John Launchbury - Class 1: Sin and the Poverty of Law

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

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   You are listening to a Bible Talk recorded at the 2011 Western Christadelphian Bible School at Manuka. This is the first class in John Latchbury's series on the topic entitled, The Transformed Mind, recorded Monday, July 25, 2011. The title of this first class is Sin and the Poverty of Law. Good morning, everyone. It's good to be here.

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   This is a series I've been working on for many years. People often ask, you know, how long have you been working on a particular topic? And in some sense, the answer is always all my life. But this one, particularly the last five and also the last ten years I've been working on it, and it's only now just distilling.

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   So I really appreciate the opportunity to share it with you here at Manuka. Manuka I always think of as my home Bible school. You guys know me, so, you know, I can say outrageous things as I'm sort of trying out ideas, and you'll just accept that, yeah, that's John, and, you know, it won't have you think badly of me.

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   So think of this set, this is the first time I've given these classes, as something of an experiment. You guys are guinea pigs. Welcome to the laboratory. And I will, I'm sure, overstate things. I'll mis-express things. But, as I say, you know me. You know my heart. You know my spirit. Please, please listen accordingly.

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   The issue that I want to address in these five classes is, how does the process of salvation actually work in us? What goes on with the process of salvation? And I think the insight, certainly as I was working on the series that led to my book, is that it's not about transactions that take place, but it's about transformation.

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   It's not about some contract that has happened, but it's about real change. It's about transformation. And, of course, the whole title about the transformed mind, you will recognize immediately. It's that verse we often quote in Romans. Don't be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

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   We have to see the world differently from the way before we came to Christ. Today, what we're going to do is some dismantling. We're going to do some dismantling. The title is a little grandiose, Sin and the Poverty of Law. And what we're going to actually address is the uselessness of rules. The uselessness of rules as a mechanism to overcome sin.

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   Now, you might see that as a moment that I've just overstated something, as I warned you earlier. But let me stick with that. I'm going to argue from Scripture that rules and a religion based on sets of rules is actually counterproductive to the salvation. I'd like you to have the following image in your mind.

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   Actually, the following pair of images in your mind. In one of them, you have a vicious dog that is chained up. Go near it, and it savagely comes at you. And then the chain holds it back. And in the other, you have a dog who has a warm and friendly spirit.

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    You see, religion that is oriented around rules doesn't do anything about what goes on inside the dog. It just limits what the dog can do. It limits the damage the dog can do. It's the chain. You still have the viciousness inside. Whereas what we're actually called to is the transformation to change what we're like on the inside.

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    I like the following phrase. Unless there's real change, it's all just paperwork. Unless there's real change, it's all just paperwork. So we're going to explore this whole idea of the uselessness of rule as a mechanism to overcome sin. If we talk about and think about religion, what is someone's religion? My religion is this.

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    My religion is that. I don't eat pork because of my religion. I do eat something because of my religion. I go to church on Sundays because of my religion. Because of my religion, I wear certain clothes or certain patterns of clothes at certain times. Or I don't wear certain clothes at certain times because of my religion.

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    Because of my religion, I mix with some people. Because of my religion, I don't mix with others. Because of my religion, I make sure I read my Bible every day. Because of my religion, I pray three times a day. Because of my religion, I pray before meals. None of these are bad or wrong.

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    But it's important to realize that this is actually not the essence of what the religion that we're called to is about. Turn with me, if you would, to Colossians chapter 2. I'm going to spend quite a lot of time with Paul one way or another. But we'll start here in Colossians 2.

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    They were really struggling with this question in the first century Ecclesias. He says in verse 16, Do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink.

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    Or with regard to a religious festival. Or a new moon celebration. Or a Sabbath day. Don't let anyone judge you by what you eat, drink. Or with regard to a religious festival. I don't know, like Sunday morning.

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    Verse 17. These are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ. In particular, what he was addressing at this time were the religious festivals associated with the keeping of the law of Moses. The particular manifestations of the law of Moses. Which were an echo, a shadow of the reality that was there in Christ.

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    Verse 20. Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world. Why, as though you still belong to it, do you submit to its rules? Don't handle, don't taste, don't touch. All of those religious rules that they had. Again, through their background in growing up through Judaism. Why do you submit to these, he says?

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    These are all, this is verse 22. These are all destined to perish with use. Because they're based on human commands and teachings. And here's, I think, the key verse of this whole section. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom with their self-imposed worship. Their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body.

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    But they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. These outward regulations, these outward rules. They look very religious. The manifestation of your religion. Somebody looks at you and thinks, that person is very religious. But he says, these things, even when they're rigorous things. The harsh treatment of the body. I wonder whether that's a reference to extensive fasting or something like that.

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    These things that were based on rules and regulations, he says. They look, they look like they're really religious. And you look at someone and you think, man, I wish I was as religious as that person. But he says, they're like the chain on the dog. They actually lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

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    They don't get to the real problem that salvation is all about. So as I say, we're going to continue to explore this from a number of dimensions. When I was young, I stressed over questions like, well, here's a specific one I used to stress over as a teenager. How far can you go with sex before marriage, before it's wrong?

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    I mean, where's the line? You know, you can go this far and no further. And, you know, I struggled with that. Where's the right teaching here to exactly understand what I was allowed to do and what I wasn't allowed to do?

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    Or I hear people ask, is gambling a sin? What if it's just for quarters? Is it still a sin then if it's just for quarters? Or is it wrong not to dress up for Sunday meetings? Do you see the kinds of questions that we ask ourselves, either as young people or even as not so young people?

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    We have all of these kinds of questions, which are important questions. We want to understand aspects about our connection with God, our connection with each other. And how do we go about answering these questions? Well, in my experience, we do the following. We look at various passages. We pull all the various passages that are relevant, where God has said one thing and then in another circumstance he said something additional to that.

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    In another situation, something additional. We weigh up all of these commands and instructions. And we try and sort of figure out what's the rule for this situation.

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    And we do it because we genuinely think that this is what God is wanting us to do. And we have phrases like, we come to God the way he wants us to come to him, not the way we want to come to him. Things like that. At the risk of overstating things again, brothers and sisters, this is dangerous.

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    I think this is a dangerous way to go about looking at our behavior. It's exactly what the Pharisees did. Where they took the law that was there in the law of Moses. And they were trying to work out exactly how far can you walk on a Sabbath day. And so they would look at examples.

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    And they would end up saying, you can walk this far and no further. Exactly how much should you wash your hands before a meal. And they would identify what the right amount that you have to wash your hands at least this much before a meal. And they, I mean, we're often down on the Pharisees.

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    And I'd like us just to take a moment to lift them up. To recognize the deep spirit that was there in many of them. They came as a community of people who were set apart. That's how they viewed themselves. They hated the way that the religion had become a political thing in their nation under the time between the Testaments.

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    They hated the way that everything had become political. That the party of the Sadducees and the high priest was just this political appointee. And whoever happened to be wealthy. And all of these kinds of things going on. And they said, that's not how God wants us to do our religion. And we need to get back and actually commit our lives to following God.

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    So their intent was wonderful. It was marvelous. And indeed, when you look at the early church, many of the early church who came aboard in those early days were from the Pharisees. Where they recognized that there was something just remarkable about this man, Jesus Christ. They wanted to follow him. So even though scripture and we will see failures in the Pharisees, let's not consider them to be a totally black people.

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    In terms of everything that they were doing was wrong. They were motivated by the right thing. They fell into a wrong way of thinking about the nature of righteousness. The reason this is relevant, brothers and sisters, I risk overstating something again, is that if you look in all of scripture to find the community of people that are most like Christadelphians, it would be the Pharisees.

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    And so we have to learn their lessons. We have to take the condemnation that Jesus offers to them and look at what parts of our lives we have to have different so that we don't fall into the same ultimate destructive patterns that they fell into.

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    Let's look at an example when Jesus actually came across them. This is in Matthew 12. I was reminded of Mark saying, follow your notes, Mark. And I'm a little bit like that myself here. So this is just stepping back a little bit. Matthew chapter 12. Jesus is hungry with his disciples. And they find themselves in the grain fields.

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    And it says his disciples were hungry and began to pick some ears of corn and eat them. And this is on the Sabbath. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, look, your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.

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    That may have been kind of like a genuine question, though Jesus seems to suggest it was much more of a condemnation, that they were giving a condemnation that, oh, they're breaking the law. They're doing what was unlawful on the Sabbath. And what's Jesus' answer? If Jesus believed in the legal approach to righteous, in the sets of rules and regulations, he might say something like, well, if you look back at Exodus when it was set up, there were these circumstances in which somebody was able to, as it were, violate the Sabbath.

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    And in these other, he doesn't do that. He does something much more profound. If you notice, he says, firstly, haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests.

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    Jesus' response to them saying, your disciples are breaking the Sabbath, is he says, David also broke the law of consecrated bread. Now, I've heard Christadelphian speakers try to argue that David wasn't actually breaking the law because he was, in some sense, king and priest as a forerunner of Christ, who was king and priest.

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    Jesus tells us that David was breaking the law. He said it was not lawful for him to do. He said it was lawful for him to do. That David broke the law by going in to eat the showbread.

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    And Jesus is saying, hasn't that actually had an impact on the way that you think about law? That David could go in and violate this law of God to do with the holy place of the tabernacle, and yet still have the approval of God.

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    Or verse 5, haven't you read in the law, on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent. Do no work, says the Sabbath. And yet the priests, on that day, had to do work. There wasn't a special exception built into the law of the Sabbath. And it's wrong thinking to go and try and find a legal loophole which allows the priest to do that.

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    What Jesus is trying to do in this discussion is strike at the very way we think about law, the very intent that God had from it. It's not about breaking law. You broke the law. You're due for punishment.

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    He says, if you'd known what these words mean, this is verse 7, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. You would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. Hmm. In another place, he says, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. That is, he's saying, when the law of the Sabbath was established, it was established to accomplish a purpose, to help in the salvation, to help in the support of a human being.

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    Don't spend every day of your life fixated on this world. Take a day where you just come away from it and you just completely focus on the things about God. That was the law of the Sabbath. And it wasn't about, if you break this, you will get punished. Now, you might object to some of the things in the wilderness, but we could talk about those details later.

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    The point is, it's about stirring them on to be able to have that space, to have that time where they can truly connect with God, they can truly worship. Jesus recognized that the design of the law of the Sabbath was in order to promote spirituality in people. And that he and his disciples, taking grain in the grain field because they were hungry, was in no sense violating the intent of that law.

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    The reason why God put that in place, even though they were technically in violation, they were not violating the intent of what God had put it there. And I think that that's really important. There was a deeper purpose to the rules. And that deeper purpose is what the rule was supposed to be about.

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    And where the rule ends up conflicting with its deeper purpose, then the rule goes. It's the purpose that God always cares about. And this is the point of this quotation here from Hosea where Jesus said, if you had known what these words mean, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent.

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    Oh, the law required sacrifice. Abundant sacrifice. And if you didn't bring that sacrifice, technically you were in violation of the law. But the sacrifice was there in order to accomplish a purpose. And accomplishing that purpose was about something like mercy. This verse, Hosea 6, 6, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, is quoted by Jesus more than any other verse in the Old Testament.

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    He quotes it directly twice, he alludes to it once. It's an important verse for him. I desire the intent of what the law is there for, not the actual regulations and rules of the law. I heard a while ago about a seminary that was teaching the people in the seminary the parable of the Good Samaritan and having them sort of really explore it in detail.

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    and what they did was they set up, it was part of the, in this course what they would have is the professor would set it up so that at the end of the course the students had to give a detailed discourse on the parable of the Good Samaritan and there would be the professor there and there would be some other professors who they don't normally interact with and some peers as their judgment, as the panel who were assessing the story.

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    So they would spend time preparing this and then at a designated time they would come and they would present their view of the Good Samaritan and what they had learned and what they had researched and so on. What they didn't know was that for each of them on the way to the presentation the professor would have arranged for somebody in great need to be there on the road, on the pathway and the person would walk past them and actually the question was are you more worried about getting to the time of the presentation and presenting everything that you have learned about the parable of the Good Samaritan or seeing this person who is in need and doing something about the person who is in need.

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    And of course the professor made it really challenging emphasize how vitally important it was that they were there on time and how they would fail the class if they weren't there on time and all of these kinds of things. It's very interesting isn't it? It's sobering. I would have failed. I know that.

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    And we do that to each other with our rules and regulations where it's more important to get to meeting on time than it is to find somebody and help them. And you know especially as a speaker the idea of as I'm on my way to an appointed you know when I'm supposed to speak if there's somebody there who suddenly needs help man that is so hard.

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    To actually say you know what of course they will understand. Of course they will understand. Here's somebody who needs help. Something else will happen. And yet we have our own sets of rules and regulations that I think end up interfering with with a true exercise of our faith. Matthew 5 and verse 20.

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    this is the thing that our Lord is telling us. For I tell you Christadelphians he doesn't actually say Christadelphians but he tells his disciples I tell you disciples those of you who want to be my disciples Matthew 5 20 I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law you'll certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

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    If our righteousness is based on a manifestation of rules and regulations and our understanding about what you're supposed to do in this situation and what you're supposed to do in that situation then that is only what the Pharisees had.

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    And we haven't actually seen the kind of righteousness that allows us to step into the kingdom of heaven. I'm going to emphasize this point even more Matthew 23 This is a big deal for Jesus. Let's not think that it's the sort of thing that just happens one occasion or another occasion. It is the fundamental conversation he has with the Pharisees.

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    He says it again and again and again in this way and that way and ten different ways. And here in Matthew 23 this is the woe chapter. Woe to you teachers of the law of Pharisees hypocrites.

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    I think it's interesting when we read this to read it first of all maybe as a woe to you as a sort of shake them up with condemnation. But it's also interesting to read it with sadness. like he's weeping.

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    I'm so desperately sorry for you teachers of the law and Pharisees and hypocrites because you're missing it all the time. I think it's fascinating to read it in both those voices. Look at verse 16. Woe to you blind guides. You say if anyone swears by the temple it means nothing but if anyone swears by the gold on the temple he's bound by his oath.

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    That's ridiculous he says. How could you possibly make a distinction like that? It's the temple that made the gold sacred. I mean even if you're doing this thing with oaths which is a bad idea in the first place as he says elsewhere at least be consistent with it.

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    At the risk of being controversial I'm going to give an example from many many years ago 20 30 years ago in Scotland. The sisters in a particular ecclesia over in Scotland had wondered they had Sunday morning meeting and then at 6 o'clock they had an evening lecture. And they wondered whether they ought to wear head coverings for the evening lecture.

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    It had been their practice they wear head coverings for the evening lecture. And they were wondering should we wear head coverings for the evening lecture. And so the ABs met together to discuss the matter. And they weighed up the pros and the cons and thought about the scripture. And in this particular case they concluded that no it's not necessary for the sisters to wear head coverings for the Sunday evening lecture.

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    Afterwards the sisters got together and they ended up saying you know we actually think that we should. And so they decided to wear head coverings. now just think about this for the minute. The traditional view of head coverings is that they are a sign of submission of authority from the woman to the man.

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    And so what we have here is a situation where the sisters say no I am going to assert that you actually don't have authority over me by wearing this thing which says you have authority over me.

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    If anyone swears by the temple it means nothing but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple he's bound by his oath. And I don't mean to be hard on us as a community but do you see how easy it is for us to fall into this? To look at the externalities and not actually think about what's going on inside of us.

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    For the Pharisees this is rules gone wild. It had lost all meaning. It had lost all purpose. Verse 23 Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees you hypocrites you give a tenth of your spices mint dill and cumin but you've neglected the more important matters of the law justice mercy and faithfulness.

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    Ah I know about the law of tithing and I've got some peppercorns here so nine for me and one for God and nine for me and one for God. And this is religion when you have things like mercy and fairness and enduring faithfulness things like that go neglected because how do you measure that?

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    See we tend to focus on the things that can be measured, that can be seen, that are external and yet Jesus if he says anything it's about not responding to the external but having the change that happens within. Verse 25 woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees and hypocrites, you clean the outside of the cup and dish, you dress up with your suit and tie when you come to meeting, but inside they are full of greed and self indulgence.

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    Blind Pharisee first clean the inside of the cup and dish and then the outside also will be clean. And again I'm not saying that it's a bad idea to wear a suit and tie to meeting, that may be a perfectly good manifestation of the relationship you have with God. But when we make those kinds of things the important kinds of things, then we're worried about the outside of the cup and we're not worried about the transformation of the inside, the cleansing of the inside, the change that happens on the inside.

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    Going back to Paul Galatians 3, he makes a case very strongly. I realize the time is just zipping away from me here. Galatians chapter 3 verse 10. All who rely on observing the law are under a curse. If you think that it's through observing rules that you will get into the kingdom, then you are wrong because you are under a curse.

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    Romans chapter 3 verse 20. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by observing the law. I mean, these are powerful verses.

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    Have every regulation written down. Do every one of them. And Paul here in Romans 3 verse 20 says, that is not sufficient to have you declared righteous. in God's eyes. Just keeping all those rules will not do it.

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    Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law. Rules cannot save. They cannot rescue us. So what is the purpose of them? Why are there any rules at all? Why does God ever give rules? And he has given rules. I think the second part of this verse is very insightful.

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    Paul says, through the law we become conscious of sin. It shows us something about sin. Now we often think of breaking the rules is the same as sin. That is sin is breaking God's commandments. I don't believe that that's the case. I do think however that what the rules do is they show us something about the nature of sin.

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    They help shine a spotlight on sin. In fact Paul says in Romans 7 I'll just read it to you in verse 7 that what shall we say then is the law sin? Certainly not. Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. I wouldn't have known what coveting really was if the law had said do not covet.

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    But then he says as soon as there was a law the sin seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment produced in me every kind of covetous desire. What happens is when we get a law when we get a rule ! that God gives us that allows us to see something about what our heart is actually like something about what's going on inside of us.

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    The act I mean so as I say we often make the mistake that sin is breaking God's commandments and I think rather that breaking commandments shows us about sin that is inside of us so what is sin if sin isn't just breaking the rules breaking the commandments what is it one of the teens came up with a great definition which I'm going to adopt sin is hurting ourselves or hurting others I think that's exquisite I had sin is destructiveness but I love I love that sin is about hurting other people or about hurting ourselves sin is actually estrangement from God and it's estrangement from one another and we will see through the course of these talks more about that connection sin is anti love sin is anti oneness it is selfishness and what we see here in Romans is until we have law we're ignorant of sin law is a spotlight which shows us sin I think this gives us insight into Genesis what was going on there seems to me that what we're being told in Genesis is that Adam and Eve were spiritually naked and yet were unashamed because they didn't know they didn't get that they were spiritually naked and it seems to me that that taking of the fruit that act of transgression was not the thing that estranged them from God but it was a symptom that they were already estranged from God because if they were not estranged from God they wouldn't have taken it but it's a manifestation that there was already something off a man doesn't go out and commit adultery and so become estranged from his

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    wife man goes out and commits adultery as a manifestation that he is already estranged from his wife do you see the point that I'm trying to make law shows us symptoms of sin it shows us manifestations it is not the sin itself and when we equate sin with breaking law we forget that sin is about what's going on inside of us it's about this anti love it's about the separation between us and God so rules can show us failure they don't define success and the problem is that laws are things that can be measured externally and so we love them it's sort of like like weight losing weight I'm losing weight I measure myself every day and I'm losing weight and yay I'm making progress in getting more and more healthy but somehow I seem to be losing muscle not fat you know the problem and yet you're still tied into this idea that you want to lose weight even though the evidence is that weight is a rotten measure of health I mean it's a component of the measure but it's not the measure itself getting less and less healthy because there's a bad balance now between muscle and fat or between water and other things going on in the body the other reason we like laws is because through laws we get to control other people we get to define standards of righteousness for other people and I think actually this is the essence of law if you think about when somebody is saying but we have to have rules it's not about we have to have rules because otherwise I might do

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    something that is not helpful it's about we have to have rules so that I can know when other people are crossing the line by having measurements you can control other people and this is the essence of law and Paul says something a little bit like this in Galatians 3 and this is I think a classically misunderstood verse in our community Galatians chapter 3 verse 23 before this faith came we were held prisoners by the law locked up until faith should be revealed so the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ as the NIV so that we might be justified by faith now that faith has come we're no longer under the supervision of the law the King James I think has the law was a school master to bring us to Christ the Greek has a word from which we get pedagogue !

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    Because in English pedagogue ! means teacher we think of the law was a teacher to bring us to Christ but actually if you look in the old literature as to how that word was used what was the pedagogue ! The pedagogue was not actually the teacher in the school the pedagogue was the slave who would take a young man by the hand and make sure he got to school I like the translation truant officer the law was the truant officer to bring us to Christ I think that really captures the purpose of law it stops us straying too far it acts as that boundary that says oh no we're straying and now that faith has come verse 25 we're no longer under the supervision of the law look at chapter 4 and verse 19 again the context of Galatians is here this is the struggle of the first century ecclesias where you have the legal pressure follow this set of rules coming from the ex Pharisee Judaizing influence and you have Paul and others saying no the transformation is to be inside of you it's not this yoke of slavery here are the rules and regulations that you're supposed to follow my dear children he says verse 19 of chapter 4 for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you it is really clear that Jesus did not measure his day by day relationship with his father by a set of rules and Paul is asking for that same thing to happen in us he wants echoes of Christ to be created inside each one of us so

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    that we are Christ like Jesus says follow me we say no Lord give us some rules to follow instead I want to have a sense that I have earned the right to be in the kingdom that I am worthy that's not Christ being formed within us look at Romans 8 just dipping into little bits here verse 5 and we'll spend quite a bit of time in Romans 8 one way or another through these classes those who live according to the sinful nature the flesh have their mind set on what that nature desires but those who live in accordance with the spirit have their mind set on what the spirit desires if if in your spirit you are connected with God if you are aware of that seed of God that is growing within you that formation of Christ within you if that's your touchstone as to what gets manifest in your life then your minds are set on what the spirit desires as opposed to the mindset on what the flesh desires he says in verse nine you are not controlled by the flesh by the sinful nature but by the spirit if the spirit of God lives in you and if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ he does not belong to Christ don't don't write these off as first century words this is powerful stuff an echo of Christ is growing as a seed within you if you let it if you permit it to if you let that be the thing which guides then you can say I am Christ's but if instead you are the vicious dog with a

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    chain around your neck you can't say that you're Christ's it's not guiding that's not changing who you are and this isn't just New Testament it's there in the Old Testament as well we could look at Psalm 51 we often have in the past about the if you wanted sacrifices and so on I would bring them but what you want is a broken spirit or Jeremiah 31 talking about the new covenant I'll take my law and write it in their hearts and their minds it will be welling up from inside it won't be this externally imposed thing but I'd like us to go to Isaiah 28 I like this one Isaiah 28 this is this is legalism verse 9 who is he trying to teach to whom is he explaining his message to children weaned from their milk to those just taken from the breast are you so young in Christ that it has to be like this for it is do and do do and do rule on rule rule on rule a little here a little there are you so young in Christ that you need the external restraint like this very well then with foreign lips and strange tongues God will speak to this people to whom he said this is the resting place let the weary !

85. 47:30

    rest and this is so then the word of the Lord to them will become do and do do and do rule on rule rule a little here and actually the Hebrew here is interesting the Hebrew is sav la sav sav sav kav la kav yada yada yada blah blah blah that's what the law becomes if it doesn't actually make a change it's just the blah blah blah going on there's not real change it's all just paperwork yeah but you say you have to draw a line somewhere no just because I have black over here and white over here and every shade of grey in between where would you draw a line to say this is black and this is not black the idea of a line is a philosophical idea it comes from cartesian thinking it's not a biblical idea and just because there is no one place that you can draw a line doesn't mean we have any difficulty in distinguishing black from white but we recognize that there is a whole spectrum in between and where I find myself on that spectrum and where you find yourself on that spectrum is at the end of the day an issue between you and God in I'd like us to take our final reading from Romans 14 but while you're turning that up you might notice that in James James says anyone who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it sins what kind of rule is that that's about if you see an opportunity for healing if you see an opportunity for healing and you choose not to take it that

86. 49:39

    is a manifestation of sin within you you haven't broken any rule there's nothing that you've done wrong it has shown you something about what's inside chapter 14 of Romans verse ! one accept him whose faith is weak without passing judgment on disputable matters one man's faith allows him to eat everything but another man's faith allows him to only eat vegetables the man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not and the man who does not eat everything must condemn the man who does for God has accepted him who are you to judge someone else's servant to his own master he stands or falls and he will stand for the Lord is able to make him stand the idea here is allow one another allow one another to be at a different place in the way they are in their relationship and their understanding of God and their connection with God than you it's not the dog fence or the chain it's the gentle spirit in the dog there is no fence because there's no need for one when we're transformed within