A Diet of Peace

Read Romans 14

Read Racing Through Romans

We find ourselves well into the book of Romans, sometimes dubbed the Gospel According to Paul.  This is a good moniker to place on this book.  It simply means that it is jammed packed with Christ’s theology. 

Paul the oddball Apostle if you will, he was not selected like the rest, wrote this very comprehensive letter to a church that he hoped to visit one day, but at the time he wrote the letter he had not yet made it to Rome.  He would get there but for now, he had to put everything he thought essential into this letter.

He started by telling the Romans that by the evidence of creation itself, you should have figured out that there is a God.  You might need some help from those who bring good news explaining this name you have heard by now—Jesus—but you are without excuse to think there is no God.

He moves quickly to reminding his readers that all have sinned.  We have all missed the mark and thereby fall short of God’s glory. 

Paul moves to the topic of faith and a critical figure in Hebrew history—Abraham.  Paul is inserting this critical patriarch into his discussion of faith as he writes to a church where few know this story.  Because of the diaspora—the scattering of the Jews over the centuries because of foreign armies that God permitted to pressure and eventually sack Jerusalem—there were some Jews in almost every major city of the world.

Here is a short rabbit trail that you might want to tuck away for future New Testament Studies.  The diaspora put Jews all over the world.  They should have been there already as they were blessed to be a blessing to the world, but they fell short on their own. 

Next consider the Romans.  Yes, they nailed a lot of people to crosses, including our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus.  Had the Romans not be in power, the Hebrew method of killing Jesus would have been stoning, and that would have broken a few bones that scripture said would not be broken.

Here’s the real thing that I ask you to file away for future studies.  The Romans build not only fantastic aqueducts, but great roads.  The idiom that we use today, All roads lead to Rome, originated with the fact that the Romans were great road builders.  Roads increased the speed at which military forces could move and commerce would advance.

Good roads across a global empire also provided smooth ways for the gospel to move across that known world.  The fact that many Jews and their faith had been dispersed throughout the world and the fact that this was the first time in history that the road system went world-wide enabled the gospel to spread quickly in this first Century.  God is a very sound logistician.

Back to the letter.  Paul talks about faith and joy and peace.  Peace is our topic, but we won’t dwell long on his early comments. 

Paul writes about death coming to the world in one man—Adam.  He proceeds to telling us that life came through one man—Jesus.  We should be dead to sin and alive in Christ.

We should not be slaves to sin but slaves to righteousness.  Paul used examples from marriage and begins a discourse on the law, noting that he did not know what sin was before the law said, thou shalt not…

Then we come to some of the most powerful words that we know.  There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  This 8^th chapter is back full of powerful words for us.

Paul brings life in the Spirit into the discussion.  He tells us that whatever suffering we have now will be nothing compared to what is in store for us.

The whole creation groans inwardly for what has come by the grace of God.  God’s own Spirit works within us even when we can’t figure out what to say.

Paul states that God takes everything that happens to those of us who are called by him for his purpose and he takes everything and works it for the good.  This is just for those who have surrendered to Jesus as Lord.  He is Lord!  God takes our every circumstance and works it for the good.

Everything that’s happening all around us could seem overwhelming, but we are more than conquerors.  We are not victims.  We are overcomers.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul continued in an extended discourse of God’s sovereignty and patience and how his wrath was withheld.  He noted that Israel was not lost but when the full number of Gentiles had come to receive this gift of grace, the original branch would be grafted back in.  That’s a whole study unto itself, but it brings us to the 12^th chapter and what today we might call consecration theology.  Our entire lives are given sacrificially to God.  We are set apart for his purpose.

We are a living sacrifice.  That term is what I call a paradoxymoron.  Google it.

Paul spoke of being transformed from what the world has done to us to having to what he would refer to elsewhere as the mind of Christ.  We must make new our minds.  Out with the old—the worldly.  In with the godly.  We see parallels elsewhere in his writings.

What should we think on?  The things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy, or other good examples that Paul had provided. 

The mind is where turning away from the world begins.  We take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.  No infiltrators will survive.
 

So when Paul wrote to be conformed to the patterns of the world no longer he met people where they were.  The world had not only infiltrated our minds.  It was in control.  A total reversal of our thinking was needed.

We are to be transformed from our worldly model to Christ’s model by the renewing of our minds.  We have discussed this before. I gave you three big steps to take.

First, put you nose in the Bible.  Read it.  Study it.  Meditate upon it.  Study it with other believers.  As iron sharpens iron, so we sharpen each other.

Next, we pray.  Pray early and often.  In fact, keep the conversation alive all day.  And remember that God knows more than we do, so dedicate most of your prayer time to listening.

Third, put his words into practice.  We are not all just members of the same philosophy class.  We build houses upon solid rock.  We put his words into practice.  We learn.  We grow in grace and we go back to step one.  Read the Bible.  Then pray.  Then practice.

We are turning away from the world.  Salvation came all at once.  Turning away from the world requires daily effort.  Seeking God first is ongoing.  Seeking his kingdom and his righteousness is a way of life.  This part takes work.

Paul continued to humility, Spiritual Gifts, and of course, love.  Love must be sincere.  He called believers to clothe themselves with the Lord, Jesus Christ.

Realize that we have come quickly to this point.  Visualize the graphic of the iceberg.  What is on top seems huge but what lies beneath the water is enormous.  We have just grazed the tip of these chapter icebergs to bring us to this point.

Paul after 13 fantastic chapters hits his readers with this.  There are some things on which you and other believers will not agree.  There are disputable matters.  The word dispute comes from a root word meaning back and forth reasoning.  Both sides have their reasons for believing what they believe.

One of the big first century issues was meat sacrificed to idols.  This was one of the findings of the Jerusalem Council where Paul came to argue against requiring the new believers who had not grown up as Jews to be circumcised.

The council found that they did not need to put all of Judaism on these believers who came out of the pagan world.  Circumcision was not a requirement to receive Jesus.  That would be the topic of other letters from Paul, but at this point we focus on meat sacrificed to idols.

The council said that these non-Jewish believers did not have to be circumcised but they should abstain from sexual immorality and from eating meat with blood in it or sacrificed to idols.

Paul, when he wrote to Rome, considered the council’s findings as legalistic—working from the outside-in, much like the Law of Moses.  He noted that it’s less about the food and more about the believer.  He did not reject what the council had done in trying to work out the logistics of believers who used to be pagans.  He just went directly to the heart of the matter.

The meat was not affected in any way by the fact that someone said some words before a god that they had purchased down the road at GODZ R US.  The wooden or metal icon had no real power and couldn’t make your ribeye any better or worse.

But, some believers are more mature in their faith than others.  Some are just beginning.  Some are wrestling with old ways.  So, what should we do?

We should seek a diet of peace.  We want the things that promote peace and harmony, joy and exhilaration, love and mercy among believers.  That means that I might change my diet for my physical needs if it slows the growth of another believer.

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval.

We want to please God.  I would really like a little brisket today, but I am going out with a bunch of new believers.  I don’t want to make them stumble.  We will speak the truth about the fact that these fake gods that used to be important don’t have any say in our salvation.

Now, if someone is making a big deal about their meat having a claim of any kind because it was sacrificed to an idol, we just walk on by.  We don’t give approval, even tacit approval, to such practices of ignorance.  If it’s just meat on display in the butcher shop with no signage with an affinity for a false god, then let’s haggle on the price and break out the grill.

We will speak the truth, but for the sake of the less mature believer, today we won’t eat at Apollo’s Rib Joint.  This choice is about my maturity.  I can set aside my own personal, physical, worldly desires to help another believer.

I won’t not eat there because I think the false god holds any power.  I know better.  But I’ll pass on the three-meat special because helping other believers is more important.

Paul counseled us not to pass judgment—to condemn other believers—for where they were as far as growing in God’s grace goes.  There are some things that we won’t agree on.  We might agree later, but for now the more mature believer takes the lead and has eyes to see things that might be a stumbling block to another believer.

In 2018, meat sacrificed to idols is not a big issue.  What is at issue is our faith and peace.  Am I living out of faith or trying to conform myself to some worldly standard.

Make no mistake, the church has ventured into the area of worldly standards.

How about our giving?  Do I give out of worldly expectation or desire for recognition or cheerfully and obediently to God?  Do I wonder how much that guy who looks well off gave?  Do I wonder if the guy in the worn clothes gave anything?

How about our attire?  Do I put on my best set of clothes to come worship because the world expects that or is it more important that I come humbly before God in worship and approach his throne of grace with confidence? 

Am I more concerned about others worshiping according to my standards?

We have things that are just between God and us.  We are confident that God is good with the path we are on.  If that were the end of the story, life as a Christian would seem fairly simple.

But we are examples not only to the unbelieving world, but to other believers.  There are some things that we don’t agree on, at least at this point in time.  Somewhere down the road, we may come into one accord on these matters, but for now they remain disputable.  We each have our reasons.

But these matters and our reasons must not slow the growth of other believers.

Church denominations and congregations have different ways of baptizing, offering the Lord’s Supper, using music in worship, and governing their respective bodies; but none of these should get in the way of the work of the church.  None of these unique perspectives should stand between the believer and his growth in grace.

None should rob a believer of peace.  Our back and forth discussion may continue but we must not get in the way of the growth of another believer.

How do we do this? Faith.  Faith is the key. 

What we do out of worldly expectation is perfunctory and not pleasing to God.  What we do out of faith is always pleasing to God.  Faith rules.  Faith gives us peace in disputable matters. 

What we do out of anything other than faith is our sin. 

Love from God has rescued us.

God’s own Spirit lives with us.

We are forgiven!

We are free to live lives of faith.  Let us give all due consideration to our choices, but let faith in the promises of God, the love of God, and the peace of God govern us.

What we do out of anything other than faith is our sin.  When we sacrifice something out of faith for the growth of another believer, we should hear God saying, “I’ve got something better in store for you than whatever it is that you gave up.”

We are talking about faith, growing in grace, and peace.  This is not about tolerating evil, rebellion against God, or unrighteousness.

We are strangers in this world.  The world does not know us.  The world doesn’t like us.  We will have trouble in this world.

We are talking about relationships between and among believers.  Not everyone is going at our pace.  Some may be faster or slower.  We may think that they don’t get it because they don’t move at our pace.

Paul counsels us to allow for some disputable matters.  A little back and forth is ok.  We accept other believers as Christ has accepted us.

A little back and forth is ok.  A little personal sacrifice for the sake of another believer is a good thing.  A lot of faith that our choices are those that please God will grant us peace.

Trust your faith.  Grow in grace.  Enjoy the peace of the Lord.

Enjoy a diet of peace.

Amen!

Fully Convinced

Read Romans 14

Paul continues his discourse on discipleship and brings us to this epiphany.  News Flash!  It’s not all about me.

Each of us may respond to God’s grace differently and that’s just fine.  Some might respond by singing and shouting and praising the Lord.  You might be going saw, saw, saw, pound, pound, pound, build a house for Jesus that won’t fall down.

I might be singing and sawing and shouting and pounding and that’s just fine.  We will not all respond to the grace and mercy of God that we know in Christ Jesus in the same way.

We should not judge each other’s response.  Maybe we hold Sunday in the highest regard and make it a very special day.  Maybe every day is special to us, so much so that it doesn’t make sense to distinguish any day from another.  Both are good responses to God’s grace and mercy.

Both are just part of each of us living out our discipleship.  Paul tells us that we don’t live or die unto ourselves.  That’s good biblespeak for it’s not all about me.

We live and die unto the Lord.  It is all about bringing glory to God, but in bringing him glory, God gives us considerable freedom and latitude and endless choices.  Suddenly, all of our decisions matter.  You and I may decide and respond differently to God’s love, grace, and mercy but so long as we are convinced in our own mind that this is the way to bring glory to God, then it’s just fine, well sort of…

Remember back in chapter 12 we discussed being transformed by the renewing of our minds?  We need to be convinced in our renewed mind of how we will respond to God’s mercy and grace.  Too often we are convinced in our carnal mind of how we are to live out our salvation.  Too often the mind shaped by the patterns of the world wants to govern our discipleship.

We need to remember that our best response to God’s mercy and grace is to give ourselves entirely to God—a living sacrifice if you will.  Then we begin a process of transformation from the creature that was shaped by the patterns of the world to the one made in the image and likeness of Christ Jesus.  The renewing of our mind is the engine that drives this transformation.

It is that renewed mind that guides our steps.  When we give ourselves body and mind to the Lord, the Lord directs our steps, gives us our words, and establishes our thoughts.

What you do in response to God’s love might look strange to me, but I am counseled not to judge you.  God is the only judge.  We are not entitled to judge his servants.  We examine ourselves. We will stand before the Lord at some point, but we are not to sit in the judgment seat.

We will stand before the Lord knowing that his blood has taken away all our sin, but we will account for the lives that we lived in the freedom that he gave us.  Did we respond to his great love with everything that we are?

God alone is entitled to judge.  Who am I to judge another’s servant?

Paul embarked upon a discourse of clean and unclean food.  That topic is not an issue in this modern century, especially in this country.  You may or may not want to know what is in that hotdog that you ate at the picnic, but it probably was not sacrificed to an idol before it was packaged, shipped to the store, and then charred on the grill.

But Paul’s discussion is not about food.  It is about our response to God’s mercy and how we work out our salvation as Paul put it when he wrote to the church in Philippi.  We have choices, many choices, that we make in living out our salvation.

Choices of this century are:

·     Do I drink alcohol or not?

·     Do I use tobacco products?

·     What do I put into this temple that I call my body?

·     Sweetened or unsweetened tea?

You can overdo it with any of these, but in and of themselves, alcohol, tobacco, sugar, coffee, tea, or dark chocolate are neither good or bad, holy or unholy, clean or unclean.  Unless…

Unless, in your personal convictions, coffee is no good for you in your Christian walk.  In that case, to you it is unclean and you should treat it accordingly.  You do not need to impose that belief on anyone else, but if you believe it, then live it whole-heartedly.

In today’s world, some have rejected modern devices and electronic media as unclean.  There are days that I am about ready to join their ranks when the acrimony and vitriol hit new highs, or perhaps new lows is more accurate.

But then I think about posting pictures of my grandkids or seeing your kids dressed as superheroes or in 1970’s fashions or hitting a homerun.  I think just how awesome is it that someone in China and Russia and even Burns Flat reads my messages, prayers, and devotions that I post online.

I am convinced in my own mind that I can use this medium to produce good fruit for the Lord.  I am fully convinced!

Now I see others that post nice Christian messages all the time, they like my posts that praise the Lord, they like my pictures of the what I call the Burns Flat Cross, and occasionally they even quote scripture.  Many of these people do not come to worship, tithe or make any kind of offering, join in the many service projects and ministries that are underway just about any time of year, or do much else to respond to God’s love.

My carnal mind wants to judge them.  My renewed mind tells me that they alone will answer for their response to God’s mercy and grace and God does not need a consulting opinion from me.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t continue to share, invite, encourage, and show others how to worship God in Spirit and live in the truth; but judging another believer is not in my job description.

I challenge you to find a week in the past decade where I have not invited someone to come worship with us, serve the Lord with us, or grow in God’s grace with us.  That’s not going to stop.  That’s not going to change.  Nobody’s opinion will get me off course here.  Their response belongs to them and the Holy Spirit and I have not been appointed judge over either.

Paul says blessed is the person who does not condemn himself by what he approves.  We each decide for ourselves with our renewed mind what is good and pleasing and perfect for having surrendered ourselves fully to Christ, we know God’s will.

My choices are also influenced by how they impact other people.  That does not mean that I am a people pleaser.  Believe me, there are plenty of people who are not pleased with me.  But I am called to be a God pleaser.  To please God, my choices are not only for my enrichment and edification but also for those of my brothers and sisters in Christ.

It’s not all about me.

Elsewhere in his letters, Paul counseled his readers to regard others more highly than ourselves.  In this chapter of Romans, he charges us not to become a stumbling block for another believer.  If someone is struggling with something—anything—and I flaunt the fact that I am not, then I probably am not helping this believer work through this issue.

I am not being helpful in his or her discipleship and thus am not being governed by the renewed mind that should be making very deliberate and mindful choices. I am not going to change my belief, but I won’t exercise my belief so as to hurt my fellow believer.

We not only run the race for ourselves, we help others along the way.  In the least, we don’t put obstacles in their paths. 

We carry our own load but we carry each other’s burdens.  We don’t need to add burdens to others by our choices.

It’s not all about me!

We have been given very wide boundaries in living out our salvation.  We are to do so in love and thereby we will fulfill the law, but we are called to consider our steps with regard to what we firmly believe.  We are to live in faith and not fear.

We must be convinced that the decisions that we make, the things that we do, and the things that we will not do bring glory to God and do not create stumbling blocks to another believer’s faith. 

Isaiah prophesied that one would come who would bring freedom to the captives.  This was more than freedom from Babylon.  This was and is complete freedom to live.  The prophesied one came.  His name is Jesus.  He liberated us from sin and from death and wants us to live to the full.

That’s impossible to do with our carnal mind in charge.  We will stumble and will be obstacles to other believers.  But with our lives given completely to God in response to his incredible mercy and grace, we embark on this course of transformation, so much of which depends upon letting God have his way in shaping our thoughts.

When we live with a renewed mind we will know exactly what God wants us to do.  We will know and we will live by faith.  Living by rules, or trying to guess what God wants, or just living to gratify ourselves or please others is sin.  It misses the mark of bring glory to God and living to the full.

If we do anything but live by faith, we have sinned.  What you do in faith and what I do in faith may be different, and that is just fine.  Just as our gifts are different, so too we live out our faith differently.

Can a body of believers that differ in so many ways still be a body in one accord?  Absolutely!  The things that we differ in are what might be classified as disputable matters.  They are in a category of things that we don’t have to agree on.

We agree that there is one true God.  We agree that Jesus Christ is his Son and by his blood our sins are washed away.  We are forgiven!  We believe that God’s Spirit is with us.

We believe that we are to be known as followers of Jesus—disciples—by our love.  We have been given life, seek life to the full in this age, and have the promise of life eternal.

We believe that there is one church and Jesus is the head of that church.  Regardless of the name on the side of the building or the way you baptize or take communion, we are one body.  We have some differences.  Some of them seem big.  Some seem to work to create friction in the universal church, but we who follow Jesus are not here to add to that friction by judging other believers.

We are not to judge another servant in how he responds to God’s mercy and grace with his renewed mind.  We don’t judge her choices in a life given completely to God—body and mind—as a living sacrifice.

We need to be fully convinced in our own renewed mind of our decisions as we respond to God’s mercy and grace.  

Fully convinced!  We consider our steps.

I don’t want you to have the image of walking across ice on a pond listening for cracks along the way in living out your salvation.  Our steps are considered but we are not timid.  We know the course that God has set for us for we have given him our lives to include our minds.  We are not brash but we are purposeful.

In the course of living my faith in response to God’s incredible mercy, I am fully convinced of three things.  This is Tom being fully convinced in his own mind and I am not asking you to adopt this thinking, but don’t be surprised when you hear it from me time and again because I am fully convinced.

In the wide boundaries of living out my salvation, I am called to trust, obey, and love.  I am convinced of these things.

I am called to trust God completely, even when and especially when he takes me out of my comfort zone.

I am called to obey God completely, even when his way is not my first, second, or forty-second choice.

I am called to love God by loving others, even when those others don’t like me that much or wish that I would just go away.

There are some things that are not as clear to me in my transformation process, but I can trust, obey, and love fully convinced in my own mind that this is God’s will and purpose for me in my life.  I can take bold but deliberate steps.  I can be Christ’s disciple and bring glory to God.

I challenge all of us to examine those things of which we are fully convinced in our own renewed minds.  Yes, we are still in the transformation process, but we are making progress.  The fruit of being a living sacrifice and being transformed by the renewing of our minds is that we will know what God’s will is.

It is a good and pleasing and perfect will and we can know it!

Examine what you know God has called you to do.  Be fully convinced in your own mind.  Live by faith.  Do this without focusing on how others respond to God in their transformation process.

It’s not all about me, but some of it is.  Some of following Jesus is all about what I am firmly convinced of in my own renewed mind.  We need to know and be fully convinced of how we are to respond to God’s incredible mercy and grace.

Take this week to dig into your discipleship.  Know with certainty how you are to respond to God’s love and live it fully convinced of your choices not worried if it’s like everyone else’s response and and do it without judging everyone else’s response to God’s mercy and grace. 

Live in faith!

Amen.