Transcription
[Music] we are in the middle of Romans series. we're talking about in view of God's mercy in this section of Romans. and we come today to Romans chapter 14 where Paul is gonna talk to us about the conscience, the conscience. you know, so maybe you haven't ever heard a series or a sermon about the conscience, but the conscience is biblically. you know, the Bible talks a lot about our conscience and talks about how we deal with issues of our conscience. and it's helpful for us as believers. I think today is going to be extremely helpful for you. maybe if you have like something that you're like, man, I feel like my conscience is just like, I feel guilty in my conscience. or maybe you're like, man, I don't know if this issue's right. sometimes I feel bad about this issue, but I'm not sure if it's right or wrong. I think today's gonna help you understand how to deal with that. because that issue was happening in the early church. and if we understand how to deal with the conscience in areas of conscience, then that helps us both walk in confidence as a believer. but also it helps us when it comes to, you know, maybe there are areas in your life where you know somebody where they feel like it's wrong and you think it's something something's right. or maybe you feel something they're doing wrong and you feel it strongly. how do you deal with that? because if we don't understand how to deal with those things, then we can find ourselves walking in disunity and disagreement and it can create all sorts of problems for us as believers. so Paul addresses this issue. but he does it in the framework of what we've been talking about in Romans. at the beginning of this section, after Paul has as a master laid out what the gospel looks like for us believers, then he transitions the book in Romans chapter 12 and he says this. he says, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." so he's saying, you know what, in view of everything God has done for us in Christ, in view of how God sent his son and he went the distance for us and he had mercy on us and he laid down the prerogatives of deity for us, in view of that mercy, then this is how we should live. and this is really important because as we tackle this subject today, there are going to be things in life where somebody feels something is wrong and you feel something's right. and if you don't navigate that through the the view and the lens of mercy and the view of the lens of sacrifice and what Jesus did for us on the cross, then you can find yourself offending other people. you can find yourself tearing other people's faith apart. you can find yourself trying to push other people to live like you or do what you think is right. and instead of acting out of love, you can act out of a critical or judgmental spirit. and so it's really important that as we navigate this subject, that we keep this in mind. that we keep the grace of God and the goodness of God in the forefront. because that is really the bedrock of what changes and affects how we live as believers. amen. amen.
so let's think about conscience here for a second. let's talk about what we mean when we say conscience. because we're speaking about areas of conscience, areas of comes. what is an area of conscience? I'm gonna put a definition on the screen. an area of conscience is an issue where there is no explicit command in Scripture. meaning this, scripture doesn't directly speak to something. we're not talking today about lying or stealing or committing adultery. those are explicitly talked about in scripture and their commands. but we're talking about today areas that aren't explicit, aren't directly command in scripture, but as an area where a believer should apply the general teaching of the gospel in order to come to a decision on what is right or what is wrong. so as a believer, you take what you know of the Word of God, what you know of what the Spirit of God is leading you to do, and you have to make a decision on that on what is right or wrong. now let me say this about conscience. first of all, your conscience, my conscience, isn't infallible. meaning this, that your conscience can tell you something is wrong when in fact, according to the Word of God, it's not wrong at all. or your conscience can not, you know, tell you something is the, I guess you're gonna go do something. it can tell you something's right that you're fine, but according to the Word of God, it's actually sin. and that's because your conscience isn't infallible. in fact, you have to train your conscience. our conscience is developed by experiences we have, maybe the place you were born, in the country of origin that you come from, your religious background, all these kinds of things inform our conscience. and so we have to train our conscience according to the Word of God. so our conscience directs us and the way we should go. now I'll tell you this, scripture is very clear that we shouldn't just push our conscience aside and ignore it. but training it is the way that we can grow and have spiritual health in our lives. and so when it comes to areas of conscience, this is kind of our big idea for today. I want to talk to you for a few moments about how the gospel teaches us the importance of loving people, honoring the Lord, and living out of faith and confidence when there are differences with others in areas of conscience. okay? when there are differences with others in areas of conscience. for example, if, and we're gonna look at when we look at Romans 14, you're gonna see this, but if somebody feels something is wrong, but you feel it's right, and you can base that on the Word of God, what do you do in that moment? or if you feel something's wrong, what should you do? is you're like, man, I, I kind of, I don't know what scripture says on this, but I feel like it's wrong. but somebody's telling you, hey, that's not wrong, you should do it. and and you're like, man, there's not any direct command in scripture, but I just feel. how should you interact with that? and how should we interact with one another? and I'll tell you why this is important because, you know, there's an enemy who hates the church. he hates the unity of the church. he hates when people live together and are loving each other. he hates when there's strength and there's clarity. he loves to ought to provide confusion, to make things difficult, to make there be strife between individuals. in areas of conscience are the place where he loves to do that. and so it's important that we understand what the Word of God says in regards to conscience so we can live in life and faith and unity and honoring the Lord. amen. amen.
so Paul sets this up, this discussion with a situation as an example of what was happening in the Roman Church. and it really helps us understand how this works. so we're gonna look at it in Romans chapter 14. it says this: "As for the one who is weak in the faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables." so let's stop there. what was happening is there were believers, Jewish believers, that felt, you know, some meat, they didn't know, some meat was offered to idols and then sold in the marketplace. and they didn't know which meat was and which meat wasn't. and they felt it was wrong to eat meat that had been offered to idols. and so they decided it's just safer to abstain from all meat. and so they weren't eating meat because they weren't sure and they didn't want to sin. and so they said, we're not gonna eat any meat. other people were saying, you know what, meat's me, all right? I don't know where it came from. I don't need to know. it just goes in, it tastes great. I'm eating it. all right? so and that's what they were doing. and so there's this kind of discussion on who's right and who's wrong in this and what to do with each other. "The weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand." amen. amen.
so I want to talk to you for a few moments about areas of conscience. how do we deal with those? and how do we keep the enemy from navigating into our lives, getting into our lives, getting into our relationships in a way that can break our relationships apart? first of all, when it comes to areas of conscience, we have to remember to love others. we have to remember to love others. now, I know that seems simple because we all, you know, when it comes to love, you know, love is so great, isn't it? all right? you know, and maybe if you've ever been in love, I remember dating Beth. I'm still in love. I'm more in love with my wife now than ever before. but when we were dating, you know, we have puppy love, you know what I'm saying? it was puppy love. we were like all gooey eyed and like, like, "I love you, baby." "Good night." "No, you say good night." "No, I'm not gonna say good night." that's sort of thing. never get off the phone sort of stuff. and so we actually dated long-distance for nine months. I was on the other side of the world in Australia. and we did long-distance dating. and we would write letters. for the young people, that's where you take a pen and ink, you put in an envelope, you put a stamp on, and you drop it in the mail. it's really great. i, we would write letters. I would call her every day at noon, which was 9 p.m. here. that was my lunchtime. I would go to the payphone, drop a quarter in, and give her a phone call. you know, we were just in love. we would write letters. and actually, I was talking about this binder in first service. and so for second service, I thought I'd bring it. but we have a binder full of letters that we wrote each other while we were dating long distance. and I was, I was looking through it. and yes, please clap for that. and that's, I, I had all kinds of nicknames for her, but I'm not gonna share them with you because they're too intimate, too intimate. we got to stay focused here. but you know, love, we love it, right? we're like, that's so great. but then when it comes to loving people that maybe we don't see eye to eye with, that maybe we feel a little judged by them, or maybe we feel like, now, they think they're like, they're above me. when it comes to loving those people, all of a sudden love, it becomes such an intangible. you're like, what is love? huh? I don't even know. I'm not sure. well, how, how can I love? what does it mean to welcome them? and I think we need to be careful because, you know, the Bible is pretty clear that if we're only good at loving people that love us, then we are no better than anybody that's in the world that knows nothing. that makes us a believer, that represents Christ, if we're only good at loving people who love us. but we represent the love of Christ. well, when we love people even when we don't see everything eye to eye with them. and when it comes to issues like the issue that they're dealing with in Romans chapter 14, we have to love people even if they don't agree with us. look at what verse 1 says. it says, "As for the one who is weak in the faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions." now, he's, Paul uses this term, weak in the faith, or a weaker brother. what he means is somebody who has an untrained conscience. you know, they could be like, have a hypersensitivity in their conscience, which means that they can think something's wrong. in fact, Paul says, you know what, later on in the chapter, he says eating meat is not wrong. and even Jesus said that. so it's not wrong. but Paul is very careful in how he deals with people that are in that state. because that kind of, when you're in that position of an untrained conscience, it can create an instability in you where you're not sure, like, is this something God wants me to do or not wants me to do? and if we're not careful, if we have somebody in our life that's walking through that, you know, we can, because oftentimes that can become a judgmental thing. well, I think that's wrong. and you're like, well, no, it's not wrong. you know, and you can, you can feel like a little bit of judgment. or we can just push them out and say, you know, I'd rather just, you do you, I'll do me. but Paul's saying, you know what, you should welcome them. and and not to just quarrel over opinions. when you use that, that term, the weaker, the weaker brother, a weak in the faith, you know, I don't know if you, help me, you grew up with siblings. so you're like, you need, like, let's see the people who need counseling. here, if you're like a younger sibling, all right? younger siblings, all right? who's the oldest? who's the oldest in the room? yep. both borns are the oldest. I wonder how that works in a marriage. we'll talk later. but hey, you know what, if you're a younger sibling, one more, one more time, every campus, every campus, look around, look around. so I don't know about you, but when it came to being the younger sibling, I borrowed my brother's clothes when he wasn't looking. I know he's watching at the West Campus. I borrowed his car and wrecked it. I always wanted to be around his friends because there's something about being a younger sibling where you're like, man, I gotta get into that world. all right? and as an older sibling, what you do is, you, you don't even have to say anything, but you're very body language when a younger sibling enters your atmosphere, you instantly tense up and you give this feeling of a lack of welcome, you know what I'm saying? you know you did it. you need to repent, give your life to Christ. all right? and then find your sibling and repent because it was wrong. sorry, I'm bitter. but you know, even if you don't learn that, you have kids. I have four kids. and out of a young age, Evelyn's eight years old. and if like she's doing something with her friends, and Everett comes up, she looks at him like, "Hey, this is an adult conversation. Please leave." her. you know, and she's only eight. I'm like, you're not an adult. you're like, okay. but but that's the vibe that Paul is talking about here. because when you feel like so confident that, hey, this is right, and I know you think it's wrong, you can, if you're not careful, give somebody the sense of like, you're gonna pat them on the head and send them on their way to the kids' table. because you know what, for us people that know the Word of God and are enlightened, then you would know that that isn't wrong. and that creates an intellectual superiority in you that's not helpful and not loving. we're called when there's differences in conscience to love other people and to treat them with a care and a respect and a kindness that helps them. in fact, Paul says this. he says, "Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains." despise, you know, that idea, once again, I'm looking down on for progressive intellectual reasons, you know? or, you know, "Let not the one who abstains despise the one who eats." so you have two groups here. you have one looking down on one group because they feel intellectually superior, like they have more understanding. and you have another group looking down on that group because they feel like they have the moral high ground. and neither position is loving. neither position will help you move people into more of a love for Jesus and to more of what God's called them to be into into what God has for their life. it only separates and creates fractions or disunity in the body of Christ. and so we have to be careful. and you know, for example, if you go on social media, if you just want to test this out, you go on social media, pick a hot-button topic and say, "I believe this is wrong." and then you just wait for the comment sections to roll in. all right? "I believe this is right." and you believe, wait for the comment section. you will find those groups of people. but we have to be careful. that's how the world deals with this. but as the body of Christ, our mission is not to straighten everybody out, but to love people into looking more like Christ and to be Christ to them, to care about others. and maybe they're in a place where they, they, you know, honestly, they feel like something's wrong. our job isn't to help move them into not thinking that's wrong. our job is to love them. now, that does not mean, and Paul is not saying that we cannot have discussions with people about issues. but he is saying that it shouldn't be about the issue. you know, it's not, it's okay to have a discussion. but when all the conversations you have are about that, or you're trying to push somebody to do something that they feel is wrong, that is sin. and Paul's pretty explicit on that. in fact, he says this. he says, "I know and I am convinced on the authority of the Lord Jesus." that's pretty high authority. I think that's the top right there. "that no food in and of itself is wrong to eat." so Paul is saying this, really, if we wanted to be clear, that's not wrong. eating meat is not wrong. and if Paul wanted to make people feel like an idiot, he definitely could. he was smart enough to do that. but instead of taking that route, he says, "But if someone believes it is wrong, then for that person it is wrong." so what he's saying is, hey, if you have a conviction or your conscience is telling you something is wrong, then don't sin against your conscience. because then you are sinning. because you don't know in that state of instability, you don't know if that's the Holy Spirit speaking to you. you don't know, you, you're not sure if it's right or wrong, just by very issue that you're having that discussion in your head. and if you, if you are there, then don't sin against your conscience. and if somebody's there, then don't push them to do that. he says this in Corinthians. they're having a, it's a very similar passage in Corinthians chapter 8. "When you sin against other believers by encouraging them to do something they believe is wrong, you are sinning against Christ." "So if what I eat causes another believer to sin, I will never eat meat again as long as I live." that's a pretty powerful statement. you know, Paul is saying, you know what, if this is gonna cause somebody to stumble, then I'm gonna set down my freedom in order to love them and take care of them. because I don't want to do anything that causes somebody to stumble in their walk with Christ. you know, that's what love is. when we look at these issues of conscience and we say, you know what, I want to love, then we're willing to lay down what we technically can do in order to love people, to not offend people, to be kind to people. you know, sometimes we can make freedom like a badge that we wear and wave it in people's faces that don't think it's right. and honestly, that's just not godly. and you'd potentially be damaging people. because if they sin against their conscience, that can create guilt and instability in their relationship with God. it's not good for them. and it doesn't show the love of Christ through you. and God's heart is that as we are interacting with one another, that it's not about one-upping each other, winning arguments, and trying to get the high ground. because if somebody is, and that's just the natural reaction, if somebody's saying, "Hey, I think this is right because of this list of information," and you say, "Well, obviously you don't know the Spirit of God like I do, because if you did, you would know it's wrong because I sense in my spirit it's wrong," it just creates a division. and it's, it's not, it's not of God. but if we love each other and say, you know what, I don't know everything, but I'm gonna look at the Word of God, and I'm gonna, I want to love you through this and build relationship that way, it honors the Lord. and that's honestly how God wants us to do it, to pursue building one another up. and the key verse in this passage, Paul says this. he says, "So let's stop condemning each other and decide instead to live in such a way that you will not cause another believer to stumble." and in doing that, you're building them up. you're gonna make a decision that, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna live that way, but I'm gonna live to love others.
but it's not just about loving others. it's also about honoring the Lord. so when we're dealing with areas of conscience, we want to love others, and then we want to honor the Lord. you know, recently, we, we bought this rainbow sprinkler from Sam's Club. and it's pretty awesome. it's got a rainbow and clouds at the bottom. and I saw it and texted a picture to Beth. I said, "Wouldn't this be great to put in the backyard?" I'm a sucker for those like inflatable sprinkler things that just kill your grass and only last like ten days, but I always want to get one for the kids. so this is the picture of what the advertisement looked like. I mean, isn't that great? don't you feel good when you look at that? you're like, "That's what we're gonna do in our backyard." and so, uh, so anyway, well, I get everybody hyped up for this. and then Beth ends up getting it. like, I was at work. and she, you know, we're all excited. and she's got into a rainbow sprinkler, yay! and she texts me this picture of the rainbow sprinkler. and and she actually, you know, how you can now write on pictures on the iPhone? I know Android people are like, "We did that 30 years ago." but you can write on the picture. and she just said, "Help us." frowny face. you know? so I come home and I get the air pump. and I'm like, "Dad Nation." you know, like, "I will help you. Children, step aside." you know? and I pump up the sprinkler, the the deal full. and I get the stakes all right in the ground. I'd turn on the rainbow sprinkler. and I go, you know, the sun's shining. and I'm looking. and it was great. it was great. and we had a lot of fun with rainbow sprinkles. that's the whole point of that story. but no, but seriously, if you like solving problems in life, and I think most of us do, we can look at people who differ with us on opinion of what is right and wrong and feel like it is our job, our God-ordained job, to go in and write the issue, to set it straight, as it were, to be like, "Obviously, there's a huge mistake. You are, you are so, so just uninformed, and I need to help you." or maybe they're like, maybe you're like, in a position where you feel like, "Man, I don't even know if you're a Christian because obviously you wouldn't be doing that if you were." and so let me help you with that. but it becomes a judgmental thing, or a despising thing, or a just a snobby thing. you have to be careful if you take that route because it's not a route of humility. and honestly, sometimes we can get in the way of the Holy Spirit. and we don't want to make people a project like a rainbow sprinkler, all right? where we're going, we're like, "I will solve the problem. Step out of my way and learn about morals." you know, you want to be a person that says, "God, I love this person, and I'm walking through life with them, but I'm gonna leave room for the Holy Spirit because there's a possibility, God, that I may not be right." and when we take that posture of humility, it actually honors the Lord. I want you to look at this. what the message says. it says, "Over rainbow sprinkler here, do you have any business crossing people off the guest list or interfering with God's welcome? If there are any corrections to be made or manners to be learned, God can handle that without your help." isn't that great? you know, how many, yeah, and I think we should give God some praise because how many excited that we serve a God who is well capable of leading us into the grace of Jesus Christ into the sanctification? maybe you feel like, "I don't look much like Jesus." but I can read this verse to you and say, God can handle that. he can take you from glory to glory. and you don't need anybody's help but the Holy Spirit. you dig into the Holy Spirit, and you're gonna get all the help you need. but I think sometimes when we have people in our life, we'll be like, "Man, I feel like this that's just wrong." if you can't find a scripture for it, and even if you can, be careful. don't make it your mission to make them your project and set them straight. make it your mission to love them. because honestly, if you love somebody and they're living in sin, even in that moment, you're gonna pray, you're gonna get godly counsel, you're gonna be careful how you walk into a discussion with them in order to help them grow. but even moreso when it comes to people that you're, it's not biblically explicit that what they're doing is right or wrong, then it's not our job to judge them and straighten them out. our job is to love them and to honor the Lord by saying, "God, I believe that you can handle it." and "God, I trust you because you're in charge." and and one of the ways we honor the Lord is not just by making room for the Holy Spirit, but we honor the Lord by recognizing God is the judge. and when we recognize that, it creates a humility for ourselves. because you're gonna stand before God giving an account for what you've done, and they're gonna stand before God. and so when we have that in our perspective, it gives us pause when we try to straighten people out. because we want to say, "God, I want to honor you in this. it's not about me getting my way, and it's not about me looking superior. it's about honoring you." and God, I can trust that you are able to handle them. and so you see this. Paul writes this about God. "God's judgment: Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls." remember, we'll all stand before the judgment seat of God. yes, each one of us will give a personal account to God. and we need to remember that when it comes to these areas of conscience, because we don't know everything, but we can trust it to a God who can set it right. as well, we honor the Lord by keeping a big-picture perspective. and honestly, I think Paul writes a lot of this to help believers get out of the mindset, the view that we can have when it comes to life and living with other believers, that we can lose sight of what it's all about. that we can get hung up on differences and different different things that we don't agree on. and doing on which they would do that or they're sad, but we can get hung up on that and lose sight of the big picture. what's the big picture? Jesus Christ came to ignite, to boot the ignition on his kingdom, to launch his kingdom on the earth. and we all get to be a part of that. all right? Jesus Christ came. and so we're a part of the kingdom of God. and so Paul says this, "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink." what he's saying is, hey, you know what, you may think it's great to do this or do that, but it's not about that. and if you make it about that, you're not honoring the Lord. if you make it about honoring God and loving other people, then that's where you'll see the life come in. because we can make our freedom a badge, and we can make it all about that, and we end up tearing people down. we can be like, "Hey, I don't think this is wrong. So I post it on social media, and I'm gonna try to get other people to go with me on it. And if they don't like it, then they can." that's not right. the kingdom of God is not about that. and you'd be better to lay that down and build the kingdom than get hung up on that. or be like, "They shouldn't judge me." or whatever. it's not about that. but it's about living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. "If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God and others will like you." all right? that's what that says. others will approve of you too. because honestly, if you don't live in that zone, you're a very hard person to be around. because if you're on the moralist side, you're, you can be legalistic. if you have a hypersensitive conscience, because you're, you're always, you know, you're always making rules just to be safe, or making standards to live by in order to be right before God, not living in justification by faith. it makes you a hard person to be around. or if you're on the other side of it, you just feel superior to everyone. and either way, it's not loving. so then let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up. and we have that big-picture perspective, it honors the Lord, it builds the church. and what a great thing that we get to be a part of building the kingdom of God. you know, building the kingdom of God is not, it's not a pastor's job. it's not for somebody who's been a Christian for thirty years. it's every single one of us get to be a part of building the kingdom of God. and that's where the joy is. and that's where the life is. and the enemy loves to sidetrack us from that. but when we keep a big-picture perspective and say, "God, I'm gonna honor you by keeping my eyes on the main things," then God's presence comes in, and God uses you because you're not looking in all the different directions to straighten everything out, but you're saying, "God, I want to be a builder. I don't want to tear people down." you know, through this whole passage, when Paul is talking about this issue, he says, he says, "Keep saying, don't put a stumbling block in front of other people. Don't, don't be tripping them up." it is interesting. it seems like a principle in life that when people stop building, then oftentimes they can get sidetracked by causing other people to stumble because they're not staying in their lane. and that's how it works with the kingdom of God. when we stop building the kingdom of God, we can find ourselves getting off track, but inadvertently taking people down with us. and so it's important for us at times to take a step back and say, "God, I've got my eyes on wrong things. God, if I was being honest about my life right now, I'm not honoring you by being a builder of the kingdom. I'm actually tearing it down. and Lord, I repent. and God, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make you the main thing, building the kingdom of God the main thing." and watch you build my life. and if you do that, well, you know, the Bible says those who honor God, he will honor them. God will bless your life in an amazing way.
finally, you know, and I want this for this part. Paul, it really takes a transition. and and I think it will help you. you know, we want to live a life out of faith and confidence. live a life out of faith and confidence. and so I don't know what backgrounds you've come from, or maybe you've come into the church and you're, you're struggling because you have a lot of convictions in your conscience that you're not, you're just not sure about. maybe you don't have a really broad understanding of the Word of God, so you're like, "I'm not sure what's right and wrong." and so, you know, I feel like sometimes I'm convicted over certain things, but I'm not sure. I just want to encourage you to be careful in how you navigate through that to make sure that you're staying in the Word of God. because the Word of God will really help you. it'll help you understand grace. because oftentimes when you're in that zone, if you feel like you did something wrong, instantly you feel an overwhelming, heavy sense of guilt. and you feel like, "I can't even come to church today. I barely made it here because I'm so sure God's mad at me. I'm so sure he doesn't want to talk to me." and you feel this overwhelming sense of guilt. and the Lord bringing you here because he said, "This is not how it is. There's a lot of grace for you, and I love you." and what can happen if you, if you feel that guilt is you can drive yourself and say, you know what, "I probably, you know what, whatever, I'm gonna just do whatever." you know? and you're gonna sin against your conscience. and that, that does damage. that guilt, that creates more guilt. honestly. and the Bible is very clear, don't do it that way. train your conscience by the Word of God. walk in the grace of God. get godly people around you who can speak into your life, who can help you. you can be like, "Me, I feel like, is this wrong or is this right because I'm not sure?" a seasoned person in the Word, a person that loves God, can really help you. and I honestly, musicians, to come. but I wanted to read you this verse. it says this, "I just to help you: Whoever doubts is condemned if he eats." now, he's saying, once again, this is about eating meat, not eating meat. but put this in your context. "For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin." and that's the real issue here. if you're making decisions that are violating your conscience, then you're not operating out of faith. because when you feel something's wrong, you're not sure in that moment. there's an instability there. so you're not sure if that's God. or you're not sure if that's you. so when you take that step, you're actually, like, not operating in faith. because you're going without God. you're saying, "Well, if it's, I don't know if it's God, but I'm gonna do it anyway." that's not, that's not good for you. because then that will create an instability in your walk with the Lord. and God wants you to have a life and a faith in your walk with Him. so you need to rest and say, "God, I trust you." for the things, you know, there's gonna be times, honestly, when you're struggling like that, where you're gonna go, "This is, this, I feel like I need to do this and this, and they're honestly, like, competing." you know, like they're like, "What do I do? Which one's right? Which one's wrong?" rest. rest in the grace of God. rest in the goodness of God. and then say, "God, I'm gonna lay that aside until you speak to me on it. and I'm gonna get into your Word. I'm gonna get godly counsel." and as you do that, the Lord will direct you on what to do. and he'll help you with that. because he loves you. God is really, really, really good at directing people, especially people that are calling on him. "I called to the Lord, and he answered me. He lifted me out of all my fears. He set my feet upon a rock, a firm place to stand." that's what the Lord does. and so maybe you're in a position today where you're like, "Man, honestly, I have a friend who I have been trying to get to do this certain thing, and they don't want to do it because they have a conviction." and I keep prodding them and pushing them. I want to encourage you, let the conviction the Holy Spirit rest on you. what you're doing could damage them, and it's sin. maybe you're here today and you're like me, and I have a conviction about this, but I've been pushing past it. I want to encourage you today to not do that in accordance with the Word of God. but most of all, if you set your heart rather than saying, "I'm not gonna do that," say, "God, I'm gonna love people. God, I'm gonna honor you. And I'm gonna do whatever I can to be close to you and might come out of faith, live my life out of faith, and build the kingdom of God." you watch as God navigates your life in a way that those things start to take care of themselves in a beautiful way. and the kingdom of God, and the church, and your relationships won't be torn apart by little things or things that you feel are a bigger deal, but they'll actually be brought together by love and the Holy Spirit. and that's the heart of God. it's the word of the Lord today. let's pray.