We were greatly helped this morning in the study of Romans chapter 12
in understanding that we are to present our bodies, minds and our whole personality
a living sacrifice to Jesus Christ.
And so far as you know how most of you deliberately, prayerfully,
perhaps after struggle but certainly in the deep resolve of your own soul,
have taken that step.
Some of you are just young Christians.
I've been delighted when you've been able to tell us in conversation
I've just been a Christian two months.
I was converted at the crusade or it was in February of 1959.
Now Romans 14, which is the passage for our study this afternoon,
is written for the help of new Christians
who are not clear about one segment of Christian conduct
and that's the segment where Christians themselves differ.
And it's written for your benefit
so that you won't have to go to your minister and say
could I ask you please what I should do about Saturday night?
But you'll go to Christ and you'll get the final word
even though he may give a different word to one of your friends
who asked him exactly the same question.
So the subject is the principles of conduct in dubious matters.
When it comes to clear matters of Christian behaviour there's no question.
They're dealt with by Romans 12.
But in the great mercy and foresight and providence of Christ
we are given a whole chapter and seven verses of chapter 15
to set forth seven principles for the guidance of Christians
in these matters where Christians themselves differ and sometimes very rudely
in interpreting what's the right course and what is the wrong.
I'm going to illustrate it from my own experience
coming back from my first convention at the age of 16.
I stayed with an uncle and aunt because my parents were still away
on holiday with the rest of the family.
I stayed with my uncle who was captain of the Otago cricket at 11
and played halfback for Kycra first 15 and halfback for the Otago rugby first 15.
A man who had sent us presents ever since we were toddlers
and whom I was prepared to idolise and whom I would hate ever to have hurt.
They gave me every kindness in the two weeks I stayed in their home
when I was back at the office early in January.
One day on a Monday evening when I came back from the office with my uncle
from his business, we came to the dinner table
and my aunt placed a casserole dish on the table beautifully laid
and I saw the steam rising from a fish dish in the casserole.
And my aunt looked at me and said, Graham, today I was brought a beautiful kingfish.
Now I'm interested in fishing too.
We didn't have refrigerators really in those days
and I thought now today's Monday must have been caught on Sunday.
Not a very Presbyterian fish.
I can't really and yet here auntie and uncle will be expecting me.
It's not a matter of conscience to them.
It's a horrible matter of compromise to me.
I've just come back from a convention where I've surrendered everything
to Jesus Christ and here's this steaming piece of kingfish.
It would be delicious if only it had been caught on Saturday.
No one said it had been caught on Sunday.
But something in here said, well, it's probable.
Now I know today after all these years what I would have done.
I would have gone back for a second helping.
I'm perfectly sure about that because I remember Paul said,
eat asking no questions.
But the problem about a young Christian's conscience
is that it has lots of questions.
And there's no use the old Christian saying,
oh, those are just scruples.
You don't have to worry about that.
They are there.
And it's because they are there that Romans 14 is written.
And I thank God for the principles that Romans 14 gives us.
Because you won't have to ask your minister or me or some personal friend
now what should I have done about it.
You'll be able to find from this passage the principles
to guide you in much more important questions
than whether to eat the kingfish caught on Sunday.
Let me say this further point by way of preference.
That just as each one of us as a Christian
was the object of the infinite understanding,
patient and unrelenting forgiveness and love and compassion of Christ.
So now that we're in the family of the household of faith,
we are each one individually singled out
for the most decided, gracious, sustained, personal affection
and interest.
There's never a moment when the Christ himself
doesn't watch over you with tenderness, concern, solicitude, and prayer.
There's not a decision you have to take.
But he's there with you saying, fear not, for I am with thee.
How can you see that?
You're not isolated.
He's with you in every moment of decision.
And you may feel that your scruple is so trivial or so personal
or so big that you'd hate to take it to anybody else.
You don't need to.
Christ, who knows you through and through,
will welcome your coming to him and saying, Lord, what about this matter?
I've asked people.
They've got me all confused.
My own minister said, perfectly OK.
But our leader in our youth fellowship said, well, I wouldn't do it.
And in here, I have a feeling that I don't know whether I should or not.
Now there's the point.
And there's your question.
And the answer is given in these seven principles.
Let me mention again by way of preface this,
that there are two terms used here in chapters 14 and 15.
In chapter 14, verse 1, you see it says, him that is weak in the faith
receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations.
So we've got one category of those who are considered the weak.
The Greek word means the anemic ones.
It's a word which almost means the sickly ones.
They've just been transplanted from a foreign soil
into the garden where there are trees of the father's planting.
They're just getting used to growing in a new soil.
They haven't quite struck down yet.
An early frost will cut them.
If you fail to water them, they won't thrive.
Now that's the position of the early convert.
He's still one of those who is weak in the faith.
Chapter 15, verse 1, tells us that there's another category
of people called the strong.
We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities or weaknesses
or scruples of the weak and not just to please ourselves.
The strong, I take it, are those who after years can look back and say,
well, Paul did say, eat asking no questions.
It's no problem to me now.
But what I know now about it wouldn't have helped me then
because it was a problem to me then.
Now the thing Paul's going to say to us here is, first of all as a principle,
that we are to recognize the existence of the spiritual kindergarten
in the life of the new convert.
Can we get hold of that?
Recognize the existence of the spiritual kindergarten
in the life of the new convert.
He's called here weak, sickly.
He hasn't quite rooted down thoroughly in the new soil.
And he's to be received that whatever you do, don't say, brother,
and what do you hold on to the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ?
Are you pre, post, or merely preposterous?
For one believeth that he may eat all things.
Another who is weak eateth herbs.
The examples that Paul is going to give us here in this chapter
are taken from the background of the early Christian church.
The butchers were all hand in glove with the temple authorities.
The temple authorities took the sacrificial beasts,
took their own tithes, sent them down the chute into the butcher's yards
and backyards.
They were cut up and sold out through the front window.
They had already been offered to idols.
To Paul, who said that an idol didn't mean a thing to him now,
it was no matter of scruple or conscience.
He could eat any mincemeat, any meat pie made from that.
It didn't worry him a bit.
But he knew that the new convert couldn't help associating
with his eating of that meat the horrible fact that it represented
the whole course of his past life when he lived under the power
and authority of those evil gods.
And so Paul says, whatever you do, remember
that he has a different quality of conscience
at this point of his new kindergarten stage
than you, as an experienced Christian, have.
Now that's the question of meat.
And as a result, some of the new converts said,
well, we'll stick to lettuce salad, you see.
Some that are weak eateth herbs.
The second illustration has to do with days, verse 5.
And I just mention it because it seems to me the complete answer
to those who say, brother, there's only one day.
It's the seventh.
You have a look what verse 5 says.
One man esteemeth one day above another.
Another esteemeth every day alike.
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
Meat, days, and then in verse 21, the other illustration,
it is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine,
nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended,
or is made weak.
There's a third example.
Christians will always differ about the ethics
of drinking wine.
But Paul summarizes his own feeling
as a strong believer this way.
He says, of course I can drink it,
but not when I think of the weaker brother who
may be stumbled.
Now those are the three first century illustrations.
But the 20th century illustrations
are three to the nth degree.
They are three to infinity.
And you've got your own applications.
And the wonderful thing for me this afternoon
is that I don't have to make the applications.
You have to.
But I have to give the principles from God's word.
It's for you to make the applications
to your own problem.
Right.
We recognize then as the first principle
the existence of the weak or sickly conscience.
It's a bit like seasickness.
Most people, when they go on board the Monowai
or one of these major seafaring boats,
they're sick for a day or two.
A few miserable and unhappy people
are sick for the whole voyage, never get over seasickness
all their life.
I've known fishermen in New Zealand
who never got over seasickness.
But most of us find that we have seasickness
for two or three days, then we get our sea legs,
and it doesn't trouble us again.
Now that, as I see it, is rather typical of the new convert.
Nearly every new convert passes through.
If I make any puns or jokes, they're all by accident.
Passes through the stage of seasickness, almost every one.
The stage where I looked at the kingfish
and felt terribly concerned that here was a decision I just
didn't know how to get out of.
I didn't tell you, I ate it actually.
And I survived.
But I ate it with a bad conscience.
And we've all had the problem of having to do something
because Mother said, well, look, I've put you down.
You're to be there.
You've got to come with us.
The car's waiting.
You just get into your frock and come.
There's no way of getting out of it.
And we've gone.
And we've gone, judged in our conscience,
knowing that we shouldn't be going.
And yet later on, we've said, well,
I realize now that I'm older that it
was the right thing to do.
My mother was entitled to that measure of obedience from me.
And I personally was not contaminated
because my heart didn't go with it.
We're back to this point that there's
We're back to this point that every one of us
almost has the seasick stage for a start.
Most of us get through it, get our sea legs,
and can see this question more squarely.
And we qualify for the heading called the strong.
Some unhappy Christians remain pathological cases
all their lives.
And you'll find them, in advancing years,
still rushing around to the vestry and saying, excuse me,
what should I do about this?
You see?
A few are seasick right to the end of their days.
I want to give you five suggested hints about the week
and characteristics of the seasick conscience
early in our Christian life.
It shows itself by extreme sensitiveness and scrupulousness.
It's the stage where we write a conscience letter to someone
who gets the letter and says, good gracious,
I didn't take any affront of that.
What on earth has she written this about?
She's not trying to get a line on me, is she?
And it's an embarrassment to the person who receives it,
but it had to be done by the person who sent it,
who's got, at that point, the extreme sensitiveness
of a new convent.
Secondly, it's marked by a lack of real discernment.
We are seeing men as trees.
We may be involved in quite heterodox conduct in one matter,
and in another matter, we may be extremely scrupulous.
Thirdly, it's the stage when we are extremely dependent
on the guidance of older Christians.
We're always asking the newest evangelists to come along
and what do you think about this?
Fourthly, it's the time when we tend to extreme asceticism
in our conduct.
I can think of a girl I know very well in New Zealand
who, after her conversion, which took place in her own home
without anyone talking to her,
she vowed that she would use her beautiful voice
only for sacred sum, a wonderful promise,
but such a vow as God does not surely require.
We don't judge because it's made in the blush
of a love for Christ,
but it's the time when that tendency will show itself.
And fifthly, it's the time when a sudden slight jolt
may easily shake the whole fabric
of that young Christian's life.
If, when you receive him, you start on him
with doubtful disputations,
you can just shatter the tiny, fragile thing
and in a few weeks, he'll be back where he was before.
You've lost him.
Now, those to me are the five characteristics
of the spiritual kindergarten stage.
The second principle to notice is this,
that we should be clear about the mutual relationship
of the strong and the weak.
I hate to use the words, but it might simplify it for us
if we use the words the worldly and the narrow.
No, I won't use them.
But you think of it something like that way
because you know how often those words are bandied about
and how we find them an easy way to tabulate
and to isolate people whom we perhaps don't quite fancy
or whose views we don't quite agree with.
It almost comes under the heading of the worldly and the narrow.
Just have a look at what they think about each other,
at the attitude they adopted to each other in the first century
and at the principles which are meant to emerge
for our guidance here in 1960.
Well, under the second principle about being clear
about the mutual relationship of these two groups,
we note in verse 3 that the strong are not to despise,
that is, to poke fun at the weak as narrow.
Verse 3, let not him that eateth,
the fellow who can eat his kingfish or his bit of meat
from the shambles in Corinth,
let not him that eateth look down on the scrupulous one
who says grace over his lettered son.
It's easy to poke fun.
And secondly, let not him who eateth not,
the one who's got the scruples about this meat question,
don't let him judge the one that eats
as a worldly, hard-hearted Christian,
for God has received them both.
That's the point it comes to.
God's given them both a welcome.
Wouldn't it be temerity for us to say,
well, you're on the outer,
and I'm right at the heart of the will of God.
The strong are to give a welcome to the weak.
And the Greek word used there in verse 1 of chapter 14,
him that is weak in the faith receive ye, means just that.
Put out your hand to him.
Let him feel the strength of your handshake.
Let your affection embrace him in your interest.
Invite him along home.
Don't start saying, goodness, what hats,
what hats, they've been saved up for 40 years.
Him that is weak in the faith, give him a welcome,
but not to argue over trifles.
That word that's used there, forgive him a welcome,
anticipates the extreme aloneness of the new conduct.
He's walked out of a world along a plank
where he feels he's the only person in the universe plus God,
and suddenly he finds you standing beside him and saying,
come on in, it's wonderful to have you with us.
The word that's used in Acts chapter 9 verses 26 and 27
of Barnabas at Jerusalem and all the disciples looked at Saul
and said, look out for that bloke, he's pretty suspect,
that fellow, fifth columnist, and Barnabas went up to him
and said, Saul, come on in, you're one of us.
Give him a welcome, but not to doubtful disputations.
Don't give him the whole book at once.
Don't expect him to have the viewpoint of a Christian of 20 years experience.
Don't expect him to know all that you know about what's right and what's wrong.
Recognize that you can shake him and shatter him
if you're trying to plant on his back all the scruples that you personally have got,
the idiosyncrasies that you've built into part of your credo.
I remember at the age of seven going for a holiday on a farm near Palmerston North
and I took with me my precious collection of stamps.
What grubby pages they were.
Never washed my hands I suppose as a boy.
Lipped these stamps into position.
When I got a new sixpenny packet I was so eager to tear them off the front
that sometimes I left part of the stamp on the packet and I put the rest in the album.
And my dirty thumb marks went on to it.
And if I didn't have any stamp mounts, well, I just tore up some old German swaps,
put them on the back and stuck them in like that.
And when I got to Weston's place for the holiday I very, very shyly
but proudly brought out my stamp album on Saturday night.
We were sitting around with an Aladdin kerosene lamp and the fire was burning
and the day was over and the family was gathered round
and I tried to let them see it without trying to pretend that I was showing off
and I got the stamp album to the point where the chap next to me got it under his eye
and he said, oh, you collect stamps.
And he began turning over the pages and I was enjoying them until he said,
you know, you never put them in with old torn stamps.
That's not done.
You need to learn to classify your stamps.
You don't mix your pictorials and your officials.
Didn't you realize that you never put in heavy franked, heavily franked stamps?
By this time my lip was quivering and my aunt could see that it couldn't last much longer
and she gave a look to this fellow and he dried up.
Because him that is weak in stamp collecting you receive
but not to hear the wise cracks of those who have been at it all their lives
and you know something like what I'm trying to say.
Now the third thing to remember and the third principle about this is this,
that God's reasons for charity in judging in these doubtful things are as follows.
I've noted down three of them.
God has his reasons why he should be the judge
and why everyone else should exercise charity and restraint
in expressing opinions on their fellow Christians.
This is covered in verses 3 to 8.
Verse 3.
Let not him that eats despise him who doesn't eat.
Let not him who doesn't eat judge him who eats.
Why? For God has received them in any case.
So that the first reason for charity in our judging others in these doubtful matters of conduct
is that whatever we think about it God's put out his hand and given him a welcome.
Whether it's the strong we're judging for their worldliness
or the weak you're judging for their narrowness and scrupulosity,
cut it up because God's given them both a welcome.
The next thing to notice is in verse 4.
Who are you anyway? Who are you?
Who do you think you are to judge another man's servant?
To his own master he stands or falls. Yes, and stand he shall.
For God is able to make him stand.
There are two words here that are of interest.
The first one is oikateas, the word used for servant.
Who are you to fudge into that other fellow's business?
Tell his foreman how to run the business.
It wasn't the doulos or common slave of the Roman household.
This was the oikateas or the family steward, the person trusted with responsibility.
And you're going into the other fellow's business, you're telling off the foreman
and you're going to tell him how to run his business.
The thing said Paul is fantastic.
Who are you to do that?
It's to his own master that he's answerable
and Philip puts that master with a capital M.
And then Paul adds, and stand he shall, for God is able to make him stand.
That's the thought that I want you to get a hold of here too.
The convert, the new convert's security is ultimately God's concern
and this security is guaranteed in the words, stand he shall.
I want you to see that.
You won't be so interfering.
You won't be so anxious.
You won't stand around a corner and get the leader of your PFA and Bible class or something
and say, look, I think she's on the skids, you know.
I think she's on the skids.
It's terrible to see it.
Do you know where she was on Friday night?
You see, stand he shall, for God is able to make him stand, she, her.
Point four, verses 11 to 12, I'm sorry, 10 to 12.
The fourth principle is this, that only God is competent to pass moral judgments on our conduct.
Verses 10 to 12 read, but why dost thou, emphatic Greek pronoun,
why are you of all people judging your brother?
Or why are you of all people writing off your brother?
We, for our part, have all got to look forward to standing before the judgment seat of Christ.
12, so then, every one of us has got to have his audit done by God.
He's the one who's going to go over our books.
Man's wobbly judgment, in verse 10, is contrasted here with God's unerring judgment.
Who are you to fasten your opinion on that person's conduct?
Verse 10, think of the one who alone has authority over the conscience.
Bow to him, verse 11, confess to God, and in every disputed matter of conduct,
young people, you have one and only one place to go to, and that is to God.
And you go to God by prayerfully opening his Word,
by taking time to learn what his will is through his Word,
by allowing his Holy Spirit to bring into the context of your inward decision,
experience, observation, recollection of what others have done, said, and how they have lived,
and ultimately your sanctified reason will lead you to the right conviction.
It may take years to get there, but it's God's will for you.
I've pointed out how in verse 12 we're shown that God alone is the auditor of conscience,
and he doesn't entrust it to any members of the staff.
He it is who will carry out the inspection of the accounts, the Greek word logon,
justifies the use of that metaphor, and if there's any doubt in the entry, you go and ask his advice.
Do you know why we go to people to ask what they think about it? Do you?
It's because we'll be able to have a big name to back up what we're doing,
rather than have the greatest possible authority.
I don't know how many Presbyterians say, well, you know, we can't be too tough about Sunday
because, after all, John Knox went to Geneva and found Calvin playing bowls, didn't he?
Well, I know that's a legend, but it's not true.
And I'm grateful to Robert Swanton of Hawthorne Presbyterian Church, Melbourne,
in which he shows how that holy, fallacious piece of history began only a hundred years ago.
John Knox's comment on the Geneva that he found was that it was the most perfect school of Christ since the apostles.
I can't imagine him saying that if he'd found Calvin playing bowls on Sunday morning.
But ever so many Presbyterians say, well, you know, Calvin played bowls on Sunday?
We can't really keep our tennis courts closed to the young people, can we?
Be quite sure that you've got your answer from God and not from John Calvin
and still less from some of his erroneous historians.
Now, the next point that I want to give you is this.
Verses 14 to 13 to 21 point the strong Christian to the rule of charity,
just as verses 22 to 23 are concerned with the weak Christian.
I want you to look at these verses, 13 to 21, because it's speaking especially to you who are more experienced,
who've been on the road a bit longer, and who are perhaps tempted to steer your children
a little bit totally in some of these matters which weren't so acute in your day.
What do these verses say?
Verse 13, let us not therefore judge one another anymore, but rather make sure of this,
that no one of you puts a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in the brother Christian's way.
And then further down, verse 21, it is good neither to eat meat or to drink wine or anything
whereby your brother is stumbled or offended or is made weak.
It's a true comment of Dr. John Duncan for many years, the famous Rabbi Duncan of New College Edinburgh,
when he says, I have a straight rule for myself, a broad one for everyone else.
And God wants us in these terms who feel that we are mature Christians
to spend our energies and ethical matters on putting ourselves right
and to leave the other Christian, the young Christian, the weak.
If you like, the one who's just fumbling and doesn't just know what's right to do,
to leave him to the Lord himself.
But then he goes on to say, be careful, lest in your confidence that you are right
and you've found a settled policy on these disputed matters, lest you lead younger Christians off the track.
Verse 15 uses an interesting word.
But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, that is, with the line you take
as an old, hard-bitten, experienced Christian, now you are no longer walking in charity.
Destroy not him, that weaker Christian, along with your food, for whom Christ darnd.
And the word there used for destroy is apollumi, from which we get apollion.
Don't set yourself up as another Satan, another apollion,
in the process of trying to be another deputy for the Lord Jesus Christ.
In trying to impose your confidence and judgments on some weak Christian,
or in living the hard way where you feel, well, anyway, I know what I can do about this,
remember that you're going to be observed by others,
and it's up to you to think what the effect is going to be on them.
In the days when I led a junior Bible class in Dunedin, six or seven young chaps, age 15, 16, 17,
I'd be walking up Princes Street, past the Regent Theater, past the Empire Theater in Dunedin,
and you know, these screaming billboards were there, and I was as interested in them as anybody.
And I used to say to myself, now look out, Graham Miller, give them a wide berth,
Bob Wallace might be passing on the other side of the street.
And Satan said, well, you know, they might be of geographical interest,
you know, you might need to have a look at those, there might be something of historical interest there.
And all the time I knew that it probably wasn't of geographical or historical interest,
and all the time God said to me, you know, Bob Wallace, George Duncan, Tom Monroe,
he may be passing on the other side of the street.
Destroy not him with your meat, the weaker brother for whom Christ dung.
You recognize, don't you, that the conscience of everyone is as distinctive and unique as his thumbprint,
as distinctive as his personality.
It's a discerning remark of Dr. Alexis Carroll in that great work, Man the Unknown,
that there are as many diseases as there are persons, pointing to the individuality of every one of us.
And that's the reason why no rule of thumb will suffice in these dubious ethical matters for everybody.
God says it's just got to be found out by each Christian under the leading of the Holy Spirit.
I well remember one late afternoon on the island of Tonga in the New Hebrides
when a young native chief, excellent fellow, a close personal friend,
arrived with a stick over his shoulder and a couple of cabbages slung over the end of it from a distant village
and said, I must see you, I want to have a talk with you.
The sun was setting, we sat under the mango tree, 500 feet above the sea,
and looked out away beyond 50 miles to the north and to the south.
And he got it off his chest quickly, which is unusual for an islander.
He said, Miss, I've made up my mind. The chiefs don't understand me.
It's our customers' chiefs every evening to meet, to drink, to bite, as they say in their idiom, to bite calver.
But he said, I've told them now for some weeks that I won't bite calver with them anymore.
And he said, they don't understand. They say, you're putting us on the spot.
But I said, no, this is just something that God has told me in my heart.
He hasn't told it to me for you, but he's told it to me for me.
They said, oh, you're being smart. You're showing off. You're a skunk.
He said, well, God has told me.
And I know that if I drink calver at night I want to go to sleep quickly
and I don't have family worship with my family.
And I know that if I bite calver again tomorrow night
I won't want to have family worship with my family again.
And if I lose three nights I might never want to have it again.
And so Missy said, I've come round to see you to tell you that I've finished with calver.
And I know that young chief has gone on in the way in which he resolved.
But it was his decision.
Calver is not an intoxicant. It is a narcotic.
Many Christians drink it.
It was his decision.
And praise God, he had the strength to hear the Lord tell him what was right in that circumstance.
Keep to a simple rule in the whole matter, says Paul to the strong in verse 21.
Get it clearly in your mind.
It is good neither to eat meat nor to drink wine nor to do anything
whereby your brother is stumbled or is offended or is made weak.
Now we come to the sixth section, the weaker Christian
and his great temptation when he's in doubt what to do.
Verses 22 and 23 say this.
Hast thou faith? Happy man.
If you with a good conscience as a strong Christian can take that line, good luck to you.
But if in doing that you are inwardly concerned, not quite sure,
apprehensive as to whether you're doing right or wrong, then you've done the wrong thing.
And if in doubt, don't. Can you remember that?
If in doubt, don't.
That's the whole message of verse 23 for the weaker Christian.
He who can't make up his mind about a thing.
It doesn't matter if a hundred people say to you, but don't be scrupulous.
That's ridiculous. That's a trifle. It's utterly ridiculous to bother over that.
You have simply to say, well, I have word from my supreme commander
that I'm not quite sure about that yet.
Perhaps someday I will see it as you see it.
At the moment, the amber light is burning.
It's neither green nor red, and nobody willfully goes on the amber light in New Zealand.
Now the seventh and the last point is this.
It has to do with the highest possible sanction for Christian conduct in these doubtful matters.
Chapter 15 verses 1 to 7, and I simply give you the principle
and leave you under the Spirit of God to apply it to your life.
Verse 1, we then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak,
to carry these weak Christians in our hearts, to remember them in every personal decision,
act of obedience, so that on the one hand we won't hurt them,
and on the other hand we'll encourage and hearten them.
Verse 3, for even Christ pleased not himself,
but as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me.
Verse 7, wherefore give one another a thorough welcome,
just as Christ has received us to the glory of God.
So that the supreme principle, the seventh and last from this section,
is this, the example of Jesus Christ, who for our sakes sanctified himself,
renouncing many things that he might legitimately have done,
in order that in bringing many sons into glory the captain of our salvation
should be made perfect through suffering.
To God only wise be praise and glory, for this is holy way.