Listen here.
Welcome to Devotions for Worship where we meditate on the
appointed Scripture readings for the upcoming Sunday. Thank you for being with
me today.
I am Pastor Eric Tritten from Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in
Hudson, OH.
This coming Sunday is the 15th Sunday after
Pentecost. This will be our last reading from Romans this year. We’ve been
reading Romans, a little at a time, since June 18 covering the major themes of
the book. Now, Romans is 16 chapters long, are we just going to end with
chapter 14? Isn’t there anything important in chapters 15 & 16? Of course
there is! This is one of the reasons we should read our Bibles apart from
worship and the appointed Sunday readings. Chapter 16 concludes the book, and
it is mostly personal greetings from Paul to people in Rome. Chapters 14 &
15, however, have the same theme: Living in a loving manner with those who are
weak in faith. So although the rest of Chapter 14 and all of 15 have important
things to say, we at least get a sense of what the rest of the book is about in
these twelve verses we will read today.
The Reading: Romans 14:1-12 – I will be reading from the
English Standard Version translation.
As for the one who is weak in
faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. 2 One person
believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. 3
Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who
abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. 4
Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own
master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to
make him stand.
5 One person esteems one
day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one
should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 The one who observes
the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of
the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in
honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives to
himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8 For if we live, we live
to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or
whether we die, we are the Lord's. 9 For to this end Christ died and
lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
10 Why do you pass
judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will
all stand before the judgment seat of God; 11 for it is written,
"As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue
shall confess to God." 12 So then each of us will give an
account of himself to God. (Rom. 14:1-12 ESV)
Comments
Individual
Christians are not the same. We do not look the same. We do not always have the
same views on various issues. We have different preferences in food, clothes,
cars, and places to live. We also are all tempted differently. Different sins
plague us. Where one person stumbles, another isn’t tempted in the least. And
in this section Paul speaks of Christians who are weak in faith and how, in
Christian love, their fellow Christians should respond to them.
Luther says
in a preface to Romans which was published the same year that he died that,
“consciences weak in faith are to be led gently, spared, so that we do not use
our Christian freedom for doing harm, but for the assistance of the weak.”[1] This
is countercultural. As Westerners, particularly as citizens of the United
States, we tend to value individualism and think of freedom in terms of the
rights of the individual – my rights, my freedom. We tend to see the highest
good as the fulfillment of our desires and the expression of our selves. In our
culture we tend to feel that our individual rights – rights to speak, to
choose, to enjoy, to live how we like – are more important than another
person’s need to be protected from temptation, or the possibility that our
freedom might lead others into sin. In God’s love, however, we become willing
to – free to – set aside our rights for the benefit of others.
One of the
keys to understanding the freedom of giving ourselves up for the sake of
another is found in verses 7 & 8 which say, “For none of us lives to
himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord,
and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die,
we are the Lord’s.” That is we belong to the Lord. In the freedom of Christ,
our priorities, rights, and self-focused desires take a back seat to our Lord
Jesus’ priorities to love Him above all, and to love our neighbors as
ourselves.
Our sinful
nature and our free will chafe at hindering ourselves. Denying ourselves is
painful and deadly to that part of our nature. What is more natural than
feeding our desires? Satisfying our wants? But our natural self has died in
Christ – it was drowned in baptism and we are a new creation in him. As new
creatures we are free to live for more than our wants and desires – we are free
to live for Christ and for our neighbor.
So we do
not pass judgement on our neighbor, but seek to show God’s love and mercy – the
same love and mercy we have received – so that he or she might also be freed
from sin and its selfish desires. We know the true judge, and we know that one
day he will judge the living and the dead. There is no room and not time to
despise our neighbor for his or her weakness. There is only time to call
ourselves and those around us to confess our sins and to receive Jesus’
salvation.
Prayers
O God, you are the judge of the living and the dead. Your
righteous judgement condemns every sinner. Nevertheless, you gave your only
begotten Son, Jesus, to the be the Christ, the Messiah, the savior of sinner.
He has rescued us from sin and death through his own death, and you have raised
him in glory. Help us who believe in Jesus, the one who sacrificed himself even
to the point of death, to freely give ourselves, our priorities, our desires up
for you and for our neighbor who may need us to be strong when he or she is
weak. Grant us your forgiveness and change our hearts to love you more than our
rights, and to love our neighbors more than our wants. We ask these things in
Jesus’ name. Amen.
Thank you so much for using Devotions for Worship, I pray
that our time together has blessed you and given you something to meditate on –
some reminder of God’s grace to rattle around in your brain – for the rest of
the day.
Memory Verse: Matthew 18:21-22 - Then Peter came up and said
to him, "Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive
him? As many as seven times?" 22 Jesus said to him, "I do
not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. (Matt. 18:21-22 ESV)
Before you go, I have two things:
Remember that one of the other practices of devotion is the
giving of alms – donations given to help those in need. If you feel led to give
toward helping our neighbors in Texas, Florida, or in the Caribbean, a great
organization to give to which will get all of those funds to those who need
them is LCMS World Relief and Human Care. You can learn more about them at www.lcms.org/disaster.
Would you do me a favor? If you got something out of this
devotional time, would you like and/or share it on Facebook, Twitter, or
wherever you do social media? That would help me get the word out, and
hopefully help these devotions be a blessing to others.
God bless you!
Comments