Homily                                                                                                         Pastor Dan Neary

Righteousness Practiced (Romans 14-15:13)

 

 

Romans 14

17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18 because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men. 19 Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.[1]

What a great passage of Scripture!
This could be a motto couldn’t it?

 

Let us make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Value the Church. Paul is talking to the Church… about the Church.

 

Pastor Joe’s sermon last week: Why I Love the Church.

  • Family
  • Learning & Growing
  • Fellowship
  • Calls for the Best in People
  • Enduring Organization

 

Righteousness Practiced

  • Righteous Relationship to All (Romans 12)
  • Righteous Relationship to Government (Romans 13)
  • Righteous Relationship to Believers
    (Romans 14-15:13)

 

The Roman Church needed correction.


This may be difficult to understand in our modern context… but it seemed that the Roman Church was plagued by friction among the Christians; specifically, there was judgment and arrogance among the believers. Hard to imagine, isn’t it?

 

In this case it wasn’t the Baptists & the Pentecostals…

Or the Catholics and the Protestants

Not even the Hatfields and the McCoys

 

It was the Weak and the Strong.

 

What did Paul mean when he used these plain words?

If we stop and think about it… the way Paul used these words might surprise us a bit.

 

Strong: Confident in Christ

Weak: Keeping the Rules

 

Strong: Exercising Freedom & Liberty

Weak: Clinging to Righteousness Based on Work

 

In this context the issues were defined along lines of religious observance:

  • Food and Drink
  • Special Days (Sabbath and Holidays)

 

Paul is also, most likely, speaking exclusively of Jewish religious observance… not the worship of other gods like he deals with in other books (meat offered to idols [1 Corinthians 8], etc.)

 

This strength and weakness was the core of the conflict that Paul addressed.

Specifically, the weak were judging fellow believers because they did not obey the old rules…

and the strong were arrogant regarding their freedom and liberties.

 

This rest of this passage, then, goes about dealing with this problem-situation.

 

Before we go on… on want to express, again, my appreciation for this approach. By taking on the entire book of Romans, we’re forced to think thru some issues we might otherwise skip. That would be tragic here. On the surface this looks like an historic issue that doesn’t have much relevance to today…

 

But what we really have here is a practical example of how these ideas of righteousness we’ve been dealing with work out.

  • Living & Standing
  • Imparted & Imputed
  • The standing we receive from above…
    The living we focus above

 

 

 

 

We could go through verse-by-verse; you can read it there for yourself. But this morning I think it might be most helpful for us to deal with this along the lines of three themes that run throughout the passage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Judgment

1.     Do Not Look Down: Arrogance

§      Paul starts with the Strong, and rightly so… he seems to expect more from the Strong (the spiritually mature) (14:1)

§      Arrogance is a special, insidious kind of self-centered judgment… judging that you are better than someone else

2.     Do Not Judge
Paul deals with the Weak (14:4)

3.     The Lord is Our Judge (14:9-12)
The real crux of the argument

§      God is the only righteous judge

§      We’ll all meet a final judgment
And an account will be required.

 

I joked that the idea of arrogance and judgment in the ancient church might be hard for us to grasp… most of us know that this is a common, and even present, problem. I ran across this illustration this week from 150 years or so ago.

 

Two of the most famous Christians in the Victorian Era in England were Charles Spurgeon and Joseph Parker, both of them mighty preachers of the Gospel. Early in their ministries they fellowshipped and even exchanged pulpits. Then they had a disagreement, and the reports even got into the newspapers. Spurgeon accused Parker of being unspiritual because he attended the theater. Interestingly enough, Spurgeon smoked cigars, a practice many believers would condemn. Who was right? Who was wrong? Perhaps both of them were wrong! When it comes to questionable matters in the Christian life, cannot dedicated believers disagree without being disagreeable?[2]

 

The same sort of disputable matters persist in our era, don’t they?

  • Movies
  • Playing Cards
  • Dancing
  • Moderate Use of Alcohol
  • Tobacco Use (cigarettes won’t send you to Hell… but they’ll make you smell like you were just there, and they may get you there faster Fuiten)

 

Not just behavior… sometimes theological

  • Calvinism / Arminianism
  • Tithing
  • Eschatology

 

Decision

1.     Personal Conviction

o     Remember the distinction between conviction and condemnation

2.     Stumbling Block (14:13-15)

o     Acting in Love

3.     Edification (14:19)

4.     Motivation (14:23)

o     Obedience is for worship… not righteousness

 

Let me illustrate with my own, personal, decision…
here’s a motorcycle…
some of you know that isn’t just a motorcycle;
that’s my motorcycle.

 

Let’s just say that to somebody, motorcycles are sin.

  • Culture
  • Danger
  • Indulgence
  • History

 

Personal Conviction: I prayed about it (no 11th commandment)

Stumbling Block: “I’m not goin’ to no church with a motorcycle ridin’ pastor!”

Motivation: Yes… I can ride for the glory of God.

 

Unity

  1. Glorify God (15:5-6)
  2. Acceptance (15:7)
    1. Following the example of Jesus

 

 

 

 

 

Unity & Uniformity

  • We can disagree without being disagreeable
  • We’re a Church not a cult
  • Cedar Park is an excellent testimony of unity that is not uniform

 

 

Close with a quote from Augustine…

 

you may have heard something like this before.

 

  • God is glorified with unity in the Church
    • “I will build my church” - Jesus
  • Celebrate freedom
  • Be governed by charity (love)

 

 

                       


[1]The Holy Bible : New International Version, Ro 14:17-20. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996, c1984.

[2]Wiersbe, Warren W. The Bible Exposition Commentary. "An exposition of the New Testament comprising the entire 'BE' series"--Jkt., Ro 14:1. Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books, 1996, c1989.