Toward the end of his earthly ministry, we find Jesus, praying for the Church, he was inaugurating through this own death, burial and resurrection. He understood what a formidable force the Church would be. Earlier he’d told Peter, “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” (Mt. 16:18). Really, there isn’t anything out there, in the world, that’s proven effective at stopping the church. Danger, famine, sword, persecution, life, death, satanic attack… the church flourishes in crisis!
But there is one thing that does pose a threat. Do you know what it is? In Matthew 12:25 Jesus says, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.” Division, disunity, dissension. The greatest threat to the Church lays within, not without. There are many dangers facing the church in the world, but the church poses its greatest threat to itself.
In John 17:20-23 Jesus says. “. . . I pray also for those who will believe in me through [their] message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
The Necessity of Unity
Do you notice how our missional effectiveness is bound up in our unity? When the world sees our unity as a church, but also universally as the big capital “C” Church… only then will the world understand/believe/trust God’s love! If God’s love doesn’t affect us, why should people out in the world assume it will help them? Every letter in the New Testament, including Romans, addresses matters of unity.
In Romans 14:1 Paul says, “Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters.” In a church you are always going to have two basic groups of people.
(1) You are going to have people who are stronger, and more mature in grace and faith and love. You are going to have people who are truly gospel-centered, Kingdom-minded, and Christ-like.
(2) You are also going to have people who are weaker in faith, and don’t understand the power of grace, or who don’t yet practice Christ’s love. In the church, you have this whole spectrum of mature/ immature, strong/ weak people. And for this reason the church can be a tinderbox for conflict. So many differences already exist within the church, sometimes it only takes a spark, to send the whole church up in flames!
"Disputable Matters"
Paul puts his finger right on the issue. So much conflict in the church revolves around what he calls “disputable matters.” This phrase can be understood as matters of opinion, matters of preference, matters of doubt, secondary issues. Christians don’t often fight over the big stuff, but instead the non-essentials.
In Romans 14, Paul addresses two disputable matters. The first concerns meat sacrificed to idols. If you were a Gentile person (a non-Jew) it was your custom to go to a pagan temple and sacrifice meat to the gods. This meat would later be eaten by the worshippers, or sold at the market, or taken home. It’s easy to understand then, how eating any kind of leftover charred meat, could be seen as participating in a pagan cult.
The early church became divided on this issue. Those who were mature in grace enjoyed their leftover BBQ. They reasoned that it’s “just meat” and besides, the “pagan gods don’t exist anyway.” It didn’t bother their conscience one way or another to eat meat. But then there were those who were weak in faith, immature in faith, young in the faith—who became deeply troubled in their conscience. For them eating meat was like denying Christ and turning back to idols. In fact, they thought it best, and insisted every “true Christian” be a vegetarian.
The other disputable matter concerned Jewish faith. If you were coming from a Jewish background you spent your life worshipping on the Sabbath, celebrating Jewish festivals, and following Jewish dietary laws. But you would have also been circumcised. There were believers (less mature in grace, weaker in faith) and wanted everyone in the church to be just like them. They believed that if you were a “true Christian” you should worship on the Sabbath, not Sunday… that you should follow certain dietary rules from the Old Testament… and be circumcised.
So here in Romans 14 Paul brings up a hot-button Gentile issue and a hot-button Jewish issue. Paul isn’t picking on anyone specific here. He uses these issues to illustrate how the church must learn to navigate “disputable” matters without sending the whole church into ruin/division, and throwing out the baby with the bath water!
Allow me to make an observation. So often, the same tendencies we have out in the world get carried right into the church. Out in the world we develop very strong moral, or religious, or political, or personal convictions. And so when we come into the church, we carry all that same baggage with us. Instead of a seeking unity through faith in Christ Jesus, we use the church as a platform for advancing our personal agenda. We impose all these litmus tests on others, and judge whether we think they are also good Christians.
Two Divisive Attitudes
There are often two attitudes that manifest themselves around disputable matters. Those who are mature in faith, who are mature in grace, who exercise their freedom in Christ, tend to feel “contempt” toward those who are more narrow minded. Those who are more narrow-minded, or even legalistic, tend to “condemn” those failing to meet their litmus test. In the end you have people thinking the church would be better off if the other group would just disappear!
When I first started pastoring (not at Lakeside, but at another church), the Elders saw wisdom starting a Saturday night service. We studied the Scriptures, including passages like Romans 14, and saw how the early Christians worshipped on every day of the week and not just Sundays! The leadership team made plans launch a Saturday night service. We gathered a core group of people, we spread the word, the church reached dozens of people for Christ.
But almost immediately, a group of Sunday morning people got together, and denounced the Saturday night worshippers. “Sunday is ‘Resurrection Sunday’” they said. “Sunday is the only proper day for worship. It doesn’t count if it’s not Sunday. You aren’t singing the right kind of music, people are dressing too casually, they’re wearing hats, they’ve got torn jeans. . . they better not think they’ll have congregational voting power.” This group was weak in their faith, in their knowledge of the word. For that reason, you can understand why they were offended, and angry. Their attitude was one of legalism and condemnation.
But then there was the leadership team, of which I was apart. And our attitude was one of contempt. Our attitude was like, “Come on you fuddy duddies, why are you busting our jaw, lighten up, you’re making a big deal about nothing, you’re holding the church back, times are changing, read your Bible, the early church worshipped every day, and look what God is doing, look at all the people being saved!”
An attitude of contempt isn’t better than an attitude of condemnation. Both attitudes are different sides of the same coin. The core issue is that in the church you have people who see each other as expendable. The one group felt they were doing a service to God resisting the vision... the other thought they were doing a service to God advancing the vision. But in reality both were wrong because they neglected the neglected the greater obligation to love one another.
When Christian Churches were gaining steam at the turn of the century, they adopted various slogans like “No Creed but Christ, “No Book but the Bible,” “We’re not the only Christians, but Christian Only.” One of the more genius slogans Christian Churches adopted was a call to unity. Our rallying cry as a movement of Churches was: “In matters of faith, unity; in matters of opinion, liberty; in all things love.”
Being Gracious in Attitude
There are three easy tests for maturity. The first test is discerning what is “essential,” “Core,” “Non-negotiable” to faith. The second test is discerning what is “non-essential,” “secondary,” or a “disputable matter.” The third test is whether despite our passion, we are committed to walking in love together. The third test is whether we’re truly committed to one another or see each other as expendable because maybe we disagree. The worse kind of leaders confuse essentials with non-essentials, and nuke people who might oppose them.
So here is my definition of maturity based on Romans 14: Maturity is discerning what is an essential matter of faith… from what is a disputable, non-essential matter of faith, and its remaining in love as we sort it out! “In matters of faith, unity; in matters of opinion, liberty; in all things love.”
There are a lot of explosive, and divisive issues, that rise up with in the church today. I started making a list of all the issues that have risen up in the years I’ve been doing ministry. I made a list of all the issues that have risen up here at Lakeside. I thought about sharing the list in this sermon—but then I realized that the presenting issue is rarely the actual/real issue. If the issue is really about what the Bible teaches on a topic, we’d quickly be unified.
Take the worship issue. If a person would just read their Bible, they could would see worship is acceptable 24/7/365. Jesus in John 17 reminds us that “God’s word, the truth that sanctifies us.” There are churches even starting Thursday night services, and many have done Wednesday nights for years. The issue isn’t what the Bible teaches… the issue is “I want to be right… I want power… I want control… I want my way…” The issue is the attitude of contempt/ condemnation believers often feel when their manner of thinking, or preferences, get threatened.
Through Romans 14, Paul makes some incredible declarations of how God is at work in the midst of all the turbulence. So here is some of Paul’s coaching. . .
First, accept one-another. See Romans 14:1. Well, why should we “accept one another?” Well, look Romans 14:3! It’s because if a person is here among us, strong or weak, mature or immature, “God has already accepted them!” This doesn’t mean God endorses all that a person is… it means that God welcomes and accepts every person to begin this journey of faith, this journey into deeper grace, from whatever place they’re starting. God doesn’t want us to use our energy to judge one another—he wants us to use our energy to accept one another. If someone is offending you, if anything, it’s all the more reason to come alongside them and walk with them in love, and help them grow as a disciple. There’s no place for attitudes of contempt and condemnation.
Second, Paul commands us to trust God’s power. When we accept one another, we’re creating an environment in which God works. Accepting a person doesn’t mean resignation. It doesn’t mean tolerance. It doesn’t mean truth doesn’t matter. Accepting a person means were creating a holding environment, where through grace, we invite God to transform people through the presence/power of his Holy Spirit. Paul says it explicitly. Romans 14:4, “Who are you to judge?” and he says, “they WILL stand!” And why? “Because God is able to make them stand.” Maybe the reason we don’t accept people is because our faith is weak. We don’t trust what God can do!
Now these are my words—but I want to do justice to what I feel the Spirit of God teaching in these verses. So here is the third piece of advice—get over yourself. In regard to unity… remember the church isn’t about you anyway. The Kingdom isn’t all about you anyway. You may think your opinion, or judgment, or preferences matters—but what matters in the Church is God’s judgment—His will, his desire, his kingdom, agenda, vision, mission… This is Christ’s church. He is the head. He is Lord and Savior.
Look at what Paul says in Romans 14:7-9. “For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. 8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.”
I love what Paul says in Colossians 3:3-4. Who am I? “You died, and your life is now hidden in Christ Jesus our Lord. And when Christ, who is your life appears, you will also appear with him in glory.” This totally goes along with Paul command of us back in Romans 13—that we should look at ourselves with sober judgment.
If I were to summarize Paul’s forth piece of advice it would be this… get yourself ready. So often we focus on the spec in other people’s eye, while ignoring the plank in our own eye.
Here is a compilation of what Paul says. Romans 14:4, “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall.” Who appointed you to arbitrarily set litmus tests for other people? Romans 14:10-12, “You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11 It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’” 12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.”