Tag: Providence Reformed Church

What would you rather be: really smart or really loving? O, I know if you are a Christian that you should automatically know the right answer. But I wonder how often we do.

 

1 Corinthians 8:1-3 – 1 Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. 2 If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. 3 But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.

 

The context of this passage is a bit of controversy in Corinth. Some Christians would, without any objections, eat food they knew had been involved in pagan temple sacrifices. Other Christians, those recently converted from those religions, were being put in a sort of spiritual jeopardy. The meat-eating Christians knew, with perfectly sound knowledge, that the false religion of the idol worshipers did not contaminate the meat. But those who had so recently been a part of the pagan temple system were not so sure.

 

Picture the problem. One person has a completely clear conscience. They could eat along with a bunch of idol worshipers without committing any sort of personal sin. They are just happy to have some bargain priced steak.

 

On the other hand, we have a person who just got out of that temple system. If they go back into the temple to have dinner, who knows what other temptations they will face. First, they will struggle to not let themselves believe that something has spiritually happened to their dinner. Second, they will be surrounded by the very familiar confines of pagan idolatry.

 

A Christian with only knowledge would, at this point, make a solid argument before the former idolater about the substance of idols and the fact that the meat is not contaminated. They will argue for their right to walk into any building anywhere so long as they are not participating in the worship. And, in a technical, legal, personal sense, they will be correct.

 

But the outcome of that argument could be devastating. The former idolater may then think that he should be personally comfortable with going into the temple. He may then find himself encountering a temptation that he is not at all ready to bear in his young faith. Thus, the well-reasoned argument of the meat eater does harm to the former idol worshiper.

 

What is the answer? The answer is love. Knowledge puffs us up. it makes us think we are superior. Knowledge alone will lead us to put down those who do not see things our way and flaunt our freedoms in such a way as to put others at risk. And this is never going to help the body of Christ or please the Lord.

 

Now, love here does not mean that the former idolater gets to tell the meat eater to become vegetarian. But love would make the former meat eater, when with the former idolater, not wave his freedom around. When the two are together, temple meats should not be on the menu. This is not because there is something wrong with the meat, but because the menu could lead the weaker brother toward the danger of sin that is completely unnecessary.

 

At the same time, love would keep the former idolater from proclaiming to the world that all the good Christians avoid meat. Love would lead the weaker brother to say,” I understand that some folks are free to go in there and buy a steak, but for me, it is too dangerous right now.”

 

I’m sure you have all sorts of personal areas where you can draw application here. And in truth, I’m not making an argument in those areas. Instead, my argument here is about love being more important than someone’s scholarly argument about their freedom. Our first goal should be to love the Lord and to love others in the body of Christ. And that means that, from time to time, we will curtail our personal freedoms when those freedoms will put another’s wellbeing at risk.

I love the Psalms. I love them for their poetry. I love them for their picture of God. But I probably love them most for their honesty. In the Psalms, we see the full range of human emotions. We see into the hearts of those who worship the Lord rightly and those who sin in their souls. We see, in short, pictures of ourselves.

 

Psalm 73 is one of those Psalms that is gloriously honest. It speaks to the depths of who we are. As the people of God, we are greatly blessed. But, if we are honest, we will also admit we can be bitter. We do not like it when life is hard. We do not like it when those who oppose God seem to get away with cruelty and nastiness. WE do not like it when the poor are crushed or the hurting are laid waste. We do not like it when we are not recognized for whatever good we think we possess. And we do not like it when it appears that eternity is so far away that we forget what we exist to be and do.

 

And when we get bitter, when we hurt and let that hurt coarse through our veins, we act foolishly. And in those settings, we need to be reminded of God and his perfection.

 

Psalm 73:21-23

 

21 When my soul was embittered,

when I was pricked in heart,

22 I was brutish and ignorant;

I was like a beast toward you.

23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you;

you hold my right hand.

 

The psalmist writes of his time of bitterness. He was frustrated at the injustice of the world. HE did not think he was getting the good he deserved. And so he sinned in his heart.

 

Notice how he describes his sin. How real does it seem? He says to God, “I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.” Have you ever been like that? I have. I have more recently than I would want to publicly admit.

 

This passage is a perfect picture of the soul-crushing self-pity that we are so easily led into by our foolish and sinful minds. We come up with a way we want the world to be. The world will not, it cannot, meet our expectations and demands. Nor would having all our expectations met be good for us. And so we rage. WE fuss. We grumble. We become brutish toward the Lord. WE growl and snap and huff and snort and act like animals because we are not getting things the way we think they should be. 

 

What is the solution? For the Psalmist, as we see in verse 23, the solution is to remember that God is with him. Even when life is not giving him what he wants, God is there. Even when he has been grumbling and griping and sinning out of sheer crankiness, God is still there. The Lord has not turned away from him and left him alone. God’s grace is still upon him.

 

I love the Psalms. Texts like the one above remind me of just who I am and how I can behave. They show me my failures in vivid color. They remind me of the grace of God for my sins that was fully purchased by Christ. No, I do not like seeing my sin. I do not like having a heart that still needs so much sanctification. But I am grateful to God that he has let me see that other believers, better men than I, have fought the same battles, failed the same failures, and landed softly on the same grace.

It’s funny how we often summarize a passage of Scripture without allowing its import to really sink in. In 1 Corinthians 6:1-8, we see a passage of Scripture that most Christians could not quote, but which many have summarized in our minds. We know that the Bible forbids Christians from taking each other to court, from suing each other over minor offenses. We know that we are supposed to be spiritually mature enough to settle our differences or to prefer to be wronged rather than to drag the name of Christ through the mud in the court system in front of nonbelievers.

 

As I came across that section of Scripture in my read through the Bible, I found myself seeing a further application that I think we often miss.

 

1 Corinthians 6:1-4 – 1 When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? 2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! 4 So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church?

 

Now, I have no objection to the typical and right interpretation of this passage. We ought not take trivial cases before nonbelievers to solve them for us. But I want us to think about this situation from another angle. How often do we fail to bring major life decisions to others in the body of Christ to help us consider and pray through them before we make those decisions? How often do we fail to take advantage of the wisdom of God given to believers to protect us from making unwise choices? How often do we make our decisions and then tell the church what we are doing rather than allowing people (who will eventually judge angels as Paul told us) to help us think through life-altering plans?

 

Here are two examples. A single woman is part of a church. She does not, however, share her life and struggles with others. Her life is her own. One weekend she is not at church, and nobody knows why . The next weekend she is back with a man in tow. She lets us know that she is now married. Or a family which is a major part of the body comes to church one Sunday with an announcement. They are moving to a new city. The dad is taking a new job in his company and they will soon be packing up the house and the kids and heading off to a brand new city.

 

Now, let me be really clear. I have no desire to think that the church should control such decisions. WE are not one of the cults who exercise absolute authority over an individual’s decisions. But, and this is the point I think, should not a wise and growing Christian allow other wise and trustworthy Christians to speak into those decisions? Does it not make sense that the elders of the church ought to have some knowledge of what a person is considering when it is a major life plan?

 

In both of my examples, actual examples from real life, I have seen them go extremely badly when, in truth, the elders of a church could have prevented the problem. In the case of the single lady getting married, it turned out that she got married to a man she met on line and had not wisely assessed his actual commitment to Christ. It turned out she married a deceptive man without a genuine faith. And I knew, immediately after meeting this guy, that he was a fraud. Had she sought the counsel of the elders, we could have saved her a ton of pain and actual physical danger. But she chose to make her own call about her own life and short circuited God’s plan for her protection.

 

In the case of the family, the same sort of thing can happen. All the dad could see was an opportunity for career advancement. But he and the wife did not consider whether or not there was a healthy church into which they could settle. Nor did the dad consider the implications of moving his kids at their particular stages of life. He just saw promotion, assumed it was best, and put the family into a really hard spot. Again, the elders of the church might not have prevented the decision, but certainly could have helped the family navigate the move and the church transition far better.

 

No, I do not want the responsibility of telling everybody how to make every decision. But, is it not obvious that, when we are in a position to make life-changing decisions, we should seek the counsel of the church elders? When we do not do so, we most assuredly short circuit the plan of protection that God has placed over us in our Christian lives. God has given us the church for a reason. He has given us elders for a reason. God has shaped the church body with wise, God-centered men and women who can give us biblical counsel as we consider what steps to take in our lives. And when we ignore the counsel of the wise and the wise counsel of the elders, we extend our risk beyond the protection of the body to our own hurt.

 

So, perhaps the next time you have a major life decision to make, consider sitting down with your elders (or pastor if your church does not have a plurality of elders—though it should). Talk to a trusted small group leader or Sunday School teacher. Stop making major decisions on your own. I know that we push back in pride, declaring this to be “my life.” But God has a plan to protect us with the wisdom of others in the body. Let us not short circuit that. Instead, let us call on the wisdom of those who will judge the angels to help us navigate the world in which we live.

If you have known me for any amount of time, you will know that I regularly remind believers that we must take the context of a Bible passage seriously if we are to properly understand it. In my reading through 2 Samuel, I found a perfect example of a verse that, out of context, gives us a very faulty impression of what the passage is saying.

 

2 Samuel 5:8 – And David said on that day, “Whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack ‘the lame and the blind,’ who are hated by David’s soul.” Therefore it is said, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.”

 

Ok, play with that verse with no context. What is your interpretation? Obviously, David, the king over Israel, hates blind people. He hates people with crippling disabilities. He really sounds like a nasty guy. He is even commanding people to go and strike such people down.

 

Now, think of what would happen if a person tried to make a devotional Bible lesson out of that verse when taken out of context. They could come up with all sorts of nasty conclusions, the worst of which might lead to concentration camps for the physically challenged.

 

But we know better. We know that this is not the way of God. We know that God does not hate the blind and the lame. He does not tell his leaders to turn against those who are needy. So what is going on?

 

Context!  Context matters! It matters a lot!

 

Let’s see that verse in its context. David had been king living in Hebron. But now he is preparing to move his capital city to Jerusalem, the city of the Jebusites. Obviously, the Jebusites are not interested in giving their city over to David. So they shut the gates. And then they taunt David, because the Jebusites are sure that David and his army cannot get into their city to defeat them.

 

2 Samuel 5:6-8 – 6 And the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, “You will not come in here, but the blind and the lame will ward you off”—thinking, “David cannot come in here.” 7 Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of David. 8 And David said on that day, “Whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack ‘the lame and the blind,’ who are hated by David’s soul.” Therefore it is said, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.”

 

In verse 6, we see that the Jebusites are mocking David. They are saying that their city is so strong that an army of the blind and the lame could ward off David and his men. They are putting down David’s army and saying that they are not a challenge.

 

So, when David hears the mocking of the Jebusites, he orders his men to find a way, even through the water shafts, to get into the city. And David turns the words of the Jebusites back on their heads. He tells his men to go get those blind and lame defenders of the city. David is not at all suggesting any hatred of real blind people. He is saying that he has a problem with the Jebusites, and they will not be able to defend their city against him. They said blind people could defeat David. David says they cannot.

 

Now, my point was to show us the value of context. If verse 8 were taken alone, one would have an entirely false impression of what the passage was saying. But, when we see verse 8 as part of the entire paragraph with the history filled in, we see that the words of David are intended to be a sarcastic taunt, not a nasty slur against people with disabilities.

 

When you read and handle Scripture, please, for the love of God and all things good, learn to keep the context of the passage at the forefront. Learn to ask what is really going on. Learn to see what has passed before what you read. Very few passages are intended to stand alone. Almost all Bible passages have something that came before them that help us understand them. (The Psalms are examples of stand-alone units, but even they have context we can learn from.)

 

Besides thinking about the historical context, ask yourself what kind of thing you are reading. David’s words were a taunt, not at all intended to be taken literally. Are you reading a text that is supposed to be rigidly factual, or is it full of metaphor, slang, or poetry? There is a big difference in how one handles a history book and a line from Shakespeare. The same must be true in Scripture.

 

Context matters. Let us learn to read the word of God with the intent of the author in our minds so that we will not mishandle it.

It is funny the extremes one will find when talking with others about their righteousness or right standing before God. You will run into some people who are highly conscious of their sinfulness and failures. Such people often doubt whether God could ever forgive them or use them in his kingdom. Or you will run into folks who are supremely confident that they must be pleasing to God. They have no doubt about their standing and are highly sure of themselves.

 

Either group mentioned above can be hard to talk to about spiritual things. And both groups are making an error in judgment. In our society, we often hear that we are not to judge others. Of course, that is a very incorrect handling of Matthew 7:1. But I wonder how many of us make the mistake of thinking we can rightly judge ourselves. How many of us think we know who we are deep down and thus can rightly assess our actions and motives? Let me present to us this for consideration: We are not capable on our own to judge our own lives.

 

1 Corinthians 4:3-5 – 3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. 4 For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.

 

When the apostle Paul was writing to the Corinthian church, he made sure that the church knew that he was inadequate to judge his own life. Paul, the man who wrote nearly half of the New Testament books, said that he was unqualified to declare himself to be anything before the Lord. Paul would not judge himself. Instead, he left the proper judging of his life to the Lord.

 

Notice as well that Paul said that the judgment of God on our lives would come when the Lord Jesus returns. When Jesus makes his way back to the earth, he will bring to light what is hidden in our lives. He will expose not only our deeds but the motives and purposes of our hearts. Jesus will not simply look at a record book of our actions, but he will see clearer than we have ever seen the exact reasons behind everything we have ever done. He will know when we have done a right thing so that others would be impressed by us. He will know when we have given out of guilt instead of out of joy. He will know when we have tried to make ourselves look good, to gain position, or to put down others.

 

The point, dear friends, is that we must find ourselves under the grace of Jesus and then leave all assessment of our worth up to him. Alone, we cannot please the Lord. We must believe in Jesus and turn from our sin to be saved. But even when we are saved, we must not think highly of ourselves as if we can see through our own motives. The truth is, we cannot see into our own hearts very well. We may give ourselves too much credit. We may be too hard on ourselves. But either way, our judgment of our own lives and actions will be far from perfect. So may we stop assessing ourselves by our standards, get under the grace of Jesus, and trust him to make us into what he wants us to be.

It is interesting to note the different ways that our weaknesses manifest. In some churches, it is like pulling teeth to get people to want to study the word of God in depth. In others, the body has such a strong desire to believe that they are going deeper and deeper in their understanding that they may miss the value of simple grace. But neither the one who ignores doctrine nor the one who thinks only of being deep is really honoring the Lord without other things being central to his or her life.

 

1 Corinthians 3:1-4 – 1 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?

 

As Paul opens 1 Corinthians 3, he is chastising the church at Corinth for their shallowness. This reminds us that we do not want to be shallow Christians. None of us want to be the people who are only fed on spiritual milk. We need to grow up into maturity. We need to grow to be able to follow the Lord and handle the deeper truths of Scripture.

 

But notice what Paul has to say to this group about why they are shallow. He is not saying that they require milk because of their lack of study. Nor does Paul indicate that they are disinterested in deep doctrine. In fact, from what he writes in this chapter, it looks like the people are all about steaking out their positions. But, somehow, in the midst of their wrangling, the church is still not mature.

 

What is the issue? Paul points out that this body of believers is shallow, not because of a lack of knowledge, but because of a lack of love and spiritual kindness. Inside the church, there appears to be a factionalism arising. Some love one teacher and some another. Some have their favorite leader while some follow another. And instead of learning from each other, the church has gotten to a point where they are being nasty to each other because of whom they follow or whom they do not.

 

Can you imagine that in our churches today? I would think so. Even in churches that are united on tough doctrinal things such as reformed theology, how often do you see people measure each other by their favorite? I follow Piper. I follow MacArthur. I follow Mohler. I follow Washer. I follow Lawson. I follow Platt. I follow Chandler. You can get the picture.

Could you imagine, however, a group in which one person in the body looks down on another or poorly treats another because of how they feel about another’s choice of favorite teacher or author? I surely can. And, you can probably also imagine that such a person, when they feel the need to let you know why they don’t like your favorite author or teacher, might end up hurting your feelings or putting you down in one way or another.

 

Now, go back to Paul’s point. If you are lining up and choosing sides based on your favorite teacher or leader, you are immature. You are babies still on milk. It does not matter how many conferences you have been to. It does not matter how well you can spout catechism. It does not matter whose systematic theology you can quote verbatim. If you are divisive, nasty, and unloving toward others in the body, you are not mature. If you are someone who puts people off and cannot keep friends in the church because of your positions on doctrines or leaders, you are an infant in the faith.

 

I think this lesson is needed in every church in a different form. For some believers, you need to mature by actually starting to care about biblical doctrine. If you do not know enough Scripture to have a position on sovereignty, election, end times, baptism, divorce, remarriage, eldership, or other such things, you need to grow. There is no biblical excuse for remaining ignorant of the things that the church has wrestled through for centuries.

 

At the same time, if you are doctrinally well-educated, but your education somehow impacts your personality so that people do not like you, it is your responsibility to grow toward love. No person is spiritually mature who cannot be lovingly connected to a local church body. Even if the people around you land differently on some doctrinal positions, you should be able to be gracious and to show kindness and to keep friendships so long as we are not here talking about doctrines essential for salvation. If you are a deep thinker, a heavy learner, a voracious reader, but if you cannot be friends with an average believer, you are not mature. In fact, Paul would tell you that you are on just as much of a baby bottle diet as is the immature believer you keep offending.

 

May we learn, therefore, to desire maturity. And may we understand that spiritual maturity always includes loving others in the body and showing the kindness of Christ. Learn the truth, but do so with grace. Tell the truth, but do not break the body in the process.

Have you noticed how many Christians turn up their noses at certain discussions relating to the faith? For example, have you talked with believers who are happy to discuss certain moral issues with you, but consider a topic like eschatology, the study of the end times, to be not worth their while? Why do you think this happens?

 

Of course, we cannot be surprised that so many are disinterested in a discussion of end times things. Too many have been over-exposed to the Left Behind sort of teaching and have turned away from that book series’ claims. Too many have found that the bickering among believers about the timing of the rapture, the coming of a possible millennium, or the rise of the antichrist is just far too speculative and divisive to be any good for anybody. And, since the topic is hard, it should be ignored.

 

Of course, other believers are not over-exposed to one brand of eschatology. Instead, they have been abused by teachers who became so fascinated with a novel way of handling the end times that they forced their point of view into every teaching they gave. Thus, the Christians who were subjected to a regular attack of passionate proclamation about how the end times already took place or some other sort of system have no interest in ever being dragged down that road again.

 

But what do we lose when we lose the ability to study eschatology together? Is there a loss at all? Should we just ignore it altogether?

 

Consider what Paul writes to the Corinthian church about a particular hope that they have in Christ.

 

1 Corinthians 1:7-9 – 7 so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Paul is hear giving God thanks for the Corinthians and expressing his confidence in the gifts that the Lord has given his church. Of course, the Corinthians were blessed with some spectacular spiritual gifts. But Paul’s focus actually goes further. The Corinthians are going to be sustained by their faithful God as they await the revealing of the Lord Jesus. They are actively, passionately, insistently waiting on the unveiling of Jesus.

 

What is that about? The unveiling or revealing of Jesus Christ is a reference to Jesus’ return. The hope of the Corinthians is not in their present position. Their hope is not in their miraculous spiritual gifting. No, their hope is in the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their hope is in the return of Jesus. That is where they can place their hope for life in the presence of their faithful God.

 

What I fear, if we are not careful, is that we will give up the sustaining hope that the Corinthian church had if we let go of any conversations about the return of Christ. If we assume that this stuff all does not matter, I wonder how much hope we ignore. I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to ignore any sort of sustaining Scriptural hope. I need it. And so I must take seriously the call to know the word of God, including what the word of God has revealed about the return of Jesus.

 

Now, I am not here to promote any system that you need to buy into. But what I would say is that you probably need to be careful turning your nose up at the topic of the return of Jesus just because some have overemphasized it or because you find it confusing or because some argue about it or because you are not good at it. God has promised us that Jesus will return. We should be fascinated by that. We should long to look into that topic as much as the Lord has revealed. We should be gracious with those who disagree with us on the order of future events or the literal or figurative understanding of a thousand year reign of Christ. But, friends, let us not hide from the topic. Why? The topic of the return of Christ is a source of sustaining hope for believers, and we need all the hope we can get.

 

The word church is an interesting word, because it means more than one thing when people say or hear it. Some people think of a building. Some people think of a local gathering. Some think of a group gathering in a home. Some people think of a structure of authority spanning the globe. Some understand it to mean all believers everywhere. Some think of an underground movement of believers worshipping secretly, out of sight of the oppressive government. Some think of a place they were forced to go as children. Some think of a social organization, a good place to go with good people to do good deeds.

 

But what do we actually see God say about the church? I think we can learn three important truths about the church in the greeting that Paul sends to the church in Corinth.

 

1 Corinthians 1:2 – To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

 

What do we learn about the church in this verse? First, it is the church of God. God is over the church. The church belongs to the Lord. He is the one who created the church, and the very existence of the church is for his honor. That removes so many false pictures of the church. We cannot be a social club, a political expedient, or a man-centered gathering of do-gooders who come to make themselves feel better as they shape the world into their own image.

 

The church is a local gathering of believers. If this were not the case, then the greeting that Paul gave, “To the church of God that is in Corinth,” would not have made any sense. The church is a gathering of geographically connected believers who come together for the purposes of the worship of God and obedience to his word.

 

Consider the potential failure in our Christian lives if we miss the concept of the local church. There are some believers who never connect to a local body. They bounce around from gathering to gathering, enjoying the novelty of different groups of people and styles of worship from Sunday to Sunday. Such people miss the fact that God has designed church life to be experienced in connected units, groups that gather in different places and demonstrate commitment to the Lord by their commitment to one another. A person who does not connect to a local church simply cannot experience the Christian life the way that the Lord intends.

 

But also notice that the church is a global body. Paul says at the end of this verse that the church consists of people, “called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” `, church is also the proper word for all saints of God everywhere. Every single saved person on earth today and throughout all of human history is part of the church universal. Thus, all Christians must grasp that we are connected to a mass of people from every nation and every people group that exists.

 

Again, consider the problems that come if we miss this truth. If we miss that the church is a global body, we will assume that every Christian group should function exactly as our local body functions. We should assume that Christians sing the songs we sing, sit in the same kind of seats we sit in, and experience the same kind of lives that we lead. But the truth is, the church global is far bigger than any of our cultures. Some churches meet outdoors. Some meet in hiding. Some meet in homes. Some meet in glorious buildings. Some sing without instruments. Some have drums and nothing more. Some have full bands. Some have orchestras. Some have a piano or maybe even an organ. We fail to think well of the church if we do not see that the church is far bigger, far greater, far more diverse than our local gathering. We are a part of a greater whole, the people of God saved by Jesus for the honor of the Lord.

 

When you think church, what do you think? If you only think local, you miss the beautiful mosaic that God is putting together of different clusters of people all over the world. If you only think global, however, you are failing to connect to a local body so as to rightly live out the commands that God has given for us to love and grow together with one another. May we all learn to connect to the church local and global to God’s glory.

While much of Christianity is quite simple to understand, there are elements of the Scriptures and of God’s moral standards that not all agree upon. We know that the word of God is clear about issues related to sexual purity, marriage, drunkenness, violence, gossip, and the like. But there are certainly areas in which well-meaning Christians disagree.

 

High on the list of things over Which good Christians disagree are issues related to the drinking of alcohol and the keeping of a Sabbath day. To some Christians, no believer should ever drink alcohol. To some Christians, no believer should ever eat at a restaurant on a Sunday. To other believers, alcohol in moderation is seen as a gift from God and something that believers are free to partake of in moderation. And some believers understand the Sabbath commands to be a fulfilled pointer to the perfect rest achieved by Christ as we rely fully on him in the gospel. Thus, those believers treat no particular day of the week as sacred even while they may continue to follow the pattern of working 6 days and resting 1.

 

How are we to resolve these issues? I’d guess that, if you have read this far, you have an opinion. You probably even have a strong opinion as to what is acceptable for Christians. You probably have a pretty clear idea in your mind as to where all good Christians should fall on the scale of Christian liberty.

 

But, can I ask you to consider something that Paul wrote to the church at Rome to help us in, not what to think about these issues, but how to talk about and treat each other regarding these issues?

 

Romans 14:1-4 – 1 As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. 2 One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. 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. 4 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.

 

In case you are not thinking about drinking or the Sabbath here, recognize that the remainder of Romans 14 will walk down those particular paths. But, before we go down that road, Paul gives us some very strong counsel. He commands us to understand that each child of God will stand before the Lord and account to God for his or her behavior in these sometimes controversial areas. And Paul then tells us not to pass judgment on one another in these areas if we find ourselves disagreeing. He will certainly call us to be convinced in our own minds of the position that we personally live out. But we are not to be so foolish as to attempt to forcibly apply our standards to others or look down on others who disagree with us.

 

Please also notice that Paul addresses both sides of the issue. The one who eats and the one who abstains are both called not to look down on the other. That would also apply to drinking or Sabbath regulations.

 

We have a bent toward judging those who hold to different standards than we do. But Paul is clear that we should not do so. There are areas in which, if we hold ourselves to a stricter standard than do others, we are to be careful not to let ourselves judge others for not holding to our particular choices. 

 

Some Christians are apt to try to tell those who are judging others for their freedoms to lay off. We like to use romans 14 as a tool to say to those who have standards that we think are the legalistic side of moralism to stop judging others in their freedoms. I’m guessing that you’ve seen that from time to time in blog posts or on social media.

 

But notice that Paul also says that the one who exercises his or her freedom in these areas has no right, none at all, to look down on or judge the one who disagrees. And for many in the modern church, this has been overlooked. There is no room for nasty condescension on either side.

 

So, let’s apply this practically. Are you convinced that no Christian should ever drink alcohol because of what you perceive as a bad social witness? Fine. But do not look down on or judge believers who disagree with you. There are believers who have come to a different conclusion, and have done so thoughtfully. Do not attempt to hold them to your standard.

 

Are you one who feels free to drink in moderation. Fine. But do not look down on or judge the believer who disagrees with your choices. Certainly do not try to talk someone into drinking alcohol who has personal qualms about the issue. Do not consider yourself superior to another because of your grasp of freedom. And, for goodness’ sake, do not flaunt your freedom by waving it in the faces of those who disagree with you. Live peaceably, not allowing others to restrict your freedom or judge you as you do not intentionally go out of your way to put down others or flaunt your freedom.

 

Friends, we are to live lovingly in the church. That means that we will have to learn to be kind to those who disagree with us. We need to be gracious enough to understand that not all issues are as cut and dried as we are given to think. We need to have godly kindness for those servants of the Lord who cannot see the issues as we see them. We need to be merciful and gracious, not quick to see ourselves as superior for our superior grasp of the issues at hand. Perhaps we are right. That is fine. But we must leave the hearts and consciences of others in the hands of the Lord to shape by his word for his glory.

 

Does this mean that we should never talk with each other about Sabbath keeping or social drinking? No, it does not. But our conversations must be kind and gracious. And both sides must understand the biblical mandate not to look down on the other side for a difference of opinion in these issues. May we honor the Lord by being gracious toward other servants of the Master, because, as Paul told us, they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand. 

#en

Sometimes we read the word of God, and we make everything into a mystery. We act as though the commands of God are hard to understand. But, if we are really honest, if we strip everything bare, we will find that obedience to the commands of god is a struggle for us, not because of our understanding, but because of our sinful hearts.

 

The truth is, Christianity is not complicated. God has not given a mass of indecipherable commandments that are just beyond our intellect to know how to follow. Instead, God has given us only a few commands, a few simple things, that, if we obey them under grace, we honor the Lord.

 

Of course, the first command is that we will worship God. That must include the call of God that we turn from our sins and trust in Jesus for salvation. If you have not let go of the concept of leading your own life and turned to Jesus in faith, the only real command of God on you is that you do so. Trust in Jesus. Surrender to his lordship. Ask him for salvation.

 

But then, what about the commands of God is so easy? Consider the simplicity of Romans chapter 13. The first 7 verses of the chapter are all about obeying the laws of the land in which we live. We do not break the law unless the law calls us to sin against God. We respect authority. We pay taxes. We live simple and good lives to the glory of God. That is how to obey.

 

At the end of the chapter, God calls us to look forward to the return of Christ by living out lives of purity. We are to put away things that bring us to sinful impurity and prepare our lives to meet our Lord. Nothing here is complicated.

 

And, for an example of simple Christianity, look at the commands in the middle of the chapter.

 

Romans 13:8-10 – 8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

 

How complicated is that? All the moral law is summed up in a command that we love our neighbor as ourselves. We commit ourselves to do others good rather than doing them harm. We seek the benefit of others, even to our own cost and discomfort. As an example, we do not kill, steal, or commit adultery because none of those things fits with a commitment to Godly love.

 

Friends, none of this is hard to understand. None of it is complicated. Not one little bit makes you scratch your head and say, “I wonder what in the world God is talking about here.” It is easy.

 

No, it is not easy to do. We are not naturally a loving people. We are naturally selfish. We naturally grumble and complain because we want our own way. We naturally squash others because we want to put ourselves forward. But the truth is, the trouble, the difficult part, in obeying these commands is in our hearts, not our heads. We are natural sinners. We have a natural evil in our very skin. We naturally rebel against the Lord. But make no mistake, we do not do this because the law of God is hard to grasp.

 

So, may we never pretend we do not know what the Lord wants of us. May we instead submit ourselves to doing what God commands Christians to Do. We are to worship the Lord. We are to love him and his word. We are to live peaceable, obedient, quiet lives in the world. We are to show kindness and love toward others. We are never to compromise God’s clear commands. We are to tell others about Jesus, especially when they want to know how we can live with the hope of God within us. We are to love the church especially, and do good to believers. We are to live in our homes to the glory of God as parents, children, spouses, and the rest. May we pray for the help of God’s Holy Spirit to do the simple things that the Lord has called us to do so that we might have the joy of honoring his name.