As a 19-year-old in the mid 1700s, Jonathan Edwards became intensely serious about the direction of his life.  As he began to grasp the nature of God, he found God to be both delightful and unsettling.  With this finding, Edwards then penned a series of resolutions…commitments, simple statements, conclusions…forged in the reality of who God is and in His character and his desire to live for God’s glory.  Each of these resolutions began with one simple word, “Resolved”, meaning a deliberate and committed disposition regarding a decision.

• Resolved: that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory and to my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now nor never so many myriads of ages hence.

• Resolved: to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general.

• Resolved: to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, however so many and however so great. 

Jonathan Edwards was resolved to live for God’s glory and to live for the benefit of the people around him no matter the trials and tribulations that came his way.  In our text for today, we can find the principle of resolve, which we glean from the instruction to “decide” (v13).  In thinking about the reality of the judgment of God that all believers will face in verses 10-12, that we will stand before God and are to be accountable to Him, we can find that to be both delightful and unsettling.  From that perspective, we should be resolved in something.  Perhaps, each of us, as a member of the body of Southside, should be resolved to exercise our Christian liberties in such a manner that they do not become a catalyst for blasphemy.

As we look at these four verses, much is at stake in how we live our Christian lives, what our liberties are and how we exercise them in front of other people.  To meet our resolution, we must first…      

1. Be Committed to Safeguard  (v13)

“Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.”  As believers, if we think about living for the most good and advantage of the people around us, our lives ought to offer protection and stability.  We should serve as a source of strength for and encouragement to them.  Our interactions with each other should aim to act as safeguards, a word Paul uses in Philippians, where he says, “Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.  To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you” (Phil 3:1, LSB).  In these words to the Philippian church, Paul was encouraging them, protecting them, offering them stability in their lives.

As we look at our individual lives and consider our presence within this fellowship, our goal within our family, our aim within our friendships, should be to strengthen, not weaken, those around us.  We should not be tempting others to sin nor should we be a hindrance to their spiritual growth.  We should be a safeguard to them.  This begins by…  

a. Choosing Compassion over Critique

“Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer,...” Pulling into mind all that we see in verses 10-12, knowing we are all accountable to God, understanding the reality of our salvation, knowing we are all going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, let us therefore stop judging others, putting away unnecessary, sinful critique that leads to legalism, the very issue for which Christ admonished the Pharisees (Luke 7:31-36), showcasing their harsh, condemning attitude.  At the same time, Christ is reminding them He is on a mission of mercy, that He has come to save, not to condemn or to judge at this time.  This is Paul’s call to the church in verse 13, a passionate plea to love, not judge, your neighbor.  It is a call to have compassion, a “moving within the bowels”...where in ancient times was considered to be the seat of emotion…to have a disposition of mercy to relieve another person’s suffering and to cease being a source of that suffering.  Individually, as a believer, each of us is able to cease critiquing and to put on compassion as we choose instead to flip the tables, switch the focus of our time and energy not on judging others but as you,…   

b. Judge Yourself

“but, rather decide….”  Judging ourselves is good.  It is a vital, biblical principle that helps us to maintain personal holiness and integrity.  It needs to be done in a way that is righteous and Spirit-filled but, in so doing, we can identify and repent of sin and we can ensure we live in a manner worthy of our calling.  With this attitude in mind, we begin to understand how the Christian life is to be lived out, externally focused on service to others and internally focused on spiritual growth. So, we judge ourselves.

Just as in sports, where we establish personal records, something to which we strive to hold ourselves, to be accountable, we need to remember we will have to give an account of ourselves and so we establish our motivation, our own personal records, for the giving of that account.  We learn from 1 Corinthians 11:28-31 that each man is to examine (judge) himself, to reflect on the reality of his life.  Also, in 2 Corinthians 13:5, we see the instruction to test ourselves, to ensure we are in the faith.  In Galatians 6:4, “But each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and in regard to another.”  We boast in what Christ is doing within us! 

Imagine what our lives would look like if 99.9% of our energy was focused on ourselves and on our own spiritual growth, putting on compassion and putting off critique.  If we would choose to do this, to do what Scripture calls us to do, to live how Christ wants us to live, to live as He lived, how many problems would disappear?  How many marriages would experience full and complete reconciliation and renewal?  How many friendships would improve?  How strong would our Southside fellowship be?  This must be our guiding motive as we live our lives and this is the picture Paul is painting.  We should focus on our own personal record and not that of our neighbor’s.  In maintaining our internal focus, putting away critique and putting on compassion, we find ourselves with the ability to…  

c. Remove Sin (v13b)

“...never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.”  Effectively, we would remove sin from our own lives and from the lives of others.  Obstacles/Hindrances, in this context, are things you do or actions you take that hinder or slow the spiritual growth of others.  In matters of personal opinion, we like to believe we are going to be a catalyst of spiritual growth for others when, in fact, Scripture tells us we often end up being a hindrance.  We do this in the form of some action, behavior or attitude that causes confusion, doubt or leads another believer to not grow in an area of their spiritual walk.  In 1 Corinthians 10:32, we read, “Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God”, with offense carrying the same meaning as hindrance.  In this instruction, Paul is referring to matters of conscience which began in Chapter 8.  While the Corinthians thought they were helping the weaker brothers, they were actually hindering them.

Practically speaking, Southside was confronted with the issue of social media used within the youth ministry.  For years, the church utilized social media to communicate with the youth, as a way to stay up to date on events and to share experiences.  Within the past few years, understanding all the evils and negative impacts available through excessive, unrestrained use of social media, the church began to realize that we could actually be a hindrance to the spiritual growth of the youth, enticing them to envy, materialistic pursuits and/or dissatisfaction with their own lives.  The leaders of the Youth Ministry took the action of canceling the use of social media and began to develop other ways of communication.  While this decision negatively impacts the ability to use social media to advertise and advance the youth ministry within the community, the leaders and the church, who have to stand before the Lord, now do so with a clear conscience.  Paul warns us to be resolved in our hearts that we avoid actions that could hinder another believer’s spiritual growth.

Also, Paul addresses stumbling blocks, which refers to intentionally causing someone to fall into sin.  Believers should be resolved to avoid ANY and ALL actions that deliberately or knowingly lead others into sin.  In Matthew 18:6, Jesus emphasized the severity of causing a believer, especially a new or weak one, to fall into sin.  Paul exhorts the Corinthians to, “...take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak” (I Corinthians 8:9), meaning do not cause someone to stumble by violating their conscience.

Contextually, we understand that we are talking about the conscience of a person, areas of disputable matters of opinion.  You are being a stumbling block when you knowingly and intentionally violate the conscience of another person in the faith through exercising a freedom (liberty) in front of another who has difficulty with the freedom being exercised.  In doing so, you are pressuring them to join you, thus causing a violation of their conscience, a devaluing of his relationship with the Lord and an undermining of his faith.  Furthermore, both you and he are now in sin, disunity exists and the Gospel is compromised.

Practically speaking, we see the actions of being a stumbling block played out among believers with the watching of movies that contain “controversial” content, variations among believers in the observance of holidays and the consumption of alcohol, oftentimes in group settings.  The end result is again the same: everyone is in sin.

There are both immediate and long-term/eternal consequences.  One immediate consequence is that you are participating in trying to deaden another person’s sensitivity to their conscience, which is catastrophic!  Remaining sensitive to the conscience in this area is absent from the American church.  It has been ignored far too long.   Peter exhorts believers to, “...keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame” (I Peter 3:16).  In keeping a good conscience, Peter indicates that by leaning into the sensitivity of the conscience, in walking and living in a worthy manner, keeping a clear conscience, a believer has to defend himself, his character, his honor to no one, as he is totally right before the Lord.

Our conscience is made so that it either accuses or excuses us.  We see this in Romans 2:14-15, which says, “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.  They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.”  For the life lived in unconfessed sin, ignoring the Word, excusing actions, the conscience is always under attack, the result is that the Spirit is grieved and ultimately the conscience is deadened, the life becoming a “shipwreck of faith” (I Timothy 1:19), the rudder (of the conscience) broken off, leading to a constant running into the rocks.  The conscience is violated.         

For the life, such as Paul’s, lived out in a life saturated with the confession of sin, prayer, submission to the Word and obedience to God’s commands, a person is able to boast in the testimony of his conscience with peace, security and joy.  “For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you” (2 Corinthians 1:12).

From the perspective of long-term/eternal consequences, connecting back to verses 10-12, you set up both yourself and the one enticed to sin for negative, permanent eternal impact flowing out of the judgment of Christ.  Therefore, you must ask yourself, as you are running the Christian race (I Corinthians 9:26-27), are you making it into an obstacle course for other believers in the area of conscience?  We should be resolved to safeguard each other, initially with our conscience, eternally with our rewards, to take obstacles away out of compassion, to remove stumbling blocks so that others can run the best race God intends.  We should want each other to run a good race!  A second aspect of the principle of resolve is that we need to be…    

2. Intent on Preventing Harm (v14-15)

“I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.”  We must be intent on preventing harm and this begins with…

a. Carefully Established Conviction (v14)

In knowing and being persuaded, Paul is saying (in context to the stronger brother!) that he has a deep understanding, a form of knowledge that is considered to be complete and certain, unwavering in his mind, an understanding gained from truth, observation and experience.  Paul has a strong, settled confidence, carefully established, in what he is saying.  He expressed this same conviction in Romans 8:38-39 saying, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Paul’s persuasion is in the Lord, in truth based on the knowledge of Scripture and the affirmation of the Holy Spirit.  Of what is Paul’s knowledge and conviction? It is… 

b. The Intention of the Heart (v14b)

“...but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.”  Paul, understanding the weaker brother’s heart, convinced the brother understands what is right and wrong, believes it is unclean for him.  In Mark 7, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for prioritizing human traditions over God’s commandments, highlighting the emptiness of external rituals when the heart is not aligned with God’s will.  Later, in speaking to His disciples, Jesus made it clear that it is not what enters the man that defiles him but, what comes out of him.  He emphasized that it is the heart of a man that defiles a man.

But God, understanding the heart of man, and with this compassionate instruction in v14, indicates that a conviction of the heart in the uncleanness of something indeed makes it unclean to that man.  What matters is the heart’s intention rather than external rituals or human traditions.  We acknowledge its uncleanness for that person and we leave it alone.

Because our own conscience often becomes unsettled when confronted with what another declares to be unclean, we have a hard time in the acknowledgement of the uncleanness, which often leads us to unleash our opinions.  In doing so, in failing to respond correctly to what our own conscience is trying to teach us, we fail to apply the principles about which we have been talking and the conscience is violated.  Within our insecurity, we demand conformity because it gives us affirmation that what we do is okay.  We must be willing to die to ourselves!  We must be willing to die to our selfish motives and our selfish intentions for the good of a brother or sister in Christ!  What is catastrophic in developing these habits is that we fail to see…  

c. God is at Work (v15)

“For if your brother is grieved…” effectively, your brother or sister is suffering in pain and you do not see it.  When you ignore their conscience, when you grieve them by what you eat, you are guilty of causing them emotional pain. To what end, to what benefit do we do this?  In the end, both are in sin.  We allow temporal, natural silly things…food, vegetables, days, wine…to weaken the faith and to initiate internal conflict.  Here, God’s Word tells us that the conscience of our brother must precede the freedoms that we have.  To do otherwise is not simply disobedience but also a contradiction of the principle of love, the law of Christ, our debt to pay, that should govern all our interactions, “...you are no longer walking in love.”

In these opportunities given to us, we must be willing to give up what we love, what we have learned to be good, to exercise a greater love for God than for the things to which we cling.  When we fail to do this for the benefit of another, we are compromising the Gospel, we spiritually demotivate them, we take away their rewards and ours, and rather than build them up, we tear them down.  Ultimately, we are destroying what God is doing and Paul concludes v15 by the instruction, “By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died.”  We should be intent on preventing harm in another’s life.  In our third and final piece to the puzzle of the principle of resolve, we should… 

3. Determine to Prevent Blasphemy (v16)

“So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil.”  If good is spoken of as evil, that is blasphemy.

a. There is a Good Thing

The freedoms we have in Christ are good.  To exercise our will, to enjoy our life is good in the eyes of God, as long as our conscience is clear; however, what is good can become bad. 

b. There is an Evil Thing

The word (blasphemeo) used here for “evil” carries the idea of slandering or defaming something or someone, treating it or them with contempt.  It does not carry with it the meaning of the unforgivable sin, which is unbelief as talked about in Matthew 12, the ongoing rejection of the Holy Spirit’s work and testimony of Jesus Christ that leads to a hardened heart and a state of unrepentance.  It is misusing your Christian liberties in such a way that it causes misunderstanding of God’s character, that causes God to be misunderstood.  As Christian’s live this way, God’s name is being slandered and the world sees a church full of hypocrites to which they want no association.  In this, the church is guilty of blaspheming the very name of God.

The most dangerous aspect of the Christian life is not the commands of Scripture, which are easy to discern as to whether or not we are in obedience, but rather our freedoms.  We must be resolved in our hearts to not allow these glorious freedoms to become awful snares that allow Satan to gain a foothold into our lives.  We must not have our own (spoken or unspoken) Pharisaical rules, the “tradition of elders” (Mark 7:3), the “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Mark 7:7), that we push on other people.  This is not the living of the law of love according to Christ.

May we strive from this day forward to apply this principle of resolve, that we live to safeguard one another, we love and not harm and we seek unity so that we, as a church, do not blaspheme the name of God.  May we live this way so that the world may look on Southside church and then look on God with awe.  That is God’s design!

Selah

• Scripture instructs us and the Spirit compels us to be internally focused on our personal growth and to live with an external focus in service to others, thus fulfilling the law of love, the law of Christ, which is our debt to pay.  Does your life reflect proper, biblical focus?

• As you prayerfully consider the life you are now living, has the Lord revealed any matter of opinion where you have constructed obstacles in the path of a fellow brother or sister’s Christian race?  If so, will you now go and repent to the one whose conscience has been violated?

• Are you now resolved to live to safeguard one another, to love and not harm, to seek unity among your brothers and sisters so as not to blaspheme the name of God, but rather that the world may look on God with awe?