MOVE | Week 5 | Bill Bush

And that's caused a lot of grief over the last couple years. Well, the the passage we're gonna look at today, Romans 14, is addressing kinda the same thing only when it comes to the church world.

You see, Paul had to address this issue that was happening in this Roman church that he also had to address it in like four of the other letters. This was a common problem in these New Testament churches was what do you do with what's called disputable matters?

A disputable matter is what do you do with the thing that there's no clear biblical directive whether something's right or wrong? And so then it comes down to a personal conviction. If there's not a clear principle, there's not that. What do you do about these things? And in their culture, had this

Gentile world colliding with this Jewish world as being Christians. They had some disagreements over stuff that was disputable. It wasn't like a clear direction. And there was two different sides to this, how they would try to process it. It was causing problems. Theirs was over three things.

It was diet, days, and drink, the three d's.

Meaning, they they had diet. Like, there was things that how would you eat? And one of the most common things in the Gentile world is you had a lot of these different gods and religions. And and at all these different temples, they would offer these sacrifices of animals. Well, what they would do with the extra meat is they would sell it in the marketplace. It just became like sell the steak out there so you can go buy the meat. Well, the more Jewish Christians, as they they formed, they had a problem with eating the meat that was sacrificed to an idol. They would act like they felt like we're gonna be tainted. Somehow the voodoo magic of what it was used for is gonna infect me kind of a thing.

And and and and and I I I think a common example for today would be like how in today's world as Christians, sometimes we argue over, do you let your kids do Halloween or not?

And and some people think like, well, if my kid dresses up like Captain America and goes and gets free candy, somehow he's gonna be tainted by all the evil origins of Halloween. And I go, is he are you? Or has this just become has it become its own thing in our culture?

It's just a night where we dress up and go get candy. And people argue, nope. Since it had evil origins, it's evil. Well, the Bible doesn't say. And so it becomes a disputable matter. So they were arguing about that. And and and and then they had the the days. Which day do you worship?

You know, do you worship on this day or that day? And and they someone has really strong opinions that it should be, Paul's like, doesn't really matter, but some people feel it should be this day. And like like many of you, you come on Sunday because you're in churches on Sunday, but the real day to worship is Saturday.

Just a thought.

But sorry. Just plugged that in there. And then drink, because when they would gather, a lot of people maybe drink too much, and so then they were arguing like you shouldn't touch alcohol at all versus the one that alcohol's okay and and and and all of that. It's all these disputable matters.

And and there's no clear direction in scripture on which way is right or wrong. Comes down to some personal convictions and that, and that was tearing the church apart. And you know what? The truth is this doesn't sound like an exciting topic.

When I saw that I had to come back and preach Romans 14, I was like, this sounds kinda boring. And then I thought about it more and I realized this is so essential

because we still have that problem today. And you know what? I talk you realize we have a rate of pastors quitting being pastors than new people becoming pastors?

And one of the main reasons is the burnout is because pastors and leaders are sick and tired of of basically dealing with churches that are splitting up over disputable matters.

People arguing over things that don't matter. That's like one of the biggest problems in churches today, and we still have those matters. We still argue about stuff. Some of them are, like I said, even alcohol could be one of the things. Even even some different things. I mean, there's music style.

There's how warm or cold we keep it in this room. Some people act like there's a theological imperative,

you know, and all that. You know, we argue. We have all these disputable matters. It's music. It's style. It's it's it's do you drink? Do you not? It's Will Smith or Chris Rock. Which one's right? Which one's wrong? I mean, we have all the disputable matters going on, and and and we gotta deal with it.

And so Paul was dealing with this. And in chapter 14, basically what we learn is this, disagreement it's a big idea for today. Disagreement is an opportunity for discipleship.

That when we have disputable matters, matters that are not clearly defined in scripture, we don't have to have uniformity, but we do need unity. And it's an opportunity for everyone to grow in their faith.

Instead of running from people who have a different opinion than me on these things, how do we maintain and become the body of Christ?

And in chapter 14 can be split into two parts. He kinda gives two answers. We're gonna look at the second part. The first 12 verses actually talks about we need to be accepting of one another. We're not to condemn one another when we but then what does that look like? How do we go about doing it? It's not just like, I'll tolerate you, but

It's more of like the second part says, and what we need to do is build each other up. Because what the whole passage is saying, second near the end of the first 12 verses, and it even continues it into the first part of the last few verses,

is it talks about this is really critical to understand when it comes to disputable matters. We have got to understand as the people of God that my actions actually have an impact on the people around me in the church. And as we dive into that, you're gonna have to ask yourself, how do you view the church?

Is this just an organization where you come to kinda like restaurant where you can come and go, hey, they have the things on the menu that I really crave.

And then I eat here. If I like the service, I give a little tip, and then I go home. Is that what you think of as church? Or do you understand the way it really is scripturally, what Romans is talking about, that we are a body. We are an organism, not an organization. And we were supposed to be united together. We're not supposed to do this alone, and we kinda are our brother's keeper.

We are accountable, and our actions, we are responsible and accountable to the way I act, either in my freedom or my convictions, will affect the people around me. Now if you don't think of church as that and you don't connect, you just show up and leave, this is gonna be confusing. Why do you care?

But if you really wanna be what God called us to be, we gotta understand that our actions affect, and there's three things that it talks about in scripture, even in this passage, of how our actions affect. And I wanna go through them. Here's how I call it. I call it, you can cause someone to stumble, fumble, or crumble

by the way you act, especially in disputable matters. Stumble is is is if you act in a certain way in something disputable, someone has conviction, you might lead them to trip up their faith because they don't understand. You might actually have them fumble. They can be really discouraged or almost dismayed.

Distressed is a good term. That when the individual man, the way I acted out in front of the people around me, I can cause a lot of distress, and that can stress someone out. And then the last one, it even says, in some instances, the way we live out our freedom or our conviction

can actually cause someone to just say, if that's what being a Christian is, I'm done. And the sad truth is, the way you're acting is not what it necessarily means to be a Christian. But you gave the impression that it was. And it says very clearly, we are accountable to God for how we led or misled somebody around us.

So this is important, especially because this is what we tend to fight about, the dumb things. We get distracted by the dumb things. So here's what I wanna do. First of all, just by clarity, a disputable matter once again is an issue that the bible is silent on or doesn't give a clear principle.

Now when it comes to clear principles and what the bible actually says, yeah, we're gonna be really clear. This is what we need to do. But all those secondary things are not primary.

So what I wanna do is I just wanna read verse 12 through the last passage and then point out like five point out a few things that it's really trying to say because it goes in and out in and out on two different sides to this. And I'm just gonna pull out the five things that it talks about. So here we go. Verse 12.

Yes, each of us will give a personal account to God. There you go. Whether you like it or not, however you view the church, if you are a Christian, we will give an account to God for how we acted around the rest of the people in our church.

Just thought you might wanna know that. That's the throw punch from God, not from me. So verse 13, let's stop condemning each other. That's what the first 12 verses were about. Decide instead to live in such a way that you will not cause another believer to stumble and fall.

I know and am convinced on the authority of the Lord Jesus that no food in and of itself is wrong to eat. So he's talking about the food thing. It's okay when we talk about how you live, you can still share your opinion. He's saying, hey, I understand from scripture that's just hamburger.

He knows that and he shares that. But he says, but if someone believes it's wrong, then for that person it is wrong. And if another believer is distressed by what you eat, you're not acting in love if you eat it. Don't let your eating ruin someone for whom Christ died.

Then you will not be criticized for doing something you believe is good. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of a life but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. If you serve Christ with this attitude,

you will please God, and others will approve of you too. So then let us aim for harmony in the church, and this is the heart of it, and try to build each other up. Don't tear apart the work that God work of God over what you eat.

Remember, all foods are acceptable, but it's wrong to eat something if it makes another person stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything itself if it might cause another believer to stumble. You may believe there's nothing wrong with what you're doing, but keep it between yourself and God.

Blessed are those who don't feel guilty for doing something that they have decided is right. But if you have doubts about whether or not you should eat something, you're sinning if you go ahead and do it. For you are not following your convictions. And if you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning.

So he laid out this clarity of of of what it means. And and verse 19 is right in the middle of this is what he says. This is what he's talking about. All around it, he's basically saying we need to not condemn one another being accepting. And how we do that is we have to choose to build each other up. And that's what verse 19. Live in unity,

not uniformity

when it comes to disputable matters. And really, we need to lean into building each other up. That's the goal. We did disagreement is an opportunity for discipleship. Not for the person that disagrees to say, I'm gonna teach you better. It's both sides. Everyone can grow to be more like Christ when we adopt the right attitude

for how we deal with disputable things. How we deal with secondary issues. And you know what? This is great for the church. It's also great for your home. Some of the battles just just a little side note. If you're fighting in your home, I guarantee you this, what you're fighting about is not what the fight's about.

Let's go think about that. You're fighting about all these little tertiary issues when really someone's hurt, someone's got someone it's like quit fighting about the thing you're fighting about and figure out what the fight's really about. There you go. There's your free sermon for the day within a sermon.

I didn't say that to any other services, so there's gotta be someone in this room that needed to hear that. There you go. You don't have to you're done. You've heard for the day. There you go. So what does this mean? Commit to building each other up is what we really need to do.

You see what he's saying is is I like in the first Thor movie when Odin's talking to Thor about the hammer. He goes it's a great it's a great tool for for a king. He goes the hammer can be an incredible tool for to battle and bring destruction, but a hammer is also a tool to build with.

And what you gotta decide is what are you supposed to battle and what are you supposed to build? And a lot times we as the church, we we get it backwards. We try to build our life out there and our career, our work and all that, but at church we decide to battle with everybody instead of build one another.

And so we have to make that decision, am I gonna build? Am I a part of what the church is supposed to be? Am I gonna be an active part of the body of Christ

and and and not just have my personal preference or my own freedom and build? And what he's describing here, he does it in Corinthians and Galatians. This was a common issue that he had to deal with. He described even in here in the first verses, the first few verses of the chapter, he talks about the strong and the weak.

He says there's two people in this scenario, the strong and the weak. And here's the problem, when you hear strong and weak, we always misunderstand what he means. You think the strong is the one that's like they're great morally, they got their faith together, and the weak is like the person that, you know, does not have good morals. No. What he's talking about, strong in your understanding of your freedom and the convictions of what scripture really says. Weak means you have a very sensitive conscious,

and so you you have a lot of things that you think you ought not do. And the reality is most of the people that are the weak, you think you're the strong one. You're the one with the more rules. You're the one that it's called the weak is really kind of a legalist.

You gotta rule about everything, whether there's scriptural support or not. You're the one that makes a rule about it. And you think you're the stronger Christian when in fact he's calling you the weaker one.

What do I mean by that? The strong means this. Do you feel free to do anything that's not specifically prohibited in the bible? You know that if it's not prohibited or told not to do and there's no principle there, you know there's a freedom to do what you wanna do in that scenario.

The weak on the other hand, when he's describing this, someone who's extra sensitive conscious, they feel guilty over things that the bible really doesn't prohibit. And so you you feel guilty by association a lot. And here's the problem, who really is the weak?

J Vernon McGee, this this former great pastor, preacher, theologian, when asked who's the weak, he said it's always the other guy.

Everyone, and most people who are, what he would classify the weak is you think you're the strong. And you think everyone that doesn't have the same rules as you is the weaker Christian. And he's like, nope, it's the other way around. And that's why he challenges the strong

to step up big time when it comes to disputable matters. He challenges the one that I know I have freedom in this case, but I'm not gonna flaunt it, is what he's trying to say. And so what does that mean? It's like basically the weak would be the person who doesn't understand grace. And really doesn't understand

the scripture as much as they think they do. You're making all these rules where you don't need to be rules. That's why he calls them the weak, because you're saying the way I live my faith is I have to have all these rules.

And then the problem is you have a tendency, they have a tendency to wanna take God given convictions and force them on others without scriptural support. You try to take your conviction, your application of truth.

I'm not talking about having we all have our own truth. There's the truth of God's word. But where the truth of God's word is silent on something, you might feel compelled by application for your own life. You know what? I think I shouldn't drink at all or I think I shouldn't and and you wanna take your application

and turn it into everyone's absolute.

And then you have the strong who feel free, and their problem is they don't have the love. The weak needs to learn grace and understanding. The strong who feels they have freedom needs to learn love because we'll see in a minute because the strong then wanna flaunt the freedom.

Which I think is really a problem in our American church because that's an American attribute too. And there's moments where we gotta go, hey, I love being American, but I'm a Christian American, not an American Christian. Which one goes first? And there are certain things that God asked us to do as a people here

that flies in the face of what we naturally wanna do. We wanna be like Texas, you know, come and take it, they're state flag. Know, you want it's like we're like, we're that way. And in a lot of cases that's okay, but when it comes to being the body of Christ, sometimes we have to really forfeit some of our liberty

for the sake of others, but we don't like it. In other words, I know Daniel talked about this in chapter 13, but man, you gotta decide. We follow Christ before the constitution.

That probably just made some people very uncomfortable in this room because it made me feel kinda icky too. It's not natural for me to say that. Where Christ calls us to go supersedes everything else. Everything else. And that's what we gotta watch out for, mixing our opinions and our politics

and these things from the outside, and we let that lead our theology instead of the other way around. And so, how does this work then?

How does this work? Because if the strong believer needs to grow in love and the weak believer needs to grow in grace,

do we do that? Well, saw five things in this passage that I'm just gonna rattle off here and say that this is how we build each other up. This is what we should do in these disputable matters. If you're in a small group, you run and say, wow, they don't agree with me on It's not like either they're wrong, I need to beat them up and convince them I'm right, or I'm gonna go find another small group or go to another church.

No. What are we supposed to do? The first thing is I need to choose to value everyone.

That's the first thing he's talking about. The first thing he's talking about is how it goes back to what I said in the beginning. How do you view being a part of a church? Because guess what? You don't go to a church, we are the church.

So when you judge Rock Point, you're actually judging ourselves. It's like, well, that church, know, you know, like, know, kinda like the same thing when we like to get mad at politics. Our our politicians are the worst. Well, who put them in power? We did.

We are the government here. Well, in this sense, we are the church. We like to get mad at the organization. The organization is us. You know, I've met the enemy. The enemy is us. And what we have to decide is when you come to a church, you're not just joining an organization, you're really committing to a people.

And we need to choose to value each other. It's that simple. Do I value people? That's why I say get into community, get into community. If you wanna come and just sit in here in a row and then leave, I don't think you understand what it means to be a Christian and be a part of a church.

I don't know what you're after, but it ain't being a church. Because if I really wanna have the attitude that he said at this right attitude to please Christ, it means I'm gonna value the people. And so first, do I value people?

The second thing, that was in verse 15. In verse sixteen and eighteen, if you're taking notes, wanna go back, he talks about how we need to focus on what's important. He says the kingdom of God is not what you eat or drink. It's not these independent It's this honoring Christ and trusting the Holy Spirit.

Meaning we gotta keep what's important important. The essential of Christianity is not external, it's internal, and it's focused on the eternal. It's not this external focus on the temporal. It's the internal change that's focused on the eternal in our life, and then that comes out in our external.

And if you try to control it the other way around, we're gonna fight a lot. We gotta focus on what's important. For example, I mean, we've talked about last week, I just I I don't want anyone in this church to hear what I'm not saying. Politics doesn't save us. Now don't get me wrong, I have a lot of strong opinions.

I really do. Me, strong opinions? Yes. I believe that we are called to be, you know, chapter 13 calls us to be honoring of authority and be good citizens. Well, like I said, The United States were set up that we are the authority technically. So we should be involved in politics. We should.

What I'm talking about is the attitude that many of us Christians get, like if we don't get this law passed, if we don't get this person in office, if we don't get you're acting like the whole cause of Christ is lost based on where politics goes. That's not true. That's never gonna win the battle for us.

Read a history book. Every time church actually had the claim to authority in the culture, it went poorly. Because one, the gospel didn't spread. And whenever like, I used to say this. Whenever you met church and politics, you know what you get? Politics.

And so what happens is when you make it about the external, the world only sees our care to, like, control the laws and make it our way, which does not help us to show them the love of Christ. And so all we care about is controlling. You see, we need to win back the culture. No. We need to win people.

You win people, the culture does change. You show people Jesus and his love, the culture changes. How do you think we lost culture in The United States? People stopped knowing Christ. The way back is not forcing through who's president and the laws in the land. It's getting people back to Jesus. That's the main thing.

And when we make it about political big I have political peace. I'm gonna vote with my my theology. I'm gonna vote towards what I think is right. I get it. But that's not the way to victory. And when you act so fearful, what I'm trying to say is some of y'all are guilty of your fearful

that if we lose the political battle, we've lost the war. And you are wrong.

And it's gonna lead you down a path. Let's get back to the main thing because here's a perfect example. The Bolshevik revolution. The Russian revolution in 1917,

it was driven by the people because the Greek the Russian Orthodox Church basically was the seat of power, right next to the czars they controlled. And people assumed that, you know what? They saw how the politics went was the church. And so when they rebelled, they didn't like the political structure.

So guess what they rejected? They rejected the church too because they were so closely tied to the political structure. And that's the danger. And that's the danger. And and and and so as as they were doing that and they're about but in the middle of this revolution, the Russian Orthodox Church pretty much almost split.

Completely fractured and split apart because they were having a battle. You know what they were battling? How long the tassels should be on the on the robes of the priests. In the middle of the Russian revolution, they were majoring in a minor

even though they had control of the of the politics of the day and the whole thing was crumbling around them. And now Russia is known as pretty much their anti god and anti everything. You know why they rejected the church? It's because the church had all the political power. They rejected the politics,

and to them, the politics was the church. Guys, read a history book. We do not want to control the politics. And I think the church has always done better when we're on the outside, to be honest. The hope, the hope out there that politics will never answer, never will.

Same thing when it comes to these disputable matters in the church. Let's keep the main thing the main thing. Focus on the main thing. And if we're gonna do that, the next point he's talking to those who I'd say are the strong ones. You feel absolute freedom in areas that scripture does not prohibit.

And what he says we should be doing, what he says he does is limit my liberty out of love. This is the one I think we as American Christians have the hardest thing to do. We don't like limiting our liberty. We're like, hey, I will fight you on that. You know, don't tread on me. You know, I'm gonna

fight you. But in the church we need to choose sometimes to limit our liberty. Limit to say, hey, I can practice my freedom without parading it. Because it can cause another to stumble. I agree that sometimes I need to not do something even though I'm free to do it because I know it's gonna hurt the person around me.

And I'm doing that for love. I'm doing that for love.

So when is it wrong to do something? Just quick. Quick. There's four times I think in scripture it's wrong for something to do. First one's the obvious. It's in first John three four and other scriptures, and I'm not gonna read it to you, is when it violates a clear standard in the That's the obvious one. When bible when the bible says this is sin,

don't do it. You know? Clear as day. The second one, which a lot of Christians this is one we get hung up on in in James four. It talks about when I know the good thing I should do and I don't do it. See, we a lot of times as Christians, we grow. We're gonna we're pretty good at not we're pretty good at not doing the don't list the to don't list.

But the to do list? We think of the to do list that God encourages. Here's what I want you to do as a Christian. We think to don't list is obviously sin. Don't do that. But the to do is optional.

James is very clear. Most of the battle, if you've been a Christian for a while, you've learned to not smoke or drink or chew or go with girls who do. You've got that down. You're good. But the problem is, do you honor God with your time, talent, treasure, and testimony? Do you actually live in community with others?

Do you know your spiritual gifts and serve in the church? Do you realize if you're not doing that and you call yourself a Christian, you are sinning? You're not just missing out. You're definitely missing out because it's what God wants for you, not just from you.

But the bible is clear. When you don't do the things he says to do, that's as bad as murder and adultery. You are sinning all the same. The to do list is not optional. It's a command. And that's where I think most of us and that's why I think we argue over the dumb stuff. That old phrase,

when you're busy rowing the boat, you're too busy to be rocking the boat. But since we think I don't need to row the boat, that's optional, we start arguing about dumb stuff. We need to be about the right thing.

The next thing in this passage, Romans, what he's talking about is, it's also wrong when you're not sure something's right, but you do it anyways. That's why the person he calls the weak believer,

you know, they have a conviction. And if they do it, even though there's not clear scripture, but if they feel I'm not sure, then don't do it. When in doubt, leave it out.

Because the act might not be sin, but your act of lack of faith going, well, think this might be wrong, but I'm gonna do it anyways. That attitude is what the sin is, That you're willing to do something anyways.

And then the last thing in first Corinthians, it talks about this too is, and right here is, if you cause a believer to stumble even if your action is okay in and of itself. Meaning, when I act in liberty and I flaunt my liberty and I confuse somebody, for example, drinking.

I'll say right now, if you're anti drinking, they drank in in the bible. And if you go up in a church that says, oh, was just grape juice, You were lied to.

If that was true, why did when Jesus go to a wedding, they talked about how he brought out the turned the water into wine when they ran out of wine, and they go, wow, why did you save the good stuff to the end? Normally, you bring the good stuff out in the beginning, then people get drunk, then they don't care what they're drinking, and you bring out all the trash later. So that implies if that was grape juice, they wouldn't know the diff. They wouldn't be, oh, hey. Hey. This is a different vintage of grape juice. No. They were drunk.

They drank. The bible does say don't let it control your life. Don't become an alcoholic. Don't get drunk on that. Don't let anything control you like that. And alcohol is a dangerous thing. True. Gotta be careful with it. But it does an outlaw.

So people in this church, I think drinking is okay. People go, I can't drink. But here's the thing. If you have your freedom to drink, that's why we say in small groups and anything official,

leave it out. Because you have no idea who's gonna show up. And what if it's a new Christian that they're struggling with drinking, they won't admit it, but their spouse knows it and tells them, you can't drink. I don't have a problem. And then they come to your group, and you're drinking. And they go, well, Phil, who leads our small group, I see him drink. Drinking's fine. They misunderstood.

You didn't technically do something that's sinful, but you misled that person. This passage says you just sinned. Well, I have the right to do it. Yeah, you do, until you trip someone up.

That was what made COVID so fun for me as a pastor. Ah, the fond memories. Masks, no masks. And when we didn't know what was going on, said we're gonna wear masks. And I had the freedom loving people. Hey, I feel this is not a problem and I have the right. True? I said but we gotta do it. I even used this passage.

Man, some of the emails I got, I'm probably preaching to choir, those people probably did not stay in the church, at least by their tone. How dare you? You're a coward. Faith is meaning not being afraid. Here's the problem. Just let you in on a little secret.

Those of you that hated the mask and thought it was stupid and we shouldn't be required to wear them, personally, I agreed with you. I still do. I agreed with you the entire time. Well then why did you say we should because of this passage? Because what Paul said?

Paul said for the weak one, the one that I think is they they think I have to do this or we're gonna kill the world. People that just knew they're immunocompromised.

They couldn't come to church. Keeping the main thing the main thing is we're here to worship Christ and point people to Jesus. I wanted to create it. My job was let's create an environment that everyone felt safe to come. If you wore a mask, you were inconvenienced to come. But you could still come and be inconvenienced.

If you really felt strongly that we needed the mask, you would feel safe if we did it that way. So we're gonna take the safe route, which is what Paul said to do. Because he asked the strong person, the person that feels the freedom, we're the ones that as Christians in the church gotta step up and do the hard thing.

So I was challenging us to grow up and some of y'all just threw up on me. And that's okay because I love you.

But I just want you know that's where we came from the decision from. And I think it's hard, hardest for those that are considered the strong. Yes. I agree. Just like Paul. He says that's hamburger.

The meat side of is hamburger, but you know what? I won't eat it. I'll become a vegetarian if I have to to reach people for Jesus. That was why we did it. Sometimes we're asked to limit our liberty out of love and to do those things.

You see, in one Corinthians it says everything's permissible, but not everything's beneficial. What he was saying is some things are not necessarily wrong, but they're not necessary. And if I want to practice my freedom without parading it, sometimes I have to check my freedom

for the body of Christ and the sake of the gospel, and that's what he's asking us to do. And I think the last two years would have been a lot easier on a lot of churches if a lot of Christians that had that strength would have leaned into the love instead of the other side. I'm just saying.

I'm just saying. Actually, Paul's just saying. And then the other side of it though, the fourth thing, don't force my opinion on others.

Don't force my opinion on others. That's the person who you have a rule for everything whether it's in scripture or not. And sometimes you go, but that is in scripture and you go, how? Well, this passage is this and in principle it means this, and if you look at this, you had to jump through 13 hoops to get to your rule.

The scripture wasn't written to be understood that way. See, I can follow my conscience without forcing my preferences. Just like I can practice my freedom without parading it. And for

those who are forcing your opinion on others that I want everyone to be in uniformed is just you gotta remember, don't take your application

and turn it into everyone's absolute.

Because when we have that variance opinion, sometimes discussing it, help everyone grows. Everyone grows. We build each other up. We have great conversations. In our church, when you look at our doctrinal statement, we say this. We got it from Saint Augustine. He used to say, in the essentials, unity.

In the essentials, this is the word of God, the trinity, Jesus Christ is Lord, only one day to be saved. What the principles of scripture clearly say, the commands of God that are clearly saying, those are the essentials we have to have unity on. Those we fight over. If you don't agree with those things, you probably shouldn't stay in this church.

But on non essentials liberty and in everything charity he used. He said that charity was the same word for love. So around here we say, in essentials unity, in non essentials liberty, and in everything we show love. That's what we need to be. That's how we're supposed to be the people of God.

Because the last verse basically says, you need to live by faith.

And when we make choices that aren't in faith, when we force things and we try to live by rules or we just flaunt our freedom, sometimes we're not stepping and living by faith that God's called us to live by, faith in him. He's the main thing. He's the important thing. What are we really trying to accomplish here? What are we really trying to do? We're trying to honor Christ and be like Jesus and point people to Jesus by loving him like Jesus by learning to be like Jesus.

And that's what we really need to be about. That's where the focus needs to be to keep the main thing the main thing.

So in the end, what am I saying? I was really touched by this and realized this idea of keeping focused and not being distracted by secondary issues or even good things. There's good things that sometimes we can focus on too much and and pull us away from what we're really supposed to be as the body of Christ, and I learned that in Africa.

When I was over there, we went to one of the daughter churches that just got started. We went up to see it. It's a little trip. It has about a 100 people now. He's led about half of them to the Lord, And we helped them. Rock Point helped them build their first building and get a little piece of land. Their building is like it's like a block wall. Just a square block thing with windows but no glass.

Just a tin roof. That's all it is. And and and we went to go to a service there. And these people, they they walk. They'll walk for miles. Nothing but dirt roads. And and it started it's the rainy season. So imagine a really bad monsoon, and that's what happened. It's just started gushing.

And the lightning was so close, I thought we were gonna get hit. And the the streets are now just puddled. And even the roads that are paved, you gotta watch out, man. There is there is potholes that you can lose an SUV in.

And as we started to go, I'm like, is anyone gonna be there? These people have to walk miles. They got kids. And it is just terrible. And I'm thinking, no one's gonna show up because, you know, I think about here. It's like we're here and it's like when we get you know, it's 68 degrees out. I need to bundle up by the fire.

And some of you are like, it's raining. I can't get there. The rain's too bad. And you drive a f three fifty, man. You could cross the Amazon River in that thing. We we have any excuse. We get there. There's 120 people. They said we would be there so extra people showed up just to honor us.

They trudged through that. You could see some of them. You could see all the way up their legs. It's all muddy and stuff. Because they walked, they sunk down that deep, and they got themselves there. And then you could just hear it. And and and as we got there, the power went out, and it was sunset.

So now it's, like, dark in the room. They had their two in they had a keyboard and a guitar. They couldn't use that. They had to just use their voices, the couple women up front leading. So now they don't even have their lights. They don't have their instruments.

I'm like, wow. This is so distracting to me. I was like, what's going on? And then as I was sitting there trying to not be distracted, I felt something land on the back of my neck. And it felt heavy, man. I thought a baboon had landed on me.

And right as I went to reach, Randy deals with me. He looks, he goes, don't move. And he goes, whack. And whatever he hit, I could hear contact.

It was big enough that I heard the contact with what he hit. And he hit it off, and I knew the way he freaked out. It was something I didn't wanna know about. So I said, don't tell me.

I go, don't tell me what it was. I just don't wanna know. And of course, he told me. He goes, there was a spider that landed on you that was as big as my hand.

And I go, I told you not to tell me. Now that's all I can think about. And the worst part is he knocked it off into the darkness. I go, where'd it go? He goes, I don't know. It's still out there. Probably getting his friends to come back.

I had every reason in the world. I was so distracted. I couldn't believe it's how could you worship in this moment where you had to get through through the rain? And the rain hitting this tin roof, it was so loud, so loud. And then you got no lights, no instruments, no no lights again, loud storm,

spiders the size of baboons landing from the roof. But

then I just looked around me and I saw this.

Like, video doesn't even capture how loud their voices were because that roof sound was so loud.

Through all of that, they kept the main thing the main thing. What would happen in our church? What would happen in your life, in your home? What would happen in this community? What would happen in the rest of the world if every one of us committed to the same thing?

His disagreement was an opportunity to disciple, to push us to be more like Christ and less like the world. Father God, I thank you, Lord. I thank you that you do love us. And my prayer is simple for myself mainly, for everyone in this room, anyone watching online. I simply just pray this, that help us in our hearts

to keep the main thing the main thing. Help us to value each other. Help us to look to build each other. Help us just be what you called us to be and have the attitude you've called us to have. And Lord, I pray that that would change us from the inside out, that would impact our lives, our family,

our church family, our community, and our world. I just ask this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on rockpoint.io for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.