Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ (Ro 1:7). Amen.
Emotions are real. You know that because you have them. Or better, you feel them—from the highs to the lows, and everywhere in between.
Emotions are also raw. Let’s take one as an example. Loneliness. Just mentioning that one probably hits your heart or strikes your stomach as you think of a time you have faced or are facing it. Or will. I read about an interesting study that found out that the part of our brain that becomes active when we contend with loneliness is the same place as when we deal with physical pain. Interesting.
But we are not alone. Our God is with us. And our God gives us family and friends. And we have each other. And as we go from day to day with that reminder, the apostle Paul also recalls that for us. We live to the Lord in Christian liberty and in Christian love. We read from …
Romans 14:5-9
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus, who gives freedom from sin and freedom to serve,
The saying goes, “No man is an island.” I guess that is true. Look around. We are not by ourselves.
And since that is the case, I suppose that there are two ways to live:
For myself. It is all about me, me, me.
For my Savior. It is all about him, him, him.
Paul is clear on which one it is.
We Live to the Lord
1. In Christian liberty (5-9)
2. In Christian love (7)
1. In Christian liberty (5-9)
Now that it is the 1st of October, the 4th of July seems a distant memory. But the freedoms that we remember then are still relevant now. That is true not just as citizens of the United States, but also as citizens of the Christian church. The blessings of both are ongoing as make our way through life. We live to the Lord in Christian liberty.
As Paul takes up his pen in this section of his letter to the believers in Rome—a gathering of both Jews and Gentiles, he takes up the topic of “middle things”—that which God has not commanded nor forbidden in his Word. We usually refer to that as “adiaphora.” And then a choice between two things is not wrong (like what color of robe for the pastor or kind of car in the parking lot). Then we are free. Either one is acceptable—like deciding between two delicious entrees on a menu at a restaurant. You can’t go wrong. Paul cites two examples as it pertains to conscience.
The one area was about timing. “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike” (Ro 14:5). Perhaps we don’t get the tension. There were cultural differences. Think of it. For centuries, the Jews have worshipped on Saturday, the Sabbath Day, as God decreed (Ex 20:8). But that day of rest pointed ahead to Jesus (Col 2:16,17), the “Rest-giver” (Mt 11:28). That is no longer binding since Christ fulfilled the ceremonial law. But they couldn’t give that custom up overnight.
The Gentiles had no ties to a specific day so they choose Sunday as a day for worship. One was as good as another, as valuable as the other.
The other subject was about dining. “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” (Ro 14:6). Again, there was a rub. The Jews lived for a long time with dietary restrictions.
Not the Gentiles. A prime rib was as good as a pig’s tongue. (You may have your opinion on one or both of those. I do having tasted both.) Or some couldn’t eat meat because it passed through the pagan temple on the way to the supermarket. So they didn’t.
So what is? Saturday or Sunday? Kosher meat or any kind of meat? Vegan or vegetarian? Paul gives two principles:
First: “Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind” (Ro 14:5). There has to be a careful thought process about the issue. Maybe it is good to repeat why we worship on Sunday (Acts 20:7). It takes us back to when Jesus came out of the grave, a “mini-Easter,” if you will, or a weekly anniversary of that event. We also happen to have settled on 9:30 AM as the starting time. That seems to work right now. Others have an earlier time. Others a later time. As long as we are certain that it makes sense. We can have special midweek services for Thanksgiving or Lent. When it comes to our nutrition, it can be free of gluten or full of it.
Second: He “does so to the Lord” (Ro 14:6) or he “gives thanks to God” (Ro 14:6). God gets the honor and appreciation for all that we do. And not just in here, but at home. Whatever we do, the spotlight shines on him (Mt. 5:16; 1 Co 10:31; Col 3:17). We express our gratitude to him for his grace to us.
No matter what and no matter when, we are the Lord’s. “If 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” (Ro 14:8). God bought us with the blood of his Son. God brought us into his family through baptism. And now, with every breath, we belong to the Lord. He allows us to inhale and exhale. And in every death, we belong to the Lord. It is not as Job’s wife proposed to her suffering spouse boldly and defiantly: “Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9). But as Stephen prayed quietly and confidently: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59). There and then we will be with Jesus in Paradise (Lk 23:43)—just like here and now. Living or dying does not change our relationship with Jesus.
Paul takes us to Jesus’ empty tomb: “For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living” (Ro 14:9). Jesus is above all and over all. His death on the cross and resurrection from the grave are proof that his sacrifice was sufficient to pay for our sins and rule in our lives.
We live to the Lord then in Christian liberty. We can eat what we want and drink what we want. That is, as long as it is not harmful to my body or my neighbor. We want to be sensitive to that. And as long as we are sure that God gets the praise.
2. In Christian love (7)
While not perfect, we have a country that is good. We can show respect to it in different ways. So it is in our church community. We live to the Lord in Christian love.
We are not loners. “For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone” (Ro 14:7). Believers belong to the Lord and belong with one another.
This discussion is not theoretical, but practical. It doesn’t take too much convincing that we are sinners living with sinners. We sin against others and vice versa. God has forgiven that in Jesus. The psalmist David had us sing about that: “Praise the Lord, O my soul, … as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Ps 103:1,12).
Then the forgiven forgive. We can be like Joseph who did that with his brothers for selling him into slavery. (I have two brothers, doing that was not an option—at least not a possibility.) When they needed comfort, “he reassured them and spoke kindly to them” (Ge 50:21). He directed that to their suffering souls. “I forgive you as God forgives you.” And not one time, but again and again. In Jesus’ words: “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Mt 18:22). And then with Jesus’ parable—the master who canceled billions of dollars in debt out of mercy. And then the opposite when the man couldn’t do that with an obligation of thousands. We live to the Lord in Christian love, imitating him as we send away sin as he does.
Some of us may be more emotional than others, at least outwardly as we wear it on our sleeves. And even at times we flirt with loneliness, we are not by ourselves. We have our faithful God and our fellow man. As we pass our time, we live to the Lord in Christian liberty—free to do what is pleasing to God—and in Christian love—forgiving as we have been forgiven. That is our life to our Savior. Amen.
To the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen (Ro 16:27).
October 1, 2017
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