Let Jesus Be the Judge

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

If you would, you can just start this morning by opening your Bibles to Romans chapter 14. We're gonna start at the very beginning. We're gonna move through most of Romans 14 today. Okay, stop me if you've heard this before. You've got two people that are having a discussion about politics. You've got two people that are having a discussion about the proper way to educate children. You've got two people having a conversation about the best 10 movies of all time.

You've got two people having a conversation about parenting, the best way to parent. One of those people takes deep offense at what the other person said, but they don't say anything. They get offended, they stay quiet, and they hold a grudge, and they may or may not secretly plot the destruction of the person that has offended them. Stop me if you've heard it. That's age old, right? That happens every day. That happens every day in my marriage. Okay, that happens every day, okay? Where you're having a conversation about something that is controversial, somebody takes offense, they don't say anything, they hold a grudge, they pass judgment. This conversation has another name. It's called Thanksgiving Dinner, okay? So be ready, that's coming, okay? It also has another name. It's Romans 14, one through three. Romans 14, one through three. Let's just read it.

It says, ask for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. Okay, that phrase should ring a bell. Not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything while the weak person only eats vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats for God has welcomed him, okay? This is Thanksgiving Dinner. This is a conversation that we have on the weekly, right? And sometimes, when sometimes we take offense, sometimes people yell, but sometimes they don't. Sometimes they hold a grudge, and they pass judgment.

The Roman church here was arguing over food. They were believing the worst of the person with whom they were having a conversation, and the result was them despising each other, passing judgment on each other. And it seems small here, but the way that we interact, the way that we speak, the words that we use, it can ruin people's lives. It can ruin churches.

James 3 says that the tongue can set the whole course of life on fire. And I realize that's a metaphor, but that's a pretty strong metaphor. The Bible doesn't really subscribe to sticks and stones, break my bones, but words may never hurt me. This is the sermon series that we're in. This is a right to life. We are looking at the switch between, something happens in Romans 1-11, there's a switch in chapter 12, where in 12-16, there's kind of this header, and when we talked about it a couple weeks ago, this header of Romans 12-1 and 2, and it says, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. And so then from there, under that banner of being a living sacrifice, we've seen different contexts. So the rest of Romans 12 was the context of church life. It talks about using your gifts to build the body, to encourage each other. Romans 13, last week, Dan Hey preached about

the context was citizenship, how we're gonna handle authority, governmental authority. What do we do with that? And today's context has to do with convictions. Romans 14 is about passing judgment. I know that because it says it five times in the chapter. It shows up a couple more times. We just read it in verse three, but it also shows up in verse four. How can you pass judgment? Verse 10, why do you pass judgment? Verse 13, let us not pass judgment. Verse 23, a little bit later, it talks about passing judgment on yourself. Okay, so, and this phrase, pass judgment, right? So instead of passing judgment, some of your translations, so we use the English Standard Version, I preach from the English Standard Version. It's not because it's superior, it's because I like it more.

Other translations use that same phrase, passing judgment. In the NIV, it says just to judge, right? So don't judge verse three, instead of don't pass judgment, it would say just don't judge. And then in the New Living translation, it says don't condemn, right? Don't condemn. What this idea of passing judgment is, it's the idea of judging and condemning. It's assessing something, rendering judgment, and then passing that judgment, like condemning. So we would phrase it like being someone's judge and jury. Right? So in other words, we're not just assessing. It's not saying don't make a judgment about a situation. That's not what it's saying. It's saying pass judgment, which is kind of why I like this phrasing.

It combines those ideas. And so when it comes to the problem of passing judgment, there is a seemingly obvious remedy to this, right? It's super obvious. In fact, if I would go out and ask man on the street in Burleson, hey, how should I stop judging people? The response would simply be, I mean, 99% of the time would be, well, Jesus said judge not. Just don't judge. Don't judge people, Drew. It's really easy. Just leave people alone. Don't judge them. Don't try to control them. Resist the temptation to guide or grade other people's behavior. That's it. It's simple, right? Just don't judge. Okay. I mean, we can go home. That's it, right? That's the whole sermon. Don't judge. You wish, okay.

If we're actually going to avoid passing judgment, we really need to know, we really need to know that don't judge people is really, it's not enough. Don't judge people doesn't work. And really, we need to know why and we need to have biblical replacements for that phrase. Don't judge people is an end around. I just want to tell you, let me just tell you, two quick reasons, two quick reasons why don't judge is not enough. The first reason is that don't judge is an oversimplification, okay? Don't judge people is an oversimplification. And it doesn't always apply, okay? In other words, there are things we should pass judgment on, okay? Period. And you and I would all agree that we should condemn the actions of Hitler and Stalin. Okay, yeah, that's good. Concentration camps bad, okay? Well, you're passing judgment on it. You're assessing it, you're condemning it, you're saying it's bad.

That's fine. There's nothing wrong with doing that. In fact, if you think there is, just go ahead and try to make an apology for Hitler's actions and see how far that gets you. We all agree that we should judge that and condemn that. We all agree that we should punish the action of murder, stealing, abuse, scamming the elderly. We all understand these are bad things that require us to judge. We might argue about the degree of punishment, but we're not saying these are good things. We're not saying, hey, hey, don't judge. Don't judge that thief that just scammed the 98-year-old woman, don't judge that person. No, we want it, we should judge that person. That person's doing something wrong. Okay, so it's an oversimplification. And look, let me just say this. Even with Jesus, whenever he said, hey, don't judge, judge is not the whole quote. If you read in Matthew 7, verse 1 and following,

it says, judge not lest you be judged by the same standard, which is the actual problem. Jesus is saying you hold people up to a really high standard, you don't hold yourself up to that same standard. In fact, in the very next verse, he says, if you want to get the speck out of your brother's eye, then get the log out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly enough to get the speck out of your brother's eye. Okay, so when Jesus is saying, don't judge, that's not the quote, that's a half quote, doesn't mean anything. What Jesus is saying is, don't build up super high standards for other people and then don't meet them because you're gonna have to follow those same standards, and you can't. Okay, this is what Jesus is talking about. So we can't simply say, hey, don't judge people and expect that to somehow cover it. Secondly, don't judge ignores the root causes.

So when we tell children, don't touch the stove, okay, that works, that's good, but eventually we need to say why, okay? We need to teach them why. When we ignore root causes, if we just say, hey, don't judge people, and we don't really talk about why people judge other people, then really what we're just waiting for is that to just bubble under the surface and then just come out in really violent and strange ways. We actually have to deal with the root causes of judgment. And so we're left with this question of what's the Bible actually teaching us about judgment? If we should not leave it at don't judge people, what should we leave it at? This is what Romans 14 is about. This is why we have Romans 14.

So you're gonna have to forgive me. I'm gonna jump around in Romans 14 a lot. And so at the end, I hope you can kind of have a sense of the whole, but it just isn't going to be as helpful if we just read it straight through. So we're gonna kind of bounce. Apologies up ahead. Let's skip to verse four and verse 10. So in verse four, Romans 14 chapter four, it says, who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands and falls. And he will be upheld for the Lord is able to make him stand, okay? Verse 10 is very similar. It says, why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For he will stand, excuse me, for we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. Okay, so what you see in passing judgment, what Romans 14 does is it begins to pull back the lens a little bit and say, hey, look, what's going on?

Because it doesn't just say don't judge people. It actually says, let Jesus be the judge. Let Jesus be the judge. Jesus is the one who weighs hearts and motives. In verse 10, it talks about how Jesus is our common brother. Why do you despise your brother? We're all standing before the judge seat of God. Jesus is our common brother and our advocate. And the question there, why do you pass judgment on your brother? It's a question of logic. It doesn't make sense. Why would you pass judgment on your brother whenever Jesus is over here and he's perfectly capable of doing such things? Why do you do it? It doesn't make any sense. Verse four, verse four, it says, who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? So in verse four, it says that Jesus is our common master. We're all servants, it's a common master. The question there is of authority. Who are you to judge?

Answer, nobody. You don't get to judge. You aren't the master, you're the servant. I'm the servant. We all have Jesus as our master. It's a question of authority. And so the encouragement here in scripture is not don't judge people, it's let Jesus be the judge. And when you let Jesus be the judge and you don't have to be the judge, you will find that is an incredibly freeing process, right? Where if you're not the judge, you don't need to hold the line. You don't need to assign blame. You don't need to make sure that people see that they're wrong and you're right. And then look, that's a lot of pressure. If you have to correct everybody's views around you all the time, that makes you insane, truly. It's an insane prospect to do and it makes you crazy. It makes you difficult to be around. I mean, that's putting it mildly. If you're trying to be the judge, it's a mantle that you will be crushed under.

Let Jesus be the judge. So let Jesus be the judge. This is our first replacement to don't judge people. The second, we're gonna see the second in the particular convictions that they were disagreeing on. So we're gonna skip around again, we go to verse two. And this is to give you a sense of what they were arguing about. Verse two says, one person believes he may eat anything while the weak person eats only vegetables. So we have strong and weak and some people can eat anything, some people eat only vegetables. Verse five, it says, one person esteems one day as better than another while another esteems all days alike. So these, we are squarely in the realm of personal convictions. One person is celebrating this holiday and the other person's not. One person's eating meat and they're convinced they can do it and the other person is not.

And on their own, these personal convictions don't seem very big. However, they do, especially to the person holding the conviction, they point to something deeper. They point to a deeper truth. So then, even if you look at the examples here in verse two and verse five, eating or abstaining from food, either one, is associated with worship. It's associated with idol worship, actually. And so for some, it was a really big deal, what you ate and what you didn't eat because it was associated with worshiping a God different than God, okay, big deal. Celebrating holidays, also in this culture associated with worship. Holidays is just short for holy days, okay? That's where we get the word from. And in this, esteeming one day, in other words, judging it as holy, declaring this day holy, right? So celebrating this day and not a different day, okay? So then, so what does this look like for us?

This is how people parent. This is how people vote. This is your movie choices. This is your dating choices. This is how you behave on social media. This is how you handle your money. This is how you handle eating food. This is where you go on vacation. These are all, this is all of these things. All of these convictions that you have are connected to a deeper truth that you hold. In other words, you don't just spin the wheel and decide how you're gonna, you know, decide how you're gonna parent your children. You parent your children based on what you believe the world should be like. It's an incredibly personal thing to parent a child. And it's an incredibly rude thing to bring criticism on how somebody else is parenting their child. You have to, you have to have a lot of trust built. You have to pick your moment if you're going to criticize the way somebody's parenting their child.

It's incredibly personal. And it's rooted in something deep. That's the definition of what we're dealing with. And that's the same thing for eating food here or vegetables, that's the same thing for a steaming one day. They're small things that were connected to something deep. Okay, so what does Romans 14 say about these convictions? Okay, it says Romans 14:6, so we just will kind of flow from five. Romans 14:6, it 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. It's so simple, but don't miss this, it's just right there. With your convictions, what verse six is telling us is that you need to worship with your convictions. You need to worship with your convictions. You wanna parent your child a certain way?

Okay, worship the Lord with it. Worship the Lord with it, okay? If you wanna decide what you're going to watch or not watch, you're gonna have convictions, fantastic. Worship Jesus with it. Don't just have opinions to have opinions. Don't just spin the wheel and pick up some of these convictions off of a Jordan Peterson video off of YouTube. Actually have convictions, right? Like read scripture, talk with people, see what that's like. Actually have convictions, hold them, worship the Lord with them. And this is why it says, in verse 14, again, I'm gonna skip around. In verse 14, this is why it says, I know and am persuaded in the Lord that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. Oh, that's really strange, right? It's only unclean if you think it's unclean. What does that mean? He's saying, look, if you're convinced, if your personal conviction is that eating meat

is sinful, like that I shouldn't do it, then don't do it. Then by all accounts, it's just unclean. And we're not inventing a new moral code here that just depends on what somebody thinks. It's saying this, that part of following Jesus, don't miss this, this is really important, part of following Jesus is developing convictions. Part of following Jesus is developing convictions. And it's a clumsy process because you don't know, like you don't follow Jesus and the next day you just get all the information downloaded, you're like, I have perfect convictions now. Like you might think that, that's not a good thing to think. But whatever your convictions are, then obey them unto Jesus.

Hold your convictions. Look at verse 23, so skip down, I know it's everywhere, we're skipping, but whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats. Because the eating is not from faith for whoever, sorry, for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. Look at that second half of Romans 14 verse five, it's just in there, it's not up here. It says each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. What are we talking about? We're talking about this process where you worship with your convictions, okay? So let's just use an example, this might be helpful. Because all of you have convictions, we all have convictions, okay? So let's just say that you have a single lady who has the conviction that she should not be alone on a date past 10 p.m., okay? Just wise, sound, okay? Turn on the Lord with it, right? And look, if this is your conviction, then the encouragement is obey it, strongly.

Work at it, keep it like a law, do it. Let it be your conviction, stand on it. Now it could be later, maybe even in a few days, it could be later that your conviction changes. That you are now convinced that 10 p.m. is too early, that midnight is a better night, better time, excuse me. Midnight's a better time and you've got your reasons. And you're not like, you're not playing around, you actually, you're like, no, no, I'm now convinced that midnight is better than 10 p.m. Okay, here's my encouragement, obey it, still.

Strongly, worship Jesus in that conviction. Let it be your conviction. You say, well, look, look, it changed. Why should I try to worship Jesus with the conviction of the weak? No, it actually didn't, it did change, but it didn't change. The time changed, but the goal didn't change. The time changed from 10 p.m. to midnight, but it's still worship. Personal convictions are really the particulars of how we worship Jesus. Okay, we don't all worship Jesus the same. We can believe these same things, but then we're gonna have, it's gonna get granular, we're gonna have personal convictions, and that's how we worship Jesus. And so in that sense, it is extremely important. Personal convictions are of the utmost importance, and you should take them seriously, and we're gonna see later that you should take other people seriously also, okay? So personal convictions are nothing to sneeze at.

They're extremely important, but they have limits. Personal convictions also need to be put in their place. This is what we see in verse 17. Verse 17 says, for the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but comparison of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Okay, so the kingdom of God is not a matter of your personal convictions. Let me say that one more time. The kingdom of God is bigger than whatever your personal convictions are. They're bigger than whatever mine are. They're about bigger things. The kingdom is not a matter of glorifying our personal convictions. There are larger foundations upon which those convictions are built. There are tectonic plates underneath all of those convictions that we have, and it's righteousness, it's peace, it's joy in the Holy Spirit. It's things that are rooted in stuff that we can't even touch.

We build convictions on top of those. That's fine, that's normal, but we need to understand that they are different, and here's the problem is when we don't. The problem comes in when we swap out our personal convictions with these larger foundational issues. So righteousness then, what is, righteousness means that we don't drink alcohol. Okay, first of all, no. Let me just say that, no. Because if that's true, Jesus isn't righteous, but the swap out is easy. Righteousness, big foundational tectonic plate thing, big thing, big, big, big thing. Righteousness, right standing before God, that's huge. You're gonna equate that, you're gonna swap it out for your personal conviction. If your personal conviction is that you don't wanna drink alcohol, fantastic. I support you, I will pray for you, I will ask you about, all that I'll support you. It's a personal conviction, awesome, awesome, awesome.

They aren't the same thing. And so when we swap them out, we start thinking that righteousness means that we don't drink alcohol. We start thinking that peace means we vote against Trump or Biden. Right? And we can do it, if we're voting against, or we're voting for, what you've done is you've equivocated your personal conviction with the big things of the kingdom of God. And your particular view of something, the way that you want worship services to go, right? If you're thinking the only way a church can worship is with these songs, is with this procedure, with this thing, and look, I realize these are deeply held convictions, and I realize they're actually built on foundational big, big things, but they're not the same thing.

And if you think they're the same thing, you're gonna be sorely frustrated. We'll see about that in just a minute. Because we hold our conviction so tightly that we can't see how anybody could believe otherwise and still be a Christian. We struggle, we struggle to see it. These foundations, these larger foundations, use righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Spirit, right? These larger foundations also act as guardrails for our personal convictions. In other words, personal convictions should never allow or excuse sin against God, ever, never, ever. If your personal conviction somehow allows you to sin before the Lord, then you need to trade that out. Your convictions don't override or contradict what it is to righteously walk before the Lord. Righteousness, right? So let's just take the alcohol one that I use. So righteousness may not mean, might not mean, does not mean that you don't drink alcohol,

but what it does mean, righteousness, what it does mean is that you follow Jesus every time in every way, however possible, every time. No excuses, no lacks, no nothing. That's what righteousness is. And so we wanna pursue Christ in righteousness. That's what righteousness is. It's much bigger than don't drink alcohol. And you can see this in verse 19, right? So verse 19 starts to kinda open up. Verse 17, 18, 19, and it just kinda flows in here. We start to see kinda what it looks like to do something different. It says, so then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual up-building. Building people up, encouraging people, right? It says, so with our convictions, with our personal convictions, let's worship with those convictions. Let's worship by seeking peace. Look at the next verse, verse 20. It says, do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.

Everything is in being clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stop. And so listen, I'm sure, you know, look, you're super happy with the fact that you're, you don't have a personal conviction against watching a rated-R movie. Fantastic. But your conviction does not override peace and mutual up-building. Just because it's your conviction or there's an absence of a conviction doesn't mean it's just some license or some free thing. No, no, it doesn't override peace and mutual up-building. It doesn't somehow trump whatever you get to do. It doesn't top peace. So then verse 21, it says, it is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble, and here's the last slogan, right? Here's the last slogan, we're going to seek peace over permission. Peace over permission. If you're starting to think about like, can I do this,

do I have permission to do this? Listen, well, we'll get to that in a second. Look back at verse one. This is great, look back at verse one. It says, as for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over his opinion. Why would we have that encouragement right there? What is quarreling over his opinions going to do? It's going to destroy him. He's weak in faith. Don't quarrel over his opinions, why? Because it will end him. It will end him. Verse 13, Romans 14, 13, it says, therefore let us not be weak in faith. It will end him. Romans 14, 13, it says, therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather, decide never, never, hear the conviction in that.

Never to put a stumbling block or a hindrance in the way of a brother. Seek peace first, seek to build up first. We know that you're excited about whatever you're passionate about, we get it, we know, it's so cool, you have that freedom, awesome. But then verse 15, it says, for if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, hear this, by what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. Look at that comparison. Just let that sink in for just a second right here. With your personal convictions about politics, about the end times, about raising children, about alcohol, about anything, about anything, without how church services should go, anything at all. With those convictions, if you grieve your brother or sister with it, then you have broken the first commandment.

It's right there. You're no longer walking in love. You can't love. You're not loving a person. You're not loving the Lord. You're not loving your brother. You're destroying the one for whom Christ died. And this is exactly what Jesus accused the Pharisees of. You're not in good company. Seek peace over permission. Peace over permission. And if you flip this, ultimately it's a very narrow, very selfish act. If you're pursuing permission over peace, you are so busy establishing your allowable action. No, no, the Bible doesn't say anything against it. Okay, great, good. That's so cool that you found those three verses that support whatever action you do or do not wanna take. That's great. But are you loving people with it? Are you justifying yourself at the expense of peace? At the expense of encouraging another person? Seek peace over permission. Do it for the kingdom.

Do it for your family. Do it for your spiritual family. Do it for peace. Do it for building up. I wanna get even more practical, and so we're gonna end here. I wanna get even more practical. And I'm gonna end with the first three verses of chapter 15. Pull the fast one on you. Now we're in chapter 15. I just said we're gonna be 14, but now we're wrong. Okay, Romans 15, verses one through three. And there's just gonna be some things that we tease out of here, and it's gonna tie back into what we've kinda already looked at in Romans 14. So let's just read. We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up, for Christ did not please himself. But as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. Okay, so what I wanna do is I wanna take our new slogans.

Okay, we got three of them, just in case you're keeping count. Our new slogans that are more holistic than just don't judge people, okay? We're gonna put them into practice, okay? So our first slogan, let Jesus be the judge. That's our first slogan. What did Jesus do? What did Jesus the judge do? He bore the failings of the weak. Jesus the judge bore the failings of the weak. He had every right, every freedom, every personal conviction, if you will, to not lay his life down, to not bear the failings of the weak, to judge the failings of the weak, and to condemn the failings of the weak. He had every right to do it, every right. That's the justice of God, but he didn't do that. Why did he bear the failings of the weak? So that they could live.

So that they could live. I want to challenge you, and some of these are gonna be things you can do now, some of these are things that you can do when you get home during the week. I wanna challenge you, look at the relationships that are closest to you, okay? Inner circle stuff, right? Talking maybe four people. Look at the relationships that are closest to you. And if you need to, I want you to repent of keeping score.

I want you to repent of trying to teach a lesson with everything. I want you to repent of trying to justify yourself at the expense of peace, because when you do things, you are draining the life out of people. You aren't giving them life at all. You are so busy building up your little kingdom of justification and righteousness that you can't, can't see peace. You can only sow destruction. Second thing I want you to do, I want you to assess your quarreling level, okay? This is, as I'm writing these down, listen, I shouldn't laugh. These hurt me, maybe way more than they hurt you. I mean, these just hurt. Saying, but they're true, they're real, they're right here, I can't. Assess your quarreling levels. Do you make mountains out of molehills? If I didn't make it for every time, I made a mountain out of a molehill.

Do you make mountains out of molehills? Does every little thing point back to a big thing and then become a big deal? Are you mad about everything? Can people even disagree with you? I want you to repent of quarreling, bickering, talking about things that just don't matter, and then having a fight, and disrupting peace. There are times, there are times to discuss deeply, discuss personal convictions. I'm not telling you you can't ever talk about them. What I'm saying is, you need to pick your moment, you need to pick your time, pick your place, establish trust, establish respect, okay? And then you can start, so we have life groups, that's a great place to just start kind of seeing where your personal convictions are, should be, maybe you get some challenge on those things, that's good, there's nothing wrong with that. You should have your personal convictions challenged,

however, if you're just airing them all out and trying to justify yourself, that's, you are quarreling. You might not be trying to, but you are, you're quarreling. People might not be fine with you, but you're still trying to quarrel. I have time for one story, okay, so, there was a previous church I worked at, there was a guy named Jamie, Jamie James, what's his name, Sophie's listening, brother.

Welcome, welcome to the discussion. Jamie James was coming into a church that I had worked at, and he was really big on young earth creationism. Now, if you don't know what young earth creationism is, it doesn't matter, okay. However, because it's not even pertinent to the story, it is a particular personal conviction, is what it is, it's a particular personal conviction, okay, let's leave it there, so if it's your particular personal conviction, and I've just offended you, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to, I'm just trying to say, in this story, it just doesn't matter, okay. Jamie James is a big young earth creationist guy, okay, big time, big time, and in fact, he's so big into it, he started writing a book about it. So here's how every conversation with Jamie James would go. So Jamie James just started to come into our church, right, just kind of getting to know people, you know,

and he would start the conversation like this, oh, hi, Sharon, I'm Jamie, oh, what do you do, Sharon, and of course, Sharon would then answer what she did, and then, inevitably, because Sharon is a good, loving conversationalist, which most of the time, Sharon's giving me the eyes, like maybe I'm not, she's going to say back, what do you do, right, and that's it, that's all Jamie James needs. Oh, I'm an author, I'm writing a book,

what are you writing a book about, thank you for asking, 45 minutes later, people are clawing to get out of that conversation. More than five times, my count, more than five times, the church is empty, I'm locking up that Sunday, the church is empty, this is like 400 people empty, so not just, this is 400 people, this is 397 people leaving, and then this is Jamie, the guy he won't shut up with, or the girl he won't shut up with, and me, okay, that happened five times, okay, and every time, the person's looking at me, just trying to blink twice for help, I mean, just something, just trying to get out of that conversation, and Jamie, man, I hope you're listening, I tried to establish a piece with that brother, and he did not want it, so I hope he's listening, look, there's nothing, I'm not even saying anything about that brother's convictions, whether you agree with Young Earth Creationism

or don't, or don't know what it is, it doesn't matter, but when you hold them that tightly, you equivocate them with the gospel, you equivocate them with the most important thing, the most important conversation you could ever have with anybody, and so of course, you're not gonna shut up, of course you're gonna staple people to the carpet and talk to them for 45 minutes, and not let them up for error, because it just, everything, it's so important, it's such a big deal, let Jesus be the judge, let Jesus decide what's important, you think something's so important, go to Jesus with it, see what he says, go to scripture with it, see what it says, okay, we're gonna keep moving, second slogan, worship with your convictions, and I have a slide with all those up here, but there's worship with your convictions, so the first one's let Jesus be the judge, worship with your convictions,

so this second slogan, here's my only, I'm gonna just cut it to one, my only application point in this is, turn your phone over to somebody who will evaluate it, okay, I'm gonna let that sink in for just a second, all the stuff that's on your phone, every text that you send, every video you watch, everything you click on, everything, turn that phone in to somebody else to evaluate, okay, however anxious you just got, however anxious you just got, should tell you something about your convictions, okay, so if you got all the clamped, if you got all like, oh my gosh, I don't wanna see my phone, then you will understand that your convictions,

probably aren't that great, in Romans 15, one through three, it says look, don't have personal convictions only to please yourself, right, so if your personal convictions only please yourself, it is, I'm just guessing here, it is disconnected from righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, okay, so if you wanna start laying out your personal convictions, make sure you lay them all out, give somebody your phone, or get really anxious and think twice about giving somebody your phone. Okay, lastly, seeking peace over permission, if we're gonna go peace over permission, I just want to challenge you to ask someone that you talk to the most, okay, so it's top three people that you talk to the most, ask somebody if your conversations with them are actually encouraging, are you a giver or are you a taker, okay, ask that question, and don't you dare shut them up before they're done, okay,

get them up, I don't care if it takes duct tape over your mouth, you ask the question and duct tape your mouth, and you sit there and you listen, are they a giver or are they a taker, listen, if it's just confession time, I'm probably more of a taker, I'm probably more of a, like I wanna talk to Christie more when I wanna have something to complain about versus when I have something that I wanna encourage her with, right?

Ask somebody that you talk to the most, if your conversations are actually encouraging and the second and the last thing, and I'm gonna call David and Amy back up and just say this, that if you're seeking peace over permission, and there's this really fun thing at the beginning of Romans 15, one, it says we who are strong, and then beginning Romans 14, one, it talks about the weak in faith, and so if you are strong, right, have you ever considered yourself to be the strong one? You ever consider yourself to be the strong one? Are you the older brother or the older sister in this conversation? If you're never the strong one, just let that be just some kind of light bulb for you. If you're never the strong, are you never the strong one? You always the weak in faith? Is everybody always having to cater to you?

No, like have you been a Christian for two weeks or have you still figured this the whole thing out? Awesome, yeah, you're the weak one, cool, and those who are strong will love you and support you and care for you, yes, good. If you have not been a Christian for two weeks or less, then and you're never the strong one, if you're always the one who needs to be considered, it might be time to grow up. Might be time to get those convictions down, to be challenged, to figure out what you know and don't know, to quit doing whatever you need to quit doing on your phone, and to be about making time to invest in other people's spiritual journeys, to be about sharing the love of Jesus with people in word and in action, because in the end, personal convictions, man, they come and go. I've been personally convinced of a ton of things, so have you, and they changed from last year to this year.

Let's not quarrel over opinions, let's not worry about things that don't matter, let's worry about righteousness, let's worry about peace, let's worry about joy in the Holy Spirit. Let's worry about building each other up, have convictions, but worship with them. Pursue peace over permission, don't pursue permission over peace. When we do those things, that is a life unto the Lord, that is a sacrifice given. You are foregoing the justification of whatever you're doing, and you're just saying, you know what, I don't care what you think about this, I'm not trying to have this big, how can I serve you? How can I love you in that moment? And if you never ask that question, if you are always busy having opinions, but never asking that question, it's probably time to grow up. As we enter into our time of response, I just wanna challenge you on many of these things, right, gosh, we just covered a ton of things,

but what I wanna do is, I just wanna encourage you, if you are brand new, right, if you are still figuring out faith, if you have just big questions about, maybe you're hung up on a personal conviction, maybe you're worried about, I don't know, like what exactly happens whenever I die? What exactly is this, that, or the other? Can I speak in tongues, can I not? All those, look, let me just say, a lot of those fall under this category of personal conviction, right, and are things that don't belong to salvation, and you need help figuring that out, okay? Don't try to do that on your own, it's a really bad idea, actually. Get somebody that knows the Bible, which is many people here, and talk to us about it. Look, I'm gonna be back there on that couch, and I'm just gonna be just hanging out, and if you wanna come and ask a question, if you wanna come and receive prayer,

if you wanna come, you just gotta question about whatever. Man, look, I'm there, I'm available, right? I'm not the answer, man, but I know enough to know, okay, it's time to pray, or hey, let's talk about this a little bit later, let's go grab some coffee, and if you are not new in the faith, and you do need to grow up, and you do need this, you're convicted, you're just like, I'm the guy, I'm the corollary, I'm the idiot, well, okay, that's good, that's a great place to start, what do you do? You need some accountability, you need some people that love you around you. My encouragement is jump into a life here, and those are gonna start in January, that's my encouragement toward you. If you want help just figuring out what kind of what life looks like in between now and then, it's great. Statistically, the holidays are a terrible time to suffer.

Don't wait, right? Start dealing with this stuff now. I'll be back there as we sing, would you stand as we sing?