover all of that this morning, so what I want to do is sort of drop into a really important part of the argument that I think often people struggle with, and that is that when you have disagreements, there are actually three wrong kind of responses that this passage would pull out. One is for person A to look at the person who has the standard or conviction and think less of them because of it, to actually hold them in contempt or despise them.
The other would be for person B to look at person A who doesn't have the standard, so A doesn't, B does. A looks with contempt at the person who does, B looks at the person who doesn't and judges them and thinks they're somehow sinning against God because they don't. All right, those two responses are what Paul addresses. Look at verse three. I'm sorry, verse four. I'm sorry, verse three. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not. There's the first, contempt. And let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth, for God has received him. So A despises, B judges.
But there's a third kind of response that this text addresses, and that is that when, and this is probably the most, well, the other problems in our day, but I think one of the most common problems in our day is to go, well, person A says you can eat, person B says you can't eat, so you know what? It doesn't really matter. It's just a matter of indifference and opinion and who cares, right? That's the issue that I'd like to address because that's not, in fact, what this passage tells us. It doesn't say when two people disagree it doesn't matter.
It doesn't say you can just treat it as insignificant. In fact, what God says in his word is that you need to come to a conclusion for yourself. Follow along as we begin reading verse five of Romans chapter 14. One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike.
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord, and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord he doth regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks, and he that eateth not to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks.
For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, or for this purpose, Christ both died and rose and wrought and revived, and that he might be both Lord of the dead and the living. But why dost thou judge thy brother, and why dost thou set it not thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, for it is written, as I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give an account of himself to God. So here in this passage, we see Paul responding very differently than to just treat this as a matter of indifference, or, hey, you know, people don't agree, so don't sweat it.
Just live. Paul actually gives us an obligation or responsibility. You can see it very clearly at the end of verse five. Let every person be fully persuaded in his own mind, right? So rather than say, it doesn't matter, Paul says, you need to come to a state of being convinced yourself about what you ought to do. You should pursue being convinced or having some sense of a conviction about this so that you can establish the standard that you need to function because it's important for your walk with the Lord. Let me just draw three things about this obligation. The first is it's a personal matter.
Notice the language in verse five, in his own mind or in your own mind. So you're not fully convinced of something if you're merely adopting it as a part of a social structure. Now, you heard yesterday, and it's correct, when you're inside of a system and under authority, you may have to adopt standards that the authority sets for you because that's a part of how you live in this life.
I mean, we all do this, right? We all operate by standards that those in authority have put over us, but when it comes down to this level of issue where we're responsible to come to our own conclusion about what's right and wrong before God for us, it can't be an external thing. It has to actually be an internal thing. We have to be fully convinced in our own mind. We have to arrive at a conviction about this for ourself.
Notice the second thing I think we need to see in that this is a matter of judgment. Notice in verse five, two times the word esteem is used. Also, the word fully persuaded is used. Then in verse six, he says, he that regardeth the day regardeth unto the Lord.
And he repeats that again a number of times. All of those words have to do with a judgment that you make about something, right? So that means a conviction isn't primarily an issue of our feeling or sentiment.
Well, I just don't feel like that's right, or I don't feel like you should do that, or I just feel like I should do that, right? I know sometimes we use that casually, but it's really not a matter rooted in how we sort of feel about something. It's actually that we've taken a look at it and we've come to a conclusion about it. We've assessed it. We've judged it.
And the reason I use that word is because the word that's translated esteem in verse five is the same Greek word that's used in verses three and four translated judge, right? You actually put something to the test, examine it, according to a standard and draw a conclusion about it. So when I make choices in my life about what I consider to be appropriate or inappropriate, it isn't just to sort of go by the impulses of life or just sort of move along with whatever I feel like doing at any moment, but that I've actually taken a standard, God's word, and I've tried to assess whether the thing I'm concerned about matches that standard or not. I have to be fully persuaded in that kind of an assessment so that I can operate with conviction in that regard. That's why you have here a scenario where someone judges a day to not matter, or someone judges a day to matter, or someone judges that they can't eat and the other person judges that they can. That can be frustrating for us, and we'll talk about why that is in a moment, but the point is they're actually coming to a conclusion. They're coming to an assessment about things. They're not just sort of like live and let live as they go.
The third thing is it should be held confidently. He says fully persuaded in his own mind. Drop down to verse 14 and see what Paul says there. I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus.
So he was fully convinced. In verse 22, the word alloweth means to approve. It's not just like, yeah, I'll allow it. It's actually that you've approved something.
You've examined it and said, okay, that works. You've given it a positive assessment, verse 22. Verse 23 says you need to be hesitant if you can't give that positive assessment.
That is, you're described as being someone who's doubting because if you've got doubts about it, you can't be doing it in faith, and therefore it would actually be wrong to do. So it's not a matter of indifference with regard to your conscience. It might be sometimes we use that phrase.
We've got fancy words for it. It might be called a matter of indifference because believers disagree with each other, but it's actually not a matter of indifference for the individual believer. Let each be fully persuaded in his own mind. That's what we're called to.
So I think if you have the handout, there's a little text box that I'm going to just have to buzz through real fast, all right, because time is clipping here. Why do believers come to differing convictions? You know, we'd love it. I mean, it would be great in some ways, right, if when we were born again and the Spirit came to dwell in us, He automatically synchronized us all, right? You know, it was just the Spirit just went, all of our consciences all matched up to perfection.
And we would like that, I suppose, if everyone synced to us, right? But that's just not the way it works. We actually don't have that revealed to us in the Scriptures.
So there's at least four reasons. It could be more why we come to different convictions. One is that we don't all have an equal understanding of the Scriptures, all right? So we're not looking at things from the same standpoint, right? I mean, I almost 50 years ago, I'm in junior high, I didn't know the Bible as well as I do now. So when I assess something now, I have a larger understanding of the Scriptures, so that affects the way I look at it, right? And the Scriptures talk about that. People who haven't had their senses trained to discern between good and evil because they're not skillful in the use of the word of righteousness.
Now that's just the truth. I'm not saying anything about the person with the convictions better than the other person. That's not my point, right? Sometimes the person knows how to handle the Bible better might not have that conviction. I'm just saying we're not all at the same level, and therefore it's going to result in different conclusions, and we're going to have to live with that. That's what Paul's writing about. We don't all have the same experiences or backgrounds, so sometimes our consciences have been shaped differently. I mean, that's exactly a part of what's going on in Romans 14. You have the weak and the strong, and most identify the weak as those who have had their conscience shaped by the Mosaic law, which said there were certain holy days and there were kinds of food you couldn't eat. And Paul's calling them weak in faith because now Jesus had said all foods are clean in the Gospels, and Paul taught there are no holy days. So they were weak not because they had standards, they were weak because they didn't have freedom to do something that God actually had given them freedom to do.
They could have the pork chop. Jesus made all food clean, but their conscience was struggling with it because of their background. And Paul doesn't say, well, just smash your conscience.
He says, no, you better be careful. Don't sin against your conscience. And some of us come from backgrounds that told us things were wrong that actually weren't wrong. Your conscience is not infallible, but it is a standard, right? Some of you have been told some things are okay that are not okay. And that's why there's differences. And we need to recognize that whenever people are coming to Christ and being brought into an assembly, they're coming from very different backgrounds and the stance isn't to go out like a maniac on a mission to convert everybody to your position. It's to recognize the work of grace in them and allow some room as they wrestle through those issues too. Thirdly, not all have the same personality, so we're subject to differing weaknesses and temptations.
Here's one of the ironies to me. Chapter 14 is used often in ways that seem to contradict chapter 13 and verse 14, right? Make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts of it, right? So I come from a background with certain susceptibilities because of my background, my personality. I might be tempted toward things that you have no temptation toward, right? So I, by virtue of that, establish standards in my life to be a protection against the flesh.
Make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. That's not a sign of being weak spiritually. That's a sign of being wise spiritually, right? But you may not have any temptation in an area where I have temptation, so you look at my standard and go, what's up with you?
And I look at you and go, you know, I've never been tempted to do that, so I don't even think about a standard there, right? And that's why sometimes we have differences. It's just a reality of the work of God's sanctifying process in us, and we need to leave room for that and not all agree about the application of Scripture to particular life issues. You know, the Bible speaks timelessly, and you and I have the responsibility to apply the timeless truth in a particular time and place, and time and place shift and change, right?
I mean, it's almost probably like shocking to you at your age when I say something like, a guy wearing a gold bracelet or ID bracelet or something like that, right? Or I'm standing here preaching with a goatee, and when I was a student, I couldn't have one, right? And I can remember reading a tract when I was a kid trying to explain that the plucking out of Jesus beard was because it had been a busy week and he hadn't been able to shave because Christians don't have beards, right?
We look at that and go, that's crazy, right? But here's the deal, at the time that was, everybody in America thought that, believer or unbeliever, right? I mean, I remember sitting in a barber shop as a, probably like a seven year old kid, as an unbeliever with my unbelieving dad, talking to an unbelieving barber about how upset they were that the Beatles were coming into the United States, those long haired guys, right? This was three unbelievers because the culture had a standard, right? So a believer within that culture would be going, okay, how do I live in this time and place? But I don't think anybody's really thinking like a goatee is a sign of the counterculture movement at this point. So it's really not that significant of an application.
Do you see how the application changes? But sometimes people want to lock into the application as the absolute rather than the principle as the absolute. And if people lock in like that, it's going to be problems and people are going to differ in their applications. So Paul would say, we need to leave some room and accept them as God's people. So why is this so important? Well, the answer comes in verses seven and following. The first is this in verse seven, we don't live for ourselves, but Christ our Lord.
For none of us liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself. This applies across the board to every believer, none of us, right? So all of us have an obligation to live for Christ our Lord. Nobody's free from that.
It's not like a second tier kind of, you get serious about Jesus thing. All of us have an obligation to live for Jesus Christ. That's why we need to be fully convinced in our own mind. And it applies to every area of life. That's why he says lives or dies. I mean, he's basically saying from start to finish, your life is for the Lordship of Christ.
It's not for yourself. It's actually, you're supposed to live under Christ's Lordship. So the things that you do, you are supposed to do for him. Cause that's what he said in verse six, right? Regard the day for the Lord.
He doesn't regard the day for the Lord. He eats for the Lord, or he doesn't eat for the Lord. For none of us lives for ourselves, but for the Lord, right?
The reason you need to be fully persuaded is because you are the Lords and your conscience needs to be yielded to him. And the purpose of your life is for that. Look at verse nine, for to this purpose, Christ both died and rose again and revived that he might be the Lord, both of the dead and the living. That's why Jesus came and died and rose again, right?
I think one of the worst things that has happened is for people think that the mission of Christ was just to get us to heaven. God saves people to make them like his son, right? Would be transformed into his glory and live under his rule. And so the purpose in Christ's death and resurrection was so that he would rule over your life. That he would be your Lord, not just your life preserver, right? He didn't die just so you can get a ticket to get out of hell and get into heaven. He wants to rule your life in a way that brings you closer and closer to Christ's likeness because that's God's eternal plan for you.
So everything in your life you need to view that way. Can I do this for him? If I can't do this for him, then I can't do this because he bought me with the price of his blood. And ultimately that means I'm going to give an account to him. Look at the end of verse 10, for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. In verse 12, we will give an account of ourselves to God. It really doesn't matter what the people around you think because they're not going to be on the judgment seat. You're going to give an answer to Jesus who shed his blood for you. So don't treat matters of conscience as insignificant.
Treat them as issues that you want to wrestle through under the authority of God's word so that you can see Jesus one day and say, I wanted to live for you, Lord. I wanted to live for you. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much that we have your word. Help us to be governed and controlled by it as your spirit applies it to our lives so that Christ might be exalted in our lives. I pray for these university students and the university family that you might work in them, that which is pleasing in your sight. We ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen. You've been listening to the final sermon in a series about standards and convictions preached by Dr. Dave Doran, senior pastor at Inner City Baptist Church in Allen Park, Michigan. This sermon was preached in a chapel service at Bob Jones University. An essential part of the BJU experience, chapel is a time for the university community to gather together around God's word. Through faithful preaching and teaching, students are challenged and inspired to know, love, and serve God. Join us again next week for more sermons from the Bob Jones University Chapel platform.
