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Ecclesia Princeton
Ecclesia Princeton
Romans [Season Two]- Lydia Andres- Romans 14vv1-12: Die/Divide/Debate
Ecclesia intern shares helpful perspectives for living in unity and pursuing peace
Good morning. I'm going to start off by reading from Romans 14, 1 through 12. If you have your Bibles, this is when you can flip open to that, or the words will be on the screen behind you Behind me, not behind you. Here are these words from the book that we love, found in Romans Welcome those who are weak in faith, not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. Some believe in eating anything, while the weak only eat vegetables. Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat, for God has welcomed them. Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? It is before their own Lord that they stand or fall, and they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand. Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds, those who observe the day observe it in honor of the Lord. Those who eat eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God, while those who abstain abstain in the honor of the Lord and give thanks to God. We do not live for ourselves and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's, for to this end, christ died and lived again so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. So why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister, or why do you despise your brother or sister? For we all will stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to me and every tongue shall give praise to God. So then, each of us will be accountable to God. This is the word of the Lord.
Speaker 1:I'm going to start off by asking some questions, and I invite you to think through what your answer would be. They're not hard questions, they're just would-you-rathers, but I also want you to think about why you would answer the way that you do. Don't worry, these questions won't come up later, so you don't need to jot them down. So here they are. Would you rather? Would you rather be forced to sing along or dance along to every song you hear? Would you rather buy ten things you didn't need every time you go shopping, or always forget the one thing you need when you do go to the store. Would you rather always be ten minutes late or twenty minutes early? Would you rather only be able to eat meat or only be able to eat vegetables? Would you rather spend your Sunday resting, by napping and taking it easy, or spend your Sunday being active by running around, playing games and engaging in sports? And would you rather spend a holiday feasting with family or fasting with friends?
Speaker 1:I'm sure that there are some of these questions that we might have agreed on, just as I'm sure that there are some that we would have disagreed on. These are decisions that are based upon our individual opinions, convictions and the distinct ways that our families raised us, and, while this is a silly game that can be inconsequential. We might jokingly fight over whether we'd rather be 20 minutes early or 10 minutes late, but no one is going to cut ties over what our answers were. We're never going to not speak to someone because we had a disagreement on things like this. What has become apparent to me in my last two years at the seminary is how differently people think from each other. I've witnessed, especially in the last five years, how divisive people can be when a topic that is important to them is brought up, how, even within a church community, people can be upset with each other and push each other away. Looking at Paul's language used in this text, it seems that he might be using some divisive language. He calls some weak and others to be strong. I think that all people want to evaluate their own faith and would put themselves in that strong category, and they might be looking around at other people who practice faith different, who have convictions differently, and they might think that that friend has a weaker faith than they do. But I think that it's important, before we look at this text, to understand who would have been receiving this letter, as it helps make some clear, key distinctions of who the people were.
Speaker 1:Romans is written to the church in Rome, and these would have been Christians living in Rome. The Christians would have been both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, and the Jewish Christians would have grown up hearing purity laws from Leviticus 1 through 27, which would tell them that they need to be very strict about what kind of meat they can eat. But they also would have been wary of the meat that they might buy in the market, as some of it would have been sacrificed to idols, whereas the Gentile Christians would not have grown up with these standards of faith, and so they might not have. They might not have been things that they thought about unless they came into contact with a Jewish Christian and thought about their experience and their traditions In the same manner. The Jewish Christians had different traditions around fasting. One source I read this week said that Wednesdays and Fridays were common days of fasting, and while the Gentile Christians had no background in fasting before coming to faith.
Speaker 1:And so we see two different groups of people with different faith practices coming together, appearing side by side in this text. The Jewish Christians might look at the Gentile Christians and say, hey, they don't fast. They can eat everything. They desecrate anything that we consider to be holy. We can't do church and life with people like that. And the Gentile Christians might be looking at their Jewish Christian friends and might be thinking these guys are so uptight, continuing to follow everything, the letter of the law and the standards I thought we were told we don't have to hold anymore. I don't want to do life with people who have no joy in their lives, and this is where Paul tells them to welcome those who are weak in faith.
Speaker 1:I find it interesting that he follows the command with telling them not to quarrel over disputable matters of opinion. Paul jumps right to the heart of the matter, as unity is vital to Paul. To Paul, unity acts as a sign of outgrowth, of liberty and love, which is Paul's goal. The things that they were disagreeing over were non-essentials, things in which loving liberty needed to be extended. Paul's message was not an academic one, but a practical one that both the church then and now needs to hear and practice. Unity is at the heart of evangelization. Unity among Christians is how the world knows that Jesus is our Lord, and unity among Christians provides the stable outgoing base needed for extended evangelistic efforts to be successful.
Speaker 1:In John 13, 35, jesus is speaking to his disciples and he says I give you a new commandment that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, so also should you love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Our sign as Christians is to love one another and live in unity with each other. We will disagree that's inevitable Whenever you get any group of people together, even your family, but we are to strive to live as kind and compassionate people together, forgiving each other as we are forgiven in Christ. The end of Romans 13 tells us that love is the fulfillment of the law.
Speaker 1:At first glance, paul might sound a lot like the people in our culture who commonly say I'm glad that works for you. But I have my own truth. After all, paul is saying that two people can eat the same thing, and yet for one it's right and wrong for the other. However, paul is not teaching relativity. He further explains in the latter part of Romans 14 that there is an absolute truth, that nothing is unclean in itself, and he shows that there is more to being right in God's eyes than knowing the correct answer. We can technically be correct, yet terribly sinful. God is not just looking for the right answers, but the right priorities and loves.
Speaker 1:Paul wants to direct Christians towards love and unity with each other found in Jesus Christ. Galatians 3, 26-28 says that it is in Jesus Christ that you are all children of God through faith, as many of you were baptized into Christ, have clothed yourself with Christ. There is therefore no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Jesus Christ. The unity that Paul reaches for us to have is the sameness in Christ. That we would remember that as Christians we are all made children of God. There is a common unity that we find in a newness of life, life that's found to the fullest, that we must also extend to each other, as it's been extended to us, a grace to those who are also found in Christ. In the Gospels we see Jesus give some pretty hard commandments to love your neighbor, to pray for those who persecute you, and Paul echoes this kind of attitude here. And Paul echoes this kind of attitude here. He gives the command to fellow believers who don't see things the way that you do.
Speaker 1:This practice used to be something that I struggled with and still do. I wanted everyone to believe the same way that I did. I went to college with this perspective and I was willing to pick a fight in any class that I sat in. I wanted to pick a fight with my classmates, with my professors, anyone who would let me get under their skin. I loved playing devil's advocate just to prove a point. Thank God my professors were so gracious to me, but that's how I approached my whole first year of college that I was the only right one and everyone else was wrong. But everything was shaken up that first year when we all got sent home due to COVID and like many college students do.
Speaker 1:This is the time that I began to examine my faith, to ask why I believed in the things that I did. Did I hold it just because I grew up in a household that held that? Did I hear it on a podcast, read it in a book, hear it from a friend? I was so grateful and I am so grateful that at that time I had kind professors, friends, mentors, my parents, who loved to talk about God and the things of God and were excited to walk with me as I processed through these things, as I processed through what I thought to be truth and what I didn't need to hold on to anymore. And this is still a process that I'm going through at seminary and in my own walk, as I read different theologians, trying to grab a better grasp of what the scripture says, as I find people who are wiser than I am to sit and ask questions to. But I can tell you this with the help of the people in my life, I returned that next fall to college, a different student. I was ready to listen, to take in different perspectives, and maybe I still wouldn't choose to believe those perspectives for myself. But the conversations I had were far more rich, because I wanted to believe that my fellow classmates and professors had something worth saying.
Speaker 1:Just like the church in Rome, the church today has its own hot-button topics that get people riled up. Let's start by thinking about some of the hot-button topics from the 20th century church. Some of these would have been the consumption of alcoholic beverages, the ownership of luxury goods, forms of recreation such as movies, dancing, tithing, christian schools versus public education. The list goes on. Clearly, the practice of judging one another over disputable matters is not a modern sin. The believers in Rome were guilty, as evidenced by Paul's directives, but their plight is at least a bit more understandable.
Speaker 1:One of the ways that I have begun to think about differences that we have in the church is under the terms of debate, divide and die. Under the debate term fall things that I would be willing to debate people on. Under the divide category would be things that I would change churches for, that I would divide, go somewhere differently, because they're fundamentally things I agree or disagree about and you can probably guess what the die category would mean that the things that fall under this category. I'm so certain of that. That is something I would die on that hill for. A few years ago the topic of unity in the church was a big topic within the church, but particularly in my family, and my dad went and made this chart for the small group that he and my mom were leading at that time and, as you can see, it has different stances or different statements and then boxes to the other side that you can check which one you would be in if you would land in the debate divide or die category.
Speaker 1:This isn't the whole list. That list is 95 items long and I struggled to put that many on this page, so I'm sorry you don't get the whole thing, but for them it took them two hour and a half long sections to go through all 95 items and to talk them through, and some of them are easier and some of them are a little more complicated. So I'm sure you've read them through, as some of them are easier and some of them are a little more complicated. So I'm sure you've read them aloud or in your head as we've gone and I invite you to think where you would land on some of those. If we move to the next slide, that's where I would land and you'll see that it's in the top three that are the most important to me and to my faith.
Speaker 1:The divinity of Christ is absolutely a hill that I would die on, that I would die on. Jesus must be fully man, because the justice of God requires that the same human nature which has sinned should pay for sin. And also Jesus must be righteous, fully God, because the one who is a sinner cannot pay the price of sins for others, because the one who is a sinner cannot pay the price of sins for others. And so Jesus has to be fully man and Jesus has to be fully God so as to take our sins. And Jesus needs to be God's one and only son, as there are no other ways to the Father except through Jesus.
Speaker 1:I pulled these three line items not just because they're interesting to me, but because they're primary issue topics that the church globally has discussed and agreed upon. And I don't just say that because I say that. I say that because we can see that through what we see in our primary documents in the church, and one way we can quickly identify that these would be primary issues is that there are documents written for the church with the purpose of bringing clarity to them, documents like the Apostles' Creed that we read together and we can see what it says. The Apostles' Creed summarizes points of faith about God, the Father, god the Son and God the Holy Spirit. As to the other six line items, you can see those next three get a little messy for me, but these fall into the divide or debate categories and I question where I would put them. So you'll see that I put both divide and debate over the form of worship.
Speaker 1:I'm a worship leader and so this one was tricky for me. I have preferences. I'll be honest. I have preferences to how I like to worship in community. But if tomorrow, alfredo decides that we're going to switch styles and start singing in a choir only every single week even though I don't sing in a choir, I've tried to and I just struggle I would sit down and have a conversation and we'd probably have a little debate about it, but I wouldn't go and leave. That's not enough of a reason for me to say, well, I'm done, or this just doesn't work for me, and same with excellence in worship. I truly believe in excellence in everything that we do, but I think that excellence looks different for every place and for every people. In some places, the level of musicianship is going to look different simply because of the location that they are in being in Princeton, we have a lot of really good musicians that come through, and what a blessing that is.
Speaker 1:And so, while these items really mattered to me, I'd prefer to choose a church off the bat that values these things. They wouldn't be things that I would straight up leave because of after I've become ingrained within a community. And you'll see, I put those last three things in debate because they're not issues that would cause me to leave a friendship or to leave a church. But I recognize that other people will have different opinions on them than I have opinions, and, as with the questions from the game, would you rather we might have the same answers and we might have different answers, as our answers are formed by our opinions and convictions and how we grew up. But regardless, we can still remain in community together. Now let me be clear. I'm not saying you can't have your own separate opinions on things.
Speaker 1:Paul says in verse 5, let all be fully convinced in their own minds. So by all means, have your opinions. It's good for us to hold our own convictions, to stand firm in our beliefs, but those opinions do not give us the right to judge each other. Paul makes it very clear that it is not our role to judge one another by bringing up this point twice in our passage this morning Verses 3 and four those who eat must not despise those who abstain. Those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat, for God has welcomed them.
Speaker 1:Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? And in verse 10, why do you pass a judgment on your brother or sister, or why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. As human beings we are flawed and sinful. We would not do very well in God's place. As God is holy and righteous, having never sinned, seeing and knowing all things, god sees each person's heart.
Speaker 1:In 2 Corinthians 5.10, paul writes For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. This is all our fate according to what he has done, whether good or bad. This is all our fate, and it is by the blood of Christ shed for us that we are declared as blameless in his sight. We cannot cast judgment correctly. We do not see as Christ sees Jesus' disciples in Matthew 7, 1-5.
Speaker 1:Do not judge so that you may not be judged, for with the judgment you make you will be judged and the measure you give will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye? Do you not notice the log in your own eye? Or how do you say to your neighbor let me take the speck out of your eye? Well, there is a log in your own eye, you hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye, then you'll see clearly. To take the speck out of your neighbor's eye, we cannot see clearly, though we may try Romans 12, 19 quotes Deuteronomy 32, 35, in stating For when one begins to judge another Christian, one is undertaking to do what God alone has reserved for himself or to Christ.
Speaker 1:When we step in to be judged, it's like we're telling God I can do a better job than you. I don't trust you to judge this, and maybe sometimes we want to lash out in anger in those moments. Perhaps there is a part of us that truly struggles to believe in those moments. Perhaps there's a part of us that truly struggles to believe how someone who has done such awful things can be forgiven. Yet Paul says why do you cast judgment on your brother or sister or why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. So who am I to cast this judgment? I too will one day stand before the judgment seat of God, believe it or not.
Speaker 1:I'm not a perfect person. I have my pitfalls, my prideful moments, my selfishness and moments of frustration and anger, and I know that these are not traits of Jesus and that they've hurt people, both my friends and family and random people that I've come across, and I'm so grateful for the grace that Jesus has extended. I'm so grateful that on that day, when we stand before God to be held accountable, that I'm washed by the blood of Christ. I know that this talk of the day of accountability, this day of judgment, might sound a little scary, so take a deep breath, but for those who are in Christ, we are seen as righteous in God's eyes because of Jesus' death, taking our sins and burying with them in his burial, so we have new life.
Speaker 1:We need not fear this day, knowing this of each other, that we, as Christians, are all washed clean and we can and should live with generosity towards each other, and should live with generosity towards each other, as we know that there is one judge of all people. For that reason, people can afford to live liberally, generously with one another. Unity in the body of Christ is bigger than anyone's personal perspective and should therefore encompass generous amounts of liberality toward one another. We can live with a generous spirit toward each other which enables us to live in unity with one another. We don't have to live on a defensive that someone might say something different than what we believe and that we have to give them a good, solid theology beatdown. Leave and then we have to give them a good, solid theology beat down. Instead, we can take a deep breath and see that the same God that lives in me lives in them too, and while we may not agree on everything, we can live in agreement that we all serve the same God, who was and is and is to come, who came as an infant, lived a sinless life, died on the cross and three days later rose from the grave. After that, what do other things matter? So we may disagree on practices of faith, we may disagree on how a worship service ought to be run, we may even disagree on some theology, but the same Christ that is in me lives in you.
Speaker 1:I would like to invite the worship team up as I close this morning. Now, I don't usually look towards the message translation, and it's funny that we were joking about it earlier, matt as I believe that the message translation and it's funny that we were joking about it earlier, matt as I believe that the message is more of a commentary than scripture itself. But I read it this week just because I was curious what it said and I really enjoyed the way that it put things, and so I'd like to read the last few verses of the text, starting in verse 10. Remember, it's more commentary than scripture, so don't go and quote this. So where does that leave you when you criticize a brother, and where does that leave you when you condescend a sister? I'd say it leaves you looking pretty silly or worse, looking pretty silly or worse.
Speaker 1:Eventually, we're all going to end up kneeling side by side in the place of judgment facing God. Your critical and condescending ways aren't going to improve your position there. One bit, read it for yourself. In the scripture, as I live and breathe, god says every knee will bow before me, every tongue will tell the honest truth that I, and only I, am God. So tend to your knitting. You've got hands full, just taking care of your own life before God. Judgment is reserved only for God. All else is us merely playing God, and doing a poor job at that. So perhaps we have our differences and perhaps we will disagree.
Speaker 1:Still we must not lose sight that we are made one in Christ.
Speaker 1:We are united in his death and resurrection. This is good news. We are given this life, and glorious life in Jesus Christ, life that is to the fullest, life. That comes with forgiveness of our sins, sins that Jesus took for us on the cross, sin that is buried away in the grave, sins that were defeated there as Jesus rose from that grave three days later. This is good news. We are offered this new life that clears us from the fear of this final judgment. On that day, we get to approach the throne with the assurance that Jesus' blood covers our sins and that this blood is enough and has washed us clean. We're told in Psalms 103 that as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us. We are seen as clean in God's eyes, as we've been made clean through the death and the resurrection of Jesus. This is a grace that all Christians are offered, and as we are united in Christ, we are called to live in unity with one another, proclaiming blessing over each other and living with peace with all.