Which Side of the Cross - Lesson 15

Alright, we are in lesson 15 of which side of the cross do you live on? From listening to tape last week, it sounds like you got through at least question five and maybe started in question six. Is that about right? You kind of touched on it on six. I think that sometimes as I listen to tape, Mike kind of jumps around on the answers to questions and which question are we actually on and where we're at. I think we're on six. We'll touch on that, I think, more than anything. I think we may have gotten through six, but I wanted to reiterate some of that because that leads to the following questions. Question six, there is a connection between meat offered to idols and what? We'll go back to the passage, and this is really about stumbling a brother. This is 1 Corinthians 8, 7-13, I'll read. So, 1 Corinthians 8, 7-13.

However, not all men have this knowledge, but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrifice to an idol, and their conscience being weak is defiled. But food will not commend us to God. We are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat.

But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For 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 through your knowledge he 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. Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble.

So this, and listen to the tape last week, I agree, this section of scripture seems to be misdirected many times. And I think you went through a lot of questions before that about what stumbling means and what offending means. Somebody give me the difference between stumbling and offending. Do we need to go through all the questions again? What's stumbling? Somebody? Or are they the same? Stumbling and offending? Mike didn't seem to think so. I think he said stumble is to sin and how the way of your legal ego. Yes.

So they're different. And that's where I think the abuse, not the abuse, but the misdirection or misuse of this portion of scripture gets misdirected many times. It's not knowing what stumbling means and not knowing what offending means. And there's a significant difference. In this scripture, it's basically talking about causing somebody to sin, by your actions or by your liberty that you have, creating somebody or directing somebody that would fall back in, a weaker brother or weaker person, back to a sinful lifestyle. That is vastly different than offending somebody.

Offending somebody is whatever, Mike's, you know, scratching the surface of illegal, legal, or whatever, you know. Basically, it's, and this is something, and I think I've said this many times, and it has helped me over the years. A guy told me this, one of the elders at church, 30 plus years ago. And he said, you choose to be offended. You choose to be offended.

Is that correct? Is it your choice? Yes. Yes. Okay. We have a yes. Do we have a no? Is there anything you can do to me? I guess the way I put it this way, you can do anything to me. It is my choice to be offended. It is my choice. You can do, you can kick my dog. You can slap my face. You can tell me I'm an idiot. You can do anything to me.

It's my choice to be offended. My choice. So whatever you do to me, I choose to be offended. Now there may be things that, obviously, you know, you punch my son, I'd be offended. You know, you do something and I would choose to be offended. But that's my choice. The real key is, it's my choice to be offended. That is the key to releasing a lot of problems in your life. Because when you realize it's your choice, you're making that decision to be offended. And what does being offended usually end up doing? Causing you to sin.

Well, it may be. And I think we touched a little bit upon that and we'll touch a little bit more about that. You know, if I go up to you and I'm just poking you all day long, poking you, poking you, poking you, poking you. You choose to be offended, but, and I have the liberty, quote, to do that, but the next principle that I have, poking maybe by verbal, physically, I may not be touching him, but verbally poking him all day long and irritating him. I may have the liberty to do that, but the next principle we'll learn is are we doing that in love? I can irritate you all day long in my liberty, but if I'm not doing that in love, which I wouldn't be doing, I'm violating one of the principles of grace. So, again, the key is about stumbling. Many people just take this verse and say, you offended me by telling me that I can't go to the Broncos game. I'm offended because we don't do that here. I'm offended that you go to the Bronco game.

Is that legitimate? Is that what this verse is saying? No, it is not. And what this one in question six is, what was the problem with eating meat from idols? Their sacrifice to idols. Why was that? But why? I mean, just eating meat. I have the liberty to eat the meat. What was specific to this? What was the reasoning behind eating meat from an owl? Why would that cause you to sin again? Because of where it was done and what was done there? Yeah.

It basically was related to the sex that was the priestesses that were at the idol temples. You'd eat meat but then you'd have, you know, the priestesses or whatever. So it was bringing you back into a lifestyle of, okay, I can eat meat so I'll go back to the idol temple and eat the meat.

Oh wow, I remember when I used to come here and we'd go upstairs with the priest. So it would bring you back to a condition where you were apt to sin again. So that was the reasoning behind why this whole passage is there. That it brought you back to a position where you were back into the conditions where you'd easily sin again.

You have perfect liberty to sit there and eat the steak at the idol temple. Paul says all things you can do, you have the liberty to do it. But if you're doing it with a brother who was actively participating in these activities and he sees you, man, I can go back to the temple and have a steak. I go back there and I have my steak and who's serving me that steak?

Oh boy, I remember that. That was fun. and drawn back into it so that's the stumbling part this isn't just about you go to a bronco game and you have a problem with going to the bronco game you know we don't go to it so you shouldn't go to it that's you're just being offended but it's not leading you to a sinful life again or sinful behavior again so that's why I said this section of scripture gets abused a lot of times because it's you offend me so or this offended you and so you're stumbling me No, it just offended you. So I think the modern translation or modern condition I think would be the most equivalent is if you know that somebody is an alcoholic and you know that they have a problem with drinking and you, hey, I got this great bar that I go to, has great nachos. Let's go to the bar and have nachos and I'll have a beer and you come with me. Well, what's the problem with that?

I'm going to bring him back into that situation that he was very lost in and sinning. And I have the perfect liberty to go have my beer and a nacho, but I'm bringing him back into a situation where he will fall back into a lifestyle of sin, going back to alcoholism or drinking. So, even though I have the liberty to do that, what this verse is saying is don't stumble your brother by bringing him into that situation where he'll continue into a lifestyle of sin again. Again, the flip side in what we try and say in this is it's not just offending. If you are not an alcoholic and you're offended that I go to a bar that has great nachos and a beer, you don't like that.

Is that the same thing as with an alcoholic? Would I be stumbling you? Or will I be offending you? If you're not an alcoholic, but you're, don't ever touch alcohol. Because of your upbringing or whatever or your interpretation or just your judgment of scripture. It'd be offending.

So do you have the right, am I, so I wouldn't be stumbling you, I'm just offending you, right? So that's the difference. This wouldn't apply to that, that you're stumbling me. No, I'm just offending you. And do you have the right to tell me not to do that?

Under grace? Is that a specific thing that's called out that you can tell me not to X, Y, or Z? Now, there are some things that we get into, like an elder. If you're there all the time and there's a pattern of this or something as an elder, I may say, you know, you're at the bar all the time, maybe you might want to, but that's under the authority given to an elder.

But I can't tell you because I'm just offended by it. Okay, so there's a real important difference between stumbling and offending somebody. So that's why we go through a lot of this, why we go through this under grace. Offending and stumbling are two different things. And many times we abuse this and under grace by just offending, not stumbling.

So are we good with that? Alright, question seven. It's said about weak believers. So, question seven. What do we do with regards to weak believers? Just let them flounder, let them go. Take them to a bronco camp. And have the fellowship and explain everything to them. So what do you do? Is it their problem, not yours, therefore leave them alone? Be sensitive to their weaknesses. Sensitive to their weaknesses. I would spend time with them and get to know them and just teach them truth. Okay. Others? No, it's your problem. You shouldn't leave that person to sin.

You know that's going to offend him. Yeah, I think, and that's the key is, if something is just offending somebody and you know it is, you know that's going to offend them, then we'll get to the next principle, which is in love. You know that just irritates the socks off of them. And I'm going to do it day in and day out just to irritate you. That is not, under grace, the principle of love. The bedrock under this is doing it in love.

But, if somebody's just offended and you go to a Bronco game and that really offends you and you come down on them because that just irritates you, you know, again, are you, by saying, coming to me and telling me, I have, I can't go to the Broncos, what is it, what are you doing? I may be making a judgment. A judgment or? putting me under a rule. And that rule is your rule. So is that a gracious act?

No, you're basically sinning. You're creating a legal system on me because something offends you. So, again, this is where it offends you, so you're going to come after me and tell me that, and then I've got to respond to you because you're offended. Well, Should you have said anything in the first place to me, putting a legal burden on me? So again, this is very important about what offends somebody versus stumbling somebody.

If it just offends you, don't put a law on me because you, at that point, are sinning by putting a rule or a legal system on me. And that doesn't function under grace. I said, are you going to keep on doing what you can freely do in your liberty, verse 9, that causes another brother to stumble and return to a sinful lifestyle? No. No. So you're not going to sit there with somebody who's stumbling, or being stumbled, you're not going to continue with that weak brother. I think, as she says, you're going to come beside him, you're going to help him, there are verses that say that.

Galatians 6.1 about coming beside a weaker brother, a weaker member of the body. So you don't leave them hanging, but you also don't put a law system on them either. If they're weak in alcoholism, come beside them, help them, do everything, something that's stumbling them.

But if it's just something that irritates your socks, is he really a weaker brother by going to a bronco game because it irritates you? Well he brought up the Bronco Gamer, I think, or so you brought it up, Mike. No, I think Mike did, but I think he responded on what you do to that person. And so again, we're trying to say what a weaker brother is, or weaker member is, and I think that last week Mike over quite a bit of that about who's determined to be a weak one and a strong one.

What do we all think we are? Strong. We're the strong ones. But ho, ho, ho, you're the weak one, you know. We always think that. So, again, there's a lot of interpretation on that about a weaker brother or a weaker member. But a weaker one in this one is somebody who actually has a sinful lifestyle or had one and is weak in that area. that he would stumble, stumble, bring back that lifestyle.

Joanne, what were you going to say? Joanne, were you going to say something? Well, this question seven, what do we do regarding weak believers? I just look at it as thinking that if you are a strong believer, you should, and he's talking about brothers, and we should love the brothers and sisters, If we see the weaker brother, we should be very willing to give up our liberty. Which we'll see in some of the next verses coming up. And again, remember in this passage what the weaker brother means.

It's somebody who had a lifestyle of sin, sinful behavior, eating at the idol temple, participating in those activities. So it's specific in this one, it's talking about somebody who had a weakness, an alcoholic. It's the modern day. Somebody who's an alcoholic, that's somebody who's weak in that area.

And for us to take our liberty, and even though we have the liberty, you bring him back into that sinful lifestyle. That's what, again, we're talking about. So in a weaker brother here, you come beside him, you don't have the liberty that you have, you don't exercise it. And that's what he's saying, you know.

At the very end, therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble. He has the liberty to eat anything he wants. But in the end, in order to come aside that weak brother, he's saying, I'm not going to eat it. If that really offends him, I will not, or Brink not offends him, stumbles him, And we'll get to another one which is kind of funny. We'll get to that in about meat and vegetables and all that kind of good stuff. Let's question eight.

What did your exercise of liberty cause a weak believer to do? Did it cause him to be offended? What did it do in this passage? He's wondering what is right and what is wrong. He doesn't know. He or she doesn't know. It's also in the alcoholic's side of things. You know, he knows it's okay for you to go and have a beer, but maybe I can too. Maybe I can go back and have, I'll just have one. I'll just have, no, two's good.

Maybe next week we'll go with you and your liberty is growing him back into a sinful lifestyle. So that's really the whole point in question 7 and 8. What does the exercise of your liberty cause a weak believer to do? To stumble and bring him back into a lifestyle of sin. That's the whole point of this. And again, that's what this passage is. Not about offending people.

It's causing a believer to go back to a sinful lifestyle that he or she is weak in. You know, it's whatever causes he or she to go into a sinful lifestyle. So, if our actions cause a weaker believer to sin, what should we do? Should we set up a rule to address the issue?

Thou shalt not eat steak. Thou shalt not ever have a beer because there's an alcoholic out there. Do we do that? Is that what we do? Just don't do it in front of them. So, but we wouldn't say never drink, right? Right. Just not with them. You know, we all know who we can do different things with. You know, it's just being sensitive, being loving, thinking of them first, not I feel like doing this, so I'm going to do it, and it's your problem. Paul says that exact thing in verse 13 of that. Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I'll never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble. Was he putting a rule down? A law? No principle. It's almost like all the kids downstairs, Jesus! Right now, you just say principle, we got it covered.

It really is, it's just, it's basically, sacrificially loving your brother. As she was saying, it's basically, I have the liberty to do this, but if it causes you to stumble, I am willing, because I love you as a brother, I will not do that if it causes you to stumble or to go back to your sinful lifestyle. So that's what we'll get into basically in the next lesson is about the principle of love, which is all these principles about how grace operates. We've had about mastering you. We had about mastering you, we had this principle, now we're getting into love, how grace operates in love.

So, unfortunately, Mike did not send out, I realize, Lesson 16 to you guys. So, I don't think anybody, did anybody get it? Did you check? Yeah, I checked, didn't get it. No, we checked back there, so it's not there. So, I'm just going to read you the questions, and then we'll, no prep, so you'll have to do this on the fly a little bit. So, yeah.

I have a dear good friend who's had 15 DUIs. He's been in jail three times. The next time he gets to stop drinking and driving he goes to Canyon City. Right. But I know maybe on a Friday night he just goes ballistic there. And he's a Catholic brother, he's a Christian. And you know I... I don't want him to end up in Canyon City, and it's sort of like, how do I lovingly help him? Well on that one, see, you know, that one's their specifics.

Do not be drunk. There is, I mean, it's not a principle. They're specific. Do not be drunk. Do not get drunk. Right. you know, with wine or whatever. So there's specifics on that. So you have the ability to say, you know, getting drunk is not acting who you are in Christ.

See, I think a lot of these, you know, and that's where I think the identification truths help. Knowing that your old man was separated. letting him know that he or she doesn't have to do this. That's the old man succumbing to the pleasure or problems of being drunk. You know, I think that's when you come beside, as we'll see in Galatians, you come beside that brother, that weak brother, and lovingly help him. And again, my approach on that would be to, again, go to the identification that you don't have to do this, and there are going to be consequences.

You can do this, but there are going to be consequences to this. The sin of that has been taken care of. If he's truly a believer, it's been taken care of, and point that out. or a believer, this is all taken care of. All the sin, but you're going to have consequences to your actions. And that may be Canyon City.

But I would start pointing out again that you don't have to do this. If you understand that you have been separated positionally at the cross, you no longer are mastered by this old man. The new man is not mastered. Amen, that's a great answer. And so I would go down that path. And just come beside him. On a Friday night, don't let him go out and get a burger, not at a bar. Exactly. And support him. I love that answer. Don't let him take his car. I'm surprised he probably doesn't have a car. He doesn't have a car, he doesn't have a license. But eventually, over time, he'll be able to get a car with a breathalyzer. Yeah, the blow to go. Blow to go. That's just getting around the problem. It is. Yeah, it's not addressing the problem and there are ways around that. Yeah. Yeah, it's not good. No, it's really coming beside him. I think that's the key. You as a strong brother, to come beside him and to help the weaker brother in that. And like I said, I would go through, like I said, repeating the identification, all those things, and tell him that what you've done is paid for. God doesn't even see that anymore. But if you do this, you're going to have consequences. And you don't have to do this. You don't have to do it. You're not mastered. The new man is not mastered. Okay? Alright, well I will go through on 16, we'll do it on the fly here.

So, if you see someone exercising a liberty and you're not, do you have the right to approach them? So, we can ask the question another way. If you're exercising liberty and another believer is not, do you have a right to go to them and talk to them about it? No. In either sense? So, the first one is, if you see someone exercising liberty going to a bar and having a beer and a hot dog, and you're not, do you have the right to approach them?

Approach or reproach? Approach them. Approach them and say, hey, that's wrong. Do you have the right to do that? Or, if you're doing something, you're the person at the bar having the beer, and you're exercising your liberty, and another one is not, do they have the right to come to you and tell you no? Why? Because it's a liberty. It's under grace.

You're just saying that offends me, and I don't like it, so stop. I'm going to put a rule on you Now remember how we started this whole thing about, and it sounds really tough, and it sounds self-centered, and I'm always trying to figure out how we say this correctly, but how the individual judgments are. Remember when we started this and we kind of said under grace, under these principles, a lot of it's under individual judgment. So what you determine for your life, if there's no specifics against it, go into the Bronco game, bowling.

Dancing. Whatever. Swimming in mixed company. What? Swimming in mixed company. I mean, those are old day things that we're wearing a two-piece bathing suit for. So, remember, these are individual things. And that's where we say, for an individual, for you, it may be fine to go bowling. For you, we never go bowling. But that's okay. So the individual, you have something that bowling really just draws you into something or you just have, you just think it's wrong. The people there have the rotten language or just whatever. You just don't like it. But they go and have a bowling league and they have fun.

And so again, it goes back to the individual and that's under grace. He's given us that liberty to do that, but it's individual. And where we get into trouble is when your individual liberty is offended by what they do, and you try and impose that on them. And that's where this whole, under grace, he's given us so much liberty, but where the fights come is when we get between offending and our individual liberties, and we're trying to impose that on somebody else. So, this is what we get when we use it. Oh, I'm just thinking because it may offend a guy but then cause him to stumble.

Yeah, I mean, if you go to the bowling alley and get drunk every time or you go out and you smoke weed or something, you know, every time you went to the bowling alley in the past before you were a believer. Yeah, that would be something that be sensitive to. If I know that you have that, I may be sensitive to that.

But if you didn't know. You know, again, that's something... And he stumbles. Yeah, again, I didn't know, I didn't purposely do that and I have that liberty to do that. I think, you know, if you find that out, once you find that out, you, under the love principle that we're getting into, you would stop that. But if I don't know that, it's like if you went to and had a drink. You don't know everybody who may be an alcoholic. You may not know that.

So some people may choose never to have a drink in public. But that's your individual choice. Under grace, your liberty to do that. Now, if I know you have a drinking problem, again, I'm not going to ask you to a place that is a bar. So again, knowing and your individual liberty may say, I may never have a drink in public. Others have the liberty to say, I can have that, because, you know, I don't know, but I have the liberty to do that. It's just like he can eat steak at the idol temple, but if he knows that he's stumbling somebody, I'll never touch that again. That's his individual decision.

Paul's in the Corinthian section. I think it's partly but so, just like full-blown stating we're not under the law anymore. Well, that's this whole thing about why we get into grace. You know, Paul says it in 5, it's like, stand fast in the liberty with which you have in Christ.

We have unbelievable liberties. He's given us this system of grace, not of rules. You know, we touched upon this earlier, that if we had to have specifics, every day, like manna would come down, we'd have a refrigerator list of, thou shalt not do this, thou shalt do this, this, that, that, and every day we'd have to have another rule or another law system. Under grace, we don't have that. We have principles.

And that's very broad and very open. And it goes to how you live that is under what you know, the word in the scripture that's incumbent upon that is how you know him and how you grow in the Lord and how those principles are applied. But he's given us great freedom. And that's why Paul in 5 just says, stand fast. Don't give up this liberty. Don't put another rule on everybody. So it's a great system. One of the things that we've been talking about has been fairly negative, right? I mean, that we're causing harm. The context here is, you know, I have these liberties. Not every one of them is profitable. Not everyone is good for growth.

And that would apply to those around us as well. But again, the danger is what is edifying to you Is it necessarily edifying to him? And if it is not edifying to him, then I'll limit myself, because not only is that helping me, I'm getting stronger, because I'm allowing Christ to do that in me. And I'm also giving him an example of the correct way to live a life that is towards good, not towards harm. But that's a really, really, really fine line.

Yeah, but where we get into trouble, we're going to touch on that, about what's quote correct for you. All I'm saying is that in this passage we have hope. We have the positive and we have the negative. In fact we'll get into that in just a minute. We've touched more on the negative side, but we want to touch on the very positive things. And the funny thing is about the positive versus the negatives and what we as believers focus on. We always focus on the negative and we attack the things that are not specific and we let those things that are specific go. Why is that? Someone is exercising a liberty and you're not. Do you have the right to approach him?

We'll look at Romans 14 verses 1-4. Romans 14 verses 1-4. Now accept the one who is weak in 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 vegetables only. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge the servant of another?

To his own master he stands or falls, and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand." So, what is this passage saying? See, I think the funny part is, well, I'll get to it. So what is it saying? That the Lord will take care of it. Who's in charge? Yeah, well, the Lord.

So it's not your responsibility. It's not your responsibility to say, hey, you're eating a steak. I only eat vegetables. What's wrong with you? You and eating the meat. What are you doing? You're eating vegetables? I got a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich that's just awesome. Why aren't you eating that?

So what's he saying on either person? What's either person supposed to do? Not be a busybody and pick on other people. I mean, it puts yourself in a position of, well, not humility. It's just a matter of pride. What's it say? My way is best, and I know best. Who's to judge that servant? Who's acting as judge, jury, and now, that's a rule that I don't like.

You're getting into politics there. That's the third rail. What really stands out is when it says, to his own master he stands or falls, and he will stand. For the Lord is able to make him stand. So who is the one? It's not you. It's not you. The Lord is the one.

But the funny part of the passage is, who is the weak one? Just a comment. Just a comment. The vegetarian, he's the weak one, but that's just that. So not a comment on anybody who's a vegetarian out there, just noting the passage says, he who is weak eats vegetables. It also says just ahead of that, this is doubtful disputings. Yeah, and that's the whole thing.

That's what we're pointing out here is that, you know, is the one who is restricted, is it the one who is not restricted or the one who is restricted is the weak one in this passage? The one who is restricted or the one who is not restricted? Yeah, is the weaker one? And so it's kind of interesting that the one who has the restriction is the one who is called weak. So from just a principle standpoint, the ones who have more restrictions on this liberty is the weaker one. Because I'm not taking it that if you eat vegetables you're weak.

The principle here is that you who have these restrictions, and the temptation is to apply that on others. That's the key to this, is that the one who has all these restrictions wants to place it on you, because I have this restriction. So the weaker one typically is the one who has the restriction, because they want to impose that on somebody else.

I'm just wondering in this message, we're told to receive them, but not maybe to allow the doubtful disputings that they might bring in because of their weakness. So that puts a responsibility, doesn't it, on the leadership to not let the weaker one try to rule? Well, leadership or just principle, you as a believer, reading this passage, don't get into idle, you know, meaningless Conflicts.

And this is one of those meaningless ones. But let's say I came in here with a doubtful thing that I really believe that it was a regulation on my life I want to impose on you and everybody else here. You wouldn't allow that. As a leader you need to bring that to the forefront as being not acceptable. Right, but first of all, you shouldn't be doing that according to scripture. Now, yes, if you're doing that and it's within the body of believers here, under the authority given to elders, they lead. I think part's a good example. Yeah. Yeah, I mean. Because we're legal now. Right. Well, that's where you get into what's profitable or edifying and what are not.

You know, and also really on that one, I think of You can have a glass of wine because it tastes good and you're not drunk. You can have a beer and it tastes fine and you're not going to get drunk. My issue with marijuana and those is I don't think you can just taste it and not get high, which is the equivalent of the modern day of being drunk or out of control.

So I don't think there's an instance that says you can just I just wanted a little flavor of it. Just a nose hit. A nose hit. So I think that one really, you have a specific about not being drunk or impacted by alcohol, drugs, anything like that. So that one, I don't think there is a, it's an okay to just a little bit.

Because the whole purpose is to get you high. So that's a different category, I think. You can't just say that's okay. I mean, and that's a specific, so an elder, somebody who is a stronger person, a stronger believer comes beside him and says, look, you know, there are specifics about this. As a believer, this is, you know, contrary to what a believer does. And doctors are prescribing it. Oh yeah, I mean, that's a whole different issue.

I was going to say, this really helps me a lot because my wife and I were saved in the Nazarene church and they told us the whole gospel and we were saved by grace. Then they gave us a big black book and said, here's like a hundred and some things you are not allowed to do. Totally wrong. Totally.

That's where this one, again, the point of this also, it's not that vegetarians are really weak. It's those who have restrictions are the weaker ones. Because the tendency is to apply it to the people who have the liberty and are exercising their liberty. That's really what's going on here. Really it says, the condition here is, so who should be telling the other what to do? in this passage? Our master, the Lord. Yeah, well, ultimately that's the end. The Lord is able to make him stand.

But who, between the stronger brother or the weaker one or the one who eats meat or the one who doesn't eat meat, who should be telling the other what to do? Nobody. Neither. In verse 13 it says, therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Right. So, again, neither. Neither. is the one to impose on the other one.

Getting back to the individuality of this, if that brother wants to eat vegetables, it's okay. If this guy wants to have the triple meat combo pizza, it's okay. And again, remember about the offense, so the person who's having the meat pizza could have lunch with the person who has the salad, and it's okay. Neither should be pointing at each other going, put the pizza down. There are consequences though. Yeah, that's another one, but that's not what the point here is.

You should be able to have that and fellowship. And don't be a busybody about it. That's what she was saying too. Don't be a murmuring busybody. I'm getting into your business all the time. And that's the whole point of this. We have the liberty to do this. Stand fast in that liberty. Do not impose law and legal in grace. They don't mix. And there's a real freedom in that.

Total. That's the whole point of this. is we have so much freedom in this and that's why when I see when I read Galatians and I see Paul I just I've related this on several times you know the Jewish culture was just legal to the nth degree and he's going hey freedom liberty and they're going are you kidding me you mean I can eat pork what you know you can have You can paint your house on the Sabbath? What? They couldn't, and you see it in Paul's, I feel it in Paul's, you know, in Galatians where he's just going, don't you understand this? You have liberty. Stand fast in your liberty. Don't go back to a legal system. And that's, you know, but we, we do the same thing. You know, why are you eating that steak? You went to the Broncos game? You went to a movie? You saw that movie? My brother, he's a Catholic. He's real Catholic.

I'm offending him all the time. Well, there are those things, like you said, in love, if you know it just irritates the socks off him, in love, and you're doing it, well, in your heart, you're knowing it just because it irritates him. That violates the principle we're getting into, which is love. If you know it just rocks his socks, and you're doing it because it rocks his socks, then it's not done in love, and your freedom, your liberty is not doing it because that's who you are and what you want. It's because you want to irritate it to death.

Was that the first or second? First. Okay. The second question, we'll maybe just touch on it a little bit. If we really love other believers, we want God's best for them. We want them to grow. So, what is the principle number three is? Love. The principle is you do it in love. Just what we were talking about.

If we go back to the last lesson where we see what he says about the possibility of stumbling somebody, what does he say? At the very end he says, therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble. If my brother is a Catholic and this just torques him, do I do it?

Sometimes it's good to push it. The motive there is a little suspect. Right. And under this principle of love, if you're truly trying to draw him to Christ, you know, again, the principle behind this is you do it in love. You know, if And again, remember, this was stumbling somebody. This was stumbling. So, I think it can apply on the offensive side. If you know this just offends somebody, and you repeatedly do it because you know, are you doing it in love?

Even though you have the liberty to do it, are you doing it in love? And that's the principle. And that's what Paul says. I can do this. I can eat steak that sacrifices all day long. But out of love for that weaker brother, I'm not going to do it. And that's really the third principle under grace that we look at is that you do it in love. Even though we have all this liberty, your actions, your liberty is done in love to weaker brothers, to others. Where we abuse that is that it offends me and I'm just going to go after them because it's just not what I do.

And that's why, again, these individual things are for individuals. If you want to eat meat, you don't want to eat meat, you want to go bowling, you want to go to a movie, that's your individual. And not to impose it on everybody else. You eat meat, you eat vegetables, amen. It's okay.

Alright, we'll actually have Mike or I will send out Lesson 16 to you for next week. And we'll continue on this one, Question 2, next week. Alright, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you again just for the reigning principle of grace that we live in right now. In Romans 5 you say it is the reigning principle now.

And as we understand that, it's contrary to everything that the world is. It's not law-bound. It's not rules. It's not regulations. We have liberty in that. And just pray that you'll impart in our hearts just the understanding of what stumbling means and what offending somebody means.

And just the liberty that we have individually and not to impose that on others, that you are ultimately the one who is the one who makes us stand, who is the one who has all the direction given to us in the scripture. You're the one through the Holy Spirit convincing us of your truths and what that means and what freedom is in grace and what great joy that we have through the operating system of grace. And again, as we go back to the definition that we use, the unlimited and unmerited blessings from you based on the finished work of Christ, we rest in those facts. Search the scriptures just to give us guidance in what grace, how grace operates. Because the world, we can't get a vision of how grace works through looking at the world. We have to look at it in your word and have the Holy Spirit convincing us of those truths. We just thank you now again for this time. We pray for the next meeting with Byrne, just to be able to open up your word and prepare our hearts to receive it. We thank you for all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.