Romans 14
1Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. 2One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. 4Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
5One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. 8If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
9For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. 10You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.
11It is written:
" ’As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
’every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will confess to God.’
"12So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.
13Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way.
14As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. 15If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. 16Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. 17For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.
19Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. 20Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. 21It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.
22So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 23But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.
I just wanted to start today by setting some guide lines from the text and what it is and isn’t saying here. We want to be careful not to generalize this chapter, but instead put proper meaning to it.
This text is not an anything goes chapter as far as what we believe or do as Christians. We have to keep in mind two things as we look at this chapter.
1)The church in Rome was made up of two types of Christians; one type came from a Jewish background the other of Gentile background. The Jews wanted to carry over many of their prior beliefs from Judaism such as with meats being eaten or types of meats that were eaten and also Holy Days also from Judaism. The gentiles also had some things the brought into the mix.
2)These early Christians were at a disadvantage because they did not yet have the word of God in the form of the New Testament to help guide them in their direction as Christians.
There are many out there that bring in other stuff in to their churches, stuff that is a part of their history, part of their culture, part of tradition but may not be something that you can find in the word of God.
What I see Paul saying here is these things that people may do, that we should not pass judgment on them for this. These things are not things that we should take a stand on.
Paul tells us in verse 4 “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant?”
We have to remember that we as Christians are all servants of God and of Christ. We are not to judge Gods servants on what they do or don’t do, that is Gods job.
In saying that we now need to keep in mind one thing, and we find this truth from God in 2 Corinthians 4:2 - Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.
These Christians in Rome were still sorting everything out. There were many out there who were distorting and deceiving people, distorting God and His truth that He has given us. These deceivers in fact from what we can tell were probably not even Christians but were just out for there own gain. In the same way we have people doing the same thing today so we need to be careful that we are not deceived by them.
What it comes down to is this, we have Gods word (The Bible) to guide us and direct us, if someone is distorting and perverting Gods word we need to do as Paul did against the distorters in his day which is not judge but speak the truth, correct them, we can do this directly from His word, and putting it in its proper context.
God’s judgment will be satisfied through His word which is the only truth we have, every word of it.
But if a church drags in some tradition and it doesn’t come against anything we see in the Bible then don’t dwell on it, don’t make it an issue.
2One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. Paul knows that some Christian’s faith is stronger than others. Here he mentions some Christians of weak faith not allowing themselves to eat certain things, he goes on later to talk about others who hold to sacred days. There are others who say we are not to drink any wine or other drinks with alcohol.
Paul’s point is that those who have a stronger faith must come along side those with weaker faith in love to help them with their weakness, to support them.
If we know a brother is weak and cannot handle alcohol then we shouldn’t drink in front of them, another is trying to stop smoking so watch who you smoke in front of, another has an eating and weight problem so don’t invite them for ice cream, another needs to have that set day of worship fine. The strong in faith need to love and help the weaker in faith, and the weaker shouldn’t judge the stronger because they do not do what the weaker does.
19Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. 20Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. 21It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.
These things that we put so much emphasis on I would say are more important to us for some reason than to God. Most of these things are not foundational salvation issues but secondary points that in some cases are not very clear.
If they are important to you and you believe in them that is fine but because another Christian doesn’t that is just as fine for them.
It is our responsibility as we are told verse 19 to make every effort to edify other Christians, to build them up and not tear them down and destroy the work God has done in them.
Verse 17-18 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.
22So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 23But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.
Listen if you don’t want to eat meat on Fridays don’t, if you have certain days that you hold sacred over other days go for it, but in doing these things do them for the glory of God that’s all. And as it says in verse 22 keep it between you and God.
We have an awesome purpose as Christians in this life? In the Westminster Shorter Catechism it says “Mans chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”
I truly believe with all my heart that if you follow this that your entire life will be changed and you will have a new outlook on everything you do. I would also say that with this as your priority, life seams to fall in to place, relationships are better, worries are no longer worth worrying about.
