Principle and the Principles of Grace

OK. How far do we get? We didn't finish 10. Did we or did we? We're going to 11 already. OK. Did we start into 11? One. OK. What we're doing just to maybe bring you up to speed, we've kind of. not finished with, but sort of gone through most of the positional aspects about grace. And now we're spending time on application, implementation of how grace functions in a believer's life. And when we finished up class last week, I got to thinking how quickly and how easily we, once someone says, well, how do you implement grace?

We want to know what the rules are. Right? The how-to's so we can make a list and live by it. It's probably pretty natural to do that. But just as a review, there are two guiding issues in grace. Number one, there's the commands of the New Testament, especially in Paul's epistles, where there's specific instructions about specific incidences and about the Christian life. But they're not exhaustive, and they don't cover Oh, I don't know if I could give it a percentage. They don't cover. They certainly don't cover all of the other behavior, probably less than half of it.

So the second principle or the second issue is if you don't have a specific command, what do you do? What are you going to rely on? Principles. Tell me what a principle is. I know I'm being repetitious because. I think it's important that we at least get a fairly clear understanding about how this grace functions. What is a principle? The way things operate, the way something operates or functions. Give me an example of a principle, a physical principle.

What's that? Gravity. Yeah. Yeah. There's there's hundreds of all of you who have. studying any kind of natural science principles all over the place. It's the way things function or operate. So you can apply that to the Word of God in terms of grace and behavior. You function under grace. It's done by principles.

So is it important that you know the principles? Yeah. If you're going to be an engineer, it's important that you understand engineering principles. If you don't understand them or you're going to be a physician or you're going to be a whatever, you better understand the principles.

That's what we're after. We're looking for the principles as we go through this because they're the items that will dictate whether you do something or not. It's not so much. I mean, it's real simple to say nobody steals anymore. I don't have to tell you as a believer that you shouldn't steal. But I might have to we might have to have a discussion as to how you treat somebody and what you do and you don't do based on your behavior, influencing and affecting them so that we've been talking about that.

And so the verses that we're most concerned with in Lesson 11 are 1 Corinthians 6.12, 1 Corinthians 8.9, and Romans 14.1-3. So let's just, let's read them maybe to start with that will set the tone.

Somebody read 1 Corinthians 6.12 and somebody else who already knows what that verse is, you can be looking up 8.9 and then somebody else 14, Romans 14.1-3. 1 Corinthians 6.12. Anybody?

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I am not being brought under the power of any. 8.9. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. Or if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols, for though your knowledge For though your knowledge, ye who is weak, is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. And so, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Okay. Romans 14, 1-3. Anybody. Somebody who's not used to being in the spotlight. Anybody. One through three, please.

So principles deal with categories that commands don't cover. I'll say that again. Principles deal with categories that commands don't cover. First principle here is that, does it master me or not? And I, you know, I got to tell you, have you ever sat down and thought about, do I do anything in my life that really sort of masters me? If you're, if you're a business guy, that's a very tough question to face. especially if you're a successful business guy, how much time and effort and energy are you putting into earning those little pictures of presidents, you know, called idols. And so you have to ask yourself that. Does it master me?

I gave you the example of the golfer. Chester McCauley used a great example of a guy who he took up gardening because his neighbor was a gardener. And my colleague could have cared less about growing anything. He just thought he'd like to try it. But he noticed that his neighbor was really serious about gardening, so much so that his neighbor would come home from work with a coat and tie on and go out and garden without ever going into the house. It mastered him. Do you do anything like that? Not from an accusatory standpoint, but whatever behavior you do, does it master you?

Is there a difference between offending a fellow believer and causing him to stumble? And this I think we could spend lots of classes on. Based on the verses we read, what would you consider causing a believer to stumble would be? What would that be? What in general, the principle, what is stumbling from a biblical standpoint?

What it means is that you caused a believer, through your behavior, for them to sin. Now, they may be weak in a certain area that you're strong in, but your behavior caused them to sin. Or we maybe revert back to some previous sin, or maybe they're a compulsive gambler, like how Malloy was a compulsive gambler at one time. Or maybe, you know, that alcohol is probably or drug abuse is probably the one thing in our society that we're most cognizant of that people are addicted to.

So give me a definition of what offending would be. Temptation. Temptation. Temptation is temptation. Offending. Well, no, but you can help the person to stumble if you do something that he's weak in, so then he would be tempted. Okay, now that would be a stumble, I think. What's the difference between that and just offending somebody? If I think you should be here every Sunday. If you think I should be here every Sunday. Yeah, no, that's really good. So what have you done? Violated. What's that? He violated the trust, but what has he just done? He put the law on me. His law.

Right? You need to be here every Sunday, and if you're not, I'm offended. Right? So, as we've talked about before, if you said to me, boy, you know, you look terrible in green, and I don't want you to wear green anymore. If I show up next Sunday with green, and you're really upset about it, whose problem is it? Yours or mine? It's yours. Have I caused you to sin by wearing green? What if it causes you to be insanely angry? You just don't like green. And I'm aware that it will trigger off your temper and boy you are really going to... you're going to scream from the back road during the main service, disrupt everybody. Well, he needs help. Yeah, that's true. The definition that I have, which I think is a pretty good one, of offending means that the person's legal ego sensibilities have been offended.

And we all have, you know, like it or not, and even though we live under grace, we all have what I call this little black box that's behind your right ear and it's your It's your cultural behavior, it's your religious behavior, it's your societal behavior. These are the things that we do and these are the things that we don't do because they're just not acceptable to me. In our society, we take showers almost every day.

That's back in that rule book someplace. And so that's an egocentric, a legal egocentric set of rules that I have. that people can violate, and if I get bent out of shape about it, it's my problem. Because if there isn't a direct biblical command about that issue, then we have to go back and deal with it based on principles.

So, 1 Corinthians 8-9 says, Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge. Or, For some with conscience of an idol unto this hour eat, eat it as a thing offered unto an idol, and their conscience being weak, it's defiled. I think we talked a little bit about this. The problem with this, the example that Paul uses, is that believers can't separate, or young believers or new believers that came out of the system of worship in Corinth, in the temple of Diana who had prostitutes and they associated eating meat to idols with sex.

And Paul is saying look you have to understand that's what the cultural deal was and there's no question as to whether Fornication is a sin or not? It is, under every circumstance. So if you're in a position where you recognize that your behavior is going to cause somebody to, you know, sin, then you've got to be careful. That's more than an offense. Okay?

And so you have this situation where Paul says, look, in verse 8, but meat commends us not to God. It's not the meat's not the issue, whether you have a T-bone or not. For neither if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not are we the worse. So it isn't the issue of whether you ate or not.

But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours becomes a stumbling block to the weak. Now, you know, we all chuckled when I said a week or so ago, everybody in this room is convinced that they're one of the strong ones and those guys in the other class are the weak ones, right? We never consider ourselves to be a weak brother. Do we? No, we don't. We just, I mean, you know, we're just not built that way. You know, we think we're the strong one.

But if you sit down and think about it, like if I thought about there are certain things in my life that people can do to me that really upset me and caused me to have a lot of angst about it. And it's my problem, you know. And I think as a younger believer, as the Lord is growing you up, there may be anger, there may be alcohol.

I mean everybody in this room knows somebody who is somehow connected with AA. Every family in the United States is connected with that to some degree. I grew up in an Irish Catholic environment. I think I was the only member of my family that didn't go to AA. When you went down to the AA meeting in Nebraska, half the cars in the parking lot belonged to my brothers and sisters and my parents.

So, if I don't have the disease or the problem, and I come roaring into my parents' house with the Coors under my arm and start passing it out as a believer, that's a problem. Or even if I drink in front of them, that's a problem with them. Unless I recognize that they are mature enough that they don't mind whether I drink or not talk. Or before you're here, you send enough bottles. You lose all the foam that way. So does that mean that I should go around with every one of you and say, what offends you?

How do you know? How do you know what your behavior would do would cause somebody else to stumble? How do you know? Well, you know the person, you could sense it. You know the person, you could sense it. So you're kind of careful with your liberty. You've got a liberty you can do. You have all the liberty that being a believer in Christ affords you. But your liberty is restricted by your behavior or the influence of what your liberty would be on a fellow believer. Right? Is that a big deal to you?

Or do we not have the attitude that maybe, oh that's your problem. I'm going to do what I want. That's your problem. I mean, there are people that are offended by whether you go to sporting events or not. What do you think about this? I guess what I'm after here is that how much focus and attention do you need to put on your behavior in terms of offending or stumbling somebody else to stumble? If I offend someone, that's their problem.

How's my relationship with him? With him and with the Lord. Because you've sinned. Are you to make a career out of, you know, so you have your little, you get out your palm pilot and say, well, let's see, these are the offensive things and these are the stumbling things. If I'm around you, I say, oh yeah, better not do it. How do you know? How do you know? Or can you know?

I think if you focus on your relationship with God, and then your relationship with others is built on love. And out of that, I think if your focus is in the right place, you're going to be aware. You're not going to flaunt your Christian liberty. But you're going to be sensitive to the fact that what you're doing is causing others to stumble. I think the more you focus on Christ and your relationship with Him, and the more you focus on loving your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, the closer it's going to make you aware.

And I think that's right. And as we continue on in those verses, For if a man see you, who has knowledge sitting at meat in the idol's temple, will not his conscience Will not his conscience, if he is weak, be emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols? Now here's the kicker. For through your knowledge, he that is weak perishes, and the brother for whose sake Christ died. Now that's the issue.

You don't want to do anything in your life that would cause harm to a brother for whom Christ died. And thus sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak is sin against Christ. Now, I think as we grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we become way more sensitive about certain things that do offend or do cause brothers to stumble, and you're careful. But when it comes to offending somebody, I don't think you need to be so unless it comes up.

Understand what I mean? I wish I could. Well, I can give you a lot of examples. I told you last week about Ed Sundine and smoking. The smoking matter. Anybody should ask that question. Anybody here used to be a smoker? So would it offend you if I smoked? in here, right now, would it cause you to stumble? How many think it would cause you to stumble? How many of you would be offended? I wouldn't be. I'm standing out on the outside last night and somebody over here is smoking and I'm going...

So yeah, it would offend, but it's not sinful. So if you light up, Do I have the right to come and talk to you about it? Yeah. I mean, you could if you wanted to. If you knew the person. If I knew the person? If you were nice. Gotta be nice. Tom? Or instead of buttonholes, you could just reach for a thing and put it in the window. Get out the deodorizer. I'm not offended. Let me put it this way. If I'm totally aware of the fact that if I light up right now, that none of you are going to stumble. It's not going to cause a single one of you to sin. And I go ahead and do it, and you all get offended.

Who's sinning? Me or you? You are. Why are you sinning? But then, mixing in the principle of love, you know that's going to irritate every one of us. And you're doing it for the sole purpose of irritating us. Is that the principle of love? That's right. Do you understand what Courtney just said? One of the principles is love for the brothers.

And so if I love you and you love me, you know, it's funny, I don't smoke in my own house. Not because, you know, there's a little sign above the door, no smoking. It's just not acceptable. Lots of people today who do smoke, smoke outside or away from people who are offended by it.

But the issue is, is my behavior because I love the brethren or because I'm just making a point? Or because I'm going to live the way I want to live and you're just going to have to tolerate me? One of the very interesting things about today's environment is that we live in this environment of political correctness and it's seldom has anything to do with causing anybody to stumble.

What it really is about is that if I'm offended, then all of you need to change your behavior. And I can be, under political correctness, I can be offended about almost anything. And if I'm offended, then all of you need to change your behavior. That's what political correctness is.

That's not a biblical principle. There's lots of situations that we find ourselves in as believers where maybe a fellow believer offends us inadvertently. They're not doing it on purpose. We're just offended because of our sensibilities or our political correctness.

And I want to re-emphasize this point. If that happens, are you at liberty to go to them and say, you know what, the fact that you wear your pants down and I can see you, I'm really offended. Well, you've got a tattoo on your elbow. Man, I'm really offended about that.

I think one of the things today that's interesting as a believer is the world is so sensitive to the greenness of the planet and taking care of the planet. And I think as believers, with our attitude, it's a little different than what the world is. And I think we offend sometimes. Did everybody hear what Donna had to say? That we offend because we don't have the same love of the earth. I mean, we know what's going to happen. We have a different ending than the world Yeah. As a whole. And they've become wackos. Well, we call them wackos. They don't think they're wackos. Yeah. Do you recycle? No. I'm offended. You put your plastic over here and aluminum over here.

We're making allowances and it should be political uncorrectness because we have also gone completely nuts because you can't do anything because everything is Let me give you a biblical example. It was politically incorrect and also illegal for the apostles to preach the gospel in Jerusalem in Acts 2, 3, and 4.

Did that stop them? Think those guys were offended? Big time. But they kept on doing them. How come? Don't come into my house and talk about that, Jesus. Why did they keep doing it? They wanted to teach people. They wanted to teach people, but they were called of God to do it.

And that the principles that they lived under were more important than heavenly were a lot more important than whether they were told not to. Jeremy? I think you can almost think of it in terms of priorities, in terms of a reference point. As Christians, our reference point is Jesus Christ, and he is our highest priority and everything else. extinguished from death, and that's why the disciples could, they went to jail for their preaching, not just to spite the law, not just, oh you say I can't do this, I'm going to do it, but they had their priority, which was to make Christ known, and then everything else is going to fall secondary and tributary to that, so if our priority is right, and our reference point is right, then everything else is going to fall underneath that. Well, and I think along with what Jeremy is saying, I mean, you say that they were offended, I think they were sinning. Well, the Word of God says that they were come to the quick, meaning that the Word of God really had a... I mean, it drove them to want to murder these guys.

And if it hadn't been for Gamaliel standing up and saying, wait a minute, you guys have lost your cool. And he settled down. He gave examples of two people that sort of started an insurrection and nothing came of it so they went away. And his point was that if this Christian thing is not of God it will go away. If it is of God you won't be able to stop it. So he soothes their anger a little bit, so that they let the disciples go.

But within the next chapter, here you've got Stephen standing up. They've arrested him. And he, in about 50 verses, he really lays it on them. And they are so angry with him, that before they stone him to death, they chew on him. They bite him. So angry there. So could you say that Stephen caused them to sin? Because he made them insane? Should he not have done it? I think that's the interesting thing about Stephen is that he wasn't criticizing their behavior or saying, well this is wrong, the way you guys are living here is wrong.

He was pointing to the fact that this is what the gospel is and we need to believe. A lot of times the world perceives that Christians are out to communicate a list of do's and don'ts to people that aren't unbelievers. And in reality, whether an unbeliever is engaging in premarital sex or in alcoholism, if they stop doing those things, they'll live a better life. It doesn't alter their eternal position at all. And so the message that Christians need to give to unbelievers is that He brought up a great point.

If I see my brother sinning, what do I do about that? Gee, I better not approach him, otherwise not only is he sinning, but I'm offended by what he's doing. Should I go talk to him? What's the instruction from the Word of God? Everyone of you in this room, because you're the stronger brother, could do this. The Word of God says, he that is spiritual, Go talk to them about what?

Offense? No, sin. Sin. And when you talk to somebody about sin, what's the issue? What's that? Fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And it also has a lot to do with, look, who are you? Where are you and what do you have as a believer? Who am I? You're a son of God. And a son of God with the resurrected life of Christ, you know what?

Because of that life, that life functions and operates a certain way. Fornication or drunkenness isn't part of that. It isn't that you need to behave right so that we can demonstrate that you're a believer. It's because you're a believer, there's certain behaviors that come from the life of Christ. You see that? That's the point. You want to point people to the Lord Jesus. Steve?

It almost starts back around the circle again to self. You address people on the premise of sin versus yourself being offended because offense gets back into self. Say that again, I'm not sure I was clear. If you're merely approaching somebody on being offended, a lot of times that can have something to do with the self rather than the same issue. Yeah, it does.

So, if the principles are it doesn't master me, I'm not causing my brother to stumble, I'm doing it out of love. and I approach them about sin, that's one issue. But I can't use all of those three principles to approach you about something that offends me, if it's not sinful on your part. What do you think about that? If you apply the principles, and the principles are You know, I'm not mastered by it. I've got the liberty to do whatever, but I'm not going to do something that offends or causes you to stumble. And I'm functioning out of love. You do something to offend me, can I come and talk to you about it? What do you think?

Let's say that there's a brother that you really love and you hang out with and you really care about him and you've fellowshiped with him and you notice that he's just kind of drifting away. Not doing anything really offensive. He's just not, you know, he's not hungry anymore or he doesn't study and he doesn't care as much as he used to. He doesn't have that fervor like he used to have about the Word of God and he just, you know, he starts you know comes intermittently and you begin to notice certain behaviors in his life where he would rather be watching the Broncos and doing you know and he's starting to revert back to things that aren't necessarily sinful in his life but things that supplant what he used to do when he walked more closely with the Lord.

You approach that guy? What do you think? Tom? One possible option is, go along with him to the problem, and do some fellowship. Wait a minute, I might stumble if I do that. That's an opportunity to loosen up, and he can too, and he might be able to bring up the subject without dredging it up. Well my question is, do you have the liberty just to bring it up, under any circumstances, whether you do it covertly, Or you just come right out. What's that last part? So I can, you know, take them to lunch and say, hey, I noticed you've been sliding lately.

Or why don't you come up to my level? Or you just start hanging out around and make it a point to hang around with him more. Well, we have a friend that just visited and he lives in Chicago. Well, he can't go to a ballgame, so what do you do? I mean, it's such a touchy subject and we do nothing but think about it and we don't know what to do because we don't want to hurt the person. And we pray about it, of course, but what else is there?

You can't condemn the action. Our sole purpose is to point them to the Lord. And that's to come beside. as, you know, whatever, stronger whatever, and not to condemn the action, not to say any more laws, do's, don'ts, it's our sole purpose is just to point them to Christ. Not to condemn the action, not to even, you know, I wouldn't even bring up your sliding or whatever. Just come aside and, you know, in love, just start pointing them to the Lord, not condemning what he's doing. But just keep pointing them to the Lord. That's all we're called to do.

So don't you find it interesting how difficult it is when you're praying for somebody or you're really aware of somebody and you care about them a lot, how hard it is not to lay some rules on them? Well, you know, and also I think many times, you know, it's hard I think, but the Lord's working on them. And for us to somewhat yank and do things and tell him that's wrong, sometimes the Lord's bringing him to a point, and we may be part of that process, we don't know, but it may be bringing him to a point where he does look up. And it may be a slide down, or so far away that the fellowship is gone, and he's bringing it to that point where he's got to look up. Right. Jeremy.

Second, or first one, First Thessalonians chapter 5. 14 says, No, we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly. Comfort the people, Micah, and support them. Be patient towards all men. Those are all imperatives. So we're not commanding to lord over them, but warn them that are unruly. But those that are sinning...

I think we have a lot of liberty to approach a believer who's sinning. I don't have any trouble with that. I think what Courtney was touching on too, and it's important with our salvation, is that we can't make anybody do anything so it's difficult. So something happens. You see that there's sin in their life. You can't make anybody do anything.

That's the work of the Holy Spirit. So you have to point them in the right direction, but ultimately it's the Holy Spirit's job. I think that's an important point. I do, however, think that we do have the liberty from the Word of God about sin. The issue is who is going to be the one?

If you recognize, boy, I'm not spiritually strong enough to approach that person, then somebody who is spiritual needs to. But when it comes to sliding away or something like that, I think that the more mature believer understands how he got to where he is.

And he understands the patience and the care with which God dealt with him. And he stumbled a lot. He bruised his elbows and his knees an awful lot. He knows about, no matter what he did and no matter how he sinned, that the Lord was always there and always forgiving him and always leading him to Christ. And he was doing it based on love.

So this coming in alongside that Hebrews talks about, is a really important thing. I don't know if you've... I've talked about this before. I used to jog in those 5 and 10k races all the time. And sometimes, you know, somebody I knew, or maybe it was Don and I were running together. You know, I could run faster, but I didn't. It's interesting just to know that somebody's there going down the road with you makes a huge difference.

Someone says, you know, and then maybe they'll say, you know, I'm having a trouble with... My friend Miles used to say, yeah, I had trouble with that myself. You know, I used to view Miles as a spiritual heavyweight and then talk to him about the most mundane, simple thing and his reaction was always, yeah, you know, boy, I understand that. I struggle with that myself.

And what you're saying, I think, in the latter part of that verse says, supportively, you know, be patient towards all men. And that idea of support, I think, is what you said, you're alongside, you're not going to be condemning them, but you're making yourself available. And I think that if we're loving others and making them available, people may say, you know, what would they're going to ask you for advice and we can point them towards the scripture but I think that last part, be patient towards all things. We like to think we've arrived and everyone else is struggling. We just need to be patient as all of us are in a process. You know, like Courtney talks about, it's not just instantaneous, it's something that happens little by little. We need to be patient with ourselves and patient with everyone else. Yeah, and it's interesting too that you don't find out, like when you're in a body of believers like this and you've been with them a while, it's later that you find out that they've been tolerating some of your idiosyncrasies.

And you're thankful for that, because you know it's the Lord that led you out of them. Ruthie? I was just going to say that prayer is not the only thing I can do for a friend. It should be part of that coming alongside and the biggest part of that coming alongside. And I get to pray. How wonderful. I get to pray for my friend who needs support. It should be a positive thing instead of a negative thing.

It's very interesting when you spend any time dealing with this, trying to contrast stumbling with offending Because, like Chester McCauley said, I'm not going to give you any laws, but I'm going to beat you to death with my offenses. I'm offended about this and this and this and this.

And you know, nobody wears makeup in this church. Nobody ever told you, but let the woman walk in here and look around and see what she thinks. We all wear ties to church. Every man in this congregation wears a tie to church. Is there a rule somewhere? No. Have you ever seen a guy around here without a tie? Do you see the influence? Or we all sit within 15 feet of the assigned pew we've got. I can tell us also it wasn't the church because they are six up on the right and they weren't there at the same time.

The subtlety of the little things that come into a Christian's behavior that we look at their actions and we think, oh boy, I'm offended by that or I'm offended because they didn't do something that I think they should have done. Well, that's my problem. That is totally my problem. If you decide you're only going to come to church once a quarter Okay. Okay. That means I'm not going to hang out with you anymore. No it doesn't. No it doesn't. So stumbling is when we cause a weaker to sin. That's the bottom line. If you cause a weaker brother to sin, that's a stumble.

Lehman Strauss said, I think I know why James might have linked me to and slow to wrath. We are acquainted with the fact that words unfitly spoken often cause an outburst of temper. What starts out as a sincere and friendly discussion sometimes leads to an argument with its resulting flare of anger among those for whom the Christian should seek wisdom. There is an ever-present need for the controlled tongue and a controlled temper. When I read that, you know what hit me? Especially at a place like Holly Hills where we really spend time studying the Word.

What if I don't agree with you? Or you don't agree with me? And you're offended. Like, I've been accused a lot by being too gracious. I'm guilty of that. I'm glad. I've had people come to me and say, you know, you gotta, I mean, how are you going to ever instruct when people stop sinning if you don't ever tell them how? And they're mad. Have I caused them to sin? What if I know that if I engage them that they are going to be angry and they are going to sin? Am I free to go and engage them? I don't think so. I don't think I am. I can stand here and let them do whatever they're going to do.

It doesn't stop me from teaching to the best of my ability and my understanding If you're offended by it, that's your problem. If I'm teaching error, well, I'm hoping somebody's coming and talking to me about it. And I shouldn't be offended if I'm teaching error and you come and talk to me about it. The Word of God is the area in which discussion is always open.

But what if you come to me and I start getting mad? Now what should you do? And you're right and I'm wrong, but I'm mad because you challenged me. What should I do? Or what should you do? I'm just trying to, what should you do when you choose your own life? That's for a little second. We need to go on.

Like Lennon Strauss says, there's lots of disputation about doctrine. Isn't there? That's good though. I think it's good, but what if I recognize that every time I have a doctrinal discussion with you, you get really mad. And I mean, you're hot. I probably don't need to have those discussions with you anymore. Right. You know? I need to let the Lord teach you. Or we have a discussion and I get really mad. I probably shouldn't come and talk to you anymore. For a while. You see that? If it happens all the time, It's kind of hard to recognize a mistake in your own self. Oh yeah, well we're going to deal with that at a point in the future. Am I allowed to make mistakes?

So the thing that causes me to help someone not to stumble is the principle of love. Do we really love the other believers? We want God's best for them and we want them to grow. You don't go around beating your kids up. for them. What you'll notice in the Word of God, if you study these incidences, that every single one of them is solved by the principle of grace and not law. They're all solved by the principle of love and grace and not law.

Galatians 5.13, for we are called to freedom, brethren, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. What's interesting about us as believers, every believer has a growing understanding that his relationship with every other believer is that of a servant. One of the cool things about When Merc Peterman came here, he came with a servant's attitude.

He's never had anything other than that. He's the guy up here all the time, but he's a servant. He knows it. And that's really critical. Let's see. In Romans 1, or 14.1, we were talking about what you should talk to has faith to eat all things, but he that is weak eats herbs. Like I said last week, the vegans are out of the loop here.

Let not him that eats despise him, or look down your nose at him that doesn't eat. If I'm at liberty to eat anything and you're not, I'm not to look down my nose at you. And let him that eats not judge him that eats, for God has received him. So when you find a situation like that where I have liberty to Neither one of us are to look down our nose at each other.

It answers the question, in exercising liberty in another believer is not, you have the right, you don't have the right to go to them and talk to them about it. If I have absolute right, the liberty in my mind and my heart to go, to have a season ticket to every professional sport in Denver, and you think it's sinful, Well, I'll give you another example.

Every once in a while we have a social get-together around here. We had a 50's night. We had, I don't know, other things. We went square dancing. Well, what if that boy you think that dancing is sinful? Well, where I come from, Baptists, we don't dance.

Does that mean I can't go? I can go. I can go. I have liberty to do it, you know, but I better not go to Waterworld. Yeah, I've got liberty as long as it does. Second bell go off. We'll try it. We'll finish up with 11 and we'll stay on the subject for a while. And the more we talk about it, I think the clearer my freedom becomes. Let's close.

Dear Father, how we thank you for the liberty we have in your son. and how you have implanted in us your word and your son's life that allows us to, in liberty but in love, deal with one another so that all of us are edified and all of us can continue to grow in the knowledge and grace of your dear son. I pray in his name. Amen.