"Bumps, Bruises, and Brotherly Love" Romans 14:1-4 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Well, brothers can be both a blessing and a curse.

And all God's people said, Amen.

Like many of y'all, I have a brother, an older brother.

My brother John is 13 years older than me.

That's a bit of a gap.

So let me help you put it into perspective.

When John was graduating high school, I was in kindergarten.

When I was in Little League, John was in the Persian Gulf.

Our lives diverged slightly, but in many ways, we were just like any other set of brothers.

Growing up, I didn't call my brother John, by the way, because we're from Texas.

I called him Bubba Johnny.

He hates that name, and if you ever meet him, you have my permission.

And despite the age difference that we had, he and I would nonetheless engage in the kind of playful rough housing that young boys are want to do, the kind of thing that Rudyard Kipling would be very proud of.

And we called these wrestling matches at our house Bubba Johnny Attacks.

Now, despite his best intentions, sometimes my older and stronger brother would forget just how much older and stronger he was.

And there was one Bubba Johnny attack in particular.

When my older and stronger brother pushed me off of him right into a wall.

The tears and the blood came immediately.

Now, even at a young age, I employed Proper First Aid and grabbed my sister's nearby sweater to stop the bleeding.

My mother did not wholly approve of that plan.

And to this very day, if I cut my hair short enough, you can still see the scar right there on the back of my head.

I spoke with my brother actually yesterday, and I told him I was going to use this introduction, and he wants it stated for the record that he denies any culpability in bloodshed whatsoever.

I neglected to bring up Genesis 4 in that moment, but hey, brothers, am I right?

You know, that's just how it is sometimes in families.

When a stronger brother isn't careful, when they're not being conscientious, when they're not being gracious, and frankly, sometimes when a weaker brother is too, well, someone can get hurt.

And that's true in your families, in your living rooms, but it's also true in the family of God.

And I don't think you need me to tell you that.

And that's what Paul is going to pick up on here in our passage in the book of Romans.

Now, Paul's argument is beginning here in Romans chapter 4, but it's going to extend all the way into the beginning of chapter 15.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

And we're going to need the whole thing so we can follow the apostles' train of thought.

So if you have your Bible, I invite you to open it, the book of Romans, chapter 14.

Romans 14 · chapter mention

We're going to begin reading in verse 1.

We're going to continue into verse 15.

Let's read along.

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him.

But not to quarrel over opinions.

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

Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.

Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?

It is before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike.

Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.

The one who observes the day observes it in honor of the Lord.

The one who eats eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God, for none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.

For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.

So then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.

For to this end Christ died and lived again that he might be both Lord of the dead and of the living.

Why do you pass judgment on your brother?

Or you, why do you despise your brother?

For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.

For it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.

So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or a hindrance in the way of a brother.

I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself.

But it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.

For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love.

By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died.

Do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil.

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.

So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.

Everything is indeed clean, but it's wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats.

It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.

The faith that you have keep between yourself and God.

Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves.

But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith, for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.

Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.

For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.

And may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God.

That is a bombshell of a passage.

And if you are going to be working on a bomb, you should take your time and you should be methodical and you should go step by step and look at all the pieces.

And really, we would benefit from spending a few weeks together looking at this passage verse by verse and phrase by phrase, but that's not our goal today.

Instead, we're going to be looking at this passage and its broad movements, it's its big picture.

And to do that, we're going to ask four questions of the passage.

And that's going to be our outline, four questions that emerge from the text.

But even before you get to the first question, we must be reminded of the context in which you find this passage, Romans 14.

This is Paul's letter to the Romans, the apostle's magnum opus on the gospel of justification by faith.

And much has been made over the years out of the structural arrangement of this letter.

It's been said that chapters 1 through 11 are all about gospel indicatives.

It's just explaining the gospel and how it works and what it does.

Doctrine, if I can use that word.

And then in chapters 12 through 16 are about gospel imperatives, applications of the gospel, what you do with the gospel.

And that's true to an extent as far as it goes in kind of a broad brush way.

I want you to know there's a lot of application in Romans 1 through 11.

And there is a lot of doctrine in Romans 12 through 16.

Nonetheless, it is helpful for us to be reminded that this passage, Romans 14, this discussion of our sometimes tumultuous and bumpy life in the church, flows out of the gospel that Paul has been preaching.

If we're going to talk about how to navigate difficulties and disagreements inside the church, if you are going to figure out how you live with and get along with your neighbor here in the pew with whom you have a very significant and strong disagreement.

Or, as the case may be, the pew, every other pew from you.

And if you're going to try and do that in a way that's divorced from the gospel, then you are going to fail.

Remember, we are all sinners saved by grace.

No one is righteous.

No, not one.

None of us seek after God.

All have sinned.

All of us fall short of the glory of God.

None of us, not a single one of us in this room is going to be justified in God's sight by the works of the law.

But as a gift through the redemption that is found in Christ Jesus, whom God the Father put forward as a propitiation in his blood, paying the penalty for the sins that we have committed.

And since, Paul says, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Having been united with him in a death like his, we will be united with him in a resurrection like his.

And Paul goes on to say, having been so united, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

There is nothing that can separate a believer from the grace and the gift of God.

Not death, not life, not angels, not rulers, not things present, not things to come, not powers, not height, not depth, nor anything else in all of creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus to you, believer.

And so, friend, when you come to a disagreement in the church, I want you to be armed with nothing less than the full weight of the gospel of Jesus Christ to his glory.

The same rugged cross that defeated sin and death once and for all on Calvary is sufficient for this moment, too.

And so, armed with that truth, now let's ask a few questions about how the gospel changes the way we approach disagreements inside the church.

Here's our first question: What is a stronger or weaker brother?

What does Paul mean here?

These are just terms that Paul uses to describe believers who find themselves on opposite sides of an issue pertaining to the Christian life and how we live it out.

And in Romans 14, Paul brings up three specific issues that show up in this chapter.

First is this one about meat or vegetables.

And a few verses later, he brings up this idea what one person celebrates one day as more significant, and someone else celebrates all days the same.

There's a third issue that it's only touched on in verse 17.

It's addressed briefly in verse 21.

It's this idea of whether or not we drink wine or we don't drink wine.

These are just the issues that are at play in the church at Rome.

And at first glance you might say, well, I'm not sure what all those things have in common, but there is one common thread that emerges from them.

What these things, these issues, all have in common is that they are not gospel essentials.

It doesn't mean they're not important issues.

I care a lot about the food I put into my body.

Perhaps I care too much about the food I put into my body.

It doesn't mean that you don't have strong opinions on these issues.

Romans 14, 2 might be my life verse.

One person believes you can eat anything, the weak person eats only vegetables.

Amen.

But what it does mean is that the gospel of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, is not at stake in these issues.

The broad category we use to talk about these things is Christian liberty.

Issues where Christians can live out differing convictions and understandings and opinions about how best to live the Christian life and still remain faithful to the gospel and obedient to Scripture.

I mean, you can eat a ribeye and believe salvation by grace through faith.

You can also not eat a ribeye and believe salvation by grace through faith.

Nonetheless, even though these are not gospel essentials, Paul chooses his terminology here very carefully and intentionally.

He's making a value judgment in this chapter.

He says, hey, there are stronger brothers and there are weaker brothers.

That word weak that you find here, it's usually used in the New Testament to describe physical weakness.

It's the person who's sick, who's who's feeble, who's frail, who can't support themselves on their own weight and on their own two legs.

But here Paul uses it spiritually.

He says, the one who is weak in the faith.

And I know the ESV and most English translations leave out the the, but it's an important the.

It's there in the Greek.

Weak in the faith.

Now, when the New Testament doesn't use the word thee, when it just says faith, it's talking about subjective faith.

That personal trust that you and I put into God.

My faith, your faith, our faith.

We trust in them.

But when it uses the word thee, weak in the faith, it's talking about this defined and objective faith, this body of truth that we've been given.

The faith once and for all delivered to the saints.

And Paul says the person who is weaker here is weaker in the faith.

Weaker in doctrine, weaker in the truth that Scripture gives us.

Now, on a basic level, you look at these two options, this stronger brother and a weaker brother, and you can make a very clear observation.

Hey, well, it's easy.

The stronger brother eats meat, the weaker brother abstains.

He eats only vegetables.

But when you look a little more closely, you get a better understanding of what's going on.

The stronger here, again, is stronger in the faith.

Then Paul puts himself into this category.

Paul claims to be a stronger brother.

He's talking about a person who's living out these convictions on these Christian liberty issues, born out of a more robust and healthier grasp of the truths of Scripture.

He says in verse 14, I know and am persuaded that nothing is unclean in itself.

That Paul understood what Jesus taught.

It's not what you put into your body that makes you unclean, it's what comes out of your body that makes you unclean.

Paul tells you in 1 Corinthians chapter 8, I know.

1 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

Idols are nothing.

So a meat that's been sacrificed to an idol is nothing.

Ribbei plus nothing equals ribeye.

You might have noticed where I land.

So then what do you get when you look a little closer at the weaker brother?

There's a couple things.

Well, first you notice he abstains from meat.

He eats only vegetables.

And most of the commentaries, if you pick them up, they read here, they're gonna say this is likely a result of the weaker brothers coming out of a Jewish background, but wanting to cling to the kosher dietary practices that he grew up with and he's more comfortable with.

Maybe.

Others think that this behavior, this abstaining, stems from a pretty similar dynamic to what you read about in 1 Corinthians chapter 8.

1 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

Meat that's been sacrificed to idols, and so coming out of a Gentile background, they don't fully understand that idols aren't really a thing, that there's only one God, and so out of an abundance of caution, they choose to abstain.

I don't want to eat that Zeus meat.

But either way, for whatever reason, what you know is this weaker brother is choosing not to partake of the meat with his meals.

Something else you know, second thing, he isn't sinning when he abstains.

Look at verse 6.

The one who eats eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.

It's the exact same language.

Stronger brother eating, not a sin.

Weaker brother not eating, not a sin.

This is not someone who's acting in disobedience.

Paul even tells you, hey, if you go against your conscience in this, if you are convinced in your heart that you shouldn't be doing this, and yet you see everyone else eating the Zeus meat, so you take a little nibble, just the burnt ends, maybe.

That's a sin.

That's not this brother.

This is a brother who's living out a faithful conviction.

So you know he's not eating meat.

You know he's not sinning when he doesn't eat meat.

Third thing, you know he's not a false convert.

You know he's not some sort of works righteousness proponent that would show up sometimes in the churches.

Look at verse 3.

God has welcomed him.

I mean, we are dealing here with a bona fide, genuine, born-again believer.

These aren't the Judaizers of Galatians arguing that your salvation depends on staying kosher.

That's not the situation we're dealing with here.

We're dealing with real, genuine Christians, real believers in Christ who have professed faith in God alone, by grace alone, through faith alone.

So you know he doesn't eat meat.

You know he's not sinning when he doesn't eat meat.

You know he's not adding his not eating meat to the gospel, but you also know one more thing.

He's wrong.

He's mistaken.

Paul says he's weaker in the faith.

Again, verse 14, I know, Paul says.

I'm persuaded in the Lord.

Nothing's unclean.

In Acts chapter 10, God declares all food clean.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

Paul says, I understand this.

And because of that, I understand the freedom I've been given in Christ.

And I can live out this conviction with freedom and truth and a more robust and healthy understanding of the gift that God's given me.

But notice Paul does not one time in this chapter malign or smear or discredit his weaker brother.

Not one time.

Even as he's acknowledging that he disagrees with him.

If anything, when you're reading Romans 14, you're struck with the way that Paul seems to go out of his way to acknowledge the convictional integrity of the weaker brother, to highlight the sincerity in which he's doing this.

Even as he acknowledges that he wishes those convictions were just a little more fully formed.

So put those together.

Come up with a picture here.

Let me tell you what a weaker brother is in Romans 14.

A weaker brother is a God-exalting, thankful, gospel-affirming Christian, trusting in the saving work of Jesus Christ alone for his standing before God, even as they're living out an unnecessarily constrained conviction on a matter of Christian liberty.

And by that same token, what's a stronger brother?

A stronger brother is a God-exalting, thankful, gospel-affirming Christian, trusting in the saving work of Jesus Christ alone for their standing before God, as they embrace more fully the freedoms granted on matters of Christian liberty, as they are born out of a biblically informed discernment in them.

That's what we're talking about in Romans 14.

Now we want to acknowledge just briefly that there's danger to either extreme.

There is something that exists beyond strong.

This is the person who says, hey, Jesus died, he paid it all.

We sing it on Sunday.

And because of that, I can do whatever I want.

There's no laws for me.

I said the prayer.

I got in the water.

I got my get out of jail free card.

So I can live however I want to live.

We call this antinomianism.

This idea that I don't have to obey anybody because Jesus already took the punishment.

That's not the gospel, friends.

When you bump into that person, you don't bring them to Romans 14, you bring them to Romans 6.

Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

No.

How can you who died to sin still live in it?

You bring them to 1 John chapter 2.

1 John 2 · chapter mention

By this we know that we've come to know him if we keep his commandments.

The gospel transforms your heart and gives you a desire for obedience.

So there's a danger to go beyond the stronger brother position.

But you know what?

There's a danger on the other side too.

There's something beyond weak.

We would call it legalism.

This idea of binding the conscience where Scripture has not bound it.

And in its worst manifestations, it turns into works righteousness.

If you want to be acceptable before God, and before me, by the way, then you not only need to pray the prayer, you don't just have to believe the gospel, you also have to do this list of things that I have come up with as necessary contingent components.

That's what the Pharisees did.

That's what the Judaizers did.

You don't bring that person to Romans 14 to hash out the problem.

You bring them to Galatians 3.

Oh, foolish Galatians.

Who's bewitched you?

Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by faith?

Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Listen.

Beyond here there be dragons.

And we don't want to take Romans 14 beyond its intended scope.

Romans 14 is about how Christians interact when there are disagreements about matters of Christian liberty.

It's an intramural conversation inside the church.

Listen, when the gospel is under attack, when the gospel is being denied, then the gloves come off, and we will fight for truth if need be.

But what do we do inside the family?

When we agree on the gospel, and we agree on salvation by grace alone, and yet we disagree on matters of Christian liberty and how we live out that faith.

Now, the temptation for me at this point of the sermon is to immediately superimpose our current circumstances onto Romans 14.

I'm not going to do that.

Now we should do that, by the way.

That's why you have Romans 14 in your Bible.

It's not so you just have a better foundation for the historical disagreement that existed 2,000 years ago at the church in Rome about meat.

We have this letter so we can apply it today in our church, in a manual Bible church, in every church around the world.

But I don't want to do that just yet.

I don't think you need me actually to help you put the cookies on the bottom shelf here.

You can probably think of a thousand disagreements.

How does a Christian respond to COVID-19?

How does a Christian respond to the election that's coming up in a couple months?

How does a Christian think about homeschooling versus public schooling versus private schooling?

How does a Christian decide what kind of songs we're going to sing on Sunday morning?

What does a Christian do about cigars?

What does a Christian do about tattoos?

What does a Christian do about dancing?

I think I touched the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth rails there.

And in this, and a thousand other issues, there are always going to be stronger and weaker brothers.

It's just a pervasive reality of life in the church.

And so that leads to a second question that we need to ask now.

How then do stronger and weaker brothers relate?

They're always going to exist, so what are they supposed to do?

Paul gives two commands here in the first four verses of chapter 14.

He gives a positive command, something that we do, and a negative command, something that we don't do.

Here's the positive command.

You find it right there in verse 1.

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.

You know what he doesn't say there?

Tolerate him.

It's not his word.

He says, welcome him.

That's a strong word.

That's the word from Acts 28, when the natives on the island of Malta receive Paul and the other shipwreck victims and bring them on shore and give them food and give them shelter and give them fire.

It's the word from Philemon chapter 17, when Paul says to Philemon, hey, you, you welcome back Onesimus just like you would welcome me back.

It means to take someone in and bring them into your home and receive them like a brother.

Let me tell you about two different Thanksgivings I've celebrated.

Right after I joined the Marine Corps, I went out to Marine Combat Training in Camp Bendleton, California.

That's a blast.

Sign up, you'll love it.

And we had to show up and report the day before Thanksgiving.

That's a blast.

Sign up, you'll love it.

And so to celebrate, we all had to get into our Charlie's, and we all got schlepped out to a parking lot out somewhere in Oceanside, California, where families would just pull in, drive-through style, and be like, I'll take three Marines, and you hopped in a van that you didn't know, and you drove to a place that you didn't know, and you got out and you ate a turkey that was delicious.

I'm not gonna lie.

And you never saw those people again.

They were they were friendly, they were nice, they were kind.

But it was very clear the whole way through that there was no long-term connection here.

Might have also celebrated another Thanksgiving.

Last Thanksgiving, I got to go to Bethany Drummond's house.

That's a different Thanksgiving.

Uh when you're there, you're home, as they would say.

You're welcomed in with multiple fried turkeys.

I don't even know how you do it, but they they manage the logistics somehow.

And you're there on the couch and you're you're there as family, and you're and you're you're meeting their family, and you're and you're warmly received, and there's this kinship there that you know extends far beyond uh the third helping.

It extends beyond the potato salad.

It's family.

You're with family.

That's welcoming.

And all too often we start to treat our brothers and sisters here in the pew like uh Christian slugs.

You remember slugging?

This was the weirdest thing I ever heard of when I moved to Northern Virginia.

I'm sorry, you said you just like get in a line and randomly hop into a car with a complete stranger?

Yes.

Do you talk to them?

No.

What do you do?

It's just a business transaction.

I just get in the car and he drops me off where I need to go, and he gets something out of it, and I get something out of it.

It's it's a win-win, Alex.

Is that how you want to think about the members of the church?

Oh, I know you.

We picked you up back in 2017 when you got stationed at the Pentagon, and we're gonna drop you off in 2020 when you get orders out to Kansas City.

Just a business transaction we have here.

I hope not.

That's not how it works in Romans 14.

It's not how it works in the church.

When you're here, you are family.

You know, we have good friends, Daniel and Mary and Good.

Many of you know them.

They got stationed out in Kansas City.

They were back in town a few weeks ago, and I saw Daniel and I stuck out my hand to shake it, because that's what men do.

I watch a lot of John Wayne movies, and then he runs up and puts both arms out.

Brothers don't shake hands, and wrapped me up, which was a bit awkward, but we did it.

He is absolutely right.

And you see, when I see you in the hallways here, or in the parking lot, or at our Bible study, or when I bump into you out in town at the Chick-fil-A or the other Chick-fil-A, or the other Chick-fil-A, it's not just business between us.

That's a family reunion.

I love you.

And this is the command that Christ has given to me.

As his follower, I embrace you, I welcome you, I bring you into my life and into my family and into my home, and I do that with my words, and I do that with my attitudes, and I do that with my actions, and not because we agree on everything.

Not because we agree on masks or candidates or cigars or tattoos or a thousand other things.

We do that because we're family.

That's what families do.

We're God's family.

We're brothers and we're sisters in Christ Jesus.

And we have to hold on to each other pretty tight.

I have a middleest daughter.

I have an oldest daughter and a youngest daughter and a middleest daughter.

My middleest daughter Eleanor invented a game.

She didn't realize what she was doing when she did it.

She climbs up in my lap sometimes, she gives me a hug and she says, Daddy, when I hug you tight, you hug me loose.

And when I hug you loose, you hug me tight.

We do this a lot, actually.

And you know, that's what we do.

We just go back and forth, hugging tight and hugging loose, and that's gonna be how it works in the church too, sometimes, with our welcoming and our embracing.

There are gonna be moments where I'm going to embrace you, maybe a little tighter than you wanted.

Because it looks like you are just barely hanging on.

And if I'm honest, there are gonna be times when I'm gonna need you to come hold on to me a little bit tighter because there are gonna be times when I'm barely hanging on, too.

That's what family does.

So Paul gives us a positive command.

You welcome a brother in Christ.

But he also gives a negative command.

You find it in verse 3.

And it's a double-edged sword, by the way, it's gonna cut both the stronger brother and the weaker brother.

He says in verse 3, let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains.

And let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.

Both stronger brothers and weaker brothers, and by the way, we are all in both categories, are susceptible to sinful attitudes that grow up in our hearts like weeds.

The stronger brother can lean into this despising, this harboring of a disdainful, condescending attitude towards his weaker brother.

Oh, those poor legalists, they just don't get it.

I hope that guy's not in my Bible study.

I don't want to have to talk about that again.

And you start seeing your brother in Christ as some sort of second-class citizen of the kingdom.

But weaker brothers can fall into a similar trap.

Weaker brothers judge the stronger brother.

That's harboring this pietistic righteousness over those who don't live up to your standards.

I can't believe that guy calls himself a Christian.

Do you see what he said, how he acts, what he does?

And both attitudes share this in common.

They are born out of a sinful sense of superiority.

But Paul blows that idea right out of the water.

Verse 4 Who are you?

Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?

It's before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will stand.

For the Lord is able to make him stand.

And isn't it interesting that Paul doesn't simply address this issue by saying, okay, everyone, stop being weak.

But why not?

Why doesn't he do that?

It seems like that would be the better solution, right, Paul?

So just write a letter, dear vegans, have a pork chop in Christ and chill out.

Don't you feel like that would just solve the problem more fundamentally?

But he doesn't do that in Romans 14.

Why not?

Why doesn't he do that?

Because there's a more fundamental reality at play here than whether you eat meat or not.

There's something more significant at stake here than stake.

That's your heart.

As long as there are Christians, there are going to be Christian consciences that are being formed over time, being transformed from one degree of glory into another in Christ's likeness.

Being transformed, as Paul would say in Romans 12, too, out of conformity with the world and into conformity with Christ.

There are always going to be stronger brothers and weaker brothers.

And so Paul has a more important point to make here than landing the plane on whether you eat meat.

There are other letters in your Bible to clarify the gospel implication of ribeye stakes.

I invite you to read 1 Corinthians 8.

I invite you to read Galatians.

I invite you to read Acts chapter 10.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

But the point of Romans 14 is what is going on in your heart towards your brother in Christ.

There's room in the gospel for Team Ribbe and Team Broccoli.

There's room in the gospel for Team Conservative and Team Liberal.

There's room in the gospel for Team Merlot and Team Teetotler.

But there should not be any room in your heart for the kind of smug, self-righteous, judgmental attitude that despises and destroys your brother in Christ.

And that brings you to question three.

So then what principles am I supposed to employ here as I live this life together?

There's going to be stronger, there's going to be weaker.

I'm going to be in one of these camps on a thousand different issues.

And so, what am I supposed to do?

How do I live this way?

First thing you can do is just jettison the judgmental attitudes.

That's the point of verses one through four.

Hey, when you feel that little nagging voice creeping up in your heart towards prideful arrogance, when you're looking at a brother in Christ, make a conscious effort right then to lay it down.

I have some good news for you, my friend.

Every single dispute and disagreement you are ever going to bump into in the church, every issue of Christian liberty is gonna be resolved ultimately one day.

But I got some better news for the moment right now.

God has not entrusted that responsibility to you.

And he hasn't entrusted it to me either.

He's entrusted it to Christ Jesus, and we will all stand before his throne one day, and he will answer those questions.

And you know what that means?

That means I get to lay down my gavel and I get to use both of my arms to embrace you now.

So yeah, I get to jettison my judgmental attitude.

I get to follow my own conviction.

That's what Paul tells me to do.

You want to know how to navigate these things?

Follow your convictions.

That's the point of verses 5 through 12.

He says, each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.

Now there's stronger positions and there's weaker positions, Paul says.

There's more robust understanding and less robust understanding.

And so, on any issue you're gonna bump into in the church, you should study the scriptures.

And you should seek out the best counsel you can from mature, godly Christians, and you should pray for guidance, and then you should do what you think is right.

Because each one of us will be called to account for himself before the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so live your life in a way that seeks to hear, well done, my good and faithful servant.

So I jettison the judgmental attitudes, I follow the convictions that God has given me through the scriptures and through his spirit.

And then he says, walk in love towards your brother.

That's the point of verses 13 through 19.

If I had to boil Romans 14 down to one sentence, it might go something like this: Love your brother in Christ even when you disagree with him.

That's gonna look like attitudes of love.

In verse 13, he says, hey, let's stop passing judgment.

We don't need that in our hearts.

It's gonna look like actions of love.

Verse 13, decide never to put a stumbling block or a hindrance in the way of a brother.

Verse 15, if your brother's grieved by what you eat, you're no longer walking in love.

Verse 19, he says, pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

That's a fascinating word, upbuilding.

Hey, stronger brothers are supposed to be helping weaker brothers out.

That's how it works.

I'm grateful for the stronger brothers in my life who've come alongside and taught me better how to live out the Christian life.

But stronger brother, your freedom and liberty in Christ is not to be used as a cudgel to bludgeon the weaker brother with.

That's not how it works.

Stronger brother, you get to bear the onus of laying aside things to save to build up your brother in Christ.

What a gift.

You get to live the way Christ lived.

He says also remember that you are ambassadors of love.

That's the point of 16 through 19.

The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

I want you to know that Jesus Christ loves you and died for your sins.

I want the church that I'm in to be so overwhelmed with the love of God that there is no question whose disciples we are.

And that brings us to the fourth and final question.

Where does this kind of love come from?

A love that keeps no record of wrongs, a love that covers over a multitude of sins.

Frankly, where am I going to find the strength to love you more than I love my preferences?

Look back at verse 3 one last time.

Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats.

For God has welcomed him.

God welcomed him.

And I have no right to push away the one whom God has drawn close.

He welcomed you into this family just as he welcomed me at great cost.

God sent his son to die.

Jesus endured divine wrath on the cross to call the weakest brother, his beloved child.

And so when I see you, or when you see me, I pray that we aren't merely looking for some potential ally to tilt at my pet windmill with.

That'll only last as long as the issue does.

I need to love you, and you need to love me because we are both sinners washed in the blood of the Lamb.

And that is not a bond that I am willing to break over what?

Meat?

Politics?

Holidays?

Protocols?

It seems that there is almost nothing Satan wants more than to divide brothers.

Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and Judah.

He will take every opportunity he can to drive a wedge into the family of God.

And you and I are the next brothers on that list.

He wants to tear down.

And it will rob us of the joy that is found in fellowship between brothers.

Let it not be so with us.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

You know, for the rest of my life, I'm gonna have a little scar on the back of my head.

A reminder of the bumps that come from sibling rivalries.

But I'll also have something else.

I'll have a brother who loves me and cares for me and laughs with me and cries with me and prays for me.

And you know something?

If you are in Christ Jesus, so do you.

Let's pray.

Gracious Father, we thank you for your love and your compassion.

I thank you that your son Jesus did not despise us but loved us and died on the cross in our place.

We confess that all too often we are prone to sinful attitudes.

Please keep us far from them.

Fill us with your love, divine love, supernatural love.

Such that all the world will know we are your disciples.

We trust that this is your church.

You're the one who is building it, and the gates of hell won't stand against it.

It's in Christ's name that we pray.

Amen.

And now, for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thank you for joining Emmanuel Bible Church today through this resource.

It's my prayer that if you live in the DC area, I'll be able to meet you on some Sunday at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church, you can go to IBC.church.

Or for information on the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource helps you seek God through Jesus Christ, serve the Lord with joy, and share him with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.