Romans: The Revelation Of Righteousness – Part 14 Lawson and Aaron Perdue
Romans: The Revelation of Righteousness Part 14 with Pastors Aaron and Lawson Perdue! In this session we’ll learn about keeping a good conscience before God and not trying to be somebody else’s conscience, but living with a good, clear, pure conscience before God where you can live by faith!
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Romans: The Revelation of Righteousness Part 14 Transcript
Praise the Lord, friends, I’m so glad that you’re watching the broadcast today. I have my son Aaron with me, and we’re gonna be sharing today on Romans 14, talking about keeping a good conscience before God and not trying to be somebody else’s conscience, but living with a good, clear, pure conscience before God where you can live by faith! Praise the Lord, friends, I’m so glad you’re here with us today and we’re sharing today from Romans 14. And we’re gonna be talking about keeping a good conscience before God and before man. And Paul has some great thoughts where he really expands on this. A good conscience is how we keep our ship of faith from wrecking and we preach, really grace, which is what God has done for us and faith, but the balance to grace and faith is keeping a good conscience because if you don’t keep a good conscience, you will wreck your ship of faith, so. Wanna keep a good conscience?
Yeah, and I’ve heard people talk about having a seared conscience. What do they mean by having a seared conscience?
Well, I think the Bible actually talks about having a seared conscience, and I think there’s two aspects. You can have a conscience really that’s critical and condemning, really overactive. That’s one side, where you do things that really don’t even matter and you’re condemned over it. Or you can have a seared conscience. And I think having a seared conscience is where the Holy Spirit is speaking to you, but you’ve hardened your heart so much to that you don’t hear the voice of God in certain areas. And in the book of Proverbs, I think this is Proverbs 29, but it says, “He that being often reproved “and hardens his neck will suddenly be destroyed “and that without remedy.” And so we don’t want to have a seared conscience, and so I think that’s like if you’re pressing the envelope too far. If you’re trying to live as close to hell as you can and still make heaven, I really question if somebody like that is born again. But I think on the other hand, there’s believers, there’s Christian people that have a conscience that’s always condemning them and you don’t want to have a conscience that’s always condemning you. And so there’s kind of a balance of keeping a good conscience. And so Paul really talks about this, let’s read the first six verses where he talks about that. Aaron, go ahead and read Romans 14:1-6.
“Him that is weak in a faith receive you, “but not to doubtful disputations, “for one believes that he may eat all things “another who is weak eats herbs. “Let not him that eats despise him that eats not, “and let not him which eats not judge him that eats “for God has received him. “Who are you that judges another man’s servant “to his own master he stands or falls? “Yes, he shall be holding up, “for God is able to make him stand. “One man esteems one day above another, “another esteems every day alike. “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. “He that regards the day, regards it unto the Lord. “And he that regards not the day to the Lord, “he does not regard it. “He that eats, eats not to the Lord, “for he gives God thanks and he that eats not to the Lord, “he eats not and gives God thanks.”
So what he’s really talking about is keeping a good conscience before God. And we’re not to be judging another man’s serving. So actually I had the Lord speak to me years ago when I first moved to Colorado Springs. I began to work. I didn’t have a big ministry myself, but I began to work with another big ministry and there were people that were in this ministry. And I think, “My goodness, “these people are ordained ministers of the gospel “and they act like this.” And the Lord actually spoke this to me. They work for somebody else and I wanna be very careful about criticizing another person’s employee, for instance. And this person had a lot of employees and if Jesus went out, prayed all night, pick 12, one of them was a devil. And if you’ve got very many employees, you might have a little trouble once in a while that just comes around with it. Because we live in a world that’s been affected by sin and by Satan. But we have to guard our attitude and we need to really, especially for other people’s servants, we need to deal with the attitude of grace. And when we think about that, they’re all God servants.
Yeah. When I’ve read through this before and taught this Romans 14, kind of living from your conscience. I remember a story when I was a kid, my dad planted a church in Kit Carson, Colorado. It’s in eastern Colorado, just a town of little less than 300 people. So pretty small. It was about three hours from Denver, a big city. And when I was a kid, there was a family that asked, asked y’all if they could take me to a Rocky’s game, a Colorado Rockies game on a Sunday morning. I’d have to miss Church because it’s such a long drive. And my parents, they really value church, obviously they’re pastors and the importance of going to church weekly. And, but they left it up to me. I was probably just seven or eight years old and they just left it up to me as my choice. And I just kind of thought about it and it actually just kind of grieved my heart to miss Church at that age and go to a baseball game. So in my own, I just followed my conscience. My conscience told me you need to to be at church. And they gave me the option. They didn’t make a law. They didn’t make a law for me or it was up to me to follow my own conscience. And my conscience told me, “Hey, let’s stay at church.” And I also, at the same time, I didn’t start condemning other people from our church who went to that game that Sunday morning, ’cause that would be wrong as well. So I had to follow my conscience in that situation. And when you have a heart that’s, that can hear from the Holy Spirit and be led by Him, it produces fruit in your life, eventually went once I was 18, moved away, went to college in Pittsburgh, then Houston, I always valued church and I always made it a point to be there at church. And I think especially being a young man kind of striking out on my own, going to church and being a part of a good church is one of the best decisions I ever made.
It’s very important. I’ve recently told a couple of families, if you’re considering moving away and moving to another community that’s a long ways away before you make that ultimate decision, why don’t you check out the churches there and make sure that you have a good church home? It’s very important. I know Kenneth Hagin, Papa Hagin used to teach that. And he also said, “It’s better to be a little bit behind God “rather than in front of God in your major decision making.” ‘Cause he said, “If you get in front of God, it’ll be hard to see God “out there in front of you working.” And so many people, they kind of make scatterbrained decisions and I’m not trying to be their conscience. I want people to hear from God and ultimately do what God wants them to do. But there’s some good things and there’s things that I wouldn’t do that I’m very convicted about that other, I have other believer friends that will do things that I won’t do, that I would be very convicted about. I can’t see that they’re a necessary sin in the scripture. I could tell you it’s better not to do those things. But if they do those things, that’s between them and God. So, he says, “Let not him that eats “despise him that eats not, “let not him which eats not judge him that eats, “for God has received him.” So, dietary laws, different things like this. In fact, Paul actually talked about this in the book of Colossians 2 in verse 16, we’ll read Colossians 2:16, 17. He makes a statement in Colossians 2:16 and 17. He says, “Let no man judge you and me and what you’re eating “and drink. “What you’re drinking or in respect of a holy day.” I recently had a lady come to me and ask me, “Well Pastor, why do we worship on Sunday?” The Sabbath was on Saturday, the seventh day of the week. It actually was from dusk on Friday evening to dusk on Saturday evening. So I said, “Well, the reason we worship on Sunday “is first of all, Jesus was raised from the dead on Sunday. “Secondly, “the Holy Spirit was sent on the day of Pentecost, “50 days after Jesus was raised from the dead on Sunday. “And so the church was born on Sunday. “And Paul said this in the Corinthians, “when you gathered together on the first day of the week, “give as God has prospered you. “So they were in a habit in the New Testament church “of gathering together on the first day of the week. “That’s why.” But I said, “I don’t really care on what day somebody worships.” You know what?
I think that’s kinda what he’s talking about in Romans 14:1, talking about doubtful disputations,
Yeah.
Some people just love to dispute who is constantly disputing, and that’s not God’s heart to just be constantly disputing over doubtful things, over small things. There’s a family here, actually, one of their daughters is on staff here. They’re very involved here. And their grandfather lived in Israel, was a minister there for a great number of years. And they love some, they like Friday evenings, every now and then they’ll have a Shabbat meal where they’re like, “It’s–
[Pastor] All right.
And I was invited to it and really enjoyed it. I don’t do that all the time myself. But for them, they do it as unto the Lord. And it’s a very beautiful thing when they sit down together as a family and sing hymns together and break bread together and pray a special blessing over the bread and over the wine or the grape juice. They do it as unto the Lord, and it’s not a legalistic thing and some people are gonna be a little bit different than you and it’s okay. You don’t have to dispute everything.
Don’t get legalistic about it. Chill out. And so he says this, he said, “Don’t let anybody judge you in your food, “in your drink, in respect of the holy day “and the new Moon or Sabbath days, “which are a shadow of things to come.” It’s a shadow. It’s like the Old Testament was a shadow of Christ coming. Well, you wanna see the shadow or you wanna see Jesus? Well, look at Jesus, “He says, But the body is of Christ.” Now let’s go back. It’s gonna take and we better get with it here, in Roman 14, but he just talks about this. So we need to love one another, not condemn one another, live in a good conscience ourselves before God. And, let other people live in a good conscience before God, unless something is in direct violation of the scripture. We just need to just chill out a little bit. And there’s times to speak even what you know about the scripture. There’s times to hold your peace. Now he goes on in verse seven through verse 11, and he makes a statement in verse 10. And Paul said, “We’re all gonna stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” And ultimately we’re gonna give an answer for our life before Jesus. And he says in verse seven, “None of us lives to himself and no man dies to himself.” One paraphrase of this says that no man is an island. In other words, did you know what? You’re affecting somebody, somebody’s affecting you. You may not think you are, but I’ll tell you the truth, you’re affecting somebody.
There’s a proverb that said, “A man who isolates himself, rages against all sound, “judgment, wisdom.”
Yesterday, That’s proverb chapter 18:1. And he says, “We shouldn’t isolate ourself,” it says, “Separates himself.” But that’s what it’s talking about, isolates himself. In fact, I heard one person a few months ago, and they were given the word that God is called the prophets to separate. Listen, God hasn’t called anybody to separation.
Or into isolation.
Into isolation. You need one another. You need people around you. You need to hear from them, they need to hear from you. Your gifts are important. And so we need one another. Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 15:33, He says, “Be not deceived, “evil communications corrupt good manners,” and then he says in verse 34, “Awake to righteousness and sin not.” So you need to hang around people that help you wake up to righteousness and don’t get involved in sin. Now there’s a lot of different aspects of sin. By the end of this broadcast, we might talk about a little bit of that. But he makes a statement, He goes on, he says, “Whether we live, we live to the Lord, whether we die, “we die to the Lord. “Whether we live there for or die, “we are the Lord’s for this end.” “Christ both died and rose and revive “that he might be both the Lord of the dead “and the living. But why do you judge your brother? “Or why do you said it not your brother? “For we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, in verse 10, for its written in verse 11, “As I live said at the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, “and every tongue shall confess to God.” We’re all gonna stand before the judgment seat of Christ and the judgment seat of Christ, I believe is a judgment of believers. And believe it or not, there are three future judgments in the scripture. We’ll come back after a short break and we’ll talk about what they are. I believe it’ll give you some great revelation. Friends, I’ve been teaching from my series on Romans: The Revelation of Righteousness. Romans is actually my favorite book of the Bible. And I teach this class, I’ve been teaching it for years at Charis Bible College in Woodland Park with Andrew Womett. And so I’m teaching about the gospel is the revelation of righteousness. You want to get ahold of this. I have a book on it. I also have a four CD mini teaching on it. And then most recently we’ve done the 16 teaching USB that you can get just as we’ve been teaching it here on television. And so you want to get ahold of this revelation. If you get ahold of this revelation, it will change your life. So Romans: The Revelation of Righteousness. Thanks so much for being with us today. I’m sure that you’ll enjoy this great teaching and you’ll want to share it with your friends. Blessings. We appreciate you. Praise the Lord friends, we’ve been talking in Romans chapter 14 and we just shared the scripture in verse 10 that we’re all gonna stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And what is the judgment seat of Christ?
You just talked about three judgments. Three judgments.
Yeah.
I wanna hear about those. So the first judgment you’re talking about is the judgment seat of Christ.
The judgment seat of Christ.
So it’s a judgment of believers.
Judgment of believers. I don’t believe any unbeliever’s gonna be at the judgment seat of Christ. And we’re gonna be judge for our works in Christ. Everybody there is gonna be saved and rewarded for what they’ve done with Jesus. The Bible also talks about the judgment seat of Christ in 2 Corinthians 5:8-10. And Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 5:8-10, he says, “We are competent I say, “willing rather to be absent from the body “and to be present with the Lord. “Wherefore, we labor that whether we are present or absent, “we may be accepted of him for we must all appear.” He says this again, He’s talking to believers, “Before the judgment seat of Christ, “that everyone may receive the things done in his body “according to that what she’s done, “whether it’s good or bad.” So we’re gonna be rewarded for what we’ve done with Jesus. That’s a reward said to believers. If I’m correct and I believe that I am, I believe that happens just shortly after Jesus receives the church to himself, after Jesus comes for his church, then there is another judgment that happens at the end of the millennial period, the thousand year reign of Christ. And that is the great white throne judgment of God. You can read about it in Revelation 20:10-15. Everyone in that judgment is cast into the lake of fire. And it says, this is the second death. I believe there are no believers, there are no born again people at the great white throne judgment, only unbelievers. And they’re judged for their works apart from Christ. It even says in that narrative in Revelation 20:10-15, that there is another book, and I think when he is talking about the other book, he’s talking about the Book of Life, and so nobody there was found written in the Book of Life. So I think that is a judgment of totally of unbelievers. The third judgment we don’t talk as much about. So there’s a judgment of believers, they’ll be rewarded for what they’ve done with Jesus. Everybody there is going to heaven. There’s a judgment of unbelievers where everybody is going to hell and they’re judged for their works apart from Jesus. And then there’s this other judgment, it’s the judgment of the nations. And I believe this is where people get mixed up. But like in Matthew 25, when it talks about standing before the Lord and him separating the sheep and the goats, for what they’ve done right to the elect, to God’s people, specifically to the nation of Israel. I believe nations are gonna be judged for how they respond to the nation of Israel. And that’s a whole nother teaching. We don’t have time to get into all of it today, but I want to tell you, praise God, if you’re saved, if you’re born again, if you’re on your way to heaven, you don’t have to fear the future. Praise God. Now we go back here to Romans 14 and he says in verse 11, “As I lives at the Lord, “every knee will bow me “and every tongue will confess to God.” So there’s a day coming, everybody’s gonna stand before Jesus. Now, as we look at this in verse 12, he says, “Every one of us shall give account of himself to God. “Let us therefore not judge one another anymore. “But judge rather this, “that no man put a stumbling block, “or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way. “I know, “and I’m persuaded by the Lord Jesus “that there’s nothing unclean of itself.” He says, “But to him who esteems anything to be unclean to him, “it is unclean. “If your brother is grieved with your meat, “how do you walk in?” In other words, if I knew that something offended my brother, even though it might not offend me, I probably wouldn’t do that in front of my brother. I’d be careful. Now, sometimes people are so legalistic, they just need to get over their bad selves, he says, “But if your brother be grieved with your meat, “you don’t walk charitably or in love, “don’t destroy him with your meat for whom Christ died.” In other words, don’t destroy people with your legalism. Legalism brings death, legalism destroys people.
I, you know this can work in practical ways too. Maybe your spouse is on a very strict diet trying to cut out sweets and high calorie things. Yeah, you probably wouldn’t want to eat a pie in front of them every night and tempt your spouse. That wouldn’t be a very loving kind of thing to do. So I think this can be applied to situations today as well.
Yeah. Relationships. Okay? He says, Don’t let your good be evil spoken of for the kingdom of God. He says in verse 17, is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. What a marvelous scripture. The kingdom of God is not about rules and regulations. It’s not about meat and drink. It’s not about these dietary issues. It’s about righteousness. Standing with God. And peace. We need to be therefore, being justified by faith. Romans 5:1 says, “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” So it’s about peace and it’s about joy in the Holy Ghost.
This kinda reminds me about Peter when he had that vision that God gave a vision of these, you know, unclean animals coming down it right? And he was told to go eat them. And he’s like, I’ve never eaten these things. I’ve never eaten pork before or scallops and you shrimp and lobsters. I’ve never had these things, but God was preparing him bacon to go minister to Cornelius. A gentile person who put their faith in God and Cornelius and his family, they believed on Jesus. They were filled with the Holy Spirit spoken tongues. And that’s kinda what this is talking about. There there is peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
Chapter 10, praise God and marvelous. And so, you need to receive righteousness and you receive righteousness by grace through faith. We talked about that in Romans 5. Peace we are at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through faith in Jesus and joy. Follow the joy, follow your spirit. Let your spirit, you can’t, you can’t run against your conscience and keep keep joy in your heart. He’s gonna be really hard to operate in faith. And that comes up here in just a little bit. So he says, “Follow after the things in verse 19, which make peace. He says, “We’re with, we may edify one another.” The Bible says in Colossians 3:15, “Let the peace of God rule in your heart, “act as an umpire in your heart.” Let the P, if you don’t have peace about it, maybe stay out of it, Stay away from it. That can help you in a lot of ways. Also, the Bible says in Hebrews 12:14, he says, “Follow peace and holiness “without which no man shall see the Lord.” So live at peace with God, Amen. And live a peace with yourself and live at peace with your brother.
That’s awesome.
Praise God. Now he says, “For if you’re meat,” in verse 20, Romans 14:20, “Destroy not the work of God.” He says, “All things are indeed pure, “but it is evil for the man who eats with offense.” So, some people might eat something that had been sacrificed to idols if they didn’t know it, there was no sin in it. Now, if they knew something had been sacrificed to an idol, they were not to eat it as a believer, as a Christian believer. So, but if they ate it and they didn’t know it was sacrificed to an idol, then it wasn’t probably a problem because it wouldn’t destroying their conscience. So he says, “It is neither good to eat flesh or drink wine or anything where with your brother stumbles. So if you know something’s gonna offend your brother, just don’t, don’t be involved in it where they’re there, or is offended, or make weak. Do you have faith? He asks this question, “Do you have faith?” That’s a good question. Do you have faith? He says, Have it to yourself before God. And this is an amazing scripture. “Happy is he who condemns not himself “in the thing which he allows.” There are people who built whole doctrines on things that the scripture is silent on. I had a man ask me, “What do you think about that teaching?” I said, “I think if the scripture, scripture is silent, “we should be silent.” We should, now there’s some things you just know are wrong. But don’t make a major doctrine. Something the scripture doesn’t even talk about. And he says, “He that doubts is damned,” in verse 23, “If he eats, because he eats not of faith.” Some people they’re condemned for eating pork. If it condemns you probably don’t eat it, but it’s no problem with God. The Bible, God sanctified it. So if he sanctified it, don’t call it uncle, he says He’s damned if he, but because he eats not a faith for what? This is amazing. Romans 14:23, “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Now there’s three aspects of sin that are spoken of in the New Testament. If you can’t do something in faith, then that would be sin to you. So don’t do things that you can’t do in faith that you can’t keep a good conscious about. James 4:17 says, to the man who knows to do good and does it not to that man it is sin. And then 1 John 3:4 says, “Whoever transgresses the law, it is sin.” Sin is a transgression of the law. So we’ve gotta guard our heart. And you know what? We don’t wanna be living in sin. We don’t wanna harden our heart to God, but we won’t let Jesus rule our heart and rule our life.
I just love, I love this chapter, Romans 14, just the importance of living from a good conscience. I think that’s really important as believers that you have a clear consciousness. The Bible says, “As sons and daughters of God, we are led by His spirit.” I think we’re led by his spirit in our conscience all the time.
Spirit.
Will speak. Speak to your heart, speak to your conscience.
So number one, don’t be condemned yourself. But number two, don’t condemn your brother. You know, live in a good conscience before God, but don’t try to be a conscience for everybody else and let God direct people. Watchman Knee was in China and he wrote a great book about the spirit, soul and body of man. And when he wrote that, he said he would go to people, for instance that were drinking wine and he wouldn’t condemn them and the Bible, it probably if you read Proverbs, it’s better not to do that. But he wouldn’t condemn them and he would come back a while later and visit them as new believers and they wouldn’t be drinking wine. He’d say, Well, why aren’t you doing that? And he’d say, “Well,” the people would say, “Well, something on the inside of me “we need to learn not to.” You talked about at the beginning, not to violate our conscience, not to see our conscience, to listen to the Holy Spirit, to be led by the Holy Spirit into the freedom of God, into the things that we have as children of God and our divine rights and privileges as children of God. And I believe it’ll bring us into the blessing.
Got it.
Thank you so much, friends, for being with us today. We’re gonna be back tomorrow at this same time. Tell your friends about the broadcast and you can also watch it on our website. At carischristiancentre.com Thank you so much. God bless you.
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Hi friends, I’m Pastor Lawson Purdue and I’m gonna have my good friend Jesse Duplantis ministering here at Charis Christian Center. He’s ministered for us every year for the last 11 years. One thing he said that really has helped me, he said, “In the realm of faith, “most of the time I made a decision and God honored it.” So you don’t wanna miss these meetings with Jesse Duplantis, come and receive the good word of God. Blessings.
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