to see everybody here this afternoon. We can go ahead and find a hymnal and then go ahead and find
song number 230, song number 230, heavenly sunlight, song number 230, heavenly sunlight,
let's all sing it out together, song number 230 that we're saved and thank you for just the
opportunity to serve you Lord in such a great church. We just ask now to fill it with your
spirit. Bless everything that we do and it's in Jesus name we pray, amen. All right for our next
song, let's go to song number 250. Song number 250, curtains are lifted for a song number 250.
All singing out loudly together, days are filled with sorrow and care. We're coming to St. Mass
Baptist Church if you didn't already get a bulletin you would like one just lift up your hand real
quick. Front we have our preliminary passage Jude 6 and on the insides our service and soul winning
times our church stats and uh we're still crushing evangelists or bannock let's keep that up and uh
but honestly you know they had a church service yesterday they had 40 45 people come out for their
service and then 40 in the evening and then they had 10 soul winners 30 salvations so they're doing
a great work over there keep them in your prayers and uh honestly i hope he beats us because that
just means he's going to do epic because we're going to keep on going and we're going to keep
doing great and i know they're working really hard over there and brother james has also been
working with him and getting a lot of salvations too so continue to pray for the work in the
philippines on the right we have a list of our expecting ladies upcoming events is our geraint
marathon there's a sign-up sheet make sure to please do that today so that we can get the
food and everything prepped we are going to be having lunch and it sounds really good i'm pretty
excited about it but we'll be meeting out there for for breakfast at a park area the address is
there in the bulletin we'll put it in our group chats as well and then we'll be meeting for lunch
and then going out for soul winning afternoon as well so it should be a lot of fun to go out there
on the back we have a list of our expecting ladies so i'm sorry prayer requests please uh be in prayer
for our prayer requests and that's pretty much all i have let's go ahead and sing our psalm of the
week psalm 149 in our psalm binder psalm 149 psalm 149 psalm chapter 149 let's sing it out together
bring plates you're being passed around in your bible to first corinthians chapter first
corinthians number 10 you should be ignorant how that all our fathers were under the cloud and
all passed through the sea and were all baptized under moses in the cloud and in the sea and did
all eat the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink for they drank of that
spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was christ but with many of them god was not
well pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness now these things were our examples
to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted neither be ye idolaters as were
some of them as it is written the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play neither let
us commit fornication as some of them committed and fell in one day three and twenty thousand
neither let us tempt christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents
neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer now all these
things happen unto them for in samples and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends
of the world are come wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall
there hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man but god is faithful who will not
suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make
a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from
idolatry. I speak as to wise men. Judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless,
is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion
of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers
of that one bread. Behold Israel after the flesh. Are not they which eat of the sacrifices
partakers of the altar? What say I then, that the idol is anything, or that which is offered
in sacrifice to idols is anything? But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice,
they sacrifice to devils and not to God. And I would not that ye should have fellowship
with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. Ye cannot be partakers
of the Lord's table and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we
stronger than he? All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All
things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no man seek his own, but every man
another's wealth. Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for
conscience' sake. For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. If any of them that
believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go, whatsoever is said before
you eat, asking no question for conscience' sake. But if any man say unto you, This is
offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that showed it, and for conscience'
sake. For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. Conscience, I say, not thine
own, but of the other. For why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience? For if
I by grace be a partaker, why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks? Whether
therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. Give none
offense neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God. Even as I please
all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many that they may
be saved. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for the word of God. I thank
you for the great works that you've allowed us to do in Steadfast Baptist Church. I ask
you to continue to bless us. Please bless this upcoming soul-winning marathon. And please
help Pastor Shelley as he preaches. Give him boldness to preach what you've laid on
his heart. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. I want to preach a sermon this evening called
Convictions versus Commandments. Convictions versus Commandments. And I think this is a
really important sermon to pay attention because if you're not paying attention you could take
something I say the wrong way. And I think this chapter, you have noticed that Paul also
has the same concern. Notice in verse 5, "I speak as to wise men, judge ye what I say."
So the Apostle Paul in the preceding verse warns, "Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee
from idolatry." The Bible is very clear that idolatry is a very grievous sin. It's a bad
sin. You should stay away from it. You should flee from it. But he also in this chapter
is kind of giving a little bit of nuance to help explain that while we flee from idolatry,
there can still be a little bit of balance here into how he lives his life and some of
the decisions that he makes. And really, you know, convictions, there's nothing wrong with
convictions. What is a conviction? It's just something that you personally don't want to
do, you don't really agree with, you think is wrong. But there's not an explicit verse
in the Bible condemning what you believe is wrong. You personally don't like it. The standard
for you or your family is different. And there's nothing wrong with it. It's just simply not
Bible. Okay? And here's the thing, there's nothing wrong with convictions. I don't want
people to change their convictions necessarily. But what can often happen is people are preaching
their convictions as if they're a commandment. And what ends up happening is people start
judging other people for not having their convictions, even though they're not an actual
commandment. And really, I worry that a lot of churches today, in an effort to fill pulpit
time, spend all this time preaching their convictions and not the commandments. And
I think as pastors, we should really emphasize what the Bible says and not emphasize what
the Bible doesn't say. There's a lot of things that the Bible doesn't talk about. And you
say, "Well, who's going to talk about it?" Maybe we don't really need to talk about it
in church that much. You know, I mean, have you ever thought like, "Hey, the Bible seems
silent on this issue. Maybe we should be silent then from the pulpit." Again, that doesn't
mean that we aren't going to fill the gaps in ourselves. That doesn't mean that me as
a pastor, I don't think that I have the liberty to occasionally express my opinion or my personal
convictions or my standards or my example, but I hope that people will often listen when
I'm talking and hopefully I do a good job of caveating like, "Hey, this is just what
I do or this is my personal opinion, but this is not the Bible. Here's where the Bible's
at. Here's maybe how I apply things." But I feel like a lot of preachers today and a
lot of preaching today is pretty much just emphasizing all these things the Bible's not
talking about as opposed to things the Bible are actually talking about. And I hope that
continued preaching a lot of sermons on this issue because I hope you as a congregation,
you know, can make clear lines in your head of what the Bible's actually saying versus where
people are just filling in the gaps themselves, okay? And in this chapter, it deals with the
subject and nuance of "fleeing idolatry" because fleeing idolatry could be interpreted several
different ways, couldn't it? Now, number one, it is a commandment. We should flee idolatry,
but at the end of the same time, what does that look like different people? What is the exact
line? He kind of addresses that issue in this chapter. Now, as let's keep reading, it says,
"I speak as the wise men, judge you what I say, the cup of blessing which we bless is not the
communion of the blood of Christ. The bread which we break is not the communion of the body of
Christ. For we being many are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread.
Behold Israel at the flesh, are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?"
So what is he saying? He's saying when we have communion it's like there's this spiritual element
to the food and we still think that that's special. So then he likens that into idolatry
and he says, "What say I then that the idol is anything or that which is offered in sacrifice
to idols is anything but I say that the things that the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to
devils and not to God and I would not that you should have fellowship with devils." So he's
saying since there's a spiritual element sometimes to food like we have communion and there's a
spiritual symbolence there there could be in the same way like in a false religion when they're
offering meat under their false gods or partaking in their celebrations that they're somehow
communing with devils and we should not do that we should not be participating in some kind of a
food event that's in a worship of a false god or a false religion. He's saying this is wrong
and he's saying you cannot drink the cup of the Lord in the cup of devils you cannot be partakers
of the Lord's table and of the table of devils do we provoke the Lord jealousy are we stronger than
he now this is what he says all things are lawful for me but all things are not expedient all things
are lawful for me but all things edify not so and i'm going to explain Romans 14 in correlation to
this but what he's trying to say is hey i'm not worshiping devils ever and technically a rock's
a rock and technically meat is meat and technically if i just say god bless this meal and i eat it
there's no problem no fault that's why it's saying specifically all things are lawful for me that's
the context it's not saying literally everything's lawful it's saying that eating any kind of meat
is lawful because it's meat at the end of the day but it may not be expedient meaning a good idea
because by eating meat and sacrifice to false religion could cause other people to get confused
or possibly led down the wrong path or think that false religion's okay now or wondering why
paul is somehow partaking in other religions and it could confuse other people it could cause
other people to start making bad decisions and so he's trying to say it's probably not a good idea
for me to eat meat sacrifice and idols and so that's the primary reason why he's saying
i'll never do it he's saying i'm never going to do it and of course we should flee idolatry
anyways right he says let no man seek his own but every man another's wealth so he's saying i'm not
doing this for my own benefit i'm doing it for other people's benefit that i'm not eating meat
sacrifice and idols whatsoever is sold in the shambles that eat asking no question for content
sake so he's giving two different examples one is you're at a meal and there's and there's somehow
they're just like we're worshiping this false god here's meat that we sacrifice this false god
he's saying never eat it if they tell you that's the case then don't eat it but let's say you're
just at the supermarket and it has a middle eastern label on there you just grab the meat and go but
if it says like sacrifice to Allah then you say like no I'm not going to eat that meat and you have
to understand that a lot of middle easterners when they slaughter their animals they will slaughter it
with their head pointed to Mecca and they'll slit the throat and like say this you know Arabic prayer
say recite something to their false god they're like sacrificing every single animal to idols
okay and if you go to a lot of Thai restaurants Vietnamese restaurants all these things you can
see they have their idolatry and their false religion sometimes on display I wouldn't be
surprised if sometimes they do things that we don't know about here's the thing if you really
like that pho you just don't ask questions is what it's saying all right if you really like that meal
you just don't even ask questions but if you know and it's it's public knowledge that this is meat
sacrifice and idols or this is somehow part of a false religion you just shouldn't partake it's
not the right thing to do that's what he's explaining okay he says for the earth is the
lord's and the fullness thereof if any of them that believe not bid you to a feast and you be
disposed to go whatsoever set before you eat asking no question for conscience sake but if any man
say unto you this is offered as sacrifice and idols eat not for his sake that showed it and for
conscience sake for the earth is the lord's and the fullness thereof conscience i say not thine own
but of the other for why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience and so he's saying
hey i'm not not eating this meal because i feel bad about it i'm not eating it because i don't
want to wound someone else's conscience i don't want someone else to get the wrong idea i don't
want someone that's in a false religion that's not saved to see me participating with them and
the worship of a false god and think oh christianity is not real then this guy doesn't take his religion
seriously or this false god's not a big deal and they end up not getting saved as a result
or they don't take christianity as serious as a result so he's saying hey if someone told me
this is you know for this false religion i should just say well i can't do that because i'm a
christian to make it clear that christianity is serious not that he couldn't in his own private
home eat something because it's just meat it wouldn't be a big deal he's not saying he feels
bad about it he doesn't want to wound the other guy's conscience and he says why should my liberty
be judged of another man's conscience you know we have liberty in christianity to do certain things
and just because you feel bad about it doesn't mean that i have to observe your conscience but
at the same time i should be conscious i should be conscious of your conscience and potentially
not do things that would wound your conscience or cause you to stumble so it's it's kind of
it's kind of tricky the way he's wording this but it's basically saying in private you know you
don't have to do things that other people want you to do but maybe in public we should consider
one another and sometimes we should refrain from certain activities or certain behaviors
or our own personal things just so that we don't offend other people unnecessarily okay and so
sometimes it's okay to adopt another person's convictions when around them so as not to offend
them that doesn't mean that you have to adopt their conviction and we shouldn't judge other
people for not having a conviction it's basically the conviction is yours not theirs and that's what
we should do we should have convictions for ourselves not for others we should judge ourselves
and not others we should limit ourselves and not others we give liberty and grace to others but we
we constrict ourselves we convict ourselves we judge ourselves whereas most people what they
want to do is they want to judge others and give themselves liberty this is like the Pharisees this
is the hypocrites where they want to give you strict rules to follow but they themselves don't
actually keep their own rules or keep their own customs and we want to stay really far away from
that attitude and that behavior he says in verse 34 if i by grace be a partaker why am i evil
spoken of for that for which i give thanks whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do
do all of the glory of god give none offense neither to the jews nor to the gentiles nor to
the church of god even as i please all men in all things not seeking my own profit but the profit
of many they may be saved so we have to understand hey just because i have liberty to do something
just because i can do all things they're all they're all lawful to me doesn't mean we should
always do them because it may not be expedient meaning it may not be a very good idea it could
cause other people problems that could it could wound other people's consciences and so we should
be careful in the decisions that we make and there's there's always a good time to have like
we should have some convictions in our life but we don't want to enforce that on other people
we want to give other people grace and we want to keep the convictions to ourselves
but we should consider other people's convictions and sometimes we should observe their convictions
not for our own sake but for theirs and especially in this context of an unsaved person that's the
main context of this passage is going and eating with an unsaved person and not doing something
that seems bizarre as a Christian to do and around unsaved people so as they get confused
so it's basically saying we should be on good behavior we should be the best version of ourselves
let's go to Romans chapter 14 and we're going to kind of go through this passage as well
this is kind of a more difficult subject okay this is not an easy subject to be understood this is
a more mature Christian subject that we're talking about this isn't necessarily a baby Christian
subject okay and it's implied in verse the verse that we read to start off with in 1st Corinthians
it says hey I'm speaking to wise men here it's also implied in Romans 14 verse 1 look what it says
him that is weak in the faith receive ye but not the doubtful disputations that's not written to
the guy that's weak that's written to the guy that's strong that's not written to the immature
Christian that's written to the mature Christian that's not written to the baby Christian that's
written to the full-aged Christian okay and we have to understand that the full-aged Christian
should receive him that is weak in the faith but not the doubtful disputations now this wording
is extremely difficult to understand but essentially what it's trying to say is hey we should still be
friend baby Christians immature Christians people that are new in the faith we should be kind to
them we should hang out with them we should be nice to them whatever we should be around them
we shouldn't be afraid to hang out with them but we don't want to argue with people and we don't
want to put some kind of a standard on them that we ourselves have created so if you think about it
as a mature Christian over time if you've been serving God for a long period of time you might
have adopted a lot of convictions that you did not have when you first got saved you might have made
a bunch of convictions like hey I'm not going to watch tv the way I used to watch tv anymore I'm
not going to go to certain movies anymore I'm going to have different dress standards I'm going
to kind of start living a completely different life and you start building all these convictions
and I'm not even against that I'm not even saying that it's wrong but what I am saying is that we
shouldn't then go to the new Christian or the weaker Christian and start making them feel really
bad about convictions when they're not commandments because so many people they get offended by
convictions and they're not even a commandment and you're just thinking like well you don't
have to do those things to be a Christian that's just this person having their own particular
convictions. What would be an example of this? I don't know like Adam Fanon saying you can't eat
lemons in your water. Where is that in the Bible? I kid you not. So I took over Steadfast Baptist
Church. People are calling me from Jacksonville, Florida asking me if it's okay to have a microwave
at the church and I'm thinking like yeah like you kind of at first you're worried to say yes
because you're thinking like why is this even a question? Like what's why are we so nervous
about having this device or something like that and it's like you know some people have a conviction
they say you know what I don't want to use a microwave maybe they're worried about the little
bit of radiation maybe they think that it causes people to be lazy I don't know you could have all
kinds of different reasons why you don't like a microwave but you know what show me that in the
bible and frankly speaking if you go online I could find you an article condemning every single
way food is prepared and cooked whether it's in teflon stainless steel on gas not on gas on stove
not on the stove micro plastics wood I mean it doesn't matter what you material use someone's
against it it's hurting the environment for somebody it's causing you cancer everything's
causing cancer you know sugar's bad butter's bad margarine's bad better's better whole milk no skim
I mean it's just it's all over the map and if you want to believe something is bad there is
definitely articles and doctors and experts that will agree with you every opinion is validated on
the internet if you want it so be careful with that but then people create all these convictions
and then they have passed them off as commandments like thou shalt not have a microwave I I'm not
joking but someone preached the whole sermon at this church saying that it was a sin to have a
baby in the hospital I mean that's a that's not a commandment okay that is a conviction that is
not what the bible says people are going to differ on things the use of prescription drugs
that's a conviction however you feel about those things non-organic food somebody's going to get
offended okay now look I'm not even saying that like like let's be clear a lot of us have probably
adapt adapted to or created or adopted some similar convictions but at the same time let's be really
clear some things are not commandments the bible doesn't say thou shalt eat organic food and
somebody's going to be like I can prove it right now you can't okay public school private school
you know obviously we emphasize homeschooling I emphasize homeschooling I'm super pro homeschooling
but I don't want someone to think like they're this wicked evil person because their kids are
in public school or something or private school because it's more of a conviction than it is a
commandment there's not a bible verse that says thou shalt not put kids in public education now
is that like oh pastor Shelly you want public school now no hey pastor Shelly you want a private
school no but at the same time I don't want to start expressing my convictions as commandments
in the bible athletics people are going to really differ on athletics whether they let their kids
participate not participate guys play girls play ages whatever people are going to have
widely different opinions on these things let's keep them convictions and not commandments
dancing boy you're gonna get baptist mad on this one let me explain something the bible does not
say thou should not dance in fact the bible has psalms singing about dancing is the bible like
sinful now but at the same time you know why do people create convictions on these things
because obviously you go to a dance hall or you go to the club or somewhere where there's a lot of
you know bedroom dancing yeah obviously that's a sinful thing but then we don't want to go so
extreme to start saying like all dancing is just evil now or wrong or convictions of course throughout
time people have done all kinds of things like square dancing or ballroom dancing people when
they would do this you know a lot of the dancing is not done with just a partner it's done as a
whole group and you're constantly switching partners some people might be really offended
at the fact that when you're switching partners you're not always literally dancing with your
spouse and is that sinful i don't think you could say this necessarily thou shalt not
but at the end of the day a lot of people might have a conviction and say i don't want that i
don't want to participate in that and i'm for your conviction but let's not express it as a
commandment let's not get up and start condemning things that just aren't in the bible it makes
Christianity look bad in my opinion and i'm wondering why people are spending so much time
addressing issues that just aren't in the bible like there's enough in the bible to address
there's really there's sins that god's getting really mad about and those sins people are
committing like i can see if we just those things the bible keep bringing up no one's ever guilty
of we just never have a problem okay let's try to work on some issues that we have but let me
tell you something the things the bible bringing up are real common they're really happening and
they really need to be emphasized how about which style of music you listen to which genre of music
you like now i would love to believe that country music is a sin because it's you know it's harmful
to the ears but i can't say that and you know what i mean obviously some music genres today
tend to be more sinful than others i get that and i think we should have good convictions on this
don't i hope that you're listening as a wise man because like i said earlier in the sermon
somebody could hear what i'm saying and think like oh man i can't wait to listen to all this
rap music and go dancing and hanging out at all these shady establishments and i'm just done
putting my kids in public school whatever man no no i'm not saying that okay i want you to get
what i'm saying let's not just constantly express our convictions as commandments and as a pastor
as a preacher you know it shouldn't be me getting up here just constantly telling you what i
personally think and my convictions and my standards it should be bible bible bible it
should be god's word god's command and when you're listening to a preacher say a bunch of stuff and
it's not in the bible be careful what you're listening to be careful what you're listening
to there's old i.b preachers that'll say it's wrong to have a beard they won't even let people
preach with a beard they like you wouldn't let jesus preach they'll say i don't know this one
brother fer told me this he said that some of them would be against wearing shorts men were
just like not allowed to wear shorts and i'm not saying like in church i'm just saying in general
like somehow shorts was wrong or something and i'm thinking like man i love shorts i need shorts we
live in texas okay maybe this is created up north but man down south we need some shorts you know
what i mean i love shorts i'm not going to wear them to church you know when it's the service but
hey i love short if i could i probably would i have a conviction there that i don't want to
necessarily do that right and i have certain standards for a church and there's nothing wrong
with those but let's make it clear it's standard how about this having drums as a part of your
worship service i can't say that that's a sin but you know as a conviction i'm not going to do that
but again i'm not going to sit here and and damn churches like the problem with churches day is
drums no the problem is the woman preacher that you have getting up preaching out of the niv that's
the problem okay and maybe if you had some biblical standards you'd get some other good
standards along with that how about women working a job i can't say that that's a sin now is my
wife going to go work nope do i need her to work nope is am i going to emphasize women staying home
and guiding the house yep but here's the thing if a woman is doing all of the bibles requiring her to
and at a job i can't condemn that i can't say that that's a sin and you know sometimes women
find themselves in different situations because maybe they're newly married they don't have much
to do or maybe they've already raised other kids and they don't have much to do maybe they're a
widow there's going to be all kinds of exceptions i'm not going to get up here and preach women
could never have a job of any kind or that it's super sinful or something because this is not
biblical here's here's ones that i hear recently a lot that spanking teenagers is a sin and i'm
just thinking like how is that in the bible you know and again if someone has a conviction and
they say we don't want to do that you can do whatever you want i already preached a pretty
clear sermon on king of the castle please please men should be the king of their castle they get
to decide what's right for their household but don't get up here and start preaching things
that start in the bible and i've just noticed there's just all these sermons about exactly how
to discipline kids and exactly all the ages and exact instruments and all this stuff and i'm just
thinking like where where is this stuff in the bible and again if that's your conviction go for
i'm not against convictions you know some people might get offended at a particular word they may
not like a certain word but let me tell you something just like i think all meat is on the
table i think all words are on the table but okay wait a minute just just because all meat's on the
table isn't there certain situations where i shouldn't eat certain meat because it could
offend other people and so yeah i still think that certain words maybe we don't use certain
words around certain people in certain situations because we don't want to offend them and sometimes
we curb that and look if you as a as the man of your house say we don't want to use this word
don't use that word if you're at your company and your boss says don't use that type of word
don't use that kind of word around your boss okay but why should my liberty be judged of another
man's conscience why should just because you think this way means that i have to feel that way that's
not how it works you know there's certain races that can use certain words and other races that
can't use certain words how is that fair but you know what so as to not offend i probably
shouldn't say that word not because i don't have liberty but so that i don't offend people
unnecessarily right so you know we want to make sure that we're preaching stuff that makes sense
hey if you want to preach against strong language by saying we shouldn't just unnecessarily offend
people i'll agree with you all day long but if you want to start giving me a bad word list i'm
going to say where's that in the bible and a lot of people are preaching their convictions and not
the commandments and the bible is really really clear on that we should be avoiding that um how
you argue with people or how you argue with your spouse i've heard a lot of people say you should
never argue in front of your spouse where does the bible say that you can never yell at each other
where does it say that now here's the thing do i think that husbands and wives should constantly
argue and yell at each other probably not probably not a good idea may not be expedient but is that
a commandment no how people and look i think it's somewhat healthy that sometimes your kids do see
you having disagreements and handling it in a good way don't don't start don't start thinking
that like just because somebody has a conviction and they say well we never argue okay good for
you we do this isn't deciding who's a christian and who's not a christian here but some people
literally will say like you're not a christian if you're doing this stuff and i'm thinking like
where does the bible just say that i mean jesus argues with his disciples he yells at his
disciples is he a christian i mean is that a fair question i mean if jesus is arguing with his
disciples and he's yelling at them can i do that i mean it's just kind of starts getting silly
you know people are gonna have a lot of convictions on dating ages like my kids won't date until
they're this age and insert the number people have 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 i mean i've heard all kinds
of stuff what 40 oh man that's a scary household yeah whoever has that standard once they turn
about 25 they'll change they'd be like get out of the house basement dweller but at the end of the
day like hey if one family has a conviction you know hey that's that's great i'm going to try
and observe that you know if there was a family that my kid was interested in one of their kids
and they have a particular conviction i want to honor that conviction but i'm not going to then
force my conviction on other people if i have a higher standard than someone else i'm not going
to say how dare you wicked christian allow your child to date at an age that i wouldn't let my
child date or the manner in which they date or what they even do now this is in context of romans
14 and we're gonna explain this here but you know when it comes to dating some people probably can't
handle things the same as others and what do i mean by that you know so there's a lot of debate
on exactly how you should allow your kids date should they ever hold hands should they ever even
give a kiss before they get married now some people would say no some people have a strong
conviction they would say like that should never happen i would never allow that some people may
go down that road and i would think that's a pretty similar concept as what we're seeing here
when we talk about flee fornication in the bible that's a commandment how you observe that exact
exactly is going to be a little bit of discretion on certain individuals some people may be able
to handle that and it's not that big a deal others may that's just not really very reasonable if they
do that it's going to be a strong temptation and fornication they're not going to be able
to handle themselves and so it's just better for them to literally not even touch and you
wouldn't want to necessarily encourage someone to do something that that may cause them to be more
likely to sin or stumble you know there could be a couple that's dating and they can be alone
together and they actually wouldn't commit fornication but for most people they would
and maybe their friends are encouraging them hey it's no problem be alone or do these things
and they're putting them in situations that they probably shouldn't and so we need to be careful
and think about other people notice it says him that is weak in the faith receive you but not the
doubtful disputations some men a lot of men can't be alone with the opposite gender and couldn't be
touching hands and not be extremely tempted to go down fornication so what you wouldn't want to do
is if you could handle that for some reason and someone else couldn't to encourage someone to do
that and cause them to stumble or cause them to fall just because they might be a little bit weaker
in the faith meaning what that they are a little bit more likely to sit in that area some people
are tempted to drink alcohol others are not you could put yourself in an atmosphere a situation
where they're more likely to sin and i'm not saying the bar but here's an idea how about
cruise ship missions trips and there's a thing i'm not against cruise ship missions trips but let me
tell you there's sin on the boat and some worse than others and what you maybe you have zero
temptation to sin in certain areas you wouldn't necessarily want to encourage your brother to go
with you to areas or do certain things that they might be actually really likely to sin or go down
a bad path you want to say hey you know what maybe we should both have a high conviction right now
and stay away from these things so as i don't cause other people to suffer because i don't
think that a lot of us are necessarily you know enticing other people to eat meat sacrifice and
idols but we can apply this to other areas of our life where there could be an area where
someone's a little bit more immature maybe they have a little bit stronger temptation in certain
areas and we should be conscious of that and not try to encourage our brother and our sister into
to sin in those areas you know maybe some some ladies that your friends with tend to gossip more
than other ladies and maybe you just shouldn't tell them certain things because you don't want
to tempt them to go and spread all this information you know you should be careful what you do around
other people look what it says in verse two for one believe it that he may eat all things another
who is weak eateth herbs let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not and let not him which
eateth not judge him that eateth for God hath received him so he's just saying like hey if you
have a conviction to do something don't judge the guy for not doing it and if you have a conviction
to not do it don't judge the guy that does it and we can apply this to all the things that I just
brought up hey the guy that's wearing shorts don't condemn the guy wearing pants and the guy wearing
pants don't condemn the guy wearing shorts right in this particular passage brings up two examples
eating meat sacrifices and idols and observing days and a celebration to the lord saying hey
some guy thinks i can't do i can't do uh christmas because it's too pagan some people have that idea
he said like okay i'm just not going to invite you to my christmas party then right because here's
the thing if somebody really thinks that christmas is bad to him it is bad and if you encouraged him
to go to your little christmas party and he's feeling weird about it the whole time and
doesn't like it you're actually encouraging him to sin in a way so you should just say hey i'm just
i'm not going to you know basically force the issue and make you celebrate christmas with me
if you don't like it necessarily and then the guy that is celebrating christmas hey don't go around
and treat that guy bad or judge that guy get mad at that guy for having a christmas party
or wearing a christmas tie or doing whatever just because you don't celebrate it and just basically
saying hey we should have our own convictions the convictions are for ourselves not for other
people we should judge ourselves and not judge other people we should have liberty hey this guy
uses a word i don't like okay well he gets to use it don't get mad at him for using it and i
shouldn't get mad at the guy for not using it now obviously all the things we're saying have
clear exceptions i will get mad at for somebody not wanting to use words in the bible i would
get offended at somebody that says i can't read that word in the bible it's a bad word no you're
bad the bible's good okay so obviously you know there's certain things that we understand that
cross certain boundaries and lines i'm saying all the stuff in the middle what's a doubtful
disputation it's unclear there's certain things in the bible that just aren't very clear and we
don't know exactly and people have different ideas and look the topics i brought up you'll
find a lot of christians having varying opinions on this stuff some people think hey you can't
use certain words people say i think i can use words and it's a it's you know nobody really
knows why do we not know because there's not anything clear in the bible you know when it
comes to drugs prescription drugs hospital uses dating parenting advice marriage advice and you
know what we should do we should try to be silent where the bible is silent if you're going to judge
your brother you better come with a bible verse in hand and a clear one not like abstain from all
appearance of evil brother be good brother you know don't you know this is what you should do
interpret vague verses in the bible with clear verses in the bible don't come to me with vague
verses in the bible come to me with clear verses in the bible yet let the vague verses you know
why the bible has vague verses to encompass all the clear verses in one package not to insert a
whole bunch of stuff the bible never brought up if the bible wants to bring up a topic it'll bring
up a topic okay abstain from all appearance of evil what's evil the things the bible said were
evil not your laundry list of things that aren't in the bible so don't use a vague verse to enforce
your convictions because they're not in the bible now again i'm not against convictions we should
have convictions do what's right try to have high standards i like standards but at the end of the
day let's have standards for ourselves not for other people and we should be cautious about the
opinions that we give when they're not bible we should express them as our opinion our standards
our beliefs if someone asked and look i think as a pastor sometimes when i just express this is kind
of how i do things so this is my example it helps people to not be as weird okay when you just kind
of fill in the gaps a little bit but at the end of the day you should really only care what the
bible says that is our standard that is where we draw the line and you should be very careful of
people expressing all kinds of verses or expressing all the kinds of ideas that are not in clear
verses where is the clear verse the bible is really big and has a lot of commandments why am
i so worried about the things the bible doesn't say i should be worried about the things the bible
said that's the ones that god was really worried about if god was really worried about something
don't you think you're to put it in here and so so funny i get all these emails about questions
and it's always things the bible doesn't bring up and i'm just thinking like well you know why
it's not brought up because i guess it just doesn't matter that much or they'll be like what about
this exception well here's the thing you don't think that god thought of that exception god
thought of that exception but you know what it wasn't important enough to bring up just do what
the bible says and quit worrying about the exception because if there was an exception
that was needed to be brought out he would bring out the exception he must not care about the
exception that much because he's not bringing up because sometimes he does bring up exceptions
Okay, let's keep reading here. It says, "Who art thou that judges another man's servant?
To his own mastery standeth or followeth, yea, he should be holding up. For God is able to make
him stand. One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike. Every man,
or sorry, let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." Isn't this kind of respecting the
opinion of other people? And I notice it's not just me, it's not just other people, it's us,
that a lot of us struggle with respecting other people's opinions, where we are prideful and we
think all of our convictions are right. We think that all of our opinions are right. We think all
of our beliefs are right. Every man does that which is right in his own eyes. And we need to
be careful and have respect for other people and say, "Let every man be fully persuaded in
his own mind." Let them decide what's right and wrong. You know, whenever I heard sermons,
especially going to church often, because I don't listen to as much anymore, but when I listen to
sermons, if I hear something that I disagree with, I don't immediately think that they're wrong.
I don't immediately think that they're wrong, because you know what? Sometimes I'm wrong,
and I have to think, "Hey, who's right here?" I notice the difference, but then I think, "Okay,
let's go to here and let's see who's right and wrong." Because I can be wrong. You can be wrong.
Let us not sit here and just always think that we're right. Let us challenge ourselves on what
the Bible says. And you know what? Sometimes we won't even know who's right or wrong.
It's a doubtful disputation. And then we just do what? We give grace, and we don't judge one
another, and we don't want to hold other people to our convictions when they're not commandments.
Let everybody be persuaded in their own mind. Verse 6, "He that regarded the day regarded it
on the Lord, and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord, he doth not regard it. He that eateth,
eateth to the Lord, forgiveth God thanks. And he that eateth not the Lord, eateth not,
and giveeth God thanks. For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether
we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live,
therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For this end, Christ both died and rose, and revived,
that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living. But why dost thou judge thy brother?
Or why dost thou set at not thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
He's saying, "Look, Jesus died for this person, and he's a servant of Jesus. And if he's doing
something in his mind to serve Jesus, he's doing something to please Jesus, let him, let Jesus deal
with it. Jesus is the judge. No one's going to get away with anything. Why are you so worried
about everybody else? You know, Peter's just so worried about what's going to happen to John,
and he's like, "Hey, don't worry about John. What if he tarried till I came? It doesn't matter.
So you serve me. You follow me. You do your job. You pay attention to you.
Judge yourself. Take all that judgment that you're constantly wanting to pour on other people and
pour it on yourself. You know, our society would be way better if we were constantly criticizing
ourselves and judging ourselves as opposed to criticizing and judging everyone else.
And you know, you should be really careful when you're expressing criticism or judgment
towards others that you're on solid ground. When you're condemning other people's lifestyles,
opinions, what they do, we need to make sure that we're doing what the Bible says.
But you know what? When the Bible is silent, silent. I mean, think about if we're in the
Garden of Eden, you know, maybe Adam's like, "Hey, I like this section of the garden."
Okay, maybe I like another section of the garden. You know, Adam likes oranges. I like apples.
It's not who's right or wrong. We're both right. And we shouldn't have this doubtful
disputation on, "Well, you better come over to my side or do it my way or do this." No, no, no.
We just both make sure that we don't eat of the tree in the midst of the garden, right?
That's the commandment. Everything else, we have liberty. Now, at the end of the day,
if there's a particular tree right next to it that I know my brother might struggle if we go eat from
that tree because it's near that one and he's tempted, then I might say, "Hey, let's just eat
of the trees near the edge so we just stay away from the tree in the midst of the garden," right?
Even though I have the liberty to go eat of the tree right next to it, I can get up right next to
it. I can stand, I can observe it, I can look at it, and I'm not going to say, "But you know, maybe
my brother is not as, you know, strong in the faith or struggles a little bit more." I shouldn't
necessarily go over there with him. So I'm observing his conviction of saying, "I kind of stay away
from that area. I don't even go that direction. I don't want to do those things because I'm just
afraid of what's going to happen." We don't want to encourage them to go down a bad path. We don't
want to encourage them to do something that they would end up stumbling or thinking is wrong.
Because frankly speaking, we just don't want to destroy another man's conscience. We don't want
to hurt our brother. It says here in verse number 11, "For it is written as I live, say the Lord,
every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall
give an account of himself to God. Let us therefore, I'm sorry, let us not therefore,
judge one another anymore. But judge this rather that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion
to fall in his brother's way." Now again, you know, liberals might love this verse of just saying,
let's never judge again. It's in the context of doubtful disputations. It's not saying we should
never judge. It's saying, look, on things that are convictions, on things that are in Christian liberty,
on things that are doubtful, stop judging each other. Stop expressing your personal opinion.
Let's stick to the commandments, okay? And we don't want to constantly cause issues with our
brother. It says in verse number 14, "I know and I'm persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing
unclean of itself, but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean."
So he's saying technically no meat is unclean, but if someone believes that meat is unclean
and they eat it, it's a sin for them because sin is contextual. Sin is not, there's not a lot of
things that are inherently sinful. Sin in a lot of ways is based on the circumstances and even how you
feel about it. If you are to eat something in a lack of faith, you would be damning yourself. You
would be doing something that's wrong. You know, we should be doing things that we own, that we
personally believe. Isn't that kind of comforting? Do you want to go to a church where the church is
asking you to do things you don't agree with and then you just feel obligated or forced to do it,
like eating the Eucharist at the Catholic church? I mean, don't you think that some people might
have come down and kind of been like, "I don't know about this. This is weird. I'm eating blood.
Like, I'm eating Jesus's body." They might have been freaked out because it's obviously false
doctrine and then they are forcing them to do this kind of stuff. Like, you know, as a church,
you know, we shouldn't be forcing people to do things they don't feel comfortable with.
You should be doing things that you are fully persuaded in your own mind and don't participate
in things that you think are questionable. And if someone else has a conviction, we should respect
their conviction. We should not judge them for their conviction. And if you don't have a
conviction that someone else has, we shouldn't judge them for not having the same conviction.
We should honor both sides. He says as we keep reading, verse 15, "But if your brother be
grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat
for whom Christ died. Let not then your good be evil spoken of. For the kingdom of God is not
meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. For he that in these things
serveth Christ is acceptable to God and proved to men. Let us therefore follow after the things
which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. For meat destroy not the works of
God. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for that man who eateth with offense. It is neither
good, it is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby the brother
stumbleeth, or is offended, or is made weak. Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before God.
Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth, and he that doubteth
is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith, for whatsoever is not of faith a sin.
So again, that's just expressing what I said, that if you encourage your brother to eat meat
sacrificed unto idols when he feels iffy about it it would be a sin for him even if you felt right
about it it would be bad for him and it could cause him to be condemned by God because he's
not eating of faith and he's not thanking God for it and he's confused about it and the same way we
don't want to encourage people to have dating standards or to have dress standards or to have
language standards or to have argument standards or to have all these different things that they
don't actually personally have and then we end up causing them to do all kinds of weird things.
You know if you're around somebody and they don't want to use certain words don't force them to do
it. Don't force them to dress a certain way or act a certain way or hey if you can listen to certain
music and it doesn't really offend you but it can offend your brother just don't listen to it. If
putting on a tv show is going to offend your brother don't put it on. You know maybe you allow
your kids to watch certain things that they wouldn't want their kids to watch and what you
don't want to do is force your personal conviction or liberty on another person and so if you're there
and they're saying we don't do this just observe that just honor that don't cause them to stumble
don't cause them to get offended we should be very careful. Now there's other things in the bible
that are not mentioned directly that could probably still just easily be proven to be a sin. So I want
to kind of cover three categories already talked about one at first was which is like convictions
I listed a whole bunch of stuff there's probably more and I might even get some help on that for a
second but here's a category of things that I don't believe there's an explicit verse on
but we could take principles in the bible and say this still seems like a sinful activity we
should avoid things like smoking playing the lottery gambling I don't think there's any verse
in the bible that says any of those things are a sin but there's things that say hey covetousness
is a sin the bible talks about our body being a temple of the holy ghost and that we should
you know do good under body so doing harmful things to our body you could extrapolate from
that and say it seems like anything harmful is probably a sin but at the end of the day you
can't necessarily prove that when it comes to playing the lottery or gambling yeah having a
love of money or having covetous attitudes or opinions that's for sure a sin it's pretty hard
to imagine someone doing those things and not having a covetous attitude so it's probably
pretty much a sin but in the day should we be spending most of the sermons most of the preaching
on smoking lottery and gambling when it's just not even mentioned in the bible probably not again
now here's some things that are mentioned in the bible that a lot of people won't preach
that should be preached that people get confused on the difference between standards and convictions
and commandments okay women wearing modest clothing go to 1st Timothy chapter number two
that is not a conviction that's a commandment okay the bible but this is what people don't you know
in the world especially they don't see the difference between some of our convictions and
some of our commandments on these issues we want to make it clear that we believe in the commandments
even if they are a little bit unpopular and this is what i find i personally believe that when you
only emphasize the controversial commandments and you show the liberty on the convictions
it's a little bit more palatable people because a lot of people they they can't really understand
the difference and when you're not judging people for your convictions it makes some of these more
controversial commandments a little bit more palatable and at the end of the day
i would rather you preach on the things that the bible actually says than the things the bible
doesn't say here's one first timothy chapter 2 look at verse 9 and like men are also that
women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shame, facelessness, and sobriety that's a
commandment i mean that's in the bible it's bringing up modest apparel women shouldn't be
wearing clothing that's not modest and and of course then we don't want to then necessarily
try to identify on a chart you know we're not the iblp the iblp literally had a diagram of like
certain you know clothing designs and colors and shapes and all i mean like you know obviously
there's going to be discretion on exactly how that's applied and that's where the conviction
can come in and that's why people get confused on a commandment like this because yeah it is a
commandment to wear modest apparel what that exactly looks like well sometimes there's going
to be a little bit of discretion some of the bible though brings up that hey to cover your
nakedness is from the loins under the under the you know knee upper thigh that's again not a
conviction that's a commandment but here's the thing some people say i think you need to have
ankle-length dresses for women well that's a conviction not a commandment you just cross
the threshold if you say well i think mid-calf you know there's some churches where it's like
mid-calf it's like hey as long as it's to the knee it's to the knee right some people would be
like it has to cover the knee it's to the knee right at the end of the day and of course you know
you don't think that god thought about this as well that if it's to the knee and you you know do
a move or you sit like a little bit of it might be pulled up that's okay we shouldn't you know
don't look at a woman that if a woman comes to church and she wears a dress or a skirt that
comes to the knee obviously a skirt not a dress but a skirt to the knee don't think like man what a
horse she's wearing it right to the line no it's it's the god didn't want the mini skirt because
then when you do a move or sit in the mini skirt a lot's revealed and that's what god's really
worried about he's not necessarily super worried about that extra inch above the knee i've never
heard a guy in the locker room be like man have you seen that inch above the knee but you know
what the mini skirt yeah obviously we understand why god has that opinion and guys please wear it
down to the knee all right i'm not interested either but it's not because oh man that one little
inch above the knee is the such a danger zone or something like now guys have to wear baggy pants
or something like that obviously god has clothing standards for a reason and where the bible silent
let's be silent if you have a personal conviction you say you know what i want my wife to wear uh
you know stuff that goes way down further to just be extra modest i'm for you i will not fight you
but if you have that conviction don't judge other people that don't have your conviction
now someone dresses across the line then we can say hey this is what the bible is saying you
should probably change it because that's what the bible says not your opinion first corinthians 11
also brings up hair link go to first corinthians chapter 11 and again we have to be careful where
these lines are of commandments and convictions it's a commandment of the bible for men basically
to have short hair and women have long hair but it doesn't say the length and again that's where
people might have certain convictions you know do i think it's wrong for a guy that has curly
hair to let it grow out a little bit or to style it no i don't think everybody has to have a
military cut but obviously there's going to come a point when that mullet looks gross and obviously
there's going to be a point when a woman's hair gets too short where it's just like hey this is
just not really long hair anymore and it just doesn't look good women always look best with
long hair but the bible literally says this what does it say in verse number 12 for as the woman
is of the man even so is the man also by the woman but all things of god judging yourselves
does it come with that a woman pray unto god uncovered does not even nature itself teach you
that if a man have long hair is a shame unto him but if a woman have long hair it is a glory to her
for her hair is given her for covering and it's so funny that then all of these cult groups make
their their women wear hats and then say that's their covering when the bible just explicitly
says the hair is their covering i mean by their logic a woman could be bald with a hat on and
she'd be good but that would be weird looking it's the hair that makes her look you know have the
glory and look good and that's what the bible is bringing up but again the exact link that's going
to be based on convictions i'm not going to go to all these for sake of time but you know the bible
says to not print marks on your body tattoos is not a conviction buddy it's a commandment
and you shouldn't get a tattoo and people that get a tattoo are wrong and i will judge you for that
you know what i'm not going to judge you for lots of other things that we brought up earlier
we want to make sure we have the right convictions you know getting divorced is a sin
fornication is a sin drunkenness is a sin railing is a sin the bible says to be sober so obviously
not all drug usage is okay recreational drug use i believe is a sin obviously there's going to be
medicinal times when things make sense but look when you're taking drugs not for an obvious health
issue you know i believe that's clearly violating the bible's commandments to be sober that's not
me just making stuff up that's a clear verse that the bible is bringing up and we want to make sure
that we're not majoring on the minors but we're focusing on the commandments here's one how about
focus on the 10 commandments you know it's funny how preachers will preach their 10 opinions and
not the 10 commandments it's like we need to emphasize the things that the bible are emphasizing
i want to go to a few more verses we'll finish go to second timothy chapter four second timothy
chapter number four please please listen to preaching where people are expressing what the
bible is saying and not their convictions not their personal opinion and one area that i've
noticed is a really bad area is marriage advice and i don't know why it's i've heard people that
i respect and people that i like give advice to them just thinking like well you know that's your
opinion man good for you but you know we should be careful where we're listening to these things
because you know you say oh well the bible doesn't bring this up there's probably a reason well the
bible is not filling in this gap then don't fill it in just let the let what does the bible actually
and it's funny because people preach whole sermons on marriage no verses of what the bible says on
marriage and then just all their opinion on marriage or all their opinion on raising children or all
their opinion on life and all these different things like you didn't come to that conclusion
from reading the bible you just wanted to get up and tell everybody how you feel about things
and look i have lots of opinions i could tell you all kinds of things i think about golf
i could tell you all the problems that the dallas cowboys have i can tell you how much i dislike
jason garrett i could tell you all the problems at wills fargo that bank sucks i could tell you
all the problems with our government i give you my ideas about all the different conspiracy theories
i can get up here and give you all my personal opinions about food and the foods i like and how
to prepare them i could teach you how to actually grill a steak i mean hey i have lots of things
that i could say that are my opinion but you know what that's not what you come to church for
you shouldn't come to church to hear jonathan shelly's opinions you should come to church to
your pastor shelly preach the word of god that's what you should hear and look obviously because
i'm trying to make things relatable and applicable i'm going to bring up things that make sense to me
and things that i like just to kind of express that but don't take my personal opinions or
personal ideas as the word of god we need to make sure that we understand the word of god is the real
thing that we're observing here not some personal standard that i have look what it says in second
timothy chapter 4 verse 2 preach the word be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke
all long suffering and doctrine we need preachers to preach the bible and preach doctrine and not
their opinion go to deuteronomy uh four go to deuteronomy chapter four i'll just read for you
matthew 15 9 but in vain they do worship me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men
let me tell you something sermons that are preaching opinions are in vain there's no point
there was no point in listening to it there was no point in expressing it you know what we need
preachers to preach the bible but there's this this pride in man that wants to get up and preach
their little cute opinions on everything so that everybody will look at them and be like oh this
guy's so smart and so wise because you couldn't get that opinion from the bible you had to get
it from guru pastor guru pastor guru is going to tell you all the secrets of life well let me tell
you i'll tell you how to have a good marriage well why didn't god tell us well i'll tell you how to
have good kids why didn't god give us all those instructions why do we need your opinion to have
a good life sounds like you're a guru and not a pastor sounds like you're not a preacher of god's
word because let me tell you something the gurus are full of themselves and they're prideful and
they don't realize why they're being successful you're going to be successful because of what
the bible says not because of your guru opinions not because you dreamed up something and you're
some standard some conviction you have if it was needful god would say it god would put it in the
bible deuteronomy 4 look at verse 2 you shall not add under the word which i command you a lot of
people are adding under the bible today we always talk about the modern versions taking things out
but let me tell you something there's a lot of people adding things too don't add to the bible
neither shall you diminish out from it that you may keep the commandments of the lord your god
which i command you we need to emphasize the commandments of god we need to emphasize genesis
to revelation we need to emphasize the 10 commandments we need to emphasize the things
that the bible emphasizes so you're not going to grow a church like that well i don't care
because you know what the bible emphasizes it emphasizes things like fornication
it emphasizes divorce it emphasizes not being covetous it emphasizes soul winning it emphasizes
that the jews are not god's chosen people you know some people are like man you preach about
the jews a lot it's called the bible sorry do you not like the bible oh the bible constantly
talks about people rebelling and sin and people going against authority yeah it's called the whole
bible oh why do you have to constantly bring up this issue the bible's bringing it up you know you
can start getting mad at me when i'm not showing you things in the bible if i'm showing you things
in the bible you know you're mad at god and not me and there's a lot of preachers that are getting
up and they're trying to basically force their conscience onto you their conviction on you but
why should i be judged of another man's conscience hey i'm glad you have a conviction buddy but don't
pass that off as the word of god here look at judo 19 12 verse 32 judo 19 chapter 12 verse 32
you know the pharisees are guilty of exactly what i'm saying expressing their convictions
above the bible wash your hands before you eat now is that a bad idea it's not even a bad idea
but you know what god got really mad at them for expressing that opinion because it's not in the
bible if we had to wash our hands before we eat god would have told us now look i'm not saying
don't someone's going to take this sermon the wrong way but why would god get so mad at that
if it wasn't important it is important it's important to emphasize what god said and to
not talk about the things god didn't talk about now at the end of the day hey i'm not saying that
me as your pastor i won't occasionally express my opinion i'm not saying i won't express my
preferences occasionally i preach a sermon one time pastor's preferences and i'm not saying
there's anything wrong with that but at the end of the day that's not every single week
and a lot of times i was showing you bible principles as to why i had certain convictions
but at the end of the day you know you shouldn't be coming to church hearing
convictions and personal opinions you should be coming to hear the word of god and hearing the
bible. jude 12 verse 32 whatsoever i command you observe to do it thou shalt not add thereto
nor diminish from it. go go to first corinthians 10 we'll finish there go back if you would.
bible says in mark 7 how be it in vain they do worship me teaching for doctrines the commandments
of men for laying aside the commandment of god ye hold the tradition of men as the washing of pots
and cups and many other such like things you do not only was jesus rebuking them for saying hey you
should wash your hands he was saying you have an idea of washing pots is it bad to wash pots i mean
we wash our pots after every use who washes their pot after every use yeah but you know what if you
didn't raise your hand i'm not judging you i won't even ask if i have a meal i won't say hey did you
wash that pot before you cooked this meal in it you know because at the end of the day that's
that's the pharisee's opinion isn't it and we want to make sure that we're staying in our lane
and we're staying where god wants us to stay and look if a christian is not breaking the ken
commandments if a christian's not on the first corinthians five issue list a christian's going
soul winning and reading the bible i think they're a great christian like but then people will be
like oh this guy uses microwaves though who cares i saw this guy not your he had non-organic cereal
he had he had this kind of milk you know it's like what is that what it means to be in the new ifb
i don't want to be in the new ifb if that's what it means to be in the new ifb if being in the new
ifb means that you have to have all these personal convictions and all the you can't spank teenagers
and you can't date at this age you can't i don't want to be a part of it because you know what i
just want to emphasize what the bible emphasizes and i want you to keep your stupid opinion to
yourself because a lot of times i don't like your opinion all right there i said it and hey why
because everybody thinks their own opinions are right we all think that we're right and you think
you're wrong but we should all just say you know what no matter what we think about stuff this is
right and we're wrong this is right and you're wrong first Corinthians 10 look at verse 23 all
things are lawful for me but all things are not expedient all things are lawful for me but all
things edify not let no man seek his own but every man another's wealth you know we should be very
very conscious of what the bible says and making sure we're observing what the bible says when it
comes to our own convictions hey i'm for you having them but let us not judge other people
for that at the end of the day just because something you can do doesn't mean you should
always do it so we have to take this sermon with a grain of salt and say okay pastor shelly said i
can do whatever want no that's not what i said i'm saying we're going to let other people do
whatever they want you do what they want you to do you have their convictions so as not to defend
them but do not force your convictions on other people don't hold people to a standard that you're
not willing to keep and at the end of the day if it's not in the bible just just say god bless them
god will deal with them if i think this is wrong let them deal with them maybe god's going to have
to give them more grace for their diet or for their attitudes or whatever they do but who cares i mean
there's people that chain smoke and drink coke every day and they live to be 100 and then there's
people that eat all organic and diet 30 you know you can't sit here and just get so nitpicky on
all this stuff you know why people die young because they disobeyed their parents and you
know why people died old because they obeyed their parents it's like some grandmas are sitting there
eating you know the teflon chicken it's like where's half this pan i don't know it's in the
meals that you've been eating and this other person's eating on like organic wood or something
like that and then they die young because it's like why are we emphasizing the things the bible's
not emphasizing let us get you know maybe i'm challenging you a little bit if you're offended
at me poking at your standard just say hey let's make sure that what we believe is important is
that the bible says and look if you have a conviction keep it i'm not telling you get rid
of it i'm just telling you don't judge other people for not having a conviction and can we
please please identify the difference between a conviction and a commandment what's a commandment
it's in the bible sin is the transgression of the law if you don't have something in here
don't make it a commandment there's plenty and plenty of commandments that we need to keep
and when you get a chance to preach behind this pulpit please preach the commandments and not
your convictions please preach what the bible says and not your opinion and if you do express
your opinion make it clear that you're expressing your opinion when you guys are listening to
sermons be careful what you're listening to and make sure that the advice you're taking is bible
and not someone's personal opinion closing prayer thank you heavenly father so much for giving us
the word of god for giving us the light and the lamp of our life i pray that we would live by it
i pray that we would be careful when people are expressing their opinion i pray that you would
help us to not judge other people where there's christian liberty and i pray that you would help
us to not put a stumbling block in front of our brethren if we can sometimes convict ourselves
limit ourselves and judge ourselves so as to not cause our brother to stumble i pray that we would
have the maturity to not exercise that liberty because not all things are expedient but i pray
at the same time we would observe the commandments as the only real standard we have in our lives
and we will be willing to be flexible on our convictions in jesus name we pray amen
(upbeat music)