Considering My Brothers

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. We greet you this morning in Jesus' name. I'd like to turn to Romans chapter 14 and read that chapter with you. [00:00:30] I'd like to begin at verse 1 of Romans chapter 14 and then I'm going to, if your permission, I'd like to read that out of the Amplified. It seems as though the Amplified just makes it a little bit clearer to me. Maybe just to get us started thinking a little bit, and I would like to have just a little bit of input from you as we go through this message. Why does God place us in situations where we have people that are difficult to get along with? [00:01:09] People that, well, they just don't have it together. It's kind of the way that we tend to think about that. Romans chapter 14 talks about a person that is weak in the faith and how we should respond to that person. And I have done this before, but maybe it would bear repeating. Are you weak in the faith or are you strong in the faith? You think about that. [00:01:40] Usually, it's fairly predictable where I place myself, where you place yourself as far as being weak in the faith. Verse 1 of Romans chapter 14. Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. For one believeth 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 that eateth not judge him that eateth, for God hath received him. [00:02:15] Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up, for God is able to make him stand. One man esteemeth one day above another. Another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord, and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord doth he not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks. [00:02:47] And he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth 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 to this end Christ both died and rose and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living. But why dost thou judge thy brother? Or why dost thou set at naught thy brother? [00:03:20] For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another any more, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. I know and am 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. [00:03:58] But if thy brother be greed 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 approved of men. Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. [00:04:34] For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for that man who eateth with offense. It is good neither to eat flesh, nor drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, 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 [00:05:05] For whatsoever is not of faith is sin We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak And not to please ourselves Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification For even Christ pleased not himself But as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me. We'll stop reading there. Seems as though that chapter kind of stops at a place where, I don't know, the subject doesn't seem to be finished there with verse 23. [00:05:49] I'm not sure if I should just turn around now and read the Amplified or not. To me, the Amplified just simply helps me to understand a little bit better, although I think I understand what Paul is saying. I think the meaning is clear in Romans chapter 14. To me, Paul is saying that we should accept people that perhaps don't have as much spiritual maturity as we do into our church. [00:06:20] We should not exclude them, but we should welcome them and we should help them to grow, I think is what I hear Paul saying. One of the things that I think we need to come to grips with is that growth doesn't always just take place in the life of the weak brother as we do that. I think growth also needs to take place in my life as that happens. [00:06:54] If you have the Amplified, some of us have parallel Bibles, and if you want to follow along, you may. I'd like to read the same scriptures that I just got done reading in the Amplified. As for verse 1 of Romans chapter 14, As for the man who is a weak believer, welcome him into your fellowship, but not to criticize his opinions or pass judgment on his scruples or perplex him with discussions. One man's faith permits him to believe he may eat anything [00:07:27] while a weaker one limits his eating to vegetables. Let not him who eats look down on or despise him who abstains and let not him who abstains criticize or pass judgment on him who eats for God has accepted and welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on and censure another's household servant? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he shall stand and be upheld, for the master, the Lord, is mighty to support him and make him stand. [00:08:01] One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike sacred. Let everyone be fully convinced, satisfied in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. He also who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while he who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. None of us lives to himself, but to the Lord, and none of us dies to himself, but to the Lord. [00:08:37] For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For Christ died and lived again for this very purpose, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. Why do you criticize and pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you look down upon or despise your brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God for it is written as I live says the Lord [00:09:08] every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God acknowledge him to his honor and to his praise and so each of us shall give an account of himself give an answer in reference to judgment to God then let us no more criticize and blame and pass judgment on one another But rather, decide and endeavor never to put a stumbling block or an obstacle or a hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am convinced, persuaded, as one in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is forbidden as essentially unclean, defiled, and unholy in itself, [00:09:49] but nonetheless it is unclean, defiled and unholy to anyone who thinks it is unclean. But if your brother is being pained or his feelings hurt, if he is being injured by what you eat, then you are no longer walking in love. You have ceased to be living and conducting yourselves by the standard of love toward him. do not let what you eat hurt or cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died [00:10:20] do not therefore let what seems good to you be considered an evil thing by someone else in other words do not give occasion for others to criticize that which is justifiable for you after all the kingdom of God is not a matter of getting the food and drink one likes But instead it is righteousness, that state which makes a person acceptable to God, and heart peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. He who serves Christ in this way is acceptable and pleasing to God and is approved by men. [00:10:55] So let us then definitely aim for and eagerly pursue what makes for harmony and for mutual upbuilding, edification and development of one another. You must not for the sake of food undo and break down and destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed ceremonially clean and pure, but it is wrong for anyone to hurt the conscience of others or make them fall by what he eats. The right thing is to eat no meat or drink no wine at all [00:11:30] or do anything else if it makes your brother stumble or hurts his conscience or offends or weakens him. Your personal convictions on such matters, exercise them as in God's presence, keeping them to yourself, striving only to know the truth and obey his will. Blessed, happy, to be envied is he who has no reason to judge himself for what he approves, who does not convict himself by what he chooses to do. But the man who has doubts, misgivings, and uneasy conscience about eating and then eats, perhaps because of you, stands condemned before God because he is not true to his conscience and he does not act from faith. [00:12:14] For whatever does not originate and proceed from faith is sin. Whatever is done without conviction of its approval by God is sinful. We who are strong in our convictions and of robust faith ought to bear with the failings and the frailties and the tender scruples of the weak. We ought to help carry the doubts and qualms of others and not to please ourselves. Let each one of us make it a practice to please, make happy his neighbor for his good, and for his true welfare, to edify him, to strengthen him and build him up spiritually. [00:12:55] For Christ did not please himself, gave no thought to his own interests, but, as it is written, the reproaches and abuses of those who reproached and abused you fell on me. We'll stop reading there. As I think of pleasing our brother or our sister, living by the conscience of somebody else, I had to think of self-control and I looked up a number of verses [00:13:28] and I'm not sure if those verses are, I'm not necessarily going to read them at this point. But we do know that the Bible says that the person who controls Well, maybe I should just read this verse because I think I have it here Proverbs chapter 16 verse 32 says this He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty And he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh the city In the course of work recently we have [00:14:04] I say work, I use that term loosely but in the course of our walk I should really say we have come in contact with people that feel fairly strongly one person this way, another person this way and I don't think I will soon forget as we were sitting together in a meeting what one person, one of my fellow ministers said to one of these people So, he just simply, after we sat down and after we listened, he said, we need a wedding, or we need a marriage, I'm not sure which he said. [00:14:41] We need to bring together these two people, is what I was hearing him say. And as I thought of this, I thought, this doesn't just apply to people out there, it applies to us here as well. We need to do as Romans chapter 14 says. We need to bear with one another. We need to consider one another. And to do so, sometimes I have to deny myself. The Bible talks about temperance. In fact, it is one of the different fruits. No, fruit, right? It's singular. That is mentioned in Galatians chapter 1. It's the last one. Temperance, I think, is what is called there, self-control. [00:15:27] Control is what some other translations say, some other renderings. But it is important that we are controlled, that we allow God to control us. And this is true in a church setting. But I'd like to just simply ask you, is it only true in a church setting that we need to give in to one another? Or is it true in our families? Is it true in our work situation? [00:16:00] And maybe I asked this before, but why is it that God brings those people that are hard to get along with into my life? Or into your life, for that matter? As I, as we as ministers were going to get together to consider something and I was reading in a book that I have to proofread for faith builders it's entitled The Servant Leader [00:16:34] written by a James Hunter and the day, I think it was the evening before we met I think the Lord guided me to a section in this book and Brother Laverne used a little bit of a story and I'd like to just relate a little bit to you the gist of this book and what I read just the evening before we met as ministers to discuss something very similar. James Hunter writes this book [00:17:06] I thought originally that he was writing about himself but I think it's a hypothetical situation as I have read the entire book now and the story begins the book begins with a man who was very successful a man by the name of John and his wife Rachel I believe I'm not sure of the names because I get James Hunter's actual wife's name mixed in But I think I'm correct. It was John and Rachel. They had two children. John was a very well-to-do man. He was a manager of a plant that was a plant that made glass, over 500 employees. And things were pretty much going his way. Two new vehicles, a beautiful car, boat, and the car was on the lake. They had the boat right there. [00:17:56] But there were some things that were starting to work at John Rachel told him my needs aren't being met And she insisted you get help And he got some wake-up calls at work When the union came in and forced a vote The union did not get in But it made him stop and consider His superior said, why were they in there to begin with? [00:18:26] And he implicated, by implication he said, you're at fault because you're the plant manager. So because of this, John was forced into going for help. And he went to a monastery, I'm not sure, in the book it says in North Michigan, on Lake Michigan Shore. and more. So we'll leave that. That isn't that important. But he went there and it was a very small group of them that were together. In fact, there were six of them. I'll see if I can recall what the six people were. It was a drill sergeant from the army. It was a pastor and John were the three men. There were three ladies there as well. One was a nurse that was in charge of a certain section. [00:19:18] she was a person that was in charge, there was a principal and a lady coach and these people were together and they had some good times and John started getting his eyes opened that it's not just the people out there that are at fault and one day he had also known of his teacher his teacher before he came to the monastery was a very prominent business leader and he made it his specialty to go into companies that were just on the brink of failure financially [00:19:57] and turn them around and he had some impressive success stories in doing that. And because of this, John respected him and was able to take what he had to say to him. But there's one person in that group that just got on John's nerves and that was that drill sergeant from the army. he just kept coming up with the most off the wall things and one day as John was talking to Simeon Simeon was the name of the man who was his teacher here at the monastery [00:20:29] one day John said Simeon why don't you put the drill sergeant Greg was his name into his place once and Simeon looked at him and he said, I pray for people like Greg in every class that I have. And John could not understand this. So Simeon went on to say, when I was in my first supervisory position, I was a vice president in a company. [00:21:02] And I was one out of three of us vice presidents. And the other two were of one persuasion. Without persuasion, I was the kind of person that said, we need to listen to people. We need to hear them. The other two people were, they don't know anything. We have to tell them what goes. And he said, one day, we had a meeting in which the three of us locked horns. There was a president that was over them and he would mediate. After the other two VPs were gone, he was there with his president by himself. [00:21:36] and he said, why don't you fire them before they take our company down? And he said, I'll never forget what Bill, the president, said. He looked me in the eyes and he said, because we need them. You would give away the company. We need those people to balance us out. Now, I don't know if you understand where I am going with this or not. Do we have people that we butt heads with that we'd like to just dismiss from our lives? [00:22:16] We might call them the weak brother out of Romans chapter 14. But might God have a purpose for that person that I just can't quite take in my life? Whether it's in my family, whether it's in business, or whether it's in the church. and let me say this this morning lest I forget to say this I recognize that there is a time for us to move on [00:22:49] whether that is not in our families we don't move on from our families but as far as a church situation and a work situation I don't believe we are always called to stick it out but I am just going to say this morning that I believe our society has rubbed off on us more than we tend to believe that it has. Not very many of us, I'm going to use one of my fellow ministers' names that's not here this morning, [00:23:19] but not very many of us can say like Leroy did that I have been employed in one place for I don't know how many years. You can supply the number of years, but until Leroy left for Romania, he had been employed at Honeyville Metal since before he was married, if I'm correct. I myself have had more different things that I've done than that. And I'm not saying that we should never move on. [00:23:51] but I am going to say that maybe I should be asking the question what is it that God is trying to teach me by this difficult situation, this difficult place that he has allowed me to be in and I trust that if you have done some of the things that I have said if you have moved on in a job, I'm with you there If you have moved on and become a member of a different church, I'm with you there too. [00:24:24] For those of you who don't know my history, we were members at Fairhaven for a number of years after we were married. And I don't know whether we should have moved on or not. It seemed like the right thing for us to do then. And as I look back now, I think it was. It's not a situation. It's not a thing that we took lightly. Some of you know how difficult it is. to decide that you are going to do something and then carry it out. [00:24:58] For us, that was compounded by the fact that my father-in-law was the bishop of our church. And it was and should have been a difficult thing to do. But may I just ask you the question, why does God place those people in our lives? Isn't it to bring balance to a situation many times? Now we talked, we looked about the person with the weak faith. [00:25:33] I just like to look, I'm not sure what it says in the King James, Him that is weak in the faith receive ye. But I notice what the Amplified, the words that the Amplified uses there, it's not just in the faith. maybe it says something different here as well but here it says as for a person who is a weak believer welcome him into your fellowship but then he goes on and says and this is what I appreciate about the Amplified it says but not to criticize his convictions [00:26:06] no, it's not what I read his opinions and scruples which would be stronger than opinions I believe But we have here a person who believes a certain way. He thinks he should do a certain way. And Paul is saying to us, be careful how you live so that you don't destroy or hurt this brother. And I believe that if I understand human nature, if I understand the way I operate and the way that you operate, [00:26:43] It's not just for the good of the weak brother. In fact, maybe it's not always the other brother or the other sister who is the weak one. Maybe it's me. But I think the thing that we need to be careful about is that we are open to learning from others. John had a real time with Greg in the story that I related to you. [00:27:20] Later on he realized that he and Greg were very much alike, but Greg was just more honest than he was. Who is it that we have a problem getting along with? Is it people that are very different from us or people that are very similar to us? And that does not just have one right answer. Sometimes it's people that think we ought to give away the company, if you please. Sometimes it's the people who say the people out there don't know anything. [00:27:57] But friends, we need to learn from one another and we need to learn forbearance as well. That is one of the things that I believe that God would have us learn as we butt heads with one another. And when I say buttheads, I am not saying that we are doing this in a way that is unchristian. Because I think there is a way to talk about what we believe in a Christian way and learn from one another. I think we need to do that. I think these people are in our lives so that we grow spiritually, so that we grow in other ways as well. [00:28:32] Now, I think that they are there so that we can learn to appreciate diversity. Now, in all that I have said, I want to be very careful that you understand that there are some things that are non-negotiable. When the word of God says, this is the way it is, then there is no negotiating. But last Sunday, Brother Daniel, in his message at Hicksville, said this. [00:29:07] He said, too often, people in the name of truth split a congregation. Or churches, maybe he said churches are split in the name of truth. Because that is the way some people see things. You see, some people see things black and white. This is the way it is, and this is the path that we need to go. No, other people say, but listen, we need to consider some other things as well. There are other things that enter in. So what I am saying is there are some cardinal doctrines that we dare not compromise, [00:29:40] but sometimes I may say this is a cardinal doctrine when in fact, is it really? Is the thing that I am just simply saying. You know, we look down our noses at, because we've grown up in America, in free America, America, that doesn't seem to be so free anymore. But we look down our noses at a totalitarian regime. Why? Because there is only one way of looking at things. You see, we can learn from one another. But are we really willing to learn from one another? [00:30:16] May I say this? All of the things that we differ on, I mean, not all the things that we differ on are in the church or at work. Some of these things happen right at home, don't they? Some of you are old enough to know that when children get to be a certain age, they get to know quite a bit. And we do well to be careful how we approach that. [00:30:48] And it's not even just between parents and children, is it? Let me see, what is the saying? Opposites attract? You know, we like people that think somewhat like we do, but if people were all alike, do you think a husband and wife that were alike would get along? I'm here to tell you that there probably need to be some differences. So, opposites attract, and that's good. Let me just, and you may wonder, well, what are you saying? Let me just explain it in this way. [00:31:19] If a young fellow would come to and a young girl would get married and both of them were talkers, who would do the listening? It's just simply, it's a fact of life that opposites attract and that is understandable. Sometimes the thing that happens though after marriage that opposite sometimes becomes a little bit, when we live with it day in day out, It gets to be something that we need to learn to live with. [00:31:51] Am I right? I think so. I think if we're honest, we say that is correct. Can we learn from one another in our differences is the thing that I'm saying. By forbearance, by Christian forbearance, can we learn from one another? Can we let this make us into better people? Or do we just not talk about those things? And we need to be careful how we talk about these things. [00:32:24] I was told, and some of you have heard me say this, that I couldn't teach a Sunday school class at Rosewood because we have debates. And I asked myself the question, is that really what we do here? But that is one person's perception, whether you agree with that or whether you don't. And we need to be careful how we come across to others. We need to consider others. And we need to learn. We need to let these things help us to grow. [00:32:59] One of the things that I have been blessed with is being able to sit down at a brethren meeting and hearing from you. And hearing what goes through your mind, hearing why you feel as you do about other things. And I feel sorry for our sisters that they're not involved in that. Maybe you feel sorry for me that I'm not at your sewing and take part of that. I don't know. But it is a blessing to be able to come together and just simply speak and listen. [00:33:33] And it's good for us not to do all of one or the other. It's good for us to expose ourselves in this. One of the more difficult things that I think I need to learn is something that I listened to a tape by, I think it was a lady by the name of Carol Kent. And she talked about communication. and she came up with a definition with the help of her high school students [00:34:07] that was better than any dictionary definition I've ever heard and I'm sorry I can't tell you what that was. I recall some of the things that they came up with but one of the things that they said was communication doesn't always involve words. Sometimes it's just a thought or a gesture and we heard Brother Glenn here this morning and he said I taught with my hands. Indeed he does. So do I. So do all of us. Sometimes it's just a look. I remember very well when the young people were at our place a number of years ago. [00:34:41] And there were some fellows involved in something they shouldn't have been involved in. And I wanted to alert a young girl to the fact that she might want to check on the status of her person. I didn't know if I was communicating or not. I didn't say a word. but all at once she got up and she marched out and she took care of the situation exactly what I wanted to do and I just simply made a gesture not with my hands it was with my mouth [00:35:12] something I learned in El Salvador and yeah it was Raquel, she was from El Salvador and she understood exactly what I was saying sometimes communication is done without words Sometimes it's done with words. The hardest part of communication is what? That's the thing that I learned from, well, I didn't learn this from Carol Kent, but she said that. She ended the definition of communication with this. What's the hardest part? [00:35:44] Listening, right? To listen. How do I listen to others? Do I look at them? And this is one thing that bothers me. When I sit down and listen to a sermon, I just intermittently look at the person who's preaching. And I think most of you over here know why I do that. Because there's a pen in my hand and there's paper and I am writing. So that I can go back and be refreshed later on. But in doing so, you kind of miss something. [00:36:14] What is one part of listening that goes along with listening? That I'm missing out on when I'm writing. observing, looking at the person that you're listening to and I'm not going to stop taking notes but I do want to be looking at that person when you listen to somebody this is a lesson that John learned they were introducing themselves John is the person that went to the monastery in North Michigan [00:36:49] they were sitting there and introducing themselves And it was going around. It started to his left and it was going around here. And just before it came to him, he was trying to think of what he wanted to say. And Simeon caught that. He said, Now, John, what did Kim say? God read in the face because he hadn't heard a word of what she was saying because he was thinking of what he wanted to say isn't that what I do so often? rather than listening, rather than looking the person in the eyes [00:37:23] and really listening to get the heartbeat of what they're saying I'm thinking of what I want to say next it's hard to get rid of that But in order to communicate, we need to learn to listen to one another. As we think about people that are diverse, I mentioned what I did about the book, The Servant. [00:37:54] We don't have to look that far to find people that are very different. I could name to you a number of disciples and how they were different from one another. We have Boisterous Peter, the one man who spoke his mind. We have James and John who were the sons of thunder. They asked Jesus, shall we call lightning down or shall we call fire down from heaven on these people because they're not giving us lodging? Jesus just said, you don't know of what spirit you are. My own words, I think it's close to that. [00:38:25] The meaning, I think, is right. We have Andrew, the personal worker who went to get his brother, Peter. We have people who were much more behind the scenes people but there are two people that I would like for us to consider that were of the twelve disciples. One's name was Simon and I'm not sure is it Zelot. He was a member of a subversive group [00:38:55] that was trying to overthrow the Roman rule by force. Now, I don't know if he did that as a disciple of Jesus, but that was where he came from. That we have on one side. On the other side, you have Matthew who sold out to the Romans and was a tax collector for them. One writer suggested that Jesus may have had to sleep between the two of them to keep the peace. Did Jesus choose all people that thought alike as his twelve disciples? [00:39:26] Indeed, he did not. Because I think Jesus recognized that we need people that are different. One of the things that this president told this vice president after he said, why don't you fire them? No, maybe it wasn't there. Maybe it was someplace else. But it was in this book. It said that if ten people consistently agree on what the course of action should be, [00:40:01] if this happens over the period of time, nine of them are unnecessary. So if you have a person that you have a difficult time appreciating, I'm going to suggest that you thank God for that person. and that you listen to that person. What is it that God is trying to teach me through that person? It is true. [00:40:31] It is not just through those other people that God talks to us, but it is also through those people that God talks to us. And God would have us be open. One of the things that I think we need to understand I have been a part of a number of situations where there was talk of these people leaving the church And sometimes it was this person and a core group that felt like them [00:41:06] And as I was thinking about this the thing that came to my mind was just simply this when one person feels a certain way and he has a number of people that are aligned to him probably they are taking out of the church something that the church needs very badly if you follow what I'm saying maybe there are people that say but we need to hear what people have to say [00:41:37] and indeed we do That doesn't mean we always do what these people say. But if we have a core group of those people leaving the church, how does that leave the church that remains? Do you follow what I'm saying? We have taken out the people that are more compassionate, if you please. And it leaves an imbalanced group here, not to speak of the group that left, lacking balance. [00:42:09] if you can understand what I'm saying and that I think is often what happens I think there is a right way to divide a church and a wrong way and to me people that leave because they're dissatisfied and especially when that becomes a core group is a real matter of concern not only to the people who are leaving it becomes a matter of concern to us and it doesn't just become a matter of concern when this is threatening to happen We need one another. [00:42:41] We need to hear one another. And then we need to be open enough to hear what God is saying to me through my weak brother, if you please. Or maybe it's a strong brother.