Fizer, Charlie: How To Agree When We Disagree ~ Northwest Bible Chpl Ministry

Well, good morning. What a nice thing to do for the graduates. I think that's a great, great tradition to have here at Northwest Chapel. It's nice to be with you. I was just thinking a few minutes ago how quickly the years go by. It's hard to believe it's been one full year since we were able to come down and share with you just a little bit, and we're always glad to, to come back. I've always enjoyed the, enjoyed the music program here at Northwest. It's really good. You're non-traditional when it comes to the music, I think, in a lot of places that I visit, but it's nice to see you. Did you ever hear about the woman that, uh, woke up one morning, she only had three hairs on her head? Did you ever hear this story? Well, the story goes that this woman woke up one morning, she only had three hairs on her head. So she said to herself, well, I think I'll braid my hair today. So she braided her three hairs. The next morning she woke up, she only had two hairs on her head. So she said, well, I think today I'll part my hair down the middle. So she parted her hair down the middle. And the third morning she woke up, and she only had one hair left on her head. She said, well, I think today I'll wear my hair in a ponytail. So she wore her hair in a ponytail. And the fourth morning she woke up, and of course she had no hair on her head. And guess what her response was? Thank the Lord, I don't have to do anything with my hair today at all. Now, the moral of that is, be joyously thankful for whatever comes your way, even if you're losing your hair. So, now if you said, now what does that have to do with your study today? Absolutely nothing, but I just wanted to tell it to you anyway. Uh, I understand this month that I'm going to be sharing with you a couple of topics that, uh, the elders had asked me to consider, so let me just give you our game plan for the month, and then you'll kind of know from Sunday to Sunday what our meditations will be on. Today, I have chosen my own subject, and the last Sunday of the month I've been able to choose my own subject. It's the second and third Sundays that we'll be talking about two issues that the elders felt would be good to just give some thought to, uh, during our studies. And today we're going to talk about how to get along with each other when we don't agree. And then next month, or next week, we're going to talk about our identification with Christ, and that, uh, that study will have to do more with baptism, believer's baptism in the New Testament, which is a very important practice of New- New Testament church life. And then our third Sunday, we'll talk about remembering the dying request of our Savior, which has to do, of course, with the breaking of bread or with the Lord's Supper, as we commonly call it. And by the way, I was very encouraged myself in coming this morning to see so many believers here to, to remember the Lord, and I hope that as a result of our study that maybe some more of you that haven't given that a priority in your life will begin to, uh, begin to, uh, attend and participate. It's really a wonderful, wonderful time when corporately, uh, we can remember Jesus Christ. And then the last, uh, study we'll have at the end of the month is again my own subject, and we've entitled it What is Liberty and What is Legalism? And I'm going to tie that in a little bit with our study that we have today. So that's kind of the direction that we plan to go in, and, uh, I'd appreciate your prayers and hope that we'll be able to learn some things that will be helpful to us. I'd like to ask you to turn this morning to the book of Romans, uh, chapter fourteen. And while we only have about thirty minutes for our meditation, I'd like to take the time to read the whole complete chapter. Uh, Paul says in First Timothy chapter three, uh, to Timothy, when writing to Timothy, he said, give attendance to the reading of the word. And in that context, he wasn't talking about the private reading of the word, although that's very important as well, but he was talking about the public reading of the word. And so I think it's always helpful to give a good reading of scripture when we begin our studies together. Romans chapter fourteen, and uh, I'll begin to read in uh, verse one, and I'm reading from the New American Standard Bible this morning. Paul writes in Romans fourteen:one, now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge- who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls, and he will make him stand. To his own master he stands or falls, and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person regards one day above another. Another regards every day alike. Every person must be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day observes it for the Lord, and he who eats does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God, and he who eats not for the Lord, he does not eat and gives thanks to God. For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God. So then, each one of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore, let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this, not to put a- an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way. I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died. Therefore, do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then, we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense. It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother stumbles. The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith, and whatever is not from faith is sin. We'll finish our reading there, but in actuality, to complete this whole section of dealing with doubtful things, Paul, uh, deals with all the way through chapter fifteen down to verse thirteen. So if you're doing your own private study a bit later in reading on this subject, you'll want to read all of that together because that will give you the full orbed view of what Paul had to say. Uh, if you don't mind it, I think I'll just ask the Lord to help us as we, as we study together. Father, we thank you this morning again for our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you again for his work on the cross. We thank you that our faith this morning is based not on mythology and not on fables, but on real historical events. And we thank you for the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we thank you for his incredible resurrection, and thank you that he lives today in heaven, and he lives in the hearts of his people. And we thank you for the word of God, and ask you, Lord, to teach us as we think about it together this morning. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. I'd like to ask you for a moment to maybe step in a time machine, and let's go back a couple of thousand years, and we're going to go to the city of Rome. And there in the city of Rome, we're going to be to meet a Jewish young man. His name is Jacob Steinberger. Now, Jacob Steinberger has been, uh, his whole family has been committed to Judaism. Uh, he was born into Judaism. He has lived in Judaism, uh, where they have, uh, practiced certain kinds of diet controls and other kinds of ceremonial practices. And, and one day, uh, Jacob, uh, finds himself in a synagogue. And while he's in the synagogue, he notices there are two strangers that have appeared on the scene. And after all the, uh, the necessary things have been accomplished in the synagogue, the master of the synagogue, the leader, calls upon one of these men to step forward and to give a speech if he would like. And so this man steps forward, and he begins to make an important point that the historical Jesus, that is the Jesus who had died not all that many, uh, years before that, was actually the promised Messiah of the Old Testament. Of course, he had not been raised to believe that. He had been raised to believe that the Messiah was yet to come, and the historical Jesus was not ru- truly the Son of God, the Messiah of the Old Testament. But as he listens to this man articulate himself, this man begins to talk about the truth about sin, about salvation, and about how a person could actually know for sure that sins had been forgiven if they trusted in this person that's called the Messiah or Jesus of Nazareth. He's moved very deeply by what he has heard. And so he asked to talk with the two strangers following the service. And there he finds out that he himself is a sinner, and that he cannot be saved through keeping the law. He can't be saved through all the ceremonial practices, but he could be saved through faith in Jesus Christ. And so right there, he trusts Christ as his savior. Boy, is he happy in his faith. He's so thrilled to be saved. And so he joins a little company of believers in the city of Rome. And as they begin to fellowship together, they're both Jews and they're both Gentiles, non-Jewish people, uh, in this little assembly. He's invited home one day to, uh, have a meal. And when he arrives and they sit down at the table, or probably in those days, typical oriental custom, they would have sat at a low table and probably sat down, uh, you know, on their knees or maybe even laid on their side as they did, uh, you know, in the Lord's time as well. And suddenly he looks on the table and he realizes that there's pork on the table. Now, pork had not been part of his diet in Judaism, and suddenly he's stunned. He thinks, how can I eat this pork? And how could a truly born-again Christian eat pork? Or we could say today, how could he eat shrimp, uh, if he was truly a born-again believer? And suddenly he stumbled, and he doesn't quite know how to handle that issue. Uh, Dr. Graham Scrogg, a great, uh, Scottish Bible teacher that I have quoted on a number of occasions in our visit with you, kind of puts this in a comical form. He said, he suggests that A invites B to a supper meal, and B asks, A asks B, who is the, who is the, the, uh, the person who has a question, a scruple about food. A asks B to give thanks for the food, but B doesn't want to give thanks for the food because that's pork on the table. And so B begins to pray, and he says, oh Lord, if you can bless in this dispensation what you cursed in the last dispensation, bless this pig. But he still wouldn't eat the pig. And so A begins to look contemptuously down his nose at this Christian that has all these funny scruples about food, and they get into an argument together, and as Scroggie put it this way, he said, meanwhile, the port gets cold, the cook is annoyed, the brethren are rattled, each sticks to his point instead of to his joint, fellowship is broken, and A never invites B to a meal again. Now, that was a big problem in the New Testament church, because Jewish people and Gentiles were meeting together in the same company. Now let's, let's, uh, stay, uh, two thousand years ago, and let's move over to the city of Corinth. And there we meet a man by the name of Sosthenes, and Sosthenes is a Gentile. Uh, his, uh, his family has, uh, practiced idolatry, uh, from the time long before he was born, and, uh, his family actually ran a meat market in one of the markets in, in Corinth, and, uh, so they were used to taking food that had been previously offered to idols, brought it into the marketplace, and they would sell it. In fact, in those days, the priests, the pagan priests who would receive a portion of some of the offerings that were made in pagan worship, they sometimes would collect a lot more meat than they could use, so they would take the residue of it, take it down to the marketplace, and give it to one of the, one of the market marketeers, and then they would sell that for at a discount price. So he was very used to being around idols and around, uh, food that had been offered idols. He'd, he'd practiced it all his life. But one day, Sosthenes is walking through the market in Corinth, and he sees a man over, and he's sitting among a whole group of people, and he can tell that this man is very intense in what he's talking about. And as he draws a little closer and he overhears what this man says, he recognizes that he is talking about Jesus of Nazareth, that he's talking about the Messiah, that he's talking about Jesus Christ. And he's saying the same thing that the man said in the synagogue, that he could be saved simply through faith in Jesus Christ. Right on the spot, he understands he's lost, and he gets saved. And like the other man, he joins a local group of Christians in the city of Corinth and, uh, begins to fellowship with them, and then he also is invited home for a meal. And when he gets there and looks on the table, he realizes they've got meat that had been offered to idols. Now, he had been accustomed to bowing before idols, he had been accustomed to eating meat before idols, and now that he was saved, some internal mechanism was telling him that I shouldn't be doing that, that that's wrong, that that would be sinful if I did that. And so he stumbled. He doesn't know how he should relate to the brother who's willing to eat the meat and, uh, serve it to others who come to visit with them. Now let's fast forward two thousand years to the present day. And here's a man who, before his conversion, has been used to hanging out at pool halls. Now, those are not as popular today as they were when I was a kid. When I was a kid in Mullins, West Virginia, a little town that I grew up in, uh, we h- we had a, a pool hall. And in that pool hall on Friday and Saturday nights, when we were old enough, sixteen years of age, that's where we would go and we'd shoot pool. Now, I never was much into beer drinking, but I always associated pool halls with men who cursed, men and women who cursed, and men who drank beer and flighty women. That was my association when I thought of pool halls, and I used to go there often. But let's suppose that this man that we're talking about is raised in that same kind of an environment. He gets saved, and he wants to put away anything that had to do with his previous lifestyle. So he joins a fellowship of Christians, and he likewise is invited over for a meal, and they have a nice, uh, meal together, and then the host says, why don't we, uh, go downstairs into the family room? And when they walk downstairs into the family room, what should you find but a pool table? And that young man says to himself, how could he be a Christian and have a pool table in his house? Because in his mind, for him to play a game of pool would have been sinful, but for his host, he could play a game of pool with a clear conscience. Now, I painted those three scenarios because it really illustrates a problem that has always been with the church from the very first century right on up to the twenty first century, and that is, how do Christians get along when they disagree over subjects or over issues that are non-essentials? And that's what Paul deals with in Romans chapter fourteen. Now, a non-essential issue is something that the Bible does not identify as sin. It has no moral value attached to it. So because it lies in that kind of a gray neutral area, there's obviously going to be all kinds of different opinions about participation or non-participation in those. And I suppose if we just had time to go around the room this morning and, and bring up a number of subjects, then some of you would say, oh, I, I could do that with a clear conscience. And someone else would say, I don't think I can do that, you know, I feel like I'd be sinning if I did that. And the question that Paul addresses here in Romans chapter fourteen is, how do Christians get along? How should they treat one another when they disagree over the gray neutral areas of Christian living? Now, we all recognize, don't we, that in the New Testament, there are literally hundreds of positive and negative commands that fall under what Paul calls in First Corinthians chapter nine the law of Christ. And there are some things that are very specific that we can and we should not do and we cannot do. But there are other issues in Christian experience which are not dealt with in the Bible, and they fall into a non-moral, a gray, a neutral area. And the strange thing is that oftentimes the difficulties that we have among ourselves and the disagreements really lie in the area of the neutral issues rather than on the, the, the very clear moral issues of the New Testament. So I wanted to just, uh, give you a skeleton outline from Romans chapter fourteen on, on the principles that God gives us in how to relate to each other. But a couple of other points that I think is probably, uh, would be helpful to recognize, and the first is this, that so often among us as Christians, and I'm sure I've been guilty of this myself, is kind of universalizing my own opinion. Now, let's take, for example, if I had had a conscience about shooting pool after I got saved, and I really don't have a conscience about it, I actually enjoy shooting a game of pool. I don't gamble when I do it, but it's a nice game, nice recreational game from my standpoint. But let's suppose when I got saved and I went to someone's home and they had a pool table, you know, then I would not only feel that it's wrong for me to shoot a game of pool, but I would universalize my opinion and say that it's wrong for every other Christian to shoot a game of pool. Why? Because to me, shooting a game of pool would be sinful. And that's an area in which we oftentimes have great difficulty because we have a tendency to kind of universalize, as I said, our own opinions about gray and neutral areas. And then the second thing that I think often happens in these gray areas is that we can make up a set of rules and regulations for ourselves, but we follow that up with the idea that we are spiritual people if we practice those things. When I was first saved almost fifty years ago, uh, it was much more popular to talk about a list of taboos. You don't string- uh, drink, you don't smoke, and you don't do this, and you don't do that. You've probably heard the little saying, I don't drink, and I don't chew, and I don't go with girls that do. I mean, that was kind of a rhyme that circulated way back when I was first a Christian. But let's, uh, we we we have a tendency to make these lists of taboos to which the scripture does not address. And then, by observing those, and they're usually always negatives, then we can think of ourselves as more spiritual than those who allow themselves to practice those things. So it becomes a, a, a huge, huge issue. And let me just give you an example of what I'm talking about. Let's take, for example, uh, in the, in the problem in Romans chapter fourteen, it had to do with eating, diet, and it had to do with observance of days, that is, observing the Sabbath day or not observing the Sabbath day. To some who were saved, the Sabbath day was just like any other day of the week. But to others who were saved, it was still a very important today for them because of their background. So, but when we come down to the, to the twenty first century, there are lots of things that you and I can disagree over. Let me just give you a few samples so we can kind of put it in place, and then we'll look at the principles. What about observing Halloween? Some Christians associate that, associate that with the occult, and other Christians say, well, I'm not practicing occultic things. I'm not, I don't believe in that stuff, but I can still have a jack-o'-lantern in my, in my window on Halloween night. Well, some Christians can do that, and some can't, but the Bible doesn't talk about, you know, observing Halloween. What about using drums on Sunday morning, like you folks here at the chapel do? You can go to local groups of Christians where they would never use drums, they would never use a trumpet, they would never use a guitar. That's a gray area. The Bible doesn't address that, so there can be legitimate disagreement over it. Uh, what about singing contemporary choruses? That's a big problem sometimes. Some places they like to do it, other places they don't like to. Uh, what about, uh, picketing abortion clinics? Some Christians feel very much at ease, feel very aggressive at, at, uh, you know, picketing in front of abortion clinics. Others don't want to do it that way. They want to stay home and pray about the problem. Uh, what about not having midweek prayer meetings? Some people feel like you, you've gone into apostasy if you don't have a midweek prayer meeting. Well, the Bible doesn't really talk about midweek meetings. It talks about meeting together, but doesn't talk about midweek meetings. What about those who refuse to homeschool their children? That's a big issue around among Christians, isn't it? Uh, whether you should or you should not. What about lifting your hands in worship? I don't see anybody here at the chapel do it, but do you feel kind of uneasy if you're in a large group of Christians and suddenly you see someone raise their hands like that? And you say, what are they doing? Are they showing off? Are they grandstanding or what? Well, not necessarily. The Bible doesn't address it that way, so that's a legitimate reason, one area in which we can disagree. So we could just multiply these things, go working on Sunday, you know, there's all kinds of things that that we could talk about that falls into the gray area. And the question is that if we're part of a group of Christians and we have all of these different ideas about these non-essentials, how are we to treat each other? Now, in Romans chapter fourteen, Paul talks about two categories of people. He talks about those who are strong, that is, those who have freedom to practice in some of these non-essential areas, and the weak are those who have scruples about that, and they feel like they're sinning if they practice those things. So those are the two categories. Now, if you read through the chapter carefully, he gives us about six principles that if the strong observe them and if the weak observe them, we can learn to get along even though we disagree about many of these issues. So let's just have a very quick look at these principles and turn back with me to Romans chapter fourteen. And if you're just kind of making a note, I'll kind of give you the categories, and then we'll just comment on them and move through our study. From verses one to 1 to four, the key principle in that section is that we should accept one who is weak in faith. Now, I should say, as we look at this chapter, that Paul primarily has in mind those who are strong, that is, those who f- had perfect liberty to practice certain things in these non-essential areas. In fact, he identifies himself with the strong later this chapter. So Paul was the apostle of the free heart. He was the apostle who had, had liberty to practice in some of these areas. So here he's addressing those who are strong, and he says, now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. In other words, he's saying that if there should come into your local church, or if you personally should meet someone who has lots of scruples about some of the things that we've talked about this morning, we have a twofold responsibility. If we consider ourselves to have the freedom to do those things, we're to accept those. And the word there doesn't mean just kind of acquiesce to their presence among us or say, well, you know, they're those kind of Christians, they have all these, these hang-ups about Christian living, and we'll just kind of tolerate them while they're here. That isn't the idea. The idea here is to accept them warmly, embrace them, and allow them to have their own opinion about those non-essential areas. And that's why he says at the end of verse, uh, one, he says, not for the purpose, that is, receive them, welcome them, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on their opinions. In other words, the local church is not to be a debate chamber so that we can argue with one another over the non-essentials. He says we are to receive those who are weak, but not with a view of trying to change their mind. Let the word of God do its work, and we're not to argue with them, so we're to accept them. So that's the key principle in verses one through four. The next principle in verses five to nine is embedded at the very end of verse five, in which Paul wrote, each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. In other words, the strong have the right to hold the opinion they do, and the weak have the right to hold the opinion that they do. The key is every believer is to be fully convinced in his own mind. Now, that is a wonderful truth. Uh, the early reformers used to talk about the right of conscience when studying and reading the Word of God. And so that means this morning that you and I have the personal right given to us by God in heaven to understand the scriptures the way that, that we should understand them, and we need to be fully convinced in our own mind. So, going back to my earlier illustration, there's two of us here. One likes to play pool, the other doesn't like to play pool. Well, I have the right to play a game of pool, and the other person has the right not to play a game of pool. I have the right to consider it that it's okay. He has the right to consider it that it's not okay for him, but he goes wrong if he tries to enforce that opinion on everyone else. So that's the second principle. Each person has to be fully convinced in his own mind. And then that's in verses five to nine. Verses ten to twelve, the third principle Paul, uh, gives us is that all of us, the strong and the weak, will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. So in light of that, he tells us in verse ten that we are not to judge our brother, which is the weak judging the strong, and we're not to regard another brother with contempt, that is the strong looking down his nose at those who have scruples. Why, he says in verse ten, for we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. And then he quotes from Isaiah chapter forty three. and then he concludes in verse twelve, each one of us will give an account of ourselves before God. So the lesson is clear, isn't it, that if there are disagreements in the non-essential areas, we aren't to argue over those. We aren't to judge others for those things. Why? Because each of us will have to give an account of ourselves to the Lord Jesus at the judgment seat of Christ. And then the fourth principle is found in verses thirteen down through twenty twenty one. And we don't have time to look at all of those, but I would invite you to look at the language that Paul uses. Now, he has especially the strong in mind, and he uses some incredible wording to show the seriousness of the strong stumbling someone who is weak. And the key principle is found in verse thirteen. Therefore, let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this, not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way. So the principle is that if you're a strong believer this morning and you have a good deal of liberty in the non-essential areas. He's saying to us there, don't practice those things if it's going to stumble another brother. That is, if it would cause a person to go back into a lifestyle that he's come out of, then we should not do that. And then he goes on through the text to talk about, uh, notice the wording, for example, at the end of verse fifteen: do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died. That's very strong language. And then notice with me down, uh, in verse, uh, twenty: do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food. So the strong who overstep their liberty and stumble others are actually doing so in light of the fact that Christ actually died for the weak brother as well as for the strong. So that's the fourth principle, determine not to stumble other believers. And then the fifth principle is found at the beginning of verse twenty two: The faith which you have as your own conviction, the faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. Now, the key point of that verse is this, that we're not to violate our own conscience. And if we have freedom to do something, we're not to parade that in front of others. That's kind of the idea when he says, the faith which you have as your own conviction before God. So that means, brothers and sisters, that if you're a strong believer this morning and you feel free to play a game of pool, for example, and you had a couple of brothers in the meeting that didn't, and you had them over for a meal, you wouldn't try to force them or even invite them to play a game of pool with you. But if you're not, if you're at your home privately, you can feel perfectly free to shoot a game of pool. Or if you're traveling somewhere and you're staying in a motel and, and they have a pool table there, then you have absolute freedom to practice it there. The key here is that we're not to do it in front of others whom we might. So that's the fifth, the fifth principle. Don't violate your own conviction. And then from verse 50, chapter fifteen down through verse seven, Paul tells the strong to bear with the weak. So in chapter fourteen, we have really four or five incredible principles, and I would suggest this morning, brothers and sisters, that if we took those principles to heart, depending on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to enable us, that you and I can learn to be less judgmental, and we can learn to get along with one another in those gray areas. So let me review them. We are to accept one another, even when we have those differences. Secondly, we're to be fully convinced in our own minds. Thirdly, we're to understand that each of us are accountable to God. And then fifthly, uh, we're, uh, fourthly, we're not to d- to stumble other believers, do not stumble other believers. And then fifthly, we're not to violate our own conviction. And I would submit to us this morning that the way we get along with each other in those non-essential, those gray moral areas, that you and I are to practice those principles. And if you stop to think about it, if we practice those principles in dependence on the indwelling Spirit of God, it would lessen a lot of conflicts in any given local church. And my prayer is, because I, I travel a lot, as you know, and I have to tell you, I go into lots of groups of Christians, and when I listen to them talking, and sometimes in private conversation in homes, I'm, I'm often reminded that people are disagreeing, not over doctrinal issues, not over the person and work of Christ, and not even over the importance of New Testament church principles, but what they're really arguing over and disagreeing over are what we call the moral neutral areas. And so there is the judging of one another and the criticizing of one another, and they're arguing among themselves when God wants us to do what God wants us to do, live in light of the judgment seat of Christ and practice the principles that he's give us, given us in Romans chapter fourteen. What a difference it would make. And it's my prayer that I can learn this more in my own life, because I would suggest this morning that there's not one completely strong Christian alive today. I will be strong in some areas, but I might be weak in other. I might feel free to shoot a game of pool, but I may not be free to do something else, because it's just the way we're made. And so my prayer this morning for myself and for all of us is that we will use the principles in Romans fourteen in dependence on the indwelling Spirit, and what a difference it will make in our fellowship. Father, we thank you this morning for the practicality of the word of God. And Lord, we have to confess that sometimes we're, uh, we know more than we know even know how to practice or we put into practice. And so we pray that in this important area that you will help us to live by the principles of your word in dependence on the indwelling Christ. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you very much.