Romans [Season Two]- Lydia Andres- Romans 14vv1-12: Die/Divide/Debate

Ecclesia intern shares helpful perspectives for living in unity and pursuing peace

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning.
I'm going to start off byreading from Romans 14, 1
through 12.
If you have your Bibles, thisis when you can flip open to
that, or the words will be onthe screen behind you Behind me,
not behind you.
Here are these words from thebook that we love, found in

(00:21):
Romans Welcome those who areweak in faith, not for the
purpose of quarreling overopinions.
Some believe in eating anything, while the weak only eat
vegetables.
Those who eat must not despisethose who abstain, and those who
abstain must not pass judgmenton those who eat, for God has

(00:45):
welcomed them.
Who are you to pass judgment onservants of another?
It is before their own Lordthat they stand or fall, and
they will be upheld, for theLord is able to make them stand.
Some judge one day to be betterthan another, while others

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judge all days to be alike.
Let all be fully convinced intheir own minds, those who
observe the day observe it inhonor of the Lord.
Those who eat eat in honor ofthe Lord, since they give thanks
to God, while those who abstainabstain in the honor of the

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Lord and give thanks to God.
We do not live for ourselvesand 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 orwhether we die, we are the
Lord's, for to this end, christdied and lived again so that he

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might be the Lord of both thedead and the living.
So why do you pass judgment onyour brother or sister, or why
do you despise your brother orsister?
For we all will stand beforethe judgment seat of God.
For it is written as I live,says the Lord, every knee will

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bow to me and every tongue shallgive praise to God.
So then, each of us will beaccountable to God.
This is the word of the Lord.
I'm going to start off by askingsome questions, and I invite
you to think through what youranswer would be.
They're not hard questions,they're just would-you-rathers,

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but I also want you to thinkabout why you would answer the
way that you do.
Don't worry, these questionswon'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 tosing along or dance along to
every song you hear?
Would you rather buy ten thingsyou didn't need every time you

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go shopping, or always forgetthe one thing you need when you
do go to the store.
Would you rather always be tenminutes late or twenty minutes
early?
Would you rather only be ableto eat meat or only be able to
eat vegetables?
Would you rather spend yourSunday resting, by napping and

(03:14):
taking it easy, or spend yourSunday being active by running
around, playing games andengaging in sports?
And would you rather spend aholiday feasting with family or
fasting with friends?
I'm sure that there are some ofthese questions that we might
have agreed on, just as I'm surethat there are some that we

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would have disagreed on.
These are decisions that arebased upon our individual
opinions, convictions and thedistinct ways that our families
raised us, and, while this is asilly game that can be
inconsequential.
We might jokingly fight overwhether we'd rather be 20

(03:57):
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 speakto someone because we had a
disagreement on things like this.
What has become apparent to mein my last two years at the
seminary is how differentlypeople think from each other.
I've witnessed, especially inthe last five years, how

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divisive people can be when atopic that is important to them
is brought up, how, even withina church community, people can
be upset with each other andpush each other away.
Looking at Paul's language usedin this text, it seems that he
might be using some divisivelanguage.
He calls some weak and othersto be strong.

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I think that all people want toevaluate their own faith and
would put themselves in thatstrong category, and they might
be looking around at otherpeople who practice faith
different, who have convictionsdifferently, and they might
think that that friend has aweaker faith than they do.
But I think that it's important, before we look at this text,

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to understand who would havebeen receiving this letter, as
it helps make some clear, keydistinctions of who the people
were.
Romans is written to the churchin Rome, and these would have
been Christians living in Rome.
The Christians would have beenboth Jewish Christians and
Gentile Christians, and theJewish Christians would have

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grown up hearing purity lawsfrom Leviticus 1 through 27,
which would tell them that theyneed to be very strict about
what kind of meat they can eat.
But they also would have beenwary of the meat that they might
buy in the market, as some ofit would have been sacrificed to
idols, whereas the GentileChristians would not have grown

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up with these standards of faith, and so they might not have.
They might not have been thingsthat they thought about unless
they came into contact with aJewish Christian and thought
about their experience and theirtraditions In the same manner.
The Jewish Christians haddifferent traditions around
fasting.
One source I read this weeksaid that Wednesdays and Fridays

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were common days of fasting,and while the Gentile Christians
had no background in fastingbefore coming to faith.
And so we see two differentgroups of people with different
faith practices coming together,appearing side by side in this
text.
The Jewish Christians mightlook at the Gentile Christians
and say, hey, they don't fast.

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They can eat everything.
They desecrate anything that weconsider to be holy.
We can't do church and lifewith people like that.
And the Gentile Christiansmight be looking at their Jewish
Christian friends and might bethinking these guys are so
uptight, continuing to followeverything, the letter of the
law and the standards I thoughtwe were told we don't have to

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hold anymore.
I don't want to do life withpeople who have no joy in their
lives, and this is where Paultells them to welcome those who
are weak in faith.
I find it interesting that hefollows the command with telling
them not to quarrel overdisputable matters of opinion.

(07:15):
Paul jumps right to the heartof the matter, as unity is vital
to Paul.
To Paul, unity acts as a signof outgrowth, of liberty and
love, which is Paul's goal.
The things that they weredisagreeing over were
non-essentials, things in whichloving liberty needed to be
extended.

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Paul's message was not anacademic one, but a practical
one that both the church thenand now needs to hear and
practice.
Unity is at the heart ofevangelization.
Unity among Christians is howthe world knows that Jesus is
our Lord, and unity amongChristians provides the stable

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outgoing base needed forextended evangelistic efforts to
be successful.
In John 13, 35, jesus isspeaking to his disciples and he
says I give you a newcommandment that you love one
another.
Just as I have loved you, soalso should you love one another
.
By this, everyone will knowthat you are my disciples if you

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have love for one another.
Our sign as Christians is tolove one another and live in
unity with each other.
We will disagree that'sinevitable Whenever you get any
group of people together, evenyour family, but we are to
strive to live as kind andcompassionate people together,

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forgiving each other as we areforgiven in Christ.
The end of Romans 13 tells usthat love is the fulfillment of
the law.
At first glance, paul mightsound a lot like the people in
our culture who commonly say I'mglad that works for you.
But I have my own truth.

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After all, paul is saying thattwo people can eat the same
thing, and yet for one it'sright and wrong for the other.
However, paul is not teachingrelativity.
He further explains in thelatter part of Romans 14 that
there is an absolute truth, thatnothing is unclean in itself,

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and he shows that there is moreto 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 theright answers, but the right
priorities and loves.
Paul wants to direct Christianstowards love and unity with each

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other found in Jesus Christ.
Galatians 3, 26-28 says that itis in Jesus Christ that you are
all children of God throughfaith, as many of you were
baptized into Christ, haveclothed yourself with Christ.
There is therefore no longerJew or Greek, there is no longer

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slave or free, there is nolonger male or female, for all
of you are one in Jesus Christ.
The unity that Paul reaches forus to have is the sameness in
Christ.
That we would remember that asChristians we are all made
children of God.
There is a common unity that wefind in a newness of life, life

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that's found to the fullest,that we must also extend to each
other, as it's been extended tous, a grace to those who are
also found in Christ.
In the Gospels we see Jesusgive some pretty hard
commandments to love yourneighbor, to pray for those who
persecute you, and Paul echoesthis kind of attitude here.

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And Paul echoes this kind ofattitude here.
He gives the command to fellowbelievers who don't see things
the way that you do.
This practice used to besomething that I struggled with
and still do.
I wanted everyone to believethe same way that I did.

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I went to college with thisperspective and I was willing to
pick a fight in any class thatI sat in.
I wanted to pick a fight withmy classmates, with my
professors, anyone who would letme get under their skin.
I loved playing devil'sadvocate just to prove a point.
Thank God my professors were sogracious to me, but that's how

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I approached my whole first yearof college that I was the only
right one and everyone else waswrong.
But everything was shaken upthat first year when we all got
sent home due to COVID and likemany college students do.
This is the time that I began toexamine my faith, to ask why I
believed in the things that Idid.

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Did I hold it just because Igrew 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 sograteful that at that time I had
kind professors, friends,mentors, my parents, who loved
to talk about God and the thingsof God and were excited to walk

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with me as I processed throughthese things, as I processed
through what I thought to betruth and what I didn't need to
hold on to anymore.
And this is still a processthat I'm going through at
seminary and in my own walk, asI read different theologians,
trying to grab a better grasp ofwhat the scripture says, as I

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find people who are wiser than Iam to sit and ask questions to.
But I can tell you this withthe help of the people in my
life, I returned that next fallto college, a different student.
I was ready to listen, to takein different perspectives, and
maybe I still wouldn't choose tobelieve those perspectives for

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myself.
But the conversations I hadwere far more rich, because I
wanted to believe that my fellowclassmates and professors had
something worth saying.
Just like the church in Rome,the church today has its own
hot-button topics that getpeople riled up.
Let's start by thinking aboutsome of the hot-button topics

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from the 20th century church.
Some of these would have beenthe consumption of alcoholic
beverages, the ownership ofluxury goods, forms of
recreation such as movies,dancing, tithing, christian
schools versus public education.
The list goes on.
Clearly, the practice ofjudging one another over

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disputable matters is not amodern sin.
The believers in Rome wereguilty, as evidenced by Paul's
directives, but their plight isat least a bit more
understandable.
One of the ways that I havebegun to think about differences
that we have in the church isunder the terms of debate,

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divide and die.
Under the debate term fallthings that I would be willing
to debate people on.
Under the divide category wouldbe things that I would change
churches for, that I woulddivide, go somewhere differently
, because they're fundamentallythings I agree or disagree about
and you can probably guess whatthe die category would mean

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that the things that fall underthis category.
I'm so certain of that.
That is something I would dieon that hill for.
A few years ago the topic ofunity in the church was a big
topic within the church, butparticularly in my family, and
my dad went and made this chartfor the small group that he and

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my mom were leading at that timeand, as you can see, it has
different stances or differentstatements and then boxes to the
other side that you can checkwhich one you would be in if you
would land in the debate divideor die category.
This isn't the whole list.
That list is 95 items long andI struggled to put that many on

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this page, so I'm sorry youdon't get the whole thing, but
for them it took them two hourand a half long sections to go
through all 95 items and to talkthem through, and some of them
are easier and some of them area little more complicated.
So I'm sure you've read themthrough, as some of them are
easier and some of them are alittle more complicated.

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So I'm sure you've read themaloud or in your head as we've
gone and I invite you to thinkwhere 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 topthree that are the most

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important to me and to my faith.
The divinity of Christ isabsolutely 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 humannature which has sinned should
pay for sin.
And also Jesus must berighteous, fully God, because

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the one who is a sinner cannotpay the price of sins for others
, because the one who is asinner cannot pay the price of
sins for others.
And so Jesus has to be fullyman and Jesus has to be fully
God so as to take our sins.
And Jesus needs to be God's oneand only son, as there are no
other ways to the Father exceptthrough Jesus.

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I pulled these three line itemsnot just because they're
interesting to me, but becausethey're primary issue topics
that the church globally hasdiscussed and agreed upon.
And I don't just say thatbecause I say that.
I say that because we can seethat through what we see in our

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primary documents in the church,and one way we can quickly
identify that these would beprimary issues is that there are
documents written for thechurch with the purpose of
bringing clarity to them,documents like the Apostles'
Creed that we read together andwe can see what it says.
The Apostles' Creed summarizespoints of faith about God, the

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Father, god the Son and God theHoly Spirit.
As to the other six line items,you can see those next three
get a little messy for me, butthese fall into the divide or
debate categories and I questionwhere I would put them.
So you'll see that I put bothdivide and debate over the form

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of worship.
I'm a worship leader and so thisone was tricky for me.
I have preferences.
I'll be honest.
I have preferences to how Ilike to worship in community.
But if tomorrow, alfredodecides that we're going to
switch styles and start singingin a choir only every single
week even though I don't sing ina choir, I've tried to and I

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just struggle I would sit downand have a conversation and we'd
probably have a little debateabout it, but I wouldn't go and
leave.
That's not enough of a reasonfor 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 excellencein everything that we do, but I

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think that excellence looksdifferent for every place and
for every people.
In some places, the level ofmusicianship is going to look
different simply because of thelocation that they are in being
in Princeton, we have a lot ofreally good musicians that come
through, and what a blessingthat is.
And so, while these items reallymattered to me, I'd prefer to

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choose a church off the bat thatvalues these things.
They wouldn't be things that Iwould straight up leave because
of after I've become ingrainedwithin a community.
And you'll see, I put thoselast three things in debate
because they're not issues thatwould cause me to leave a
friendship or to leave a church.

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But I recognize that otherpeople will have different
opinions on them than I haveopinions, and, as with the
questions from the game, wouldyou rather we might have the
same answers and we might havedifferent answers, as our
answers are formed by ouropinions and convictions and how
we grew up.
But regardless, we can stillremain in community together.

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Now let me be clear.
I'm not saying you can't haveyour own separate opinions on
things.
Paul says in verse 5, let all befully convinced in their own
minds.
So by all means, have youropinions.
It's good for us to hold ourown convictions, to stand firm

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in our beliefs, but thoseopinions do not give us the
right to judge each other.
Paul makes it very clear thatit is not our role to judge one
another by bringing up thispoint twice in our passage this
morning Verses 3 and four thosewho eat must not despise those

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who abstain.
Those who abstain must not passjudgment on those who eat, for
God has welcomed them.
Who are you to pass judgment onservants of another?
And in verse 10, why do youpass a judgment on your brother
or sister, or why do you despiseyour brother or sister?
For we will all stand beforethe judgment seat of God.

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As human beings we are flawedand sinful.
We would not do very well inGod's place.
As God is holy and righteous,having never sinned, seeing and
knowing all things, god seeseach person's heart.
In 2 Corinthians 5.10, paulwrites For we must all appear

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before the judgment seat ofChrist, that each one may
receive the things done in thebody according to what he has
done, whether good or bad.
This is all our fate accordingto what he has done, whether
good or bad.
This is all our fate, and it isby the blood of Christ shed for
us that we are declared asblameless in his sight.
We cannot cast judgmentcorrectly.

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We do not see as Christ seesJesus' disciples in Matthew 7,
1-5.
Do not judge so that you may notbe judged, for with the
judgment you make you will bejudged and the measure you give
will be measured to you.
Why do you see the speck inyour neighbor's eye?

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Do you not notice the log inyour own eye?
Or how do you say to yourneighbor let me take the speck
out of your eye?
Well, there is a log in yourown eye, you hypocrite.
First take the log out of yourown eye, then you'll see clearly
.
To take the speck out of yourneighbor's eye, we cannot see

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clearly, though we may tryRomans 12, 19 quotes Deuteronomy
32, 35, in stating For when onebegins to judge another
Christian, one is undertaking todo what God alone has reserved

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for himself or to Christ.
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 thosemoments.
Perhaps there is a part of usthat truly struggles to believe

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in those moments.
Perhaps there's a part of usthat truly struggles to believe
how someone who has done suchawful things can be forgiven.
Yet Paul says why do you castjudgment on your brother or
sister or why do you despiseyour brother or sister?
For we will all stand beforethe judgment seat of God.

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So who am I to cast thisjudgment?
I too will one day stand beforethe judgment seat of God,
believe it or not.
I'm not a perfect person.
I have my pitfalls, my pridefulmoments, my selfishness and
moments of frustration and anger, and I know that these are not

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traits of Jesus and that they'vehurt people, both my friends
and family and random peoplethat I've come across, and I'm
so grateful for the grace thatJesus has extended.
I'm so grateful that on thatday, when we stand before God to
be held accountable, that I'mwashed by the blood of Christ.

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I know that this talk of theday of accountability, this day
of judgment, might sound alittle scary, so take a deep
breath, but for those who are inChrist, we are seen as
righteous in God's eyes becauseof Jesus' death, taking our sins
and burying with them in hisburial, so we have new life.

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We need not fear this day,knowing this of each other, that
we, as Christians, are allwashed clean and we can and
should live with generositytowards each other, and should
live with generosity towardseach other, as we know that
there is one judge of all people.

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For that reason, people canafford to live liberally,
generously with one another.
Unity in the body of Christ isbigger than anyone's personal
perspective and should thereforeencompass generous amounts of
liberality toward one another.

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We can live with a generousspirit toward each other which
enables us to live in unity withone another.
We don't have to live on adefensive that someone might say
something different than whatwe believe and that we have to
give them a good, solid theologybeatdown.
Leave and then we have to givethem a good, solid theology beat

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down.
Instead, we can take a deepbreath and see that the same God
that lives in me lives in themtoo, and while we may not agree
on everything, we can live inagreement that we all serve the
same God, who was and is and isto come, who came as an infant,
lived a sinless life, died onthe cross and three days later

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rose from the grave.
After that, what do otherthings matter?
So we may disagree on practicesof faith, we may disagree on
how a worship service ought tobe run, we may even disagree on
some theology, but the sameChrist that is in me lives in
you.
I would like to invite theworship team up as I close this
morning.
Now, I don't usually looktowards the message translation,

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and it's funny that we werejoking about it earlier, matt as
I believe that the messagetranslation and it's funny that
we were joking about it earlier,matt as I believe that the
message is more of a commentarythan scripture itself.
But I read it this week justbecause I was curious what it
said and I really enjoyed theway that it put things, and so

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I'd like to read the last fewverses of the text, starting in
verse 10.
Remember, it's more commentarythan scripture, so don't go and
quote this.
So where does that leave youwhen you criticize a brother,
and where does that leave youwhen you condescend a sister?
I'd say it leaves you lookingpretty silly or worse, looking

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pretty silly or worse.
Eventually, we're all going toend up kneeling side by side in
the place of judgment facing God.
Your critical and condescendingways aren't going to improve
your position there.
One bit, read it for yourself.
In the scripture, as I live andbreathe, god says every knee

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will bow before me, every tonguewill tell the honest truth that
I, and only I, am God.
So tend to your knitting.
You've got hands full, justtaking care of your own life
before God.
Judgment is reserved only forGod.
All else is us merely playingGod, and doing a poor job at

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that.
So perhaps we have ourdifferences and perhaps we will
disagree.
Still we must not lose sightthat we are made one in Christ.
We are united in his death andresurrection.
This is good news.
We are given this life, andglorious life in Jesus Christ,

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life that is to the fullest,life.
That comes with forgiveness ofour sins, sins that Jesus took
for us on the cross, sin that isburied away in the grave, sins
that were defeated there asJesus rose from that grave three
days later.
This is good news.

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We are offered this new lifethat clears us from the fear of
this final judgment.
On that day, we get to approachthe throne with the assurance
that Jesus' blood covers oursins and that this blood is
enough and has washed us clean.
We're told in Psalms 103 thatas far as the east is from the

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west, so far he removes ourtransgressions from us.
We are seen as clean in God'seyes, as we've been made clean
through the death and theresurrection of Jesus.
This is a grace that allChristians are offered, and as
we are united in Christ, we arecalled to live in unity with one

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another, proclaiming blessingover each other and living with
peace with all.