Love Eclipses Liberty Series

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

ENGAGE

In the Tucson metropolitan area, there are several places that hold large groups of people who some would consider to be the very best Christians because of the things they don’t do. They don’t drink or smoke or cuss or watch R-rated movies or sleazy TV shows. They don’t buy lottery tickets or go the casino or go dancing at the local night club. Here is a picture of one of those gathering places.

[Show photo of a cemetery.]

The people there don’t do any of those things because they are dead. But even if they were alive and didn’t engage in any of those practices, not only would that not necessarily make them a good Christian, it wouldn’t insure that they were Christians at all. And yet, how often do we determine the maturity of a disciple of Jesus based on those kinds of measures?

We’re in a section of Romans where Paul is contrasting the “weak” and the “strong” disciples of Jesus. For us, the term “weaker” brother might actually cause us to think of disciples of Jesus who are “weak” because they have a hard time keeping some of the rules we often associate with being a Christian. But as Ryan helped us understand last week, Paul is actually using that term to refer to immature disciples of Jesus who still view Christianity as a religion with a bunch of rules to be followed rather than a relationship that is intended to give us a great deal of liberty and freedom.

And as Ryan pointed out last week, these matters of opinion or personal conviction, should not divide us. Sometimes you will see these issues referred to as “disputable matters” because they are not addressed directly in the Bible, although there are Biblical principles that do provide at least some guidance in these areas.

Last week, in the first half of Romans 14, we discovered that…

Christian love is manifested through

how we accept the weaker brother

Rather than passing judgment on or despising our fellow disciples who might be immature in their faith and therefore still hold on to some of the rules that they think make them a good Christian, we are to accept and receive them the same way God has accepted us through Jesus.

TENSION

Today, as we look at the second half of Romans 14, we’re going to deal with another side of the same coin. In this section Paul is going to address those disciples who are more mature in their faith and who therefore have a better handle on the liberty and freedom that we have in Jesus. And just as we saw last week in the first part of the chapter, the instructions that Paul gives here have implications for all of us, whether we are a weaker disciple whose faith is still defined by a lot of rules or we are a stronger, more mature, disciple who lives out our faith more as a relationship.

TRUTH

[Read Romans 14:13-23]

The main point this morning is so simple that I’ve been able to capture it in just three words:

Love eclipses liberty

Would you say that out loud with me?

Originally I had worded this “Love trumps liberty”, which I actually think has a better ring to it, but I didn’t want to be accused of being too political this morning. But I think this is still simple enough that all of us can remember it. Applying it may be a little more difficult, however.

If you are a disciple of Jesus, then you do have great freedom and liberty in your life. But just because you have it, doesn’t always mean you have to exercise it. Sometimes the best way to demonstrate that we are a strong Christian is to voluntarily limit the use of our liberty out of love for another.

Mary and I regularly work out at a local gym and I’ve observed that there are three different types of strong people there. First there are those who are strong and they want everyone else to know just how strong they are. They tend to gather a group of people around them, especially when they are lifting a lot of weight. They flex their muscles. They scream and groan and drop their weights loudly at the end of their set just to make sure everyone is looking.