Good afternoon Church family,
It was another delightful Sunday yesterday where I enjoyed seeing all of you and worshiping Christ Jesus together.
I showed up with a completely sore body from playing flag football with my extended family for thanksgiving. Every year, I strain my body by moving in ways that I’m not accustomed to on a normal basis. One of these days I’m going to fall prey to the aging process that we all know too well: a 40-year-old man tries to play sports like his former 20-year-old body and ends up tearing his meniscus or acl or something like that. Lord willing, I’ll live long enough to experience that unfortunate reality!
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed your thanksgiving. We truly have much to thank God for, and one of those areas is our Christian liberty in Christ and unity that we have because of the Gospel.
Yesterday, I preached on Romans 15 and the hope of unifying our convictional differences on how to live the Christian life. I found Romans 14-15 to be especially relevant for us today and my life personally because we all know Christians who practice their Christianity differently than us, for instance, like drinking beer or obstaining entirely from alcohol, or mowing the grass on Sunday or not. Should one homeschool their kids or not, or how about how you decorate your Church for Christmas?
There is a myriad of different ways that Christians believe they should or should not apply their Christianity in holy ways. One Christian feels like the pastor is sloppy and unholy to wear jeans and a t-short on Sunday morning ro preach while another feels like a suite and tie is too formal and presents a holier than thou feeling in Church. We all have different biblical opinions on how to best honor the Lord in everyday life, on certain days of the week and in different settings, but the difficulty comes when we don’t feel like they are opinions because these are precious convictions of faith on how we honor the Lord.
Paul addresses that issue in Romans 14-15 and I hope that you embrace it. He speaks to the situation with “weaker Christian” and “stronger Christian” language and then seeks to unite the two together.
Let me remind you of these definitions:
First of all, both weaker and stronger Christians are both those who embrace Christ and the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. They aren’t those who differ on what sin is, like sexual sin, or if stealing is right or wrong. But these are Christians who disagree on other areas derived from the Bible on how to practice their Christianity in God honoring ways.
The weaker believer = those who don’t understand certain Christian liberties that they have. In context, it was eating meat that violated the Old Covenant and observing certain Jewish holidays.
So a weaker believer is somebody who feels more restricted in what they can or cannot do when the Bible doesn’t offer those explicit rules (under Christ).
So they make different rules or expectations for themselves that would make themselves feel like they are honoring the Lord with it (14:6).
In Chapter 14, Paul says the weaker Christian is somebody who wants to honor the Lord with their convictions, so please understand that this weaker conscience Christian has a good purpose behind their belief even though God doesn’t absolutely sanction or not sanction that particular rule. Paul actually says in chapter 14, that genuine Christians who applies their Christianity differently do so with the same God honoring holy motive.
For instance, let’s say one person homeschools their kids in order to honor the Lord by being a good parent and protecting their kids from the evil influence and ideologies that lurk in public schools, while another public schools their kids because they see it as a way of sending light into the darkness of the unsaved world. Whatever the case, both hold their polar opposite convictions in honor of the Lord.
And it’s for that reason that that Paul doesn’t condemn the weaker Christian’s convictions. It’s just fine. But He’s saying, it doesn’t need to be pushed onto somebody else.
The real problem and essence with a ‘weak Christian’ is that they are easily offended or judgmental towards those other Christians who don’t practice the same thing. (14:10).
A stronger believer is one who understands their Christian liberties well and they don’t draw up extra dogmatic rules that they expect other people to follow. They understand that there is more flexibility within how certain believers apply their faith and they are not easily offended if another does not, for instance, homeschool their kids, even though they do that.
Therefore, one stronger in the faith is one who does not major on the minors or minor on the majors! “Strength of faith” in Romans 14-15 is defined as one who understands, applies and lives out the Gospel of Christ (15:1-3). And like I tried to say in my sermon, this means that you apply the qualifications that God required of you for salvation acceptance on others, like faith in Christ alone by grace alone (with no good works canceling out that gift). And Jesus died for us when we were dead wrong on certain things (we were dead in our sins!) but still accepted us by faith in Him and now we’re still not right about everything! So apply those Gospel standards to how you accept and view your fellow Christians with different convictions than you. Don’t put extra Gospel standards on them that would lead you to condemn them. Their convictions don’t condemn them because they don’t make or break the Gospel! A strong Christan will understand this and accept his sibling in Christ despite the differences.
But the problem between these “weaker faithed Christians” and “stronger faithed Christians” was the tendency that we all have, being prone to look down on other people for certain beliefs, practices, etc…(14:3, 10).
There is a tendency for us Christians to judge or despise another Christian who uses technology differently than us, or draws a line at another place than we do, and Paul’s big argument in Romans 14-15 is to say, “don’t judge one-another despite these different convictional disagreements, but welcome one-another as Christ has welcomed you. Look at the qualifications He put on you to welcome you: it wasn’t what you think about Halloween or what kind of food you eat or school you raise your kids in…Christ welcomes you because of your faith in Christ,” so now welcome those other believers who hold different convictions than you in certain ways with Christ’s Gospel standard as the basis!
Now here’s the question I want to ask you:
Are you a Christian with a stronger conscience or weaker conscience? Are you the stronger Christian or weaker Christian?
Are you easily offended if another mom works but you stay at home and you feel as if they’re not honoring the Lord so you judge them? Are you tempted to look down upon others who don’t hold convictions like you that don’t affect their standing with Jesus?
Or are you a stronger Christian who understands your Christian liberties and you minor on the minors, and you major on the majors? You don’t look down on those who don’t apply Christianity in nitty gritty ways just like you. You understand that Jesus gives us wiggle room in these areas.
And by the way, you may be a stronger faithed Christian who holds strong convictions in certain areas that aren’t spelled out in Scripture, or maybe you think they are, BUT it doesn’t hurt you when others aren’t doing it your way, going to prayer meeting or not drinking alcohol or drinking beer or purchasing lottery tickets or watching different kinds of movies. You have your convictions on that and you think some things are wiser than others, but you aren’t going to stumble or get offended when others don’t hold to it. You are a stronger Christian.
I think it’s very important to ask the Holy Spirit to help you identify yourself as a weaker of stronger Christian.
Are you weaker? Easily offended? Do you have hot, heated, passionate practical views of how to live out your Christian faith that tends to make you look down on other believers when they do the opposite or it would cause you to feel dirty if you did what they did?
I think many of us are in this category in certain areas. Now here’s the key:
Don’t be afraid to admit that you have weaker faith in certain areas. Be ready to embrace either a weaker or stronger faith without feeling embarrassed or put down BECAUSE Paul’s whole argument in Romans 14-15 is that even if you are a more “sensitive Christian” and super convicted on non-Gospel issues, you are nevertheless completely justified and accepted by Jesus! (Rom. 15:7!).
My Grandfather who is one of the most mature and godly individuals I know, tells the story of a moment in time when he came to realize that he was a weaker Christian. He was attending a Church service for a place where He was the guest speaker. And they served real wine for communion. He didn’t take it because he has a conviction against alcohol. When the service was over and the pastor learned that he didn’t take communion because of his conviction against alcohol, the pastor said, “oh, why didn’t you tell us? We would have served grape juice instead.” My grandfather then realized that he was the weaker brother because he couldn’t participate in the drinking while the Church was willing to sacrifice their liberty to drink alcohol for my grandfather.
Maybe there is an area in your life that is just like that. You can’t participate in it, but others can. The strong have an obligation to give up some of our liberties to please our brothers and help their views. That’s truth in practice because it’s the Gospel being lived out where we give up what we could do for the good of our neighbor, just like Jesus gave up His liberties by coming down from heaven to meet our needs. (Rom. 15:1-3!)
So don’t be afraid to admit you have areas in your life where you are weaker in faith. My grandfather is super mature, but he has ‘weak faith’ in certain areas. And that’s okay because we all agree on the Gospel and how Jesus has perfectly accepted us through faith in Him and repentance from our sins!
Now to rap things up:
If we are going to be able to jive well together with other Christians who hold hot spring loaded and super passionate views on Christian living that we disagree with, then we must all make sure we identify what is foundational and what is not.
The weak and strong Christian alike need to make an effort to bring it back to the Gospel and that foundation on which both of us stand when friction rises between our views. Romans 14-15 gives us permission to bypass some different biblical opinions, so it’s not wrong and you aren’t self-justifying yourself to let somethings slide! You’re actually applying the justification of the Gospel on your fellow siblings in Christ!
I was reminded this past week that one of the risks of being raised in a very evangelical fundamental background is that you make all truth, even the ones that are defined as minor differences, all foundational and so you feel like you can’t let anything slide. All truth and practice is gospel truth. And even Romans 14-15 is saying, no it’s not!
The risk of liberalism on the opposite side, is to make foundational Gospel saving truth, nominal and unessential. And so you let everything slide!
We must avoid both extremes and learn to let the massive Truth, the Gospel, smooth out the thorny choppy heated & yet minor differences between fellow Christians. And no doubt, that is hard when these minor differences FEEL so big to the weaker in the faith.
And that’s why Paul says to us who are strong, ‘let be Christlike, and live with sacrifice, treating our neighbor sensitively to their convictions, not rubbing them the wrong way, not flaunting our Christian liberties in their face, but let’s all unite around Jesus, live like Jesus and remember that we’re all headed to the same place, to worship Jesus forever!‘
To summarize, As Augustine has said:
“In essentials, unity, in non-essentials, liberty, in everything, charity”
May our Church be known for that,
With love and liberty in Christ,
Aaron
