Sermon Tone Analysis

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Rom 14:

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Rom 14:4-

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Rom 14:6-

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Rom 14:8-

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INTRO:

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I’ve been a Christian since 1984.

In the past 34 years, I’ve been involved with several different churches and parachurch ministries.

I grew up Lutheran, I was saved in a Baptist Church, my high school years were spent at an Evangelical Free Church, I’ve been on summer trips with Campus Crusade and Teen Missions,.

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In my college years I attended and served in a Charismatic church, a Pentecostal church, a Baptist Church, a Christian Missionary Alliance Church, A Presbyterian church and a Calvary Chapel.

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After that, I worked with two organizations: Missionary Gospel Fellowship and A Christian Ministry In The National Parks.

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After that, I was involved in a small church plant, two house churches, and a Christian group home ministry, before I finally arrived for the long haul with Calvary Chapel.

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One thing that all these different experiences have taught me…

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Is that today’s passage: , is probably one of the most disregarded and ignored passaged in the entirety of the Bible.

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literally… in every situation I’ve been in, my current one included… the unique differences of conviction that we see here in this passage… have not always been treated with consideration and respect.

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Instead of consideration and respect, these differences of conviction have become points of division, debate, legalism, restriction, condemnation, and sometimes… down right tyranny.

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Paul is making it clear… while that there are many differences that fall under a clear definition of being doctrinally right and wrong… which is not what this passage is dealing with.

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There are also differences that are accepted by God, based on a person’s conviction… and these differences are not intended to incite conflict or division.

These divisions are to be regarded with consideration and respect.

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So, first off, I want to recognize, that THIS CALL TO SHOW LOVE AND CONSIDERATION TO EACH OTHER, IN CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP IN AREAS WHERE WE DISAGREE… is not easy.

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It fights against our human nature.

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When we are right about something, and someone else is wrong… we are wired to respond.

Our response is fueled and perpetuated by an underlying, deceptive force called… pride.

We all have it… we all deal with it.

We all wrestle with it.

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Pride has a way of quietly and deceptively weaving itself into the making of our own personal religiosity.

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When we come in contact with an idea we disagree with… and our proverbial feathers get ruffled.

- THAT’S PRIDE.

Pride surged w/in us… and instead of holding our composure, counting to ten and thinking it through… we came out of our corner like a fighter at the sound of the bell.

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It’s a reality that is within us… and we all have to figure out how to identify it, and how to root it out.

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People are called to be in fellowship together… to be in community with one another… and people bring with them, their differences, their misunderstandings, their influences, their experiences, their convictions… AND… their pride.

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God gives us a recipe for unity, but in our brokenness, we bring a recipe for conflict and division.

Today’s passage challenges us, to take heed to the difficult task of following God’s recipe and not our own .

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By way of reflection, let’s be reminded of the big picture that Paul is laying out in Romans.

He spent 11 chapters teaching us from different doctrinal angles… just what the grace of God is all about, and how it works.

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Then, starting in chapter 12… he calls the believer to be shaped by that grace…

Here in chapters 14 and 15, he is now specifically, calling the church to be shaped by that grace.

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If we think of our primary goal… as an individual… we are to bring glory to God.. - We think also of our primary goal as a church… it’s the same.

In all that we do, every deed, every action, every lesson, every engagement… - they all fall under the umbrella of our primary goal.

WE ARE CALLED, BOTH INDIVIDUALLY, AND CORPORATELY, TO BRING GLORY TO GOD.

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And we can easily think of some things we do here, as a family that brings Him glory.

Hopefully our intentional time of focused worship brings him glory.

Hopefully this preaching brings him glory, hopefully our outreach brings him glory.

Hopefully, our fellowship brings him glory..

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God is glorified, whenever His invisible character becomes visible, and is recognized as a good thing.

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This is what Paul is encouraging the church in Rome to experience… In the midst of their fellowship… -He is calling incompatible people to welcome one another in JX, and so prove that God has kept His promise to Abraham… that indeed, through his seed… which is Jesus… ALL THE NATIONS… all these different people with different views and levels of understanding… WOULD BE BLESSED…

So with that… let’s jump in.

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ROM

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It is offensive to be called weak… especially if we don’t see our particular stand as being one of weakness.

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But what Paul is saying here, isn’t derogatory… and it probably wouldn’t be received in an offensive fashion by his readers.

Right in the middle of this Greek word for weak, is the word ‘strengthen’… and the idea behind this word, is not just ‘weak’… but it literally indicates a person who is not yet strengthened.

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All the liberty, revelation and understanding that is available through the faith, is not yet, fully discovered and embraced.

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They have embraced the Gospel.

They believe in the work that Jesus accomplished for them.

They are truly saved and truly redeemed… -BUT, like most humans who come into a new faith… - THEY STILL HAVE TO WORK OUT THEIR SALVATION WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING.

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They have a faith that sustains them well in some areas, but they struggle in the midst of certain kinds of conduct.

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Maybe they don’t fully understand that when the meaning of ‘justification by faith’ is grasped… questions like the the use of meat and wine and special days don’t carry the same kind of significance.

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They still have to process the old ideas… the old influences… the old way of thinking… the old practices…

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They are ‘yet to be strengthened’… and in one way or another, I’ll bet we all could take an honest look at our lives and confess… that we too, are yet to be strengthened in one area or the other.

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The topics… the examples… through which we are learning this lesson here in this passage… are FOOD AND DRINK and THE RELIGIOUS CALENDAR.

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Food - The Religious Calendar - and then later, in next week’s passage… in

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Are these the only topics that would fit under this lesson?

Absolutely not… but the principle will hopefully become clear as we work our way through this.

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So… Paul has divided these people into two groups.

Those who are weak and those who are strong.

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Basically… Paul is addressing a people who are religiously incompatible, and He’s calling them to live in love and harmony with one another.

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I don’t know about you, but this is the kind of challenge that I like.

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We live in a world where Christians divide themselves over so many tiny insignificant details.

The signs in front of our churches declare just what kinds of clothes we wear, the manner of our baptism, our political leanings, the food we eat and the day we gather for for worship.

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But I want you to take note of something that is absent from Paul’s lesson… - division - THERE ISN’T A SEPARATE CHURCH FOR VEGETARIANS… THERE ISN’T A SEPARATE CHURCH FOR MEAT EATERS… THERE ISN’T A SEPARATE CHURCH FOR PASSOVER OBSERVERS…

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They are all together.

Not in a manner that compromises sound doctrine… NOT in a manner that forces people to embrace wrong thinking about God… but they are together in spite of their .... let’s call them - ALLOWABLE DIFFERENCES.

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PAUL IS TELLING HIS READERS… in verse one… to welcome the person who has ALLOWABLE DIFFERENCES.

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He is telling them to not do what they feel so driven and inspired to do… -and that is: TO QUARREL WITH THEM OVER OPINIONS.

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And then, in vs 2., the lesson is laid out with the example of food.

- One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables..

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Now, let’s stop and ask the question… ‘Why would some think it’s ok to eat meat, and others would think it’s not.”

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in the context of the Roman church… we have two options.

The church was comprised of both Jewish and Gentile believers… therefore, both could have potentially brought with them some ideas that were engrained in them.

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Some of these Gentiles might have come out of a background of pagan worship.

It wasn’t as prominent in Rome as it was in Corinth, but Paul is writing this letter from Corinth, so it’s on his mind.

In pagan worship, they made sacrifices to their gods, and then sold that meat in the market.

Many who came out of this background may have felt a strong conviction to avoid any connection to the past life.

For this reason, they wouldn’t dare eat mean, in the off chance that it had passed through a pagan temple.

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This is why some of the strongest voices against drinking alcohol in any form, usually comes from people who were alcoholics.

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This is why some of the strongest voices against the potential misuse of authority, usually comes from people who were abused under some form of authority.

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This is why, some of the strongest voices against anything that might seem legalistic, usually comes from people who grew up in a legalistic culture.

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Our experiences shape our convictions… and our convictions might be in the ball park of truth… but, because of our own personal history, sometimes we have a tendency to take it to a more extreme level.

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It’s most likely… in the Roman church… that the people who struggled most with the eating of meat… were those who grew up in Judaism.

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Jews ate meat… but not all meat… and the meat that they did consume, had to be slaughtered in a specific way.

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Therefore, many Jews avoided any meat that had questionable origins.

They also avoided the meat of animals that the law declared as being ‘unclean’.

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So in the Roman church… you had people who carried over with them, convictions from their previous life… and then, you had people, who did not carry over these convictions.

- It’s the same for us, and for any church.

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We have some who believe one way… and some who believe another.