The Mature Christian a Living Encouragement

Introduction: What Does it Mean to be a Mature Christian?

What does it mean to be mature or strong as a Christian? Does it mean knowing the Bible inside and out, having a vast theological library? Going to Seminary or Bible School? Being a Christian for a long time? Being active in church activities? Reading the Bible and praying a lot? Having certain spiritual gifts? Here we see Paul using the language of a strong believer to refer to one whose faith is mature enough that they are able to grasp the freedom the Christian has from regulations on food and drink. However, it would seem that these Christians are not so mature as to know why this freedom exists in the first place.

When raising a child, parents will often give their children more privileges as they grow older. They can stay up later, get a cell phone, go out with their friends, and so on. However, many parents fail to connect the freedoms the child receives with the responsibilities that go along with it. A child may be allowed to use the car when they get their licence, but a wise parent will give them a responsibility associated with that freedom, such as picking their younger siblings up from hockey practice. A child may receive an iPhone for their birthday, but be expected to use it in responsible ways and not waste time on it. This teaches the child a very important lesson in life and especially here in church life: that freedoms and privileges exist in order to bear more responsibilities. These Christians recognize the freedom, but Paul reminds them of the resonsibilities associated with that freedom. We saw last time how God does not give us freedom from food laws so that we can please ourselves and indulge the flesh. Instead, he gives us these freedoms so that we may live flexible lives of service, able to cater to whomever we are serving. In other words, the privileges that the strong have are given to the Christian so that we may be flexible in how we limit ourselves to serve the weak. Paul did this by living like someone under the Mosaic law when preaching to Jews, but also eating whatever was set before him when ministering to Gentiles. He could use his freedom to become all things to all people that by any means he might save some. But what is the end of it? What is the goal to which a mature Christian must strive in using their freedom?

In this passage, Paul is both wrapping up the previous section on using Christian freedom to help the weak and he is concluding his general teaching on Christian love as the means to glorify God through Christ within the Church, which is our fulfillment of the Law.

Two Options: Please Self or Bear with Weakness

Paul begins by identifying himself with the strong believers in their conviction that a Christian may eat anything. In this debate, they are correct. The food laws were temporary signs that pointed to the believer’s separation from the world and purpose as vessels of God’s glory. Every law was meant to show something of God’s character and the way he wanted his image bearers to live; in this case, to be separate and holy. Now, in the coming of Christ, those laws have ceased because they are fulfilled in the believer’s own body, which is separated from sinful works of the flesh for service in the Kingdom of God.

However, as Paul addresses the theologically correct believers in Rome, it is they who have the greater responsibility. As Baptists, we may look upon those who baptize infants and think it a great thing that we know the truth about the purpose of baptism, however it is in knowing this truth that we bear a greater responsibility than they do. Paul tells these strong believers that they owe a debt, or an obligation to bear with the weaknesses of those who are weak rather than to please ourselves.

This shows us that, with freedom we are given two options on how we may use that freedom.

Freedom for Self-Pleasing: A Facade of True Maturity

The first option is what Paul calls “pleas(ing) ourselves”. That is, using our freedom in Christ to serve our own desires. Now that we are free from laws regarding food and drink, should we go ahead and please our every desire? Become gluttons and drunkards? No.

First, Paul has already made it clear that everyone who is in Christ does not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Rom 8:5

Romans 8:5 ESV

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

Romans 8:8 ESV

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

We saw last time that what is meant by flesh here is to live like animals, walking according to desires of the flesh. Doing something if we feel like doing it. Letting our bodies tell us what we should do. The great purpose of this self-indulgence is comfort.

Oh comfort, how great an enemy this is. Satan has many tools in his arsenal: persecution, sickness, loss, pain, temptation, fear; but the greatest of all his weapons, the red button, the nuclear option, the most damaging and destructive poison which Satan spoon-feeds the saints to make them useless for the Kingdom and put their very souls in jeopardy is comfort. How we love it. How full our lives are of this deadly drug. It is like a powerful drug which, in small and measured doses can be restful and glorifying to God, but in the great amount we consume in the western world it is a deadly poison that kills our spiritual lives. Times of prayer evaporate into endless scrolling on social media, opportunities to witness are forgone because of the uncomfortable social atmosphere it would create. The probings of convictions by the Spirit are dulled by binge-watching a Netflix series. Morning meditation with Christ is traded in for one more hour of sleep on a soft, warm bed. Lives are wasted, gifts are squandered, and the more comfort we have the less happy we really are. Today we live in the most comfortable society that ever existed, and yet we are the most unhappy people in history. It is no wonder that John Bunyan’s character Christian in the Pilgrim’s Progress whilst he is climbing the hill difficulty is lulled to sleep in a resting place built by the Lord himself, but by oversleeping he loses his assurance of salvation and is greatly anxious for a time. Surely a life where you can eat and drink without having to abide by the food laws of the OT is a more comfortable one, and therefore the added temptation is given to use that freedom as a means to the end of a more comfortable life.

A comfortable life is a life and leads to hell by degrees, and the longer one stays on it the more desperately one rushes to its fiery end. We evangelicals must revive the habits of fasting and long, serious prayer for they are a great antidote to this poison of comfort.

Although we are free from the rules of the OT Law, we are not free from any law. We are bound to the law of Christ, which is the law of love. We saw this back in 13:8-10. Since the purpose of the Church is to fulfill the law of love, the freedom we have in Christ is meant to do the same thing. Therefore, using Christian freedom as a means to please our flesh runs against the purpose of that freedom and instead binds us in slavery to sin, and therefore to the law. Sin and the law go together, and it is only the law that awakens sin as we saw back in chapter 7. To use our freedom for selfish ends is to lose that freedom, which is the freedom to walk in the Spirit. But to use that freedom to build up the weak is to embrace its true purpose and thus conform to the image of Christ as the one who humbles himself to help the weak and set them free.

The Example of Christ

Instead, being strong is to take on the responsibilities of the weak. When I was 22 I was a free man, able to do what I wanted without any pause. Then I got married, a year later I had a son, and a year after that I began here as the pastor. In three years I went from having no responsibility to now having a wife to lead in holiness, a child to raise in godliness, and a church to shepherd for which I will one day give an account. I found it a very hard lesson to learn because I felt as if I had lost many freedoms, but in reality I had found their true purpose. Freedom exists to serve with responsibility, strength exists to help the weak, maturity exists to build up the immature, and authority exists to lead people for their good and not my own. That is why Paul says that the strong have an obligation to help the weak.

The purpose is to build up the weak so that they are no longer weak. This is not done through lording your maturity over them, or acting arrogantly since this will drive them away from being like you. Instead, it means to stoop down to their level. I was once invited to preach at a church that used the KJV only in their services. Being young and foolish, I read out of my ESV for the sermon. I was pretty haughty in my attitude because I knew they were wrong about their belief that the KJV is the only good Bible translation. What I failed to see, however, was that rather than building them up I had simply annoyed them.

The word used is borrowed from construction. You in your strength and wisdom are obligated to use that strength to construct other Christians up, not act as if they are beneath you. You are to raise them up to where you are and you can only do that if you stoop down to their level for a time.

In verse 3 Paul uses Christ as the prime example of this maturity. Jesus, being God and thus the most free being in existence, bound himself in weakness in order to save weak sinners. Paul quotes:

Psalm 69:9 ESV

For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.

This text prophetically speaks of the sufferings of Christ, which he endured in order to bring glory to the Father by saving his elect. This is a strange verse to use to make Paul’s point, it would seem, but one interpretation is that the “insults” are applied by Paul as being those of the weak insulting the strong for their freedom. Instead of getting in a loveless quarrel with weak believers, the mature are to bear them and seek to build them up in love, rather than arrogantly display their freedom and widen the gap between the weak and the strong. In any case, Paul’s point is that the strong have the responsibility to be the grown up as it were in this debate. They are to rise above petty charges and arguments and instead humble themselves for the sake of building up the weak into a strong position through patience and love.

Endurance and Encouragement: Two Ingredients to Mature Faith

We may take more time to look at verse 4 in another message; it is a note on how Christians are to interpret the OT in order to bring about two conditions: encouragement and hope.

Encouragement that Comes from God’s Word

This is encouragement that we draw from the Word of God which empowers us to be those who encourage the weak in the church. Just as God’s Word encourages us to grow stronger in our faith, our lives and attitudes towards one another are to be a biblical reflection of this encouragement, which is the means of building up the weak.

Endurance that Results from Mature Faith

This is the true mark of a mature and perfectly strong believer.

The Result of Maturity: A Church United in Her Praise and Glorification of God the Father Through Encouragement and Endurance (verses 5-6)

Conclusion: Our Need of Grace to Mature