Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Sovereign Root and the Living Sacrifice: Israel’s Future and the Church’s Duty (Romans 11–14)
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome back to the show. We are initiating another
- 0:02session of what we like to call reformed thinking.
- 0:05It is good to be here. We have a a massive task ahead
- 0:10of us today. We are looking at a section of
- 0:12Scripture that, I mean, scholars have spent lifetimes arguing
- 0:16over, and we're going to try to get our arms around it in one
- 0:18sitting. We're opening up the Apostle
- 0:20Paul's letter to the Romans, specifically chapters 11 through
- 0:2314, And honestly, looking at the stack of research and
- 0:28commentaries you've brought to the table, this feels like we're
- 0:31standing at the base of a mountain just looking straight
- 0:33up. It is a significant section of
- 0:36the New Testament, no doubt. In many ways, this is the pivot
- 0:39point of the entire letter. If you miss what happens here,
- 0:43you miss the heartbeat of Paul's theology.
- 0:45Right, because Romans is famous for that structure, isn't it?
- 0:48Yeah, you have the 1st 11 chapters, which is just heavy,
- 0:51heavy doctrine, justification, election, the history of the
- 0:55world, the nature of sin, all of it.
- 0:56And then you hit chapter 12 and the whole tone changes.
- 0:59It shifts. You move from the indicative,
- 1:02which is the theological term for what God has done.
- 1:05You know the statements of objective fact to the
- 1:07imperative, which is the command or what we must do.
- 1:10So the mission for this deep dive then is to figure out how
- 1:14those two connect. Because I think a lot of people,
- 1:16maybe without even realizing it, they try to do the doing part,
- 1:19the ethics, the behavior, without understanding the done
- 1:23part. And that is the recipe for
- 1:25legalism, right? Or burnout.
- 1:27If you try to live the Christian life without the fuel of
- 1:30Christian doctrine, you're just spinning your wheels.
- 1:33You'll run out of gas. We have two main sources we're
- 1:35working with today to help us sort this out. 1 is a dense
- 1:38article titled From Mercy to Maturity The Unified Argument,
- 1:42and the other is a commentary called The Sovereign Route and
- 1:45the Living Sacrifice. Both of these are weighty works
- 1:48and just to, you know, lay our cards on the table for the
- 1:51listener, both of us are approaching this from a
- 1:53Protestant Reformed perspective. We're holding to the Westminster
- 1:57Confession of Faith as our systematic framework.
- 2:01So if you hear us talking about election or the sovereignty of
- 2:04God, or if we reference the confession, that is the lens
- 2:08we're using. We aren't hiding it.
- 2:09Not at all. We believe it's the lens Paul is
- 2:12using. Well, let's get into it.
- 2:13We have to start with Romans 11, and the sources point out that
- 2:17Paul opens this chapter with a question that, frankly, is
- 2:19terrifying. He asks, has God rejected his
- 2:23people? It's the question that has to be
- 2:25asked. You have to remember the
- 2:26context. Paul has just spent 2 chapters 9
- 2:29and 10 talking about how Israel has, well, stumbled.
- 2:33They had the law, the prophets, the covenants, everything.
- 2:36And yet when the Messiah came, they rejected him.
- 2:38So the natural, logical conclusion might be, OK, God is
- 2:41done with him, He's moving on. But if God is done with them,
- 2:45well, that's a problem. Then we have a major theological
- 2:47problem, a huge one. Right, because if God can make
- 2:50promises to Israel for 2000 years and then just say, well,
- 2:53you guys messed up, so I'm canceling the contract, what
- 2:56does that mean for me? Yeah, for any of us.
- 2:58That is the issue. If God rejects his people, the
- 3:02church's security is built on sinking sand.
- 3:05The gospel rests on God's faithfulness, not on man's
- 3:08reliability. If God is fickle with Israel, he
- 3:11can be fickle with us. If his gifts can be revoked
- 3:14because of bad behavior, then none of us are safe.
- 3:17So what's Paul's answer? How does he respond to his own
- 3:20question? In the Greek, it's me, Genoa.
- 3:23Which translates to. Something like by no means, or
- 3:27may it never be. It's the strongest possible
- 3:30negation in the Greek language. You can almost feel him
- 3:33recoiling from the idea. Paul is horrified by the very
- 3:37suggestion that God could break his word.
- 3:39And he uses himself as Exhibit A, right?
- 3:41He basically says, look at me, I'm an Israelite.
- 3:43He's saying I haven't been rejected.
- 3:45If God had rejected the whole nation, Paul wouldn't be a
- 3:47believer. He wouldn't be an apostle.
- 3:49But then he goes back to history.
- 3:50He brings up the story of Elijah.
- 3:51Oh I love this story. Elijah is on the run, he's
- 3:54depressed, he thinks Jezebel is going to kill him and he
- 3:56complaints to God. Lord, they have killed prophets,
- 3:59they demolished your altars, and I alone am left.
- 4:02He feels totally isolated. He thinks the entire covenant
- 4:05community has vanished and he is the last man standing.
- 4:08It's a real moment of despair. And God's response is basically
- 4:11check your math. Right, God replies.
- 4:14I have kept for myself 7000 men who have not bowed the knee to
- 4:17bail. I have kept that is the key
- 4:20phrase the sources really highlight, isn't it?
- 4:23It is the theology of the remnant.
- 4:24The idea is that God always preserves a people for himself.
- 4:28But notice the agency Elijah didn't keep himself.
- 4:31The 7000 didn't keep themselves by their own moral heroism or
- 4:35superior willpower. God kept them.
- 4:38And Paul calls this the remnant chosen by grace.
- 4:41Kat A Clogan Churidas. It means according to the
- 4:44election of grace, and this connects directly, I mean 1 to
- 4:471, to a reformed theology and the doctrine of unconditional
- 4:50election. If it is by grace, Paul says it
- 4:53is no longer on the basis of works.
- 4:55The two are mutually exclusive in this context.
- 4:57Because if it were works. Then grace would no longer be
- 5:00grace. It would be a wage.
- 5:02It would be something God owed them for their performance.
- 5:05Paul is systematically dismantling the idea that these
- 5:08people survived because they were smarter or better or tried
- 5:11harder. They survived because God
- 5:12elected them, full stop. Now this leads into one of the
- 5:15most famous metaphors in the whole book, the olive tree.
- 5:19And this is where we have to be very, very careful with our
- 5:21theology, because this passage has been misinterpreted in so
- 5:25many ways over the centuries. OK, let's unpack the image.
- 5:28You have tree, you have a root, you have branches breaking off
- 5:31and new ones getting stuck in. Who is who here?
- 5:34The sources are clear on this. The root is the patriarchs.
- 5:38It's the Abrahamic covenant. It's the promise of God that
- 5:41supports everything else that grows out of it.
- 5:43OK, the root is the promise. The natural branches are ethnic
- 5:46Israel. Some of them, not all, remember
- 5:49the remnant, but some of them were broken off because of
- 5:51unbelief. And the wild shoots.
- 5:53That's us, the Gentiles. That is the Gentiles.
- 5:56We are the wild olive shoots grafted in among the natural
- 5:59branches. And Paul has a pretty stern
- 6:02warning here for the Gentiles. I feel like this is a warning we
- 6:05really, really need to hear today, he says.
- 6:07Do not be arrogant toward the branches.
- 6:10It's a direct shot at Gentile pride.
- 6:13It's almost prophetic. The Gentiles were looking at the
- 6:16Jews who rejected Jesus and thinking, well, clearly we're
- 6:19the new favorites. We're the spiritual
- 6:21heavyweights. Now God upgraded.
- 6:23And Paul just stops that line of thinking in its tracks.
- 6:26He says. Remember, it is not you who
- 6:28support the root, but the root that supports you.
- 6:31That's the checkmate. You are a guest in this tree.
- 6:34You were grafted in contrary to nature, the Texas.
- 6:38That's a key detail. It's an unnatural act.
- 6:41You don't belong there naturally.
- 6:42You are there by grace, and you are drinking SAP that flows from
- 6:45a covenant made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
- 6:48This brings up a theological distinction that our sources
- 6:50really hammer home. They argue strongly against
- 6:53what's called replacement theology, or supersessionism.
- 6:56Yes, replacement theology is the idea that the church has
- 6:59completely and permanently replaced Israel in God's plan
- 7:03and that God has no future purpose for the ethnic nation of
- 7:05Israel. And our sources say no.
- 7:08The sources argue that the olive tree metaphor prohibits that
- 7:11view. It makes it impossible.
- 7:13We are grafted in with them. We share in the root, we partake
- 7:16of the blessings, but we don't replace the tree itself.
- 7:20God is not done with the natural branches.
- 7:22Which leads us right to the mystery.
- 7:24Paul says. I do not want you to be unaware
- 7:27of this mystery. A partial hardening has come
- 7:29upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
- 7:33OK, so the word mystery here is mysterion.
- 7:36It doesn't mean a puzzle we have to solve like a hoodoo net,
- 7:39right? It means a secret that God has
- 7:42now revealed. And the secret is the timeline,
- 7:45the divine schedule. A partial hardening.
- 7:48What does that mean? It's partial in extent because
- 7:50there's always a remnant like Paul, and it's partial in
- 7:53duration. It lasts until.
- 7:55That's the crucial word. Until the 4th of the Gentiles
- 7:57comes in and then. And then Paul says all Israel
- 8:00will be saved. Now that is a controversial
- 8:02verse. People have debated that for
- 8:042000 years. What do our sources say?
- 8:06That means they take a dispensational view here.
- 8:09They argue for a literal future restoration of ethnic Israel.
- 8:13They say all Israel refers to the nation at the second Advent
- 8:17is not referring to the spiritual church as a new
- 8:20Israel. So just as there was a large
- 8:22scale national rejection of the Messiah at the first coming.
- 8:26There will be a large scale national acceptance of the
- 8:28Messiah at his second coming. That's the argument.
- 8:31Paul backs it up by saying For the gift and the calling of God
- 8:35are irrevocable. God doesn't repent of his
- 8:37calling. He doesn't change his mind.
- 8:39If he called that nation, he will deal with that nation.
- 8:42He doesn't just throw out his promises.
- 8:44And when Paul realizes the scope of this plan, how God uses
- 8:47Israel's stumbling to save the Gentiles and then uses the
- 8:50Gentiles to make Israel jealous and bring them back, he just, he
- 8:54explodes. He can't contain it.
- 8:55He breaks into doxology. Oh the depth of the riches and
- 8:59wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his
- 9:01judgments and how inscrutable his ways?
- 9:03The sources call this the hinge of the entire letter.
- 9:06It is. It has to be, because theology
- 9:09must lead to doxology. If you study election and
- 9:12sovereignty in Israel's history and you just end up with a dry
- 9:15academic chart, you have missed the point entirely.
- 9:18The point is worship. From him and through him and to
- 9:21him are all things. And that, to Him, is what sets
- 9:26up the next section. If everything is to Him for His
- 9:29glory, then what do we do? What's our response?
- 9:32We present our bodies. This is Romans 12 verse one.
- 9:35I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God.
- 9:38That word, therefore, it carries the weight of 11 chapters.
- 9:43It is the bridge from doctrine to duty.
- 9:45The sources make a huge deal about the logic here.
- 9:48We don't obey to earn mercy, we obey because of mercy.
- 9:52That is the difference between religion and the gospel.
- 9:54Religion says I give so that I can get.
- 9:56The gospel says I have received, therefore I give.
- 9:59The motivation is completely different.
- 10:01And what we give is ourselves a living sacrifice.
- 10:05The contrast there is so intentional.
- 10:08In the Old Testament, the sacrifice was a dead animal you
- 10:11drag to go to the altar, slit its throat and it was consumed
- 10:15by fire. It was a one time bloody event.
- 10:17But we crawl onto the altar and stay alive.
- 10:20Which is much harder in a way. A dead animal doesn't try to
- 10:23crawl off the altar. The Greek word is parasosai, to
- 10:26present or to place at the disposal of.
- 10:29It's a continuous act, and Paul calls this our spiritual
- 10:33worship. The Greek is Logicum Latreian,
- 10:36right? Correct.
- 10:36It could be translated as rational or logical service.
- 10:39I love that I find that so compelling.
- 10:41It means that total surrender isn't crazy, it isn't some hyper
- 10:45emotional leap. It's the only thing that makes
- 10:47sense. It's the only logical response.
- 10:50Given what God has done, given the mercy, the election, the
- 10:52justification we've just spent 11 chapters reading about, the
- 10:56only logical response is to say, here I am, take everything, all
- 10:59of me. And then comes the negative
- 11:01command. Yeah, the flip side of that.
- 11:03Do not be conformed to this world.
- 11:05The Greek word there is suskomatizo.
- 11:07Our source goes into this a bit. Yeah, it means to be squeezed
- 11:10into a mold. The world has a schema, a
- 11:14pattern, a shape, and it is applying constant pressure every
- 11:17day from every angle to squeeze you into its shape.
- 11:21Our sources list some modern examples of this schema.
- 11:24Pragmatism. You know, if it works, it's true
- 11:27mysticism, which is all about subjective experience.
- 11:30Secular philosophy is like critical race theory, basically
- 11:34anything that tries to tell you how to think apart from God's
- 11:36Word. And the antidote is
- 11:38transformation, Metamorpho. It's the word we get
- 11:41metamorphosis from a change of nature from the inside out, like
- 11:45a Caterpillar into a butterfly. And how does that happen?
- 11:48Where does that start? By the renewal of the mind.
- 11:51This is a huge point in the Westminster standards too, isn't
- 11:53it? The role of the mind and
- 11:54sanctification. Absolutely.
- 11:56The mind is reordered by Scripture.
- 11:58Scripture becomes the only rule of faith and practice.
- 12:01We don't just feel our way into holiness.
- 12:04We think our way there, led by the Spirit submitting our
- 12:07thoughts to God's thoughts as revealed in His Word.
- 12:09So we have this renewed mind. It's being transformed.
- 12:14What is the first thing we're supposed to think about?
- 12:17Paul goes straight to how we view ourselves.
- 12:20Romans 12.3 Yeah, For by the grace given to me, I say to
- 12:24everyone among you, not to think of yourself more highly than you
- 12:27ought to think. He calls for sober judgment.
- 12:31And the standard for that judgment is the measure of faith
- 12:33God has assigned. This is just a massive blow to
- 12:36spiritual pride. If your gifts, your faith, your
- 12:39spiritual standing, if all of it is assigned by God, then you
- 12:42cannot boast about it. It's a stewardship, not an
- 12:45achievement. Exactly.
- 12:46You're managing something that was given to you.
- 12:48You didn't earn it. And he connects this immediately
- 12:50to the body of Christ. Unity and diversity we are.
- 12:53Members one of another. That's a phrase we skim over,
- 12:56but it's radical. It means I belong to you and you
- 12:58belong to me. My gifts aren't for my career or
- 13:01my own self esteem. They are for your edification
- 13:04and your gifts for mine. Speaking of gifts, the list in
- 13:07Romans 12 is interesting. It's not the flashy list you see
- 13:10in, say, First Corinthians. It's prophecy, service,
- 13:13teaching, exhortation. We need to stop on prophecy
- 13:16because our expert source has a specific take on this, coming
- 13:20from a particular theological position.
- 13:22Yes, the source takes a cessationist view.
- 13:25OK, can you unpack that? What does that mean?
- 13:27It means that the miraculous gift of receiving direct new
- 13:32revelation from God, like the apostles did when they were
- 13:34writing Scripture, that gift has ceased.
- 13:38With the closing of the Canon of Scripture, the Bible is
- 13:41complete. So when Paul talks about
- 13:43prophecy here, how does the source interpret it for today?
- 13:47What does that look like now? They define it as forth telling
- 13:51rather than foretelling. It's not predicting the future,
- 13:53it's preaching the revealed word of God with power and
- 13:56application. And notice the constraint Paul
- 13:59puts on it. It must be in proportion to the
- 14:02faith. The Analogiafedia.
- 14:03The analogy of faith. It means any message, any
- 14:06sermon, any prophecy must square with a total teaching of
- 14:09Scripture. You don't get to have a fresh
- 14:11word from the Spirit that contradicts Romans or Genesis or
- 14:13anything else in the Bible. The faith has been once for all
- 14:16delivered. Then he lists other gifts,
- 14:18teaching which is explaining doctrine, exhortation which is
- 14:22applying doctrine to life, giving, leading with zeal,
- 14:24showing mercy with cheerfulness. And he emphasizes the ordinary
- 14:29means of grace. This is a very Reformed concept.
- 14:32God uses these normal, unflashy gifts to mature his church.
- 14:36You don't need a light show or a smoke machine.
- 14:39You need faithful people teaching the Word, giving
- 14:41generously, and showing mercy cheerfully.
- 14:44Moving on to verse 9, we get into what one of our sources
- 14:46calls the Love Code. Let love be genuine.
- 14:50The Greek is literally without hypocrisy UN hypocritical love.
- 14:54And immediately Paul gives love a backbone.
- 14:57He doesn't just leave it as a vague feeling.
- 14:59He says abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good.
- 15:02This is so crucial. Real biblical love is not
- 15:05sentimental. It's not just being nice.
- 15:07It hates sin. It detests evil.
- 15:09If you truly love someone, you hate the cancer that is killing
- 15:12them. You abhor the evil that is
- 15:14destroying them. Then he talks about brotherly
- 15:16affection outdo one another and showing honor.
- 15:18It's a competition, a holy competition.
- 15:21Who can honor the other person more?
- 15:23Who can put the other person first?
- 15:25That's the game we're supposed to be playing in the church.
- 15:27And hospitality. The source tonight's This isn't
- 15:29just about having a nice dinner party.
- 15:31It's about opening your life, your home, your schedule to the
- 15:35Saints. Then the difficulty level ramps
- 15:38up significantly. Enemy love, Yeah.
- 15:41Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them.
- 15:44And we pay no one evil for evil. This is supernatural.
- 15:48This is not a natural human reaction.
- 15:50Our gut reaction is to curse back to get even.
- 15:53And there's a theology of justice underneath this, right?
- 15:56It's not that justice doesn't happen.
- 15:57Paul isn't a pacifist in that sense.
- 15:59Right, Paul says, Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it
- 16:04to the wrath of God. For it is written, vengeance is
- 16:06mine. I will repay, says the Lord.
- 16:09That's actually very, very comforting in a weird way.
- 16:11I don't have to carry the burden of getting even because God will
- 16:13handle the books perfectly. Precisely.
- 16:16It frees you from the soul crushing burden of being the
- 16:18judge, jury, and executioner. You can trust God's justice,
- 16:24whether that is his final judgement or, as we're about to
- 16:27see in chapter 13, the temporal justice he delegates to the
- 16:31state. And instead of revenge, we do
- 16:33what? We overcome evil with good.
- 16:36If your enemy is hungry, feed him.
- 16:38If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
- 16:41This is an active, progressive goodness.
- 16:44Which brings us to Romans 13, the Christian in the state.
- 16:47This is always a hot topic, isn't it?
- 16:49Yeah. We have to remember Paul is
- 16:50writing this while living under the Roman Empire.
- 16:52He's writing under Nero. This is not exactly a modern
- 16:55benevolent democracy. So what is the source of
- 16:58authority according to Romans 13?
- 17:00Where does the government get its power?
- 17:01From God let every person be subject to the governing
- 17:04authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and
- 17:07those that exist have been instituted by God.
- 17:10A Reformed source points directly to the Westminster
- 17:12Confession, Chapter 23 here. Yes, the civil magistrate is a
- 17:16divine institution. The state isn't just a human
- 17:19invention, a social contract we came up with.
- 17:22It's God's idea. It is ordained by him to
- 17:25restrain evil in a fallen world. So resistance to lawful
- 17:28authority is resistance to God. That's the clear implication of
- 17:32the text. Therefore, whoever resists, the
- 17:34authorities resist what God has appointed.
- 17:36But what is the role of the magistrate?
- 17:38Paul calls him God's servant. The word is diakonos, A Deacon,
- 17:43A servant, but his service is very specific for the public
- 17:46good, to be an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the
- 17:49wrongdoer. And he does not bear the sword
- 17:52in vain. The sword, the machera, is not a
- 17:54metaphor for a stern lecturer or a parking ticket.
- 17:57It represents the power of life and death.
- 18:00But our sources are clear. This passage validates the
- 18:02state's legitimate use of lethal force, including capital
- 18:05punishment and just war. The state has a monopoly on
- 18:08violence to punish wrongdoers so that chaos doesn't reign.
- 18:11But we obey not just to avoid the sword, to avoid punishment.
- 18:15Right, Paul says. We obey for conscience sake.
- 18:17We pay our taxes, even if we don't like how they're used,
- 18:21because we recognize God's divine structure behind the
- 18:24human institution. But is there a limit?
- 18:26I mean, what if the state commands something evil?
- 18:29Absolutely. The source specifies what it
- 18:31calls principled resistance. Like in Acts 5.29.
- 18:35Exactly. We must obey God rather than
- 18:38men. If the state commands you to
- 18:40sin, like bowing to an idol, or forbids you from doing what God
- 18:43commands, like preaching the gospel, you disobey the state,
- 18:47but you do it respectfully, accepting the consequences not
- 18:50as an anarchist trying to overthrow the government, but as
- 18:52a Christian bearing witness to a higher king.
- 18:54Paul then wraps up Chapter 13 with this urgent call to wake
- 18:58up. It's an eschatological urgency.
- 19:00The night is far gone, the days at hand.
- 19:02He's saying, look, you know what time it is.
- 19:03The end is nearer now than when we first believed.
- 19:06So it's time to cast off the works of darkness.
- 19:09He lists things like orgies, drunkenness, sexual immorality,
- 19:12quarreling and jealousy and instead to put on the Lord Jesus
- 19:15Christ. I love that last phrase.
- 19:18Make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.
- 19:21Stop setting yourself up to fail.
- 19:23If you struggle with drunkenness, don't walk through
- 19:26the liquor aisle. Be proactive in your holiness.
- 19:29Now we land in Romans 14, liberty of conscience.
- 19:32And this is where the rubber meets the road in day-to-day
- 19:34church life. This is about how we get along
- 19:37with other Christians who see things differently.
- 19:39Paul starts by creating a category, disputable matters, or
- 19:44the theological term is a diaphora.
- 19:46Things indifferent. These are areas where Scripture
- 19:49does not give a direct command and does not issue a direct
- 19:52prohibition. The source connects this
- 19:53directly to Westminster Chapter 20.
- 19:56God alone is Lord of the conscience.
- 19:58That is such a liberating doctrine.
- 20:00It means no human tradition, no pastor, no church culture can
- 20:05bind your conscience in an area where Scripture has left it
- 20:07free. But in the Roman church, they
- 20:09had a conflict over these things.
- 20:10They had the weak versus the strong.
- 20:12Who were they? The weak in this context were
- 20:14likely Jewish believers who were still holding on to some of the
- 20:17ceremonial laws. They felt they could only eat
- 20:20vegetables to avoid accidentally eating meat sacrificed to an
- 20:23idler that wasn't kosher. They still observed special days
- 20:27from the Jewish calendar and the.
- 20:28Strong. Those were the believers,
- 20:31probably both Jew and Gentile, who understood the New Covenant
- 20:35fully. They knew that Christ is the
- 20:37fulfillment of the law. They knew that all food is
- 20:39clean. They knew that every day is the
- 20:41Lord's Day, not just the Sabbath.
- 20:43So the strong or theologically correct?
- 20:46Theologically, yes, Paul clearly identifies with the strong.
- 20:49He says. I know and am persuaded in the
- 20:52Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but
- 20:55relationally both sides were sinning.
- 20:57OK, what was the sin of the week?
- 20:59Judging. They looked at the strong eating
- 21:01a steak and said look at those compromisers.
- 21:03They are worldly. They aren't truly holy.
- 21:05They were condemning them. And the sin of the strong.
- 21:07Despising contempt, they looked at the week with their plate of
- 21:11vegetables and said look at those legalists, they're so
- 21:13immature, they just don't get the gospel of grace.
- 21:16So you have contempt versus condemnation.
- 21:19Spot on. And Paul's command to both
- 21:21groups is basically stop it, welcome one another.
- 21:25Why? What's the basis for that?
- 21:26Welcome for. God has welcomed him.
- 21:28Wow. That puts it in perspective.
- 21:31If God, the Holy Judge of the Universe, has welcomed the guy
- 21:34you're judging, who are you to kick him out of the family?
- 21:37Paul asks that very question. Who are you to pass judgement on
- 21:41the servant of another? He's not your servant to manage.
- 21:44We all have one master, Christ. We live to the Lord.
- 21:47We die to the Lord. He's in charge of his own
- 21:49servants. This leads to the judgement
- 21:51seat, the Bema seat of Christ. For we will all stand before the
- 21:55judgement seat of God, Paul says.
- 21:58This ends the game of playing God.
- 22:00If I realize that I'm going to kneel before God and give an
- 22:03account for my life, I suddenly have a lot less time and energy
- 22:06to worry about your diet or what day you worship on.
- 22:08But Paul places a special burden on the strong, doesn't he?
- 22:11The one who has more knowledge. He does.
- 22:14The burden of love falls most heavily on the one with the most
- 22:17freedom, he says. Do not for the sake of food
- 22:21destroy the work of God, and even more powerfully, do not
- 22:26destroy the one for whom Christ died.
- 22:28That is heavy language destroy. It means causing spiritual
- 22:31Rowan. If your liberty becomes a
- 22:34stumbling block, if you flaunt your freedom to eat meat in
- 22:36front of a weaker brother and it pressures him to act against his
- 22:39conscience, you are sinning against him and against Christ.
- 22:43For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
- 22:46So if a weaker brother eats that meat because he feels pressured
- 22:49by you, but in his heart and mind he still thinks it's wrong,
- 22:52he is sinning, his conscience is violated, and you caused it with
- 22:55your freedom. So the law of love limits
- 22:58liberty. It has to.
- 22:59Paul says the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and
- 23:02drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy
- 23:05Spirit. The priorities are totally
- 23:07different. The strong should be willing to
- 23:09give up their rights to limit their freedom to build up the
- 23:11body. That is the definition of
- 23:13Christian maturity. It's not I can do whatever I
- 23:15want because I'm free. It's I am free to serve you by
- 23:19not doing everything I could. We have covered a lot of ground
- 23:23here, from the Remnant in Chapter 11 to the living
- 23:26sacrifice in 12, the citizen in 13, and the Brother in 14.
- 23:30It's like a huge sweep of theology and practice.
- 23:32And there is a single thread, a single power source running
- 23:35through it all. The mercies of God.
- 23:37Precisely the indicative grounds, the imperative, because
- 23:41God has been faithful to Israel, because he has grafted as wild
- 23:45branches in, because He has shown us mercy when we were his
- 23:48enemies, therefore. Therefore we worship, Therefore
- 23:51we serve. Therefore we submit.
- 23:53Therefore we love our brother instead of judging him.
- 23:55It all goes back to that doxology in Chapter 11.
- 23:58From him and through him and to him are all things.
- 24:01Our whole life is just a response to that reality.
- 24:04I want to leave the listener with a final thought, something
- 24:06that comes from one of our sources regarding the judgement
- 24:09seat in Romans 14. It's easy to talk about this
- 24:11theology. It is a lot harder to live it
- 24:14out. The reality that we will all
- 24:16kneel before God should change everything about how we interact
- 24:19with each other. So how does that change how you
- 24:21treat the person you disagree with on Facebook, or the person
- 24:25in the Pew next to you who votes differently or educates their
- 24:28kids differently, or has a different standard on some
- 24:31disputable matter? The.
- 24:32Strong Christian is not the one with the most freedom or the
- 24:35most correct opinions. According to Paul, The strong
- 24:39Christian is the one most willing to limit their freedom
- 24:43to serve the other. That's the challenge for all of
- 24:45us. I encourage you go back and read
- 24:48Romans 11 through 14 again this week.
- 24:50Read it slowly. Read it with this framework in
- 24:53mind. It will change how you see your
- 24:54life in your church. Thanks for listening to Reformed
- 24:57Thinking. We will see you next time.
- 24:58Grace and peace.