Romans chapter 14, and I'm going to be reading from verse 5 all the way down to verse 12. This is the second part of the sermon that we started last week about dealing with this very practical issue in the church about division. Romans chapter 14, verses 5 through 12.

And I'm reading out of my ESV Bible. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observed the day observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.

For none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

Why do you pass judgment on your brother or you? Why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Let's pray. Grace and loving Father, we thank you so much for this morning. We thank you for the cross. We thank you for the grace, Lord, that causes us to stand. Help us, Lord, to lift up our eyes, our thoughts, our mind, our will, all of it, Lord God, to be surrendered to you.

May your word have its effect this morning. Help us to hear the voice of Christ that we may follow him and no other. We thank you in Jesus' name we pray, amen. As you guys know, we're continuing the series in the book of Romans in chapter 14, one through four last week.

Paul is giving us very practical advice of how to apply love in the church. One of the biggest issues that we have in the church, and it's just not just in the modern era, but all throughout church history, is the division that comes into the church. What makes the church beautiful is the diversity.

Different background, different economic status, different culture, that God has placed us all together and he took away the barriers between the Jews and the Gentiles, between nationalities, cultures, economic status, and made us all one family. The things that cause division in the society, he took that barrier away and he put us together.

The glue that binds us together is this love, is the gospel message itself, that we are humbled. Whether you are Nicodemus, you are a high person in society, or whether you are a Samaritan woman who is afraid to even go out during the day because of the judgment and the stare from other people, that God equalized where we stand in God's kingdom.

So the beauty of the church is the diversity, but the very thing that makes the church what it is also can be a source of great problem. Because of this diversity, because of the differences, because of our paradigm and the way that we view things, that when the glue of Christ isn't at the center of what we are doing, easily we get divided.

Because the division already exists in us. Division is already existing in our very nature of who we are. The people that we like, we're extroverted, introverted, our hobbies. We like to sing fast songs, slow songs, we want the lights turned off or on, and we all have different preferences of how we want to live our lives, what we prefer.

And if we take the glue that brings us together and makes that a side issue, and we begin to highlight our opinions and our thoughts, independent of that, automatically there's division in the church. So it wouldn't be an understatement to say that one of the greatest challenges in living the Christian life is staying together, fighting to become one.

I remember in the early days of going out to China, the very first person that we brought the gospel to became a Christian, and she became our first contact in China. And I went during the winter time just to try to follow up with her, with another pastor friend of mine, and we went to China and we were trying to introduce her to a local Bible study.

And I remember going to that Bible study, and again this is probably what, 1999 or year 2000, and I took her to the Bible study, some of you guys may remember, her name was Lucy. And right off the bat, I could tell something was off in this Bible study, because the whole Bible study was about why King James is the only version that any Christian should read, and that was the whole thing that he spread out.

So I was hoping like, okay, you know, tolerate this and then we'll move on, because obviously I wasn't using the King James. But the whole Bible study was about why King James is the only version that you should study. So obviously I was disappointed, it was about an hour and a half of Bible study, and the room was filled with probably about 80% non-Christian, and maybe a couple Christians scattered throughout here and there, and this was a Western missionary from the South who came and was leading this Bible study.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the end conclusion of this Bible study was, don't trust the other missionaries. That was his teaching. And then there was a Calvary Chapel missionary that was down the street, there was a Southern Baptist missionary that initially I had some contact with, and he specifically named those people and said, "Don't go to their Bible study because they don't use King James, so they're not teaching you the right thing." And then they prayed and then we separated, right?

So as we were walking out, you know, obviously Lucy was confused, and I was trying to introduce her to this Bible study, and the first question that she asked me was, "Why are you Christians so divided?" And obviously, you know, I was trying to give her the right answers, you know, very young Christian, and in the end, there really wasn't any good answer, except that's not what God wants.

I wish I could tell you that that is unique to my experience in China, but you know as well as I do that that is not the case. If you've been a Christian for any period of time, you know how divided the church is. There are some things that we can clearly understand why we are divided, and then there are some things that if we, the more we explain it, the more confused we get.

We divided for that? This is not a challenge just to the new church. This was a challenge from the very beginning of the church, because initially, we talked about last week, you had a church filled with people who are former Jews, who lived, and the more faithful they were to obeying the dietary laws and the Sabbath and various New Moon festivals, the more faithful they were to that, they had a harder time transitioning into the new covenant, where the gospel basically said all that was fulfilled in Christ, that we no longer need to abide by these ceremonial laws.

And so the more faithful Jew they were, the harder time that they had. So it naturally caused divisions in the early church. Now we talked about last week that Paul clearly identifies with the stronger, meaning that he was the one who was trying to teach them, we need to move beyond that, but he was being very patient, because he understood why this division was taking place.

We already shared that it wasn't a division between a group of people who really loved the Lord and another group of people who were compromising. It wasn't a division between idolaters versus people who loved Christ. He made it very clear that both groups were loving God. Both groups were trying to honor God, and that's oftentimes the hardest thing to deal with in the church, when you have two groups who are doing their best to honor and to love God, and yet we are not on the same page, which is common, and it is unavoidable, and it happens in the church.

So Paul is giving very practical advice on how to deal with something that permeates every single church. It is not unique to our church, it is not unique to the first century church, it is not unique to church in China or church in the United States. Everywhere where Christians are gathered together, there is this issue of how do we come to become one?

How do we fight to become one? So in the text that we're looking at this morning, starting from verse 5 to 12, he gives us three principles, three things that I think will highlight and give us very practical advice on how we ought to approach this issue. Now let me say right off the bat, before we even jump in, Paul is not saying, he is not saying that you shouldn't have opinions.

Paul is not saying that you should never fight. He is not saying that we should just kind of sweep every difference under the rug and just kind of get along. That is not what he's saying. If you know anything about Paul, Paul knows how to draw lines. If you remember Galatians, he says if anybody preaches the gospel other than what I preach to you, let it be anathema.

He had no problem calling out Peter, the leader among the apostles. He had no problem calling out Barnabas, who actually stood up for him. So Paul is not saying that you shouldn't fight for certain things, that you shouldn't have opinions. But in dealing with the conflict that naturally arises in a church that is diverse in opinion, diverse in background, how do we deal with it?

What are some fundamental principles that are given to us how we ought to approach all of these things? We're going to deal with the three things that I believe will help us in these principles. Number one, we are called first and foremost to judge ourselves. We are first called to judge ourselves.

In verse five it says, "One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind." Now if you read that carefully, you should have asked the question, "Isn't this the reason why there was a division in the first place?" Because they all determined in their own mind what they thought was right, but they didn't agree.

So is Paul just reemphasizing what was causing the problem in the first place? Clearly that can't be what he's talking about, because that was the reason why there was a division in the first place. He is not calling that everybody just determine for yourself what is good and just practice that and leave each other alone.

That is not what he is saying. I think it will give us a little bit more clarity if we keep reading in verse six when he says, "The one who observes the day observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God.

While the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God." So what is he talking about in verse five when he says, "Be fully convinced in his own mind"? What he is saying in verse six is that determine for yourself why you are doing what you are doing.

What is the motive? There are two false applications that whenever we try to determine what is righteous and what is unrighteous, or what is sinful and not sinful, you have what we call legalism. And legalists tend to emphasize simply the external, the objective truth. This is what righteousness looks like in my life and this is what righteousness should look like in everybody's life.

So their emphasis is just simply on the objective truth. And then you have the other end of the spectrum where we could call them licentious or worldly, where their determination of what is right and wrong is completely relative. It is just internal, subjective. And so the way they come to the conclusion is, "Well, it doesn't bother me." Or if they say it is right, who are we to judge them?

We should never judge anybody if they seem sincere. So right and wrong is simply based upon their sincerity. Now either end will get us in trouble because the scripture clearly tells us that whether we are aware of the sin or not, there are things that God will determine sinful even if you had the best motive.

Paul says that of himself in Acts chapter 23 verse 1. As he is standing before the Sanhedrin, he describes his life as a Jew like this. Looking intently at the council, Paul said, "Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day." Paul described his life to be righteous in his own mind, in clear conscience.

Now the Jews when they heard this got angry because they disagreed with him. Because if you truly lived righteously, you wouldn't be proclaiming Christ. So they couldn't understand that. Because the Pharisees, this is exactly how they were living. They were trying their best to objectively, these are the things that a good Jew does, and if you did it, you are righteous.

Do you remember that encounter that Jesus has with the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4? Where they're going back and forth and Jesus reveals himself to be the Messiah and the Samaritan woman basically says, "You guys worship in that mountain or in this mountain." And she was basically thrown out of the smoke screen, identifying the difference between the Jews and the Samaritans.

And Jesus says to her in that context, "If you want to know the truth, the Jews have the truth. They have the truth. And if you want to simply determine righteousness by truth, you guys are wrong. The Samaritans are the ones who compromised and went astray. They have the truth.

They have the Old Testament. But what God is looking for is not simply truth, but spirit and truth." Meaning righteousness, and right and wrong, isn't simply determined by objective truth, but also subjective, meaning your motive matters. Why you do something is just as important as what you're doing. That's exactly what the problem with what the Pharisees were.

They complied to the objective truth better than anybody else. In fact, they added on top of that. They wanted to make sure that they kept the law so perfectly that God wouldn't be able to hold any grudge against them. And yet when Christ showed up, he pointed out their sin left and right.

Remember what he called them? Whitewashed tombs. You're doing all of these things objectively, but internally, it's nothing more than a tomb. So what Paul is highlighting here is first and foremost to examine ourselves. Examine to see our motive. Examine to see who we are, where we stand. Because you can come to church all your life and do the right thing, say the right things, give the right things, and be dead wrong in the presence of God.

You can be a missionary. You can be a preacher of the gospel. You can serve in Sunday school. You can be the biggest donor in the church and be dead wrong in the presence of God. He's saying first and foremost, if you want to determine what is right and wrong, first determine in your own mind.

In other words, examine yourself carefully. Because there is objective truth, but there is also subjective truth as your motive. In James chapter 4, verse 17, it says, "So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin." Because of the knowledge that he has.

First Corinthians 8, 9-13. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged if his conscience is weak to eat food offered to idols?

And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed. The brother for whom Christ died, thus sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak. You sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat lest I make my brother stumble.

The apostle Paul describes what is sinful in the context of a weak brother. He's not simply saying, he believes that if you embrace the new covenant that these things don't matter. Paul made it very clear where he stood. But he's not determining sin and righteousness simply objectively. He's determining in his own heart in that context the motive behind what he is doing makes it sinful.

And that's exactly what he is saying here first and foremost. Determine in your own heart. Determine in your own heart your motive or why you're doing what you're doing. Remember in Acts chapter 16 when apostle Paul first picks up Timothy to be his disciple? The very first thing that Paul does with Timothy, do you remember?

He circumcises him. And then yet when we get to Galatians chapter 2 verse 3, Paul boasts that he didn't circumcise Titus. So if you read the scriptures carefully, you may look at that on the surface and say, Paul contradicted himself. One, he circumcised and then the other he boasts that he didn't circumcise.

So did Paul change his mind? And there's this new theology. I mean, it's been going around for a while where Paul's theology changed in time. And they'll interpret this as like, well, he didn't know earlier on, but later on in his ministry he realized he was wrong and so he changed his mind.

Obviously, that is not a biblical right theology. Paul circumcised Timothy because every city he went, he was preaching the gospel in the synagogues. So as a young Jew who wasn't circumcised, he wouldn't have been able to get into the synagogue. But for the purpose of preaching the gospel, he had Timothy circumcised.

Titus was a Gentile. So to circumcise Titus at what he was doing with Titus, it would have confused the gospel. One he circumcises, the other one he doesn't circumcise, all for the same purpose of preaching the gospel. So we see that pattern in Paul's life. And that's why it says in Hebrews chapter 4, 12, the word of God judges the thoughts and intentions of what?

Of our heart. If we study the scriptures simply to acknowledge what is right and what is wrong, at the end of the day, all we become are Pharisees who are good at pointing out what other people are doing wrong. He says the goal of Bible study ultimately is to know God and that by knowing God, that God in his word would judge the thoughts and intentions of our heart.

As for our own sanctification. But when we approach the word of God as simply objective truth and we pile up all this theology that we're filled in our heads of knowledge, then we become experts in pointing out what other people are doing wrong. But the point of the Bible study is to judge the thoughts and intentions of our heart.

And that's exactly what Paul is calling us to in this text. First and foremost, as we are wrestling with this difference of opinion to focus our attention and judge the thoughts and intentions of our own heart first. Secondly, we are called to establish Christ as Lord in all things.

Are the reasons why we are wrestling and struggling ultimately about his glory? He says, do whatever you do, do it in the honor of the Lord. In verse 7 it says, "For none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself." If we live, we live to the Lord and if we die, we die to the Lord.

So then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. Let me stop right there before I even read verse 11. You notice how he doesn't simply say that he died and we ought to establish Christ.

He says, to this end Christ died and lived again. To this end. What does that mean? The purpose of his death and resurrection is to establish Christ as Lord. So much of our Christian life is frustrated because fundamentally we get that wrong. That we think that Christ delivered us from this bondage of sin so that now we can enjoy life.

Superficially, fundamentally, that is correct but it is incomplete. What was lost at the fall, the main core of human rebellion is to reject him as Lord. That's what Adam and Eve did when God clearly told them not to do this. He said, "No, we want to be like God.

We want to be where he is. We want to know what he knows." And so they rejected his commandment and decided to live by what they thought was right. And it was something simple as eating a fruit. It wasn't rape. It wasn't murder. It was a simple, deliberate, willful rebellion against God's Lordship in their life.

So if redemption is to restore what was lost, what was lost is Lordship of God. So Paul says here, the whole point of the Gospel, the whole point of our gathering, the whole point of Bible study, the whole point of evangelism, our fellowship, everything that we do is for the purpose, for this end, it says, he died.

To establish him as Lord. So our ultimate goal, our ultimate end is not your family. It's not so that you can have a safe place to raise your kids. That is not the goal. It is not a place where we can share our lives and comfort each other. These are all byproducts, great things to have, but the end goal of everything that God is doing to establish God as Lord.

Both of the dead and the living. Of the dead and the living. You know what that means? Sometimes God will end somebody's life for his glory. Sometimes we will live a long life for his glory. Sometimes you will live a healthy life for his glory. Sometimes you will be sick for his glory.

Sometimes you will have a great job and pay your bills for his glory. Sometimes you will struggle and have a difficult time for his glory. Because the end goal is not you. The end goal with our conflict, the end goal of why we need to be united is not you, it's not me, it's not Breon.

It's for his glory. It's for his Lordship. It is not about having money or not having money. You can eat and give glory to God and you cannot eat and give glory to God. I know plenty of people who have a lot of money who are righteous people. And I know people who are very poor in honoring and loving God.

I know people in the Presbyterian church that I look up to. I know people in the Charismatic group that I look up to. I don't agree with all their theology, but they give God the glory. And he says the end product is for that. In Mark chapter 2, 27-28, Jesus was constantly being accused of breaking the Sabbath.

But Jesus turns the table on them and he says, in verse 27, he says, "The Sabbath was made for man and not man for Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." In other words, he says the whole point of the Sabbath was given to man so that you would rest.

But there was nothing that burdened a Jew more than the Sabbath. And the irony of the conflict was the word Sabbath basically meant rest. There was probably nothing more that brought burden upon a Jew than the Sabbath because they created all of these laws that they needed to follow and they were examining everybody to see how many steps you took on Sunday.

What kind of food you ate? Did you milk the cow or did you not milk the cow? Did you turn on the light or did you not turn on the light? Did you touch the fire or not turn on the fire? I mean, they made the Sabbath into the hardest day of all the other days.

So Jesus turns the table around and said, first of all, Sabbath means rest. You're missing the whole point. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for Sabbath. But the ultimate end wasn't even that. He says further on, he says, "But the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath." What was the purpose of this rest?

It was for God. God created creation in six days. On the seventh day, he entered rest. And on the seventh day, he told man to glorify God. He was made in the image of God to reflect his glory. And when the Sabbath was broken, what does the scripture say?

All have sinned and fall short of what? His glory. That's what was broken on the Sabbath. So the point of the Sabbath is to bring glory back to God. And that's what he is saying. So ultimately, the reason why we need to work toward unity is for his glory.

Not because of the Beroean Community Church, not because of my family, not because of my ego, but for his glory. Is this what we seek? Philippians 2, 9-11, it says, "Therefore God has highly exalted and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, through the glory of God the Father." The text that I just read to you is a portion of the earliest hymn that we know of the church.

You know, kind of like some churches practice Apostles' Creed or we have the Lord's Prayer. They believe, the church fathers believe, the church historians believe that that was a hymn that the early church recited back toward one another. So it was kind of like their first Apostles' Creed that stated the most core doctrines that they wanted every church to know.

And I just read to you the end portion of it, which was exaltation of God. That every knee should bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. But the beginning of this hymn starts with Paul telling the church, "Do not consider yourself better than anybody else, consider others better than yourself." And then he says, "Have the mind of Christ, who emptied himself, became nothing, humbled himself, took on the form of man, even to the point of being hung on the cross." So the path of his glory was his humiliation.

To bring glory to God, he humbled himself. And so what Paul, in this passage and every other passage that he teaches us about love, is to bring the greatest glory to God, the path to do that is to humble yourself before man. So examine ourselves, bring God the glory, ultimately, and again, those are the two principles that he teaches.

Let me give you a practical illustration of this in my life. I know many of you guys know Francis Chan. Some of you guys may like him, some of you guys may not, I don't know. But I enjoy listening to Francis Chan. There was a period when I listened to him pretty regularly, because, not necessarily because of the exposition, but he's a passionate guy and I know that he practices what he preaches.

But I love his preaching, I love his passion, I love his examples, but one thing just really never sat well with me. If you watch his videos, he's always wearing a slipper when he preaches. He wears a slipper. So first time I watched it, I was like, "Oh, maybe there's a baptism going on today." And so that's why he wore his slippers.

And sure enough, every week I'm watching, he's wearing slippers. And then sometimes he has ripped jeans, and sometimes, he's wearing very casual clothes. So I never knew why he was doing that, it just didn't sit well with me. So I love his preaching, if he would just change his shoes, it would be so much better for me.

So I actually looked it up to see why does he wear slippers, of all things, I mean, maybe even tennis shoes I can tolerate, okay, but slippers? So I actually looked it up and there's a video of him explaining why he wears slippers on Sunday. So his explanation was that he wants his church to not be a Sunday Christian.

So he wants them to be consistent Monday through Sunday. He doesn't want people to kind of dress up for Sunday and pretend to be somebody that they're not. So because he wears slippers throughout the week, he wants to come up on the pulpit and to teach his congregation that I want you to love the Lord all week long, Monday through Sunday.

And that's why he dresses the way he does, because he wants every day to be consistent. I did not agree with that. But I understood his heart. I understood why he was in it, and I respected him for it. It still bothers me. One day I'm going to write a letter to him, "Please change your shoes." I know you don't know who I am, but it would help the kingdom if you just wore regular shoes.

That's just my opinion. I'm of the opinion exactly the opposite. I think Sunday worship, corporate worship, is set apart. That we ought to be consistent Monday through Saturday, but Sunday corporate worship is not like any other day. Corporate worship where the gathering of believers are together ought to be set apart and we should, there should be extra sacredness of the gathering of believers, of the community.

There are certain things that are considered more sacred, just like the Holy of Holies were more sacred than the outer court, and then the outer court outside of the wall, all of these have different levels of sacredness. This is what I believe. Francis Chan doesn't believe it. But I respect him, and I understand why he's doing what he is doing, so that helps me.

But that is not something that I need to fight for. I'm not going to stand here and say, "No slippers. You must wear a tie. You must do this. You must do that," because that's simply my opinion, and this is my preference. And so the Scripture says, "Ultimately, he's trying to establish Christ as Lord, and I'm trying to establish Christ as Lord in our church, and it just doesn't look the same." So again, Apostle Paul is saying, "Ultimately, make sure that he is glorified." Third and finally, we are called to remember that God is the ultimate judge.

God is the ultimate judge, not us. In Romans 4, 14, 10 through 12, "Why do you pass judgment on your brothers, or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. So then each of us will give an account of himself." What does it mean for Christians to be judged?

He says, "Don't judge because God's going to judgment." So what does that mean? Because in John 5, 24, it says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life." He clearly says, "Salvation means that we are not under judgment." And yet, here it says, "Don't judge because God will judge." Romans 8, 1, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." So are we misunderstanding here when he says, "There is no condemnation, there is no judgment," and yet he says, "Do not judge because God is going to ultimately judge." What does he mean by that?

I think the clear teaching is in 1 Corinthians 3, 12 through 15. You can look it up or you can look behind me. Before I even read this text, I spent probably about eight to nine months with two supposed missionaries from the local church. When I say local church, I'm talking about the Witness Lee group.

It's a cult group that gathers together in each local area and they call it the local church. Their whole premise of their church is based upon this text. And then obviously all their proof texts, but this text. We spent eight, nine months dissecting over the meaning of this text.

The reason why I'm sharing this with you, because if you are a UCI student, or if you're from UCI or ever been on UCI, they have 17 full-time missionaries just stationed at UCI. They'll never identify themselves, they'll just say, "We're just a Christian group," and they invite people to their Bible study.

Then eventually as they do Bible study, this stuff begins to come out. Now before I explain this text, the context of this text. Paul began 1 Corinthians because he's concerned over the division in the church. Some were judging that Peter had the truth. Some were judging that Paul did.

Some were judging and saying that maybe Apollos is the one that we ought to follow. And each one of them had their own strength. Apostle Paul was the one who was bringing the gospel literally to the world, to the Gentile world. So his fame was spreading like crazy. This guy was a guy who was persecuting and killing Christians, and all of a sudden now he's propagating the same gospel that he was trying to squash.

Clearly we know why they were going for Peter, because he was a leader among all the apostles. He was a leader among leaders, so clearly he ought to be the one in charge. He's the one that we ought to follow. Apollos is probably the most gifted. He knew his theology from the Old Testament, even before he met Christ.

He was teaching the right doctrine of what the Messiah looks like, and all he had to do was to be shown that that Messiah he was preaching actually showed up. So the reputation was that Apollos was the gifted one, and Paul was the passionate one. He had all this energy.

And then Peter was the leader among leaders. So there were clearly reasons why any one of these three men would have been venerated by the church. But Paul is addressing this issue, why the church is divided and all separated. This was causing all kinds of trouble in the church.

And so it is in that context, because they were saying, "You shouldn't follow him, we should follow him." Have that mind, that's the context that he's writing this. And he says, "Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one's work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it." Now stop right there.

When he says, "Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold," now what's the foundation he's talking about? He's talking about spreading the gospel, right? Who spread the gospel in Corinth? No, no, I just want you to think, I'm not actually expecting an answer. Paul did, right? Paul spent probably the second most time in this city preaching the gospel than the first place that he spent most time is in Ephesus, and the second is Corinth.

So Paul was the one who spread the gospel, right? So he is the one who laid the foundation, and then Apollos and Peter may have showed up later, and they were encouraging the church and feeding and teaching. He says, "Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one's work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it." What work is he talking about?

Work of Paul, Peter, and Apollos, right? Because it will be revealed by fire, the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. Which work is he talking about? Peter, Paul, and Apollos, because that's what they were divided over, right? Whose work should we venerate? Who should we follow?

Who's the one who should lead? He said in the end, what is he saying? God's going to judge that. If there's any judgment to be made, he said God's going to judge that, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. So what judgment is he referring to? He's not talking about judgment of condemnation, or judgment of punishment for your sins. He's talking about reward for the laboring for the gospel. He said if there's any judgment to be made, and any reward to be passed out, God will test their work, and God is the one who will reward them.

And if anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. In other words, if even everything that he has done is nullified, he will still be saved. He's not talking about condemnation. He's talking about reward. Reward. So what is Paul saying, that God will ultimately be the judge?

He's not saying to Christians that if you don't behave and you get it wrong, you're going to be condemned and go to purgatory to pay for your sins. That's not what he is saying. He's saying if there's any judgment to be made, God is the only one who will really know his motive.

God is the one who's going to determine if that was ultimately done for God's glory. And God is going to be the one who's going to determine by fire, testing of their work, whether it's foundation laying, whether it is building or feeding, whatever it is, leave that to God.

That's basically what he is saying. The conclusion of everything that Paul is saying, Paul himself actually applies what he is saying here in Romans chapter 14, the text that we read, and we see that clearly in 1 Corinthians 4, 3 to 6. And I'm going to conclude with this.

1 Corinthians 4, 3 to 6, Paul actually practices what he tells the Roman church to do. But with me, it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted.

So let me stop right there. Paul says he lives with a clear conscience that everything that he does, as far as he knows, he's aware of, he's doing the right thing. But that does not acquit him. In other words, he could just be not aware of it. Exactly what he says, examine yourself first.

Because the Lord is the one who will judge me. Do not pronounce judgment before time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purpose of the heart. Your heart motive of why. God is going to come and he was going to discern if what we are doing is ultimately really for God or if it is not.

Then each one will receive his commendation, not condemnation, but commendation from God. He's not talking about judgment, but reward. I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit. So take a step back. So again, the larger context of everything he's talking about is because they were judging.

Should we follow Paul, Apollos or Peter? And so he's applying all of these things for your benefit that you may learn by us. And here's the key. Not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. To not to go beyond what is written.

The only authority that I have in this church is the authority behind the word of God. I can tell you I live longer. I can tell you that I've served this and I've done this and I've done that. But you can probably cite 10 other people that are older than I am, has experienced more than I have and know more of the Bible than I do.

So by that, my opinion is nullified. The only authority that I have up on this pulpit is, is it biblical? Am I reciting what the Bible says? And that's why he says, do not go beyond what is written. Anything that goes beyond what is written, he may be puffed up in favor of one against another.

Root of the problem is going beyond what is written. The end conclusion of all of this. Now I could sit here, you know, this is probably one of those texts that if I was preaching topically, I would probably never preach. Right? Because I know what sermons are better received.

You know, I can talk about the deep, deep love of Christ, right? Which is what Romans, a lot of Romans is. And we did talk a lot about that. We can talk about the unending grace of Christ, how he does not delight in the punishment of the wicked. You know, what heaven is going to look like.

I can fill the preaching calendar until the day I die with things that, that, that will get a good response. This is not one of those texts. You know, like how to determine whether you should eat or not eat, which is Sabbath, Saturday or Sunday. But this is where the rubber meets the road.

We can talk about the love of Christ and how we ought to be united, but when we actually begin to practice these things, we have all kinds of issues. And the struggle that we have in practicing this love is that it looks good in theory, but very difficult to practice.

And that's why I think the Bible is so practical. Because Paul was dealing with the same problem in the early church that they did in every other part of church history. And the wisdom behind everything, the end conclusion of all of this in the end, is that what keeps us together is the love of Christ.

To love as Christ loved. And as simple and as fundamental to our Christian faith as that is, it is very difficult to practice because it goes against our nature to rebel. It goes against our nature to live. It goes against our nature to be somebody, to be recognized, to be better than our neighbor, to succeed, to get an A, to move ahead, to get promoted, to move to a better house, to better our neighborhood.

It flies against, the love of Christ flies against our rebellious nature to establish Christ as Lord and not me. So we can talk about the love of Christ in a flowery way where everybody is encouraged, but the day-to-day grind of practicing this requires a commitment to the church. It is not strange that we have different opinions.

It is not strange that there is conflict. In fact, what is strange is that the church is on divide already. Considering how diverse we are, considering how different opinions that we have, what binds us together is the love of Christ. And what causes us to persevere is the commitment to practice this love, no matter how difficult, no matter how hard, no matter how humbling, that our goal in this church is to exalt Christ.

At the communion table this morning, we come together and nothing exemplifies that more than the communion table. Because the communion table brings us all low. Whatever pride that we had before we came in and whatever lowliness and guilt that we felt before we came in, he brings us all to the communion table by his grace.

He told us to do this in remembrance of him. Not of you, not of me, not of some good example, but of him. That Christ was crucified because of our sins. And so he brings us to this table to unite us, to put aside the differences and to fix our eyes upon Christ, the author and the perfect of our faith.

So this morning, as we open up the communion table, we're going to ask you guys again to come from the outside and go down the middle so that we don't create traffic in here. The communion table is for the Christians. So it's for us to celebrate our union with Christ.

And so if you've never experienced that, you've never confessed your sins to the Lord and established him as Lord in your life, and we ask that you would just remain seated. And if you have further questions about the meaning behind all of this, we're more than willing to sit and talk with you.

Just let us know. And for those of you guys who are coming, come meaningfully, not with any righteousness. Again, you may have come this morning and said, "You know what? I don't know if I should participate in communion because I just was not good. I struggled with purity this week.

I struggled with anger. I struggled with coveting." That's what the communion table is ultimately for, is to remind us that the solution is not willpower, but Christ's love. And so we want to encourage you to take some time to contemplate and think and to repent. And to come to celebrate together as we open up the communion table.

So let me read 1 Corinthians 11, 25, and a few verses down. And then Pastor Nate's going to come and he's going to help me with the communion table this morning. "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread.

When he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way, also he took the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.'" So let me pray for us and then our worship team is going to come and lead us.

And then as you are ready, we ask that you would come one by one. Gracious and loving Father, you know the depth of our sins. Things that we are aware of and things that we are blind to. Lord, we desire to honor you. Search us and know us and see if there's any hurtful ways in us.

I pray for my brothers, Lord God, who are struggling in their conscience, Lord. Because they truly desire to honor you and yet they feel like they're failing over and over. Strengthen them today in this communion table. Remind them, Lord God, there is hope in the name of Jesus. Remind them, Lord God, that we have the Holy Spirit groaning on our behalf, Lord God, interceding for our weaknesses.

I pray for those who are living with clear conscience. Laboring day to day, Lord God, to honor God. But even in them, Father, remind us, remind them that if it wasn't for your grace, we wouldn't be here. If it wasn't for your mercy, Lord God, that we would not be able to worship you.

So I pray that as we participate in this communion table, make us one. Help us to fight to be one, Lord God, to honor and glorify you. May this communion table sanctify your church. Amen.