How To Disagree
Sermon Notes
Romans 14:1-15:7
Now as for today, we’re continuing our teaching series on a book of the bible called Romans. It’s a series about renewing your mind for the transformation of your life, and what we’re talking about specifically today is how to disagree. We’re talking about how to disagree, especially when it comes to disagreements in the church. Both skeptics and believers are aware that churches have disagreements. If you haven’t seen it before, just go to next year’s Southern Baptist Convention...Get some popcorn, go to the Convention, and you’ll see some disagreements... There are disagreements in every denomination, in every church, including the early 1st century churches, which the bible gives us an honest record of. The bible doesn’t hide the truth, it always tells the truth, and if you read letters like 1st and 2nd Corinthians, it’ll tell the truth about some of the disagreements the Corinthian church was having. Some people are quick to criticize and call churches unloving for having disagreements, but the reality is we have disagreements in our own personal families all the time. Our churches are meant to be viewed like a family, and we have disagreements in our church families just like we have disagreements in our personal families. We get wounded by disagreements in our church families just like we get wounded by disagreements in our personal families.
In fact, it’s possible some of you’ve been wounded, even walked away from churches because of how they handled disagreements. They didn’t handle disagreements in loving ways, and so you walked away. The reality is we’ll have disagreements in both our church families and our personal families, so the question isn’t will we have disagreements? It’s how can we handle those disagreements in loving ways, so we don’t walk away? The question is how can we disagree, and still love each other despite our disagreements? Let’s turn to Romans 14 and get into it. You’ll find Romans in the last quarter of the bible, and we’ll be in Romans 14:1-15:7. Title of today’s message is How To Disagree? The big idea is to seek unity on essentials, and liberty on nonessentials...Seek unity on the essentials, and liberty on the nonessentials...
Paul is writing about practical Christian living in these chapters. The Roman church was likely started by Jews who returned from the miraculous arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost or by those who may have witnessed the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus. They passed the Gospel on to fellow Jews and to some Roman gentiles as well. However, around 50 AD the Roman emperor Claudius expelled all Jews from Rome. When the Jewish Christians returned after year 53, they found a Roman church with far more Gentiles in it and leading it. You can see how this could lead to some culture clash within the church. This is what Paul is addressing in this passage.
Romans 14:1 states, “Welcome anyone who is weak in faith, but don’t argue about disputed matters.”
First thing to notice is this idea of someone being “weak in faith” as opposed to being strong. Paul expands on this below. In the original Greek language the word matters can also be translated as the word opinions, which in 2023 it’s translated as the word Twitter...Paul’s saying don’t argue over disputed matters, over opinions, over nonessential matters of opinion. He’s saying we’ll have disagreements, but don’t let nonessential matters of opinion cause division. The implication is Christianity has essential and nonessential beliefs, it has primary and secondary beliefs. Essential beliefs are primary beliefs that aren’t debatable, such as the inerrancy of scripture, the full deity and humanity of Christ, the need for sharing our faith, and salvation through faith alone in Christ alone. Another way to think of this are degrees of clarity. We are to hold as essential, things that God through his Word tells us clearly. We hold things that aren’t clearly stated with a looser hand.
Nonessential beliefs are secondary beliefs that are debatable matters of opinion, such as should we sing traditional or contemporary music in church. It’s kind of like the way the United States works with our national and state borders. If we travel through the different state borders we’ll still be in the United States. But if we travel outside the national borders we’ll no longer be in the United States, we’ll be in another country. In a similar way if you don’t believe in the essentials of Christianity like the inerrancy of scripture and salvation through faith alone in Christ alone, then you’ve crossed a national border into another faith that isn’t Christianity. There’s a lot of state borders in Christianity, a lot of nonessential matters of opinion and preferences that don’t cross the national borders of Christianity, and those are the things Paul’s saying don’t argue over. He’s saying don’t argue over those things because they’re still within the national borders of Christianity, so they aren’t essentials of the faith. Paul’s about to give us two examples of state borders, of nonessentials the early church was arguing over.
2 One person believes he may eat anything, while one who is weak eats only vegetables. 3 One who eats must not look down on one who does not eat, and one who does not eat must not judge one who does, because God has accepted him...5 One person judges one day to be more important than another day. Someone else judges every day to be the same.
We can see that the main disputes within the Roman church came down to Diet and Days. We have to understand these things within the context of their time. This is not a statement about vegetarianism as we understand it. This is a faith issue not an issue about what you actually, physically eat. This issue they’re arguing over when it comes to being meat eaters vs vegetarians is a faith issue, and here’s why. The 1st reason is because it’s a nonessential matter of opinion, meaning our salvation comes from Jesus not our foods. Our salvation comes from faith in Jesus not from faith in brisket or brussels spouts. The 2nd reason this is a faith issue, and the reason Paul calls the vegetarians weak in faith, is because of their motives for not eating meat. Their motives aren’t like some of the vegetarians today who aren’t eating meat
because of certain health benefits or PETA. Instead their motives in their context were because they believed eating meat hindered their relationship with God. They believed eating meat was wrong, it hindered their relationship with God, and so those who aren’t eating meat have a deeper relationship with God than those who are eating meat.
Now some of the reasons they believed this was firstly that the most common meat in Rome at that time would have been pork. Secondly, Rome was filled with temples for worshiping all kinds of gods, and the people would offer animal sacrifices to their gods, then sell the meat in the local marketplaces. Meat also would not have been slaughtered in a Kosher manor as described in the Old Testament. (really hard habit to break, Peter in Acts) Some of the Christians living in Rome, especially the Jewish Christians, felt it was sinful to eat meat offered to other gods. So, they stopped eating meat and started eating only vegetables. But others thought that was extreme and unnecessary since the meats weren’t offered to real living gods, and the only real living God never commanded us to become vegetarians. This is the issue that Paul focuses most of his attention on.
The second issue as you can see is on the idea of important days. It has to do with certain days, with certain holy days, and treating some days as more important than others. Some of the Jewish Christians believed we should be worshiping Jesus on the sabbath, which for them would’ve been Saturdays. They also believed we should still be celebrating other Jewish holy days that were established for us to remember all things God did throughout Judeo Christian history. But others believed the greatest day, the most important day to celebrate is the resurrection of Jesus (hence the move to Sunday). So, it doesn’t matter what day we worship Jesus, because Jesus is still alive making every day a time to remember and celebrate the Lord.
Those were the issues going on in the Roman church. Let’s take a few minutes to be clear one what both weak and strong Christians act like, both what they focus on and the temptations that they face when dealing with someone from the opposite side.
Weaker: Focused on details that they believe make them a more faithful Christian
Struggling to accept the new freedoms found in the New Covenant
Less informed of the Gospel, more concerned over the cultural convictions
Trouble applying Saved by faith alone into everyday life
Not believing that these are essential (that is legalism/see Galatians)
Temptation: to judge or condemn other Christians who live into their
freedom on non-essential or not clear doctrine
Stronger: Recognizes the freedom found in Christ
a. Not a freedom to do sin, but to recognize what is essential with the Gospel
Paul associates with and shows preference for the strong Christians
Temptation: to condescend, mock, or despise the weak in their convictions
Christians in our churches today don’t struggle with diet and days the same as the Roman church did, but we have plenty of issues that can cause division among us. Dress code within the church, allocation of money, style of worship, whose songs you should or shouldn’t sing, levels of political involvement, how much should we boycott certain companies, what kind of entertainment is ok to watch or listen to, is it ok to drink alcohol in moderation, what kind of humor or language is allowed depending on the company, school choices (private, public, homeschool), what medical procedures or treatments are ok...I could keep going but I already feel some tension coming up in the room. We will fall on either the strong or weak faith sides when it comes to these kinds of issues. And if we aren’t careful, they can and have caused division in many churches, ours included.
Since we know our tendency to nitpick and major on the minors creating division, we need to understand how to avoid this as we live out life in the church. Paul gives us at least 4 guidelines to help us agree and disagree well.
1. Understand who’s in charge, and who’s not
4 Who are you to judge another’s household servant? Before his own Lord he stands or falls. And he will stand, because the Lord is able to make him stand.
10 But you, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.
12 So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. 13 Therefore, let us no longer judge one another...
This point is mostly intended for the weaker faith individuals who haven’t quite learned to apply the Gospel to all areas of life, but it is still good for stronger faith individuals to know as well. When it comes to matters that God is not direct and clear on, we do not have the right to judge gauge the level of someone’s faith. Again, it goes without saying that if someone is engaging in clear sin or heresy we have a right and even responsibility to point that out to people in our lives. But even in that case, we are not the final judge and authority in the matter. I can point out that someone is in sin or error, but I don’t have any vote on if that sin or error means that they now don’t have authentic or saving faith.
I love the image laid out in verse 4 of judge another household’s servant. It’s like if you got on to someone out on their lunch break and told them they were taking too much time. They would look at you like you were crazy or a jerk and say “You have no idea how long my break is.” We are called to live out our personal faith before God, no one is called to live out their faith for our approval. That leads us into Paul’s next guidline.
2. Do what you do to honor God, not yourself.
6 Whoever observes the day, observes it for the honor of the Lord. Whoever eats, eats for the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; and whoever does not eat, it is for the Lord that he does
not eat it, and he gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives for himself, and no one dies for himself. 8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
22 Whatever you believe about these things, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 23 But whoever doubts stands condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith,[f] and everything that is not from faith is sin.
This echoes Jesus’ teaching that it is better for us to go pray in a closed closet away from people then to try to impress crowds with eloquent teaching and prayer of that when we give it is better to be in secret than publicly proclaim (not let the left hand know what the right has done).
If you are going to take a stance on a secondary issue like some of the ones I listed earlier, do it because you believe it is the way that you can best honor God with your life. Not that it is the best way to gain more favor from God, that would be a weak faith lack of faith in the completed work of Christ. This will be different for everyone and will likely come from a mixture of how you are spiritually gifted and your previous life experience. For example, if your family and life have been badly affected by alcoholism, then it is likely a wise choice for you to personally abstain from it. But that may not being something that your friend needs to do. You’re not holier than your friend because of that choice, you’re just being obedient to God in your unique life situation. Keeping God as the focal point of our lives helps both the strong and the weak avoid focusing on each other and causing disunity.
3. Value love for others over personal liberty
13 Therefore, let us no longer judge one another. Instead decide never to put a stumbling block or pitfall in the way of your brother or sister. 14 I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. Still, to someone who considers a thing to be unclean, to that one it is unclean. 15 For if your brother or sister is hurt by what you eat, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy, by what you eat, someone for whom Christ died.
19 So then, let us pursue what promotes peace and what builds up one another. 20 Do not tear down God’s work because of food. Everything is clean, but it is wrong to make someone fall by what he eats. 21 It is a good thing not to eat meat, or drink wine, or do anything that makes your brother or sister stumble.
(15:1) Now we who are strong have an obligation to bear the weaknesses of those without strength, and not to please ourselves. 2 Each one of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.
This is pointed more at those with Strong faith. Your strong faith doesn’t mean you get to steamroll over those with weaker faith. Instead, it should compel you to use your strength to build up their faith into strong faith. Just like we talked about last week, all Christians need to recognize that we are never off the hook when it comes to loving each other in Christ. It is great to recognize the freedom that we have in Christ, but we have to be willing to forgo those freedoms in situations when it may be a hindrance to a brother or sister’s growth.
Paster Tony Merida had an incredible statement when preaching on this subject. He said that a freedom is something that you should be able to pick up or put down depending on context, if you view a freedom as something you cannot put down it is no longer a freedom, you are enslaved by it.
Remember that Paul counts himself among the strong (all things to all people) and calls it the preferable position, so it is a good thing to help people move from weaker faith to stronger faith. But that must be done in love and the spirit of unity, not in condescension, back-biting, sarcasm, and name calling. To close us out this morning, Paul does what he often does and point us back to our ultimate example.
4. Imitate Christ in Honoring God
(15:3) For even Christ did not please himself. On the contrary, as it is written, The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. 4 For whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that we may have hope through endurance and through the encouragement from the Scriptures. 5 Now may the God who gives endurance and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, according to Christ Jesus, 6 so that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one mind and one voice. 7 Therefore welcome one another, just as Christ also welcomed you, to the glory of God.
Over and over throughout that Gospels, we see passing credit and glory on to the Father or deferring his will to the Father’s will. If anyone displayed strong faith it was Jesus. He knew that he was correct and powerful over all situations but came to serve us anyway. Imagine the culture shock of going from heaven and perfect worship to the sinful environment of Earth. Think of all the things that people said to and about Jesus that were dead wrong. But Jesus’ focus was on his mission of dying for our sins and raising from the dead to show the power of God. Jesus knew what was essential about his time on earth and he did it perfectly. He is our ultimate example of how to live out the Big Idea for today.
Big Idea: Seek unity on the essentials and liberty on the nonessentials.