Romans 15:1-13

"In Essentials Unity..." Part III

by Pastor Jim Lincoln on May 6, 2007

3:08 PM 6/3/2007 The church was given a motto in the fourth century to inspire love and unity in the face of deeply held differences. It goes like this, "In Essentials Unity, in nonessentials charity, in all things Christ." It was based on chapters fourteen and fifteen of Paul's letter to the Romans, especially 14:1 where Paul identifies certain beliefs and practices as "opinions" or "judgment calls." Chrysostom called these non-essential matters. Augustine called them things unnecessary for universal agreement. After the Reformation, they were called matters of indifference. By indifferent, it was meant that no church, minister, or church council could bind a church member's conscience with respect to them. So, it was designed to give the church a foundation of unity in the presence of significant diversity.

The Issue in the Church at Rome:

The issue that divided the church at Rome was eating meat offered to idols. One group (with predominantly Jewish background) had strong feelings about not eating this meat. The kosher food laws had been part of Israel's history for over a thousand years; it set the people of God apart from their pagan neighbors. Abstaining from defiled food was part of Jewish national and religious identity¹ . They simply could not understand why Gentile Christians, who worshipped a Jewish Messiah, would want to throw aside this long standing heritage. The Gentile Christians, on the other hand, had no historical or religious investment attached to kosher food laws and saw no reason to leave meat out of their diet. They believed in the one true God and that pagan idols were man made and had no divine reality. Their consciences were unaffected (strong) by eating meat that had been dedicated to an idol. One group saw abstaining from meat as essential to maintaining their identity as the people of God. The other saw it as nonessential to the faith.

Today, eating meat offered to idols seems trivial to us. However, underneath the practice stood questions about the identity of the people of God and how should they act? What does it mean for Gentiles to become part of the common wealth of Israel (Eph. 2:19)? What parts of the Old Testament do we carry over into the New Covenant? What parts to we leave behind? How do we live, worship with, and love each other in the face of these very passionate differences? These are difficult questions. So Paul takes his time and gives them much to consider.

Summary off Paul's Exhortations:

Now, before he resolves the theological question, he tells them how to treat each other in the presence of the difference. He calls them to welcome each other (14:1), and he repeats that command in 15:7. This is the fundamental admonition. He doesn't want them to let their differences over this issue keep them from loving each other and receiving each other into their friendship circles.

He tells them not to judge each other or look down on each other over this issue (14:3). He honors both groups as faithful believers who honor God, serve God, and give thanks to God. He calls them to prize, treasure, love, and cherish each other without passing judgment. Christ welcomes both groups (14:3). The abstainers must come to accept that no food is unclean in and of itself. They are simply wrong on this point. To the eaters he says, "Look, don't mock, tease or tempt your brother in this respect; love him instead. Don't force his conscience on this point."

He also calls them to remember that they will all face their own day of accountability (14:10). Instead of judging each other over secondary issues they should think more about preparing themselves for the assessment they will face before God.

He tells the eaters not to become stumbling blocks to those who think it is wrong to eat meant (14:13). He calls them to be sensitive to their brother's moral sensibilities. Even if eating meat is perfectly fine, if your brother thinks it is sin and he eats anyway, then he has shown that he is willing to betray the Lord by violating his conscience. This is where the sin lies. And this could be to the beginning of his downfall (14:14-15). So, Paul calls them not to flaunt their freedom in such a way that causes their brother to break with his conscience. Instead let love (14:15) trump and triumph over your freedom. Live for the greater kingdom values of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit and building up rather than tearing down.

Chapter 15 & New Motivations to Love in Unity:

In chapter fifteen Paul is essentially giving the same admonition (15:7). He repeats the same theme but he adds some new motivations. Here, he calls upon Christian love, Christ's example, the Word, and prayer as ways to being united in love. He calls them to welcome others precisely at the point where society has had its greatest challenge: where racial, ethnic, and cultural differences are present.

"Separate but Equal":

In postbellum America, the South came up with a phrase, "Separate but equal." On June 13, 1866 Congress passed the Equal Protection clause (14th Amendment). It was passed to overturn the inequalities of the Supreme Court's Dredd Scott decision of 1856. This to how the Dredd Scott court described African-Americans. [They are],

"beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

Thirty years later the 14th Amendment overturned Dredd Scott and gave equal protection to all races under the law. However, the amendment said nothing about integration. The South dealt with this by passing Jim Crow laws that were based on the equal but separate principal. Growing up in the South, I witnessed Jim Crow laws first hand. We had separate drinking fountains, separate bathrooms with signs that read, "Whites only" or "Colored." Louis Armstrong performed a concert in our city and yet he was refused a night's stay at the Scott Hotel because he was black. It wasn't until 1964, with the Civil Rights Act, that these laws were completely overturned.

When Paul says to welcome each other, he was saying that equal but separate won't do with God's people. According to Ephesians 2:14, Jesus made Jew and Gentile one and has "broken down the dividing wall of hostility...that He might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace." The most natural thing to do when there are cultural or ethnic differences is to sit with your own. Paul doesn't leave them with that option. Demographics, as a basis for Christian unity, are simply sub-Christian. They work. However, the price we pay is far too great. Today the church is often marketed precisely on the basis of demographics and on the principle that likes attract likes. We find it too uncomfortable and difficult to love when all our demographic preferences aren't being massaged. We are consumers and we have our lists. Beloved, love can go deeper than demographics. But, this means that we'll have to make many uncomfortable sacrifices for the sake of unity.

Four Ways to Bear a Witness to Unifying Love

In chapter 15:1-6 Paul reinforces this call to unity in four ways:

1. By calling them to serve each other in love (especially the strong, vv.1-2)
2. By following Christ's example (15:3)
3. By sustaining their patience, comfort, and hope in the Word (15:4)
4. By praying for their unity (15:5-6)

OK, let's take a brief look at each.

First, he calls them to be united by serving each other in Christian love (1-2).

"We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the weaknesses (infirmities) of the weak and not please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up."

Here's how you approach conflicts over non-essential things. You serve each other. You please each other. Debate over many issues may not work. When my girls moved in together after college they didn't know how they would get along. Christy asked me what to do? I told her to be her sister's servant. Rebekah called me and asked me what to do. I told her to be her sister's servant. They both did and an amazing thing happened. They got along!

Many circumvent this step in conflict. Many debate, draw lines, choose up sides, defend their positions, and before you know it, the relationship is over. Paul says to the strong. Look, this right you have to eat meat is not worth losing your sweet fellowship over if it causes your brother to stumble. Love has a duty. Love has an obligation. Love has a duty to bear the weakness of your brother! The word bear doesn't mean to tolerate or put up with. It doesn't mean to roll your eyes and grin and bear it. It means to carry. It's the same word Paul uses in Galatians when he says to, "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." He's alluding to Isaiah 53:4. According to this passage, what did Christ carry for us? He carried our infirmities! He's calling them to empathize with their brother. Carry that weak scruple. Get inside the soul of your brother. Imagine how hard it is for your Jewish brothers to give up a practice that identified them as the people of God for over a thousand years. Imagine how difficult it would be if your mother, grandmother, and great grandmother all kept kosher kitchens to suddenly give all that up and eat meat they thought was defiled. Carry that scruple yourself. No, don't adopt it as your own ethic, but walk in their sandals for a while. Cut them some slack without criticizing or taking every opportunity you get to set them straight.

Don't please yourself in this regard. Instead, please your neighbor. Be a people pleaser! No, not the kind that uses flattery or a sad technique to bolster insecurity or to manipulate. Please others by sacrificing your own impulse to have to win every argument or to be superior or to demand all your rights. Serve your brother in love.

He's talking about Christian love. Christian love or agape love happens when the well being, safety, peace, and joy of another is more important to you than your own. Paganism knew almost nothing of love like this. Paul says make your brother's good and his edification (15:2) your ambition.

Now, this is just counter intuitive. As the church becomes more consumer driven, it just sounds too strange. I have never had anyone tell me when they left a church that they did so because there just wasn't any opportunity to serve. No one ever says to me, "There's just no one to love. There's just no one to please. There's no one elderly to go visit. There's no one who needs good things to be done for them. There's no one who needs to be built up. There's no one who needs encouragement. There's just no one who needs a helping hand. There's simply just no opportunity to love people, sacrifice my preferences and serve them." When relationships fracture, people normally don't ask this question, "How can I serve you?"

Be united by loving each other. For those who think they are strong and mature in the faith, they need to lay aside pleasing themselves and serve those with infirmities.

Second, be united by following Christ's example. (3)

"For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me." Ps. 69:9

Jesus was love incarnate. If you want to know how to love others then look to Jesus. Paul reminds them that Jesus did not come to please himself. He means that Jesus did not come to assert his rights and prerogatives and privileges. He deserved to be praised; He wasn't. He deserved to be honored; instead he was crucified. He deserved to be served; He wasn't. He deserved to be worshipped. He deserved to be loved; He was hated. Now, you say that you want to be like Christ? Oh really? Paul quotes Ps.69:9 where he points out that Jesus received reproach instead of His rights to glory, praise, and thanksgiving. This is the path of love.

What reproaches must the strong endure? Well, the weak are judging them with reproach. It may even be a racial reproach. I wonder if underneath the Jewish Christian's breath it went something like this, "Those Gentiles just have no heritage or sense of history."

If Jesus asserted His rights to please himself or to get what He deserved how might the course of his life been different? How might the course of our lives be different? There would have been no cross and no salvation. He put the will of God and our well being above his rights

"Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Phil. 2:2-11.

In your disputes and conflicts are you serving your brother in love? Are you choosing to please yourself or your brother? Are you following Christ's example of love by giving up your right to be praised, prized, honored, and treasured? Mark says, "He did not come to be served but to serve. Follow Christ's example.

Third, He calls them to be united by getting their endurance, comfort, and hope from the word. Romans 15:4

"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."

Now, let me ask you this. Why would they need patience, endurance, comfort, encouragement, and hope? This is so because when brothers and sisters don't get along it drains every ounce of hope, encouragement, patience, and endurance right out of you. Where does Paul direct us for endurance, comfort, and hope? He writes, "Through the endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope." This is an acknowledging of how difficult this task is going to be. There will be times when the only hope you have is to look to the certainty of God's word and remember that not one of the good promises of the Lord has ever failed.

God's word never fails. God is building his church. It will be united. He will not be denied. I know that is true because Jesus prayed for it in John 17. It is inconceivable to me that Jesus' prayer will go unanswered. So, it's my job to do just what Paul says to do. Serve in love. Follow Jesus' example. Sustain my endurance, comfort, and hope in the certainty of His word.

Finally, PRAY!

In Romans 15:5-7, Paul offers a prayer for them.

"May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in [one] accord with Christ Jesus, 6that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God."

The word of God comes from God. He's the ultimate source of the love He calls us to offer and the encouragement and hope we need.

And so, we must pray to Him. This business of doing church and the hard work of seeing people with seemingly insurmountable differences like those of race, politics, and ethnic differences is too big for our techniques and strategies. It can only come from God through prayer. It's about grace prevailing over our innate instinct to separate. We're like porcupines. We come together because we're cold and then when we get too close we stick each other and so we separate until the next time we get cold. The dance continues.

Paul prays that God would grant them harmony with each other. He prays that Christ would be the fundamental center of their fellowship and their identity would not be in their diets or their opinions on nonessential matters. Instead, Christ is the source of their identity.

The object of the prayer is not only harmony in Christ, but that they might come together in common worship. Literally, it reads that they would glorify God with one mouth. To worship God and his Son Jesus in harmony, to serve one another in love, to follow Christ's example of denying Himself and his rights, to trust the Word and pray for unified worship, all these things would fan into flame their love for God and each other. They would raise up a light of love in the darkness of Roman paganism desperately ready for a witness to such faith, hope, and love.

Today, we may be more narcissistic than we are willing to admit. We may be more self serving than we are willing to admit. We may struggle with pride and judgment more than we want to admit. And our hope is often more in the progress we can see rather than walking by faith in the certain Word of God.

And that means that we are in the perfect position to pray, confess, cry out for a deeper love for God and others, and a deeper faith. It means that we are in a perfect place to rely on God's word instead of our immediate circumstances. We can pray to know Christ better and follow him more sincerely and ask Him to grant that which he commands. Through the struggles of our passionate differences that can so easily divide us, we can now turn to Christ and say, "Here we are, saved by Your grace and mercy. Now we need Your grace and mercy so that we can represent You well on this earth." Our world needs a witness to such love and peace. May God bless us for such a witness as this. Amen.