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Romans 15
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
There is not a demon behind every bush. Everything in your life is not spiritual warfare. In fact, often what feels spiritual is really simply just a difference of perspective. Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here.
Speaker 1:We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. Welcome today. Thanks for being here. If you and I haven't met, my name is Jeremy.
Speaker 1:I'm one of the people who hang out here at Commons, and we are in the midst of a five year long series in the book of Romans. Now if you're new and that's freaking you out a little bit and you're looking for the exit, it's not all that bad. It's trust me, it hasn't been five years straight, but we have been taking a bit of time each year over the past five years to work through a section of the letter to the Romans. We knock off a few chapters every year. We pick up where we left off the next year.
Speaker 1:And this year, we are actually going to finish the job together. We have two chapters of Romans left. It's 15 today, 16 tomorrow. And then we're gonna take a week to look back at the whole story together before we move into the season of Lent. But if you're interested in backtracking to see where we have been, all of our sermons are always available on our podcast or our YouTube channel.
Speaker 1:All of those links are available at commons.church. We also have a Romans playlist on YouTube that pulls together all five years of content, including all of the weekly content that we upload between Sundays to complement our conversations here. And this week on YouTube, I talked about my diet. I joked last week, but I am a vegetarian, and it's not because my faith is weak no matter what Paul says. But if you've ever wanted to know why I don't eat meat and what I have learned from my friends who hunt, then you can check that out online.
Speaker 1:However, before we look back at Romans 14 and why on earth we're even talking about vegetarians today, I do wanna let you know about our upcoming AGM. Everyone is welcome to attend. We would love to see you whether you are a voting member or not. If you ever are interested in membership, that is part of our first steps classes that happen every month. However, if you are able to join us for the AGM, we do need you to register because we've added a dinner this year, and we need to know whether you want meat or tofu with your meal.
Speaker 1:See how I brought that all back around? Anyway, all of the details and to register, all of that is available at commons.church/agm, because that's coming up in about a month on March 11. Now one more note here. Nominations for the board are also open. We do have a seat on the board available this year.
Speaker 1:Again, the link to the nomination form is at commons.church/agm. But personally, I wanna say thank you to this incredible, important group of people that serve our community on the board. I work very closely with them, and they are, to a person, extraordinary human beings who care very deeply about this community. And so Stuart and Justin, Jesse, Michael, Fioni, Regina, Scott, and Janice, my heartfelt thanks to all of you for your contribution to this community. Now last week was Romans 14, and Romans 14 was all about the meat.
Speaker 1:Paul says, one person's faith allows them to eat anything, but another person whose faith is weak eats only vegetables. And look, I'm fine with Paul. He can't hurt me. I have made my choices, and I'm happy with myself. But this is actually an interesting moment in Romans.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of us who have been around the church for a long time or are familiar with Paul's writings have probably heard about the issue in the early church of meat being sacrificed to idols. Paul deals with that particular angle a couple times. That's because in Roman culture, animals were often dedicated to one of the gods when they were slaughtered. Now Paul's advice around this is pretty interesting. In first Corinthians eight, he basically says, look, idols aren't real.
Speaker 1:There are no other gods, so sacrificing meat to an imaginary god in the end is pretty meaningless. Don't worry about it. However, at the same time, he also says, look, if you know someone who is worried about that, then respect that. Don't wave your idle meat in front of them. Leave them to their own practices and convictions.
Speaker 1:Basically, Paul's advice is defer to each other wherever you can. But there's a couple things here we didn't have time to talk about last week. First, understand this. Paul dismisses a lot of our over spiritualization here. Now I've seen Christians get worked up over all kinds of things.
Speaker 1:And Paul sort of puts a pin in it saying, look, some things just don't matter. There is not a demon behind every bush. Everything in your life is not spiritual warfare. In fact, often what feels spiritual is really simply just a difference of perspective. And I think this is really important for us to hear because often when our faith gets a little too intertwined with our opinions and our politics, it's our faith that loses out, and it's our opinions that get elevated to religious status.
Speaker 1:And confusing your perspective with that of the universe is literally one of the oldest mistakes in the book. It's in Genesis. Look it up. But second thing that comes out of this section, something we're actually gonna find our way back to at the end today is this conviction that some fights are not worth winning. And we'll talk about more of that in chapter 15 today, but for now, understand that for Paul, was famous for his fights by the way, he also knew that sometimes victory means taking the loss and moving forward in relationship.
Speaker 1:And this is a really good reminder for a lot of us who live in a culture where Twitter takedowns have started to feel like the most important thing. However, back to last week, sure, there is this question of meat that's being sacrificed to idols, but what really makes Romans 14 so intriguing is that there's another layer to it as well. You see, less than a decade before the letter to the Romans was written, all of the Jewish people in the city had been expelled from Rome by the emperor Claudius. And so what we have here are Gentile converts to the way of Jesus, worried about eating meat that sacrificed to idols, but we also have Jewish converts to the way of Jesus who are worried about even looking for kosher meat in the city for fear that they might be identified as Jewish and then expelled from the city. And this is the brilliance of Paul's argument here in chapter 14 because he takes an example that both sides of the community can relate to very intimately, and he creates a point of solidarity together in the middle.
Speaker 1:And of course, what he really wants to talk about is not meat. He's not that interested in vegetables and vegans. What he wants to remind us is that we have more in common than we realize. And that when we realize that, we find ourselves drawn in, discovering each other in new, deeper, more intimate ways. Now today, we're gonna explore some adjacent ideas because Paul is gonna move on from denigrating vegetarians, but he is going to continue encouraging us to move toward community.
Speaker 1:First though, let's pray. God who draws us together, may we hear from your servant today. May the words of Paul pass by all of our preconceptions and find root in the softest soil of our souls. May we come today knowing that we share more in common than anything that could ever separate us from each other. That is we come to know ourselves as fully loved.
Speaker 1:We come to see your love for all. In the moments where we've we've felt overwhelmed this week. As if perhaps the effort to do good was more than we could handle. We pray for your grace that empowers and renews, that enables us to move forward and gives us the endurance for this road ahead. And if we have found ourselves discouraged, and sure if the path of grace before us was even possible, we ask that your spirit be near to us in this moment right now.
Speaker 1:Comfort us, encourage us, remind us that we are stronger than we realize, that we are never alone in your story. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen. Okay. Today is chapter 15 in Romans and we need to talk about first person strong faith, endurance, and encouragement and choosing our hills wisely.
Speaker 1:But we're gonna start with Paul here. Because in some ways, he is going to continue on from where we left off last week, but in other ways, he does begin to make a bit of a shift here. So listen to this opening section. We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbors for their good to build them up.
Speaker 1:For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. Now, a lot of ground to cover today, but there's already a lot to talk about here already. First of all, it's tough to pick up on this when we're not reading these two chapters back to back. But there's a big shift that Paul has just made from the last chapter. So let me read you a couple lines from chapter 14.
Speaker 1:Accept the one whose faith is weak without quarreling over disputable matters. You then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Why do you treat them with contempt? Whatever you believe about these things, to keep between yourself and God. And now, we who are strong.
Speaker 1:So chapter 14 is not exclusively written in the second person, but there's a very clear shift to the first person that happens in chapter 15. And it's something that almost all commentators pick up on and think is significant. And it does two things for us. First, obviously, this brings Paul into the conversation in a new way. He's now with them in the struggle, no longer sort of directing them from above the fray.
Speaker 1:He's in the trenches with us as he speaks on our level. And I think we all recognize the significance of this. None of us want leaders that distance themselves from us. We wanna be up close and personal. We want to have access to the journey that we are following.
Speaker 1:And Paul is actually really good at this stuff. Granted, he can come across as a little aloof, and he does have a bit of a reputation for this, but there are moments in Paul's writings that are actually incredibly tender and accessible. In second Corinthians, he writes to this community he has a very long history with. And side note here, most scholars tend to believe that Paul wrote at least four letters to this community in Corinth over the years. First Corinthians refers to a previous letter that is now lost to us.
Speaker 1:But then second Corinthians, which would then be third Corinthians, actually seems to be two letters that have been combined together. So if you're interested, second Corinthians one to nine makes up what we think is probably the third letter to Corinth. And then chapters 10 to 13 is probably actually a fourth letter. So there's your homework for the week. You can read those and see what you think.
Speaker 1:But at the start of second Corinthians, which would have been the third letter to these people? Paul says, I do not want you to be uninformed. Dear friends, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia, we were under great pressure. Far beyond our ability to endure so that we even despaired of life itself. Now what's happening here is he's probably talking about the time he was thrown out of Ephesus in Acts 19.
Speaker 1:Listen to the language here. One translator has rendered this section. We were weighed down far beyond our strength so that we came to despair of life itself. We felt within ourselves that we had already received a sentence of death. And that language might be a little flowery, a little distant from us, but really it sounds to me like he's talking about something like depression here.
Speaker 1:And I'm not bringing this up to try to analyze Paul's mental health that's beyond the scope of my training or our sermon here, but simply to recognize that for all of Paul's bravado, he also recognized that he needed spaces, people he trusted where he could unload what was happening in him. And so when Paul moves into the first person here and he makes the switch from you should not judge your neighbor with contempt to we who are strong ought to bear with each other. This is more than just a rhetorical device. This is Paul beginning now to level with us. This is Paul identifying with everything that he has expressed, everything he's been trying to teach in the previous chapter.
Speaker 1:And look, I'm not saying that Paul is ever going to be the most relatable character in your bible. He's not. But I am saying that he is far more than the caricature we sometimes hold onto when we think of Paul. So that's the first thing that jumps out at me. Paul switches to this we language here, but there's another piece that I find really interesting as well.
Speaker 1:In chapter 14, Paul talks about those who eat meat and those whose faith is weak, who eat only vegetables. I'm still a little sore about that one, but now he addresses we who are strong. Now you could try to make the argument that here in 15, he is addressing only that subset of the community who are strong and eat meat. But given the context that we've already explored with vegetarians coming from both sides of the community here, that's probably unlikely. And so more likely is what we have here is a reframing of the ideas in the last chapter where the metaphor of meat has now been completely subsumed in the idea of our commitment to each other.
Speaker 1:John Barclay writes about this. He says, the difference between strong and weak faith for Paul is the degree to which faith, though always expressed in culturally specific practice, is disaggregated from any one cluster of cultural norms. And what he's saying here is that for Paul, strong faith was never about whether you eat meat. It was always about whether you could decouple your faith from the cultural practices you are comfortable with. Now listen, that does not mean that you do not participate in cultural practices.
Speaker 1:This is important. There is no such thing as an uncultured faith. And a lot of the time, specifically when we are part of the dominant culture, we tend to lose sight of culture. Like, we start to believe that we are neutral and it's everyone else that has a culture. By the way, I am talking to the white people in the room here right now, but in the context of Romans, the issue is that both sides have started to believe that they are neutral and neither of them are recognizing their own enculturation.
Speaker 1:Paul's not against enculturation. Cultural practices are good and beautiful. In fact, Paul recognizes this that there's nothing but enculturated faith, and that's why he doesn't try to talk anyone into changing their diets. He simply recognizes that eventually, faith when it is strong enough and when it draws close enough to Jesus, when it becomes mature, it becomes able to recognize the difference between trusting in Jesus and expressing that trust in specific cultural ways. So now, having made that argument in chapter 14, Paul now voices the logical conclusion to that that is in some sense all of us are strong.
Speaker 1:And in another, all of us are weak, which means that ultimately all of us are called to defer to each other in love. The we who are strong in chapter 15 is everyone in the community who grounds themself in Christ. Remember, Paul's point was never about diet. It was always about community. And so the we who are strong is everyone who finds themself in Christ now doing our best to be for each other wherever, however, whenever we can.
Speaker 1:Which is exactly why Paul continues to address the entire community when he continues and now says, may the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had. So that with one mind and one voice, you may glorify the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, accept one another then, just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God. Now, couple things here. Accept one another. This is that word we talked about last week, Paul uses it again.
Speaker 1:Means to receive each other into our homes. Means to welcome another into one's family or circle. This is a really important word for Paul and you can see that here because now becomes our imitation of Christ. Notice this. He also says he ends this by saying, accept one another in order to bring praise to God.
Speaker 1:In other words, we bring praise to God not by protecting God from some people, but by being as welcoming as God was in Jesus. However, I'm gonna go back to what Paul says at the start of this phrase because he uses some very specific language here that I think is really helpful. He says, may the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had. So endurance and encouragement. Those words just feel a lot like parenting to me right now in my life.
Speaker 1:This week, Eaton and I were playing in his bedroom, and he has these magnetic blocks that we use to build all kinds of stuff. They're actually a lot of fun. But as we started to build some things, he was not impressed with the things that I was building. And so at one point, I think trying to be diplomatic, he suggested that maybe he should do the building, and my job could be to sit on the bed and give him some ideas. By the way, the stuff I was building was awesome.
Speaker 1:He was just too young to understand the scope of vision that I had that day. But gathering up our lessons from last week, I deferred. I took my place on the bed, and I suggested maybe you could build a sweet ramp for your cars. And he said to me, and I quote, bro, I've been building ramps since before you got here. I was like, what is that?
Speaker 1:Anyway, endurance and a little encouragement, that combo right there feels a lot like parenting most days. However, in Greek, these words are hupamone and paraclasis. And you might recognize that word paraklesis because it's a form of the word paraclete, and that is the word that Jesus uses to describe the Holy Spirit. Paraclete, or the advocate, the comforter, the embodiment of encouragement, that is God in the world with us. But it's interesting here to see encouragement bound together with endurance.
Speaker 1:Now, hubamone is the capacity to hold out or to bear up in the face of difficulty. It means patience, endurance, fortitude, steadfastness, or perseverance. Paraclasis is the act of emboldening someone, lifting another spirits, the encouragement that enables us to move forward in the world with courage. But those ideas are often far more intertwined in our lives than we often imagine, aren't they? Nothing meaningful in my life has ever come without endurance, without perseverance and hard work, without practice and effort and sweat and sometimes tears.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, nothing good in my life has ever come just from endurance either. I've never done anything on my own. I've never accomplished anything without help. I have no success to point to without the privilege of those who have encouraged me at every step along the way throughout my journey. And understand here that I mean encouragement in that full sense of the word paraclasis.
Speaker 1:I'm not talking about people who were just like, yeah, you can do this. You got this. I'm talking about people who were the voice of the spirit of God to me. Who spoke prophetically when I needed to hear truth. Who sat silently with me when I needed it.
Speaker 1:Who called me out of my nonsense when I needed to hear that. Who reminded me of my goodness and my potential when I lost sight of it. Those who told me to keep going when I wanted to quit, those who told me to quit when I wanted to just keep pushing ahead. All of that is bound up in this encouragement that Paul is talking about when he very specifically uses the language of the Holy Spirit to talk about the wisdom we use in our relationships with each other. That's what he's talking about here.
Speaker 1:The NIV has rendered this, may you have the same attitude of mind toward each other as to Christ Jesus. But that phrase attitude of mind is actually just one word in Greek. It's the word, and it's really about wisdom. The wisdom to know when to endure someone. The wisdom to know when to encourage someone.
Speaker 1:The wisdom to know what kind of encouragement is needed in this particular moment for this particular person because of this particular circumstance. Like, this is not one size fits all advice here. This is a prayer for deep sensitivity and wisdom within all of our relationships. And think about this because in the section, Paul is saying that our goal is to accept one another just as Christ accepted us. And to get there, we will need the maturity to decouple our faith from our culture, and we will need the wisdom to know when to endure and when to lean in.
Speaker 1:All of this employed in the pursuit of a healthy, vibrant, diverse community drawn from every side of our religious, ethnic, political, and economic divides. Remember, this is the heart of the Roman Empire here, where stories from every corner are smashed together. So don't sell Paul short as if he's just giving some platitudes here. Paul is acutely aware of every force that is working against to tear at the very fabric of this nascent community, and he looks it all down the barrel and he says, you are stronger than all of that. We who are strong, we can hold together.
Speaker 1:We can find our way through this together. It's actually an incredibly compelling vision for Christian community that will stretch you beyond where you are comfortable and somehow at the same time find you more deeply encouraged than you can possibly imagine. Because for Paul, this has always been the divine plan. People from everywhere, all of us drawn together. And so in verse nine, he starts quoting from the Hebrew scriptures.
Speaker 1:He says, as it was written, I will praise you among the nations. I will sing the praises of your name. That's Psalm 18. Again, says, rejoice you gentiles with God's people. That's Isaiah 66.
Speaker 1:Praise the Lord all nations. Let all peoples extol him. Psalm one seventeen. And once again, Isaiah says, the root of Jesse will spring up. One will arise to rule in him.
Speaker 1:All will find hope. That's Isaiah 11. And so it's from here, from this imagination of community, now deeply rooted in the long story of Paul's people that he offers us this final encouragement that begins in verse 14. He writes, for I myself am convinced my friends that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge, and competent to instruct one another. This is actually how we know that Paul is including everyone in the we are strong introduction.
Speaker 1:Alright? Sometimes we have the sense that Paul can be down on everyone a little bit. He's not. He is deeply invested and maybe, yes, a little overbearing at times, but it's only because of all of this goodness he recognizes in all of his friends. But he continues, he says, he says, I see this good in you and yet I have written quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again because of the grace God gave me.
Speaker 1:Essentially, this is Paul saying, look, I know I can be a bit much at times. It's only because I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. Therefore, I will not venture to speak of anything except that which Christ has accomplished through me. In leading the Gentiles to know God by all that I have said and done. And what I love about the way that Paul closes out this section is that if you follow his train of thought through, essentially what he is saying is something along the lines of, guys, I know that you're wise.
Speaker 1:And trust me, you are stronger than you think. I know that the spirit, the paraclete is working in and through you right now. And I know sometimes I come across a little heavy handed. But here's the thing, it's only ever because I am so passionate about the story of Jesus because I want everyone to experience everything I have discovered in Christ. And so if you do your best to follow that story, then I'll do my best to stay focused on the really important things.
Speaker 1:And if we can do that, then I trust that Jesus will continue to lead all of us toward each other and all of us toward God. And that will be enough for us. Because here's what Paul knew some two thousand years ago, just because there's a hill doesn't mean you need to die on it. And in fact, it's in knowing which hills to let go of that we discover the ones that are worth giving our lives to. And that for Paul was a gospel that does more than just save us.
Speaker 1:It was a gospel that captures us and motivates us and transforms us and fills us with purpose that points us back toward each other because this is the secret of the life of Christ now in us and through us. So may the God who gives endurance and encouragement give both freely to you this week. May you know all of the work ahead of you. May you sense the spirit in you and with you as you do it. And may the story of Christ begin to overrule everything you believe separates you from those that God loves that surrounds you right now.
Speaker 1:May your purpose and passion in Christ come alive in new ways this week, and may you be oriented toward each other today. Let's pray. God of all grace, who draws us together from every corner. May we recognize that some of our hills are not worth the energy that we have put into them. And that often when we have come across overbearing, even in our best attempts to be loving, we have errored and we apologize.
Speaker 1:And so God, we ask that you would help us keep focused on the big picture. The story of Christ in us, through us, to the world that we would not get caught up in hills we want to fight over, but instead the truly important points of the story. The ones that are worth giving our lives to. And as that begins to happen, and we begin to come together with different practices and expressions, different ways of expressing our trust in this same Jesus. May we begin now to learn from each other, to listen to each other, to recognize the beauty in our difference, and to celebrate all of that.
Speaker 1:Because in this, we come closer to understanding your grace. Your love that shows up in a thousand ways throughout our lives that draws us back to the center with you. Lord, as we follow that story, may it take root somewhere deep inside of us that we might be able to accept one another just as you have accepted us. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen.