10-02-11 Living With Other People’s Lists

During the next few minutes we have together

we are going to move through the last 11 verses of Romans chapter 14.

Paul wrote this 14^th chapter

to provide Christians with the principles

that will equip us to live lives that are truly free in Christ

without using that freedom in a way

that causes problems between us and our fellow Christians.

The more time I have spent with this 14^th chapter

the more amazed I find myself

with what our Lord has given us here.

I think many observers of Christianity

honestly believe that God’s goal

is to bring Christians into conformity with one another-

conformity of doctrine,

conformity of life-style,

conformity of rules and moral boundaries in our lives.

Certainly there are a few universal moral boundaries

given to us by our Lord

that are applicable to all people,

all cultures,

all times.

But, building upon that foundation,

the true work of Christ within His people

is not to bring about some sort of imposed, restrictive conformity,

but rather, to bring about

a celebration of the endless diversity

that flows out of the individual uniqueness of each of us.

Paul told the Ephesian Christians

that God brought the church into existence... in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. (Eph. 3:10)

The imagery presented in that statement is beautiful.

That word “manifold” means “many colored”,

and it is used by Paul to picture for us

a brilliant rainbow display,

a rainbow in which each child of God reflects a different hue,

a different color of our Lord Jesus Christ,

and we do so through confidently displaying our diversity.

But diversity brings with it the potential for problems

if we do not know how to handle it correctly.

It raises all sorts of questions

that can trouble us deeply

if we don’t find answers for them.

By now most of you know well the basics of life in Christ.

We are not called to a religious system,

we are called to Christ Himself.

We come bringing only our need

and our sins,

and our helplessness before our God.

He takes all of our sins,

all of our failures,

all of our moral debt

and moves it from our account

onto His own,

and then tells us that He has paid the debt for all of it

through His blood poured out for us.

Then, He places His Spirit within us

and assures us that He will live out His life through us -

not us trying to live for Him,

but Him living in and through us.

In that process there are countless times

when our Lord will say things to us,

that we know are from Him,

times when He will give us eyes to see things in ourselves,

or in our world that He wants us to address.

That’s common stuff for the people of God.

But when that happens in our lives,

it is sometimes difficult for us to understand

why everyone else has not heard the same thing.

And, unless we understand what’s happening,

and why,

we may even begin to evaluate

the quality

or the validity of the Christian lives around us

on the basis of whether or not

they have heard and followed the same things from the Spirit that we have.

If the Spirit has shown us something

that He wants us to build into our lives,

it is natural for us to believe

He will show others the same thing.

If there are things the Spirit

has shown us need to be removed from our lives,

it is extremely hard for us to understand

why He doesn’t remove those things from other Christians’ lives as well.

It is to equip us to handle these issues

that will always grow out of our diversity in Christ

that Paul wrote this 14^th chapter of Romans.

And to help us gain an overview

of how this works

let me give you an outline of the entire 14^th chapter,

and then we’ll drop back and look more closely at what’s being said.

We have already spent a good deal of time with the first 12 verses.

In those first 12 verses

Paul gives us the first 2 of 3 major principles that govern our freedom.

The final principle is then given to us

in the last 11 verses of the chapter.

And this is the way the chapter looks:

14:1 Principle #1: The stronger believers are to use their strength to support the weaker believers.

14:2-5 Paul then offers three 1^st century illustrations for this first principle: eating meat sacrificed to idols, telling another man’s servant what to do, and how we relate to special days within the church structure.

14:6-12 Principle #2: Play to the right audience - God, not one another.

We are responsible for one another,

but we are accountable to God,

and faithfulness to His leadership in our lives

is infinitely more important

than the evaluation or opinions of those around us.

OK, these first two principles we’ve already studied together.

And then, in 14:13-23 Paul presents the 3^rd principle.

14:13 Principle #3, the central calling for each of us is to determine this– not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way.

Then, throughout the rest of the chapter

Paul develops this 3^rd principle in 4 steps:

14:14 he talks to us about why our lists differ

14:15-18 He reveals to us the greater issue

14:19-21 He shows us the healthy approach to other people’s lists

and then, finally,

14:22-23 He shows us the healthy approach to our own lists.

OK, that’s where Paul is taking us,

now let’s see how he gets us there.

Paul begins this final half of the 14^th chapter

by giving us the 3^rd principle governing our freedom in Christ.

... determine this– not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way.

Now, for us to appreciate what’s happening here

we need to understand

that Paul is giving us what he knows needs to become

our central point of focus in our relationships with one another.

Throughout the past 2000 years

Christians have at times selected

all sorts of really dumb points of focus

in their relationships with their fellow Christians.

“How can I prove that my doctrine is right

and yours is wrong?”

“How can we get more people to come to OUR church

than the church across the street?”

“How can we destroy or discredit

that group who believes differently than we do?”

Long before Peninsula Bible Fellowship came into existence

Sandee and I were living here in Soldotna

when I received a phone call from a man in Seattle.

He was the regional director of one of the better known church denominations in the U.S.

He knew me through some teaching I had done in Seattle

before I moved to Alaska.

He chatted with me for a while,

and then asked if I was interested in associating myself with their denomination.

I asked what he had in mind,

and he said that they had been looking at a map of the Western United States

and had noticed that they didn’t have one of their churches in this area

and they were wondering if I would be interested in helping them start one.

I asked him if he’d visited this area.

No, he had not.

I asked him if he had any idea

whether there was a need for another church in this area.

He responded by saying that

all that concerned him was that

there wasn’t one of THEIR churches in this area

and that needed to be corrected.

I came away from that conversation

once again amazed at the kind of questions

we so often allow ourselves to wrestle with.

The question driving that man

was not, “What is God doing in that area?”

or “What are the needs of that community and how could we help?”

The question was, “What can we do to get another colored pin on our map?”

The only way for us to correctly appreciate

what Paul is doing with this third principle

is to recognize it as his giving us

the question that needs to be the central point of focus

in our relationships with one another -

how can I relate to those around me

in a way that does not put an obstacle or a stumbling block in my brother’s way?

Then, throughout the rest of the chapter

Paul develops this 3^rd principle in 4 steps.

In 14:14 he talks first to us about why our lists differ.

He wants us to understand

why we don’t all look the same,

why there is such a wide diversity

in the protective limits and boundaries that we establish in our lives.

And he does this by drawing upon a principle from his Jewish heritage.

He says, ROM 14:14 I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.

The 1^st century Jewish world

lived with a rigid division in their minds

between things that were pure, holy, acceptable, “clean”,

and things that were “unclean”,

things that they believed compromised their purity before God.

Even such things as casual contact

or a business transaction between themselves and a person who was not a Jew

would make them “unclean”

and require them to have to go through a procedure of ritualistic cleansing.

Paul takes this concept in verse 14

and does a remarkable thing with it.

He states first

that he knows the absurdity of that whole mentality.

Nothing and no one in all of creation is in itself clean or unclean.

In his letter to Timothy he put it this way:

1TI 4:4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with gratitude;

True moral purity

is not a matter of the externals,

it is a matter of the human heart

and how we choose to relate to it

within the context of the relationships in our lives.

But then Paul goes on to say this:

...but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.

Now why does Paul says that?

He says it because it’s true.

He says it because all true morality

is ultimately not a matter of our actions

but rather of our attitudes.

And, if our heart attitude is one of rebellion,

even if the action itself is not truly a moral issue,

it becomes a moral issue

if it grows out of a heart of defiance against God.

It is not what we do that determines our morality,

it is why we do it

within the context of what our Lord has said to us about it.

Is drinking a glass of wine a moral issue?

I don’t know for you,

because I don’t know what your Lord has said to you about it.

Is it presented as a universal moral issue in Scripture?

Of course not.

But if, within your personal moral belief system,

you view it as a moral issue,

then it is a moral issue.

And maybe I can put this whole thing into perspective best this way.

At any given point in our walk with our Lord Jesus Christ

there are two separate

but equally important works of the Holy Spirit taking place within us.

One of those works is His determined efforts

to bring each of us into the true freedom in Christ He wants each of us to know.

We all come into the family of God

packing along with us

a highly refined concept of moral right and wrong.

We have all sorts of boundaries, and obligations,

and restrictions strapped around us,

given to us by our family backgrounds,

by our cultural,

and by our religious heritages.

In Christ we enter into a life-long process

in which our Lord teaches us what it means to,

well, as Peter put it, 1PE 2:16 Act as free men...

We have already talked at length

about the pilgrimage we enter into in Christ

that takes us from rules

into a relationship with Christ in which we can hear and understand His voice,

a pilgrimage in which the rules

become increasingly less significant

in the light of our growing ability

to know and follow the voice of our King.

And that freeing process will continue

in every growing child of God as long as they live.

But then, along side of that work of the Spirit

there is another work going on as well.

It is that daily process

of the Spirit placing within us a heart of submissive faithfulness to our God,

and then teaching us how to live out that submissive faithfulness to the best of our ability.

And, in that process,

the real issue is our heart attitude, which means...if, in my unique situation,

at my unique point of growth in my relationship with my Lord, I come to view something as “unclean”,

whether it really is or not from a purely doctrinal sense,

for me it is unclean.

There have been times in my life

when, for me, wearing a watch

or drinking a cup of coffee was “unclean”

because of what was happening between me and my Lord at the time.

All of which is to say

that, because each of us brings with us

a different heritage

with different rules,

and different weakness,

and different perspectives,

none of our mental lists defining faithful submission to Christ will look the same.

And, given that truth,

our calling,

our point of focus in this whole area

as we relate to one another

is for us to remain faithful to our own lists,

to respect the lists of others,

and to do all we can to insure that we do not place an obstacle or a stumbling block in the path of our fellow Christians

as they grow in Him.

Paul then takes the next 4 verses

to reinforce to us

what is the greater issue.

ROM 14:15-18 For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil;

for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.

The goal is not to try to purify our brother’s doctrine.

The goal is not to drive everyone around us

into greater and greater “freedom”.

Freedom is our gift,

but it is not our goal.

The goal is learning daily

how to live in the love of our God

and how to build love relationships

with those He brings into our lives.

The truth is, freedom is frequently

a terrifying thing,

and something that most of us can only handle gradually,

in small doses.

Having spent our entire life prior to our union with Christ

caged in fear

under the restrictive and condemning hand of the Law,

learning how to live in the light of the love of our God is no easy or instant process.

Many years ago

when our now departed Miniature Schnauzer, Pepper, first came to us as a puppy

we were new to the ways of dogs

and we were very uncomfortable

with the thought of Pepper roaming the house while we were gone

or while we were asleep at night.

So we made a little bed for him in the entry way,

and then we attached a chain to the bench

and clipped it onto his collar.

Every night for the first several months of his life with us

my last duty of the night

was to carry him down to the entry way,

tuck him into his little bed,

and hook the chain to his collar.

It didn’t take long before Pepper learned this routine

and accepted it totally.

As soon as I would hook the chain to his collar

he would lay down and not move

until I unhooked him in the morning.

Then, after a number of weeks of this routine,

one night I decided to try something

just to see what would happen.

When I brought him down to his little bed,

rather than hooking the chain to his collar,

all I did was to rattle it a little

so that he could hear it.

Then I patted his little head

and told him ‟goodnight”.

Pepper never moved from that spot

until I came down in the morning

and rattled his chain a little.

Several nights after I stopped chaining Pepper,

in the middle of the night

I suddenly woke up and found our little dog

silently standing next to my side of the bed.

Somehow he had come to realize

that the chain wasn’t hooked.

But rather than using his freedom to roam the house

or curl up on the couch for the night,

he came straight up to me

to tell me I had forgotten to put the chain on.

I took him back to his bed,

rattled his chain,

and he slept until morning.

Having lived every night with the chain,

the freedom felt wrong to him.

And we all start out our walk with Christ the same way.

When we get a little taste of our freedom in the King,

we will often either abuse it,

or fear it and return to our rules.

Paul’s message to us in this 14^th chapter of Romans

is that we are called to respect that process in one another,

not forcing our lists onto others,

not ripping their lists from their grasp,

but choosing to do

whatever we can do

to make sure we do not place an obstacle or a stumbling block in the path

of a fellow Christian’s movement toward his or her Lord.

Next week we’ll finish this up

with Paul’s comments about the healthy approach to other people’s lists,

and the healthy approach to our own.