The Believer and Special Days

So we're going to backtrack just a little bit because we had a little bit of a break for a special day. Actually, it turns out it works out well because we're going to talk about special days today. So verses 5 and 6, Paul is going to kind of change the metaphor. We were talking about foods or diet. So he's going to talk about special days. How should a believer and the Lord Jesus Christ approach these special days.

We just had a special day, right? Last week, you know, we drive past a denominational church and normally you can drive by it and the parking lot is sort of filled, but last Sunday the cars were all lined up both sides of the road. Every possible parking space was totally packed out. So how come people do that? Why do they always come on these special days? So let's see if we can see what Paul has to say about these special days. Okay, but I'd like to go back and just kind of review where we were. So here are some key points from the verses 1 through 4.

So we're going to talk about the the weak brother or the weak believer and the strong believer. In this context, the weak believer was one who had a problem with meat. And the reason he had a problem with meat was because in that culture, it was sacrificed to idols. So if you were a person living in that culture, And you ate that meat. It was very hard, my understanding, it was very hard not to eat meat that wasn't sacrificed to idols.

So you have to go out of your way. So that person, once he became a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, he, you know, I can see this, he didn't want to have anything to do with that. That reminded him of everything he came out of. So he didn't, he wanted to get away from that.

So the weak believer had a problem with eating meat's sacrifice to idols. So that's, and we're going to see Paul's going to talk about that a lot. We've done that a couple weeks ago. We're going to review that again. The strong believer was one who didn't have that particular issue. And he said, well, meat is meat. You know, it's just meat. Don't overthink it. And so that's where he's coming from. So the question is, can these two get along? So just think about today.

You know, these are issues which are not I would say not doctrinal issues, or issues of, they're important issues, because Paul's going to spend a lot of time talking about the weak believer. So they're important issues, but they're not doctrinal issues. Our faith doesn't hinge upon them, but how we live our life does depend upon that. So Paul's going to spend a lot of time in these first six verses, and we're going to continue on the rest of the chapter. How do we live with our brothers and sisters whom we may think differently of? How are we to approach them?

So that's kind of what's going to happen here. So let's go back. And let's look at, we're going to look at verse 1. So I'm going to take, Andrew this morning kind of gave me a compliment I think. In Sunday school he said, well, this is how Roger would teach our verse in Galatians. So I didn't want to disappoint him. And I didn't talk with him. But I like to do, you know, I'm kind of a guy, I learned a lot from my brother Hal Malloy, and he liked English, right? Subject, verb, direct object. So that's kind of like, so I went back and looked at verse one and said, hey, I could do a better job in verse one.

So here we go. Now the one being weak in the faith, you receive. Now you may, the reading may seem a little strange to you. This is the interlinear word for word from the original. I did it for a reason and I'll show you shortly why I did that. So it starts now, or in contrast to what went before.

Now you, you receive, that's the main verb. You as implied, you the strong believer are to receive. And the word receive is this idea, it's a cool word, it's literally to welcome. So you as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ are to welcome, and he's gonna tell us who we're gonna welcome. And it's to your benefit, it's middle voice, it's to your benefit that you welcome the one, and by implication, he's the one being weak in the faith.

And that's the reason I use interlinear because it brings out the definite article. The definite article tells you a specific kind of faith. It quantifies and tells exactly what the faith is about. And we know that from the rest of Scripture because the faith, if you look at many, many verses, the faith is this body of truth in God's Word that the apostles delivered to the church. There's that wonderful verse in Jude that talks about that, once delivered, perpetually valid, it's that body of truth. Most of the New Testament, all the writers in the New Testament were apostles, for the large part, and they gave us this body of truth. So we have this body of truth.

So what's being said here is that the stronger believer, the one who is grounded in God's word, is to accept the one who is not as well grounded in God's word. And why should he do that? Because he's a more mature person, right? He should understand this person has not come to understanding of where he should be at. And it's critical in these areas of kind of questionable things about meets and days and that sort of thing.

It's critical that the stronger believer is the one who kind of takes the lead here. So let's just make some comments about the weak believer. So the one being weak in faith is, this is from Macaulay, is not strong in his beliefs, he's not rooted in the faith in this body of truth which he should be.

But Paul never, in this whole context, in all these six verses, he never criticizes, he never says, get your act together. It's only meat, brother. It's only meat, sister. What's your hang-up? What's your big deal? He never says that. He says just the opposite.

He says, welcome them. Come beside them. In essence, we want to teach them. They need to be taught from God's Word. That's kind of Paul's thrust here. So here's a little interesting thing that I kind of got from Macaulay is that we're looking at the faith with a definite article versus in faith.

So what's the difference between those two? Can we learn something by kind of comparing it? In your New American Standard, other versions, they don't bring across a definite article. So you might be misled to think it's just in faith. So what's really the difference here? The difference is that in the faith is objective.

And the reason I say it's objective is because you can compare it with the objective truth that the apostles gave us, right? You can get your Bible out and you can say, well, God says this, and I'm thinking this. Well, my thinking must be in error. Or you can examine it. It's objective. It's not subjective.

Whereas in faith, is more a subjective idea. He's not real strong in his faith. He's kind of weak in his faith. Sometimes he's strong, sometimes he's weak. It's kind of like wishy-washy. Just in faith doesn't bring across what Paul has in mind. It's in the faith, in the objective truth of God's Word, So what Macaulay says here, the weak believer is unconvinced by the word of God concerning meat sacrifice to idols in this case. He's unconvinced. He hasn't been convinced that he can leave that behind. He still remembers all his future days, if you will. Okay, so let's go on to the second part of the verse.

So you can bring across, so what I did is, you know, the you receive is the main verb, but you can reapply it to the second half, restate it to make it more clear. So I've done that, but you receive, strong believer again, not for passing judgment on his reasonings or opinions. So what's being said here is that the first part is you accept him, you welcome the weak believer, but then the next thing is you don't, you don't judge, you don't, how do I say, you don't pass judgment on his opinions. Now his opinions aren't good opinions, but you're, the instruction here, you don't pass judgments on those opinions. So you're not passing judgments on the weak believer's reasonings or opinions. Uist has it. You're not critically analyzing inward reasonings. And then we have an example.

This word for his reasonings, the weak believer's reasonings or opinions, is actually translated quite a little bit differently, but it gives us insight. In Romans 12, 121, it says, they became futile in their speculation, And it says their hearts were darkened and so on. So this idea of opinions or speculations, it's just that. Opinions, speculations are not grounded in God's word. So that's what the weak believer needs to be instructed out of, if you would have it. So the weak believer has wrong opinions about what he's eating. We are to accept the person, but not the opinion. Really important, we are to accept the person, not the, and that's gonna be Paul's tenor almost through the entire, this entire section in chapter 14. So let's go on. Now we come to verse two.

So I put in, once again for the interlinear, I put in the little Greek words in here just to kind of help out. And this is this contrasting thing. Once you kind of pick up on that and you look at, if you have access to an interlinear Bible, you can pick up these two Greek words, men and death, and you'll see they are kind of contrasting ideas. So we're gonna see, he's contrasting one thing with another.

He says, so the point is, men, one man, in context, a strong believer, believes, or he's persuaded, he has faith in, and his continuous action, he continuously believes, to eat all things, all his posse, all things included, he has no problem with eating anything.

Nothing is a problem for him. But the counterpoint, death, is a counterpoint, In the context of weak believer. Weak is the idea of being doubtful, vacillating, and it's also continuous action. He continually believes that. So we have two believers, one continually believing he's right, and the other one believing he's kind of vacillating, he's unsure of himself. So that's the contrast. Eats vegetables. And that word for vegetables, a couple weeks ago I showed you that was a word for herbs or things from the garden. So they bring it across as vegetables.

So the weak believer was a product of inadequate understanding of God's Word and oversensitized conscience, says Wiest. So what you're going to see here is that the weak believer needs instruction of God's Word. So the question, the challenge for the strong believer and for the body of Christ is how do we educate this weak believer? Do we get on his case? Do we beat him over the head? Do we ostracize him? Do we shame him?

No, Paul's approach is, and I think God's approach is, no. He's a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not in error. He may be in error about that particular topic, but it's not a critical topic that affects his salvation. Okay, let's go on to verse 3. So now we're going to have a principle here in verse 3.

The one who eats is not to regard with contempt. And the idea of contempt here is to despise, to regard as nothing. And actually that word is used in Luke about the Lord Jesus. It says, and Herod with his soldiers treated him, Jesus, with contempt and mocked him. So the one who eats is not to treat with contempt or despise him. who does not eat. So once again, this is the principle. The strong believer who is eating meats implied in the context is not to hold in contempt the one who does eat. And then on the reverse side, so you have instruction to both the weak and the strong.

The weak believer who does not eat is not to judge are criticized, and that word is used here in John 7.24 about, do not judge according to what appearances, but judge what is righteous. So it's not to judge the one who eats.

So Paul gives instructions to the weak and to the strong. One he says, but they're different words, right? He says, strong believer don't hold in contempt your brother who does not eat and he says weaker brother don't hold in contempt don't judge don't judge your your stronger brother so we're going to see that actually Paul is going to spend a lot more time speaking to the weak believer because in essence he needs instruction so he's going to add another little statement last part of this verse to his instruction so next part for God has accepted him or received him So from this verse, we can see he's speaking about the strong believer, about the weak believer accepting the strong believer, I should say. And received here, the same word we had before, this warm reception idea, just like he told the strong to receive the weak believer, he has a reverse for the weak versus the strong. It gets a little bit confusing. I mean, you're probably getting confused now about weak and strong. After a while, your head starts bouncing around, who are we talking about here?

And this points to the fact that since he is a believer, we can treat every believer as God's, you know, we're going to see here, God is personally interested in every single believer, whether he's maybe as well taught as he should or not as well taught. He's interested in him learning about who he is and what Christ has done for him. So it's Aristotle, so he's talking about his salvation basically. So this is what the weak believer needs to understand about the strong believer that God has accepted him.

I was thinking about this a little bit. You think about the weak believer, and nobody wants to be called a weak believer, right? Raise your hand if you're a weak believer. Nobody's going to raise their hand, right? But the idea is that maybe you say, I'm not doing that, and I am convinced that I shouldn't be doing that. Well, Paul's going to address that exact topic. If you're convinced, That's something you should not do you shouldn't do it You know and you may be maybe need to be taught some more But he says if you truly believe that then that's fine the next verse. We'll talk about that in a second so being a weak believer You don't have a you're not trusting Maybe as much as you should but if you're firmly convinced you shouldn't do that then don't do it It's kind of the gist here. Okay, so let's go on to verse 4 having two charts here verse 4 and Okay, so let's just start here.

Who are you? This is kind of a caustic response. It's like, who do you think you are? It might be the more modern trend. Who are you in context of weak believer? He's talking to the weak believer. Who do you think you are judging a household servant of another?

And what's significant about this is it's a word used for servant. A lot of time it's doulos. You know, we hear the word servant is doulos, but this is not doulos. I think that's how it's pronounced. It's a special servant that resided in the house in those times that was the very special close servant that the family trusted implicitly. This is a special household servant. So what Paul's saying here is, who are you to judge this special household servant, and we see servant shoes in 1 Peter here, belonging to another? We're not to judge another person's servant because they're a servant, not our servant. So the bigger context is, right? Every believer is God's servant, right? We've all been bought by the price. We're all God's servants.

So who am I to judge another believer because I'm not his master? The Lord's his master, right? So that's where he's coming from. And he basically goes on, to his own master, he stands or falls, he's accountable to his own master, he stands or falls to his own master, the master is the Lord, the one who exercises power, He stands that is standing upright and falls the idea to fall down So the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ should not be judging another believer whose master They're not his man. I mean, they're not his Lord, right? The Lord is his master crisis is master. So that's the whole context We're not to judge another person's master and that goes on here the final statement here is for B says and he will stand and stand up in his future tense, so you can see where we're heading here.

So Paul assures that the weaker brother, assures the weaker brother that the stronger brother will stand approved by God. He's saying, because he's my child, because he's accepted me, he will stand before me. I'm his judge. Yes, he may have issues you may have issues with him because he's he's You know going wild with food eating everything he wants and you want to restrict the food, but he's gonna stand before me The Lord is able to make him stand The Lord is someone that performing the action he's able he has the power to make him stand you think about that he will stand before him and in the end times and stand before him and judgment seat of Christ. So this is a declaration of God's power in making, in this case, the strong believers stand.

Okay, that was a whirlwind visit through 1 through 4. So now let's go on to our verses for today. So today's verses, we're going to switch from, someone said you switch from diet to days. But then he comes back to diet again. He can't give up on diet. Okay. One person regards one day above another. Another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord. He who eats, does it for the Lord. For he gives thanks to God. He who eats not, for the Lord, does not eat, and gives thanks to Him. You have to read that carefully. Boy, I tell you, I...

Anyway. Well, hopefully we'll continue to read it carefully here. Okay, let's carry on here. So here's a little overview. This is Macaulay. He does a great job at kind of giving you the big picture, big overview. So he is going to categorize, starting back in verse 4. 4 through 12, he's going to give us a big picture here.

So what he says about that is, we have the principle of privacy. We just talked about verse 4. Principle of privacy and the key idea is that you belong to the Lord, right? The Lord is your master. You're responsible to Him, not to other men. And you have the principle of individuality.

We're going to see that in verse 5 coming up here. The key idea here is to be fully convinced of what you believe. I was talking about that earlier. God wants us to be fully convinced of what we decide. If we don't want to eat something and we're fully convinced, He's good with that. Principle of motivation is next. That actually covers, Mike's going to do a lot of this part, in 6 through 9. And that idea is whatever you do, your motivation needs to be what is right for the Lord. You're operating, you're to please the Lord. Your motivation is to please Him. You're doing what's right for Him.

And then lastly, the principle of judgment is verses 10 and 11. We'll see that down the road a bit. Mike will cover those too. Okay, so I'm gonna talk about the principle of individuality and then the first part of the principle of motivation here. And I didn't actually say, the key point in 14, 10 and 12 is basically God's judgment is private and individual.

Now think about this, the God of the universe, every believer, he knows us individually. We're his special person. We're a gift from, I love it, we're a gift from God the Father to God the Son. We're special. Every person is uniquely known by God and he cares for us. He uniquely cares for us and died for us. It's just amazing. It's just not some God, okay, it was just mass of people. No, he knows us individually and personally, which is mind-blowing.

Okay, thanks for the correction. Okay, let's carry on here. I hope I got, okay, this is 14.5 now. Okay, so we're gonna go, look here, we're gonna do Mende again. I got into Mende. Okay, one person, this is gonna be the point. One person regards one day above another. So we see that boy last week was a prime example of that. Don't take me wrong. We should remember the Lord's resurrection. Amen. But don't just come once a year. I mean, I think that insults God, if you ask me. I come one day a year. Anyway, that's another sermon, but anyway.

One person runs one day above another. One person, in this context as a weak believer, regards as to to choose, to approve, to esteem, and you're continually doing that, you're continually esteeming one day above another day, and the above a day is, you think that day is better, that's a better day, that's a more, you could say the word holy, right? That's a more holy day? Well, we're gonna see that every day is holy, right? Okay, but here's Paul's, so how do we know these things? Why do we, why am I to think that this is, the weak believer is incorrect here. Why is he incorrect?

And here's some teaching by Paul, and this is from Galatians 4, which we'll get to maybe in a year or so from now. Galatians 4 says, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things to be enslaved all over again? You observe days and months, seasons and years. I fear for you. Perhaps I have labored over you in vain.

So Paul's been teaching, teaching Galatians, I've been teaching and teaching, and they still are hung up on days and months and seasons and years. You should know better, basically, is what he's saying. So that's our instruction we have from God's word. Paul gives a lot of it here.

So that's one reason why we shouldn't be seeing one day above another, but the weak believer is doing that. Okay? So now, the other side of the coin, counterpoint. Another believer regards one day alike. Another, the strong believer in context, You know why I did that?

I took the text here, I put strong, weak, strong, weak, strong. It went through the whole entire text. It got so, like a little, I saw it doing that, but that was too messy. You know, it goes through each one, strong, weak, strong. Who's he talking about each time? Okay, this is a weak believer. Is that right? Yeah. No, a strong believer. I'm losing here. Okay.

Another regards every day alike. Strong believer. He's continually regarding it, continually esteeming it. Every day, and some translations say alike or sacred, every day is a sacred day to the Lord in a sense. So here's some verses, very familiar. This is the day which the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad at it. I'm sure there's more. Every day I will bless you, I will please you, I will praise you, your name forever. So every day is a day that is another day to serve the Lord.

Okay, so that's the counterpoint in terms of contrasting that with these special days. Okay? But here's the principle. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. Each person, so it's either the strong or the weak, be convinced of where you're at. Don't be wishy-washy. Either you go with it or not go with it. Okay?

Must be fully convinced, persuaded, assured, present tense, continuous action. He's continually assured. He's not doubtful about that. And the word is used here in Romans 4.21. and being fully assured that what God has promised he'll be able to perform.

So now that we have a little qualifier, if you will, is gone in his own mind. So we'll be fully convinced or assured in his own mind. And weest has it in his own personal mind. I haven't quite, own mind or own personal mind, haven't quite sorted that out.

Interesting. So a constable says, and this is absolutely true what we saw last week and many of these special holidays. The idea is that by observing a certain day, we please God more than we would if we did not. And it's quite common, he says. And it is. People, you know, a large amount of believers think that's true. Okay? So that's the end of verse 5. Now verse 6. Now he observes, back to the weak believer, he observes, observes, is to think, to imply, to, he's observing, he's setting his mind to think about it, implying moral interest and reflection. He observes the day.

So Paul's going to answer the question, what's your motivation? Why are you doing this? This is the motivation section that I talked about. What is driving you? What's motivating you to serve that day? He says, and what we see is that, let's just back up for a second here. So the question comes up, what is the day?

And I kind of went back and forth a little bit. I read different people what they thought. I think in the context, it seems like Paul's referring to, the Jewish Sabbath, possibly, or the Jewish holidays. But you certainly can make a case, he could be referring in the church age to making certain days, quote, the holy days. So I like this one to start with. So Paul's teaching, so here's Paul's teaching again. So what did he teach about these Jewish Sabbath and Jewish holidays?

In Colossians 2.16 he says, therefore no one is to act as your judge in regards to food or drink in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. So he says no one, if a person has a, he's telling us to be careful about that. Don't let people judge you about those days.

Hope I took that the right way. If you're going to observe the day, it should be as follows. observe the day for the Lord. So Paul's teaching that the weak believer may observe some religious days, but it should be with reference for the Lord, with reference to the Lord. So the focus on observing that day is observing it for the Lord. So a question I kind of have in mind, and we'll see this as we go down the path, is a weak believer wrong in doing that? And Paul says he's not. He says he's not wrong in doing that. But he's maybe not as taught as he should be.

And we'll see more of that in the verses to follow. Okay, now here's the flip side of the coin. We're back to eating again. And he who eats does so for the Lord. Now Paul, we're back to the strong believer. He's eating for the Lord. Again, it's with reference to the Lord. So our focus should be on the Lord, and all things that we eat, and all days that we observe, it's for the Lord.

So is a believer, a strong believer, right here? He doesn't say he's right, but he says he's the strong believer and he's well taught, basically. And we'll see more later. And additionally, it's interesting, we talk about when we give thanks for the food that we have, it's interesting, he puts that additional little phrase on there every time he talks about eating things, for he gives thanks to God for the food, basically. The strong believer is also thanking God for what he eats.

Okay, last part of this. Now we're back to the weak believer. Now he who eats not, vegetarian, for the Lord he does not eat." Make sure I said that right. So the focus again is on the Lord, not on eating necessarily. He's doing it for the Lord. Is it wrong that he's not eating? He doesn't say it is. We'll see it down the road. And he gives thanks. The weak believer is also thanking God for what he eats.

Okay, so now I'm going to give you the 60-second summary maybe. Here's a 60-second summary. Okay, so in verses 1 through 6, Paul is talking about how are we to respond to our fellow believers that we have differences about diet and about days. Diet and days, here's how to respond.

Welcome him, weak in faith, into your fellowship. Do not criticize his opinions or pass judgment on him. One man's faith permits him to eat all things. Another man's faith permits him to eat only vegetables. Neither man is to be criticized or judged by the other. God accepts him.

Who are you to pass judgment on another's household servant? That special servant, that's kind of a really cool word. One esteems one day as better than another. while another man esteems all days are alike or sacred. We observe a day, we observe a day or not observe a day in honor of the Lord. We're doing it for the Lord. Also we eat or not ate in honor of the Lord and give thanks to him.

So that's a 60 second summary of 1 through 6. I couldn't just leave it there. I had to have one more final chart, final thought. So this is from Chafer. This is kind of a last minute addition. We had our Easter, our Resurrection Day Part 2 yesterday. Ryan came to visit from Florida. So we had our, had all the family over. So I, I was looking for, oh, here's another cool thing to say. Okay, this is good. So here's, here's Schaefer's thoughts. God reserves the right, I thought this was really good, God reserves the right to correct and direct the life of His own children. Much hurtful criticism might be avoided if Christians would only believe this.

Trust him to do with his own child what he has promised to do, what purpose to do, rather. God is a master before whom all the servants will stand or fall. Due regard for the conscience and liberties of others are twofold, other believers in context. On the one hand, let the strong be charitable or loving toward the weak. On the other hand, let the weak stop from judging the strong. The result will be a mutual fellowship and exercise of all the liberties of grace."

Oh, that's pretty cool. Pretty cool stuff. Okay. So let's give thanks. We thank you so much, Lord. Thank you for your marvelous word, Lord. Thank you that you care about each one of your children. Lord, you realize that all aren't as mature maybe as they should be. Some have, because of their background, have different issues, but you say, make sure that you do it unto me and to be thankful, especially in terms of food. We're thankful, Lord, for all that you've given us. We're thankful for your word and we're so thankful for your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who we ask in His name. Amen.