Well, good morning. Turn to Romans 14. I think you know what we will be sharing on this morning. I think most of you received an email. That could be helpful. The reason I send them out is that if you get lost in my speaking, the outline might keep you on course—the verses, the way it seemed the Lord showed me the breakdown of this chapter, this message, and the burden, the thought.
Let us begin by reading. That is the most important thing. We are starting with verse 1. We are doing the whole chapter, because the thought does not change partway through the chapter as it does in many places.
Now him that is weak in faith receive ye, yet not for decision of scruples.
One man hath faith to eat all things: but he that is weak eateth herbs.
Let not him that eateth set at nought him that eateth not; and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him.
Who art thou that judgest the servant of another? to his own lord he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be made to stand; for the Lord hath power to make him stand.
One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind.
He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord: and he that eateth, eateth unto the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, unto the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks.
I suppose this is making you hungry by now.
For none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to himself.
For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.
For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
But thou, why dost thou judge thy brother? or thou again, why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of God.
For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, to Me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God.
So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God.
Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge ye this rather, that no man put a stumbling-block in his brother’s way, or an occasion of falling.
I know, and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself: save that to him who accounteth anything to be unclean, to that one it is unclean.
For if because of meat thy brother is grieved, thou walkest no longer in love. Destroy not with thy meat him for whom Christ died.
Let not then your good be evil spoken of: for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
For he that herein serveth Christ is well-pleasing to God, and approved of men.
So then let us follow after things which make for peace, and things whereby we may edify one another.
Overthrow not for meat’s sake the work of God. All things indeed are clean; howbeit it is evil for that man who eateth with offence.
It is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.
The faith which thou hast, have thou to thyself before God. Happy is he that judgeth not himself in that which he approveth.
But he that doubteth is condemned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith; and whatsoever is not of faith is sin.
Father, we come to You again. We are thankful that these words are words we do not quite all understand. We confess it. We gladly confess it. And we confess our need for the Holy Spirit to make alive Your words, which are spirit and life.
Quicken them to us, Lord. Help us to understand more thoroughly what the apostle wrote in this chapter and how it applies to our living the Christian life. Do this, we pray, for we ask it in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Well, I suppose this chapter is a mystery to a lot of you. Why is there so much discussion about eating and drinking, respecting days or not respecting days, causing people to stumble, offending, and all these things? Why did Paul make such a great deal about that in this chapter?
Well, I tell you, I think it is because of one word. That word is absent here, but it is really the thought throughout the whole chapter. That word is fellowship. Fellowship.
Whatever hinders our fellowship is an abomination to God. That is what this chapter is about. You know, we have different appetites, and you may eat something that I would not dare eat, and I certainly eat a lot of things you would probably not eat. That is not really the point.
It is that we—if you look at 1 Corinthians 1:9—God is faithful, by Whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. And Paul’s concern is that nothing would come in to hinder that fellowship between brethren.
I hope maybe that helps to explain a little bit. Fellowship has always been His desire. Can you imagine that God, in His mercy, with this most exclusive fellowship—which only included the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—decided to bring you and me into that fellowship?
You might argue with me and say, “Well, certainly it included the angels.” No, they were just ministering servants, and they still are. This was the most exclusive fellowship ever imaginable. Yet, in the counsels of eternity, God decided that He would bring you and me into that fellowship. How wonderful.
Because of that, He wants that precious fellowship to be maintained and kept. Anything that hinders that fellowship is an affront to the living God.
The title that is on my heart is a long title, by the way. I do not like such long titles, but I could not stop: Fellowship in Unity and Liberty Without Causing Stumbling. Well, that is a mouthful.
But the Lord is looking for people who continue in the fellowship of His Son, expressing with Him all that Christ is, without that fellowship being hindered. You know, the enemy wants to destroy that fellowship. He is not after you per se. He is not after me. Good grief, I am just a speck. He could crush me in a moment.
But he would like to destroy this eternal fellowship that God has started and that is His entire eternal purpose through the ages.
We are going to look at four areas:
Let us begin with receiving the weak. This is in verses 1 through 6. If you read this chapter carefully, you will see a theme that runs through the entire thing. There is this weak brother. Now, he is not weak like I am physically weak. It is this weak brother who is weak in the faith.
He cannot do certain things, and his conscience constantly convicts him and accuses him. Then there is this strong brother. Now, you may put yourself in one of two categories—I do not know. You may want to be in an assembly with a strong brother. By the way, he is not strong in himself; he is strong in the faith, the faith that produces real, living fellowship.
They are to be together. You know, I think most of you would like to be in a new church called the Church of the Overcomers. Every one of us would be super-strong Christians, mighty warriors, overcomers in everything. But God’s plan in fellowship is to put the weak and the strong together.
Those weak ones and those strong ones are to grow up into Christ, into that full-grown man, and to manifest the glory of Who He is.
You might think, “Why on earth did Paul deal with eating and drinking and days and all these things?” It is because the little things destroy fellowship. You might have thought it would have been wise for the apostle Paul to deal with far weightier matters. Sometimes I had thought that way.
But no, if you think about it, the way people get offended with one another, the way people may abuse one another, the way people affect one another, can be over the smallest things. Sometimes, later on in years, you can ask a brother or sister why they were offended, and they cannot even describe it. When they are able to try to describe it, you say, “What a small thing.”
What a small thing. Brothers and sisters, just understand this concept: this fellowship cost God everything, and this fellowship means so much to God. He does not want anything to hinder this fellowship. Thus, we have Romans 14.
You have this weak and this strong brother. It is quite a contrast when you read it. This strong brother has liberty to do certain things. As I mentioned, this weak brother is constantly attacked by his conscience and cannot do certain things. So, in that context, let us think about receiving the weak.
Romans 14:1 gives the point right from the beginning:
But him that is weak in faith receive ye.
That was Paul’s first point. It was one single point: we need to receive every brother and sister in the Lord, whether they are weak brothers or sisters in faith or strong brothers or sisters in faith. Most of us are probably somewhere in between.
But this was the one admonition: Receive ye. How important it is. If you are selective and say, “Oh, I do not like this brother or sister”—many people have said that about me, by the way—“I do not like that brother. I cannot receive that brother. I cannot have anything to do with that brother,” or that sister, I am not going to let you off the hook.
It would hinder this heavenly fellowship. It would destroy what is in God’s heart. This is why this chapter takes such an important place.
This matter of receiving the weak in faith has a reason at the end of Romans 14:3: “For God hath received him.” Do you understand that? Twice in those three verses: receive. Why do you receive? Not because you like that person, not because you think like that person, not because they are friendly or nice to you.
You receive them for one reason only: God has received them. So let me ask you: if God has received them, can you reject them? You cannot.
This is Paul’s first point when it comes to this matter of unity and liberty without causing stumbling. The first law of fellowship life is to receive those whom the Lord has received.
If I might say this, you might not like the way I say it: reject those whom the Lord has rejected. Does that mean we do not preach the gospel to them? Does that mean we do not show love to them? Does that mean we do not reach out to them? No, certainly not.
But the ones we receive into this heavenly fellowship, His highest fellowship, are simply those God has received. I think that is a very important point. This is for the sake of unity: receiving all that God has received.
This admonition goes two ways. It is not just us receiving the weak brother, but it is the weak brother receiving the strong brother. Now, you will not be offended if I do not keep correcting myself and saying “brother and sister,” will you? Can you understand that we are talking about the same thing here?
This goes both ways. One man is assured that he may eat all things. That is the strong brother, all right? But the weak eats herbs—not Brother Herb, and I did not mean to pick on my brother Herb and make you think we were cannibals. It means vegetables. He was a vegetarian.
He could not dare eat meat because his conscience would convict him, and this evil conscience would attack him. He did not have a clear conscience. So it goes both ways:
Let not him that eateth set at nought him that eateth not; and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him.
That is fellowship. Can you receive brothers and sisters—maybe ones you do not like, maybe ones who are not like you? Are you able to receive them in the Lord because of one law of fellowship? The Lord has received them.
God hates division. The one weapon that the enemy uses above everything else in attacking this fellowship is division. He loves seeing the saints divided against one another, accusing one another, and not receiving one another. That is the main weapon of the enemy.
I think probably all of you know those wonderful verses in Proverbs 6:16-19, the seven things which God hates. When you think about this heavenly fellowship, it ought to be prominent in your thoughts that the last one listed is, “He that soweth discord among brethren.”
Why would He say such a thing? Because division is the tool of the enemy, the greatest weapon he has to destroy the fellowship of God. That is what we need to understand.
Let me read 1 Corinthians 1:10:
Now I beseech you, brethren, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
How wonderful fellowship would be. In that same chapter, in verse 13, Paul made that famous statement: “Is Christ divided?” Brothers and sisters, that is all the enemy wants to do.
That is the reason you must understand Romans 14, and understand it very carefully. The enemy is always at work to destroy unity. The enemy is always at work to divide the brethren. The enemy wants, above everything else, to undo this heavenly fellowship that God instituted through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Unity is essential to fellowship. Let me say something else: liberty is not a license to do whatever you want. You know, if you have that so-called strong brother, you cannot say, “I am free in Christ to do whatever I want.” Well, this chapter says that is not so.
You cannot do whatever you want, even though you are right. You have liberty in Christ to do many things. But when it comes to fellowship, you cannot exercise that liberty. Sometimes you have to pull back from your liberties in Christ so you do not offend a brother or sister.
Do you understand? That is the concept being presented here. There is unity—that is the first secret of fellowship—but there is liberty. These two go together. There is a balance of these two things in the fellowship life of the church.
Unity is essential to fellowship. Liberty is not a license to do what we want. Unity is essential to the body of Christ. Our liberty in Christ is actually freedom in which we are set free to do His will. Do you understand the difference? That is the liberty you have in the Lord Jesus.
Our unity and liberty in Christ are in the Spirit. It is not something we manufacture. You know, I walk up to dear young Prim—may I call you dear young Prim?—and say, “Let us sit down for half a day and agree on everything we agree upon, so we have unity.” That is not the way it works.
Unity is something God has given us in the Spirit, in the Lord Jesus. As a matter of fact, it is something we begin with.
The word unity—this may shock you; it shocked me when I discovered it some time ago—is only three times in the whole Bible. Isn’t that amazing? Such an important, vast subject that affects fellowship is only mentioned three times.
You remember Psalm 133:1:
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brethren to dwell together in unity!
That is the first time, the only time in the Old Testament. Then, when you come to Ephesians 4, Paul uses the word unity the only other two times. Now, “uniting bond of peace” is also used, so you could argue there is a fourth use.
But if you read the Scriptures carefully, this is the emphasis from the beginning to the end of the Scriptures: oneness. Oneness with God. The first commandment: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” He is looking for a people who are united, one people in this unity. That is the whole explanation of God’s purpose.
In Ephesians 4, Paul describes the unity that is given. We need to understand and stand on the unity that has been given, rather than trying to manufacture a unity based upon agreement. If you do that, sooner or later you probably will not agree on anything.
It will be so watered down. That is what the ecumenical movement tries to do. They bring in people of so many different theologies and say, “What can we agree on?” When you get down to the end, they water it down so much that all that is vital is erased, and there is no real fellowship in the Spirit.
Ephesians 4:3 says:
Giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Keeping the unity of the Spirit. Use diligence to do this one thing. This is the law of fellowship: to keep the unity that you and I have already been given in Christ Jesus. We do not start out and try to make unity. We meet in unity.
There is a precious unity. As a matter of fact, if you look at Ephesians 4:4-6, it tells how grand that unity is which we have been given in Christ Jesus:
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling;
One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
One God and Father of all, Who is over all, and through all, and in all.
Seven ones. Now, does that number strike you? If you understand anything about biblical numerology, seven is perfect unity. We have been given a perfect unity to start with. That is our declaration. We do not have to make unity. We do not have to make peace. He has made peace.
He has broken down the middle wall of partition and made peace. We begin there. The problem is when we go beyond this sevenfold unity.
“Well, what do you believe on the rapture? What is it, Mari, you really believe on the rapture? Because I may not be in unity with you on this matter of the rapture.” Well, that is not uncommon. Think about it. There are disagreements.
You would probably be bored to tears if you sat down and I talked to you about what I believe about the rapture. But there can be differences in the body of Christ. That is not part of unity. That is normal.
You can have different thoughts about the gifts. You remember, I have told you all so many times you get tired of hearing it: I was saved in the charismatic movement. I think the first time Jerry heard me speak in tongues, I thought I lost him.
You may have a different view on those matters. I would never say these things are nonessential, because the coming of the Lord and the rapture of the church are not nonessential things. But they are not critical to the unity we have been given in Christ Jesus.
Do you understand? Hold on to that singular unity, the unity of the Spirit. That is how we can fellowship together.
I had a brother the other day. I was trying to order the linens for the conference. He is a brother; I knew he was a brother. Actually, Tony Hawkins used to work for him. At the end of the conversation, he thought it necessary to interrogate me a little bit about my beliefs.
He said, “What do you believe? What does your group believe?” I said, “Well, we believe in the Bible. We believe in the Lord Jesus. We are Christians.” He said, “Well, what do you believe?” He was questioning me.
Paul says at the beginning of Romans 14, “Receive ye,” and not for the determining of questions of reasoning. In other words, do not sit someone down and interrogate them as to their faith. Sooner or later, if you do that with everybody, there will be you and me in the room, and I might leave.
Do not ever make fellowship a matter of interrogation. You can believe different things. You can see different things. But those seven essential things we cannot compromise on. If someone says Jesus is not Lord, do you think you can be in fellowship with them? You might be able eventually to lead them into that fellowship.
Well, this is what Paul is talking about: receiving, that one thing that is needed to keep this unity.
Ephesians 4:13 speaks of a unity. I do not want to say another unity; it is not another unity. It is a matured unity. It is a unity we grow into:
Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
Brothers and sisters, that is a unity into which we shall eventually enter and mature. That is what we need in the body of Christ, in this fellowship. So receive those whom God has received. This is the admonition.
I like what Griffith Thomas said. He said something I thought was so clear; I have to read it: “The brother,” speaking of the weak brother, “is to be welcomed cordially into fellowship and loved, rather than to be argued out of his difficulties.”
Oh, if we did that, that would be real fellowship. Praise the Lord.
Judging is another matter in this unity and liberty without causing stumbling. Romans 14:4 says:
Who art thou that judgest the servant of another?
That is to the strong brother. Oh, how easy it is to have a judgmental spirit. “Look at the way that person dresses. Look at the way that person talks. Look at the way they act.” If they are the Lord’s, we should receive them, period, and help them grow.
Did you think you had it all together when you were saved? By far. Thankfully, we grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. But who are you to judge the servant of another? If the Lord has received that weak brother, we must.
Everybody who is not a Christian knows that verse in the Sermon on the Mount about, “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” right? I find that a marvel. They do not know anything about the Bible. You could ask them five thousand things, and they would not know anything.
But the moment you raise an objection to their behavior, they say, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” You know, it is not talking about unbelievers. If you have ever read that in the Sermon on the Mount, it is talking about judging a brother.
Clearly, three times in five verses, it talks about a brother. It says he might have a mote in his eye. A mote is a little splinter. Splinters are painful things, but he might have a little mote in his eye. You, in your zeal, are trying to extract that mote—that speck of dust—from the eye of your brother.
The Lord says it is better if you first take the beam out of your own eye. Now, that would really be painful. I sized a lot of beams—millions and millions of beams—in my career. They are big, heavy things.
Yet we judge the servant of another when we see some little thing that we do not think conforms to righteousness, something we do not think is particularly good. We attack it like an attack dog, a pit bull Christian. “We are going to deal with that.” Do not judge the servant of another.
Oh, dear brothers and sisters, I hope at least you are beginning to understand what he is talking about. Look at verse 4:
To his own lord he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be made to stand; for the Lord hath power to make him stand.
Isn’t that beautiful? It is to his own Master that he stands or falls. You cannot do it, but the Lord can do it. What the Lord will do is make him stand. What beautiful divine encouragement for the weakest of us.
This servant here actually means a house servant. It is the Lord’s own house servant. Who are you to go up to the Lord’s own house servant and judge that brother or sister? You should not. You should pray for them. You can counsel them. You should appeal to them in a loving way and open the Word of God to them.
I believe in correction. I believe in discipline, even though I am not a very good disciplinarian. I believe in the Word of God. The Lord alone is the only One who will set them straight in the end. So prayer might be the best thing to do.
It is the Lord Who makes them stand. I think what happens to us is that we forget the whole book of Romans, those first eight chapters. We forget that it is He Who justifies. We forget that it is He Who sanctifies. We forget chapter 8: it is He Who glorifies.
Dear brothers and sisters, who are we to judge the servant of another?
Paul gives an encouragement. Look at verses 5 and 6:
One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind.
In other words, quit trying to persuade people to believe what you believe, and allow the Lord to deal with them. But you and me, let us be fully persuaded ourselves. That will make the biggest difference.
This phrase, “fully persuaded,” is a favorite phrase of the apostle Paul. He is the only one who uses it in the New Testament. He uses “fully persuaded,” and he uses, “I am persuaded.” Dear brothers and sisters, this is the secret of fellowship life: for us to be fully persuaded.
Look in Romans 4. This is about Sarah, Abraham’s other half. I am not going to say better half, but other half. Verse 20 and 21. I will read the last part of verse 19: “And the deadness of Sarah’s womb.” She was an impossible situation. Her womb was dead. There was no hope for the seed of God to come.
But then it says:
Yet, looking unto the promise of God, he wavered not through unbelief, but waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God,
And being fully assured that what He had promised, He was able also to perform.
Isn’t that precious? I think that is most encouraging. You cannot do it. I cannot do it. We can lead people a certain way, but it is only God Who is able to do it in the end. We need to remember that as we try to abide in unity and liberty without stumbling.
There is another thing that describes the whole Christian life. Look at Romans 14:6:
He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord: and he that eateth, eateth unto the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, unto the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks.
Notice that three-word point: unto the Lord. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. We will get into that in a moment. But do you understand? This is the explanation of the whole Christian life. It is unto the Lord.
We live unto the Lord. We do not live for man; we live unto the Lord. If we are right on that, and we can do what we do in liberty, living unto the Lord, and our conscience allows us—not to be destroyed—and we can live unto the Lord, it is settled. The whole problem is settled.
I hope you get that. I think that is quite clear, quite wonderful. I remember when I was a young Christian, Colossians 3:23-24 was made alive to me. One day, I remember, it was light, like a shaft of light from heaven:
Whatsoever ye do, work heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men;
Knowing that from the Lord ye shall receive the recompense of the inheritance: ye serve the Lord Christ.
Do you understand that? That is an admonition to you and to me: as unto the Lord. Whatsoever you do, do it as unto the Lord, and not unto man.
This is the secret of fellowship. How marvelous it is. Unity and liberty are doing things unto the Lord, and the Lord will take care of the rest. If you are wrong, you do not want me always correcting you, but you want the Lord to correct you by His Spirit.
If you have missed the mark, He is able to make you stand. He is able to keep you. He is able to establish you. This is His work alone. We will assist, but it is His work alone.
Let us go to the second point: living and dying for the Lord. This is a wonderful thing because it has to deal with heaven and earth, the difference.
Let me read those verses again:
For none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to himself.
For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.
For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
There are those who insist that everyone must be healed. I think that is unfortunate. I understand what people are saying. They embrace certain verses in a certain way. But the encouragement here is: if we live, it is unto the Lord. If we die, it is unto the Lord.
Whether we live or whether we die, it is unto the Lord, and He has rule over life and death.
Years ago, I was a young man. I must have been in my forties. I cannot remember. No, not quite. I was forty once. There was a brother among us—some of you remember this; we have been here a long time—John Street.
I was very close to John. He was a friend. Matter of fact, he tried to get me to go into the real estate business with him and leave engineering. I am so glad I did not. But as I was helping him with a project, our brother contracted melanoma when he was forty-four years old. In six months, he was dead.
Now, this shook me. Here was a brother with whom I was very close, almost went into business with. This was a brother we knew, the whole family—children our children’s age, a young wife, Diana; everybody knows her—and he was taken.
You could have easily gotten offended at that, right? “Lord, Your Word says, ‘By Your stripes we are healed.’” You could have gotten offended at that.
I will never forget: he died just before the conference, and Brother Kong brought these verses to our attention as a young assembly:
He who lives, lives unto the Lord; and he who dies, dies unto the Lord. Whether we live or we die, it is unto the Lord.
What comfort. You know, I was a boat without an oar at that time, and I said, “Lord, that is such wisdom.” We never die. I love the fact that the New Testament talks about Christians going to sleep.
I like to sleep better as I have gotten older; I do not sleep so well. Jerry used to tell me, by the way, on our trips together, “You are amazing.” He did not mean anything good. He meant, “You fall asleep in three seconds.” I do not do that anymore.
But sleep is wonderful. It is not something to fear. The fear of death is gone. The bondage of death is gone. He Who lives, it says in Revelation, has the keys of death and Hades.
Brothers and sisters, Paul said it is better to be with the Lord. I hope you remember that.
I do not know how, all those early years—because I was saved when I was twenty, up until I was forty-some years old—I never knew those verses. But when Brother Kong spoke them to us to lift our spirits as a young assembly, the first young death we ever had to face, it was light from heaven.
I will never forget, I think it was the same conference, just a week later or so, Christian Chen stood up and said, “A long book is not necessarily a good book.” I usually reject books after certain pages. I do not read them.
How wonderful it is to know that we who live, live unto the Lord; and we who die, die unto the Lord. Living and dying are issues that are settled with us.
There is another issue the apostle Paul brings up that affects unity and liberty without stumbling. It is in Romans 14:10-12, and it has to do with the judgment seat of God.
But thou, why dost thou judge thy brother? or thou again, why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of God.
Interesting verse, right? All of you know John 3:16, and all of you know John 3:18, which says, “He that believeth on Him is not judged.” So does this appear to be a contradiction, that we believers shall all go before the judgment seat of God?
Here is the issue: this does not have to do with eternal salvation or damnation. This judgment seat of God has to do with reward for how you lived your life on earth as a Christian.
If you have lived unto the Lord—remember that phrase; do not forget that phrase—then all will be well at the judgment seat of God. You will receive a reward. You are already saved. It has nothing to do with eternal salvation.
As a matter of fact, there are two judgments, if you want to say judgment seats—one is a throne. In Revelation 20, it deals with a white throne judgment, or, as many have put it, the great white throne judgment. That is a judgment for unbelievers.
That is not a judgment for us in the church who are in this heavenly fellowship. We have escaped that judgment. As a matter of fact, the Greek word is thronos. We get the word throne from it.
But there is a second judgment seat, the judgment seat of God. If you look in 2 Corinthians 5:10, I think it is a little clearer. This is from the King James Version:
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether good or bad.
Every one of you believers is going to have to go before the judgment seat of Christ. It will be a test. It will be an examination. Not a harsh God—you are already His child—but an examination: did you live unto the Lord? That is the whole examination.
Did you do it? If you did not, there will be loss, but there will not be loss of salvation. You understand the difference? This judgment seat of Christ is the family judgment. It is what we read about in 1 Corinthians 3, in 2 Corinthians 5:10, and here in Romans 14:10.
If we have lived unto the Lord, we will receive great reward. If we have not, you will receive discipline, but you will never lose your salvation. Do not let anybody tell you that you can lose your salvation.
If it is the free gift of God, how can you lose salvation? If it is all of grace, how can you lose salvation? It is not a matter of loss of salvation.
I think what William Newell said about this is so clear. He said, “On the judgment seat of Christ, it is a matter of reward for our service and not salvation that is in question here.” How clear that is.
Brothers and sisters, while we are living on earth, we need to live with the judgment seat of Christ in view. If you live just for yourself, you will suffer loss. You will be disciplined. You will be in eternity, but you will not receive the reward you should have gotten had you lived unto the Lord.
Third point: do not judge one another. This next section is Romans 14:13-21. Look at verse 13:
Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge ye this rather, that no man put a stumbling-block in his brother’s way, or an occasion of falling.
Did you notice that? The whole issue here in fellowship is that we can cause our brothers and sisters to stumble. As a matter of fact, stumble, stumbling, and stumbleth occur three times in this section.
That is the one thing you should judge. Do not judge your brother. Help your brother. Leave him to the Lord. The Lord is able to make him stand. But judge this instead: do not put a stumbling block in his way. That will hinder fellowship.
As you look into this section, it uses a powerful phrase: “Destroy not with thy meat him for whom Christ died,” and, “Overthrow not for meat’s sake the work of God.” Do you know what that means? You can destroy this heavenly fellowship.
Do you dare destroy this heavenly fellowship for the sake of meat? Do you dare destroy this heavenly fellowship for the sake of a small difference in what you believe? These are very strong words. We need to pay attention to them.
It is all because the Lord loves fellowship so much. He does not want division in the church. This is the whole message of Romans 14.
But here is the good news. I get this part a little heavy. You do not hear many messages here about the judgment seat of Christ, right? There is a good book, by the way, on the judgment seat of Christ. I think Jeffrey Pittman has redone it and gotten permission to redo that old volume. It is worth your reading.
We ought to live in light of the judgment seat of Christ. Many things would be corrected if we did. We ought to live with eternity in view, not this earth in view, because we have been translated from the authority of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love.
I love the verse in Jude. Turn to this. This is a wonderful verse. Jude 24-25:
Now unto Him that is able to guard you from stumbling, and to set you before the presence of His glory without blemish in exceeding joy,
To the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and power, before all time, and now, and for evermore. Amen.
What encouragement this is. There is only One Who can keep you from stumbling. Thank God, we may stumble. We often stumble. We sometimes cause people to stumble. But there is One Who can keep us from stumbling.
Not only can He keep you from stumbling, He shall present you faultless before the presence of His glory. This is wonderful. There could not be anything more clear.
The last point is, “Whatever is not of faith is sin.” It is only verses 22 and 23. I will read those:
The faith which thou hast, have thou to thyself before God. Happy is he that judgeth not himself in that which he approveth.
But he that doubteth is condemned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith; and whatsoever is not of faith is sin.
Powerful verse. You can only live the Christian life from faith to faith. You remember when Paul gave the theme verse for the whole book of Romans in Romans 1:17, about this gospel being God’s power unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
It speaks of faith to faith. Then it gives that wonderful quote from Habakkuk 2:4:
But the righteous shall live by faith.
The whole Christian life is based on this. Without faith, there is sin. Faith is how we stay in fellowship. We have faith in God, not in ourselves. We would give up. We would despair. We would be overcome. But our faith is in God.
You know, it says in Hebrews:
And without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto Him.
Dear brothers and sisters, verse 22 is to the strong in faith, the one who has liberty. Verse 23 is to the weak in faith, whose conscience condemns him. But what is true here is that the weak has been given faith and the strong has been given faith.
If we walk in faith to faith, all the issues are settled. I believe it is by His faith, not our faith. If it were by your faith that you were able to maintain this fellowship and not cause stumbling, you would certainly fail.
But Paul said this marvelous thing: “I live by the faith, the faith of the Son of God.” Many of your versions do not word it that way. Not his faith, not Paul’s faith—Christ’s own living faith in us. For all that is not of faith is sin.
Do you know this simple verse in Habakkuk 2:4 occurs three times in the New Testament? Only once in Habakkuk 2:4, but three times in the New Testament. It is the theme of the New Testament: “The righteous shall live by faith.”
It is the secret of fellowship. It keeps us in fellowship. It causes us to grow in fellowship. It causes us to maintain fellowship with brothers and sisters in all different places, and for the body of Christ never to be divided.
This is the secret Paul ends with, and this is what we need to know: there is a faith that can take us all the way to the end, a faith that is His faith. Praise the Lord for that.
Well, I think you get the point. Let me end with these few words. Fellowship has always been God’s perfect will. It will never change. It is the explanation of the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.
To maintain fellowship, we must keep the unity of the Spirit until we arrive at the unity of the faith. We have to do that. We have to keep this unity given to us and not insist, judge, examine, and question, but help and lead others to know this Christ Who is able to do it. That is the secret to fellowship.
We must not allow our liberties to cause stumbling. I will tell you a personal story real quick. It is short. Brother Kong rebuked me more than once. I want you to know that. It was helpful every time.
I did something, and he pulled me aside and said, “Others can; you cannot.” This chapter opened to me. My liberty—I had used my liberty to do something that was not right.
He was a man of so few words. He looked at me straight in the eye and said, “Kenny, others can. You cannot. Do not use your liberty and cause a brother or sister to stumble. It will destroy the work of God.”
Those are the strong words in this. We must walk in faith, for without faith it is impossible to please God.
Lord, we bring back to You these often misunderstood words. We ask You by Your Holy Spirit to make them real. Lord, help us to love this fellowship as much as You loved it, to give Your only begotten Son.
Lord, help us, as we walk together in this practical Christian life, to live unto the Lord. Help us not to live for ourselves. Help us to be those who walk in love.
Lord, we want to know this fellowship in unity, and in liberty, without causing stumbling. Forgive us where we have been part of destroying the work of God, and cause us to be a people that walk in Your ways.
We ask this in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.