Day 34: Romans 14: 13-23: Don't Cause Others To Stumble

Christian maturity uses freedom with love and wisdom.

Paul continues talking about Christian freedom. Believers may have freedom in certain areas- but freedom should always be guided by love. If your actions harm another believer's faith or conscience, Paul says love should lead you to limit your freedom. The goal is not simply being "right." The goal is building others up. 

Reflect: How can you use your freedom in ways that help rather than harm others?

Dig Deeper: Why does love sometimes require limiting personal freedom?

Transcript

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Hello everyone. We're in day thirty-four. Today we're talking about don't cause others to stumble. And our passage is Romans chapter 14, verses 13 through 23. Here are our reflection questions today. How can you use your freedom in ways that help rather than harm others? Why does love sometimes require limiting personal freedom? Let's read together. Therefore, let us no longer judge one another. Instead, decide never to put a stumbling block or pitfall in the way of your brother or sister. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. Still, to someone who considers a thing to be unclean, to that one it is unclean. For if your brother or sister is hurt by what you eat, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy by what you eat someone for whom Christ died. Therefore, do not let your good be slandered, for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever serves Christ in this way is acceptable to God and receives human approval. So then, let us pursue what promotes peace and what builds up one another. Do not tear down God's work because of food. Everything is clean, but it is wrong to make someone fall by what he eats. It is a good thing not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother or sister stumble. Whatever you believe about these things, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But whoever doubts stands condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith, and everything that is not from faith is sin. Amen. That's the word of God. In chapter 14, here at the end, Paul's continuing the conversation about disagreements. But now he focuses on responsibility towards others. He says believers shouldn't put stumbling blocks in front of each other. A stumbling block is something that spiritually trips someone up. And Paul is addressing an important tension. Christian freedom is real, but love matters more than proving freedom. In Corinth and Rome, food offered to idols became a major debate. Some believers knew idols weren't real and felt free to eat. Others, coming out of pagan worship, associated that food with their old life and struggled deeply with it. I actually heard someone giving like a little mini-sermon on this recently, and just to give you a better picture, um, some of the food that they were having disagreements about were food that in the pagan world were offered as offerings on an altar to idols that were not God, that they were worshiping. And then they would take that food to the market and they would sell it at a discount. And previously a lot of people would do that, you know, they would go get their meat and they would eat that. Um, but as people began to follow Christ out of the pagan worship, some people, you know, they left that life behind. When you um give your life to Christ and some of them were baptized, you know, right? You are saying goodbye to your old life and hello to a new creation in Christ Jesus. And often people then associate their old life and some of that darkness, and they see or it is revealed to them, the darkness associated with it. And so they said, No, I don't want to buy that meat anymore because it's associated with something that isn't a good thing. And so there's arguments in the church over that because some people were like, but it's cheaper. I'm just kidding, I don't know if that's exactly what they said, but um just to give you more imagery um and I guess more specifics around this, um, so you can kind of get an idea of what kind of disagreements they were having regarding that. So, like this says, some believers knew the idols weren't real, so they felt free to eat it, and others coming out of that worship associated that food with their old life and they really struggled with it and didn't want to eat it. So the way Paul addresses them, he's saying, even if something is technically permissible, love would still show restraint. Our love for others would show restraint of you know what we want or are okay with to accommodate a believer who's struggling. I think one of the most common examples of this in the church that a lot of people bring up is like there are people in church that are recovering addicts, right? Whether that's from alcohol or whatnot, we'll use alcohol in this um example. But let's say you're having dinner at your house and you're inviting people over and you know that one of your friends is a recovering alcoholic. Maybe you don't serve alcohol at this dinner, right? And out of love and respect for this person, you don't want to be a stumbling block for him. And what's important here is not, you know, satisfying your own wants or wishes. What's important here is loving your brother and sister and upholding them and being a good Christian brother or sister who's going to help them stay on the narrow path. That challenges our modern culture and the thinking now because it is culture is defined and defines maturity as demanding your personal rights. We live in a very individualistic culture, okay. Um, and I I think that there have been enough things in uh um our our country over the last few years to say that that has come up quite a bit, right? People care about their personal freedoms more than what it is more glorified to fight for your rights, okay, than it is to maybe think of yourself less and love a brother. But biblical maturity includes selflessness. Sometimes the most Christ-like thing is not insisting on your own freedom, but considering someone else's spiritual well-being. And Paul keeps bringing it back to this the kingdom of God is not mainly about rules, it's about righteousness, peace, and joy found in the Holy Spirit. Amen. We are rolling, we are in the nitty-gritty. I'm so glad you're here with me. If you're feeling challenged, I am too. And boy, does God have a lot of work to do on me. But this is exactly where I want to be is be here with you and with the Holy Spirit, reading the living, breathing word of God, being convicted. I want to be convicted by the Holy Spirit because I want to stay close to the source of life. And I pray that that be the desire of all of our hearts. Talk to you tomorrow. Love you.