Principle and Principles of Grace

Okay, we are on Lesson 10. We're going through Romans 6.14, 1 Corinthians 6.12, 1 Corinthians 6.9 and 10, and Colossians 3.5 and 12. This is Lesson 10 on grace. And actually, I've got the main service this morning and I'm going to be if you hear it twice, it'll be because of that. Be some repetition. How far did we get in 10? Were we almost done? Did we get to defining what a principle was? Run nine. Yeah, that sounds right to me. So last week we talked about what a principle is.

And then we talked a little bit about how does a believer determine if a behavior is okay for him or not? Remember, how do you determine? If it's not specifically commanded in the New Testament, how do you decide what's good, what you can do or what you can't do? Feels good, right? Feels good. Cast the dice, throw the bones. How do you determine it? based on biblical principles.

One of the things that I think we don't spend time on, because we probably are never taught, that the study of the Word of God not only demonstrates to us or teaches us the doctrine, but it also teaches us the principles on how God operates. One of the reasons I really love the Miles Stanford's Green Letters, it has two titles. The first title is the green letters. The second title is the principles of spiritual growth. Where do you find the principles? In the Word of God. So not only do you get doctrine, but you get to figure out how God does things, which is really kind of cool, because the principle is the way something operates.

And so the first principle about conduct that we talked about last week was what? How do you decide if you can play golf or how do you decide if it's OK if you're a scrapper scrapbooker? How do you decide if you can go to Bronco games or not or whether you can drink a glass of wine or whether you can read Marvel comic books? whether it has the mastery over you or not. That's the number one principle.

Now, there are others that we're going to talk about, but does it master me? And I think I gave you the example last week of, as a young believer, I was saved through the auspices of young life. So, of course, if you're saved through young life, you have to play in their golf tournament, right? And donate a lot of money and do all this cool stuff. Wouldn't it also mean if it operates as a stumbling block That's a secondary principle, and it's a principle we're going to talk about in a minute. But the number one thing for me is, does it master me? And the reason is, is because I already have a master, and the master is the Lord Jesus Christ. And there cannot be anything in my life that supplants his mastery over me.

So one of the things you find out as you grow in liberty is that, how would you define liberty? I said, you're free. How would you define that? Would you define it, I can do whatever I want now? What do you think? From a biblical standpoint, what liberty means is that I just changed masters.

I went from under this master, now I'm under this master. I was under the master of sin and now I'm under Christ. He's my master. So the number one principle in whether my behavior is okay with me Just me. I'm not worried about anybody else yet. Is does it master me?

And my example I was going to use was I'm at the team at the practice T and I'm trying to hit balls, hit one straight out of 50. And I'm standing next to this guy who was on staff with Young Life and he was hitting that ball so far and so straight. I said to him, boy, you can really play. And he said to me, golf is my thing. What mastered him? The game of golf. He was a Christian and he worked in a Christian organization, but golf was his thing. It mastered him.

So in your life, what's that? It's a priority. That's right. What's the priority? What masters me? So that's the first principle. As you grow in the knowledge and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, he increasingly, masters you, which you are increasingly free.

So, in 1 Corinthians 6.12, Paul says, all things, the areas where Paul doesn't have specific commands from the word of God, are lawful for me. But not all things are expedient. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. See that? I won't be brought under the power of any.

I'm really a good Christian but I got a black Mercedes that says clergy on the back or one of those fishy stickers or whatever. Whatever it is, does it master me? How do you determine? Oh, what a great question. How would you determine whether something mastered you or not? Say that again? It's an obsession? Okay. How do you mean? Oh, the struggle with it? Okay. I think that you brought up, or hinting, Steve. Ah, that's good.

In the realm of identity, if you're a man, How do we identify fellow men? When I meet you for the first time, Hi, how are you? I'm Mike Doyle. Your name is George. What do you do? Right? Your whole identity is based on what you do. So we men, we function in the realm of our status is what we do. Right?

How do women handle that? I've never said to a woman, what do you do? I wouldn't ask that question. What would I ask a woman? It's getting there now. What would I ask a woman? When two women get together and they... What does your husband do? What's your husband do?

Then you're mastered, right? I think the way you discover mastery is two elements of it. Number one, there's the study of the Word of God. And you learn as you grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that he's master. and he wins over your heart. Number two is that we're all because we're believers and dwelt with the Spirit of God and there has to be a trust in him to lead us and show us those kinds of things. Fear could be a master. Can you live happily without it? I'm done. Don't go any farther. Can I can I happily live without it? Yeah. Can you let it go?

I came to the Lord at age 35, and there were lots of things that really did master me, and some of them the Lord took off of me really quickly, and others took a while. To give you an example, I was from 1965 until 1977 when I met the Lord. I was a season ticket Bronco holder. I had four tickets on the 35-yard line, four rows behind the Bronco bench. So you know where I was on Sunday? That's right. I met the Lord in 1977 in December, two weeks before they went to their first Super Bowl. I was at the, I'm trying to think, it was the Oakland Raiders game. It shows you how good a memory I have. And Tom Jackson intercepts a pass and runs for a touchdown. The Broncos win, they're going to the Super Bowl.

For the first time in my life, I didn't care. and the Spirit of God took that off of me. I never renewed the tickets. I knew within two weeks of being a believer that that mastered me and it had to go. I couldn't worship at the altar of Pat Bowen on Sunday morning anymore. of grace is that we can give little things but ultimately it's the Spirit of God that's going to show us that thing masters you. The thing I have to learn under grace is that it's not a list. How much do we like, even in talking, to say, okay, I checked that off, checked that off there, it's not true. It's not about that.

It's about studying, as Macaulay said, discipline or discernment comes from doctrine. And when we understand the Bible, and when we have that relationship with the Spirit of God, it's going to be so obvious to us. That's really good and I think that yeah For me, it's one of those things where something that's a good thing can easily begin to consume you over a period of days, months, years. If there's not other believers in your life, they can come along and say, hey, you might want to consider that this is maybe becoming an issue in your life. And I think that's one of the roles that the body has, that role of conviction.

And we're going to talk about that, depending on how swift you guys are. in a couple of weeks about what your role is in terms of your... I'm going to talk about this morning. Well, no, I won't talk about much this morning. About your role in your fellow believer's life, how much can you say or not say because of the liberty we have, and how much they can say to you.

And that's a really important concept. Well, I was thinking of some of the more subtle ones, like your job, like food. Security. We love to talk about Christianity, family, and employment. Christianity, family, and employment. Most of us are like this. what I do and my family, and I go to church.

Mike? Just the fact that, you know, they were saying about shopping, and I noticed that, you know, it's these toys that we all try to succumb to the flesh, but actually, is it really the Lord saying, Mike, I want that quiet time? Oh, that's a good question. And I think Mike has hit on the key. The key is this, I think.

I don't know about you, but I know I never do anything that I don't want to do. You understand what I mean? I do exactly what I want to do in my life. And I'm not... You've got to be spiritual. If I don't want to be spiritual, I'm going to fake it. I'm going to do something else.

So what happens is, I think, is that through the study of the Word of God, which is promoted and enabled by the Spirit of God, I learn the doctrine and the truths. But the doctrine and the truths, the position that I have, has another step. And the next step and the last step is it must go from this position that I have to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That person, Christ Himself, will win over our hearts. he will woo us and allure us so that he becomes our master willingly. And he does it by wooing us. I didn't call up Don and say, look, I've decided you're going to be my wife, so next Thursday get your act together, we're going to get married. There was a wooing process that went on. And that's the way that God works and that's what the Spirit of God is there to do. He's to woo you to Christ. See, it's not a legal thing, it's not a tyrannical thing, it's a love thing.

And trust me, you cannot be wooed by somebody you don't know. And through the study of the Word of God, what happens? This intimacy with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ develops. And if he were to stand right here, right now, trust me, none of you would be looking at me. It's Him. And our job as believers is to point other believers to Him. That's what our job is. It's not me, look at Him.

When He woos you, and I shouldn't say when, because He is, you're not going to have any trouble with mastery. You're going to willingly Don and I have been married almost 28 years. I don't have any trouble being her husband. I really like it. It's cool. And the nice thing about it is it's already done. He's already declared it. He's already placed it in you. So, question nine.

Do we need to have restrictions placed upon our or other believer's behavior? Do we need that for the Christian life? Are you sure? You mean I can't send you my list? Or you can send me your list? So outside specific commands from the Word, we only function based on principles. There are specific commands.

I don't have to sit down and make a decision as a Christian as to whether I should lie or not. I don't have to decide about that. That's pretty specific. But I may have to sit down and decide how much liberty I have about something. If I try to apply a law to my life, hang my do's and don'ts on the refrigerator, or have any kind of outside influence that impinges on my behavior, I'm by definition legal.

And I don't trust God to do what he's set out and said he's already done. The new life in Christ operates on the principle of grace only, and it does not need any outside pressure to behave. Isn't that interesting? Now that is a big pill to swallow. Because, well, let's see. Can I trust the Spirit of God to carry out what He says He's done? Can I trust Him to do all that God says He's already done and implemented in my life? Can I trust Him to motivate me?

Or do I need all this external influence around me, pushing me and maneuvering me into position? If I don't have intimacy with Christ, then I probably am looking for some sort of regulation. But if I have the intimacy, I'm being wooed. Everything that's needed for a life under grace has been given to me. by the Spirit of God and by the Word of God. So how would you deal with a fellow believer who didn't have any principles?

Isn't there great comfort in occasionally taking your eyes off Christ and looking at yourself, and that in itself is denying your fellowship? Yeah, that's interesting. I wouldn't say it that way. I wouldn't say, well, you know, Tuesday at four o'clock to five, I'm going to take my eyes off of Christ just so I can learn about what it's like not to be focused in on.

I think that the sin nature is so aggressive that it's always trying to do that. And so when you when you look in James 1 about how I'm tempted to sin, the assumption is I'm abiding in Christ and my own lust woo me out of that intimacy. And because God is gracious in the way that he does things, he takes a temptation for me to fail and intercepts it, so to speak, to use it for my good. That's how I learn.

Once intimacy begins to be developed in the believer's life, when it's cut off, we're very sensitive to it and we're not comfortable with it. We learn, rather than having laws, we learn what's of Christ and what isn't of Him. You know, Donna and I don't live on the basis of laws, but trust me, I know what she likes and what she doesn't. And it's not a legal thing, I just know. If I have done something inadvertently to upset her, I kind of know. Well, and she's not the Word of God. But look at the advantage that we have as believers. We have the Word of God and the Spirit of God in us to develop this intimacy. And trust me, when it's broken, we know. We know. And we don't need the mosaic law system to tell us. We know.

So what if we do run into a believer who doesn't have any principles? What do you do about it? You have a choice. You could either give them a set of rules, or what could you do? Let's say, what do you do with a believer in your life who has absolutely no principles, but you know that they're a believer? They don't care. Yeah, but they've lost their way, so I don't know what to do. That's with our friends.

Well, I think the number one question, or you have to answer two questions. How am I going to help them? Am I going to give them a set of rules that they got to go to? No. You're not acting like a Christian, and here's how they act, and you better get with it. No, pray, I guess. I can pray for them. Is it okay to let them be carnal? Yep. Absolutely it is. I haven't been like that. You're the only one. Aviation is his key. Aviation is his thing. Sure. It was mine. Yeah.

But he refuses to step foot even in a church. And last time he went to a church, he was raised Catholic. He saw everything. Every time they needed more money, they went to the family and said, here, raise money. So he sees hypocrisy as a part of belonging to a church.

He and I sat down. Is he a believer? Yes. I'm pretty sure he is, because he and I sat down one afternoon for probably two hours and just visited about Christ. And I have no doubt in my mind that he's the only one. So answer the question. Is it your job to set him straight? No, absolutely not. And I think that he's on his airplane now and things are changing. Now, think about this. Yeah.

And how do you do that? By telling them nothing. Let's let's review a little bit. If I, as a believer, live under grace, then my behavior and my conduct is determined by two things. Number one, there are specific commands in the Word of God. But number two, I have this incredible liberty to function under principles, and there can totally be something that's okay for me to do that isn't okay for you. And there's something that's totally okay for you to do that I wouldn't dare do.

Now the question is, can you and I sit down and say, now look, Ruthie, we've got to, you know, and you've got to say, yeah, well, I'll do what you're suggesting if you'll do what I, because I've been watching you too. See, we don't have the right to do that at all. Not at all. And when it comes to the principles, do you see that? Because with the liberty we have as believers, I can't impose my liberty on you. And we're going to talk in the weeks to come about the difference between offending and stumbling. I think in the Word of God there are specific instructions about when your brother sins, right?

You that are spiritual, let me see a show of hands of how many of you think you're spiritual. Come on, you all think you are. It's the guys over on this side that aren't, right? Oh, I'm sorry, all you guys over here, it's the ones over here that you're sure of that aren't as spiritual as you are.

He that is spiritual should restore such a one. If they're doing what? Conducting their life under a principle that doesn't agree with one of yours? No, if they're specifically sinning. You can go by yourself. If there's no response, you can get somebody else and go. a way in which to deal with specific sin.

But we're not talking about specific sins here, we're talking about principles that you live by. I might be totally free to watch the Broncos play, and you might not be. The Spirit of God has convicted you about that, and you're not going there, so I don't have any right to say, hey, you know, lighten up, will you? And you don't have any right to say to me, you better not watch those Broncos.

I remember back when I was a quasi Roman candidate, I didn't go to church on Sundays, I guess, but I remember meeting Christians. And I always watched him. I just kept an eye on him to see if it was like the people who died in him, that were one way on Sunday and another way the rest of the time. I was trying to keep in mind that I might be the only Bible a person might read.

That's really important. That's good. So your walk with the Lord and your conformity to the image of Christ, You know, it's the old saying is that I can't hear what you're saying because what you're doing is speaking so loud to me. Your life is the greatest determining factor in another person's life, just how you live. And if you walk with the Lord, and you're careful as walking with the Lord about your relationship with other believers, you don't just barge ahead.

And we're going to talk more about that when we go, but right now what I want to do is that I think we need to recognize that if we try and apply our principles to another believer, it's sinful on our part, I think. I really do. I don't have any right to tell you anything from a principle standpoint. And as soon as I do it, I've stuck the law on you to some degree, because I've said you can't or you can, or why don't you? So what is our judgment about our own behavior and that of others to be based on? When you make a judgment about your own behavior or about other believers' behavior, what's it based on? Love. But it's based on principles. It's not based on law. And it rests on the believer's individual judgment.

Boy, you talk about... It's really almost a scary thing to realize that God, as believers living under grace, that we have this latitude. you know, where we have this incredible freedom to determine from scripture what our judgments are going to be about our behavior. Well, can you suggest then maybe reading a verse that you thought was interesting that might apply to what they're doing? You know, it's interesting.

I would be nervous about doing that, you know, unless they came to me and said, look, I want to talk to you. Because it's none of my business is really what it boils down to. My individual walk with the Lord is the intimacy between him and me, and so the guy next to me or the person next to me is the same way. It's hard because we just love telling other people how to do it. We just do it. We love doing that.

So our judgment is based on what? It has to be based on good, sound, biblical doctrine. The more we know the Word, the better will our discernments and judgments be. 1 Corinthians 8, verse 13, Wherefore, if meat causes my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat for evermore, that I cause not my brother to stumble. And as we go on, we'll talk more about that.

So, how much liberty or freedom does a believer have? Totally. How many think... Well, what do you think about that? How much liberty, you personally, and your intimacy with Christ, how much liberty do you have? Absolutely. Absolutely. You have, in 1 Corinthians 6.12 says all things, all areas where Paul doesn't have a specific command are lawful for me. Everything. If you don't have a specific command, everything is okay for you. Modifier. Well, it's your conscience that dictates. Let's talk about that for a minute. Have we talked about conscience before? We have, haven't we? Conscience is a very interesting element of a human being. Can your conscience be seared? Can it be...

Can you determine after a while that, gee, my conscience isn't really that reliable? What if you grow up in a society where sacrificing poodles to the tree god is okay? Here comes the missionary, you become a believer and you're still sacrificing these poodles to the tree god. Your conscience doesn't convict you of that. Do you think that's perfectly fine?

The thing about conscience is it's based on your frame of reference. Yeah, conscience is based on your frame of reference. So, I think as a young believer, we do rely a lot on our conscience, because the conscience is that thing that dictates a couple of things. It either says, okay, your behavior is okay, and it excuses your behavior if it really isn't biblically okay, or it says, yeah, it's okay. So it excuses or approves your behavior. As you grow as a believer, what is the criteria? for behavior.

It's the word of God and it's the person of Christ, which supplants your conscience. Now, if you study Hebrews, it's interesting that the blood of Christ will cleanse your conscience from dead works. Isn't that cool? I didn't know I was doing any dead works. Well, sacrificing those poodles is pretty dead. The blood of Christ cleanses your conscience from dead works so that you might serve the living God. Trust me, when we become believers, we don't know anything about serving. We don't know anything about grace, that's for sure. But Paul, you're going to find as we go on in Corinthians, he modifies his freedom based on principles. That's the end of 10. Let's streak over to 11. continue on the same vein because.

Don't you? I don't know if you notice this, but I'm finding whenever we get into this kind of discussion and I'm not criticizing you, but think about the questions we've just talked about amongst ourselves. How many of them are law based? How many of those questions are based on? Can you tell me how to act and what to do here? And can you tell me if this is OK or not? I can't tell you a thing. The liberty you have is between you and the Lord, based on the principles. If you don't know the principles, you can't make good, sound decisions. Lesson 11, continuing in the same vein.

1 Corinthians 6.12, do you have one? Anybody not have a Lesson 11? You're not 10 either. So Grace's class to me is 11.

I'm out. You're done. Sorry. Let's see. Maybe I do have some more. I don't think I do. By the way, if you don't get the 12s are all sitting up here. So grab one after class. We've got an extra 11. Who needs one? And you need a 10? See me afterwards. See me afterwards. I think I've got a couple 10s. In the verses that we're going to cover, from the verses above, which I just mentioned, plus Romans 14, 1 through 3, List the principles with which the believer can use to determine if his behavior is okay or not.

1 Corinthians 6.12. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by any. So I have two principles in play there. One, is it profitable for me? And two, does it master me?

1 Corinthians 8.9. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. There's another principle. My liberty, I have to be careful that it does not cause somebody else to stumble.

You want to tell me what stumbling is? If I'm going to cause you to stumble, what am I doing? Maybe a better question is this. If I'm going to cause you to stumble, tell me what stumbling isn't. Yeah, stumbling isn't offending, and we'll spend some time on that. But there's offense and there's stumbling.

Stumbling is when I cause you to revert back to some sort of sinful behavior that you had been freed from, but my behavior causes you to sin again. If I offend you, is that my problem or yours? I think it's yours. Yeah, I think it's the individual's problem. Stumbling is one thing, offense is another, and we'll expand on that as we go.

In Romans 14, 1-3, Now accept the one who is weak in the faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. That means vegans have to hit the road. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who doesn't eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him.

So, if you take these principles just in these three verses and apply them, to your behavior and especially to other believers, you have tremendous liberty, but it's modified, like you brought up some time ago, it's modified by how you view your brother and what your relationship is with your brother. You may have all kinds of freedom, but you modify it because you know it's not good for your weaker brother. And like I said, you're all strong, these guys over here are weak. We discussed last week that the principle that controls us if we do something as a behavior, and we talked about whether it masters me.

Is there a difference between offending a fellow believer and causing him to stumble? Stumble is a word that means that the person was progressing, I did something to cause him to stumble or sin in their Christian life. Offend can be described as the means the person's legal ego ego sensitivity has been offended.

So in 1 Corinthians 8, 9 through 12, Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge, for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat as if the thing offered unto an idol, and their conscience being weak is defiled. In other words, maybe I, and Macaulay does a great job of explaining this. in the city of Corinth was the, what temple was it, Diana?

And the deal was, is that we talk about intimacy with Christ, right? Now in the pagan temple, and they had all of these prostitutes, how do you think they pulled off this intimacy deal? By having sex with a prostitute, a temple prostitute, okay? That's what men did, and it wasn't considered Bad behavior was considered good behavior. And so what Paul is making the connection here is that if you were a young believer that was saved out of this environment of offering meat to idols, you recognize in your memory banks is, well, you know, I go up to the temple, I have a nice dinner, and then myself and one of these prostitutes go off and I can't have union with God, but I can do the next best thing. Worship. Yeah. I become a believer, and of course it's really clear in terms of the commands about fornication and those kinds of things. They're just not behavior consistent with who I am in Christ. But I'm a young believer, and I have a problem.

I associate New York strip steaks with sex. That's the problem. So you and I go out to dinner. and we go to Outback and I don't order the salad. I order the New York strip steak. I'm supposed to recognize that you being a young believer, if I eat that thing, it may cause you to stumble because after I drop you off at night, where are you going to go? Back for worship.

That's the point that he's making. Now, if you don't, you have to kind of understand the background of what went on in Corinth. Contemporarily, we could use alcohol the same way. If you, as a young believer, came to Christ and you had a real problem with alcohol before you did, so you don't drink anymore. But me, I'm this old salty believer and I've got lots of liberty, and you and I go out for a cup of coffee, only we go to a saloon someplace, and I order up a beer. And I don't know, well, I do know that I'm saying to you, hey, you know, once you became a believer, all that alcoholism went away. You don't have to worry about that anymore. And so when we've split up, where are you going?

Back to have a little more fellowship. I caused you to stumble. So there is a principle that places a burden on me as a growing believer to be careful as I'm with other believers as to what may cause them or lead them back into sin. That's different than whether I offend them or not. Now, let me give you a good example.

I'm going to do the main services now, right? If I went to the back of the church at the end of the service to say, you know, shake everybody's hand like a good Baptist should, and I lit up a Marlboro, would you be offended? How about a cigar? Boy, one of those good Havana babies, you know? How about one of those? Would that offend you? The odor would. The odor would? Would it cause any of you to stumble? Would it? How would you stumble? How would I cause you to sin?

Because you got so mad at me. It smells so good I better go get one. Or it smells so bad. Yeah. The point is, is Steve. I don't know if it's really that simple, but it gets close to being that simple. I, you know, my behavior. Well, I probably ought to bring in the next principle. The next principle that probably helps answer this. What's my attitude and my demeanor towards all of you? What should it be? I love you. And I don't ever want to see any harm come to you in any way. My whole focus on you as fellow believers is that you grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus.

I don't put my wife and my son in jeopardy because I'm... You know, I'm at liberty to drive 140 miles an hour down I-25 until the cops nail me, but I wouldn't put them in the car and take them that fast. You understand what I mean? Even if I was in the Autobahn in Germany, I wouldn't drive that fast with them in the car.

I might do it with me. I think that's important to understand that love, one of the things love does is seek what's best for that other person. That's right. And in the context of Christianity, when we understand grace, we understand what's best for fellow believers is that intimacy with Christ.

And so when we understand that and think causing them to stumble is doing something that affects their intimacy with Christ, whether it's a specific command, And obviously we can't determine what their liberty is. But when we think about that concept, rather than just, oh, how dare they do that. We can't judge that. Our main motive is we want them to be close to Christ. And whether or not we're going to say anything, maybe our prayer, we don't know. We see something and maybe we're unsure. We may not say something to them. We may be praying for them. But overall, we want them to have that intimacy with Christ, not be following a specific pattern or wearing the right type of eyeglasses. And so we're careful not to put a law on them because we know what law does.

You know, I have a great personal example. When I came to the Lord, amongst other wonderful habits I had, smoking was one of them. And I smoked for probably three years after I became a believer until the Lord took it off of me. But in the last year, the last six months or so that I smoked, I began to teach the first Bible study I ever taught. And there was Ed Sundine, who was Betty Sundine's husband at that time, would sit across from me and he could see the Marlboro reflection through my pocket.

And it used to drive him nuts. But he never said a word to me, not one word, until after the Lord took it off of me. And then he came to me and said, you know, I got to tell you, I could see those things every Tuesday. But he never said a word to me because he knew the principle. He was offended, but he never said anything. It had a profound effect on my thinking when he told me afterwards. I recognized, wow, without knowing the principle and how it worked, for him to come to me graciously and say, I'm so glad you're not smoking anymore, and here's why, because I could see him, and he used to drive me crazy. He prayed for me that whole time, but never said anything to me.

Balance. It's instructing whoever eats not to despise the non-eater and the non-eater not to despise the eater. And there's like a reliance on some knowledge of principle and responsibility going both ways so that there's not a judgment going on between the two. The maturing believer with his increased liberty and freedom has increased responsibility. And the responsibility, I think, lies within the area of loving your brother, which is part of the believer's life.

Now, I'm not talking about political correctness. Because what political correctness would say, if I'm offended, then you all have to stop. That's not the same thing. If I'm offended, I must realize that that's my problem. It's not yours. If I'm offended by the fact that your hair is longer than I think it ought to be, or that you didn't iron your shirt this morning, or that you did something that was distasteful to me, or disgusting or you even were insulting.

If you're a person like me, you have kind of a personality. Sometimes it's kind of aggressive to people. Well, hopefully it's not as aggressive as it used to be. I've learned that, you know, it's I used to say I've made a career out of telling the right thing to the wrong people, you know, because I offended him. Well, you offend somebody, you don't have as great an ear as you would if you didn't. So you become more and more careful, not from a political correctness standpoint, but from being united to Christ in love.

And your whole goal, as you grow in Christ, you discover, as you know Christ more, you discover what's Christ interested in right now? What's He doing right this very minute? What activity is He engaged in? What's he focused on? He's focused on each one of us individually. He and the other persons of the Godhead are engaged full-on, conforming you to Christ.

His interest is you. J.B. Stoney used to say that when you discover how interested and how aggressively interested Christ is in your well-being, it frees you to be interested in Him. because when you discover that his focus is on you, what do you got to worry about? It's the same thing with me. Why should I pray, really, pray about my circumstances? That's your job. Everybody in this room is to lift me up, take me before the Lord. Is that the first or the second bell? Second. To take me before the Lord. Do you see the framework there?

So if that's your attitude, are you going to be careful about whether your behavior Yeah, stumbling, I'm never going to go there, but even offensive things, you're going to be careful there. But you have the liberty. You really do. So you're saying that you don't care, but let other people pray for you and let's pray? Oh, I'm glad they do. I hope you do.

Yeah, but what do you mean? I don't get it. I don't get what you mean. What I mean is that my job is to pray for you and to lift you up and do what I can to edify you. That's one for all of you. All of your job is to do the same thing for me. The odds are better in my favor. Imagine a body functioning like that, where every believer, their whole focus is to edify every other believer and to cause them to grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus. Are you careful? You better believe you are. Okay, we gotta go. Dear Father, how we thank you for your grace and how we thank you that you teach us your grace and how it works and how it functions and how we're to live under it. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.