![Romans [Season 2]- Wesley Tenney Free- Romans 14vv13-23: Feasting in the Kingdom Artwork](https://www.buzzsprout.com/rails/active_storage/representations/redirect/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsibWVzc2FnZSI6IkJBaHBCQUJaL2dnPSIsImV4cCI6bnVsbCwicHVyIjoiYmxvYl9pZCJ9fQ==--5f3cd9d0007475bce3aaa0a1a4933e1b61393ed7/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsibWVzc2FnZSI6IkJBaDdDVG9MWm05eWJXRjBPZ2hxY0djNkUzSmxjMmw2WlY5MGIxOW1hV3hzV3docEFsZ0NhUUpZQW5zR09nbGpjbTl3T2d0alpXNTBjbVU2Q25OaGRtVnlld1k2REhGMVlXeHBkSGxwUVRvUVkyOXNiM1Z5YzNCaFkyVkpJZ2x6Y21kaUJqb0dSVlE9IiwiZXhwIjpudWxsLCJwdXIiOiJ2YXJpYXRpb24ifX0=--1924d851274c06c8fa0acdfeffb43489fc4a7fcc/Romans%20Series%20Cover%20Art%20IMG_3276.JPG)
Ecclesia Princeton
Ecclesia Princeton
Romans [Season 2]- Wesley Tenney Free- Romans 14vv13-23: Feasting in the Kingdom
Practical communal insights for partaking in the faith-life elements beyond food and drink.
Lord, give us eyes to see, ears to hear and tongues of fire to proclaim your word. Amen, good morning church. When I was in elementary school, it was always a blast when somebody had a birthday, since the whole class would get to celebrate. I don't know if schools still do this. Do they let you bring cakes and stuff in anymore? Yeah, okay, I'm glad they still do that. Well, one kid in my class named Josh was the son of the local candy store owner. Yeah, yeah, that's what I was hoping for. That meant that when this kid's birthday came along, we were loaded with treats, and not just nerds. It wasn't nerds Twizzlers or Tootsie Pops, no, this was Thomas Sweets level stuff. He would come in every birthday with these finely crafted, fresh off the presses that morning. Fresh off the presses that morning, decadent artisanal chocolates. Yeah, and we're like seven. We have no idea how good this is. It was a delight. So he'd hand them out right after lunch and, as was the case for anyone who celebrated their birthday in school and parents, you probably know this he had to bring enough for everyone, everyone. So the teacher bless her would patiently manage all 20 of us through an afternoon of sugar highs and wild celebration In this section of Romans this morning.
Speaker 1:I'm going to read the passage now for you. We're going to find a little bit of a different scenario, one that's not quite as fair because not everybody is able to partake. So Romans 14, verses 13 through 23. I'll read them from the screen with you. Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of another. 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. If your brother or sister is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the ruin for one whom Christ has died, so do not let your good be spoken of as evil, for the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The one who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and has human approval. Let us, then, pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for you to make others fall by what you eat. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother or sister stumble the faith that you have have as your own conviction before God. Blessed are those who have no reason to condemn themselves because of what they approve. Romans 14, 13-23.
Speaker 1:So yeah, we have some people in the church in Rome who are plenty happy eating and drinking freely, while others are struggling to be in the community because they can't enjoy the food. That's simply what's happening here. There's some people who are eating it all and there's some people who are like I can only eat veggies. So the latter group is following a little bit of a stricter vegetarian diet. I can only imagine what would have happened had my friend Josh in elementary school only brought enough candy for his close friends. It takes five minutes around a five-year-old before you hear the words. It's not fair to overcome a conversation. Surely enough, my friend's family was wise to always provide enough for everyone, even if that did present a headache for the teacher To prevent some in our class from stumbling in jealousy. It was always an all or nothing scenario. But church. This morning I want to offer you a simple message. Our Lord Jesus has prepared a feast for you. So I'm going to repeat that Our Lord Jesus has prepared a feast for you. So I'm going to repeat that Our Lord Jesus has prepared a feast for you and it is a decadent feast. It's better than Josh's candies and, much to the confusion of both the strong and the so-called weak in Paul's Roman audience, jesus' feast, it's for everyone.
Speaker 1:In the middle of today's reading, paul gives us the following verse, a rare commentary on how he views the kingdom of God. He only talks about it a little bit. Mostly, jesus talks about it, but Paul here and there. The kingdom of God, he writes, is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the kingdom of God, he writes, is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. We are invited to feast in the kingdom church, and it's not on candy or on refreshing drinks or on vegetables. No, it's something far better Peace, righteousness and joy in the Holy Spirit. These will be our three main frameworks for this morning One, feasting on righteousness, two, feasting on peace and three, feasting on joy. By coming to the table and feasting on these things, I suggest that we as a community can perpetuate God's reign of love and grace, so feasting on righteousness.
Speaker 1:Righteousness, it seems, is the focal point of the conflict Paul notices among the strong and the weak in Rome, and our colleague here at Ecclesia, lydia she, did a great job covering the historical context of these groups last week. I've put a little bit of a cursory review on the screen for you. Those weak in faith Paul refers to as such, since their relationship with God necessitated still adherence to laws of dietary cleanliness. Whether these were Mosaic kosher laws or some kind of reaction against food sacrifice to idols, like Paul saw in Corinth, it's a little unclear. But either way, those whom Paul called weak in faith felt some kind of need spiritually to keep this diet of vegetables. It was core to how they lived out, their righteousness, their sense of standing before God and justification. Those strong in faith, on the other hand, felt a freedom from this particular action. Their sense of righteousness, rightness before the Lord and justification was dependent on faith alone, not faith plus dieting. The central concern for both groups, ultimately, was this same matter of righteousness or rightness, justification how can they be made right before God? And Paul does not shy away from this theme. Indeed, paul actually makes righteousness the thing, it's the central theme to this whole book of Romans. It's this whole letter that he's writing. It is about righteousness.
Speaker 1:The section we're covering today, along with chapters 12 and 13, we'll see on the next slide. We are here Applications. Look at that. The section we're covering today, along with chapters 12 and 13, is just part of the practical teachings Paul offers at the end of this great letter. So gifts in the community chapter 12, relations with the state chapter 13,. And dietary conflicts, chapter 14, they're the direct applications of the theology Paul has already covered in the earlier chapters, 2 through 11, or 118 through 11. That's why these final chapters of the letter can feel so contextual. They are the applications, the action steps Paul is offering for his Roman audience. They're tied to real-life scenarios. So in this way, paul's words in today's passage direct us back to the very core of his letter that we have been disclosed, as Romans 3, 21 to 22 tells us the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:Over the course of our series on Romans we have occasionally quoted NT Wright's summary of the book. The righteousness of God is revealed through the faithfulness of God for the faithfulness of humanity. Wright himself is elaborating directly on Paul's thesis statement in Romans 1.17, that the righteousness of God is revealed through faith, for faith. So here today, in chapter 14, paul is simply putting this point into practice, a practice that happens to be regarding food, I am persuaded. Paul writes in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, verse 14.
Speaker 1:Paul claiming nothing but the authority of Jesus alone why he probably uses the title Lord Jesus here instead of his typical construction Christ Jesus affirms the theology of the strong Faith alone is sufficient for us to be justified before God. Hence Paul continues the faith that you have have as your own conviction before God, verse 22. Not only are the strong justified by this faith, but they are freed from any condemnation. When we feast in the kingdom of God, ecclesia, we feast on righteousness in the Holy Spirit. This means that we live justified, we are right before God because of faith alone, not by any particular works of our own. That said, this can sometimes leave us feeling aimless, and it shouldn't. Life justified by faith and this is where Paul's message carries a powerful rebuke for the strong shouldn't be one that proceeds in doubt, it should proceed in faith.
Speaker 1:So if in letting go of the law in this case release from dietary restrictions means the weak would have little else to support their relationships with God, then this push from the strong could only lead to the weak's injury and ruin words that Paul uses in verse 15. It would actually, paul claims, destroy the work of God verse 20. That's some pretty strong language. This offense that Paul's calling out the strong regarding to cause others to stumble in doubt is something far worse than the weak's reliance on faith plus a few works, at least they're still attempting to be in relationship with God. What the strong are doing, paul suggests, is risks, the weak's standing their sense of rightness before God, their confidence before God, entirely. Those who have doubts are condemned if they eat, paul writes, because they do not act from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin verse 23. If the weak were to begin eating freely, as the strong suggest, then they wouldn't be doing so out of love for Jesus, and that precisely is why it would be a mistake. The good of the strong, the doctrine of faith alone, would actually be spoken of as an evil. Verse 16, literally in the Greek, paul writes as blasphemy Because the weak, in their circumstances it would mean the loss of what little good they did have in their relationship with God.
Speaker 1:So let me offer an analogy here. Imagine a young child trying to learn how to swim. I just spent a week with some of my nephews and there was lots of swimming and the little ones they were still in their floaties, and their floaties are super helpful as they're learning the muscle movements for different strokes and develop confidence in their skills. The floaties actually enabled them to swim super-way deep out into the pond and explore the waters freely, to play, to even grow in deeper love for the sport of swimming and for water. However, some of the older kids around them, or an older kid that you might see at the pool or something around your kids, might look at them and think, oh, that kid is still constrained by their floaties. How weak that little kid. No, no, no, no, no At some point, yes, it is the goal that the young child will be able to swim freely even more freely, without their floaties. But if the older kid makes the young ones take the floaties off, the young child might grow immediately doubtful of their skills and drown, because it's not something that they're used to. They're used to having those supports. They simply aren't ready to ditch the floaties. Works in this case, dietary restrictions for the weak are kind of like floaties as they grow in their faith. The goal is to eventually, yes, ditch these dietary restrictions, and that's why Paul ultimately sides with the strong so that they can stand before God solely in the faith offered to them by Christ. But if we need the floaties still, if they need the vegetarian diet still, paul seems to give an allowance for this and the alternative would mean the loss of faith entirely for many in the Roman church.
Speaker 1:And I don't know if any of you have maybe felt this in your own lives where you've been pushed just a little too far, too quick. I've found over the course of my life. That's sometimes how a lot of church hurt can start is that somebody's trying to present like here's what you need to be, here's where you need to go, here's what righteousness looks like, and not giving you the chance to quite get there in your own timing. That's what Paul's giving allowance for. Paul doesn't want us to grow immediately doubtful and drown in our faith. He wants us to preserve what growth we do have in Christ so far. So, before we get too haughty, I do think a lot of us have things like the week we have floaties in our faith lives and sometimes these are good.
Speaker 1:I used to wear a cross necklace, a little dog tag, religiously every single day in high school because it reminded me to put on the armor of God. Every time I would step out in the door in the morning I'd put it on and, yeah, it operated a little bit like a relic for me. It was hard for me to go without it. I felt naked or empty when it wasn't there, but that didn't mean it was necessarily hurting my faith. After some time I did eventually learn to outgrow it, live without it, be able to walk out of the house and know, yeah, I'm putting on the armor of God and it's not dependent on a necklace, but it was helpful. It was a floaty for a season.
Speaker 1:Similarly, I used to get a lot of nightmares when I was a kid night terrors, spiritual attacks. I'm convinced they would wake me up and I'd have all this fear in the dark. So I taped a flash card with the verse God is love from 1 John right above my bed so that every single time I'd wake up and it would be this anchor right there that I could look at. It would keep me centered on Christ and protect me from the fear that might be coming out of the dreams. So it was a necessity for a while, but eventually I learned other strategies to help me work through those moments. I learned certain Bible passages that I could pray through or work through if I got woken up in the night. But I say this because sometimes the floaties like the necklace or that flash card on the ceiling they're really helpful. So Paul is seeing a lot of helpfulness that the vegetables might have for the weak in faith in Rome. But sometimes the floaties can hold us back too, and this is when they become idols.
Speaker 1:I think of the way so many churches fought over worship music in the early 2000s. Reliance on hymns held many people back from a deeper faith that was indifferent to music genre. I also think of the way some people live and die by one particular translation of the scriptures or by one favorite online thinker, or by one interpretation of Genesis, or by male preachers only, or by politically aligned churches only, or by one particularers only, or by politically aligned churches only, or by one particular spiritual practice or habit. We all have these things and we probably can think of people where we'd be quick to point it out. And in our best days, in these people's best days, they might know theoretically that other options are okay. They might say like, oh yeah, I could read other passages of Scripture, I can switch, I can branch out to the NIV instead of my ESV or something like that. But they might be hard-pressed to try these things since it's not simply what they're used to. I heard this a lot. When we had a woman preacher come to my town for the first time as a kid, everybody was like, oh, I'm just not used to it. It's like, well, I'm not sure that's quite enough of a reason to not engage. There's a time when the floaties should come off.
Speaker 1:Salvation by faith alone means that the second these things become necessities for your relationship with God, you've begun justifying yourself before God again instead of letting Christ justify you. So that's the line, friends. Are they necessities for you? To feast on righteousness? Ecclesia is to focus on Christ alone. That, ultimately, was the stake for both the strong and the weak in Rome. Both were making food the point. The point was not food For the weak, it was we need to eat the food For the strong. You don't need to eat the food. Neither of them were focusing on. You have freedom in Christ. Neither of them we're focusing on. You have freedom in Christ. So if there is something you have that helps you focus on Christ alone, awesome, do it. Use it. If it begins to become a means to an end, however, or if the means to the end becomes to be sorry, if it begins to become the end instead of the means to the end, then it's time to take the floaty off. In the kingdom of God, there's a better feast for you than mere food and drink. There's a better feast for you than that one translation. There's a better feast for you than that one preacher. There's a better feast for you, friends.
Speaker 1:So I want to offer a first check-in. What helps you keep focused on Christ alone? Are there any floaties helping you out in your own faith life? Are there things that are like oh yeah, you know this is something I'm into right now and this is good. I've been on a listening prayer kick for like a year now. It's been really great. I also know at some point God will have other things for me. Are there any floaties holding you back right now? Are there things that you know it's kind of a time to let go, but you're just holding onto it a little too firmly. And particularly. I want to give us a second to identify with a strong here, and this is not meant to condemn you or anything. It's just a check. Have you at all been mapping your own faith journey onto someone else's faith journey or their own faith formation?
Speaker 1:The strong were mapping their faith journey and their faith formation onto the weak, and that was a problem. Paul wanted to give the weak a time for them to grow in their own way, in their own sense. So that was number one. That was feasting on righteousness. Feasting on the way that we are right before God, that we are made just before God. Number two feasting on peace. We can go to the next slide, please. Yeah, back to the big chunky scripture. I'm going to hop around a little bit so you can follow the numbers. Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbringing. Paul writes in verse 19.
Speaker 1:So far, in focusing on righteousness, we've focused mostly on the negative side of Paul's argument to never put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of another verse 13. Now, as we think about feasting on peace, I want us to turn to the positive side of Paul's argument. One New Testament scholar, douglas Moo, puts it as such Positively the strong are to recognize their freedom for these matters, their good, in verse 16. They must be governed by love for their fellow believers verse 15, and concern for the upbuilding of the body of Christ verse 19. So, as we consider what it means to feast on peace, let us consider these two metrics in our life together love for fellow believers, in this passage at least, and here's patience.
Speaker 1:The strong, the ones without the diet, are to care and cater for the weak, even as the weak are now where they currently are in their faith lives. For while Paul agrees with the strong, nothing is unclean in itself. You are justified by faith alone. Yes, yes, yes. Paul also notes it is unclean for anyone who thinks it is unclean, on the second half of verse 14. This is in line with Paul's broader ethic that we see elsewhere in the scriptures To the weak, I became weak. He wrote to the Corinthians so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people that I might by all means save some. 1 Corinthians, 9.22. Love for fellow believers is to become one with them. This is why Paul writes in Romans 14, 18, the one who serves Christ is acceptable to God. Yes, they're a living sacrifice, just like we saw in Romans 12, 1, two or three weeks ago. But they also have noted here human approval, feasting on peace, means we love people enough to be with them in the midst of their becoming. This is something I perhaps learned best from Soren Kierkegaard, giving a little nod to Matt, our Kierkegaard bro, in the back.
Speaker 1:Kierkegaard was a theologian who lived in the early 1800s in Copenhagen, denmark, and he wrote a lot of stuff. But among many of his texts there was this beautiful book called Works of Love. It's a little complex to get into as a book, but it was a really good one. Kierkegaard was concerned, just like many people today, by how many things done in the name of Christian love actually turn out to be harmful, empty, deceptive or hypocritical instead. This is a perennial topic.
Speaker 1:So, in an effort to reclaim love, kierkegaard reconceived it. It was for him not just a virtue, a habit to be cultivated, like it had been thought of for most of the Middle Ages. Rather, love for Kierkegaard was a duty, a human responsibility of sorts, that we needed to fulfill with intentionality, moment after moment after moment after moment. It could never just become a habit. It always had to have that intentionality behind it. So in a slightly more pragmatic chapter of his book and this could possibly be a good chapter to dive into if you ever wanted to just like the kind of pragmatic chapter we see in Paul today in Romans, kierkegaard instructs us of our duty to love those we see as we see them. He writes the task is not to find the lovable person, writes the task is not to find the lovable person, but the task is to find the person already given or chosen lovable and to be able to continue finding them lovable, no matter how they might be changed. So, put shortly, we are to love people both for who they are now and for who they are becoming.
Speaker 1:I used to teach high school and this was something I had to think about all the time in my lesson plans. We had to do formative assessments and summative assessments and I had to think about how can I care for these kids now as they're trying to figure out the Pythagorean theorem, and also how can I care for who these kids are going to be in a couple of years as they're graduating, walking across that stage. It was a beautiful, beautiful part of the vocation, but this isn't always easy. Believe me, there are times I find it simpler to do one or the other to love who somebody's going to be, because it's really hard at the moment, or to love somebody for who they are now, because it's hard to see where they're going. Sometimes it's hard to do both.
Speaker 1:My grandmother she passed away back in 2020. She had been suffering from dementia for a long time and had reached that point in the illness where she couldn't really remember anyone anymore. In the illness where she couldn't really remember anyone anymore, and I recall people around me saying, oh, she's not herself. And that's something that I had heard people say similarly of me back when I had bouts with depression, and they might say this isn't the real Lillian, my grandmother, or this isn't the real Wes. And yes, while there was some truth in these statements, we weren't acting in a way that was full to our personalities or full to the way that we had been known in our communities. I always felt like these statements kind of missed the bigger picture. In this earthly life, we are never truly ourselves. We've all fallen short of the glory of God. We're in separation of God. We're in separation. Nevertheless, we are always ourselves to some degree. We're just not complete.
Speaker 1:So to diminish the reality of my grandmother's experience in dementia or to diminish my own reality in depression, as if those weren't really us, it might have been a good coping mechanism for the people around us, a well-intended attempt to love who we could become with healing. However, these weren't ways of loving us for who we were in those moments and I've often noticed the inverse of this. For some others, like a few of the medical professionals who were caring for my grandmother, they could only see her as a patient, not as a person who was in process of becoming which maybe I'm a little biased because I'm in ministry, but I think there's a lot of becoming that you're doing at the end of life. So they'd love my grandmother, but only as a patient in a nursing home, not as someone who could heal indeed would heal upon meeting Christ and be more complete than ever before. To love someone for both who they are now and who they're becoming, who they will be, that's a powerful and deep kind of love, one which can bring true holistic peace. It can because it sees people for the whole of their lives, and this is what the Bible suggests for us, ecclesia. We love God because God first loved us. 1 John 4, 19.
Speaker 1:Paul wrote earlier in Romans how, while we were still sinners, christ died for us. While we were not ourselves, christ loved us. We are to extend this ethic to one another church In a day's passage in Romans 14, we see Paul instructing the strong to love the weak fully in the midst of their dietary commitments, all while loving the weak for who they might become once they mature. Beyond these commitments, paul exhorted the church to peace by encouraging the church to live into the already not yet of God's kingdom, lived out in one another, to love people for who they are in Christ right now already, and to love people for who they are yet to be in Christ, who they're becoming in glory. So, in the context of our church community, how can we love one another for who we are now, faults and all while also seeking one another's mutual upbringing? This is a key question of spiritual formation. Friends, we are to feast on this peace in the Holy Spirit. Paul recognized the way the Holy Spirit was moving in Rome. He saw the Holy Spirit moving in the lives of the weak to draw them nearer to Christ through these dietary restrictions. And Paul joined the Spirit in this endeavor, invited the strong to join the Spirit in this endeavor too. We are to consider how God is building up the community around us and how we might act accordingly with that kingdom movement.
Speaker 1:So check in number two, and I want to give you a little bit of time to ponder this for yourselves right now. So I'm going to give you a little moment for quiet. Think of someone in your life whom you love. Maybe it's your kid, maybe it's your kid, maybe it's your grandma, maybe it's yourself, ponder, how you love them in this present moment. I invite you to ponder and hope for their future, how God might be forming them. If you imagine them in glory with Christ, what do they look like? And, lastly, I invite you to pray over these two visions. Ask God how you can love this person best as a companion on the journey. Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen.
Speaker 1:In my own prayer time, I was led to think of our church, thinking about our church as we are right now, six years into this beautiful endeavor, but also, where are we going to be in 20 years? Where are we going to be in 30 years? And trying to imagine that. That's something we try to do as a staff a lot, and it's something that we invite you to too, how you want to see the church grow. But it takes loving the church here and now too, to be able to do that. So that was number two. So we did feasting on righteousness number one we did. Feasting on peace was number two. So we did feasting on righteousness number one. We did feasting on peace, number two. Third and finally, I want to focus a little bit on feasting on joy.
Speaker 1:In his book, the Instructor, pedagogus in Greek, st Clement, a second century pastor and teacher in Alexandria, egypt. He was ordained like 189 AD. He wrote the following on specifically this passage from Romans 14, 17. He said righteousness, peace and joy. He who eats of this meal, the best of all, the best meal of all, will possess the kingdom of God, fixing his gaze on the holy assembly of love, the heavenly church. So, ecclesia, our Lord has prepared a feast for you. That's so cool. Like I, with Paul, I welcome you to the table of this kingdom feast. It is not one of food and drink, but rather righteousness and peace. After all, the book of Revelation depicts for us how blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Let us rejoice and exalt, giving Him the glory, giving God the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, friends, god's kingdom has arrived. This wedding feast, this table, it's prepared for you, right here and now. God's prepared a feast for you. It's so cool.
Speaker 1:A little while back in fall 23, I thought it was last summer, but it was farther back our church did another sermon series on the kingdom of God. During this time, we frequented a simple definition of the kingdom, articulated by Dallas Willard, and I'm going to put it up on the screen for you. Next. The kingdom of God is the range of God's effective will. The kingdom of God is the range of God's effective will. This means that wherever God's desires are carried through, wherever they are respected and followed out freely by our agency, that's where God's kingdom has arrived. That's where God's kingdom has been revealed. So, church, insofar as we feast on righteousness, receiving Christ's justification for us, insofar as we choose to feast on peace, walking in love for one another's mutual upbuilding, insofar as we choose to feast on joy, recognizing that we can celebrate God's invitation to the table together, then we proclaim God's living reign. We proclaim God's living reign of grace and love everywhere we go. When we come to this table, we exercise God's effective will and uplift the kingdom of heaven here on earth. That's what happens when we feast on righteousness, when we feast on peace, when we feast on joy. We are exercising the effective will of God.
Speaker 1:I invite the worship team forward. I want to ask you for check-in. Number three what would it mean for you to come to this table this morning? This is a core value at Ecclesia. Come to the table just like life in the spirit, and we got both of them in one verse. Come to the table just like life in the Spirit, and we got both of them in one verse. Yeah, what would it mean for you to come to the table this morning? We have an actual table.
Speaker 1:This is one of the things that we do in our rituals of worship as Christians. We have a table that we set every week, one that Christ set for us literally in history, in 33 AD. Set a table on Thursday, the night before Passover, in celebration of that holiday, with his friends said this is my body broken. For you, what would it mean for you to come to this table this morning? What would it mean for you to come to this wedding feast this morning To be with Christ, sovereign and alive? Would it be an authentic expression of your faith?
Speaker 1:Maybe it is and you feel deep joy and peace and righteousness in the opportunity to participate in this act of worship. If that's you, that's awesome. I'm happy for you. That's where the strong were in Rome and that's what Paul was exhorting. Maybe. Maybe you're feeling sort of like there's righteousness and peace and joy at the table, but you really are just longing for a reminder of Christ's forgiveness and grace this morning. That's okay too.
Speaker 1:Or maybe coming to the table feels inauthentic, something you're just not quite in the mood for, or you don't really believe in fully right now. After all, do not for the sake of food Paul writes Not for the sake of food Destroy the work of God, the work that God's doing in you. You are welcome to come to the table if you feel it is God's will working something out in you. You also are not compelled to come if it would not be to your benefit. You can and should discern carefully if it is the right table for you to come to.
Speaker 1:That's an act of faith, friends, maybe this morning you've never come to the table, maybe you've never had faith in Christ, and if that's you again, the table is for you. But it doesn't have to be for you right now. God's patient with you. God's eternal. So either way, ecclesia, our Lord Jesus, has prepared a feast for you. God has prepared a feast for you in his kingdom. It is one of righteousness and peace and joy, and I pray that you can partake of it, so far as your faith encourages you to do so. Thank you so much, church. Peace and grace to you.